So for me, yep I play on easy mode.
On Sun, 7 Jul 2024 10:23:16 +0100, JAB <noway@nochance.com> wrote:
So for me, yep I play on easy mode.
If it is a strategy game, I play on the easiest difficulty and move up
from there. I usually end up at one of the middle difficulties and
don't go and higher. The only one I play at the harder settings is
HOMM III because it is my favorite strategy game and I just got good
at it from playing it so much.
If it is an RPG, I play it at normal difficulty and leave it there.
This one came up on a channel for table top miniatures games but they
did also talk about computer games. Now of course this is all personal preference as there's no right way to enjoy games but the main thrust of
the argument was that the advantage of playing on easy mode (in the TT context that was interchangeable with social) was it gives you a lot
more scope to be creative and play the game how you want and just try
things out to see what happens.
That's certain how I approach CRPG's. I don't want to go through
numerous guides on how to build an optimal character, I want to pick
what I fancy playing. My general strategy is start on normal mode and if
it all becomes too much, which it often does as the game progresses and
your character/party becomes progressively less optimal, change it to
easy mode and carry on.
One of the interesting parts they said is that if you're effectively
going to use someone else's build then what not just watch them playing
the game. Obviously that's a bit of hyperbole but I can understand their point.
So for me, yep I play on easy mode.
This one came up on a channel for table top miniatures games but they
did also talk about computer games. Now of course this is all personal preference as there's no right way to enjoy games but the main thrust of
the argument was that the advantage of playing on easy mode (in the TT context that was interchangeable with social) was it gives you a lot
more scope to be creative and play the game how you want and just try
things out to see what happens.
That's certain how I approach CRPG's. I don't want to go through
numerous guides on how to build an optimal character, I want to pick
what I fancy playing. My general strategy is start on normal mode and if
it all becomes too much, which it often does as the game progresses and
your character/party becomes progressively less optimal, change it to
easy mode and carry on.
One of the interesting parts they said is that if you're effectively
going to use someone else's build then what not just watch them playing
the game. Obviously that's a bit of hyperbole but I can understand their point.
So for me, yep I play on easy mode.
On Sun, 7 Jul 2024 10:23:16 +0100, JAB <noway@nochance.com> wrote:
So for me, yep I play on easy mode.
If it is a strategy game, I play on the easiest difficulty and move up
from there. I usually end up at one of the middle difficulties and
don't go and higher. The only one I play at the harder settings is
HOMM III because it is my favorite strategy game and I just got good
at it from playing it so much.
If it is an RPG, I play it at normal difficulty and leave it there.
The way I look at it is: I've done my time banging my head against
computer game difficulty. I've done the hard stuff. I've played Doom
on Nightmare mode. I've flown Falcon 4.0 with max realism settings. I
beat Syndicate: American Revolt. I've nothing to prove anymore. I
shown I have the chops. If I want to go a bit easier nowadays, that's
no problem. I've _earned_ my easy mode. ;-P
This one came up on a channel for table top miniatures games but they
did also talk about computer games. Now of course this is all personal preference as there's no right way to enjoy games but the main thrust of
the argument was that the advantage of playing on easy mode (in the TT context that was interchangeable with social) was it gives you a lot
more scope to be creative and play the game how you want and just try
things out to see what happens.
That's certain how I approach CRPG's. I don't want to go through
numerous guides on how to build an optimal character, I want to pick
what I fancy playing. My general strategy is start on normal mode and if
it all becomes too much, which it often does as the game progresses and
your character/party becomes progressively less optimal, change it to
easy mode and carry on.
One of the interesting parts they said is that if you're effectively
going to use someone else's build then what not just watch them playing
the game. Obviously that's a bit of hyperbole but I can understand their point.
So for me, yep I play on easy mode.
This one came up on a channel for table top miniatures games but they
did also talk about computer games. Now of course this is all personal preference as there's no right way to enjoy games but the main thrust of
the argument was that the advantage of playing on easy mode (in the TT context that was interchangeable with social) was it gives you a lot
more scope to be creative and play the game how you want and just try
things out to see what happens.
That's certain how I approach CRPG's. I don't want to go through
numerous guides on how to build an optimal character, I want to pick
what I fancy playing. My general strategy is start on normal mode and if
it all becomes too much, which it often does as the game progresses and
your character/party becomes progressively less optimal, change it to
easy mode and carry on.
One of the interesting parts they said is that if you're effectively
going to use someone else's build then what not just watch them playing
the game. Obviously that's a bit of hyperbole but I can understand their point.
So for me, yep I play on easy mode.
On Sun, 07 Jul 2024 13:28:35 -0400, Spalls Hurgenson ><spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:
The way I look at it is: I've done my time banging my head against
computer game difficulty. I've done the hard stuff. I've played Doom
on Nightmare mode. I've flown Falcon 4.0 with max realism settings. I
beat Syndicate: American Revolt. I've nothing to prove anymore. I
shown I have the chops. If I want to go a bit easier nowadays, that's
no problem. I've _earned_ my easy mode. ;-P
I loved Syndicate and hated American Revolt precisely because of the >difficulty introduced in that expansion. Congrats on finishing it. I
never did.
On Sun, 7 Jul 2024 10:23:16 +0100, JAB <noway@nochance.com> wrote:
So for me, yep I play on easy mode.
If it is a strategy game, I play on the easiest difficulty and move up
from there. I usually end up at one of the middle difficulties and
don't go and higher. The only one I play at the harder settings is
HOMM III because it is my favorite strategy game and I just got good
at it from playing it so much.
If it is an RPG, I play it at normal difficulty and leave it there.
The way I look at it is: I've done my time banging my head against
computer game difficulty. I've done the hard stuff. I've played Doom
on Nightmare mode. I've flown Falcon 4.0 with max realism settings. I
beat Syndicate: American Revolt. I've nothing to prove anymore. I
shown I have the chops. If I want to go a bit easier nowadays, that's
no problem. I've_earned_ my easy mode. 😜
On 7/7/2024 2:23 AM, JAB wrote:
This one came up on a channel for table top miniatures games but theyI'm much the same. I've had too much stress in my life and am getting
did also talk about computer games. Now of course this is all personal
preference as there's no right way to enjoy games but the main thrust
of the argument was that the advantage of playing on easy mode (in the
TT context that was interchangeable with social) was it gives you a
lot more scope to be creative and play the game how you want and just
try things out to see what happens.
That's certain how I approach CRPG's. I don't want to go through
numerous guides on how to build an optimal character, I want to pick
what I fancy playing. My general strategy is start on normal mode and
if it all becomes too much, which it often does as the game progresses
and your character/party becomes progressively less optimal, change it
to easy mode and carry on.
One of the interesting parts they said is that if you're effectively
going to use someone else's build then what not just watch them
playing the game. Obviously that's a bit of hyperbole but I can
understand their point.
So for me, yep I play on easy mode.
to old to be in a constant adrenaline rush playing a game. I'm not
playing to prove anything, I'm playing to have fun and relax.
This one came up on a channel for table top miniatures games but they
did also talk about computer games. Now of course this is all personal >preference as there's no right way to enjoy games but the main thrust of
the argument was that the advantage of playing on easy mode (in the TT >context that was interchangeable with social) was it gives you a lot
more scope to be creative and play the game how you want and just try
things out to see what happens.
That's certain how I approach CRPG's. I don't want to go through
numerous guides on how to build an optimal character, I want to pick
what I fancy playing. My general strategy is start on normal mode and if
it all becomes too much, which it often does as the game progresses and
your character/party becomes progressively less optimal, change it to
easy mode and carry on.
One of the interesting parts they said is that if you're effectively
going to use someone else's build then what not just watch them playing
the game. Obviously that's a bit of hyperbole but I can understand their >point.
So for me, yep I play on easy mode.
(Long resting in a dungeon is a different issue. I've no problem with
it if it carries some risk. Although -at least in my tabletop game- if
you think an 8-hour sleep is going to cure you of all ailments, you've
got another think coming. A nap doesn't cure stab wounds in my
campaigns 😉
On Sun, 7 Jul 2024 08:15:57 -0700, Dimensional Traveler
<dtravel@sonic.net> wrote:
On 7/7/2024 2:23 AM, JAB wrote:
This one came up on a channel for table top miniatures games but theyI'm much the same. I've had too much stress in my life and am getting
did also talk about computer games. Now of course this is all personal
preference as there's no right way to enjoy games but the main thrust of >>> the argument was that the advantage of playing on easy mode (in the TT
context that was interchangeable with social) was it gives you a lot
more scope to be creative and play the game how you want and just try
things out to see what happens.
That's certain how I approach CRPG's. I don't want to go through
numerous guides on how to build an optimal character, I want to pick
what I fancy playing. My general strategy is start on normal mode and if >>> it all becomes too much, which it often does as the game progresses and
your character/party becomes progressively less optimal, change it to
easy mode and carry on.
One of the interesting parts they said is that if you're effectively
going to use someone else's build then what not just watch them playing
the game. Obviously that's a bit of hyperbole but I can understand their >>> point.
So for me, yep I play on easy mode.
to old to be in a constant adrenaline rush playing a game. I'm not
playing to prove anything, I'm playing to have fun and relax.
The way I look at it is: I've done my time banging my head against
computer game difficulty. I've done the hard stuff. I've played Doom
on Nightmare mode. I've flown Falcon 4.0 with max realism settings. I
beat Syndicate: American Revolt. I've nothing to prove anymore. I
shown I have the chops. If I want to go a bit easier nowadays, that's
no problem. I've _earned_ my easy mode. ;-P
Another one of my pet peeves, monsters that just inhabit rooms waiting
to be killed by some passing adventurers. Do they never eat, sleep, work?
Even back-in-the-day I disliked the 'make your own map' requirement of
a lot of adventure and role-playing games. Especially since it
promoted stupidly labyrinthine (and unrealistic) dungeon design whose
sole purpose was to artificially lengthen the game rather than provide
a fun experience.
When games like "Ultima Underworld" or "Might & Magic III" started
adding automap as a standard feature, I rejoiced. All of a sudden
dungeon crawls could be FUN rather than tedious step-by-step grind
where you had to carefully mark out every step. I could focus on the
ambience and environment rather than have to jump away every step to
scribble some marks on a piece of paper.
On 7/7/2024 2:23 AM, JAB wrote:
This one came up on a channel for table top miniatures games but they
did also talk about computer games. Now of course this is all personal
preference as there's no right way to enjoy games but the main thrust of
the argument was that the advantage of playing on easy mode (in the TT
context that was interchangeable with social) was it gives you a lot
more scope to be creative and play the game how you want and just try
things out to see what happens.
That's certain how I approach CRPG's. I don't want to go through
numerous guides on how to build an optimal character, I want to pick
what I fancy playing. My general strategy is start on normal mode and if
it all becomes too much, which it often does as the game progresses and
your character/party becomes progressively less optimal, change it to
easy mode and carry on.
One of the interesting parts they said is that if you're effectively
going to use someone else's build then what not just watch them playing
the game. Obviously that's a bit of hyperbole but I can understand their
point.
So for me, yep I play on easy mode.
I used to do that, or normal. Falout 3 started the cure for that, as the
game is actually easier on the hardest difficulty because you level up
much faster, and even though the enemies scale to you, your level makes
you exponentially better. (with the 30 level cap from BS DLC, not so
much just because enemies become annoying bullet sponges and aren't fun
after level 20.)
Dark Souls 3 finally fully cured me of that. I found I liked the
challenge better. Sure I look up builds and weapons and whatnot, but I
still try things out and change them to suit me, or abandon overused
"op" build because they aren't fun, or the style just doesn't work for me.
In fact I don't really like difficulty sliders at all now, as they tend
to be much more poorly tuned, doing things like just turning the enemies
into bullet sponges or one hit kills you on harder difficulties, and
feels like just watching a movie with no challenge at lower difficulties.
Still, I've never made any real attempt to replay the expansion. I've
gone through the original numerous times, but that one trek through
"American Revolt's" levels were enough for me. These days, given its >reputation for difficulty, I don't even /try/.
Strategy games I tend to treat slightly different and I'm unlikely to
play on easy mode even if I'm struggling a bit as it kinda feels that
then I missing the point of playing the game so the path is learn how to
play better.
With that out of the way, I've kept many of my older hand-drawn maps
from that era and have a certain nostalgic appreciation towards them.
But I'm not going to ever bother doing anything so insane again. If
your game's labyrinths are so complex that mapping is required? That's
a game I'm probably not playing. (you're probably the sort of
developer that thinks teleport traps and spinners are fun too.)
True. I revisited BG 1 and 2. Then I played Pillars of Eternity which had
its gameplay based on those games.
I got about 1/3 of the way through PoE and thought, what the hell was I >thinking back then? Baldur's Gate has RT combat? No. You mash the space
bar every two to three seconds. You micromanage your party. You time >fireballs so your own guys don't get cooked. You never use lightning bolt >because, well... you can't aim a lightning bolt in those narrow corridor >environments without it bouncing back into your own guys.
Fiddly fiddly fiddly. Again, what. was. I. thinking?
On Tue, 09 Jul 2024 12:27:00 -0400, Spalls Hurgenson
<spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:
With that out of the way, I've kept many of my older hand-drawn maps
from that era and have a certain nostalgic appreciation towards them.
But I'm not going to ever bother doing anything so insane again. If
your game's labyrinths are so complex that mapping is required? That's
a game I'm probably not playing. (you're probably the sort of
developer that thinks teleport traps and spinners are fun too.)
I kept a lot of my hand drawn maps as well for the same reason you
kept yours. Nostalgic appreciation sums it up nicely for me.
However, I am still willing to make maps these days but with digital
mapping tools now. But I do have my breaking point. I gave up on
Bard's Tale 2 (the original, not the remake) awhile back because
mapping it was becoming a pain in the ass.
On Sun, 7 Jul 2024 08:48:11 -0700, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action,
Justisaur wrote:
On 7/7/2024 2:23 AM, JAB wrote:
This one came up on a channel for table top miniatures games but they
did also talk about computer games. Now of course this is all personal
preference as there's no right way to enjoy games but the main thrust of >>> the argument was that the advantage of playing on easy mode (in the TT
context that was interchangeable with social) was it gives you a lot
more scope to be creative and play the game how you want and just try
things out to see what happens.
That's certain how I approach CRPG's. I don't want to go through
numerous guides on how to build an optimal character, I want to pick
what I fancy playing. My general strategy is start on normal mode and if >>> it all becomes too much, which it often does as the game progresses and
your character/party becomes progressively less optimal, change it to
easy mode and carry on.
One of the interesting parts they said is that if you're effectively
going to use someone else's build then what not just watch them playing
the game. Obviously that's a bit of hyperbole but I can understand their >>> point.
So for me, yep I play on easy mode.
I used to do that, or normal. Falout 3 started the cure for that, as the >>game is actually easier on the hardest difficulty because you level up >>much faster, and even though the enemies scale to you, your level makes
you exponentially better. (with the 30 level cap from BS DLC, not so
much just because enemies become annoying bullet sponges and aren't fun >>after level 20.)
Dark Souls 3 finally fully cured me of that. I found I liked the
challenge better. Sure I look up builds and weapons and whatnot, but I >>still try things out and change them to suit me, or abandon overused
"op" build because they aren't fun, or the style just doesn't work for me.
In fact I don't really like difficulty sliders at all now, as they tend
to be much more poorly tuned, doing things like just turning the enemies >>into bullet sponges or one hit kills you on harder difficulties, and
feels like just watching a movie with no challenge at lower difficulties.
Particularly fun in strat games like Civ V, where the AI doesn't actually
get any smarter, it just cheats.
Normal mode. It implies it is the way is intended to work, so I do normal >mode. Unless it's really too easy or hard. But that rarely is the case.
I had this huge piece of graph paper with maps of all the dungeon levels
in Ultima III back in the day. It was beautiful. You could hang it as a
piece of mosaic art.
Bard's Tale, not so much.
That's certain how I approach CRPG's. I don't want to go through
numerous guides on how to build an optimal character, I want to pick
what I fancy playing. My general strategy is start on normal mode and if
it all becomes too much, which it often does as the game progresses and
your character/party becomes progressively less optimal, change it to
easy mode and carry on.
My best maps I ever made were for Ultima 5. I put a lot of detail into
those things back in the day. My maps for Bard's Tale 1 are.... less >impressive.
I cheated for these games. The first time I explored a Bard's Tale
(or a similar game's) level I'd make a handdrawn map on graph paper.
Once I had more or less finished exploring the level, I would use a
program I wrote to print out a map for the level. I'd then go explore
the parts of the map I missed if the printed map revealed anything.
Oh cool, what map tools do you use?
I don't think I'd have the patience to make a map for a game :P
On Wed, 10 Jul 2024 09:28:12 +0100, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action, JAB wrote:
Another one of my pet peeves, monsters that just inhabit rooms waiting
to be killed by some passing adventurers. Do they never eat, sleep, work?
Ah, the Gygax approach. Yeah, that's why 2e introduced this whole novel concept called "ecology." That and the idea that creatures - that should
be mortal enemies - are just hanging out in one room, never leaving,
while the other group they hate hangs out in another is silliness.
My pet peeve though is when you get ambushed in one of those games where you'll actually arrive at the ambush at a completely arbitrary time, sometimes days or weeks long variability. What? Do they have perfect scouting? Is a scry spell being used 24/7? Do they just sit there staking
out the location day after day waiting for the eventual group of enemies?
Icewind Dale II was particularly egregious on ambushes. You'd stealth
scout an area, see that there were four or five monsters, and then start
the encounter and creatures that were never there in the first place
started "beaming in" and ganking your squishies in the back. It was the "monster closet" approach, but there was no closet.
Finally, mages with a full-on combat spell loadout. Um... what? Why does
the wizard have nothing but magic missile, scorching ray, fireball, and
ice storm memorized? Does this guy not use utility spells at all?
On Thu, 11 Jul 2024 09:31:05 +0100, JAB <noway@nochance.com> wrote:
On 10/07/2024 12:22, Zaghadka wrote:
On Wed, 10 Jul 2024 09:28:12 +0100, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action, JAB >>> wrote:
Another one of my pet peeves, monsters that just inhabit rooms waiting >>>> to be killed by some passing adventurers. Do they never eat, sleep, work? >>>Ah, the Gygax approach. Yeah, that's why 2e introduced this whole novel
concept called "ecology." That and the idea that creatures - that should >>> be mortal enemies - are just hanging out in one room, never leaving,
while the other group they hate hangs out in another is silliness.
That chimes with my experience of playing AD&D 'back in the day'. We
used to run pre-written modules mixed with homebrew ones and naturally
the 'formula' of the former was the basis for the latter. Get to
dungeon, kill everything and grab the loot. We even had a DM that
dispensed with all the faff of finding the dungeon and just placed you
at the entrance.
In fairness, while the conceit of the dungeon-crawl was fairly basic
in the day, even the early modules had the expectation of a more
robust and reactive world. But the modules were rarely written with
that intention stated outright, almost never giving out specific
alternatives and details on what to do should the players stray from
the expected path. It was left unsaid, and so many DMs -sticking to
the text- played the game exactly as written, which led to a lot of
very static dungeons where you COULD rest at will, with enemy NPCs
(who were little more than hit-points and stat-blocks) that cheerfully remained cloistered in their assigned rooms until the players stumbled
upon them.
Worse, this behavior became self-reinforcing to a point where players
played the game and then expected that's what D&D was about, and so
created their own modules that were loot-heavy combat-focused
dungeon-crawls. But I don't really see that as the intent of TSR and
Gygax. It was just a result of the style of writing; of creating a
fairly bland 'sand-box' setting that expected the DM and players to
give it life without providing much in the way of assistance on how to
do that.
That D&D -and the hobby- was so new was partly to blame, of course. It
wasn't really known what sort of assistance players would need in this
area. Especially since -at the start- TSR couldn't even /imagine/
adventure modules would be a thing; surely, they thought, everyone
would just make their own adventures rather than buy a pre-build
adventure!
And TSR's own format hampered them as well; early modules were quite
short in page count (24pp) but expansive in territory. They often
included multiple cities and dungeons, and there was only so much
detail and advice they could squeeze into every booklet. Later
adventures became smaller in scope, longer in page count, and a lot of
this extra space was generally used to enliven the settings beyond
just listing the inhabitants and contents of each room... because the
authors learned that players /needed/ that extra detail if they were
going to do anything beyond a brain-dead dungeon-crawl.
(In fact, I've read that the world's most famous dungeon crawl module,
"Tomb of Horrors", was written as a take-down of this sort of
gameplay. 'So this is the sort of dungeon crawl you want? Well, here,
delve into this and watch your characters suffer and die.' I guess the
hope was players would bash their heads against the ruthless
difficulty of Acererak's dungeon and learn to play smarter ;-)
The TL;DR is that while a lot of D&D modules come across as fairly
uninspired dungeon-crawls (and undeniably that is how most of them
actually /were/ played), I don't get the impression that's how the
writers EXPECTED them to be played.
On Sat, 13 Jul 2024 09:45:12 +0100, JAB <noway@nochance.com> wrote:
On 11/07/2024 16:23, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
On Thu, 11 Jul 2024 09:31:05 +0100, JAB <noway@nochance.com> wrote:
On 10/07/2024 12:22, Zaghadka wrote:
On Wed, 10 Jul 2024 09:28:12 +0100, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action, JAB >>>>> wrote:
Another one of my pet peeves, monsters that just inhabit rooms waiting >>>>>> to be killed by some passing adventurers. Do they never eat, sleep, work?
Ah, the Gygax approach. Yeah, that's why 2e introduced this whole novel >>>>> concept called "ecology." That and the idea that creatures - that should >>>>> be mortal enemies - are just hanging out in one room, never leaving, >>>>> while the other group they hate hangs out in another is silliness.
That chimes with my experience of playing AD&D 'back in the day'. We
used to run pre-written modules mixed with homebrew ones and naturally >>>> the 'formula' of the former was the basis for the latter. Get to
dungeon, kill everything and grab the loot. We even had a DM that
dispensed with all the faff of finding the dungeon and just placed you >>>> at the entrance.
In fairness, while the conceit of the dungeon-crawl was fairly basic
in the day, even the early modules had the expectation of a more
robust and reactive world. But the modules were rarely written with
that intention stated outright, almost never giving out specific
alternatives and details on what to do should the players stray from
the expected path. It was left unsaid, and so many DMs -sticking to
the text- played the game exactly as written, which led to a lot of
very static dungeons where you COULD rest at will, with enemy NPCs
(who were little more than hit-points and stat-blocks) that cheerfully
remained cloistered in their assigned rooms until the players stumbled
upon them.
Worse, this behavior became self-reinforcing to a point where players
played the game and then expected that's what D&D was about, and so
created their own modules that were loot-heavy combat-focused
dungeon-crawls. But I don't really see that as the intent of TSR and
Gygax. It was just a result of the style of writing; of creating a
fairly bland 'sand-box' setting that expected the DM and players to
give it life without providing much in the way of assistance on how to
do that.
That D&D -and the hobby- was so new was partly to blame, of course. It
wasn't really known what sort of assistance players would need in this
area. Especially since -at the start- TSR couldn't even /imagine/
adventure modules would be a thing; surely, they thought, everyone
would just make their own adventures rather than buy a pre-build
adventure!
And TSR's own format hampered them as well; early modules were quite
short in page count (24pp) but expansive in territory. They often
included multiple cities and dungeons, and there was only so much
detail and advice they could squeeze into every booklet. Later
adventures became smaller in scope, longer in page count, and a lot of
this extra space was generally used to enliven the settings beyond
just listing the inhabitants and contents of each room... because the
authors learned that players /needed/ that extra detail if they were
going to do anything beyond a brain-dead dungeon-crawl.
(In fact, I've read that the world's most famous dungeon crawl module,
"Tomb of Horrors", was written as a take-down of this sort of
gameplay. 'So this is the sort of dungeon crawl you want? Well, here,
delve into this and watch your characters suffer and die.' I guess the
hope was players would bash their heads against the ruthless
difficulty of Acererak's dungeon and learn to play smarter ;-)
The TL;DR is that while a lot of D&D modules come across as fairly
uninspired dungeon-crawls (and undeniably that is how most of them
actually /were/ played), I don't get the impression that's how the
writers EXPECTED them to be played.
Is that's really what they thought I haven't seen any real evidence of
it and they did an awful job of saying that's how the game was supposed
to be played which is what I would have expected at least somewhere.
I don't disagree with that. ;-)
There really is almost nothing in the official written material that
pushed forward that's how the game was supposed to be played.
A few hints are scatted in the official rulebooks that the world
should be reactive (DMG 1E p104, for instance) but I agree, actual recommendations on the matter were fairly scarce. Then again, actual
advice on how to play the game /in general/ wasn't that common either;
almost the entire focus of those original rulebooks was on
dice-rolling rather than the more ephermeral roleplaying. Still, There
was a lot of stuff written in The Dragon Magazine with suggestions
along these lines, although how 'official' you may consider that is up
to debate. But if you read on how Gygax played his own campaigns, you
do see that he didn't run adventures where everything was static and dependent on player actions.
That lack of clear language was a result of a blindness on the part of
Gygax and TSR; a failure to see that such obvious (to them)
instruction was required. They slowly started adding in clearer
instructions piecemeal, scattered across various books (the
Dungeoneers / Wilderness Survival Guides, Dungeon Masters Design Kit,
and with examples with later 1st Ed adventure modules and campaign
settings where there was more focus on how NPCs and monsters would
react to player actions. But it wasn't until 2nd Edition that TSR
would formalize the idea, in books like DMGR1 Campaign & Catacomb
Guide and DMGR5 Creative Campaigning, which were purposefully written
to aid DMs in creating more robust campaigns and pulling the game out
of the dungeon-crawl.
On Wed, 10 Jul 2024 13:50:03 -0000 (UTC), candycanearter07
<candycanearter07@candycanearter07.nomail.afraid> wrote:
Oh cool, what map tools do you use?
I don't think I'd have the patience to make a map for a game :P
I enjoyed doing it as a kid and I still do now. I use a program
called Grid Cartographer which you can check out on Steam. Programs
like this are not necessary however. I have seen people do it with
Microsoft Excel for instance.
Interesting, I'm surprised there's still programs available for that.
On Sat, 13 Jul 2024 16:30:07 -0000 (UTC), candycanearter07
<candycanearter07@candycanearter07.nomail.afraid> wrote:
Interesting, I'm surprised there's still programs available for that.
Heh. :) There is probably software out there to fill any and every
niche.
There really is almost nothing in the official written material thatA few hints are scatted in the official rulebooks that the world
pushed forward that's how the game was supposed to be played.
should be reactive (DMG 1E p104, for instance) but I agree, actual recommendations on the matter were fairly scarce. Then again, actual
advice on how to play the game/in general/ wasn't that common either;
almost the entire focus of those original rulebooks was on
dice-rolling rather than the more ephermeral roleplaying. Still, There
was a lot of stuff written in The Dragon Magazine with suggestions
along these lines, although how 'official' you may consider that is up
to debate. But if you read on how Gygax played his own campaigns, you
do see that he didn't run adventures where everything was static and dependent on player actions.
That lack of clear language was a result of a blindness on the part ofGygax and TSR; a failure to see that such obvious (to them)
instruction was required. They slowly started adding in clearer
instructions piecemeal, scattered across various books (the
Dungeoneers / Wilderness Survival Guides, Dungeon Masters Design Kit,
and with examples with later 1st Ed adventure modules and campaign
settings where there was more focus on how NPCs and monsters would
react to player actions. But it wasn't until 2nd Edition that TSR
would formalize the idea, in books like DMGR1 Campaign & Catacomb
Guide and DMGR5 Creative Campaigning, which were purposefully written
to aid DMs in creating more robust campaigns and pulling the game out
of the dungeon-crawl.
True, but it being on Steam?
On Sat, 13 Jul 2024 21:20:03 -0000 (UTC), candycanearter07
<candycanearter07@candycanearter07.nomail.afraid> wrote:
True, but it being on Steam?
He used to sell it off of his own website which is where I bought it
but I am sure more people will see it on Steam.
On Sun, 14 Jul 2024 10:15:18 +0100, JAB <noway@nochance.com> wrote:
That's the problem I have, if that really was what they thought then
you'd think when they introduced the game someone would have said, this
style of gameplay is going to be entirely alien to many people so we
need to provide guidance on how to get the most out of it. That's
especially true when you consider how many players are only going to get
the information from TSR products. So you mention Dragon magazine, that
was available in the UK (I bought a few copies) but only in specialised
stores. The one you could get in the local newsagents was White Dwarf
and that had already moved to being focused on GW products.
No, no; I get it and we're in agreement on that. They SHOULD have been clearer on that. But it was a blindness on their part; they didn't
think they NEEDED to say that, anymore than they needed to explain,
"when we say roll the dice, we mean cup those plastic polyhedron in
your hand, rattle them about a bit, then drop them onto a hard surface
so they roll a bit." It was such a /basic/ thing to them that they
didn't think they /had/ to say it. It was just assumed.
Remember, this was the same TSR that originally couldn't even conceive
that their customers might want pre-written adventures or settings
(they practically laughed Bob Bledsaw out of their office when he
suggested it, telling him that if he really wanted to he could sell
modules with their blessing and fully expecting him to go bankrupt in
the process). TSR /never/ was fully cognizant of what their users
needed or wanted.
It probably didn't help that for the longest time the game was only
played by TSR-insiders amongst other TSR-insiders, thus limiting their
view on how 'real world players' were experiencing the game.
Especially since many of those insiders were adult-age and more
interested in the role-playing, puzzling and politics of the game over boisterous combat.
And there was also the belief that players should be allowed to play
'their way', which is why I think the original rules are so light on
actual DM advice. Sure, the expectation was that the DM would try to
create a more realistic, reactive world... but if all you just wanted
to bash your stat-blocks (heroes) against the DM's stat-blocks
(monsters), well that was fine too. Just don't get mad if the game
isn't as interesting as everyone says.
(In fact, whenever Gygax suggested there was a very specific way to
play the game and everything else 'wasn't really D&D', there was
usually uproar at the idea).
Gygax's own dense writing style wasn't all that helpful either. Or the
game's own newness (people were still trying to figure out what
table-top roleplaying was all about, and how it was different from
miniature game). Or -as DT mentioned in an earlier post- the fact that
game itself grew out of the fairly slim "Chainmail" rules.
But everything I've read (about the history of the game, of
conversations of the people involved, in the rule-books themselves,
and even some of my own experiences) indicates that the assumption was
that everyone would play -indeed, would WANT to play and invariably
gravitate towards- more sophisticated adventures and campaigns. It was
an such unspoken belief that it took a long time before TSR realized
that not everybody understood that, and it had to be enunciated more
clearly.
No, early D&D didn't encourage role-playing/re-active worlds in their
games, and this lack led to a lot of people playing fairly mindless dungeon-crawls (to the point where you'd have dragons stuck in rooms
with entrances to small for them to get through. If you were a young
gamer of that era, you almost certainly encountered something akin to
that! ;-). But I think that was more a problem of communication on
TSRs part than an actual belief that was all the game should be. After
all, the game itself developed from 'Braunstein' games which were
anything but mindless. But a lack of clear communication on this
matter led players to take the rules as the end-all/be-all and a lot
of campaigns ended up being fairly lifeless. Leading D&D's competitors
to swoop in and offer a more exciting alternative.
Now...
How do we loop this all back to video games? Which, you know, is the
whole point of this newsgroup? ;-P
That's certain how I approach CRPG's. I don't want to go through
numerous guides on how to build an optimal character, I want to pick
what I fancy playing. My general strategy is start on normal mode and
if it all becomes too much, which it often does as the game progresses
and your character/party becomes progressively less optimal, change it
to easy mode and carry on.
One of the interesting parts they said is that if you're effectively
going to use someone else's build then what not just watch them
playing the game. Obviously that's a bit of hyperbole but I can
understand their point.
On Sun, 14 Jul 2024 10:15:18 +0100, JAB <noway@nochance.com> wrote:
of campaigns ended up being fairly lifeless. Leading D&D's competitors
to swoop in and offer a more exciting alternative.
Now...
How do we loop this all back to video games? Which, you know, is the
whole point of this newsgroup? ;-P
JAB <noway@nochance.com> writes:
That's certain how I approach CRPG's. I don't want to go through
numerous guides on how to build an optimal character, I want to pick
what I fancy playing. My general strategy is start on normal mode and
if it all becomes too much, which it often does as the game progresses
and your character/party becomes progressively less optimal, change it
to easy mode and carry on.
In general, I just choose the default difficulty. And I tend to stick
with it too but not always. Sometimes trying to kill a boss for the
umpteenth time just gets too tedious.
On Mon, 8 Jul 2024 21:26:56 +0100, JAB <noway@nochance.com> wrote:
Strategy games I tend to treat slightly different and I'm unlikely to
play on easy mode even if I'm struggling a bit as it kinda feels that
then I missing the point of playing the game so the path is learn how to
play better.
I play strategy games on the easiest difficulty to learn how to play
the game. That's it. Getting over the learning curve is my only
concern at this point. Wanting to play it better is precisely why I
start to bump up the difficulty.
RPGs don't really have a learning curve (not to me anyway) so I don't
bother playing them on easy.
How do we loop this all back to video games? Which, you know, is the
whole point of this newsgroup? 😜
On 14/07/2024 19:15, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
How do we loop this all back to video games? Which, you know, is the
whole point of this newsgroup? 😜
Tricky one. Can you think of any game that wasn't played how the
designers imagined it. Off the top of my head I've come up with none.
Something that I think is worth remembering is that D&D was at its very >beginning based on a small rule book for a table-top miniatures wargame, >'Chainmail'.
On Sun, 14 Jul 2024 10:15:18 +0100, JAB <noway@nochance.com> wrote:
Now...
How do we loop this all back to video games? Which, you know, is the
whole point of this newsgroup? ;-P
On 14/07/2024 19:15, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
How do we loop this all back to video games? Which, you know, is the
whole point of this newsgroup? ?
Tricky one. Can you think of any game that wasn't played how the
designers imagined it. Off the top of my head I've come up with none.
On Sat, 13 Jul 2024 09:45:12 +0100, JAB <noway@nochance.com> wrote:[snip]
On 11/07/2024 16:23, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
On Thu, 11 Jul 2024 09:31:05 +0100, JAB <noway@nochance.com> wrote:
On 10/07/2024 12:22, Zaghadka wrote:
On Wed, 10 Jul 2024 09:28:12 +0100, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action, JAB >>>>> wrote:
Another one of my pet peeves, monsters that just inhabit rooms waiting >>>>>> to be killed by some passing adventurers. Do they never eat, sleep, work?
Ah, the Gygax approach. Yeah, that's why 2e introduced this whole novel >>>>> concept called "ecology." That and the idea that creatures - that should >>>>> be mortal enemies - are just hanging out in one room, never leaving, >>>>> while the other group they hate hangs out in another is silliness.
That chimes with my experience of playing AD&D 'back in the day'. We
used to run pre-written modules mixed with homebrew ones and naturally >>>> the 'formula' of the former was the basis for the latter. Get to
dungeon, kill everything and grab the loot. We even had a DM that
dispensed with all the faff of finding the dungeon and just placed you >>>> at the entrance.
In fairness, while the conceit of the dungeon-crawl was fairly basic
in the day, even the early modules had the expectation of a more
robust and reactive world. But the modules were rarely written with
that intention stated outright, almost never giving out specific
alternatives and details on what to do should the players stray from
the expected path. It was left unsaid, and so many DMs -sticking to
the text- played the game exactly as written, which led to a lot of
very static dungeons where you COULD rest at will, with enemy NPCs
(who were little more than hit-points and stat-blocks) that cheerfully
remained cloistered in their assigned rooms until the players stumbled
upon them.
The TL;DR is that while a lot of D&D modules come across as fairly
uninspired dungeon-crawls (and undeniably that is how most of them
actually /were/ played), I don't get the impression that's how the
writers EXPECTED them to be played.
Is that's really what they thought I haven't seen any real evidence of
it and they did an awful job of saying that's how the game was supposed
to be played which is what I would have expected at least somewhere.
I don't disagree with that. ;-)
There really is almost nothing in the official written material that
pushed forward that's how the game was supposed to be played.
A few hints are scatted in the official rulebooks that the world
should be reactive (DMG 1E p104, for instance) but I agree, actual >recommendations on the matter were fairly scarce. Then again, actual
advice on how to play the game /in general/ wasn't that common either;
almost the entire focus of those original rulebooks was on
dice-rolling rather than the more ephermeral roleplaying. Still, There
was a lot of stuff written in The Dragon Magazine with suggestions
along these lines, although how 'official' you may consider that is up
to debate. But if you read on how Gygax played his own campaigns, you
do see that he didn't run adventures where everything was static and >dependent on player actions.
That lack of clear language was a result of a blindness on the part of
Gygax and TSR; a failure to see that such obvious (to them)
instruction was required. They slowly started adding in clearer
instructions piecemeal, scattered across various books (the
Dungeoneers / Wilderness Survival Guides, Dungeon Masters Design Kit,
and with examples with later 1st Ed adventure modules and campaign
settings where there was more focus on how NPCs and monsters would
react to player actions. But it wasn't until 2nd Edition that TSR
would formalize the idea, in books like DMGR1 Campaign & Catacomb
Guide and DMGR5 Creative Campaigning, which were purposefully written
to aid DMs in creating more robust campaigns and pulling the game out
of the dungeon-crawl.
Tomb of Horrors is a grudge module. Gygax said so himself. There isFor Tomb of Horrors my understanding is that it was a Gygax 'special' >>designed for tournament play and to really tax the players brains.
On 14/07/2024 19:15, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
How do we loop this all back to video games? Which, you know, is the
whole point of this newsgroup? 😜
Tricky one. Can you think of any game that wasn't played how the
designers imagined it. Off the top of my head I've come up with none.
JAB wrote:
On 14/07/2024 19:15, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
How do we loop this all back to video games? Which, you know, is the
whole point of this newsgroup? 😜
Tricky one. Can you think of any game that wasn't played how the
designers imagined it. Off the top of my head I've come up with none.
I solved Robot Odyssey like that. Here's an excerpt from the wikipedia review:
The robots can also be wired up to chips, which provide a convenient and reproducible way to program the robots. Various pre-programmed chips are scattered throughout the city and range from complex circuits such as a wall-hugging chip which can be used to navigate through mazes and
corridors (one of which is wired to a robot at the beginning) to clocks
and counters. The player must find out how these chips work themselves,
as the only information about each chip is a short, and sometimes
cryptic, description. Additionally, there are predesigned chip files
stored on the various disks containing the game that can be loaded into
the in-game chips. The available chips stored in this fashion vary
depending on the port or version used.
The Innovation Lab can be used to test out circuit designs in the robots
or create new chips. Chips created in the lab can then be loaded into
and used in the main game. Loading a chip in the main game will erase
the previous programming stored in the chip.
Although the game is recommended for ages 10 and up, it can prove to be
quite challenging even for adults. In terms of educational value, the
game teaches the basic concepts of electrical engineering and digital
logic in general.
* * *
LOL, it used to say it was the hardezt game in existence. It's educational! I solved it at age 12.
Towards the end, it would have puzzle descriptions like, "Solve the
NAND double flip flop with gravy delight and NOT the signal coming from
the bandsman." I'd do something that would sample out to the same thing when checked, but much simpler otherwise.
On Mon, 15 Jul 2024 10:19:42 -0500, Zaghadka <zaghadka@hotmail.com>
wrote:
Here I'll weigh in.
But kids' marketing sucked. Look at the D&D cartoon series. You meet both
Tiamat and Lloth in the first season. Tiamat shows up in the first
episode! The way it was marketed to children affected a generation of
players. Those players only sometimes matured out of that sort of game.
That marketing is a very interesting point I hadn't considered,
although I wouldn't entirely blame it on kids. But TSR (and, really,
any marketing agency worth its salt) wanted to focus on the exciting
bits of their products: in D&D's case, the big battles, the horrific monsters, the glittering loot. They aren't what actually make the game
fun (IMHO, YMMV, OTLAMA) but they're eye-catching. It's the sizzle to
the steak. You see mighty-hewed barbarians slicing through a dragon's
neck and being rewarded chests of gold and jewels and think, "Hey,
what's that all about? That looks interesting!" You pick up the books
and play.
I mean, do you remember what a radical concept it felt in "Ultima IV"
was when it was announced that the goal of the game was /NOT/ to
murder your way through the world?* For a lot of players, that was the
first time they even considered there could be more to the genre!
* even though, in the end, it pretty much still was ;)
On Sat, 13 Jul 2024 14:09:31 -0400, Mike S. <Mike_S@nowhere.com>
wrote:
On Sat, 13 Jul 2024 16:30:07 -0000 (UTC), candycanearter07 >><candycanearter07@candycanearter07.nomail.afraid> wrote:
Interesting, I'm surprised there's still programs available for that.
Heh. :) There is probably software out there to fill any and every
niche.
You just gotta find it; that's the real trick.
But with nearly 8 billion computer* users, for every problem you've
ever faced, there's likely 10,000 users who had a similar issue... and
at least one of them is gonna be nuts enough to program a solution.
And most people crazy enough to put in that much effort are going to
put it out on the Internet somewhere, either for profit, bragging
rights, or just out of sheer niceness.
I remembering randomly trawling through various FTP and app-hosting
websites, just because inevitably I'd stumble a utility that solved an
issue I barely even recognized I'd had up to that point. I'd download
it for free, and then use it once every two or three years when the
issue reared its head.
But -getting back to the topic on hand- third-party mapping programs
for computer RPGs have existed for a long time, although they were a
lot less ease-of-use back then. Largely because most games ran on DOS,
and DOS was a single-process program, so you couldn't (easily) run a
helper app and the game at the same time. But even from the earliest
days there were a variety of hacks and apps to help the lost
adventurer.
* even if a lot of those computers are now mobile devices
On Mon, 15 Jul 2024 15:43:07 -0400, Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:
I mean, do you remember what a radical concept it felt in "Ultima IV"
was when it was announced that the goal of the game was /NOT/ to
murder your way through the world?* For a lot of players, that was the
first time they even considered there could be more to the genre!
* even though, in the end, it pretty much still was ;)
Heh. :)
I was ready to post to remind you how much fighting you were required
to do in Ultima IV but you saved yourself with this last line. :-P
Around 3/4 through the game, you're going to max out your experience and
have a party of 8 lvl 8 classes. At that point, it doesn't help to kill >enemies except for to gain their money or items. I loved those rooms in
the dungeon where you would fight drakes and Balrogs and unlock the room
by doing whatever. One of my earliest priorities was maxing out my
weapons. Had 3 or more magic hammers, the best weapon I could find,
cost 1500 gold each.
I mean, do you remember what a radical concept it felt in "Ultima IV"
was when it was announced that the goal of the game was /NOT/ to
murder your way through the world?* For a lot of players, that was the
first time they even considered there could be more to the genre!
it didn't help when D&D started getting ported to computers. Because
early computers were GREAT with the number crunching, but were pretty
poor with the story and characters. Computer RPGs/still/ struggle
with making a game where the combat isn't the most dominant feature.
Our beloved 8-bits were far inferior machines; they hadn't a chance in capturing what made table-top gaming such a fascinating hobby. So
those early RPGs - most of which were either licensed D&D games or
very closely based upon it- were little more than brain-dead combat simulators and loot collectors. Which in turn reinforced the idea that
was all that D&D really was.
On 15/07/2024 20:43, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
it didn't help when D&D started getting ported to computers. Because
early computers were GREAT with the number crunching, but were pretty
poor with the story and characters. Computer RPGs/still/ struggle
with making a game where the combat isn't the most dominant feature.
Our beloved 8-bits were far inferior machines; they hadn't a chance in
capturing what made table-top gaming such a fascinating hobby. So
those early RPGs - most of which were either licensed D&D games or
very closely based upon it- were little more than brain-dead combat
simulators and loot collectors. Which in turn reinforced the idea that
was all that D&D really was.
I knew you could get it back to video games! I think you just have to
have different expectations of CRPG's from TT RPG's because, as you say, >computers just aren't very good at the bit that makes the later stand
out for other TT games.
It's not just the overall flexibility but CRPG's aren't very good at >encouraging you to play in character but instead play a version of
yourself*. The example I normal use is the classic trope of the old
crying woman who has lost here husband or child. You end up doing the
quest not because that what's your character would do but instead
because you know you'll get a bauble at the end of it and you get to do >something. It's just horribly binary.
On Mon, 15 Jul 2024 15:43:07 -0400, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action,
Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
I mean, do you remember what a radical concept it felt in "Ultima IV"
was when it was announced that the goal of the game was /NOT/ to
murder your way through the world?* For a lot of players, that was the >>first time they even considered there could be more to the genre!
You're talking to the guy that used the Skull of Mondain as soon as he
got it. It should have created an unrecoverable save file of doom like Undertale.
It was so cool. What an ending!
On Tue, 16 Jul 2024 15:10:06 -0000 (UTC), candycanearter07
<candycanearter07@candycanearter07.nomail.afraid> wrote:
Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote at 18:23 this Sunday (GMT):
On Sat, 13 Jul 2024 14:09:31 -0400, Mike S. <Mike_S@nowhere.com>
wrote:
On Sat, 13 Jul 2024 16:30:07 -0000 (UTC), candycanearter07 >>>><candycanearter07@candycanearter07.nomail.afraid> wrote:
Interesting, I'm surprised there's still programs available for that.
Heh. :) There is probably software out there to fill any and every >>>>niche.
You just gotta find it; that's the real trick.
But with nearly 8 billion computer* users, for every problem you've
ever faced, there's likely 10,000 users who had a similar issue... and
at least one of them is gonna be nuts enough to program a solution.
And most people crazy enough to put in that much effort are going to
put it out on the Internet somewhere, either for profit, bragging
rights, or just out of sheer niceness.
I remembering randomly trawling through various FTP and app-hosting
websites, just because inevitably I'd stumble a utility that solved an
issue I barely even recognized I'd had up to that point. I'd download
it for free, and then use it once every two or three years when the
issue reared its head.
I'm sure nowadays the best place to look would be github.
But -getting back to the topic on hand- third-party mapping programs
for computer RPGs have existed for a long time, although they were a
lot less ease-of-use back then. Largely because most games ran on DOS,
and DOS was a single-process program, so you couldn't (easily) run a
helper app and the game at the same time. But even from the earliest
days there were a variety of hacks and apps to help the lost
adventurer.
I kinda figured :P were you intended to print it out?
From what I recall (it's been a long time and I never really used any
of the programs), the utils generally fell into one of three types
a) create a template for you to print and fill out
b) ran a program that you could fill out on the computer -but
not while the game was running! You'd have to jump in and
out of the game. Or I guess maybe you were just supposed to
make the maps by hand and then transfer them over to the
app? But at least in the end you'd have less messy maps
than if you did it by hand ;-). Usually let you print
out the final product.
c) read the data files of the game and recreated the maps
from there (which you could then print out). These were
the best but were very rare.
Only very much later did you have mapping programs that ran
/concurrently/ with the games. It was hard to do, after all. DOS was
so basic, that every game was essentially an operating system of its
own, and you'd essentially have to hack the GameOS to get your app to
work in tandem.
And given how resource strapped computers were, and how optimized
games were, squeezing in a tool like that was something only the very
best programmers could do.
At least until Windows rolled around, and multitasking became a thing.
Of course, there were other applets too: save-game/character editors, trainers, tools to manipulate the game-data, etc. Generally, I
discovered all these tools /long after/ I stopped playing the games in question but it was amazing how many were available.
But finding them in the first place... that was always the problem.
We're spoiled by Google.
Zaghadka <zaghadka@hotmail.com> wrote at 23:24 this Tuesday (GMT):
On Mon, 15 Jul 2024 15:43:07 -0400, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action,
Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
I mean, do you remember what a radical concept it felt in "Ultima IV"
was when it was announced that the goal of the game was /NOT/ to
murder your way through the world?* For a lot of players, that was the >>>first time they even considered there could be more to the genre!
You're talking to the guy that used the Skull of Mondain as soon as he
got it. It should have created an unrecoverable save file of doom like
Undertale.
It was so cool. What an ending!
I've never gotten the geno ending on UT (sans sucks) but I think you can >technically recover it by regediting and messing with steam cloud saves
On Wed, 17 Jul 2024 09:28:57 +0100, JAB <noway@nochance.com> wrote:
On 15/07/2024 20:43, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
it didn't help when D&D started getting ported to computers. Because
early computers were GREAT with the number crunching, but were pretty
poor with the story and characters. Computer RPGs/still/ struggle
with making a game where the combat isn't the most dominant feature.
Our beloved 8-bits were far inferior machines; they hadn't a chance in
capturing what made table-top gaming such a fascinating hobby. So
those early RPGs - most of which were either licensed D&D games or
very closely based upon it- were little more than brain-dead combat
simulators and loot collectors. Which in turn reinforced the idea that
was all that D&D really was.
I knew you could get it back to video games! I think you just have to
have different expectations of CRPG's from TT RPG's because, as you say,
computers just aren't very good at the bit that makes the later stand
out for other TT games.
It's not just the overall flexibility but CRPG's aren't very good at
encouraging you to play in character but instead play a version of
yourself*. The example I normal use is the classic trope of the old
crying woman who has lost here husband or child. You end up doing the
quest not because that what's your character would do but instead
because you know you'll get a bauble at the end of it and you get to do
something. It's just horribly binary.
Yeah, CRPGs suffer a lot from people playing the meta-game; with an overfamiliarity of the tropes and basing their actions on that rather
than playing in character.
Problem the best version I've played is Disco Elysium as it doesn't have
that feeling of pass = good, fail = bad (and probably a reload), instead
it's how the story advances. Even then you can't, as yet, get to the
stage where a GM invents things on the fly or thinks that's not how the
story is supposed to advance at all but I'll go with it. Oh you want to
visit a cafe and ask around for information even though the scenario
doesn't have one. Ok here's one and we'll have a waitress who is the
sister of a nurse who used to work at the sanatorium. Now you want to
visit her yet again, oh the cultists are monitoring your activities and
decide they can work the fake suicide also into her brutal murder.
Disco is one of the better games in that regard. Unfortunately, I
think the setting was just a bit too weird to ever allow it to have
the impact it deserves.
But for me, it's mostly the limited flexibility of CRPGs that gets me.
Your lack of options in dealing with any event is just so...
frustrating. Even the best of them rarely offer more than the usual
three (kill, sneak, talk), and even then it's always along tightly
proscribe avenues. This is understandable, given the limitations of technology and how resource consuming it would be to create a
multitude of options., but it's why I still prefer tabletop gaming.
In fact, I've introduced several groups of people to tabletop gaming primarily to show them how much more intricate RPGs could be than what they've been shown in video games. That horde of goblins? You don't
have to fight them just because they're there. Build a trap! Hire an
army to do the fighting for you! Convince the goblins to switch sides!
Poison their food supply! False-flag an attack so the blame falls on
the kobolds! Join the goblins in their attacks! Dominate them so they
become your evil army! Just walk away and let the goblins kill all
those pesky villagers. Or practically anything you can think of.
Half the fun of tabletop RPGs is when the players come up with an idea
that the GM hasn't thought of (it's also half the aggravation of the
game too, at least if you're the DM ;-).
And it's where CRPGs fail miserably.
But they're slowly getting better. I mean, I don't expect the computer
games will get anywhere close to the flexibility of a real GM anytime
soon, but it's SO much better than what we had in the early 80s.
On Mon, 15 Jul 2024 12:51:51 +0100, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action, JAB wrote:
On 14/07/2024 19:15, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
How do we loop this all back to video games? Which, you know, is the
whole point of this newsgroup? ?
Tricky one. Can you think of any game that wasn't played how the
designers imagined it. Off the top of my head I've come up with none.
Any Bethesda game. Especially Oblivion where I decided the main quest was boring and stupid, reloaded, and did only open world stuff. I also spent
a lot of time in that game, disturbingly, arranging corpses into
compromising positions with each other, because I could.
In Fallout 4, I figured out that if you never talk to Preston Garvey to finish off the power armor quest, the entire base-building suckfest is omitted. That's how I played it in a second run. I don't believe that was intended play.
I notoriously break computer games all the time by doing things that the designers never imagined would happen. I stayed in the closet in The
Stanley Parable for literal hours, even walked away from my computer and
had a meal, and it crashed when I finally decided to get out. If you
haven't played a game differently than the designers imagined it, you
aren't trying hard enough. Some games even count on it as a mechanic.
And anyone using "noclip" cheats for that matter. I don't think any
designer imagines a game to be played with spl01tz. They know it's going
to happen, but it's not the way the game was designed to be played.
Maybe I misunderstand your question though...
On Sun, 14 Jul 2024 14:15:29 -0400, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action,
Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
On Sun, 14 Jul 2024 10:15:18 +0100, JAB <noway@nochance.com> wrote:Oh come now. This sprawling D&D threadjacking is as time honored a
Now...
How do we loop this all back to video games? Which, you know, is the
whole point of this newsgroup? ;-P
tradition as the "is it really an RPG?" discussion, and
"rec.games.frp.dnd" is a graveyard. It's a graveyard several of us
frequent from time to time, but the truly interesting discussions are to
be had here.
This is no longer "comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action." It's basically "alt.grognards.pc.games."
Yes, I see your tongue waggling, but enough is enough, sir. ;^)
On Wed, 17 Jul 2024 16:00:03 -0000 (UTC), in
comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action, candycanearter07 wrote:
Zaghadka <zaghadka@hotmail.com> wrote at 23:24 this Tuesday (GMT):
On Mon, 15 Jul 2024 15:43:07 -0400, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action,
Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
I mean, do you remember what a radical concept it felt in "Ultima IV" >>>>was when it was announced that the goal of the game was /NOT/ to
murder your way through the world?* For a lot of players, that was the >>>>first time they even considered there could be more to the genre!
You're talking to the guy that used the Skull of Mondain as soon as he
got it. It should have created an unrecoverable save file of doom like
Undertale.
It was so cool. What an ending!
I've never gotten the geno ending on UT (sans sucks) but I think you can >>technically recover it by regediting and messing with steam cloud saves
Did you get to the point where XP was named "eXecution Points" and level
was actually your "level of violence?"
Yeah, you can hack your way out of it, but it's still what the player deserved. First real consequences I've seen in a game in a long time.
On 15/07/2024 16:39, Zaghadka wrote:
On Mon, 15 Jul 2024 12:51:51 +0100, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action, JAB
wrote:
On 14/07/2024 19:15, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
How do we loop this all back to video games? Which, you know, is the
whole point of this newsgroup? ?
Tricky one. Can you think of any game that wasn't played how the
designers imagined it. Off the top of my head I've come up with none.
Any Bethesda game. Especially Oblivion where I decided the main quest was
boring and stupid, reloaded, and did only open world stuff. I also spent
a lot of time in that game, disturbingly, arranging corpses into
compromising positions with each other, because I could.
In Fallout 4, I figured out that if you never talk to Preston Garvey to
finish off the power armor quest, the entire base-building suckfest is
omitted. That's how I played it in a second run. I don't believe that was
intended play.
I notoriously break computer games all the time by doing things that the
designers never imagined would happen. I stayed in the closet in The
Stanley Parable for literal hours, even walked away from my computer and
had a meal, and it crashed when I finally decided to get out. If you
haven't played a game differently than the designers imagined it, you
aren't trying hard enough. Some games even count on it as a mechanic.
And anyone using "noclip" cheats for that matter. I don't think any
designer imagines a game to be played with spl01tz. They know it's going
to happen, but it's not the way the game was designed to be played.
Maybe I misunderstand your question though...
It was more games where the norm among players was not to conform to
what the designers intended but the players didn't even realise it.
On Mon, 08 Jul 2024 15:41:08 -0400, Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:
Still, I've never made any real attempt to replay the expansion. I've
gone through the original numerous times, but that one trek through
"American Revolt's" levels were enough for me. These days, given its
reputation for difficulty, I don't even /try/.
I want to play Syndicate again at some point as I only went through it
once and after all these years, it will feel almost fresh to me. I
will keep Xocyll's advice in mind about Gauss guns and see if the
expansion is as hard as I remember it being.
On Wed, 10 Jul 2024 09:28:12 +0100, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action, JAB wrote:
Another one of my pet peeves, monsters that just inhabit rooms waiting
to be killed by some passing adventurers. Do they never eat, sleep, work?
Ah, the Gygax approach. Yeah, that's why 2e introduced this whole novel concept called "ecology." That and the idea that creatures - that should
be mortal enemies - are just hanging out in one room, never leaving,
while the other group they hate hangs out in another is silliness.
On Mon, 8 Jul 2024 21:46:05 +0100, JAB <noway@nochance.com> wrote:
Strange really as when I look back at say Dungeon Master part of the fun
was getting the graph paper out and making a map. Possibly games have
swung too much they other way were it can feel like you're playing
follow the quest marker. Another one I don't like is kneel behind a wall
to recover health or the ability to 'long rest' in the middle of a dungeon.
YMMV.
Even back-in-the-day I disliked the 'make your own map' requirement of
a lot of adventure and role-playing games. Especially since it
promoted stupidly labyrinthine (and unrealistic) dungeon design whose
sole purpose was to artificially lengthen the game rather than provide
a fun experience.
When games like "Ultima Underworld" or "Might & Magic III" started
adding automap as a standard feature, I rejoiced. All of a sudden
dungeon crawls could be FUN rather than tedious step-by-step grind
where you had to carefully mark out every step. I could focus on the
ambience and environment rather than have to jump away every step to
scribble some marks on a piece of paper.
(In fairness, nowadays I've got a pretty good sense of direction and
usually can figure out my way through most dungeons -old school or
not- without resorting to maps. I'm pretty sure my years playing
Wizardry and Bards Quest and the like are to thank for that skill ;-)
With that out of the way, I've kept many of my older hand-drawn maps
from that era and have a certain nostalgic appreciation towards them.
But I'm not going to ever bother doing anything so insane again. If
your game's labyrinths are so complex that mapping is required? That's
a game I'm probably not playing. (you're probably the sort of
developer that thinks teleport traps and spinners are fun too.)
On Sun, 7 Jul 2024 08:48:11 -0700, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action,
Justisaur wrote:
On 7/7/2024 2:23 AM, JAB wrote:
This one came up on a channel for table top miniatures games but they
did also talk about computer games. Now of course this is all personal
preference as there's no right way to enjoy games but the main thrust of >>> the argument was that the advantage of playing on easy mode (in the TT
context that was interchangeable with social) was it gives you a lot
more scope to be creative and play the game how you want and just try
things out to see what happens.
That's certain how I approach CRPG's. I don't want to go through
numerous guides on how to build an optimal character, I want to pick
what I fancy playing. My general strategy is start on normal mode and if >>> it all becomes too much, which it often does as the game progresses and
your character/party becomes progressively less optimal, change it to
easy mode and carry on.
One of the interesting parts they said is that if you're effectively
going to use someone else's build then what not just watch them playing
the game. Obviously that's a bit of hyperbole but I can understand their >>> point.
So for me, yep I play on easy mode.
I used to do that, or normal. Falout 3 started the cure for that, as the
game is actually easier on the hardest difficulty because you level up
much faster, and even though the enemies scale to you, your level makes
you exponentially better. (with the 30 level cap from BS DLC, not so
much just because enemies become annoying bullet sponges and aren't fun
after level 20.)
Dark Souls 3 finally fully cured me of that. I found I liked the
challenge better. Sure I look up builds and weapons and whatnot, but I
still try things out and change them to suit me, or abandon overused
"op" build because they aren't fun, or the style just doesn't work for me. >>
In fact I don't really like difficulty sliders at all now, as they tend
to be much more poorly tuned, doing things like just turning the enemies
into bullet sponges or one hit kills you on harder difficulties, and
feels like just watching a movie with no challenge at lower difficulties.
Particularly fun in strat games like Civ V, where the AI doesn't actually
get any smarter, it just cheats.
On Wed, 17 Jul 2024 09:28:57 +0100, JAB <noway@nochance.com> wrote:
On 15/07/2024 20:43, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
it didn't help when D&D started getting ported to computers. Because
early computers were GREAT with the number crunching, but were pretty
poor with the story and characters. Computer RPGs/still/ struggle
with making a game where the combat isn't the most dominant feature.
Our beloved 8-bits were far inferior machines; they hadn't a chance in
capturing what made table-top gaming such a fascinating hobby. So
those early RPGs - most of which were either licensed D&D games or
very closely based upon it- were little more than brain-dead combat
simulators and loot collectors. Which in turn reinforced the idea that
was all that D&D really was.
I knew you could get it back to video games! I think you just have to
have different expectations of CRPG's from TT RPG's because, as you say,
computers just aren't very good at the bit that makes the later stand
out for other TT games.
It's not just the overall flexibility but CRPG's aren't very good at
encouraging you to play in character but instead play a version of
yourself*. The example I normal use is the classic trope of the old
crying woman who has lost here husband or child. You end up doing the
quest not because that what's your character would do but instead
because you know you'll get a bauble at the end of it and you get to do
something. It's just horribly binary.
Yeah, CRPGs suffer a lot from people playing the meta-game; with an overfamiliarity of the tropes and basing their actions on that rather
than playing in character.
Problem the best version I've played is Disco Elysium as it doesn't have
that feeling of pass = good, fail = bad (and probably a reload), instead
it's how the story advances. Even then you can't, as yet, get to the
stage where a GM invents things on the fly or thinks that's not how the
story is supposed to advance at all but I'll go with it. Oh you want to
visit a cafe and ask around for information even though the scenario
doesn't have one. Ok here's one and we'll have a waitress who is the
sister of a nurse who used to work at the sanatorium. Now you want to
visit her yet again, oh the cultists are monitoring your activities and
decide they can work the fake suicide also into her brutal murder.
Disco is one of the better games in that regard. Unfortunately, I
think the setting was just a bit too weird to ever allow it to have
the impact it deserves.
But for me, it's mostly the limited flexibility of CRPGs that gets me.
Your lack of options in dealing with any event is just so...
frustrating. Even the best of them rarely offer more than the usual
three (kill, sneak, talk), and even then it's always along tightly
proscribe avenues. This is understandable, given the limitations of technology and how resource consuming it would be to create a
multitude of options., but it's why I still prefer tabletop gaming.
In fact, I've introduced several groups of people to tabletop gaming primarily to show them how much more intricate RPGs could be than what they've been shown in video games. That horde of goblins? You don't
have to fight them just because they're there. Build a trap! Hire an
army to do the fighting for you! Convince the goblins to switch sides!
Poison their food supply! False-flag an attack so the blame falls on
the kobolds! Join the goblins in their attacks! Dominate them so they
become your evil army! Just walk away and let the goblins kill all
those pesky villagers. Or practically anything you can think of.
Half the fun of tabletop RPGs is when the players come up with an idea
that the GM hasn't thought of (it's also half the aggravation of the
game too, at least if you're the DM ;-).
And it's where CRPGs fail miserably.
But they're slowly getting better. I mean, I don't expect the computer
games will get anywhere close to the flexibility of a real GM anytime
soon, but it's SO much better than what we had in the early 80s.
IIRC I used the weapon that let you hack people into fighting for you >extensively. I don't remember if I ever played the expansion though.
On Wed, 24 Jul 2024 08:52:24 -0700, Justisaur <justisaur@yahoo.com>
wrote:
On 7/17/2024 8:14 AM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
But they're slowly getting better. I mean, I don't expect the computer
games will get anywhere close to the flexibility of a real GM anytime
soon, but it's SO much better than what we had in the early 80s.
I find there's very very few DMs that actually have that flexibility either.
A lot of players, too. Some practically freeze at the idea of picking
their own path, especially when it goes beyond the usual "kill" or
"talk" options. Just the idea that they DON'T have to follow the quest
is alien to them.
But that's okay too; all sorts of players can enjoy the game. It works
best when you have players whose style matches the expectations of the
DM.
Some game-masters just want to drop their players in an open sandbox
and let the players make their own story. ("If ther evil sorcerer gets
a certain magic ring, he will become an unstoppable force and take
over the world. You have the ring. What do you do?"). But, like I've
said, a lot of players just can't deal with that. I've seen campaigns
grind to a halt as they just wait for something to happen to them,
able only to react rather than act.
Other DMs want to provide a more involved story, with interesting
characters and twists and increasing tension as the pace quickens.
Players going off and just abandoning the quest or moving in an
unexpected direction ("What do you mean, you're going west? Questgiver
told you that your next contact was in a town to the east!") can be incredibly frustrating to DMs like that.
Personally, I fall somewhere in between. I tend to write overly
developed adventures, well-paced and with lots of options to get
players back on track because I think (and I'd wager my players
generally agree) that I write interesting stories for them to play
around with. But I /love/ when the players come up with an idea I
haven't thought of.
(Well, I say I love it. There's always that moment of terror
when I go, "Oh God, what do I do know? Why couldn't those
idiots just follow the obvious breadcrumb trail I left them!
Now I gotta make something up on the fly!" It's as much
aggravating as it is exciting)
And I'll be the first to admit my off-the-cuff responses aren't as
good as my pre-planned adventures (especially when it comes to
creating new names for characters and locations. Names are hard). But
it's those bits that are some of the most fun too, because it's when
our entire group is involved in the world-building and story-making;
it's not just me but all of us! It's an awesome experience.
Not that I was always like that. The first time this happened
--decades upon decades in the past-- I literally threw up my hands and
cursed out the players. "The campaign's ruined; you guys fucked
everything up."
[Probably not those exact words. I was less coarse and foul-
mouthed in those days ;-]
It took me days to forgive them (and longer to agree to DM again). But
I've mellowed a bit over the years.
On 7/17/2024 8:14 AM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
On Wed, 17 Jul 2024 09:28:57 +0100, JAB <noway@nochance.com> wrote:
On 15/07/2024 20:43, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
it didn't help when D&D started getting ported to computers. Because
early computers were GREAT with the number crunching, but were pretty
poor with the story and characters. Computer RPGs/still/ struggle
with making a game where the combat isn't the most dominant feature.
Our beloved 8-bits were far inferior machines; they hadn't a chance in >>>> capturing what made table-top gaming such a fascinating hobby. So
those early RPGs - most of which were either licensed D&D games or
very closely based upon it- were little more than brain-dead combat
simulators and loot collectors. Which in turn reinforced the idea that >>>> was all that D&D really was.
I knew you could get it back to video games! I think you just have to
have different expectations of CRPG's from TT RPG's because, as you say, >>> computers just aren't very good at the bit that makes the later stand
out for other TT games.
It's not just the overall flexibility but CRPG's aren't very good at
encouraging you to play in character but instead play a version of
yourself*. The example I normal use is the classic trope of the old
crying woman who has lost here husband or child. You end up doing the
quest not because that what's your character would do but instead
because you know you'll get a bauble at the end of it and you get to do
something. It's just horribly binary.
Yeah, CRPGs suffer a lot from people playing the meta-game; with an
overfamiliarity of the tropes and basing their actions on that rather
than playing in character.
Problem the best version I've played is Disco Elysium as it doesn't have >>> that feeling of pass = good, fail = bad (and probably a reload), instead >>> it's how the story advances. Even then you can't, as yet, get to the
stage where a GM invents things on the fly or thinks that's not how the
story is supposed to advance at all but I'll go with it. Oh you want to
visit a cafe and ask around for information even though the scenario
doesn't have one. Ok here's one and we'll have a waitress who is the
sister of a nurse who used to work at the sanatorium. Now you want to
visit her yet again, oh the cultists are monitoring your activities and
decide they can work the fake suicide also into her brutal murder.
Disco is one of the better games in that regard. Unfortunately, I
think the setting was just a bit too weird to ever allow it to have
the impact it deserves.
But for me, it's mostly the limited flexibility of CRPGs that gets me.
Your lack of options in dealing with any event is just so...
frustrating. Even the best of them rarely offer more than the usual
three (kill, sneak, talk), and even then it's always along tightly
proscribe avenues. This is understandable, given the limitations of
technology and how resource consuming it would be to create a
multitude of options., but it's why I still prefer tabletop gaming.
In fact, I've introduced several groups of people to tabletop gaming
primarily to show them how much more intricate RPGs could be than what
they've been shown in video games. That horde of goblins? You don't
have to fight them just because they're there. Build a trap! Hire an
army to do the fighting for you! Convince the goblins to switch sides!
Poison their food supply! False-flag an attack so the blame falls on
the kobolds! Join the goblins in their attacks! Dominate them so they
become your evil army! Just walk away and let the goblins kill all
those pesky villagers. Or practically anything you can think of.
Half the fun of tabletop RPGs is when the players come up with an idea
that the GM hasn't thought of (it's also half the aggravation of the
game too, at least if you're the DM ;-).
And it's where CRPGs fail miserably.
But they're slowly getting better. I mean, I don't expect the computer
games will get anywhere close to the flexibility of a real GM anytime
soon, but it's SO much better than what we had in the early 80s.
I find there's very very few DMs that actually have that flexibility
either.
On Wed, 24 Jul 2024 08:30:25 -0700, Justisaur <justisaur@yahoo.com>
wrote:
Or you just look up the maps on the internet for those games.
Not much of an option back in the early 80s. Even BBS wouldn't be much
help. Not that it wasn't possible, but the image files would probably
be too much to download for all but the most dedicated on a 2400baud
modem.
Yes I mapped out by hand PoR, Bard's Tale etc. but I can't be assed to
do that ever again. Tedious.
It was an assumed part of the game, as much as keeping track of
hitpoints and knowing the damage value of your long-sword. It was just
an accepted part of the genre, as much as the idea the arcade
mentality that would try to kill you right from the start rather than
help you progress to the end. Fortunately, both ideas eventually were tempered by the desire to create games that were FUN rather than mean-spirited grind.
I can't say anyone ever maps playing D&D anymore either, for quite a
long time. I did have one very confusing module I ran where the players
did finally bother to do it in 3.5, but it was still tedious and they
didn't like it, and neither really did I.
I've almost never had players create their own maps as we played. As
you suggested, it does happen on occassion --usually when sticking the players in a labyrinthine dungeon-- but mostly they don't bother.
But I think that's more because
a) I tend to provide them with a visual representation using
an erasable hex-mat and dry-wipe markers, providing an
overview of their immediate area, and
b) I tend not to rely on large, labyrinthine dungeons. Most
of my dungeons tend to be fairly small (at least compared
to traditional D&D dungeons), with maybe only a dozen
rooms and connecting corridors. They're usually fairly
logically laid out (since they're almost always places
that creatures use -or used- to live and work) so it
is fairly easy for the players to imagine the entirity
of the place in their heads.
Or you just look up the maps on the internet for those games.
Not much of an option back in the early 80s. Even BBS wouldn't be much
help. Not that it wasn't possible, but the image files would probably
be too much to download for all but the most dedicated on a 2400baud
modem.
On Wed, 24 Jul 2024 17:54:55 -0400, Mike S. <Mike_S@nowhere.com>
wrote:
On Wed, 24 Jul 2024 08:24:18 -0700, Justisaur <justisaur@yahoo.com>
wrote:
IIRC I used the weapon that let you hack people into fighting for you >>>extensively. I don't remember if I ever played the expansion though.
The Persuadetron I think it was called.. or something like that.
You are correct.
The Persuadatron was an epic weapon. I'd usually spend the first half
of the mission just running around mesmerizing the populace. The more
people you persuaded, the more powerful the effect. If you brainwashed
ten civilians, you're Persuadatron became powerful enough to brainwash police. With five police following you, you could brainwash enemy
agents.
The more powerful your agent's cyberbrain, the more effect the device
too.
It wasn't without risk, though. If you brainwash enemy agents, you
don't get to keep any of the weapons they'd normally drop after you
kill them. Selling those weapons were an early source of income in the
game. And you could softlock your game (or at least the mission) if
you brainwashed somebody you were supposed to kill.
[There was a trick around that, though. Have the agent with the
persuadatron get into a car. His brainwashed followers will all pile
into the car with him. Have your other agents shoot the car until it
blows up. Problem solved, albeit at the cost of an agent ;-]
Once you got enough civilians following you, you were almost
unstoppable. Sure, the civilians were initially unarmed but they'd
grab any dropped weapon they could get their hands on (brainwashed
police and agents came with their own guns, of course). Frail and
innaccurate as they were, twenty or thirty civilians could easily take
down an enemy agent on their own.
The Persuadatron was /such/ an effective tactic that later missions
nerfed it by having you run through missions with only a few (or
sometimes no) civilians.
Still, I remember being quite impressed at how well my PC could render
dozens of units on screen all at the same time. Pretty good for a 386.
("Syndicate" was also the first game I came across that used
DOS4GW.EXE, meaning it was possibly the first '32-bit' game I ever
played.)
i love "convert the enemy to your side" mechanics in games
In Fallout 4, I figured out that if you never talk to Preston Garvey to finish off the power armor quest, the entire base-building suckfest is omitted. That's how I played it in a second run. I don't believe that was intended play.
Zaghadka <zaghadka@hotmail.com> writes:
In Fallout 4, I figured out that if you never talk to Preston Garvey to
finish off the power armor quest, the entire base-building suckfest is
omitted. That's how I played it in a second run. I don't believe that was
intended play.
Yes, exactly. Although, for some easy XP, you could walk with Garvey and
his friends to Sanctuary and then set up shop in the nearby Red Rocket station. So maybe the devs did consider that.
Somewhat similarly in Fallout 3 I stumbled upon the main plot in that aircraft carrier without doing any of the plot stuff between there and Megaton. Game continued just fine from that.
But I can't say if there are games I've played differently from
designed. Well, maybe some glitches in old GTA games to reach areas supposedly locked away.
| Sysop: | Keyop |
|---|---|
| Location: | Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, UK |
| Users: | 483 |
| Nodes: | 16 (2 / 14) |
| Uptime: | 160:31:44 |
| Calls: | 9,594 |
| Files: | 13,676 |
| Messages: | 6,149,317 |