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We're not the God you're looking for. Thanks for the conversation summaries because god drat, these characters like to talk.
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Dec 11, 2019 08:22
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We are not the Changing God. Pretending to be a god always has a high chance of backfiring, usually when we stumble upon the actual god.
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Dec 11, 2019 09:07
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We are not the Changing God. This is neat. I'm actually nearing the end of a first playthrough of this game myself and enjoying it quite a lot. I totally agree that Aligern comes off like a paranoid nut in this section. Not sure if he gets better since I dumped his rear end and never went back but Callistege is tons cooler anyway so who cares. Nephthys fucked around with this message at 10:58 on Dec 11, 2019 |
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Dec 11, 2019 10:55
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It's too early in the game for the almost inevitable plot twist where we probably learn that we are in fact the Changing God, so right now we are not. The general writing standard here would get more of a pass from me if the setting was your usual fantasy poo poo. I'm willing to overlook and handwave a hell of a lot as 'gently caress it, it's magic'. But the moment you start the technobabble and tell me it's science all my goodwill goes out of the window, because science has to make sense where magic does not, and it's much harder to introduce shiny new things that still have to be theoretically possible while still being interesting and impressive. The best settings have magic that makes as much sense as science, of course, but that's very rare and not to be expected from anything.
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Dec 11, 2019 11:07
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We are not the Changing God. The endless sniping between Aligern and Callistege feels really stilted here. In the hands of a better writer, I might expect to see a sober exchange that shows something else about the setting and/or the Aligern/Callistege relationship (like why are they even cooperating rather than openly in conflict?). Or they might keep it catty and play the whole thing for laughs. Here? It's just a lot of "Aligern and Callistege are whining at each other and where is my large shutup button". It's insufferable. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqTjKhYh4fs Black Robe posted:The general writing standard here would get more of a pass from me if the setting was your usual fantasy poo poo. I'm willing to overlook and handwave a hell of a lot as 'gently caress it, it's magic'. But the moment you start the technobabble and tell me it's science all my goodwill goes out of the window, because science has to make sense where magic does not, and it's much harder to introduce shiny new things that still have to be theoretically possible while still being interesting and impressive.
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Dec 11, 2019 11:32
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quote:Ray, when someone asks if you're a God, you say yes I'm kind of impressed with the writing for this game, it's somehow managing to bore me more than Pillars of Eternity. Though to be fair to PoE it didn't actually have an awful lot of writing or characterization for most stuff, just endless, endless repetitive combat.
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Dec 11, 2019 12:31
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Of course we are the Changing God! I mean, it seems pretty obvious that we are and I don't really think the game will do anything clever with but this could get us into some amusing situation if we ever get asked to back up our claims.
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Dec 11, 2019 13:28
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We are. Why not? If we're not now I'm sure we'll be by the end.
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Dec 11, 2019 14:42
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We are the changing god. This is a toilet thought but, they should have includded a roll tide.
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Dec 11, 2019 15:11
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we are not the changing god
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Dec 11, 2019 15:15
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NGDBSS posted:The endless sniping between Aligern and Callistege feels really stilted here. In the hands of a better writer, I might expect to see a sober exchange that shows something else about the setting and/or the Aligern/Callistege relationship (like why are they even cooperating rather than openly in conflict?). Or they might keep it catty and play the whole thing for laughs. Here? It's just a lot of "Aligern and Callistege are whining at each other and where is my large shutup button". It's insufferable. It's not great, but this is the closest we've come in the dialog to things an actual human being - and not an exposition bot - might say. Judging by the "I thought I could fix you" dialogue they were in some kind of romantic relationship which makes the end of the Qorro "crisis" (uuuuuuugh) funnier if you imagine these two set in a telenovela. It's still filled with clunkers like "vivisectionist's heart" but Callistege being upset because Aligern is a judgemental rear end in a top hat is the one moment of humanity in this cesspit of "isn't this mysterious?" exposition.
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Dec 11, 2019 15:52
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"Ray, when someone asks you if you're a god, you say 'yes!'" Also, "drit" is not a typo in the game, it's Ninth World slang. (It's a portmanteau of "dirt" and "grit.")
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Dec 11, 2019 16:02
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Ray, something something, say YES We are a Clever Jack after all. In any case, I'm not gonna defend the writing and I'm going to stop defending the worldbuilding; you either dig it or you don't, and I'm definitely in camp Dig It. Also, Aligern does get quite a bit better; I decided to go with him my first playthrough because I was a ranged attack Nano and I felt I needed the melee support. This turned out to be wrong on a number of levels, but the grumpy rear end in a top hat grew on me, though I suspect at least part of that is due to how the Tides mechanic impacts party members. The story behind his tattoos is actually pretty interesting. In either case, I'm excited to see more of Cal because I've always wanted to learn what her deal was and I suspect she'll be the better choice for many more reasons besides. I'm interesting to see what party the thread decides to stick with you with. I have my guesses.
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Dec 11, 2019 18:33
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GreatEvilKing, would it be cool if I talked about chargen in Numenera (specifically Tides of Numenera) or did you want to talk about that later?
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Dec 13, 2019 08:47
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Snorb posted:GreatEvilKing, would it be cool if I talked about chargen in Numenera (specifically Tides of Numenera) or did you want to talk about that later? Go for it!
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Dec 13, 2019 16:22
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TheGreatEvilKing posted:Go for it! To be honest, I didn't really have a whole lot at the moment to talk about regarding the entirety of character creation-- we all know how Might, Speed, and Intellect work, we know our character For every point we invest in Might, we gain 1 Health. I shouldn't have to explain what Health is. (I should mention that, like any good Baldur's Gate-inspired RPG, if YOU run out of Health, you die. If your party members run out of Health, they instead get beaten into unconsciousness and automatically revive once the party's out of danger. Thanks, guys.) For every 2 points we invest in Speed, our Evasion increases by 5% (because the main die used in Numenera for task rolls is a d20.) Evasion helps us avoid Physical attacks. For every 2 points we invest in Intellect, our Willpower increases by 5%. Willpower helps us avoid and resist non-physical attacks. (Note the lowercase P here.) Skills have four tiers of proficiency, which our descriptor, our choices in character creation and advancement, and certain pieces of gear can increase. By default, we're practiced in most things. We take no penalties to task rolls, we gain no bonuses. Inability in a skill (the red dot next to our skill) means we take a -15% penalty to rolls involving that skill. Because we're jacks, we have inability with Heavy Weapons. No surprises there, you want to get your Cloud Strife on and swing a huge-rear end greatsword, you should have been a glaive. Trained in a skill (the teal dot next to our skill) means we gain a +15% bonus to rolls involving that skill. (In case you're wondering, "Melee Weapons" and "Ranged Weapons" are skills in this game, as are the weapon weight categories "Light Weapons," "Medium Weapons," and "Heavy Weapons.") Specialized in a skill (two teal dots next to our skill) means we gain a total +30% bonus to rolls involving that skill. If you're smart enough to become specialized in Light Weapons, you're better at this game than I am-- every light weapon in Numenera has an inherent +15% bonus to attack rolls. (Why, yes, it's entirely possible to get an light weapon attack roll completely 100% accurate! Who the hell cares if your base damage is 2 Physical at this point? That's still "2 damage, no attack roll required," and you can boost the damage with Effort.) --- I should also point out that, instead of bonuses/penalties to skill checks, some of the skills directly affect the Last Castoff's capabilities. Initiative: If you have inability in Initiative, you're probably going to go last every combat round. If you're trained or specialized, you're usually going first (or near-first.) Running: Inability in Running penalizes your movement speed in combat (the purple line that shows you how far you can move.) Training and specialization increase your movement speed. Healing: You heal an additional +5 Health when using items or abilities to heal if you're trained in Healing, and a total +10 Health if you're specialized. If you have inability in Healing, anyone benefiting from your healing abilities/items gets a -2 penalty to the recovered Health. Concentration: If we have inability in Concentration, one of the equipment slots for Bonded Items is grayed out. (Bonded Items give us a boost to one ability, in exchange for a penalty to another.) If we're trained in this, we ignore the penalty from one Bonded Item (the one on the left in the character sheet.) If we're specialized, we ignore the penalties from both Bonded Items. Endurance: Similar to the Healing bonuses/penalties, except these affect our maximum Health. Cypher Use: Inability here reduces how many cyphers (one-time-use The key word here is "safely." By default, glaives and jacks can equip two cyphers (nanos can equip three, lucky bastards.) Those are the teal-bordered circles on our character sheet. Equipping more (in the orange-bordered circles) gives us the Cypher Sickness status effect, reducing our Might by -2, plus an additional -1 Might, Speed, and Intellect for every additional cypher equipped. If we equip more than six additional cyphers, every cypher the Last Castoff is carrying explodes, killing her instantly. This is an achievement. --- The last thing I want to talk about is damage. Just like D&D and other RPGs, there's several damage types that'll come into play (assuming we don't dodge out of combat.) Physical damage is exactly that: Punching someone, knifing them, cutting them with a verred (a forked two-bladed sword) or bashing them with a mace. Physical damage is reduced by Armor. Energy damage is damage like fire, electricity, and so on. Characters who take Energy damage are pushed back a small distance. This is reduced by Resistance. Chemical damage is damage from acid, alkali, and other corrosive substances. This does damage over time, and is also reduced by Resistance. Transdimensional damage is damage through other dimensions (...I got nothin' on this one.) Transdimensional damage cripples its target, temporarily lowering their Evasion and movement speed. (Also reduced by Resistance.) Callistege's Onslaught esotery is permanently locked into inflicting Transdimensional damage. Mental damage is damage done directly to a target's brain and nervous system. Fun stuff. Mental damage dazes its target, temporarily penalizing skill checks and Speed. (And it's reduced by Resistance.) Finally, Relativistic damage is loving terrifying. It's not reduced by armor or heroic resistance at all.
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Dec 14, 2019 06:38
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I feel like Monte Cook doesn't actually know what "relativistic" means.
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Dec 14, 2019 11:00
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I dunno, if it were me I would have just renamed Chemical, Transdimensional, and Relativistic to Corrosive, Ethereal, and Unstoppable. I don't even think that was Monte-- the pen and paper game just uses "is reduced by Armor" and "is not reduced by Armor" when it comes to how much damage you're about to take.
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Dec 14, 2019 16:00
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Does this mean as you spend your Might on Effort you lower your HP?
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Dec 15, 2019 19:31
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Voting closed! By one vote, we are the Changing God! Time to ramble out an update.
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Dec 15, 2019 22:01
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Hypocrisy posted:Does this mean as you spend your Might on Effort you lower your HP? In the pen and paper version, yes. You didn't have a Health stat, so your Might/Speed/Intellect pools served as your health and mana. Most damage from combat drains your Might first, then Speed, then Intellect, but other abilities might target Intellect or Speed first. Some of your powers cost M/S/I to use, but you have a stat called Edge that reduces that cost-- Aggression, an ongoing power that lets the glaive be more accurate with melee attacks in exchange for making melee and ranged defense rolls harder, usually costs 2 Might to activate, but this cost is reduced to 1 Might straight out of character creation, for example. Edge also applies to Effort, which is spending your pools to make an associated task easier, or doing +3 damage per Effort spent during combat. In my last post, I mentioned, theoretically, a glaive can make a ranged weapon attack 100% reliable thanks to light weapons being easier to attack with and specializing with light weapons. (Does this mean you can spend Effort to increase damage, even though at this point you need to roll above a zero on a d20? The book and the subreddit are a bit mum, but hell, if I were GMing for you, I'd allow it!) Because you do have a Health stat in Tides of Numenera, you don't have to worry about straining yourself thanks to using your abilities. Spending Might to power glaive abilities doesn't reduce your maximum Health, so feel free to Effort away. If it matters, your base stats in Tides of Numenera are: Before Character Creation: 5 Might, 5 Speed, 5 Intellect, 20 Health Glaive: 6 Might, 6 Speed, 5 Intellect, +2 stat points to distribute, 35 Health (+10 per additional Tier after first) Jack: 5 Might, 5 Speed, 5 Intellect, +4 stat points to distribute, 30 Health (+7 per additional Tier after first) Nano: 5 Might, 5 Speed, 7 Intellect, +2 stat points to distribute, 25 Health (+5 per additional Tier after first) Inability in Endurance: -2 Health Practiced in Endurance: +0 Health Trained in Endurance: +5 Health Specialized in Endurance: +10 Health
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Dec 15, 2019 22:49
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404 Interesting Abilities Not Found This is gonna be a shorter update, because we have one more character generation decision to make that I completely forgot about because it's just not interesting.  Anyway, by thread vote we have concluded that we are the Changing God. Or we're lying to people that we are. Or something.   : I am the Changing God. : I am.We're going all the way!   Of course, the real question is, "what does it mean to be a god in a setting with nanomachines and spacecraft?" Anyway the game is telling us we've gone full egotism here, but we have the memories of the Changing God and his machines respond to our commands.  Mimeon basically tells us we're not the first people to try this bullshit and assigns us a task to prove we're the Changing God.  This said, rather than asking any kind of intelligent questions about the nature of divinity we get thrown back into technobabble and Proper Nouns.  What does this actually mean? I get the Clock is some kind of time fuckery device that does...a thing...but at its core the message is "only the real Changing God could fix the clock." : I will.Now, continuing the tradition of "comparing video games to the Bible", the scene is reminiscent of Elijah calling fire to prove that the LORD is the true God. The Bible, 1 Kings 18:24 posted:And call ye on the name of your gods, and I will call on the name of the LORD: and the God that answereth by fire, let him be God. And all the people answered and said, It is well spoken. God of course answers with fire proving he should be worshiped. Thus we are given the challenge of replicating the Changing God's miracle and fixing this clock to do...a thing. This is completely undermined by us getting assigned the exact same task if we don't claim to be the Changing God, but...well...I sure as hell can't find any meaning in what we've seen so far either.   So let's take a look at this clock.  To describe a futuristic clock, we say it looks like a clock. Really. : Examine the machine. : The towering mechanism wavers in the air. Similar to Callistege, it appears to be in several states at once, though all of the machine's states are in the exact same location.: You can't touch it either - your hand passes right through the structure. : There is the faintest sound of metal sliding against leather. You slap a hand on the central clock face, activating the clock's arcane powers. You're not sure what it will do to them, but it's better than what they'll do to you.: There is a flash. Arcs of energy stretch out from the clock, over your shoulders to your would-be attackers. You don't see what happens to the, but they quickly disappear along with their screams.  The clock shoots out a purple ribbon thing that hits the stone statues that escaped from someone's abstract art collection. Let's approach one.  : Look more closely at the changes around you. These are where the tutorial memories of having our own robot armies, looting underwater cities, and fighting to defend our city come in. : Examine the images on the surface of the device. : Look at the memory in the underwater city.: The memory is recent. Two men, both with tattoos like your own, are in an underwater city searching for something. The denizens of the city chase them from the artifact they seek and ultimately surround and capture them. : Look at the memory in the lush valley. : Look at the memory of the city under siege. So yea, the puzzle is to match the memories with the descriptions the devices give us. It's not hard, but I screw up once because I'm not paying attention. Oh well.  Once we do this the central pendulum on the clock starts moving and it shoots purple lasers. Yayyy!  Let's talk to our deluded cultists about our success.  : He smiles, though reservations still dance in his eyes. "Hush, Cas. Our inspiration had a question for us once the task we set for her was complete.": He frowns. "Unfortunately, your task is not entirely complete. We told you our price. That decision stands." Right, those guys. We can't just tell him they're traitors like we remembered, we have to go interact with the clock.    And...we're trapped in a generic MC Escher staircase with 3 randos. Great.   This has some mildly interesting characterization for the Last Castoff.   : Who are you?Notably, we don't actually get recognized by the three traitors as the Changing God, despite us telling Casmeen that we were (and given the way Casmeen was looking at us, I am thoroughly glad this is not a Bioware RPG).   You'll notice none of our replies are "it is I, the Changing God". This heavily implies we're just lying our asses off to the Cult, which normally I'd be against, but they worship a god they call "The Deathcheater". They kinda have this coming. : I'll ask the questions. What were you doing in that clock? I will need to do an update on the Tides, but we seem to be getting our egotism score pretty high.   : Inside the clock, perhaps? : The varjellen shuts its eyes. Six nostrils open wide as it inhales deeply.  : Why did the Changing God trap you in the clock?Yea, jig's up, we're full of poo poo.    : Why can't you get us out of here?  : I don't know how to get out of here. : I don't see any way out.This is because we need to get railroaded into one last gameplay choice. : The varjellen stretches its neck, putting its face within a handspan of yours. It seems to be examining you. Then it says, "Your mind. Only you have the power to change."If only we can change it, how the gently caress did these assholes get here?  I'm gonna pre-empt my usual nitpicking by pointing out that while we are a "clever" jack, Kamose here is "foolish". : I chose an aspect of myself when I was born, deep in the heart of this labyrinth. Is that it?Take a look at the dialog options above. This is the game asking you if there's anything you forgot to fill out on your character sheet. As it so happens, there is. : Diviaticu shakes his head. "I can see what you speak of," it says, and you get a momentary impression that its eyes can see through you. "This aspect describes you, just as I am varjellen, Villon is observant, Kamose is foolish."   : I built a path out of a deep fathom in my mind by recovering memories I had lost.Oh, it's not a metaphor for piecing yourself together, it's an actual literal event. I don't even know.    : I'm a jack-of-all-trades.  : Let me look around. I'll be back. Nope! : The three of them mutter to each other, looking around this strange space, as they try to find another way out. : I don't think I have the ability you're talking about.    : Shut your eyes. Search your memories for this ability they speak of.Hoo boy. I apologize for the screenshot dump, but the game doesn't have portraits for these assholes. I will probably need to start bringing in external images for some of these NPCs, as you can't get to the recall part without proudly listing off the elements of your character sheet. Anyway... : You rifle through your memories, past everything you actually remember to those memories you didn't create yourself. There must be a key or a door - anything that would help you to escape this fathom of your mind.: Just as you're about to give up, you find something, a cluster of sparks, nascent abilities deep within the core of your being. You sense the abilities to speak eloquently, to use a shield with a master's skill, to lurk among the shadows as though they were home... Counterpoint: This poo poo should have been in the character generation screen. But hey, I bet we get some cool abilities if they're gating it here, right?  What does Natural Charisma do? It lets us spend more intellect points when talking.   That sounds badass and supernatural. It gives us minor bonuses to D&D rogue skills (Nocturnal) and a D&D style sneak attack. Really.  Counterattack gives up our turn to make counterattacks when someone tries to hit us and misses, and a defense bonus when carrying a shield. This is the most uninspired poo poo I have ever seen. I want to point out that these are supposed to be core abilities granted by a maybe-divine immortal technologist with access to all kinds of crazy crap like time fuckery, spontaneous regeneration, and his own space station. One of these abilities is "carries a shield". Not like a forcefield or some kind of become a ghost phase out or anything that would be cool or interesting, but literally carries a shield like a medieval knight. The "transdimensional" stealth doesn't actually let us sneak better, it synergizes with out existing sneak skill and lets us do extra damage coming out of stealth. This is the dark secret of Numenera - it doesn't actually have anything interesting to say, so it wraps up the Dungeons and Dragons experience in meaningless sci-fi jargon. You're not just eating a sandwich, you're consuming a transdimensional sandwich. What does that mean? Dunno. What do other dimensions have to do with this? Dunno. Are you mystified yet? Do you wonder about this? No, because it has no deeper meaning. For bonus points, all of these descriptions are blatant lies. The promise is that each focus grants you abilities usable in and out of combat, but only the shadow one does. Silver Tongue is only usable outside combat (barring a scripted chat event, maybe?) and Masters Defense is pure combat abilities. Masters Defense also claims to give you the ability to defend yourself and others against mental attacks, but as far as I can tell it doesn't actually do that. You can't even draw aggro with it. Well, goons, you know what time it is. Pick a focus for the Last Castoff. Justify your choice.
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Dec 16, 2019 00:13
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I vote for the Silver Tongue power. Now I wish we were a Glaive though.Snorb posted:In the pen and paper version, yes. You didn't have a Health stat, so your Might/Speed/Intellect pools served as your health and mana. Most damage from combat drains your Might first, then Speed, then Intellect, but other abilities might target Intellect or Speed first. Some of your powers cost M/S/I to use, but you have a stat called Edge that reduces that cost-- Aggression, an ongoing power that lets the glaive be more accurate with melee attacks in exchange for making melee and ranged defense rolls harder, usually costs 2 Might to activate, but this cost is reduced to 1 Might straight out of character creation, for example. The PnP version sounds extremely Monte Cook. Thanks for all of the information.
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Dec 16, 2019 01:55
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The Last Castoff is a Clever Jack who Breathes Shadow. Primarily because sneak attacking is fun (and might end combats faster!) But mostly because the second and third-tier Breathes Shadow abilities let us do Relativistic damage.
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Dec 16, 2019 03:09
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Snorb posted:The Last Castoff is a Clever Jack who Breathes Shadow. Primarily because sneak attacking is fun (and might end combats faster!)
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Dec 16, 2019 05:46
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Breathes Shadow Maybe if we're sneaky we can avoid more of this badly-written dialogue.
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Dec 16, 2019 09:54
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take Shield Guy because he's the most annoying and maybe if you absorb him he won't talk anymore
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Dec 16, 2019 12:08
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Silver Tongue; hopefully this will help us engage in as little combat as possible.
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Dec 16, 2019 12:46
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Foci are the most disappointing aspect of Tides of Numenera. They're a much bigger part of character creation in the tabletop game, where there are tons of options and many of them are pretty interesting. Here we only get three and one of them is boring as all get-out conceptually, before we even get into how disappointing their Tier I abilities seem. FWIW, there are scenarios that are not necessarily combat but do involve the turn-based encounter mechanic (one notable if optional one in Act III that I loved and that I'm sure you will gleefully tear to shreds) that definitely include Intellect and speech-based skills. I believe these bonuses are also available in the choose-your-own-adventure mechanic that I don't think crops up until towards the end of Act I. In any case, because I want you to suffer for tearing apart my problematic fave, I'm going to vote for Silver Tongue because it's the one that's going to open up new content for you to be tormented by. 
Ace Transmuter fucked around with this message at 21:43 on Dec 16, 2019 |
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Dec 16, 2019 20:09
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agradine posted:unclosed spoiler [spoiler]you may want to edit the spoiler tag you never closed
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Dec 16, 2019 20:29
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MegaZeroX posted:[spoiler]you may want to edit the spoiler tag you never closed Ah, yes. Thanks for the catch. My apologies.
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Dec 16, 2019 21:43
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Silver Tongue we will need this to match our soon to be argyria from all that colloidal silver tide.
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Dec 16, 2019 23:14
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Of all the things to limit, though, why Foci? There's all kinds of awesome options in Discovery and Destiny that would be awesome-- hell, I've seen someone pull off "is a Swift Nano who Needs No Weapons," which gives one scarily-effective Instead, we're limited to "I speak bullshit," "I'm adept at the victimless crime of stabbing people in the dark," and... ...okay, Masters Defense is in Discovery, but that's more about "I'm trained out the rear end in defense tasks, and I have a shield so I'm better at defense tasks, have fun trying to hit me." What I'm saying is this game could have used Foci like "Fuses Flesh and Steel," "Works Back Alleys," "Explores Dark Places," "Masters Weaponry," "Focuses Mind Over Matter," or hell, stuff like "Acts Without Consequence," "Never Says Die," "Radiates Vitality," or even "Wields Words Like Weapons."
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Dec 17, 2019 02:08
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Snorb posted:Of all the things to limit, though, why Foci? There's all kinds of awesome options in Discovery and Destiny that would be awesome-- hell, I've seen someone pull off "is a Swift Nano who Needs No Weapons," which gives one scarily-effective For bonus points I'm pretty sure the game is going to go down the introspection route where we explore the world to discover poo poo about ourself based on the dialogue we've seen and that our Proper Noun Antagonist is in our head. None of these foci actually equip us to deal with that. From the flashbacks we're supposed to be the Changing God's answer to the Sorrow, so why we get the same generic foci as these losers I'll never know. agradine posted:In any case, because I want you to suffer for tearing apart my problematic fave, I'm going to vote for Silver Tongue because it's the one that's going to open up new content for you to be tormented by. You are a monster.
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Dec 17, 2019 09:31
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agradine posted:In any case, because I want you to suffer for tearing apart my problematic fave, I'm going to vote for Silver Tongue because it's the one that's going to open up new content for you to be tormented by. Seconding this on the basis of: TheGreatEvilKing posted:You are a monster.
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Dec 17, 2019 14:53
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PurpleXVI posted:Breathes Shadow I'll second this. Eat the fishman, maybe you'll get gills. Not that I don't want to see what this game offers, but on the basis we've seen so much uninteresting dialogue already. No offense to those who like it, but this stuff is not my jam. As far as I understand the story, we were in a dreamscape, then fell into a sleep-chamber thing, and got brought back to consciousness by two bickering wizardy people with personal issues. After that we ran off to a cult to find out who we were, claimed we were a god, and then entered another dreamscape with three bickering people this time. Now we're choosing to absorb one for...reasons. Did I catch all of that? Snorb posted:Of all the things to limit, though, why Foci? There's all kinds of awesome options in Discovery and Destiny that would be awesome-- hell, I've seen someone pull off "is a Swift Nano who Needs No Weapons," which gives one scarily-effective Yeah, these sound a lot more interesting and their absence is probably due to them either not being able to fit it into the story they wrote and want to tell, lack of effort, or not enough time to program and write the story changing drastically. As pretentious as the writing is, I'd put my bet on the first one. The thing with bringing tabletop games to video is that the mechanics are relatively easy to implement, having already been laid out before the programmer, but story is where it usually suffers. The tabletop has a GM/DM/whatever at the table who can adapt to changes in the situation and provide a customized experience. Computers are experts at calculations and math, but are only as smart as the programmer behind them. Most people can't nearly match the calculative power of a computer, but they bring human reason and empathy as their other assets which allows for a very adaptive and customized story. To get past that, the game was designed with only as many contingencies to the story as they could program, which usually results in it being rather constrained. Then again, I'm no expert, this is is just my opinion. I'm not trying to suggest one is better than the other, but I'm definitely a bit biased on this point- take it with a grain of salt.
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Dec 17, 2019 17:15
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Part of it is also that most PnP RPG's have abilities that just do not translate easily to a cRPG. Either they'd have only one or two niche uses in the particular story, or their effects would be real hard to deal with(like imagine if you could use Disintegrate, Dig or Rock to Mud to carve tunnels in Baldur's Gate/NWN dungeons.).
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Dec 19, 2019 01:15
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PurpleXVI posted:Part of it is also that most PnP RPG's have abilities that just do not translate easily to a cRPG. Either they'd have only one or two niche uses in the particular story, or their effects would be real hard to deal with(like imagine if you could use Disintegrate, Dig or Rock to Mud to carve tunnels in Baldur's Gate/NWN dungeons.).
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Dec 19, 2019 02:02
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Weird that I feel the need to write this. I'm going to defend the original PS:T a tiny bit here. I think one of the things that made PS:T great was that all this vague philosophy stuff? It kind of just blew your mind AFTER the game was over. You didn't even notice it at all during the gameplay. I think that's something tides of numenera 100% misses. Also while PS:T was strange for strangeness sake, they were using a really GREAT (imo) source material for that strangeness. Basically they looked at the genre, took the strangest coherent setting that was well written, chose that, then used that, and didn't add any extra strangeness. Also the moment to moment story/plot/pacing of PS:T was just... consistently awesome. Even if none of it made any sense and nothing held it together, it was just one blockbuster amazing set piece and character after another. You wake up in a morgue, a talking skull is your new best friend. Gangs and demons with tails. What if the borg, except no it's just rats? A maze. A major boss of the game is just a gigantic dialogue tree? Blacksmiths and angels and obligatory sewers oh my. (Optional side area maze with sick loot). You go to hell you go to heaven. You stage a jailbreak and murder an archangel. THEN things get weird. What was novel at the time, and IMO was still unique until disco elysium came out was just how many different ways there were to resolve quests, ignore quests, skip quests, double complete quests, work for an extremely minor side faction, or flat out gain rewards from a dialogue tree. Most of the experience (as in the stuff you use to gain levelups) and awesome rewards in PS:T came from dialogue options you weren't forced to even see. It makes a lot of the party members feel deeper than they do in mass effect. Sure bioware has romance, and companion quests, but in PS:T you actually had to care enough about your party members to start to understand them and navigate a confusing maze of a dialogue tree that would bring you closer to them only if you picked the options that made roleplaying sense, not just because you did their side quests.
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Dec 19, 2019 07:15
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I don't think you need to defend the plot of PS:T. It's genuinely one of the best. The combat isn't good, but most old CRPGs have aged poorly in that aspect.
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Dec 20, 2019 00:09
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