Preview ToEE spotted at German thingy by RPGDot

[Volourn]

Volourn Honourblade, Dwarven F/C, LG

Jareth Ironbringer, Dwarven F/C, LG

Tymonn Rosefield, Elven Wizard, CG

Korlock, Human Barb/F, CG.

Yeenog, Half-Orc F, NG (npc).


Now, in pnp, this party tended to act in a LG way despite the variant in alignments because the first character was the one who was the leader, and the others (even the chaotic ones) tended to glow with the flow along with their friends. However, in TOEE, this party from what I've heard is forced to be NG which actually will change the intro/ending and dialogue choices because of it ruining the actual flavour of the party. That, quite frnakly, is b.s. There is no possible role-playing that should disallow this party from being LG.

Not to mention my biggest beef of TOEE alignment is that it makes individual alignments irrelevant other than who is allowed in what party.

Oh well. At least the game has other things to offer that in the end, I can just ignore the alignment straitjacket.

 

[Astromarine]

I'm completely divested of this argument, so I'll try to be objective here. I thought your problem was that you couldn't *make* your fave party in ToEE. That would suck. But you ARE allowed to make the party. Simply, the game acknowledges something that you probably overlook:

If your CG characters always follow the leader no matter what, then they are acting kinda out of character with the leader. *personally*, if I played one of those CGs in a session with you, there would be times when I would not follow your orders, perhaps because I thought I had a better idea. Taken over a long campaign, an objective analysis would conclude that the party had acted most of the time lawfully, with some chaotic episodes motivated by those two characters. All in all, I'd be inclined to consider the actions of that party, if taken together, tending towards the neutral side. Perhaps a good solution would be to REALLY look into the motivation of those CG characters. If they like to follow the leader that much, then maybe you can shift their alignment towards NG, thus allowing you to choose a LG party. Just a thought

 

[Volourn]

Umm.. They don't follow him all the time. Remmeber, all the characters are good so as adventurers they all try to the right thing. CG characters don't really care for the law; but they also don't break laws friviously just because they can. Also to remember, that in pnp, characters don't always have to hang around the party all the time. Plus, those CG characters did tend to get into trouble with various law enforcers over the course of the 5 year campaign as CG characters tend to do which the Lg characters would dissapporve; but would ultimately forigive them for since, hey, they are freidns, and the 'crimes" they committed weren't serious and definitely evil. I can definitely say that the CG characters were able to play their alignment just fine even when they had a lawful good leader. Also, it wasn't a boss-employee relationship. It's not like theyw ere forced to listen even when they disagreed with my character's "suggestions". In fact, at times the party butted heads because the situation basically called for it. Fun stuff... Ok, back on topic..

But, like I said, the alignment scheme in TOEE is too rigid and too much party based that it curves the individual.

Yes, I can use the party; but by chosing NG as the party alignment for the game (which I am technically forced to do if I want said party) I am getting overall a totally different experience than I feel I should be with this party..

Remember, the fact is that in pnp there is really no such thing as "party alignment". The individual's action is judged on their own while in TOEE individual alignment is nothing but a foot note to decide what characters can be in a certain party. Like I said, it's using the alignment as a straitjacket not a guideline.

 

[Astromarine]

OK, but listen to what you're saying. The party behaviour was quite chaotic at times, and lawful at others. I'd guess Neutral was more or less an appropriate description. So I don't really think you would have the right feel for the party you played in PVP if you had gone lawful. in ToEE.

As I said, you have two choices: Go with the neutral party and hope that the feel is more accurate than you originally thought (possible, because the party's actions as a whole aren't universally lawful as you described)
Or change those character's alignment to Neutral for the duration of the campaign, to keep the LG party flavor, and Roleplay it as you wish. For example, due to the extreme danger of the Temple you could "rule" that the characters were smart enough to not act overly chaotic in order not to jeopardize the mission. Hell, you said yourself that they did that occasionally.

As you say, Alignment is a guideline, not a rigid stat. So it should not be a problem to shift minorly the alignment of two characters in order to obtain the feel you like

 

[Crazy Tuvok]

At this point it is not clear to me that ToEE's alignment scheme will work or not but it does offer a coupla things that are really good. Two in particular: you cannot start the game with a LG Paladin and CE anything else which I like a lot; secondly it is an attempt to make alignment actually mean something unlike just about every other CRPG in existence, BG was by far the worst offender with NWN a close second in rendering alignment absolutely meaningless. At the very least ToEE attempts to address this. Whether it will work to make a richer role-playing experience or be the straitjacket that Volourn fears it wil be remains to be seen. As a shameless fanboy I prefer to assume the former.

 

[Volourn]

No, the party alignment was NEVER chaotic. The characters' aligments of two members (and sometimes the orc too) were. That's the problem with TOEE's alignment. It's trying to treat the party as one organism like the borg or something when a party is simply a small group of individuals.

I am going with the party alignment as NG for TOEE simply because the characters are CG. Oh well, it's a good thing that I ain't really playing TOEE for deep role-playing but good old fashion dunegon crawling with a 5 headed monster.

Tuvok: BG, and NWN were the worst examples? You musta missed a lot of other games - namely the GB games, EOTB series, IWD1&2, DD, and the list goes on.

I agree that BG didn't have alignment effect things as much as it should; but it surely isn't the worst offender - unless you are just inclduing the most recent, most popular D&D games... or just making BIo references for the heck of it..


I am glad about not being able to start with a LG paladin and a Ce character. That is one good thing coming out of this...

 

[Crazy Tuvok]

Vollourn - good point I stand corrected. There are plenty of other games which fubared alignment as badly as BG - it was just the first one that popped into my head.

 

[Volourn]

No problem. BG is a large, hugely undefendable target when it comes to a weak use of alignment. Of course, I prefer a loose useage than an overly strict over the top one that will be found in TOEE. Even though the Fos aren't even dnd; they pretty much used alignment as any dnd game should. PST, and NWN have the laignment structure down pat; but they (and espicially NWN) could have actually used their systems for better use. SOU improved on that, of course, but hopefully, HOTU will take it a step further.

 

[Astromarine]

Hmmm, a question: You yourself consider alignment as not sacrossanct, yet you are more willing to change your game experience by choosing a party alignment different from what you felt was right, than to change the (by your own admisison not so rigid) charecter's alignment? If the alignment is that much a guideline for you, and meaningless and not rigid as a stat, why is it such a problem to change those char's alignments? As I said, just pretend that at the beginning the leader sits them down and says "OK guys, for this ONE job, please don't act too independently or it could kill us all. Do this for me and I'll buy you a beer later on". The characters won't be offended if you put them down as Neutral Good for a campaign.

 

[Volourn]

Well,, it's a sp crpg so in the end, it's only going to effect the one campaign(and, any possible sequels which we all hope for) so in the end, it doesn't really matter in the larger picture.

Still, I would rather change the party's "alignment" as that is soemthing ifctional that Troika amde up than change the characters' alignment which is based off actual characters from pnp. To me, the individual's alignment is more important than the party's even though Troika obviously disagrees.

Then again, in pnp, the 4 (the h-o was a npc henchman) PCs were played by 4 different actual players and not just one person (me) like it will in the game. Like I said, I don't like how it's being handled in TOEE; but I seriosuly doubt when it comes to actually playing the game and judging the game as a whole; it probably won't effect my outlook that much. There just isn't much - other than alignment & the story - that I complain about as everything else sounds pretty much perfect.

This is what some others don't get. This isn't some jealous BIOweenie fan attacking Troika in some jealous rage. These are just my two concerns for this game, and Troika is quite aware of them. Heh. Quite aware.

 

[Araanor]

To me, the individual's alignment is more important than the party's even though Troika obviously disagrees.

With 6 player-made characters, it just can't be done. Try to imagine the complexity of making every individual character's alignment affect how they act. As it is, noone but the leader could realistically act at all. You'll be playing the party.

If you were only running around with NPCs they could have their own agendas (and the ones that will be in the game will have just that), but in TOEE you make your own party and play it as such. Personally I would prefer a single PC, I guess you can't have everything.

I think party alignment serves as a good approximation. Certainly better than what we've been served so far.

I never liked alignment anyway.

 

[Astromarine]

Ironically enough, the best sollution I even saw to this problem is in a relatively borderline RPG: Jagged Alliance 2.

You had a shitload of party characters you could select, and then one, the leader, for which you made a full character from scratch, So you had at the same time YOUR character, which dictated the direction of play, and was fully your creation, and also had several interesting party members to follow you, have conversations among themselves, and help you in fights. Brilliant.

Now I think of it, Ultima was also like that. Wonder why it's a classic?

 

[Voss]

See, I saw JA2 somewhat differently. The 'real you' was behind the computer, making managerial and strategic decisions, while the custom merc was just a gimmick, far less interesting (in that the custom merc didn't speak as much, and never went off on amusing tangents) and far less able than most of good mercs.

I generally prefer the single character with NPCs help. The inter NPC dialogue can be interesting, and the story can be much more tightly focused. Group creation tends toward 'a group of adventurers in a tavern agrees to go looking for treasure and glory' and never really turns into a story, with motivations or interesting asides. Of course theres always a chance of a bad story with no motivations and boring NPCs, but thats a whole seperate issue. *cough* Lionheart *cough*