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Unread postby icycalm » 04 Apr 2008 01:21

Completely unrelated, but since I didn't really leave that much to be said on the subject:

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Unread postby icycalm » 28 Apr 2008 19:49

From The Economist's obituary of Gary Gygax; well-researched, high-quality writing as usual.

The game was spreading beyond basements, particularly influencing the nascent computer-games industry. Mr Gygax didn't like that either; he thought computer graphics cheapened the experience by substituting an artist's imagination for the player's. And while computers were ideal for streamlining tedious dice rolls and arithmetic, those, for him, were never the point.
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Unread postby icycalm » 08 Nov 2008 14:25

While I don't necessarily disagree with his point... his logic is so flawed here it hurts. All JRPG battle systems suck because there's so many of them! Of course! Why didn't we all see this before?!


http://www.rpgdl.com/forums/index.php?t ... 5#msg39915

He prefaces the entire thing with something on RPGs, and how the point of an RPG is to assume the role of a character and make choices to develop your character in ways outside combat, and how battle was not the point. The movement away from wargaming roots in an RPG is a Very Good Thing, emphasizing character choice rather than dice rolls. However, by taking all that out of jRPGs, they're no longer Role Playing Games, they're Powergaming Simulators, where the entire purpose is to smash the enemy with whatever you have at your disposal. Therefore, you judge their battle system design versus a wargame, which they have more in common with. And as a general rule, they suck.

The scenarios are all either Monty Hall cakewalks or Revenge of the Asshole DM where they decide to cornhole you for not playing the game with a FAQ. Your entire objective is to Make Numbers Go Up, and with the player divested of any need to concern himself with actual Role Playing, you are relieved of all responsibilities except to build your characters to win as efficiently as possible. Much like in wargaming, where you use your units to win as effectively as possible.

The main difference, though, is that rules for wargaming systems are usually polished far more than jRPG battle systems, allowing for much more interactivity. I'll use CBT as an example, because that's what I'm most familiar with: CBT is on its third set of master rules in 25 years. That's like if Square was just releasing FF3, having spent a decade polishing and refining each game, making tweaks on the rules to ensure balance and writing new rules because they hadn't thought of the random scenario some fan came up with. If you're churning out games at a rate that jRPGs are, you don't get that kind of parity that you achieve in a well-polished game setting where the mechanics have been vetted by players to find the weird, game-breaking combinations devs never thought of, and likewise, the playerbase as a whole never develops an attachment to a system like they do in pen and paper RPGs (though some do, but they're what I like to call an outlier*).


http://www.rpgdl.com/forums/index.php?t ... 9#msg39919

Very good reply by this guy -- I couldn't have done it better myself. Of course I wouldn't need to if the first guy could actually read.


*he means retards
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Unread postby NeoKubrick » 09 Nov 2008 16:10

Good article. Though, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, and TES IV: Oblivion exceeded the range of role-play Deus Ex offered. One could say "fuck the main-story [or guild stories]" in either game (less so in the latter TES game), and go off to make and shape their own character.
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Unread postby icycalm » 09 Nov 2008 16:28

NeoKubrick wrote:One could say "fuck the main-story [or guild stories]" in either game (less so in the latter TES game), and go off to make and shape their own character.


There is a 99.999999% chance this is total horseshit, but I haven't played the games enough to say for sure. Even if it is true it is beside the point, since "shaping your character" without a main story is more boring than answering stupid forum posts. What makes Deus Ex an RPG... IS the main story! Without a main story who gives a fuck about stats or whatever, which is what you mean by "shaping their own character". Without the main story there IS no character! And again, it is obvious you don't understand the meaning of the word 'character'.
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Unread postby Cpt. Coin-op » 11 Nov 2008 01:05

What I was most interested in was the bit on MMORPGs:
icycalm wrote:...in a world in which everyone was an adventurer there could be no adventures worth pursuing.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

And in a JRPG-ish pattern, most MMOs (notably the ones that come from Korea) are following a trend that puts them more in line with the JRPG:
--Making numbers go up (Powerleveling? Obsessing over the ultimate loot?)
--Actions with other player characters or NPCs rarely, if ever, affect the outcome of the game. Because no matter how many fetch/grind quests you accomplish, nothing will change about the towns that were supposedly in danger or the NPCs that "asked" you for the favor to begin with. All quests do is maybe give you an item or two and just give your character some experience points and currency units.
--Systems are hackneyed shlock (hell, just look at any Korean MMO--odds are it will look, play, and feel exactly like Ragnarok Online, which arguably set the mold for KMMOs.)
--Appearance/character design will always be based on anime, hoping to sucker in legions of idiots who will play it in lieu of an otherwise bare-bones experience. I honestly can't think of a single fucking exception to this.

In fact, a lot of the RPGDL guy's post can apply to this:
Rob the Stampede wrote:...they're Powergaming Simulators, where the entire purpose is to smash the enemy with whatever you have at your disposal. Therefore, you judge their battle system design versus a wargame, which they have more in common with. And as a general rule, they suck.
...you are relieved of all responsibilities except to build your characters to win as efficiently as possible.

So it looks as though Ultima Online will be the closest that MMOs get to an actual RPG.
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Unread postby Crazy Man » 22 Dec 2008 10:39

Hands down one of my favorite articles on insomnia. Great job.

icycalm wrote:My experience with Fallout is limited to a couple of afternoons of playing time using a borrowed laptop back in '98. I don't think I managed to get that far before I had to return it. I've been meaning to play it properly and write a review, so I'll get back to you once I get around to doing that. It would be a real rush for me to discover a second real CRPG.


I'd love to see a Fallout review from here.

You can find the game on gog.com or in a retail pack that includes fallout tactics. It's one of the best combinations of tactical turnbased combat mixed with C&C based role-playing. Just make sure you max out the combat speed in the options menu so it doesn't get boring.

As far as other RPGs go, I highly recommend fully playing through both Arcanum and Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines. Both have good choices and consequences that actually have a decent impact on the game world. Arcanum's C&C in particular are long term and have many effects that affect the end game. Unfortunately, both games are buggy and have pretty bad combat.

I also recommend taking a look at Neverwinter Nights 2's expansion pack: Mask of the Betrayer. Unfortunately, Neverwinter Nights 2 OC and its other expansion pack Storm of Zehir are pretty terrible though.

I also recommend taking a look at an upcoming indie CRPG called Age of Decadence

http://rpgvault.ign.com/articles/714/714762p1.html
http://rpgvault.ign.com/articles/716/716455p1.html
http://www.nma-fallout.com/article.php?id=19882
http://www.gamebanshee.com/interviews/a ... dence1.php
http://rpgvault.ign.com/articles/749/749013p1.html
http://rpgvault.ign.com/articles/809/809015p1.html
http://gnomeslair.blogspot.com/2008/02/ ... dence.html
http://www.downthewall.com/archive/2008 ... ines-rpgs/
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2008/02 ... -d-weller/
http://www.starwarsknights.com/fullstory.php?id=470
http://gamebanshee.com/editorials/ageof ... cejtz1.php



The great thing about all of these games including Deus Ex (one of my personal favorite games) is that you can complete most of the game without having to actually kill someone. Non-combat skills are something that's seriously missing in 99% of all RPGs these days. Wanna Role-Play a pacifist? You got it, however you'll need to trade in those skill points in combat skills to actually solidify your character.

A problem I have with Deus Ex however, is that you're still being rail-roaded through a linear plot. You're certainly given freedom on how you accomplish tasks, but nothing you do has a significant effect on the plot. No matter what you do, you can't join MJ12 and you're always forced into the betrayal twist. The game forces God Mode on many NPCs until the game says it's ok for them to die. You're forced to go to the NSF warehouse to get proof that UNATCO is corrupt. You can't just put a bullet in Paul's head and head off to Hong Kong to kill Tracer Tong like a good agent. The same thing is applied near the end of the game when Bob Page offers you to join him and get a piece of the pie, yet the game doesn't let you. Even if you do save Paul during the Hotel Escape, all it does is add a few extra lines of dialogue later in the game. "OMG JC! A bomb!" would have been a lot more significant if the helicopter exploded while Tracer Tong was in it while being transported to Vandenburg. Saving Jock has no influence on the game what-so-ever.

Compare this to the big bad at the end of Fallout 1. If you feel that what he's doing is right, then you can join him which leads to a cutscene of you getting dipped into a VAT to become a Super Mutant followed by your Vault getting raided and slaughtered by your fellow Super Mutants. On the flipside, if your diplomacy skills are high enough, you can convince him that what he's doing is wrong and have him kill himself. (he actually stays dead after this and doesn't become a forced boss fight unlike that poorly written fanfiction game that will not be mentioned) This extra conversation depth wouldn't be possible if there weren't any stat/skill checks. Hell, what's funny about Fallout 1+2 is that if you have an Intelligence below 5, then your speech in conversations is fragmented and makes you sound like a retard. (it also prevents you from doing a good chunk of the quests) The additional traits and perks also help mold what character you want to role-play.


One of the few things that I preferred about Invisible War is that there is no "evil" faction. Each faction believes that it's doing what's right for humanity and added an extra layer of depth to the philosophical side of the story.

On the MMORPG side, while you may be an immortal peon in Eve-Online, you can at least make a name for yourself in some way. :twisted:
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Unread postby icycalm » 14 Feb 2009 14:49

First decent piece of writing on RPGs, on a site other than this one:

Cole Stryker: Before I even begin I must request that everyone read this, one of the best pieces of game criticism I've ever read. JRPG fans should prepare to be offended. It contains the following money quotes:

Western CRPGs have kept evolving because there has always existed consciousness of a direction towards which to evolve; JRPGs, meanwhile, have been going round in circles ever since their inception -- Fallout is worlds away from Akalabeth; not so Rogue Galaxy from Final Fantasy.

The only kind of evolution JRPGs have undergone is of a cosmetic nature: Final Fantasy was no Ultima, and its endless sequels had to be justifed in some way -- and so they were. CG or anime-style cutscenes and countless hours' worth of voice-acting and orchestral soundtracks were the justification, piled up, stacked and shoved inside cartridges...


Now then. It's no secret that I'm not a fan of JRPG's. It seems to me that the things holding JRPG's back are the very characteristics that define the genre. So I guess this is another way of saying that the best way to make a good JRPG is to not make a JRPG.

Firstly, expensive poly counts have to go in order for this genre to mean anything to me. I'm happy to see that recent portable JRPG's have done this, though I haven't played any of them. They practically had to, with the limited graphical capabilities. It's interesting how a dearth of technology can actually amount to a better game because it allows developers to cut the fat.

Secondly, we've got to lose the cutscenes. Kierkegaard tells it like it is in an epic burn, calling Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, "a groundbreaking JRPG comprised of a single 106-minute-long cutscene, whose only flaw was that it didn't give players the option to skip it." Oh snap, son. The cult of celebrity that JRPG composers enjoy also brings the genre down. Focus on what's under the hood, please.

In order to push the genre into new territory, JRPG's should decide whether they want to be actual role playing games or strategy games rather than a mediocre mixture of both. I'd much rather play a proper RPG like Planescape Torment or a proper strategy game like Advance Wars than a JRPG which offers an hamstrung version of each. Even my favorite JRPG franchise, Earthbound, is super guilty of this. The combat system, even the rhythm based one in Mother 3 is pretty mindless. Developers need ways to mix up the combat mechanics. Use Ice Power to kill Fire Demons. Fight Night Wraiths with the Heavenly Light Arrows. Yawn. Chrono Trigger made these weaksauce mechanics obsolete well over a decade ago.

Make them shorter. I just don't feel like investing 70+ hours on a JRPG. The last one I played was Baten Kaitos, a reasonably fun card-based RPG. I burned out halfway through and haven't played one since (except for the nostalgic Mother 3, for which I made an exception).

Now that I've covered where I think JRPG's should go, I'll talk about where they will go: Nowhere. There are too many people out there content to play bad games. The continued existence of the Final Fantasy franchise is proof enough.


http://www.nerve.com/CS/blogs/61fps/arc ... -rpgs.aspx
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Unread postby Strifer » 14 Feb 2009 16:35

I still find FF the games enjoyable to experience, though playing them ranges from dreadful (random battles) to possibly interesting (boss battles). In fact, I had most fun playing FFX when fighting Seymour Flux and Yunalesca as I had to get creative to beat them, something that FF games encourage you to do only after you spend tens of hours leveling everything up to fight the secret bosses.

Now that I think about it, a JRPG could benefit from a SOTC treatment: leave the mooks out, and spice up the highlights.
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Unread postby icycalm » 14 Feb 2009 16:44

Strifer wrote:I still find FF the games enjoyable to experience


Cole Stryker wrote:Now that I've covered where I think JRPG's should go, I'll talk about where they will go: Nowhere. There are too many people out there content to play bad games. The continued existence of the Final Fantasy franchise is proof enough.
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Unread postby icycalm » 17 Mar 2009 19:57

Question was asked here: http://forum.insomnia.ac/viewtopic.php?p=8643#8643

sadinotna wrote:
icycalm wrote: I am talking about the players, who in real RPGs are only supposed to role-play a single character


Now I'm curious to your opinions on troupe system games and GM-less stuff like Polaris. Are the real RPGs or not?


From what I know of them (I've never actually played them) troupe system games are highly flawed (see paragraph below). As for Polaris, it's an obscure indie game I only just now heard of. I googled it. After skimming a review I can say that the setting sounds interesting, but not the system.

I can't see how GM-less systems would be interesting to me. In fact, the reason that I always play the GM is because I don't trust the GMing skills of other people. If ALL THE PLAYERS took the role of the GM, there's no fucking way they wouldn't fuck up everything about the game, except perhaps if you went around the world and picked the best GMs ever to join in a single group. Most players, like most people, are stupid, or at least simple-minded, and totally incapable to assume the wide-ranging responsibilities of the GM, even in watered-down form. You might as well try to find an improvisational theatre group which turns out better plays than those of the top playwrights. It just doesn't work that way.

Oh, and yeah, I forgot your question. Yes, they are real RPGs -- just crappy ones, except perhaps (and it's a big perhaps) if you get a group of truly amazing people together. Even then though, I would have to try this out to be sure that the game would be better -- or even just as good -- as a regular RPG with a decent GM.
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Unread postby sadinotna » 18 Mar 2009 10:31

That's very interesting because your ideas on games seem to align with the RPGpundit, another man despised by everyone outside his forum. What do you think of him?
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Unread postby icycalm » 18 Mar 2009 13:03

I have never heard of him.

And note that I am not despised by everyone outside my forum. I'd say about 30% love me. Not that it matters, but just to set the matter straight.
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Unread postby Evo » 19 Mar 2009 04:27

It isn't really about computer games - more computer assisted games.

Here is a review of DnD 5th Ed - It has some interesting points about role playing, complexity and skill.

http://www.gamegrene.com/node/971
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Unread postby icycalm » 03 Apr 2009 13:39

Continued from here: http://forum.insomnia.ac/viewtopic.php?p=9063#9063

Recap wrote:A line about the "RPG" term I wanted to say to you since your fantastic article on the subject -- I don't think you'll find anybody disagreeing it's some sort of a misnomer. It's just that we all accepted it as a polysemic word.


Polysemic words are fine and all, but this is a very specialized term we are talking about. If it had not been raped beyond recognition we would have had 100 games like Deus Ex by now instead of just one -- something which has proved a grievous blow to the videogame industry. If we had had those 100 Deus Exes, then videogames would long ago have gained the "cultural legitimacy" the artfags have been crying out for, because that is how you gain it: from complex RPGs, not from retarded mini-games.

So I am not prepared to budge on this. Not to mention that when I am reviewing a game, say Planescape: Torment, and I discuss the RPG elements it contains, I want everyone to understand I am talking about the interactivity of the plot and NOT the fucking hit points or leveling.

So on this website, at least, I will expect people to use the term RPG correctly.

Recap wrote:It's not different to the term "adventure game" [laughs], in the end.


Same goes for this. "Adventure game", on this site, means Zork and Monkey Island -- NOT Zelda. I also expect people to observe this distinction in their forum posts.

All of this is simply in the interests of clear communication.
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Unread postby Recap » 03 Apr 2009 17:51

icycalm wrote:Same goes for this. "Adventure game", on this site, means Zork and Monkey Island -- NOT Zelda. I also expect people to observe this distinction in their forum posts.


What I really meant with the "adventure game" analogy is that it is another example of a linguistic "borrowing" process with a case of polysemy as the result. Semantics-wise, the usage of the word "adventure" to just designate non-action, story-focused video-games is absurd. Gunstar Heroes is no less an "adventure" than say, Lucasfilm pieces.

But we needed a term for that type of games and we just went to literature to find it given that that they're more "literary". It's totally arbitrary, nevertheless, yet we all accepted it just for convenience.

Now, I understand your point that there's indeed a true (or "proper") "RPG" in this video-game world of ours namely "Deux EX" and that's the only one which deserves that label, but it's only _one_ among some thousands. We can't change that fact today much like we can't change the hilarious usage of the term "adventure" applied to video-games.
Or if they didn't want players to credit feed, since basic design choices all point to COIN OP.
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Unread postby Worm » 03 Apr 2009 18:28

There are still plenty of true pen-and-paper RPGs, though! It's not just quibbling over the accuracy of the term; the misappropriation has a negative effect that's ongoing. And, even if we can only find one video game that's enough of an RPG to justify the label, there are many others with similar characteristics in smaller quantities. If we abandon "RPG" to the masses, then we have to come up with something else for when we want to talk about those elements of "plot malleability" or whatever. It's one of the main genres.

"Adventure game" might be amusingly inappropriate, but nothing's corrupted or lost by its popular usage.
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Unread postby icycalm » 03 Apr 2009 22:47

Recap wrote:What I really meant with the "adventure game" analogy is that it is another example of a linguistic "borrowing" process with a case of polysemy as the result.


Fair enough. But what does that have to do with me? You have to understand something here: to me, the most important thing in the world is to communicate what I have inside my head. If I can't communicate the contents of my head with the way words are currently defined, this means that I have to CHANGE the definitions of words to suit my needs. That's what all philosophers do. They don't give a flying fuck about "polysemy" or any other shit like that. They lay claim to words, they grab them plain and simple, define or redefine them, or even invent new ones if necessary. Let the common man waste away his life trying to use whatever broken tools are at his disposal: people like me CREATE tools whenever they need them.

Recap wrote:It's totally arbitrary, nevertheless, yet we all accepted it just for convenience.


Personally, I don't see anything wrong or even arbitrary about the term "adventure game". I believe it is a reasonably appropriate term to describe the nature of those games. Besides, the first adventure game was called "Adventure". But anyway, like I said, there is little confusion with that term, because it's mostly used consistently. Not so with "RPG".

Recap wrote:Now, I understand your point that there's indeed a true (or "proper") "RPG" in this video-game world of ours namely "Deux EX" and that's the only one which deserves that label, but it's only _one_ among some thousands.


Among "some thousands" what? Games inappropriately labeled "RPGs"? That's my meaning exactly.

Recap wrote:We can't change that fact today much like we can't change the hilarious usage of the term "adventure" applied to video-games.


Dude, I can change whatever the fuck I want. I make the rules around here, lol. The rest of the world will just have to make up its mind to follow my lead. It's not like it has another choice anyway. Every other path leads to a dead-end.
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Unread postby icycalm » 14 Jan 2010 15:39

http://www.thatsaterribleidea.com/2010/ ... 6196268982

Dervish wrote:spinksville, the point of the article is not to "piss all over CRPGs." It's to point out how the "RPG" label is misused and explain how it should be used. This is important, because once you have that clarity in your terms, it's easier to focus on what makes those games good and how to make them better.

The games we currently have can be (for example) wonderful tactical dungeon crawlers--masterpieces, many of them--and those elements are what we should look at when comparing and improving them. But, they are poor RPGs. Progress towards greater plot interactivity has been stalled because everyone got locked into the "RPG means stats" mentality and stopped thinking about anything else. An entire genre is nigh-untapped.

The article is about insight, clarity, and consistency, not saying one type of game is better than another. If people learn to distinguish between "this is what makes stat-heavy strategy games good" and "this is what makes role-playing games good," we'll end up with greater demand for and better examples of each.


Exactly.
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Unread postby icycalm » 16 Mar 2010 13:21

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Unread postby El Chaos » 16 Mar 2010 23:17

This is what happens when people don't even stop to think about an acronym's meaning: a FUCKING IDENTITY CRISIS ZOMG!!

http://www.rpgfan.com/news/2010/54.html
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Unread postby icycalm » 14 Jul 2010 13:16

http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread. ... 1336312749

pahncrd wrote:I've run entire roleplaying campaigns without my players having to see a single stat and handling the rolls on my own. It was actually better that way as the players weren't so fixated on the mechanics of the game and could just roleplay.
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Unread postby Bread » 04 Aug 2010 11:31

Image

• "I think it would be good if the hero had missions that weren't only about destroying evil."
• "The player is weak, the enemy is weak. That's way too convenient."
• "When did games become something you watch?"
• "Because the story doesn't change, what's the point of playing it again?"
• "Games nowadays are focusing way too much on photorealism."
• "What's a game that's moving in accordance to the scenario? It's the same as living on rails."
• "Levelling up is time for motivation down!"
• "The stage has been set. After that, you're free to do whatever!"


http://kotaku.com/5604049/protesting-ja ... ying-games
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Unread postby icycalm » 02 Jul 2012 22:26

It recently occurred to me that an alternate title for the main RPG essay would be "On the Genealogy of Role-playing". Similarly, the scoring essay could have been titled "On the Genealogy of Scoring" (though in this case it would lose some of its edge...) I wonder how many of the others could be similarly retitled, and exactly what that might mean. I am still not done with understanding exactly what the concept of genealogy means. It seems to apply everywhere.
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Unread postby Nic P » 06 Sep 2012 00:38

http://www.neoseeker.com/news/9147...fallout-3/

Kevin Spiess wrote:Not much tops Fallout 2 when it came to open ended quests. Let's take one of the better examples in F2 -- dealing with the Slavers in the city called the Den. The Slavers have a buddy of yours, Vic, that you want to rescue. There were many ways of getting this done.

You could go into the slaver headquarters and shoot them all up. If you were a explosive traps guy, (like my guy was), you could go in the building and plant dynamite, then leave, and blow everyone up. If you had high intelligence and high speech, you could convince the slavers to stop trading slaves, and get them to free Vic. If you were a jerk, you could join the Slavers, get a slaver tattoo on your forehead that would have consequences for the rest of the game, and sell your tribal companion into a life of servitude. If you were a chick with a decent charisma, you can have sex with the head slaver guy for Vic's freedom.

The vast majority of quests in Fallout 3 are like this: go talk to this guy. Kill everybody in your way. The end.

Some of the quests, if you have a high speech skill, you can lie and not have to kill the dudes.

Yay. Woot. Let's RPG it up. Let's go kill all the enemy dudes and get the magical hamster or super Frisbee or W-ever-TF they want me to get. Yay this is fun.
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