Vapourware Josh Sawyer wants to make a historical RPG

[AwesomeButton]

Whether Josh personally is or isn't, he brings a crowd with certain attitudes along with him. I worry about how real his historical games might feel now that "deconstruction" of history is the agenda.

One example: KCD had no female soldiers. TW3 had only a handful. In Bioware, Obsidian, Larian, Bethesda games they make up half of armies and gangs. Would this be the case in a historical game? Can Josh or his team tell fantasy from reality? I'm sure you all remember that when PoE was being made there was some kind of controversy about a piece of concept art having boob armor. IIRC Josh blogged something about how his historical advisors told him that boob armor wasn't realistic and he had the concept art badly photoshopped to remove the chest bulge. Something similar happened with Original Sin concept art around the same time involving an exposed midriff. Somewhat missed was the point that the whole concept of "female armor" is fantasy.

Could Josh make a historical game that didn't have women equally represented on the battlefield? Even if he wanted to, could he get away with it? And what other inane discussions would Josh's historical title inspire?

Your metrics for the historicity of games are really funny. Larian/Bethesda/Bioware games and historical accuracy?! WTF am I reading?

 

[Cross]

Is he truly a SJW, though?

Is the sky blue? Just last week there was an interview posted in the PoE thread where he was complaining that most player-created characters are white males.

Besides his SJW-ness, there's also Sawyer's love of very abstract mechanics. I imagine it would be hard for a player to be immersed in a historical setting when they have things like an unlimited inventory, cooldowns and regenerating health at their disposal.

 

[Infinitron]

Sawyer isn't an SJW, he's an anti-identity politics Bernie Sanders supporter.

 

[unfairlight]

>not a SJW
>barbo sandals supporter
Pick one and only one out of these two options.

 

[Stainless Veteran]

And he will go and make a game where regardless of a country and a historical period the population will consist of:
Black or African American alone, percent – 6.5%;
American Indian and Alaska Native – 1.7%;
Asian – 14.8%;
Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander – 0.5%;
Two or More Races – 3.8%;
Hispanic or Latino – 38.9%;
White – 37.7%.
There would be 50,3% of women among all NPCs in the game, and they will be equally represented in every role. Actual prevalence of trans* characters will probably be higher than 0.3-1.8% though, because the game won't be balanced and progressive then.

 

[Fowyr]

You forgot about most important population group for gayme developers in California!

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

Sawyer isn't an SJW, he's an anti-identity politics Bernie Sanders supporter.

I mean, Bernie marched at Selma, making him a social justice warrior back when social justice was worth getting killed, or at least firehosed, for. I would agree with you that socialism tends to focus on class conflict rather than the tribulations of particular ethnic groups, but to most people who use SJW as a pejorative that’s going to be a distinction without a difference.

There are people who object to the W in SJW—Lacrymas is a good example of someone who seems to despise the posture of many self appointed warriors for equality without actually objecting to social justice in theory. But I get the sense that most people here who have a problem with SJWs object to the SJ part. Often it seems to be used as a synonym for liberal, or leftist, or even anybody who isn’t conservative. Josh is all three of those things because he’s a sensible fellow who knows that late stage capitalism is unsustainable. He just happens to be a smart guy with a nuanced understanding of history, hence his ability to to make a game with semi-sympathetic fascists.

At any rate, anyone who thinks Sawyer wouldn’t try to make his historical game as realistic as possible—folklore elements aside—simply hasn’t been paying attention. He’s too pedantic to allow any glaring inaccuracies.

I really hope he sticks to the late medieval/early modern period or if he insists on using American history, sets it during the civil war or the Wild West. The antebellum South was a terrible place but there just isn’t enough conflict boiling over to make it a good setting.

 

[Stainless Veteran]

At any rate, anyone who thinks Sawyer wouldn’t try to make his historical game as realistic as possible—folklore elements aside—simply hasn’t been paying attention. He’s too pedantic to allow any glaring inaccuracies.

Autism VS Cuckism: Which is Stronger and Why, Discuss!!!

Seriously though, while I admire your optimism, just look at the recent Kingdom Come: Deliverance debacle. Even if Vavra hadn't baited them with GG support and Burzum shirts, they still would've panned the game. They – meaning game journalists, Resetera and similar cesspools. And although they tend not to buy games or influence buyers much, Cali devs generally try to adhere to their agenda. And their agenda is quite simple – f there are white people in the game, than everything must be exactly like in contemporary college California, be it the racial markup or gender identity, or even social relations and behaviors. Only if the game is based on Central, Western or Eastern African countries, or some other country where whites are a minority, than it can try not to to adhere to all contemporary USA realities. It can still be called cultural appropriation though.

Even if he'd wanted to, Sawyer can't win. And I doubt that he wants to come under fire just for historical accuracy.

 

[FreeKaner]

Whether Josh personally is or isn't, he brings a crowd with certain attitudes along with him. I worry about how real his historical games might feel now that "deconstruction" of history is the agenda.

One example: KCD had no female soldiers. TW3 had only a handful. In Bioware, Obsidian, Larian, Bethesda games they make up half of armies and gangs. Would this be the case in a historical game? Can Josh or his team tell fantasy from reality? I'm sure you all remember that when PoE was being made there was some kind of controversy about a piece of concept art having boob armor. IIRC Josh blogged something about how his historical advisors told him that boob armor wasn't realistic and he had the concept art badly photoshopped to remove the chest bulge. Something similar happened with Original Sin concept art around the same time involving an exposed midriff. Somewhat missed was the point that the whole concept of "female armor" is fantasy.

Could Josh make a historical game that didn't have women equally represented on the battlefield? Even if he wanted to, could he get away with it? And what other inane discussions would Josh's historical title inspire?

If you prefer "boob plate" and "armour with exposed midriff" you should be executed on spot for being tasteless regardless of political agenda. Especially if you defend such concepts because you find them more attractive.

 

[Trashos]

Yeah, I never saw him as an SJW. He just capitulates to them from time to time, as a business decision. No way he is going the Vavra route though. I think what he 'll do is pull off a Pallegina. He will include a couple of characters that will shut up the SJWs, and that's it. It shouldn't be too hard to do in most contexts.

 

[FreeKaner]

Sawyer got under fire from some game reporters and forum figures for including rape in all his games, especially New Vegas. He seems to care more about historicity, variety and verisimilitude more than political agendas, which is good. He also made a very admirable religious person in Joshua Graham.

 

[Brancaleone]

Y're all missing the point here. SJW messages are not going to be the problem.

He's simply going to choose the dullest possible historical scenario as a model, remove any element which might be even remotely interesting, balance every single aspect of it, and concentrate its dullness under a slow fire.

And then he's going to tell you that real history was exactly like that, and that's what makes it great, you cannot possibly understand.
And that only some BG2's flash-bang addicted grognards like you could have expected it to have anything worth more than a stifled yawn.

 

[Ezeekiel]

While I've never liked his approach to balancing stuff, he seems like a fairly decent guy as far as lefties go, imo. Or maybe I just haven't read enough of his twitter history.

 

[Volrath]

Sawyer's political tendencies are the least of his problems ffs, it's making games really fucking shit and boring to play that's the real issue here!

 

[Lilura]

BG2's flash-bang addicted grognards

BG2 player-base are grognards now?

 

[FeelTheRads]

According to Sawyer IWD was unplayable if you didn't read the D&D source books so... that's who you're dealing with here.

 

[Lilura]

According to Sawyer IWD was unplayable if you didn't read the D&D source books so... that's who you're dealing with here.

Was that just "agenda" for PoE marketing purposes, or does he srsly think that? He's on the record for criticizing Beamdogs imbalancing, poorly-thought-out additions in IWD:EE, so I give him credit there.

 

[Roguey]

Was that just "agenda" for PoE marketing purposes, or does he srsly think that?

He's exaggerating.

More relevantly, Icewind Dale and Temple of Elemental Evil required the player to create entire parties at the adventure's outset. "The games were tuned for D&D veterans. There are tons of ways you can make strategic errors. There are tons of ways you can make bad parties. What happens is 20 to 30 hours into the game, you can't go any further."

"Yes, the player made the error but we placed a high demand on them," Sawyer said.

I don't think you have to cut the option of making parties at all! But if a game asks the player to make a party, the system design should not be such that new players have to be extremely prescient and forward-thinking to avoid making a terrible group of characters. For example, in 1st Edition AD&D, demihumans often had level limits. If you missed this fact, you could make a totally viable character -- right up until you hit the leveling wall. Once that happens, you're essentially stuck.

Very few non-MMO RPGs allow character respec, but I think character respec is another good way to address balance range issues in games with a huge amount of character variety. You thought it was a good idea to make a party of Genasi Bards called Earth, Wind, and Fire. It was not a good idea, so if you accept a small cost, you can rebuild some -- or all -- aspects of your characters.

 

[Lilura]

Part of the joy of playing games is working them out and experimenting, though. Over several run-throughs. To become a master at them and then come on the 'Dex to call people scrubs.

If you can't fuck up, if everything's equally viable, what's the point?

This is why I usually steer clear of current gen RPGs.

Also, ToEE >>> PoE

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

Part of the joy of playing games is working them out and experimenting, though. Over several run-throughs. To become a master at them and then come on the 'Dex to call people scrubs.

If you can't fuck up, if everything's equally viable, what's the point?

This is why I usually steer clear of current gen RPGs.

Also, ToEE >>> PoE

Better combat, mechanics and progression, sure. If you want more than a dungeon crawl, though... I wish Tim had picked a different module.

 

[Lilura]

Better combat, mechanics and progression, sure. If you want more than a dungeon crawl, though... I wish Tim had picked a different module.

That's what the ushering-in of a new era akin to the Goldbox was supposed to be about. I just posted A Dream for D&D cRPGs about this. I was fabulously optimistic in this dream, but if all went well Troika could have at least released a couple of expansion campaigns, sort of how SoU/HotU > OC and MotB/SoZ > OC.

But I still think ToEE >>> PoE, even in its original bug-plagued incarnation (no Co8/no Temple+). I like d-crawls.

 

[CryptRat]

If you want more than a dungeon crawl

Why would I?

 

[KateMicucci]

Whether Josh personally is or isn't, he brings a crowd with certain attitudes along with him. I worry about how real his historical games might feel now that "deconstruction" of history is the agenda.

One example: KCD had no female soldiers. TW3 had only a handful. In Bioware, Obsidian, Larian, Bethesda games they make up half of armies and gangs. Would this be the case in a historical game? Can Josh or his team tell fantasy from reality? I'm sure you all remember that when PoE was being made there was some kind of controversy about a piece of concept art having boob armor. IIRC Josh blogged something about how his historical advisors told him that boob armor wasn't realistic and he had the concept art badly photoshopped to remove the chest bulge. Something similar happened with Original Sin concept art around the same time involving an exposed midriff. Somewhat missed was the point that the whole concept of "female armor" is fantasy.

Could Josh make a historical game that didn't have women equally represented on the battlefield? Even if he wanted to, could he get away with it? And what other inane discussions would Josh's historical title inspire?

Your metrics for the historicity of games are really funny. Larian/Bethesda/Bioware games and historical accuracy?! WTF am I reading?

No. My point is only that 1. Josh, his team and a big chunk of his audience are used to :incloosive:fantasy games and would probably bring the same expectations to a historical game, and 2. Josh has difficulty pushing back without getting tangled up in the weeds.

Maybe others are right that the bigger issue is that the game would be boring, but I think that problem will be limited to PoE, where Josh has to fix a fundamentally broken D&D clone without, again, pissing off the big chunk of his audience who like the broken D&D systems.

 

[fantadomat]

Part of the joy of playing games is working them out and experimenting, though. Over several run-throughs. To become a master at them and then come on the 'Dex to call people scrubs.

If you can't fuck up, if everything's equally viable, what's the point?

This is why I usually steer clear of current gen RPGs.

Also, ToEE >>> PoE

Well most rpgs have pretty basic and logical system,it is easy to get in the grove by a few level ups. Only game that i had to start over was Age of Decadence and that was because the dev decided to make it as linier as possible. For experienced RPG player there is not need to replay a game to be good at it. Now min-maxing is a whole different story. I am talking about completing the game on normal/hard. RPG systems are pretty simple,in real life you have to learn a lot more complex things than doing basic math.

 

[Rev]

Yeah, I never saw him as an SJW. He just capitulates to them from time to time, as a business decision. No way he is going the Vavra route though. I think what he 'll do is pull off a Pallegina. He will include a couple of characters that will shut up the SJWs, and that's it. It shouldn't be too hard to do in most contexts.

I think a way to appease SJWs in order to not make them riot because your historical game is actually accurate (see their retarded posts on ResetEra, Polygon, Kotaku, etc. on KCD) is to make one or two quests about gay or women conditions and show them in a symphathetic way, even if most of your characters have a different mentality than your own.
Also, Sawyer always said that his historical rpg would also have some low fantasy elements, so there would probably be some actual witches or some other escamotage to make some woman important (and maybe even a companion) etc. And then again, in Darklands (the game he always name as his inspiration for his future historical rpg) you could play with female characters and it didn't made any difference, so he could just go that route and choose to ignore historical accuracy in that aspect of the game.