Preview Dragon Age sightings at 1UP

[sabishii]

No-one is going to want this sort of thing going on all the time, but a near-death injury ought to give the player more to think about than a simple "Damn - we're at 90% combat efficiency - lets wait a couple of weeks and lose a little gold...".

As opposed to the inconvenience posed by casting Raise Dead or by traveling to the nearest temple, as we did in BG? Unless what you're proposing is that whenever a party member goes down they're always permanently dead, any "death" system boils down to how plausible the recovery from it is to the player. I would rather have consequences that require recovery and yet which are acceptable enough that they don't encourage reload.

I thought traveling to the nearest temple was good in BG. It is an artificial inconvenience, true, but then there are some good roleplaying aspects, too. Traveling to a temple is tied in with the setting, moreso than having a respawn rod or a non-explained respawn system. Secondly, it introduces other realistic side inconveniences. For example, if you're almost done on a long journey trying to get to a dungeon and one of your party members dies, you're not going to run all the way back to a temple to resurrect him. You're just going to have to go on without him and then perhaps get him back when you're done. Another interesting side effect of this is that perhaps near or in the dungeon you find another NPC that is willing to help, and you have the choice of replacing your former NPC with this one.

Of course, this worked out better in BG than BG2 because of the low levels and low gold. I remember not having enough gold to pay for resurrections at times and this made death pretty damn significant. On the other hand, resurrection wasn't all THAT contrived in BG2 either because your characters were basically god-like anyways.

So what I like in a good death system is not just that it inconveniences the player by temporarily weakening the party, but by introducing a different inconvenience such as having the player need to go out of his way to resurrect. And if that action is tied in with the setting as in BG, then even better. For example, I'm playing Eve-Online right now, and if I die I have to go out of my way to work up money to rebuy a ship of the same caliber & its upgrades, in addition to paying for a new clone.

 

[galsiah]

...any "death" system boils down to how plausible the recovery from it is to the player. I would rather have consequences that require recovery and yet which are acceptable enough that they don't encourage reload.

Sure - I agree.
But I don't agree that a negative medium term consequence necessarily encourages reload. Players are going to reload when they assume the game will be more interesting/entertaining with the reloaded version than by carrying on. Usually that means they'll reload when you punish the party significantly (since the setback will mean more delay/recovery etc. before they get to do anything interesting). That doesn't need to be true though. If you can create an interesting set of circumstances with the setback, then you're giving the player interest/entertainment straight away. So long as he doesn't anticipate less interest long term (as he would usually with permanent death).

For example, playing an Xcom game, look at the difference between what happens with the death of a very useful soldier, and severe injury of that same soldier. Death leads most players (though not all) to reload, since they don't like losing their best men. Severe injury might have a very important guy out of action for over 30 game days. That means many missions without that guy. This can be mean a severe change in tactics when several guys are out at once, requiring the player to play in different ways.

Most players will play through this situation regardless of the setback - even if several important guys are injured long-term. This is because it provides variety in gameplay for a significant amount of time - the aliens won't stop attacking while your guys recover, so you can't simply accept the loss of a little money to recover.

Players don't reload on Xcom injuries because they make the game more varied and interesting. There's no reason the same can't be done with an RPG. However, it requires :
Time pressure on action (waiting the few weeks with no consequence beyond slight resource consumption, is just dull).
The loss / injury of a character to make a significant difference to the style of gameplay.

Achieve this and the penalty to the party is a reward for the player - in gameplay variety. It worked for Xcom (so long as the important guys were injured, not killed), and there's no good reason to assume it can't work for RPGs.

There are no problems - only opportunities :D.

[EDIT: oh and "raise dead" is, and always has been, tacky IMO. I prefer your proposed solution.]

 

[FrancoTAU]

I don't mind having an injured status over death. If the penalty is too steep than you're just going to have 99% of players just hitting the quickload button. If you're lessening the penalty for "death" than I hope it also means the challenge of combat will be increased. In that set up, party members should be semi-regularly getting knocked out if I'm not power gaming. If my guys can't die than the only real fear is having my whole party wiped out.

I'm not sure how clear that was. But bascially in traditional RPGs you pretty much "lose" the game when one party member dies instead of having your whole party wiped out since it's a pain in the ass to revive him. I can't think of any battles in the Infinity Engine where I had my whole party get beat. You need to substitute the artificial losing of past games (with players just reloading) with the occasional legit whole party massacre and big "YOU LOSE".

 

[Claw]

I'm sorry, I don't remember when Gandalf was fatally injured in battle, but then suddenly was miraculously revived just so he could save the party from the Balrog. We perceive that he survives until that moment because he is smart and skilled enough to not get himself killed, not because some god up there decided to make him immortal.

Is that judging from the book or movie? Because from what I recall, in the book he just disappears into the abyss, and is apparently dead.

 

[sabishii]

I'm sorry, I don't remember when Gandalf was fatally injured in battle, but then suddenly was miraculously revived just so he could save the party from the Balrog. We perceive that he survives until that moment because he is smart and skilled enough to not get himself killed, not because some god up there decided to make him immortal.

Is that judging from the book or movie? Because from what I recall, in the book he just disappears into the abyss, and is apparently dead.

What I meant was, you don't see Gandalf fall in some petty battle before hand only to be revived for the sole purpose of dying dramatically later on.

 

[galsiah]

@FrancoTAU
Players reload when they anticipate not being entertained - not directly due to a harsh punishment.

The key is not to make the punishment less severe (that'll just make the "death" situation fairly pointless), but rather to have the game be interesting and entertaining with the setback.

Most RPGs are not balanced to achieve this - losing the guy just means the balance is off, and things are less entertaining as a result. If instead things were balanced so that losing a party member required different (but still interesting) tactics and approaches, things could be more varied/entertaining with injuries.
Again - look at missions in the original Xcom for an example of this.

Consideration needs to be given to why a player reloads on a harsh penalty. Simply accepting it as fact is not a sensible approach.

 

[Claw]

What I meant was, you don't see Gandalf fall in some petty battle before hand only to be revived for the sole purpose of dying dramatically later on.

Oh, I see. A clear vote in favour of reading more than one post.

 

[TheGreatGodPan]

Damn you galsiah for beating me to mentioning X-Com! I've said it before and I'll say it again, X-Com provides a great model for replaceable party members. You can go on after some die, but it's not meaningless either.

 

[Dgaider]

Damn you galsiah for beating me to mentioning X-Com! I've said it before and I'll say it again, X-Com provides a great model for replaceable party members. You can go on after some die, but it's not meaningless either.

I would point out, however, that the party members in X-Com are designed to be replaceable. It's essentially just a name. BG1 was similar in this fashion: the party members had little personal writing and that's why there were 20+ of them, so they could offer cheap replacement should a party member go down.

That may be super and your preferred way of doing it, but like it or not the Dragon Age party members are pretty complex and have a lot of plot and dialogue associated with them. Even so, we don't foist most of them on you; but at the same time that does mean there aren't going to be a lot of them, and it is a party-based game.

 

[Jim Kata]

Damn you galsiah for beating me to mentioning X-Com! I've said it before and I'll say it again, X-Com provides a great model for replaceable party members. You can go on after some die, but it's not meaningless either.

I would point out, however, that the party members in X-Com are designed to be replaceable. It's essentially just a name. BG1 was similar in this fashion: the party members had little personal writing and that's why there were 20+ of them, so they could offer cheap replacement should a party member go down.

That may be super and your preferred way of doing it, but like it or not the Dragon Age party members are pretty complex and have a lot of plot and dialogue associated with them. Even so, we don't foist most of them on you; but at the same time that does mean there aren't going to be a lot of them, and it is a party-based game.

If you force us to take certain party members like in NWN2, then please let us keep our old ones....

 

[Elhoim]

Yeah, it would be nice if we are forced to use one party member, he would be like a "guest" that doesn´t count towards the maximun party limit.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Damn you galsiah for beating me to mentioning X-Com! I've said it before and I'll say it again, X-Com provides a great model for replaceable party members. You can go on after some die, but it's not meaningless either.

I would point out, however, that the party members in X-Com are designed to be replaceable. It's essentially just a name.

I would humbly disagree. Once you had taken someone to 20+ missions and seen the transformation of a noob who can't hit the broad side of a barn into a sharpshooter who's fast enough to shoot first most of the time, he/she becomes way more than a name. I once had to abort a mission (was way over my head) and abandon a character who couldn't make it back to the ship. Believe it or not it was a very tough and emotional decision. All X-COM characters were different. I always knew who could make an impossible shot, who's good at psi, who has a great reaction and is good for ambushing, who's fast, etc.

... but like it or not the Dragon Age party members are pretty complex and have a lot of plot and dialogue associated with them.

Hopefully in a good way.

*KOTOR flashback*

- Oh, no! It's a door! And it's locked! Even though Joe here is an expert in security and has mad skillz, he can't even try to open this door for some mysterious reasons. What are we going to do? *together: Help us, help us, Obi Wan!

- *The door opens, Obi Wan looks wise and powerful* Push, don't pull, idiots!

*Obi Wan has joined your party. Special skill: uncanny Jedi sense - he knows when to push and when to pull. With Obi Wan in your party you will never be stuck in a closet again.

 

[galsiah]

I would point out, however, that the party members in X-Com are designed to be replaceable.

Sure - there's a difference. [EDIT: though re-reading your "just a name" comment, I also disagree. I can still remember the names of many of my first team - over ten years ago. I can't say that about most game characters. They had a story - it just hadn't been pre-written by a designer.]

However, I was talking about injury - not death.

Soldiers injured in X-Com can be out for a long time through injury, making a significant - and interesting - difference to the way you play. Personally I've never had the discipline to play through without reloading at all - I tended to reload when really important guys died, but I'd tollerate death of most guys, and long term injury of anyone.

That's exactly the situation you've got in DA (albeit enforced): important guys don't die, but can be out through injury; less important guys can die (presumably??). In X-Com, a combination of such injuries can stretch things considerably, introducing interesting challenges. Coping with the resulting difficulties is entertaining.

I guess whether you can do this in DA will depend on how you handle time. If simply sitting back and waiting to heal (with minor loss of gold etc.) is an option, then I don't see how injuries are going to make things interesting. It becomes interesting in X-Com because of the time pressure on offense and (occasionally) the need to defend.

Putting a harsh economic incentive on things is another thought of course, but I don't see that working just through food/lodging etc. Having such things be more expesive than swords and armor just isn't going to be too credible.

Will there be any significant time constraints, or defensive unavoidable quests? Anything to stop the party waiting for everything to be 100% fine (i.e. dull) before setting off? (beyond eventually meaningless small economic costs)


EDIT:
Also, I'd point out that what makes the story events of X-Com characters memorable is their uniqueness (they're part of your game, not pre-written), and their importance on the overall situation (losing a talented guy is a big loss; having a few of your best team out for a month has real implications - probably resulting in the deaths of less experienced men).

The pre-written aspects of your DA characters don't have this (at least not the first, and only the impact of the second on a first playthrough). You can have your characters be memorable in this way too by having injury have real significance (and death for non-essential characters).

Say the player forms an emotional attachment over time to non-essential character X, then essential character Y is injured, leaving X to take on some role in time-dependent quest Z. If X dies as a result, that gives significance to Y's injury beyond a simple "Oh - we're delayed a week.". That becomes an interesting part of Y's story which is unique to that player and that game.

This sort of situation is the reason I can remember the names of my X-Com team from over 10 years ago (those "just a name" characters), but can't remember any of the companions from NWN.

 

[Dgaider]

Also, I'd point out that what makes the story events of X-Com characters memorable is their uniqueness (they're part of your game, not pre-written), and their importance on the overall situation (losing a talented guy is a big loss; having a few of your best team out for a month has real implications - probably resulting in the deaths of less experienced men).

The pre-written aspects of your DA characters don't have this (at least not the first, and only the impact of the second on a first playthrough). You can have your characters be memorable in this way too by having injury have real significance (and death for non-essential characters).

I would disagree, sorry. The X-Com soldiers were names with stats, and they leveled up. There was nothing to them beyond that. Yes, I grew attached to them, too... but it was because X-Com was a damn fine game and because those high level soldiers had been with me for a while and were tactically vital. But they were not individually unique in any way outside of my head.

And, sure, what goes on in your head has a certain validity. The player's personal story is always going to be an important element in assuming ownership over their game... but if the idea is that this takes precedence over whatever story "we" write, there you run into a fundamental difference of design. The story we provide, in part through our party members, is a signature feature and very important to the people who do like that sort of thing. If we felt that every RPG shouldn't bother providing a story because the story the player invented for himself was the only thing that was important then every RPG would be Oblivion -- and I honestly don't think that that's the only element that makes for a good experience.

 

[Zomg]

I'm as big a fan of X-Com at the next guy, and I've enjoyed some of the NPC handling brainstorm threads, but you obviously couldn't do the Bioware signature party interaction that way without some perversion. Whether you like it or not it's a genuine dichotomy.

I think in a CRPG you're ultimately playing a bounded character, and even forced NPCs don't bother me too much... as long as they're interesting, and you can accomodate them with a sensical character. Compare KotOR2 and NWN2 - in K2 the kind of abject worship of the PC by the NPCs (leveraging the setting... kinda) and the alignment split between the plucky girl and the psychotic allowed to make some sense out of why these people were following you around. In NWN2 you're given a lot of shitball Komedy Kharacters and incompatibles who follow you because this is a game, and they're NPCs, so shut up. You can make up a lot of limited design by not shitting up the writing.

 

[Voss]

Damn you galsiah for beating me to mentioning X-Com! I've said it before and I'll say it again, X-Com provides a great model for replaceable party members. You can go on after some die, but it's not meaningless either.

I would point out, however, that the party members in X-Com are designed to be replaceable. It's essentially just a name.

I would humbly disagree. Once you had taken someone to 20+ missions and seen the transformation of a noob who can't hit the broad side of a barn into a sharpshooter who's fast enough to shoot first most of the time, he/she becomes way more than a name. I once had to abort a mission (was way over my head) and abandon a character who couldn't make it back to the ship. Believe it or not it was a very tough and emotional decision. All X-COM characters were different. I always knew who could make an impossible shot, who's good at psi, who has a great reaction and is good for ambushing, who's fast, etc.

But they're important to you because they are useful (those skills), not because of any personal traits. You've essentially got Sniper, Psi-guy, Ambush Guy and Sprinter. They aren't memorable characters any more than the Gauss Pistol is a better character than the Desert Eagle in FO2. Again, the attachment is because you invest some effort into their skills and because they're useful. Not because they're individual characters.

If we felt that every RPG shouldn't bother providing a story because the story the player invented for himself was the only thing that was important then every RPG would be Oblivion -- and I honestly don't think that that's the only element that makes for a good experience.

I think you're being too nice here. That sort of thing makes for a dead experience. If I want a story in my own head, I'll go do that, not saddle myself with the handicap of computer game.

That said, the forced companions that *must* be present, (if only to interject a few token lines in a cut scene) and that is somehow entirely integral to the story is going too far the other way. At this point, you're watching a movie with characters you may or may not care about, not playing a game.

For example, the NPCs in Jade Empire felt really empty to me. I really just took one for the passive ability (Chi RechargeGirl, since that always struck me as the most useful). Dialogue with them was just a token way of shifting the palm/fist points, and they popped up for cutscenes regardless of the basic rules of time & space, so it didn't seem worthwhile to try them as anything other than their special abilities. Plus, you could just plow through their dialogue whenever you reached a new base camp, so taking one along was solely a matter of what ability they granted.
Needless to say, my memory of them as characters is a little flat. I enjoyed my character's experience (and the game, overall), but the NPCs were x-com style ability monkeys.

Another example (of why forced companions don't work out well) is BG2. Imoen as a plot lure just didn't work for way too much of the audience, particularly those that followed from BG1. She was flat and uninteresting in the original, and wasn't a convincing focal point for the first couple acts. As annoying as automatic forcibly successful kidnapping (regardless of the PC's ability) is as a beginning, it pales in comparison to 'I hope you care about this one NPC that we chose out of about 20'. Really, Irenicus could have lured (or been tracked by ) the PC to Asylum Island without her presence. A selection of plot hooks (vengenance, mystery, lust for power, rumours of experiements on innocents, a few choice clues as to his ultimate goal and how that would be bad) would have served a lot better than, eh, maybe you'll care about Uber-Annoying Perky Girl Who Doesn't Even Rate As A Romantic Interest (but is instead yet another Bhaalspawn through excessive coincidence).


@Zomg- Kotor2, really? I never really felt that most of the characters had *any* reason to follow you around. Except possibly the first one, and that only because she was under some bizarre compulsion to fail to prove her bullshit philosophy. Which the game structure itself undermined, since you couldn't get into the prestige classes if you tried to stick to her neutral philosophy, and you lost out on the discount on force powers. Plus the fact that most dialogue choices pushed your Light/Dark side points, so you actively had to try to balance them in a very OOC/meta manner if you were going to try to remain neutral (or whatever), 'OK, I've got too many light points. I have to be an asshole to the next quest giver'. That doesn't make for good role-playing.[/img]

 

[Zomg]

@Zomg- Kotor2, really? I never really felt that most of the characters had *any* reason to follow you around. Except possibly the first one, and that only because she was under some bizarre compulsion to fail to prove her bullshit philosophy. Which the game structure itself undermined, since you couldn't get into the prestige classes if you tried to stick to her neutral philosophy, and you lost out on the discount on force powers. Plus the fact that most dialogue choices pushed your Light/Dark side points, so you actively had to try to balance them in a very OOC/meta manner if you were going to try to remain neutral (or whatever), 'OK, I've got too many light points. I have to be an asshole to the next quest giver'. That doesn't make for good role-playing.

I didn't mean to posit K2 as a shining example, just as a better one than NWN2 in which there are forced NPCs. My other obvious option was K1 which I don't remember very well just now. I haven't played JE, if that's how it works in that game. In K2, history with some characters, robot ownership, or even the little magic beans explanation of the PC having magic leader powers went a long way, as did the one-or-the-other good/evil characters. I have plenty of problems with the Obsidian influence system, detailed elsewhere.

 

[Voss]

Just because you can remember some bland examples doesn't mean the concept is wrong. In much the same way that the Spanish Inquisition doesn't mean that all Chrisitians are murdering bigots.


@Zomg-
But the NPCs are still forced on the player, for the most part. You can't exactly turn most of them down. Just because theres a vague explanation (and both the 'history' and the 'ownership' are very badly done, which doesn't help), doesn't make it OK.

JE is a sterling example of largely forced. Two (or is it three?) are special cases, but the other 6 are forced (and several are cut down to bare minimum interaction level). The second NPC you encounter is particularly bad since he doesn't want to come with you, and you can make it clear that you don't want him either. But he does anyway, for he is Mysterious Dark Past Man, With Tie to NPC #1. A tie that never got resolved in any way, despite several play throughs, even though I could work out (as the player, not the character- even though my character should have realized wtf was going on) what the tie was.

 

[Twinfalls]

Fuck this shit. You guys (especially Voss) are indulging tropes and masturbating straw men like demented hookers for scarecrows.

Here is a prize false dichotomy:

And, sure, what goes on in your head has a certain validity. The player's personal story is always going to be an important element in assuming ownership over their game... but if the idea is that this takes precedence over whatever story "we" write, there you run into a fundamental difference of design. The story we provide, in part through our party members, is a signature feature and very important to the people who do like that sort of thing. *NON SEQUITUR ALERT* If we felt that every RPG shouldn't bother providing a story because the story the player invented for himself was the only thing that was important then every RPG would be Oblivion -- and I honestly don't think that that's the only element that makes for a good experience.

David, doing away with forced NPCs who pester you randomly with psychobabble before revealing that they are your mother is not the same as 'having no story'. There's no reason why a deep, even 'epic' story can't be told with NPCs that are written interestingly, but nonetheless remain killable and able to be jettisoned by the PC. You need more of them, and you have to be prepared for the player to not experience a lot of what they might say. Such is the price for true choice - but you get massive replayability in return, and crucially, you get realism. Realism in that NPCs don't lie around invulnerable spring back up after being stomped to a pulp, but actually die. Realism in that a player can tell an NPC to fuck off. It's important to recognise what you're doing away with.

You are excusing linearity and lack of choice - which is either laziness, or a problem with the way you design games, or simply what you want. If it's a resource problem, then it must be heavy reliance on cut-scenes and full voice-acting - which was the whole point of my earlier cut-scene comment.

Either way, just have the moral courage to admit that having story without forced NPCs can be done - while retaining NPCs with personality - but you guys just don't want to do it for whatever reason. This 'but it's a Bioware signature (tm)' business is an excuse.

Shift the story to the quests. It is not a matter of you 'no longer writing the story'. Write stories, but let the player stitch them together into a whole. It will be more rewarding for you and for the player.

Also:

I don't mind having an injured status over death. If the penalty is too steep than you're just going to have 99% of players just hitting the quickload button.

Firstly, you won't have most people re-loading if the game is designed differently. If it's a battle which was especially difficult, players should realise they were lucky to get out alive at all.

And secondly: So. Fucking. What?

What's so bad about the re-load that trying to avoid it excuses one of the worst things to ever hit RPG gaming - invincible allies?

 

[Dgaider]

Either way, just have the moral courage to admit that having story without forced NPCs can be done - while retaining NPCs with personality - but you guys just don't want to do it for whatever reason.

?

I was responding to Galsiah's comments, which were not about NPC's being forced on you.

As for moral courage, I don't need it. Of course a story without forced NPC's can be done. We have, in fact, done them. Did I ever say otherwise?

The two NPC's that are "forced" on you (which is a stupid way to say it, like your poor PC has been raped by the story or something... and, again, I'll point out that they're never actually forced into your party) are there so we can tell that particular type of story. We could tell a story entirely through quests, or make all NPC's completely tangential to the story at hand. We don't want to, and don't think that makes for an inherently better experience. I know, I know, zomg teh horror.

 

[Twinfalls]

We could tell a story entirely through quests, or make all NPC's completely tangential to the story at hand. We don't want to. I know, I know, zomg teh horror.

Well I'm glad to read that. Perhaps you've been saying that all along, it seemed different to me though. :shrug:

Now our task is to convince you that it would better for you to make DA that way.

So here's my question:

or make all NPC's completely tangential to the story at hand.

Do NPCs (and party members) have to be tangential to a story in order to be killable (or otherwise 'unforced')? Can they perhaps play a greater, more integral role in whatever story unfolds - in differing ways for different NPCs, yet remain realistically severable (individually) from the player's game arc? What about having different characters perform essentially the same plot function, but each adding a different flavour to that function? Is it a resourcing problem (cut-scenes for crucial plot points, full voice-acting) perhaps? Would this be too difficult to even contemplate as a writer and designer? (genuine questions, I don't presume to know an answer).

I think you're also troubled by the 'we don't want players to not see a lot of stuff' thing, about which I can only re-iterate that replayability is a great plus.

 

[Naked Ninja]

@ Galsiah : No, its not a stupid example. A main character dying under the attacks of some random goblin in a stupid side dungeon while you're trying to find someones lost parakeet or whatever is just as fucking pointless as if he died sitting on a scorpion. It has no emotional impact whatsoever, besides the annoyance of the inconvenience.

An example. In BG2, Hoshimo (or whatever his name is) betrays you at a certain part of the game. If you didn't see it coming, this probably elicited feelings of betrayal and anger. If you did, you probably felt that your suspicions about his shifty nature were confirmed. Both of these responses are emotional. They imply that the character has left an emotional impression on the player, and that you are responding to that connection and his actions, and its a sign of good writing.

Compare it to Icewind Dale say, when one of your mute party members fails a saving throw or something and dies fighting Yuan-ti #22. What do you feel? Anything? Bullshit. All you feel is annoyance. That you're going to have to reload. There is no emotional weight to the characters death, plot wise. Its meaningless. He may has well have died from slipping on a patch of ice. Whoop-de-fucking-do, time to hit the load game menu. No, you aren't going to feel some sort of irony that such a powerful character died fighting a weak whatever. Bullshit X 2. You've played for 25 hours, taken the dude to level 18, you're not going to feel irony, you're going to be annoyed you couldn't heal him in time, reload and try again until you succeed at keeping the dude you've invested all that time in alive.

It would be the same if during the Star Wars movies, the emperor or Darth Vader or Luke Skywalker just took a random shot from a random soldier and pegged it. Lame. The main chars are the focal point, and its them interacting with each other that has emotional weight, and drives the story. Luke vrs Darth V, Obi Wan vrs Darth V, the emperor vrs Darth V.

Oh, and about your point about branch overlap, you are actually incorrect. If they overlap it makes them HARDER to keep straight and debug. It increases your work. Its easier to manage complexity in an algorithms paths if there are -clearly- seperated paths. Get a fucking clue about what you're talking about before your shoot your mouth off dumbass.

The goblin example is stupid? You've never fought a horde of meaningless filler monsters in an RPG? Stop being dense. A character who has just joined your party and then quickly dies to random beastie X, even if you have a nice scripted mourning scene, has nowhere near the impact as one who travels with you for ages, who you interact with, discover their past and whatever, and then later they betray you to the enemy, or something. If you can't understand this concept, you.are.stupid.

@ Sheek : My, what a pointless statement. Every RPG I've ever played has simultaneously told me a story and acted it out in front of me, with interaction from me. Exactly the same as every PnP game I've ever played. Good insult man. Well done.

@ VD : A stat could represent it you say? But....he died 2 hours ago fighting a random wolf while I was getting lost in the wilderness. Pity that.

But, jokes aside, you think a number on your character sheet has more of an emotional impact than having that character perform actions and speak dialogue during the game that convey his personality/nature? Really? I can see the game in my minds eye now, instead of Boromir constantly staring longingly at the ring, and trying to take it, he just announces every so often that "Hey guys, my ring-corruption level has gone up 2%!! I am so not trustworthy, lol.". Yes, that would be AWESOME. A number and some dialogue options are not the same as a good, well writen and scripted plot point.

A plot point (can be a characters death, could be something else) has the most impact if you time it right. Planescape torment, you could resurrect your party members throughout the game, until in the end you sacrifice them FOR THE PLOT. It had much more emotional weight at that point. It wouldn't have had the same weight at a previous point.

Come to think of it, all you guys complaining about characters just geting back up after combat, it didn't bother you in PS:T? It didn't ruin it for you, make it into a linear game thats just about getting to the next cut-scene? Come now, you guys are being so fucking melodramatic. That games plot, choices and character interactions where acclaimed widely. If anything, sidestepping the tedium-from-death issue when its meaningless to the plot ENHANCHED the storyline.

EDIT : And PS:T was a -story-. Written by skilled story writers. Who used the same skills and tricks you would use for writting a book. Thee skills ARE transferrable, and the principles are relevant. Please could you guys stop with the "games aren't books, LOL" thing now, its just tedious and makes you look stupid.

 

[mr nobuddy]

The grey wizard doesnt die in some epic battle, but from a fluke of chance? Not so epic. Not so dramatic.

Read a book. I've heard that Salvatore is a great author.

you're going to hell for saying that.

If you must read fantasy, read Scott Bakker, George Martin or Stephen Erickson.

 

[Naked Ninja]

Yeah, salvatore is definately overrated.

 

[serch]

Roll a D20. What is your sense sarcasm modifier?