Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

Abduction driven story in rpgs?

Raghar

Arcane
Vatnik
Joined
Jul 16, 2009
Messages
22,503
it being crucial to narrative.
I dont think such a thing exists.
Well, I posted at least two games where being imprisoned was utterly important for the story.
1. Chronicles or Riddick. The whole story revolves about, ESCAPE...
and horrible failures.
2. FF XII, without jail escape, you'd have no clue Bash exists.
 

Master

Arbiter
Joined
Oct 19, 2016
Messages
1,160
I am a major Riddick fanboy. But its not an RPG. The devs in a funny way discuss briefly "What is an RPG...?" in the commentary mode and one of them thinks how it kinda is but... it really isnt. Its the closest to what OP has in mind though.
 

Taka-Haradin puolipeikko

Filthy Kalinite
Patron
Joined
Apr 24, 2015
Messages
19,113
Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Bubbles In Memoria
In Ultima V it was possible to be imprisoned and have Blackthorne permanently kill one of the party members.
As far as I know that was only case where you could get your party member killed with no chance of resurrection what-so-ever.
 

Twiglard

Poland Stronk
Patron
Staff Member
Joined
Aug 6, 2014
Messages
7,205
Location
Poland
Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut
ITT: post by a person with Nimdok avatar. Next post by a person with Gorrister avatar.

Prestigious.
 

Cael

Arcane
Joined
Nov 1, 2017
Messages
20,287
BG2 has your love interest get abducted. Until cuckdog came up with their "EE" shit, and that entire questline gets aborted if your love interest happens to be one of their special snowflakes.
 

Neanderthal

Arcane
Joined
Jul 7, 2015
Messages
3,626
Location
Granbretan
Chapter 4 I think of Betrayal at Krondor.
The Witcher 2 has Geralt wrongly imprisoned, and hes escaping from the Red Riders at the beginning of Witcher 1.
Expansion to Dragon Age you get imprisoned by whats his face in one o missions.
Rune you get caged by Goblins and are forced to fight one o them big fuck off yeti things.
Arcanum you can get banished to Void if you fuck wi wrong couple o people.
Serpent Isle, Dupre'll get imprisoned for praising beast british in Fawn, and Guardian'll abduct avatar at end.
Both underworlds you get imprisoned at start.
You can get imprisoned in Yew for crimes in Ultimas.
Can main bloke at moathouse abduct you in ToEE or were that p&p module?
MotB you're abducted to start wi.
 

Xeon

Augur
Joined
Apr 9, 2013
Messages
1,858
Getting abducted several times kinda sounds dumb, I mean the enemies after the first or at least the second time should break your legs or something to prevent you from running away or drug you until they are done with you. There is no IMMERSION at all with them constantly abducting you and doing the same thing.

I agree with Teut Busnet, getting captured over and over will turn the experience from a fun little side track to a pretty annoying event or something.
 

Beastro

Arcane
Joined
May 11, 2015
Messages
7,938
Final Fantasy IX. Your team gets imprisoned and you switch to playing the charmed into a frog Cid to try and find the release for a minigame break.
 

Lazing Dirk

Arcane
Joined
Dec 12, 2016
Messages
1,865,452
Location
Shooting up your ride
The forced imprisonment in Witcher 3 was when I stopped playing. There's at least 3 different ways you could've escaped it, but the game forces your hand every time. There's no option to avoid the fight (e.g. by using your magic mind-control whatever), you can't win the fight before the other guy dies (Plot Kick!), and afterwards you're coerced into giving up because of the terrible threat posed by defying 5 peasants and 2 guards (???). I'm sure there's a good way to do it, but that's not it.
 

Cael

Arcane
Joined
Nov 1, 2017
Messages
20,287
Serpent Isle, Dupre'll get imprisoned for praising beast british in Fawn, and Guardian'll abduct avatar at end.
Both underworlds you get imprisoned at start.
You can get imprisoned in Yew for crimes in Ultimas.
Can main bloke at moathouse abduct you in ToEE or were that p&p module?
MotB you're abducted to start wi.
You or your party or other important NPCs get abducted/imprisoned a fair few times in Ultima 7: Part 2. Most of them had to do with plot advancement.

Warning! Crapload of spoilers ahead!

1. You start off with Iolo getting imprisoned, and your quest to become a Monitor Knight was mainly to get him out. That allowed you to talk to many of the stuck-ups living in Monitor and eventually solve all their problems by messily shortening Pomidgurn by a head and half a neck. You get the Helm of Courage out of it as well.
2. In the meantime, Cantra gets abducted by Batlin. Rescuing her becomes a plot point later on.
3. One of the companions would get imprisoned by the Fawn airheads. It is usually Dupre because he is first choice, but if he is not around for whatever reason (telling him to go take a smoke break while you go for the party works; who'd want that drunken lout in a high class do anyway?), Iolo is next in line for shenanigans. This sets you up to get the Rose of Love and advance the plot.
4. Captain Hawke is imprisoned by the corrupt guards and you have to rob the mint to get him out, setting up your first run in with Selene.
5. You get abducted/summoned by the Mage Lord to a dinner where all hell breaks loose, and afterwards...
6. One of your companions get abducted (again!) by Rotoluncia. You have to save him to advance the plot.
7. You get imprisoned by the Mage Lord for doing the horizontal rhumba with a literal popsicle in the Mountains of Freedom, where you get the Blacksword back, and free Stefano and a few other things, all of which is required for you to advance the plot.
8. You then try to cross the Swamp of Gorlab, which imprisons you in a dreamscape that you have to break in order to proceed.
9. You have to then rescue an imprisoned woman by killing that invincible thief jerk Dragan in order to get the help of the Hound to rescue Cantra and track Batlin.
10. Then, you free the banes imprisoned by Batlin (by blowing a hole right through him, natch!) who show their appreciation by possessing your three companions (and probably blowing up your 4th companion in the bargain). Suitably abducted, the three goons kills off 99% of the population of Serpent Isle, leaving you with only an emo female android and a cowardly limp prick "knight" to warm your frozen heart.
11. You have to then free Gwenno from her issues before freeing your abducted buddies (by abducting the banes with the Blacksword; oh the irony).
12. Then you get abducted by the Guardian at the end of the game.

The end of U7:2 sets up Pagan, which basically starts with you getting dumped into a Guardian prison world. No, I refuse to call Pagan U8. There are no Ultimas after U7:2. Fuck EA.

No, ToEE the computer game doesn't abduct you. That I know of.
 

Twiglard

Poland Stronk
Patron
Staff Member
Joined
Aug 6, 2014
Messages
7,205
Location
Poland
Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut
The end of U7:2 sets up Pagan, which basically starts with you getting dumped into a Guardian prison world. No, I refuse to call Pagan U8.

It's not even the jumping puzzles. The real reason is that they have no to little actual RPG gameworld. It's all shitty combat and jumping puzzles. Delete all NPCs from U7 and have the player just kill endless monsters, that's Pagan.

The teachers from magic schools aren't really anything since they're as big interactions as a part of a small side quest in U7. The game's an "action rpg" without either RPG or action.

There are no Ultimas after U7:2. Fuck EA.

What were open-world games like U9 when it was released? Morrowind was only released several years later.

Exult looks pretty hot right now. The disappearing stuff bug is long gone. I can't go for DOS U7 due to mouse handling issues :(
 

Cael

Arcane
Joined
Nov 1, 2017
Messages
20,287
What were open-world games like U9 when it was released? Morrowind was only released several years later.

Exult looks pretty hot right now. The disappearing stuff bug is long gone. I can't go for DOS U7 due to mouse handling issues :(
U9 doesn't deserve a mention. It is aimed at clueless idiots who doesn't even know what the Avatar is, and goes downhill from there.

Exult works pretty well. It went through a duplication bug at one stage also, but that is gone now as well.
 

Twiglard

Poland Stronk
Patron
Staff Member
Joined
Aug 6, 2014
Messages
7,205
Location
Poland
Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut
U9 doesn't deserve a mention. It is aimed at clueless idiots who doesn't even know what the Avatar is, and goes downhill from there.

I guess it's a Fallout 3 moment for Ultima fans. At least U9 didn't sell unlike Fallout 3!

However: was this kind of seamless open world done before or shortly after? You know, that kind of early-3D like Morrowind, KOTOR or Deus Ex.
 
Last edited:

Cael

Arcane
Joined
Nov 1, 2017
Messages
20,287
U9 doesn't deserve a mention. It is aimed at clueless idiots who doesn't even know what the Avatar is, and goes downhill from there.

I guess it's a Fallout 3 moment for Ultima fans. At least U9 didn't sell unlike Fallout 3!

However: was this kind of seamless open world done before or shortly after? You know, that kind of early-3D like Morrowind, KOTOR or Deus Ex.
Pagan was the Fallout 3 moment. Ascension was more like a "whateeeeeever" moment because by then Ultima fans had already given up.

Early 3D would be Ultima Underworld and Underworld 2. Ascension would be more like Morrowind, complete with stick ladder building shenanigans.
 

Twiglard

Poland Stronk
Patron
Staff Member
Joined
Aug 6, 2014
Messages
7,205
Location
Poland
Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut
Early 3D would be Ultima Underworld and Underworld 2. Ascension would be more like Morrowind, complete with stick ladder building shenanigans.

Ultima Underworld looks like Duke, Doom, Strife or Buggerfall. Sprite-based. The tech behind U9 isn't so bad for its release date. They could've made it big if not for a shitty game and wiping ass with canon.

I played my share of Deus Ex like every decent person has to but it's so cringy when they do close-ups on the animated jaw-faces. It's not even the jaws, but closeups with that texture resolution. KOTOR2 looked way worse than Buggerfall not to mention pixel art-based games. Stupid 3dfx fad.
 

mondblut

Arcane
Joined
Aug 10, 2005
Messages
22,205
Location
Ingrija
This whole abduction crap is just devs admitting they cannot balance and properly itemize shit, and instead strip your hard-earned loot away because muh challenge.

Boycott.
 

Hyperion

Arcane
Joined
Jul 2, 2016
Messages
2,120
Crono Trigger has you imprisoned twice - once early on with just Crono in Present Day Guardia, a second time in the Dark Ages on board the Black Bird, after Crono 'leaves' the party.

Most Final Fantasies have a capture segment.

Breath of Fire 3 has Nina getting repeatedly captured by Balio and Sunder. At least twice by my memory. You also have a few instances where you are chased by them, and get away.

...There are definitely more, and they're mostly Japanese. Memory isn't so great right now
 
Joined
Oct 19, 2010
Messages
3,524
I think it's a fantastic way to mix up expectations and temporarily push the PC back down to noob level in an instant. There really does need to be a way for the player to avoid or counter the situation though, whether that's a tip off that can stop the abduction altogether or something simpler like the option to smuggle something special along with you. Forced abductions without alternative scenarios make me much less tolerant of the designer's decisions from that point on.
 

eggdogg

Learned
Joined
Dec 31, 2016
Messages
102
Goto nabs the exile on the gaping maw of Nal Hutta
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom