#tula plays kingmaker

[neotula]

i don't think i've ever played any game that made it feel so satisfying to nail the prerequisites for a difficult line of dialogue.

(rogue trader and pathfinder: kingmaker spoilers)

locked in marazhai's romance and as someone who's playing iconoclast i cannot express how relieved i was to see this dialogue option.

It's all worth it to pull this off.

Owlcat manages to nail this every time: I know it's hip to hate on alignment in rpgs, but I'm a big fan of alignment as a roleplay tool and enjoy being locked in to an alignment that reflects my actions, and owlcat manages to make it feel so damn cool every time.

I'm reminded of the encounter with the lantern king in Kingmaker:

Your dialogue is locked to your alignment. I was true neutral the entire game, because I consistently played the game that way. In that moment, I had only one thing to say, and it was what I was. It represented how I had lived my life in the game. It would only make sense to say what I said.

Alignment fluctuates based on choices in Kingmaker, a living thing that moves with you. What you say and do has consequences, but in a moment like this, it's part tool, and part achievement: I have become this thing. I have lived how I have lived, and it may save me, or it may damn me.

So often, it feels like owlcat is able to draw the best out of these tabletop rpgs: there are many elements that are dated and rooted in or branched from deeply harmful stereotypes, coming from flawed people who imparted hurtful beliefs into the systems they created. Owlcat manages to respect the games and systems and stories that they craft their games from, but also lift them into something better, a thing that I think is genuinely incredible.

I'd always been hesitant to play a Warhammer game: when I saw that owlcat was making rogue trader, I felt reasonably comfortable that I'd enjoy the game, especially after playing pathfinder: wotr.

(an excellent game, and one of my all time favorites.)

Warhammer just hasn't been my thing prior to this: I don't enjoy the sort of "everything is fucked no matter what" setting, and even after, I can say that I'm still not sold on Warhammer as a whole.

I think I do honestly still dislike the same things I disliked before about warhammer, but I think owlcat has made an incredibly wonderful and complex game, especially considering the source material. Also, it's made me give warhammer a genuine shot, and while I'm still iffy on it, I've found a lot to love.

anyways: play owlcat games. they're the best of tabletop rpgs, delightfully horny, respectful to the characters in them in ways that consistently surprise and please me, but also, just so damn fun and over the top in the best ways. 10/10, would romance a drukhari again.

[neotula]

owlcat games do manage to capture that most timehonored tradition of dragon age: origins (and I’d also say baldur’s gate 1+2) of “really good rpg but oh god fuck that one section”