Monte Carlo

Just finished Death's Head by David Gunn. I don't actually read much fantasy or sci-fi anymore, but after this maybe I should. SPOILERZ 100% schlock, a sort of gross-out Starship Troopers on acid. Our hero is an amoral space legionnaire (I thinking Vin Diesel for the movie role) recruited (after being found living with a barbaric alien tribe in a cave who eat his girlfriend - it's that sort of story) into a parody of the SS (I'm faintly reminded of the Gran Bretan legions of Moorc0ck's Hawkmoon series). He then undertakes some assassination missions and finds a talking, semi-sentient gun (Lilacor from BG2 with bullets) before being thrown into a Stalingrad-esque future warzone fighting "The Uplifted" (people mutating into cyborg-computer hybrids). There's a brilliant tongue-in-cheek reference to the UN / Liberal West in the "United Free", an enormously powerful utopian race of politically correct beings who encourage endless negotiations to stop wars without actually doing anything. I couldn't put it down. It's the literary equivalent of a pack of twinkies and a six pack. Congratulations, Mr. Gunn. Just when I thought people were forgetting that sci-fi might be (quel horreur!) fun and jaded you came along. Can't wait for the next book. Cheers MC

:: sigh :: The argument is moot. The new 4E iteration of the rules is so far removed from the origins of the game that it now lives in name only. And Gromnir is palpably right when he says that (1) 3E was initially more streamlined than AD&D and (2) By the end it was as complex as AD&D. Why? Splatbook-mania. It's always been the death of each edition and it'll kill 4E too. The business model demands it... you've got to sell more supplements. I think a brief history less is required to clarify this - 1. Chainmail - a fantasy wargame. Squad Leader with swords. Gygax, Arneson and the rest decided to imbue some units with extra stats to make things more interesting. Gamers took to it with gusto and all sorts of supplements were generated to support this odd little game. Thus.... 2. D&D (the "Grey Box" set, the first D&D game many of us ever played). Again, very sketchy, the rules where all over the place. It was a niche product, and the spirit of make-it-up-as-you-go-along was very strong. 3. AD&D came along in the late 70's early 80's (1st Ed) to (as I said before) attempt to codify all these other rules. Stuff like THACO, dual-classing, multi-classing, race-based level caps, XP tables for separate classes, THACO bonus tables for different weapons versus different armour types, somatic spell components and wandering prostitute tables all came in and gave us nose bleeds). TSR took off, there was a religious furore about the game, it appeared in ET (yadda yadda) and the game became a small but deep footprint in our cultural consciousness. 4. 2E came along on a tide of campaign settings, novels, splatbooks. Why? It was a booming and profitable business. Basic / Expert D&D was launched as a retro "Basic D&D" product. I gave up at this point and played RuneQuest instead. TSR was riven by an epic management battle between Gygax and Lorraine Williams which can be read about in gory detail elsewhere if you Google it. 5. Video killed the Radio Star, or rather the PC killed the pen and paper gaming group. CRPGs saw P&P hit a bit of a glut by the late 80's / early 90's. Gold box games notwithstanding, I'm not joking, whatsoever, when I say that Bioware completely rescued D&D's arse with BG1. Ever since, P&P gaming has borrowed more computer game memes, 4E being a classic example - oh the irony! A CRPG / MMO designed to be played as a P&P game as opposed to a P&P game designed to be played on the 'puter! 6. WoTC had a real drama on their hands in 1999/2000 when 3E was launched. I was a regular on the Eric Noah 3E boards out of curiosity at the time. I think Monte Cook and the others did an excellent job of keeping 3E recognisably 'D&D' whilst making it more elegant and easy-to-use, driving a stake through the heart of the wierd bundles of rules that had accumulated since the late 70's and wouldn't die. I really hoped that this was it: an iteration of the game that would be as popular and durable as 1E / 2E and last as long. 7. But, alas, the curse of the D&D marketing model struck. People had hoped that the cliche ****tail that was the FR would remain a 2E throw-back. Oh no, it returned. So did class sourcebooks, prestige classes, bizarre creature templates so you could create a vampiric Dire Fiendish half-minotaur with Draconic blood (yawn). You could buy an ew ruleset of "Pasta Sauces of Faerun" and argue with the guy who wanted to use a rule from it. It was 1980 all over again. Don't even get me started on 3.5. In conclusion, 1E and 2E didn't make sense. It was a decades worth of compromise on house rules condensed into a system propped up by splatbooks. The exact same thing has happened to 3E between 2000 and 2008, not a disimilar timescale, ergo my view that it's the marketing model that breaks every iteration of the game. I've only touched on the impact of 'puters, and not even mentioned the D20-Borg aspect but that's for another time. Cheers MC

Walsingham, using just those two mods is extremely unlikely to cause any compatability issues. I don't know if there is a BG1 fixpack / Baldurdash, but if there is the usual drill is to install it after the official patch but before any other mods. If you are a mod virgin and decide to go for more check out one of the many mod compatability guides on the Pocket Plane or Gibberlings Three forums. I routinely use about fifteen-twenty mods for BG2 (from Redemption / Ascension through to the Wes Weimer mods, PPG Unfinished Business and Quest Packs etc as well as tiny ones like the 1PP BG1 asset art mod). Getting the installation order as optimal as possible is critical, a fresh BG2 / mod install takes me about three hours but it's worth it. Funnily enough, I've tried a few NPC mods but other people's ideas of a good Joinable NPC aren't necessarily mine. So I seldom use them. Kelsey is probably the best and most polished, plus you can't really go wrong with a sorcerer. Note to BG2 modders: For those of us who've played the Yoshimo saga to death (literally) and want to feed Jan Jansen into a shredder, can we please have a single-class, combat-orientated thief NPC? Please? Cheers MC Edit: If the Widescreen Mod works for BG1 then for the love of god get it. Awesome. You'll find it on Gibberlings Three. BG2 looks great on my 22" flatscreen at 1680 x 1050.

Ha, Grom's probably not too far off the mark. After all, nostalgia ain't what it used to be. Having said that, the good old days weren't actually too bad. The lack of rules from the original D&D days was all part of the fun. Yep, people did spend inordinate amounts of time making up their own house rules for just about everything. No two D&D groups at my Sunday morning games club could actually play together (the first three hours were a UN Security Council style house rules negotiating session). 1E AD&D was actually invented as a sort of sop to the home-brew rules brigade (which is why 1E has a table for everything). The one thing it didn't have a table for was your campaign. Remember Rule One? My beef with new D&D is the corporate sameness of it. The rot set in with collecting campaign settings with 2E AD&D. Sure, everybody is encouraged to do their own thing, but let's be honest the business model is and always will be selling splat books to collectors. 4E is the apogee of this. I implore anybody really interested in pen and paper gaming to: 1. Find some like-minded gamers 2. Read some rules from some books you bought for pennies on ebay 3. Ignore the ones you don't like 4. Have fun, for chrissakes The best gaming fun you will ever have is beer, pizza and using a shoe brush to represent a carrion crawler because you don't have the right miniature. You really don't need three hundred dollars worth of splat books and supplements. As I said, nostalgia ain't what it used to be. Cheers MC

I guess the next 4E D&D game could be comfortably set anywhere Pokemon is set, seeing as they are now virtually identical. 5E will be a trading card game. From the ashes is the good news: 6E D&D will be a game played using 15mm metal minis using stripped-down rules in small samizdat-style booklets full of random tables. They'll call it Chainmail. The biggest problem was D20*. They tried to make it the Windows Operating System of pen and paper gaming and look what happened. Cheers MC * I like D20 and 3E, BTW. That's not to say I want every game to use the same mechanics.

^ Actually, I finished the original and rather liked it. It's heart was in the right place. There was lots of strange crafting (putting weeds in bottles and stuff) and books of utter generic fantasy nonsense, but there was enough charm, exploration and quasi-Diablo type combat to keep it going. I'm still not interested in who the blacksmith is enjoying relations with, though. 2009 is going to be the Year of Dragon Age / Diablo 3. So it was written, and so it was. I'd not bother releasing a fantasy CRPG to go up against either of them because it will be squashed like a tiny bug on the windscreen of destiny. Cheers MC

1. BG2 It's not dead, Volourn, I'm playing it this evening and people are still modding it. It's one of those few games that accomplishes almost everything it sets out to achieve, mainly via the generosity of spirit shown by the developers. 2. Medieval Total War (1 & 2) An epic achievement, for me the strategy game equivalent of BG2. 3. IWD2 Controversial pick, I know, but I've played it to death, love the tinkering with the IE and the bravery of making a hardcore game for the fans. Great VO and music, BIS squeezed every last gram of functionality out of the ailing Infinity Engine. I salute you! 4. BG1 Nothing more needs to be said. 5. Jagged Alliance 2 Once upon a time developers were allowed to make games without marketing creatures, focus groups and console junkies telling them what to do. So Sirtech created one of the coolest games ever made. Tactics, humour, an adult video store with a hidden armoury and an ice cream van. Respect. 6. IWD Just enormous dungeon-crawling fun. What games should be like. 7. Doom / Doom 2 The only FPS that has hooked me and kept me hooked. Atmosphere, excellent level design, pretty scary monsters. Shame about the movie. 8. X-Com: Enemy Unknown Turn-based sci-fi goodness. 9. Fallout: Tactics Love it to bits. Played it to death. A game that allowed me to go seriously tactical and play with all the toys, even a tank. Grossly underrated. 10. Rome: Total War When modded, an excellent game (Total Realism) that I played to death. Honourable mentions: Blitzkrieg 1 & 2 Silent Storm Diablo 2

If I'd won the lofty title of "Dragonslayer" (which I presume suggests that you have bested a giant reptillian beast and are therefore hard as nails) I wouldn't be troubling myself with the local blacksmith's sex life. I'd be slapping him on the shoulder, congratulating him on his manliness and comissioning the forging of an even bigger +5 Hackmaster greatsword. He would be tugging his forelock, praying that I wasn't about to have one of my frequent Chaotic Evil moments. I am therefore deeply suspicious of these design desicions. Cheers MC

Care to expand on that? Obviously Xard will have his own view, but he's not too far wrong as far as I'm concerned. Troika clearly wanted to make the game (a) free-form (you can finish the game very quickly if you take certain paths) with the result that the critical path is more like a very faded trail hidden beneath the long grass. They also (b) are pretty faithful to the pen and paper module. Which is a problem. P&P modules, especially old skool AD&D modules, are sketchy. That's done on purpose, so that the DM can fit the story into his or her existing campaign. So the arbitrary monster population of the dungeons is reflected in the computer games which might be part of Xard's gripe with the encounters. Having said that, there are some good battles - the old tower at the start of the game where you fight a load of bandits is fun. That giant wandering about is tough, but then again bumping into monsters and running away is all part of the fun. But, yes, it is the best implementation of any pen-and-paper combat system I've ever seen in a CRPG. I don't say that lightly. Very tactical, turn-based, lots of options and great to look at. 9/10. Cheers MC

Like I say time and again, the challenge is to please the story-junkies and the tactics junkies at the same time. A CRPG without combat is just a talking book. Planescape is a brave exception that proves the rule. My views on PS:T are on the record: My eyes bled and I didn't finish it. Having said that, a brilliant combat engine without a story or atmosphere is also lame - look at Troika's ToEE. The combat was excellent, really really good. The game sucked. Personally, a fantasy version of JA:2, a hundred hours long with some witty NPCs and dialogue would be my ideal game. D&D: Tactics with attitude. Cheers MC

^ I take Josh and Gromnir's points on this completely. Of course you can track how many times Bob the adventurer used Shield Parry, Battleaxe Attack and Open Lock in one pen & paper gaming session. I don't see why you can't use a variant in a CRPG. 1. The "Diablo" XP bar you see going up everytime you kill a monster. Except it doesn't represent levelling at all - it represents your skill bonus with that weapon type and that mode of attack. So you aren't 'levelling up' in the traditional way, you're just improving your skills. 2. How to control this to counter "Mudcrab Murder" syndrome as described by Crashgirl? I'd have a number of mechanisms, i.e. perhaps only certain battles allow for skill experience gain (set a challenge rating - i.e. bashing up rats and goblins earns you nothing). 3. You could build in all sorts of 'hidden' skill advantages / disadvantages contingent on how you play (i.e. somebody who takes repeated hits to the head could get tougher but dumber, someone who prefers light weapons and sneaking could get even sneakier but have a penalty to heavier weapons and armour). The fun is figuring out what they are and how they work. 4. Forget quest based XP... you could 'win' perks, bonuses or experience instead depending on how you completed a battle or a quest. For example, if Bob chooses to hack up the ogre guarding the bridge he gets a bonus in axe use (and a hidden mechanic is tracking his ogre-massacre count to eventually unlock a hidden 'favoured enemy' bonus) whereas if Dave talks his way out of it his reward isn't XP, it's a boost to his dialogue skills and perhaps a hidden mechanic tracking his ogre-sweet-talking skills to eventually unlock a dialogue bonus versus monstrous humanoids. Lastly, Boris does something extraordinarily wacky, unusual and doomed ot failure. The "Heroic Failure" feat timer is activated which might lead to something entirely different happening, maybe a karmic sympathy bonus from ogres bear with me, I'm making this up on the fly). Basically, the mechanics are hidden. Allow the player to play the way they want and let them find out how it develops their character. Probably crazy to code and implement, but I throw it in for discussion. Cheers MC

RuneQuest had two main ways of increasing skills: Training (yep, you could buy an extra +10% in broadsword attack if you had the time and money) Experience (you noted down the skills you'd used in the session, then did an inverted d100 check to see if you improved by a 5% increment - it got progressively tougher the higher the skill level) It worked pretty well.

Arcanum, thanks for reminding me. I thought the premise was intriguing. I even trusted, against my instinct, the groupthink that Troika could do no wrong. What happened. The anti-climax of the year. Even the music made me want to slash my wrists. It was also one of the butt-ugliest games I've ever seen, and I'm not a graphics-orientated person by any stretch of the imagination. Another to add to the list.

Taking Gromnir's points on board, I would say that the appeal of classes is that I suppose it helps immersion. Presumably the gamer wants immersion via an easily identifiable archetype - i.e. "I'm a warrior" or "I'm a wizard" (etc). I'm perfectly happy with this, but would argue that lots of games have actually achieved this without actually having classes. The Elder Scrolls: Lots of 'classes' that just bundle skill packages together. Dungeon Siege: As pointed out, a very simple system that merely develops the skills you use (I actually like it a lot). Even NWN2 allows you to choose an archetype within a class and the game will automatically level up for you. In pen & paper RuneQuest (which was completely classless, but had a sort of bronze age / druidical / pagan feel to it) you chose backgrounds (i.e. mercenary) which gave you a modest bundle of skills at the start of t he game, and everybody could use spells. If, however, you wanted to be a dude who'd been a mercenary to the age of twenty then decided to develop as a Rune Priest (i.e. a magic user with access to Rune Magic as opposed to Battle Magic - which everybody could use) then there was nothing stopping you. You could join cults - warrior cults, undead cults, nature cults (etc) tied to the setting that established the class meme for you. V. cool. But, at it's most basic, I think people like a character generation screen that gives them some archetypes, an idea of who and what their character is. Classes aren't the worst way of achieving that, but they ain't the best either and if DA uses three base classes to 'trick' us into a more lateral system then I'm cool with that. Cheers MC

I've been banging on about the utter brilliance of RuneQuest / Glorantha on these forums for years. I've been playing pen and paper games for almost thirty years now*, and RuneQuest was the one we played and loved the most. Then what happened? It got made into a bloody D20 game setting. Meh. Cheers MC * Yes, I feel old.

newc and Ranger, seeing as you both know 1st Ed: Would you agree that the 1st Ed. Bard (i.e. tri-classed Ftr/ Thief / Druid) was actually the first prestige class? And, furthermore, it was better implemented and you felt like you'd actually achieved something?

And lo, in the beginning there was 2nd Edition AD&D, which were the holy tablets of lore from which early cave-dwelling developers crafted CRPGs using sticks and animal hides (if there is a 1st Ed. AD&D, or even basic / expert rules CRPG out there please let me know, I failed my Lore check when I was thinking about it). Verily, it came to pass that new brethren introduced 'Kits' into AD&D. And so it was that the flock was divided. Some loved kits. Some saw them as heresy. Others saw them as an optional tweak in a game and got over it. Then the angels Greg and Ray (cue celestial music) gave unto us BG2. Which had kits. People generally liked them. They didn't require much thinking, and all the base classes sort of levelled up in the same way. Customization was down to weapon styles, equipment choices and spells. Now I think of it, games like NWN2 has less "kit collecting" appeal than BG2 for some reason, but that's not important right now. Meanwhile, in pen and paper land, the seers and sages createth 3rd Edition D&D. Base classes and almost unlimited multi-classing. Again, the flock were divided (I remember one person almost having a breakdown at the idea of a gnome paladin - it genuinely offended every sensibility about D&D they ever had). Then came prestige classes. And there was discord. Seriously, I decided to crack on with MotB, went online for some character tips and was blown away by the builds people have come up with. Hey, I admire their ingenuity but I'm just getting confused by some of the levelling requirements to squeeze and extra +1 out of some arcane attack bonus. It's all got just too darn complex. And some of the prestige classes are even crappier than some of the really desperate kits from 2E. It's the epitome of Pokemon gaming, which I'm led to believe has reached it's apogee with 4E D&D. Now, this is the ironic bit. Dragon Age is one of the most anticipated CRPGs for a few years now. And it has three base classes. OK, apparently there are 'advanced' classes, but the core of the character system is relatively few classes augmented by skills. Strangely, I find myself very atteacted to the simplicity, although I love 3E (if not prestige classes). Now, I know people will say "don't use the prestige classes" which is fair enough. It's just that I feel like I'm missing out. What do other people think. Do they like lots of fairly fixed classes with kits (2E) unlimited multi-classing with base classes (3E), lots and lots and lots of possiblities with PRCs or are they looking forward to the back-to-basics of DA? Or, like me, do you just wish that someone would make a classless fantasy CRPG with a Fallout SPECIAL type system? Discuss. Cheers MC

If we are going to have the "shattered dreams" category then, yes, NWN is right up there for me. Turgid dross. Funnily enough the other one is Pool of Radiance 2, Ruins of whatever. Not only was it in the shattered dreams category, but it sucked from a gameplay perspective too. The PC version of Squad Leader also falls squarely into this category, as did The Elder Scrolls. That NPC dialogue system still gives me nightmares.

Does it have a "Challenging Combat" fix?

It's OK. I don't play NWN2 or MoTB explicitly for the story or characters: you and me are the Ying and Yang of the customer fanbase. It's just turned out that this XP is more geared to people like me than folks like you, but I suspect that there will still be enough characterisation and story to keep you happy. I think it will be interesting to see how this IWD / exploration / trading hybrid will work, for me it more than makes up for 'memorable' NPCs. I loved BG1 NPCs. I loved JA2 NPCs. Both had very limited dialogue and sometimes less is more. Cheers MC

^ Hmmm. Was that on PC? I don't recall it being a big problem on the console version.

Yeah, that's right, blame me. It's all my fault, using my PLAY BG AGAIN! mind ray. I've got a new computer and I've yet to properly tweak my optimally modded BG2 for yet another game. And in the past 12 months some interesting mods have come out for me to try, I'll be playing a hacked dual-class Barbarian / Cleric next time round. Last run through was protagonist Ftr/Thf, Minsc, Imoen (hacked to sorcerer) and Valygar (swapped out for Sarevok in ToB). Shadowkeeper is my friend. I shamelessly add a point to emulate the BG1 tomes and give myself excellent scores. Then again, I will only take what I consider to be 'core' NPCs (maximum four character party) and play all the uber-silly tactical challenge mods (I've yet to beat improved Firkraag, for example, because I eschew lots of magic users). IWD2 also demands my attention, it's pretty underrated in my humble. Gromnir's recent musings on bad guys led me to think how interesting the baddies in IWD2 are, and the McGuyvered IE into 3E thing is good fun. Undead Targos gives a small taste of what the IE modding community could do with this little gem given time and encouragement

The most 2-player fun I had with PS1 was definitely Command & Conquer: Red Alert Other games I enjoyed... X-Com: Enemy Unknown (yes, you can get it on PS1 and it's awesome turn-based goodness) Doom / Doom 2 Hexen Warhammer: Shadow of the Horned Rat (fantasy RTS)

Oh, this week's beer has been more Golden Glory, Greene King IPA, Stella Artois and (yes) Tuborg. It's been very hot here, so perfect beer drinking weather (although of course it dehydrates you!).

Wine contains "fining agents." These clear the wine, i.e. cause stuff to settle at the bottom of the bottle. Once upon a time animal blood was used as a fining agent, but nowadays a lot of the fining agents use animal by-products such as gelatine. Bentonite, an American innovation, is a clay-based alternative. Most wine (at least 75%) is suitable for vegetarians but a lot of it isn't for vegans. You can get vegan wine, but it's obviously tricky to source. I've never tried any, but technically there are few reasons why a vegan wine shouldn't taste OK. Beer, OTOH is simply water, hops, barley and sugar (etc). Vegans can love beer. If I couldn't eat meat then drinking lots of beer would have to suffice! Cheers MC