Silvation

Phew! After leading well over a hundred Feanorean Elves to the slaughter, one has finally emerged triumphant from Morgoth's dark fortress at Angband. Selene fled through the gates, accomplishing something that even Beren could not: she carried not one, not two, but all three of the Silmarils, their brightly shining lights carrying her up from the depths of the dungeon, where Morgoth's physical form improbably lay dead.

After well over fifty of my earlier characters had died, I finally realized that, if you try to "continue" a deceased character, it will actually re-start that character. It will remember your statistic allocation and name, although you can change anything and must re-allocate your skills. I've had pretty good results with the "assassin archer" build I mentioned in my last post, so by this point it's a fairly automatic process. If the game kept track of the number of times you restart a character, I finally won on what was probably the 30th or so iteration of "Selene." Of those, probably a quarter stupidly died on the third or fourth level - after you get used to playing a powerful character, it's easy to forget just how dangerous two Orc Soldiers can be to someone just starting out. A bunch of them died in Morgoth's feast hall while I tried to figure out the mechanics and plan strategies. The rest were fairly evenly divided in death, though if I could get a character down to about 700' they were almost always fine... I think I lost one or two when I foolishly attacked a Great Fire-Drake at close quarters, and got swarmed by the Balrog of the Hosts at least once, but otherwise I could generally see where danger lurked and escape when necessary.

I don't think I paid sufficient tribute to this before, but the ladders at the Angband.oook.cz were extremely helpful to me. In particular, there was a competition for a character named "Beleg" that let me look at a bunch of builds people made that were all for archer characters. Beleg was a Sindar of Doriath, so his starting stats were weaker and he had an extra proficiency with the bow, but it was still a very useful model to follow. After finishing up, I finally uploaded my own character as well. This is for personal achievement, nothing more: I'll never be as good as the masters of this game, and am just delighted to have finally triumphed over the fallen Melkor.

So... yes. My last post was when I got my first Selene to 900'. That's actually a pretty comfortable depth for me to be. The enemies are more powerful, but also tend to be fairly solitary: a lone vampire, a lone Gwathrau, and so on. I would typically sprint around, and when I saw a star appear, drop into stealth and check it out. For most passing unwary enemies, I could assassinate them, often with a single shot. Stationary enemies were generally fine as well, although I would skip enemies like fire-breathers (since they can destroy equipment). Some enemies were more trouble than it was worth to slay - since I rely totally on archery (no longer even taking Versatility), it can be expensive to shoot a lot of arrows into an enemy who is immune to criticals and/or has high armor and/or high health. Whenever I saw a group, I would check them out. Down low, there are often groups of cats (cat warriors, cat assassins, etc.), who are actually great targets: they're often encountered sleeping, and with the right build I can reliably kill each in a single shot. On the other hand, groups of trolls are often also found sleeping, but I'm more likely to bypass these: a single troll usually takes a few shots to bring down, giving it enough time to raise the alarm and swarm me.

So, once I got to 900', I would take a few cycles between 900' and 950'. This is a great way to increase experience: the diminishing returns from monsters means that after a while it's no longer very profitable to kill, say, Vampires, but there are a lot of unique monsters typically found at around those depths, and many who are supposedly found at 1000' who can show up there. Simply finding them is worth a lot of XP, and if I encountered them alone, I could usually kill them. As an extra bonus, if you kill them on your way down, that means they can't appear in Morgoth's hall. I took care of Shelob, and Ungoliant (!!!), several named Balrogs, a named dragon, a named vampire, and a few other folks.

The chance to improve your items is at least as important as the XP you gain, though. If I've survived this deep, I must have acquired some good equipment; but, again, one of the core design principles of Sil is that every point is important, so even something like a minor upgrade of a Shadow Cloak of Stealth can have a noticeable impact. Since I tend to run with low Willpower, I rely on items for most of my immunities (well, resistances), and collecting things like a Helm of Clarity and a Lantern of True Sight and Greaves of Free Action are all useful. Artifacts, though, can often combine an immunity with another good power. So, for example, grabbing an artifact amulet can free up a helm slot for another piece of gear that will be more useful.

It took me a while to get used to my limited light and food resources; specifically, learning that they weren't as limited as I feared. I was super-paranoid about torches in the beginning, and would always extinguish them when I didn't actively need them. Eventually I figured out that, unless I was actively wasting time, I could always count on finding a lantern before I ran out of torches. Similarly, as long as I'm descending at a decent rate, I can keep my lantern burning and not worry too much about finding replacements or flasks of oil. Food was a more troubling shortage; I eventually realized that part of the reason why was simply because one of the food items (maybe strips of dried meat?) looks like a white comma, which is very difficult to distinguish from the white period that denotes an empty square. In some of my games, I needed to invest in the "Mind over Body" ability or similar items because I was worried of running out of food. Eventually, though, you should develop a decent stockpile of vittles.

Entering Morgoth's hall is pretty fascinating. There's a description of the loud sounds of feasting, and some more verse when you descend. Unlike all of the 19 levels above it, 1000' is a fixed map, and not procedurally generated. It seems like the monsters may be a mix of set and random: I did notice some consistencies, like a room to the right that's always packed with cats, Morgoth is always on his throne in the southernmost part of the room, and there's always a long double-line of trolls leading up to him. It felt like the other monsters varied from one run to another, but that may have been a cascading effect depending on which unique monsters I had previously killed on a run.

I'd read a decent amount about the throne room, and had heard about "tension" and a secret passage, but didn't really get it until I experienced it. So: when you first arrive in the throne room, it will say something like "a strange tension lies in the air." While tension is active, enemies won't attack you: they can notice you, and follow you, and box you in, but you are otherwise free to move through the hall. Tension can break in one of two ways: if a monster notices you making an attack, or if Morgoth notices you. Once tension breaks, all hell breaks loose, with the huge number of active monsters all hostile.

Interestingly, tension is not broken when you attack, only when you're observed attacking. So, since I am a stealth assassin anyways, I was often able to winnow down the field at least somewhat by entering stealth and one-shot-killing weak unwary or sleeping monsters. Vampires and cats fall easily, though I learned not to attempt this with trolls.

I typically would bring a Staff of Monsters that would identify where all the bad guys are on the map. It doesn't show walls, though, and the first few times I descended I spent a lot of time exploring the level to try and figure out the layout. It's actually kinda interesting... the focus is the main hall, but there's a long hallways with several rooms off to the right, including some tiny closet-sized spaces, and a winding hall down the left. I kept hoping to find an entrance to the secret passage that everyone talked about, without luck. Eventually, I realized that you can't get into it from the main part of the level. You need to sneak past Morgoth, where you will find a hidden door south of his throne. This is only feasible if tension is still active and he is unwary. Fortunately, on the attempt where I finally beat him, even though I had been spotted earlier, I was able to quietly sprint away and cause them to become unwary again, so my final approach to the throne was without incident.

So: I am an archer. I had lugged around a ton of consumables, and once I settled into position at the corner of the secret hallway, I chugged all of them, boosting my stats and my Quickness. I had saved several thousand XP from my recent trips through 900' and 950', and bought Song of Slaying, Woven Themes, Unwavering Voice, Focused Attack, Concentration, Rapid Fire, another point in Archery, and a few more points in Perception. I swapped in Poison Arrows for my normal Arrows; Morgoth regenerates health, so I needed all the help I could get keeping him down. I started singing the song of Sharpness, waited for Concentration, then fired the arrow 'Dailir' at him. This took off... a single star of his 500 health. Gulp.

I died previously when fighting him in the hall. This time, though, I lucked out immensely. Morgoth seems to have one of two moves: a "normal" (albeit very powerful) attack with his hammer Grond, or striking the ground with Grond to cause an earthquake. On this particular fight, he only caused a single earthquake (which damaged and alerted Thuringwethil the Vampire Messenger), and, astonishingly, missed me something like 10 times in a row. This was very lucky; previously he had hit me about half the time. This didn't just help me by keeping up my health: since I didn't need to drink any Healing Potions or Miruvor, I didn't need to break Concentration, and so I was able to maintain an even higher bonus against Morgoth. Thanks to Rapid Fire, I was hitting him with multiple poisoned arrows every turn, several of which pierced him. Finally, at long last, the great enemy fell! Fell in the depths of the Iron Hells!

There's a terrific sequence here where the game reports the "bug" of you defeating Morgoth (which, of course, should be impossible), and asking you to submit a bug report. It also congratulates you: the First Age has now veered off course, and entered uncharted territory. Hooray!

The next part was fun. The only enemy who had been aware previously was Thuringwethil, and she was boxed in behind Morgoth and unable to reach me. Once he fell, though, my double arrows started spilling into the main hall, where they hit bystanders and woke them up. Soon, I had dozens of enemies charging at me. So... using Woven Themes, I switched to the Song of Slaying as a major theme, keeping Song of Piercing as the minor one. The weaker enemies were the first ones into the Chute of Death, and fell fairly quickly. At least a few times, my two arrows would cause two deaths on a single turn. Thanks to Song of Slaying, my attack bonus went up... and up... and up, until at last it was floating around 25-30 every turn. And they kept on coming! Everyone funneled into that narrow chute, unable to even scratch me before I killed them and the ones behind. I think I may have overloaded the floor's capacity for holding items, because stuff started simply disappearing as more monsters dropped their loot.

At last, the flow slowed down. I emerged from the passageway, killed a few stragglers, ended my song, and started rummaging through the rubble. I upgraded a handful of items, then turned my attention to Morgoth's giant iron crown. I knew from comments I'd read online that prising off a Silmaril could snap a weapon, so I swapped out my preferred longsword with a found weapon instead. This proved to be more tedious than I had thought. I don't understand exactly what the mechanics of this process are - the game observes that you can see what's happening in the combat window, but to be perfectly honest I've never deciphered exactly what the numbers in there mean. I kept up the Song of Sharpness, and after a few dozen attempts, succeeded in removing the first Silmaril. I kept going, obviously. The entire point of slaying Morgoth instead of just taking the Silmaril was so I could escape Angband with all three of them. The second one came off as well after another dozen or so tries. When I started working on the third one, the game warned that of a feeling of unease and asked if I wished to continue, to which I said "Yes." I'd assumed that this was referring to the risk of snapping my weapon; this did happen after a few attempts, but wasn't the reason why. When you do get the third Silmaril, it warns that you have effectively been cursed: between now and the end of the game, any time you make a die roll, it will roll twice and take the worse of the two. Good to know! I think this is a really clever move from a game design perspective. I'd wondered before why anyone would ever bother escaping with just two Silmarils. Taking a single jewel makes sense if you don't want to fight Morgoth, since you can snatch it and flee (though my own experience at the difficulty of removing it gives me pause - maybe it's better/easier if you have some points in Melee?). You have the time to take all three if you've killed Morgoth and his host. This mechanic would give a good reason to kill Morgoth (or put him to slumber) and still just take two. I think it's also forgiveable from a fiction perspective. Since Beren only succeeded in removing the first, there's no precedent for what would have happened had he taken all three; and given the extremely bloody history of the Silmarils and the Oaths, I'm willing to accept the idea that some bad juju would travel with them.

From here on out, I moved quickly. Morgoth was dead, but the alarm had been raised, and I needed to escape Angband as soon as possible. I'm not sure exactly how many turns this took, but I do know that I didn't need to eat anything. This portion of the game felt very different from the first part: instead of exhaustively combing over every room in a floor, I would quietly dart around and dash up the first staircase I could find. I still ended up covering a lot of territory on a few floors before I found that elusive way up, though.

The monster mix was interesting. For some reason, I had assumed that you would see the same monsters at each floor as you had on the way down, so it would get easier as you ascended. To a certain extent this was true: there were drakes at first, who gave way to trolls, and by the end I was seeing some enemies I hadn't seen for a long time, like Green Centipedes and Greater Werewolves and various Worm Masses. However, there are also high-level enemies who patrol every level now, and keep the tension high. They're mostly various types of Vampires and Rauko, and they seem to emerge from staircases much more frequently than enemies would during the descent.

This whole section was exciting and weirdly gripping. I spent close to a week getting this character down to the throne room, and took a break after killing Morgoth. Once I started going up, though, I couldn't make myself stop playing, and raced from floor to floor without ever leaving my chair. Finally, at long last, you emerge, blinking, climbing from the first level at 50' to the last level at the surface: the Gates of Angband. 

I had planned to sneak my way out, but it proved difficult, as a bunch of enemies swiftly followed me from the stairs. I dispatched them, then stealthily made my way forward. As with Morgoth's throne room, the Gates are a pre-set, non-generated map. The walls are a different color, which I thought was a cool and surprising change: it makes sense, since this is the first time in the entire game that you would have seen sunlight shining on anything. I crept my way past hordes of enemies, then came to the gates proper. Opening one up, I spotted Carcharoth, the Jaws of Thirst. Swallowing nervously, I closed the gate again before he could notice me. In the Lay of Beren and Luthien, Carcharoth stopped them at the gates, and bit off Beren's hand, swallowing the Silmaril and driving himself mad. This was clearly a difficult foe. What to do? I could PROBABLY kill him, but if he was capable of entrancing me, or if his poison sufficiently strong, there was a risk that I could lose now, just as I was on the verge of escaping.

So, I decided to try and sneak past him; or, failing that, simply flee. I wouldn't gain anything more by killing him than I would otherwise. I took all the XP I had gained during my ascent and dumped it into Stealth, then chugged all of my potions, opened the gates, and snuck forward. He spotted me instantly. He does have 20 Perception, and I was kinda close, but it still surprised me a little. I wonder now if this may actually be programmed: it does make sense, since the rest of the game's stealth mechanics take place in the stygian depths of the dungeon, that you would expect to be far more visible once you had emerged into the daylight.

In any case: with my hopes at concealment gone, I started to run. I now kind of wish that I had stopped and fought him. He doesn't have that much health - I think maybe only 80? - and he's fast enough that he was able to catch up with and bite me while I was fleeing, so running away didn't even seem particular safe. It was safe enough, though! I reached the exit before my health ran out, and - dah dah dah! - I triumphed!

  So! That was a weirdly thrilling game. I'm still pretty amazed at how much I can lose myself into something so low-tech. I've grown accustomed to my emotions being triggered by nicely detailed things in modern games: the way Merrill weeps into her fingers on Sundermount, or the catch in Viconia's voice when she describes her conquering of the farmer, or a screen dissolving away and revealing the visage of SHODAN. Sil can't do any of this, yet I find myself thinking back on it frequently: the ominous quiet, the sense of lurking doom, the flashes of panic, the few brief breaths of respite, the nervous anticipation of a strike, the towering sense of glee as the mighty Morgoth falls. As I mentioned in an earlier post, a lot of this response may come directly from the very limitations of the game: my imagination has to work overtime while playing Sil, since the game isn't providing me with images, voices, and music of my own, and my mind can come up with some pretty gripping details to fill in the framework Sil provided. 

I also think, though, that Sil benefits enormously from being such a very well-designed game. There's so little exposition, and since the little exposition there is is done so very well (lyrical and evocative), it colors the vast bulk of the game that doesn't have exposition. Within the game itself, the mechanics are tied extraordinarily well to the story. In Dragon Age 2, Hawke can be a blood mage for gameplay reasons, and support the Templars for story reasons, which may feel "optimal" but creates some  dissonance between action and story. In Sil, your abilities of song, and stealth, and smithing and so on tie in perfectly well with the story you're creating of how your hero accomplished the incredible feat of freeing a Silmaril. And those abilities themselves are incredibly well designed and balanced... every aspect of the game feels perfectly tuned, such that it's constantly challenging, but always feels like a surmountable challenge. It's like the game strips away everything but the core mechanics of gameplay, and makes them the best they could possibly be.

Anyways. Just for fun, I did another screenshot gallery. Needless to say, this looks nothing at all like the similar ones I've done for recent Bioware RPGs, it's just for my own amusement.

Kudos to the creators for making one of the best games I've played in years! I'm sure that this will be an extremely niche game, but for the right group of people, this could be one of the strangest and most satisfying RPGs you've ever played.

Never Winter, Always Spring

Here's a mini-post on some works-in-progress games, plus various odds and ends from the wonderful world of television.

I'm cranking through Neverwinter Nights. I found an old forum post that said something like, "This game bores me to tears, but I can't stop playing it." That's a pretty fair assessment of my opinion so far. That's been a big part of why it's taken me so long to take another serious crack at it. From what I understand, the story gets much more interesting in the expansions, but my completist personality won't let me jump to the better stuff without suffering through the lengthy introduction. The fact that I was doing much of this for the second time made it all the more painful. I actually bought NWN back in 2003: to their great credit, Bioware released the game for Linux, and because I was at the height of my Linux fantaticism, I automatically purchased any major commercial game with a native Linux client (hence the reason why I have "Soldier of Fortune" and "Return to Castle Wolfenstein" on my gaming shelf). As I recall, they did a great technical job with it: the game ran smoothly on my PC, and I enjoyed playing it for hours.

That all changed, though, when I suffered a game-killing bug. In the Neverwinter Woods, I got involved in a quest with a witch and a nymph. I forget the details now, but the quest trigger was somehow broken: the person I took the quest from wouldn't acknowledge that I had accepted, let alone completed, the quest, and so I was stuck. Because I had violated the cardinal rule of RPGs and relied on my quicksave for most of the game, I would have lost days of progress, maybe going all the way back to the start of Chapter 2. I was absolutely furious, and swore off the game, eventually deleting it from my hard drive. In retrospect, I probably should have just done some research online and used the console to un-stick it; having access to the console is the best advantage we PC gamers have, and allows us to fix otherwise insurmountable problems. In all honesty, though, I wonder whether my subconscious had seized upon the incident as an excuse to quit a fairly boring, time-consuming game.

Once or twice before now, I've attempted to start the game over again. Unfortunately, the earlier you are in the game the worse it is. The tutorial introduction, while not terribly long, is mind-numbingly dull. All of Chapter 1 involves running through a dark, depressing city, endlessly crossing and re-crossing the same empty streets over and over again; this is broken up by dungeon crawls, where you descend through five or so levels and fight hundreds of nearly-identical monsters. There's a bit of story in there, but way too little to sustain the amount of time invested.

That's a repeating motif throughout the entire game, at least all that I've experienced so far (up to the start of Chapter 3). Everything needs to be done so many times! It isn't even, "You must go forth and find the MacGuffin!" It's, "You must collect four MacGuffins! One lies to the north, one to the south, one to the east, one to the west. Each lies in a separate dungeon. Each dungeon contains multiple floors. Each floor has a boss. Any one of those MacGuffins would feel like a perfectly fine quest on its own, but you won't feel like you've accomplished anything or advanced the story until they're all reclaimed." It's even true for frickin' side-quests! "Would you help me collect the Five Tomes of Sidequest? They are the Tome of Wind, the Tome of Fire, the Tome of Earth, the Tome of Water, and the Tome of Boredom. They are located in five separate towers, each with multiple floors, each guarded by a boss. Collect all the tomes and return them to me." It feels like an incredibly transparent attempt to increase the running time of the game without expanding the story at all. It also makes me feel profoundly appreciative for what Dragon Age accomplished, where even the side-quests seemed important, and could actually be something you did on a lark rather than investing hours of play-time.

Things start picking up more at the end of the first chapter, so I'm enjoying myself a bit more now, which is to say I'm enjoying myself at all. I'll save my comments on the story proper for my end-game write-up, so for now I'll just note that there are some mildly interesting plot turns and character developments. One of the biggest wasted opportunities, though, is with the henchmen. I remember how, even at the time, this felt like a huge step back from the immediate predecessors like Baldur's Gate 2, which had a rich and varied party system, with characters who not only had their own personalities and ambitions, but who would interact in amusing ways and occasionally interject themselves into your own conversations. NWN's henchmen, in comparison, are so dull. Each of them has their own story, some of which are better than others, but they all exist purely in isolation. You just talk with them, and your only dialog options are a nice, empathetic response or a mean, impatient one. Then you find an item and give it to them, and get another item in return. Over and over again. They don't even comment on the item when you find it. And they never have anything to say about anything going on in the game, even if it seems like they should. And, since you can only have one henchman at a time, you never see them interact with anyone else.

I increasingly think that BG's six-person party was kind of the best thing ever. What was great was, with six people, you could afford to keep one or two useless people in your party, picking them for their personality instead of their effectiveness. So, for example, there's really never a reason to have two thieves in a party, but if you like both of them you can take them, and not suffer too much from it. NWN, on the other hand, pretty much forces you to pick from one of the couple of viable henchmen for your particular character. For example, if you aren't a thief (single- or multi-classed), then you pretty much need to take Tomi or Sharwyn, and you're kind of screwing yourself (gameplay-wise) if you don't take Tomi. I really like the character of Sharwyn, and try to take her when I can, but since I play as a Rogue she is a poor match for my character. Linu is a much better match, and is also pretty fun to travel with. Hands down, though, the best companion is Daelan Red Tiger, who is boring but is so laughably powerful that I really should never bother taking anyone else. I'm serious: I've been in multiple fights where Sharwyn and I will die almost immediately; Linu and I will fight for close to five minutes, chugging multiple potions along the way, only to die near the end; and then I'll grab Daelan, and he'll just hit it with a stick until it dies, some fifteen seconds later. If the party was bigger, I'd be happy to take Daelan and someone more humorous, but as it was, I need to pick between who I need and who I like.

The other reason I keep taken Daelan is because the henchman AI is so poor, and a poor melee AI is far better than a poor archer or caster AI. Unlike Baldur's Gate and Dragon Age, where the game runs your companion AI but you can always step in and issue specific orders, NWN takes a very hands-off approach. Outside of combat, you can assign some very broad guidelines, such as whether they should use melee or ranged weapons, and how frequently they should heal you. In combat, the only orders you can give are broad commands like "Stand your ground," "Follow me," and "Heal me." Other than that, they're on their own, and they're really stupid. Sharwyn will continue casting Fear on enemies who have no chance of succumbing. Linu will kill sixteen zombies with her mace, and once she's down to just one remaining, THEN cast Turn Undead. And they never, ever, ever disengage from combat. I just hate it when Linu is surrounded by a dozen weak enemies, doing fine, and then, once her health drops down to 49%, cast a healing spell on herself, which of course provokes an immediate Attack of Opportunity from everyone, so of course some of them hit her, so of course she loses her concentration and loses the spell. That's the sort of stuff that no intelligent human player would ever do. It just frustrates me that you can't even override the poor AI, since there's no option to say, "Go over THERE." And they're just generally wasteful. I don't totally understand how henchman consumables work, but I get the impression that they have a limited number of healing potions, so it drives me mad when Daelan will chug one when he's at 30% health, fighting the last enemy of a big group, who is down to Near Death. We're gonna rest as soon as he's dead, big buddy, so save that potion for the boss fight!

Oh, and the pathing! Ugh. It's horrible. Even for the PC, if I click on the other side of a wall, he often won't be able to figure out that he needs to walk around it, so I need to baby-sit him while clicking on intermediate points. And henchmen can easily get stuck not only behind walls, but even around doors, or in some cases behind chests. Once of twice I've actually saved and re-loaded a game, just because it's faster than going back and un-sticking my henchman.

The bad AI is a shame, because on the whole, I think the ruleset of NWN may be my favorite. Feats are really interesting, and make character-building a lot more interesting than it was in BG. I really like the resting system, which is more flexible (and safer!) than the camp system of BG, and more realistic than the regenerating health/mana/stamina of Dragon Age. The set of skills is wide, varied, and useful; as a Rogue I get to invest a ton of points in here, and even so I need to pick and choose between different useful areas. I think I actually prefer the more limited item set in NWN compared to the much broader selection in DA. Typically, you have a weapon, then +1, +2, and (I assume) eventually +3 versions of each weapon, which makes the upgrade path very clear. There are occasional artifact weapons, but they're fairly rare, and it's usually clear whether it will be better than the one you're wielding. DA has tons of weapons, with a much smoother upgrade path, and I end up spending a lot of time in that game trying to figure out whether a given item is better than the one I currently wield. Oh, and although I am a rogue and thus don't care about this, I do appreciate the flexibility of being able to bash open locked doors and chests, which opens up more options for combat-focused characters.

That flexibility is another thing to appreciate: while it seems incredibly limiting to have a maximum of two adventurers, the 3rd edition D&D ruleset makes it very easy, and potentially rewarding, to add multiple classes. So, while you might only have two people, you could play as a Thief/Mage/Monk, and travel with Linu as a Cleric/Fighter, and thus be prepared for any type of situation. That sort of dual- and multi-classing was also possible in 2nd edition D&D as in Baldur's Gate, but I prefer the style of NWN, which lets you pick each class as you level, and thus lets your character evolve over time, unlike dual-classing, which required careful advance planning, or multi-classing, which tightly and eternally locked you into a particular distribution.

One final complaint: the graphics. That shouldn't be surprising. The game came out a decade ago, after all, and we've come a long way since then; since I've most recently played Mass Effect 3 and Dragon Age 2, it's particularly jarring to jump back to this, Bioware's first 3D title. What's weird, though, is that I think it actually looks worse than the earlier Baldur's Gate games did. That's a trend I've noticed. More primitive graphics often hold up much better than slightly-old graphics do. I can still play and enjoy ancient sprite-based games like Super Mario Brothers, Final Fantasy, and even (after a brief period of re-acclimation) Ultima. Those games are all incredibly ancient and low-resolution, but something about that blocky, vaguely cartoony style still works for me. On the other hand, though, early 3D games like NWN, the original Tomb Raider, the original Doom, and so on, leave me completely cold. Which is funny, because I still remember how when I first played them, back when they were released, I thought they looked great. Like, way, way better than those dumb old flat sprite-based games. Now, though, all I see is low-poly models, low-res textures, cheap or absent lighting, and it makes me want to claw my eyes out. Few things look grosser than the way NWN characters talk to each other, which is this weird little head-bobbling thing, where their hair seems to move independently of their skull, and the entire head is a total of maybe twelve polygons. Now that I know what 3D is capable of, I can't stand to even look at these early efforts.

All right, that's enough ranting for now. I think I got it out of my system, so once I finally beat the original campaign, I should be able to do a post on just the story itself. I'm looking forward to the expansions, which is whether it's supposed to start getting really good (and, I believe, finally let you bring along multiple henchmen at once).

Now, on to happier times: Sil! I continue to obsess about this game. I'm getting a little better every day. I had one character make it all the way down to 900', whereupon he swiftly died. I must say, this game is not very forgiving at all, and even a single mistake can prove almost immediately fatal. In my case, it wasn't even a strategic mistake, or a tactical one, merely a mechanical space: I meant to move to the upper-left, and instead moved to the lower-left, and so I was stuck, and so I was slain by Turkano, Balrog of the Hosts. It was fun, though!

I've been sticking with and refining my "archer assassin" concept. I've come to think of it as a high-risk, high-reward approach: only a handful of my characters survive past 400', but if they do, I have sufficient XP to put together an awesome set of abilities that make them virtually unkillable (provided I don't pick any stupid fights). That lets me survive for a long time, and I can usually find some really good pieces of kit that supplement my missing skills.

I'm sure this will continue to be refined as I hopefully figure out how to actually get down to Morgoth, and what I'll do once I get there, but for now, here's my basic approach:

I always roll a Noldor elf of the House of Feanor. This isn't so much for the Smithing affinity as for the extra point of Dexterity. Dex is the most crucial statistic for this character, so everything helps. I always end up going 2/5/4/3. 1 STR would probably be sufficient, given the bows I end up finding, but 2 is nice on the rare games where I find a good longbow, and on my very long game I did appreciate the extra carry capacity. Once I'm more comfortable, I think I might switch around the values for CON and GRA: CON has been a huge help as I learn the ropes, but the extra hit points become less important as I get better about avoiding dumb fights. I used to avoid GRA since I don't use much Song, and so Voice isn't important, but the skill boost would come in useful.

For skills, I put 2 into Smithing, enough Archery to get Precision, a little into Evasion, and everything else into Perception. At Depth 50, I take my free abilities in Precision and Weaponsmithing, although neither will be useful yet. I'll carefully explore all of 50' and 100'. If I find a bow, terrific; otherwise I'll make one at the forge. I'll also craft a mattock, then use any extra forge options on arrows. And, that's it. It does seem like a bit of a waste of my smithing skill, but it doesn't require any XP or stat points. (I did have one game where I found a bunch of forges very deep down, and spent a bunch of XP to get Jeweler and Artifice. That let me make a Feanorean Lamp, the only one I've gotten in all my play-throughs. It was awesome, but I do hate sacrificing stat points for it.) As I descend, if I find safe forges, I just make more Arrows.

My main goal is still to get Lore-Master. As I'd noted previously, this helps a ton with XP generation: you'll get a chunk back immediately from all the un-identified stuff in your inventory, and will automatically gain more XP as you continue to find new items. I've been pleasantly surprised, though, to find out that the other part of the ability, which I had just dismissed, is arguably just as useful: you can immediately see complete information about every new enemy you encounter. Typically, you only get some general information about your enemy and some flavor text, and further details are added as this particular character experiences them. So, for example, you won't know how many hit dice they have until you slay one, won't know how much damage they do until they hit you, won't know any special attacks until they use them, etc. Having access to this information is crucially important for an archer assassin like me. The first time I found a sleeping Cat Archer, I saw that it had 4D4 hit dice. I knew that I could safely take it out without waking the neighbors. When I found a sleeping Cave Troll, I saw it had... I forget, something like 8D12 hit dice. I could probably take one one-on-one, but not a group, so I let it go.

The single most important skill, though, may be Listen, which is yet another Perception ability. Listen lets you see where monsters are. You won't necessarily know what they are (though this information does occasionally pop up), but will usually see asterisks indicating their position. This information alone has saved my life many times. If there are no stars around, I won't bother sneaking, and will sprint around looking at everything. If I see a single star, I'll switch to stealth, and sneak up until I can check it out better. If I see a huge cluster of stars behind a closed door, I just leave it shut, and go on my way. Plenty of other fish in the sea.

Perception is hand-down my favorite tree of abilities. I would take every single option here if it didn't get so expensive. The other one I go for is Keen Senses, which lets you see enemies just beyond your pool of light (especially useful in early stages while you're still using torches) and makes it easier to find hidden enemies (although this is somewhat redundant with Listen).

After I get Lore Master and Listen, I switch back to building up the rest of my skills. I generally try to keep Archery, Evasion, and Stealth roughly equal up until around 8 or so. It's a slightly weird build... as a stealth archer, I don't have a whole lot of use for Evasion (my build is focused around avoiding fights, and if I get into one, running away as quickly as I can), but the abilities in the Evasion tree are very useful. Conversely, Stealth is incredibly handy, but most of the abilities in this tree are more melee-oriented, and not very useful to me. I actually tend to minimize Archery at this stage: by picking my fights carefully, I can usually kill a decent amount without needing a very high score just yet.

My next priority is the Sprinting skill from Evasion. After I get this, I start slowing down on Evasion investment; I'd love to get that DEX point, but there's no way I'm investing 20 points into the skill. At Stealth, I only start getting the good abilities above 8 points. Vanish, combined with Sprinting, lets me get out of trouble. I also always try to pick up Exchange Places. Honestly, I hardly ever use this... but if I use it only once in a game, it was worthwhile, because it's probably getting me out of a situation that would otherwise have meant (permanent!) death. It's critical for those cases where you're stuck in a room and a foe is blocking the doorway, or if you're trapped in the middle of a hall (though that rarely happens after I get Listen).

From then on, I try to get the DEX boosts from Stealth and Archery, and otherwise start shifting most of my points into Archery. I used to buy a lot more abilities in Archery than I do now: my last few long-running games, I've only taken Precision, Flaming Arrows, and Dexterity. Careful Shot isn't  useful if you're using Flaming Arrows. I found Versatility extremely helpful when I was first learning to play this character type (and Sil in general), but I don't really need it now. Thanks to my decently high evasion, I don't need to worry much about Point Blank Archery. I'm a bit intrigued by Crippling Shot, but I get the feeling that the monsters I'd really want to use it on are probably highly resistant. I haven't tried Rapid Shot yet.

On the one game where I made it to 900', I finally invested in Song. It took a lot, but I bought a ton of points (I want to say... 10, maybe?) to get the Song of Sharpness (from the Song of Slaying). This was to overcome a particular problem: how to handle Grotesques. These are fascinating monsters. That's another thing I love about Sil: there are dozens of enemies, and each one has a unique and interesting set of mechanics, whether it's the flocking behavior of giant bats or the patrols of orc soldiers or the weakening of violet molds or whatever. In the case of Grotesques, they basically behave like the Weeping Angels from Doctor Who. They only move when you aren't looking, and so you can stare one in the face for hours without taking any damage, but as soon as you turn your back, you are in huge trouble. Worse, they are Mindless, and will never stop pursuing you after you encounter them, which of course can prove deadly. I'd gotten in the habit of simply running to the nearest set of stairs when I encountered one: they have ludicrously high protection, and are completely immune to criticals, so I couldn't damage them at all.

Well, the Song of Sharpness solves that! It lets you cut through armor - or, more specifically, it reduces the amount of protection an enemy has. For some reason, it didn't seem to work with my flaming arrows, but I think that may just be a math thing - I usually rely on criticals to do damage with my arrows. Instead, I start singing the song, and whack it as hard and as often as I can with my sword. It's always very close, down to one or two stars by the time my Voice gets down to the single digits. Twice I managed to destroy it in time (leaving behind a very cool pile of rubble). Once my voice gave out first; so I just sat down there and rested, never taking my eyes off the grotesque, not looking away, never blinking, until my voice was restored. Then I started hitting it again, and this time triumphed.

I haven't yet figured out the optimal rate of descent. I tend to be pretty thorough, and will try to explore every single room on a level (even if just peeking my head in for rooms filled with monsters). But I don't back-track, either. I used by be pretty close to my minimum depth, but I think that my 900' hero had a min depth of just 750' or so. The exception: if I happen to fall through a false floor, I'll usually head up the first flight of stairs I find. If the monsters on a particular level seem too difficult (where, like, I wouldn't even be able to beat one in a one-on-one fight), I'll head up a level. My goal is actually not so much to get more XP (which always has diminishing returns) as it is to find better gear. I'm usually well-equipped by the time I reach 500', assuming I make it that far, and looking to upgrade already-decent pieces. So far, the favorite gear I've found for this character type are:

• The arrow 'Dailir'. This may be my single favorite piece of equipment: it gives +11 (!!!) to attack. There's only a single arrow, but it's indestructible. Which means (mild exploit) that you can set it aflame for the extra die of damage, without destroying it. As a one-shot-kill stealth archer, it's absolutely perfect. If I'm in a room full of sleeping cat warriors, I can stand in the door, assassinate one of them, creep in, reclaim the arrow, creep back to the doors, shoot the second, and so on. Against tougher opponents, this is usually my opening shot, which can often get them down to 50-25% health. From then on I'll use standard Flaming Arrows; since I don't need to use my arrows for most fights, though, I don't really worry about ever running out if I have 'Dailir'.
• The Bow of... Celeborn, maybe? There are two really good artifact bows I've found; I forget which is which, but both have a little nice lore around them (one was from an elf who hunted with Orome himself). My 900' character found a bow that was (+1, 1d9) and slew wolves; it penalized Grace, but was still probably my best bow ever. Another great bow was (0, 2d7) [-1]. It slew... Dragons and Raukar, maybe? Sadly, I died pretty soon after getting that one.
• Shadow Cloak! I was ecstatic the first time I found one of these, at around 700'. Now I seem to find them on every sub-500' game, and often find many in a single game. They come in a variety of stats, but my favorite is probably [+3] <+4>, with a significant boost to Evasion and pretty much the best-ever boost to Stealth. The downside: it reduces your light radius by 1. This is sort of micro-manage-y, but I like to take the cloak off while I'm exploring, and put it back on when I'm approaching monsters. It's really cool how it is shrouded in darkness even when lying on the ground, which makes them hard to find in the first place, but also can make you realize that there MUST be a Shadow Cloak there (assuming you have Listen and know that it isn't a monster!).
• {item} of Clarity. I tend to run with very-low-Will characters, so the nice set of resistances this gives (I think it's Hallucination, Confusion, and... maybe Stunning?) are extremely useful.
• Brass Lantern of True Sight. My 900' character had this thing. Very useful. I still want to find a Feanorian lamp sometime, though.
• Rings. Any rings. I usually don't find any until I'm several hundred feet down. It's nice that you have two slots, so you can find and use multiple good ones.
• Dried Meat. You wouldn't think so, right? But (perhaps as a side-product of my habit of methodically searching every floor) I often run low on food. I've never actually run out while I was hungry, but I've gotten awfully close several times. I now tend to either use an {item} of Sustenance or invest XP into Mind over Body to keep afloat.
• Mail Corslet of Fingon. I agonized for ages over whether to replace a nice Leather Armor of Stealth [0, 1d6] <+2> with this. On the surface, it's horrible for my character, since it hurts my evasion and required surrendering some stealth. However, it boosts both CON and GRA plus it provides resistance to fear, which comes in incredibly useful when facing rauko and drakes on the lower levels. A+++, would loot again.

Of course, any given game will have a variety of cool and useful stuff. I generally prioritize equipment that boosts my stats, then equipment that provides resistances to negative effects, then equipment that boosts my useful skills (Archery, Stealth, Evasion, Will, Perception), and finally pick the best numbers, generally preferring lighter weapons over heavier. I still have trouble figuring out how to compare disparate items... for example, I couldn't decide whether a ring of evasion <+1> was better than a ring of protection [1d2]. I also need to do a better job of managing my inventory. By the time I get down to about 600', my pack is practically full, plus I like keeping a spare slot free so I can doff my cloak or switch to the mattock for digging. I tend to keep all the "good" potions I find: potions that boost stats, that heal, Miruvor (heal + clear conditions), or slow poison. I keep a full quiver, plus an extra stack of normal arrows and whatever other special arrows I have. (If I'm using 'Dailir', this means my Poisoned and <+3> arrows are in inventory.) I keep food. I'll have my Mattock. I'll have some spare light sources (torches or another lantern or flasks of oil). If I've found a useful trumpet or staff, I'll bring it along. (Staff of Light is useful, as is the Trumpet of Blasting.) And that's usually about all I can carry. I'd love just a few more slots, so I could carry an extra hand weapon for attacking Grotesques and some alternate pieces of armor, but there just isn't room. Heck, even weight got to be an issue at one point.

Oh, and a total tangent: I fired the game up on Sunday, March 31st, and my inventory brought a smile to my face.

Isn't that neat? Ordinarily those are labeled as "herbs", not "easter eggs". Very cool. I'm impressed that programmers would take the time to put in something like that, which will only be accessible 0.27% of the time. 

So! I'm still loving this game. The atmosphere is incredible, despite (or, arguably, because of) the nonexistent graphics. Returning briefly to NWN, this is another example of how sometimes less is more, and a little is worse than nothing. When I see primitively animated 3D models jerking around on the screen, it's impossible for me to suspend my disbelief. When I see that H standing still in the corridor, my heart freezes in fear. When I notice that v silently yet absentmindedly floating through the room, I give a little grin as I quietly draw back my arrow. And few sights seem as powerful or mysterious as sneaking into an isolated chamber and discovering a grey 0 at its center. When that 0 is golden, you know that the Valar smile upon you.

Moving from Tolkien to Martin... Game of Thrones premiere was Sunday night! I really liked it!

MINI SPOILERS for GAME OF THRONES S3E1, + STORM OF SWORDS

It was a more low-key episode, as you would expect: there's some scene-setting, introductions to new characters, and a bit of well-delivered exposition. (Dany's time in Astapor was particularly well done. It constantly communicated important information, while still feeling dramatic.) I'm still amazed at just how good these actors are. I think this is the first time we've seen Peter Dinklage and Charles Dance share a scene since Season 1, and it's incredible: it feels short, but totally captures so much about their relationship. Bronn gives fantastic line readings. And so on, and so forth.

I think it was very smart for the show to directly introduce Ser Barristan the way that they did. In the book, it's a more mysterious thing: a robed figure shows up, enters Dany's service, and we go through much of the book before learning who he really is. That works very well on the printed page, but not so much on the screen, where we the viewers would quickly be able to just see who he is. So, well done.

I'm very curious to see exactly what goes down in Harrenhall now. I wonder if they will move some of the stuff that happened in A Clash of Kings into this season, perhaps fleshing out (ha!) Roose Bolton's character a bit more. I was surprised (albeit pleased) to see that they included Qyburn; I'd thought they would write around him. Of course, with Arya gone, they can't just do all the Clash of Kings stories, so maybe they'll jump ahead? I dunno.

Did you notice how the opening credits now show Winterfell burning? That's very cool, and very sad. No Theon this episode. I haven't checked to see if Alfie Allen is even cast this season. He disappears from the books entirely at this point for quite a while, but given what they did with Jaime in Season 2, I suspect that they will check in on Theon to show what he's up to. This could have some... powerful resonance with later events this season.

Mance Rayder seems very well-cast. My brother and I both noted what a great job they did at his introduction, which plays out basically like it did in the books, but so effectively that we both were "fooled" by it.

And, there's a ton more to come! Based on what I've read, we'll also be meeting the Reeds, Thoros of Myr, a new Berric, Stannis' wife and daughter, Olenna Martell, Edmure, and (finally!) the Blackfish. It's incredibly cool that HBO has brought in so many beloved characters who were cut from the earlier seasons. Since they've given themselves two seasons for Storm of Swords, they should have time to tell their stories now.

END SPOILERS for GAME OF THRONES / STORM OF SWORDS

I also caught the finale to The Walking Dead. It was good. This season was hands-down my favorite of the show so far. The show has always had brilliant episodes, but they've often been surrounded by episodes with too much whining or pointless digressions. This season has been fantastic, with a steady dose of action, lots of tension, huge moments, character deaths and evolutions, and arcs that were both satisfying and disturbing. It's an incredibly bleak show, but one that's very well done.

MEGA SPOILERS for THE WALKING DEAD

Man, they sure did a great job at pulling off Andrea's death. The way the episode played out, I was sure she would escape... the way Milton tried to kill the governor, then the way he set up her release, and the close timing between cutting her bonds and Milton reaching her... it was shocking to realize that she'd been bitten after all, after all of that. It's a repudiation of how we expect these stories to play out, and I'm always happy to be surprised.

I've never really understood the dislike for Andrea that so many fans have. Next to Michonne, she's probably my favorite female character. She's capable, and a great shot, willing to work hard and willing to speak her mind. She got her rude awakening early in the first season, and has been part of the "survival faction" since then. Sure, she has made plenty of bad decisions along the way, but no more than, say, Rick has.

I'm happy to see Tyrese back together with Rick's group. Tyrese was one of my favorite characters in the comics, where he was a presence for much longer than he's been on the show. I can't believe it took me this long to figure out that that actor is the same guy who played Cutty on "The Wire" - now I like him even more! His character is somewhat different from the comics, though, and the stuff with Woodbury was very different. That whole arc ultimately felt a little anticlimactic; I was expecting there to be more dramatic consequences to his time on the inside of Woodbury. I suppose that might come into play in the next season.

Speaking of which: I'm not sure if I totally understand why the Woodbury survivors would move into the prison, instead of the prison folks moving into Woodbury. Given everything that has happened this episode (fence torn down, gate busted open, walls and guard towers shot with a frikkin' bazooka), the prison hardly seems the strong, defensible place it once was. In contrast, Woodbury's infrastructure seems intact. I'm not even thinking about the quality of life, just the height and strength of its walls. But, there may be tactical considerations I'm overlooking here. Maybe Woodbury requires a larger military force to man all the stations than the prison does, and the demise of the Woodbury army could mean that there are no longer enough bodies to maintain it. I dunno.

END SPOILERS for THE WALKING DEAD

That's it for now!

Decemberist

I've been taking my time reading through George Saunders' The Tenth of December. I've previously read almost all of the stories from The New Yorker, so I don't feel the same manic urge to plow through them. This is probably a good thing… I'm lingering a bit more, and noticing some new things that I hadn't before.

The book as a whole is kind of perfect. It manages to be simultaneously heartbreaking and warm, without ever coming across as melodramatic. Saunders has always been great at striking emotional chords, but this time it feels like those human elements are at the center of his stories, and not something that happens along the way. That's mostly due to the style and structure he uses in these stories, but I think part of it comes from the settings. In the past, many of my favorite stories of his have been set in a sort of near-future mild dystopia. That's true for a couple of stories here, most notably Escape from Spiderhead and The Semplica Girl Diaries, but most of them seem like (absent an invented brand name or two) they could easily be happening right now. As is always the case for Saunders, even the "futuristic" stories are primarily focused on the characters and their voices.

I found myself often thinking back to George Saunders' book-reading and Q&A at Book Passage, and in particular his comments on empathy. It's an incredibly rare gift, both in people and even more so in writing. We're so often stuck in our own heads that it can be hard to understand why other people act the way they do, say the things they say, choose their choices: we tend to interpret everything another person does relative to our own preferences, and can often ascribe malice or foolishness to the actions of others.

That's an even greater risk in aggregate. Historically, groups of people have often damned entire other groups, such as saying that all Germans are homicidal. Today, we're often striated within social groups, and apply sweeping generalizations to members of other groups with whom we rarely interact. So, we get many people believing that 47% of Americans are lazy, selfish freeloaders; or people believing that the top 1% are heartless, vindictive, rapacious exploiters; or that Christians are bigots; or that atheists are amoral. If we encounter a member of the other group, we automatically ascribe these shortcomings to them.

How can we overcome those prejudices? Usually, it takes getting to actually know someone well, and in particular to have succeeded together as a team. However, I think that Saunders shows the great potential of fiction in providing similar eye-opening experiences. He doesn't come at this from a moralistic or a judgmental angle, saying "Person X is actually really wonderful, and you should respect them for who they are!" No: he shows life in all its messiness, and its complications, and gently suggests that things may not be as clear-cut as they first appear.

That's true through much of this collection, but the best example may be from the story "Puppy". To oversimplify the story, it's about an upper-class family encountering a lower-class one. We shift between the perspective of two moms, both who want to protect their kids and make them happy. This causes some very dramatic shifts. Items that were casually breezed over by the lower-class mom are lingered over in dread by the upper-class one. What one thinks is a clever solution is seen by the other as child abuse.

There's so much I like about this. Saunders avoids any sort of simple equivalency between the two: the derision and contempt go entirely in one direction, and feel all the sadder and more real for it. And even though I was reading this for the second time, I once again felt the odd vertigo of shifting my opinions from scene to scene. I think I'm ultimately on the "side" of the woman answering the ad… but now I cringe when I read her horror at the scenery inside the house, since I'm pretty sure I would react in much the same way (with fury inside my own head and icy politeness in my mouth), and I can also feel how badly the other woman is hurt by this, and how she's really trying to do her very best by her own lights.

The few stories that weren't originally published in the New Yorker are on the shorter side. One particularly clever and frightening one is "Exhortation", which was written for McSweeney's. I was pretty astonished to find out later that it had been published all the way back in the year 2000. When I was reading it in the collection, I immediately assumed that it was written in a world aware of Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and KSM. Saunders now seems incredibly prescient; that's a very dark piece to have written in pre-9/11 days.

It's interesting to think of how Saunders' stories may or may not be connected with real-world events. In the Q&A, Saunders mentioned that the story "Adams" was originally conceived during the debate over whether Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. The final story "Adams" has nothing to do with that topic, which just provided a seed for it. One particular story in this collection, "Home," seems impossible to read as anything other than a description of veterans returning from the war in Iraq and Afghanistan: sure, the wars are never named, but with civilian characters discussing whether it's one war or two, and whether or not they're still going on, it seems a pretty clear invocation of the contemporary conflict.

"Home" is also a great example of Saunders' aching sense of humor, which leaves you torn between laughing and crying at the same stimulus. The running "joke" in "Home" is how everyone will say "Thank you for your service" to the narrator/protagonist, regardless of the circumstance: a clerk in the store, or a repo man taking his possessions, or a cop evicting his mother, or the man who cuckolded him. Returning to this phrase over and over again, Saunders draws out its awkwardness and banality, showing how this phrase that seems to express appreciation is actually used as a shield to deflect meaningful engagement.

I could go on, but I won't. My favorite stories are probably "Victory Lap," "The Semplica Girl Diaries," and "Tenth of December." Everything here is worth reading, and a great example of Saunders' ever-growing excellence.

Be Silly

On an off-handed recommendation from Chris Gardiner, the creator of Below, I've recently gotten into Sil, an ASCII RPG strongly based on the First Age as depicted in Tolkien's Silmarillion. Echoing a major section of The Lay of Beren and Luthien, your goal is to enter the depths of Angband, cut a Silmaril loose from Morgoth's crown, and then escape with it. It's an incredibly addictive, difficult, punishing, evocative, fascinating game that is causing me to recall my very earliest games, and also reflect on the interplay of technology and imagination.

Sil belongs to a category of game known as Roguelikes. Descending from the game Rogue, which was created in 1980, dozens of games have evolved that tweak various aspects while retaining certain core fundamentals. The most immediately obvious of these is the interface: a true Roguelike will use only ASCII characters. That means no bitmapped pictures: every creature and item will be represented by a letter, number, or character. So an orc scout will be represented with o, while Gorgol the Butcher is represented with o, a longsword is |, a staircase is >, and so on. Everything is laid out on a simple grid, and as you move from space to space, you gradually discover more of Angband, and encounter more of its denizens.

It takes a while to get into it, but I've been surprised by just how powerful some of the situations can become. Even though there are no images, and, frankly, not even any dialog (although there are a few beautiful phrases from or inspired by Tolkien), I find myself becoming uncomfortably tense while playing the game. When I'm backed up in a corner, desperately hacking away at white worm masses swarming around me, and then I see a brigade of Orc soldiers march into the room, then spot me, raise the alarm, and rush in… well, I feel true despair, in a way I rarely do when playing modern RPGs. When I stumble into a darkened room, I quietly close the door behind me, then creep forward, with a lump of expectation in my throat… and then, if I'm very lucky, when I stumble across the Forge I've been looking for, a wave of relief washes over me, as I realize that I will likely survive to descend further into the depths.

There are a couple of factors that go into this. The big one is how, by minimizing the in-game presentation, the game prompts your mind to create the visuals yourself. That's not too surprising: after all, it's how the novel works. All games used to be like this: whether a text adventure or Rogue, games would provide the plot and structure, and your brain would fill in the sound, music, faces, speech, and atmosphere. And once they get buy-in, games can do incredible things through text. It's fascinating to read stories from people who have beaten Sil, who report with nearly breathless wonder how they fled from Morgoth's mighty hammer Grond, and escaped from the webs of Ungoliant, and slew Lungorthin, the Balrog of White Fire, in desperately frenzied combat. Even today, I don't think any AAA title would be able to do justice to how I would imagine any one of those conflicts playing out, let alone all those and more in a single level. And yet, two guys who forked an open-source ASCII dungeon crawler were able to make it in their spare time. Incredible stuff.

As a side note: I do find it encouraging that many developers are echoing similar conclusions. In a recent update to the Shadowrun Kickstarter, when explaining why they would be using text for story-related material, Jordan explained their plan: "The first of these powerful weapons is what I call 'The Infinite Resolution Rendering Engine' an incredible piece of biotechnology developed over millions of years, capable of presenting the audience such vivid imagery so real they can smell and even taste it. Yes you guessed it, it’s the gray stuff between your ears and the imagination it is capable of. We can’t afford to put everything in our imaginations onto the screen, so instead we decided to put it into your imagination via 'theater of the mind'. By combining beautiful environments and characters with cleverly-integrated text, we hope to inspire you to 'see' and 'hear' things that we could never afford to put on your screen or out of your speakers." That actually seems like a reactionary statement coming so soon after the Playstation 4 media event, which basically equated superior technology with superior storytelling. But I think Jordan's right, and we're hearing the same message in the very thoughtful pitches being made by inXile for Torment.

The other thing that adds to the effective impact of the game is permadeath. This is another aspect that's common to most roguelikes. Unlike most RPGs, where you are encouraged to save your game frequently and re-load if something goes wrong, in almost any roguelike you get exactly one death per character. Once someone dies, there's nothing to do but create another character and start it over again. If they died on the first few levels, you may have only invested a few minutes; if they died in the depths, you might have spent hours and held high hopes for them. Personally, I've seen nearly two dozen of my characters die. It leads to an entirely different style of gameplay. Obviously, it encourages more caution: I'm less likely to take risks, and try to constantly remain aware of my surroundings and have an escape route in mind. It also adds to the sense of reward. For a long time, I could never get below 200' deep. Once I finally did, I felt a surge of pride. Finally, it keeps the game consistently challenging and interesting. I'm actually playing Sil during breaks with my other RPG project, Neverwinter Nights (about which a post will no doubt be made). I recently had a frustrating fight in that game against a Dire Spider. I probably died about ten times in a row, usually getting it down to Near Death before my companion and I succumbed. Each time I died, I would reload, slightly alter my tactics, and then attack again, with the same results. After a while, I started to get annoyed that I had spent close to twenty minutes doing the same thing without making any progress. (Eventually, I had to swap out my companion.) Well, in Sil, that never happens. If a spider kills you, you're gone. And, next time, you'll be VERY careful and VERY prepared before you fight that spider again. Sil forces you to learn, and adapt, and grow. I enjoy playing my RPGs tactically, but I also find that the ability to re-load makes me a bit too much of a perfectionist: if I don't like how an encounter ends, I'll keep trying it until I get it right. I'm weirdly grateful to Sil for breaking me of that habit. (I felt a similar reaction to The Binding of Isaac; while it's a real-time game and uses actual graphics, it's otherwise extremely similar to a Roguelike.)

In some ways, playing Sil makes me hearken back to my very first experiences with a computer. The first computer I ever had access to had two 5 1/4" floppy disks with games. One disk was labeled "Great Adventures II", and had a set of text adventure games. One was set on a nuclear submarine that suffered an accident; another started in a video game arcade in a small town; another saw you marooned on a mysterious island; another had you infiltrating a secret military installment hidden deep beneath the snow. I never beat any of them, but spend so much time in those worlds that I developed vivid images of their contents. The second disk was "Castle Adventure", and it featured ASCII graphics not unlike Sil. The setting of that game was quite different, though: it had much more space, and far fewer enemies, and was much more puzzle-focused and not as punishingly difficult.

Oh, yeah: and it wasn't random. That's the other huge thing about roguelikes: they feature procedurally-generated dungeons, so they're different every time you play. The coding helps guide the layout and the difficulty so the overall progression will feel familiar: you'll mostly be traveling through rooms, which are sometimes adjacent but often connected by corridors; upper levels mostly contain weaker enemies like orc scouts and bats, and have less valuable items like Curved Swords and Pairs of Gloves; occasionally you'll find a particularly powerful enemy wandering the upper levels, or a rare artifact like Orcrist.  Modern gamers are probably familiar with the concept as exemplified by Diablo, which essentially took Rogue's procedurally-generated-dungeon idea and applied it to modern graphics.

So, how is Sil different from other roguelikes? I have to admit that I don't have a ton of experience with the genre; I played around a little with NetHack back in college, but at the time didn't get into it. Most Rogue/NetHack games are a kind of grab-bag of fantasy tropes, frequently taking an everything-plus-the-kitchen-sink approach: you can pick from a variety of races, and dozens of classes (I remember a Tourist class, inspired by Twoflower from Discworld!), and encounter hundreds of monsters, learn hundreds of spells, and find thousands of items. Later on, Moria was more explicitly tied to Tolkien's mythos (the goal was to slay a Balrog in the depths of Moria), but had a very loose interpretation of that mythos, allowing for D&D-style elements like gnomes and paladins. A further descendent, Angband, took action back in time to the First Age and changed the setting to Angband, but added even more elements to an already overstuffed game, and operated under a fundamentally flimsy premise (that a mere mortal could slay the Black Foe of the World).

Sil is based on yet another descendent of Angband (in case you're curious about the full genealogy: Rogue begat Moria begat Umoria begat Angband begat NPPAngband begat Sil), and makes two crucial innovations, in my mind of equal importance: it remade the game as a faithful adaptation of Tolkien's world and works, and it significantly simplified the game's mechanics in order to draw out more interesting tactical considerations. These two factors actually affect one another to a certain degree. Tolkien had a very well thought-out world, which doesn't have a lot of the detritus that litters most latter fantasy novels and games. The most noticeable change may be that of magic. Middle-earth is an example of what's often called a low-magic world: there are some magic forces at work, but it is very rare and generally subtle. Even an incredibly powerful wizard like Gandalf does not shoot forth enormous fireballs from his hands, or give life to inanimate objects, or telepathically communicate with others. And Gandalf is very unusual: as one of only five Istari, he is one of the rare entities with access to any magic at all. Unlike a setting such as Dungeons & Dragons, where any human or elf who wants to can learn magic, mortals in Middle-earth must do without.

So, Sil doesn't have any spells, or any magic scrolls, or familiar summons. It does, however, draw on Tolkien's legendarium to fill out the range of possibilities. Poetry and song play a major role in his works: the very world was sung into existence by Eru, and many of his books describe the power of song wielded by the free peoples: orcs fleeing in terror before the song of warriors, or allies feeling strengthened and emboldened by the songs of friends. Sil uses Song, but it isn't just a re-name of magic: songs work in ways appropriate to the setting. All songs are essentially "sustains": you can only sing one song at a time, and continue it until you decide to stop or until your voice gives out. The Song of Elbereth will fill the hearts of Morgoth's minions with terror. The Song of Slaying will boost your skill at combat, growing stronger with each foe you slay. And, drawing directly from the Lay of Beren and Luthien, there are also subtle songs, like the Song of Lorien that can lull enemies to sleep, and the Song of Silence that can muffle the sound of your passing.

As you may have deduced, the mission here is a bit more nuanced than that found in most Roguelikes. NetHack has you searching for a MacGuffin called the Amulet of Yendor. The original Angband required you to kill Morgoth. Well... that's a bit of a tall order, don't you think? I mean, if the twelve Valar couldn't kill Morgoth, what hope would a single mortal have? Instead, your goal is to accomplish the same feat as Beren and Luthien, and escape Angband with a Silmaril cut from Morgoth's crown. So (and here's where the gameplay gets interesting) there are a LOT of ways to accomplish this. You don't need to buff up a super-powerful warrior who can slay Morgoth in single combat. You could try to follow the path of Luthien, and make your way quietly with stealth and the aid of the Valar. Or you could seek to emulate the great craftsmen like Feanor and design powerful artifacts to help in your quest.

The game seems pretty well balanced in how it allows you to play. Like a standard RPG, you can gain experience by killing monsters. However, you also gain a lesser (but still respectable) amount of experience by simply observing a monster. So, if you are quiet and patient, you can make a great deal of physical progress into the depths of the Iron Mountains and improve your character without needing to fight at all! You can also gain experience by finding and identifying artifacts you encounter. So there are some really interesting trade-offs to consider: should you avoid combat, which is generally safer but will result in a weaker character? Or do you take on your enemies, potentially increasing your skills rapidly, but risking (permanent) death?

I'm still struggling with the answer to that. You find pretty early on that you simply CANNOT prevail in every fight. When you come across a lone orc scout, it can be worthwhile to kill it to gain experience and remove a potential threat. However, if it survives your initial blow, it may yell for help, and before you know it, you're trapped in a narrow corridor, stuck between a half-dozen heavily-armored orc warriors beating you to (permanent) death. So... sometimes it's best just to let the scout go. In particular, the game diminishes the amount of XP you receive for each subsequent sighting and kill of the same enemy type, so you don't even gain anything from grinding out combat against the same weaker creatures. You're inexorably drawn deeper and deeper into the pit, ever further into danger and ever closer to Morgoth's grasp.

As another example of the creators' fidelity to Tolkien, the various races are depicted accurately. In most fantasy games, like D&D, Shadowrun, or Dragon Age, creators try to keep races balanced. Certain races are stronger in some areas and weaker in others: for example, elves are often depicted as more charismatic and magically inclined, but weaker, whereas dwarves are sturdy but less nimble. This is desirable for game-creation purposes, since it gives players more freedom to pick an appropriate flavor for their character without handicapping themselves. However, Tolkien's own lore was very clear: elves are simply superior. Compared to humans, they're immortal, and stronger, and more graceful, and more beautiful, and better craftsmen, and more aligned with the wishes of the Valar... they're simply superior, full stop. So, when playing Sil, if you want the strongest character, you should choose a Noldor elf. The other choices offer different flavor but clearly greater difficulty. The Sindar elves have a slight advantage in archery. The Naugrim (dwarves) are strong and talented smiths. The Edain (high men)... well, they try hard. That's about it.

(As a side note: I was reminded of how Iron Crown Enterprises handled the issue of racial balance in Middle-earth Role Playing [MERP]. They also sought to remain faithful to Tolkien, and you would get the best attribute bonuses by playing as an elf. In their case, they balanced it with the idea of "background points." The concept was that, the more mundane your physical background, the more interesting your childhood and young adulthood must have been to inspire you to turn to a life of adventuring. So, a Noldor Elf would get only a single Background Point to spend, while a Dorwinian man from the shores of Rhun would get five. A background point might give you a larger-than-normal starting supply of gold [perhaps from an inheritance or a youthful caper], or a physical peculiarity like ambidexterity, or a magical artifact. I thought that was a good solution to the conflicting desires to remain faithful to Tolkien and encourage diversity among player characters.)

Sil also does away with the concept of "classes": you don't create a Cleric or Ranger or Rogue. Instead, you have four primary stats (Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, and Grace) and eight skills. Your stats are basically innate, set at character creation. You start with a pool of XP that you can use to buy advances in the eight skills, starting you off on the path you envision for your character. A cautious player might invest heavily in Evasion and Stealth, while a more aggressive character would dump a lot into Melee or Archery. Skills like Perception can help anyone, but there's always a tradeoff: with the limited XP available, you'll never be able to raise every skill in the game. Finally, you can also use XP to purchase Abilities. These are cool: they grant a specific power to your character. If you learn Lore Master, you'll be able to immediately identify items you encounter without needing to use them first. If you learn Precision, you'll more easily get critical hits from bow attacks. Enchantment will let you craft items imbued with special powers. However, the price for subsequent Abilities in the same skill rises rapidly, so most players will need to pick only a couple from each branch before they grow prohibitively expensive.

The final major innovation that caught my attention was the use of small numbers. That might sound like a silly thing: surely small numbers are less interesting than big numbers? I'm used to playing RPGs where I might have a Stealth skill of 67, wield a magical sword that deals a base damage of 83 points, and cast from a pool of 200 mana. In Sil, almost all numbers are single-digit. The first sword you pick up deals between 1 and 4 points of damage; the most powerful two-handed axe I've found so far can yield between 3 and 12 points. I have not yet been able to raise any of my Skills above level 7. I'm currently wearing a Cloak that gives me +2 to Evasion... and I'm ECSTATIC to have it.

Having small numbers makes every single point matter. An RPG like Dragon Age typically features a smooth and gradual improvement in your character's abilities and equipment. Each new weapon you find might be 5-10% better than the one you were wielding before. Each new level up will give you 5-10% more hit points and a similar increase in skills. You feel a bit more powerful, but it doesn't make a huge impact in the progress of the game.

In contrast, in Sil, an increase of a single point means a lot. You can survive noticeably longer, or kill noticeably more easily. I'd initially scoffed when I saw that Precision lowered the critical hit requirement from 7 to 6. Now, it's the first ability I take whenever I play an archer: that one point is huge.

The ultimate effect is to keep things exciting. Finding a single artifact can drastically affect your survivability; depending on the type of artifact, it might even change your strategy. (Again, there are similarities to be found here with the Binding of Isaac.) It also prompts you to think very, very carefully about where to spend your limited XP, since buying a single point in a skill can have such a big effect.

I definitely can't claim to be a good player. It took me a few days of playing to even make it below 200'. Lately I've been getting down to about 300-350' before succumbing, so I think I'm getting better. One major factor is just getting more acquainted with the monsters and mechanics so I know what to do. For example, I now know to kill worms very quickly if I run into them, before they have a chance to multiply. But, I also know to keep a healthy distance from green worms, since they can damage my equipment. Orc patrols used to always be the bane of me; I'm much more patient now, and generally lurk in the corners while they pass.

I've lurked on a few Sil pages - there doesn't seem to be an organized community, but there are some Roguelike forums with occasional Sil threads - and have been really impressed by the intelligence and variety of Sil players. Some of the best players focus on Melee/Stealth builds, while others eschew Stealth entirely. Personally, I started off with a stealth Archer build suggested in a YouTube video, though I've had better luck switching it up since then. In particular, I now only put 2 points into Smithing so I can take Weaponsmith; this frees up a LOT of XP to distribute elsewhere. My general, vague strategy now is to give a minimal amount into Archery, Evasion, and Stealth to improve survivability, then dump everything else into Perception. I can usually get this up to 7 and buy the two Lore abilities by about 250'. Lore Master gives an immediate boost in XP from your un-identified items, which I then roll into Evasion so I can get Sprint. And then... well, then I typically die. But I'm getting further every time, so I feel like I'm on the right track. Long-term, I plan to re-invest in Archery and Stealth again, and operate as a sniper from the shadows, with the ability to flee and vanish when things get too hot.  But, again, I love the variety of paths Sil offers, and sometime I'd love to try with Song-heavy build or something similar.

The balance of the game is really impressive. It's consistently challenging, but so far has not felt impossible. Every single time I've died, I've been able to clearly identify the reason why. Typically, it's either "Oh, I guess monster X has effect Y. Well, next time I should use archery on them from a distance!" or "I should not have attacked that monster until after making sure no other creatures were within earshot." I guess the game is teaching me caution and patience... what a strange idea from a video game!

Into the vast and echoing gloom,
more dread than many-tunnelled tomb
  down awful corridors that wind
    down to a menace dark enshrined;
      down to the mountain's roots profound,
devoured, tormented, bored and ground
by seething vermin spawned of stone;
  down to the depths he went alone...

Kiriyon Incarnated

Hey, look at this!

Big thanks to Isbjorg for drawing Kiriyon, my elf mage from my most recent play-through of Dragon Age: Origins. I love Isbjorg's incredible fantasy art, and am thrilled to see my character come to life in this way.

Kiriyon was really fun to play. I'd initially been concerned that she would seem too similar to Seberin, the male dwarf commoner rogue from my first game: both are fundamentally good people who get along with everyone in their party, romance Leliana, and make many of the same decisions at critical plot points (succession in Orzammar, conflict in the Brecilian Forest, etc.). The farther along I got, though, the more her personality clarified itself to me. Kiriyon was a quieter person, and kinder as well: where Seberin would finally make the "right" decision after complaining about it and making sure he had exploited every opportunity for pecuniary gain, Kiriyon felt a deep empathy for the people she encountered, and regularly sacrificed of herself for their benefit. As an elf and a mage, she grew up doubly familiar with discrimination and ostracization, set aside from mundane human society by their fear, mistrust, and prejudice. Because of this, she had a particular softness for any group of repressed people, and would always seek to lift them up, even at the cost of the greater good. (So, for example, while Seberin's decision for the Orzammar succession was primarily driven by personal family loyalty, Kiriyon's choice resulted from her empathy for the Casteless).

As a mage, Kiriyon retains an appreciation for scholarship. Her duties as a Grey Warden generally keep her on the road, but she enjoys the occasional opportunity to stop by a library, as shown here. After convincing Queen Anora to free the Ferelden Circle of Magi, Kiriyon gained a devout following among mages throughout Thedas, and is warmly welcomed into any Circle she visits (although she sometimes needs to be smuggled past the Templars). Rumors persist that she later disappeared along with Selene Hawke after their combined efforts drew too much attention from the Chantry...