Deconstruction: Dragon Age RPG

Put out by Green Ronin, the Dragon Age Roleplaying Game adapts Bioware’s great Dragon Age Origins computer game into an RPG. Unfortunately, the roleplaying game falls short of the greatness of the computer game.

A Look At: Wild Arms pt 2

Part 1 can be found here

This article is also going to contain major spoilers for Wild Arm’s endgame, and focuses largely on the villains.

A Look At: Wild Arms

After Suikoden, I’ve been playing Wild Arms, another playstation RPG from the system’s early years. It’s the first game is what has since become a series (the sequels, especially #3, my favorite, I’ll cover later). The series has always had a sort of fantasy western feel to it. While its light in the first game and more of a “desert punk in the second, the third is also filled with it.

Wild Arms feels a more like a tabletop game than many other RPGs. You have three members in your party throughout, and their personalities develop through the story. Each has a different type of abilities they can use, with how they gain them varied as well. Most uniquely, each character gains different tools that are available outside of combat, and are used for the many Zelda-esque puzzles in the dungeons. There are bombs, grappling hooks, treasure locators, watches that turn back time, and so on – there’s an actual element of problem solving, rather than just exploring areas filled with nothing but random encounters.

The three characters in the game are Jack, a swordsman, Rudy, a gunslinger, and Cecilia, the mage. Rudy, the toughest of the group, can use the artifact guns of the game called ARMs, which require some sort of psychic link. ARMs can be found in different dungeons in special chests, and it’s always a rare, happy event to find one. Each ARM has different attributes, and has its own bullet counter, that can be refilled for a tiny bit of cash back at town, or through the use of a Bullet Clip item which is very rare. There are also shops where you can upgrade each ARM, in damage, accuracy, or ammo capacity, also for money. 

Deconstruction: Alternity

Because I like to keep current, I want to talk about Alternity, a ten year old sci-fi roleplaying game published by TSR. I’ve recently got a chance to play in a game of it, and the system has several unique things worth talking about.

The Alternity system is meant to be a “generic” sci-fi rules set. There are classes (which I’ll go over later), but things are primarily skill based. The classes just give a few small features and discounts on some skills. While they present multiple races to use, I haven’t looked over them in great detail, and they’re mostly a side thing. Alternity also uses D&D’s six attributes, slightly renamed – Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Will, and Personality. Skills are divided by attributes, and each attribute has a fairly large list, except for Constitution’s, which is tiny. In addition, skills are divided under Broad Skills, which are groupings of them – you get six broad skill groups for free, and then have to purchase others individually. If you do not have a skill’s broad group and try to use it, you take a +1 step penalty (see next paragraph) and add only half of the appropriate attribute to the skill ranks. If you do have the broad group, but not any ranks, you just take the +1 step penalty. With any ranks, you suffer no penalty; your skill total is the number of ranks you have plus the appropriate attribute.

Quick Thought: Lunar Legend's Ghaleon

So a short thought when playing through Lunar Legend, the GBA remake of Lunar 1. It’s a fairly typical adventure-themed JRPG, with predictable plot twists and whatnot. Early on you’re introduced to Ghaleon, one of the four heroes of the past generation that everyone idolizes, especially the main character. Ghaleon looks like this:

…and is really, really obviously the bad guy. I mean, seriously, just look at him. This is before you even get to hear his internal monologues about how humans are evil. BBEG, written all over this guy.

Early on in the game, he ends up traveling with you for a while. While you’re heading through a forest, you meet a forest man with a crazy accent capturing faeries and intending to sell them. Ghaleon offers to pay this man anything he wants for a fairy, and upon learning Ghaleon’s identity, the man runs away, leaving the fairy behind. Ghaleon then shoos the fairy off, and makes an internal comment about how humans are horrible creatures. About this time, you also start to get hints that Ghaleon’s is mad at his close friend, and the main character’s hero, Dyne, who sacrificed himself.

And there you go – there’s your villainous backstory. When Ghaleon turns evil five minutes later, it’s not really shocking, but it’s easy to believe he WAS a hero.  Hearing how people like him isn’t enough – I’ve seen too many tabletop games where the DM tried to communicate “this guy is (good/evil/strong/important)” without actually showing it. By having Ghaleon show that he actually has a heart, and giving us an insight as to why he’s become corrupted – namely, he’s a cynical bastard who doesn’t think humans are worthwhile – we can feel for him. Hell, we can almost agree with him; that jerk capturing fairies was just a dick, but still so very human, right? So next time you want a villain who has some redeeming traits (and those are always the best kinds of villains) try showing off those traits before hand.

A Look At: Suikoden

Suikoden was originally released in the US in 1996, for the Playstation. Like many RPGs at the time, its cover had nothing to do with the game at all.

Seriously. Nothing here has anything to do with the game, at all. None of these even resemble the characters.

Suikoden was the first playstation game I owned, and I still enjoy it. The basic plot of the game is that you are Tir McDohl, son of Teo McDohl, one of the Emperor’s six great generals. Though a few crazy mishaps, you find yourself a fugitive leading a rebellion army against the Emperor, and the witch Windy who is controlling him behind the scenes. You have to gather an army (and there are 108 recruitable characters in this game, so it is an army!), meet the enemy generals on the field of battle, and stop their overall villainous plans. While Windy and her sorcery play a heavy role in the story, the real meat is the rebellion, and the two opposing armies. You’re not saving the world from a crazy white-haired clown, you’re just a son of a famous general thrust into opportunity to lead people to freedom.

Here are some things that I noticed that relate to tabletop roleplaying games:

Welcome!

Welcome to my blog. This is a blog about various things I enjoy – role playing games, video games, books, and the occasion rare TV show. This blog is mostly going to be dedicated to tabletop roleplaying games, however, so expect to see a lot of that.

I plan on writing blog posts about video games and other media, and how they relate to roleplaying games. In particular, analyzing story, mechanics, and similar, and what we can learn from them for tabletop games. I do not plan on doing video game reviews – there are enough blogs and sites for them.

My RPG examinations will be closer to reviews. For RPGs, expect me to go more in-depth on the mechanics, taking a closer look at what makes them tick, why they work well, or why they just plain suck. If you can’t handle rational, critical thoughts, turn away. I’m not going to go easy on an RPG just because I like it, so I’m not going to go easy on one just because you like it! A game can be good, and still have its bad points to it.