Incline Disco Elysium - The Final Cut - a hardboiled cop show isometric RPG

[Tigranes]

Oh, I got that part, but I always thought the broader set of communism references was also drawing from post-1989 as well. But I guess either way the not-Marx stuff you find in that apartment room works very well.

 

[1eyedking]

Jesus Christ this whole thread is insufferable.

I'm out.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

“Call a Rabbit a Smeerp“

A cheap technique for false exoticism, in which common elements of the real world are re-named for a fantastic milieu without any real alteration in their basic nature or behavior. “Smeerps” are especially common in fantasy worlds, where people often ride exotic steeds that look and act just like horses. (Attributed to James Blish.)

- Turkey City Lexicon, compiled by Lewis Shiner and Bruce Sterling in 1988 as a guide for aspiring Science Fiction & Fantasy writers

 

[Grunker]

EDIT: Ah. The flashlight...

So what's up with

Spoiler

this? Can't access the rooms above the bookstore anymore for some reason. I found out after it was suggested to check out the off-site copy on the radiocomputer there, but suddenly it is dark and inaccessible when I got there. I can only return down the stairs?

 

[Grunker]

but in some ways very similar, indifference of post-communist Eastern Europe and its zombie afterlife

That's not the reference they're going for, even though Westerners generally think it is. The French got it in one however.

Don't really know what you're hinting at but it's definetely not going for post-communist eastern europe. Way too little concrete and way too many colors for that

 

[Latro]

Jesus Christ this whole thread is insufferable.

I'm out.

You do not stand alone, brother. Disco Elysium and all of its garbage fans will pay in the day of the RPG!

 

[Dwarvophile]

Mithril is *actually* stainless steel????!!! *looks at my stainless steel pan with a dropped jaw*

'Yes,' said Gandalf, 'I never told him, but his pan's worth is greater than the value of the whole Shire and everything in it.'

 

[Tigranes]

“Call a Rabbit a Smeerp“

A cheap technique for false exoticism, in which common elements of the real world are re-named for a fantastic milieu without any real alteration in their basic nature or behavior. “Smeerps” are especially common in fantasy worlds, where people often ride exotic steeds that look and act just like horses. (Attributed to James Blish.)

- Turkey City Lexicon, compiled by Lewis Shiner and Bruce Sterling in 1988 as a guide for aspiring Science Fiction & Fantasy writers

So "Waterdeep" is OK because.... it's a well established fantasy convention? But, uh, those conventions had to come from somewhere! So it's OK if it comes from Tolkien? Or is it that it's sort of derivative of the genealogy of English placenames? So English is fine but French is try-hard exotic?

And "Kara-Tur" is OK because.... I don't know because when you have a transparently "not-Japan" region in your world you can do that and it doesn't fall afoul of the rule? But doesn't having a faux-Japan region in the first place violate the spirit of the rule? Who knows?

Should you be able to name a class 'pistolero' or something, or should you always have to go with, I don't know, 'musketeer' - or wait, is that exotic? Why is 'cowboy' not counted as an exotic, culturally specific thing that sounds weird out of place?

I've never seen anyone here offer a consistent standard for this rule.

 

[Harthwain]

Generally well known English words (such as cowboy) aren't considered exotic, unless they are very uncommon. Compare "Space Marines" and "Adeptus Astartes". The first one is literally "marines in space". The second one is nonsense Latin that simply makes it look cool, but doesn't make sense in translation.

 

[Drowed]

Just saying, "boiadeiro" is a real word and not made up.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

So "Waterdeep" is OK because.... it's a well established fantasy convention? But, uh, those conventions had to come from somewhere! So it's OK if it comes from Tolkien? Or is it that it's sort of derivative of the genealogy of English placenames? So English is fine but French is try-hard exotic?

And "Kara-Tur" is OK because.... I don't know because when you have a transparently "not-Japan" region in your world you can do that and it doesn't fall afoul of the rule? But doesn't having a faux-Japan region in the first place violate the spirit of the rule? Who knows?

Should you be able to name a class 'pistolero' or something, or should you always have to go with, I don't know, 'musketeer' - or wait, is that exotic? Why is 'cowboy' not counted as an exotic, culturally specific thing that sounds weird out of place?

I've never seen anyone here offer a consistent standard for this rule.

The 1985 Oriental Adventures hardcover rulebook, an attempt at creating a version of D&D based on eastern Asia rather than Europe, had class names such as yakuza, ninja, samurai, and bushi straight from the source material, acting consistently with Dungeons & Dragons having classes named fighter, magic-user, cleric, thief, paladin, et cetera. Similarly, other terminology arising from the new source material was (more or less) true to the source material, while established terminology remained unchanged. Obviously, the fictional setting of Kara-Tur, briefly sketched in this book, used fictional place names, but complaining about this would be analogous to complaining about the names Revachol, Insulind, Jamrock, and so forth in Disco Elysium.

 

[Prime Junta]

I've never seen anyone here offer a consistent standard for this rule.

I don't think you can make consistent standards for this kind of thing. Like anything else, this can be used intelligently and intentionally or stupidly and randomly.

If used well, words tell stories. One consistently annoying thing with RPGs is the loredump. Disco has some, but it also avoids a lot of them. You don't need somebody tell you that there's a Holland-analogue or a Finland-analogue or a Poland-analogue somewhere nearby, when you've got Klaasje the Miss Oranje Disco Dancer, Soona Luukanen-Kilde with an outrageous Finnish accent plus Cuno going "Vittu kyttä fägäri," or Goraçi Kubik, kojkos, and POTAAT coming up. Guillaume Le Million, the French graffiti, and the fact that it's called the Débardeurs Union tells you something about cultural, economic, and political power relations without needing a character to spell it out to you in detail.

The other extreme is something like Numenera, where they've really just slapped on exotic names on things and called it a day: aneen for horses and so on.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Ekera!

 

[Prime Junta]

Ekera!

I'll have to hand this much to Josh: he tries. His conlangs are a bit stilted and the writers can't use them properly in dialogue (fucking pidgins, how do they work?) but at least his gellardes and ekeras mean something.

When it comes to fantasy cRPGs, PS:T's cant is still the gold standard as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Haba]

At the very point where you try to go for a "conlang", someone should beat you up with a mallet.

USE ENGLISH or something that closely resembles English.

If your setting calls the business of thievery "cross-trade", once can infer what "a knight of the cross-trade" would mean. And you can naturally use that slang yourself to come up with new stuff that fits the setting. Or if the word has a clear connection to the description of something in the setting. Persons of power physically reside in a different part of the city? Use that to describe them. Nobles are taller than normal citizens? Again an opportunity.

But if you start assuming players would need to remember words like "Ferscönyng" or "Héamecwyn", you're in a dire need of a beating.

 

[Prime Junta]

USE ENGLISH or something that closely resembles English.

A world where the only language is English is a world for dumbfucks. Good job outing yourself.

But if you start assuming players would need to remember words like "Ferscönyng" or "Héamecwyn", you're in a dire need of a beating.

I have no recollection of those words, although I think cönyng must mean king and cwyn must mean queen. Funny that you think you would need to remember those.

 

[Optimist]

It's fantasy stainless steel, BELIEVE ME

Spoiler

this is the hill I intend to die on

It's aluminum, dude

 

[Harthwain]

If used well, words tell stories. One consistently annoying thing with RPGs is the loredump. Disco has some, but it also avoids a lot of them.

Encyclopedia can help you understand some things by having a couple of points in it, but it can really go overboard if you invest too much into it, because then it can turn into a repository for useless trivia. It's pretty clever the way it works.

If I recall correctly, Pillars of Eternity did something similar [to encyclopedic knowledge] by giving you contextual info when mousing over highlighted words.

On a tangent note: I wish more games separated player's character from the player in general, because it rises the importance of stats and their level, and it's these stats that should help you navigate the in-game world. In most games the separation is mostly physical and the players can still use their out-of-character knowledge (of the game, setting, etc.). This is why I liked that in Kingdom Come: Deliverence you had to actually teach your character how to read (among other things) in order to be able to read, otherwise it was all gibberish to you.

 

[Prime Junta]

It's aluminum, dude

Same as with titanium, the metallurgy doesn't fit.

Neither is present in metallic form in nature. You need electrolysis to refine aluminum, and a chemical process involving conversion from titanium oxide to titanium chloride and then from that to metallic titanium in an inert atmosphere (e.g. argon). There is no suggestion dwarves have that kind of technology.

Stainless. Steel. You're frying your eggs in a mithril pan.

 

[Haba]

When it comes to fantasy cRPGs, PS:T's cant is still the gold standard as far as I'm concerned.

USE ENGLISH or something that closely resembles English.

A world where the only language is English is a world for dumbfucks. Good job outing yourself.

I guess the word of Prime Junta is not to be trusted eh? The poor berk got his sodding tail whooped so hard that his addle-coved brain-box can't remember what language the Planescape "cant" is expressed with.

 

[Prime Junta]

I guess the word of Prime Junta is not to be trusted eh? The poor berk got his sodding tail whooped so hard that his addle-coved brain-box can't remember what language the Planescape "cant" is expressed with.

I said ONLY LANGUAGE IS English, retard. For someone who wants his RPGs in English you sure don't seem to understand it very well. Unless your problem is with logic.

 

[NJClaw]

Have you actually played the game? Because the way you talk about it makes me think you are inferring that's the writing of the entire game just by looking at a couple screenshots.

You play a man with voices in his head and each voice has its own personality. Your stats distribution determines which voices you hear more often and which voices you have to rely on to complete your tasks. Some of these voices are written like that, but not all of them. Saying that the writing of the entire game is like that is absurd.

I've played the game. And yes, the writing of the entire game tends towards that needlessly convoluted slope.

It's a style of prose that is pretty much rampant in post-modernist literature. And frankly, it's cringe.

To make an incredibly simple but fatal point: why did the writer use the word 'boiadeiro' instead of cowboy to refer to...cowboys?

Are you really asking why, in a medium where at least half the atmosphere is conveyed through words, a writer would use a particular word instead of a generic one?

Why is "the Icewind Dale" not called "the Cold Valley"?

Why are "orcs" and "goblins" not called "green mean people"?

 

[Haba]

I guess the word of Prime Junta is not to be trusted eh? The poor berk got his sodding tail whooped so hard that his addle-coved brain-box can't remember what language the Planescape "cant" is expressed with.

I said ONLY LANGUAGE IS English, retard. For someone who wants his RPGs in English you sure don't seem to understand it very well. Unless your problem is with logic.

READING COMPREHENSION TIME: In the context of using made up languages, I say "use ENGLISH". You straw-man and start whining about how "A world where the only language is English is a world for dumbfucks".

While at the same time you praise a game that uses what could be called "a posteriori language" based on ENGLISH. The "slang" still uses features of the English language (vocabulary, grammar). Even with a few made-up words, in practical terms it is English.

That is the reason why it works and Klingon or Josh's attempts do not. You can go beyond just adding a few weird words here and there.

Planescape succeeds because it is something that most players can naturally use and understand. Sure, you can create made up languages based on German or Japanese, but for the majority of the audience they will be gibberish that they can't relate to. Co-writers won't be able to pick up the writing without training, voice actors can't pronounce the made-up words in the script etc. Might as well have them talking straight German while you are at it.

If you want to perform masturbatory writing exercises, dig up weird extinct dialects and use them instead of making things up:

“As I says, ’tis queer haow picters sets ye thinkin’. D’ye know, young Sir, I’m right sot on this un here. Arter I got the book off Eb I uster look at it a lot, especial when I’d heerd Passon Clark rant o’ Sundays in his big wig. Onct I tried suthin’ funny—here, young Sir, don’t git skeert—all I done was ter look at the picter afore I kilt the sheep for market—killin’ sheep was kinder more fun arter lookin’ at it—” The tone of the old man now sank very low, sometimes becoming so faint that his words were hardly audible. I listened to the rain, and to the rattling of the bleared, small-paned windows, and marked a rumbling of approaching thunder quite unusual for the season. Once a terrific flash and peal shook the frail house to its foundations, but the whisperer seemed not to notice it.

“Killin’ sheep was kinder more fun—but d’ye know, ’twan’t quite satisfyin’. Queer haow a cravin’ gits a holt on ye— As ye love the Almighty, young man, don’t tell nobody, but I swar ter Gawd thet picter begun ta make me hungry fer victuals I couldn’t raise nor buy—here, set still, what’s ailin’ ye?—I didn’t do nothin’, only I wondered haow ’twud be ef I did— They say meat makes blood an’ flesh, an’ gives ye new life, so I wondered ef ’twudn’t make a man live longer an’ longer ef ’twas more the same—”

 

[Prime Junta]

READING COMPREHENSION TIME: In the context of using made up languages, I say "use ENGLISH". You straw-man and start whining about how "A world where the only language is English is a world for dumbfucks".

How is that a strawman? Or are you now going to attempt to weasel out of this by claiming that when you said "use ENGLISH" it didn't mean "use only English" at all, nonono?

While at the same time you praise a game that uses what could be called "a posteriori language" based on ENGLISH. The "slang" still uses features of the English language (vocabulary, grammar). Even with a few made-up words, in practical terms it is English.

...or twist what I was saying into meaning "never use English?" Or that "no English-based argot is any good?" That's weak even by your pitiful standards.

Sure, you can create made up languages based on German or Japanese, but for the majority of the audience they will be gibberish that they can't relate to. Co-writers won't be able to pick up the writing without training, voice actors can't pronounce the made-up words in the script etc. Might as well have them talking straight German while you are at it.

Translation: it's HAAARD whaa, therefore it must cater to the lowest common denominator, i.e. Dumbfuckus Kwanzanius Zoomeri. And then you complain about .

Stop projecting your own intellectual disabilities on "most people." Most people aren't clinically retarded.

If you want to perform masturbatory writing exercises, dig up weird extinct dialects and use them instead of making things up:

 

[ItsChon]

READING COMPREHENSION TIME: In the context of using made up languages, I say "use ENGLISH". You straw-man and start whining about how "A world where the only language is English is a world for dumbfucks".

While at the same time you praise a game that uses what could be called "a posteriori language" based on ENGLISH. The "slang" still uses features of the English language (vocabulary, grammar). Even with a few made-up words, in practical terms it is English.

That is the reason why it works and Klingon or Josh's attempts do not. You can go beyond just adding a few weird words here and there.

Planescape succeeds because it is something that most players can naturally use and understand. Sure, you can create made up languages based on German or Japanese, but for the majority of the audience they will be gibberish that they can't relate to. Co-writers won't be able to pick up the writing without training, voice actors can't pronounce the made-up words in the script etc. Might as well have them talking straight German while you are at it.

If you want to perform masturbatory writing exercises, dig up weird extinct dialects and use them instead of making things up:

I didn't know you were a Negroid Habba. It sounds like if it's not written in Ebonics, "wE wUz KaNgZ 'n ShI'", poor Haba can not comprehend what is happening on the screen. Poor 'lil guy. I guess the rest of us multilingual intellectual chads can enjoy these games for ourselves.