The Darkest of Dungeons

 

I think I first heard about the darkest dungeon video games at some point early last year. Or, since the game is several years old, I may have been hearing bits and pieces over the years.  I had started watching a lot of YouTube on my TV in my home office because I started working mostly from home during the week. As I would plug away with multiple databases and files opening on my two monitors I was discovering all kinds of things. About video games, politics, comic books. Anything that struck my fancy. Anything I could have on in the background that wouldn’t affect my productivity too much.

So I heard about these two video games; Darkest Dungeon one and two. Essentially fairly low animation based dungeon crawlers featuring multiple kinds of characters going into fairly brutal dungeon environments. One of the most interesting things about them was the characters could get stressed out by things like torches going out, monsters harming a teammate or from all kinds of things. if the stress would get bad enough you get afflicted. Kind of like sanity. They might get some kind of syndrome like a kleptomaniac or a sex addict. But also, at least in the first game, a character dying was permanent. You lose that character then you can no longer access them.

Vestal going ape shit

When I found out recently that the second one was still only available on computers and not consoles, and that the first one was available on Nintendo switch that decision was made. I wanted more games for my switch. I’m taking a break from Breath of the wild which I’m probably in the last 8 to 10% of as far as finishing it up. And the other game I have is called Cuphead and it’s hard as hell as far as platformers go and I got kind of tired of that one around the holidays. As I said I had been watching YouTube videos about DD for a long time and now that I’m a couple weeks into playing the game, I’m still watching those videos because it’s a steep learning curve.  

Crusader goes bat shit

And this last weekend I had started paying attention to the individual characters, character sheet menus, and their statuses, and all that. I would play a couple hours, going through a couple of the dungeons set ups. Practice using the menus. Over several hours of restarts I think I’m finally getting the basics. Knowing enough to think a little bit more long-term. This game from what I’ve heard has many hours in it. as far as this game and breath of the wild goes, the Nintendo switch for an older little system sure does not skimp on the size of gameplay. 

I want to have a real good idea on how to play this thing before I go for the long game.  I’ll prob  post again about the experience when I get about another 30 or 40 hours into it. Gets apparently more brutal and hard as you go along. A true old-school killer dungeon Master haha. 

Gravedigger goes bugnuts

below is a relatively short and very funny video about the game.

and of course, like any good dungeons and dragons video game the inspiration is there for your own real life games with people. I don’t know about the sanity style mechanic, but it certainly inspires you to run a killer, easy death campaign. And besides the town and all its facilities, the dungeon areas and the final castle just alone are inspiring for locations. Not a direct adaptation, but I can see running a campaign based on this. Characters coming to town by carriages and helping you or your ancestor whoever left you the place you get the joint cleaned up Tegal Manor style because oh boy is everything corrupt. Almost as much as characters who come here.

And yeah, you heard that right. Ancient module/setting Tegel Manor certainly comes to mine. The atmosphere the horrible monsters that also tend to have some gonzo humor in there, and even some portraits play large part of the game. 

Anyway, looking forward to even more brutal game play. 

Cheers

Balders Gate 3 and the banging of the Bears

 If you are even just a mild video game player who pays at least a little attention to the media surrounding Balders Gate 3 and its sexual content, you will know that at least to some extant there is, well, sexual content. 

Like me maybe a couple months or so ago you saw a trailer for it where a strapping dude and a bear give each other "come hither" looks and seem to be about to do the deed. The short scene cuts to a squirrel in a tree holding a nut. Then he drops the nut. BTW that is not a euphemism. They don't show if the nut busts when it hits the ground. We never see the actual character to character contact, but when they cut away one is still a bear. I think. It's been a while since I saw that bit, because in the following months much more has come out about the game, and it sounds great. The use of current edition D&D mechanics, plus an old school turned base system. 

Anyway, there ya go. A D&D video game with sexual content. And what the hell, some of that has been part of my gaming experience, such as talked about in these more recent posts:

Post: Edit (blogger.com)

Post: Edit (blogger.com)

But outside the sexy stuff yeah, the game sounds good.  

I don't mind a little CGI boffing. And hell, the bear is a human druid, though not sure how much a diff it makes. If it looks like a bear, and smells like a bear, and drools like a bear it probably kisses and knocks boots like a bear. Those things will mess you up. Ever see Revenant? Or Grizzly Man?

I am guessing any dating and sexy time cut scenes will be a small percentage of that will probably be hours of long ass cinematics that are popular now. Its turn based, so a lot of that will need to be spaced out to build the story. 

I guess the real "bear in the room" though is the identity politics that seem to be heavy in the game. I mean, OK. My only gripe is that so many things have to "present day" us. It's like fantasy worlds or anything else needs to be a reflection of Los Angeles of San Francisco. Maybe it's just an aging straight white dude thing, but whatever happened to escapism? Creativity should be the main goal, but that has been toppled from the number one spot to inject present dayism. I mean, OK, fine. I still might play it (when it comes to XBOX). Because at least you have a choice as to how deep you want to indulge in the Alphabet Mafia stuff. It's not like Starfield, where you are forced to choose a pronoun in character creation. No choice in it. But it would not be a deal breaker for me. Though I think my next space game might be Outer Worlds, because so many people think its way better. 

Anyway, I do hope I get to play Baldurs Gate 3 eventually. I'm usually 3-5 years behind on my games (and more...I'm still playing GTA % here and there). And I look forward to the sexy time in it. With a humanoid. Probably. I can't predict how I'll feel in 3-5 years. 

GTA5 - not love at first sight, but love did come

 

At some point after getting the newest model XBOX the other year, I picked up Grand Theft Auto 5. I had seen game play at friends' houses for years and knew I would try it sooner or later. I mean, I was long used to being years behind on my games.  But had gotten into playing with others online in other games, especially with my old friend "T." She had been a Skyrim nut for a handful of years, and I had suggested we try Elder Scrolls Online as a thing to do together, since I had been playing ES since the original Morrowind. Though we could still play together, little dungeon delves and fishing and such, she had been putting much more time into it on her own. She is now in guilds and in far off lands, while I sort of futz around when I play alone. Since she is playing ONLY ESO, and I like to diversify, we will never be anywhere near equals in that game. 

Imagine her as Valeria from the Conan movie. 
Now imagine this is me..

As I was trying to keep up with T for several months, GTA5 only got a little play here and there. Maybe an hour every weekend or so. Though much of it is intuitive, it is also hard at times for a noob. Driving was bad enough, but driving and shooting? Yeesh. Fairly early on there was a mission for main character Michael that had you chasing crooks on a big rig that had stolen his yacht (don't ask), and you drove your sports car on the equivalent of the 405 Freeway, shooting at dudes on the yacht who were trying to kill your buddy Franklin who had climbed aboard. Man, it was hard. Must have played out that mission a dozen times before being successful. 

I figured that even harder missions would follow, and that was intimidating. It may have kept me from playing it as much as ESO. But man, this game setting did appeal to me. So much of it was not just based on Los Angeles, but even parts of my home town Venice Beach (Vespucci Beach in the game), the side streets and alleyways, was spot on. Buildings I had been in and neighborhoods I grew up around were recreated, often in loving detail. My favorite was the Venice Canals, my birth place. Having a gunfight in my childhood neighborhood was mind blowing. 

And this familiarity with Los Santos/Angeles was super appealing to me. But what else to keep me involved? I mean, every time I got in a car to drive I ended up rear ending other cars, and accidentally running over pedestrians. You see, if you don't drive crazy, you are pretty much just stuck in traffic. The main reason I actually Left Los Sant...uh, left Los Angeles. So even just tooling around you are blowing street lights and driving on sidewalks. Otherwise its an LA traffic simulator. Yeah, fuck that mess. Then the cops chase you, and you crash and get out to run as bullets blast into your body. 

Yeah, a bit disappointing at first. But in the last couple of weekends I suddenly went from "meh" to "omigawd I love this shit". Here are some reasons why:

Maybe some 10 or 12 hours into it, I get it. Understanding has come to me. You see, you spend 10's of hours putzing around, driving and walking around nice areas, getting into occasional fist fights and gunfights and wondering what the hell is the point. Well, it finally dawned on me. As I started getting better at driving and other activities, I realized that the game has a grand plan. It is training you for what is to come. Basically, this is the prelude for you putting together your gang of bank robbers. The game is letting you fuck around so you can get familiar with just being alive. The physics of your world. It knows you will be a bad driver at first. It knows you will be bad at shooting people. And it wants you to get better by just plain experiencing the school of hard knocks in Los Santos. It knows that no setback is permanent. You die or get caught by cops, the just try again. 

When I turn the game off and go to bed I imagine
myself as that Mayhem insurance guy walking
away leaving this behind..

I started regularly going to the shooting range to be a better gunman. I started driving at high speeds around the city to be a better driver. I stopped worrying about being a better driver, and just drove at high speeds through the city. And suddenly I was exponentially better at that.  School of hard knocks.

 

Suddenly I could feel the improvement. Not just in my personal skill, but the game engine itself eases up on you, steadies you. A sort of smoothness starts setting in. 

The other night I was playing the main character, Michael. I decided to go down to "Santa Monica Beach" at the California Incline (his psychologist lives down there), and ran into a jogger lady. You know, one of those older, cut, kinda pretty but hard jogger ladies you see who are way serious about it. She challenged me to a race down the incline stairs to the beach, and though I was wearing a suit and dress shoes, I took her up on it. I was doing OK for a middle-aged guy dressed up, but I kept faltering. I clearly did not have the stamina to keep up. So another activity goal; do some jogging to get better at running. I'll probably need that for bigger missions later anyway. And to eventually beat that lady. Oh, sensible shoes probably don't hurt.

The boy from the hood character, Franklin, gets in a street race. All the other racers seem so much better than me. I try and try but just can't win it.  I keep crashing into poles or houses on tight corners. Then around the 6^th try I remember that Franklin has a special ability to go into "slow time" when driving. Boom, I win that race. Again, this will likely be important skills during a heist. The game is prepping you. School of hard knocks. 

OK, also, for whatever reason playing Tennis was unlocked. Michael's big Sunset Blvd house, surrounded by office buildings, has a tennis court. Wandering over to it, the choice to play is activated. Michael's alcoholic, cheating wife shows up to play. I quickly get my ass handed to me, while she chides me and insults my manhood. Ugh. My vow to get better at tennis happens. And there are other tennis courts around the city where I can play other people to get better on the side. And this isn't for nothing. I looked it up, and playing tennis makes your character all around stronger. Hell yeah. School of (kinda) hard knocks. 

Now that's my kind of hard knock school 😍

As an aside, an encounter happened to me playing Michael last week that just blew my mind. I was tooling around downtown, and saw a question mark in the courtyard of some big office building. I got out the car and walked over to see what was up, and some guy had a marijuana legalization table set up by the fountains. After his speech he gave me a doobie. And when I hit it I realized it was clearly sprinkled with some stronger drug, because ugly aliens suddenly appeared in the area. A ray gatling gun appeared in my hands. Suddenly here I am, in the heart of downtown, being charged by weird aliens as I gunned them down one by one with my Buck Rogers blaster. It blew my mind. This was truly when I knew I loved this game. Anything can happen. School of hard knocks.

They have mental powers. I have a Sci Fi
gatling gun. I like my odds.

But yeah, the improvement of mechanics and physics as you go along is something I always loved in games.  The Elder Scrolls seems to have lost that, but I remember loving it when it was present in Morrowind and Oblivion. But it is so obvious in GTA5. I can actually feel myself getting better as I do things. Yeah, the feeling has won me over. 

So Michael's old geek buddy Lester has a jewelry store heist in mind. We staked out the Rodeo Drive jewelry store and everything so far. But before the mission I think I need to maybe put a few more hours into practice to get prepared for the big time. More driving around the city. More time in the shooting range. And of course, more tennis and jogging. For the job. And of course to be able to beat my nagging, ball busting adulterous wife at tennis, and to win a race against that mouthy jogging bitch down by the beach. School of hard...well, you get the point. 

I predict I will be playing the campaign mode for a long time to come. Hell, I'll probably mostly be jogging and playing tennis around the city for the next month. Just driving around there are always nice things to look at as you level up your skill set..

And testosterone level

Cheers

Mad Max Role-Playing?

I first saw Mad Max about the time The Road Warrior came out. I'm not sure which I saw first. I know I saw RW in theaters (multiple times), and either right before or after Mad Max on tape. It was in those early years of playing table top RPG, and just like almost everything else it was hard not to see role playing possibilities in it. Car Wars was a thing, although it didn't really include much in the way of ongoing campaign possibilities, unless you injected that into it yourself. If I recall in early Car Wars your guy could exit the vehicle, maybe being able to take some pot shots at others as they ran to avoid being run over. But when I got the hankering to DM some stuff in a Mad Maxapocolypse, I did what proud RPG playing teens did at the time and circumvented Car Wars to whip up my own rules for a Road Warrior game. 

Memory is dim as too the details, but I had character classes. Wasteland Wanderer, Road Warrior, Corporate Agent (see below), former Athlete, former Soldier, Wasteland Raider, etc. 

Two things should stand out in the last little paragraph. First, "former" careers such as athlete and soldier. So of course that makes it obvious that this is not too many years after the end of the world. My setting followed the Mad Max and Road Warrior 1 and 2 implied progression of a society in decline for some years followed by an eventual nuclear holocaust. So maybe 10 years after the nukes? Secondly, the "Corporate Agent" implies that there is still some vestiges of civilization somewhere, and so there was. In 1982 there was a cheap little film called "Parasite," Demi Moore's first film. In it, there was a Road Warrior wasteland, and also a remnant of old world corporation groups called "The Merchants." In the film the Merchant agent tooled around the bad lands in a three piece suit and a cool sports car. And a laser gun.

A well funded 401K makes up for any poxiclipse...

The couple of little campaigns I did were successful. One was at the local shop Aero Hobbies in Santa Monica. It was early enough in the hobby that the stalwarts of the shop were still crusty wargamers in their 40's thru 60's, with a decent smattering of the owner's college buddies in their late 20's. So the teens who came in didn't often get the chance to run games there. But one of the nicer older dudes was a big Max fan, and jumped at the chance to play so championed me doing a few sessions. It went well. The guy ran a Lord Humongous clone among a variety of the character classes mentioned above, and he did the voice spot on and it was hilarious. 

You know the drill. Just walk away...

At one point they had a little convoy. This was a sandbox game, and most encounters were random. At one point a storm passed through, an anomaly event based on the storms in the book Damnation Alley (used also in the famous Judge Dredd arc "The Cursed Earth." These storms would rain not just water buy random things. In this case a bunch of sea life whipped up from the ocean. Humongous took a nice sized dead great white shark and tied it to the hood of his Mustang. Those were fun, beer and pretzels sessions (without any actual beer or pretzels). 

Another little campaign I ran around the time for some friends went just as well. One memorable character was a Former Athlete, a Rollerball player from the before the bad times. He still wore his uniform and armor, rolling down the interstate on his roller skates. I loved that image. 

No participation trophies in Rollerball, snowflake...

The thing about the setting is its hard to inject variety. Vehicle crashes and hand to hand combat with more or less the same kind of foes made it so the game seemed geared towards short term campaigns. And that was fine. We moved on after that to all the other games I was running at the time (D&D, Runequest, Champions, Call of Cthulhu, Gamma World, etc) and at some point my note book containing the rules was lost. 

The Mad Max resurgence of recent years had me thinking about it again. Fury Road was the old movies turned up to nitro boost. Characters like Immortan Joe, his war boys, and concepts like the Bullet Farm and such adds a lot of color to the wasteland. Max, who we always assumed could handle himself in a fight (he did alright in the Thunderdome) the new Max was clearly a badass, though it was still mostly assumed...he never gets in a real melee on screen other than his scuffle with a one armed woman.

She actually punches him with that arm nub which is pretty sweet

Some months after the release of Fury Road, the Mad Max video game came out. It was the world of Mad Max tuned up to an ever higher turbo level. This Max gets right into fist fights with gangs of raiders, and he goes to town with devastating blows and clever blocks and ripostes. 

Not long into the game I was taking on groups of up to 8 guys no problem. But of course the driving is the thing, and the game captures various auto related things exceptionally well. You get to give your car upgrades as you go, with things like harpoons, nitro boosts, and better armor. 

End of the world media just loves using that bridge in posters..

This wasteland is clearly the result of a world wide apocalypse beyond what the other movies showed. Here an enemy base might be a land locked aircraft carrier, or a wrecked giant submarine out in the dunes. 

If I ever do another tabletop version I would certainly use this more extreme and fanciful wasteland of the video game, with inspiration from the great characters of Fury Road. Concepts like The Bullet Farm and Gas Town hint at points of light civilization that might add variety to the sandboxing of characters. And certainly the possibilities of weird weather events, mutants, and other sci fi concepts would tighten up the mix. 

But will I ever run a Road Warrior campaign again. Likely not. But one can dream about the possibilities, right?

Witness!