Ambient Irony

Wednesday, February 22

Champagne Socialist Gets What's Coming

In the Neverwinter Nights game, the city of Neverwinter is suffering from a plague called the Wailing Death. In one corner of the city, there's a noblewoman named Formosa who wants you to kill the wizard Meldanen and steal the key to his warehouse so that she can redistribute his possessions to the poor. Not that unusual a mission, but her Marxist rhetoric ticked me off, so when I returned (after acquiring the key, but not killing the wizard), the scene proceeded as follows:

Formosa: So you have returned, my lady. Do you have news?
Teddie Irvine [my character]: I have the key for Meldanen's warehouse.
Formosa: Allow me to see it... Yes, this is the one. I can detect the counterspells on it. Bless you madam. The city will be thanking the gods for you in the days to come.
Formosa: What of Meldanen, himself? What of the sorceror?
Teddie: He lives, and I do not intend to kill him.
Formosa: As you wish, madam. The people may fear Meldanen's retribution and fear to enter the warehouse... hopefully I can change their mind.
Formosa: As promised, here is the necklace. I know it is not much, but hopefully it will suffice.
Teddie: No. Hand over more, or I'll see how much your teeth are worth.
Your actions have shifted your alignment 5 point(s) towards evil.
Formosa: I see. Threats, is it? This is how you respond to a reward, well intended? Or do you simply look on this as some form of back-alley bargaining?
Formosa: Regardless, I won't stand for it. I offered you a reward for your good service and I would hope that you'd accept it gracefully.
Teddie: Hah! Time for you to die, I guess!
Formosa: Treacherous fool! I'll fight you if I must!
Formosa casting unknown spell.
Teddie Irvine attacks Formosa *hit* (16 + 8 = 24)
Teddie Irvine damages Formosa 12 (8 physical 4 acid)
Malla [my familiar, a fairy dragon] attacks Formosa *hit* (15 + 8 = 23)
Malla damages Formosa 7 (7 physical)
Experience Points Gained: 20
Malla killed Formosa

Journal: Day 24, Month 6, 1372
Any task that Formosa might have wanted completed has been indefinitely postponed. She is now dead.

Funny that you get the 5 point demerit for the threat, rather than for actually killing her...

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 09:39 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
Post contains 389 words, total size 2 kb.

1 I wonder if it's because it was the familiar which actually got in the killing blow?

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at Wednesday, February 22 2006 11:35 AM (+rSRq)

2 Actually, that's a historically accurate treatment of reaction to Communism. Reagan was harshly criticized for threatening the Soviet Union, but lauded for actually ending it.

Posted by: TallDave at Wednesday, February 22 2006 12:36 PM (M0J/c)

3 Steven - the game is pretty good at keeping track of that. If someone or something under your direction does something bad, you get the blame for it. It's typical that the villains get all the best lines. I loved this exchange:Formosa: As promised, here is the necklace. I know it is not much, but hopefully it will suffice. Teddie: No. Hand over more, or I'll see how much your teeth are worth.I'm going to have to play through it as a complete bastard as soon as I finish this chapter. Fortunately, my character is a Sorceror/Monk/Dragon Disciple, so I only get screwed up if I go chaotic, not if I go evil. Bwahahaha! It took me an hour of being a self-effacing goody-goody to fix my alignment after that brief moment of free expression. It will be interesting to see how well they have catered for truly nasty player behaviour. I know you can't kill characters critical to the plot, which is kind of clumsy. I'd much prefer it if you could kill them, and then just found yourself stuck. Makes more sense and serves you right.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Wednesday, February 22 2006 11:56 PM (LUBRF)

4 I haven't played Neverwinter Nights, but Morrowind would let you kill off key characters. You'd get an indicator that let you know you'd done something to screw the main story up. Nice feature, and it's fun to see if you really can kill that god.

Posted by: Ian at Sunday, February 26 2006 04:07 AM (qK7B5)

5 Uh oh. Some horrible news: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060308/ap_on_hi_te/neverwinter_nights To teach fact-finding skills, professors at the University of Minnesota have turned the fantasy computer game "Neverwinter Nights" into a tool for journalism students. Instead of slaying monsters and gathering gold, the players tackle sources and gather information. I'm guessing you win by publishing memos proving the Evil Rethuglican Ogre King faked his duty in the Neverwinter Guard. The team had initially planned to have a crowd of game characters milling about the accident scene, but the game wasn't amenable to that. A bug in the program meant that any time a player approached a group of people, he was immediately attacked and killed A "bug," you say? Hmmm.

Posted by: TallDave at Friday, March 10 2006 08:04 PM (H8Wgl)

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Wednesday, February 22

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