Goblin Squad Member
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"The world is a vampire, sent to drain
Secret destroyers, hold you up to the flames
And what do I get, for my pain?
Betrayed desires, and a piece of the game....
Despite all my rage I am still just a rat in a cage
Then someone will say what is lost can never be saved
Despite all my rage I am still just a rat in a cage."
-"Bullet With Butterfly Wings", by Smashing Pumpkins
Based on the new dev blog and a conversation with Hobs, I wanted to start a new thread instead of resurrecting an old thread.
As a preface we know:
1) From (I believe) Gobocast #9 with the devs, it appears that there is a possibility for events in PFO to become reflected back into Pathfinder books and arcs.
2) From the dev blog what we do on these threads is actually Crowdforging.
3) From the dev blog, "The hexes will be laid out in an east-west configuration. When you reach the edge of the area, you'll find an invisible wall that limits further travel."
4) From the dev blog, "In addition, there will be additional quests and locations available only to the Twice-Marked (and those in their parties). Some of this special content is likely to include the earliest quests that begin to reveal new lore about the Crusader Road region."
5) We already have a local in Golarion where one of the outer planes has broken through to the material, the Worldwound.
"Wall? What wall?"
One option in role playing the reality of being locked into (for all intent and purpose) is a laboratory experiment, a maze, is to completely ignore the existence of the "invisible wall" and its restriction on travel. You can experience the affects of this wall in the Environmental Experience. Some could say that we should RP assuming that it is a natural part of life and we can ignore its impact on game play. [I must admit I hope we can see across the invisible wall. I would love to see the Emerald Spire in the distance but not be able to reach it.]
I think that there is another option. What if the closed-ness of the EE area became a part of our lore for the start of the game? What if we, instead of ignoring the wall, make the wall an integral part of why our characters are in the River Kingdoms? We could, for example, use the early quests with Twice-marked characters to try and discover why we are trapped in this region.
Another option is that there are gods other than Pharasma who have shut us in this area. What if our characters were in this area to become mystic warriors for a mighty assault on the demons from the Worldwound? This is the Crusader Road. This is a jumping-off-point for battling the evil chaos eruption out of the Worldwound. It could be possible that Asmodious (as LE) is taking a personal interest in combating the Worldwound (which is CE) by working in conjunction with Pharasma to create this training ground. And it seems logical that in the future, if there were to be gates opening to other areas of Golarion, that the Worldwound would be an ideal place for one of those gates to take us.
I think that Crowdforging is not just for game rules and mechanics. I think it can also help craft the lore of our new world.
Thoughts?
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Goblin Squad Member
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I was thinking very similar to DeciusBrutus as I was reading this post. It could be that our very marks bind us to the region.
Perhaps there is an ingrained sense that leaving this area will void our protection from ultimate death, and we just do not have the Willpower (save bonus) to tempt fate.
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Goblinworks Game Designer
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I was thinking very similar to DeciusBrutus as I was reading this post. It could be that our very marks bind us to the region.
Perhaps there is an ingrained sense that leaving this area will void our protection from ultimate death, and we just do not have the Willpower (save bonus) to tempt fate.
Yeah this is basically the intention. The "invisible wall" is based on how far you can get from the resurrection shrines before you are no longer within their protection. We're not 100% settled on the lore justification for exactly what you experience in-character at that range, but gameplay-wise we are not allowing you to risk permadeath and therefore you cannot leave the protected area.
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Goblin Squad Member
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For me if the lore justification is something cheesy or really forced I know that personally i would opt for a "look its a game, this is one of the limitations of the game, we cannot build the rest of the world".
Now i would love a very good lore justification, but to me i accept that sometimes things are done because its a video game and im ok with that.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Yeah this is basically the intention. The "invisible wall" is based on how far you can get from the resurrection shrines before you are no longer within their protection. We're not 100% settled on the lore justification for exactly what you experience in-character at that range, but gameplay-wise we are not allowing you to risk permadeath and therefore you cannot leave the protected area.I was thinking very similar to DeciusBrutus as I was reading this post. It could be that our very marks bind us to the region.
Perhaps there is an ingrained sense that leaving this area will void our protection from ultimate death, and we just do not have the Willpower (save bonus) to tempt fate.
My first thought was that we are within this area because we have already been revived by the effects of the Mark, and trying to leave results in the mark pulling us back into the area of influence.
That would also add an RP mechanism for characters to arrive in the Crusader Road from distant areas without having a reason to travel there; they died from whatever cause and the Mark brought them to the nearest shrine suitably equipped for them. Where they can meet with the Pharasmin Guides who know in advance that confused dead foreigners wake up there all the time.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I wouldn't necessarily want to "have already died once" as part of my personal story coming into the game. Sure, death may be eventual, but I do not favor a conclusion that it has already happened right out of character creation. That's already been done in Rift anyways.
I like the idea of being protected by Pharasma within the invisible wall region, and as influence grows, that protection is able to be expanded and new shrines added. Though at the end of the day, I am also okay with "Because it's a game. Come up with your own reasons you won't leave."
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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I intended it to be optional (as a way for people who wouldn't come to the area to get there), but I guess making it the reason for the glass walls kinda makes it mandatory.
Or I can accept that there's a small number of characters that wandered into the area and now have no explanation for why they can't wander back out.
To those players, I offer: log out at the edge of the area and don't log back in; you're the equivalent of a Kimgmaker character that moved to Pitax.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think the simple explanation should be that for some reason Pharasma made us immortals who are resurrected every time we die, but if we leave the area of the shrines it kills us.
I would make it so as we start to leave the allowed hexes our character starts putting off purple smoke, and if we press on we burst into purple flames and die.
The complicated part is why would Pharasma do this to individuals of all alignments who follow many deities? (That aren't all her.)
If we can get that down, we have a good story.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I brought this question up to a number of people, including Harad (as he mentions in his original post), but most told me I was making too much of the situation, working too hard to explain something that didn't need to be explained, or even questioned my ability to role-play by not having my character ignore these game mechanics. Their advice was to basically treat it as the limitations of playing a game without the need for role-played explanations for why, at the beginning of EE, there is only one starter town, a relatively small number of people, limited roles and deities, and a wall around our world.
Based on the majority of people's reactions during those conversations, I decided not to bother posting anything. Now that Harad has, and a few people seem interested in discussing the topic, if only as a creative exercise, I'd be willing to kick it around. However, given that it's 12:23 a.m., I'll wait until after I've had sufficient sleep. :)
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Goblin Squad Member
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Maybe it isn't down to the characters at all, but their descendants?
If we, as the current crop of characters, cannot understand why Pharasma is so interested in us, that's because she isn't. She is interested in our grandchildren who will be the ones to help preserve the world against Otherwordly Powers/press the Universe's Restart button or whatever.
We are still important and must ultimately be saved, but what we actually are or do does not matter. The offspring of a CE Anti-Paladin might decide to become Paladins (kids eh?) so our current class and alignment is of no consequence.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Maybe it isn't down to the characters at all, but their descendants?
If we, as the current crop of characters, cannot understand why Pharasma is so interested in us, that's because she isn't. She is interested in our grandchildren who will be the ones to help preserve the world against Otherwordly Powers/press the Universe's Restart button or whatever.
We are still important and must ultimately be saved, but what we actually are or do does not matter. The offspring of a CE Anti-Paladin might decide to become Paladins (kids eh?) so our current class and alignment is of no consequence.
Under that theory, Pharasma is just interested in us making babies. We are immortal so that we can have unlimited offspring? If that is your theory, fine. I am ready to start helping.
"Ladies! Your attention please!"
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Goblin Squad Member
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It would be useful for a storyteller, especially when explaining how the walls periodically march outward, increasing our playable environment.
From the outside that might look pretty menacing.
Old Tom: "Way I hears it, ye can wander in thar but ye can never get out. You go on ahead and have a closer look: I'll stay here and cheer ye on. Behind ye 100% I am."
Nellie: "But look here, stranger. Used to be it only took up a patch out n the low hills and wood. Now look'ye: It has grown nigh unto the riverbank. If'n we don't want to get swallered up we'd best be thinkin' of moving. Maybe to my mother's house."
Old Tom: "Well ain't thet just typical? She want's ta go back to mama..."
Or something
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Goblin Squad Member
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Seven hours of sleep and I'm ready to go...
First off, for those who wonder why any of us would bother to banter about possible role-played rationales for "visible" game limitations like the wall, I think Mr. Cheney has provided us justification enough with this quote:
We're not 100% settled on the lore justification for exactly what you experience in-character at that range, but gameplay-wise we are not allowing you to risk permadeath and therefore you cannot leave the protected area.
If it's something the Devs are actually kicking around, that's good enough incentive for me to spend some time asking "what if".
Our Character's Depth of Awareness
In MMORPGs, the more real and completely fleshed out we make our characters, the more they seem like fully cognizant, sentient beings, rather than NPCs. However, no game world allows us do everything our characters "should" be able to do. Why can't I actually sit in that chair? Why can't I drop an item on the ground? In those instances, we as role-players simply choose to ignore the limitation so as not to bring attention to the fact that our characters exist in a limited world. My character doesn't feel like sitting. My character doesn't choose to litter.
However, when the limitation is of a magnitude such that ignoring its existence begins to disrupt our sense of role-played immersion, I opt to allow my character to acknowledge its existence. For example, in Ultima Online, the map was one continuous world, such that if you sailed west, you would eventually hit the far eastern shore, could trek across the landmass, and end up back where you started. However, it required multiple servers to keep track of each world region. Where the servers exchanged information, any "creature" (non-player character) would get stuck and usually could not move to the next region. Because of this, our pack horses couldn't cross over on their own and had to be gated across. Now, totally ignoring this would mean we could never run a merchant caravan across a game server line, which was unacceptable. To have everyone ignore the rather laborious process of opening gates on either side of the line and shuttling our caravan through would have been a five minute suspension of disbelief involving a dozen or more players. Instead, we chose to have our characters aware of the problem, to discuss it in-character when making caravan preparations, but to never truly understand why the phenomenon existed. Our characters postulated at times why it existed, but we didn't have to know the answer to still acknowledge that it was there and to deal with it in-character. I see our wall discussion, and perhaps several other PFO issues, falling into the same category.
The Edge of the World
In UO, the map was very large, but finite. Travel was limited by the size of the existing map, but because the world was "round" there were no immersion breaking edges to find. However, game expansion required creating other shards of existence rather than adding to the existing map. In games like WoW, where mountain ranges make the boundaries of certain zones, you could potentially keep finding new mountain passes into the next game expansion area.
In both of the above examples, the limitation of the visible world does not, by its structure, seem to create a potentially immersion breaking situation. The challenge with PFO is that it is based on Pathfinder. We know as players that there is a much, much bigger world beyond the wall, but until game resources allow the limits of our playable world to expand outward to those other regions, our characters will be existing in a very finite space with very visible barriers to movement.
Blazing New Trails
Perhaps an odd subtitle when we're discussing a role-played rationale for limited space, but I think it applies. The usual map barriers of impassable mountains, uncrossable water, or impenetrable forests won't work with PFO since the world that the game will eventually expand out to doesn't have the River Kingdoms walled off as a tiny little rectangle. Certainly, the simplest explanation for the existence of the wall is that at this stage of game development, it's an unavoidable limitation. But like everything else in the creation of this game, GW seems to be willing to blaze new trails by actually trying to provide a lore based reason for the scope of the playable world. Given that PFO is not (and cannot be) exactly like Pathfinder RPG, I would offer that they not feel too constrained by existing Pathfinder lore when seeking a role-played explanation. For instance, what the gods choose to do in this alternate version of Golarion may be quite different from the one our tabletop characters inhabit. Case in point, the goddess of death allowing potentially thousands of people (our characters) to cheat death by limitless resurrection.
Unanswered Questions
If our characters are going to be provided with an in-character reason for the limited size of the playable world, or more appropriately, the limit of how far we're allowed to travel and still resurrect (more a tether than a wall), should our characters have in-character explanations for other such game limitations? Having opened the door with this "protected area" to the fact that the PFO River Kingdoms are not quite like the PF tabletop River Kingdoms, it gives me the impression that something new is afoot and leads to further questions.
Many of us already have back-stories that describe our migration from whatever home nation to the River Kingdoms (though some may claim to have been born in the RK area). The first question is, having arrived, why have we been marked by Pharasma to receive the gift of limitless resurrection? Secondly, why here? Given the nature of the River Kingdoms, does it provide the Lady of the Grave a more random sample of Golarion's population for her yet undisclosed purpose? When the most recent blog stated that her twice marked will have access to information (via quests) to reveal new lore about the River Kingdoms, does "new" mean different from that of PF tabletop, and will it provide further explanation about her plan?
Again, I'm more than happy to see PFO diverge from PF in its handling of these questions and others that will arise. And though I may give my characters the ability to be aware of the anomalies caused by game limitations/mechanics if they are so obvious that ignoring them seems more distracting to RP than acknowledging them, I'm more than happy to not have all the answers (at least as my character) about why the anomalies exist. Leaving some gray area, some room for "we don't know why its there, but we can wonder about it" is often very handy as role-players, and I would suspect, for developers as well.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Under that theory, Pharasma is just interested in us making babies. We are immortal so that we can have unlimited offspring? If that is your theory, fine. I am ready to start helping.
"Ladies! Your attention please!"
:)
Not exactly what I had in mind...
I was imagining that Pharasma knows that my character will have a daughter who will bear a son who will be one the Chosen Heroes. Until I retire and settle down to have a family, therefore, I must be kept alive. Conversely, having a wealth of knowledge and experience to pass down the generations is essential for the Grand Purpose*, so I am encouraged to be an adventurer.
Of course, your character may have many many children, but it is only the direct line that leads to the Chosen One that Pharasma cares about and gives the Holy Health Insurance to. The rest drift off and become normal people living normal dangerous lives.
*Or maybe a Grand Porpoise.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Stephen's post information is most welcome to me as I write the journey of Harad from Katapesh, up the Sullen River, and finally to the Crusader Road. I now get to write a chapter where he becomes first-marked, then a chapter where he becomes twice-marked. I am grateful to have lore hooks this far out in the game to help me build character back story.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I would definitely favor the reason behind the marks to remain mysterious. This allows for each character to have their own suspicions, which helps build drama and conflict.
"I came here to do X! Why else would Pharasma mark me if X was not my destiny! If you stand in the way of X you are going against the gods themselves!"
"Pharasma marked me so that I could do Y, which cannot happen if you do X. If you were meant to do X, why should she give one so superior to yourself as I am a conflicting mission. I am meant to show you the error of your ways that you may join me!"
"Guys, guys. Relax. We all have Z in common, so that has to be it! X and Y are trivial!"
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Goblin Squad Member
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I agree that the reason our characters are marked may not be known. However, I think we can be free speculate on the events that happened when we found our characters marked. These events could have nothing to do with the mechanics of what being marked does or why our characters were marked; the events simply happened. We could embrace these events into our character's back story without having to know "why".
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Goblin Squad Member
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I would definitely favor the reason behind the marks to remain mysterious. This allows for each character to have their own suspicions, which helps build drama and conflict.
+1
This was actually a major element of the back story for The Seventh Veil, and why our characters are drawn to the Echo Wood. Our lore contains guesses at what the "real" reasons are, but no factual statements.
It's kind of like good RP. You only ever describe what your own character is doing - you don't describe the effect you have on other characters.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Perhaps Pharasma took our souls *before* we died, and her shrines are where our bodies are kept, thus we cannot leave their proximity ...
I would avoid this much solid information. Then you may have to retcon as the world expands. Especially if it does not expand evenly in all directions. "New shrine is up. We have to stay within 2 miles to the west, but we can go 20 miles to the south!"
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Goblin Squad Member
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Before I delve into other possibilities on this and related subjects, a few assumptions based on Mr. Cheney's post with a few reason-based "hunches" thrown in for good measure:
1. If GW is apparently interested in supplying in-game lore for why the goddess of death is allowing thousands of mortals a limitless number of resurrections, and in so doing, demonstrating a willingness to part ways from the established cannon of PF RPG, I assume that the role-played reasons or lore for other obvious differences between PFO and PF "reality" might be entertained as well.
2. If our resurrection ability is only allowing us to move "this far" and no farther, that would seem to imply that there is really something beyond that limit - that the sliver of territory that our characters find themselves bound to is not a pocket dimension or demi-plane, but is actually surrounded by a much larger world.
3. If the rest of the world is out there, I'm guessing it is very similar to the Golarion of PF, with a full range of races, deities, role ("class") skills, etc. It would be easier to believe that only our small sliver of the River Kingdoms is experiencing these "losses" or "omissions" rather than the entire world. I will be exploring several questions and possibilities for these omissions below.
4. In that I doubt GW is suggesting that our characters simply popped into existence within this sliver of the River Kingdoms, it would seem fair to assume that our characters may have come from outside the wall and are aware of the differences found inside the PFO territory - unless they have all experienced some kind of mass selective memory loss.
Again, if we are being provided a lore-based rationale for what could otherwise be ignored as necessary limitations due to this being a game, what other PFO variations from PF cannon (especially during EE and early OE) can we speculate about rather than simply ignore?
Deities
If something is afoot in the PFO sliver of the River Kingdoms, different from the existing cannon of PF, Pharasma certainly seems to have a hand in it. Not only is she allowing mortals to resurrect ad infinitum and establish new soulbinding points, but she seems to be slipping secrets to particular mortals as well (twice marked quests). But what about the other deities? Some assumptions and questions:
1. That a limited number of deities will have influence in the PFO sliver shows that they know about it - this isn't Pharasma's exclusive project. At least some other deities seem to be in the know.
2 Is there some reason why only a select few are having influence in this sliver of territory, at least early on? Are the remainder choosing not to participate, being kept in the dark, being barred from participation, testing their followers' devotion during their "absence", etc.?
Races
We know that the choice was made to start with the three core races - the "backbone of Pathfinder". But if the rest of Golarion exists, and the rest of the possible races are out there, from a role-play perspective, why haven't any wandered into the PFO territory and been trapped with the rest of us "lucky" few?
1. Is this a choice of the gods involved - do they have some reason for only beginning this "experiment" with the primary three races?
2. Can Pharasma's mark only work on the three primary races at the beginning?
Roles & Missing Skills
The omission of other role skills (paladin, ranger, druid, etc.) seems like the easiest omission to gloss over by training available skills, whether those are harvesting/refining/crafting, non-role related skills, skills that EE roles and later roles will share, etc. Many have also begun to piecemeal possible pseudo-classes using the skills that are available. However, for the fun of asking "what if" and "why"...
1. That characters potentially existed outside the PFO sliver earlier in their lives, how do we rationalize that they are starting over - that we have no prior skills? Though this one seems easy to "ignore" from a RP perspective, what if there was a reason? For whatever reason we find ourselves here, are we starting over - does someone want the earliest of us arriving to begin on a level playing field?
2. If our characters' memories prior to entering the PFO territory have not been wiped clean, even if we had no skills ourselves, we would surely have heard of the roles that will be missing - of sorcerers and monks, etc. So again, why are they missing? Do the powers that be wish to start over with only the basics - the original four (fighter, cleric, wizard, and rogue)?
3. From a RP standpoint, are we being asked to reinvent the missing roles, so that we are simulating the time it takes for some of us to piece together how to be those missing roles? Are you a wizard, who after enough time, discovers your bloodline and taps into your sorcerous abilities, or were you a sorcerer all along, but had to make do with books until such a time as the gods saw fit to finally allow you and all the other sorcerers in the PFO sliver to tap into the powers you lost at the wall?
A Rat In A (Very Nice) Cage
As players, we all know why the limitations outlined above will exist in the game, especially early in development. But taken as a whole, from a role-play perspective, it does seem like our characters are subjects of a very elaborate experiment. We have been given a very limited (manageable) amount of space, wherein we're free to do as we please (the parameters of the experiment are broad enough to provide authentic results), though the skills we're allowed to use are limited, so that our actions are potentially predictable. We have a limited number of test subjects and they can't actually die, so the experiment never ends due to a loss of subjects. Much of this seems like controls placed on an experiment to better control the possible outcomes, while still allowing the variable of choice. And finally, once the experimenters (presumably the gods) are satisfied with their findings, they add greater complexity to the experiment - more of them get directly engaged (more deities become available), more subjects are added (increased player enrollment), skill variety increases, races are added, the testing area is increased (more map), etc.
The last question would be, if our characters are the least bit cognizant of being subjects in a divine experiment, why would they participate? Easy - 1.) They have nowhere else to go, and 2.) Except for the governments of starter towns, the world is their sandbox to do with it as they will - to live as they wish - to even become rulers of the River Kingdoms. What adventurous bunch of characters wouldn't jump at that chance?
"Ladies! Your attention please!"
You have my attention, now would you kindly form a queue and have your credentials ready for presentation...