![]() ![]() ![]() By the end of the game I had an absurdly large pile of amazingly powerful magic weapons just sitting on the table - a better loot haul than any of the heavily guarded dungeons in the game. When I played Baldur's Gate II, any time I upgraded a weapon I would travel back to my ranger's cabin and leave the old one on the dining room table. I know what you mean about constructing narratives. But in these early games, you'd have to use really tortured logic to explain why all the enemies come back to life when Werdna saves his progress ( Wizardry IV) or why alien robots would keep codes to their own destruction on non-encrypted computers ( 2400 A.D.), and for these reasons I had trouble role-playing them. We covered some of these in " What Were They Thinking?" Baldur's Gate II: My best friend is missing why am I wasting time solving quests for innkeepers and druids? Why am I managing a production of "the Turmish play" at my own theater? Why am I not raising 20,000 gold and rushing immediately to her aid? Oblivion: the world is under attack from hell, I'm on a quest from the emperor, and yet I'm worried about getting promoted in the fighter's guild? But mostly these worlds are expansive enough that you can construct plausible external reasons for these inconsistencies sometimes they even enrich the role-playing possibilities (I trust the thieves' guild less than the Cowled Wizards Martin needs a really long time to study the Mysterium Xarxes). Occasionally, you will be playing an otherwise good CRPG, but you will experience role-playing pangs over a nonsensical story element. There's nothing about Ultima IV (that I can think of) that would be absurd in an elaborated novel or film. Dupre has to be a paladin and Katrina has to be a shepherd, and both must accompany your protagonist, but nothing says you can't construct a love triangle among them. ![]() He finally makes his way to the sovereign, Lord British, and learns about why he's there-the conversation in the game isn't very cinematic, but remember you can add additional dialog, as long as you retain all of the dialog in the game. He has a long period in which he's disoriented and doesn't know what to do (the game doesn't show this, but neither does it preclude this). Suddenly, he's whisked through a moongate to another world-no problem there plenty of good movies and books feature magic. You can make your protagonist a recently-released convict, a disaffected teenager, a university professor, or a hardened street cop-none of these options contradicts the character creation in the game. Making decisions that do not help game progression-that may even hamper progression-in an attempt to be consistent with a character or ethos (letting fleeing enemies flee, buying drinks at the pub that do nothing for you, donating to churches, eating only vegetarian items in NetHack, refusing to let magic users accompany your inquisitor-led party in Baldur's Gate II).Taking time to do things like undress, eat, sleep, and socialize (much easier in modern CRPGs like Oblivion there's actually a whole page on stuff like this).Refusing to do things that you know how to do until your in-game character knows how to do them (e.g., when I play Ultima V, I'll already know all the mantras because of Ultima IV, but I could refuse to use them until my character learns them). ![]() Resolving quests in ways that the game does not intend, or that does not give you maximum experience (e.g., just attack Mae'var in Baldur's Gate II because you "don't work with thieves", collect all the Threads of the Webspinner in Morrowind but dump them in the ocean to ensure they'll never be used).Inventing dialog between your party members or party members and NPCs.Developing a detailed backstory for your character.Mentally envisioning the environment through which your character progresses. ![]()
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