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Keeshhound posted:Indeed, that's why everyone is made aware of The Wall, so that they can continue their unbelief with full understanding of the consequences of their- oh, wait. Exactly. That was part of what turned Kaelyn against the system - realizing that even the kindest person would get sent to the Wall just because they didn't do a bunch of bullshit rituals all the time. That's not even getting into the idea that no one deserves the Wall, even assholes. The Wall is an authoritarian enforcement mechanism. It's the D&D equivalent of the real-world fundamentalist's "Worship my god or you'll go to Hell for eternity!" It also calls into question whether the so-called "good" gods are really good if they tolerate its existence. Even if their hands are tied in terms of physically destroying it, you'd think one of them would do something like declare themselves the patron god of all Faithless and make all Faithless souls default to them or something. Arivia posted:Getting rid of the Wall of the Faithless makes zero sense from a Faerunian cosmology perspective. Zero. None. The whole world runs on faith; those who don't believe suffer for it. Not that hard, really. The Wall hasn't always existed. It was created by an evil god to torture people. It is by no means a necessary feature of the cosmos. mysterious loyall Y posted:Why have the subplot at all if everyone's just going to go "lol nvm" at the end and go home Kaelyn doesn't. It's infuriating that you don't get a choice to keep fighting along with her. Kanfy posted:Have you enabled the in-game setting for it? Yes, but it wasn't good enough. I've resigned myself to just using a lower resolution at this point. Edit: Keeshhound posted:From what I read of the deep and well thought out Forgotten Realms lore, Kelemvor originally did try to end the wall, but the other gods got pissy at him (because apparently removing a punishment that most people explicitly don't know about lead to a decline in belief) and Ao made him reinstate it. Didn't Ao once strip the gods of their powers because they were being dicks and declare that gods had to actually earn people's worship? This seems like a pretty big contradiction. Regardless, if the gods need to hold the Wall over peoples' heads to get people to give a poo poo about them, they don't deserve to be gods. Praetorian Mage fucked around with this message at 00:13 on Dec 20, 2014 |
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Dec 20, 2014 00:09
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Wouldn't a more effective way be to prevent faithless from benefiting from divine magic? Need a healing spell heretic? Tough. Not the slightest idea if it would/could work though.
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Dec 20, 2014 01:41
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Praetorian Mage posted:Didn't Ao once strip the gods of their powers because they were being dicks and declare that gods had to actually earn people's worship? This seems like a pretty big contradiction. Regardless, if the gods need to hold the Wall over peoples' heads to get people to give a poo poo about them, they don't deserve to be gods. Apparently it was reinstating the wall which forced Kelemvor to abandon his previous alignment of Lawful Good to become Lawful Neutral (alignment too? so many cans of worms!) As I understand it, during the brief time where the wall was abolished, Kelemvor himself took on the duty of being as you described, the patron of the faithless, letting them spend eternity in his realm. Still, it's not as though gods being inconsistent is something that didn't happen in other mythical pantheons. In MotB, Kelemvor's excuse is that he can't undo the works of his predecessor god, for fear that his own works would be undone by his successor in kind, should he ever loose his own divinity. Which is forward thinking of him, at least. Keeshhound fucked around with this message at 02:07 on Dec 20, 2014 |
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Dec 20, 2014 02:01
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Keeshhound posted:Apparently it was that incident which forced Kelemvor to abandon his previous alignment of Lawful Good to become Lawful Neutral (alignment too? so many cans of worms!) Still, it's not as though gods being inconsistent is something that didn't happen in other mythical pantheons. Nah, it's the incident that made Kelsmvor a god. The alignment shift came later, IIRC, after a goofy incident involving his fellow new gods, Mystra and Cyric.
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Dec 20, 2014 02:05
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CaptainPsyko posted:Nah, it's the incident that made Kelsmvor a god. I actually meant reinstating the wall, but either way I was wrong. Still, as I implied earlier, the lore is more than a little byzantine. I'm certainly not going to claim to have perfect understanding of any of this poo poo.
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Dec 20, 2014 02:07
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At least the lore does a pretty good job of emulating the real world equivalents where all these writings and theories were scribbled down by some nerd in a cave, then dug up hundreds of years later to be interpreted and codified according to the current political agenda, context and coherence be damned. And that's kinda neat, even though it's probably not intentional. Btw, couldn't someone make an alternate ending mod for MOTB? Since there's official mod tools and all, it should be easier than fan-patching the entirety of KOTOR2 or V:TM Bloodlines, right?
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Dec 20, 2014 02:40
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Keeshhound posted:Apparently it was reinstating the wall which forced Kelemvor to abandon his previous alignment of Lawful Good to become Lawful Neutral (alignment too? so many cans of worms!) As I understand it, during the brief time where the wall was abolished, Kelemvor himself took on the duty of being as you described, the patron of the faithless, letting them spend eternity in his realm. Still, it's not as though gods being inconsistent is something that didn't happen in other mythical pantheons. That seems like a pretty lovely excuse to me. “I can’t correct this cosmic injustice because eons later some dick might put it back”? All that would mean is that we’d need to find another guy who would get rid of it again. Or Kelemvor needs to hand-pick his successor. And this is coming from a guy who once considered himself Lawful Good? Hell, that poo poo didn't stop Myrkul from creating the loving thing in the first place. Myrkul didn't say "Why bother with this evil wall when someone might destroy it later?" That just seems like a lame excuse for the writers to maintain the status quo. Frankly, I think putting the wall back should make him Cosmically Lawful Evil to the Epic Maximum Apex of Horribleness. And I don't see why some other god couldn't have done the "patron of the Faithless" thing. Poil posted:Wouldn't a more effective way be to prevent faithless from benefiting from divine magic? Need a healing spell heretic? Tough. Not the slightest idea if it would/could work though. Isn't that a bit like saying "Why bother with gulags? Just shoot everyone!" The system itself is the problem, and the Wall of the Faithless is an albatross around the neck of D&D. Krowley posted:At least the lore does a pretty good job of emulating the real world equivalents where all these writings and theories were scribbled down by some nerd in a cave, then dug up hundreds of years later to be interpreted and codified according to the current political agenda, context and coherence be damned. I suppose it's realistic in a sense, but I guess I had higher hopes for a setting that's supposedly about heroic adventuring and all that. I'd probably be less bothered by it if it wasn't something so abominable as that loving wall. As for an alternate ending mod, I've heard that the NWN2 mod tools are a lot harder to use than the NWN1 tools were, so that's a setback. Plus, there's probably not much movement on new projects now that the community is still trying to regain its footing after the loss of the Vault. Praetorian Mage fucked around with this message at 03:03 on Dec 20, 2014 |
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Dec 20, 2014 02:58
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Krowley posted:Btw, couldn't someone make an alternate ending mod for MOTB? Edit: Praetorian Mage posted:That seems like a pretty lovely excuse to me. “I can’t correct this cosmic injustice because eons later some dick might put it back”? Praetorian Mage posted:Plus, there's probably not much movement on new projects now that the community is still trying to regain its footing after the loss of the Vault. People are also still working on some pretty neat projects, such as a complete rework of the spell book. Raygereio fucked around with this message at 03:19 on Dec 20, 2014 |
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Dec 20, 2014 03:03
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Hypocrisy posted:The wall exists because Myrkul decided to be a jerk about things and make it. And he was originally mortal so really Kelemvor just comes off as lazy. Jergal needs to take his job back.
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Dec 20, 2014 03:11
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Raygereio posted:I think was more meant as "This would set a really bad precedent and would open the door for evil gods to directly undo the works of good gods and vice versa, which would result in chaos", or something like that. Isn't that what already happens, though? By that logic, shouldn't someone have stepped in to stop Myrkul from creating the wall to begin with? Why does this line of logic only seem to appear when it's a case of someone trying to do a good thing? Raygerio posted:The community was prepared for the NWVault going under. The guys behind http://neverwintervault.org/ have backups of everything that was on the NWVault and have almost everything uploaded again. That's good to hear.
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Dec 20, 2014 03:19
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The wall of the faithless is theoretically sorta neat, except the authors originally refused the idea that it is a bad thing, and went to huge lengths to justify its existence and make it so it's not actually a bad thing that Tyr doesn't lead his forces to destroy it. But cosmology and alignment in D&D are stupid. Kelemvor was originally a Lawful Good person, so when he rose to godhood he punished the evil and wicked, rewarded the good and just, made the neutral people live in 'meh' limbo like status where they neither suffered nor were given all the treats and goodness in the world. At the same time, Mystra was a good person, so when she rose to godhood she made it so evil people couldn't access the Weave (the magical force), neutral people had less access than normal, and good people had tons of access and got spells super easily. After a few years of this going on, Cyric - you know, cyric, lord of murder and lies. Approached Tyr and the other good gods (after having already approached the neutrals) and said that clearly what they were doing would eventually evolve into 'worship me Kelemvor or suffer in the afterlife' and 'worship me, Mystra, or have no arcane magic', stealing the worship from all the other gods, ending their lives. The good gods for some reason went 'yeah that's clearly what will happen' and captured both of them, putting them on trial for 'failure of divinity by virtue of humanity'. They threatened to destroy Kelemvor and Mystra if they didn't change what they were doing. So Kelemvor went slightly insane, broke up with Mystra his girlfriend, and became neutral, refusing to ever take sides again, and in doing so losing most of his personality, while Mystra stayed good and tried to fight it, only to eventually relent and spread magic access equally to all kinds of people. Forgotten Realms is loving stupid. Edit: Oh, and all of this was a plan by cyric to get the Wall reinstated, so that he could drive one of Mystra's chosen and favorites insane, make him recant his faith and turn him into a faithless, then murder him so he'd go to the wall, in hopes it would drive mystra to despair, because he hates her a lot. Edit 2: And to note, the book series that actually has all this stuff in it portrays Cyric as being correct, and paints Kelemvor and Mystra as bad gods and horrible terrible people for being moral and taking sides. It does not, in fact, get into any assumptions that 'oh cyric is just manipulating them all, those 'good' gods are dumb'. That's all me reading purposefully against what the authors intended. KittyEmpress fucked around with this message at 03:41 on Dec 20, 2014 |
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Dec 20, 2014 03:21
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KittyEmpress posted:The wall of the faithless is theoretically sorta neat, except the authors originally refused the idea that it is a bad thing, and went to huge lengths to justify its existence and make it so it's not actually a bad thing that Tyr doesn't lead his forces to destroy it. I'm going to have to take some issue with this. The idea is to preserve the balance and the integrity of the system, such as it is. I know that Krynn is another world, but the Cataclysm on Krynn was caused by the Kingpriest, who was a good man. However, he became too powerful and bigotry, as much as I hate that term, and stagnation came. He was so arrogant that he demanded that the gods eliminate evil from the world, and all of the signs that they sent him he interpreted as evil trying to break his faith. So, in the end, the gods dropped a flaming loving mountain on him and then disappeared for about 3 centuries. Yes, I know that they were still there and people lost faith, but the result is the same - no divine magic. The fact that wizardly magic is also divine gift and was still around didn't seem to phase anyone, but let's not jump down that plothole right now. Again, I know that that is Krynn and another world, but the point stands. In the novel Crucible, I believe, Kelemvor sends a servant of his to observe 1001 deaths or something like that. His seraph comes back and tells him that good, heroic types are willing to risk death more because they know that Kelemvor will be good to them in the afterlife. The effect is that all the good people die and the evil buggers either hide out of fear of a terrible afterlife or can do lovely things more easily because the good people are dead. So, it comes down to a matter of balance. We in the real world like to think about good triumphing over evil, but perhaps in this fantasy land it doesn't work that way. We also live not knowing if there is a god or the nature of that god if he does exist, not to mention a complete lack of verifiable divine miracle and no knowledge of the afterlife. Again, a different world, but if you knew in our world that, if you died, you would really go to eternal paradise, why the gently caress would you keep living? If you knew that you would burn in miserable inferno, you would be terrified of the inevitable. If you knew that death was nothing but bleak void, life would seem to have no meaning. If it was based on good or bad, it raises huge questions about the nature of "what is good/evil?" and it would also interfere with free will, if there is such a thing. In FB, I don't know how anyone could deny the existence of the gods, there is a god for virtually every type of person and personality, and the rules of the afterlife are, if not common knowledge, at least somewhat known. I think that you can see also how Mystra/Midnight favouring the virtuous would also totally gently caress up balance as well. Myrkul and Cyric were evil fucks as Lords of the Dead, but by terrifying people into finding a god to worship that suited them it maintained the celestial status quo and kept stability. That in and of itself is terrifying, but I think that that idea was inherent to the plot of Betrayer and is supposed to leave the player with a sense of uneasiness. Yes, I agree that the wall thing is awkwardly handled, but I understand the point of making it which was to scare people into having faith in someone, whether it be the god of knowledge, magic, tyranny, destruction, biscuits or whatever. There is very much a spine-chilling subtext that things are this way because without it the gods would not exist being dependent on faith and all, and I don't know how it ties into pre-Time of Troubles when godly power was not dependent upon faith of mortals. I understand the trial, though... Mystra was supposed to promote the use and "science" of magic without thought for ethical concerns, and she wasn't doing that. Kelemvor was supposed to maintain the order and structure of the afterlife, and he did not do that. Even Cyric was on trial for not spreading strife while he was barking mad, but after being cured (more of less) he proved that he was doing his job even unintentionally while as mad as a hatter. There is certainly some odd poo poo and hand-waving going on here, but I understand the Wall - I really do. It would be great to have been able to take it down, but I understand them wanting to maintain canon. I also don't see how a deity of the Faithless could be possible as deities are sustained by faith and he who is faithless inherently has no faith... and if he develops faith then he is no longer Faithless, but that's another argument.
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Dec 20, 2014 04:28
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Praetorian Mage posted:The system itself is the problem, and the Wall of the Faithless is an albatross around the neck of D&D. Which is why they ditched it for fourth edition. I'm with KittyEmpress on this; I think it's a neat idea (in the sense that it feels like a properly... mythological thing) that was really poorly justified. Really, I think a lot of these justifications are unnecessarily complicated. Ao, the literal God of gods (and goddesses) exists, and Ao (most of the time) is meant to be utterly ineffable. If you (as a writer) want there to be some reason for some injustice to exist that the gods can't correct, then you've got a real easy out: Ao made them do it. Why does the Wall of the Faithless continue to exist? Because it serves some purpose that Ao wants it to. Why does Mystra have to allow Good and Evil casters equal access to the Weave? Because Ao made it clear she'd be unmade if she didn't. Ao is the perfect out for this kind of poo poo; unknowable, all powerful by even divine standards, and doesn't have to answer to you (as the consumer.) Keeshhound fucked around with this message at 04:54 on Dec 20, 2014 |
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Dec 20, 2014 04:43
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See, the issue is that I don't think the wall of the faithless or the actions of the gods were completely wrong in a mytholgical sense, Jeff. I understand why the gods would oppose an upstart mortal who keeps their mortal morals and beliefs and lets that poison their judgement. I do think the idea of assigning alignment to these gods and then having the ones marked as being Good Guys go 'you're being too Good and encouraging too much Goodness by actively punishing Evil' is hilariously stupid. If the neutral gods had risen up and been like 'hey you're insulting us and we'll side with the evil godsi f we need to, since you're stealing our worship AKA life force' then that would have been different, it would have made sense. Instead you have the god of Good and Paladins, Evilsbane, the hunter of the unjust and evil.... taking Evil's sides and saying 'hey, maybe stop punishing evil, do your job right'. Even outside of an alignment system, the last bit shows how dumb it is. There's tons of ways to better write it than that. The wall of the faithless is something put into place by the evil gods long ago, the good gods mostly oppose it, but the neutral gods see it as a neccessary evil to keep gods as a whole going. In this matter the evil gods and the neutral gods are ready to fight the 'good' ones off, making them impotent and unable to do anything about it. That's a way to write it where it doesn't come off as 'those gods held up as paragons of morals and virtue say gently caress you go suffer if you don't worship us'. Same with the Mystra and Kelemvor stuff. The neutral and evil gods team up to get their followers treated fairly, and thus force the good gods to take their side, rather than going 'well we think you should stop favoring nice/good people even though we oppose anyone who isn't nice/good'. But that's not how it's written. Edit: basically what i'm saying is alignments are loving stupid, and even dumber in the whole 'plot', especially where gods are involved. Edit 2: Ao is great because holy poo poo the writers screwed up with him too in the opposite way. He's supposed to be ineffable and unapproachable and beyond mortal morality, he supports all lines of thoughts. Except every time he shows up or is written about, he punishes evil gods and rewards good ones, encouraging them to be 'more good' KittyEmpress fucked around with this message at 04:53 on Dec 20, 2014 |
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Dec 20, 2014 04:51
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KittyEmpress posted:Edit 2: Ao is great because holy poo poo the writers screwed up with him too in the opposite way. He's supposed to be ineffable and unapproachable and beyond mortal morality, he supports all lines of thoughts. Except every time he shows up or is written about, he punishes evil gods and rewards good ones, encouraging them to be 'more good' Could you provide examples? Bane and Myrkul were the ones who actively took the Tablets of Fate, firstly, and after Bane and Torm were both destroyed during the Time of Troubles, Torm was brought back because he sacrificed himself while acting within his portfolio. Bane could be too, if you look at it in terms of spreading strife, but it's less tangible and I wouldn't blame Ao for saying "Sod that prick" after he stole the tablets. I always enjoyed that part where Torm was in Tantras after being cast down, and he found out that his followers were doing horrible things "for his own good" They were so heartbroken when he chastised them that, when he went to fight Bane, they begged him to let them die so he could strengthen himself on their spirit energy. I don't quite know why, but that part stuck with me. Bane was pumped up on souls of the dead that Myrkul had channelled into him, which is something that bastard would do. Speaking of Bane, I really do not like how he was reintroduced into 4th edition. I have... let's say "severe reservations" about 4th edition as a game system, but the way that the transition to 4th edition was handled in the Realms was piss-awful. Unless I really missed something, one day Bane, who had been dead for years, just burst out of Iyachtu Xvim's body and was right back in it. That's not really trying, is it? I also hated how they nuked so many interesting intermediate and lesser powers in the change as well, but that's another concern. Fake Edit: Also, Salvatore's transitions trilogy from 3rd to 4th edition was awful. He's written some good books and a fair few "meh" ones, but those were appalling. I bought his most recent trilogy, but am almost scared to read them for fear that they are just as bad.
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Dec 20, 2014 06:44
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JustJeff88 posted:Unless I really missed something, one day Bane, who had been dead for years, just burst out of Iyachtu Xvim's body and was right back in it. That's not really trying, is it? This actually happened in 3.5. Bane pops out of his son Iyachtu's body and within 6 months has taken over 90% of his old territory, has re-earned his status as the most terrifying and powerful of dark gods, and has singlehandedly driven the cult of Cyric into hiding, because Banites would stab Cyricians whenever they had a chance, for daring to usurp Bane's power and worship. Then in 4e the gods team up and seal Cyric to some throne or something? And when he goes missing, suddenly everyone who followed Cyric is following Bane, and bane totally capitalizes on it, makes himself even more powerful, subjugates a bunch of 'evil' races while the spellplague is going on and the world is in chaos too. But yeah Torm was who I meant, I forgot they justified it with 'well he did his job so he gets to bend the rules'. And yeah it was pretty cool, every tormite over the age of what, 14? willingly offered themselves up in sacrifice to empower Torm to fight Bane.
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Dec 20, 2014 07:24
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KittyEmpress posted:This actually happened in 3.5. Bane pops out of his son Iyachtu's body and within 6 months has taken over 90% of his old territory, has re-earned his status as the most terrifying and powerful of dark gods, and has singlehandedly driven the cult of Cyric into hiding, because Banites would stab Cyricians whenever they had a chance, for daring to usurp Bane's power and worship. I believe that Cyric was banned to his throne because he (and Shar) masterminded the plot to destroy Mystra/Midnight, which caused untold destruction and led to the Spellplague which was the transition cataclysm leading to 4th edition in the Realms. That's all I know about it as most of my reading predates that point. As I said, I am neither a big fan of 4th edition nor what they did in FR to move to that point.
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Dec 20, 2014 19:11
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KittyEmpress posted:Forgotten Realms is loving stupid.
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Dec 20, 2014 19:32
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Beginners tip for playing Forgotten Realms: Use house-rules liberally. Or preferably just house-rule the books out the window and play Eberron instead
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Dec 20, 2014 20:56
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You know, I get awfully loving tired of smarmy Internet know-it-alls taking the piss out of FR. It's become very much one of those things that is shat on because of its own popularity. The reason FR has done so well as a world is that it allows players to have just about any kind of adventure that they want and make their own mark on the world. Granted, a lot of it is due to the constant demand for Tolkein-esque "high fantasy", but FR lets people slay dragons, trek the desert, unknot political intrigue, explore pseudo-Incan not-at-all South America, and go to "Seriously Not China/Japan", a.k.a. Kara Tur. It may be generic, but it's fun. People make such a big deal out of Dark Sun, in part because it's niche and in part because it's another bloody apocalypse scenario and some people have this massive hard-on for anything that is bleak and depressing. I enjoyed the Prism Pentad quite a lot, but in the end Dark Sun is a bleak dying planet where a good day is one in which you don't die of dehydration or get mind-raped by ants because they have psionic powers. You can't explore the frozen north in Dark Sun because there isn't one, and any big changes ruin the theme of the world. FR lets people do just about anything, and that's part of the appeal. If anything, FR is a victim of having too much stuff and promoting too many ideas. Generic, sure, but it's a fun generic that opens up a lot of possibilities, and that appeals to a lot of people. Greenwood's self-insert and "woe is me" drow rangers aside, it's a fun world with infinite potential. If you don't like it or want something more specific/specialised, fine... find that and enjoy that, but stop denigrating things that are fun because you're too insecure to enjoy what you enjoy without tearing down what other people like.
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Dec 20, 2014 23:32
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JustJeff88 posted:You know, I get awfully loving tired of smarmy Internet know-it-alls taking the piss out of FR. It's become very much one of those things that is shat on because of its own popularity. The reason FR has done so well as a world is that it allows players to have just about any kind of adventure that they want and make their own mark on the world. Granted, a lot of it is due to the constant demand for Tolkein-esque "high fantasy", but FR lets people slay dragons, trek the desert, unknot political intrigue, explore pseudo-Incan not-at-all South America, and go to "Seriously Not China/Japan", a.k.a. Kara Tur. It may be generic, but it's fun. People make such a big deal out of Dark Sun, in part because it's niche and in part because it's another bloody apocalypse scenario and some people have this massive hard-on for anything that is bleak and depressing. I enjoyed the Prism Pentad quite a lot, but in the end Dark Sun is a bleak dying planet where a good day is one in which you don't die of dehydration or get mind-raped by ants because they have psionic powers. You can't explore the frozen north in Dark Sun because there isn't one, and any big changes ruin the theme of the world. FR lets people do just about anything, and that's part of the appeal. I actually don't mind the FR setting (from what I've seen of it - I don't actually play tabletop D&D) or generic fantasy in general. I just hate the Wall of the Faithless. It drags the whole thing down for me to know that that thing canonically exists, at least in pre-4e settings. For me, that single thing turns the setting into something bleak and depressing where it would otherwise be open and fun like you described. I have to remove it from my personal headcanon to get any enjoyment out of the setting. That's why I had a lot of trouble enjoying MOTB, despite the fact that it was well-written in the technical sense. Praetorian Mage fucked around with this message at 00:01 on Dec 21, 2014 |
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Dec 20, 2014 23:56
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Praetorian Mage posted:I actually don't mind the FR setting (from what I've seen of it - I don't actually play tabletop D&D) or generic fantasy in general. I just hate the Wall of the Faithless. It drags the whole thing down for me to know that that thing canonically exists, at least in pre-4e settings. For me, that single thing turns the setting into something bleak and depressing where it would otherwise be open and fun like you described. I have to remove it from my personal headcanon to get any enjoyment out of the setting. That's why I had a lot of trouble enjoying MOTB, despite the fact that it was well-written in the technical sense. That actually kind of sums up Forgotten Realms, though; on one hand it's a happy cheerful little fantasy world with shining heroes and good gods that just want to make life not suck for all the people. On the other hand...Baldur's Gate happened and Sarevok got up to all kinds of nastiness. Underneath that shiny surface is a world that isn't afraid to be terrifyingly awful.
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Dec 21, 2014 00:14
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JustJeff88 posted:You know, I get awfully loving tired of smarmy Internet know-it-alls taking the piss out of FR. It's become very much one of those things that is shat on because of its own popularity. The reason FR has done so well as a world is that it allows players to have just about any kind of adventure that they want and make their own mark on the world. Granted, a lot of it is due to the constant demand for Tolkein-esque "high fantasy", but FR lets people slay dragons, trek the desert, unknot political intrigue, explore pseudo-Incan not-at-all South America, and go to "Seriously Not China/Japan", a.k.a. Kara Tur. It may be generic, but it's fun. People make such a big deal out of Dark Sun, in part because it's niche and in part because it's another bloody apocalypse scenario and some people have this massive hard-on for anything that is bleak and depressing. I enjoyed the Prism Pentad quite a lot, but in the end Dark Sun is a bleak dying planet where a good day is one in which you don't die of dehydration or get mind-raped by ants because they have psionic powers. You can't explore the frozen north in Dark Sun because there isn't one, and any big changes ruin the theme of the world. FR lets people do just about anything, and that's part of the appeal. It's going to be all right.
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Dec 21, 2014 01:04
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My main complaint about FR, besides the dumb gods and their politics, is the division of good and evil nations. Good nations are all predominantly white and based off western European nations. You get Cormyr and Tethyr and Never winter and waterdeep and all that. Meanwhile you also get chult, where savage dinosaur fighting spear using African people live, who are used as slave labor by Amn, the greedy Spanish nation where nothing matters besides profits, who are rivals of Calimshan who are the Persian/Arabian nation where women are viewed as worthless for anything besides sex and thus expected to sell themselves to harems or sex houses, and where you're expected to sell your own mother into slavery if it will help you. The two real execptions are the Mulhorandi who are good devout Egyptians with lots of divine blooded people... Except they suffered a schism and the evil Thay rose out, who are slave using whip cracking Egyptian mages. Rashemen is sorta an exception too, except for the fact that they're viewed by the wider world to be savage barbarians.
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Dec 21, 2014 01:04
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I don't know poo poo about FR and I really liked the ending of MotB. I thought it was real ballsy in a thematically appropriate way. It was a bittersweet 'you don't get what you want, but you get what you need' deal. I felt satisfied. Ignorance of FR lore is bliss I guess.
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Dec 21, 2014 01:07
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I just hate FR in the same way I hate most D&D settings because D&D is a loving awful and trite system that brings simple and straightforward gameplay and flexible character generation down in favor of stupid levels and more and more obscure feats and poo poo.
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Dec 21, 2014 03:27
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The best setting (besides Eberron, obviously) is the one where you take a blank piece of paper and draw a city (named after first elven name from a random page in LOTR), scratch up some mountains around it and a forest and coastline too. Pick a random spot and write 'Here Be Dragons' and boom you're done. Tried and true. If you're gonna play a generic setting with messed up lore and patchwork themes you might as well just have fun creating your own as you go along.
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Dec 21, 2014 04:49
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The continued existence of the wall of the faithless is perfectly simple. Kelemvor cuts down on a ton of paperwork by shaving off the atheist, agnostic and the religiously unenthusiastic from the faithful and dumping them in a wall somewhere as soon as they arrive. The loads of time that would be spend writing names down on ledgers and handing out directions to Helms patio he has all to himself so he can focus on brooding, nodding solemnly and providing cryptic answers to the remaining god botherers. He can also save big bucks on upkeep by using the faithless as a cheap and reliable construction material. Do you know how much it costs to spackle a Necropolis every century? Next to nothing if you exploit your core competencies!
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Dec 22, 2014 05:45
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Raygereio posted:And if I were the DM I'd laugh in your face for even showing up with a character minmaxed for combat while ignoring the story and bitching that your character doesn't get a good night's rest while surrounded by hostile spirits. You don't really know how warlocks work do you? Anyway retard I'm sure if you were laughing in my face at my character while giving pass to the special snowflake spirit shartman who is also a hagspawn but a pretty hagspawn counter to his entire race or whatever I don't think that anything of value would be lost. Also to counteract the vitriol leveled at this one bad expansion I really like all the rest of the neverwinter nights that I've played. Motherfucker fucked around with this message at 10:28 on Dec 22, 2014 |
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Dec 22, 2014 10:26
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I didn't care for MotB either. I wanted to like it, I tried to, but I ended up putting it down partway through and not picking it back up. I didn't like the hunger mechanic, and for some reason it felt like a slog. The menagerie was interesting. I watched some youtube videos to learn the story and ending after seeing all the goon praise it garners. Even after that it just seemed "meh" to me. But I am glad so many people enjoyed it. Different strokes and all that.
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Dec 22, 2014 11:11
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Motherfucker posted:You don't really know how warlocks work do you? Motherfucker posted:You wanna rest between battles you better be prepared to spend eight hours and if you get interrupted AT ALL you don't get to recharge your spells! We get it. You don't like MotB. That's okay: a lot of people disliked it (those people generally don't make a whiny post that boils down to "Wah, reading dialogue is hard! Wah, I'm an idiot who can't handle not being to rest after each battle!" though). Move on dude. As an aside I find it utterly hilarious that you bitched about MotB's plot being on rails, while apparently liking the rest of the NWN franchise which is just as much on rails. Raygereio fucked around with this message at 14:21 on Dec 22, 2014 |
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Dec 22, 2014 12:54
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JacksAngryBiome posted:I didn't care for MotB either. I wanted to like it, I tried to, but I ended up putting it down partway through and not picking it back up. I didn't like the hunger mechanic, and for some reason it felt like a slog. The menagerie was interesting. This is exactly how I feel about KotOR 2.
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Dec 22, 2014 13:19
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gently caress. I'm playing through some of the premium modules for NWN1. I've done Kingmaker and Shadowguard so far. Kingmaker was interesting, but the countdown to the election made me feel rushed, and there wasn't much interaction with your companions. The ending was also pretty abrupt, without much closure. Overall, I wanted more, and I thought there was a lot of wasted potential. Shadowguard was looking really good. The plot, setting, and characters were all interesting, and there were some good quests. The first act ends with an escape sequence that feels like a classic start to a grand adventure, and I was all set to go on, have more adventures, and learn more about the world and the people in it. Except that's not the first act. That's the whole module. The plot just loving ends. There should be some kind of rule against doing a lot to get people interested in your world, characters, factions, and plot only to have the story end at what should be the beginning. I've read that a sequel was planned but never made. Even so, you shouldn't just release the very beginning of a story unless you know for drat sure that you can deliver the rest of it, especially if you're going to make people pay for it. I can't believe they had the gall to charge people for this back in the day. I'm just glad I got it for free. Are all the official modules like this? Should I just start looking into user-made modules instead?
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Dec 25, 2014 03:32
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Darkness over Daggerford was both excellent and had closure as I recall.
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Dec 25, 2014 05:23
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Fuzz posted:Darkness over Daggerford was both excellent and had closure as I recall. Yeah, that's what I've read. It's supposed to be 25-30 hours long, too, so that's good. I honestly wish I hadn't played Shadowguard. I'd rather not have played anything than play something that builds up my interest and then cuts everything off.
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Dec 25, 2014 07:06
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Praetorian Mage posted:Yeah, that's what I've read. It's supposed to be 25-30 hours long, too, so that's good. Nah, not nearly that long... it was like 10 hours at best and doesn't delve into crazy epic quest type stuff, but it tells a great story about the region and it had a really kickass overworld map setup like what Storm of Zehir had like 6 years later. I think Ossian's code was actually what Obsidian used for SoZ.
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Dec 25, 2014 15:36
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Where is the best place to download these modules, assuming that they are still available? I have NWN Diamond on GOG, which comes with Kingmaker, but apart from that I wasn't sure if these were even still available with direct support for NWN long since retired.
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Dec 25, 2014 18:39
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Fuzz posted:Nah, not nearly that long... it was like 10 hours at best and doesn't delve into crazy epic quest type stuff, but it tells a great story about the region and it had a really kickass overworld map setup like what Storm of Zehir had like 6 years later. I think Ossian's code was actually what Obsidian used for SoZ. My mistake, then. The review I read said it had as much content as the original expansions, so I assumed it would be about as long as Hordes of the Underdark. Still, it sounds better than the disappointment I've had so far.
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Dec 26, 2014 00:10
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JustJeff88 posted:Where is the best place to download these modules, assuming that they are still available? I have NWN Diamond on GOG, which comes with Kingmaker, but apart from that I wasn't sure if these were even still available with direct support for NWN long since retired. The OP has some links to get the other premium modules, but apparently those links only work if you bought them back in the day and just need a way to authenticate them. My understanding is that there's currently no legal way to get the premium modules that weren't included in the Diamond edition. I've been playing Darkness over Daggerford for a good while, mostly doing side quests (which really pile up if you talk to everyone in the first town). It's decent, but so far there have been too many encounters that dump you into close quarters where you're surrounded by enemies. It might not be a huge problem for a fighter, but it's hell on my sorcerer. Sometimes it makes sense in context, like it's an actual ambush or something, but other times it's because the enemies are introduced in a cutscene when you walk through a door that's 20 feet away from them, then when the cutscene ends, suddenly you're right next to them. It probably doesn't help that I'm playing on a higher difficulty, solely because having AoE spells ignore my allies felt like cheating. On normal difficulty I could probably just throw down Evard's Black Tentacles right at my feet in all those fights, but I can't do that now. Overall, the net result seems to be that I simply can't use my best stuff because it'll hurt my allies too much. I've thrown maybe 4 fireballs in the dozens of fights I've had since I got that spell. I should probably just switch back, realism be damned. At least then it might be fun. It's not like the henchman AI or commands are good enough to allow for complex tactics anyway.
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Dec 28, 2014 12:39
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| # ? Jun 8, 2024 07:02 |
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I'm not sure how legal it was, but the premium modules downloaded fine and Bioware automatically set things up to auto authenticate the modules even if you didn't own them previously so it's more than possible to play them now.
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Dec 28, 2014 14:35
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