Preview RPG Codex Re-Preview: The Age of Decadence

[Absinthe]

No, you are supposed to get the info from him, which at first the only way to achieve that is to protect him. If you get the info, protecting him is more about your honor than getting the quest done.

In any case, I agree with you that some quests can use some mercenary hiring, and we talked many times about implementing something like that (which is a nice money sink as well). No promises about the implementation, though, we want to finish the game as soon as we can.

I would definitely implement it if I were you. Linus gives this great speech about how money is power and if you serve it well it will open doors for you, but in gameplay terms that doesn't materialize. You get to experience how politics is power, but not how money is power. The ability to pay your way through quests would be a useful way of integrating that message with the game, and you definitely pay a price if you want to solve quests that way. I think AoD could do with some more financial utility/pressure to reinforce the value of having money, to be honest. Feng doesn't ask you for money either if you want him to identify the jellyfish artifact even though that's his job right there, and I don't think he should do that for free unless you are his apprentice. Hell, knowing Feng he should probably charge you small amounts for consultations if you come to him with lore questions and a low charisma.

For an idiot solution at Teron, you could add the option to have the character pay the bandit ransom himself (1K? 500 with trading?) at which point Dellar will chastise you anyway because the problem was never the money but the principle of paying bandits ransom, you fucking moron (low house daratan rep, but you can use persuasion or better yet etiquette so he lets you speak with Antidas anyway?). AoD could do with a few more options that seem like a good use of your capabilities only to screw you over so that players actually think about what they're doing.

 

[hivemind]

>And when it comes to tactical options you often have to tune your combat build to obtain them. If you just get a weapon skill and armor plus some block (one of the most reliable combat builds in the game) then your combat is really just going to consist of hitting a guy over and over again until he's dead. You're probably not even going to try aimed strikes much because to hit aimed strikes you want a crit skill, which feels rather like a luxury compared to your necessities of hitting shit and not getting hit.

Yes.
The tactical options exist as addition to the main game systems not as replacement for them. Pretty sure that's what I said.
As to aimed strikes I have been using aimed arms for like 6 months on all my dodger builds as my main attack.




MRY

AoD is never going to be popular, and frankly that's good we have enough popular games, what we lack are good ones. Especially such that explore and advance the possibilities of both the medium and genre.

If your build is a non ambitious pure combat build then you really don't need to restart after losing a single fight, if your stats make at least some sort of a sense the issue lies in either tactics or to a certain extent in RNG(3-5 reloads should be the max you need for almost any given fight excluding a few harder ones.).

But if you go into the game wanting to make an assassin that's a good swordfighter who knows how to dodge and is really into lore while also being charismatic as fuck then restarting is your best bet.(don't take this the wrong way hybrids are possible, and it's great fun trying them out, but you need to know what you are doing)
To experience all of the narrative content in AoD you also need to master the system. In many ways exploring ancient places of knowledge or other bits of storytelling is not simply something that the game gave you it is something that you have earned with your mastery of the system and the lives of your past mistakes(bad characters).
Killing a certain thing in a certain place while also having done certain other things took me about 2-3(and to be fair to the number at this point I was fairly experienced with the game) character iterations that each proved faulty at a different part of the journey(many times in the latter stages), when I finally killed the certain thing and was able to explore the certain place I felt a great sense of satisfaction that wouldn't have been possible without me having failed beforehand.


also

>once it's been released and has a year of patching to achieve some level of stability, which seems required of any RPG these days
Really don't think that these kind of devs are going to leave polish for after release m8.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Also, fucking synergies were first suggested by Hiver, yours truly. Not that anyone ever said thanks.
Which one would expect from indies if such basic behavioral decency was a feature in those heads, if its not in the heads of AA-ASSHOLES.

Fucking synergies were in the game from day one.

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?posts/72541/

btw, good suggestion for points pools from Attributes there at the start. And for synergies of civic skills.

Not that that blockhead will ever get it.

Weapon skills do the same thing. You can invest in hammers and never need swords or daggers. The synergies give you a reason to invest into 'parallel' skills and let you use weapon combos like sword/dagger. Civic skills do different things and you can't invest in persuasion and never need another civic skill ever again, so you don't need the encouragement.

 

[MRY]

AoD is never going to be popular, and frankly that's good we have enough popular games, what we lack are good ones. Especially such that explore and advance the possibilities of both the medium and genre.

Games that require you to restart midway through in order to take advantage of meta-gaming information are not "good," in my opinion, unless the metagaming mechanic is thematized in the game itself (such as Majora's Mask or Aisle) or the game changes significantly or the game is arcade-type such that what is going on is not metagaming so much as achieving a zen mastery of enemy patterns or something.

I agree with the "explore and advance" point and I think it's the best thing about AOD. [EDIT: In fact, I have been evangelizing this aspect of AOD since 2005 or so in my Escapist article!] The only concern I have is that the game has such high barriers to entry and took so long to make that it is unlikely that its advancements will be replicated.

(3-5 reloads should be the max you need for almost any given fight excluding a few harder ones)

Sigh.

To experience all of the narrative content in AoD you also need to master the system.

Mastering a system does not offend me; but knowing what skill checks you need to pass certain hurdles is not mastering a system, it's just having foreknowledge. Hopefully AOD is more about system mastery.

>once it's been released and has a year of patching to achieve some level of stability, which seems required of any RPG these days
Really don't think that these kind of devs are going to leave polish for after release m8.

Meh, we spent months testing Primordia, a vastly simpler game, and it was riddled with bugs at release. Massive new content is being added to AOD on a regular basis and it has a highly complicated and interconnected design. I am 100% sure that AOD at launch plus three months will be better than AOD at launch, and that AOD at launch plus 12 months will be better still. That said, avoiding spoilers and missing out on the conversation upon release will suck, but I've waited a decade for this game (my entire professional career!) and see little reason to rush things.

 

[Lurker King]

This is probably where my first real criticism of the character system comes in. Perception is an important stat for fighters – with the difficulty of the combat, the bonus to accuracy you get from a high perception is important. However, a fighter that invests in perception is putting points into the civic pool, and not the combat pool. Conversely, a purely civic character can treat the combat pool stats merely as dump stats, thereby putting all of their skill points into the civic pool instead. It’s not a colossal concern – combat builds are still viable – but for those who like finding the optimal build for their play style, it is a hurdle.

The points allocated in perception will generate civic points that can be used in useful skills such as streetwise, persuasion and lore. I don’t want to mention any spoiler. Instead, I will just say this: a munchinking player will definitely want to spend points in these skills. I also saw some suggestions in the ITS forum in which CS should be governed by perception and not dexterity. Maybe this will help in this point.

Civic skill points lack that same combination. For example, points in persuasion simply give you a flat improvement to a persuasion skill check. I would have liked to have seen the same system for the combat skills be reflected here – an effective ability score that acts as the primary stat check, paired with a level that gives certain bonuses, as well as synergies – such as an improvement to persuasion giving you a slight improvement to streetwise, or sneak improving disguise. It feels like a missed opportunity to add some more interesting depth and flexibility to the character system.

This complaint pops up in the ITS forum from time to time. This was implemented in earlier versions of the game. Oscar mentioned that they take this off because the non-combat builds end up being pigeonholed characters. I think that probably another reason was that it made things too easy for non-combat builds, but I’m not sure.

If you do invest heavily, combat can be challenging at times but generally isn’t too difficult, although some encounters you may lose just due to the numbers game. (…) That actually may be the problem – often when I lose a fight I feel that it’s not because I played the fight poorly, but rather that I got screwed by the random number generator.

The game is difficult, but fair. If you master the game, you beat all the fights. If you don’t, you die. It’s simple as that. The fact that you assumed that you got screwed by random numbers shows that you didn’t master the game. If you did, you would realize that you can only got screwed by inadequate builds and bad tactics. If anything, you were saved by the random number generator trying to obtain a different (and very unlikely due to your build and tactics) result. Which is quite curious, because I also barely survived some fights, but my feeling was precisely the opposite of yours. I felt a great sense of relief, for not being crushed by my enemies, and reward, for being able to beat them.

You have a variety of attacks, each with their own pros and cons and utility, you have the ability to move around tactically and exercise your brain a bit, and the stats and skills translate in a clear way to your performance on the battlefield. Still, after a heavy dose I feel like I want something else. I would say this is an area where the whole is less than the sum of its parts. Part of it is because when you engage an enemy you just stand in the square next to him, going back and forth until one of you doesn’t get up.

And this is a problem because…

At the same time, this could just be a side effect of controlling only a single character. It is admittedly much more difficult to provide sufficient tactical depth and dynamism in a system where you only control one character with the limitations the character system imposes.

You forgot to mention that in more than one occasion you actually fight with parties by your side. Besides, I don’t buy your premise. If there is anything that games such as Age of Decadence and Underrail shows, is that you can have tactical depth and dynamism with just one character.

I could go on about it, but it’s pretty straightforward, so I’ll go right into my issue with it: for such a key gameplay element – and arguably the most preferred path through the game – the system just isn’t satisfying. The green success or the red failure don’t give you a real sense of accomplishment.

You realize that you can criticize almost any cRPG known to date with that argument, right?

If anything I think it would be preferred that the conversation continue without noting success or failure, and the player would find out simply by the result of the conversation rather than a color-coded YOU PASS announcement.

Which happens in many occasions. Actually, many players have problems in some parts of the game that they don’t understand what mistake their made before.

Maybe hiding the information and providing a contextual hint based on your character's level of skill, requiring you to read what you’re going to say to try to convince the other character, would be preferred to the bracketed [Persuasion][Trading] signal.

Again, you can find this in the game. In more than one occasion, you can reveal hints about the character with perception, for instance.

My other main gripe with the gameplay is traveling. To put it bluntly – it sucks. You *can* walk from place to place, but the character moves pretty slowly, the camera controls kind of stink, and it’s easy to get turned around without a compass/mini-map to keep you oriented. Instead, you’ll probably just open up the map, then click on PALACE, and magically appear right in front of it. It makes the game world feel disjointed.

The character don’t move pretty slowly. And what kind of player would need a compass to play this game? This is not a game for nine years old and popamoles! And what is the problem with magically appearing right in front of the palace? You mean, is very important to you to spend 30 mins walking across all the map to get to the palace by foot? Who are you? Forest Gump?

This plays out even more jarringly within certain quests. You’ll be in the middle of a conversation and the quest objective will shift to "go and speak to someone else". Instead of you participating in the game world to get to the second location, the game just transports you there and you have no idea where “there” is.

In most cases you have the option to get there by foot, if that is very important to your enjoyment of the game. So, no. The game don’t have this problem.

If you’re the type that really values a more cohesive experience and generally doesn’t value storytelling to the point where it will excuse gameplay flaws, you may have a hard time enjoying this game.

Bullshit. From my personal experience, the more dedicated players in the earlier access are combat fags obsessed with stats. The game is appealing to both combatfags and storyfags. The only “problem” with the game is that most non-mainstream gamers like to praise themselves as hardcore and anti-popamole, but they can’t really stand a game that is really unforgiving and without filler. The game is meant to be realistic and consistent. If you don’t have the necessary skill points to pass a certain part, you have to restart or reload. This encourages hoarding skill points, metagaming, etc., and some people feel frustrated by this because in most games they have more freedom, which means that the stats in many cases are just for show. They fell frustrated because they are closeted popamoles in some degree.

This preview is awful. The author made many complaints based on vague expressions of discontentment that are completely unsubstantiated by arguments. In the fewer cases in which he provide some argument to sustain his complaints he reveals ignorance about entire segments of the game or the functioning of the combat system.

 

[tuluse]

MRY

The trick to AoD is not to spend your skill points until you've seen the skill checks and reloaded

 

[Lurker King]

The teleportation reminds you that you're dealing with abstractions, which by definition lowers immersion.

That it’s super philosophy. I can criticize every aspect of every game with this type of argument. The stats reminds you that you are dealing with abstractions and not real people, the inventory reminds you that you are dealing with abstractions since real people don’t have a warehouse on their asses, the turn-based system reminds you that you are dealing with abstractions and not real people… What happens is that the most players are lazy, unimaginative and arrogant. Everything has to be exactly like in the past. God forbid if AoD provides the option to skip some unnecessary gameplay. That is preposterous!

 

[hiver]

Synergies for attributes.

Blockhead.

Civic skills do different things and you can't invest in persuasion and never need another civic skill ever again, so you don't need the encouragement.

Have no idea what this means, nor do i give a fuck.

 

[hivemind]

MRY

>Games that require you to restart midway through in order to take advantage of meta-gaming information are not "good," in my opinion
Guess we just disagree then. idk it's like, I make a build that wants to do X and it doesn't work because I die too much in combat at some point or something so I just make a new one. I'll just get to the same spot in a bit if the build is good enough to pass the previous bits which my now defunct build passed. I find that to be far better than if I was given no challenge at all and could just do everything and go everywhere willy-nilly.

>arcade-type such that what is going on is not metagaming so much as achieving a zen mastery of enemy patterns or something.
So it's okay to restart an arcade but not an RPG? Is achieving a zen mastery of enemy patterns something radically different to achieving zen mastery of skill checks, skill point gain, gold gain and necessary gold expenses, material gain if you are playing with alchemy or crafting, most efficient quest order for your chosen approach, and all the encounter tactics? Is the latter somehow less respectable ?


>system mastery
This really only has meaning given the exact system in question doesn't it?
Knowing skill check values might sound "metagamey" but the honest truth is that to get gud at AoD and seeing all the content requires to do this.
I know that there is a 4/3 check that lets me pass two quests in one and gives me a bunch of skill points. So I allocate my points in char creation such that the sp gain in the game that I can get prior to having to pass the check is enough to raise my desired skills to 4/3. Yeah its meta, and yeah it's something that probably wouldn't work on your very first virgin playthrough but I don't really see anything wrong with it.
I mean, yeah you have to learn stuff but that's just really a part of mastering any game.

>sigh
Not sure what you are sighing about, RNG is unavoidable in any game that you play. Now 3-5 are maximums for non optimized builds, pretty sure that most of the people who have more than a few hours in the game can get through teron and perhaps even maadoran without dying once with a combat build.





>Meh, we spent months testing Primordia, a vastly simpler game, and it was riddled with bugs at release. Massive new content is being added to AOD on a regular basis and it has a highly complicated and interconnected design. I am 100% sure that AOD at launch plus three months will be better than AOD at launch, and that AOD at launch plus 12 months will be better still. That said, avoiding spoilers and missing out on the conversation upon release will suck, but I've waited a decade for this game (my entire professional career!) and see little reason to rush things.
That's fair enough I guess.


Either way I'm going to bed so if you care to respond I'll get to it tomorrow.

 

[MRY]

Guess we just disagree then. idk it's like, I make a build that wants to do X and it doesn't work because I die too much in combat at some point or something so I just make a new one. I'll just get to the same spot in a bit if the build is good enough to pass the previous bits which my now defunct build passed. I find that to be far better than if I was given no challenge at all and could just do everything and go everywhere willy-nilly.

Hmm. I guess if the changes you're making at character creation start having impact on the outcome of events early in the game, then I might withdraw or temper my criticism (I'm thinking of Lone Wolf gamebooks, for example). But it seems like shifting a point from dodge to spear or whatever is not going to have that kind of effect; instead, you're just min-maxing while replaying the same content. That sounds miserable.

So it's okay to restart an arcade but not an RPG? Is achieving a zen mastery of enemy patterns something radically different to achieving zen mastery of skill checks, skill point gain, gold gain and necessary gold expenses, material gain if you are playing with alchemy or crafting, most efficient quest order for your chosen approach, and all the encounter tactics? Is the latter somehow less respectable ?

Well, a couple of points. First, I'm not sure where you got that I'm talking about respectability -- you're dealing with someone who admitted to watching crap anime in an AOD thread already. The difference, I think, is that arcade-game mastery is something you can only gain by doing. You can read all the FAQs in the world and still not beat Ikaruga. Whereas knowing the required skillcheck thresholds is something you can get from a one page "best character build" text file on GameFAQs. There's really nothing "zen" about that; it's much more like knowing the exploits in a system than mastering the system itself.

I know that there is a 4/3 check that lets me pass two quests in one and gives me a bunch of skill points. So I allocate my points in char creation such that the sp gain in the game that I can get prior to having to pass the check is enough to raise my desired skills to 4/3. Yeah its meta, and yeah it's something that probably wouldn't work on your very first virgin playthrough but I don't really see anything wrong with it. I mean, yeah you have to learn stuff but that's just really a part of mastering any game.

Not really. When I was good at Starcraft, for example, I could win essentially any single player map without knowing the map or the gimmicks in advance. Once you understood how units related to each other and to the topography of the map and the available resources, you could apply those principles to new scenarios and succeed. You needed to develop an understanding of those relationships, but not an encyclopedic knowledge of every map.

I would analogize to multiplication. It is true that one can "learn" to multiply by memorizing the multiplication table, but mastery requires understanding how the operation works. Once you grasp it, you can solve expressions you've never seen before, even very difficult ones. It sounds like AOD's systems are like the method of calculating the position of the planets via epicycles: you need to keep trying, and refining, and trying, and refining extremely complicated formulas based on having more and more observational data. But if you calculate the position of the planets using Newtonian equations and a heliocentric model, you only need to grasp simple rules.

In my experience, good games do not require advanced knowledge; they require you to understand and extrapolate from your experience thus far.

Now 3-5 are maximums for non optimized builds

Reloading and replaying combat 3 to 5 times in order to account for the RNG does not sound remotely fun or rewarding to me. The whole premise of my decade-old evangelism of AOD was that it was going to discourage save scumming by having lower-impact loss conditions that you could live with. This sounds worse.

 

[Ninjerk]

 

[Forest Dweller]

How long have there been Combat and Civic skill points? They weren't in the game last I recall.

So some XP rewards go exclusively into one pile? Is this known ahead of time (or at least able to be reasonably deduced)?

 

[hiver]

I think its combat xp goes to combat pool and civic to civic.

Also my old suggestion/idea, btw.
(as far as i remember)

 

[Ninjerk]

How long have there been Combat and Civic skill points? They weren't in the game last I recall.

So some XP rewards go exclusively into one pile? Is this known ahead of time (or at least able to be reasonably deduced)?

I assumed you only get combat xp for combat...

 

[John Yossarian]

Last game where I had to watch characters walk around the map was WL2, was so immersive I hacked near-insta travel while on map view. I loved Blackguards so much for just TPing me from town to town.
Anyway, did the combat just get massively easier on the last iterations, where you can just stand and whack people? I remember testing back when only Teron was done and no matter how good my build was, I had to use some tactics when fighting multiple opponents. If you just stood there and blocked they would break your shield in a few turns. And my builds weren't awful either, I was the first to beat the hard version of the palace fight.

 

[SCO]

MRY is seeing the light finally

 

[MRY]

I cut my Codex teeth criticizing AOD's early writing back in '05, so it's not like I'm some cheerleader. But I still have faith in the game; hivemind is clearly espousing a false version of the AOD creed.

 

[Helton]

In my experience, good games do not require advanced knowledge; they require you to understand and extrapolate from your experience thus far.

Meh, this isn't "good" or "bad", these are just two different kinds of games.

Roguelikes, for instance, are all about gaining "meta knowledge" to advance further. I know, procedural generation, its just an example. Also consider platformers or racing games from the old Nintendo days. Some of the best games ever made. 99 parts meta knowledge to 1 part intuition.

I agree with hivemind. And I think this is perhaps not what VD intended to make, but its what we have. You don't play a specific character, you play the game. I mean you can try to finish the game with one character but you run into a lot of unmet expectations as we're seeing. But if you see the game as a whole, and building the perfect character to unlock that piece of content which still eludes you (convincing Belgutai to seek patronage, dammit!) is actually part of playing the game. Just like getting all the Krem Koins in DK Country was part of the game. You could "finish" it with an inferior run (build), but you'd always know you hadn't seen all the content.

Its a bit like chasing that one girl versus "playing the field". It isn't about your character. Its about seeing all the content.

Maybe not what was intended. Maybe not everyone's cup of tea. But its how I play the game and, apparently, I'm not the only one. And its damn fun this way, tbh.

edit: And so, from that perspective, you see why these criticisms are so absurd? You build a combat character and save scummed to beat a lot of fights, and complain about lack of tactics. But that combat character will not see a vast majority of content. Tactics become MUCH more important as you start rolling your hybrid builds who will try to carve out those more obscure bits of content and lore, or try to combine bits of content which are usually not compatible. Then you will need to beat hard fights with weak characters, ect.

To run with the DK Country 2 comparison, you did a "first pass" and "beat the boss". But you missed ALL the secret levels and extra content... You know, the real juice of the game! Barely gotten started, really.

edit 2: To quote great-granpa Cranky Kong:

• "Well done, Diddy, m'boy! Who'd have known you'd be able to rescue that lazy grandson of mine and dump K. Rool in his own filthy swamp? Not bad for a novice! Of course, if I'd have been playing, I'd have made sure that K. Rool never tries a cheap trick like this again!"
• "I reckon I'd found all the Kremkoins and completed the so called 'Lost World'. Oh well, can't expect everything from our first game, can we?"

 

[tuluse]

The whole premise of my decade-old evangelism of AOD was that it was going to discourage save scumming by having lower-impact loss conditions that you could live with. This sounds worse.

You back the wrong horse for this outcome.

Let me introduce you to one Josh Sawyer who's ideas you might find interesting.

 

[Elhoim]

Now 3-5 are maximums for non optimized builds

Reloading and replaying combat 3 to 5 times in order to account for the RNG does not sound remotely fun or rewarding to me. The whole premise of my decade-old evangelism of AOD was that it was going to discourage save scumming by having lower-impact loss conditions that you could live with. This sounds worse.

The lower impact loss condition is that you can avoid the fight.

 

[kazgar]

All I know the dude who tries to write a walkthrough for this on gamefaqs is gonna have a bad time™

 

[Gondolin]

we want to finish the game as soon as we can.

So... a year? Two at most? But Vault Dweller wouldn't say no to three?

 

[MRY]

Helton This conversation will be hopelessly lopsided since I haven't played AOD, and I have no interest in criticizing, based on a second-hand report, an important game made by someone I hold in high regard. So, I'll bow out simply by saying I think that (1) there is a considerable gap between procedural roguelikes that lack narrative and deterministic RPGs with narrative, and one works better for the kind of gameplay you're talking about and (2) when you "play the game" in roguelikes it is seldom about knowing about fixed thresholds and more about knowing about systems and relationships and risk management.

tuluse I've been too busy with other things to follow the Sawyer balance debate, but as best I can tell, we're talking about two different things (although I think you're right that I agree with Sawyer on balance, too). When I wrote "Killjoy," I complained about game design that presumes the player will save-scum and undo any downside results in order to assure a perfect game. I then said, regarding AOD:

Spoiler

The better solution, then, is to return death to its rightful place as an infrequent punishment and to reintroduce the host of other sanctions once familiar to roleplayers. Indeed, the unglamorous Rogue-like subgenre of cRPGs, although featuring frequent deaths, includes a wide array of non-lethal punishments, ranging from destroyed items to mutations. The fun of Rogue-likes is recovering from these setbacks and - as the D&D manual suggests - finding the gameplay opportunities within them.

Promising independent RPGs, such as Mount & Blade and Age of Decadence, are making significant steps in this direction. Losing in battle means being robbed or perhaps taken captive, but does not end the game.

Here are five basic principles to help fix the save-load dilemma:

1. The player should never be expected to save except when ending his play session.

2. The player should receive significant long-lasting penalties much more frequently than he should die. Small permanent penalties should be frequent and essentially unavoidable (but seldom imposed due to pure chance), to accustom the player to weathering setbacks rather than undoing them.

3. The player should never die (or receive another substantial penalty) for anything other than an elected risk. That means it should be possible for a player to see when he is getting in over his head, there should almost always be a way to get out of a potentially deadly situation, and random chance should have little influence in dying.

4. Accordingly, it should be possible for combat to end some way other than every enemy or every party member dying. Retreat should be reintroduced as a viable strategic option with more upside than reloading. Furthermore, the player (and the enemy) should be able to negotiate or surrender when doing so is plausible.

5. Failure should create possibilities rather than merely foreclose them.

While it sounds like AOD still has some of these aspects (#4, for example), I'm troubled by the suggestion that it is designed to require multiple save-loads per combat and metagame min-maxing in order to fully engage with the game. But, as I said, it's insane to argue about something I haven't played, against people who have played it and clearly like it.

Elhoim If so, great! My understanding from what hivemind was saying earlier was that the game was a shallow and incomplete experience unless you minmaxed through metagaming and save-scummed. I'll be very happy if I misunderstood, or he misreported.

 

[tuluse]

MRY

I wasn't talking about balance. A lot of Josh's design decisions are based around why do people reload their games other than dying or wanting to see another branching path and trying to find ways to avoid those situations. Well and trying to reduce re-loads from deaths through essentially partial-death situations.

Looking over your list you may also be interesting in Torment Tides of Numenera. They recently wrote about how they want to make "failures" as fun and interesting as "successes".

 

[MRY]

Interesting. Sounds like he and I share some views. Curious to see how they pan out in POE.