algroth

I don't know much about the real character, but based on a quick search I could see Shannon in the role for certain. It's funny how nicknames work too, sometimes you get one when you're a kid and it just sticks, regardless of incongruences. In my group of friends there's a "gordo" who got his nickname as a chubby 8-year-old but has been nothing but ripped since he was 15, and yet the name stuck. I suspect some "kids" always remain that way despite their age.

Whilst it's probably true that in a setting like Forgotten Realms a hero's failure could just be a springboard for another hero's journey, I don't necessarily think this affects the story much on an individual level, or necessarily make or break any one setting. In a story like Baldur's Gate, the narrative doesn't change because other heroes exist or other adventurers and even gods could potentially destroy the throne of Bhaal or whatever, because at the end of the day it is about the story of your character's journey, their personal struggle with being the offspring of a god of murder and the destiny this entails. It's about what you, or your character, does when thrust in this situation, when given this power and possibility and so on. The premise may be simple and heck, there's thousands of Bhaalspawn out there so even if you are a "chosen one" of a sort it's not like any one of those thousands couldn't have been in your place and done the things you did either, but that doesn't matter, it doesn't change that it was *you* who eventually did them. What's rich about the game is that there is a central theme and conceit that is just strong enough to give the story and games some purpose and substance, regardless of whether it goes further with its ideas the way Pillars or Eternity or Planescape: Torment would or not. The other issue that makes a strict comparison between the settings of Baldur's Gate and Pillars of Eternity somewhat shaky is that Forgotten Realms wasn't new and developed exclusively for the former, whereas Eora was for the latter. Eora could be molded to fit whatever narrative the developers of Pillars wanted to tackle because the setting was being created alongside it and without a established canon to respond to the way Forgotten Realms already had. Baldur's Gate was no doubt as much a product and representation of a DnD campaign setting as it was its own game, and WotC would have likely insisted the canon be as faithful as possible and so on. In that regard it's actually pretty impressive how seamless the lore and story appear in Baldur's Gate, even if no doubt a lot of the lore could come across as superfluous as well. Mask of the Betrayer and Planescape: Torment are arguably even more impressive in how deep they get into the lore of their respective settings and manage to tie these into their respective narratives. What this means as well is that there's a lot of already established lore that was not even touched by the Baldur's Gate series that we as DnD fans know of since the setting had been worked on for decades before the release of the game, unlike Eora where the first Pillars became the first and up to that point only acquaintance to that world. I wonder if in the future the Eora setting might expand beyond the Pillars games and if we wouldn't feel the same way about it as we would Forgotten Realms.

Looks pretty damn good!

I often see an assumption amidst some about things that fall in fantasy or science-fiction categories being "dumb" because they "aren't real", as if it's expected for more realist fiction to be better, smarter, more "serious" or "mature" fiction as a consequence. I don't get this. We've mentioned Borges and Cortázar above, but looking way back in the history we can find numerous examples of utterly fantastical tales amidst some of the most revered and influential texts ever writter, in the form of plays, epic poetry, novels, stories and so on. How are pieces so stooped in mythology and folklore and magic like the Odyssey, the Divine Comedy, the Tale of Tales or The Tempest somehow "dumb", or "dumber" for their inclusion of the supernatural and otherworldly and whatnot? Makes little sense to me. On the topic of the "souls" in Pillars, I don't see what's inherently dumb about the premise, nor do I see an attempt to *pretend* the game is about more than just its surface level. No, the game simply *is* about more than that. To that point I'll simply link my 6500-word review on the first Pillars where I go fairly in-depth about my thoughts on the game, its themes and so on: Much of the above applies to the franchise at large, or at the very least the Watcher's arc as we've seen so far. If the saga is about the transition from a theocentric society and culture to an anthropocentric one, about the inversion in power of the human and the divine and so on, all of which also has basis on the cultural shift in the historical period this setting was inspired by, and if the first game is about essentially putting this thesis forth, the second game is about setting up a situation or crisis where both spheres have no other option but to confront one another and reevaluate their understanding and relationship to eachother in face of this event. My criticism towards Deadfire is that it perhaps acts a bit too much as a bridge between two more interesting stories than it does a meatier chapter of its own right, but nevertheless there is a pretty strong thematic core to the game to which all of the fantastical elements respond to, and don't just act as empty dressing to. If anything I find that in a medium full of Elder Scrolls, Witchers and Dragon Ages, this franchise is amidst the ones *least* culpable for just "pretending" at some deeper thematic concern. Incidentally I've alluded to an oneiric quality - a "strangeness" if you will - in the above review as well which was, as with all of the above, also a major *hook* into the games for me. It seems absurd to me to point this out as a criticism to this game whilst reccuring to both Baldur's Gate and Star Wars of all franchises as examples where it is present, but I also recognize that nothing could be more subjective than what our senses deem "strange" or what we find ourselves hooked by either. Nevertheless, all this talk about what a game "pretends to be" and the assumption that fantasy is inherently dumb makes me think the OP came into the game with some serious biases and preconceptions towards fantasy and fantasy RPGs at large, and maybe a reticence towards interacting on a closer level with its setting, and is letting themselves be guided a little too much by them instead of evaluating the game on its own merits.

My understanding was that the Hays Code had come about as a self-censoring code from the MPPDA to make sure every Hollywood film could be exhibited and didn't go against any taboos from any state within the US. Since each different state had pretty different legislations and "sensibilities" and censored or banned films for entirely different of reasons, the list became ridiculously long and its implementation often hilariously contradictory as it attempted to cover every single instance where a film's sensibilities could go against those of a state: I don't recall the name of the film right now, but there was a case back then of a film where its female protagonist was initially implied to be fairly promiscuous as a side element to her character, and yet per the Hays Code it was required that this character be both punished in the narrative for this trait, yet also have all evidence of that same trait erased, so what you ultimately had in the final cut of the film was a female character who would literally be punished for some seemingly arbitrary or borderline fetishistic notion of "requiring punishment". They were weird times.

Whilst I would certainly want and play another Owlcat Pathfinder game, I don't think a direct sequel to Kingmaker is necessarily the way to go. I feel the story is pretty self-contained and has reached a pretty satisfying and well-rounded conclusion, so I'd reckon I'd much rather see another story set in another part of Golarion and so on, maybe with a few throwbacks to the events of Kingmaker and so on. That said, if we were to continue the Kingmaker storyline I could see the war between Restov and Brevoy, or possibly the return of House Rogarvia and so on. Certainly a game with a greater base on political intrigue and turmoil would be the way to go with such a setup, especially after Kingmaker built up this conflict a fair bit early on, only to resolve it so dismissively during Armag's storyline.

If we talk about the main campaigns, yes - but you're missing out if you haven't yet played Mask of the Betrayer, to me that's the best Obsidian's done so far, as Obsidian anyhow. I'd also say that it's true of Neverwinter Nights and worse so as well, for me anyhow, but not true of Neverwinter Nights 2 whose side content is both quite measured in scope and generally quite varied and interesting as well. Regardless, as I said in that other post I believe, I don't think that the writing is bad because it's pulpy or campy, I think that's where the game's intentions lie after all. To me the writing falters more often than not in many of the specifics, of the strange shifts in tone or disparity between what is written and what is intended (see the whole matter with alignment for this especially), of very dry and on-the-nose dialogue, and so on. Even whilst being quite campy and pulpy there's a degree of wit or colour to the Baldur's Gate games that only occasionally shines through in Kingmaker - more notably through the goblins and Nok-Nok particular, which I reckon is all Avellone's doing.

I think the problem is a lot more pronounced in Kingmaker simply because if you were to remove all those trash encounters, you'd actually end up with a pretty empty game. In the first Pillars there's at least sidequests and content galore, which is what allowed the devs to a large amount of encounters in the first place following a few patches. In Kingmaker the meatier sidequests are often few and lacking, and often handed outright at the throne room leaving very little incentive to actually go out and explore. Those few that exist seem to often be all about killing things too - see the Curse of Candlemere for example, which as a quest is extremely straight-forward and made only "lengthy" by means of the endless will-o-wisps that spawn on the path uphill. Most of the maps consist of arenas where you battle some monster or pack or other, beyond that what else is there to do in these? Granted, maybe the game does work better as a more linear experience too, side content doesn't have to be the be-all-end-all of these games either. Still, I do think there's reasons to why games in this vein with plenty of memorable sidecontent tend to stick more.

I don't see what makes two of those any more or less sensible than the other two...? Anyways, I've said my part on this comparison a few times already. There's good things about Kingmaker and I appreciate that it's around but it's a game that is often ruined by small design decisions and implementations that always seem left enough to make the experience just a bit more frustrating. Comparing the two, the combat is night and day as well: in Deadfire it's both extremely enjoyable and flexible, and measured in its sheer amount; meanwhile in Kingmaker it's ubiquitous, tedious and very rigid. I wrote a bit more about it here: Regardless, some of the story arcs were very nice, some of the companions proved to be hugely likable, and as sheer standard fantasy comfort food I do think it's worth a playthrough at least.

I would slightly debate that inasmuch as having an education in literature or writing would generally be an assett to a writer over not having it and would on average make you "more qualified" than those who don't, but I agree inasmuch as it doesn't ensure the quality of your work beyond maybe some bare technical competence or something. But this is precisely my point: pointing at the backgrounds of writers and saying therein lies the problem is pretty fallacious.

This strikes me as a load of bull, not necessarily because it's factually wrong - I cannot claim to know the backgrounds of every sci-fi and fantasy writer I read, or most of them for that matter, though at the same time I would find it particularly odd if this remained true at closer inspection (as far as I'm aware it's not really the case of Michael Moor**** or Philip K. **** for example, or EM Forster or Aldous Huxley who've dabbled in science fiction as well) - but because it assumes that the "shift" would inevitably lead to a degradation in the quality of storytelling. I'm from Argentina so I'll name a few of the biggest writers from here: Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortázar, Leopoldo Marechal, Adolfo Bioy Casares, H.G. Oesterheld, all dealt with various kinds of speculative fiction and all number amidst some of the finest authors of the 20th century globally. At least three of these would wipe the floor with your Tolkiens and Clarkes to boot, and yet they all had formations in literature or journalism specifically, and in the case of Cortázar for example not even a terciary degree of any sort. For all intents and purposes Cortázar would be as qualified or even less so than some "creative writing graduate", and yet he's produced some of the most revered short story collections with End of the Game and Bestiary for example, not to mention the behemoth that is Hopscotch. I've seen this notion before that you are somehow less capable as a writer if you had an education in literature or writing of any sort opposite to any other field, and that to me seems absurd: sure, someone who's studied mechanical engineering might be able to bring that side of his knowledge into the work he writes, but that would seem a very secondary and minor advantage to have relative to knowledge and education on narrative artforms, nor would it preclude other authors from investigating the topic before writing about it when concerning that specific area.

This, pretty much. It's giving me Seventh Son/47 Ronin/nu-Hellboy vibes.

Figured I should go ahead and post it here too: one of our users, @Decadency, completed the Ultimate: Well done to him!

Well done Decadency! I just saw the Josh Sawyer tweet.

From the creators of Sonic the Hedgehog no doubt.

This is so wrong.

A new day, a new article on the predatory practices of the AAA game industry is making the rounds. Here's hoping for legislation against this sort of thing.

Wonderful, hypnotic stuff from this Congolese supergroup.

Considering how good The Naked City, The Caine Mutiny, Crossfire and Spartacus amidst other Hollywood Ten films are, gimme some more straight-up Communist propaganda please.

The new Magma album is up on the YouTubes and it's glorious. A proper transcendent journey, the best spiritual jazz record since Ask the Ages without being strictly a spiritual jazz album. @LittleArmadillo0 You might enjoy it.

I've got this one framed on the wall: As for the film, I don't think it's very traditional at all but can see how it's more traditional than Stalker perhaps. Funny enough, it was Tarkovsky's least favorite film amidst his own. I wouldn't agree but the fact that you can feasibly make that claim and defend it goes to show how utterly out of this world his work was. Stunning.