Dawn Quixotic

Burlew's argument in the thread centered on the idea that, regardless of logical justifications, there was still something iffy about killing a baby of sapient species, and that actually justifying it with the idea of "even at hatching it's as smart as a human adult and is a vicious hungry monster" itself is questionable. And also the idea that, while it might be practical in real life (i.e. you might consider it okay to poison rat babies in real life to prevent spread of vermin), that including "kill the rat babies" as a specific quest is kind of... eh, just because it's fantasy entertainment. Same with, if there was a sick puppy in the game and you had to euthanize it... something you'd have to do in real life, but including it as an in-game objective... would be pretty terrible. PnP games are a bit different in that respect too, where, I would be more disapproving of players wanting to do stuff like that and would probably be, "not at my table".

Right. Simply lacking any specific protections against dealing hit point damage to or killing child NPCs isn't that bad. But if you have the ability to, say, buy a house, get married, and then engage in realistically developed domestic abuse (not just hitting them/killing them like any run-of-the-mill NPC, but more contextual and complicated stuff), that's something that's less justifiable, and is like you say, something that might legitimize it to a portion of players likely to actually do this in the future or have already done so. Like if their dialogue changes to reflect the state of their relationship... that's something that'd be pretty out of taste, since it goes beyond the cartoony kind of "I'm gonna kill everything!" that motivates most video game destruction sprees.

I saw a video once commenting on how many older games were very good at implying what you were supposed to do and subtly teaching you about the game as you played without using heavy-handed tutorial sequences and the like.

How is it easier to balance a game where you might be wildly more powerful depending what level you are when you get to an area? that makes no sense to me...the easiest way to do that would be to make the game linear. Ease of balancing shouldn't even figure in this discussion IMO, that is the developers job not ours, and they are more than capable. Sounds like you want the opposite to me to be honest, I've been playing RPGs for a long time now, and I'm a bit fed up of being epic. I'd imagine the game will go for a middle ground though to be honest...and as I said earlier, if you are battling demi gods in game one, where does that leave for the sequels to go? One could argue the point would be to forego a franchise... Though, from a commercial standpoint, that's unlikely.

Well, that would certainly be interesting to see. Though, since it's a lot more difficult to create, there's a lot more room for disappointment if it's dissatisfying. Programming all the numerous ways one could utilize a political connection and have it be sufficient for the player experience would be tough. One of the things that's a lot simpler in PnP RPGs where you way an unlimited amount of wiggle room.

I think the best way to handle the potential of "epic" levels is to have a place in the setting for them. Take your example of D&D, the setting is built around level 1-20. Once you get up to level 15-20, it's a given that you're probably done mucking about doing sidequests and random encounters and fighting mooks, and you're fighting elite things like greater demons, golem guardians, high-level NPC enemies, top it off with some dragons... Because there's still a lot of dragons, demons, and such in the setting... not as many as low level orcs and gnolll, but enough that it doesn't make the setting break. D&D then attempts to go *beyond* that and then you're at the point where there's too many high-level things than you expected from the setting... especially if you get stuff like 20th level "peasants". A setting that's designed that way... that there are regions of the universe that are more densely populated with such powerful things... would go a long way in making it go smoother. Kind of like how Final Fantasy works (even though it's still kind of silly in its own way). Especially if your power curve is designed to handle that. D&D tops out at 9th level spells like time stops and meteors and there just isn't much else to go... so the epic level progressions, rather than being dynamic like 1-20 just become repetive number infaltion more and more. I say poeple have a very shallow view of power. What IS power? How do you define it? How do you measure it? Why do so may people in RGP's only see it as increase in the NUMBERS. And it's about time such expectations were shattered and changed. Because making it by numbers is easier to program as a game. I'd say once you've gotten rid of the rising numbers, you're better off getting rid of numbers entirely, and making it a different sort of game... an action-adventure, a point-and-click adventure... but not an RPG. It'd also require a system of control more reliant on the skills of the player. In an RPG you rely on stats and hit points to avoid or soak attacks because you can't parry or dodge at will like you can in, say, a fighting game or something like that. Which is the kind of game I prefer to play, but that's not necessarily what we're getting here.

The amusing thinng is, if there *was* a serial killer, the one taking care of it would be you. What if... when you kill enough people... you get a quest to investigate serial killings... and as you investigate, you find out the killer... was YOU!

Remember the epilogue to SoA where those hooded guys were like, "This Spawn of Bhaal is DOOOMED!" and like, who were they? What happened to them? D&D just seems more egregious because epic levels often feel tacked on. Like, Level 20 is supposed to be the pinnacle and then you go beyond that... and there's stuff in the third edition epic level handbook that expects you to be 50 or 60 levels.

It's kind of interesting, because in that respect, ToB shows how D&D itself tends to break down at around that stage. Ridiculously powerful enemies everywhere, with armies of "elite orogs" who are basically foot soldiers but levelled up to be challenge to you guys... repetitive loads of loot... some stuff you can't even use.... and tons of junk like everybody has a +2 or something weapon, again, to stay competitive as a challenge for you, lots of +5 weapons (which, I can kind of see the justification for wanting a +5 weapon of every kind), and it's like... if you had more exploration and sidequests it'd get even more ridiculous because how are all these challenges existing here? Any one of the Five had loads more charisma than Melissan did.

There's another aspect to this I'd forgotten. In Skyrim, you can still attack a child, even by accident, causing them (and possibly anyone around them) to become hostile to you. They didn't attack you, but it still caused problems. I'd say that's something to be avoided. If you make them invulnerable, make sure they can't become hostile. Turn friendly fire off entirely, to avoid these kind of mistakes.

This is kind of how I see it. To me, if they don't want you killing random people, don't let you. If they enable you to do it and want to make you feel terrible for it, that's fine too. I mean, I dunno. They let you do some pretty dark things. And it's not just random stuff either, but plot stuff. Obviously, there's limits. There's boundaries. Have dialogue options for racist slurs and anything involving sexual assault is not something to include. But take Skyrim for instance, you can still take part in an elaborate storyline where you murder people, partly for money but partly also for the sake of murdering them for wierd cultish reasons too. (even if most of the people you kill are kind of pricks anyway) Take Torment where the worst things you could do weren't anything as base as hacking at NPCs but things like attempting to sell your companions into slavery. Some people put killing children on the other side of the boundary, as separate from killing adults. I could say that's valid, sure. I can see where they are coming from. I've rarely seen a good morality/karma/whatever system. Torment was interesting in that, you had options to Lie or Truth as far as, like, roleplaying goes, and some of the evil stuff was more complicated than just stealing or killing. I liked some of that stuff because... in BG if you ever did something good, you always got a better reward, so there was no way to be evil, but acting good just to manipulate people. BG *was* annoying though. Since like, there was not way to be evil and just as successful as good... and I don't even mean like, really super evil, just, not goodie-two-shoes. In such a way that you didn't have to listen to your evil NPCs whine (and the evil ones were often my favorites). But of course if you got too high you could just turn into the Slayer and knock it down 2... So ehh...

Wasn't that a working title for God of War? Urquhart, Shut Up and Jam: If You Can't Game Like the Best, Lame Like the Rest. The whole concept of light and dark is overused. Music is close. We need different senses. What about "Eternity Chronicles: A Pungence in Dyrwood"? Or, "A Taste of Eternity". How about a Smash Mouth reference? Dyrwood All Star: So Much To Do, So Much To See. I was about to suggest they just put a symbol on the cover and everyone would have to refer to it as "The Game Formerly Known as Project Eternity".

I remember a friend once showed me an article about "how to be a real man". The first thing was something like, "a real man doesn't care what anyone thinks" I always thought that was funny that, the guy writing it seemed to believe that yet expected every man in his audience would care about *his* advice. Wonder what this person's list of what self-respecting women should have would be. The average US citizen probably can't afford many trips. Most people I know have only been to Canada and even then only because you can drive there.

The thing I always loved about BG is when your teammates would talk to you. I mean, there were the romance subplots, sure, but I was always more interested in the dialogues other characters would have you about various things. Like the one where Minsc starts going on about how adventuring is awesome and how he should get you an "ice weasel". And also pretty cool was when the party members would start heckling each other about stuff. Gives lots of characterization beyond their usual interjections and when you first talk to them. And I always love me my characterization. So I hope all the possible recruitable dudes are all super cool and interesting. Have they said much on front? As in, will it be more like Torment where basically there's enough for the party, plus a couple extras, or closer to the first Baldur's Gate where there would be a ton to choose from? Or in the middle, like BG2?

Yeah. I hate that when... you walk into what is clearly supposed to be a "big fight" and there aren't any lines or dialogue, they don't even have a token "have at you!" it's just a room full of red rings that attack you. Admittedly, I have a bias there in that, I just don't feel engaged in a battle against enemies that don't have personality or characterization. Doesn't matter if the fate of the world is in the balance or how climactic it technically is, I don't want the final battle just being more random redrings. It's why I like the of a villain that gets developed as such throughout the storyline, to get the satisfaction of, "FINALLY I get to go toe to toe with this guy and beat him to the ground".