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Constant melancholia

Tyranicon

A Memory of Eternity
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But short of that, or the requisite level of AI development, I think you can still get decent stories in solo CRPGs with scripted branching narratives, where your choices definitely open up some big avenues and close off others, and you end up with several possible endings. I guess it's just such a monumental workload for the developers that it's more rare.

Imagine being a dev. Imagine creating assets, writing, NPCs, all the requisite parts of a good RPG. Now imagine doing all of that so that only 20% of all players will ever experience.

Now imagine doing this when instead you could've been devoting your efforts to actually making money.

Ah, but on the other hand, if you get it right, it could make your game a famous, long-lasting classic, so you would make money out of all that work. It's always a toss-up with professional work - whether to go for the low-hanging fruit or take the big risk and go the extra mile, but possibly get the big prize.

The problem with that is you need actual talent, luck, and to work like a fucking madman. Having one of those is not uncommon. All three?

If you have all three I'll go so far as to say you're wasted being a video game developer.
 

Grauken

Gourd vibes only
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If there's one thing I love about the codex, it's that there are occasionally prestigious discussions on how to improve RPGs.

Too bad the wider industry doesn't give a fuck.

alternatively, OP is high on sniffing his own farts and nothing of value has been said in this thread
 

anvi

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But short of that, or the requisite level of AI development, I think you can still get decent stories in solo CRPGs with scripted branching narratives, where your choices definitely open up some big avenues and close off others, and you end up with several possible endings. I guess it's just such a monumental workload for the developers that it's more rare.

Imagine being a dev. Imagine creating assets, writing, NPCs, all the requisite parts of a good RPG. Now imagine doing all of that so that only 20% of all players will ever experience.

Now imagine doing this when instead you could've been devoting your efforts to actually making money.

Ah, but on the other hand, if you get it right, it could make your game a famous, long-lasting classic, so you would make money out of all that work. It's always a toss-up with professional work - whether to go for the low-hanging fruit or take the big risk and go the extra mile, but possibly get the big prize.

The problem with that is you need actual talent, luck, and to work like a fucking madman. Having one of those is not uncommon. All three?

If you have all three I'll go so far as to say you're wasted being a video game developer.
I think most artists in history have struggled with this. You just can't be great at it if you don't throw your whole life into it. And if you do that... you are almost certainly going to be poor as shit unless you either sell out, or get very lucky. Occasionally this is respected enough that artistry gets legitimate subsidies. But in a world of terrorism and viruses and stuff, art and entertainment is easy to get brushed off as low priority.

p.s. Many of gaming's big successes have happened because of subsidies.
 

buffalo bill

Arcane
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Dec 8, 2016
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every crpg is flawed in some way as it never gives enough freedom to the player
Traditional roguelikes are far superior in terms of providing player agency than most non-roguelikes. E.g. there is no way you could play CDDA and think "damn I wish there was more I could do in this game".
 
Self-Ejected

Netch

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You are overthinking it to some degree. Art can be considered a special and prestigious status, but in our contemporary context in which there aren't established state-directed art standards (as there were in the past throughout most civilized societies), art can be any aesthetic product of any quality level. It's not a special status, but there is good art and bad art.

Not sure exactly what you're referring to with this, I wasn't trying to imply anything about art having to be objectively of a high level of quality. What I was speaking about was my personal opinion on the highest successes that great art can achieve, and in fact was attempting to argue against the idea that only certain works with certain objective (and often arbitrary) measurements can be considered art.

That ineffable feeling you have from playing SS2 is the effect of the work on your emotions, just like a piece of music. SS2 is quite effective at creating a sense of tension, suspense, and fear. Depending on your skill at the game, this can be moderated by your sense of being a speck of resistance against powerful, malevolent, and mysterious forces. It succeeds at this.

I definitely agree that the game expertly exceeds in these areas and that this effect can be a strong part of that ineffable feeling I was referring to, but I generally find it to be deeper than merely an emotional response. Articulating exactly what I mean would probably be impossible given that the feeling is ineffable, as I said, but to elaborate a bit I would say that another element of that feeling is a feeling of artistic resonance, when all the pieces of something come together perfectly to create something bigger than itself and wholly representative of a quality or idea that can only be approximated in the physical world. When a work of art is strong enough to effectively transmit this feeling, I consider it a great success.

What it would not succeed at is in providing an open space for the player to reauthor the entire game, such as to side with the Many to rebel against SHODAN, or to somehow wake up earlier to prevent the Rickenbacker from being overwhelmed. It does not simulate the proper functioning of the Von Braun, and you cannot convince the science team to never visit Tau Ceti IV. You cannot go shopping in the Von Braun mall: the game only supports a depiction of that subdeck after it has been overwhelmed by aliens and malevolent robots. In fact, you can make no meaningful choices whatsoever about the plot, although you can make lots of choices about how to build your character and how to go about exploring the game space. It would be very challenging even for a P&P dungeon master to create good content with that level of choice, even if it could in theory be supported.

This is true; I acknowledge in my original post the validity of the statement that pnp RPGs have certain advantages over video games and vice versa. Art doesn't need to be interactive on a direct (in other words non-interpretive) level; films aren't interactive, books aren't interactive, paintings aren't interactive, etc. Games are interactive on that level, which is their strong suit. But not every aspect of a game has to be malleable by the player for the medium to be artistically successful. That malleability is what TTRPG DMs should focus on to achieve artistic success; video games should certainly do their best to approximate that interactivity as much as possible (and as much as it directly complements the artistic vision), but complete, boundless interactivity is an unfair metric to critique games with. The point I was attempting to illustrate was that the wholistic experience games can provide is unparalleled in other mediums and should be judged with its own set of standards, not with the standards used to judge books, films, or pnp RPGs. That sort of judgement is what gets us AAA "cinematic" experiences that whittle away the medium's integrity.
 

0wca

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I'm considering that the main pathos behind crpg play always more or less comes down to melancholia, a kind of pessimistic impression that these games always are a failure on some level. It seems as if it's accompanied by the idea that the genre is always being betrayed in some way, either by marketing considerations or a lack of fidelity to a vague tradition of the craft ; there's also the aesthetic consideration that these things should be art on some level... even if of course we never have a simple idea of what art is, unless we desire it to be a representation of truth.

Whatever it may be, I find this melancholia to be rather tedious, even if it gives itself a veneer of sophistication (a subculture of knowing individuals, those who "appreciate depth") ; I can only explain the constant elitist complaining about what is essentially a hobby by the fact that crpgs are by definition a failed experience. They're a failed experience because they try to stimulate pnp play, but obviously can't. Pnp play is all about spontaneity, acting, imagination and social interaction ; crpgs are about interacting with a system (even the narrative is a kind of system). So you get these artificial worlds that leave you essentially cold when considering "what could be" : and "what could be" is a wonderful game that never was but one day will be, a game full of c&c and freedom... a constant imagining of the perfect game ; every crpg is flawed in some way as it never gives enough freedom to the player. The truth of the matter is that "what could be" isn't fucking freedom, it's a pnp session. But then it has to be more, it has to be art, something meaningful to you. But meaning can be found in all kinds of experiences. Meaning isn't a measure of anything but of something that is always lacking ; thus the melancholia, because you can never have enough meaning when you desire it. When you don't desire meaning, you actually appreciate art.

I suppose that in general crpgs point to the idea of simulated reality, which can probably be considered to be cultural nihilism (to use a funny word that reactionaries like to use) : to desire another reality is to be pessimistic by definition. The melancholia could be explained that way. But I prefer the more simple explanation : crpgs just can't create a pnp environnment. If you think about it, all crpg make for exceedingly bad pnp sessions ; it's like that one game were the game master always forces you to explore the content that he carefully created and gets moody when you're going in the wrong direction. Sure the content might be nice but it's not why people play these things, unless they accept to be railroaded into a series of encounters and obstacles, which is really boring as hell once you've played a few ones. Being told a "story" through all that is the worst experience ; you're supposed to make the story in a rpg, not endure it.

But I suppose that in enduring you grow strong... no, actually, in enduring you don't grow strong, you just endure. Keep on enduring asshole. Yes, I do accept that Planescape is an interesting experience, at least from what I remember of it. I think crpgs can be interesting narrative tools, but as games I do think they fail ; crpg players just have a very limited interest in gaming systems, they tend to hold on to narrative at all costs. But I'll tell you about one fucking inane thing that I can't stand about crpgs : the equipment trope. Equiping your weapon, your little pants, your rings, your gay hat, whatever the fuck. This is not interesting. I don't want my little characters to wear the little pieces of clothing. I just don't give a shit. Perhaps this is what was truly good about Torment : your character didn't wear anything.


First off (and it's kinda off-topic, but), the C in CRPG pisses me off because it's not Classic RPG, it's just simply RPG. This stupid term came out in modern times because RPGs were losing more and more popularity in the game market. The stupid C in front makes it look like its made for idiot dinosaur boomers who jerk off to the old Fallouts, but that's because the term "RPG" now usually means some sort of Action RPG or whatever the actual fuck Cyberpunk was. But I digress.

I agree that video game RPGs cannot capture the C&C of tabletop. It's impossible. But what they can do is give you a video game that has enough C&C and a decent enough story so that it can be replayed at least a couple of times. That's it. If you have a good group to play PnP with, go ahead and play it. But it's also the issue of scheduling, how good the GM is, how fun the group is, etc. You don't need any of that when you start a game on the computer. So accessibility is definitely a factor.

If I had 4 GMs on rotation every week so I could play every other evening, I'd probably never play computer RPGs, but, that's nearly impossible to do. They're essentially a gateway drug to PnP.

Then on the other hand, no matter how much of an imagination I have, seeing your character blow up the outhouse in F2 is immensely satisfying.
 

DeepOcean

Arcane
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Nov 8, 2012
Messages
7,394
I really didnt understand the OP well because there are multiple arguments on his post and he didnt make it clear by separating them.

a)Is the argument: people feel melancholia because they have an impossible standard for cRPGs and this elitism is pointless because the standards are impossible so modern games are actually good and people are saying they are bad only because of the impossible standards?

b) the argument is: cRPGs are a mistake and a waste of time and it is better to play PnP?

c) Everything is shit, will remain being shit and deal with it?

I disagree with a and b.

Personally the cRPG that I most liked on the last few years isnt even a cRPG, Beautiful Desolation from Pyke,pretty good game and isnt even a cRPG, most cRPG are unfortunately still chasing the safe formulas of 20 years ago.
 
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0wca

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First off (and it's kinda off-topic, but), the C in CRPG pisses me off because it's not Classic RPG, it's just simply RPG. This stupid term came out in modern times

The C stands for Computer, not Classic.

Huh. Don't know where I heard it stands for 'classic' then. Ironically, I think a game journalist said it once. Never bothered to check since it started appearing at one point and thought it was the current trend.

However, I still see it being used in conjunction with old-school RPGs. Cyberpunk was initially considered an RPG not a CRPG. They removed the 'RPG' tag completely afterwards but I rarely see the 'C' in there when it applies to AAA RPGs, which is strange and hence, the confusion.
 

Pentium

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What elevates a video game to a level where it could be considered art in the same way that one might consider a great film a work of art? Well, some might use metrics such as craftsmanship to define art, but I think that such a definition is unsound given the variance of art and thus widely inapplicable on a base level (which is what we concern ourselves with here). Ultimately there is a great deal of subjectivity when it comes to art, but in my view the best way to define art is to consider it as an act of human striving to portray and encapsulate ineffable feelings and ideas. I have found, for example, that I get the same striking feeling of ineffability from watching a Tarkovsky film or standing in front of a masterful painting as I do playing brilliant games such as System Shock 2 or Pathologic. Not all art can reach these heights to be certain, but it is the effort to approximate, and thus communicate, ideas and feelings too grand for the physical world that defines art.

With all that said, what, ultimately, does it matter if a game can reach the same level of reactivity that a pnp RPG can? So long as the medium provides the opportunity to strive for (and occasionally reach) superlative artistry, then that inherent weakness is meaningless. Video games lack the reactivity of tapletop games, correct, but they have other dimensions that tapletop games cannot have, such as visuals and sound. Therefore video games can excel in ways that pnp RPGs cannot, and vice versa. Don't judge the medium as inferior based on its shortcomings when it has incredibly distinctive and unique artistic opportunities.
Well said. I, too, have expressed the idea it's nongameplay elements that uplift games to art level. And that it's desirable while some people here seem to be opposed to it. If video games refuse to jump over their own shadow as mere interactive entertainment product, than their almost limitless potential has been totally wasted and game devs deserve to be nuked. Now, of course, the question is how you're going to approach it - that pathetic hipster bs that looks worse than 8-bit era is but pseudointellectual jizz nobody is going to waste time on unless they're the same kind jizz squirting hipsters pretedning to enjoy any nonsense that's not mainstream (hello, Codex). Also there's the little definition problem. So my personal, subjective and inevitably incorrect definition of (quality) art: quality art is an expression of ideas in a form appealing to the consumer. Thus the consumer is willing to consume it's superficial layer and hopefully gets influenced by the deeper layer of ideas. That immidiately excludes kitch, as it has no real ideas behind, and hipster jizz as well because the form needs to be appealing enough for the consumer which requires a certain level of craftsmanship.

And that leads to this problem:
The problem with that is you need actual talent, luck, and to work like a fucking madman. Having one of those is not uncommon. All three?

If you have all three I'll go so far as to say you're wasted being a video game developer.

I think most artists in history have struggled with this. You just can't be great at it if you don't throw your whole life into it. And if you do that... you are almost certainly going to be poor as shit unless you either sell out, or get very lucky. Occasionally this is respected enough that artistry gets legitimate subsidies. But in a world of terrorism and viruses and stuff, art and entertainment is easy to get brushed off as low priority.
It's a matter of fact that quality stuff often needs subsidies to be produced and sold in the world that's a shallow consumerist paradise. And way too much more than many actually support that paradise - leave it on the market bs. Thus people eat shitty food, watch shitty shows, play shitty games and buy shitty things and that in turn leads the the production of more shitty food, shows, games and other things. I guess this development has been too obvious in the gaming industry, right? I don't know the way out. Wish I did.

Otherwise I don't quite understand this bitching about video games being unable to capture PnP aspects well enough (if that's the point OP's trying to make). Do you bitch about movies being unable to capture the epic character of books or about books being unable to display frenetic action scenes? Every medium has it's own place. LoTR is just going to look completely different in it's book and movie version. It's not a bug, it's a feature.
 
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Joined
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I'm considering that the main pathos behind crpg play always more or less comes down to melancholia, a kind of pessimistic impression that these games always are a failure on some level. It seems as if it's accompanied by the idea that the genre is always being betrayed in some way, either by marketing considerations or a lack of fidelity to a vague tradition of the craft ; there's also the aesthetic consideration that these things should be art on some level... even if of course we never have a simple idea of what art is, unless we desire it to be a representation of truth.

Whatever it may be, I find this melancholia to be rather tedious, even if it gives itself a veneer of sophistication (a subculture of knowing individuals, those who "appreciate depth") ; I can only explain the constant elitist complaining about what is essentially a hobby by the fact that crpgs are by definition a failed experience. They're a failed experience because they try to stimulate pnp play, but obviously can't. Pnp play is all about spontaneity, acting, imagination and social interaction ; crpgs are about interacting with a system (even the narrative is a kind of system). So you get these artificial worlds that leave you essentially cold when considering "what could be" : and "what could be" is a wonderful game that never was but one day will be, a game full of c&c and freedom... a constant imagining of the perfect game ; every crpg is flawed in some way as it never gives enough freedom to the player. The truth of the matter is that "what could be" isn't fucking freedom, it's a pnp session. But then it has to be more, it has to be art, something meaningful to you. But meaning can be found in all kinds of experiences. Meaning isn't a measure of anything but of something that is always lacking ; thus the melancholia, because you can never have enough meaning when you desire it. When you don't desire meaning, you actually appreciate art.

Probably what I will portray will not change matters drastically, but it is important, nevertheless, to try to reach a common definition (maybe concept — funny enough) of things.

Aesthetic effects do not necessarily originate from art (Roman Ingarden) — tragic, gracious, powerful (there exists an exemplary, yet not complete, list by Frank Sibley) —; therefore, our desire to video games be "art on some level" could be a misdirection born in the expectation everyplace there is aesthetic effects there is art — or maybe because we feel better if we twist our child hobby into something more (sophistication).

Nonetheless, the contemporary definition of art does not have anything to do with "truth" and meaning ("meaningful" is a tricky word). Art can carry knowledge (strict justified true belief), but not always (I would say hardly ever).
 

Grunker

RPG Codex Ghost
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First off (and it's kinda off-topic, but), the C in CRPG pisses me off because it's not Classic RPG

Wat8.jpg
 

Atchodas

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But I'll tell you about one fucking inane thing that I can't stand about crpgs : the equipment trope. Equiping your weapon, your little pants, your rings, your gay hat, whatever the fuck. This is not interesting. I don't want my little characters to wear the little pieces of clothing. I just don't give a shit. Perhaps this is what was truly good about Torment : your character didn't wear anything.

Storyfag detected.

:timetoburn:
 

eli

Learned
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But I'll tell you about one fucking inane thing that I can't stand about crpgs : the equipment trope. Equiping your weapon, your little pants, your rings, your gay hat, whatever the fuck. This is not interesting. I don't want my little characters to wear the little pieces of clothing. I just don't give a shit. Perhaps this is what was truly good about Torment : your character didn't wear anything.

Storyfag detected.

:timetoburn:
lootfag detected
:timetoburn:
 

Atchodas

Augur
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But I'll tell you about one fucking inane thing that I can't stand about crpgs : the equipment trope. Equiping your weapon, your little pants, your rings, your gay hat, whatever the fuck. This is not interesting. I don't want my little characters to wear the little pieces of clothing. I just don't give a shit. Perhaps this is what was truly good about Torment : your character didn't wear anything.

Storyfag detected.

:timetoburn:
lootfag detected
:timetoburn:
*Combatfag
 

Twiglard

Poland Stronk
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Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut
If you're a C&C-fag or storyfag a real, good DM would provide a better experience. And I think most of the "haters" are the C&C-people, who automatically rate F1, F2, PST, Arcanum and VTM:B as their favourite games and everything since then is a decline (and it's all the jews' fault).

But if you're a combatfag or like to equip things a CRPG offers a good experience.

Why is this distinction so codified? This is a drastic simplification.

You can enjoy classics' dialogue trees and point-and-click isometric(ish) view, BG2 encounter design and spells, Fallout death animations, PS:T/Disco writing, painted backgrounds, VtMB atmosphere, Underrail combat system and worldbuilding, AoD C&C and lore locations, JA2 1.13 squad tactics, STALKER immersion, NuDX relatively little decline, New Vegas geography., Gothic 2/Risen/ELEX immersion..

This ticks all(?) the boxes except for blobbers. It's really not that difficult. I mean, haven't you played all, or almost all of the above?
 

octavius

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My point was that combat is easier for a computer to do properly than C&C and story. C&C is only really satisfactory with a human DM. With a computer, C&C and role playing is far too restricted, while with combat you know the limitations beforehand and the computer can resolve it quickly.
 

Ravielsk

Magister
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The problem is that the entire CRPG genre as we understand it was a product of its time. The top down perspective, dice rolls were a necessary compromise and turn-based combat were a necessary compromise for the weak hardware these games had to run on. It was not a conscious design choice but a necessary evil. They wanted to make bustling town, not a png overlayered over on top of a square collision box but the hardware of the time simply did not allow for more than said png overlay. Modern CRPGs simply fail to realize this and try to doggedly recreate these factually flawed systems to a T.

The sense of decline and betrayal then comes from the fact that people want to again experience the wonder of a fresh new world with fresh new possibilities which is something another BG clone simply cannot deliver. The only way it could would be some genuine innovation or at least reshuffling of old ideas. Hell, half the reason why Torment was so well remembered was because it specifically weared away from the classical trappings of the CRPG genre. The end result of this misunderstanding is a "revived" genre where the peak of innovation in the last 30+ yeas boils down to "Baldurs Gate but you play as the bad guy".
 

Shadenuat

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Imagine being a dev. Imagine creating assets, writing, NPCs, all the requisite parts of a good RPG. Now imagine doing all of that so that only 20% of all players will ever experience
It is a natural order of the medium though. In PNP, it's not even controllable: you make awesome antagonist mega story make up all kinds of shit, then they roll 20, u 1, all your work goes kaput (unless you fudge rolls but then you belong in a prison).

At least in CRPG you can control who sees what and what choices would be availaible for what kind of character.

This is why we love all that RPG shit.
 

gurugeorge

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Strap Yourselves In
The problem is that the entire CRPG genre as we understand it was a product of its time. The top down perspective, dice rolls were a necessary compromise and turn-based combat were a necessary compromise for the weak hardware these games had to run on. It was not a conscious design choice but a necessary evil. They wanted to make bustling town, not a png overlayered over on top of a square collision box but the hardware of the time simply did not allow for more than said png overlay. Modern CRPGs simply fail to realize this and try to doggedly recreate these factually flawed systems to a T.

The sense of decline and betrayal then comes from the fact that people want to again experience the wonder of a fresh new world with fresh new possibilities which is something another BG clone simply cannot deliver. The only way it could would be some genuine innovation or at least reshuffling of old ideas. Hell, half the reason why Torment was so well remembered was because it specifically weared away from the classical trappings of the CRPG genre. The end result of this misunderstanding is a "revived" genre where the peak of innovation in the last 30+ yeas boils down to "Baldurs Gate but you play as the bad guy".

I generally agree with this (my basic hobby-horse is that games are defined by their level of failure to simulate due to technical and resource limitations).

But on the other hand, at each "try," you're left with a form of gameplay that's a thing in itself, and one can understand people having a strong liking for just that form of gameplay, especially with nostalgia goggles.
 

Tyranicon

A Memory of Eternity
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5,867
The sense of decline and betrayal then comes from

For me personally, that comes from the fact that the industry has long since moved away from passionate toymakers who had no idea what they're doing, to corporate yesmen who have no idea what they're doing.
 

Melmoth

Educated
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Mar 18, 2012
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76
I can only explain the constant elitist complaining about what is essentially a hobby by the fact that crpgs are by definition a failed experience. They're a failed experience because they try to stimulate pnp play, but obviously can't.

presentation of failure can be taken as the definition any form or medium. i thought you liked the frogs

Equiping your weapon, your little pants, your rings, your gay hat, whatever the fuck

what you mean is you don't like camp. but a lot of your peers here will be injured

Perhaps this is what was truly good about Torment : your character didn't wear anything.

powerful, splendid
 

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