Choice And Consequence

[Immortal]

Although Forgotten Realms is pretty shit post 4E

I still like the settings. I stopped at 3.5, so not sure what 4E changed, in terms of lore and world. I occasionally still skim through the settings manual for ideas and inspiration.

Everything is destroyed.

Calimshan / Calimport are ruled by Djinn rulers and everyone else is a slave or killed (all lore books about customs / families / myths and folklore are now obsolete)
Mulhorand is Destroyed (Same issue as before)
Thay is Destroyed (Ruled by legions of undead)
Lanatan.. Destroyed
Shade Enclave takes over Sembia, Then both are destroyed
Myth Drannor Destroyed

ect..

Years of developing these cultures and worlds and writing huge books on their back story and customs. WotC decided to have big EXPLOSHUNS wrecking everything, almost like a 14 year old seeing a huge castle made of lego and kicking it down so he can build his own version of the castle without using the existing instructions that made the castle so detailed and aesthetically pleasing, 10 minutes later he realizes it's kinda hard and walks away with some weird Frankenstein of crap half built, the left overs scattered around the room.

One word:



Seriously, why? WTF? Did then ran out of paper, so they needed a way to make the new settings manual no more than 56 pages, and obliterating half the world was their best idea?

Something like that. I feel like WotC hired a bunch of 20 year old writers out of college who thought FR should be more like Halo. Another favorite campaign falls into "KungFu Wizard Ninja" land along with Dragon Age and Lord of the Rings and many other loved fantasy worlds, along with new worlds like PoE.

This is why I love Witcher so much.. Yea it may get a little edgy / high fantasy sometimes. It hasn't gone full retard yet. Magic still feels important. If you see a mage or magic you know it's a big deal. Not everyone and their grandma is some kind of blue flame mage ninja god demon thing.

IMO - You need a world that makes sense, with rich lore and grounded issues of people and cultures colliding. Then you sprinkle in the fantasy. Forgotten Reams decided to start eating the sugar right out of the bag.

 

[Perkel]

Witcher and D&D are two totally different schools of fantasy.

D&D comes from early phase of fantasy where everyone were trying to copy paste tolkien. Most of those creators were most of the time dudes in their basement wanking to fantasy swords and fantasy babes photos. Gods walking earth. Heroes rescuing princesses from their towers protected by dragons.
Elder Scrolls lore also comes from that school.

Witcher comes from transition phase era when people noticed that most of what was written before is rubbish and wanking of fat nerds. They started to focus on proper writting and they most of the time took care about their world and started to ask right questions that lead to grounding their fantasy worlds in reality.

Witcher especially was created upon hate toward early fantasy style.

There is naturally third wave of fantasy which most of the time looses Tolkien themes completely.

 

[Azarkon]

Witcher and D&D are two totally different schools of fantasy.

D&D comes from early phase of fantasy where everyone were trying to copy paste tolkien. Most of those creators were most of the time dudes in their basement wanking to fantasy swords and fantasy babes photos. Gods walking earth. Heroes rescuing princesses from their towers protected by dragons.
Elder Scrolls lore also comes from that school.

Witcher comes from transition phase era when people noticed that most of what was written before is rubbish and wanking of fat nerds. They started to focus on proper writting and they most of the time took care about their world and started to ask right questions that lead to grounding their fantasy worlds in reality.

Witcher especially was created upon hate toward early fantasy style.

There is naturally third wave of fantasy which most of the time looses Tolkien themes completely.

Fantasy waves were/are defined by English language literature, first and foremost.

First wave fantasy = Tolkien, Howard, Vance, etc. ie "elves, dwarves, orcs and wizards!" <-- 1st ed. D&D
Second wave fantasy = inspired by Tolkien, Howard, Vance, etc. ie "twists on elves, dwarves, orcs, and wizards!" <-- practically every American and British fantasy author in the 70s and 80s, 2nd ed. D&D
Third wave fantasy = backlash against Tolkien, Howard, Vance, etc. ie "fuck elves, dwarves, hobbits, and wizards!" <-- GRR Martin, Gene Wolfe, China Mieville, the bulk of 'new fangled' fantasy writers

Sapkowski was surely affected by these waves. He writes in Polish but I'd place him in-between the second and third waves of fantasy. His writing still betrays a lot of inspiration by Tolkien, Howard, Vance, etc., but at the same time, he's moving away from it towards what you see in guys eg Martin, who are no longer satisfied with reworking high fantasy tropes. It's also where I'd put Malazan Book of the Fallen.

 

[Copper]

Witcher and D&D are two totally different schools of fantasy.

D&D comes from early phase of fantasy where everyone were trying to copy paste tolkien. Most of those creators were most of the time dudes in their basement wanking to fantasy swords and fantasy babes photos. Gods walking earth. Heroes rescuing princesses from their towers protected by dragons.
Elder Scrolls lore also comes from that school.

Witcher comes from transition phase era when people noticed that most of what was written before is rubbish and wanking of fat nerds. They started to focus on proper writting and they most of the time took care about their world and started to ask right questions that lead to grounding their fantasy worlds in reality.

Witcher especially was created upon hate toward early fantasy style.

There is naturally third wave of fantasy which most of the time looses Tolkien themes completely.

Fantasy waves were/are defined by English language literature, first and foremost.

First wave fantasy = Tolkien, Howard, Vance, etc. ie "elves, dwarves, orcs and wizards!" <-- 1st ed. D&D
Second wave fantasy = inspired by Tolkien, Howard, Vance, etc. ie "twists on elves, dwarves, orcs, and wizards!" <-- practically every American and British fantasy author in the 70s and 80s, 2nd ed. D&D
Third wave fantasy = backlash against Tolkien, Howard, Vance, etc. ie "fuck elves, dwarves, hobbits, and wizards!" <-- GRR Martin, Gene Wolfe, China Mieville, the bulk of 'new fangled' fantasy writers

Sapkowski was surely affected by these waves. He writes in Polish but I'd place him in-between the second and third waves of fantasy. His writing still betrays a lot of inspiration by Tolkien, Howard, Vance, etc., but at the same time, he's moving away from it towards what you see in guys eg Martin, who are no longer satisfied with reworking high fantasy tropes. It's also where I'd put Malazan Book of the Fallen.

But Martin IS reworking fantasy tropes. Also, no space for Moorcock on your list, he was pretty influential in rebelling against the Tolkien appreciation society in the 70s

 

[WhiteGuts]

The world feels so...organic. It comes together real well, and c&c is part of that. Yesterday I was walking around in Novigrad and then Geralt smells something and goes "oh that smells like a human corpse", turns out he's right and you have to investigate it. I really liked that.

First time I arrived in Novigrad, I flat out insulted the priest of the Eternal Fire. Couple of hours later, I was stopped by two guards trying to take my swords away. Turns out, they were punishment for what I said to the priest.

 

[Carrion]

I'm on my second playthrough, and although there is some really good C&C in here (like the whole storyline about the Baron and his family, as well as the ending), there are also some missed opportunities, some that I saw already on the first playthrough and some that only revealed themselves later on. Just a few examples:

Spoiler

- even if you don't give Philippa's crystal to Radovid or even tell him about it, when you meet him later on he'll say something like "I hope you have something better than a crystal this time around", and the crystal seems completely irrelevant anyway
- a similar example of the game assuming that you did something is when Triss says that she knows what being tortured is like (referencing what happened in the witch hunter's barracks), even if you decided to kill everyone before they could even touch her
- the Catriona plague documents that you can give to Keira suggest that they can be used to create a biological weapon, which could be potentially devastating in Radovid's hands, but I'm assuming that he doesn't do much with them
- the play in Novigrad can result in a riot if you go for a drama instead of a comedy, but this doesn't change the following dialogue at all, and the theatre troupe apparently leaves the city shortly afterwards anyway
- on my first playthrough I thought that Whoreson Junior's men were constantly attacking me because I killed a few of them in another quest, but apparently they start attacking you anyway after you reach a certain point, and will continue to do so regardless of what you decide to do with Junior when you meet him (not 100% sure, might just be that there are multiple possible triggers for this)
- you may kill dozens of Cleaver's men in some side quests, but he doesn't seem to mind at all
- especially Novigrad is full of these little scenes where you get to decide whether you want to defend some lady or poor wretch who's about to get assaulted by a bunch of thugs, and although some of these have some nice delayed consequences, it'd be cool if the game kept track of your actions through some light reputation system, maybe branding you as a "troublemaker" or something if you kill enough people or systemically oppose the guards or the witch hunters
- getting Dijkstra to assist you in freeing Dandelion amounts to absolutely nothing, unless you think that a couple of his men just standing around as decoration counts as a consequence
- Radovid's assasination seems to affect only the ending slides
- save imports apparently don't change much at all except for the Letho quest and some small scenes here and there (like Louisa La Valette), and I just happened to import a "canon-friendly" save on my first playthrough so that it seemed better than it actually was

I'm still in Novigrad on this playthrough, so it's possible that there will be some consequences later on that I'm not aware of. Still, it'd be nice if the game allowed you to pick a side in a long term like in the previous two games (aside from Triss vs. Yennefer), as the game seems to present you with pretty much the same choices on every playthrough regardless of what you've done before. That makes many of the choices seem a bit detached from everything else, or just less interesting than they should be.

 

[Immortal]

I'm on my second playthrough, and although there is some really good C&C in here (like the whole storyline about the Baron and his family, as well as the ending), there are also some missed opportunities, some that I saw already on the first playthrough and some that only revealed themselves later on. Just a few examples:

Spoiler

- even if you don't give Philippa's crystal to Radovid or even tell him about it, when you meet him later on he'll say something like "I hope you have something better than a crystal this time around", and the crystal seems completely irrelevant anyway
- a similar example of the game assuming that you did something is when Triss says that she knows what being tortured is like (referencing what happened in the witch hunter's barracks), even if you decided to kill everyone before they could even touch her
- the Catriona plague documents that you can give to Keira suggest that they can be used to create a biological weapon, which could be potentially devastating in Radovid's hands, but I'm assuming that he doesn't do much with them
- the play in Novigrad can result in a riot if you go for a drama instead of a comedy, but this doesn't change the following dialogue at all, and the theatre troupe apparently leaves the city shortly afterwards anyway
- on my first playthrough I thought that Whoreson Junior's men were constantly attacking me because I killed a few of them in another quest, but apparently they start attacking you anyway after you reach a certain point, and will continue to do so regardless of what you decide to do with Junior when you meet him (not 100% sure, might just be that there are multiple possible triggers for this)
- you may kill dozens of Cleaver's men in some side quests, but he doesn't seem to mind at all
- especially Novigrad is full of these little scenes where you get to decide whether you want to defend some lady or poor wretch who's about to get assaulted by a bunch of thugs, and although some of these have some nice delayed consequences, it'd be cool if the game kept track of your actions through some light reputation system, maybe branding you as a "troublemaker" or something if you kill enough people or systemically oppose the guards or the witch hunters
- getting Dijkstra to assist you in freeing Dandelion amounts to absolutely nothing, unless you think that a couple of his men just standing around as decoration counts as a consequence
- Radovid's assasination seems to affect only the ending slides
- save imports apparently don't change much at all except for the Letho quest and some small scenes here and there (like Louisa La Valette), and I just happened to import a "canon-friendly" save on my first playthrough so that it seemed better than it actually was

I'm still in Novigrad on this playthrough, so it's possible that there will be some consequences later on that I'm not aware of. Still, it'd be nice if the game allowed you to pick a side in a long term like in the previous two games (aside from Triss vs. Yennefer), as the game seems to present you with pretty much the same choices on every playthrough regardless of what you've done before. That makes many of the choices seem a bit detached from everything else, or just less interesting than they should be.

Yea totally agree with this.. I haven't done a second playthrough but I still got the feeling that most of these things wouldn't pay off fully. Although some of the stuff you mentioned feels like flat out bugs vrs actual cut content or lack of polish.

If we compare this to Dragon Age or Mass Effect or Fallout or Skyrim or any other AAA RPG.. Or even indie RPG's (PoE Act 2 anyone?) .. I still think the game pulls ahead in spades. I love how the game isn't afraid to fail a quest if you were just too derpy to plan ahead or missed an opportunity or killed someone important. It feels good but of course..

it could always be better.

Cyberpunk?

The world feels so...organic. It comes together real well, and c&c is part of that. Yesterday I was walking around in Novigrad and then Geralt smells something and goes "oh that smells like a human corpse", turns out he's right and you have to investigate it. I really liked that.

First time I arrived in Novigrad, I flat out insulted the priest of the Eternal Fire. Couple of hours later, I was stopped by two guards trying to take my swords away. Turns out, they were punishment for what I said to the priest.

I agree with you but these are still Biowarian type CnC.. I think where the game really shines is with Keira Metz / Bloody Baron / Ending / Willow Tree / Etc..

Those were points in that game that could actually affect quests later on beyond your control whereas Bioware is so afraid to create unique content for different quest hooks that they would just do a Red / Blue / Green variation on future quests (or worse.. your decisions would amount to a powerpoint slide at the end of the game thus no real CnC taking place)

 

[yes plz]

Doe the tree spirit from the Bloody Baron quest ever pop back up again if you release it? I'm particularly wondering what affect it has on the Bald Mountain part of the game.

 

[Gerrard]

What C&C in the Baron plotline are you talking about? It does not affect anything outside of the quest itself. What consequences are you seeing here?
If you kill his bandits at the tavern? Welp now you have to go through some cave to get to him instead of walking in through the gate. Nothing's fucking changed, you can still talk to him just fine.

In White Orchard nobody acknowledges that you killed the griffon and NPCs still talk as if it's there, same for other village contracts.

Keira's plotline. Does it fucking affect anything? No. You can have her help you at Kaer Morhen, but that does not fucking matter one bit in the end.


Everything is shit.

 

[His Majesty]

No. You can have her help you at Kaer Morhen, but that does not fucking matter one bit in the end.

Yeah it does.

 

[Gerrard]

No. You can have her help you at Kaer Morhen, but that does not fucking matter one bit in the end.

Yeah it does.

Oh really? Do you lose without her? Guess I fucked up my game better start over.

 

[Carrion]

What C&C in the Baron plotline are you talking about? It does not affect anything outside of the quest itself. What consequences are you seeing here?

Consequences related to the story and the characters in a game that is mostly about the story and the characters, totally worthless. You can also cause an entire village to get razed to the ground and all of its population murdered, but who cares about those little shits?

If you kill his bandits at the tavern? Welp now you have to go through some cave to get to him instead of walking in through the gate. Nothing's fucking changed, you can still talk to him just fine.

It makes it harder or impossible to avoid combat in certain later events, like when visiting the pellar.

Oh really? Do you lose without her? Guess I fucked up my game better start over.

Why don't you want to give Lambert the happy ending he deserves?

Everything is shit.

This is of course undisputedly true. Who cares about what happens to Junktown when you'll never return there again? What does it matter if you sell Dak'kon into slavery when you're immortal and the game's piss easy anyway? What's the point of having two different second acts if you'll always meet Letho at the end?

TW3 definitely could've been harsher with its consequences in many places, like I wrote earlier, but being able to completely fuck up what is perhaps the most interesting storyline in the game does qualify as a pretty decent consequence in my books. Of course, if you don't give a shit about anything in the game, then nothing will move you.

On an unrelated note: I specifically shaved Geralt's beard before going to the wake with Yennefer, yet she still ask why he decided to let it grow, and says that it looks good. Fucking hell.

 

[dragonul09]

C&C is just too costly to do it properly and going in the open-world direction didn't help at all.Witcher 2 did pretty good with act 2 where you miss an entire map if you decide to go with Broche or Iorveth,but that went well because the game was on a much smaller scale.
I think they will do a much better job with their next game,now that they have the moneis and with the option to create your own character.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Gerrard]

I'd also like to point out how retarded some choices you're presented with are, like in cardinal sins when you get to the brothel, after you're done talking with the guy you have the option to just leave. Or you come across a bunch of bandits burning an elf woman alive in her house and you have the option to leave. This is literally CDProjekt's version of Bioware's retarded evil options, except here it's retarded "neutral".

 

[Carrion]

I'd also like to point out how retarded some choices you're presented with are, like in cardinal sins when you get to the brothel, after you're done talking with the guy you have the option to just leave. Or you come across a bunch of bandits burning an elf woman alive in her house and you have the option to leave. This is literally CDProjekt's version of Bioware's retarded evil options, except here it's retarded "neutral".

Why on earth should you not have those choices? The guy's a pervert, not a murderer, and he's also helping you. The latter event is just a bunch of people doing what people do, something's that not really your business in any way to begin with, and it's also possible or even likely that those guys outlevel you at that point of the game by a wide margin. What's the alternative? Railroading Geralt into becoming a defender of justice and protector of the weak every time something bad happens in the game world, i.e. all the fucking time?

Trying way too hard.

 

[Gerrard]

Why on earth should you not have those choices? The guy's a pervert, not a murderer

Did you actually pay attention to his background info?

What's the alternative?

The alternative is not creating stupid situations for stupid "choices" in the first place and actually putting the work into making some choices that matter.

Railroading Geralt into becoming a defender of justice and protector of the weak every time something bad happens in the game world, i.e. all the fucking time?

You mean, exactly like he was in the books?

 

[Carrion]

Did you actually pay attention to his background info?

Yes. Did you think it was stupid that Geralt wasn't forced to kill doctor von Gratz as well, considering his background?

The alternative is not creating stupid situations for stupid "choices" in the first place.

What was stupid about the situations again? Much worse things happen during wartime.

 

[Gerrard]

What was stupid about the situations again? Much worse things happen during wartime.

How does this even have any relevance to the matter? I've heard of worse things happening in countries during peace, what the fuck about it?

You think if Geralt rode into a group of thugs burning someone alive in their house (it's right next to the fucking road) he would just "be on his way" because muh neutrality? Or maybe because they are higher level than him? Why is even the shit level system being brought up as a reason for choices?

 

[Carrion]

You think if Geralt rode into a group of thugs burning someone alive in their house (it's right next to the fucking road) he would just "be on his way" because muh neutrality?

I don't know, which Geralt are you talking about? It was established way back in TW1 that Geralt in the games is not identical to Geralt in the books (because amnesia), although he does let some pretty grim stuff slide in the books as well.

Or maybe because they are higher level than him? Why is even the shit level system being brought up as a reason for choices?

Because not being able to say "no" kind of sucks if it means you're forced to fight guys who will almost certainly murder your ass. It doesn't matter if you're a knight in shining armor, if you're facing overwhelming odds it's wiser to just walk away.

 

[Gerrard]

I don't know, which Geralt are you talking about? It was established way back in TW1 that Geralt in the games is not identical to Geralt in the books (because amnesia), although he does let some pretty grim stuff slide in the books as well.

He doesn't have amnesia anymore. At the start (actually at the end of TW2) it's established that he got all of his memories back.

Because not being able to say "no" kind of sucks if it means you're forced to fight guys who will almost certainly murder your ass. It doesn't matter if you're a knight in shining armor, if you're facing overwhelming odds it's wiser to just walk away.

Yeah, except 5 dumb thugs are not "overwhelming odds" for a witcher who can most likely kill them in under 10 seconds, it only might be because of the game's shit design.

 

[Carrion]

He doesn't have amnesia anymore. At the start (actually at the end of TW2) it's established that he got all of his memories back.

So? It's not really a discussion for this thread, but if a person loses his memories for several years and regains them later on, it doesn't seem likely that he'd go through the process unchanged. People change over time anyway, and Geralt becoming more jaded and losing his interest in the horrible events he's witnessed time and time again isn't all that implausible.

 

[Carrion]

More missed opportunities (the big side quests of Skellige):

Spoiler

- On my first playthrough I let Hjalmar take the credit for slaying the giant. Upon returning to Kaer Trolde I immediately saw him boasting about it to Cerys, which I thought was a nice detail. Perhaps letting him bathe in the glory might even cause him to grow over-confident and arrogant, even leading to problems later on if he becomes king? But no, that piece of dialogue plays out exactly the same regardless of your choice.

- Similarly it doesn't seem to matter at all how you solve Cerys' quest, whether you do it her way or the witcher's way. It's cool that the quest can be completed in two very different ways, but only one of the ways really displays Cerys' wisdom and her potential leadership qualities (in the second option Geralt basically just solves her problem for her), and it'd be nice if this affected whether she could become queen or not.

- I'm assuming that Svanrige can only become the ruler of Skellige if you don't do King's Gambit at all. I did both Cerys' and Hjalmar's quests so that Geralt took most of the credit for them, then followed Hjalmar when shit hit the fan in Kaer Trolde so that no one got any actual proof against Svanrige's mother, yet Hjalmar still became king and the game pretty much just forgot about Svanrige (at least until the last act, as I'm not there yet). There's nothing particularly wrong about this, but a chance for some kind of a failure would've been nice nonetheless, made your previous choices carry some significance in the whole thing instead of it all just coming down to a single choice.

- Random people joke about how Birna's plan did bear a high price, even if you never catch her (which basically turns the pun from "bitch got what she deserved" into "Birna's such a jester, organizing a massacre like that and getting away with it", which doesn't feel quite right). Or maybe I just missed something.