#that figure then approached the clone of the wizard I made to play with my partner and gave him a necklace with a fragment of the lost one's

[ectogeranium]

deleted my new gen wizard101 account since I recovered my old one. held a funeral service for the wizards lost in the deletion, and put headstones in my main's garden in memoriam. huh? crying? never heard of it tbh.

[canarydraws]

Queen of shadows

If you were interested in the story I was sharing in my last post about my dnd campaign, I’m gonna pick up in the story under the cut!

So, to preface go check out my post titled “Cosmolian Red” if you wanna hear the events leading up to this (warning for eye trauma and drug mention). A lot had just happened. Lucéena learned Weiss killed her dad and then tripped on drugs so hard she saw an astral dreadnaught which proceeded to pick up their hiding place and yeet them a considerable distance into a tower. It was a rough crash. Thankfully after a revivify to our rogue and a group healing spell from our cleric we all made it out in relativly one piece. We were able to catch our breath and see that our little hut had crashed through a wall and we were in the middle of a long hallway scattered with statues. We’d actually broken a few on our way in and as Lucéena went to inspect them she got.. memories? I think she recognized some of the people they were supposed to be but she didn’t remember names.

By this point she didn’t see the stars of the astral sea anymore and her eyes had stopped bleeding so Lucéena began to walk down one way of the hall to further inspect more of the statues. Our wizard Echo went with because the party’s fighter was just wandering away with blood still drying on her face and exploring on your own was clearly what we didn’t need lol. We eventually came to a balcony where we saw that we had indeed reached the Citadel of Shadow. The city stretched below us, massively small, and there was movement among the buildings that turned out to be monsters, not people. It was here that Lucéena had another memory. She was standing in the exact spot she was now but she was smaller and she was holding someone’s hand. With all these memories, she couldn’t doubt that she had initially been raised here.

And while the two of them were talking, they were approached by guards, an older shadar-kai man who looked like an advisor, and the ruler of the shadowfell herself Queen Amali (described as the lovely art above depicts). All of whom wanted to know who tf we were and why and how we had broken through the wall of her palace. With some attempts at civility and a charm spell or two from Echo, we eventually led her back to our group where she invited us to join her in her dinning hall. During dinner the older man was starring daggers DIRECTLY at me as we tried and ultimately failed to explain our mission of retrieving these clone/artifacts. To cover up a misstep in the conversation, Echo ended up saying we were here to look for Lucéena’s famiy 🥲 Lucéena was NOT ready to be put on the spot and also wasn’t 100% sure she cared to find the family that abandoned her but the queen was like alright let’s do that.

Like the mysterious and powerful elven lady she is, she booped luceena’s forehead and suddenly all of her childhood memories came rushing through her mind. She saw memories she hadn’t thought of in some time and others she’d swore she never recalled. Eventually we got to the memory Lucéena had glimped when she was standing amongst the broken statues. It was a man was leaning over her and asking someone out of her line of view what her name was. A voice replyed this time and said Isla, Lucéena’s middle name. She also got another name “Alune” which she repeated out loud. The man who had been staring daggers at me all this time paused for a moment and said that was the name of his wife. Lucéena tried to play it of like ‘oh I met her once’ but everyone was looking at her like they expected something so she ended up leaving the room.

SO, fast forward a little bit the party is in a guest room the queen had given us for the night trying to figure out how we’re going to bring back up the subject of the clones or if we should just steal them. The advisor came in and introduced himself as Gendren Lovelace. After some awkward talk he also said that he was pretty sure he was Lucéena’s father. He suspected when he first saw her because she apparently looks a lot like his wife. Alune had been a general for the queen but she wasn’t remembered too kindly in these halls because she’d apparently cast a curse on the citadel.

BUT I now have descriptions for Lucéena’s biological mom and dad and you know what that means? It means it’s time for family portrait 2 electric boogaloo! Gonna find some time for that… some time. Honestly the session ended right after some of these revelations were made so I have a lot of questions and I’m sure my recount doesn’t make the most of sense. For example Lucéena never got another chance to interrogate Weiss. But perhaps by the time I can make the og family portrait I will have enough of the pieces to present to y’all with a mostly complete family story. Like how Lucéena came to live with the Rowans from being the young daughter of a general in the shadowfell. And why her mom apparently put a curse on the city that turnes it’s residence to stone.

[tsarisfanfiction]

Long Way From Home: Chapter 8

Fandom: Thunderbirds Rating: Teen Genre: Family/Friendship Characters: Scott, Tracy Family

I’m back!  Including this one, I’ve now got another five chapters written so we’ll be doing weekly updates again at least for the month of February.  For those that haven’t been subjected to my chatting about it in discord or DMs, I write this particular fic in chunks that could almost be called arcs, before chopping it up into chapters, hence the sudden backlog.  This section was only supposed to fill a small moment, not be an entire arc, but the boys disagreed with me on that so here we are.

Therefore, we have more playing around with the differences between the universes - particularly fashion, the TOS ideas of which are loosely based on the 1960s - a couple of familiar namedrops, and there’s a warning for a panic attack in this chapter, so watch out for that if it might give you trouble!  I also know basically zero about Auckland, New Zealand, or correct communications between planes and airports, so sorry if there’s any inconsistencies here.  Let’s just call it future advancements and an alternative universe!

<<<Chapter 7

The coastline of New Zealand looked more or less the same as Scott was used to when they finally arrived.  The analogue dial of Other-Scott’s watch continued to taunt him, but if he had to guess, the journey had taken somewhere between one and two hours, and had largely passed in silence.  Whether that was because Other-Gordon needed to concentrate on piloting, or simply because he was still holding up his promise of no more questions, Scott wasn’t sure, but he appreciated it regardless.

Being a passenger instead of the pilot was always an odd situation, and more than once he’d caught himself trying to shift imaginary controls in response to the clouds and air streams they passed through.  If Other-Gordon had noticed, he hadn’t commented.

“Tango Alpha Ladybird to Auckland Air Traffic Control, requesting permission to land, over.”  Beneath them, the city sprawled almost coast to coast, and Scott peered down, looking for familiar landmarks.  Some of them were there, some of them were not.  As low as they were flying – heading for the airport, no doubt – the Sky Tower should have been easily visible, but its distinctive shape was absent.

It shouldn’t have surprised him.  Sky Tower was a telecommunications tower, and he’d already discovered that this universe didn’t use the same type of technology that he was used to, so its lack of presence made sense.  But it had always been there, built sometime before the millennium and a major aspect of Auckland’s skyline.  He’d flown past it many times, and even used it as an unofficial navigation point.

For it to be not there, either destroyed or never existed in the first place, reminded him that no matter how familiar some things might be, he really wasn’t home.

I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore, was a line famously quoted from an old movie.  Scott had a bit of a soft spot for the Wizard of Oz – old fantasy films in general – but he’d never imagined he’d ever be playing the part of Dorothy.

At least Dorothy still had Toto, he mused sadly.  If only he’d taken Mini-MAX with him on that mission, then maybe he wouldn’t be entirely alone… if Mini-MAX would even have been able to operate without a network to link into.  Most likely, he’d have had nothing but the inactive husk of the small bot. Scott wasn’t sure if that would have been better or worse.

“Auckland Air Traffic Control to Tango Alpha Ladybird, clearance granted for runway four-bravo, over,” the radio crackled, yanking him back to the present.

“Tango Alpha Ladybird to Auckland Air Traffic Control, copy that, over,” Other-Gordon acknowledged.  Scott watched him adjust their angle of approach accordingly and kept his mouth shut as the landing gear engaged and they gently touched down onto the tarmac scant minutes later.  Other-Gordon visibly relaxed as soon as they were safely down, taxiing his way carefully over to a hangar emblazoned with a large T.A.  As they entered, Scott could see several planes inside of various sizes and designs.

The one thing they had in common was the T.A. on their tails, identical to the letters on the hangar, and Scott found himself wondering what it stood for.  Other-Gordon had used the same two letters as a callsign, and he eyed the nearest plane – a much larger one than the Ladybird – as Gordon rolled them to a gentle stop.

“What does T.A. stand for?” he asked, suspecting that Other-Scott would know that and having no wish to get caught out and face awkward conversations. This was the sort of information he’d tried to get out of his doppelgänger, but either he’d thought he would already know, or it was so basic he forgot about it.

The incredulous look he got from Other-Gordon as the man paused his post-flight checks suggested it was the former.

“Tracy Aerospace,” he said.  “Dad’s company.  Doesn’t it exist in your universe?  I thought you said you were a billionaire!”

“I am,” Scott grumbled, “and it does, but it’s Tracy Industries.”

“Right,” Other-Gordon said, going back to the post-flight checks.  “Rule number one: no talking.”

“Wha-”

“You look like Scott but you don’t sound like my brother and that’s something folks’ll notice, especially around here.  The fellas on the ground know Scott well, so you’ve lost your voice.  That’s the story.”

That made sense, but how was Scott supposed to tell Other-Gordon what he was looking for if he wasn’t allowed to talk?  He asked as such as the younger man finished up the last of the checks and undid his harness.

The aquanaut just shrugged.  “What are you after?  Underpants… what else?”

Scott chose to ignore the not so subtle dig; it was getting old, but no doubt Other-Gordon wouldn’t let it go until he’d got changed, and likely not even then.

“Casual shirts, jeans and sneakers.”  He repeated the list he’d given Other-Scott earlier and watched Other-Gordon’s face at the word ‘jeans’.  He didn’t look particularly pleased, but Scott wasn’t going to back down on those.  “Should probably pick up a hoodie or two as well.  Pyjamas and shoes, too.”

“There is no way Scott said yes to a hoodie,” Other-Gordon frowned. “Hoodie and jeans?  Those are workshop clothes; do you fellas really wear those?” Scott bristled, and he raised his hands. “Look, I am all for getting items that’ll make Scott go crazy, but I don’t want to be murdered in my sleep because the media thinks he’s gone cuckoo, so give me a minute to come up with a reason that won’t wreck his public image for the next decade.”

Scott frowned, but before he could say anything else, Other-Gordon grinned and pushed at his wrist watch.  There was a dial tone for several moments before the string of numbers was replaced by Other-Scott’s face.  The other man looked concerned and a little suspicious.  Scott supposed he hadn’t been expecting the call, and an unexpected call from a younger brother was definitely cause for concern – especially when it was a Gordon.

“Hey there, Scott!” Other-Gordon chirped in a tone that immediately had Scott on edge, even though it wasn’t aimed at him.  The faux-innocent, sing-song voice meant trouble, and he felt slightly guilty for whatever chaos was about to fall Other-Scott’s way.

Other-Scott dropped all pretence of concern and frowned at him in full-blown suspicion.

“You’ve only just arrived,” he said slowly.  “You can’t have got in trouble already.”

“You underestimate me, brother dear,” Other-Gordon scoffed, before pulling a sickly-sweet grin onto his face.  Other-Scott’s expression went from suspicious to mildly horrified, and Scott couldn’t stand it anymore.

“Gordon,” he warned, loud enough for the watch to pick him up.  While he was all up for pranks, he couldn’t quite bring himself to let his counterpart be on the receiving end of one he was involved in.  It felt uncomfortably like pranking himself.

Other-Gordon huffed.  “You’re no fun,” he sulked, before turning back to the watch.  Other-Scott, Scott was pleased to see, had lost the look of horror and was back in the realms of confusion.  “Say, Scott, how do you feel about being a trend-setter?”

And the look of horror was straight back.

“What?” Other-Scott demanded.  “Setting what trend?  I’m not a fashion icon, Gordon!  Set your own trends.”

Other-Gordon hummed thoughtfully.  “That’s a fine plan, Scott, except anything I buy will be too small for him to wear, which somewhat defeats the objective.”

Other-Scott made a noise of frustration.  “I told you, Gordon.  Anything that ends up in the media is your fault.”

“Did you say that knowing your clone here wants hoodies?” Other-Gordon asked, eyebrow raised.  Other-Scott choked.  “Because he does and I know better than to try and talk him out of it.”

“Hoodies?” Other-Scott looked bordering on mortified.  “Dad would kill me.”  Something that could be guilt coiled in Scott’s gut; no matter what his feelings were about Not-Dad’s existence, the idea of Other-Scott getting in trouble with him on his behalf didn’t settle well.  Other-Scott shook his head.  “I can’t believe I’m saying this, Gordon, but what’s your plan?”

“I figured we could pass it off as experimentation,” Other-Gordon shrugged. “But you’re not well known for that so it would cause a stir.”

“You’re right about that,” Other-Scott mused, and Scott shook his head.

“I guess I don’t need one,” he offered reluctantly – he wanted one, but there was mildly inconveniencing someone and there was ruining someone’s reputation.

“No.”  Other-Scott shook his head firmly.  “We’ll make this work.”

“Well, it’s your funeral,” Other-Gordon muttered, before a grin slowly spread across his face.  “You know, fellas, I think I’ve got it!”

“Do I want to know?” Other-Scott asked dubiously.

“It’s simple,” Other-Gordon continued as though his older brother hadn’t spoken.  “We all know you wouldn’t willingly wear one, so we make it unwilling.  Scott, you lost a bet.”

Other-Scott ran a hand through his hair.  “I suppose that would work,” he conceded reluctantly.  Scott could see the logic – short term embarrassment at the hands of a younger sibling would barely interest the media, but still explained why he was still in possession of a so-called workman’s outfit. “But I’m insisting on custom made. You are not coming back with some cheap off the shelf monstrosity.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it!” Other-Gordon chirped in a tone that said he had been considering doing exactly that.  “We should start moving now, though.  Jones is coming over and I think he wants to know why we haven’t left the cockpit yet.”

“I can’t say I’m in a hurry to have you wrecking my reputation but you probably shouldn’t make Jones suspicious,” Other-Scott sighed.  “Hey, wait – what is this bet I’ve supposedly lost, Gordon?”

“If you don’t know, Dad can’t yell at you for it later,” Other-Gordon grinned back at him.

“Gordon.”

“What, don’t you trust me?” the ginger asked, pulling a face of fake hurt. Other-Scott scowled at him.

“With my life, yes.  Not with my dignity.”  Scott could relate to that.

“We’ll see you later, Scott.”  Other-Gordon didn’t bother responding to the veiled accusation before signing off, returning the watch to actually looking like a watch just as a young man crossed the distance between the neighbouring plane and the Ladybird. “Here we go, remember you’ve lost your voice and let me do all the talking.”

Scott had a sinking feeling that was going to be easier said than done, but obediently followed the other man out of the cockpit just in time for the man on the ground to stride over to them.

“Gordon Tracy, is that you piloting a plane?” said man called, shaking his head in amazement.  “Why, I couldn’t believe my ears when they told me it was you of all people coming in to land that red beauty of yours!”

“Gee, laugh it up why don’t you, Jones,” Other-Gordon commented dryly.  “I didn’t fly all the way here with the worst backseat pilot in the world to get flack from you, too, fella.”

The man – Jones – squinted at Scott and for a heart-stopping moment he thought the man had realised he wasn’t this universe’s Scott, before he burst out laughing.  “Scott Tracy letting someone else pilot?  Now I’ve really seen it all.  Say, how you been, old chap?”  He stuck out his hand and feeling rather like a deer in headlights, Scott took it for a firm shake.

“Ah, Scott’s not so good,” Other-Gordon intervened before the silence stretched long enough to be awkward.  “He’s only gone and lost his voice, but there’s shopping to be done so yours truly got the short straw.”  The ginger gave a theatrical wince.  “Turns out not having a voice doesn’t stop a fella from backseat piloting like crazy.  He insisted on checking over all my post-flight checks!  I ask you; you’d think he didn’t trust me with a plane.”

Scott shot him a look.  While no doubt if Other-Scott had really lost his voice that all sounded perfectly feasible, he thought the ginger was laying it on a little thick.  Other-Gordon caught the look and rolled his eyes.

“Well Mr Just Because I Can’t Talk Doesn’t Mean I Won’t Be A Pain here seems like he wants to get this over and done with,” he told Jones.  Not strictly inaccurate, Scott supposed, although that hadn’t been what he’d meant.  Other-Gordon lowered his voice.  “Truth be told, he doesn’t want to be here; lost a bet and doesn’t like the forfeit.”

Scott put a warning hand on his shoulder and Other-Gordon laughed.  Jones joined in politely, almost as though he wasn’t certain what the joke was, or if he should be responding to it.

“I’d say that means ‘hurry it up, oh favourite brother of mine’,” Other-Gordon translated.  “Lock her down for me, would you?  There’s a good man.”

“Yessir,” Jones agreed.  “Your usual car’s been prepared for you.  Mr Tracy said you didn’t want a chauffeur today?”  A chauffeur?  No, Scott absolutely didn’t want one of those – it was bad enough being piloted by a brother, or brother from another universe, as it happened.

“Not today, Jones,” Other-Gordon confirmed.  “I wouldn’t inflict Scott in this mood on anyone,” he winked, and the man gave another awkward chuckle.  “I’ll handle it all today.”  Scott jammed his hands in his pockets impatiently.  “See you around, Jones.”

“Likewise, Gordon, Scott.”  The man nodded at both of them and Other-Gordon led the way through the hangar unerringly to where a classic vintage-looking convertible was waiting for them.  With the roof down, he could see it was a right-hand drive – of course, New Zealand drove on the left; at least that was the same – so without prompting he let himself in to the front left seat and tried not to be too obvious about staring.

Plane controls might have been the same, but cars apparently weren’t. If push came to shove, he could probably figure it out – the car was at least an automatic, not stick-shift – but he was quite content to let Other-Gordon take the wheel.  Hopefully he wasn’t quite as chaotic as his Gordon behind the wheel.

He wasn’t.  At least, not by Scott’s standards.  He was, however, still the fastest car on the road, overtaking other cars with manoeuvres just shy of being classified as swerves, with a delighted grin on his face.  That, at least, was typically Gordon, and the ache that blossomed in his chest whenever any of the Other-Tracy family did something that reminded him of their counterparts – his Tracy family – made itself known again.  Scott fought the instinct to clutch at his chest, instead clinging to the door with a grip far too tight for the situation.

Behind amber-tinted shades, equally amber eyes glanced over at his death grip, but Other-Gordon said nothing.  Scott wasn’t sure if that was a relief or not – the younger man knew enough to know that these speeds wouldn’t phase him in the slightest, which meant he was drawing his own conclusions.  Scott had no idea what those conclusions might be, and any desire to ask was quashed by the knowledge that that would open the topic up for conversation.

He’d chosen Other-Gordon to avoid more of that sort of conversation.

“What are we getting first?” he asked, turning his head away from the streets to look at Other-Gordon.  With the wind whistling past their ears, the natural inclination was to raise his voice but he consciously kept his voice at normal levels.  Other-Gordon should still be able to hear him, if with a bit of difficulty.

The ginger sent him an assessing look before the grin was back, and that look was too much like Gordon’s devilish grin for Scott to not know what he was going to say, despite the man not being his Gordon.

“You can’t stay in the same underpants forever!”

Scott groaned, the hand not gripping the door catching his face – ow, he forgot about the shades.  He left it there, acutely aware that with any Gordon around in a non-professional setting, the facepalm was never far away.

“Okay, new underpants.  Then what?”

Other-Gordon laughed, looping them around another car as the bulk of the city approached, before settling into something that seemed like he might, vaguely, be taking the excursion seriously.  Whether that was due to Other-Scott’s threats – which he did seem to be wary of – or because he was actually mindful of Scott’s own wishes, he had no idea. If he had to guess, probably the former. Scott wished his Gordon respected his threats against causing chaos.

Then again, he’d never had a doppelgänger, let alone one subsequently left in the hands of his prank-loving brother.

“Francois Lemaire has a new men’s range out,” he shrugged.  “Might as well start there.”

“Lemaire?” Scott asked, his voice strangled.  Other-Gordon gave him a sharp look.

“He’s Tin-Tin’s favourite designer,” the younger man said.  “She suggested him.”

Lemaire?  Designer?  Admittedly, Scott didn’t know what the rich airhead did when he wasn’t throwing himself in mortal danger and complaining loudly when they had to rescue him from his own stupidity, but he found it hard to believe that between birthday parties in the Mariana Trench and throwing himself into the coma of a comet he was designing clothes.

“Problem?” Other-Gordon asked, and Scott realised he was scowling. Taking a deep breath, he forced his expression to smooth out again.

“He won’t be there, will he?” he asked.  “If he’s anything like the Lemaire I know, there is a high chance I’ll be losing my temper.”

“What’s wrong with Lemaire?”  Other-Gordon actually sounded confused, which was enough for Scott to cling to the hope that maybe, maybe, the man wasn’t such an idiot here.

“Birthday party in the Mariana Trench,” he groaned.  “Flying into a comet.  Hunting mermaids.”  And that was just the tip of the iceberg.  “He calls us International Babysitting Service now.”

The hiss Other-Gordon let out implied the other man found that all as ridiculous – and insulting – as Scott did.  “I guess that fella’s not your favourite human,” he observed.  “We’ve not had those sorts of problems with him.” That was a relief.  “I doubt he’ll be here, though.  Fella lives in France.”

That was another relief, although Scott wasn’t going to relax entirely until they were done with the man’s shop.  It would be just his luck that this universe’s Lemaire would be dropping by for a visit when he was there, and that was not a meeting he wanted.

“Then we might as well see if his range contains anything I want to wear,” he shrugged, realising that he hadn’t actually agreed or disagreed with Other-Gordon’s suggestion.  The younger man groaned as he pulled into a parking lot tucked behind a large building emblazoned with Lemaire.

“You’re not going to be too fussy, are you?” he asked.  Scott detected a tone of dread behind what was clearly supposed to be a rhetorical question.

“Not if they have decent clothes,” he answered, and Other-Gordon made another disgruntled noise as he killed the ignition.

“Sure.  Now, remember: you’re my brother, you’ve lost your voice, I’m doing all the talking.” Scott rolled his eyes but nodded in agreement.  “Underpants, shirts, jeans, pyjamas, shoes and a custom hoodie.” Other-Gordon still didn’t seem too happy about some of those things, even with Other-Scott’s blessing, reluctant though it had been.  “Am I forgetting anything?”

Scott shook his head and Other-Gordon jumped out of the car, casually circling around to open Scott’s door before he realised the lever needed to be pulled, not pushed.  What happened to doors opening at the touch of a button?  He was really starting to miss familiar technology.

Maybe he could persuade Other-Gordon to let him pilot back to the island.

First, though, he had to get through this shopping trip so he could stop having to borrow Other-Scott’s clothes.  Stepping out of the car, he followed Other-Gordon into the shop.

It was exactly the sort of ordered chaos Scott expected from clothes shopping.  Mannequins flanked the entrance, decked out in what was presumably the latest fashions but looked totally bizarre to Scott, while a woman decked out in equally outrageous clothes – not Gordon-outrageous, but so much fabric outrageous – bustled forwards to greet them.  Behind her, equally awfully dressed men and women were guiding around customers who just screamed ‘I’m rich’.

Scott was immediately reminded exactly why he did as much clothes shopping as he could get away with online.

“Monsieur Tracy, Monsieur Tracy,” the woman greeted them.  “My name is Madeleine; how may I be of assistance today?”

Automatically, Scott opened his mouth to answer, but Other-Gordon jumped in before he managed to make a sound.  “Scott’s looking for a new wardrobe,” he said smoothly, drawing the woman’s attention to him and away from Scott, who inwardly scolded himself for forgetting that he wasn’t supposed to talk.  “Could we see your shirt selection?”

“Of course, Monsieur,” Madeleine replied.  “If you would follow me?”  She posed it as a question but began to walk further into the shop without waiting for a reply.  Scott and Other-Gordon stepped forwards at the same time, following the woman through a maze of clothes and other customers before arriving in a booth lined with lavish couches.  “Please, take a seat.”  Madeleine gestured to one of the couches and Scott took the invitation.  Other-Gordon settled down beside him and immediately reached out for what appeared to be a physical, gloss-paper, brochure on the table. He flipped through it for a moment before passing it over.

Scott accepted it and saw that Other-Gordon had already opened it to the shirts for him.

“Did Monsieur have a particular style in mind?” Madeleine asked after a moment. Not knowing the jargon as well as perhaps Grandma would have liked, and unable to speak without inviting awkward questions anyway, Scott shrugged.

“You’ll have to forgive my brother,” Other-Gordon jumped in before she could take offence.  “The fella’s lost his voice.”

“Oh,” she gasped softly.  “My apologies, Monsieur Tracy.”

Scott shot her a reassuring smile even as Other-Gordon waved off her apology. “Don’t worry about it.  I’m here to work as a translator.”

Leaving Other-Gordon to keep the woman occupied in conversation, Scott leant back and flicked through the brochure, eyeing the various outrageous shirts – apparently this universe’s Lemaire liked to design clothes with far too much excess fabric – before finally locating something that looked simple enough.  He’d still have to roll the sleeves up and worry at the collar until it sat comfortably, but it definitely looked like something he could wear comfortably enough.

He prodded Other-Gordon in the ribs; sharp amber eyes snapped over to him, wide in surprise for a split second before narrowing.

“You found something?” the younger man asked, after a pause that felt just a little too long.  Scott nodded, belatedly realising he had no idea if that sort of thing was acceptable sibling behaviour in this universe.  Realising he couldn’t clarify anything while he was pretending to have lost his voice, he pushed the thought aside to deal with later, and prodded at the picture on the page.

Madeleine made a motion to look over, and Scott swivelled the brochure so that she could see the one he’d chosen.

“A wonderful choice, Monsieur Tracy,” she beamed, while Other-Gordon made a sound that could be amused.  He didn’t say whatever it was he was thinking, though, instead joining in the conversation when the woman asked how many and pulled out another brochure of fabrics and patterns.

“I dare say a few wouldn’t go amiss,” Other-Gordon told her – although Scott suspected it was a prod at him as well.  He zoned out the rest of the conversation as he stared at the ridiculous variety of colours and tried to find the sensible blues.  He had no desire to adopt Gordon’s sense of fashion, or John’s for that matter.

He suspected John might quite like some of the horrors he was hurriedly passing by.  He’d never understood his immediate brother’s taste in clothes.

Finally, a nice plain blue, not too far off his favourite shirt at home, caught his eye, and after inspecting it to make sure there weren’t any hidden patterns he tapped at the glossy paper to draw their attention.

“The fella likes blue,” Other-Gordon shrugged at Madeleine as she pulled out a notepad and pen from somewhere and started scribbling down.  “But Scott, are you really only going to get the one design? That’s a lot of identical shirts.”

Regretting zoning out the conversation about exactly how many Other-Gordon had decided he would be getting, Scott instead raised an eyebrow at him, a look his younger brothers all knew meant don’t try me.  From the grin Other-Gordon gave him, he understood exactly what it meant, but was also as unimpressed by the warning as Gordon ever was.  With some reluctance, because yes, variety was nice and he suspected Other-Gordon was actually telling him that buying many identical shirts was not an Other-Scott-like thing to do, he returned to the sample images and tried to find some others that didn’t look like something John would wear – or worse, something not even Gordon or John would be caught dead in.

Fashion was ridiculous here.

He was certain his choices were being memorised by the too-sharp ginger next to him as he dug out the designs he was willing to wear and had them scribbled down by an eager to please Madeleine, no doubt being added to whatever mental databank Other-Gordon was compiling about him.  Maybe it would be worth dragging the differences between him and Other-Scott out of the aquanaut at some point on the flight back, if only to try and get a better understanding of what he was – temporarily, he hoped – going to be dealing with.

None of his training – Air Force, International Rescue or business – had ever covered what to do when faced with a doppelgänger of himself that wasn’t the Hood in disguise, and while Not-Dad was proving to be a problem, he didn’t have any plans to alienate the family.  They were his only way home; that, he knew for certain.

“Will that be all, Monsieur Tracy?” Madeleine asked when he finally decided there was nothing else he could even consider wearing and shut the samples brochure.  He wasn’t sure how many he’d selected in the end, but there was a satisfied look on Other-Gordon’s face, so he decided to call that torment to a close and nodded. Beaming what had to be a fake customer pleasing smile, she elegantly made her way to her feet, apparently not impeded by the ridiculousness of her dress.  “Then if you’d like to follow me to the fitting rooms?”

What.

Fitting rooms?

Had some formal clothes snuck into his selection or something?

Other-Gordon nudged him seemingly accidentally as he stood up.  Scott assumed that was another signal to just go along with it.  Reluctantly, he found his way to his feet and followed Madeleine’s swirl of fabric, raising an eyebrow at Other-Gordon when the other man followed.  He got a grin in return.

At least someone was having fun.  Scott missed online shopping.  He really hoped he wasn’t going to have to go through this rigmarole for every item they were buying.

The fitting room really should be called a fitting chamber.  It was at least as big as his bedroom at home, if not bigger, with plush seats and an area designed to be screened off, presumably for changing.  Hopefully, it wouldn’t be unusual for Other-Scott to use the curtains, because Scott was well aware how many scars he had from rescues, and while Other-Gordon had already briefly seen him shirtless he wasn’t sure Madeleine would be expecting that many scars on a lazy billionaire’s son.

“Please, make yourself comfortable while I collect the shirts,” the woman said, gesturing to the chairs.  “I will only be a few moments.”

Then she was gone, and it was just the two of them in the room.

“You don’t get your clothes fitted?” Other-Gordon asked, quietly, a beat after the door slid shut.  Scott took that as an indication that no-one would hear him if he spoke, and leaned forwards with a sigh.

“I normally shop online,” he grumbled.  “Much less hassle.”

“On… Line?”  Other-Gordon parroted the word with clear confusion in his voice, and Scott rolled his eyes, half at the other man, half at the world in general.  He should have known that would be another difference.

“Different technology,” he dismissed.  “You’re not telling me I have to go through this for everything, are you?”

“You’re getting a custom hoodie,” Other-Gordon reminded him.  “And designer jeans.”  Scott groaned.  “But they won’t measure you for underwear.”

“You’re never going to drop that, are you?”  It was so old it was ancient at this point, but from the grin on Other-Gordon’s face, that clearly didn’t matter to him.  Amber eyes flashed with amusement before turning serious.

“Don’t forget the curtain,” he warned.  “Scott’s scars aren’t the same as yours.”

“I wasn’t planning to,” Scott assured him.  He probably shouldn’t be surprised that Other-Gordon had gleaned that from when he’d borrowed Other-Scott’s clothes, but hearing a comparison still startled him.  “I-”

The door slid open and he cut himself off.

“Sorry for the wait, Monsieur Tracy,” Madeleine greeted, an entire hangar of shirts trailing behind her on wheels.  “According to your previous custom, these should be of an approximate fit.”

Previous-?  Other-Scott also shopped there?  He supposed that made sense, even if he suddenly felt the pressure to absolutely not slip up, because Madeleine probably knew Other-Scott.  That might have been useful to know earlier.

There was a lot he hadn’t been told before this trip, and he was starting to wish they’d spent a little more time talking before leaving the island. The sensation of being out of his depth was starting to make itself known again from where it had settled in the relative familiarity of the flight over.

“All looks that way,” Other-Gordon said suddenly, and Scott realised he hadn’t given any sort of response.  He really had to get his head in the game.  “So, which one first, Scott?”

Resisting the instinct to take a deep breath in front of Madeleine, he stood and gestured at the blue one he’d picked out first from the catalogue.  She took it off the hangar for him with a large smile.

“Take your time, Monsieur Tracy,” she told him.  “Come out when you’re ready.”

Scott barely made it to the curtained off area, drawing the thick material across and shutting himself away from the other two, before slumping against the wall and taking a deep breath.  Now was not a good time to get overwhelmed.  If it was just Other-Gordon-

No, he’d done more than enough breaking down in front of other people already. He took another deep breath, looking down at the shirt gripped in his hands.  His hands were trembling, the bandages over his knuckles suddenly stark against his skin.  Visible. How was he supposed to explain away bandaged knuckles when he was pretending to be a lazy billionaire’s son? Madeleine must have spotted it.

He tore his gaze away from the fabric and instead looked up at the ceiling, feeling the hat on his head dig in awkwardly as his head leant against the wall. More deep breaths, each shakier than the last, and somewhere in the back of his mind he realised he was headed for a full panic attack.

No.  He couldn’t do that.  Not with Madeleine a single curtain away.  Other-Scott had an image to maintain and he couldn’t ruin it.  He had to-

“Is everything alright, Monsieur Tracy?”  Madeleine’s voice was close, too close.  She could probably hear his messed up breathing, knew something was wrong, knew he was falling apart the other side of the suddenly too-thin curtain, and-

“I’ll check on him,” Other-Gordon said.  “Scott?  I’m coming in.”

He’d slipped around the curtain before Scott registered his words, amber eyes falling on him and widening for a split second.  Then, like a switch had been flicked, his whole demeanour changed. It wasn’t the jovial man that had been teasing for most of their time away from the island, but nor was it the sharp, military-like edge he’d held when he was being serious.

Instead it was calm, reassuring, and with slow, obvious movements the shorter man was taking the shirt from his hands, folding the fabric over one arm. “Sit,” he instructed, quietly.

This was his International Rescue façade, Scott realised dimly as he sank down onto a stool he hadn’t even registered was there.  Other-Gordon crouched down in front of him, gently removing the shades he’d forgotten he was wearing and making firm eye contact.

“Breathe in,” he said, voice still low.  “Do you want me to count you?”

Scott took in another breath, inwardly wincing at how shaky it was, before exhaling again.  Slowly, deliberately choreographing his movements, Other-Gordon rested a single hand on his knee.  The touch was light, but grounding, and Scott’s next attempt at a deep breath was markedly less shaky.  Another, and then another, with Other-Gordon almost silently guiding him with words too quiet to be heard the other side of the curtain.

Once he had enough of a grip of himself that panic felt no longer imminent, he leant back, tension bleeding from his shoulders.

“Better?” Other-Gordon asked, and he nodded, opening his mouth to speak before a raised eyebrow reminded him otherwise.  “Should we call it?  You can come back-”

“No,” Scott cut him off, clamping his mouth shut when he realised his mistake. He shook his head.  If they left now, he’d have to come back later, and he wasn’t sure he could do that.  He certainly didn’t want to have to face Not-Dad and tell him they didn’t finish because he panicked.  Better to get it over and done with now.

Other-Gordon eyed him dubiously for a moment before sighing and pulling himself to his feet.  “If you say so,” he said.  “Let me give you a hand.”

Give-?  The blue fabric still draped over the aquanaut’s arm caught his eye.  Oh yes, he was supposed to have been putting it on. He didn’t want help getting changed, and certainly didn’t need it, but there was a look in amber eyes that said quite plainly that Other-Gordon wasn’t going anywhere.

Then again, if their roles were reversed, Scott wouldn’t be going anywhere either.

Deciding the best route was to ignore him as best he could, Scott shrugged the waistcoat off, before plucking at the buttons on the shirt he was wearing. To his credit, Other-Gordon didn’t try to actively help, only taking the clothes once he’d removed them and holding out the blue shirt for him to take.

“Monsieurs?” Madeleine called just as he was fastening the last button. “Is there a problem?”

Other-Gordon pressed the sunglasses into his hands and readjusted the hat on his head before slipping back outside.

“Nothing to be worried about,” he assured her.  “Whatever he’s caught that’s gone and taken his voice gives him dizzy moments, too.  Fella just had a spell, but it’s passed now.”

So now he was ill instead of just having lost his voice?  Scott wanted to be amused, but in reality he just felt thankful that Other-Gordon was quick at thinking on his feet.

“Oh, I understand,” she said.  Scott hurried to put the sunglasses back on and took one last deep breath before pushing the curtain back.  “Monsieur Tracy, we can hold the items for you if you’d rather come back at a later date?”

Remembering in time not to talk, Scott waved her off with a small grin. It was forced; smiling wasn’t something he felt like doing but the last thing he wanted was to have to come back.

“He’ll be fine,” Other-Gordon assured her.  “This won’t take long, will it?”

“Oh, not at all,” Madeleine hurried to promise, and Scott’s grin felt just a little less forced at that.  “If you would stand here…”  She gestured to a small step and Scott obeyed, watching as she bustled around him with pins, tugging at the fabric until it lay flat across his shoulders and hung just right.  Compared to some fittings he’d had, it certainly didn’t feel like it took too long; after what had to have been only a few minutes, she was nodding her approval and handing him the next shirt to put on.

Other-Gordon followed him behind the curtain this time, not giving him the opportunity to refuse the company.  Scott got the feeling he wouldn’t be letting him out of his sight again until they were back on the island, but where before he might have bristled at the lack of privacy, now he found himself reassured by the other man’s presence.  If nothing else, it helped keep his mind on the task at hand as he peeled the pin-infested shirt away from his body gingerly and accepted the new one while Other-Gordon hung the first on a hangar.

The rest of the fitting went in much the same fashion, Madeleine working quickly but efficiently and Other-Gordon shadowing him in a way that should have been bothersome but was somehow comforting, and before long all of the shirts – eleven, apparently – were stuck through with pins and back on the rail.

“Is there anything else you would like to order, Monsieur Tracy?” the woman asked once Scott was once again dressed in Other-Scott’s borrowed clothes. She was clearly addressing him, but her eyes were on Other-Gordon, much to Scott’s relief.  While he knew what he wanted, he didn’t know where he could get them.  For that, he was reliant on the other man.

“Not today,” Other-Gordon answered.  “When will they be ready to collect?”

“For you, we will have them done by Tuesday,” she replied.  Scott realised he had no idea what the day was.

“Perfect,” Other-Gordon grinned, before fishing out a card from his pocket and handing it to her.  She beamed and scurried off, presumably to take the payment.

Scott had absolutely no idea how much that had just come to.

Whatever the damage was, Other-Gordon seemed entirely fine with it, keeping his grin on his face as she returned with the card and a paper receipt, so Scott assumed it was within expectations.

Other-Gordon and Madeleine finalised arrangements for the shirts to be collected on Tuesday, leaving Scott with the sinking feeling he’d likely be stuck borrowing Other-Scott’s clothes for however many days away that was, before bidding farewell.  Following suit, Scott offered his own nod of thanks and farewell before finding himself being subtly guided back out of the shop and towards the car by the ginger.

Chapter 9>>>

[mattkenzie]

So this year I was listening to some music the other day (I bought some CDs as I like to have something that I can physically hold) so I’m usually the guy who listens to rock and metal... But recently I’ve been listening to something that I don’t usually listen to “Dun dun DUN!” Musicals! So anyway I was listening to Say My Name (from Beetlejuice) on YouTube it does seem different from the old musical I disliked as a kid.

So anyway I was exposed to a musical Be More Chill (Two Rivers Theatre) and I loved how the music is so lively and upbeat. I enjoyed the humour (it’s pretty much my cup of Mountain Dew) but sadly due to this stupid law about distributing goods which contains a high amount of caffeine from the States we have to have our own “watered down” version of Mountain Dew without that crazy yellow colour and citrusy flavour that packs a punch (like explosive, but not sharp like 7up)... But I can make a mean UK variant of a “Mountain Dew Code Red” clone!). “Yes Squip... you love Lemon 🍋 but you hate Cherry 🍒”

My Fan Theory: So I thought I’d go straight to the plot point and talk about the plot device, the Super Quantum Unit Intel Prossessor (a.k.a S.Q.U.I.P) and why they originated from Japan. So I was watching this video from Gaijin Goomba a long time ago where he talked about his life living in Japanese society and since living there for a long time (as an english teacher). Gaijin Goomba was talking about this video MeMeMe (I won’t show as it’s NSFW) which has hit him home really hard with depression, so there were times he hid himself from his room where he is surrounded by his Manga and Anime. Now this is condition that is quite common in Japanese culture and the person who choose to live in recluse shutting themselves off from the world to become modern day hermits, known as a ‘Hikikomori’.

A Hikikomori is a person who shut themselves away from society by secluding themselves in their room and living off their parents and confine themselves to their rooms ignoring the world passing by them (this is considered shameful in Japanese society and the parents would keep their hikiomori son/daughter a secret from their friends, family and co-workers), so the hikikomori is surrounded by their love of video games, manga, anime, figurines, hentai... etc, all because that in their country Japan is a hyper competitive society. I know that in western society, we tend to joke about “the 40-something year olds who lives with their mother.”

Jeremy: You look like Keanu Reeves!

Sqiup: That is my default setting, I can be who you want to be, Jeremy. I can also be Sean Connery, Jack Nickleson or even a sexy anime female... tee hee hee.

Notice that the Squip quoted an ‘sexy anime female’ as one of it’s interface options so in my theory, I believe that Squips are pretty much aimed towards those who have high anxiety issues, little to no ambition or direction in their lives... Squips are aimed towards the hikikomori, so the Squip’s primary objective is to give the recluse subject an ‘incentive’ to leave their parents house or apartment by first becoming what they love the most... to become the subjects favourite fictional characters in a video game, tv show, cartoon or their favourite actors by becoming buddy-buddy with their subject by helping the hikikomori by not making the subject ‘cool’ but instead ‘independent’ by giving them basic life skills like cooking and go shopping. (Because in reality, their is a brother/sister program is the cheap and humane approach to get the hikikomori to come out of their rooms, get out of the house, get a stable job and become a reforming member of society.)

Starting with Be More Chill (Part 1) and pay attention to the lyrics.

Squip: (Song: Be More Chill, Verse 1) All your nerdiness is ugly.

Squip: (Part 1: Chorus) Oh everything about you is so terrible, whoa, everything about you makes me want to die.

We see that the Squip addressed Jeremy’s posture which is a start because posture is everything, next the Squip made an observation that Jeremy’s ‘nerdiness is ugly’ (like any typical Dad telling you stop being a kid, grow up, be an adult.) But put it in the perspective of a hikimomori, if the Squip did not once talked about the dangers of consumerism (though he should have) it wanted us to figure that one out on our own (as humans, we don’t) until later in the song in the second chorus and part 2.

In the first chorus the Squip is pleading to Jeremy that he needs ‘to live’ as a person (still no context) because the Squip wanted to say “I want to be your personal assistant, If you don’t live, I’ll have no purpose and I am giving you purpose in life, please don’t go down this path you’ll be no better than a hikikomori and I can’t live without you... I’m begging you!”

The second verse The Squip would request the subject to simply get a job (without using the words get a job) so it subtly told Jeremy to ‘buy a shirt’ because beyond school and college ‘the real world’ is competitive even in the Squip’s place of origin, Japan.

So in another chorus the Squip made a rebuttal that if Jeremy kept on living like a ‘nerd’ and a ‘slob’ the worst case scenario is that the childish things like anime and manga will become something more drastic... having hentai and porno magazines so the general public’s perception of you would be shameful and label you as a disgusting pervert ‘Everything about you [your lifestyle] sucks, you are such a slob’ (Yep, like the same traits Hikikomori that you didn’t gave us the heads up about the dangers of consumerism, Squip!) The Squip would go as far as literally going to the extremes of using ‘shock tactics’ to scare their hikikomori into looking at their lifestyle choices.

Now pay attention to the opening to Be More Chill (Part 2)

Squip: Now Repeat after me, oh everything about me is so terrible.

Jeremy: Everything about me is so terrible.

Squip: Good, Whoa, everything about you make me makes me want to die.

Jeremy: Everything about me makes me want to die.

Although the Squip didn’t mention (in detail) about the hikikomori lifestle, it went with the direct approach. “If you continue to like the life as a hikikomori, YOU WILL DIE ALONE because you are not living!”

But what happens if the subject chooses not comply with the Squip and rebel? Well the answer is simple, shocking the subject and gradually optic cloaking their parents to make the hikikomori think that their parents couldn’t put up with their anti-social behaviour anymore so the subject would believe that their folks gave up, packed up and moved. (Yep, the hikikomori could have the tendency to become violent so the Squip is protecting the subject’s parents so they won’t get hurt) and if the Squip fails to protect the subject’s parents, it would call the police.

My third case is controversial use for Squips and that is used on teenagers who have a cognitive behavioural disorder known as Chunnibyou this is known as Eigth-Grader Syndrome who consider themselves to be special (the chosen one, a hero, wizard, demon lord, angel, alien or a beast-kin) like symptoms and want these teenagers who refuse to let go of childish fantasies so the Squip tells the chouniibyou to grow up, stop believing that you are some sort of anomaly, you aren’t going to save or destroy the world because you know that deep down you are merely a human, you are a teenager who is slowly becoming an adult so act like one become members of society.

Final Synopsis:

It’s kind of a shame that a Squip doesn’t understand the concept of having a hobby but when you are an adult, society dictates that you have to let go of childish things because if you guys/gals and non-binary pals ever played Super Smash Bros. Brawl where you face Taboo in Subspace Emissary. You see, taboo is the final boss and in the dictionary it’s means:-

A social or religious custom that is prohibiting or restraining a particular practice or forbidding association with a particular person, place or thing.

Because society tells us that “as adults we are too old to be watching cartoons, play with dolls/action figures... etc” so because the Squip originated from Japan maybe it’s mentality is similar to having a work/business ethnic. (They have a different language when at work so if you are not speaking “business formally” you could get fired!)

To me I am an adult and their is a fine line between responsibility and freedom because there are times where responsibility demands sacrifice (I am a former Magic The Gathering player, yes, I may suck at the game but I love the art) but Magic The Gathering cards aren’t going to put bread on the table, my graphic novels aren’t going to heat up my house and I also need electricity to play my video games. There are times when a brand NEW book will arrives in a month but deep down I can’t afford so I have to put a few books back on it’s shelf and buy them next time.

If a Squip was in the US (or in my case the UK) mental health is important so I would feel sorry for the Squip to not understand how great it is to have things to be passionate about. Yes, being organised is one thing I know I have bills to pay, clothing on my back and food in the fridge but it’s OK to let my hair down and let off some steam once in a while and be spontaneous have some fun.

[pixelgrotto]

Ladies and lords of Waterdeep

From April of 2019 to June of 2020, I ran Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, a Dungeons & Dragons campaign for levels 1-5, for two groups - a party of three gals and a party of six guys. This was a tricky undertaking - mostly because as written, Dragon Heist is kind of a mess (more on that in a sec) - but also because I had to balance an adventure for two very different audiences that really only shared the commonality of being filled with D&D newbies. It was a worthwhile endeavor, though, and looking back on the experience reveals some interesting food for thought on how to remix an adventure, as well as how some ladies and gents experience roleplaying games differently. 

First, let me briefly discuss the adventure itself. Dragon Heist is meant to be an urban outing set in the Forgotten Realms metropolis of Waterdeep, which I described to my New York-dwelling players as “pretty much a fantasy version of NYC.” Over the course of five levels, players inherit and possibly renovate an old tavern, catch wind of an ancient heap of gold beneath the city and run into a bunch of important figures from Forgotten Realms history, ranging from Laeral Silverhand to Volothamp Geddarm. All of that’s epic, and the only issue is that the adventure’s laid out in a pretty shoddy way. 

There are four chapters in Dragon Heist, and the first is the only one that can be run with a minimum of hacking on the part of the Dungeon Master. The other three present a so-called “toolbox” of vague ideas for missions with Waterdeep’s various adventuring factions, as well as middling advice for scenes like a rooftop chase and a battle with a chain devil in a crypt, but it’s all highly disorganized with a minimum of connective tissue, requiring heavy lifting on the DM’s part to stitch together. The book is also rife with excessive red herrings for players to stumble upon as they search for the treasure trove, way too many characters with overly long names, and last but not least, there’s a lack of an actual “heist” in the grand finale, which is more scavenger hunt than Ocean’s Eleven. 

With all these criticisms, why did I choose to run this book for not one, but two different groups at the same time? It was largely because I’d just finished playing through Dragon Heist with my own character - a mask-wearing teenage street urchin who fancied herself a swashbuckler. I’d had a more-enjoyable-than-not time with the folks I played with, but the guy who DMed had a habit of sending us on the aforementioned red herrings for multiple sessions at a time, with nary an interesting combat encounter or social challenge in sight. I don’t really blame him for this - especially seeing at how poorly the book was laid out afterwards - but immediately after finishing, I was approached by two friend groups who wanted to try their hand at D&D, and this gave me the excuse to see if I could do a better job. 

Since I already had a clear example of which pitfalls to avoid, the version of Dragon Heist that I ran heavily remixed all of the elements in the book, with an emphasis on streamlining whenever possible and always making it feel like my players were accomplishing something. This is usually my underlying philosophy whenever I run a game, but it’s an essential strategy for newbies who might be driven off of roleplaying games altogether by bad pacing. For instance, as written, there’s an annoying series of fetch quests near the end of the story where players have to find a number of keys in order to open the hidden treasure vault. These keys are random as heck, ranging from semi-sensible McGuffins like a bronze dragon scale to bonkers junk like a ballad played by two dwarven bards and a friggin’ unicorn. This whole exercise in randomness reminded me of the worst of video game filler, and I cut it out entirely by having the son of the man who hid the treasure accompany the characters, with a drop of his blood activating the magic needed to open the vault’s doors. (This also led to an amusing situation where the guys were stuck as they ruminated on how to open the vault...until the dude playing the goliath suddenly shouted, “I GRAB RENAER’S HAND, CUT IT AND SMEAR THE BLOOD ALL OVER THE DOOR!” and I was like, “Okay. It...opens!”)

Because my players were nearly all D&D virgins, I also wanted them to get their money’s worth by encountering all four of Dragon Heist’s villains - Xanathar the beholder, the devil-worshipping Cassalanter nobles, Manshoon the cloned wizard and Jarlaxle the drow rogue. As written, Dragon Heist touts itself as highly replayable, since DMs are only supposed to choose one villain for their players to go up against. The problem is that all of the bad guys are teased on the cover, and the beginning chapters dangle most of them into the narrative with the players caught in the middle. This created a lot of confusion when I was a player, as my companions and I kept hearing about Xanathar and Manshoon...only for them to suddenly disappear halfway through as Jarlaxle took center stage as the big bad. And so, in order to circumvent this confusion and make both the boys and the girls feel like they were getting a quintessential experience with a minimum of loose ends, I threw in all the baddies. (I wasn’t the only one to do this - tabletop RPG designer Justin Alexander also recommends this approach on his blog The Alexandrian, where he offers an impressive revision of Dragon Heist that I probably would’ve used if I hadn’t discovered it too late.) 

So, when it came down to actually rolling dice, how’d my two groups interact with the material? I think it’s safe to say that both the girls and the boys hit the same major story beats and had a grand time doing so, but the nuances of their experiences were fascinatingly different. The girls, for instance, dove into the art of roleplaying and devising histories for their characters, and one of them decided to play as an elf from a seafaring clan and gave me a whole backstory involving the ocean that inspired my “final boss” for Dragon Heist, an evil, decaying dragon from the Elemental Plane of Water that isn’t in the book. (Hey, it’s called Dungeons & Dragons, the story’s named Dragon Heist, and since I wasn’t sure if all of my players would stick around for future campaigns, I figured I’d better stick a notable battle with a big scaly lizard in there somewhere.) 

The girls also got way more into some of the social justice subplots that permeated my version of Dragon Heist, pushing hard for Waterdeep to remove the anti-dragon magic bubble that surrounded the city and excluded an entire species from its borders. Their interactions with non-player characters - often progressing along the lines of “well, if you feel like you want us to do this quest for you, then we certainly can” - reflected this sort of empathy, and even though this sounds incredibly stereotypical, by the time the final session wrapped up, all three of the gals had either shipped or flirted with NPCs that they’d encountered during their journey. One of ‘em even ended up hitched with a baby!

The boys, by contrast, were much less likely to devise in-depth character histories beyond “I’M IN THIS CITY TO GET MY MONEY,” and their NPC conversations also frequently waded into “GIMME MY GOLD” territory. I don’t want to make it sound like their characters were just two dimensional mercenaries, though, because definite, organic progression occurred over the course of the campaign - the goliath who couldn’t read gradually worked his way through Volo’s Guide to Monsters and became fluent in Celestial after joining the Order of the Gauntlet, for instance.

Where the boys clearly felt more at home than the girls was in combat, probably because 1) there were six of them as opposed to the three ladies, and 2) they collectively had lots of video game knowledge, and D&D’s influence has kinda trickled down to every video game ever made. It didn’t take long for some of the dudes to begin subconsciously min/maxing their characters, and while there were two major deaths in unpredictable boss fights, the boys did go through a long period where they were just steamrolling everything to come their way and yelling, “LET’S FUCKIN’ GOOOO” as they did so. In contrast, DMing for the girls during combat sequences was occasionally a nail-biting experience where I didn’t know who was going to survive, and since some of this was due to my own slapdash encounter design where I underestimated the abilities of the monsters they were up against, I made sure to give them lots of friendly NPCs who could potentially offer a helping hand, or even resurrection spells if needed. 

Both groups were aware of the other’s existence, and I’d sometimes playfully pit them against one another. (Example: The guys often forgot who was who, and one time one of ‘em looked down at his character sheet and was like, “MY NOTES ARE SUCH SHIT” which made me respond, “Well, y’know the girls take really good notes...”) But at the end of the campaign, when my players asked me which party was more fun to DM for, my answer was that both groups were great. The girls were bursting with imaginative roleplay, and they gave me real moments of glee as they responded to story twists with the legitimate surprise and wonder that comes from people who aren’t already overexposed to fantasy tropes and gaming culture. The boys gave me that feeling of what some fans affectionately call “beer & pretzels D&D,” where you’re shooting the breeze with your buddies, playfully teasing each other and going for broke in combat encounters. 

I want to stress that the ladies I DMed for were absolutely not representative of how all women might approach D&D, and the exact same thing must be said for the fellas. This was no planned sociology or gender studies experiment that I conducted, in other words - it was merely a thing that I did with two friend groups, and the resulting experiences were two opposite yet totally valid sides of the same RPG coin. And while I doubt that I’ll run the same campaign in the future for two different groups at once (let alone a campaign as wonky as Dragon Heist), I like to think that as someone who tries to advocate for how roleplaying games can be fun, welcoming experiences for all, I played a small role (hah) in bringing swords, sorcery and storytelling to the lives of people who might not have experienced such imaginative forays otherwise. 

Already, both the gals and the guys are whipping up ideas for future characters and checking out stuff like Critical Role...which means that my work here, at least for the moment, is done. 

[ciathyzareposts]

Game 317: Sorcerer’s Bane (1992)

Unfortunately, the game has no title screen. This is as close as we get.

            Sorcerer’s Bane

United States

Wood Software Development (developer and publisher)

Released in 1992 for DOS

Date Started: 27 January 2019

One of the things for which I am most grateful about this blog is that it introduced me to the roguelike sub-genre. The introduction was quite quick, as Rogue was the second game that I played. I had never encountered anything like it–had never encountered permadeath at all, really. The idea that you could invest dozens of hours into a character, and then he could be gone, just like that, with one wrong roll of the dice, is a hard concept to grasp when you’ve grown up playing RPGs that allow liberal saving and reloading. Even recently, when I was playing The Game of Dungeons, I had moments where my mind refused to believe that a character in which I’d heavily invested–hale and powerful only moments ago–was somehow suddenly irretrievable.

Because Rogue itself, with its permadeath and dungeon randomization, is so inherently replayable, games in the sub-genre really have to distinguish themselves with new content to be memorable. Otherwise, all you’ve made is a clone of Rogue. Thus, we find a lot more variance in roguelikes–more than I thought was possible before I experienced them–than we do in many other sub-genres. NetHack, UnReal World, Moria, and Wizard’s Lair I may look somewhat the same, but they took vastly different approaches in mechanics and content, making them all fun to play in their own way.

Along those lines, Sorcerer’s Bane is an admirable effort from Indianapolis-based developer Chuck Wood. (Wow, is that a difficult name to Google. I’m sure there’s at least one “Peter Piper” out there with the same problem.) If I’ve found the right man, he would have been 18 when the game was released as shareware. (He asked $19.95 for it, or $99.95 for a version with the source code.) While it has a youth’s sense of humor in some of the text, the game is competently-programmed and highly-original. Wood clearly played Rogue (and perhaps NetHack) and was familiar with Dungeons and Dragons conventions, but he wasn’t overly restricted by them.              

Until you register, you have to see this message every time you quit. I’d happily pay the shareware fee, but I can’t track Chuck down.

          The backstory concerns two sorcerers named Lodi and Sabee who together founded a magicians’ academy called Mogadore. Each of the wizards wielded a Staff of Power. For some reason, Lodi turned evil and killed Sabee, hoping to use his Staff of Power in conjunction with his own to achieve near-omnipotence. For some reason, Lodi was unable to use the staff, so he broke it into four pieces and hid them in various parts of Mogadore, guarded by four dragons. Lodi them sequestered himself in the lowest levels of the (now-) dungeon to plot further mischief. The player’s mission is to reunite the four pieces of the staff, figure out how it works, and destroy Lodi.

Character creation has the player roll for strength, intelligence, constitution, dexterity, charisma, and luck on an 8-18 scale. He then chooses from human, elf, troll, dwarf, and gnome races, which further modify the attributes. Classes are fighter, magic user, and bard, and each has unique talents that (unlike the typical roguelike) can’t be acquired by the other classes. In other words, no one but a magic user will ever cast spells, and no one but a bard will ever sing bard songs. I went with a gnome bard which is a little unusual for me.             

Creating a character.

          The game begins in a menu town with a single shop and a cleric. You don’t have much gold to start, but you can return to the menu level whenever you want. The shop buys and sells weapons and armor, identifies equipment, and recharges wands. The cleric heals, cures sickness, and removes cursed items.           

The store has the standard selection of equipment.

         Below the menu town, each dungeon level is 12 x 76 squares, with features randomly generated. The levels don’t have twisting corridors of most roguelikes. Instead, most of the space is open, but with occasional buildings or “rooms.” The character is represented by a yen symbol (¥). As you move, you reveal the squares around you, which might contain traps, treasure, or special encounters. Combats appear randomly as you walk, in a separate interface, and monsters are not seen in the environment.          

Exploring one of the dungeon levels, I have a special encounter with a throne.

              My initial reactions to the game were negative, primarily because it has far fewer options than most roguelikes and thus seemed “dumbed down.” In the exploration window, there are no regular commands beyond movement and inventory. There’s no food system and no complex interaction between items, and no object permanence–when you drop things, they disappear entirely.             

A fairly small set of commands for a roguelike.

          Soon, however, the game’s strengths and innovations started to come through. Among them:

           It has an excellent interface–one of the best I’ve ever seen in any game. It supports both the mouse and keyboard, and also multiple ways to use the keyboard. For instance, you can arrow among the commands and hit ENTER or type the letter of the command. It anticipates multiple ways that different users might want to accomplish things. For instance, in the inventory screen, you can choose to (W)ield, (D)rop, or (I)dentify items (among other commands), or you can select the item first and then see a sub-menu of the different things you can do with it. It offers a few shortcuts; in combat, (K)ill causes the entire combat to play out as if you hit (F)ight every round.

            I could have done all these things from the previous inventory screen, or here in a way that’s specific to the elven cloak. And I can either press the appropriate key, arrow to my selection and hit ENTER, or use the mouse.

        The “help” system is also excellent. Almost every screen has a (H)elp command that provides contextual assistance with your current situation. 

             Hitting “Help” on the class selection screen brings up a description of each class.

          You get experience just for walking. Every step grants you one point. This makes it possible to play a “stealth” version of the game, at least at low levels.

In combat, you can attempt to avoid battle by simply talking to the enemy. Results depend on charisma, but it works a lot of the time with animals and neutral creatures. There are even “good” creatures like dryads who have additional encounter options if you talk with them. 

              What kind of monster wants to kill a dog?

          After you’ve faced an enemy a few times, you can bring up a “Monster Info” screen the next time you encounter him. It tells you the monster’s statistics (with your own in comparison) and gives you a brief description.

                The game shows what I know about hobgoblins.

         I like the identification system. Items can be cursed or enchanted, and if you want to take a chance, wielding or wearing the item immediately tells you everything about it. You can pay to identify items in the shop, and you can find Rings of Identify that (usually) identify things automatically. 

          Yo, dawg . . .

          Items have fun effects (both advantageous and disadvantageous) that I’ve not seen in many other games. A “Book of Intense Wealth” gives you thousands of experience points or gold pieces. The cursed “Forward-Only Motion Boots” don’t let you use any up ladders. I’m not exactly sure what the “Attacking Floating Sword” does, but it’s apparently a good thing. Items otherwise offer the types of resistances and advantages that you’re used to in roguelikes, and of course you can keep multiple items to swap in and out of active inventory as the situation demands (e.g., putting on Ring of Disease Resistance when you meet a zombie).

There are interesting special encounters. Dryads give you hints. Gamblers offer you a chance to wager on a card game (and some of them carry Decks of Many Things). Thrones can convey a variety of benefits or demerits. Fountains usually heal (fully) but sometimes improve or reduce attributes instead. (Fountains and thrones, of course, are staples from earlier roguelikes.)

            A dryad offers some equipment advice.

        There’s a complex “wish” system. Various items and creatures can grant you wishes, which accumulate in an associated statistic. When you want to use a wish, you just hit “W” and a menu comes up offering various options, including raising an attribute, gaining a magic item, healing, extra experience, gold, and “a pet grizzly bear and a dreamwolf to fight with.” I haven’t tried that last option yet.

           Some of the wish options. I only have one, so I guess I’d better save it.

         Monsters include the standard set of roguelike/fantasy creatures. On the first few levels, you might run into jackals, goblins, kobolds, hobgoblins, floating eyes, skeletons, and giant rats. Later, you get more advanced creatures with special attacks and defenses. Were-creatures can only be hit by magic weapons and can cause lycanthropy, for instance. Amorphous acids can corrode items. Mad dogs and zombies can cause disease. Thieves can steal your money pouch and disappear. After Level 10, there are spellcasting enemies like satyrs, gorgons, and wizards. I’ve found it best to run away from a lot of these creature types, especially the animal ones that never offer any gold or items after you kill them.           

Fighting a mad dog is a bad idea. They can disease you and offer nothing once you kill them.

         In combat, you have options to attack, talk, run, cast a spell (for magic-users), sing a song (for bards), make a wish, and use an inventory item. A lack of missile weapons and a low variety of items makes combat a bit less tactical than some roguelikes, but it’s not bad and at least it’s over fast.

Health does not regenerate on its own, but in consideration for that, and for permadeath, combat is relatively easy, at least for the first 8 levels or so. A lot of battles end with no hit point loss for the character at all. Running away works most of the time. Every few levels, you find a fountain that usually heals you, and both magic users and clerics have magical healing options. You also occasionally run into wandering clerics. And if you die, the game runs through a humorous scene in which the gods might resurrect you, but at a cost of all your gold (if you don’t have much, your chances of resurrection seem to be lower) or some inventory items.

             A silly scene that accompanies death.

           I have no idea how many levels the game offers, but I played this first session to dungeon Level 10. My character rose to Level 6 during the process, which each level increasing maximum hit points and improving a few behind-the-scenes statistics (which you can call up) like “magic resistance,” “to hit,” and “alertness.” Many of my attributes improved from potions, books, and fountains. On Levels 9 and 10, the game started to get a bit harder, with tougher enemies like gorgons and wizards, and matters weren’t helped by the fact that an unlucky use of the gambler’s Deck of Many Things caused me to lose my entire inventory.            

He did warn me.

            I’ve gained two bard songs during the course of the game. “Hypocrita” is a healing song and “Bazerker” is a combat song. Neither seemed to have any effect when I had a regular flute, but once i found a magic “Flying Flute,” they both started paying off. In particular, “Hypocrita” heals 6 hit points per move, which means that combats have become about individual difficulty rather than collective difficulty.           

My inventory before the unfortunate event above.

        I expected to find shortcuts to the surface the farther down I explored, but it hasn’t happened yet. That means if I want to go back to the shop, I have to climb up 10 dungeon levels. I guess after a certain point, you have to rely on your own resources for item identification and wandering clerics for healing that you can’t accomplish yourself. Since I lost all my stuff, though, I guess I’m going to try to make it back to the surface to buy a new set of equipment, then perhaps grind a bit on lower levels until I find a few magic items again (magic items are most common in treasure chests, but monsters occasionally drop them). If I lose this character entirely, I’ll probably restart as a magic-user so I can experience that side of the game, but I’ll likely backup my character every couple of levels.

Sorcerer’s Bane will end on a high note if it doesn’t last much more than another four or five hours. Character development caps at Level 15, which suggests I’m about 40% of the way through, although it concerns me that I haven’t found any of the dragons yet. Maybe they’re all grouped together on one lower level. For now, the game hasn’t made any major mistakes, and I’m impressed that the young developer showed so much innovation and sense of balance.

Time so far: 4 hours

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/game-317-sorcerers-bane-1992/

[kjs-s]

Title:  The brave boy

Another fairy tale for @seekret-fanfic and her son based on his great youtube video. 

SUMMARY A little nervous boy is the only hope of his cursed village.

Once upon a time in a small village lived a smart and creative young boy named Jonas. He was living in a beautiful home with his parents who loved him more than anything.

Jonas had many friends but sometimes he also enjoyed being alone.

One day he was playing carefree by himself on the steep hill right outside of the village. He was so invested in his game that he didn’t notice the shadowy figure approaching from the other side. He only became aware of everything that was happening when he heard a sound. It was a wizard who was laughing evilly as he was floating above the village. He was putting a curse of the citizens but Jonas couldn’t tell what exactly the curse was doing to the people. He could only clearly see the wizard leaving a dark cloud above the village and leave to go witness the chaos from afar.

Jonas then knew that he was the only one who could break the curse and save everyone. However, he was afraid that he would do something wrong and not only not rescue the people, but anger the wizard making him retaliate on them.

His lone option was to gain courage and he realized he had exactly what he needed for that. Earlier that day, his mom was experimenting with new potions, and she made one that would give anyone the chance to create clones of themselves. Jonas always wanted to help her with the potions but she never let him test them. Luckily today was the only day she actually allowed him to get a little considering he wouldn’t prank anyone and knowing that his clones would disappear after three hours.

The potion gave him the opportunity to make only two clones but they were enough. ‘’A wizard cursed everyone and we are the only ones who can do something about it. I don’t think I can do anything but I hope we can achieve something together.’’

‘’And you created us to help you, wise choice Jonas.  As you can already tell, I am the smart one of your clones. I will help you come up with a plan in order to defeat the wizard. Do you know what he wants?’’ The smart clone asked.

‘’I don’t and I must find out. But I am too scared to confront him alone.’’ Jonas confessed

‘’You won’t be alone. You have the protection mom’s potion gave us all. And I will make you a sword if you need to fight.’’ The resourceful clone spoke.

‘’You are right, would you please get to work on that sword? How are we on that plan smartie?’’Jonas felt a little more confident.

‘’I suggest we split up. I and the other clone..’’

‘’My name is Mark.’’

‘’Mine is Tom, fine so, I and Mark will go into the village to check on the people. We will also have to help a little with the recovery once you break the curse.’’

‘’And I will do that simply by talking to the wizard?’’ Jonas was still a little apprehensive about the plan.

‘’Just start by finding out what he wants and then if he wants something difficult you can always summon us to come to you. Now get the sword Mark made and go to see the wizard.’’ Tom urged him.

Jonas went to the other side of the village where the wizard was sitting observing what he had created.

‘’So I left one of the residents out of my control. It’s brave of you to come here, boy.’’ He said with a smile on his face being sure that the boy in front of him won’t be able to defeat him in combat.

‘’I came here to ask you what do you want from us. My village is small and quiet, we haven’t done anything wrong to anyone ever.’’

‘’I know that. However, I seek out villages to capture and I ask for the most valiant warrior to combat me. I was about to go and make them decide before you show up. Should I assume you will be the one to try and stop me?’’ He thought we could easily intimidate Jonas but he was wrong.

‘’Yes I will. I have my sword with me and I will stop you.’’

They fought and Jonas wounded the wizard’s hands. Noticing that they were the source of his powers he realized that wounding them wound be enough. He was absolutely right and because of the pain in his hands, the wizard couldn’t keep the curse on the people anymore.

‘’I am deciding to spare your life under two conditions. First of all, leave and never come back here. And secondly, don’t put any more curses because if you do I will find you and avenge the people you would harm.’’

The wizard agreed and left the village never to return.

Jonas went back home. His parents narrated to him all about how helpful the clones were and that they disappeared the moment the curse broke.

All the citizens were thankful to Jonas and insisted on giving him lots of gifts. But he felt that their praise was enough of a reward. The only thing he asked was his favorite food and plenty of hugs from his mom.

People who might like it @writing-journeyx  @sergeantdodds  @locke-writes @romantichen  @once-upon-an-imagine   @dresupi

[derkastellan]

Musings: Fanboys...

I hope I don’t come over as a negative nelly in general, I have to admit coming from a culture that likes to criticize. A minor sample maybe, but in the heady days Google+ (which was quite a boon for roleplayers in general) I was part of a discussion where a bunch of grumpy Germans complained that our American friends tended to hype even rather mediocre products over the moon - and would avidly defend their makers from criticism.

I even forgot the name of the product - a copy-cat imitation of the Forgotten Realms (themselves not the most original product at times) for Savage Worlds. Ah yes, Shaintar. Found it. I remember one reviewer quipping that the map only contained equidistant cities. A bit of a cardinal sin for making a varied map.

I come to this from two recent experiences - trying out Monte Cook’s Numenera and then reinstalling Torment: Tides of Numenera to play it after it sat there for two years or more, unfinished.

I like Numenera for its setting, but I think the game system is seriously overhyped among its fans. It tries to codify how the GM interacts with the story into meta-gaming with the players, and it does so poorly, and it at times tries to solve the wrong problems. Basically, “GM intrusions” are meant to make the game “more interesting” but the first thing they came up with in the original edition was to say “well, your sword breaks in the middle of combat.” And they have been struggling with finding a better way to express it since. Taking the Narrative by the Tail is another product failing to do so.

Now, over time “GM intrusions” (and now: “Player Intrusions”) have evolved by people using them. If you like the idea of giving the players a bit of a story choice the system is workable but frankly to me it just messes with the natural flow of GMing a game and pacing it well. Also, by now reddit provides many decent examples of GM intrusions and help for many other of Numenera’s issues. Of which there are plenty. The game tries to be not as crunchy (and definitely not as combat-oriented) but it only gets there halfway. It is neither a good/pure story game nor does it truly leave its d20 roots behind. It leaves many areas poorly defined - like what is an action, what is a saving throw/free roll? It’s wishy-washy language and omissions make several focus descriptors and powers in the game something the GM has to research online or figure out for themselves, when really these should have been properly game-designed given they made it into the core book of a game. (And 2nd edition, at that! Does all of this truly get play-tested?)

You wouldn’t know this from reading through the internet. Some people are over the moon about this game as if it set them free from some imaginary shackles. You would at times this is a gift from the gods to players and GMs alike. I guess if you only ever played D&D and clones before this might be true (somewhat), but there are so many other RPGs out there just as good or better. Don’t get me wrong: Numenera is a solid, enjoyable experience. But it’s also at times clunky and not exceptional as a game engine.

Its setting is exceptional , though. It sometimes relies a bit on fridge logic, but is interesting, fascinating, full of potential, and encourages many play styles from regular dungeon fantasy to horror and even to building your own settlement. The game is well-supported and there are some gems for it. (And what fridge logic you ask? You have had at least one galaxy-dominating previous culture on Earth but it just left the Numenera of these other civilizations untouched, even though it must have surpassed all these other civilizations? This does not compute... There are several of these in this game.)

And therein, I think, lies the rub. You see, when people tend to fall in love with something - the feeling of being freed from some rules-lawyering shackles maybe, or a great setting, they tend to view the whole thing through rose-tinted glasses. Even things worthy of critique.

There is another game where I experienced this, a game in comparison to which Numenera shines but has some similarities with. Shadow of the Demon Lord. It is another attempt at a lighter version of a D&D-like game that sells itself through its setting. What lured me in was them claiming they had a rich and varied set of classes customizable into 64 variations that was somehow similar to Warhammer Fantasy RPG (which I had not played at that point, but 4th edition I’ve discussed since...).

Numenera and SotDL have indeed something very much in common. They both allow you to select from a big set of character building options to build very narrowly defined, one-trick pony characters. Have a few powers from the same theme but not many, definitely too few to build a varied toolbox to solve problems with.

For Numenera I realized this when playing Torment: Tides of Numenera. You quickly realize how few powers and variations you have thereof in a computer game.Both the CRPG and the tabletop try to explain that limitation away by de-emphasizing combat, or claiming to do so. Fact is, tabletop Numenera has slews of interesting, captivating, and visually brilliantly depicted enemies that feature everywhere in the game, so combat, while not directly rewarded, is as much a feature of the game as in D&D almost. You don’t publish 350+ pages (Ninth World Bestiary 1 & 2, beautiful products!) worth of monster manual without intending the GM to use it... but as varied as these might be, your character is not. 

The one-use cyphers and artifacts then serve to give you the missing problem-solving capabilities and to vary your approach, but think about it for a moment. If the GM hands out a cypher befitting your problem, how is that different from playing a point-and-click adventure on tabletop? Figure out where and how to apply the solution. A puzzle. Often in D&D your wizard, cleric, druid, etc powers can become tools expanding the ways in which you solve things your own way. Given the limits of your class builds items become their replacement in Numenera. And frankly, I’m quite okay with that! (Though it becomes very unconvincing in the generic Cypher System spun off from Numenera and The Strange.) By which I mean, at least you have something here to build a toolbox, albeit a temporary one, from. (And after all, didn’t most of the powers a character could really rely on in old-school D&D come from their gear?)

Shadows and Demons and... oh Lord, why?

In comparison, SotDL character feel ... just limited. I quickly discovered how poorly balanced the game was when running it for a few levels with my players. When you don’t optimize the build for the fighter type, you can’t get into the heavy gear early and the rogue became, by no special virtue of the player, the main damage dealer. The wizard and cleric types had very limited spell selections, and the wizard was the better healer by virtue of being able to get into additional spell schools. The wording of many powers was confusing and I had regular rules questions for the web community without satisfying answers.

The choices you make during character evolution hem you in, forcing you to live with your limiting choices, they do not expand your character, at least it doesn’t feel this way. There may be 64 variations, but they are all very limited in scope, making characters of very limited capability. The poor balancing between basic classes and the unsatisfying rules made me switch the group to 5th edition D&D, and we never regretted that in comparison. 

But again other people reacted in general very differently to the game, and maybe that was due to liking the setting. You see, I didn’t like the setting and did have a very different game in mind. (And now they are releasing a version basically doing the same. A bit late for me, but maybe they want to expand away from their original buyer base.) 

But people may have very well liked the dark fantasy, horror, grim vibe. And if you’re into that, maybe it delivers for you. I can’t tell. I honestly can’t. I do know however that the game was well-supported with a slew of expansion books and adventures, giving people plenty to chew on. And I think that combination of setting and support plus some hype gave many people reason to like the game. (And it is a lighter engine, no doubt, if you prefer that kind of thing. I usually do!)

Wherein I actually try to make the original point

And that’s what I’m getting at. It’s hard to put out your own view of these games without running into people who behave like fanboys. And I am actually happy I only was disagreed with emphatically, but not in a hateful way. It just annoys me that people want to ignore a game’s failings because it also has strengths. Do a few things right enough and you will attract people who will see no wrong.

Now, Steam’s binary rating system (recommend/do not recommend) doesn’t help with videogames for example, but when seeing that Torment: Tides of Numenera has by now a “Mostly Positive” rating one has to wonder. The game is mediocre at best, really buggy, and short. But I have to admit because of its setting and aspirations of living up to a much better game, people to tend to give it a lot of credit where little is due. Admittedly my opinion, but you can find many well-reasoned, well-written scathing reviews of the game.

Yet people have by now elevated it into “Most Positive” where “Mixed Ratings” would serve it just right. Neither good nor all bad. But somehow how people would like to feel about it, or people wanting to push the genre, or people getting it for less money erased over time all the controversy of unfulfilled promises, bugs, or its other failings. (I reviewed it here if you are interested. I will say no more.)

Criticize what is improvable, love what’s great. I might even give the new SotDL spin-off a try. I am sometimes very critical of games but I always hope for a lot. And I wish these games were fixed and improved upon, not left in the state they are. I wish there would be a better edition of Dungeon Crawl Classics because the game could benefit from a coherent feel and vision, right now it’s a mess, but a lovable one. I wish there were improved versions of both the games I discussed here at length because I like well-supported games, and these issues are fixable. (And sadly, you can criticize computer games all you want, but few are fixed. I’m happy that some publishers listen and Pillars of Eternity, Divinity: Original Sin, and a few others got better sequels.)

Frankly, I might like playing Numenera with 5th edition rules better, and they offer that. While this is another hype money train everybody wants to get on, if done right, it can work. 5e is a solid, robust system, and while delivering mostly one kind of experience, it does so very well.

What I’m saying is that all games are improvable. New editions can be made, compatible even with older ones. D&D had 3rd edition superseded with 3.5 for good reasons. Numenera: Discovery balanced the basic classes better in terms of powers, it was quite apparent that they tried to avoid players making un-hittable jacks or glaives spamming the same moves all the time. Games evolve and they should. By making Numenera: Discovery pregens for a Numenera 1st edition adventure I realized how subtle the changes were and started to appreciate them.

Just dare to call a horse a horse. While I prefer peaceful fanboys over the trolling kind, there’s no reason to spare improvable games criticism. And all games are improvable!

(And to be fair, Numenera does a lot of things right. It’s mechanic to reduce a roll’s difficulty to 0 and thereby avoiding it is a very worthy addition to the role-playing catalog. It rewards skillful stacking of advantages and makes players feel they have reliable competence at their hands like no d100, d20, or 3d6 system can imitate.)

[ciathyzareposts]

Closing the Books on Crystalware

Crystalware was not the sort of company to let trademarks deter them, whether incorporating the Enterprise in their logo or marketing an unlicensed game called Imperial Walker.

            A year ago, I’d never heard of Crystalware. Then, someone rediscovered their catalogue and uploaded all of its games to MobyGames and my year became in large part about the company. But let’s face it: none of its games are really RPGs. They have some RPG “elements” in some of the inventory selections and random approach to combat, but there isn’t a single one in which the character grows intrinsically from his experiences except for The Forgotten Island (1981), and that was a basic “power” statistic whose rapid growth made the game fundamentally too easy.

        Most of Crystalware’s games instead occupy a strange subgenre that we might call “iconographic adventure.” Most adventure games are either all-text (Zork) or made up of graphically-composed scenes. Sometimes, the scenes offer a kind-of first-person perspective (Countdown, Timequest), and other times they feature the character in a kind of side-view perspective that I’ve taken to calling “studio view” (King’s Quest, Leisure Suit Larry). I’m sure there are adventure games with axonometric perspectives, although none come to mind. But something about a top-down iconographic interface screens “RPG!” even though there’s no reason adventure games couldn’t feature the same perspective. That’s really what Crystalware games are. They involve finding inventory items to solve puzzles and often escape a situation. Only a couple offer character attributes and none offer character development.

       I’ve been gamely trying them anyway, but the last few have been giving me trouble, and I’m not going to continue wasting a bunch of effort for titles that aren’t RPGs in the first place. I’m going to reject or “NP” the rest and suggest that MobyGames, which also cites character development as the primary mechanism for RPGs, remove the RPG designation although keep “RPG elements” under its gameplay elements.           

Crystalware’s catalog in late 1981.

          As we’ve seen, Crystalware was a remarkably high-quantity (if not high-quality) company for its brief 1980-1982 existence. Within those three years, they developed and published the following titles, not all of which are even on MobyGames:

            The House of Usher (1980)–also the name of the pop artist’s inevitable reality show–is a Gothic adventure based on the Poe story of the same name. I reviewed it in June 2019.

Labyrinth of the Minotaur (1980): Set on Crete. I haven’t been able to find much about the game, but it’s attested in their 1982 catalogue.

Sumer 4000 BC (1980): A text simulator in which you’re the King of Sumeria, trying to manage resources and make your empire survive another year.

Galactic Quest (1980): A space combat and trading simulator.

World War III (1980): A strategic wargame for two players, one fighting for Iran, the other Iraq.

Beneath the Pyramids (1980): An adventure game in which you explore some weird combination of the Sphinx and the Great Pyramid at Giza for an artifact. I reviewed it in June 2019.

Waterloo II (1981): A two-player wargame in the Napoleonic Era.

CompuGolf (1981): A golf simulation.

Imperial Walker (1981): An unlicensed action game in which an imperial walker commander tries to shoot down rebel craft. (I think it really says something about the company that they conceived of such a game and made the imperial the protagonist.)

Laser Wars (1981): An action game in which you defend a city from alien attackers.

The Sands of Mars (1981): An adventure game in the style of Oregon Trail, in which you assemble a crew, purchase supplies, and try to make it to Mars and back. This one was categorized as an RPG. I tried to play it but couldn’t get past a takeoff procedure that required the Apple II paddles. (Multiple sites say that AppleWin emulates paddles, but I’ll be damned if I can figure out how.) The manual doesn’t make it sound like it has RPG elements. It suggests that there are multiple phases of the game, each involving a different interface and style of gameplay.

                 As far as I can get in The Sands of Mars.

            Forgotten Island (1981): An adventure game where you escape an island. It was renamed Escape from Vulcan’s Island when re-issued by Epyx. I reviewed it in October 2019.

Oregon Trail (1981): Some version of the classic.

Quest for Power (1981): An adventure game in which you try to prove your right to inherit Camelot from King Arthur. It was re-issued by Epyx as King Arthur’s Heir. I reviewed it in March 2020.

Protector (1981): An arcade game in which you fly a ship through caverns.

Fantasyland 2041 (1981): An epic multi-disk adventure game based on Fantasy Island. I reviewed it in October 2019.

Dragon Lair (1981 or 1982): As attested in this Hardcore Gaming 101 article, perhaps the first RPG in Japanese.

The Bermuda Experience (1982): An adventure game in which you have to navigate a ship around the Atlantic Ocean in several time periods. It is also known as Bermuda Triangle.

Treasure Island (1982): An adventure game in which you explore the Caribbean for map pieces.

The Crypt (1982): An adventure in which you must survive the night in a cemetery. This was also designated an RPG by MobyGames, and I tried to play it but ran into a bug where neither you nor an enemy ever dies in combat. Instead, the game happily takes you into the negative hit points as you pound away at each other round after round. Thus, the first combat you get stuck in ends the game. It otherwise had the same characteristics as other titles that I reviewed that weren’t really RPGs. It was re-released by Epyx as Crypt of the Undead.

             Combat among crypts in The Crypt (1982).

        Zardon (1982): An action game where you fly a ship, blow up enemy ships. This one was re-released by Avalon Hill after Crystalware folded.

The Haunted Palace (1982): An adventure game with RPG elements in which you try to solve a mystery. You can choose among characters who have RPG-like attributes but they never grow. It was re-released as The Nightmare by Epyx.

Clonus (1982): An adventure game in which you navigate the future as a clone with cyborg parts. A near-immediate Clonus II seems to be a re-release of the original rather than a true sequel.

            They also released two compilations of simple games like Hangman and Tic-Tac-Toe for kids, a diet planner, a yoga instruction program, a garden simulator, and a program to help cat owners diagnose illnesses in their pets.

Almost all of the company’s games were written for the Apple II, Atari 8-bit, and TRS-80. The company principals, John and Patty Bell, contracted a team of programmers who sometimes wrote original games, sometimes spent their time porting games created by others. About half of them were created by the Bells themselves. Almost all the adventure games hinted at a deeper mystery beneath the surface of the game and offered a cash prize to whoever was the first to solve it.            

By 1981, the company was putting out a quarterly newsletter.

           With each game costing $39.95 and up, Crystalware must have been doing well even if they only sold modest amounts. But that’s nothing compared to the company’s plans. A company newsletter from late 1981 shows that future offerings would include Glamis Castle, a three-dimensional adventure game in which you could explore the famous Scottish landmark, an RPG based on Lord of the Rings called Wizard and Orcs, and an epic hub-and-module adventure called Galactic Expedition. Each module would sell for $29.95 and contain the ability to explore a different planet or moon.

     Oh, but that isn’t nearly all. The company was planning to release a series of home-schooling programs based on the “Crystal Theory of Alternative Education” (CTAE). They were working with Universal Pictures to provide realistic computer program “props” for an upcoming film called The Genius (it seems to have never been filmed, although the associated producer, David Sosna, is a real person). They were working on the first “videodisk fantasy” for the PR-7820-2 Videodisc Player from Discovision. They were starting a “lonely hearts club.”

      Best of all, Crystal Films was being born! They had a named producer, script supervisor, costume designer, and key grip on their masthead. They had three productions in the works: Haunted (a horror film), Fantasyland (based on the game), and Sarah, about the life of the eccentric Sarah Winchester, who built that sprawling monstrosity of a house in San Jose.            

Apparently, Haunted was to be filmed in an actual haunted house, not just a set that they made appear haunted. I guess that’s one way to save on special effects.

                      The newsletter, in short, feels like it was dictated by someone in the middle of a manic episode, and what happened to Crystalware next suggests that it all came crashing back to Earth. I haven’t been able to find an official, comprehensive account of the company’s last days, but we can piece it together from evidence. First, I have an anecdotal report from a reader who owned a computer store in the area at the time, saying that Crystalware’s finances were essentially a giant house of cards and someone was destined to lose. To clarify, I don’t think the Bells were deliberately scamming anyone. One programmer I spoke to, Henry Ruddle, said that the company always paid him well and on time. Another, Mike Potter, has posted online that Bell fired him when he questioned his royalties, but did pay him and also gave him back the rights to one of the games he’d developed. The issue is more that they seem to have been leveraged beyond a sustainable debt. 

           We know that in 1982, Bell sold the rights to his games to Epyx, which re-published them, often under different names, with absurdly elaborate manuals. We see the company changing addresses several times in 1982 and finally abandoning “Crystalware” altogether and publishing the last few games under the name “U.F.O. Software.” As we’ll soon see, John Bell also seems to have (at least for a time) changed his own name.          

Towards the end of its life, Crystalware briefly became U.F.O. Software.

             John Bell is an enigmatic figure (although not as enigmatic as Patty, about whom I’ve been able to find nothing). He claims to have worked for Lockheed in 1966, which is hard to reconcile with the best candidate I can find, who was born in 1948. Even that candidate has used both “A” and “F” as his middle initial. Crystalware used several addresses in Morgan Hill and San Martin (both south along the 101 from San Jose) during its existence. I think the Bells first owned a computer store, Crystal Computers, in Sunnyvale or Gilroy, before they decided to get into software development and publishing. 

        I corresponded earlier this month with Henry Ruddle, a programmer who did most of the TRS-80 adaptations of the game. I had hoped he would confirm my suspicions that Bell was something of a lunatic, but the best he would offer is that he was “charismatic, loud, and very eccentric.” 

           John was very creative and could not stop thinking . . . or talking. [He] would tell wild stories about getting high on amphetamines or cocaine and staying up for three days cleaning his bathroom with a toothbrush . . . He often talked about his wild ambitions [like] a plan to create a virtual reality booth with 360 degree views projected on the walls using “laser cameras.”

      Of Patty, Ruddle remembers that she was polite and very quiet, heavily into New Age philosophy and astrology.

           There’s a long period of silence after the collapse of the company, but in the late 1990s, Bell, now using the name “J. B. Michaels,” started promising an upcoming game called Clonus 2049 A.D. It never materialized, but you can read about it–sort-of–on the Crystalware Defense and Nanotechnology Facebook page, where an “actress from Hollywood” has recorded the incomprehensible opening text. Yes, John Bell is still using the Crystalware name. His various LinkedIn profiles give him as the CEO of Crystalware, CrystalwareVR, Crystalware Defense and Nanotechnology, or just “CDN.” The address is listed in Charleston, West Virginia. On the various pages associated with Bell and these companies, we learn that James Cameron’s The Terminator was plagiarized from the original Clonus, that Bell had a heart attack in 2018, and that he’s working on a virtual reality game called World of Twine.         I haven’t rated any of Crystalware’s games very high, and I was actively angry by the time I got to Quest for Power, but in retrospect I have to give the company credit for originality and a certain amount of sincerity. Most of Crystalware’s titles show no dependence on any previous game or series. Instead of generic high-fantasy settings, they went with unique, specific settings based on history or literature. Adding a “mystery” and cash prize to each title (even if I never really understood what they were going for) was an interesting touch, and letters to their newsletter (if authentic) suggest that they did pay. The thorough documentation that each game received, the manuals full of backstories and lore and quotes, the newsletter with so many promises, all suggest that the company was mostly unaware that it was a sausage factory. This was in the “dark age,” after all. Wizardry and Ultima were released in 1981 but hadn’t really made an impact yet. From the testimonies above, it’s easy to see John Bell as an Ed Woodish character, willing to wrap and print anything, in love with the process of creation that eclipsed his own abilities as a creator. But I suppose there are days when I’ll take that over auteurs so obsessed with quality that you end up waiting a decade between titles. Every genre needs its pulp.

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/closing-the-books-on-crystalware/

[ciathyzareposts]

The Kingdom of Syree: Acceptance

The King of Syree bestows the main quest.

            Facing an Ultima clone often sends me into a process akin to the Kübler-Ross five stages of grief. 

            Denial: “Aw, hell. Not another Ultima clone. What–it even has a (Z)tats command? No. No $&@#!* way.”

Anger: “What the hell was wrong with independent developers of the period anyway? Why did they all have to clone Ultima? Why aren’t there more Gold Box clones? Bastards!”

Bargaining: “Okay, if someone has posted a world map to a spoiler site, I’ll play the damned game. Otherwise, I’m going to find a reason to reject it.”

Depression: “Of course not. No one’s ever heard of it. Well, I guess I’ll start character creation. Oh, just a name? That’s original. Let’s enter the starting town. There’s an NPC. NAME. JOB. Good god, how many times am I going to have to do this?”

Acceptance: 

           The world of Sheol.

         Once I resolve to making maps, taking careful notes, and tracking a “to do” list, I almost always start to enjoy the game more than in its first few hours, when I’m just half-playing it and hoping for a quick win like Zerg.

So now that I’m settled into it, I can see that Syree is competently-created. It borrows heavily from Ultima, sure, but in a way that’s more clever allusion than direct adaptation. For instance, in the last entry I made fun of the fact that the game had “mantras,” but it really doesn’t. It just has one mantra, in the opening town, and it’s a solution to a different kind of puzzle than is presented in Ultima IV. Similarly, although the game has a town called Yew, a dungeon called Deceit, and a spell called SEQUITU (which it takes from Ultima III), from the other town, dungeon, and spell names, it’s clear that the author was capable of originality. He just decided to pay homage once in a while.

                Was the jester really necessary?

          The world of Sheol turns out to be 100 x 100, occupying coordinates 0-99 on both axes. It wraps. The same size is used for all the city maps, and I find it too big. I can’t possibly justify the time it would take to map each city the same way I did the outer world, and yet it’s big enough that you can overlook entire buildings as you explore. (Frequent twisty mountain passages and dark forest squares don’t help.) Plus, NPCs have a very wide wandering range in the cities, making it easy to overlook them. For a while, I pinned my hopes on the ability to cast the EIDO spell, which provides a magic map, but when I got it, it turns out it shows only a slightly larger area than the regular view window. I just had to resign myself to looping each city multiple times.

             Specifically, EIDO shows a 17 x 15 area where the regular view shows a 9 x 7 area.

           The game world (Sheol) consists of two major continents: Syree (north) and Garrett (south). Syree has six towns, a castle, and two dungeons. The towns include the starting town, Ludden, where I have a house. Barren Sheol on the east peninsula is where I spent a lot of time healing and buying food, as the dungeon I used for grinding was nearby. It’s one of the easiest towns to navigate, as it’s arranged in a simple block with four exits and services in the middle. The town of Lost is cut off from the rest of the continent by mountains. Coel is nestled in some southern mountains. It seems to consist of one huge building with a locked door, which I can’t access until I find some keys. Emara is the fourth town, and the fifth, Phanteo Eifcon, is on an island in a lake, so I’m not sure how to reach it. The two dungeons are Mysti and the Dungeon of Fire (borrowed from Ultima III).

On Garrett, we have the castle, where King Dakar and Queen Cirrey rule, the town of Yew, and two other towns called River Bend and Doe Shameh. There’s a dungeon called Deceit and another on an island. (It must be the Dungeon of Water, but I don’t know how to reach it.) The only location not on one of the two main continents is a dungeon called Kehol in an archipelago of mountains.

About half this session was spent grinding in the dungeons. The dungeon called Kehol has a particular purpose, which I’ll cover in a bit, but most of them seem to exist for just gold and experience. They’re all multi-leveled, the highest I’ve found going to Level 9. It’s probable that they all go that deep and I just didn’t find the ladders in all of them. As you descend, the monsters get harder but the chests have more treasure. More important, the dungeons are seeded with fountains. Some of them harm you, some heal you, and some do nothing. You have to find and record the positions of those that heal you, at which point you can grind nearly indefinitely on those levels.             

Opening multiple chests while I approach a fountain.

            Via grinding, I slowly assembled better equipment, culminating in a crossbow and plate armor, and then saved enough for a ship. (The game is like Ultima II in that killing enemies with cannons still rewards you with gold and experience. But it makes things fair by requiring you to shoot from an adjacent square, allowing them to attack you at the same time.) I then mapped the world and revisited or re-visited most of the locations. I was stymied in many of the cities by locked doors, and only late in this session did I finally find a guild shop, where you can buy keys, in the city of Yew.          

I blast a dragon off the map with my cannons.

          It also took me a while to figure out the magic system. I kept getting hints about spells and spell names, but I was unable to cast them because I didn’t have any magic points. It turns out that to cast spells, you have to develop a “wisdom” statistic which is set to 0 at the outset of the game. To do that, you have to descend into the dungeon called Kehol. At various level intervals, you find altars that increase your agility, stamina, and strength by 1 for every 100 gold pieces that you sacrifice.             

Approaching an altar in Kehol.

         On Level 9 of Kehol is an altar that gives you 1 point of wisdom for every 1 point of strength that you sacrifice. So you want to pay to build up your strength first, then trade it for wisdom. This involves multiple trips to other dungeons to collect money first, since Kehol has no chests of its own. Once you have wisdom, your spell points start to generate–1 for each point of wisdom. Spell costs start at 15-20 for basic offensive and healing spells and go as high as 99.         

Sacrificing strength for wisdom.

         On the main quest, one element of frustration is that NPCs are extremely obtuse in regards to the keywords they respond to. One says, “I used to forge armour.” The prompt for the next point is not FORGE or ARMOUR or even ARMOR, but rather USED. Late in the session, I discovered that if you only feed a single letter, the NPC will automatically fill in any keyword that begins with that letter and answer to it, so if you find yourself talking with a particularly taciturn NPC, you can get information out of him by just going through the alphabet.

Some of the quest lines I’m following:

Grover the Terrified was hiding in a cave in Yew. He said that he was hiding from King Dakar of Garrett and his “hallucinations.” He recommended that I find a dispel spell to reveal the king for what “it” is. This spell might be the same as ALETHEIA, which “forces a liar to tell the truth.” ALETHEIA requires “infinite” magic points, but I met a former wizard named Donnal in Lost who said that he used to have “infinite magic” and that by talking with him I acquired his power to “cast one infinite magic spell.” I don’t know if that means one spell one time or one spell as many times as I need it. In any event, casting ALETHEIA and then talking to King Dakar doesn’t seem to do anything.

          I did hear he’s HYDRA.

            At the healer in Barren Sheol, I find a king’s guard named Swiftwind who was injured trying to slay the wizard. Of the wizard, he’ll only say that he’s not where one expects him to be. But anyway, to defeat him I will need the Sword of Emara, forged by King Emara ages ago. (Emara is also the name of a city.) At the castle, King Telbor of Syree tells me that the Sword of Emara was stolen by Rancit (the evil usurper from the backstory), but King Emara might know where it is. This confused me, as King Emara is dead and buried in a sepulcher in the same castle, but another clue that “white blocks mark the tombs” inspired me to try talking to the tomb. When I did, I somehow ended up conversing with Emara, who told me to ask around the city of Coel for the saber.

          Speaking with King Telbor about the Sword of Emara. He’ll HEAL me if I ask.

          I visited Coel late in this session because it requires a key to enter the main building. Coel is hidden amidst dark mountains and forests. The people are obsessed about their own safety and beg me not to tell other people that the city exists. No one responds to SABER, EMARA, or SWORD, but there’s a wizard on an island that I don’t know how to reach.

            In keeping with their desire to remain isolated, Coel’s prices are 10 times higher than anywhere else in the kingdom. I don’t even think you can amass that much gold. I think it caps you at 9,999.

          Among the spells that people have told me about are EIDO (magic map), THERAPENO (heal), HAELAN (heal a lot), SEQUITU (escape a dungeon), THANATOS (kills an enemy), and HORATOS (see around trees–basically “lights up” dark forests). MAVETH causes “unnatural death,” but it just seems to kill me, not enemies.

            A wizard teaches me a new spell.

          My biggest obstacle at this point seems to be an inability to cross water without a boat. There’s one town, one dungeon, and at least one NPC that I can’t reach because of local water squares, so there must be some spell or device that I’ve missed that allows crossing water. I’ll have to circle the towns and try again.

Miscellaneous notes:

Ultima had a problem by which you could find artifacts by just searching at obvious places even if you hadn’t received a clue about them. Syree gets around this by making you specify what you’re searching for when you hit (S)earch.

One of the things you can search for is books. There are two libraries in the game where you find books by standing to the right of the appropriate letter. It was a book called Treowth that gave me information about the ALTHEIA spell.

           Searching for a book in the library.

       About half of the game’s files are music files. It apparently has different tunes for different situations. I can’t get any of the music to work, owing to some kind of Adlib problem. I wouldn’t play it anyway, but I at least wanted to mention it. 

Like a few of the early Ultima games, you can (T)alk to enemies as they attack. They shout insults and threats. 

Last entry, I couldn’t enter the castle because I was a peasant. The solution seems to be purchasing and wearing chain or plate armor, which marks you as wealthy, if not nobility.

Other past kings named in the sepulcher: Donovin, Sharella, Favren, and Basilikos Mnemeion. 

           I speak to a dead king among the remains of his ancestors and descendants.

        You occasionally run into enemies frozen in place in the dungeons. You miss them with every attack and they don’t attack you at all, but they will insult you if you talk to them. I’m not sure if these are bugs or if they have some other purpose.

             I’m just going to have to find a way to live with not having access to that fountain.

           One interface improvement over most Ultima clones (and Ultima itself): turns don’t automatically “pass” at regular intervals if you just stand there doing nothing. I appreciate not having to hunt for a “pause” if I want to take a break.

You cannot save in dungeons or towns, only outdoors.

If you try to cast a non-existent spell, the game wipes all your spell points. That seems a harsh punishment for a typo.

Supposedly, “taphouses are a great source of rumors,” but I’ve never gotten a bartender to respond to a single keyword. I’ll have to re-visit them all and try the “one letter” trick.

The game preached to me at one point. I don’t know if this is a reflection of the author’s beliefs or if I was supposed to get something in-game from this. I tried all the keywords from the resulting passage and got nothing.

            Why would this world even have the Christian bible?

          In the end, Syree has shaped up into a fair Ultima-like treasure hunt. I like the character development system (experience goes directly to maximum health) and the way that the altars serve as a near-endless money sink after you’ve bought the best stuff. If I can conclude it in another session, it will be a satisfying game.

Time so far: 11 hours

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/the-kingdom-of-syree-acceptance/

[ciathyzareposts]

Journey: Won! (with Summary and Rating)

The winning screen you’ve been desperately anticipating for 8 years.

            Journey

United States

Infocom (developer and publisher)

Released in 1989 for DOS, Amiga, Apple II, and Macintosh

Date Started: 20 March 2011

Date Finished: 21 May 2019

Total Hours: 23 (including 9 in 2011) Difficulty: Hard (4/5) Final Rating: (to come later) Ranking at time of posting: (to come later)               

Yeah, this one requires some explanation.            

I was sitting around the other night trying to decide what game to play with the couple hours I had available. I had made some progress with Kingdom of Syree but wasn’t loving it (it’s another Ultima clone), and I was holding out hope I could dispense with it in a single entry. The self-imposed deadline for my next entry was looming and it didn’t look like I’d be able to win that fast. At the same time, I wasn’t keen to start on a complicated game like Darklands. So I did a quick scan of all the games I’d skipped and abandoned over the years to see if I could find a quick win. House of Usher (1980) looked promising, then The Amulet (1983), but both ended up as “NP” (and on my “Missing and Mysterious” list) when I couldn’t get them to emulate.

My eyes then fell on Journey, an adventure game that I blogged about in 2011. By the time I was a few hours into it, I realized it wasn’t even really an RPG (and MobyGames has since removed that designation). But I’d numbered and rated it anyway, so its loss was counting against my statistics. I began to wonder what the problem was. How hard is it to win a freaking adventure game? Why would I have abandoned it? Was I too proud to get a hint? How long could it possibly take to turn this loss around? That last question was particularly important because, as often happens, at this point I had spent longer trying to find a “quick win” than it would have taken me to just play a regular game.

           Infocom called this a “role-play chronicle.” What does that even mean?

            I read my first and second entries from 2011 and began to remember the title, as well as the core problem: you have to reach the endgame with a sufficient number of reagents still in your possession, or you can’t cast the final spells necessary to win. Since there are a fixed number of reagents to find during the game and plenty of opportunities to use them, you can put yourself in a “walking dead” situation as early as the first 5 minutes and not know until you reach the end, two or three hours later. I was apparently so disgusted with that prospect that I refused to re-start and took the loss. I was more willing to do that in 2011 than I am now.

So I restarted Journey with a willingness to play it through a couple of times if necessary, and it wasn’t long before my “quick win” had taken over not just my few allotted hours but rather the entire afternoon, evening, and night until about 03:00. During this time, I restarted not once or twice but about 30 times, filled pages with notes about cause and effect, broke down and consulted two walkthroughs and still couldn’t win because the walkthroughs were wrong, and finally–14 hours after I started–ended up with the set of actions necessary to get a party from the beginning to the end. And make no mistake–there really is only one.

            In case you forgot, Journey is the game that canonically establishes that orcs and grues are the same thing.

           By the end, I had a much clearer picture of the game than I did in 2011, and I reached an obvious conclusion that I’m surprised I missed back then: this is the worst adventure game ever made.            

Journey hides this fact with nice graphics and typical Infocom-quality prose, but the game’s approach is all wrong–fundamentally an insult to anyone who cut his teeth on both text adventures like Zork and graphical adventures like King’s Quest. Every option it suggests is a complete sham, every hint of an RPG influence a complete farce. And its story isn’t even that original–so much is lifted from Tolkien that he ought to have a co-author credit.

            I feel like I’ve seen this somewhere before . . .

          Journey (whose subtitle of The Quest Begins exists only on the box, not the game screens) tells the story of a ragtag band of village peasants who set off on a quest to determine why their crops have failed and their water has gone foul. A better-equipped, better-qualified band, led by the village blacksmith, Garlimon, left the same village the previous year and was never heard from again. This new effort is headed by the village carpenter, Bergon, and includes a wizard named Praxix, a physician named Esher, and a young apprentice food merchant named Tag. The game is mostly told from Tag’s perspective, and the game lets you rename him in its one nod to RPG-like “character creation.”

             The party later finds Garlimon insane and living as a hermit.

              The title differs from previous Infocom outings in that you do not type any of the commands. Instead, you select them with the arrow keys from an interface that distinguishes between high-level party commands (most of which move you to a new place or situation) and micro-level individual commands, aspected to the skills and abilities of each character. Thus, the party leader, Bergon, can almost always “Ask for Advice.” Praxix has a perpetual “Cast” option, and Tag has most of the inventory options. I find the interface inoffensive, but not as revolutionary as the developers were clearly intending.

             Some of the options in dealing with a party of orcs.

          The party’s initial quest is simply to find their way to a powerful wizard named Astrix who lives on Sunrise Mountain. Once they arrive, Astrix explains that the land is being threatened by the return of the Dread Lord, and he gives the party a quest to find seven magical stones. They must first find four (Nymph, Wizard, Dwarf, and Elf), which will lead them two others, which will lead to the final one, called the Anvil. Astrix believes that the stones are the key to defeating the Dread Lord. In their quest to find them, the party has to negotiate with dwarves, befriend elves, defeat bands of orcs, and explore ancient tombs. In these adventures, they make use of the special skills of several NPCs that swap in and out of the party.

              Astrix gives the party its final quest.

           If they recover the first six stones, Astrix tells them to seek the Anvil on the Misty Isle. The party must travel to the port city of Zan, dodge agents of the Dread Lord, and convince a captain to take them to the Misty Isle. Praxix has to cast some spells to help the ship navigate. Eventually, the ship crashes on the island and the Dread Lord attacks. Praxix is knocked unconscious, and Tag must figure out how to mix the right reagents to call a lightning bolt and smite the Dread Lord.

              Tag saves the party in the final combat.

          Just about every episode has some Tolkien source, though mercifully not in the same order as The Hobbit or Lord of the Rings. There’s a dwarven mine that recalls Moria and an escape that not only feels but also looks like the bridge at Khazad-dûm. Another moment recalls the discovery of Balin’s tomb. A ranger named Minar joins the party early on in an Aragornesque episode. There are echoes of Gandalf in Astrix and of Bilbo in the initially-hapless but ultimately-competent Tag. There’s an episode that mirrors the Fellowship hiding from evil crows, and a tense episode in a tavern at the end that recalls the hobbits in the inn at Bree (the solution even involves turning one of them invisible). There’s a Tom Bombadil-like figure named Umber whose nature remains a mystery until the end. The Dread Lord is, of course, an exact analogue of Sauron, and the stones are the game’s equivalent of rings.

              Crebain from Dunland!

Tag, just like Frodo, freaks out when he sees some suspicious characters in the Prancing Pony. If they stay at the inn tonight, the party will be killed.

            The whole thing is reasonably well-written and would make a serviceable young adult novel, but as a game, it’s nothing but endless frustration. Here is a small list of its sins:

1. It is completely linear. The one saving grace of difficult adventure games is that they are rarely linear. Usually, you can move back and forth between locations and solve puzzles in a variety of orders, taking the time to figure out what must be done in each place. Journey subverts this tradition entirely. You have to choose the right options the first time you arrive in a new location or you cannot return. For instance, there’s one castle where you have the option to go to a left room or a right room. If you go to the right room, you see a chest full of jewels. If you’re not exactly sure what to do there and leave the room, you can never enter it again. This happens repeatedly throughout the game.          

The second screen invites you to enter a tavern or “Proceed” down the street. In any other adventure game you’ve ever played, if you proceed down the street, you can later turn around and go back to the tavern. Not here. Hit “Proceed,” and you’re out of town and on your way. It’s pretty easy to hit some of these options accidentally, by the way; one too many ENTERs while scrolling through text will accidentally activate the default option on the next screen. An “undo” option could have helped a lot.

2. A “Back” option doesn’t really take you “back.” Most screens have a “back” option, and sometimes this returns you to a previous screen so you can choose a different direction. But much of the time, it serves as simply another way to go, usually one-way.

          A simple choice to go left or right has enormous consequences for the rest of the game.

       3. You’re almost always walking dead. As I previously mentioned, if you don’t reach the end of the game with the right number of spell reagents, you can’t win. It is very easy to miss some of the reagents that you might otherwise pick up along the way, and also very easy to accidentally burn too many reagents casting spells. One of the options that burns too many reagents, by the way, is asking the wizard to “Tell the Legends” of magic. Usually, the “Tell Legends” option produces some useful lore about the game world, but if you ask him about magic, he does a little magic demonstration as part of his tale, which wastes necessary reagents.            

The reagents are the most egregious example, but there are plenty of others. Fail to purchase a map early in the game–a map that the shopkeeper himself encourages you not to purchase–and you can’t find your way to Astrix. Fail to ask a dwarf companion about some elf legends at the right time, and you don’t have the right words to speak to an elf woman and thus miss your chance to get the Elf Stone. Fail to do a number of things just right in an early encounter with a nymph and you miss the Nymph Stone. Fail to accept a suspicious character into the party early in the game, and you miss later encounters because you don’t have his scouting skill.

          The shopkeeper tells you that a required inventory item won’t help you.

           Not only does the game give you no warning when something like this happens, but lots of other things happen that seem like they might be mistakes. In particular, party members disappear, get lost, get wounded, and even die on occasion, and you feel like you need to reload–only to discover, 20 turns later, that you can find or heal them in a different location.          

4. Some of the walking dead criteria make no sense. Except in a single place where the dwarf Hurth has to “die” (or seem to die) only to be found alive again later, no character can die in a successful game, even if that character is no longer needed. This particularly bit me towards the end, in the city of Zan. If you don’t do the exact sequence of events correctly in several locations, the Dread Lord’s thugs are able to find your party and kill Hurth before the rest of the party members can escape. Even though Hurth’s skills are no longer needed for the rest of the game, his death prevents you from winning.        

5. Not only do you get no notifications of walking dead situations, a lot of text is wasted in such situations. It feels like fully half of the game’s text would never be seen by a party destined to win because such text only appears when the party is already walking dead. There are entire areas of the game that, if you enter and experience any of the adventures to be had there, you’ve already gone the wrong way and cannot win.

           A lot of text and programming–not to mention the graphics–went into a battle you’re not even supposed to fight. You’re meant to take a different path.

          6. A lot of the options are completely nonsensical. Basically, on every screen, at every option, and at every encounter, you have to try every potential option and note the result–keeping in mind that its implications might not be fully realized for several scenes–and then try to assemble the “best” list of options in the right order. Some of the “successful” options you’d never hit upon by logic alone. Most involve the use of spells. For instance, Praxix encounters a stump on the ground in his explorations. If he casts “Tremor,” the stump splits and reveals a passage into the Earth. It’s both nonsensical to assume (without any other evidence) that such a passage would be revealed, and that “Tremor” would be the spell to reveal it. Later, you have to use the “Wind” spell in a random cave to reveal a hidden rune. Other encounters force you to discern at the outset whether you can cast a regular spell or need the extra “oomph” that comes from mixing the regular spell with grey powder, only the game has given you no gauge to determine the normal strength of spells.

7. The game randomizes some variables. Even if you can make an exhaustive list of the “right” options in the “right” orders, you’ll still lose the game because each new session randomizes some of the variables. The most obvious is early in the game, when you’re trying to navigate the paths to get to Asterix’s tower. There are six choices of left or right, or 64 possible total paths, and you don’t know if you’ve chosen right or wrong until you arrive. Each new game generates a different combination of correct paths. Now, technically you can bypass this navigation by casting a “Glow” spell on the map you hopefully purchased in the first town, but after a few sessions of this game, you’re so paranoid about conserving reagents that you’re more likely to sigh and start working your way through all 64 possible combinations.

            The name of the boat captain you need to ask for at the end of the game is also randomized.

            One of the things that the game randomizes is the color of the reagents that correspond with the different “essences”: wind, fire, water, earth, and so forth. At the end of the game, Tag has to figure out what reagents to mix, and only a throw-away line in an earlier scene about brushing some color of powder from his hands keeps him from, again, having to reload multiple times and work through dozens of possibilities. 

            Failing to note the “fine orange residue” early in the game makes it nearly impossible to cast the final spell.

          The one nod the game makes to its own difficulty is by letting you view Tag’s “musings” once you’ve lost the game. This screen lets you go one-by-one through all the things you did wrong, but only those things that led to your particular demise, and even then it’s maddeningly vague with advice like “conserve reagents,” not “you used reagents when you didn’t have to in this specific place.”

               Tag muses on the many things the party did wrong.

          Given all I’ve described, I have to highlight this particular paragraph from the game manual:

              Your Journey will provide you with many hours of enjoyment and many hundreds of difficult decisions. But unlike other games you may have played, there are virtually no dead ends. Any action you take will advance the story toward one of its many endings. But there is only one ending that is the best.

           I’ve never read such a blatant lie in a game manual before. There are no “alternate” endings–every single ending except the victory screen above has the main character reflecting on the literal destruction of the world. And the only way it can say that “there are virtually no dead ends” is because the damned game lets you keep on playing as long as possible even when you’re in an unwinnable situation. That’s not a virtue!

           “Not a dead end.”

         These various failings are why it took me ultimately 23 hours to win a game that only lasts about 1 hour if you hit all the right options. And that’s with using walkthroughs to help in some areas. With Journey, what you basically have is a cruel Choose Your Own Adventure book that you have to read 25 times, each time getting maybe an extra paragraph. It’s barely a “computer” game, and of course certainly not an RPG. It has no character development, hardly any inventory, and the combats are all scripted.

           The most frustrating part is, I’m the only one who sees how bad this is! In the June 1989 Computer Gaming World, Roe Adams–Roe &@&$*# Adams!–practically wets himself, calling it “the best effort to date of any game designer struggling to find a new way for the game to interface with the player,” although he does caution about the use of reagents and mentions some of the more illogical puzzles. He seems to have been seduced by the interface–which is innovative but not all that great–and the plenitude of the graphics. European Amiga magazines gave it in the 80s and 90s.        

Only more modern reviewers have failed to be lured in by its promises. In 1998, All Game Guide rated it a 40, called it “shallow,” rejected its RPG credentials, and said that “it fails to take advantage of what a reactive computer can do that a non-reactive book cannot.”

            When I got done typing all of this and started searching for other modern takes on the game, I was delighted to see that Jimmy Maher (“The Digital Antiquarian”) had covered it in 2016. As I read his piece, he at first scared the bejesus out of me by calling his initial reactions “a unique and very pleasant experience.” But his opinion evolves as he plays, and eventually we get to the good stuff:

         [T]here inevitably comes a point when you realize that everything Infocom has been saying about their game and everything the game has been implying about itself is a lie. Far from being the more easy-going sort of text adventure that it’s purported to be, Journey is a minefield of the very dead ends it decries, a cruel betrayal of everything it supposedly stands for. It turns out that there is exactly one correct path through the dozens of significant choices you make in playing the game to completion. Make one wrong choice and it’s all over. Worse–far worse–more often than not you are given no clue about the irrecoverable blunder you’ve just made. You might play on for hours before being brought up short.

         When I rated it in 2011, I gave it a 23 without even bothering to explain the GIMLET. I don’t know what I was thinking with some of the ratings. I gave it 2 points for “character creation and development” when it deserves 0 and 4 points for “magic and combat” when it deserves maybe 2 (some of the uses of magic to solve puzzles are at least well-described). A revision brings the score down to 17. It does best in the “game world” (3) despite being derivative, and in the graphics, which are credited to Donald Langosy. I agree with Adams that they’re well-composed, and the game didn’t skimp on them: practically every scene has a different set. 

           Evocative graphics are one of the game’s few positives.

           The most surprising thing about Journey is that it was written by Infocom-founder Marc Blank, author of the original Zork series as well as the Enchanter series and several other Infocom titles. It certainly has his quality of prose, but it’s hard to believe that he didn’t understand why the basic approach was so much worse than the open-world games for which he was famous. Maher’s account of the game’s development suggests that the developers were in love with the interface: “an experiment to find out whether you could play an interactive story without having to type.” There’s nothing wrong with that, but it doesn’t explain why the interface had to so relentlessly drive the player forward, to punish him so severely for minor mistakes, and to waste so much of his time in unwinnable scenarios. Fortunately, it didn’t begin a trend. I like to think that Blank himself was dissatisfied with the result, which is why we saw no more games in the “Golden Age Trilogy,” as the secondary title screen has it. 

                 I like to think that the next two would have been Destination and Return.

            So there it is. In an attempt to get a “quick win,” I managed to waste a lot of time and get myself highly frustrated on a non-RPG, for no benefit except to increase my “win” percentage by 0.31%. This does not bode well for an eventual return visit to, say, Wizardry IV, but we’ll see.

         source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/journey-won-with-summary-and-rating/

[derkastellan]

Impressions: DCC86 - Hole in the Sky

This week saw the first of two session we’re going to spend with the Dungeon Crawl Classics module Hole in the Sky. Four players joined me in this level 0 funnel with a total of 24 freshly generated characters (the maximum recommended for this module). Level 0 “funnels” are DCC’s way of vetting new characters for play - a lot of peasants go on an adventure, a fair share of them dies, and the rest level up and become regular characters in their own right in one of the seven classes (wizard, cleric, warrior, thief, elf, halfling, dwarf). 

I chose Hole in the Sky because it is explicitly a funnel. Not so many are published by Goodman Games themselves, most of them in themed boxed sets. There’s one in the rulebook, and I’ve also run 3rd party funnels, but given that they fit only right at the start of a campaign there is a bit of a dearth of funnels to chose from still. (In comparison, characters spend several adventures in level 1 and the selection of level 1 adventures, both from Goodman Games and 3rd party, is much higher.)

One endearing fact, as always, is the retro artwork. Several illustrations, including the cover, feature peasants, even their pets and livestock. It’s simply funny seeing someone going on an adventure armed with a frying pan or bringing a goat along. Especially since the goat proves to be quite stubborn and bothersome...

Spoilers follow after the page break.

Hole in the Sky (HitS) did not impress me that much when reading. It is very linear and I got the impression that it features too many occasions where players cannot do much about the fate of their characters. As first impressions from reading go, I was actually wrong!

You see, the writing style of the author is a bit terse for my taste. He often mentions what happens when players make bad choices (make a Reflex save or die, for example). But when playing you realize there is absolutely no penalty for good choices. Players are perfectly capable of navigating the first part of the adventure without any harm, and so in fact they did! I was impressed because this what the OSR movement always claims - that it’s about playing smart, not having lots of powers. Well done, sir, well done.

The players are sent by a mysterious entity over an invisible bridge across the ocean to a hole in the sky. There they enter a pocket dimension, enter a strange hive-like structure, evade a monster hunting them, try to not wake a sleeping giant, battle mad former adventurers, and finally free the prisoner of the pocket dimension. 

The bridge itself proved quite memorable. Players proved quite adept at making sure the bridge is there - all thanks to Indiana Jones 3. The perils of the bridge are not knowing if it’s there - which they undid with probing with a staff, throwing dirt, and by the virtue of all the animal droppings... Yes, players can start with a pet or livestock, something hilariously depicted on the map accompanying the outer world part! When storm winds threatened to blow PCs off, they tied themselves to each other - and the cow.

You see, not a single character died at this stage because it was about smart choices - as became clear during play. There’s also one combat on the bridge but I rolled so abysmally for initiative they made confetti out of the enemies without taking a scratch. 

In fact, there is only one thing to criticize here: The intro (readout text) does not reveal how long the journey takes (3 days) or that the PCs have to wait 2 days once there. By sheer luck they brought roughly five days of provisions for the party. They tried quite a lot of weird things at the end of the bridge. I guess this was unnecessary tension and racking of player brains. Probably should not have run this as written...

All 24 PCs still accounted for and unharmed. They made their way through the hole into the pocket dimension and made their way to the prison. There’s potentially two random encounters along the way but the chance is low so nothing happened. A bit of waste of good monsters if you ask me. Still no casualties.

They entered the structure and as written in the script the guardian snuck up on them and killed one, then retreated. This spread terror and chaos alright. The group then decided to kill that thing. I could have played hit-and-run here but frankly did not want to. Also: 23 attacks of opportunity... The stats as written for this monster are... a bit bogus. The hit points don’t last that long with so many attackers. Also, for a creature of many tentacles a total of 2 attacks/action dice seems low. Given that I rolled two fumbles I was not very effective in culling the herd. This thing was supposed to follow them around, spreading terror. Since they refused to be terrorized they deflated this quite quickly with minimal losses. Oh well. Don’t get me wrong! This is great from a roleplaying and player perspective, but it does not do much “funneling...”

Anyway, the main battle against the mad adventurers I scaled from 12 (+1 leader) to 16 (+1 leader). There is advice that you should scale it, but either I missed it or it simply was not written what to scale it to. I mean, 1 per PC? Per 1.5 PCs? I went with my gut and the battle proved suspenseful enough and left a quarter of the party dead. It would have been more like a third to a half, but the “discovering the body” rule let all the luckier characters off the hook. Bigger opposition might have been a total party kill, so fair is fair.

The finale is yet to be played but they took the dwarf leading the mad adventurers as prisoner which should be quite interesting. Many DCC adventures suffer from having enormously cool backgrounds that the players don’t learn about in play. Here’s a chance for some exposition! The surrender is in the adventure and I count it as a plus.

What I like is that this is not a brainless meatgrinder. It is not so random. Sour Spring Hollow from DCC83 - The Chained Coffin is a very interesting, colorful funnel, but it involves a lot of random, arbitrary dying (and led to my first DCC total party kill). HitS compares favorable even though I personally think there are some questionable choices in its writing, especially the finale. 

I have to admit that you do get spoiled by the high writing standard of DCC modules, though. In spite of its near-absolute linearity the module is indeed memorable. Since every room or waystation in DCC proves to have some depth and even potential for a discovery, player expectations of what a dungeon could be rise with every module played. Modules for other systems can compare quite unfavorably, in fact. 

The session has been fun. Critical hit rolls excited players. My personal experience of “No fumble ever created an exciting or interesting situation.” persists. The players did quite well but also had Lady Luck on their side. I read in another review that funnels instill good habits in players, showing them that PCs can die. I beg to differ. I would personally say that funnels quite often play like a game of Paranoia! “I have six clones to burn so let’s take some risks.” is how I feel most players react to funnels. Sometimes interesting funnel characters emerge from the fact that players send them into danger over and over and rolling lucky. Nebin Pendlebrook's Perilous Pantry is the best funnel in this regard as a lot of fun stuff can be gained or done by doing this. 

The horrible truth is much likelier to emerge if funnel habits get your level 1 PCs killed or maimed. My long-running DCC campaign saw a continuous degradation of ability scores because players could not shake their habits of rushing into harm’s way. When switching to D&D5 later the unstructured, random style of approaching situations led to a character kill on pretty much the first combat. And at level 3 D&D5 is not that deadly... So, I think the claim that funnels instill good habits has not survived the facts of my own DCC experience. 

However, funnels are fun! And so was this one, rewarding both player skill (though the Judge has to figure this out, it’s not exactly written) and providing memorable experiences. I like it. It’s not my favorite DCC published module to date, but it works and does the trick. A good entry point for new players. More to follow when we finish.