Incline Write short "Memorable things you should do in RPG X"

[felipepepe]

So, I was meditating on how modern gamers (and journos) often won't understand what makes older & more obscure games special...

I.e., Waypoint wrote an article on how some people prefer Morrowind over Skyrim, but since the writer clearly isn't into MW himself, he failed to convey just WHY people actually prefer Morrowind. Sure, he talks about the streamlining and unique landscape but, as DraQ will easily prove, that's like 1% of its charm.

Similarly, Gamespot made some months ago an Elder Scrolls retrospective, and the author - who admits first playing Oblivion - clearly had no idea why people liked (and still like!) Daggerfall. Seriously, he didn't even MENTION its dungeons or character creation!

Sadly, this will only get more common, and people lose track of gaming's ever-expanding history and rely more and more on hearsay. We already made the Codex's Top 70 RPGs list, with brief reviews of each of those games, but here's a different idea:

Write (briefly) memorable RPG moments / experiences that everyone should try once. It doesn't even matter if the rest of the game is shit - if there's one moment you think that redeems it, then write about it (avoiding spoilers as possible).

For example:

NWN2: The Maimed God's Saga: A role-playing heavy module based around Clerics and their faith, where choices are based on memorized spells and combat is rare & meaningful.

Fallout 1: Explore The Glow, one of the most unique and tense dungeons in any RPG.

Daggerfall: Create unique characters bending the game's rules and venture into massive, twisted dungeons without ever knowing if you'll find the way out again.

Anyone interested can do it for any RPG (even if other already did it). If this gets enough traction I'll probably compile a handy list and even include it in the CRPG Book.

 

[Gepeu]

Morrowind isn't the best game ever, but a sudden realisation that the bumping sound in its main theme was actually Lorkhan hearth's beating was quite something. Not gameplay related, though.

 

[Morality Games]

The Temple of Elemental Evil: Dick around towns doing apparently unmeaningful busywork until it sinks in this is the closest you'll ever get to tabletop-style NPC interactions and storytelling in a PC RPG.

As far as I know the ToEE is the only D&D PC RPG campaign that was transliterated directly from a pen and paper module. Really comes through in the way you find and complete side quests.

Arcanum: Wander around not knowing what to do until you decide to ask a passing NPC for directions or read a newspaper.

 

[laclongquan]

If it's Fallout 1 it's probabbly the moment you enter Hub library and buying books~ That Pregnant Moment!
Fallout 2, it's when you hand over the part and receive the car! Pimp my ride, biatches~ Or when your car get jacked in New Reno! WHO IS THAT MUTHAFUKA SUNOVABITCH COCKSUCKER! IS YOU, JULES? Or when you get the GECK in Vault 13! I AM CHOSEN, Bow down to my magnificience! Or the immediate crash at the last meeting with Hanuka. Fallout 2 doing good in term of pregnant moments.

Neverwinter Night 2 Original Campaign, the moment you start paying serious attention to building your Crossroad Keep.
Or the Trial. It's a great section. Some people whine and moan about the duel later but what the hell do they expect? It's a fucking plot device, not gameplay. But the Trial is gameplay.

Planescape Torment: when you get out of the Morgue! Here come the Cage! Or after the Pregnant Alley and Lady of Pain pay me a visit! OH YE... Generally PST got double the moments of F2.

 

[MRY]

This just goes to show what a trickster memory is. I was going to put the genie options in Darksun: Shattered Lands, but it turns out they are trivial and lame. I had remembered a great variety of awesome options. So, anyway, here are some thoughts of points of RPGs that made a big impression on me in terms of how I thought about RPG design.

Darksun: Shattered Lands: Escaping the arena. The first time I really experienced choice and consequence in an RPG, including some options that weren't obvious on their face.

Fallout 1: Dynamite to close the radscorpion cave. As Al Pacino would say, "The choices we need are everywhere around us." Is this the most important part of FO1? No. Is it any special in and of itself? No. But when you discover you can do it, I submit that the entire game, and the entire way one views RPGs, changes.

KOTOR: "I won't kill you. But Zaalbar will." Many other games have made evil choices more interesting, more dramatic, more meaningful, more mechanically relevant. But I'm not sure if any of them made me goggle quite like this one. Say what you will about Biowarean choice and Biowarean morality (and I've said much on this score), I still think this game deserves some credit for going all in at this point.

Wasteland: The howitzer. The first hour or so with the pump, the railyard, the dog in the well. But mostly the howitzer. To this day I'm not sure whether there was only one permissible option for beating the game, but even as a kid it blew my mind that you could just explode stuff around the map and keep playing.

PS:T: When you realize you can't save Deionarra. The meeting with Ravel. The Circle of Zerthimon. The first is an important lesson about imposing limits on the player's agency, not for plot expedience but for thematic effect. The second shows that a choice with absolutely no consequence can actually be arresting if done properly. The third shows how engaging nothing but uninteractive text can be, if it's framed properly by meaningful gameplay systems and well written.

MOTB: Eating the Wood Man. Making One of Many. Both of these presaged AOD in showing just how far you can go in terms of letting players Do Awesome Things through nothing but dialogue choices and some framing game systems.

AOD: Blow up Maadoran.

 

[RK47]

Getting SexLabs and its related mods to work on Skyrim is the triumph of mankind's perversion.
I remember not sleeping that night and it all clicked together at 3 AM.



Took a day off work the next day.
No regrets.

 

[an Administrator]

Fallout 3: Blowing up Megaton and then finding out that Moira has survived.

Morrowind:
1: Finding Caius Cossades.
2: Making spells is one of the most fun things you can do in Morrowind.
3: Using levitation spell and fireballing melee foes to death.

Underrail: Collecting everything that isn't nailed to the ground then meeting Al Fabet.


Deus Ex: Entering women's restroom, exploring the catacombs in Paris, shooting pigeons with GEP gun.

 

[Lady_Error]

Wizardry 7: Swim up the Eryn river to the land of the two-headed giants and from there, climb up to the madness of the nymph forest.

PST: You should have Fall From Grace in your party, best character ever in an RPG. Honorable mention: Valor.

Baldur's Gate: Getting trapped on a small artic island with other powerful mages, resulting in awesome mage battles. Those were really fun in BG1+2.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Rogue: Procedurally-generated dungeons where ignominious failure followed by the death of your character is to be expected.

Ultima IV: The Quest of the Avatar: Win the game by following Richard Garriot's idiosyncratic system of morality.

Dungeon Master: Realize you can directly interact with the environment by chopping through doors, placing torches into sconces, or killing monsters by lowering a portcullis onto them.

The Faery Tale Adventure: Explore a vast, smoothly-scrolling landscape accompanied by awesome music.

Morrowind: Step onto the deck of the ship, gaze at Seyda Neen and the Siltstrider, and discover a truly unique setting that will never be surpassed.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Gothic 2 - get to the Valley of Mines for the first time, sneak through the forest around the Old Camp castle at night and then FUCKING RUN FOR IT

 

[octavius]

Bard's Tale: fight 4x99 Berserkers.

Wizardry IV: try to find a way out of the first room

Pool of Radiance: fight armies of orcs and kobolds.

Might and Magic 2: face the consequences of ordering Roast Peasant at a tavern.

Curse of the Azure Bonds: fight the Mulmaster Beholder Corps without the Dust of Disappearance.

Chaos Strikes Back: start in darkness, flanked by two purple worms and try to keep your cool.

The Dark Heart of Uukrul: try make a map of the last level

Pools of Darkness: survive the final battles

Ultima Underworld: learn the Lizardman language

 

[Neanderthal]

Dun Darach: Get pinched after nickin stuff.

Eye of the Beholder: Finding out theres a puzzle on every level, givin you xp an free shit. Open up a portal for the first time and step into the unknown. Step straight through them walls that are marked by Dwarfish runes.

Eye of the Beholder 2: Realise that Skeleton Warriors behind them doors are not just a few level scaled enemies but an entire fucking army. Try an sleep on the lowest level of the dungeons, only to awaken from horrid nightmares.

Betrayal at Krondor: Get thrown out of an inn because of your shit barding. Sneak by enemies who are mere feet away thanks to the Dragons Breath. Ambush potential ambushers an gain first strike. Assemble the Guarda Revanche, a work spanning many acts an lotsa clue chasin. Get poisoned by suspect rations or tainted well water. Talk to the spirits of gods on a world half destroyed by the Mad Gods Rage of the Valheru, and find magic hidden away in the strange crystals that litter the landscape.

Ultima IV: Realise that you've gotta lose a battle with animals because a Compassionate Avatar does not slay dumb creatures, but neither does the Valorous Avatar run from battle. Throw skull of Mondain your ancient foe into volcanoes that rear up from sea. Seize the Codex and become both a living examplar of virtue, and the founder of a religion that will endure for centuries.

Ultima V: You forgot something Avatar, FUCK MY FUCKING LIFE! Find your virtues twisted by moral absolutism into draconian punishments.

Ultima VI: You're not just a stealer of the holy of holies from a different species, you're not just the killer of a massive number of that species, you also destroyed their homeland and any hope they held. Congratulations Avatar.

Ultima VII: Some bastard opened a window an caught me stealing, fuck this is good. Its a Kilrathi starfighter! I know how to rob Lord Britishs Royal Mint, an British is gonna help me. I am not joining the fuckin Fellowship! I'm flying, wheeeeeee. I now have my very own Stormbringer, my life is complete. This Pagan place sounds interesting. These are lands of Danger an Despair! Shamino got woman troubles. Dupre .

Fallout: Yeah i'm the spirit of Deaths Hand, honest. Fuck off Ian, I got dog. I have hardened Power Armour and a turbo charged Plasma Rifle, I have become death, destroyer of worlds, KREE, KREE! Fuck me Harold weren't just spouting bullshit.

 

[HoboForEternity]

Arcanum: just do the siamese twin conspiracy quest line.

One of, if not the best sidequest ever created. Legit spooky, full of mysteries, conspiracy and intrigue

 

[racofer]

Dark Souls: You died.

Dark Souls II: You died.

Dark Souls III: You died.

 

[makiavelli747]

getting high and drunk in Planet Alcatraz

 

[janior]

Call of Duty Modern Warfare: Gettin that sweet golden ak-47

 

[quasimodo]

JA2: Figure out that you can use your laptop to send flowers to Deidranna. Get to see a cut scene where she bitch slaps Eliot when he gives them to her.

 

[octavius]

Jagged Alliance: Deadly Games: recruit both Fidel and Hurl E. Cutter

 

[V_K]

Quest for Glory series: Play it twice with different classes to see how roleplaying can be so much more than picking dialog option A over dialog option B. One of them should be the rogue, for some of the most fun homebreakig this side of Thief.

Blade of Destiny/Star Trail: Go into the wilderness unprepared. Get hungry, cold and sick. Lose half of your party to random encounters and another half to disease. Feel the immense relief when you trudge to the nearest settlement with one character left on his last hitpoints.

 

[Darth Roxor]

for some of the most fun homebreakig this side of Thief..

You mean gamebreaking homebreaking

fuck you healer

 

[Lonely Vazdru]

Daggefall : accidentally stumbling on a witches covenant and realizing there was yet another layer of cool stuff in that incredible game.
Ultima (I don't remember which one) : digging all around the world like mad and finally getting some exotic weapons.

And recently :

Thunderscape : getting that lame golem NPC that I had dragged all through the game upgraded by a golem enthusiast merchant near the end of the game.

 

[Sacred82]

RoA: BoD: wander around with a dead character and look for the ol' resurrecting cleric but finding none. Go through all stages of grief until it comes to you to make a donation at the god of death's temple.

RoA: Startrail: munchkin out on alchemy to make magic resistance potions, then fight a huge group of battle mages and Knights. Win a fight that wasn't supposed to be won and keep an item that was supposed to solve the main quest.

 

[octavius]

Blade of Destiny/Star Trail: Go into the wilderness unprepared. Get hungry, cold and sick. Lose half of your party to random encounters and another half to disease. Feel the immense relief when you trudge to the nearest settlement with one character left on his last hitpoints.

I still remember my gaming buddy was almost in tears when he described this aspect of the games. I almost gave him a hug.

 

[Rahdulan]

I'm not a fan of being predictable, but I also can't really help it.

Morrowind - confrontation with Dagoth Ur which is perhaps not the most satisfying mechanically, but I also found it interesting how differently it can be experienced by players. If you really just wanted a bad guy to beat he was a weird naked guy with a mask, but if you explored and took in all the backstory and myths around the guy it was one of the most memorable final bosses ever for me. Weird how strongly characterized Dagoth Ur himself is in those few moments game has to work with.

Gothic 1 and 2 - faction treatment, but especially the Monastery in G2 because they sure as hell do away with meaningless "click a checkbox and you're in" and said factions will define your character's life for a while. Monastery especially with the whole getting a sheep, upfront fee and general sense of belonging to a community proper that stands apart from the other two.

Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines - beach house which probably embodies the whole "do it however you want" mission structure best this side of Deus Ex's Liberty Island but on a much more manageable scale, except there's also a social infiltration route where you can straight up approach the gang and get the Astrolite without resorting to violence at all. I would make every quest designer play this under the pain of never leaving the room until they understand how it works.

 

[an Administrator]

Morrowind - confrontation with Dagoth Ur which is perhaps not the most satisfying mechanically, but I also found it interesting how differently it can be experienced by players. If you really just wanted a bad guy to beat he was a weird naked guy with a mask, but if you explored and took in all the backstory and myths around the guy it was one of the most memorable final bosses ever for me. Weird how strongly characterized Dagoth Ur himself is in those few moments
game has to work with.

It's a shame that we couldn't side with him.