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felassan · 11 months ago

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Edge – The Future of Interactive Entertainment magazine, issue #401 (October 2024 issue) – Dragon Age: The Veilguard story

The rest of this post is under a cut for length.

Update: this issue of this magazine is now available to buy from UK retailers today. it can be purchased online at [this link]. [Tweet from Edge Online] also, Kala found that a digital version of the magazine can be read at [this link].

This post is a word-for-word transcription of the full article on DA:TV in this issue of this magazine. DA:TV is the cover story of this issue. When transcribing, I tried to preserve as much of the formatting from the magazine as possible. Edge talked to BioWare devs for the creation of this article, so the article contains new quotes from the devs. the article is written by Jeremy Peel. There were no new screenshots or images from the game in the article. I also think that it contains a few lil bits of information that are new, like the bits on companions' availability and stumbling across the companions out and about on their own in the world e.g. finding Neve investigating an abduction case in Docktown.

tysm to @simpforsolas and their friend for kindly telling me about the article!!

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[image source]

Article introduction segment:

"[anecdote about Edge] We were reminded of this minuscule episode in Edge's history during the creation of this issue's cover story, in which we discuss the inspiration behind Dragon Age: The Veilguard with its creators at BioWare. Notably, director John Epler remembers the studio experimenting with a number of approaches during the early phase of development before eventually locking in to what the game was supposed to be all along, above all else: 'a single-player, story-focused RPG'. As you'd expect from BioWare, though, that was really just a starting point, as we discovered on p54." BioWare draws back the Veil and ushers us into a new Dragon Age

"BEHIND THE CURTAIN BioWare's first true RPG in age age is as streamlined and pacey as a dragon in flight. By Jeremy Peel Game Dragon Age: The Veilguard Developer BioWare Publisher EA Format PC, PS5, Xbox Series Origin Canada Release Autumn

The Dragon Age universe wasn't born from a big bang or the palm of an ancient god. Instead, it was created to solve a problem. BioWare was tired of battling Hasbro during the making of Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights, and wanted a Dungeons & Dragons-like setting of its own. A small team was instructed to invent a new fantasy world in which the studio could continue its groundbreaking work in the field of western RPGs, free of constraints.

Well, almost free. BioWare's leaders mandated that the makers of this new world stick to Eurocentric fantasy, and include a fireball spell - since studio co-founder Ray Muzyka had a weakness for offensive magic.

Beyond that, BioWare’s storytellers were empowered to infuse Dragon Age with their own voices and influences, leaning away from D&D’s alignment chart and towards a moral grayness that left fans of A Song Of Ice And Fire feeling warm and cozy.

In the two decades since, the world of Thedas – rather infamously and amusingly, a shortening of ‘the Dragon Age setting’ that stuck – has taken on a distinct flavor. It’s something director John Epler believes is rooted in characters.

“There’s definitely some standard fantasy stuff in Dragon Age, but everything in the world, every force, is because of someone,” he says. “The idea is that every group and faction needs to be represented by a person – someone you can relate to. Big political forces are fine as background, but they don’t provide you with those interesting story moments.”

Dragon Age: The Veilguard bears out that philosophy. The long-awaited sequel was first announced with the subtitle Dreadwolf, in reference to its antagonist, Solas – an ancient elf who once stripped his people of immortality as punishment for betraying one of their own. In doing so, Solas created the Veil, the thin barrier through which wizards pull spirits and demons invade the waking world. In other words, many of Dragon Age’s defining features, from its downtrodden elves to the uneasy relationship between mages and a fearful church, can be traced right back to one character’s decision.

“The world exists as it does because of Solas,” Epler says. “He shaped the world because of the kind of character he was. That’s, to me, what makes Dragon Age so interesting. Everything can tie back to a person who to some degree thought they were doing the right thing.”

Perhaps BioWare’s greatest achievement in slowburn character development, Solas is a former companion, an unexploded bomb who sat in the starting party of Dragon Age: Inquisition, introverted and useful enough to get by without suspicion. Yet by the time credits rolled around on the Trespasser DLC, players were left in no doubt as to the threat he presented.

Determined to reverse the damage he once caused, the Dreadwolf intends to pull down the Veil, destroying Thedas as we know it in the process. The next Dragon Age game was always intended to be his story.

“We set that up at the end of Trespasser,” Epler says. “There was no world where we were ever going to say, ‘And now let’s go to something completely different.’ We wanted to pay off that promise.”

Yet almost everything else about the fourth Dragon Age appears to have been in flux at one time. In 2019, reporter Jason Schreier revealed that an early version, starring a group of spies pulling off heists in the Tevinter Imperium, had been cancelled two years prior. Most of its staff were apparently moved onto BioWare’s struggling Anthem, while a tiny team rebooted Dragon Age from scratch. That new game was said to experiment with live-service components.

“We tried a bunch of different ideas early on,” Epler says. “But the form The Veilguard has taken is, in a lot of ways, the form that we were always pushing towards. We were just trying different ways to get there. There was that moment where we really settled on, ‘This is a singleplayer, story-focused RPG – and that’s all it needs to be’”.

Epler imagines a block of marble, from which BioWare was attempting to carve an elephant – a character- and story-driven game. “We were chipping away, and sometimes it looked more like an elephant and sometimes it didn’t”, he says. “And then we eventually realized: ‘Just make an elephant’. When we got to that, it almost just took shape by itself.”

2014’s Dragon Age: Inquisition was an open-world game commonly criticized for a slow-paced starting area which distracted players from the thrust of the plot. The Veilguard, in contrast, is mission-based, constructed with tighter, bespoke environments designed around its main story and cast. “We wanted to build a crafted, curated experience for the player,” Epler says. “Pacing is important to us, and making sure that the story stays front and center.”

Epler is very proud of Inquisition, the game on which he graduated from cinematic designer to a lead role (for its DLC). “But one of the things that we ran into on that project was an absentee antagonist,” he says. “Corypheus showed up and then disappeared. You spent ten hours in the Hinterland doing sidequests, and there wasn’t that sense of urgency.”

This time, The Veilguard team wants you to constantly feel the sword of Damocles dangling above your head as you play – a sense that the end of the world is coming if you don’t act. “There’s still exploration – there’s still the ability to go into some of these larger spaces and go off the beaten path to do sidequests,” Epler says. “But there’s always something in the story propelling you and the action forward, and allowing you to make decisions with these characters where the stakes feel a lot more immediate and present. And also, honestly, more real.”

No sooner have you finished character creation than Dragon Age: The Veilguard thrusts you into a choice. As your protagonist, Rook, steps into focus on the doorstep of the seediest bar in town, you decide whether to threaten the owner for information or make a deal. Brawl or no, you’ll walk out minutes later with a lead: the location of a private investigator named Neve Gallus, who can help you track down Solas.

You proceed into Minrathous, the largest city in Thedas and capital of the Tevinter Imperium – a region only alluded to in other Dragon Age games. It’s a place built on the backs of slaves and great mages, resulting in tiered palaces and floating spires – a kind of architecture unimaginable to those in the southern nations.

“When your Dragon Age: Inquisition companion Dorian joins you in Orlais, in one of the biggest cities in Thedas, he mentions that it’s quaint and cute compared to Minrathous,” Corinne Busche, game director on The Veilguard, says. “That one bit of dialogue was our guiding principle on how to realize this city. It is sprawling. It is lived-in. Sometimes it’s grimy, sometimes it’s bougie. But it is expansive.”

Immediately, you can see the impact of BioWare’s decision to tighten its focus. Around every other corner in Minrathous is an exquisitely framed view, a level of spectacle you would never see in Inquisition, where resources were spread much more thinly. “When you know that you’re gonna be heading down a canyon or into this plaza where the buildings open up, you have those perfect spots to put a nice big temple of Andraste or a mage tower,” art director Matthew Rhodes says. “You get those opportunities to really hit that hard.”

BioWare’s intention is to make strong visual statements that deliver on decades of worldbuilding. “People who have a history with Dragon Age have thought about what Minrathous might be like,” Rhodes says. “We can never compete with their imagination, but we can aim for it like we’re shooting for the Moon.”

The people of Tevinter use magic as it if were electricity, as evidenced by the glowing sigils that adorn the dark buildings – street signs evoking Osaka’s riverfront or the LA of Blade Runner. They’re just one of the tricks BioWare’s art team uses to invite you to stop and take in the scene. “A lot of what you start to notice when you’re the artist who’s been working on these big, beautiful vistas and neat murals on the walls is how few players look up,” Rhodes says. “We design props and architecture that help lead the eyes.”

For the really dedicated shoegazers, BioWare has invested in ray-traced reflections, so that the neon signage can be appreciated in the puddles. There are also metal grates through which you can see the storm drains below. “The idea behind that is purely just to remind the player often of how stacked the city is,” Rhodes says. “Wherever you’re standing, there’s guaranteed to be more below you and above you.”

One of BioWare’s core creative principles for The Veilguard is to create a world that’s actually worth saving – somewhere you can imagine wanting to stick around in, once the crises of the main quest are over. To that end, the team has looked to ground its outlandish environments with elements of mundanity.

“A guy’s normal everyday life walking down the streets of this city is more spectacular than what the queen of Orlais is seeing, at least in terms of sheer scale," Rhodes says. “One of the things we’ve tried to strike a balance with is that this is actually still a place where people have to go to the market and buy bread, raise their kids, and try to make it. It’s a grand and magical city, but how do you get your horses from one place to the next? Where do you load the barrels for the tavern? It’s really fun to think of those things simultaneously.”

Normal life in Minrathous is not yours to behold for long, however. Within a couple of minutes of your arrival, the very air is ripped open like cheap drapes, and flaming demons clatter through the merchant carts that line the city streets. A terrible magical ritual, through which Solas intends to stitch together a new reality, has begun.

“We wanted the prologue to feel like the finale of any other game we’ve done,” Busche explains. “Where it puts you right into this media-res attack on a city and gets you really invested in the action and the story right away. When I think back to Inquisition, how the sky was literally tearing open – the impact of this ritual really makes that look like a minor inconvenience.”

Our hero is confronted by a Pride demon, imposing and armored as in previous games, yet accented by exposed, bright lines that seem to burst from its ribcage. “They are a creature of raw negative emotion,” Busche says. “So we wanted to actually incorporate that into their visual design with this glowing nervous system.”

When a pack of smaller demons blocks Rook’s route to the plaza where Neve was last seen, battle breaks out, and The Veilguard’s greatest divergence from previous Dragon Age games becomes apparent. Our rogue protagonist flits between targets up close and evades individual sword swings with precision. In the chaos, he swaps back and forth between blades and a bow. He blends light and heavy attacks, and takes advantage of any gap in the melee to charge up even bigger blows.

“Responsiveness was our first-and-foremost goal with this baseline layer of the combat system,” Busche says. Unless you’re activating a high-risk, high-reward ability such as a charged attack, any action can be animation-cancelled, allowing you to abort a sword swing and dive away if an enemy lunges too close. “We very much wanted you to feel like you exist in this space, as you’re going through these really crafted, hand-touched worlds,” Busche says. “That you’re on the ground in control of every action, every block, every dodge.” Anyone who’s ever bounced off a Soulslike needn’t worry: The Veilguard’s highly customizable difficulty settings enable you to loosen up parry windows if they prove too demanding.

Gone is the overhead tactical camera which, for some players, was a crucial point of connection between Dragon Age and the Baldur’s Gate games that came before, tapping into a lineage of thoughtful, tabletop-inspired combat. Epler points out that the camera’s prior inclusion had an enormous impact on where the game’s battles took place. “We actually had a mandate on Inquisition, which was, ‘Don’t fight inside,’” he says. “The amount of extra work on getting that tactical camera to work in a lot of those internal environments, it was very challenging.”

Gone, too, is the ability to steer your comrades directly. “On the experiential side, we wanted you to feel like you are Rook – you’re in this world, you’re really focused on your actions,” Busche says. “We very much wanted the companions to feel like they, as fully realized characters, are in control of their own actions. They make their own decisions. You, as the leader of this crew, can influence and direct and command them, but they are their own people.”

It's an idea with merit, albeit one that could be read as spin. “It’s not lost on me,” Busche says. “I will admit that, on paper, if you just read that you have no ability to control your companions, it might feel like something was taken away. But in our testing and validating with players, what we find is they’re more engaged than ever.”

There may be a couple of reasons for that. One is that Dragon Age’s newly dynamic action leaves little room for seconds spent swapping between perspectives. “This is a much higher actions-per-minute game,” Busche says. “It is more technically demanding on the player. So when we tried allowing you full control of your companions as well, what we’ve found is it wasn’t actually adding to the experience. In fact, in some ways it was detrimental, given the demanding nature of just controlling your own character.”

Then there’s The Veilguard’s own tactical layer, as described by BioWare. Though the fighting might be faster and lower, like a mana-fuelled sports scar, the studio is keen to stress that the pause button remains as important to the action as ever. This is, according to Busche, where the RPG depth shines through, as you evaluate the targets you’re facing and take their buffs into account: “Matching elemental types against weaknesses and resistances is a big key to success in this game.”

You pick between rogue, warrior and mage – each role later splitting again into deeper specialisms – and draw from a class-specific resource during fights. A rogue relies on Momentum, which is built up by avoiding damage and being highly aggressive, whereas a warrior is rewarded for blocking, parrying, and mitigating damage.

Those resources are then used on the ability wheel, which pauses the game and allows you to consider your options. The bottom quadrant of the wheel belongs to your character, and is where three primary abilities will be housed. “Rook will also have access to runes, which function as an ability, and a special ultimate ability,” Busche says. “So you’re bringing five distinct abilities with you into combat.”

The sections to the left and right of the wheel, meanwhile, are dedicated to your companions. Busche points to Lace Harding, the returning rogue from Inquisition, who is currently frozen mid-jump. “She is her own realized individual in this game. She’s got her own behaviors: how she prioritizes targets, whether she gets up close and draws aggro or stays farther back at range. But you’ll be able to direct her in combat by activating her abilities from the wheel.”

These abilities are complemented by positional options at the top of the wheel, where you can instruct your companions to focus their efforts on specific targets, either together or individually. Doing so will activate the various buffs, debuffs and damage enhancements inherent in their weapons and gear. “So,” Busche explains, “as you progress through the first two hours of the game, this full ability wheel is completely populated with a variety of options and different tactics that you can then string together.”

BioWare has leaned into combos. You might tell one companion to unleash a gravity-well effect that gathers enemies together, then have another slow time. Finally, you could drop an AOE attack on your clustered and slowed opponents, dealing maximum damage. The interface will let you know when an opportunity to blend two companion abilities emerges – moments BioWare has dubbed ‘combo detonations’.

“I like to think about this strategic layer to combat as a huddle,” Busche says, “where you’re figuring out how you want to handle the situation, based on the information you have on the encounter, and how you and your companions synergize together.”

Deeper into the game, as encounters get more challenging, Epler says we’ll be spending a lot of time making “very specific and very focused tactical decisions”. The proof will be in eating the Fereldan fluffy mackerel pudding, of course, but Busche insists this shift to fast action isn’t a simplification. “What really makes the combat system and indeed the extension into the progression system work is that pause-and-play tactical element that we know our players expect.”

The autonomy of The Veilguard’s companions doesn’t end with combat. BioWare’s data shows that in previous games players tended to stick with the same two or three beloved comrades during a playthrough. This time, however, you’ll be forced to mix your squad up at regular intervals.

“We do expect that players will have favorites they typically want to adventure with,” Busche says, “but sometimes certain companions will be mandatory.” Others may not always be available – part of the studio’s effort to convince with three-dimensional characters. “They do have a life outside of Rook, the main character,” Busche says.

"They'll fall in love with people in this world. They’ve had past experiences they’ll share with you if you allow them in and get close to them.”

Being separated from your companions, rather than collecting them all in a kind of stasis at camp, allows you to stumble across them unexpectedly. Busche describes an instance in which, while exploring the Docktown section of Minrathous, you might bump into Neve as she investigates an abduction case. “If I go and interact with her, I can actually stop what I’m doing, pick up her arc and adventure with her throughout her part of the story,” Busche says. “What’s interesting is that all of the companion arcs do ultimately tie back to the themes of the main critical path, but they also have their own unique challenges and villains, and take place over the course of many different intimate moments.”

Some parts of a companion’s quest arc involve combat, while others don’t. Some are made up of large and meaningful missions – as lavish and involved as those along the critical path. “While they are optional, I would be hesitant to call them side content in this game,” Busche says. If you choose not to engage with some of these companion-centered events, they’ll resolve on their own. “And it might have interesting implications.”

The Veilguard promises plenty of change, then, even as it picks up the threads of fan-favorite characters and deepens them, honoring the decades of worldbuilding that came before it. This is perhaps the enduring and alluring paradox of Dragon Age: a beloved series which has never had a direct and immediate sequel, nor a recurring protagonist. Instead, it’s been reinvented with each new entry.

“It’s a mixed blessing to some degree,” Epler says. “The upside is always that it gives us more room to experiment and to try new things. There are parts of the series that are common to every game: it’s always an RPG, it’s always about characters, and we always want to have that strategic tactical combat where you’re forced to make challenging decisions. But at the end of the day, I think what makes Dragon Age Dragon Age is that each one feels a little bit different.”"

Q&A Matthew Rhodes Art director

Q. Early BioWare RPGs were literary, with the emotions and detail mostly happening in dialogue boxes. How have you seen the studio's approach to visual storytelling evolve? A. This has been my entire career. When I first showed up at BioWare, it was at the tail end of Jade Empire, and then I was working on Dragon Age: Origins and early Mass Effect. The games had taken that next step out of sprites and 2D models, and it was like: 'How do we say more? How do we communicate more clearly?' During those early days, a lot of games depended on words to fix everything for you. As long as your character was talking bombastically, you could lend them everything that they needed. But as time went on it also became a visual medium, and it's been this long journey of trying to establish art's seat at the table. I've worked with some great writers over the years, and art is also an essential part of the storytelling. From Dragon Age: Inquisition on, I've been trying to stress with my teams that we are a story department.

Q. Is part of that also letting writers know that your storytelling assistance is available, to help them show rather than tell? A. On The Veilguard, that principle has been operating the best I've seen it. Where you would need a paragraph of dialogue in one of those exposition moments where a character just talks to you, we could sell that with a broken statue or a skeleton overgrown with vines. We've had more opportunities to do that on The Veilguard than most of the projects I've ever worked on combined.

To a hammer, every problem looks like a nail, and so in every department, writing will try to solve it with more words, and art will try to solve it with more art. I've bumped up against moments where it's like, 'As much as we could keep hammering on this design, I think this is actually an audio solution.' And then you take it to audio, and you don't get that overcooked feeling where each team is just trying to solve it in their silo. It's a really creatively charged kind of environment.

[main body of article ends here]

Additional from throughout the article --

Image caption: “Spotlights shine down from the city guards’ base as they pursue you through the streets of Minrathous.”

Image caption: “While most of your companions can be sorted into comfortingly familiar RPG classes, The Veilguard introduces two new varieties: a Veil Jumper and a private investigator.”"

Image caption [on this Solas ritual concept art specifically]: “The name previously given to the game – Dreadwolf – was a direct reference to Solas. Your former companion, now on his own destructive mission, still features, despite the name change.”

Text in a side box:

"RATIONAL ANTHEM The hard lesson BioWare drew from Anthem was to play to its strengths. “We’re a studio that has always been built around digging deep on storytelling and roleplaying,” Epler says. “I’m proud of a lot of things on Anthem – I was on that project for a year and a half. But at the end of the day we were building a game focused on something we were not necessarily as proficient at. For me and for the team, the biggest lesson was to know what you’re good at and then double down on it. Don’t spread yourselves too thin. Don’t try to do a bunch of different things you don’t have the expertise to do. A lot of the people on this team came here to build a story-focused, singleplayer RPG."

Image caption: “In combat you no longer control your companions directly – this is a faster-paced form of fighting – but you are able to direct them in combat, and can even blend their abilities in ‘combo detonations’.”

Image caption: “You’ll be exploring new regions across Tevinter and beyond – Rivain is a certainty, and that’s only accessible via Antiva travelling overland.”

Image caption: “There are three specializations per character class; on the way to unlocking them you’ll acquire a range of abilities.”

Text in a side box:

"MEET YOUR MAKER “Full disclosure: Dragon Age has traditionally not done skin tones well, especially for people of color,” Busche says. “We wanted to do a make-good here.” In The Veilguard’s character creator, you can adjust the amount of melanin that comes through in the skin, as well as test various lighting scenarios to ensure your protagonist looks exactly as you intend in cutscenes. “Speaking of our first creative principle – be who you want to be – we really feel these are the kinds of features that unlock that for our players,” Busche says. “We want everyone to be able to see themselves in this game.” For the first time in the series, your body type is fully customizable too, with animations, armor and even romantic scenes reflecting your choices."

Image caption: “Your companions are a mix of old and new – Lace Harding is a familiar face. Veil Jumper Bellara is new, with a new occupation, while Davrin is a new face with a familiar profession – he’s a Warden.”

Image caption: "Arlathan Forest is home to the ruined city of the elves, now a place of wild magic, Veil Jumpers and (allegedly) spirits".

Image caption: "Bellara is driven by a desire to learn more about the elves, rediscovering the shattered history and magic of her people."

[source: Edge – The Future of Interactive Entertainment magazine, issue #401 (October 2024 issue) - it can be purchased online at [this link].]

#dragon age: the veilguard #dragon age the veilguard spoilers #dragon age: dreadwolf #dragon age 4 #the dread wolf rises #da4 #dragon age #bioware #solas #video games #longpost #long post #simpforsolas #anthem #jade empire #mass effect #obsessed with the idea of helping neve solve cases...

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tofupixel · 11 months ago

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I recently started learning to use rpg maker (vx ace!) and as a result have become increasingly interested in pixel art. I hadn't really done pixel work since my teens - I do more digital painting and vector art - so while I'm a little familiar and can do passable editing, there's a lot I don't know.

One thing that's kind of perplexing for me is understanding the differences in style between two creators of pixel art. I studied art history and I'm used to the differences being things like brush stroke length or degree of realism... I feel like I'm lacking in lexicon in this new frontier lol

What nuances of an artist do you think are most important to style in pixel art?

This kind of stuff is not really officially studied (yet) so it's all a bit of opinion from me.

Usually in pixel art the biggest differences in styles are which limitations the artists choose to impose on themselves; colour count, resolution, palette... Or more stylistic choices like hue shifting, anti-aliasing style or no, dithering or no, etc.

I personally think there are a huge variety of styles in pixel art, as it's literally just a medium, and I hope you'll agree by the end 8)

Also (imo) there is some seperation between the styles of art for art's sake, and art for videogames, where things have to be clear and readable to be actually playable.

🎮 Old school games:

Sometimes referred to as something like '8-bit' or '16-bit' (relating to the NES era / SNES era consoles), these artstyles usually follow the rules and limitations of the hardware at the time.

This all falls under retro art, most popular styles include: NES, SNES, GB, GBC, C64

Notable artists: Nickwoz, Sandy Gordon, Franken, Cisco

📚 Old school art:

There were also events called Demoscene (still are), where developers would go to a big convention and share their demos. A lot of pixel art competitions were held here, where artists would draw live.

Generally they used to favour a high realism/semirealism style, with lots of texture/dithering, fairly high resolution (if the hardware allowed for it), and adjacent pixels mostly being different from one another.

There are even older styles than this but they are fairly niche and I'm not that well educated. If interested look into some of the old PCs/consoles.

⭐ Modern pixel art:

Usually using more colours and higher resolution, larger clusters of pixels instead of individual ones. Strong use of art fundamentals.

Artists to look at: Adam Ferguson (yes it is pixel art), Snake, Slym, 6VCR, Yes I do Pixels, Gijotto, SovanJedi, JoeCreates, Franek, @8pxl

the rest below are "modern" pixel artists too but I think they have other things in their style that are a bit different!

🎨 Painterly:

Some artists choose to emulate the natural brushstrokes digitally, and keep their clusters large and loose. Usually don't focus on the minute details as much.

@makrustic, @hexh-pixel, Umbohr, Gawrone

🟦 Dithering

These artists all use dithering / texture in ways that make their styles totally unique.

Deceiver, Night, Reo,

💥 Experimental

These artists are always trying new things and honing in on their unique style.

AJ, hby, @ilta222, Alphons

I could really go on for ever, there are so many different styles, cute pixel art, horror pixel art, 1bit (2 colours only), and then adding animation takes it even further, but I think you get the idea

If you want to learn more, the Masters of Pixel Art books have works /interviews from pixel artists of different eras, including demoscene and contemporary.

😊👍

#qna #tutorial #pixel art tutorial #art style #pixel art style #pixel art lore

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vintagerpg · 2 months ago

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This is an odd one, DQ1: The Shattered Statue (1988), the first and, to my knowledge, only DragonQuest product produced by TSR.

A little history. When wargame makers SPI got into the RPG scene, TSR pulled some corporate fuckery to basically put them out of business and seize their assets — it would remove a rival fantasy game, DragonQuest, from the market, and give TSR a leg up in wargames (which never materialized, because the wargame market had collapsed, so there was nothing to get a leg up on, really). So TSR was stuck with DragonQuest, and reissued the rules. And I guess they decided to produce some content for it, too. And get Jennell Jaquays to write and illustrate it, which, sign me up! Enchanted Forest, which I covered back in February, was a banger, so chances are this one is, too. Even if it is also a Forgotten Realms adventure? TSR was weird, man.

The adventure is pretty good. An alchemist hires the players to track down the missing pieces of a massive stone golem he is attempting to reassemble. About half the scenario involves scouring the countryside for the parts, which involves a number of excellent encounters — there is a red dragon that is very interesting, and a group of gargoyles with roleplaying notes. And a dragonwight, with a badass accompanying illustration. There are also logistical problems with moving the gigantic pieces.

The climax is brief — reassembling the construct reveals the reason it was destroyed in the first place: it has been possessed by a devil and shattered it to stop its rampage. Now it’s rampaging again. There is also a wizardly duel happening and a lot of civilian casualties, so the players need to find a way to stop it. Pretty good ending, really.

The rest of the book reprints some of the magic rules from the DragonQuest rules. I’m not entirely sure why, because I’d assume that if you were playing this with DQ, you’d already have them, you know, in the DragonQuest book? I don’t know and am not really motivated to find out.

Excellent illustration work from Jaquays throughout. I mentioned the dragonwight already, but the NPC portraits are stellar. Lots of zipatone. A delightfully bizarre Daniel Horne cover featuring what I can only hope is Buffalo Bill Cody riding a pterodactyl and wielding a runeblade.

#roleplaying game #dungeons & dragons #tabletop rpg #rpg #d&d #ttrpg #TSR #Dungeons & Dragons #DragonQuest #Shattered Statue

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directdogman · 3 months ago

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hey dog! sorry to bug you with a coding question, but i'm learning rpg maker mv for a fangame & i'm wondering how you did a couple things. if it's not too much trouble, could you quickly explain some of it? i've scrounged around as much as i can but i cant find what i need so i thought it'd be worth asking directly ^^;

how did you get the players name to show up in the message log? i know theres a plugin that adds the name windows for other characters & i've got that figured out, but i have no idea how to get the players name to show up in the history after selecting stuff

how'd you get the graphic for the route diverging choices to show & play During choices? so far ive figured out that looping the images recreates the visual but then the game doesn't progress, bc its just stuck in that loop...

how'd you disable ( + grey out) dialogue options after selecting them??

how'd you add the fullscreen option? i found a code that was supposed to add a fullscreen option to the optionscore settings but that one just breaks the plugin & i simply Don't know enough javascript to figure it out myself

i'm using all the same plugins that dialtown has so clearly these are possible without extra ones, i just don't know how to do it,, thanks for explaining your pronoun system a little while ago btw! i wasn't the one who asked but your post was super helpful when i was setting it up for myself :D

It's been close to 6 years since I started making DT, and I had to figure out a few solutions to specific issues that cropped up which I've likely forgotten now, but I'll answer what I can remember. I'm also gonna give you some advice and advise you not to use RPG Maker for projects like these.

I basically Scott Cawthon'd DT and forced the engine to yield to my demands because I wanted to use the one I knew best. A few of these solutions are over-complicated because the easier ones (which would've worked in other engines) had to be constructed differently. I'll also mention a few solutions to problems you might not have encountered (but inevitably will if you try to recreate DT.) With that out of the way...

You'll want these settings for the backlog plugin. the \c[x] commands refer to standard name colours. Log special inputs set to true, followed up by this below:

\n<\c[4]\n[1]\c[0]>%1

With \n[1] being the name you want and the number after the first c being what colour you want.

I'll also save you a potential future issue: I'd actually recommend you find the backlog plugin I used in DT's files (located inside the www/js/plugins folder) and use the version I have instead of the official release if you're not already, because I made a small change to fix an error. Basically, it breaks slightly with the plugin that lets you bring up the menu during dialogue because text reloads when you leave the menu and re-enter the text box, causing text to be logged at least twice after you pause it. If you keep bringing up the menu, you'll get constant duplication. I simply added a line of code that tells the log not to have two duplicates in a row. Not a programmer, but it seems works.

2)I did it in a funny way to ensure the engine wouldn't screw it up. Basically, there's 3 steps to the event and it's kinda hard to explain (and would be annoying to reproduce without a lot of trial and error for a beginner.) It's easier if I show my code. The first thing I do is run a common event (you can also just paste this code in and run it from the event) that renders the frames used by the popup, so they're loaded into memory + ready to go.

As you can see, they're set to 0 opacity but now ready to be used. Obviously they have to be on a layer that isn't being used by anything else in the scene (and won't be during this part of the game.) I run this event ahead of time, usually 4 messages before the choice comes up or so, so even slower PCs should have time to get them up.

The 'if head' thing just switches between the files for phone/typegingi's heads. I render each frame on separate layers and toggle their opacity from one to the next on a single frame to avoid flickering (bc RPG maker's renderer is hot trash and I have to work around it. Case in point.)

Step 2 is a second command event that orders the frames to fade in.

One layer is the text (which doesn't move) and the other is the first frame of the little head animation. A switch is also turned on at the end, and this signals the animation to go, which is handled by an event on any map where a choice like this comes up.

The event page that handles the animation itself has 2 pages, one to handle the animation as it goes and the other to handle when it stops (note that you could use one page and simply use a conditional branch. I didn't.)

Set to parallel so it runs in the bg behind normal events. As you can see, every 17 frames, I command one image to fade out over a single frame and another to fade in. It loops perfectly, cycling from middle frame, to left, to middle, to right, back to middle. Finally, when you select any route diverging choice, it sets off a second switch, which activates the second event page and commands the game to dispose of the graphics and then turn itself off.

Basically, it's the same animation but with a twist. The text is faded out over 60 frames and then the same animation is played as before, except the values it fades back into go from 255, to 170 to 85. Each of those commands is also followed by a 17 second fade to the opacity of the next frame. So, frame one renders in one frame at 255. Then seventeen frame fadeout to 170... Next frame renders for 1 frame AT 170, then fades out gradually to 85. Then next frame renders at 85 during 1 frame, fades to 0. This is how i synced the turning animation to fade out convincingly.

At the very end, I turn both of the switches this event page uses off so both event pages don't continue on loop. I also have a check for the first event variable to check if the game should still think the animation is running, as a failsafe. I don't remember if this mattered.

3)It's a function in the YEP Extended Message Pack. You'll see the commands for hiding (temporarily removing) + disabling choices (greying them out) as you scroll through the help list, almost 2/3 down. The thing you have to remember though is that messages that are commanded to be hidden/disabled will STAY disabled unless you turn them back on. So, ANY time there's a possibility to make a choice with a disabled or hidden message, add this plugin command to EVERY selectable choice

ClearChoiceSettings

This will ensure the game doesn't break from having a choice permadisabled. If you use loops or labels to make the game return to a previous choice, make sure the looping point is BEFORE any logic that may disable/hide a choice so it doesn't autoenable everything if the game has to go back.

4)Make a new RPG Maker project, copy the js folder from www/data/js and open the new project alongside your other one. Then check my YEP Option core plugin and follow this path in the plugin editor

This code should work.

On a similar note, I'd also take a look at how my plugins are ordered, if your list is different. I had to meddle with the list to make sure some plugins functioned correctly. This engine is held together with duct-tape and spite, so do what this advice what you will.

Hope this helps!

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thecreaturecodex · 6 days ago

Text

Erguzam

P. montivagus image in the public domain, accessed at flickr here

[As the most speciose and successful terrestrial animal lineage, insects have all sorts of interesting life history strategies and evolutionary adaptations. The trick is, making them things that can be viable in play for a tabletop rpg. Parasitoid reproduction is very common, and gets applied to lots of creatures that aren't insects. The more arcane life cycles are cool, but difficult to make relevant to players. The behavior of slave making ants is not something I ever have seen before in an RPG. It does have some pop culture impact; the ants in the B-movie Empire of the Ants are slave-makers, but my version leans much more heavily into biological weirdness.]

Erguzam CR 4 N Magical Beast This creature appears to be a red ant the size of a wolf. Its mandibles are smooth and curved inward, and its front feet end in broad tarsi with hooks and spines. It has no sting, but instead a small nozzle at the end of its abdomen.

An erguzam is a giant ant that lives as a parasite on farms and ranches. Rather than simply raiding humanoid settlements as some other species of giant ants do, erguzams instead take over the settlements completely, using chemicals to enslave its denizens and force them to work for the ants’ benefit. An erguzam colony begins when a queen, accompanied by a few soldiers from its previous colony, finding a farmstead and enslaving its residents. While the queen lays eggs, the soldiers fan outward in order to find more workers to serve the colony. An erguzam exerts its control over its slaves through trophallaxis—it feeds its victims a slurry of drugs that make its mind docile and pliable, and make its senses sharp enough to receive chemical cues from their exploiters. People so enslaved work on the farm growing crops and raising livestock, fixing buildings and refitting them to better suit their masters’ anatomy, raising the young of the erguzams and helping to raise any slaves too young to take care of themselves. They may even trade and engage with other people, all the while acting as cover for their monstrous masters. An erguzam’s chemicals cause humanoids to age rapidly, forcing erguzams to raid regularly in order to replenish their workforce, or to exploit longer lived species like dwarves and elves.

Erguzam soldiers do not take slaves on their raids with them, relying on their own power to fight. They preferentially try to capture smaller people, including children, as well as less heavily armored targets. Foes wearing heavy armor are more likely to simply be slain, cut in two with their scything mandibles or sprayed with the acid they can fire from their abdomens. Already enslaved victims submit to being fed their mind-altering drugs willingly, but when capturing slaves anew, the erguzams grab them with their front legs and pull their mouths open in order to give them their first feeding. If a creature is unaffected, it is butchered before the erguzam moves onto the next target. If it succumbs, the erguzam retreats from battle with its new slave.

Erguzam Queens Unlike the queens of other giant ants, erguzam queens retain their full mobility throughout their lives. An erguzam queen is an erguzam with the giant and advanced simple templates, and it can use its enslave ability at will. An erguzam queen’s acid spray deals 5d8 points of damage, and all erguzams within 30 feet of an erguzam queen gain a +2 morale bonus on all attack and damage rolls. An erguzam queen is a CR 6 monster.

Erguzam CR 4 XP 1,200 N Medium magical beast Init +6; Senses darkvision 60 ft., Perception +10, scent

Defense AC 17, touch 12, flat-footed 15 (+2 Dex, +5 size) hp 37 (5d10+10) Fort +6, Ref +6, Will +3 Resist acid 10; Weakness verminous

Offense Speed 50 ft., climb 20 ft. Melee bite +8 (2d6+3), claws +8 (grapple) Special Attacks acid spray, enslave

Statistics Str 17, Dex 15, Con 14, Int 2, Wis 14, Cha 11 Base Atk +5; CMB +8 (+12 grapple); CMD 20 (28 vs. trip) Feats Blind-fight, Improved Initiative, Skill Focus (Perception) Skills Climb +15, Perception +10, Stealth +7

Ecology Environment temperate plains Organization solitary, pair, raiding party (3-8) or hive (4-24 plus 1 queen) Treasure incidental

Special Abilities Acid Spray (Ex) As a standard action, an erguzam can spray acid in a 15 foot cone dealing 5d6 points of acid damage (Reflex DC 14 half). An erguzam can use this ability three times per day, but must wait 1d4 rounds between uses. The save DC is Constitution based. Enslave (Su) As a move action, an erguzam can vomit a chemical slurry into the mouth of a pinned, helpless or willing humanoid. The humanoid must succeed a DC 16 Will save or be charmed by the erguzam and by all erguzams of the same hive for 1 week. Unlike a charm person spell, humanoids do not gain a bonus to their saving throw if it is threatened or attacked by an erguzam. A creature that succeeds its saving throw is immune to the enslave ability of that erguzam for 24 hours. Humanoids so affected are friendly to these erguzams and are compelled to work on their behalf. An erguzam can give these charmed humanoids simple instructions from a range of 60 feet with chemical signals as a free action, and can sense whether a creature is affected or not by the enslave ability of any erguzam from its hive. A humanoid affected by an erguzam’s enslave ability ages one year per week it is affected. An erguzam can use this ability three times before it has to return to its queen to replenish its supply. This is a mind-influencing poison effect. The save DC is Constitution based with a +2 racial bonus. Verminous (Ex) An erguzam is treated as both a magical beast and vermin for the purposes of spells and effects.

#erguzam #slave-making ant #pathfinder 1e #pathfinder rpg #when animals attack #magical beast #giant ant

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