The last time I played Dragon Fire was 1999 and games were different back then. Now, things are a bit more intuitive but if you're playing ANY of the QfG games then you're probably enjoying nostalgia rather than as a brand newbie to the Hero from Willowsby.

That said, it will most likely be quite easy in this day in age of hand-holding tutorial saturated video games to get tripped up over the nuances of RPG programming of yesteryore.

Np.

Since I have no life, I'm delighted to help by wasting hours of time I have a-plenty figuring this stuff out, all over again.

Sorry. I have just completed the prior four games and importing my beefed up characters over the past few months. Sierra, and the QfG writers, are great with puns and alliterations. And by good I mean insufferableANYWAY!

You're probably got stuck trying to rob the bank or clear the fishing villages during the first trial as the thief but ya just couldn't get the darn blackjack to make contact. Then, you found yourself running away like a ninny. Then, you found yourself running all over the internet for help...but got dead-ends.

Me too.

So, it's actually quite simple: when you click your face in the bottom-left, you'll see your stats. A new one to Dragon Fire is "Offense". Likewise, there's "Defense" and couple other new ones. Your thief, it seems, can have super great sneaking and god-tier luck but apparently you need high offense as well.

I'm no expert here, I'm just adding this quick guide because there seems to be no direct answer to the blackjack dilemma. Then....I found it.

I did it again!

Raise your offense!!

Again, no expert here, I didn't go back and research and test things. I just stumbled upon this all of a sudden and I want you to experience the joy of Dragon Fire along with the rest of the games.

When I started my thief, he had an offense score of 300. He also had luck and sneak over 400 since those were pretty much maxed after Shadows of Darkness. And, well, this new offense stat seems to be pretty high as well. But the guard in the plaza just turns around and stabs me. What a jerk! So....raise your offense.

But how??

Right. You also probably ran out there with a bunch of daggers and threw them machine gun style at a goon. For some reason, that's very healthy for your throwing skill but does nothing for offense.

Well well well, just equip your dagger by pressing its number on the belt and hold down 'F'. It's listed as 'Attack 1' in the keybindings. Just sit there and let him stab over and over. THIS raises the thief's offense skill!

Keep going until the skill gets up there. I don't know the exact number but I got my guy from 300 to 352. Then I tried again AND IT WORKED!!!!

Remember, these games were made in the 90s. There was just something different about that time. What seems intuitive today in video game problem solving was just...different back then. Like, going to a different part of the country where the dialect and accent is a bit different but all still the same language. 'Soda' is 'pop' in different parts of The States, you know?

It's easy to overlook something that the programmers 20 years ago assumed was common sense, so don't get discouraged. These 5 games are timelessly great!

Please enjoy!

AND SAVE OFTEN!!!!!!! Oh good heavens you better have no less than 3 save files cycling through every few minutes! Geez...you can thank me later.