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Fantastic list.
Despite its dark nature, Pet Semetary is my favorite King novel.
That's a kinda strange thing to say, considering how dark a lot of King's novels can be.
And the darkness/grimness of Pet Semetary is the reason WHY I love that book so much. Well... that and it having an Ithaqua cameo. And probably even more important, the fact that it was the first Stephen King book I read (was 10 or so at the time–my grandmother gave me the book and told me to read it!).
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How's this for a paladin of Shelyn?Looks a bit weak to me. Don't think STR should be a dump stat for a meele Paladin.
Cool art always trumps numbercrunching!
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Do you ever use the "by hand," as you called it, level progression (handing out levels at appropriate places)? I have considered doing so in the past but have never actually done it. The one game I was a player in that used it, the issue was I was playing an artificer from Ebberon so the lack of experience points hurt.
Never.
One of the best parts about handing out XP at the end of a session is that it's proof to the players that they have progressed along a storyline. Since you don't level up at the end of every session, it's nice to come away from a session with a number on your sheet being bigger than it was when you started that session. It's a GREAT way for a player to get rewarded, and I love, as a player, seeing that number increase.
Furthermore, at the end of a session, being able to tell the players that they got XP points for this fight, that fight, this role-playing encounter, that trap, and that storyline development is a really great way as a GM to encourage the type of player behavior you want them to engage in. By specifically awarding XP for things you want the players to do... you can encourage them to play the game you want to run.
I'm kinda done for the moment talking about Psychic Magic, actually, since it's so far in the future and it's not really something we've talked about here at Paizo that I'm gonna just let it cool down for a while.
Curses! Are you excited about Dragon Age Inquisition? I think they stole your idea for Wrath of the Righteous.
Do you think since they took the best parts of Mass Effect 1 and 2 to make 3, they'll succeed just as well with Inquisition leveraging DA1 and 2?
Who is the iconic on page 40 of demons revisited getting their soul eaten by a nabasu?? (Have seen their art in mythic adventures and some of the others.. but for some reason don't know the name!!)
The movie version of "The Keep" is the movie I want to see remade the most of pretty much all movies ever.
Somewhere I have an old 1st Ed adventure made by a third party called 'The Keep'. It seems to match the story you talked about, have you ever heard of that book/movie being made into an adventure?
James,
With Mythic now out, do you see other uses for it's clip on meta-class framework for future products? Like for other optional subsystems such as army management/ranks, applying unique archtypes to existing classes with out needing to rebuild the whole class, etc?
Will we see the rest of the Iconics Mtyhiced up?
Dunno... maybe? But probably not.
The other iconics will have some mythic versions coming soon, but I'm not quite yet happy with how they all look, so they're still in flux, I guess you would say.
Until then, the picture of Lirianne with a machine gun on a tachanka is really mythic as far as she's concerned, in my opinion.
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I'm kinda done for the moment talking about Psychic Magic, actually, since it's so far in the future and it's not really something we've talked about here at Paizo that I'm gonna just let it cool down for a while.Curses! Are you excited about Dragon Age Inquisition? I think they stole your idea for Wrath of the Righteous.
Do you think since they took the best parts of Mass Effect 1 and 2 to make 3, they'll succeed just as well with Inquisition leveraging DA1 and 2?
I'm VERY VERY VERY excited for Dragon Age Inquisition. And the plot for Wrath of the Righteous is HARDLY original. In fact, it's cliched enough that it was one of a few very specific examples that Dungeon Magazine's writers guidelines specifically showed as a "DO NOT DO THIS!: We are not interested in adventures where you save princesses from dragons or stop an army of demons from invading the world."
Which had a weird side effect—there are in fact VERY few examples in D&D adventures that present classic storylines like these.
Anyway... yeah. Pretty much everything Bioware has done has been beloved by me. I've got full confidence that Inquisition will rock.
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One can call out Tolkien for being a racist and a chauvinist. (although not to the degree of misogyny of Victorian Britain), but one also must remember that the first tales of Middle Earth were being written in the 1910's. He hardly stands out in his attitudes compared to his contemporaries though. Although he does stand out as an English author for his intense Catholicism.
I do like Tolkein's works, but he's kinda like George Lucas in that his REAL talent lies in world creation, not in storytelling. He's a VASTLY better storyteller than Lucas, but still... his novels' strengths lie in the details of his imagination, not his ability to tell a gripping tale. The lack of any real role for female characters and his often dry academic style really detracts from the experience of reading his stuff for me. I think that Peter Jackson's changes to the stories in his movies are mostly quite excellent improvements, in other words. Tolkien is probably in my top 100, but not in my top 50... purely talking about works that influenced me, again.
I'm very very very much more a horror fan than a fantasy fan.
One can say pretty much the same thing about Lovecraft, my favorite author. The difference there (in my opinion, of course) is that Lovecraft kicks Tolkein's ass in pretty much every category to do with writing and storytelling, with the exception of "inventing entire languages."
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The movie version of "The Keep" is the movie I want to see remade the most of pretty much all movies ever.Somewhere I have an old 1st Ed adventure made by a third party called 'The Keep'. It seems to match the story you talked about, have you ever heard of that book/movie being made into an adventure?
That would be the Role-Aids adaptation of the movie and the book into an RPG product. I own a copy (thanks Russ!); it's pretty interesting! Role-Aids actually produced a LOT of 1st edition AD&D compatible products, but they never had the license to do so and I believe that eventually a lawsuit from TSR shut all that down.
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Edit: Also, may we one day see an Ithaqua in a bestiary? I know we have the wendigo already, but I'd like to see the Mythos/Pet Semetary version.
Ithaqua is the creation of August Derleth, whose works are still under copyright. We'd have to secure special permission from the Derleth estate to do stats for Ithaqua, and even then, we'd be unlikely to make them open content.
That said... the mythology on which much of Ithaqua is based is from the wendigo myth... and if you wanted to use Ithaqua in your game, a powered up CR 27 or CR 28 version of a wendigo would work perfectly.
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How much of Tolkien outside of the books everyone reads, have you read? Have you looked at any of the other less traveled works?
I've read The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I tried (once) to read the Similarion and it was too dull to get into.
In any event, I'm not really all that interested in revisiting my opinions on Tolkien at this point, frankly. I understand that he's got a HUGE fan base, and my disinterest in him shouldn't matter there. I've got plenty of other books by authors I do love and admire and books by authors I've yet to discover that I probably don't have time to read that I'd rather try to get a chance to read than given Tolkien yet another chance.
Do you have a list of non-iconic characters so that you can reuse them in later works? There are some that keep showing up again and again, like the goat-hoofed, tiefling Cleric of Sarenrae or the recurring Anti-paladin.
Seeing that you're such a Stephen King fan, have you read the Bachman books? If so, which is your favorite of those? The Long Walk is probably my favorite King novel, although The Gunslinger is pretty fantastic as well.
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Do you have a list of non-iconic characters so that you can reuse them in later works? There are some that keep showing up again and again, like the goat-hoofed, tiefling Cleric of Sarenrae or the recurring Anti-paladin.
Not officially, but when a piece of art comes in that someone here likes, we often revisit the character in other illustrations.
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Seeing that you're such a Stephen King fan, have you read the Bachman books? If so, which is your favorite of those? The Long Walk is probably my favorite King novel, although The Gunslinger is pretty fantastic as well.
I have read most of the books he wrote under the Bachman name. I think I like The Regulators the most... but The Running Man was fun too.
I'm kinda done for the moment talking about Psychic Magic, actually, since it's so far in the future and it's not really something we've talked about here at Paizo that I'm gonna just let it cool down for a while.Mr. Jacobs, with your current vision for psychic magic in mind, what are your feelings on biotics from the Mass Effect Series? Even though it is technically something entirely different than psionics, do you feel it could be tweaked to represent it?
I get the feeling for Psychic Magic that you want it to fill a different niche than Divine and Arcane Magic, like have some overlap, but when I play a 9/9 Psychic Magic user, it will feel as different from a Wizard as Wizard does from Cleric.
When you talk about Psychic Magic, you talk about wanting rules be there to facilitate your vision for their use in Golarion, it makes me very confident whatever system Paizo develops for it, I'll enjoy it.
I think Psychic Magic instead of Psionics is about as ingenious of an idea as Mythic instead of Epic.
Do you still think we will make level 20 in WotR?
Hey again James. Thanks again for answering my previous question, but sadly I got another one for ya (don't hate me). :(
The issue concerns a variant Aasimar ability that states the following...
You possess taloned fingers that act as natural weapons and deal 1d4 points of damage.
My question is, if an Aasimar takes this ability, do they gain only 1 talon attack, or two (my assumption would be two since, like claw attacks, talon attacks typically come in pairs, and the ability also seems to imply this as well). I only ask because I'm currently trying to resolve this issue with hero lab tech support, and I figure the input of a Dev would go a long way in providing some clarifcation. Thanks again. :)
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What would you say your opinions of Josepth Campbell's Monomyth, or Hero's Journey, are? I think I recall that it was involved in the writing of Wrath of the Righteous, and I think I can see the patterns it describes in Rise of the Runelords. The attack on Sandpoint's the Call to Adventure, Skinsaw Murders are the "Refusal of the Call" in the sense that the PCs are now thoroughly involved in fighting Karzoug's minions, Ascension in Sins of the Saviors where their spiritual strengths and shortcomings influence the weapons they gain to defeat Karzoug, etc.
I think it's pretty cool!
Why did you skip my previous questions, James?
Did you just miss them? If you did, I can just throw them again.
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Hey again James. Thanks again for answering my previous question, but sadly I got another one for ya (don't hate me). :(
The issue concerns a variant Aasimar ability that states the following...
You possess taloned fingers that act as natural weapons and deal 1d4 points of damage.My question is, if an Aasimar takes this ability, do they gain only 1 talon attack, or two (my assumption would be two since, like claw attacks, talon attacks typically come in pairs, and the ability also seems to imply this as well). I only ask because I'm currently trying to resolve this issue with hero lab tech support, and I figure the input of a Dev would go a long way in providing some clarifcation. Thanks again. :)
My gut says that you'd only get the one talon. Compare to similar powers that tieflings might get, though, to be sure. I didn't develop that book though so I don't know the actual intent...
I DO know that there's a tiefling variant that gives you a bite attack for 1d4, so that is equally powerful as one talon attack for 1d4... but not all those abilities are intended to be equal...
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What would you say your opinions of Josepth Campbell's Monomyth, or Hero's Journey, are? I think I recall that it was involved in the writing of Wrath of the Righteous, and I think I can see the patterns it describes in Rise of the Runelords. The attack on Sandpoint's the Call to Adventure, Skinsaw Murders are the "Refusal of the Call" in the sense that the PCs are now thoroughly involved in fighting Karzoug's minions, Ascension in Sins of the Saviors where their spiritual strengths and shortcomings influence the weapons they gain to defeat Karzoug, etc.
I think it's pretty cool!
I know about the monomyth, and I know that Jason used it to help guide the development of Mythic Adventures, but I've not glanced at it and did not use it to build Wrath of the Righteous or ANY of my adventures.
That said, when you read and study and write genre literature for decades, even if you never touch Campbell's work, you're going to learn what he's talking about anyway.
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Why did you skip my previous questions, James?
Did you just miss them? If you did, I can just throw them again.
When I'm answering questions, I do them in large clumps, covering all the questions that have been asked since last I hit the thread in a single sitting. If it's been a while or if several questions build up, I can spend a long enough time answering questions that new questions can pop up in the middle of the ones I'm currently answering, and as a result (and especially if my answer kicks the thread into a new page) sometimes questions can get accidentally skipped. Since your question was the last on a page, I suspect that's exactly what happened. I'll answer it in the next post.
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Also, ** spoiler omitted **Good question! My bet is on him being punished, frankly, and ending up in Hell or the Abyss.Now how is that fair? The guy was LN, then went crazy and became CN after his utopian vision was corrupted.
On a related question, where did Father Tobyn (from all the way back in Burnt Offerings) end up?
It's fair because his errors in judgement and his pride and his personal failings, despite some of his laudable qualities of "let's treat races equally" VERY overshadow his good features. He is, after all, the reason runelords exist. And he DID fail at being emperor. And he never did attempt to reconcile or recover or even try to fix the problems he caused. He's a tragic figure, and the fact that he ends up going to Hell (or wherever) is part of his tragic tale.
Father Tobyn could well have gone either way. While he was a pretty devout worshiper of Desna and an upstanding citizen, the way he treated Nualia is a pretty stark example of NOT following Desna's teachings. The fact that Nualia went on to fall from grace so far and cause so much pain would probably be enough to have him end up going to the Abyss or Abaddon or Hell. MAYBE if Desna was feeling apolagetic enough she might put in a request to Pharasma to let him try to work off his sins in some sort of purgatory type situation... but the way he treated Nualia was pretty callous and uncaring and cruel. I think he ended up in a bad place.
People of Neutral alignment seem to end up in the Lower Planes a lot.
Out of all the Neutral NPCs in Pathfinder, how many share such a grisly fate?
Also, wouldn't these decisions spawn more fiends? Their souls are trapped IN THE LOWER PLANES, after all.
There's no way for me to say how many true neutral NPCs (if that's what you were asking about) end up being punished. My suspicion is, just off the top of my head, that it's close to 50%.
Just because two NPCs, both of whom were VERY flawed and whose actions had pretty tragic repercussions (one on a national scale, one on a purely local and personal scale) happened to likely end up being punished in the afterlife doesn't mean that all neutral NPCs end up that way. Furthermore, singling out NPCs from adventures is a skewed representation, since adventures tend to focus more on villains or troublemakers simply due to the nature of what an adventure does—present problems for PCs to solve.
And while yes, every soul who's sent to a lower plane does technically cause more fiends to come about eventually, that's the main reason the good guys want you to live good lives! The more folks who live lives that end up sending their souls to places other than Hell, Abaddon, or the Abyss, the fewer fiends there are overall, which is good for everyone (save the fiends). That's kinda the whole point of why religion is trying to save the sinner and redeem evil.
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How's this for a paladin of Shelyn?
Hot damn thank you for linking that.
edit-Wow, that artist has done a lot of covers for novels I've picked up...
Would you consider...
Reading up on her backstory, I certainly have started to feel that way, and plan to highlight that more than I did during my last run of the Adventure Path. I gave the Horned Hunter a bit more depth as well, and then realized their relation ended up being sort of like that of Maiden Astraea and Garl Vinland, only that Nyrissa has lost her ability to love anyone which has caused her to go insane. The Hunter has been forced to watch his dear nymph queen fall deeper into the depths of madness and desperation in her search for redemption in the eyes of the Eldest, but he hasn't given up on trying to mend her broken heart.
In the best case scenario, they'll spare the Horned Hunter but also eventually restore Nyrissa, what with that one option to continue the story involving the Eldest and a visit to the First World being available. Then again, since the group is True Neutral, they might not be empathic enough to help the two out much. If they just go about killing the Horned Hunter as well as Nyrissa without even a hint of remorse, I might want to have someone (probably the local fey of Good alignment) call them out on their heartless behaviour. But yeah, this is all long-winded speculation for now, considering they've only just started Rivers Run Red.
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Would you consider...
** spoiler omitted **
That After The Campaign expansion was absolutely fantastic. Reading it after out Kingmaker game was cancelled made me super envious of the folks that went all the way past the epilogue. :)
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Dear James Jacobs Jingleheimer Schmidt,
I was wondering if you've ever heard of a game called the Extrodinary Adventures of Baron Muncchausen, and whether you, or anyone else on the thread, could give me any advice on how to get a bunch of people who barely ever have a chance to get together into playing.
As a separate note if you want some really good Tolkein look for a copy of "The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun" in which Tolkein has found and compiled as many versions of a classical Viking folktale and combined them in a very nice way, with commentary about how he chose certain sections and what the alternatives would be sprinkled through.
I'm kinda done for the moment talking about Psychic Magic, actually, since it's so far in the future and it's not really something we've talked about here at Paizo that I'm gonna just let it cool down for a while.Curses! Are you excited about Dragon Age Inquisition? I think they stole your idea for Wrath of the Righteous.
Do you think since they took the best parts of Mass Effect 1 and 2 to make 3, they'll succeed just as well with Inquisition leveraging DA1 and 2?
I'm VERY VERY VERY excited for Dragon Age Inquisition. And the plot for Wrath of the Righteous is HARDLY original. In fact, it's cliched enough that it was one of a few very specific examples that Dungeon Magazine's writers guidelines specifically showed as a "DO NOT DO THIS!: We are not interested in adventures where you save princesses from dragons or stop an army of demons from invading the world."
Which had a weird side effect—there are in fact VERY few examples in D&D adventures that present classic storylines like these.
Anyway... yeah. Pretty much everything Bioware has done has been beloved by me. I've got full confidence that Inquisition will rock.
I have noticed the lack of Paladin in the pathfinder tales! I'm a bit younger so a lot of my experience with Novels has been PF and the PF Short Fiction, so I noticed lots of anti-hero and eleventh hour heroes which makes me a pine for straight idealistic heroes!
Do you have multiple play throughs to load into Inquisition or just have one?
Would you be excited if they added in a Multiplayer mode similar to the one in ME3? I'm praying they do, I still have fun playing the ME version.
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Would you consider...
** spoiler omitted **
I would absolutely consider...
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Dear James Jacobs Jingleheimer Schmidt,
I was wondering if you've ever heard of a game called the Extrodinary Adventures of Baron Muncchausen, and whether you, or anyone else on the thread, could give me any advice on how to get a bunch of people who barely ever have a chance to get together into playing.
As a separate note if you want some really good Tolkein look for a copy of "The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun" in which Tolkein has found and compiled as many versions of a classical Viking folktale and combined them in a very nice way, with commentary about how he chose certain sections and what the alternatives would be sprinkled through.
When I was a kid, one of the ways the bullies/mean kids made fun of me was by singing the Jingleheimer song, and as a result, that song kinda sticks in my psyche as a mostly healed but still slightly festering wound. Just a heads up! :-)
I've heard of the game, and my friend Matt Sernett has long wanted to play the game with me—he thinks I'd be really good at it, I guess. But then he went and moved further south (and had a kid) and I moved further north and we don't hang out as much anymore, alas... but I still some day want to try the game out.
And thanks for the Tolkein stuff, but again... I'm not really in the market for Tolkein stuff. I've got entire books by Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard, Fritz Leiber, Ramsey Campbell, Dan Simmons, Larry Niven, Raymond Feist, Guillarmo del Toro, Robert Bloch, James Sutter, Manly Wade Wellman, Chris Carey, Douglas Preston, F. Paul Wilson, Stephen King, Brian Lumley, and more, not to mention several anthologies of short stories and game books and Fighting Fantasy books to read before I'm looking to branch into authors I've tried and have more or less had my fill on.
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I have noticed the lack of Paladin in the pathfinder tales! I'm a bit younger so a lot of my experience with Novels has been PF and the PF Short Fiction, so I noticed lots of anti-hero and eleventh hour heroes which makes me a pine for straight idealistic heroes!
Do you have multiple play throughs to load into Inquisition or just have one?
Would you be excited if they added in a Multiplayer mode similar to the one in ME3? I'm praying they do, I still have fun playing the ME version.
There's a paladin in "King of Chaos," for example.
But it's true, we ARE fond of anti-heroes.
I just have the one playthrough of the previous Dragon Ages to load into Inquisition. Very few games have inspired me to play them more than once. Dark Souls, Baldur's Gate 2, most of the Fallouts... that's more or less it.
I would actually be disappointed if they added multiplayer mode to it, honestly, because I much much much prefer the single player experience, and I think that's where Bioware's skills excel. I have other venues for multiplayer games, and with Elder Scrolls online coming, I'll have one more. I would MUCH RATHER have Bioware focus entirely on the single player experience for Dragon Age Inquisition, and use the energy and resources they would use for a multiplayer to augment the single player experience, because to me, time spent on the multiplayer is time wasted.
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James,
Now that we've had planet hopping, and some light planar adventures I'm guessing featured in Worldwound. (And Death's Heritic) Do you think the time has come for a more expanded look at Planar adventures and options. Like an Golarion hardback detailing the planes, mixed with players options?
I think the time to do a big Planar book has been here for a while. We can't do many big books each year though, so it's a "pick and choose" thing. Maybe someday...
(Although I'd personally prefer such a book to be filled mostly with GM options rather than player options...)
I have noticed the lack of Paladin in the pathfinder tales! I'm a bit younger so a lot of my experience with Novels has been PF and the PF Short Fiction, so I noticed lots of anti-hero and eleventh hour heroes which makes me a pine for straight idealistic heroes!
Do you have multiple play throughs to load into Inquisition or just have one?
Would you be excited if they added in a Multiplayer mode similar to the one in ME3? I'm praying they do, I still have fun playing the ME version.
There's a paladin in "King of Chaos," for example.
But it's true, we ARE fond of anti-heroes.
I just have the one playthrough of the previous Dragon Ages to load into Inquisition. Very few games have inspired me to play them more than once. Dark Souls, Baldur's Gate 2, most of the Fallouts... that's more or less it.
I would actually be disappointed if they added multiplayer mode to it, honestly, because I much much much prefer the single player experience, and I think that's where Bioware's skills excel. I have other venues for multiplayer games, and with Elder Scrolls online coming, I'll have one more. I would MUCH RATHER have Bioware focus entirely on the single player experience for Dragon Age Inquisition, and use the energy and resources they would use for a multiplayer to augment the single player experience, because to me, time spent on the multiplayer is time wasted.
I will be picking up King of Chaos :D I'd also like it if your suggestion was able to have conjunctions and commas in it! Thank you guys for helping me scratch that itch!
I've been eying Dark Souls, but the stories of high difficulty have stopped me from trying it out. I'll have to pick it up now.
I definitely understand your point on the multiplayer. On the other hand, it gave ME3 a level of replayability that really gave me my money's worth. If they hadn't had a really original, new way to do Action-RP multiplayer, I'd agree 100% with you.
I really like having a Co-Op multiplayer that I can sit down and level up without it taking months of my life to level or having to sync up my schedules with my buddies so we don't outpace each other. Also, the 1-20 in a weekend or two and then being able to try out another build I saw someone trying, or starting that same character over, or just trucking on at 20 really let me experiment more than I could in the single player.
And Lemme guess! You played Female Rogue Elf in DA1 and Female Rogue in DA2?
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I've been eying Dark Souls, but the stories of high difficulty have stopped me from trying it out. I'll have to pick it up now.
I definitely understand your point on the multiplayer. On the other hand, it gave ME3 a level of replayability that really gave me my money's worth. If they hadn't had a really original, new way to do Action-RP multiplayer, I'd agree 100% with you.
I really like having a Co-Op multiplayer that I can sit down and level up without it taking months of my life to level or having to sync up my schedules with my buddies so we don't outpace each other. Also, the 1-20 in a weekend or two and then being able to try out another build I saw someone trying, or starting that same character over, or just trucking on at 20 really let me experiment more than I could in the single player.
And Lemme guess! You played Female Rogue Elf in DA1 and Female Rogue in DA2?
Dark Souls is one of the most entertaining and fun and rewarding games I've played... and a big part of that is because of its difficulty. If you have a PS3, you should really consider playing Demons' Souls first; it is essentially the first game in the series and has a very similar play style, but is an easier game, and some of the game play elements you learn in Demons' Souls would have helped me to play Dark Souls better had I known about them... but still. EXCELLENT game.
With Mass Effect 3, I felt that I got my money's worth on the singleplayer campaign and then some. I did try the multiplayer version, but it was relatively repetitive and its focus on the least interesting part of the Mass Effect games (the combat) combined with having obnoxious comments from other players really just turned me off to it all. Frankly... the multiplayer element to Dark Souls is more my style—there's no chatting and other players appear in your game as ghosts and spirits and end up feeling more like really well-controlled monsters or helpful allies than someone obnoxious.
And yes, exactly what I played in both games. I actually really like how Dragon Age gave rogues a lot of cool tactical stuff to do in combat. Very fun!
Dark Souls is one of the most entertaining and fun and rewarding games I've played... and a big part of that is because of its difficulty. If you have a PS3, you should really consider playing Demons' Souls first; it is essentially the first game in the series and has a very similar play style, but is an easier game, and some of the game play elements you learn in Demons' Souls would have helped me to play Dark Souls better had I known about them... but still. EXCELLENT game.With Mass Effect 3, I felt that I got my money's worth on the singleplayer campaign and then some. I did try the multiplayer version, but it was relatively repetitive and its focus on the least interesting part of the Mass Effect games (the combat) combined with having obnoxious comments from other players really just turned me off to it all. Frankly... the multiplayer element to Dark Souls is more my style—there's no chatting and other players appear in your game as ghosts and spirits and end up feeling more like really well-controlled monsters or helpful allies than someone obnoxious.
And yes, exactly what I played in both games. I actually really like how Dragon Age gave rogues a lot of cool tactical stuff to do in combat. Very fun!
My image was just like dungeon crawls with no story between for Dark Souls, which doesn't appeal to me. But I heard there's actually a story behind it, and an endorsement from the creative director behind one of my favorite games goes a long way! Especially one that's big on story!
I am with you on dumb comments, I purposely keep a headset plugged in and muted when playing the multiplayer most times. I am a strictly Xbox player due to not being made of money and liking the color green. And I have big hands. There's really lots of reasons, but I do wish I could play a lot of the PS3 only titles.
I actually really enjoyed the combat and found it kinda sparse a lot of times when they got to ME3. Adding in the multiplayer gave me a chance to get some combat in when the storyline wasn't going to give me any for a bit. I spent a lot of the beginning as a sniper, so getting better and better at those headshots was really rewarding.
I loved the rogue in DA2, being able to shadowstep and teleport around was so much fun. They really did a good job with it. I loved stacking the prestige classes and hitting like 3 cooldowns and taking down a tough enemy one hit.
Did you prefer the DA1 silent protagonist or having the voice acted character in DA2? I feel like the silent protagonist let me create my own character while Hawke in DA2 was just different versions of Hawke, there was a kind of disconnect that made me pine for simplier days.
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My image was just like dungeon crawls with no story between for Dark Souls, which doesn't appeal to me. But I heard there's actually a story behind it, and an endorsement from the creative director behind one of my favorite games goes a long way! Especially one that's big on story!
I am with you on dumb comments, I purposely keep a headset plugged in and muted when playing the multiplayer most times. I am a strictly Xbox player due to not being made of money and liking the color green. And I have big hands. There's really lots of reasons, but I do wish I could play a lot of the PS3 only titles.
I actually really enjoyed the combat and found it kinda sparse a lot of times when they got to ME3. Adding in the multiplayer gave me a chance to get some combat in when the storyline wasn't going to give me any for a bit. I spent a lot of the beginning as a sniper, so getting better and better at those headshots was really rewarding.
I loved the rogue in DA2, being able to shadowstep and teleport around was so much fun. They really did a good job with it. I loved stacking the prestige classes and hitting like 3 cooldowns and taking down a tough enemy one hit.
Did you prefer the DA1 silent protagonist or having the voice acted character in DA2? I feel like the silent protagonist let me create my own character while Hawke in DA2 was just different versions of Hawke, there was a kind of disconnect that made me pine for simplier days.
There is in fact a pretty detailed story to Dark Souls... but like the actual game play, it's not something you learn from the manual. It's something you learn by playing the game, and in fact, you are unlikely to learn the whole backstory on only one playthrough. The backstory to Dark Souls is infused into the world itself; not only in how the NPCs talk, but the tiny tidbits of lore associated with each item, or the nature of the quests you go on, or the architectural styles of the buildings, etc. It's a really immersive and evocative way to get the world's story across. There's not really a super complex story plot your character follows, but the rest of the game is so compelling that it doesn't matter, to me at least.
I much preferred having my protagonist be voiced. It makes a huge difference for the storyline. For a video game, I honestly really DO prefer if the character you play has some assumptions made about them, like how Commander Shepard was set up, since once you let the game designer have some of those assumptions, however small, they can create a MUCH more compelling story for the character to explore.
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Creative Director
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James we recently finished a PF game based on modules by Paizo, so our gaming group is left with a vacant slot, but to complicate matters half our group wants to try something other than pathfinder, so any recommendations on what we should play next?
Not knowing what your group's tastes are like... I have only my own tastes.
My favorite other RPG is Call of Cthulhu. In a lot of ways, its play experience is the opposite what you get with a game like Pathfinder where so much of the focus is on tactical combats and the increasing power of your character. Which means that Call of Cthulhu is very likely to NOT be enjoyable to a group that loves leveling characters and revels in the details of tactical round-by-round combat... but if your'e looking for a change of pace, it's perfect.
Another option is the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game. I finally got a chance to play it for real (not with demo cards or playtest stuff) last night, and it's really really really fun!
You can also go retro, and play Star Frontiers or Gamma World, or try out one of the newer retro games like Lamentations of the Flame Princess or Dungeon Crawl Classics.
Who is this Office of Expectation Management, and how do we stop them from ruining our rampant speculation? ;)