" Why shouldn't we read reports of a "min-reload cheeseless SCS" playthrough next to a "solo insane poverty" run? I bet stuff like that would make for fun reading. "
Indeed; there was a fellow who posted his accounts of his "no raise" BG1 run; he called it "Keeping Gorion Company". Every NPC who died was dragged back to the grove where Gorion was lying and placed in a circle around him. Rather amusing reading. He even dragged some of the bodies of nonentities (the corpses found in the sewers) to the same spot.
I'm going to make one final post here, then be done. We have been talking mostly about the BG series being a game, and making play interesting etc. etc. This is also an RPG, however, and when I play I at least attempt to get into the role. MyChar is a schizophrenic gender confused half-orc berserker, who has good and bad sides. His proclaimed "True Neutral" alignment is just an average state of mind. When he's good, he's very good, when he's bad, you would be wise to cross to the other side of the street.
He's been bothered by beholders, irked by Ilithids, damaged by demons and victimized by vampires. But by now, he's a lean green (literally) wrecking machine. He's mad as Hell, and he ain't gonna take it any more! He's also had a taste of power, and wants MORE. He wants to be a GOD, and anyone who gets in the way is going DOWN. How he does it is immaterial. He's at the top of the heap now, but he's been down before and knows that fortune could reverse again at any time, so "Carpe Diem" ... enjoy it while you can. "If you got it, flaunt it, baby!"
And if you tell him "Gee, what you did to those poor mind flayers was so unfair!", he'll look at you like you are crazy. And in RP terms, you would be.
@FrdNwsm when you are at war, you face people, and people are not limitated by some coding or such things. It is their skills against yours. And the stakes are not quite the same either. But let's stay in the gaming area, for it has examples aplenty, without really important stakes. When I play League of Legends, for example, I am facing people, I am facing humans. The Matchmaking system makes me face opponents close to my level. Which means I will do whatever it takes (staying in the game spirit, I won't hack or insult for example) to win. That includes taking the character I al the best with, and do my best exploiting the game every single mechanic to best my opponent. Now when I play Baldur's Gate, I am on my own. I am facing a computer AI which I know almost by heart. It is much like facing an opponent completely beneath my level in League of Legends. And in my opinion, stomping an enemy in Baldur's Gate has as low interest as stomping a Bronze (lowest rank) in League of Legends, that is to say, none, because my game knowledge won't have increased after that fight. Now if I set some restraints (not too sure that word is spelled this way) to myself, I will have to find a way around to get to my goal. For example with illithids, you can get them easily with animate dead. That's a solution, and not a challenging one. But you can as well use Chaotic command on a low AC warrior to prevent any stun, and then rush on their face because if they don't hit you they won't eat your brain. You could as well bait them with an archer, dealing them some damage from afar, to lure them into traps your thieves have set. And there certainly are another 10 ways to kill them easily. Using other tactics improves your game knowledge as well, and that's what I like, getting to know a game deeper than just one way to do one thing, or taking that armor because it feels nice, and that weapon because it looks dangerous.
I just had a realization reading the last several comments. If you want to discourage cheese, the best way to do so probably isn't to point out that this or that tactic is too easy or unrealistic--it's to point out the viable alternatives.
Skeleton Warriors on Mind Flayers too cheesy? Then try Chaotic Commands, as @Arunsun suggested. Chaotic Commands too cheesy? Combine a Potion of Invulnerability with Spirit Armor to make sure your fighter makes his or her saves vs. Psionic Blast.
You may know the computer AI well; I certainly don't. Where I am right now (end of chapter 5) is where I am in my first run-through. What works for this group is what MyChar does best. My theory is that if a character has a strength, give them the skills and equipment to maximize these abilities. I have done so.
I am well aware that there are other ways to do things. I am starting a second run-through for variety's sake, in which MyChar is a swashbuckler. We'll have to find another way to deal with beholders, for example. And I am quite familiar with the "bait them into a minefield" tactic. My second group has both my swashbuckler and Yoshimo, and I can assure you we do that a lot. That's a fair number of traps we can set per day.
I don't use that tactic with my Berserker's group because right now, we can't. We no longer have any thieves who are competent with that ability; Yoshimo is quite dead and Imoen's thief skills are mainly focused on traps and locks.
I could use the tactic of chaotic commands + haste + high Ac to go and melee mind flayers hand to hand; in fact I did that the first fight or two against them, back in Hexxat's quest line. But once I discovered how effective skeletal warriors were against them, what would be the point? Yes, I'd win most of the fights, but what happens if they get a lucky hit and MC gets brain drained? It's reset time, that's what happens. I can achieve the same end, without risking going through that reset bother, by sending an undead army after them.
@FrdNwsm I certainly played my first playthrough about the same way you did, thlugh you are much more mature than I was back then of course. I was about 8yo, the very concept of cheese was beyond my reach. A tactic was effective? Let's use and abuse it. I can't and won't blame you for that for the main argument anti-cheese use is that when you know the game well you need not using such tactics. But you don't because you re a first-timer. And the second and main reason is that everyone plays the way he wants.
"Well, the point would be discovering the difference between these two scenarios"
And MyChar has done so. He's seen some of his close friends get their brains sucked out, and he's seen skeletal warriors whom he doesn't care a whit about whup Ilithid butt. Gee, for some reason he much prefers the latter scenario.
I quite comprehend the point about wanting a challenge, but there is also the RP aspect; in no way can I rationalize this particular character doing something that illogical. I can certainly think of an excuse to play that way; maybe MyChar is a paladin whose code of honor demands that he confront the heathen foe face-to-face. Or maybe he's an adrenalin junkie who gets off on taking chances in combat. Sort of an Evel Kinevel type born into the world of Faerun. Maybe I'll try that someday. But he would have to be played that way from day 1; I cannot justify such a radical personality change with MC after this much time. Yeah, he's crazy, but he's not stupid.
With my other group, who are still in early chapter 2, I decided that the first 5 NPCs I meet would be my core group; I'd rotate them out one at a time so we could do other NPC quests, but these would be my main go to guys, especially in chapters 4-5. That means MyChar (swashbuckler), Imoen (who will vanish and be replaced by Nalia), Minsc, Jaheira, Yoshimo and Aerie. Imoen comes back when Yoshimo gets bumped off. That will leave us with three mage types, which is good, but no specialty mages. Jaheira and Minsc will have to do double duty as our front line melee guys, which is less good. Aerie is far inferior to Anomen as a cleric, IMO. As a multi class, she will not progress as rapidly and as high as Anomen, nor can she be used as an emergency front line fighter since her HP are feeble. This group will have to develop entirely different tactics; if nothing else, we won't have some massive berserker wiping out entire colonies of beholders single-handedly
But even so; they're going to be pretty pragmatic. If something works, they're going to roll with it. Damn the cheese! Full speed ahead! Lure the enemy into a minefield? Sounds good to me.
Btw, if people object to the word 'cheese' and it's potentially pejorative overtone, I'm all for thinking up a new descriptor that gets the idea across.
I would argue that "powergame" and "cheese" are close, though not perfectly synonymos. Though aiming for the former often involves the latter: min/maxing, metagaming for items/NPC's/tomes/etc, knowing your enemy's weaknesses (scrolls of whatever) etc. Creating the biggest, baddest charname/party there is, more times than not, you cross into cheesyland.
Not that I mind though, I judge noone and often myself employ what other consider cheese. It matters not to me, it's SP after all, as stated a gazillion times before.
@subtledoctor: To be fair, solo no-reload accounts can only be done in so many ways without relying heavily on luck. There are a finite number of ways to prevent getting hit by Black Talon Ice Arrows in BG1, a finite number of ways to kill the Loup Garou in TotSC, a finite number of ways to avoid getting Dominated by vampires in BG2, and a finite number of ways to avoid getting Mazed by Sendai in ToB. It's a bit like complaining that nobody uses fighters in Insane Solo Poverty runs--impose restrictions on a run, whether it's no items or no reloads, and the variety of viable strategies necessarily decreases.
As for avoiding metagaming, avoiding cheese, maintaining realism... it would be great to have these sorts of things, in a new kind of run. But the more restrictions we lay on a game, the fewer ways there are to play it. If we restrict all forms of cheating and cheese and cheap tactics--if we set up a playthrough that everyone could agree has no cheese in it--then we don't have BG2 anymore. We've got Improved Anvil, and even Improved Anvil is stuffed with cheese. It's just a different flavor.
Cheeseless. Restless. No-reload. Solo. Modded. Poverty. Insane. Nightmare. No metagaming. Roleplaying. Novel and varied gameplay.
We can have some of these in a run of BG2. But we can't have all of them.
@subtledoctor We could always just not use labels......
If you really had to put a label on it, I guess you could say that people playing the game with the most restrictions are "hardcore". However, that is subjective. My idea of hardcore is not the same as a Korean gamer's. The way I see it, if I find it super-difficult, then I'm playing hardcore. I think that's all that matters, in the end.
You are obviously a talented player, so what makes the game easier for you, may only make it playable for someone else. Yes, I agree that certain elements of the game don't necessarily make sense RP-wise. However, those elements actually allow the casual gamer to enjoy the game without getting frustrated.
"It's one thing to tout your tactical prowess as a student of military yadda yadda yadda. But from such a perspective, are you seriously suggesting that in a simulation, it's wrong to modify the scenario every once in a while to test different aspects of your tactics and capabilities? If I'm not mistaken, that's the whole point of simulations."
Hello? I've been wargaming for 25 years; I have games you have probably never played or even heard of. On occasion I fire up an old game for nostalgia's sake. When I have played a game often enough that I know all the ins and outs, guess what? I TURN UP THE DIFFICULTY LEVEL! And if that's not good enough, I set artificial goals. Every gamer over the age of 12 is savvy enough to know to do this, and suggesting that they aren't is just insulting people's intelligence.
Personally, for me, part of the fun in learning a new game is picking apart the AI and finding chinks in the armor that I can exploit. There's plenty of time to have reruns where your character fights with one hand tied behind his back, once you know what's going on.
And to answer a prior question, yes I play chess; have done so since being on the chess team in college. I do post game analysis, where I basically take the part of my opponent, to try and analyze what both he and I could have done to improve our moves. It is indeed a valuable training exercise. And some of my repeat opponents are vulnerable to different openings and different styles of play, which post game analysis reveals. Which only reinforces my point about learning how a game AI "thinks". It's a related process.
If my chess opponent prefers an open tactical game, is it "cheese" to play a closed strategic opening against him?
@FrdNwsm@subtledoctor: You guys have been arguing for a whole page now and I'm not sure if it's going to simmer down or go up in flames. Currently this thread is 4 pages. Three of those pages are about cheese. One of those pages is dominated by two people talking about each other.
I mentioned earlier on that one of the ways I was being unkind in this thread--one of the ways I pushing the discussion in a bad direction--was when I was directly quoting @aj_ in my posts. Usually, quoting somebody you disagree with is when people stop discussing the topic at hand and start attacking each other, like I was. I'm seeing you two doing the same thing, quoting each other rather than introducing new points.
I hate seeing threads locked, but this one is heading that way because @FrdNwsm and @subtledoctor refuse to agree to disagree and they are trying to make their own individual opinions seem more valid. Guys, you're not going to convince each other one way or the other, so please don't let this descend into something bad.
Personally I think both @subtledoctor and @FrdNwsm have kept it (fairly) civil and since the topic is about "cheese" and they are discussing their different opinions on what is cheese and what is not, I wouldn't argue for locking this thread. One can, however, see an increased tension in the last few posts, but it's not yet irreversible.
I'd rather have a forum with an open climate for different PoV's than a locked forum where ppl are afraid to voice their opinions.
So what a good descriptive term for a playthrough where you don't min-max, don't use metagame knowledge (it's one thing to say "just throw hordes of undead at illithids" but how would I know to have those dpells memorized?), don't extensively pre-buff, etc. A non-powergame playthrough where you really put yourself into the perspective of a kid who grew up behind the high walls of Candlekeep and doesn't know what's around every corner?
"Realism?" Too broad. "Non-powergame?" Too inelegant. "Cheeseless?" "Lactose Intolerant?" Some may object that they are pejorative or imply harsh judgment (though I disagree).
Any other suggestions? I'd love to see this become an accepted thing and read some Let's Play stories... there's a lot of great, interesting people writing stuff in the general forum but a lot of the ones where they describe the same tired powergame/metagame tactics (i.e. almost every solo no-reload account) get kind of repetitive.
I think that when ppl play "RP", they often play it like you describe it. Of course some include metaknowledge etc, but many play as if new to the game. I myself try to add a variaty of spells to my mage and clerics, as if they didn't know what to prepare for. This means only one of each spell until you get to a high level with many spell slots. I just call it "playing core". I use core rules, I don't use too much metaknowledge, I try to avoid buffing pre-fight, if avoidable, etc. I don't gimp my chars stat-wise or impose alot of other rules, I just try to play the game as if it was the first time, over and over. The onle rule I break though, is I tend to pick NPC's beforehand and go get them fairly early.
Personally I'd just call it "roleplaying", i.e. playing the role of a character who doesn't know what's around the next corner. Alternatively, call it "PnP-style" - as if there were a real DM who, as we all know, would never let us get away with half the stunts we pull.
@Skatan I agree it isn't irreversible, but the best thing for both parties to do is just accept that the other party isn't interested in their opinion and to move on. As opposed to nearly two whole pages of back-and-forths. I'm assuming both people have done that now anyway, which is good.
I'm all for debating, but there comes a point where it starts to get tedious and it's apparent that it's going nowhere and becoming petty.
I've been on forums with little or no moderation. I'd take locking threads when things look like they will get nasty to threads with all-out flame wars any day.
An unwritten rule for me is that if someone doesn't "get" me after several replies, I'm wasting my valuable time replying to them and that I should do something more constructive.
Just wanted to let every one know: I've started a new cheese-themed playthrough in honor of this thread. Will Brie, Munster ... and other names of cheeses be able to roleplay their way through Shadows of Amn? Or will they find themselves doomed to string together multiple project images? Find out whenever I remember "Oh yeah, I have that party."
You have found bones and torso of something, but when you removed them you where attacked by pretty powerful liches. You find another grave where you can put said pieces. Do you think like 1: Well, I got attacked by pretty powerful enemies when I detached these relics... No, I don't think anything will happen if I place them here. Well, the liches said something about a Kangaxx the demi-lich but he is probably a friendly fellow. 2: Well, I got attacked by pretty powerful enemies when I detached these relics, better safe then sorry and buff up IF something nasty turns up when I place these relics here. Because these other lichhes mentioned something/someone called Kangaxx the demi-lich...
I have just slain pretty many beholders and other monsters, among them, the "all-seeing eye". And earlier I met some people who praised the "all-seeing eye" as their god. 1: They might be angry with me, since I literally killed their god, but nah, probably not. They will hail me as their liberator 2: They might be angry with me, since I literally killed their god... Hmmm, I think I will prepare myself before I go and meet them. Killing a cults god can possibly make them hostile towards me.
It is perfectly ok to pre-buff RP-wise, otherwise your characters are just very very naive. And I have a hard time that a character living through BG1 is naive.
I just want to say that prebuffings =/= cheesing all the time. Sometimes prebuffing is cheesy (ex: Those guys in the Sewers below Temple district), you don't know that they exist, there are no clues before you meet them, and no one is talking about them as being dangerous (as far as I know). So going prebuffed into these guys is cheesy, and there are numerous other encounters like this which your character hasn't heard of before.
But there are other encounters which you do know (without having played this game before) will occur when you do something. Like last fight with Melissan, The Solar opens a portal leading to Melissans place, ask your character if it is ready for the last encounter with Melissan (it is pretty obvious that it will be fighting going on on the other side of that portal).
Cheesing isn't as easy as saying, all prebuffing is cheese and non RP-wise.
Sotm has so many cheesy uses which I don't do. like re-equip for invis. But I do prebuff some obvious fights, like you are going to your final encounter with Melissan, are you ready. While other fights, like Sewersfight, beholders, vampires, Firkraag etc are done without prebuffing. Except stoneskin which is always active.
And I'd rather play a harder game (SCS, tactics, ascension, improved anvil etc) and use PI/Simulacrum then play vanilla without these spells. Even with PI/Simulacrum, the drow fight in underdark is hard, mostly because of an almost infinite number of drows. But then you can side with the drow and skip this, but how fun is that.
IMO the biggest source of "cheese" is reading about the game on forums.
Great fun, but half the time you are learning about tactics and gameplay that would never occur to you, items that you haven't come across, items that you have but had no idea they worked in the way they do, and exploits of the game AI that as an individual you wouldn't have found out.
The game is hard if you don't read anybody else's experiences and tactics.
So sending in bunches of undead to kill illithiads isn't cheese when it's the only way you know how to kill them because you haven't read on a forum, for example, that chaotic commands works to stop the psionics, (a recent thing that I found out BTW, why does it? the name doesn't lead one to suppose that, and so many spells that you do get a bit fed up wading through all the descriptions).
I killed Firkrag early by using the most "cheesy" tactic (keep him talking)this playthrough, because I wanted Casomyr early for Keldorn. But the source of the "cheese" wasn't the game itself (something I found out through playing myself) but from forums. I always thought you had to press the attack command and just let mayhem commence.
You can't blame the developers for the discussions.
Online discussions are probably the biggest reason why "cheese" is ever used, and the devs can hardly be blamed for not finding an exploit, when the players have so much more time to testing the game than the devs do. BG2 has probably been played collectively for thousands of years, considering how many people have picked up the game, and many of the fans have played the game for much longer than the game was even in development.
But I think it's worth it. These discussions also open up lots of new ways to play the game.
Comments
Indeed; there was a fellow who posted his accounts of his "no raise" BG1 run; he called it "Keeping Gorion Company". Every NPC who died was dragged back to the grove where Gorion was lying and placed in a circle around him. Rather amusing reading. He even dragged some of the bodies of nonentities (the corpses found in the sewers) to the same spot.
He's been bothered by beholders, irked by Ilithids, damaged by demons and victimized by vampires. But by now, he's a lean green (literally) wrecking machine. He's mad as Hell, and he ain't gonna take it any more! He's also had a taste of power, and wants MORE. He wants to be a GOD, and anyone who gets in the way is going DOWN. How he does it is immaterial. He's at the top of the heap now, but he's been down before and knows that fortune could reverse again at any time, so "Carpe Diem" ... enjoy it while you can. "If you got it, flaunt it, baby!"
And if you tell him "Gee, what you did to those poor mind flayers was so unfair!", he'll look at you like you are crazy. And in RP terms, you would be.
When I play League of Legends, for example, I am facing people, I am facing humans. The Matchmaking system makes me face opponents close to my level. Which means I will do whatever it takes (staying in the game spirit, I won't hack or insult for example) to win. That includes taking the character I al the best with, and do my best exploiting the game every single mechanic to best my opponent.
Now when I play Baldur's Gate, I am on my own. I am facing a computer AI which I know almost by heart. It is much like facing an opponent completely beneath my level in League of Legends. And in my opinion, stomping an enemy in Baldur's Gate has as low interest as stomping a Bronze (lowest rank) in League of Legends, that is to say, none, because my game knowledge won't have increased after that fight. Now if I set some restraints (not too sure that word is spelled this way) to myself, I will have to find a way around to get to my goal. For example with illithids, you can get them easily with animate dead. That's a solution, and not a challenging one. But you can as well use Chaotic command on a low AC warrior to prevent any stun, and then rush on their face because if they don't hit you they won't eat your brain.
You could as well bait them with an archer, dealing them some damage from afar, to lure them into traps your thieves have set. And there certainly are another 10 ways to kill them easily. Using other tactics improves your game knowledge as well, and that's what I like, getting to know a game deeper than just one way to do one thing, or taking that armor because it feels nice, and that weapon because it looks dangerous.
Skeleton Warriors on Mind Flayers too cheesy? Then try Chaotic Commands, as @Arunsun suggested. Chaotic Commands too cheesy? Combine a Potion of Invulnerability with Spirit Armor to make sure your fighter makes his or her saves vs. Psionic Blast.
I am well aware that there are other ways to do things. I am starting a second run-through for variety's sake, in which MyChar is a swashbuckler. We'll have to find another way to deal with beholders, for example. And I am quite familiar with the "bait them into a minefield" tactic. My second group has both my swashbuckler and Yoshimo, and I can assure you we do that a lot. That's a fair number of traps we can set per day.
I don't use that tactic with my Berserker's group because right now, we can't. We no longer have any thieves who are competent with that ability; Yoshimo is quite dead and Imoen's thief skills are mainly focused on traps and locks.
I could use the tactic of chaotic commands + haste + high Ac to go and melee mind flayers hand to hand; in fact I did that the first fight or two against them, back in Hexxat's quest line. But once I discovered how effective skeletal warriors were against them, what would be the point? Yes, I'd win most of the fights, but what happens if they get a lucky hit and MC gets brain drained? It's reset time, that's what happens. I can achieve the same end, without risking going through that reset bother, by sending an undead army after them.
And MyChar has done so. He's seen some of his close friends get their brains sucked out, and he's seen skeletal warriors whom he doesn't care a whit about whup Ilithid butt. Gee, for some reason he much prefers the latter scenario.
I quite comprehend the point about wanting a challenge, but there is also the RP aspect; in no way can I rationalize this particular character doing something that illogical. I can certainly think of an excuse to play that way; maybe MyChar is a paladin whose code of honor demands that he confront the heathen foe face-to-face. Or maybe he's an adrenalin junkie who gets off on taking chances in combat. Sort of an Evel Kinevel type born into the world of Faerun. Maybe I'll try that someday. But he would have to be played that way from day 1; I cannot justify such a radical personality change with MC after this much time. Yeah, he's crazy, but he's not stupid.
With my other group, who are still in early chapter 2, I decided that the first 5 NPCs I meet would be my core group; I'd rotate them out one at a time so we could do other NPC quests, but these would be my main go to guys, especially in chapters 4-5. That means MyChar (swashbuckler), Imoen (who will vanish and be replaced by Nalia), Minsc, Jaheira, Yoshimo and Aerie. Imoen comes back when Yoshimo gets bumped off. That will leave us with three mage types, which is good, but no specialty mages. Jaheira and Minsc will have to do double duty as our front line melee guys, which is less good. Aerie is far inferior to Anomen as a cleric, IMO. As a multi class, she will not progress as rapidly and as high as Anomen, nor can she be used as an emergency front line fighter since her HP are feeble. This group will have to develop entirely different tactics; if nothing else, we won't have some massive berserker wiping out entire colonies of beholders single-handedly
But even so; they're going to be pretty pragmatic. If something works, they're going to roll with it. Damn the cheese! Full speed ahead! Lure the enemy into a minefield? Sounds good to me.
Not that I mind though, I judge noone and often myself employ what other consider cheese. It matters not to me, it's SP after all, as stated a gazillion times before.
As for avoiding metagaming, avoiding cheese, maintaining realism... it would be great to have these sorts of things, in a new kind of run. But the more restrictions we lay on a game, the fewer ways there are to play it. If we restrict all forms of cheating and cheese and cheap tactics--if we set up a playthrough that everyone could agree has no cheese in it--then we don't have BG2 anymore. We've got Improved Anvil, and even Improved Anvil is stuffed with cheese. It's just a different flavor.
Cheeseless.
Restless.
No-reload.
Solo.
Modded.
Poverty.
Insane.
Nightmare.
No metagaming.
Roleplaying.
Novel and varied gameplay.
We can have some of these in a run of BG2. But we can't have all of them.
If you really had to put a label on it, I guess you could say that people playing the game with the most restrictions are "hardcore". However, that is subjective. My idea of hardcore is not the same as a Korean gamer's. The way I see it, if I find it super-difficult, then I'm playing hardcore. I think that's all that matters, in the end.
You are obviously a talented player, so what makes the game easier for you, may only make it playable for someone else. Yes, I agree that certain elements of the game don't necessarily make sense RP-wise. However, those elements actually allow the casual gamer to enjoy the game without getting frustrated.
Hello? I've been wargaming for 25 years; I have games you have probably never played or even heard of. On occasion I fire up an old game for nostalgia's sake. When I have played a game often enough that I know all the ins and outs, guess what? I TURN UP THE DIFFICULTY LEVEL! And if that's not good enough, I set artificial goals. Every gamer over the age of 12 is savvy enough to know to do this, and suggesting that they aren't is just insulting people's intelligence.
Personally, for me, part of the fun in learning a new game is picking apart the AI and finding chinks in the armor that I can exploit. There's plenty of time to have reruns where your character fights with one hand tied behind his back, once you know what's going on.
And to answer a prior question, yes I play chess; have done so since being on the chess team in college. I do post game analysis, where I basically take the part of my opponent, to try and analyze what both he and I could have done to improve our moves. It is indeed a valuable training exercise. And some of my repeat opponents are vulnerable to different openings and different styles of play, which post game analysis reveals. Which only reinforces my point about learning how a game AI "thinks". It's a related process.
If my chess opponent prefers an open tactical game, is it "cheese" to play a closed strategic opening against him?
I mentioned earlier on that one of the ways I was being unkind in this thread--one of the ways I pushing the discussion in a bad direction--was when I was directly quoting @aj_ in my posts. Usually, quoting somebody you disagree with is when people stop discussing the topic at hand and start attacking each other, like I was. I'm seeing you two doing the same thing, quoting each other rather than introducing new points.
Personally I think both @subtledoctor and @FrdNwsm have kept it (fairly) civil and since the topic is about "cheese" and they are discussing their different opinions on what is cheese and what is not, I wouldn't argue for locking this thread. One can, however, see an increased tension in the last few posts, but it's not yet irreversible.
I'd rather have a forum with an open climate for different PoV's than a locked forum where ppl are afraid to voice their opinions.
On topic (well, fairly at least): I think that when ppl play "RP", they often play it like you describe it. Of course some include metaknowledge etc, but many play as if new to the game. I myself try to add a variaty of spells to my mage and clerics, as if they didn't know what to prepare for. This means only one of each spell until you get to a high level with many spell slots. I just call it "playing core". I use core rules, I don't use too much metaknowledge, I try to avoid buffing pre-fight, if avoidable, etc. I don't gimp my chars stat-wise or impose alot of other rules, I just try to play the game as if it was the first time, over and over. The onle rule I break though, is I tend to pick NPC's beforehand and go get them fairly early.
I'm all for debating, but there comes a point where it starts to get tedious and it's apparent that it's going nowhere and becoming petty.
I've been on forums with little or no moderation. I'd take locking threads when things look like they will get nasty to threads with all-out flame wars any day.
An unwritten rule for me is that if someone doesn't "get" me after several replies, I'm wasting my valuable time replying to them and that I should do something more constructive.
You have found bones and torso of something, but when you removed them you where attacked by pretty powerful liches. You find another grave where you can put said pieces.
Do you think like
1: Well, I got attacked by pretty powerful enemies when I detached these relics... No, I don't think anything will happen if I place them here. Well, the liches said something about a Kangaxx the demi-lich but he is probably a friendly fellow.
2: Well, I got attacked by pretty powerful enemies when I detached these relics, better safe then sorry and buff up IF something nasty turns up when I place these relics here. Because these other lichhes mentioned something/someone called Kangaxx the demi-lich...
I have just slain pretty many beholders and other monsters, among them, the "all-seeing eye". And earlier I met some people who praised the "all-seeing eye" as their god.
1: They might be angry with me, since I literally killed their god, but nah, probably not. They will hail me as their liberator
2: They might be angry with me, since I literally killed their god... Hmmm, I think I will prepare myself before I go and meet them. Killing a cults god can possibly make them hostile towards me.
It is perfectly ok to pre-buff RP-wise, otherwise your characters are just very very naive. And I have a hard time that a character living through BG1 is naive.
But there are other encounters which you do know (without having played this game before) will occur when you do something. Like last fight with Melissan, The Solar opens a portal leading to Melissans place, ask your character if it is ready for the last encounter with Melissan (it is pretty obvious that it will be fighting going on on the other side of that portal).
Cheesing isn't as easy as saying, all prebuffing is cheese and non RP-wise.
Sotm has so many cheesy uses which I don't do. like re-equip for invis. But I do prebuff some obvious fights, like you are going to your final encounter with Melissan, are you ready. While other fights, like Sewersfight, beholders, vampires, Firkraag etc are done without prebuffing. Except stoneskin which is always active.
And I'd rather play a harder game (SCS, tactics, ascension, improved anvil etc) and use PI/Simulacrum then play vanilla without these spells. Even with PI/Simulacrum, the drow fight in underdark is hard, mostly because of an almost infinite number of drows. But then you can side with the drow and skip this, but how fun is that.
Great fun, but half the time you are learning about tactics and gameplay that would never occur to you, items that you haven't come across, items that you have but had no idea they worked in the way they do, and exploits of the game AI that as an individual you wouldn't have found out.
The game is hard if you don't read anybody else's experiences and tactics.
So sending in bunches of undead to kill illithiads isn't cheese when it's the only way you know how to kill them because you haven't read on a forum, for example, that chaotic commands works to stop the psionics, (a recent thing that I found out BTW, why does it? the name doesn't lead one to suppose that, and so many spells that you do get a bit fed up wading through all the descriptions).
I killed Firkrag early by using the most "cheesy" tactic (keep him talking)this playthrough, because I wanted Casomyr early for Keldorn.
But the source of the "cheese" wasn't the game itself (something I found out through playing myself) but from forums. I always thought you had to press the attack command and just let mayhem commence.
You can't blame the developers for the discussions.
But I think it's worth it. These discussions also open up lots of new ways to play the game.