Interview Knights of the Chalice Interview with Pierre Begue

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Tags: Knights of the Chalice

<p>Newsposting machine VentilatorofDoom caught up with developer Pierre Begue to find out his thoughts since the release of <a href="http://www.heroicfantasygames.com/" target="_blank"><strong>Knights of the Chalice</strong></a>.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">5. In contrast to most of today's RPGs you didn't include skills and skill dependent non-combat gameplay. Different skills are typically a prerequisite for alternate quest solutions, the handling of specific situations (diplomatic, combat, stealth etc.) and the like. What's your stance on that?<br /><br />I am totally in favour of having distinct solutions to quests, but as a designer I prefer to leave it to the player to decide what course of action he would rather take. In other words, I am not in favour of leaving out options to bluff, lie, tell the truth, intimidate, or be diplomatic at any point just because a character lacks points in one skill or another. Now it may well be that you need to perform a skill check to see if the bluff or diplomacy was successful, but you could instead make a check based on one of the character's main abilities (Charisma, Wisdom, etc). So I don't see skills as essential to the system.<br />Furthermore, in my opinion, it's much more important and interesting for a CRPG to provide a few options with distinct follow-up outcomes, than a lot of options all leading to the same outcome (even if they go through a different skill check).</p>
<p><a href="http://www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=199">Read the full interview</a></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>

 

[Fat Dragon]

The sales have been good enough to justify working on a second game

Fuck yeah!

 

[Zeus]

outperforming AAA titles such as Drakensang or Kings Bounty: Armored Princess

Since when are Drakensang and King's Bounty: Armored Princess consiered "AAA" titles? You won't likely find either title in your local Walmart software aisle, or advertised on television. And I have no idea what Armored Princess' budget was like, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't up there with Mass Effect 2 or Oblivion.

Are we simply calling any non-indie game "AAA" these days?

 

[Lonely Vazdru]

Interesting interview, the guy is a Dark Sun junkie. :D I didn't think I'd ever see Muls and Thri-Kreen again. Great !

But this :

For example if I was the Dungeon Master on a tabletop game and you, as a player, wanted to reduce the price of a flaming sword by 20%, I would not roll a D20 to see if you succeeded; I would ask you to demonstrate your own bargaining skill in talking.

and the rest of what he says on the subject, makes me happy he was not a DM I played with. This is extreme larping. :mondblut:

 

[Jaesun]

The sales have been good enough to justify working on a second game

Fuck yeah!

Nice, glad to hear that.

 

[Fezzik]

Definitely looking forward to his next game. It will be interesting to see what sorts of things the fans of the game could create in terms of modules. Though I suppose the main thing that makes KotC great -- the encounter design -- could be lost in modules unless special attention is paid by the module-makers. But hopefully having a potential community of fans making modules, together with improved graphical packaging, could help stoke the fires of interest among a wider audience.

 

[Murk]

i can't tell you how happy I was to see that he's going to drop the ultima angle

 

[mondblut]

If he doubles the party size and triples the amount of races and classes, and stops locking doors and shuffling party members around as he sees fit, that would be a priceless game.

 

[Andhaira]

Its good to hear he is changing the view. Also good to hear about the graphical facelift. Ideally, I would like the game to have eschalon level of graphics quality though thats probably asking for way too much.

 

[mondblut]

I dunno, while I can picture many to be put off by the current skewed perspective, at least it tries to give some illusion of field depth, much like Ultima 6+ and Darksun did (and even goldbox series). Switching to pure topdown is like going from Ultima 7 back to Ultima 5.

 

[Murk]

For some reason I was imagining some angle would still be present and it wouldn't be an actual top down...

 

[mondblut]

Well, he says

I want to switch from the Ultima VII angled perspective to a straight top-down perspective

 

[Elhoim]

That would be worst, IMO.

 

[Zeus]

I guess it depends on which to-down perspective he means. If it's the literal kind where all you see is the crown of someone's head, that'll be kind of rough. Preferable to the vertigo-inducing KotC perspective, but not very attractive.

Larva Mortis

The method below probably yields the best results:

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past

Here they draw Link as if he was in a side-scrolling Mario title. I mean, it's top-down, but if you stop and focus on the image above, it looks like Link is actually laying on the ground, with his side facing the sky. But when you're playing, it looks fine and doesn't make you dizzy like the "Ultima perspective."

 

[Severian Silk]

If they rotated the screen 45 degrees it would look just like Ultima Online:

See if you can find which one it is:

image
article

 

[screeg]

I hate ToEE/NWN/etc-style dialogue skills and now whenever the issue comes up I can just copy/paste Pierre's answer to 6. Thank god there's still a few devs out there who care about the game.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

I hate the design philosophy described in 5 and 6. After playing Fallout and PST I hoped that I would never see it again.

 

[Paula Tormeson IV]

That's why I don't like the 'talking' skills very much; they are a replacement for the player's own intellect.

Completely agree, except the same goes for static character abilities.

Some of the older RPGs were moving in the right direction. Baldur's Gate et al. got it wrong.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Baldur's Gate didn't have talking skills.

 

[Paula Tormeson IV]

Baldur's Gate didn't have talking skills.

That's why I edited my post to include "character abilities". It had charisma and intelligence, which have the same function as skills, i.e., they undermine the player's need to stay awake while playing.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Baldur's Gate didn't use Intelligence in conversations and Charisma was used only for reaction and was bugged.
It was apparently assumed that the PC had Int9 and Wis6. Yeah and dialogue options suggested Cha9.

Also, they don't undermine player's need to stay awake during the game.

 

[Paula Tormeson IV]

Also, they don't undermine player's need to stay awake during the game.

Of course they do. Rolling good starting stats and then maximizing everything you want to and can maximize is a dull way to (pre-emptively) solve diplomatic or any other encounters.

 

[Murk]

You guys are comparing apples and oranges. Games that are heavily dependent on character skill will need skill and stat checks because the whole idea is that the character in-game is not the player controlling him, and the two have different abilities. Games that focus on player skills (like Gothic, for instance) have no skill/stat checks (other than equipment) and require the player to catch on to events.

It depends on how you want to make it, and more importantly, which will work better in your game.

 

[Zeus]

Incidentally, this same sort of debate rages in the PNP community.

Some GMs like modern RPGs, where there's a specific skill-check to determine just about every action. Then there are oldschool GMs, who make players announce what they are doing and how they're doing it, no skill-check for them.

Let's say there's a room with a trap under the rug. A modern player might announce he's "making a stat-check for Find Magic Traps" (or whatever), and if the dice fall in his favor, he'll automatically find it. An oldschool player, on the other hand, would have had to actually think of searching the rug and then say as much to his GM.

 

[Severian Silk]

Were there stat/skill checks in Deus Ex?