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I strongly suspect the descriptions as opposed to actual visual representation are there simply because Planescape did it. That was because of technical limitations, though; no such excuse today. As for choices, let's take Callistege to the Cult, that should be a laugh. e: Oh, goddamnit, sniped. Update's on the previous page, folks.
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Dec 8, 2019 22:43
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So I'll be that goon that'll argue with the OP, but screaming "this is a visual medium" at descriptive text in an Infinity Engine game feels to me a bit like barking up the wrong tree. Just wait till you get to game mechanic that's basically Choose-Your-Own-Adventure-Novellas. Tides, I believe, are new inventions for this game (as is most of world building elements), and they're more akin to personality traits than alignment. As far as these things go they're better integrated in this game than most "moral choice" systems and definitely better than any D&D game has integrated D&D alignment. In any case, I ended up taking Aligern with me, so I'll vote for Callistege and The Order of Truth.
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Dec 8, 2019 23:40
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anilEhilated posted:As for choices, let's take Callistege to the Cult, that should be a laugh. I'll second this. Might as well have fun with the game.
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Dec 8, 2019 23:51
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agradine posted:So I'll be that goon that'll argue with the OP, but screaming "this is a visual medium" at descriptive text in an Infinity Engine game feels to me a bit like barking up the wrong tree. Just wait till you get to game mechanic that's basically Choose-Your-Own-Adventure-Novellas. I don't mind you stepping in to defend the game, in fact, I welcome the different perspective. The problem I have is that the descriptions aren't good and are mostly redundant. A blue ghost approaches us and we given a paragraph about how he's a blue ghost with ghostly qualities (literally, hauntingly familiar). Hell, the game gives his name as "The Specter" and describes him as "a spectral figure". Really? Really? The problem is not the amount of writing, the problem is that the writing is bad and they could have avoided this by leaning more into the visuals. If a blue ghost approaches me, I don't need a description that the figure in front of me is blue and a ghost. I get why they do this, because it's D&D and what the dungeon master would do, but we can see Aligern's tattoos, and crazy poo poo like Callistege's echoes should be an excuse for the art department to cut loose. This game had a budget of millions of dollars. Yes, it's a vaguely infinity engine game, but much of the text will be spent trying to emphasize that the world is alien yet wondrous and the visuals will be the same generic boring sci-fi poo poo you could see in other games. The other problem is that by definition the Last Castoff is a blank slate and we can't really characterize her. How does she feel about Aligern recognizing her on sight? Dunno. Any opinions on Callistege breaking the laws of nature by wandering around? Dunno. Are we going to question these two wizards about how they broke into the sanctum we have a better claim on, or if the Specter is part of us and not part of another psychic attack? We can't really do any of this because if you characterize the Last Castoff they stop being a player insert and become an actual character. There's some stuff I want to say about where the writing could go, but we'll get there when we get there and maybe the end game addresses this.
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Dec 9, 2019 00:22
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anilEhilated posted:As for choices, let's take Callistege to the Cult, that should be a laugh. Yeah. Let's be as counter intuitive as possible.
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Dec 9, 2019 01:03
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TheGreatEvilKing posted:The problem is not the amount of writing, the problem is that the writing is bad and they could have avoided this by leaning more into the visuals. If a blue ghost approaches me, I don't need a description that the figure in front of me is blue and a ghost. I get why they do this, because it's D&D and what the dungeon master would do, but we can see Aligern's tattoos, and crazy poo poo like Callistege's echoes should be an excuse for the art department to cut loose. This game had a budget of millions of dollars. Yes, it's a vaguely infinity engine game, but much of the text will be spent trying to emphasize that the world is alien yet wondrous and the visuals will be the same generic boring sci-fi poo poo you could see in other games. I'll agree with this. I don't consider myself that good of a writer, but this game hits a lot of the wrong checkboxes when it comes to writing. Flooding the reader with piles of vague proper nouns and technobabble? That's bad right off the bat. As you say, a lot of the description is pointless. "Show don't tell" is still even important in a game setting- Baldur's Gate didn't spend forever describing characters or places and simply let you see for yourself. Anything you needed to know about the visuals of a character was done by their portrait or how they acted. Environments were usually only given a passing sentence or two- the bleakness of Nashkel Mines was apparent from the dim-run down map and haggard miners everywhere. It feels like they're reading too much out of a tabletop setting book instead of appropriately converting it to visuals. Describing the environment is all fine in a text-oriented Adventure game or for someone describing a place you haven't seen yet in an RPG. Sunless Seas, for instance, progresses through a very CYOA format and needs the descriptions, but a game like this in a wide-scale isometric view should spend more time putting this into visuals. I think this is exacerbated by the fact the shown environments we've seen are rather dull for the most part. I'll blame this on the pretentiousness of the writing.
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Dec 9, 2019 01:11
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I still say you're all expecting too much out of the graphics in this engine (and their budget in general). The purple prose and technobabble is worse than I remember though
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Dec 9, 2019 04:18
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I'm giving it a chance because I like the pen and paper version. (Speaking of which, there's a small expansion based on the game available that has mechanics for the Tides.) Editing to add that, interestingly, there's a picture of the female Last Castoff in the expansion, but not a male Last Castoff picture.
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Dec 9, 2019 04:54
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agradine posted:I still say you're all expecting too much out of the graphics in this engine (and their budget in general). Maybe I am- I'm mostly annoyed at how self-concerned the writing seems. When the writing feels like its trying to act superior to the player, it agitates me quickly. Although, a budget of 4 million really isn't an excuse. The Unity Engine is more than capable of quite nice graphics, and there's 70 people on the team alongside a decently successful publisher backing them. E: Not to say the current graphics are bad- they're quite nice. I'm just saying they can easily support more showing and less telling. Snorb posted:I'm giving it a chance because I like the pen and paper version. (Speaking of which, there's a small expansion based on the game available that has mechanics for the Tides.) That's a fair reason to give it a chance. I've always found games made from tabletops to be a bit lackluster compared to the real thing, but that's an opinion from someone who's done a lot of tabletop gameplay. The Flying Twybil fucked around with this message at 06:13 on Dec 9, 2019 |
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Dec 9, 2019 05:19
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aaaw yea, GEK-brand dialogue summaries are back anyway, Calistege's fun, so take her
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Dec 9, 2019 05:27
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Oh, poo poo, that's right. We have a vote. Let's go with Aligern; who better to help us deal with a Changing God than his own drat Cult? :v
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Dec 9, 2019 05:53
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TheOneAndOnlyT posted:Dude wrote The Name of the Wind in 2007 and The Wise Man's Fear in 2011, two wildly popular books in a fantasy trilogy he still has yet to finish. He has some... issues writing women. thanks for the comprehensive explanation/warning (and also for making the exit fate and last scenario LPs, wouldn't have experienced those games in full without them)
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Dec 9, 2019 06:03
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The Flying Twybil posted:Maybe I am- I'm mostly annoyed at how self-concerned the writing seems. When the writing feels like its trying to act superior to the player, it agitates me quickly. That's fair. When I read I tend to focus on plot more than prose, so the purple prose tends to not bother me nearly as much when I'm playing on my own. quote:Although, a budget of 4 million really isn't an excuse. The Unity Engine is more than capable of quite nice graphics, and there's 70 people on the team alongside a decently successful publisher backing them. I mean, that sounds like a lot more than it actually is when it comes to modern game development. Combine that with the engine they're deliberately aping and it definitely limits what they're going to be able to accomplish in-game. I will say, what this game does well is follow through on theme. I think conceptually, "How much does one life matter?" doesn't quite have the philosophical oomph as "What can change the nature of a man?" But this game gets quite a bit of mileage out of it, and they payoff is pretty fantastic. They really do fail to stick the landing, though.
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Dec 9, 2019 06:16
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Are either of these that lovely writer's character? Cult of the changing god
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Dec 9, 2019 06:37
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Azuth0667 posted:Are either of these that lovely writer's character? I also echo that I think this game is still quite good even though it definitely feels like it cargo cults Planescape instead of fully understanding what made it so great at times and can be way too purple prosey for its own good. There's some genuine strong suits this game has, namely the sidequests. It also had some really neat ideas what with having a RPG without combat focus and exploring failing missions as not a bad thing, but unfortunately it doesn't go all the way with them, though at the time it was the only RPG that really tried. I still felt it was the closest game to capturing Planescape's spirit until Disco Elysium came around and just went all the way with what Torment 2 wanted to do and greatly exceeded them. Disco Elysium is the RPG I truly wanted but I still think Torment 2 was a good stepping stone to that point. Also Callistege because that's what I did. Accordion Man fucked around with this message at 07:50 on Dec 9, 2019 |
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Dec 9, 2019 07:44
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agradine posted:I mean, that sounds like a lot more than it actually is when it comes to modern game development. Combine that with the engine they're deliberately aping and it definitely limits what they're going to be able to accomplish in-game. If they really wanted to show the characters they could have popped in a still picture for Aligern, Callistege, and maybe The Specter if he's important. You wouldn't have to constantly echo all Callistege's mirror images moving independently, one shocking still image emphasizing how unnatural she is would go a long way. Same for Aligern's forearm tattoos that I don't think are on the model. They seem to think that their writing is good enough to carry the game and so far it isn't. This isn't even a purple prose problem with too much description, the prose is just bad. My caveat is of course that I haven't experienced the full game and maybe it gets better.
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Dec 9, 2019 07:56
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Aligern's tattoos might be on his character model; it's hard to tell because one of his equipment pieces is covering his forearms.
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Dec 9, 2019 08:19
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anilEhilated posted:As for choices, let's take Callistege to the Cult, that should be a laugh. Going with this.
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Dec 9, 2019 08:21
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Why couldn't you have picked the skill that gives you even more lore and awkward textdumps 
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Dec 9, 2019 08:54
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I'm actually one of the backers of this game. It's not perfect, I'll admit. And yeah it's no Planescape: Torment that's for sure. I feel like the setting of this game is a tad messy, it's kind of funny since Planescape is so out of this world, but it still felt grounded in some odd way, maybe it was the philosophy side of it. This game's setting is just a mush of ideas, some good ones here and there, but everything just feels so alien, I can't even imagine what it'd be like to actually play this as a table top game. It gives off a bit of a Rifts vibe..., well maybe not quite that insane but not far off. I will say there's a fair bit of variation in what can happen in this game, at least certainly in the first act, there's all kinds of approaches you can take to a situation and some really unexpected things can happen in a good way. I don't really mind the combat exactly either, it's not GOOD combat or especially intuitive, but it can be serviceable with the right character. But yeah its a weak spiritual sequel for sure. Also, I actually got to design an item in this game and I have no idea where the hell it's supposed to be, I checked walkthroughs and guides but many of them are incomplete and usually just list the items and often don't even mention what they do. So that's disappointing.
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Dec 9, 2019 09:36
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Zeniel posted:I'm actually one of the backers of this game. I agree. Planescape had an underlying motif, Numenara is just weird and obtuse with little rhyme and reason. I was really disappointed after reading the main book – I expected a rich and detailed world governed by some internal logic, I got a bunch of random fantasy locations deliberately made to look odd. The technobabble is there to hide that when you take all the ~*mysteries*~ (which are common enough that you can't even take a poo poo without encountering one), the system is just Forgotten Realms on LSD. That's why I can't blame the writers of Tides for the people prose, they were faithful to the source material. The only blame lies on the person who decided to choose this world for doing a P:T successor.
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Dec 9, 2019 13:48
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Oh hey, we actually did wake up in an impact crater with our wounds closing up. It's just the holodeck scene showed up first to add awkward exposition first. And falling wrong killed us because... We splashed too hard because the convenient wizard to catch us was here and not there. Disappointed that this crystal muffin we were aiming for isn't the reason we're alive now though. Falling from orbit and aiming for a Goa'uld sarcophagus is amusingly badass.
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Dec 9, 2019 15:54
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Gantolandon posted:I agree. Planescape had an underlying motif, Numenara is just weird and obtuse with little rhyme and reason. I was really disappointed after reading the main book – I expected a rich and detailed world governed by some internal logic, I got a bunch of random fantasy locations deliberately made to look odd. The technobabble is there to hide that when you take all the ~*mysteries*~ (which are common enough that you can't even take a poo poo without encountering one), the system is just Forgotten Realms on LSD. See, this is what I actually enjoy about the setting; it's completely bonkers, off-the-wall, everything-you-could-think-of-and-many-things-you-couldn't weirdness that you just couldn't get with a more coherent and structured setting. I like that not only will you not know what's coming next, you'd have absolutely no way to even guess based on past experiences. If the setting has an underlying motif, and I'd argue it does, it's wonder and discovery (it's not for nothing that the 1.5/2e revised core rulebook is called Numenara: Discovery). This ties in to business with Clarke's Law as well. The central conceit of Numenera is not that the technology is sufficiently advanced as to be indistinguishable to magic to the characters; it's that the technology is sufficiently advanced as to be indistinguishable from magic to the players. It's exactly my type of science fantasy, but I can also see why it would be insufferable to others.
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Dec 9, 2019 18:37
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agradine posted:This ties in to business with Clarke's Law as well. The central conceit of Numenera is not that the technology is sufficiently advanced as to be indistinguishable to magic to the characters; it's that the technology is sufficiently advanced as to be indistinguishable from magic to the players. It's exactly my type of science fantasy, but I can also see why it would be insufferable to others.
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Dec 9, 2019 18:53
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anilEhilated posted:See I'd be willing to take that more seriously if this game's take on Clarke's Law wasn't incomprehensible gibberish and Proper Nouns. Early-game Proper-Nouning is basically par for the course for fish-out-of-water games like these. You will learn about all of these things over the course of the game and how they piece together to build a surprisingly coherent story.
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Dec 9, 2019 19:31
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agradine posted:You will learn about all of these things over the course of the game and how they piece together to build a surprisingly coherent story. Don't mind me, just marking this bold statement for future reference.
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Dec 9, 2019 20:33
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Of all the bad prose, "frowns unhappily" irritates me the most for some reason.
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Dec 10, 2019 00:03
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Looks like votes so far are: Callistege: 6 Aligern: 1 Cult: 6, counting Snorb's vote Order of Truth: 1 Voting closes tomorrow and then we can go live with the consequences of our decisions. Weed Wolf posted:Why couldn't you have picked the skill that gives you even more lore and awkward textdumps Are you talking about Amanuensis? We have a flex skill so I can bump that up at any time. Really, for obtaining more bad writing we should have been a mage. Mages (Nano is such a horrible word for them) get the read thoughts skill, so you can pry more spectral figures named the specter or unhappy frowns out of some poor sucker's head. I am not sure if Jacks get it as well as they are spellcasters apparently.
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Dec 10, 2019 02:40
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Aligern, Truth
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Dec 10, 2019 02:51
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Jacks are/aren't spellcasters; they do a little bit of everything, to the point where most of their abilities in the pen and paper game are taken directly from either the glaive or nano lists. The two Character Options books, as well as the new edition (Numenera: Discovery) were a little better about that and made them more like rogues, assassins, speedsters, and tricksters, to the point where one of the last abilities a jack can pick lets them summon Alternate Universe You to help out in combat for one minute. Meanwhile, late-game nanos in Discovery can control weather, literally move mountains, and travel to alternate universes, while the glaive... gets better at killing people, to the point where one of the last abilities they can get is "if you hit an opponent, make another attack roll. If you hit them again, your opponent dies on the spot." (Which I'm kinda fine with, but this is coming from someone whose favorite D&D class is the fighter, anyway.) (In other words, jacks in Torment don't get Scan Thoughts.)
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Dec 10, 2019 03:39
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Callistege and the Cult seem like the more interesting options to me, too.agradine posted:See, this is what I actually enjoy about the setting; it's completely bonkers, off-the-wall, everything-you-could-think-of-and-many-things-you-couldn't weirdness that you just couldn't get with a more coherent and structured setting. I like that not only will you not know what's coming next, you'd have absolutely no way to even guess based on past experiences. If the setting has an underlying motif, and I'd argue it does, it's wonder and discovery (it's not for nothing that the 1.5/2e revised core rulebook is called Numenara: Discovery). I can sympathize with this approach, but the problem with it is that the mystique and wonder and discovery can't last forever and it would help a lot if there's something else under the surface to hold a story together. I guess that's up to a DM to provide when you play the game on tabletop? agradine posted:Early-game Proper-Nouning is basically par for the course for fish-out-of-water games like these. You will learn about all of these things over the course of the game and how they piece together to build a surprisingly coherent story. What's the best way to avoid overloading the audience with jargon when introducing weird secondary worlds like this one? Asking for a friend.
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Dec 10, 2019 05:34
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Solitair posted:I can sympathize with this approach, but the problem with it is that the mystique and wonder and discovery can't last forever and it would help a lot if there's something else under the surface to hold a story together. I guess that's up to a DM to provide when you play the game on tabletop? Of course you can just ignore the rules and go your own way, but the problems there are that -you're in uncharted territory and -these rules that you paid for still don't work.
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Dec 10, 2019 06:40
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agradine posted:See, this is what I actually enjoy about the setting; it's completely bonkers, off-the-wall, everything-you-could-think-of-and-many-things-you-couldn't weirdness that you just couldn't get with a more coherent and structured setting. I like that not only will you not know what's coming next, you'd have absolutely no way to even guess based on past experiences. If the setting has an underlying motif, and I'd argue it does, it's wonder and discovery (it's not for nothing that the 1.5/2e revised core rulebook is called Numenara: Discovery). I like weird settings myself, but there are two things in Numenara that just rub me wrong: 1. A system which doesn't have its internal logic runs mostly on GM fiat. Numenara is how an idea guy would look like when polymorphed into a game book: it gives you random mysteries (like "a weird egg-shaped thing standing in the middle of the city") and expects you to do the heavy lifting yourself. Not only actually running the game, but also figuring out what the mystery is and how to use it in your game. In other words, it expects you, the person who bought the game, to actually do the harder part of building the world. 2. A lot of advanced technology in Numenara is just window dressing for generic fantasy tropes. You still scour a ruined temple, fireball a bunch of goblins and take the magic sword they guarded. Except that they are cybergoblins who live in a temple floating in the stratosphere because of ~*ancient wonders*~, the fireball is an explosion of methane produced by symbiotic bacteria (which you created with nanomachines), and the sword has a monomolecular blade and looks weird. Even the classes are the standard "warrior, rogue, mage" obscured by technobabble.
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Dec 10, 2019 09:02
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Solitair posted:What's the best way to avoid overloading the audience with jargon when introducing weird secondary worlds like this one? Asking for a friend. In general, most fantasy/sci-fi have this to some degree. I'm going to break it down into 4 types: 1) Wheel of Time approach - Introduce a ton of jargon all the time, then don't explain a ton of it until a few books later. Some will never be explained but you should be able to infer. Stories of this type tend to have an "exploration/learning phase" where you slowly learn about the world, then a "mastery phase" where you know most of the details of the world (at least for the area of the world the story is in). This is great for people who enjoy it (I certainly do) but bad for people that don't. 2) Star Trek approach - Introduce jargon as an explanation where the jargon is meaningless and never explained. Whenever the jargon is important, explain it immediate. This explanation may or may not use more jargon that may or may not be explained. 3) Game of Thrones approach - Make the world have only a few different things than earth other than geography. Place the start where most of the key things can be quicklly learned and leave much of the world and history for supplemental material 4) The Elder Scrolls approach - use genetic fantasy tropes so you don't need to explain anything. Also make all lore optional and never referenced in the story as if the lore is completely separate from the story MegaZeroX fucked around with this message at 16:36 on Dec 10, 2019 |
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Dec 10, 2019 16:33
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Black Robe posted:Don't mind me, just marking this bold statement for future reference. I feel I will be justified  Solitair posted:I can sympathize with this approach, but the problem with it is that the mystique and wonder and discovery can't last forever and it would help a lot if there's something else under the surface to hold a story together. I guess that's up to a DM to provide when you play the game on tabletop? Which is fair, and which is why even I, who like the setting of Numenera, have only dragged it out for one-shots. For reference, I tend to run most games in Eberron, where the Mournlands scratch that itch almost identically. quote:What's the best way to avoid overloading the audience with jargon when introducing weird secondary worlds like this one? Asking for a friend. If I knew that do you think I'd share it with you salty goons? No, I'd be using those skills to get a job writing video games for you salty goons to pillory  rudecyrus posted:Of all the bad prose, "frowns unhappily" irritates me the most for some reason. That's because that's genuinely terrible prose.
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Dec 10, 2019 20:00
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Gantolandon posted:I like weird settings myself, but there are two things in Numenara that just rub me wrong: I mean, to be fair, that's describing most tabletop RPGs that don't have a giant fleet of sourcebooks. quote:2. A lot of advanced technology in Numenara is just window dressing for generic fantasy tropes. You still scour a ruined temple, fireball a bunch of goblins and take the magic sword they guarded. Except that they are cybergoblins who live in a temple floating in the stratosphere because of ~*ancient wonders*~, the fireball is an explosion of methane produced by symbiotic bacteria (which you created with nanomachines), and the sword has a monomolecular blade and looks weird. Even the classes are the standard "warrior, rogue, mage" obscured by technobabble. I mean, it certainly could be played like that, and the terrible mechanics and the especially terrible original class system certainly lend themselves to that, but I would argue that the worldbuilding within the book itself steers the game in more interesting directions. I would totally let Monte Cook build worlds for me (between Numenera and Ghostwalk) but he's not allowed anywhere near the game mechanics because he clearly doesn't like it when players have fun.
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Dec 10, 2019 20:28
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Voting closed! Callistege to the cult!
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Dec 11, 2019 02:33
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agradine posted:I mean, to be fair, that's describing most tabletop RPGs that don't have a giant fleet of sourcebooks.  reasons. Unfortunately for Torment and its predecessors, this kinda started with early editions of D&D and continued as a cargo cult into some of the later editions and their derivatives (eg Numenara). The result, then, is that the game is working against itself because the mechanics and narrative don't have a clear idea on what the PCs should be doing. Contrast this with something like Blades in the Dark. If you're not using Duskwall the setting can get loose, but the mechanics are very tight to fit the "heist -> downtime -> repeat" loop.quote:I would totally let Monte Cook build worlds for me (between Numenera and Ghostwalk) but he's not allowed anywhere near the game mechanics because he clearly doesn't like it when players have fun.
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Dec 11, 2019 04:09
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A World of Wonder And Mystery But Just Things We've Seen Before When we last left The Last Castoff, she had fallen from the sky and some random wizards popped out of nowhere to deliver exposition.  The thread voted to take Callistege to the Cult of the Changing God.  : Callistege, will you take me to the Order of Truth? : Of course! Once I provide an introduction to the priests, we'll have your chamber fixed in no time. : You'll end up without your clothes and broken in a ditch while she laughs it off as a good experiment. It's probably best I come with you as well. : Why do you want to go with me? What's in it for you?  : All right. Then let's go.TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
We loot the room and get a bunch of healing items, but we also have some text encounters.  This pops up when we examine the busted mechanical arm. I use our 1/day hedge magic to autopass the check.  The game takes the opportunity to tell us that we can use our companions' stat pools to solve stuff instead of our own. Yes, both wizards are in the party, give it time and one will leave.  Sprayflesh is the game's standard healing potion, shims are the questionable currency of Numenera. : Examine the housing. : The sharply-pointed apparatus that formerly topped the device appears burnt out and useless, but the equipment in the base remains at least somewhat operational, as the constant stream of sizzling motes can attest.: Leave the device alone.That ends that. It could have just been us clicking a sparking mechanical arm to loot it. We know the device is broken because...the game shows a broken crystal with mechanical arms in the center of the screen. Oh well, what's this next dialog?  ...but we did. This isn't particularly insightful reflection. There is a shattered resonance chamber.  ...we can see all this poo poo! All of it! If this were a text adventure game I'd give it a pass, but it's not. : Take another look at the sarcophagus. : Examine the suspended arms. None of this poo poo means anything. It's describing stuff we can see, but there's no emotion. There's no attempt to highlight, say, the ominousness of the arms or speculation about what kind of person the Changing God is based off these machines. It's not setting an atmosphere. It's providing the illusion of depth by listing off physical attributes. I suppose we could contrast the value indicated by "gem-like lights" with the unemotive broken machinery, but as we see the tone goes back to dull description. : Inspect the metal ring. Again, the gem as wealth motif is discarded for a vague hint of...what, exactly? Being on display? : Examine the shards on the ground. And here is where I gently caress up and fail to take option 1, which I'm pretty sure gets us a free weapon. Oh well! In my defense, the bad prose and uninteresting descriptions are shutting my brain down. : Step away from the device.I guess I'll go back for it later.  Again, we can see all this poo poo. I suppose the animators didn't want to have the shards reflect light or actually put little blinking lights on the model. but there it is. Let's touch the computer and blow this joint.  : A towering crystal arch rises over a jagged-grey landscape. The air is dead and stifling. And there, at its emerald peak... : What 'commands' do you recognize? : Who are you? : What was that arch you showed me? I will admit, the inclusion of smashing it is a nice one but I suspect that bones us for reasons I will get into in a bit. : Show me that list of commands again. Slower, please. : Examine the outside of the device.: An indignant hum rises from the intelligence's engines as you examine its ancient casing. : Show me that arch again.: The device's triangle of lights throb in time with the growl of the engines within its casing, and the mental image unfolds once more. As I said earlier, the Anamnesis skill is solely there for getting plot dumps from the Changing God's memories. : [Amanesis] Try to remember more details about this strange place.    : Examine the jagged wasteland. Is this supposed to indicate that the tower is in motion? I can't honestly tell. Terrible use of passive voice, though. : Close the image of the arch. : Unleash the contents of Cell 0. The "Unstable Detonation" is just an energy grenade. Thow it and it does 4 physical and 6 energy damage in an area. Also, it's our first cypher. Cyphers are one-use items that if we carry too many we start to take penalties. You want to use these ASAP to make the awful combat go faster.   : I remembered something.: "I knew it," Aligern says, baring a savagely triumphant grin at Callistege.: Meaningless, Aligern. She clearly has basic skills and knowledge from the Changing God having been in her body. Who's to say there aren't even more specific memories locked away in there?" Now that we are done with all the non-crystal-shard related crap in this chamber, we can leave. No, I'm not summarizing that, it's just a "click through the menus to get grenade" puzzle.  As we step outside, Aligern says he wants to talk to us. Ok, why not.  : Why were you looking at me when you said that?Is it just me, or does Aligern come off as a jealous ex?  : What makes the Reef so dangerous? : What are the numenera?: "You want me to tell you?" He laughs without mirth. "The numenera are all around you, everything left over from the prior worlds. Sagus Cliffs thrives by trading artifacts from ancient civilizations. Hells, you can't scoop a handful of earth without finding drit[sic] from prior worlds mixed with it.": "Numenera is anything from the prior worlds, but mostly we mean the stuff of value to us. A lot of the numenera are just oddities, fancy trinkets with real little use, but sometimes you'll get a cypher that lets you do something incredible. Artifacts are worth even more - a cypher will only do something once, but artifacts last a lot longer. Though they can burn out at the most inconvenient times." He frowns. "Not that it's ever happened to me."For all of this mystery and wonder we are supposed to be feeling, we have really only seen genre cliches. -A space station. This exists in real life, though you probably won't get on one. -Some kind of maybe healing sarcophagus. These are fairly common in sci-fi, from Luke's bacta tank in Star Wars to the Go'auld sarcophagi mentioned in the thread to the friggin Necrons in Warhammer 40k. This is vaguely associated with resurrection and rebirth, which I think is our ultimate goal? -A grenade. You can find these in real life. -A whiny computer. Has any of this inspired wonder in any of the characters? The Last Castoff/and narrator approach it all with a clinical, bored detachment despite supposedly just coming into the world, Callistege nerds out about it in incomprehensible technobabble like a nerd discovering a 1st edition Jar Jar Binks action figure, and Aligern is too busy trying to hatefuck one of the women to care.  : What's your story? : What do you think of Callistege? : Can you tell me about your tattoos? They look almost alive. This is kinda screaming "do not trust him" more than Callistege who...has been nothing but polite and courteous so far. Yeah, they probably both have some ulterior motive, but Aligern has been screaming about how awful Cal is and has magic snakes that kill people. : What do you think we should do next? : Let's keep going, alright?TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
Anyway, we go east across the bridge and come to this.  I immediately back off and set my flex skill to "smashing" so I can pass this. : [Smashing] Break off one of the hands. This gets us a melee weapon that does a mixture of physical and chemical damage. Why yes, there is an imminent confrontation, why do you ask?  : Walk away.I decide to leave, because I suspect I'm just going to get something about how the hands have eight fingers and are vaguely bronze colored, and have a detail the artists didn't bother to put in the model.  Oh boy. I will admit this is kind of different? : What are you? : Watch them for patterns. : [Quick Fingers] Touch a cone as it passes.  : What are you for?: The cones greet your question with a split second of hushed silence, followed by delighted peals of helpless giggling.  : Leave the cones alone.TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
 I'm honestly not sure how we're supposed to find any wonder in this, especially considering the target audience are nerds who will have consumed a ton of superhero movies, comic books, genre literature, and videogames where miraculous feats like a man flying are "eh, whatever". Take these force walls/bridge, they remind me of Halo.  Oh no! Bad guys!   I think he's supposed to be trying to evaluate us as threats, but maybe he's just checking us out? Maybe he likes girls with half-shaven heads and vaguely angry, untrustworthy men.  : Callistege, is something wrong?: "Nothing's wrong, dear. I accompanied Qorro on an expedition once, long ago. His methods were too... crass for my tastes. Though in his defense, he never tried to kill me when my back was turned." She beams at Qorro. "Or if he did, he failed, and I didn't notice."  I will give the game this: Aligern and Callistege sniping at each other is fairly amusing. : Turn to Qorro. "What do you want?" : What are those gloves for?: "Unwelcome but anticipated complications." He does not elaborate.Why did the last sentence need to be in there, my God?   I'm sure you are all going to be heartbroken that I skipped some dialogue, but I don't want to risk starting a fight. So let's just get this over with shall we? : [Deception] I'll be honest with you. I saw the star, but don't know where it landed.Remember, as a Clever Jack, we are trained in Deception.   Qorro wanders off into the distance with his gang as the screen fades out.  : They saw me fall from the sky and came to investigate.: Oh sure, and they just had that ambush ready to go at the same time as we're leaving. No, kid, Callistege sold us out.This is completely implausible. Presumably if Callistege wanted the ambush to succeed she would have just told Qorro and his goons that we were the fallen star, or backstabbed one of us to start the fight. : Excuse me? Are you suggesting that I had something to do with Qorro's plans?: Are you suggesting you didn't? An old friend of yours just happens to be waiting for us, armed and outnumbering us, as we return from the greatest find the Reef has seen in years? It's too convenient for me, too convenient by far.I'm not really sure what they are planning to do with a regenerating maybe-god that is going to get them crappy plastic coins, but what do I know? : Of all the idiotic, paranoid delusions... You really believe that, don't you? You really believe I'd use a half-wit like Qorro to stab you in the back rather than do it myself?"Uh...maybe Aligern is on to something? She's not denying being a backstabber. : You see, kid? She'll stab you in the back, first chance she gets. Most likely in your sleep. : Aligern, I really don't think she was trying to betray us.: He snorts bitter laughter. "I do. You haven't seen one-tenth of her depths, not one twentieth. She's a back-stabbing bitch, mark my words.": You are insufferable to the end, Aligern. Looking for the worst in a situation is the only way you know how to see. Do you know how long I've carried your pain for you? How much I've had to turn away from your judgmental stares? But you're right. I've had enough. : She turns to you. "Child, I am happy to guide you, but I will not walk another step with this paranoid buffoon." Cal that sounds like a breakup to me. : Why can't I travel with both of you? Can't you just work it out? Holy poo poo it totally is! Someone get Maury on the line!  : I'd rather travel with Callistege.: Right. Well, if you want me - and she doesn't sell you for parts - you can find me in the Underbelly. But not with her, mind you."  TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
Aligern disappears and we exit the area.  Little does poor Callistege know she is now subject to the mad whims of the internet, and said mad whims include visiting the Cult of the Changing God. But first we're going to do more exposition!  This is the part where I get horrible flashbacks to the Wheel of Time intros where the wind blew threw all the boring Forsaken meetings where they contemplated who was more narcissistic, Demandred mentally compared Graendal's tits to Lanfears and debated whether "don't stick your dick in crazy" was a guideline or a hard rule, and then fantasized about having power over the others. You can skip Wheel of Time is what I'm saying.   We'll talk about the tides when they become relevant. : But despite his hard words, his eyes settle on yours. Studying. Deciding. His mouth settles into an irritated line.: "Look," he says, running a hand over his stubbled scalp. "You hide it well, but I can tell you're new here. I ent trying to offend you, but I... don't like leaving folk new to Sagus on their own. If you have questions about the city - or Circus Minor in particular - I'll answer 'em, free of charge.: "Of course, it looks like you already have a guide," he says, nodding at Callistege. "Callistege." ..you know what? This is getting fairly long, and this guy is kind of a tutorial NPC, so I'm just gonna summarize it. He tells us about major landmarks. Notably, the Cult of the Changing God is literally down the street, there's an inn in town but the Cult might let us bum a bed, he's a hobo looking for some girl, and either Prata the bug lady or the foremen in the Underbelly might know how to fix the resonance chamber. Also, this:  I think this and Callistege's weird sisters are the only two interesting concepts that actually feel mysterious right now, and we'll get to the former in the next update.  We walk by this monster banging its head against the energy cage. I try to talk to it.  : "Oi! No gawking for free! Pay El-Jinto or get gone!" He glowers at you, hand reaching for the haft of his hammer until you step away from the cage.We gently caress off. Now, before we continue, what do you expect the Cult of the Changing God to look like? Ritual disfigurement? Constantly upgrading themselves with machinery? Secret magical arts of shapeshifting?  Nah it's just a bunch of robed dumbasses. They send us to their leaders at the back of the medieval equivalent of a trailer park while talking about how holy we are and whatnot.  : Her partner is an unnaturally tall man, gaunt and sour-faced, his voice sonorous, with fingers that twitch and weave through strange contortions. Occasional light sparks in the air as he does.: He turns to you and opens his mouth to speak, registers your tattoo and closes it again. His throat bobs for a moment and he says, "It is an honor."   : I don't know much about my tattoo. What does it mean to you?  : Who are you? : What can you tell me about the city? : Do you know anything about the Sorrow? : What can you tell me about... uh... my sire? : Do you know anything about a device called a 'resonance chamber'? : I need to know who can repair it.: "So you have seen it? You have touched it?" She catchers herself. She seems almost overwhelmed. "Your tattoo... like all the others, but this one is... different.": He looks sharply at you now, all distraction gone. "I do not recognize you," he says. "You do not match any descriptions we have recorded." Well, goons? Decisions Lie Before Us! Are we the Changing God? Also, feel free to add if this is our character telling a lie or if you think we really are the Changing God but with a bad case of amnesia. TheGreatEvilKing fucked around with this message at 04:13 on Dec 12, 2019 |
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Dec 11, 2019 06:45
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Maybe someday we can learn real science and become a real civilization, but right now I'm a wizard vaguely impressed by your discovery of that most advanced technology: the grenade.
: Mystery! Space! Implied people burning alive!
: I'm robbing you! You seen any falling stars around here?
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| # ? Apr 23, 2024 22:42 |
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Pretend we are the changing god.
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Dec 11, 2019 08:00
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