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Just a little planning…

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atcDave

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Nothing set in stone here, but a few thoughts about what I’ll be up to next at this site.

The most obvious thing has been how AI generative art has revitalized my feelings on CRPGs, in particular the IE games. I am beginning to burn out on the whole illustrated narrative sort of run. Its a lot of work, and I’ve already done whole write ups of both Icewind Dale and the Baldur’s Gate saga. So expect the current Chuck and Sarah run will be the last I do in this format for a while.
But I think I’m likely to do a few more playthroughs of each, possibly just illustrated except for an introduction, captions and epilogue? That sounds fun to me! I actually have a few specific runs in mind. I will continue to do small tweaks to my build, adding/changing various quest mods.

Astolpho and the Replacements – for IWD. A party with a specific odd twist. It probably won’t be that odd of a run, but getting it all started as I want may be interesting.

Gerald and Louisa – for BG Saga. Its like adventuring with Mom! What happens when Gorion’s ward sets off on his great adventure with his lifelong nanny on the team? These will not be hugely optimized characters. I also have a specific difficulty enhancement in mind here, Irenicus’ sister will see to it the entire party is drained back to 1st level for the start of BG2. I’m guessing this will mostly just effect the escape from the opening dungeon? But it might be a little interesting.

Akamas and the Family Outing for IWD. Its a whole family of Paladins! Well, not entirely, but mostly. Obviously a melee heavy and very ethical playthrough. I plan on turning up the SCS difficulty a bit for this one.

Gabrella and Bull – for BG Saga. Yes, its the basically the same main characters from “Bull and the Slaves“. These two have become favorites of mine, both inspired by Portraits found on line. They’re sort of a May-December romance. They may be my most used characters that did not have a PnP origin. But apart from saying these will be reasonably optimized characters it won’t be a very odd run for me. But I will turn up SCS another notch.

Jill and Christopher – for BG Saga. An exercise in mediocrity. Yes, I’ll be running two main characters with well below the “minimum scores” usually allowed by the IE game engine. Making them is easy with EEKeeper, both characters will be below 70 points at the start. They won’t intentionally be “bad” characters, that is, their scores will be as optimized as possible for their terrible totals. But both will be pretty one-dimensional. A balanced team is required!

My symmetrical mind thinks one more IWD run is required! I’ve got a couple ideas but nothing firm.
Also note, I may or may not do all/any of these *next*. I will assess as I go. I do occasionally burn out on the IE games, and have taken many years off from them. Other things on mind, I want to play Civilization III again (and a new version is out next month, I’ll look into it and see if I want to try the new game).
I want to play some turn based strategic games again; Sword of Aragon, Fantasy General and Fantasy General II all spring to mind.
For that matter, Panzer General and the whole family of off-shoots and sequels are possible also.

And the biggest thing percolating in my little brain, I want to replay all of the old Gold Box games again. Between “Gold Box Companion” (which adds some much needed enhancements) and the idea of AI art to illustrate the runs, well this is kind of exciting to me. Only tempered a little by the fact that game engine is very dated.

A final, likely more distant consideration, War in the Pacific – Admiral’s Edition is getting a huge update that’s just entered Beta. I’ve played and loved this game in the past. The idea of some things getting fixed, and making it easier to set-up on newer systems, is pretty exciting to me.
The only knock is, this is a profoundly massive game. In the past I’ve usually spent a couple weeks setting up for “Turn 1: December 7, 1941”. Then a couple years playing the War through in one day turns.

So nothing decided for sure. But these are the things I’m looking at for the future.

8 responses to “Just a little planning…”

  1. Zeno Avatar
    Zeno

    Yeah. I know what you mean. I’m likely to do some other illustrated runs of other games. The new scenarios lead to different sorts of renders and stretch my learning how to make the AI work. But further runs of the same game don’t work the same way. I’m probably only doing one fully illustrated run of each game. And I’ll take breaks in between illustrated runs to play around with Monsters and Mayhem, make a portrait gallery, etc. Those are all things I can do piecemeal without the big effort of rendering a story.

    I often add self-imposed rules to keep things interesting. Limiting stats, etc. 5E gives you a choice of +2 to stats or a feat every 4 levels. And the math assumes you max out your main attribute ASAP. So I commonly just replace all stat gains with feats, and go for “character fitting” feats rather than “class power” feats. 3E did something similar, but with slower stat growth and you didn’t have to choose. But I could still have my warriors get smarter/wiser and my mages work out rather than taking the “optimal” path if I wanted to keep the challenge interesting.

    Helps counteract the normal RPG thing where the higher level you get the easier the game is because your characters get powerful faster than the enemies. And I never really liked stat gains as a concept anyway. Just leads to every rogue having a 20 Dex, every fighter having a 20 Str, etc. Its more fun when the fighter who doesn’t look like Dwayne Johnson has to find other ways to keep up. Also makes Stat-boosting items far more meaningful.

    The Wildlings run will have a lot of that – as they’re all self-trained oddballs and the Lost Valley campaign is known for being hard early and easier late. So I may have to turn up the difficulty notches as I go as well.

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    1. atcDave Avatar
      atcDave

      Yeah I really don’t like the built in point adds. Maybe if it were something more subtle, like a random point added every third level? I don’t know, but it seems like they jumped from some levels just not doing very much in AD&D, to every level doing too much in later editions!

      You know I’m just stunned by what a huge impact the AI art has made on my playing. It adds like a whole new dimension to the games for me. And that’s also why “Gold Box” keeps coming up for me! Those were my favorites for so many years! But now they’re just horribly obsolete. But maybe, adding personality and atmosphere with original art…

      I do think, even if I just stick with IE for a few more runs, it’s that idea of illustrating MY TEAM as we go that adds tons of new life to it.

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  2. Zeno Avatar
    Zeno

    Actually, if I were making the rules, I would do the *opposite* of what 1E used to do. Roll for ability scores instead of point buy. But then, instead of an XP *bonus* for exceptional ability scores I would give an XP *penalty* for exceptional scores and a *bonus* for low primary attributes. The fighter who is as strong as an Ox doesn’t have to work as hard to keep up. He’s never challenged as much. The fighter who has to make due with the strength of a librarian, he is *forced* to train hard and learn fast. To me that makes for a far more interesting tradeoff…

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    1. atcDave Avatar
      atcDave

      I always loved rolling scores exactly for the whole eccentric character thing. I had a Paladin whose only bonus came from a 16 dexterity. And Halfling who’s only bonus was a 17 charisma. Those are fun characters! At least for a while.

      I think the point buy (I only remember it being the preferred system starting with 3E?) was a tragedy and the enemy of role playing! I’ve never actually stuck with any such game for very long.

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  3. Zeno Avatar
    Zeno

    I like rolled point buy. Dm rolls once or provides a standard set like 15,12,8,12,14. Whole party uses that same set and assigns to attributes as they like. Then each player gets a small pool of points to tweak from there using point buy rules. Party ends up reasonably balanced with still some room to specialize or generalize to taste.

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    1. atcDave Avatar
      atcDave

      Interesting, I’ve not seen that used. I can see how it might correct some for the problem of the player who just rolls really poorly keeping up with the team. But I would also say, in my experience, the biggest determinant of how effective a character is, is usually the player not the actual rolled points. So that might just serve to highlight who the weaker players are!

      I mentioned somewhere recently (?), how for a long time I was just of the opinion mages were a weak class. After several months of D&D it occurred to me the issue was, among my usual gaming buddies, the guys who played mages were all show and flash. Very little understanding of the game or tactics. The better gamers were playing warriors or clerics, which distorted my impression of the classes for quite a while.

      Point just being, the player matters a lot. And I think even a mediocre character can often be played effectively.

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      1. Zeno Avatar
        Zeno

        Quite true. I just like the combination – randomness with still some ability to tailor the stats to your character concept. One variant I’ve seen is every player gets say 30 dice. Then you choose how many to assign to each score, till, and take the top three for each. Still random, but you can bias it as heavily as you like in favor of your concept. If you really want to go all in on strength give 15 dice to that and only three to each of the others. But generally I like to have enough flexibility to ensure that the scores reflect my character concept. Don’t need every smart guy to have an 18 int. But if my studious librarian type gets an 8 I won’t be happy.

        Liked by 1 person

      2. atcDave Avatar
        atcDave

        That’s an intriguing option! I’ve done a number of “unofficial” aids for players who were determined they needed to play a certain type. Like “I tell you what, don’t tell anyone (said in front of the whole gaming table), but why don’t you just switch your Intelligence and Wisdom rolls and we’ll call it good.”

        It is a legitimate issue for the DM, that you don’t want any player stuck with a character they don’t want, but you don’t to do a complete give away either. And I don’t want to stray too far from the “random/organic” concept.

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