|
The Pale existing as cognate to Nihilistic drive and impulse is known to me; it is also known that it is pointless when Nihilism already exists and a competent writer should not feel the need to externalize such forces in a land of failed revolution and foreign dominance such as Revachol. I can assure you that I understand everything contained within the game, and that if you'd like to level criticism or contrary opinion to mine own you at least attempt to try harder than baseless and nonsensical jabs at non-understanding or inattention.
|
#
?
May 20, 2023 04:58
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 4, 2024 18:33 |
|
|
Gaius Marius posted:The Pale existing as cognate to Nihilistic drive and impulse is known to me; it is also known that it is pointless when Nihilism already exists and a competent writer should not feel the need to externalize such forces in a land of failed revolution and foreign dominance such as Revachol. 
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2023 05:00
|
|
|
anime antagonist voice doesn’t cogent opinions form
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2023 05:00
|
|
|
Gaius Marius posted:The Pale existing as cognate to Nihilistic drive and impulse is known to me; it is also known that it is pointless when Nihilism already exists and a competent writer should not feel the need to externalize such forces in a land of failed revolution and foreign dominance such as Revachol. 
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2023 05:06
|
|
|
Gaius Marius posted:The Pale existing as cognate to Nihilistic drive and impulse is known to me; it is also known that it is pointless when Nihilism already exists and a competent writer should not feel the need to externalize such forces in a land of failed revolution and foreign dominance such as Revachol. Lol I like how your words get more expensive as people keep yelling at u, a few more posts and you'll be hissing about drearily quotidian sequipedalianity or w/e
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2023 05:24
|
|
|
I'd say the phraseology more than the word choice itself
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2023 05:46
|
|
|
Encyclopedia (Trivial: failure) posted:I can assure you that I understand everything contained within the game,
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2023 06:04
|
|
|
Gaius Marius posted:The Pale existing as cognate to Nihilistic drive and impulse is known to me; it is also known that it is pointless when Nihilism already exists and a competent writer should not feel the need to externalize such forces in a land of failed revolution and foreign dominance such as Revachol. To try and provide an actual response, I'd like you to expand on why you view the Pale is simply nihilistic, because I don't really see it? I personally found all the information provided about it to be extremely neat and complimentary to the game's themes — how it drives people into (literal) nostalgia, how its expansion fuels the sense of despair and hopelessness, but also how it also holds within it the promise of discovery and creation. It's complimentary to the Revolution and the ongoing Coalition occupation, as well as Harry's own disaster of a personal life: Something incredible happened once before, a promise of a new world and a greater future, and it could happen again, so long as we do not give into the crush of hopelessness. I dunno, there's just a lot about it that I find really neat, and the way the technology in the game is wrapped around it. Joyce explaining how the Pale works is unquestionably is one of my favorite moments in the game.
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2023 06:11
|
|
|
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2023 06:41
|
|
|
Gaius Marius posted:The Pale existing as cognate to Nihilistic drive and impulse is known to me; It’s not a nihilism. It’s the weight of the past, the cumulative oppression of choices made and history lost. It’s those ideas weighing on the world. It’s not the destruction of meaning. It’s destruction by accumulation of meaning.
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2023 07:11
|
|
|
Gaius Marius posted:The Pale existing as cognate to Nihilistic drive and impulse is known to me; it is also known that it is pointless when Nihilism already exists and a competent writer should not feel the need to externalize such forces in a land of failed revolution and foreign dominance such as Revachol. Mayhaps your posting style betrays your pseudo-intellectual pretension, my liege
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2023 07:14
|
|
|
Perhaps it was Marcus Aurelius who put it best: "lol, lmao"
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2023 07:15
|
|
|
Hey look there’s a lot of posts in the DE thread I wonder what they chatting abo-…oh.
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2023 07:38
|
|
|
I agree Planescape: Torment is cool as heck. It sure shows its age, and the gameplay wasn't even that hot when it came out, but all the good bits are still good.christmas boots posted:Perhaps it was Marcus Aurelius who put it best: "lol, lmao" "It is in our power to have no opinion about a thing, and not to be disturbed in our soul; for things themselves have no natural power to form our judgements."
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2023 14:47
|
|
|
Disco Elysium: I can assure you that I understand everything contained within the game,
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2023 15:50
|
|
|
I'd quickload after a failed authority check like that
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2023 16:03
|
|
|
Zulily Zoetrope posted:I agree Planescape: Torment is cool as heck. It sure shows its age, and the gameplay wasn't even that hot when it came out, but all the good bits are still good. Well sure if you want to use an actual quote of his that one’s a banger
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2023 17:07
|
|
|
Gaius Marius posted:It simply uses the so called world building as fluff, it is nothing, even the cotton in a teddy bear has purpose I don't see the difference from what you are talking about because worldbuilding in both follows from the principles you are setting there, for real. It's far more thorough in Disco, imho (btw, taking this opportunity to talk more generally about what you raised, not necessarily replying to you, so this got a bit more wordy lol) Like, Planescape was an element of inspiration for Disco Elysium, even. Belief is a material-historical force in Planescape: for example, places in the borders of planar realms keep shifting depending on the people who are there in a given time and because of what those people are doing in accordance or not to those beliefs. This concept feels to me very representative of how the greater world works in Planescape, that you are in the world of the Ideal and its laws, and from there we get to the groundwork of all else you mentioned and beyond: Sigil, the Lady of Pain, the factions (like the godsmen, cipher, dustmen and others), etc. A world of Ideal offers the peculiar thing of having a history distinct from time and with a structure much different than ours; the war of the infernal planes will keep going forever, planar realms will keep being themselves even there's plenty of attrition in the borders, Sigil will keep being the center of things and so on. There is past, present and future, but it's unbound by the advance of time. In other words, there is a very different historical process going on. That's very useful for storytelling, because you can then pull off a Black Isle and get perhaps the most powerful mortal to ever exist out of nowhere, whose personal existential crisis has been creating very dire consequences for a lot of people in a lot of places, then just plop him in the mortuary and hey let's go. Disco, being written by Marxists, is a world of historical materialism with the same dialectical process of ours, with two more important things: there are stranger and greater elements of reality, and the Pale. Being Marxists, that means that even though this is called "magical realism", there's going to be thousands and thousands of words to not only anchor those phenomena properly, but all the relations that could arise from it. Hegelian History is a material, natural fact of reality in Elysium. We can glean that it has some relation with entropy. That's a big loving huge deal. There's also people that can holy loving poo poo interact somehow with that force and grab stuff from possible futures from their present. (like there are those speculative posts from reddit a good while back about how the Romans figured out steam power and " how they didn't make an industrial revolution imagine if they did", these people in the setting do that basically) A thing like the Pale in a setting like Disco Elysium cannot simply be accommodated, it is a structural factor. But since it is alien to us the audience, an amnesiac protagonist fits really well because he can go what-the-gently caress with us. For everyone else, Pale is already factored in in their worldview, because dealing with it has been part of the historical process for however long, permeating the lives of generations there. Which brings to quote:If one was to change The Pale, all the Radio-Technology, and psuedocountries for their inspirations, one could tell the same story And that could also be said about Torment, no? But here is the great thing about fantastic literature (and science fiction and others): when we imagine different worlds, we make possible very different perspectives to tell the same stories, which can be very powerful because of the radical novelty in place. That radical novelty, however, can only happen when there is substance in that world, though. To put it in another way, I'm talking something similar to going to a different country to live there for a bunch of years: you'll probably do a lot of the same stuff that you already do, but it's going to be different. Those differences come from culture, which happens as a phenomenon of history. Having lived that culture, coming back home is an opportunity for reinvention of your worldview, with a greater degree of substance. Both stories are far more effective in their respects because of their fantastic elements, but DE's worldbuilding is so much more thorough that allows for something quite special: communicating with our own history and thus with our own experience in that history, which is why it can charge ahead to talk about politics, revolution, prejudices, discrimination, violence and all else that we also know a lot about. The fantastic/magical realist element, however, acts as a facilitator to those things, to reinforce and remind that this isn't our world. That creates other avenues to put these very real issues into the narrative, which makes it more resonant to us because we know those problems. So yeah, it's theatrical, but it works exactly because of that
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2023 18:52
|
|
|
Gaius Marius posted:The Pale existing as cognate to Nihilistic drive and impulse is known to me; it is also known that it is pointless when Nihilism already exists and a competent writer should not feel the need to externalize such forces in a land of failed revolution and foreign dominance such as Revachol. You can post like a normal person and not a loser just cause people said your opinion was bad.
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2023 19:02
|
|
|
"Aha, you sink to ad hominem goon sir"
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2023 19:54
|
|
|
it's so funny because every so often i'm like "every goon is 40 years old now and we are done making incredibly dumbass posts" and i am always wrong
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2023 21:50
|
|
|
Lol if you think getting older makes you less dumb. Have you seen boomers lately?
|
|
#
?
May 21, 2023 00:24
|
|
|
Gaius Marius posted:The Pale existing as cognate to Nihilistic drive and impulse is known to me; it is also known that it is pointless when Nihilism already exists and a competent writer should not feel the need to externalize such forces in a land of failed revolution and foreign dominance such as Revachol. Gaius Marius posted:I don't engage with nerd culture 
|
|
#
?
May 21, 2023 15:59
|
|
|
Gaius Marius posted:I don't engage with nerd culture Best joke on these forums for quite a while.
|
|
#
?
May 21, 2023 16:05
|
|
|
I've finally decided to play through Disco Elysium so I thought I'd peak into this thread and what the hell is going on
|
|
#
?
May 21, 2023 16:19
|
|
|
MassTran posted:I've finally decided to play through Disco Elysium so I thought I'd peak into this thread and what the hell is going on nerd culture, best not to engage with it
|
|
#
?
May 21, 2023 16:23
|
|
|
MassTran posted:I've finally decided to play through Disco Elysium so I thought I'd peak into this thread and what the hell is going on *Point cursor at the Post button* "I'm not loving this argument up! You'll never forget what happens next it you don't respect the poo poo out of me!"
|
|
#
?
May 21, 2023 16:30
|
|
|
It's important to roll whenever you post in the thread and if you fail your check to really commit to the bit.
|
|
#
?
May 21, 2023 16:34
|
|
|
MassTran posted:I've finally decided to play through Disco Elysium so I thought I'd peak into this thread and what the hell is going on let's just say that what Rhetoric says about what you'll mostly do as a communist is spot-on
|
|
#
?
May 21, 2023 16:46
|
|
|
ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Trivial - Success] - What if, you maybe...I don't know...TOOK A LOT OF DRUGS?
|
|
#
?
May 21, 2023 17:09
|
|
|
The issue I had with Planescape is that I kinda had no idea, at the end of the day, why I was doing what I was doing. I'm fighting hard to die and go to hell, I guess? Because past-me deserves it? It's just not something I really relate to.
|
|
#
?
May 21, 2023 17:24
|
|
|
Fangz posted:The issue I had with Planescape is that I kinda had no idea, at the end of the day, why I was doing what I was doing. I'm fighting hard to die and go to hell, I guess? Because past-me deserves it? It's just not something I really relate to. so, given people might be playing it for the first time, spoilers for Torment below for the interested *** The Nameless One was this very powerful dude in a good while ago, who figured out a loophole out of mortality, by using an also super-powerful night hag whose deal is puzzles. His predicament was that he did a lot of vile heinous poo poo while in the process of becoming this very powerful dude and realized he was on the premium golden express ticket to the nine hells once out. Having a change of heart, he goes: "weeeeeeelllllllll if I get enough time, I can do good enough to redeem myself", which by Planescape laws is a totally fine thing to do. He needed to be immortal. He takes his mortality to the hag as a puzzle, after charming her, and she goes solving it. It works, sort of. Something went wrong and his own mortality becomes its own entity instead of vanishing. The Nameless One can die in the mind but not in the body - a type of reincarnation. The thing that went the other way gets to remember everything and wishes to stay separate, thank you very much. The first incarnation dies and there starts mr bones wild ride In trying to figure out a clever solution to make up for the bullshit he did in the first time, the Nameless One caused a chain of events of much larger fuckups in structural damage. First, because maintaining his life meant someone dying in his place; second, his mortality was adamant in making him not learn anything at all and erase the path to it, meaning doing a lot of destruction to a lot of people through generations. Third, each incarnation got an almost new slate on things; some of those incarnations said gently caress that to any vague idea of redemption and just made things worse overall. By the point of the game proper, the Nameless One has ages worth of karmic debt which, iirc, started to wear on the universe itself and it is starting to get mad. By this point, it would have been much easier and much better to just have gone to the nine hells, serve his sentence or join the war and do whatever good possible to be done to redeem himself there. Well-intentioned that he was with a sincere change of heart, he still wanted a way out that was his instead of fully assuming responsibility of his actions - that's why regret is the motif echoed through the game. A good playthrough is about coming to self, to finally assume regret and work on it. By getting sent to hell, all the shadows of the people got merked directly or indirectly because of this little snafu can finally rest or take their respective destinies; oaths are fulfilled and burdens are relieved. And of course, that might be really unfair to the last incarnation, especially a very good one; but if this very good one did put the work in, having the mortality merged back with him, well yeah he has all his knowledges and abilities and memories back, which means ofc he is a bullshit munchkin wizard with bullshit multiclasses and you can bet that in like fifteen minutes he picked up that mace he was already soloing one of those giant balrog-type devils and sitting on his skull shortly afterwards lol
|
|
#
?
May 21, 2023 18:33
|
|
|
Fangz posted:The issue I had with Planescape is that I kinda had no idea, at the end of the day, why I was doing what I was doing. I'm fighting hard to die and go to hell, I guess? Because past-me deserves it? It's just not something I really relate to. I don't think it's really that simple, though. TNO does what he does because he has no choice. His two primary drives are the desire to live and the desire to be whole, and his own Torment is that those things are fundamentally irreconcilable. If he goes on living forever he will "die" regardless, forgetting his past and self over and over. If he ends the cycle and reunites with the missing piece of himself, he will reclaim his memories and identity, but will face true death as a consequence. There are two opposed inevitabilities before the Nameless One, and no matter what he thinks or feels, the inescapable truth of his existence is that he no longer has any control over his destiny at all: he must end the cycle and face the damnation that he doesn't even remember earning, or the cycle will overtake him and make him forget again. He can run away and live another pointless little forgotten life, or he can face his fate with dignity. TNO has to face his mortality. That's the nature of his curse, to such a literal, manifest-in-reality extent that his mortality has become an actual dude who loving hates and hunts him. The only thing his first incarnation achieved with that devil's bargain was delaying the inevitable, and it came at an enormous cost to both him and everyone around him, for years and years and years. That's one of the central themes of the game: no one lives forever, and if you could, you would probably really start to regret it after a while (unless you're the same kind of heartless, horrifyingly selfish creature as Practical - it doesn't hurt to watch your loved ones wither around you if you never love anyone except yourself!). There are some other themes and forces in play but that is one of the biggest driving ones imo. There's a reason regret is such an important theme in that game! e: okay well. The post above mine is a much better plot explanation but my point stands; the whole karma/what's done is done/face the consequences of your actions thing a really important theme Angry Diplomat fucked around with this message at 18:41 on May 21, 2023 |
|
#
?
May 21, 2023 18:37
|
|
|
I dunno, this just seems like a super convoluted way through to "this is how the system works, so you have to". It kinda implies you buy into D&D's morality system in the first place, which seems kinda dubious, because "True Death" is just swapping living in the Planes to living forever in the Hellwar, with the other consequence that TNO may well be able to tip the balance in the war and destroy the multiverse as a result. I'm altogether not convinced that the end result we see is the best redemption, or why it's better than the Blade of the Immortal ending (aside from what you have to do for that, which an evil character won't care about) And also it's not really a crisis that is mappable to anything in real life. It would be different and make more of a thematic point if you reintegrate the memories of being evil *first*, and then you could make the choice of facing consequences or whatever. I think if you want to talk about regret and facing the past, DE is ultimately much more successful.
|
|
#
?
May 21, 2023 19:04
|
|
|
A lingering question from my only PS:T playthrough in like 2011: The Nameless One keeps his memories when he dies in-game, because the incarnation before him managed to prevent it (but only for subsequent incarnations). Was that how the Practical Incarnation died, or was it some other incarnation? I really appreciate that Harry's journal has so much character and interactivity, it's one thing I think can be directly traced to Torment. It's not made of Harry's actual flesh, but so much of him is in there.
|
|
#
?
May 21, 2023 19:59
|
|
|
Bodily fluids included 
|
|
#
?
May 21, 2023 20:01
|
|
|
While it doesn't necessarily fit into the themes or the story being told, I do feel like Planescape is conspicuously missing an option to embrace being immortal regardless of the problems you're causing for others. The game has implemented this whole roleplaying system where you define TNO's alignment over the course of the game, after all. I can imagine a version of the story where TNO's driving motivation involves wanting to stop the Transcendent One's shadows from constantly trying to kill him, and ends with the both of them agreeing to leave each other be and enjoy being immortal. Just by comparison, I really appreciate that Disco will allow Harry to fail miserably at dealing with his past, his regrets, etc. It's richer as an interactive story about these themes because it's not a given that they can be resolved the 'right' way.
|
|
#
?
May 21, 2023 20:09
|
|
|
alternative endings for Torment were planned but ultimately cut - current ending was the "Good" ending. one of the possible endings was waking back up in the Mortuary without any memories it's probably stronger for that. at the end of the day you can't just disengage from death or time or causality, regardless of what an alignment grid implies. reconciliation is the only real conclusion - anything else is technically a failure Fangz posted:"True Death" is just swapping living in the Planes to living forever in the Hellwar, with the other consequence that TNO may well be able to tip the balance in the war and destroy the multiverse as a result. I'm altogether not convinced that the end result we see is the best redemption to clarify, The Nameless One doesn't live forever in the Blood War, can't win the war, and restores the universe going there rather than endangering it. I think the basic referent of the Nameless One's immortality is denial, a refusal to accept the consequences of their previous actions. this leads to stasis and stagnation for the Nameless One (an endless cycle of the same idiot life, repeated) while offloading all the consequences onto innocent people (literally the mechanism of their immortality). the value of the Nameless One finally going to the Blood War isn't in the suffering for their sins or punishment for the wicked, but acceptance of themselves and from that the possibility of change and growth. Fall-from-Grace handily summarises it for us: "Time is not your enemy. Forever is." Cheston posted:A lingering question from my only PS:T playthrough in like 2011: I think there's some contradiction in the game about the order of incarnations, but Practical lived and died a while ago as he recruits Morte and Dak'kon, builds the trap tomb and leads Deionarra to her death. Paranoid comes after as he meets Deionarra's ghost and upgrades the trap tomb. Paranoid has the conversation about how his memory will be restored three incarnations after him, and he dies about 50 years before the game.
|
|
#
?
May 21, 2023 20:36
|
|
|
IIRC there's some tradeoff from the memory thing at least the implication I got is that while TNO keeps his memory going forward, each death erodes your mind a little bit and eventually you'll lose the whole thing. So even this whole immortality situation isn't really tenable forever because if you don't put an end to this once and for all that's eventually going to be your fate
|
|
#
?
May 21, 2023 21:21
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 4, 2024 18:33 |
|
|
Lt. Danger posted:
Then I just have no idea what being in the blood war actually involves then, or at least the game did a really bad job of explaining it. Also I think losing all your memories tends to change the nature of man, so I don't really think there's that much to accept really. Fangz fucked around with this message at 02:37 on May 22, 2023 |
|
#
?
May 22, 2023 02:31
|
|