Pentiment - Josh Sawyer's historical mystery narrative-driven game set in 16th century Bavaria

[cherry blossom]

Sawyer and non-combat in the same sentence

 

[Zariusz]

No combat = no need for balancing
Gameplay doesnt need balancing = the game is balanced

Finally a solution to this eternal problem

 

[Butter]

Sawyer tallying up the skill checks to make sure Conceptualization and Empathy get the same amount of use.

 

[Anthedon]

Since I basically live in the setting of Pentiment, I'll keep an eye on the game. Kingdom Come set the bar relatively high for "historical" games.

 

[Sentinel]

 

[Lovecraft's Ghost]

RPGCodex Thread Analysis

Good comrades and brothers, I briefly return from mirth blessed retirement to respond to this assertion, seeing as how none other have until now stated the obvious and for the benefit of a poor Brazilian comrade. In opposition to Sawyer's last games, which were more akin to insults against Icewind Dale appreciators, I will spare you my traditional fancies and keep the response as laconic as I am able.

On a very surface level we find projection, clearly the one being confused and unsure is the poster here. Josh Sawyer is a prostitute endorser who support the current thing and looks like a Jewish grandmother who makes every possible noise to make friend-enemy distinction online easy. It is apparent that he is a part of their movement, he is one of them. So why then would he make a game about medieval Europe, featuring a story told about Europeans, in a faux-European mode? Could any good current-year progressive enjoy such a thing? A story-focused game about a people and history they are to hate above all else?

That leads us to what the actual response from dissidents to the system would have to be. It is not one of confusion, rather, this is much worse than the Jewish film industry casting negroids as ancient Greeks, far, far worse. The humiliation ritual of taking something which belongs to another tribe and disfiguring it, mutilating it, desecrating it is as old as civilisation itself. Gods of conquered tribes were for instance cast as infernal and malignant forces. We all know what it is when we see it, and it has nothing to do with the stated goals. That's the secondary humiliation ritual by the way, when you know you are in the wrong you make something up, and then you make your victim agree that this is correct. Always a popular pastime.

Why then is what Sawyer does worse? Why am I not in jovial spirits after seeing he will not take the prescribed dump on European heritage? Why did I purposefully refer to the seemingly reasonable video gamer, Dishonoredbr, simply being excited for the game as a reason for making this post? Because unlike those that are content to merely sully and defile the subject matter the well-read and more intelligent among them carry their magick lanterns to deceive and mislead. By making it about this historical period, in this style, Sawyer aims to draw moths to burn. He cannot, of course, actually compete with real illuminated manuscripts since men of such skill are all long since dead, but it is enough to draw in an audience. Reading this thread I see many have already made the toilet scribbles of a subversive into a large part of their historical consciousness. The discomfiture I find myself in at seeing The Name of the Rose being brought up is almost paroxysm inducing, or in the parlance of children these days, cringe.

So no, not being outwardly repugnant and possessing a veneer of appreciation for the material dealt with does not make it a good game ideologically. The anti-European mantra the Americans are enforcing is not good, mind you, nor should you appreciate seeing your heritage being paraded around like a dead family pet cat. But the worst, history has shewed, has always come from enemies masquerading as friends. Woe to anyone thinking Joshua is putting this together out any sort of love of Europe, may The Lord have mercy on the soul of anyone imbibing the waters of this poisoned well. With historical privation and unrootedness being the norm these efforts of deception and calumny have usually been quite effective but due to his inability as a game developer I'm not worried about this particular project. Even so, it would be better if the indented audience would see it for what it is.

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

ok

 

[Fedora Master]

Soyer pretends to care about historical art styles, yet I see not a single butt trumpet. Typical fraud.

And so much for black people in medieval times:

 

[vortex]

Maybe Sawyer's muses on Pentiment will inevitably change his mind to make Pillars 3 more medieval-ish and evil-ish.

 

[Sentinel]

Pillars 2's financial flop and Josh wanting nothing to do with cRPGs for a while mean that IP is dead.

 

[The Wall]

This will be fun little adventure. I believe in Josh

 

[Diggfinger]

Well, I hope someone else buys his crap looking adventure game then, because that sounds actually interesting.

Fun fact: I watched that Xbox reveal stream and skipped over Pentiment at first because I thought it was some sort of shitty phone game. I was confused later when I saw comments about the Pentiment reveal and had to look it up. I wasn't interested when the game was announced and even with that, it's managed not to meet my expectations.

It does look unique though so it may appeal to some on those grounds.

 

[Diggfinger]

btw
who said this wasnt an R-Peeee_g




"Some dialogue options will rely on the subject that Andreas studied best during his studies – the discipline will be given to choose before the start"

https://www.aroged.com/2022/06/13/josh-sawyer-has-been-nurturing-obsidians-pentiment-since-the-early-nineties/

 

[The Wall]

Just let me play new game with white people. My eyes are tired of seeing all the smug niggers on my screen. Just get them off my screen, ugh

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.thegamer.com/interview-obsidian-josh-sawyer-pentiment/

Interview: Obsidian's Josh Sawyer On Pentiment, A Historical Murder Mystery Where Your Choices Echo Through The Ages​

Choice and consequence on a grand scale.

For decades, veteran game developer Josh Sawyer has been designing big, deep, dense RPGs. Games like classic D&D dungeon crawler Icewind Dale, sublime Infinity Engine throwback Pillars of Eternity (the sequel to which is one of the best RPGs ever made), and beloved Fallout sequel New Vegas. But Sawyer's next project is something very different indeed. Pentiment (more on that curious name later) is a narrative adventure game set in 16th Century Bavaria.

While it will feature role-playing elements and a branching narrative—things Obsidian is known and loved for—they'll be presented and packaged in a way that we've never seen from the studio before. From the moment I saw the reveal trailer at the Xbox & Bethesda Games showcase, I had to know more about it—so I asked Sawyer to talk me through the origins of the idea, and what we can expect from Pentiment when it launches on Xbox and PC in November.

"I had a girlfriend who was super excited about Night in the Woods," he says. "I played it and I was a little surprised, not in a bad way, of how you just kinda vibe in it. You walk around and chat to people and do little minigames and go through a story. I thought it was cool and I loved the art style." Sawyer went on to play Oxenfree and other games with a focus on narrative, distinctive art direction, interesting characters, and minigames to break up the story. "I liked the concept," he says. "But I wasn't like: I gotta make one of these!"

That didn't last long. "Later, I had the idea to make a historical game in a similar style. One that was laid back and approachable. It wasn't until about two and a half years ago that I really thought we could make a game like this, and that was pretty much the genesis of what would become Pentiment." In the game you play as Andreas Maler, an artist working on illuminated manuscripts in Kiersau Abbey, a monastic scriptorium. His work is interrupted when someone is murdered and his friend is accused of the killing. Maler takes it upon himself to solve the crime—a decision that triggers a story spanning multiple generations.

A historical murder mystery is certainly an intriguing and unique premise for a video game. But how much of a detective game will Pentiment be? I saw someone on Twitter describe it as 'medieval L.A. Noire' and I'm wondering how accurate that is, if at all. "I wouldn't say it's a detective game," says Sawyer. "There is a murder mystery at the heart of it, but I keep saying it's a narrative adventure to draw a distinction between the two. We don't have hardcore detective mechanics. There are no logic puzzles involving excluding people or confirming alibis. We actually did do that in a prototype, but it wasn't what we wanted."

As Maler you are investigating a murder, but the familiar structure of a police procedural doesn't really apply to the 16th Century. "There's not like a high burden of proof in this era," says Sawyer. "It's more about you going around learning about the motives people have, and about them as characters. From the suspects, you then need to figure out who you think you should pin it on. You're not an official detective. You're close to someone accused of murder, and you're the only person who has a really strong interest in proving that he didn't do it."

The abbey's archdeacon is the person who's really in charge of the investigation, and you can turn over evidence for him to look into. But whoever you point the finger at will almost certainly be killed as punishment, which places a heavy burden on you. "We want the player to ask themselves what they value," says Sawyer. "If you think the most important thing is that the person you believe is responsible for the crime suffers for it, that will lead you towards certain characters. But if there are characters you just think suck, and you think deserve to be executed, maybe they're the people you pin it on."

But whoever you choose to punish, their absence will be felt and people will take notice. "This is a story that takes place over many, many years," says Sawyer. "People will remember that you're the person who pinned the crime on a certain person. That's the heart of the choice and consequence of our story." Interestingly, Pentiment won't tell you if the accusations you make are right or wrong. This is a concept more traditional detective games like Paradise Killer and Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments have used to great effect.

"There are a bunch of people who have motives, and they're more or less plausible based on the evidence you find and your own personal opinion," says Sawyer. "You just have to deal with not knowing for sure, and some people will question your decisions. There's always gonna be someone who will always believe a person accused of a crime is innocent, so I hope that creates some uncertainty. On our side there's no canonical true killer, so we won't be telling the player they got it wrong. That's not really the point. It's more like: here's what you found out, this is the choice you made, and here are the consequences."

As for Andreas Maler himself, I wonder how playing as, of all things, an artist will colour Pentiment's story and gameplay. "You're finishing up your journeyman years and you're about to become a master. You're pinch hitting, basically. They don't have enough monks to finish the manuscripts that have been commissioned, so that puts you into the heart of this monastic scriptorium and the community surrounding it. You don't live in the abbey: you live in the town, which makes you able to move back and forth between them fairly fluidly."

Art, writing, and script are all central to the story in Pentiment, which makes playing as an artist especially relevant—and useful. "His skills come up in how he deals with clues, letters, and notes that he finds," says Sawyer. "Thematically there's a lot of stuff about the artist's role in documenting the world and recording history as it is—or as they believe it to be. But the main thing is that he can move between these two worlds, between the secular and the ecclesiastical."

In some ways, Maler is a set character. He was born in Nuremberg and comes from a family of artists. He attended the University of Erfurt, which people from his social class didn't usually get to do. He dropped out to pursue the life of an artist, going on his wanderjahre—a period spent travelling abroad before becoming a master. But tapping into Obsidian's role-playing expertise, you can choose where he travelled to, what he studied at university, and what kind of personality he has—all of which will impact the story and dialogue choices.

"If you look at people like Albrecht Dürer, an artist from this period, they travelled extensively in Europe and learned from the masters," says Sawyer. "You can choose where you spent these years. Did you spend your time in Flanders or Basel? These were very big art centres at the time. What did you actually study in university? You can pick from the traditional liberal arts. Logic, grammar, astronomy, and a number of others, such as the occult. You can also choose his lifestyle. Is he a hedonist who just lives for pleasure? Is he a craftsman who is very dedicated to his art? A businessman who wants to make a career?"

You're defining a role-playing character, and the dialogue options you have will reflect your experience. "If you lived in Italy, you know Italian," says Sawyer. "But unlike a lot of our other games—people have criticised us for this and we're trying to address it—just because a dialogue option appears doesn't mean it's a good idea to pick it. Very often you'll come across as a know-it-all or a show-off. Basically being socially awkward. Just because there's an opportunity to talk about your knowledge, interests, or past doesn't mean it's a good idea."

Sometimes saying the wrong thing can negatively impact a conversation. "This gives you a broader palette to work with," says Sawyer. "We want players to really think about the options they pick rather than just blindly selecting them." This addresses a common problem in RPGs, especially in the Infinity Engine mould, where you'll feel compelled to exhaust every conversation option—even if it means saying or doing something you wouldn't otherwise. I love the idea of a dialogue-driven game where you have to choose your words carefully, rather than just speaking until all the choices are satisfyingly greyed out.

What about the game's unusual title? A pentiment is an image hidden in a painting. A layer of paint is removed (sometimes naturally through ageing, sometimes intentionally) and people switch positions, details change, or eyes look in different directions. "There's a lot of significance to it," says Sawyer. "There are a bunch of obvious things, like manuscripts and paintings hiding things under the layers. You're uncovering a mystery, and art is very important to the story. But there are other meanings to the word that I think will become more apparent as you play through Pentiment and reveal more of the story."

I ask Sawyer about his very specific choice of time period. What makes 16th Century Germany an interesting backdrop for an adventure game? "At this time, the Holy Roman Empire was dealing with two very big events," he says. "The reformation started, Martin Luther started to become well known, and his theses were reproduced and spread throughout the empire. Then there was the German Peasants' War, which spread out into the adjacent territories of the Holy Roman Empire—including Bavaria, where the game is set."

Kiersau Abbey and Tassing, the nearby village, are located in a fairly remote area—but they're also on a trade route. "There were these big trade routes that would go over the Alps, the Imperial Way, and this means the abbey is adjacent to these major conflicts," says Sawyer. "So there's a lot of traffic that comes through, a lot of visitors, which means you can meet people who aren't just Germans. There's an Ethiopian character, for example. Ethiopians were at the Council of Constance a hundred years before the game takes place and they were able to travel within this realm. There's just a lot going on in this time period."

When it came to researching it, Sawyer was already well equipped. "I have a degree in history that was more or less focused on this time period and this place, so I went back and looked at my old books," he says. "I had to dig through my brain for old references too. But we also have three historians as consultants: Christopher de Hamel, Edmund Kern, and Winston Black. They're giving us a lot of insight, because sometimes I hit dead ends. I don't have a PhD, I have a bachelor's degree, so I'll write to them and ask them if something is plausible."

Sawyer wanted to know more about how people hunted in 16th Century Bavaria: how they dressed, how they did it, the weapons they used. He asked Edmund Kern for advice and was sent a 19th Century German text. "It was printed in fraktur, or blackletter," he says. "I took a day and read through it and translated it, so there's definitely been a lot of work put into getting the details right."

You'll also be creating your own history in Pentiment. Sawyer's previous games have been set on a linear, contained timeline, but this story spans several decades. I ask Sawyer about the challenges of writing such a far-reaching narrative. "It opens up a lot of opportunities, but we have to think very carefully about how we plot things," he says. "Each act of the game is a relatively tight period of time. You make choices and time moves forward in a very strict way. Those are very focused, but then we can jump forward many years before the next act. It's not like most RPGs where it's this one, long continuous period of time."

It's challenging, Sawyer says, but he doesn't consider it a drawback. "There are choices where you'll see generational changes, or significant changes in a community. Because of this tight relationship between the abbey and the town, you have a chance to see in great detail the ramifications of your choices." Choice and consequence is something Obsidian does better than most developers, and I'm excited to experience the studio's knack for impactful branching storylines placed in the context of a more straightforward narrative game.

Pentiment is also an attempt by Obsidian to bring its stories to a wider audience. As great as games like Pillars of Eternity are, they're not exactly the most approachable. "We didn't want hunting around for stuff being the focus of the game," says Sawyer. "Movement is as simple as we can make it. It's very accessible too. There might be people who are not super into hardcore games—games that are very demanding in terms of controls and systems—who might like the look of Pentiment. They might be drawn in by the art or the setting. It's more about exploration, atmosphere, and exploring at your own pace."

For Sawyer, whose Tumblr reveals a deep passion for the intricacies of role-playing combat systems, working on a game like this is refreshing—and also a chance to improve as a writer. "Because the systems are so light in Pentiment, it's nice to be able to focus almost entirely on story and presentation," he says. "I'm playing more of a creative director role on this project than a systems designer, which is nice. I also wanted to focus on improving myself. I have a lot of experience doing dialogue, but I have less experience with strong plot structuring. Working on this game is helping me improve that part of my toolset."

 

[mediocrepoet]

https://www.thegamer.com/interview-obsidian-josh-sawyer-pentiment/

"I had a girlfriend

Do you think he's speaking like women often do? You know, "I'm going out for dinner with some girlfriends after work, I'll see you tonight!"

 

[Quillon]

"We want the player to ask themselves what they value," says Sawyer. "If you think the most important thing is that the person you believe is responsible for the crime suffers for it, that will lead you towards certain characters. But if there are characters you just think suck, and you think deserve to be executed, maybe they're the people you pin it on."

I like choice but the way he worded this... as if both approaches are morally valid. its perfectly normal to blame people with heinous crimes just cos you think they suck, ha Josh? :D

 

[mediocrepoet]

"We want the player to ask themselves what they value," says Sawyer. "If you think the most important thing is that the person you believe is responsible for the crime suffers for it, that will lead you towards certain characters. But if there are characters you just think suck, and you think deserve to be executed, maybe they're the people you pin it on."

I like choice but the way he worded this... as if both approaches are morally valid. its perfectly normal to blame people with heinous crimes just cos you think they suck, ha Josh? :D

I'm more than willing to badmouth Mr. Sawyer for the lulz all day and night (even though he made some games I really liked), but come on. He's clearly contrasting between doing what you think is just on principle and abusing your position to screw with your enemies. "Pin it on" should tell you that much.

 

[Alienman]

Wonder if you can pin it on yourself.

 

[Wunderbar]

She's not the murderer. It was me!

 

[Quillon]

"We want the player to ask themselves what they value," says Sawyer. "If you think the most important thing is that the person you believe is responsible for the crime suffers for it, that will lead you towards certain characters. But if there are characters you just think suck, and you think deserve to be executed, maybe they're the people you pin it on."

I like choice but the way he worded this... as if both approaches are morally valid. its perfectly normal to blame people with heinous crimes just cos you think they suck, ha Josh? :D

I'm more than willing to badmouth Mr. Sawyer for the lulz all day and night (even though he made some games I really liked), but come on. He's clearly contrasting between doing what you think is just on principle and abusing your position to screw with your enemies. "Pin it on" should tell you that much.

I don't know. I usually make my questionable/evul choices knowing that they are so, maybe he shoulda used "if your character..." rather than "if you..."; maybe that goes without saying, maybe following too much of MCA's and JD's metoo cases effecting my thoughts, maaaybe you'll think of me when you are all aaaalone...

 

[Tacgnol]

She's not the murderer. It was me!

Still didn't get the protag laid.

 

[Urthor]

> Josh Sawyer

> Eastern Europe

Codex's most and least favourite things combined.

 

[Lovecraft's Ghost]

Just let me play new game with white people. My eyes are tired of seeing all the smug niggers on my screen. Just get them off my screen, ugh

Illyrian comrade, it is fair enough to express your negro fatigue[1] but to let it go unexamined is the greatest of sins and makes it easily dismissed by people under the spell of Satan. Let us indulge ourselves in mental exaltation and abord the true source of your vexation. Is it merely a reaction to the negro mania of the American hegemony or is that merely the surface?

To begin with in accord with my previous post on this topic I think you will find that if you consider it carefully you very much do not want the same people who want to jam in smug negroes into every facet of culture to actually use your people, culture, history or heritage as their masks or marionettes. On the contrary, would it not be far more harmful to have them invite your interest and present a fraudulent guise of something you would like to see only for it to serve the same purpose as this ‘diverse’ media you currently have no investment in? Let Satan fly his banners openly I say.

So what is it that you desire truly? Why do you dissent? It is twofold; the first is that the three layers of the Judeo-Liberal American Global empire does not suit you, the second being the need for authenticity, of culture in your own mode, and by your own distinct and exclusive community. The idea that anything by Dositej Obradović is preferable to, say, Call Your “Mutha” by Jane Caputi[2] is unacceptable to the entities in the current mode of capitalism.

Without going to deep into the detail of its turpitude let’s briefly deal with the great adversary and the three layers of Earthly hell manifest. On the surface we behold the mercantile post-feudal mode of imperialism, capitalism, and the need for one universal man, one global market and so on. Even here the aims and goals of the system is unacceptable to anyone rooted, genuinely cultured, &c. Were it not that Americans used their negro slave caste as a source of domination[3] in the noosphere[4] we would still be opposed to it. I can recommend the recently released Antichrist: The Fulfillment of Globalization: The Ancient Church and the End of History[5] on this subject.

In the second layer we find old tribal conflicts and the Judaic forces that are behind this project in the first place[6]. Here they have of late been more open[7] but since they control banking, the media, academia and so forth[8] they are comfortable celebrating this while at the same time if you oppose it then it’s dismissed as a conspiracy theory. The third layer I won’t waste my time describing since it would be lost on the readership here.

On this day more than a century ago children are taught that the catalyst for the first war that would herald the end of Europe was an assassination carried out by the црна рука, this should give you some idea that the problem goes far beyond what troubled you in your post.

The great tragedy is that even in the twin system of universal man, communism, and under mushroom men like Lenin you had a culture that was less antagonistic. In China to-day you have media that is distinctly Chinese and made in the Chinese spirit[9]. Of all possible forms of modernism the worst came out on top in the West. It’s really rather simple, you want culture of your own, and that can be as limited as your village or extend to the whole of Eurasia and plausibly several at the same time. It is an opposition to American cultural imperialism. You want books written by, films directed by and games developed by your people, for your people. It is a rejection of the world-market, the lowest common denominator, humanism, liberalism, capitalism and the path to perdition.

The issue is with the system and who controls it. The issue is corporate monopolies with ESG scores[10]. Is the issue also with American-Afroids with a fake manufactured culture[11] being promoted as a means of capitalist imperialist expansion and power? Absolutely, but to focus only on that is to miss the forest for the trees. Already this post is too long and I have not even gone into the aspect of regionalism and need for hierarchy and power necessary to oppose this but only found in small sections of the world, as well as the recent developments in Russia and such. Nevertheless it will have to suffice for now.

---

[1] It is acceptable for negroids to complain about the European homelands being ‘too White’. One such recent instance was in Britain; Lenny Henry did this in regards to Glastonbury. The examples of this are too innumerable to list but surely in light of this most would have to agree, if they are being intellectually honest, that it’s fair to complain of too many negroids infesting culture, we do after all not go so far as to say they ought to be diminished in their ancient territories in Africa also, but maybe we should.
[2] I doubt many are familiar with this ‘work’, so I’ll link it for convenience. https://global.oup.com/academic/product/call-your-mutha-9780190902711 Yes, this is a serious Oxford published book.
[3] https://www.cfr.org/podcasts/hip-hop-diplomacy is just one example of this being more explicit.
[4] https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PEA237-1.html
[5] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B4ZJKT8V/
[6] It is of course important to note that they were not the sole force behind it, in general it was a mercantile movement and a transfer of power from legitimate regents to businessmen, however, due to their strong tribal organisation and their opposition to strong united European societies the Jews not only came out on top of the journey into modernity but gained virtual monopolies on important apparatus and societal organs. In-group preference always wins, there is no debate. The organised few always beat the many.
[7] One such occasion was when it was openly celebration on national television in America that the European demographics had started to not just slow in growth but shrink. This is however also one such case where the examples are too numerous to list even an overview of.
[8] This, again, is something they write books about. For an example off the top of my head see An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood. As long as it is in favour of it then you will find all manner of literature confirming this.
[9] Note that it’s not enough to simply exclude negroids from their culture. Culture has to be a positive force. For a wholesome example of this see Master of Shaoxing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9WkHl1FfEQ&list=PLSIJismKOisGazPfluQa7fp3eOep5LhQ3&index=1
[10] https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/issues/esg/esg-revolution.html - It’s a part of a general financial effort to fulfil the mission to dispossess Europeans, de-industrialise the West and so on but now formalised and quantified.
[11] Very little of what people globally have been exposed to could be described as authentic Sub-Saharan African culture. In many regards just like modern American Christmas is a mostly Jewish invention so too is ‘black culture’.