Codex Preview RPG Codex Preview: No Truce With The Furies

[Zombra]

You've misunderstood me, I should've been more clear. The developers wants to use Dice Roll Checks rather Threshold Checks solely because it encourages the player to pick low-chance (active) options just in case they get lucky (a chance the wouldn't have with Thresholds) - but this is contradictory, because by using Success outcomes as a carrot, they speak against their own message ("Failure is Fun"). It's simply my counterpoint to their initial reason for using Dice Roll Checks.

Forgive me, but I think I understood you the first time.

The low-chance gamble is definitely a valid reason to attempt something with an uncertain result. The difference here is that it's OK to not hit the jackpot with a success. Instead of making you just reload the game until you succeed, failures are given a different reward - a cool failure story. It makes you want to continue playing even though you failed. This is serious incline. Of course if you do succeed, that's fun too just like always. In my previous post I briefly sketched a success story and a failure story. Having a fun failure story doesn't detract from the fun of hitting the success story; if anything, it enhances it because it takes away the infallible success of the save-scumming mentality that win/lose enforces. "Succeed or reload" is boring - "succeed or fail and live with it either way" is fascinating, and makes success more meaningful.

In other words, you should try to surpass challenges, but you can't fail. Sounds like a bad game to me.

You don't seem to understand the difference between failing and losing. It's a big deal. Figure it out.

I will be perfectly content if this is a brilliant, provocative artwork with many possible outcomes; I honestly don't care whether it has fail state roadblocks or not. I know some people are only content if they have to struggle to "beat" a game by "winning" instead of "losing" ... but again, I think that mentality is very much missing the point here.

You are confusing artistic pretensions and appreciation with games. You can't just make a game and say it doesn't have some core features because it's an interesting piece of art. That's idiocy.

That's not what I'm saying at all. But I deny that a Game Over screen is a "core feature" of gaming.

The question is whether there is no challenge involved and nothing to lose considering the game as a whole.

No one ever said there's nothing to lose. Your character might end up a hobo. Maybe you'll finish with Ending D when you were trying for Ending B. I'm sure many Codexers will be outraged that their character didn't end up "racist enough". There is plenty of interest to be gained and lost without "YOU DIED LOAD LAST CHECKPOINT" being necessary.

Nah, I think I will mantain my horizons reduced, thank you.

Disappointing, dude.

 

[KILLER BEAR]

On the topic of games without fail state: It would be interesting if someone made a game where you gain control over multiple characters, and depending on your actions each one can live or die, making the narrative change accordingly. Something like Until Dawn but with actual mechanics instead of QTEs.

Lurker King would you consider that a "proper" game?

 

[Joined on the 4th of July]

Only the beginnings of dialogues are voice acted so you'd get a feel for the characters voice. From there on it only makes reading slower, so no VO.

Wow, a thoughtful application of VA. This sounds perfect and coincides exactly with how I play through game dialogues. I always listen to the first couple lines then start clicking through as I read faster to get to the point. Well done.

Yeah, p. cool to have some doing the right decision consciously, and not just fumbling into it due to budgetary reasons (like in Infinity engine gaems for example)

 

[cherry blossom]

This game speaks so much to me. I love games like Underrail with no shortage of tedium and a degree of sandbox mechanics, but I am also having decreasingly less time to invest in tedium any more. Tighter games with far less / no tedium while not afraid to explore and experiment with narrative and mechanics is something I crave so badly.

One concern I have is, if PC's environmental observation is passively based on skills, then won't the very act of gathering evidence/observations a railroaded process where you just click/"loot" everything, regardless of how that metaphorical loot is then interpreted by skills and used by the Player? It sounds to me like the very act of interacting with the environment via passive ovbservations negates a large degree of player's agency in figuring out what to "loot" once a preliminary observation is made?

In other words, what motivation could a player have in whether to "loot" (eg. make an observation on environmental points of interest, gather data) or not at all, as opposed to "loot it all" since whether something will turn up depends on the PC's skills in filtering that loot?

I am not certain if that was clear enough.

 

[cherry blossom]

On the other hand, that the game prompts all this talk over game mechanics outside of a traditional tedium, already puts it well ahead of pretty much anything else out there, right now.

 

[Irenaeus]

Someone give me the tl;dr

Is this a game for communist nigger-loving cucks? I just read the first page.

 

[Zombra]

It's a game for politically extreme assholes from all over the spectrum. You can build up your Fascism stat through dialogue, no joke.

 

[sstacks]

"Cops are naturally fascist."

Say huh?!?

 

[sstacks]

Why would asking black people about what music they listen to build up fascism? You can only be racist in the political spectrum as a fascist? I know it's an indy game trying a cool new mechanic with limited resources... but still. This sounds like pretty clumsy social conditioning.

 

[Kem0sabe]

Why would asking black people about what music they listen to build up fascism? You can only be racist in the political spectrum as a fascist? I know it's an indy game trying a cool new mechanic with limited resources... but still. This sounds like pretty clumsy social conditioning.

It sounds like opinions formed by people who have never experienced racism, live in a 99.999% white country, probably middle class parents who funded their college education, and now started up a development studio resorting to some kind of EU subsidies while telling themselves they are going to make a difference.

The unwashed gypsies living behind my apartment have more authenticity than this...

 

[huskarls]

Gameplay! Gameplay! Gameplay! Games aren't books or movies, they are games. Gameplay is the cake, dialogue skill checks and denying holodomor is icing. I don't know how you can have a game preview without showing or discussing any gameplay

 

[sstacks]

Why would asking black people about what music they listen to build up fascism? You can only be racist in the political spectrum as a fascist? I know it's an indy game trying a cool new mechanic with limited resources... but still. This sounds like pretty clumsy social conditioning.

It sounds like opinions formed by people who have never experienced racism, live in a 99.999% white country, probably middle class parents who funded their college education, and now started up a development studio resorting to some kind of EU subsidies while telling themselves they are going to make a difference.

The unwashed gypsies living behind my apartment have more authenticity than this...

It does sound a bit like the kid who goes of to college and after one semester comes home on break telling everyone how the world really works.

The game itself sounds cool and I give them points for trying, however it also sounds a bit heavy handed and naive.

 

[Forest Dweller]

(and also Roxor needling PJ for writing too pretentiously )

He either didn't needle enough or wasn't listened to.

 

[hello friend]

Why would asking black people about what music they listen to build up fascism? You can only be racist in the political spectrum as a fascist? I know it's an indy game trying a cool new mechanic with limited resources... but still. This sounds like pretty clumsy social conditioning.

It sounds like opinions formed by people who have never experienced racism, live in a 99.999% white country, probably middle class parents who funded their college education, and now started up a development studio resorting to some kind of EU subsidies while telling themselves they are going to make a difference.

The unwashed gypsies living behind my apartment have more authenticity than this...

I've always wondered, do islanders eat the same kinds of food as people? Do you have bread in the azores?

 

[Turok]

Every time i read the tittle i see no truce with the furries, and thats because all the furries and tranies shit photos i have see in this forum by accident. (same happens with Tyranny, tranny)

 

[Kasparov]

The bad thing with this, and despite the fact that No Truce doesn't write outcomes as inherently Good/Bad, is that the result is unrepresentative of the player's skills, such as clearing a high Drama check despite not putting any points into it, or failing a low Drama check despite having a lot of points in it.

It doesn't quite work like that. These checks also come with varying difficulty. When your skill is high enough - you're more than likely to pass it. That adds that extra bit of tension you might get from tactical turn based combat where you have mapped out all your actions and hit "COMPUTE!"

Someone mentioned AoD and my name in the same sentence - my problem with AoD's approach to use plain thresholds is that you can't get lucky. Or unlucky, for that matter.

If thresholds are so good, why didn't they use thresholds in combat as well? Dungeon Rats would be even more dull if all the hits and misses depended on a fixed number. Even though it would be representative of the player's skills.

 

[Kasparov]

Agree to disagree, yo.

I feel like my Shortsword +3 is just sliding off your Wall Shield +5 and orher buffs. I'll flee and come back when I've leveled up or perhaps I've managed to recruit the legendary mindflayer necromancer Marat Sar to even out the odds

 

[Kasparov]

That is a disappointing response, I am willing to argue my points and would expect you to do the same.

I just edited my previous post to clarify that a failure is not a loss just the same as a success does not equal winning. See you in another round! Meanwhile I'll finish breakfast and drag my ass to the studio. Talk to you later, bro

 

[Heretic]

I'm not convinced about the political labels. So far nothing that was labeled "fascist" and "racist" was really fascist (did you mean something like hard-line cop, law-and-order cop?) or racist.

So if I want to play as a hard-line cop, my actions will be consistently marked "fascist"?

If you mislabel a whole line of thought, it will be quite annoying. Labeling something as fascist clearly marks it as undesirable under today's meaning and usage of the word.

 

[Kasparov]

I'm not convinced about the political labels. So far nothing that was labeled "fascist" and "racist" was really fascist (did you mean something like hard-line cop, law-and-order cop?) or racist.

So if I want to play as a hard-line cop, my actions will be consistently marked "fascist"?

If you mislabel a whole line of thought, it will be quite annoying. Labeling something as fascist clearly marks it as undesirable under today's meaning and usage of the word.

If you take it apart - what makes a fascist fascist, what is racism about at grassroots level? What makes a racist tick?

If you thought about it in those terms, you should see what we mean when we say throw "racist" or "fascist" or "liberast" or whatever.

 

[Heretic]

I'm not convinced about the political labels. So far nothing that was labeled "fascist" and "racist" was really fascist (did you mean something like hard-line cop, law-and-order cop?) or racist.

So if I want to play as a hard-line cop, my actions will be consistently marked "fascist"?

If you mislabel a whole line of thought, it will be quite annoying. Labeling something as fascist clearly marks it as undesirable under today's meaning and usage of the word.

If you take it apart - what makes a fascist fascist, what is racism about at grassroots level? What makes a racist tick?

If you thought about it in those terms, you should see what we mean when we say throw "racist" or "fascist" or "liberast" or whatever.

I would like the game to track my actions, not judge them, is what I want to say.

 

[Kasparov]

That is a disappointing response, I am willing to argue my points and would expect you to do the same.

I just edited my previous post to clarify that a failure is not a loss just the same as a success does not equal winning. See you in another round! Meanwhile I'll finish breakfast and drag my ass to the studio. Talk to you later, bro

Regarding "failure is not a loss", I will recite my old point that regardless of the effect of the outcome, it should be a result of the player's skills. If a high-Drama character fails a low Drama-requirement, even if the outcome is good you've created a scenario which contradicts the protagonist's identity. Whereas a Threshold will always ensure that such scenarios won't happen.

Okay, it's good you picked that up and we can continue from here while I guzzle down my coffee. A few days ago an Estonian athlete - one of the top runners in the country - tore a tendon in his leg during a sprint. He's not Bolt, sure, but compared to laymen or even most other atheletes excelling in that field, he is a high-corp character. What is that torn tendon if not a sum of shit luck, the equivalent of a really bad dice roll?

 

[Kasparov]

I would like the game to track my actions, not judge them, is what I want to say.

Sure - but that is really not what we're doing. I agree with you, that these terms are loaded, but that is exactly the reason it is a fascinating mental exercise to imagine a world where these concepts developed tangentially from ours.

Do you disagree with this as well?

If you believe that these words are taboo, then LET US RING THE PC-BELL! Because I disagree with most - not all, mind, but most - cases of expressing oneself politically correctly. Fiction is not a place for that. Naw-sirreee.

 

[Prime Junta]

There is a rationale for threshold checks out of combat and stochastic checks in combat: there are way more checks per second in combat and you won't be able to save before each roll, so the stochastic approach works in one but not the other. The main issue with stochastic checks out of combat is that they incentivise save-scumming (if they're "red") or might as well be threshold checks (if you can retry as many times as you like).

Buuuut... you guys already know this. The "level up and try again" white checks are a decent-enough solution to the latter (you will only get so many tries, kind of organically), and the "make failure interesting" addresses the red checks.

The red check thing hinges on the failures really being fun. I was somewhat skeptical about this also when it was explained to me, but after seeing those two failed checks I had, I am no longer so. Of course maintaining that level of fun/interesting for failures in every red check in the game is gonna be a challenge, but I trust that they'll be able to do it, given sufficient motivation .

 

[ArchAngel]

Okay, it's good you picked that up and we can continue from here while I guzzle down my coffee. A few days ago an Estonian athlete - one of the top runners in the country - tore a tendon in his leg during a sprint. He's not Bolt, sure, but compared to laymen or even most other atheletes excelling in that field, he is a high-corp character. What is that torn tendon if not a sum of shit luck, the equivalent of a really bad dice roll?

If we turned back time and let the lap take place once more under the exact same circumstances (not an atom changed), it would have produced the same outcome.
Had it been a video game and the runner quick-loaded a savefile he prepared right before the lap started (dirty save-scummer!), the dice would've rolled differently.
One is the result of bad luck, the other of circumstance.

This discussion was had a lot in WL2 topics.. in my opinion developers should not design games around players save scumming. It should be up to players to choose to do one or the other.
I for one didn't save scum in WL2 unless one of my guys died.

But from what Kasparov explains, they already help vs save scumming by providing fail states that are not like in other games.