RPG clichés

[Saint_Proverbius]

Re: my first post

Even against armor, arrows are pretty damn effective. Maybe not so many folks know this, but the long bow was one of the major factors in ending the Age of Chivalry in Europe. Arrows went clean through armor; the knights that maintained so much of order in that time were suddenly rendered much less effective.

The pike didn't help that whole knight thing out either. When a peasant with a large, sharpenned stick can bring down your "trained from boyhood" knight, it's time to re-evaluate things. :D

 

[RolfEmerson]

Does it strike anyone else as weird when asian weapons suddenly pop up in western-type settings? Dispite a total lack of eastern influence in the game world, you can find katanas and throwing stars down at the weapon shop. Also, what about games like Arcanum, where firearms are prevalent but conventional metal armor can still be found. I know the presence of magical armor and alloys would help, but the same 'super-alloy' can just be used in more powerful firearms, thus making the point moot. That, combined with Tesla-style directed energy weapons would make heavy plate more of a liability than an asset. Arrows, pikes, and crossbows already gave the knights troubles; bullets were the final nail in the coffin.

 

[Megatron]

Does it strike anyone else as weird when asian weapons suddenly pop up in western-type settings? Dispite a total lack of eastern influence in the game world, you can find katanas and throwing stars down at the weapon shop.

Haha, yeah. Strange how they have sabres, katanas, throwing stars but no asian looking people (this is ok, so long as they have a few black npcs! Otherwise this could mean the game is racist) or other asian-type architecture or anything similair.

Another thing that strikes me as slightly strange is that you can have black, white and asian humans but every other race always seem to live in the same place and never tan or pale.

also why would a high charisma, good lucking guy get positive reactions from ugly commoners? Perhaps they could be jealous or think you could be snobby.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Haha, yeah. Strange how they have sabres, katanas, throwing stars but no asian looking people (this is ok, so long as they have a few black npcs! Otherwise this could mean the game is racist) or other asian-type architecture or anything similair.

I agree about the katana thing. I've never understood the need to put one in a western setting fantasy game when you have sabres. After all, a katana is basically just a sabre only with a Japanese name, so why bother adding it when the setting is Western fantasy and not Asian?

I think a lot of this boils down to a pissing contest to see how many weapons you can find in any given game. After all, they love to put things like, OVER 400 WEAPON TYPES on boxes these days.

 

[Constipated Craprunner]

I agree about the katana thing. I've never understood the need to put one in a western setting fantasy game when you have sabres. After all, a katana is basically just a sabre only with a Japanese name, so why bother adding it when the setting is Western fantasy and not Asian?

The Saber was cloned off of the popular Mid Eastern style of sword known as a Scimitar, as the curved design is appropriate for Calvary. Infact, our word Saber is a corruption of Scimitar.
To be fair there was Yoshimo in BG2.
I actually quite like the whole "Saber in Morrorwind" thing because the typical fantasy world is Medieval Europe, and in Medieval Europe's point of view the Scimitar was the weapon of a foreign, perhaps even fantastic race.
So, to cap up my ADD influenced statement,
When Scimitar=Weapon of a foreign race, it is interesting because that is Europe's view of the situation, and that is what any typical fantasy world is- Europe.

 

[Spazmo]

I agree about the katana thing. I've never understood the need to put one in a western setting fantasy game when you have sabres. After all, a katana is basically just a sabre only with a Japanese name, so why bother adding it when the setting is Western fantasy and not Asian?

Because, the katana deals 1d10 as opposed to the sabre's puny 1d6. The idea, basically, is to give very powerful items (a one-handed weapon that does 1d10? Madness, especially in 3E where speed factor is no longer an issue) to low-level PCs, except they add 50 gp to the buying price and say it's better because it came from a faraway land of ninjas.

 

[Sol Invictus]

The truth is though, how DO you reward someone appropriately for what they do? Why would a farmer know important information? What training could he give you? Are any of those real compensation for the Hoardes of Monsters? that you have to kill? I hate it when they give you something like that and act as if the deal is all squared away. Why can't I refuse the offer and demand more from them in return? Perhaps the daughter comes with me for a while or I slaughter his family unless he gives me everything in his house (which I can probably steal from him anyway, but it's just not the same).

That brings up an interesting point. In real life, in medieval times, the farmers would, as a payment, give their beautiful daughter's hand in marriage to the knights, cowboys or samurai who came along to help their village, a la something like The Magnificent Seven. Either that, or they'll just let the heroes have their fun time with the village girls.

Though, in Mag7 and Seven Samurai the villagers were a bunch of self-centered bastards who cared only about their own self-preservation and were willing to sacrifice all of the heroes to the bad guys. Especially in Seven Samurai, when the farmer with the beautiful daughter turned out to be a ninja who made a hobby out of killing wounded Samurai who were rerouting from lost battles and collected much of their weapons and armor, but kept them all to himself instead of giving them to the Samurais as they were quite ill-equipped.

The funny thing was that even while they were all a bunch of 'poor farmers' who supposedly couldn't afford to pay for mercenaries and wanted free help, they kept liquor, weapons/armor and other valuables underneath their houses and were in fact filthy rich, but extremely stingy.

In that light, I suppose it can be understandable how a worthless farmer can come up with a +5 sword as a reward to the hero for his duties. But a better RPG would elaborate on this fact by allowing the hero to question how he got his +5 sword and whether he had even more of the items. It's implausible that this 'good' farmer kept the +5 sword beloging to hsi great grandfather or something, now that I think of it. It's more likely that the farmer just looted some corpse of a dead knight or had himself murdered a wounded knight for his equipment.

This sort of thing happened a lot back in medieval times and those people caught doing it were executed for murder and grand larceny. It'd be nice if an elaborate RPG could contain this sort of thing.

Actually.. I thought of a CRPG with a royal plot like that, minus the Grimm Fairy Tales..

Prince of Qin

I'm kind of amazed you didn't think of it when you were typing the word, "Prince" so often.

oops!

 

[RolfEmerson]

I agree about the katana thing. I've never understood the need to put one in a western setting fantasy game when you have sabres. After all, a katana is basically just a sabre only with a Japanese name, so why bother adding it when the setting is Western fantasy and not Asian?

There are many differences between a katana and a sabre. Most of them are nitpicky, but the prime difference is that a sabre is mainly intended for one-handed use, while the katana is normally a two-handed blade when used on foot. Also, the process of forging a katana is very involved, taking at least several months to produce a blade that would be acceptable to its intended user. It would cost one hell of a lot more than an extra 50G, if it could even be sold to some strange f**k who just wandered into the kingdom 8)

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

There are many differences between a katana and a sabre. Most of them are nitpicky, but the prime difference is that a sabre is mainly intended for one-handed use, while the katana is normally a two-handed blade when used on foot. Also, the process of forging a katana is very involved, taking at least several months to produce a blade that would be acceptable to its intended user. It would cost one hell of a lot more than an extra 50G, if it could even be sold to some strange f**k who just wandered into the kingdom 8)

Ahh.. Good catch. I was thinking more about how the blade was done than the handle. Yes, it is possible to use a katana two handed or one handed, where a sabre is pretty much limited to one hand.

However, there are two handed scimitars which are very close to the katana in terms of design and the ability to use one or two hands. However, they tend to be somewhat heavy by design.

But really, the point of that is that there are equivalents to katanas in western settings, so why include the eastern weapons where there's no eastern visages?

 

[Megatron]

Why does almost every rpg ever made have the main charecter boringly powerful towards the end of the game? After you've killed the main boss, and mabye fought the other extra tough guy they add it afterwards (usually someone that has a bunch of attacks and 1000's of hp) there's nothing much to do.

To me this is a bit of an anti-climax. After training up and fighting hard battles near the begining against a bunch of monsters, towards the higher levels there isn't much of a challenge. And the main boss consists of a big monster that has a lot more HP than everyone else. After you've defeated him that's either the end of the game, or it gives you the option to mess around afterwards.

Therefore I think that games should have a lower levelling curve. A lot of games consist of your weaker-than-a-child 'hero' who's weaker than any other civilian and after a few hours playing you can easily kill almost everything in a few blows/shots. So the game should start with you being a little stronger than most other people and you have to go and kill a gang. From there you build up more slowly and after killing the final boss there still should be other stuff to do or just end the game.

 

[SexExitium]

 

[Fiver]

Frankly guys, games are not great works of art. Their stories are not crafted with the steady hands of a literary master. Characters tend not to be as multi-facted as something you might see in, say, Euripede's "Alcestis." Themes are never as psycologically unnerving as a work by Foucolt. I have never played a game that made me question existence or man's ability to act as much as "Before the Law" by Kafka.

If you really hate cliches, put the games down and read a good book. If you really want totally original story, deep themes, plot devices without any use of cliche and so on, then you are not going to find it in any game. Games can certainly be thought provoking. However, they can never match the originality found in good classic literature or even enjoyable modern fiction (I have to plug a couple of my fave recent discoveries: Forever War and Snowcrash, read em! They are great!).

No video game I have ever played is totally bereft of cliches because of the nature of the medium, I think. Game developers are not great philosophers or expert storytellers. Even if they are quite adept at waving a tale, gameplay concerns and time issues never allow for a game to be without its fair share of cliches. Ultimately, I think it is up to the player to look beyond the cliches and instead enjoy the general themes presented in a game. Surely, BG2, for example, had its fair share of cliches, but, looking beyond that, it's story was certainly fairly enganging. You know?

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

That's another cliche I can't stand. You're a soldier or some kind of specialist at the start, but you're level 1? I can see a farmer being level 1 at the start of a CRPG, because they've stuck to themselves all their lives. They've been working the land, making a living that way.

But a soldier? Even if you're a green grunt, you've still had some simulated combat experience in training. You'd think you'd at least be level 2 or 3 just out of the training you're provided.

 

[Spazmo]

Well, the idea in that context, I think, is that even a level one character is above the general populace. This is where 0-level NPCs are useful. The level one character has some training that lets him be a little bit better than a common 0-level NPC.

 

[Chadeo]

Game developers are not great philosophers or expert storytellers.

Yes but in a perfect world they WOULD be. Something that is interactive can almost always beat out a non-interactive work. It can be done, it just has not been done so far.

I agree though, the time and budget constraints, along with the way the medium is currently seen makes me very unoptimistic about the possibility of such a thing happening anytime soon.

Then again if one were to look at medieval paintings before the renaissance, and you did not know about prior cultures work in that area, you would probably not have predicted that there was much hope for the medium.

Also think about this. It has only been about 50 years (perhaps even as little as 20) that humans have had the ability to make widespread interactive "art". Give it 2000 years and I am sure you will see the same level of depth that you currently find in other mediums.

 

[MF]

Fiver, you're generalizing.

Not all games are works of art. Some are.

Not every literary piece is considered as 'art' by the wide public, which is what you're insinuating here. You implicitly state that games are not works of art because the people behind them are not great literary minds like the people you mentioned.

Wrong.
Your Euripides was a playwright. He wrote drama, plays are usually about character development and plot twists. I absolutely hate to read his work, like I hate reading Shakespeare. They're PLAYS, you're supposed to watch them in a theater. I liked seeing them performed, but the reading experience was dull at best.

Then again, there are SOME plays I like to read, because they're halfway decent in writing. Novellized versions usually make for a better read, even though they not always capture the essence of a play.

Point in case?
When you would read a game's 'story' in a novellized version, you might enjoy it. But they're not novels. It's an interactive experience on which, if the game is done right, YOU have an influence. The plot ANd the characters should have multiple ways to grow and develop, based on what you, the player, are doing.

As an example, read Raymond E. Feists Riftwar series. Play Betrayal at Krondor and then read Feist's novellization of the game, Krondor : The Betrayal'. It's a good read. The game was based on his work, and he based a novel on the game in turn. It's a wonderful example of different, completely DIFFERENT artists crafting different forms of entertainment taking a shot at each others work.
I enjoyed both.


Too bad Return to Krondor sucked, suffering from the Vampire/3dgraphics/neatspelleffects syndrome.

 

[Constipated Craprunner]

It's a developing medium.
I don’t compare the Epoch of Gilgamesh to the New Testament because the other has thousands of years to build upon.
We are here to celebrate the fledgling genre that is the Computer Game medium.
Also, I would argue that PS:T and Fallout are both deceptively deep- they are not works by Dostoyevsky or Tolstoy, Conrad or Kafka. They are just beggining.
Also, do not forget that, for the most part, these writers do not have to worry about money- I seriously doubt that Kafka was coughing up blood worrying that Metamorphosis would sell well.
And yeah, I know I misspelled Dostoyevsky.

 

[Fiver]

Kafka was actually a businesman. None of his works were published until his death (I think). Generally, his life sucked, he lived in the shadow of his father (who thought his writing stunk) and he never had a fulfilling romance. You will find that many of our great literary minds were not super rich and they often did write either for money or to escape the dreariness of their own lives.

 

[Constipated Craprunner]

Actually, the majority his works where published during his life.
I have the book right here, just bought it.
Quite alot of them where after-death, most of them are not.

 

[Fiver]

Also, MF, Im just going to agree to disagree with you here. I think we will both butt heads on this and not really get anywhere. I have played alot of games and, while some are quite entertaining, none have moved me as much as a well written literary work. Personally, I like fantasy, but, truthfully, I think saying that some games story is as good as something written in the popular fantasy genre (a genre based on the perpetuation and propagation of cliche) isnt saying much. If you disagree, that is your right as a reader. Opinions will differ as people do and, in the end, all informed opinions are, in some way, genuinely valid.

 

[Fiver]

Craprunner:

Thats right, I knew I might of been in error on that point (hence, the 'I think', hehe).

 

[MF]

Very well.
Just remember, discriminating too heavily between 'literary' works and popular fiction is often a mistake.

I read Virgil in Latin and Homer in Ancient-Greek in grammar school. They undoubtedly were great literary minds, but I prefer Tolkien.
To top that off, I prefer Feist to Tolkien.

The depth you're looking for is often in your own imagination.


Then, I agree it's not really worth discusing. You're right. It's a matter of taste I guess.

 

[DBL27]

The arrow thing...

Sorry I'm a bit late to the party, but I had to weigh in on the arrow thing:

Yes, a bow vs. an unarmored man is pretty fatal in most cases.

That being said, the English longbow was a very notable exception to the generally poor performance of archers on the medieval battlefield. The archers were poorly trained, poorly paid, poorly equiped troops who were scorned by the rest of the army and generally were slaughtered if their side lost. They were not well fed, and had horrible morale as a result of all of the above. The only place they excelled was in rough terrain (forests) were they could outrun adn ambush slower forces. Think Robin Hood.

The English longbowman were great, yes, but they were very unusual in that they were well-equiped, well-fed, and better regarded than others. The English longbow itself was unusual. Most bows did not have great penetration against anthing but a dead-on, direct hit because the curvature of the armor was designed to deflect piercing weapons (which is why most medieval helmets look "beaked"). The English bow was quite a bit stronger than average (say 100-150 lbs pull vs usual at 30-40) and required more training than most men-at-arms received before it could be used effectively, but it did penetrate armor better than most.

So no, bows were not the downfall of the knight. In reality, the development of effective pole arms and armor-crushing weapons for the foot soldier, as well as the development of gunpowder weapons (cannon, etc.) and the cultural changes of the time were what led to the phasing out of the armored knight.

Other point: in RPGs, it seems to be lost on many that "hit points" or whatever are not supposed to completely represent toughness. It also represents the learned ability ot roll with a blow, interpose less critical areas of the body before a blow (or incoming arrow), trained reaction and better dodging, as well as good ol' fashioned luck. Fighters received more HPs as they leveled because they were more likely to learn these things than mages in DnD. In this way, an unarmored man did not take 10 arrows to kill, it's just that at arrow number ten, he ran out of tricks and luck and that was the one that connected in a critical location.

Sorry about the long post.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Re: The arrow thing...

So no, bows were not the downfall of the knight. In reality, the development of effective pole arms and armor-crushing weapons for the foot soldier, as well as the development of gunpowder weapons (cannon, etc.) and the cultural changes of the time were what led to the phasing out of the armored knight.

Right. The pike was the main invention that lead to the undoing of the armored knight. A knight on a horse really couldn't do much against a close knit wall of pikeman, because charging them either resulted in the horse typically being impaled and the knight falling off. After the knight's off his horse, he's pretty much fair game for the pikemen.

Other point: in RPGs, it seems to be lost on many that "hit points" or whatever are not supposed to completely represent toughness. It also represents the learned ability ot roll with a blow, interpose less critical areas of the body before a blow (or incoming arrow), trained reaction and better dodging, as well as good ol' fashioned luck. Fighters received more HPs as they leveled because they were more likely to learn these things than mages in DnD. In this way, an unarmored man did not take 10 arrows to kill, it's just that at arrow number ten, he ran out of tricks and luck and that was the one that connected in a critical location.

Agreed also. This is how I've always thought about hit points. It's not so much how much they can get hit with a sword, even though that's how the model looks on the surface, but it's their ability to move in such a way that an otherwise fatal wound glances them instead of strikes them. It's not like you're getting thicker skin and extra organs every level, which is how it looks.

Hit points are just easier than making damage less for fighters as they advance. After all, when you have a dagger doing 1-4 damage, there's not much room to lessen that damage at each level of advancement for the fighter. Instead, it's better to reflect his skill with avoiding damage by giving him more hit points.

After all, hit points are called "hit points", not "life" or "health". It's how many times you can get "hit" before it's fatal.

Sorry about the long post.

We love long posts here.

 

[Constipated Craprunner]

I would just like to point out that the Longbowman was the end of a non-merit based system in western warfare- meaning that from now on, typically, a group of commoners could decimate a the righteos nobility.
So pikes where the end of heavy calvalry- the longbow was the end of feudal warfare.
(Although the Swiss implemented a non feudal army, to be fair.)
And yes, HP in many situations does not represent any kind of gained skin, or something.
Unless I am mistaken, FO did this.
Which brings up an interesting question- why not have suits of armor add to HP, as well as add some limited for of DR and such?