{"id":48122,"date":"2019-09-21T18:11:40","date_gmt":"2019-09-21T22:11:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=48122"},"modified":"2019-09-21T18:46:36","modified_gmt":"2019-09-21T22:46:36","slug":"achilles-and-the-grognard-barrels-and-other-sundries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=48122","title":{"rendered":"Achilles and the Grognard: Barrels and Other Sundries"},"content":{"rendered":"

Achilles:<\/strong> This game. Is taking. Forever.<\/p>\n

The Grognard:<\/strong> That bad, huh?<\/p>\n

Achilles:<\/strong> There’s just so much of it! It’s like they finished a full game, and then said “you know what, let’s throw in another sixty hours of side content.”<\/p>\n

Firewine Ruins. Yet another mazelike, single-file dungeon.<\/div>
Firewine Ruins. Yet another mazelike, single-file dungeon.<\/div><\/p>\n

The Grognard:<\/strong> 1998 was the debut year of the Great Big Honking PC Role-Playing Game, or GBHPCRPG. Baldur’s Gate<\/em> came out that year, and the series taken as a whole is probably the apotheosis of the form. But Fallout 2<\/em> came out just a month earlier, and that was great, big, and honking too. At least when compared to the first in the series. All of the sudden, RPG developers realized it was feasible to make their games almost twice as long as they had been previously.<\/p>\n

Achilles<\/strong>: But why? Who asked them to do that? Top Hat Guy’s soul is weary from killing his 43rd spider pull in the Cloakwood. Why couldn’t there just have been 42?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

This is Larry the Kobold, who introduces you to his two older brothers, Darryl the Xvart and Darryl the Tasloi. You can get their autograph, which tradition dictates you keep in your backpack until the end of Throne of Bhaal. They're the only thing of interest in the eastern half of this map.<\/div>
This is Larry the Kobold, who introduces you to his two older brothers, Darryl the Xvart and Darryl the Tasloi. You can get their autograph, which tradition dictates you keep in your backpack until the end of Throne of Bhaal. They're the only thing of interest in the eastern half of this map.<\/div><\/p>\n

The Grognard:<\/strong> We<\/em> asked them to do that. GBHPCRPGs are popular. They sell well. We keep buying them, so they keep making them. Didn’t you sink, like, seven hundred hours into Skyrim<\/em> or something?<\/p>\n

Achilles:<\/strong> That’s not something I’m proud of anymore. I don’t remember half of those hours, and now hearing the Whiterun theme makes me break out in hives. Didn’t you say there were normal-length classic RPGs, too?<\/p>\n

The Grognard:<\/strong> There were. Fallout<\/em>, Planescape: Torment<\/em>, the original Deus Ex<\/em> – all were relatively short by today’s standards. Baldur’s Gate<\/em>, though, was the Skyrim<\/em> of its time. At least in terms of the amount of content.<\/p>\n

Achilles:<\/strong> I don’t know how you all did it. I looked for walkthroughs of this game, and found THIS on an actual website<\/a>. It’s a walkthrough for the entire game, and the expansion, written in plaintext, about a thousand pages long, last updated in 2002.<\/p>\n

The Grognard:<\/strong> Ah yes, SWCarter’s walkthrough. I know it well. It’s one of the better ones.<\/p>\n

Achilles:<\/strong> Of course you do. It’s weird seeing stuff from the era before the actual<\/em> internet existed. How could you stand it, alt-tabbing to that thing every ten minutes, in fear of missing the +5 Ultimate Death Sword hidden in a bale of hay? Did you no part of you get bored?<\/p>\n

The Grognard:<\/strong> Yes, and we complained then, as you’re complaining now. But we still bought the games. The truth is, as a group, the shortier, artier RPGs never sold as well as the bigger, commercial ones.<\/p>\n

Achilles:<\/strong> I guess it makes sense. They make movies that are way too long all the time, even though you can almost never find anyone who actually wants<\/em> to sit in a movie theatre for three and a half hours. But I thought this game was supposed to be an adaptation of the tabletop experience. If an actual live GM had groups go through this many nearly identical fights against 4-8 kobolds with fire arrows, they’d have an empty table before long.<\/p>\n

The Grognard:<\/strong> True. Keep in mind that in 1998, Bioware were still rookies, so to speak. In the second game you’re going to see less filler, less slapdash content, and more polish.<\/p>\n

Achilles:<\/strong> So basically, Bioware GM’ed the first two games. Who’s GMing the one that’s coming out?<\/p>\n

The Grognard:<\/strong> Larian Studios, best known for the Divinity<\/em> series.<\/p>\n

Achilles:<\/strong> And what are they like?<\/p>\n

The Grognard:<\/strong> Well, the founder walks around in a full suit of plate armor.<\/p>\n