Interview Brian Heins talks about Tyranny and the nature of evil at PCGamesN

[FeelTheRads]

And whether you decide to go down the path of hero or villain, you’ll still be put in a position where you need to exert the authority given to you by a tyrant to repair or dominate the world. How you’ll use the tools at your disposal, however, will be up to you.

1. HI I WILL SAVE YOU NO NEED TO PAY ME PLZ FEED UR CAT EVERYDAY
2. HI I ILL SAVE YOU GIVE ME MO)NEY
3. NO BYE

 

[Fenix]

So you just serve an emperor who conquered a big part of land and tries to bring law to it? How is that evil, exactly?

Well, we don't know yet what sort of things said emperor had to do in order to conquer said land.

Magically bomb another state because they have evidence that another state has magical chemical weapon, hm?

 

[Azrael the cat]

Well, we don't know yet what sort of things said emperor had to do in order to conquer said land.

Well it can't be worse than what usually conquerors do, and he ended all wars in this ancient world, and gives autonomy to vassals. That's a very good thing (especially ending chaotic mindless violence).

Then there's this

Theres not much room for different opinions and voices in that, so people who dont agree are generally unhappy, but one of the things that Fatebinders can do is they can resolve these problems and add to some level of contentment to the world while still maintaining Kyros law. Thats absolutely a possibility.

So diplomacy is possible so it's even better. Do western developers even understand what is tyranny?

The most "evul" thing in text is "deportations of nations", but when you put it into perspective of fantasy genre, try saying a paladin in D&D that instead of killing tribe of orcs he'd better deport them somewhere and feed them, he'll just think you are crazy since orcs are evil.

If setting and it's morality would be just modern leftists trolling what they "think" is "evil", it will be p. lame and boring. It would be just judging history on modern terms, that's it. Like Age of Decadence but made by a tumblr guy.

Someone else mentioned 'archon' is Greek, and that they seem to be emphasising the ancient Greek meaning of 'tyranny' - i.e. a power that imposes itself from above, without any connotations of slaughtering/torturing/etc. It contrasts with 'hegemony', where the power is supposed to the leader mostly by consensus and mutual interests (though not necessarily democratic).

And for the ancient Greeks, with their emphasis on self-governing city states where citizenship and the Polis was everything, 'tyranny' - even in the mild sense that they meant by it - was absolutely evil and the worst possible thing that a wannabe empire could be accused of. It's why all the main players would build together these alliances that were nominally groups of equals, with voting mechanisms for making decisions, even though everyone knew that it was bullshit.

You could easily do a setting where Krygos is Alexander the Great, the local rebels are once-great city states with magnificent intellectual/art/scientific contribution that are being tragically lost, but who were also already in danger getting wtf-pwned by the Not-Persians if Krygos hadn't conquered everything anyway.

 

[Infinitron]

Azrael the cat Yes, and given that the game is set in a Bronze Age-like world, they probably are winking at the old Greek definition of tyranny with that title.

But again, I'm sure Kyros did do plenty of slaughtering and torturing, which we just don't know about yet.

 

[Fenix]

If setting and it's morality would be just modern leftists trolling what they "think" is "evil", it will be p. lame and boring. It would be just judging history on modern terms, that's it. Like Age of Decadence but made by a tumblr guy.

This is what I totally expect. Some fantasy story based on grounds of modern political discurs, where that leader who goes about his business inside his country and kills people is bad, while another leader is good if he kills same amount of people while he conducts an aggressive war.

 

[mutonizer]

Why am I not surprised...usual "lawful evil" cop out.


Tyranny, play a mid level manager in a newly acquired branch of a big EVUL corporation here to make nothing but..."dun dun dun!!!"...normal day to day work.
Will you be EVUL! and fire some of the overpaid underworked employees who just piss in company plants and steal A4 paper from the new color printers!
OR
Will you be GUUUD! and be the "friendly" manager with "group think meeting", "yoga classes" and "special needs elevators" while making sure there is a pizza day once a month for all to "enjoy each other's positive auras".


What the fuck is the difference between that setting and most if not all settings out there? It's always fucking Lawful something. The good/evil part is just a matter of opinion really so who the fuck cares.

Next time, could we get this kind of guy to be the new big bad godlike overlord? Now that'd be something new "evil" wise in a game, not some random corporate suit.

Spoiler

 

[Shadenuat]

See the last paragraph in the full article.

I don't think that how interviewer understands nature of the game is of much relevance. Game seems to be presented as one where "bad guys won", so I want to know what's bad about those guys and what exactly about their setting is "evil". Otherwise it's somewhat a false advertisement, since it's just a post-war/post-magical apocalypse setting (judging by screenshots).

If their evil is not black&white, then it's not really "evil" in metaphysical sense (not like presentation of evil in Sith Lords 2 or Mask of Betrayer, where acting and thinking evil was born out of human actions like a bad karma and then affected world around them), so the dialogue about Tyranny's evil would also be different.

It's why all the main players would build together these alliances that were nominally groups of equals, with voting mechanisms for making decisions, even though everyone knew that it was bullshit.

You could easily do a setting where Krygos is Alexander the Great, the local rebels are once-great city states with magnificent intellectual/art/scientific contribution that are being tragically lost, but who were also already in danger getting wtf-pwned by the Not-Persians if Krygos hadn't conquered everything anyway.

Well that's an idea sure. But we can just speculate.

Obsidian's tyrant seems more calm and calculating and doesn't think of himself as son of gods, at least from what we know.

 

[Fenix]

once-great city states with magnificent intellectual/art/scientific contribution that are being tragically lost

I feel the traces of wrong conception here. Word "tragically" usually imply "undeservedly" or "unfairly", something like that, which brings memory of The Roman Empire, and more precisely the reasons why it fell - because "tragically" dirty barbarians run out of forest and conquere mighty and civilazed Roman Empire - which is totally wrong.

 

[Gord]

Obsidian's tyrant seems more calm and calculating and doesn't think of himself as son of gods, at least from what we know.

Which isn't much, though, so far.
I hope for this tyrant being presented as a non-clichè, non- muhaha evil, but so far there's not much information on it.

 

[Shadenuat]

There aren't many RPGs that completely devote themselves to allow player present himself as cliche muhaha evil either though. I want to be a dragon evil sorcerer of fighter reclaiming his lost kingdom from do-gooders.

 

[Jaklon]

So basically it's the patriarchy then, and we will get to hear how it has destroyed countless culture and enslaved womenfolk for 949494 thousand years.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Maybe there is no Tyrant. He's just a boogeyman invented by an elite few I.e one of the guys who is the PC's boss.

 

[an Administrator]

It means we can't rebel against the evul tyrant?!

 

[Tigranes]

As has been pointed out, the ancient Greek tyrannos really has nothing necessary to do with baby-eating flesh slurping fire-setting MWAHAHAHAs. It's really a technical term describing a despot whose claim to power has not been legitimated in the traditional way. If you have countries ruled by some kind of parliament, hereditary rule, or some other kind of tradition, and Kyros comes in and just declares himself lord of everything, he's a tyrant. After all, for all the nobles who get shafted, that's already pretty 'evil'.

In this era tyrants were classified as bad specifically for their impact on the political order. He might be a wonderful guy, he might even be the most qualified man to rule your country, but you're just very worried about the precedent it sets. Hence Perikles was seen as a threat when he started being too smart for everybody else, and the Romans fetishised the legend of Cincinnatus, who 'tyrannises' for a few years then goes back to his farm.

The question is who's telling the story? A tyrant can be praised for bringing stability, order and law, while still being a genocidal murderer with veins of psychosis. Maybe the population of this setting celebrate mass killing of a neighbouring nation. If you look at the diadochi, the successors of Alexander who broke up his empire, they were all basically tyrants - you then have Ptolemy establish a dynasty out of his tyranny that runs right down to Cleopatra, a bunch of Greeks that sit there and rule over the Egyptians.

I'm not sure what's the point of applying Enlightenment classical liberal criteria, really.

Now, as Shadenuat says it would be cool to play someone who really is the right hand man of an evil psycho, but I imagine that would be difficult - it would actually be niche in a different way from other recent titles, in the sense that you're alienating people who like old school RPGs but also want to be the stereotypical chaotic good heroes. Hence you see things like Evil Genius go in the way of humorous bombastic evil, which I don't think is very interesting for an RPG.

You'd think this is perfectly made for some old Obsidian style deconstruction of classic morality tropes in the genre, though.

 

[Prime Junta]

So what exactly did Sauron do that made him so evil?

 

[Infinitron]

So what exactly did Sauron do that made him so evil?

According to the Russians, not much!

(I'm sure you've read this)

 

[Grauken]

They could play it like in the Black Company, you work for a total evil dude, but there's someone worse out there, hence you get your world-saving and still work for a bad guy

 

[MrE]

“There’s that whole notion of the ends justifying the means,” notes Heins. “It’s for the greater good, that lie people tell themselves that can justify any action.

'Lie' - that's kind of revealing their subjective opinion on the matter, hopefully they don't carry it over to the game, that would actually go against their plan to offer players freedom. Brian (and the rest of the team) should read The Prince.

 

[commie]

Tyranny: sometimes bureaucracy wins?

Hitler: The Game

On a side note, I'm glad there's no stupid Kickstarter or EA or any of that shit. Paradox has been very sparse in their marketing and I find this most effective. This should be a Day 1 Purchase unless they pull a stupid Namco/DaSIII fiasco.

Paradox....I'm expecting 47 pieces of paid DLC starting with packs of 3-4 songs and different uniforms for guards.

 

[Jaklon]

They could play it like in the Black Company, you work for a total evil dude, but there's someone worse out there, hence you get your world-saving and still work for a bad guy

They could but they won't. This is gonna be unbearable shitt.

 

[Naveen]

I bet Kyros is evil because he has some grand plan that requires the extermination of some racial minority. All those furries, for example.

 

[Grauken]

That's not evil, just common sense, don't want perverts running around

 

[oldmanpaco]

There better be an option to totally buy into the Kyros dream.

 

[Infinitron]

Make the Tiers great again.

(btw, Tiers - Tyranny...can't be a coincidence, right?)

 

[hivemind]

game sounding good so far

"evil won" used as a buzzword marketing gimmick in place of just it being an absolute ruler just as I said it most likely was in the last thread

lurker king and other nobrain haters BTFO once again