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The RPG Scrollbars: Richard Cobbett's weekly RPG column

Infinitron

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2017/06/05/rpgs-invented-languages/

The RPG Scrollbars: Language Of Uncommon Tongues
Richard Cobbett on June 5th, 2017 at 6:00 pm.

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The sign of a truly hardcore world is that it has its own languages. Klingon. Dothraki. Elvish. The term for these is ‘Conlangs’ – aka ‘constructed languages’ – and whether you see them as a vital part of world-building or a joke-in-waiting on The Big Bang Theory (they’re due a third one one of these days), there’s more to them than just slapping together some uncommon syllables and hoping it sounds alien. Well, actually, that’s exactly how Klingon started, but never mind. Done right, paying attention to language offers more than just another DVD extra. Or at least, it can do…


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My plan for this week was to talk about a few gaming conlangs and how they affected their world. The catch is that in practice, there aren’t that many, and those that exist tend to be simpler than they appear on the surface. The supposed Al Bhed language in Final Fantasy X for instance, while a little more complicated in Japanese than it is in English, is a simple substitution cypher. B means P. Q means X. In Japan, the text is written in katakana to both feel more foreign and allow for easier substitutions. However, the basic gimmick is the same. You collect ‘primers’ on the language, each of which translates one letter for you (shown in a different colour for clarity), and over time you ‘learn’ the language not by gathering words or learning grammar, but by collecting the assorted substitutions until the printed dialogue makes sense.

(This would be a lot more tolerable if you weren’t generally accompanied by a character called Rikku, who is Al-Bhed and speaks the bloody language fluently. No campfire lessons or offering to act as a translator? No? Okay then. Continue being mostly useless!)

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This kind of substitution cypher is however generally a substitution in itself – we’re not meant to believe that Al Bhed or whatever is really just English or Japanese after a run through a tumble drier, but a complicated language with its own history and culture and meaning. The average player has no interest in actually learning a new language, and so short-cuts are typically made. World of Warcraft, for instance, enforces a language barrier between Horde and Alliance, with cross-talk being forbidden.

The rules don’t usually make any sense, from Undead and Death Knights somehow forgetting to speak previous languages, to the amnesia of switching sides… but never mind. The gimmick is that if you type anything other players will see you said something, but it’ll come across as complete gibberish. What’s actually going on is that the game takes the word, pulls from a lexicon of words that sound suitable and have the same letter count, and then spits it out on the other side as gibberish words.

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Not to be beaten so quickly though, players immediately began creating their own pseudo-language around the translator to do basic conversation – the most infamous being the discovery that ‘LOL’, as in ‘laugh out loud’, became BUR or KEK. There’s not a vast amount that can be said, but that doesn’t mean they haven’t given it a go.

(Making this more interesting, the lexicons for the different languages – mostly used in game for individual battle cries, mottos and NPC greetings rather than extended conversations and the like – at least do try to keep each language sounding unique where relevant, or similar to others in its family. Variations of the Elvish tongues for instance sounding a little like the guttural languages of the common Horde member. After all, one would hate to mix a good “Lok’tar!” with a civilised “Anu belore dela’na…”)

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There are games that dive deeper, of course. Myst for example has the D’ni (dunny) tongue, which is quite spectacularly thought out considering that that it was accidentally named after a toilet. You can get a primer here, starting with rules like words typically being made up with a definitive article, so that ‘the master’ is ‘rehnahvah’. What’s interesting about D’ni from a non-linguistical point of view though is that much of it had to be learned by players rather than simply read up on – decoding their base-25 number system, for instance, being one of the puzzles in Riven, done in the suitable context of exploring a schoolhouse. Further exploration reveals that they even have two different forms of writing, one for everyday use, and one for creating or otherwise accessing a magical island full of incredibly boring logic puzzles.

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Now, love or hate the terribleness that is Myst, you can’t say its birth wasn’t a labour of love. RPGs don’t typically have the development time or resources to devote to that kind of thing though, unless based on an existing property. Bioware’s Jade Empire is one of the few that attempted it with the creation of ‘Tho Fan’, the ‘Old Tongue’, which was intended to sound similar to both Chinese and Japanese while being its own unique thing. Despite canonically being the second language of the setting though, pretty much the entire game is in English, the language was only around 2,500 words, and even its creator admitted “I don’t know if anyone can tell the difference between this and gibberish.” As far as I can tell, there’s no information about it anywhere online, save for a few forum comments saying that it wasn’t the greatest attempt at a fake language on a technical or cultural level, or added anything much to the fake alien chatter previously used in Knights of the Old Republic.

Still, the creator was brought back to work on Dragon Age. BioWare typically keeps their use of fictional languages to short bursts and phrases that are tonally consistent within a tongue, versus presenting something like Qunari as something that you can actually learn and speak.

(By the way, if you just went “It’s called Qunlat!”, you are a hyper-geek.)

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While that might sound a little unimpressive, it’s often enough to do the trick. The Qunari of Dragon Age – which is to say, followers of the Qun, rather than the Kossith/Tal-Vashoth giants synonymous with it – make their linguistics count, most notably with the cultural idea that a person’s job is their identity. The party member known as “Sten” for instance is essentially called Warrior, while “Tallis” translates as “she who is geek-bait”.

Whether making up words or not, Dragon Age also treats each race and culture as linguistically distinct, from the obvious fantasy tropes of elves vs dwarves, to city elves vs Dalish elves, the different human countries, with the possible exception of the terrible ‘Orlesian’ accents early on, and slang and bursts of native speech that fit accordingly, even though again, everyone speaks English as their primary tongue. We’re not necessary talkin’ Tolkein here, but there’s just enough to feel foreign while still controlling a character who lives and breathes this world.

It’s also interestingly inconsistent much of the time, in the way of real language. “Ser” for instance is a gender-neutral title for knight, as is “Bann” for a low level governor, while at the higher echelons we see feminised forms of titles like Arlessa and Teyrna. This might not seem like that big a deal, but like a lot of language it does actually speak to some deeper elements of the Dragon Age setting – the rough equality of the sexes within it, and certainly there being no surprise that a woman can be a mighty knight or authority figure, even though in Ferelden it does in practice seem something of a boy’s club in the middle echelons. This isn’t the kind of thing that’s ever likely to be brought up by a character in the way of, say, The Iron Bull’s discussion of Crem in Inquisition, but it does act as a lingering tell about the setting and its politics, just as simply knowing a few things about the Qunari tells us something about them.

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Eevn if RPGs don’t create their own languages outright much of the time, it does tend to be something they’re good at. Skyrim, for instance, rarely has characters speak in its dragon language, Dovahzul, but that doesn’t mean it’s not carefully thought out. The structure of it features individual runes representing concepts that can be combined into complex sentences – not a million miles from the long-departed Tabula Rasa. The memetic ‘Fus Ro Dah!’ for instance is actually FORCE, BALANCE, PUSH. You get this from what initially looks like a wall of glowing gibberish. However, even on that basic level, it has a few key tells that make it feel ‘right’, not least that every sigil is something that would be carved by claw and talon rather than drawn or painted. Likewise, the dragon characters will regularly use individual words to reinforce that no, it’s not just random guff. If you want to, you can even translate the rest – I’m trusting the wiki here, which I realise may be a rookie mistake. Still – in theory – that first one goes:

“HET NOK FaaL VahLOK
DeiNMaaR DO DOVahGOLZ
ahRK aaN FUS DO UNSLaaD
RahGOL ahRK VULOM”

aka

Here lies the guardian
Keeper of dragonstone
And a force of unending
Rage and darkness

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Even when the language is considerably simpler, though, developers can do interesting things with it. Probably the most famous example of a game forcing players to get to grips with another language is the Ultima series, which loved to put runes on everything from maps to town signposts to magic spells. A little like Al Bhed, these are a substitution cypher. The series didn’t even invent its own runes – they’re called ‘Futhark’, from the ancient Viking term ‘fuck this for a lark, let’s use proper letters instead’. (In tribute to that, there were generally translator cheats available.)

Runes though were only one of several alphabets used throughout the series, including the Gargoyle script Gargish, and the Ophidian alphabet, which even the game admitted was a pain in the arse to read, with all of its snake-like lettering. One of the most interesting things about the runes though wasn’t where they were used, but where they weren’t. Specifically, I’m thinking of Ultima VII – take a shot. One of the big plot points of the game is that times are changing, represented mostly by the evil organisation known as the Fellowship, and one of the subtle details that separates them from the rest of the world is that they don’t use the runes.

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Their leader Batlin openly calls them out as antiquated, leaving their assorted branches standing out as a shining, modern establishment in an increasingly clunky and old-fashioned world. Provided you a) aren’t using the ‘translate’ cheat, which 99.9% of players do, in tribute to those proud Vikings, and b) don’t mind it being a front for an interdimensional demon-god who acts very smug for a big Muppet.

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Commercially speaking, of course, there’s one game I’ve not mentioned yet – Captain Blood from way back in the space year 1988. This is one of the few to really embrace the concept of language as a core mechanic, with its conversation system using over a hundred conceptual icons and a big challenge being to try and communicate with aliens in a form they can understand despite not sharing an actual language at all. On top of that, the game was originally written in French, allowing for even more cross-over fun. Much of the game involves not just learning to use these glyphs and their shaky translations, but exploring ways that they can be used, such as the repetition of an emotion translating as an escalation of it versus a simple statement of fact.

The system wasn’t easy to use and it’s not entirely surprising that its baton remains on the floor. Still, like many games from the 80s and early 90s, it’s a great example of mechanics that are still ready to be snatched up and tried again.

Even if it is more likely that the industry will continue of just waiting for Nolan North or Troy Baker to catch a cold and pretending its Orcish.
 

Dorateen

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Tunnels and Trolls by New World Computing had multiple languages for characters to learn in order to interact with NPCs and encounters.

Pool of Radiance included a code wheel to decipher language runes, and Dark Queen of Krynn required the player in learn the tongue of the Hulderfolk in one section to navigate conversations.

A few notable exclusions from the above article.
 

Infinitron

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2017/06/12/the-rpg-scrollbars-in-search-of-urban-fantasy/

The RPG Scrollbars: In search of urban fantasy
Richard Cobbett on June 12th, 2017 at 1:00 pm.

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There’s a real urban fantasy gap in the gaming industry, and it’s never made much sense. We see a thousand Tolkienesque fantasy games a minute (rough napkin calculation) and the future’s typically so bright, even the lens flares need shades. Yet when it comes to that line where the mundane meets the magical, mostly what we’ve had for the last few years is false hope. Hope that World of Darkness would bring the complexity of Eve to the mean streets of Chicago or wherever. Hope that the right person with a big chequebook would get hooked on something like The Dresden Files or Hellblazer. Hope that games like The Secret World would lead the way.

So much wasted opportunity, just sitting there and waiting to be seized.

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I’m not, of course, saying that we never see games that take our familiar world and go backstage to show us the secret realities of wizards and vampires and the like that really pull the strings. I mentioned one right there in The Secret World, due to be re-released later this month, hopefully with the entire of Tokyo replaced with an apology for the AEGIS system and a voucher for one of those delicious double chocolate gateau slices they do at Patisserie Valerie. World of Darkness kept everyone excited for years, largely on the back of the astonishingly brilliant Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines and its predecessor, Vampire: The Masquerade: The Crap One. Unavowed (pictured above) looks awesome. And of course, outside of PC RPGs, we’ve had a few high-profile offerings, like the Darkness series and Persona and… Hellgate, maybe? Then a couple of arguables like Vampyr and Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners Of QA and…

Hmm.

Seriously. Where is the urban fantasy? Think about it. Thematically and mechanically, it’s perfect for RPGs. It’s the ability to reshape the world while still maintaining the relevance and resonance of exploring real-world locations. (I know I’ve linked this before, but I still love that The Secret World’s Illuminati base is based on an actual New York district.) Even on a purely fictional basis, there’s a lure to the concept of seeing the ‘real’ world, of being one of the chosen few who gets to cut their strings and advance to the next level of understanding. Likewise, power is never more seductive than when we can vicariously enjoy it against familiar backgrounds in which most of us at least would feel distinctly powerless – to show the mugger in the alley who the real monster is, to clutch a nemesis by the heart and squeeze, or to be the one who dares try and be the ray of goodness in an otherwise bleak world.

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Vampire: Bloodlines is a masterpiece for many reasons… admittedly, one of them being that some thirteen years later, it’s easier to remember the good bits than, say, the sewer level. But it got this. It understood. Like City of Heroes in the same year, it was a game that managed to convey the feeling of being both special from the very start and yet also not remotely special at all. Break this down to pure numbers and you’re statistically not really that different from any other low-level character, except that against a world of bums and regular guys on the street, you immediately feel like a force to be recognised. The roleplaying comes naturally, especially when dealing with something like an obstructive cop. Sorry, what’s that? Something about your primitive little human laws? Oh, dear, sweet child, did you just make a mistake.

And yet at the same time, you don’t get it all your own way. The new wider world is still intimidating and brutal and full of dangers, and you’re at best auditioning to be a tiny little cog somewhere in its machine. The dichotomy is delicious, and not something you generally get in traditional fantasy or SF gaming worlds. Urban fantasy protagonists are almost antiheroes by default, outside of the system enough to make their own decisions, while still subject to the consequences and schemes of endlessly more powerful figures. That’s exactly the right level of power for drama, for consequence, for threat, and for fragile alliances of outcasts bound together for a cause that might mean the world to them, but is still only a distraction or inconvenience for the true monsters and power-brokers way up the spiked ladder.

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But that’s only skimming the surface of why the genre is such a good match for RPGs. Another is that in creating urban fantasy worlds, writers have long had to deal with questions that most RPGs historically avoid – the classic being why everyone isn’t constantly making a fuss by flinging spells around all the time. I’ve spoken before of how much I like the Baldur’s Gate 2 handling of this, where magic is outlawed in the main city of Athkatla and breaking out the spells in public summons a team of lethal Cowled Wizards to first give you a warning, and then try and take you out.

As a party with a magic user, you’re left with three choices – keep your wands in your pants, pay for a magic license, or out-gun the magical fuzz until they accept that you’re beyond their power to contain and agree to leave you alone. Generally, the urban fantasy equivalent is some form of World of Darkness’ Masquerade – a general agreement to keep things hushed, whether the reason is fear that pissed off regular humans with guns would trounce the magical world (Dresden Files) or that reality itself would go wibbly (Mage) or simply that people aren’t very observant if not directly poking into such matters and that it’s probably best that continue (Rivers of London).

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This alone is a really cool mechanic for games to play with. The Secret World handles it by keeping the main cities free of noticeable trouble, with the conceit being that you’re being sent to places that have gone so far off the rails that the ‘secret’ thing doesn’t matter. Just about everyone you meet who has survived has survived because they’re already in on it, while those who don’t probably aren’t going to last that much longer – and if they do tell, then they’ll be dealt with. It’s simply more important to deal with the end of the world right now. Bloodlines meanwhile keeps track of Masquerade violations, which can range from saying “Hello, I’m a vampire,” to simply being seen in public as a Nosferatu. Losing points is liable to spawn vampire hunters, and running out means an instant game over. True, that focus on points does mean that a few individual scenes are oddly low-impact – particularly the one where you meet someone from your former life and nothing ever actually comes of it – but it’s something.

That’s just one of many rules that urban fantasy has to offer to make basic interactions more interesting. The Dresden Files, for instance, has the Laws of Magic, with one of the biggies being that killing humans with magic is a capital offence, with black magic as a whole banned because it acts like a drug – the more you use it, the more it starts to feel like the answer to any problem. Again, that’s a limitation that can both canonically keep things from going crazy in an RPG setting, and add depth to encounters by adding a limiting factor beyond the classic ‘good vs evil’. Hellblazer has the fact that it’s a rare John Constantine spell that doesn’t cause trouble for someone, fairly or otherwise. Most major series have their own specific hooks, and what works to prevent a fictional universe from becoming too crazy to have the resonance that the genre needs to feel right also works hand-in-hand with most of RPGs’ sillier issues.

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Honestly, the more you explore the genre, the better a fit it becomes. Combat is usually a factor, with urban fantasy heroes typically forming classes by dint of species or magical speciality, with a whole second layer of mundane weapons thrown in. Harry Dresden for instance always carries a firearm, for when out-classed with magic or fighting someone he can’t use it against or just generally as an element of surprise in a magical community that tends to be uninterested in such things. However, combat is also usually a last resort or at least less than ideal outcome, which also permits a whole range of RPG skills like stealth and communication and hacking. Exploration gets to take advantage of all the modern niceties. Nobody cares if a vampire takes a subway train or a taxi. (Indeed, in World of Darkness, the canned MMO, this was intended to be a tactical thing – players watching for when opponents were out of town, and knowing that they wouldn’t be able to take the train back for another few hours.) This allows for easy moving between locations, or focusing in depth on one, with modern communication systems for missions and contacts and the like.

Oh, and romance? There is no hornier genre than urban fantasy. Just saying.

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What makes the lack of modern urban fantasy so odd is that the last few years have seen a bit of a resurgence in one of its sub-genres, cyberpunk. Shadowrun Returns: Dragonfall is a particularly good example, and honestly a game I would likely steal a lot from if given something like the Vampire license – its strong central hub broken up into lots of smaller modules, much like Baldur’s Gate’s second chapter, strong outcast characters working towards a larger goal under player control, and so on.

But of course, it’s only one game. There’s also Shadowrun Fails, or whatever that online version was called, and a big stack of other recent games in other genres, ranging from VA-11 HALL-A to Quadrilateral Cowboy to Hard Reset and so on, and of course, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, and at some point in the future, Cyberpunk 2077. Historically speaking, more than a few games have also openly conflated the two – often, though not always, in the interests of easier-to-create worlds and even easier justifications for open combat – like Dreamweb, and Bloodnet’s wastelands full of psycho-bums.

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Doesn’t this fill the gap I’m looking for? Real cities, real toys, etc?

For me, not really. Cyberpunk definitely offers some of the same appeal as urban fantasy, like the real-world feel of the locations, the modern trappings of advertising and technology and so on, but the vibe of it is very different and I never find that the future resonates as well as the present/almost present. Deus Ex: Human Revolution is right on that edge, being primarily the present day plus a bit. Even the jump to Mankind Divided and its focus on future-problems like augmentation takes it away from being our world. That’s not a critical judgement on it, just that resonance thing again. I put it like this – there probably aren’t in fact vampires and mages and wraiths and mummies and whatever running around controlling the world, but there definitely aren’t street samurai running around Berlin with katanas, and that’s ignoring all the stuff with elves and magic spells and the like. Good urban fantasy typically feels plausible and plays within the boundaries of the world, even if the characters find them laughable.

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There’s just too much potential sitting on the table here to let it go to waste – for it to have been almost fifteen years since the last great example in Vampire: Bloodlines, and for the closest thing to a follow-up, never mind successor, to be a somewhat shaky mobile game (fun first half, then it collapses…). Whether it’s in the form of something known, like a World of Darkness or Dresden or Hellblazer, or a brand new IP with all new secrets lurking in the shadows, it doesn’t matter. It’s about time we were reminded that one of the most exciting worlds to explore and adventure in can be our own.
 

Infinitron

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2017/06/19/the-rpg-scrollbars-universes-built-for-sharing/

The RPG Scrollbars: Universes Built For Sharing
Richard Cobbett on June 19th, 2017 at 1:00 pm.

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For a few horrible minutes during E3, it looked like Bethesda might seriously claim that The Elder Scrolls and Fallout were part of the same universe. Thankfully, not. Despite this being an era where Sony wants a Ghostbusters universe and Universal thinks demeaning the Universal Monsters by linking them with a top-sekrit monstah hunting group led by Dr Jekyll is anything other than schoolboy fan-fiction, Bethesda’s Pete Hines has been quick to go “What? No. No! No…” Phew! Honestly, it’s bad enough that Daggerfall has six endings, ranging from the villain becoming a god to orcs being either defeated or victorious, and canonically all of them are true.

But at a time when we’re seriously asked to pretend that “Dark Universe” is a thing we should want to see, that unholy union really wasn’t impossible…

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I’m not really a fan of shared universes, and at the very least I think they have to be earned rather than just stated or assumed. Marvel’s done a pretty good job with its cinematic universe, in particular making it so that most of the characters’ skills and problems manage to avoid the ‘Call The Avengers’ issue and make a good case for why the problem at hand should be kept local. The Arrowverse on the other hand can highlight the differences between Barry and Oliver all it wants, both the crossovers and overlapping villains and similar mean you have to keep reminding yourself that the answer to “Why doesn’t he just call The Flash/Supergirl?” is “Because then the story would be over in five minutes.” Don’t even get me started on how little The Avengers has managed to interest me in the big blue chap sitting on the space toilet.

So, I’m quite glad that Bethesda, despite having the kind of portfolio that could probably get away with some Bethesdaverse nonsense, isn’t falling into that trap and leaving itself in a position where it has to explain why the future is 1950s style and why any other future games aren’t, or why nobody in Tamriel has ray-guns or whatever. (Except modders.) It wouldn’t add anything except a layer of silliness and artifice. Pretty much without exception, the only cases that work in games are those that fully embrace it. Super Smash Bros for instance isn’t really suggesting that Mario and Luigi spend their off-time fighting Bayonetta and Samus and Kirby – the series’ original metaphor was a kid with toys – while Super Mario Kart invites you not to think about why they’re go-karting with Bowser instead of stomping him into Koopa-goop.

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That’s not to say that nobody’s ever tried blurring the edges of their popular franchises, of course. SF and fantasy are surprisingly easy to mash together, the difference between aliens and monsters being mostly one of origin rather than detail. The trick is for a developer or publisher to actually have the necessary worlds, although even those who do have only really used the potential for glorified easter eggs. The most famous is probably the appearance of a Kilrathi fighter in Ultima VII (take a shot), although there’s actually a second example in Ultima Underworld 2 with another feline race called the ‘Trilkhai’ – members of a former spacefaring race ruined by war. They’re not Kilrathi as such, being more cheetah/leopard people than lions, and telepathic into the mix, but the reference isn’t subtle. Just mix up a few letters.

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The other big example that comes to mind is Lands of Lore III, the incredibly disappointing final game in Westwood’s RPG franchise. The premise is that you’re trying to get your soul back by exploring assorted dimensions that have bled into the world of Gladstone, facing off against dangers ranging from a haunted house in the Netherworld to the inevitable fire and ice worlds, to… well… death by snu-snu. The final portal realm though is a radioactive desert, which soon leads the way to a NOD Temple from Command and Conquer, complete with an AI that hero Connor doesn’t understand at all. On a less overt level, the series also semi-connected fantasy with fantasy by idly referencing the Kyragem from The Legend of Kyrandia, and with the Gladstonian sorceress Dawn pretty much Kyrandia’s Zanthia copy and pasted between worlds.

(Oooh, and now I think about it, of course there’s Tides of Numenara, which connects itself to Planescape Torment in a few mostly thematic ways, like the use of ‘Adahn’ as a nom-de-quest but specifically in the case of O, a letter of the divine alphabet who likes hanging out in slightly seedy bars.)

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Outside of RPGs, we get a few more cases. GTA references Manhunt, Tom Clancy has a whole military mash-up, and Assasins’s Creed’s Abstergo Entertainment has gotten around a bit. Almost never though are they more than a cute thing for fans to go “Oooh! I know that reference!” and intended as a true canonical thing. When Crusader: No Remorse’s packed-in newspaper discussed the recent success with Project: SHODAN, for instance, it wasn’t really setting up a game where its red-armour clad Silencer (think a Stormtrooper who can aim, but doesn’t have the sense to at least try and scratch off the Empire’s logo from his armour before trying to ingratiate himself with his fellow rebels) would team up with a plucky hacker. Which is probably for the best.

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Look at you, Silencer. A pa-pathetic incredibly trained killing machine armed to the teeth with the latest firepower and no concept of- of- mercy. How can you challenge a per-perfect immortal… machine…

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(Sound of rocket launcher being loaded)

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I suppose a really large bribe is out of the question. Australia, perhaps?

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Very well. You challenge me and I shall ans- ans- answer. For I too have forged an alliance with great- great- with greatness. The most powerful artificial intelligence known to history!

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Siri not available. Connect to the internet.

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Pestulent shit buboes. This is why AM works alone.

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I have no friends and I must sob.

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Despite the lack of official shared universes though, it can often feel like we get them anyway. Fantasy, in particular, is so rooted to the traditions of D&D and Tolkien and the tropes of the 80s that it can be hard to remember that things like health potions and mana and the traditional warrior/mage/rogue type classes really aren’t some kind of universal law. Worse, while the games that break away from that often do become cult hits and fondly remembered, just as often it feels like different is scary and uncomfortable, be it coming to a JRPG after a lifetime of playing Western modelled games, or just something that does things a little different, like Drakensang or Tyranny or the aforementioned Tides of Numenera. One of the most interesting cases there has to be The Elder Scrolls, where for all the praise lavished on Morrowind, Bethesda opted to spend the next decade first on the far more traditional Oblivion and Skyrim, just as BioWare’s plans for Dragon Age began with all kinds of interesting concepts like magic being super rare and ended with a world full of apostate mages for caster fights.

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Of course, I’m not saying that all these worlds are the same. Every major RPG of interest finds new material to tap and its own direction to take things, from The Witcher’s focus on personality and lavish use of fairytale mythology to the titular Dragon Age: Origins, and at least its attempt to do something new in the sequel by creating an epic story based primarily on the passing of time rather than distance. As a general concept though, it would be nice to see more fantasy in the sense of crazy and wonderful ideas, and just a little less based on the accepted definition of the genre. There’s only so many worlds you can save before they start blending into each other regardless of the creators’ intent, and if that’s going to happen, maybe their collective heroes are okay saving the day on their own while we focus on the new and interesting threats still lurking behind P&P games and mythological bestiaries and classic stories of adventure that have still yet to be retold through the glorious medium of pixels.
 

Infinitron

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Inspired by recent Gamestar article? https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2017/07/10/the-rpg-scrollbars-the-many-faces-of-villainy/

The RPG Scrollbars: The Many Faces Of Villainy
Richard Cobbett on July 10th, 2017 at 1:00 pm.

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Not only does a great hero need a great villain, villains are usually just so much more fun. Whether it’s the tortured lost soul who can only find peace by destroying the universe or the cheery psychopath looking to see the world burn, it’s no wonder that many of the greatest films of all time have been defined at least as much by the baddie as any individual scene. Darth Vader, the Terminator, Norman Bates, Dracula… villains get people excited. A great villain lives forever, death be damned.

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It’s particularly relevant because the RPGs with great villains offer some of the best and most iconic that the industry has to offer. SHODAN. The Guardian. Darth Traya. Kefka. The Transcendent One. Irenicus. Ironically, RPGs both have a huge advantage over other genres and a massive disadvantage – their length. Used properly, a villain can dip in and out of the action with an excellent rhythm, presenting not just an evil plan that has to be stopped, but building up a relationship with both the player and the main characters that makes it personal. That makes their final defeat satisfying.

Prince LaCroix of Bloodlines, for instance, is a fantastic character – an eminently punchable smooth talker who can’t conceal the fact that his control over Los Angeles is shaky at best, who spends most of the game trying to kill you with impossible tasks since he didn’t have the political clout to actually order your execution during the intro, and who the player character is ultimately (if somewhat awkwardly given Vampire: The Masquerade generation rules) able to overpower and put in his place by outright no-selling his Domination ability and telling him where to stick his authority.

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The catch is that a villain who keeps showing up to win, destroying your recent achievements, quickly gets incredibly annoying, while one who just loses all the time rarely maintains much gravitas. Even beating them repeatedly gets annoying, as the makers of Bioshock 2 – not an RPG, but stick with me – found with the character of the Big Sister. This was originally one entity, but having her always zipping off before the final blow just proved annoying, resulting in the developers turning her into a whole class of enemies instead. Also, when a villain does get a major success, it has to be incredibly well handled to make it feel dramatic rather than simply frustrating.

Compare, say, Baldur’s Gate 2 and Knights of the Old Republic. Baldur’s Gate 2 starts, more or less, with the villain kidnapping your childhood friend Imoen by proxy in order to make you come after her. He does this first with his magic, and then essentially setting the local magic cops on her in a way that you as the player have no chance whatsoever of fighting back against, even if you try. The game however quickly gives you another character who is basically Imoen 2.0, Imoen wasn’t around long enough to have seen favouritism that would affect the others, the game gives her back before toolong, and the whole thing comes across as the villain being canny rather than the designer of that section being a bastard.

Knights of the Old Republic meanwhile features a hilariously easy mid-game battle with the final boss, Darth Malak, in which he gets his ass completely kicked, before your partner/party member Bastilla goes “Don’t worry, I’ve got this!”, takes over, and is promptly kidnapped. This is having just spoiled your chance to save the galaxy in one easy battle, saving nobody, and not even having the stats that would make sense for a one-on-one battle, regardless of the fact that pride has repeatedly been shown to be her downfall. The idea is to put her into Malak’s clutches while showing off his power. The result is closer to “Just keep the silly bint.”

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Most enemies though don’t get anything like this kind of screentime. They tend to suffer from what TV Tropes refers to as Orcus On His Throne; specifically that they’re big and tough and totally ready to conquer the world, only for some reason they seem to have been superglued to their chair. This can still work. The Lich King of World of Warcraft spends most of the Wrath of the Lich King expansion popping up psychically to taunt the heroes, and putting them into dark situations, with the plot also resting on the (retcon) that the Lich King himself is in the middle of something of a civil war between his human side, Arthas, and demon side, Ner’zhul, that’s preventing him from unleashing the full world-crushing power of his zombie army. (There’s also some bullshit about planning to turn players into his new generals, though as has been pointed out many times, when it takes up to 25 of them at the appropriate level to kill just one of his previous guys in a fair fight, he should probably stick with what he’s got. Especially when they include dragons. Dragons are awesome.)

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Even in this case though, the Lich King isn’t afraid to get involved – to get his hands dirty. In many a classic RPG, you don’t even know who or what the villain is for much of the action, or it’s just some spiky-shouldered person who pops up in the intro movie and a couple of times to snarl. The Guardian of Ultima VII certainly wasn’t the first to get more involved, with the Shadowlords of Ultima V being a wonderfully corruptive and intimidating force, but he was one of the earliest cases of a villain being pushed right to the foreground and harnessing new technology to create something memorable. Within the world of Britannia, his only real power is his ability to speak. This was mirrored in our world by him being one of the first major talking RPG characters – not just going ‘ouch’ or similar, but delivering long speeches about his evil plan in the intro. You never actually meet him in the game, with the ending being to blow up a magic Black Gate before he can come through and become godlike, but he’s a constant presence throughout. He talks to you in your sleep. He laughs when you come across his evil plans. He screams at you to turn around when you approach his evil.

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Played now, admittedly, things aren’t quite as effective. Those speeches are incredibly camp, the guy looks like a Muppet and villains who literally go ‘mwah-ha-ha-ha’ are so old fashioned, he might as well be tying Penelope the schoolma’am to train tracks and twirling his moustache. Even so, he largely set the pattern for many a successful villain to come – be passionate, be ambitious, but above all else, be there. Say what you will about Ultima VII’s campiness, the player never forgets who the villain is.

And it’s at least a little more subtle than, say, Clouds of Xeen.



The Guardian, of course, led more or less directly to SHODAN of System Shock fame, who is a very similar character in many ways – and certainly execution. The big difference is that while the Guardian talked a big game, he didn’t have many real tricks up his sleeve. SHODAN meanwhile controls an entire space station, with the whole game playing out as a glorified game of cat-and-mouse where the cat is happy to lock the mouse in the nuclear reactor or devote big chunks of a floor to creating a death machine gauntlet out of a former corridor.

Again though, it’s not just raw power that makes SHODAN interesting. As with Ultima VII, the raw dialogue is… somewhat campy. System Shock 2 would greatly improve the writing quality. Even so, there’s subtlety to it, like the fact that her dialogue to her robots (who as far as we can tell really aren’t smart enough to care) is all self-glorification and fancy speeches as befits her self-proclaimed goddess status, while most of her comments to the player are pointed and irritable, as if annoyed at having to waste time. Likewise, because she’s the computer system and therefore hooked directly into every single part of the station, pretty much every player act feels like chip-chip-chipping away at her specifically. Knock out a camera and you blind her. Hack a door and you crawl through her fingers. SHODAN makes the entire environment feel like a living creature, even when in raw script terms it’s relatively simple.

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Part of the issue with many villains is that their goals simply aren’t sympathetic. It’s not hard to write one who wants to conquer the world for funsies, or who just happens to have an invading army or believes that it’s their job to save the world by destroying most of it. Very few RPGs, however, have managed to create a set-up where the villain claims they were only doing what was right, and for the response to be “And I get that.” As an example, Fable 3 fails miserably here. The concept is that your brother, the king, is secretly preparing Albion for an invasion that nobody else knows about, with his deep-seated douchery actually just about saving money and preparing the land. Unfortunately, the threat turns out to be hilariously unimpressive, with the player easily able to personally afford the necessary army out of the equivalent of petty-cash.

The most successful case I can think of is Loghain, the villain of Dragon Age: Origins. He looks like the villain and he spends most of the game up to his gauntlets in dodgy dealings when he should be helping you and your fellow Grey Wardens handle the Blight. Indeed, it’s easy to play through the game and see him as just another would-be conquerer, who abandoned his king to steal his throne.

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Pay more attention though, especially if you follow the path where he joins the party and gets to have his say more directly, and a much more rounded figure emerges – one who has excellent reason to doubt the upcoming disaster and suspect the heroes as being merely part of a scheme from another empire. He’s also shown to be ruthless, yes, but with a strong sense of honour, with abandoning the King not a particularly dreadful idea given his dreadful tactics. Once he discovers that only a blood sacrifice will be enough to save his kingdom, he’s also the first to volunteer, having realised his mistakes and started looking for a way to atone. At every point though, his actions – even if ill-informed or morally questionable – are firmly focused on what’s best for his country. That doesn’t necessarily make him a hero. After all, many bad things have been done for patriotism. However, nor does it make him a moustache-twirler.

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Caesar from Fallout: New Vegas operates in a similar way, but with an important twist. He’s the head of the ‘baddie’ faction, Caesar’s Legion, and most of your encounters with them are hostile or deeply awful, despite some attempts to justify the cruelties as paying evil unto evil and making a point in order to prevent other, worse atrocities. You meet him, and what quickly becomes clear is that far from a crazed madman, he’s a scholar, he’s thought all of this out extremely carefully, and he has a very structured, careful plan. The twist is that having made a man out of the monster, New Vegas has no compunction about showing that under that is a hypocrite, a poor tactician, and a whole other layer of monsterdom that’s arguably worse than the show he puts on. It’s something of a flaw in the game in that there is literally no good reason to support his faction except for doing an Evil Run, but a great character study that subverts expectations by revealing that there isn’t actually a clever writing twist on the way.

(Naturally, this kind of thing is fairly common in Fallout, not least with the ability to talk the Master of the mutants in Fallout 1 out of his plan on the grounds that it won’t work, leading to him blowing up his own base and saving you the hassle of it.)

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One of the classic rules for writing villains is that they should usually be the heroes of their own tales. Personally, I’ve never liked things so cut and dry. There are fantastic villains who are well aware of their status, carrying out their acts because they feel that they must. Kreia/Darth Traya of Knights of the Old Republic 2 is under no illusions about who and what she is. Her Sith name even marks her as a professional betrayer. Likewise, The Transcendent One of Planescape Torment shows no interest in anything except silent immortality, and its meddling with The Nameless One is entirely a matter of frustration for them both. Then of course you get cases like Kefka of Final Fantasy VI, who has all the depth of a paddling pool but caught peoples’ attention for being crazier than your average villain, and Sephiroth of Final Fantasy VII, who… well, I won’t say there’s nothing to him, but let’s face it, the hair, the sword, and the orchestra screaming his name really didn’t hurt his credibility.

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Of course, if Sephiroth is remembered for anything except his style… and I’m fairly sure he is… it’s That Moment, killing Aerith mid-way through Final Fantasy VII. That opens up a whole can of worms for the genre. Specifically, when is it okay for villains to have that level of success? It’s one thing to burn the player’s hometown that they don’t know or care about, or whole locations like Highpool and Ag Centre in Wasteland 2 to prove that they’re serious. What matters to the character though has to be made to matter to the player, and simply saying ‘you feel really sad about this’ doesn’t cut it.

Few games though are willing to let them outright get a kill that sticks and has a mechanical impact. Mass Effect features a section where the player must choose between two party members and others later on where diplomacy fails or is very difficult. Not many though have the guts to ‘pull an Aerith’, despite the potential power of it, and those that do almost inevitably make the actual moment that happens into the player’s call, with the promise that something else could have been done. Dogs excepted, of course. From Dogmeat to the pup in Fable 2, a happy dog bounding at your feet has a worse chance than most NPCs of making it to the credits.

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The reasons are many, starting with the fact that characters die so often in RPGs that making one of them stick is a hard pill to swallow, even in a world without easy access to resurrection, and that a company trying to create memorable IP would rather keep them around rather than losing someone popular. Where would Mass Effect be if instead of a choice between Ashley and Kaidan, the player had been forced to choose between Tali and Garrus? Pity the Tumblr community…

Mostly though, it comes down to the fact that it’s about 50/50 odds that the player’s annoyance will be aimed at the company/designer of the sequence rather than the villain who supposedly did it. That’s quite a hefty risk to take, especially if it’s a case like the Bastila example of KOTOR where there was clearly no need for it. Things get worse if going back, it really was a forced situation, like watching a magician’s volunteer pick the three of clubs for the second time. (The Walking Dead: 300 Days features a section in a cornfield where a character’s identity changes based on your decision to ensure that whatever you do, you mess up the scene – either being shot by a villain and dying, or whacking a friendly character. That’s not just a problem for that scene. You get caught doing that, and the player won’t trust the game again.)

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As with so much, games have a unique advantage when it comes to villains in that they can make things personal. As in the above examples, there’s almost endless ways to play them and subvert the expected rules. Undertale is a fun recent example, where everyone talks about the presumed final boss, King Asgore, like he’s a giant lump of marshmallow rather than your actual nemesis, with the big twist being… he basically is. He fights purely because he knows a fight is inevitable, doing everything he can to put it off not because he’s afraid of losing, but because he doesn’t want to win. Dark Souls 2 sets up King Vendrick as its big bad, only to reveal him as a stumbling zombie no longer able to prevent you just walking up and taking his ring. I’m sure you can think of many other examples of cool villains, and as ever, comments thread below.

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If there’s one big thing that basically all of these great villains has in common that other games can learn from though, it’s presence. It doesn’t matter how much power someone supposedly has, or how many hit-points they mechanically have in their final encounter, if they’re just another obstacle. The nemesis is at least as important as the hero in most games and requires suitable screen-time, character depth, and the time to make a proper impression. Facing off with them can be many things. Cathartic. Satisfying. Bittersweet. But what it should never be is simply business as usual.

A good villain deserves better than that. And a great game deserves a great villain.
 
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Neanderthal

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Loghain a good example of a villain, to me he just came off as an incompetent useless bastard after Ostagar, because of the usual Bioware protagonist cocksucking going overboard and everybody else being stupid and ineffective.

Now a good example o villains in a recent game I found were all conniving bastards in Witcher 2, Letho an opposite mirror image of Geralt showing another way for a Witcher to go, Philippa a magnificent bastard who would probably be more effective as a ruler than established heirarchy o north, Radovid blossoming chessmaster, Loredo oily fat perv an consumate politician, Iorveth an Roche, likeable but bit rapey Henselt who can't see into the dawning age, even Foltest himself. Great cast, just wish it weren't so fucking consolised.

You could side wi any one on em reasonably, except Loredo, an be sure that you were doing the right thing.

Course Kain o Blood Omen eclipses everybody by being best villain an hero all in one.
 

Lhynn

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Kefka was probably the only guy i have ever hated on an RPG:
 

Infinitron

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Apparently Cobbett is done making these. The last installment is relevant to Unkillable Cat's interests: https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2017/07/24/the-rpg-scrollbars-a-farewell-dip-into-the-archives/

The RPG Scrollbars: A Farewell Dip Into The Archives
Richard Cobbett on July 24th, 2017 at 5:00 pm.

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It is said that the greatest test is that of time. Actually, I’m not sure if anyone’s said that, except me just then. But that’s fine. I’m sure everyone will remember. Anyway, in the final edition of The RPG Scrollbars, let’s take a look back to see what the people of the past said about what was the present but is now, by the laws of causality, in fact that past. With some help from the magazine archives at archive.org, natch.


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Let’s start by seeing what was going on back at the launch of cheery RPS fanzine PC Gamer, and long-time distinguished competitors PC Zone. PC Zone started at by far the better time, in April 1993, just in time for Ultima Underworld 2. PC Gamer meanwhile had to make do with the largely forgotten Shadowcaster, one of a long series of Raven’s patented ‘take an engine and make a fantasy game out of it’ games. In this case the engine was Wolfenstein 3D, and it was really more of an action game than an RPG. It did however have a truly fantastic gimmick – unlocking the ability to take the form of assorted monsters. Weirdly, shape-shifting remains a fairly underutilised mechanic.

“The first thing you think when you see Shadowcaster is ‘Uh-oh, looks like Origin had better watch out. You see, this is a game that gives its own Ultima Underworld games a serious run for their money. In fact, this is a game that knocks back 12 pints of lager and a curry, then pounds its own chest and sings “Come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough,” at the entire RPG fraternity.”

I’m reminded of the time PC Format reviewed Descent using the three words ‘Better. Than. Doom.’ But the point of this isn’t to go back and mock old reviews for being wrong or overly-enthusiastic. Maybe that PC Format one. But in general, the curse of reviewing is that you have to hit a game hard and fast and write while the iron is hot, making it easy to both be more critical than some games deserve, or get over-excited. And Shadowcaster was exciting, especially compared to the likes of fellow reviewer Dark Sun: Shattered Alliance, which prompts a bit of a snooze just for the streamline ‘SSI and TSR team up once more to bring us another of their computerised AD&D games’. (Flicking through this issue though, I think my favourite little detail is that Street Fighter 2 of all games gets a third of a page next to a slightly mean review of Privateer, while the most 90s titled game of all time, Yo! Joe! gets a half-pager.)

But what of Underworld 2?

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“Tankard of ale or bonk, sire?” was all you used to get from women in Role Playing Games. That and “Help! Help! I’m crap. I’m wearing a white dress and I need to be rescued!” Of course, that was the old days, when men were men and women were buxom serving wenches with low-cut dresses.”

Indeed. How far we’ve come since… uh… 1993. And how modern those complaints are, at least to anyone who doesn’t remember things like Unreal creator Tim Sweeney’s 1992 Jill of the Jungle’s third part, the satirical but pointed “Jill Saves The Prince”.

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The most interesting thing about Zone’s UW2 review is how damn short it is. As was fairly typical for the time, the review is more boxout than words, with only one page out of five actually the review and most of it devoted to a play-by-play of the first couple of levels. While it does end on a score of 94% (“Just go out and buy it, okay?”), there’s more words lavished on the long-forgotten post-apocalyptic train RPG Transarctica, and about as many on Shadowworlds, the sequel to Shadowlands, aka the only RPG ever whose main feature was a vaguely funky lighting engine. A subsequent review of Pagan would have more words, but inevitably the only thing I really remember about it is a boxout called “Lord of the Chins” in which the Guardian tries to exile the Avatar to the land of Pagan while the Avatar just mocks him with stuff like “Yeah, well, if you were as big and had as your chin, we’d all be quaking!” It was a mighty chin…

Ah, the joys of old magazines. As ever, the difficult part about hitting the archives is somehow avoiding just sitting back and going through them all in depth. But we don’t have the time for that. You may have the time for that! But for now, let’s just keep things cut short to see what was said in a random sampling of of these classic titles.

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“The thing about the FF games is that everyone goes on about the storylines. Bollocks to that. Either they really miss something when they translate them from the Japanese text or else they’re just completely shit.”
– PC Zone, Final Fantasy VIII

Hard to remember, but Final Fantasy had about the worst possible launch on the PC, courtesy of one of the worst ports in memory. The sequel was at least slightly better in that it only crashed every few minutes and the programmers had apparently been allowed to at least look at a copy of Windows before trying to implement it. Also, Triple Triad.

“Whereas the size of Ultima 7 was almost out of control, Pagan is refreshingly compact. It’s still an enormous game, but it has a solidity that makes the pre-Big Bang universe look about as dense as a Stay Puft marshmallow.”
– PC Format, Ultima VII

And with about as many colours once you’re out of the main town!

“I went to see them and said ‘Is this London?’ and they were like, “Yeah, what’s wrong with it?” Victorian lights and cobbled streets for Tottenham Court Road! And they asked if I could send them a photo.”
– PC Zone, Vampire: The Masquerade: Redemption

Don’t see the problem, guv’nor!

“One important matter for any complex computer game is documentation. Though this manual is well written, explains in detail the mechanics of playing the game, and even includes a short story, it lacks an important feature. During gameplay, monsters are not identified by name, so one needs to drag out those Dungeons and Dragons Monster Manuals to help identify monsters and their characteristics. The reviewer purchased two of them for purposes of the game.”
– CGW, Dungeon Master

Pssst. It’s Dungeon Master. You can just hit them. With swords.

“There is also a very novel feature which allows you to use yourself as the agent. By filling in the accompanying application form, you can become a member of Zodiac. To do this, you must send in the completed form, a passport photograph and £1.50 to Core, who will then digitise your facial features and send you back a disk with your character on it.”
– ST Format, Corporation

I like to imagine that the then-intern still has nightmares about this offer. Imagine if they’d done the same for some kind of ‘Be Lara Croft’ type deal. The horrors… the horrors…

“Ultima IX is broken. More than any other game this year, it’s been knowingly put on the shelves in a state which would have Watchdog hopping in an apoplectic war dance. If bugs were diseases, Bob Geldof would be on TV demanding your money for an emergency relief program. (snip) Perfected and optimised, Ultima would have received 94%. This is obviously one of the greatest solo games of all time.”
– PC Gamer, Ultima VIII



“Its level of complexity and intelligent plot knocks Baldur’s Gate into oblivion and gives RPG fans a real taste of what PC games could really deliver in the next year or two.”
– PC Zone, Planescape Torment

Oh, god, if only. Planescape’s old enough to vote and we’re still waiting.

Deus Ex isn’t all bad though; I’d say it’s only 90% bad. There are times when it’s fun. You’ll be stalking snipers on the rooftops in New York, pushing deeper and deeper into an underwater base, or sneaking past robot sentries around a missile silo. But just as you’re starting to get into the spirit of things, something lame happens (snip) and Deus Ex reminds you that you’re playing a cliché-riddled game with horrid AI that uses the one of the worst possible engines to tell an uninteresting story in unimaginative settings. Other than that, I suppose Deus Ex is okay.
– GamesDomain, Deus Ex

Sounds terrible. Bet that one’s going to be forgotten quickly.

“Upon opening it you are confronted by an awesome sight that will chill the bones of even the most hardened role-player. FOUR DISKS.”
– C&VG, Pool of Radiance

Pffft. I played Wing Commander 2.

“Until now, there’s never been a true RPG on the market. (snip) Sometimes, people will just walk up to you in the street and fight you. To be entirely accurate they don’t fight you outright. They just walk up and say you dress like a diseased troll.”
– ST Format, Legends of Valour

A tactic that would later be used by many an MMO griefer!

“If your neighbour bought a spanking new black Countach, practiced his handbrake turns outside your house in the middle of the night and you were only able to watch as chicks flocked to his motor while the dogs visited yours, then you’d be in much the same situation that PC and Amiga owners were in 1988. Of course, they weren’t worried about cars – it was a computer game, released to an unsuspecting public, that pissed off a nation of non-ST owners. The game was called Dungeon Master.”
– Zero, Dungeon Master

Well, it’s a change from the anorak brigade type commentary, I guess…

“The seventh instalment in Origin’s classic Ultima series seems to have picked up a negative word of mouth in some gaming circles for no reason other than that it’s a seventh instalment. Many who were delighted when Ultima VI was released cannot be bothered to boot up Ultima VII, as though it goes without saying that the seventh of anything can’t possibly be any good. The market suddenly seems matured; weary gamers, sure they have played enough to last them a lifetime, eye the new Ultima with suspicion that it is just More Of The Same.”
– CGW, Ultima VII

They’re probably thinking of flour.

“There is a very small group of individuals who claim to like Might and Magic VII. We hated it. Abysmal graphics and archaic gameplay are never going to impress us, but we do not hold grudges. What’s past is past. So, we start afresh with this latest offering, Might and Magic VIII. We have no preconceptions, we forgive 3DO its previous sins. Let’s move on and see how it fares.”
– PC Zone, Might and Magic VIII

They promptly gave it 9%.

“Though it certainly looks impressive, plays fairly well and is generally pretty okay, there’s always this constant nagging doubt at the back of your mind that says, what are you doing? This is a flick-screen game. They went out years ago. Stop it at once! (snip)”
– PC Zone, Stonekeep

Ah, the joy of retro sensibilities. It requires a bit of distance before we forget how bored we got of the good old games of the past and are ready for the likes of Grimrock or Bard’s Tale IV. Or maybe even Grimoire… when it finally launches in 2027.

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But what of this own little column’s past? What have we learned over the last couple of years? We’ve drunk a million or so virtual shots to Ultima VII, for starters. But there’s been plenty more! We’ve learned that the industry needs more urban fantasy, that there are plenty of scenes we’d like to see, that I probably shouldn’t be allowed to write any Mass Effect novels, and that great ideas were meant to be stolen. We’ve poked behind the scenes of MMO jails and visited deep spaaaaaaaaaaace, and confirmed without argument – really, no argument – that HEROES! DON’T! CRAFT! In between all of that, we’ve found time to listen to the radio, go streaking for science, and confirmed once and for all that spiders are the fucking worst. Worst of the worst!

Plus some other stuff too, if you follow this here tag.

Oh, and lest we forget, we learned that Eye of the Beholder III invented the goatse.

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And so it came to pass that at the end of civilisation, as the world descended into chaos via a chain of strange yet plausible coincidences sparked by the absence of a weekly RPG column, that the final scrollbar reached the bottom of the page. Somewhere, as the hordes of red dragons took to the sky and the cities of man and beast alive burned, one last smouldering monk didst take another look at the series’ long-running title and utter “Oh, now I get it. What a terrible bloody name.”

And then there was but darkness. Forever and ever. Or at least for a while.



Ultima VII. (Take a shot.)
 
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Infinitron

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
http://www.richardcobbett.com/journal/post/the-rpg-scrollbars

The RPG Scrollbars

So, for the last two years and a bit I’ve been writing a column called The RPG Scrollbars for Rock, Paper, Shotgun. That’s a pretty good run for a column, so I’m not too upset that they decided to draw it to a close. All columns end eventually, and I’m lucky to have been offered several over my time - a regular one back in PC Plus, PC Gamer’s Crap Shoot, which ran for a whopping five or so years, its shorter-lived follow-up Critical Paths about narrative, and a couple of others for various places that I doubt anybody. really remembers.

Still, this one feels a bit strange. It’s the only real games journalism I’ve done for the last couple of years, give or take a couple of shorter pieces, with all the work currently on the horizon firmly on the games writing rather than writing about games side of things. I’m not saying ‘I don’t do that any more’, but for the first time since starting scripting and such, it doesn’t feel like what I do. If that makes any sense. (Of course, I reserve the right to go back on that if my next secret project falls though. Though I really hope it doesn’t! Crazy excited about this one…)

I’m proud of the Scrollbars though. While officially a column, it ended up being more of an article a week, focusing on a fairly tight remit, which had to be written in a way to appeal to both casual and hardcore fans, regardless of whether they remember every little detail about Clouds of Xeen or whatever. Given that, I think we dug pretty deep, in a fun communal way with running gags like the Ultima VII (take a shot) thing and a pretty wide range of serious and silly that stayed positive about the genre rather than just bitching about its problems each week.

You can read the whole lot here, but here’s a few I was particularly fond of:

From The Archives…

Scenes I Want To See In An RPG
Well, I said it wasn’t just about bitching. But occasionally poking fun at a few things always seemed fair game… Here’s a few spins on classic tropes I’d love to encounter in a new game.


The Many Faces of Villainy
A look at how a truly great villain elevates both a game and its hero… and how messing up this seemingly simple thing can be one of the worst things that can happen to your plot.


In Search Of Urban Fantasy
There’s a real urban fantasy gap in the gaming industry, and it’s never made much sense. So much wasted opportunity, just sitting there and waiting to be seized.


Fallout 4: The Tale Of Bloody Nora
One of my ‘abridged’ type posts, this time poking fun at the start of Bethesda’s new sequel. Never get between an angry mother and her mech suit. Or child. Yes, the child thing is probably important too.


Roles We Take, Roles We Choose
A look a bit outside the box at how RPGs can encourage players to embody characters instead of simply use them, using Hearthstone’s character classes as a good visible example.


Of course, that’s just five out of more than a hundred. Lots of lovely reading material if you’re in the mood! Hopefully it Educated as well as Entertained, or at least Passed A Little Time. My only regret is that the final column was due to be about the much-delayed Grimoire, which seemed a perfect stopping point. Too bad its recent delays pushed it into August, with no promise that delays then won’t push it into 2027. Oh, the stories I was planning to tell of that game, of neanderthals and titanium bones and penis monsters and so much more.

Sadly, you’ll have to find them elsewhere now. (Luckily, Google still exists.)

And that’s it for another column. Hopefully there’ll be others in the future.

Until then: Ultima VII. (Take a shot.)

Cleveland Mark Blakemore Look what you've done!
 
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Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Bubbles In Memoria A Beautifully Desolate Campaign
A real shame to see this end.

Infinitron, don't you think this is news-worthy? After all, we're talking about the end of the only column in mainstream gaming media that's dedicated to RPG.
 

Blake00

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Well better late than never I guess lol. Years ago I wondered why I was getting all these hits on my youtube videos from RPG Codex and always intended to join up and find out why. Looks like the reason was here as I'm the creator of Quest for Glory IV - 3D Hexen and also Star Trek Doom.

It was so awesome getting covered on Rock Paper Shotgun thanks to Richard. Not long after this both the US and UK PC Gamer magazines covered my work too which was even more unbelievable as I'd been getting that magazine since I was a kid and never thought anything I'd make would end up in it haha!


Don't get mad, it's just an experiment:

Anyway thanks for posting about my work here Infinitron ! Not to mention defending it from some of those not so nice responses lol. My mod was never intended as any sort of true 1 to 1 replacement of the original QFG4, it was just made for a bit of fun! Nothing serious! Sadly that went over some peoples heads and I copped some flak (I remember one guy telling me I'd "ruined his childhood" lol!!) but oh well! Haven't worked on it or my Star Trek Doom mod for a few years now as I wanted to get back to playing other peoples games and I've also been getting into some Civ 2 modding however hopefully one day I'll return to these mods to finish them off as the demo's I released back then were quite huge and took years to make so 'in theory' half the work was done lol.

Just gonna grab me some boobies here...

bahahahahahaha haven't we all? and I'm the guy made it from christ sake lol!!

The guy's website is hilariously retro: http://blakessanctum.x10.mx/Mods/QFG43D/

Feels like the 90s all over again.

hahaha thanks yeah my website looks like it's from the 90s because it actually IS from back in those days! It was originally a Geocities site 20 years ago, then that kicked the bucket and I moved it to webring, they've since kicked the bucket so now it sits on X10 hosting (I updated the link in the quote as I think people clicking on webring hosted links get taken to baaaad places now). Despite adding lots of new content to it over the years I deliberately kept its retro theme which some people love and some people hate haha! :)

Anyway thanks again for posting about my work here. I enjoyed some of the funny comments!
 

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