Vi had to freaking what? (Umm spoiler)
DragonKing
Member Posts: 1,979
OK, one of my biggest problems with RPG games sually fall around its dialogue. Even more so with games that try to have multiple paths. Baldur's Gate is no exception, but I think I just reached a point where I literally just said "what the fuck, really?"
So I just left the underdark, lovely place and really wished there was a evil outcome that didn't lead to me having to kill or have Phaere killed.preferably having Viconia fight her seeing how there was I tiny bit of jealousy in her words after the night with Phaere.
So anyways, after being forced into a truth or lie session with Elhan, I finally agree to do the quest. Any thing to speed up the clock to the point where I can put a fireball into Irenicus's chest, and then use his smoldering chest cavity, two pieces Graham crackers, a piece of chocolate, and a marshmallow to make a smore.
Then they turn their attentions to Viconia, and questions her loyalty, eve Jaheira freaking comments. And they continue until they force her into a damn Geas!
Where is my input on this?
Oh i forgot, before then you can tell them to just kill her. Do, charname gets forced into the "I don't trust her category." I don't get to object to putting magical chains on someone who been with me since I after I started my journy? Someone Charname trusts with his life on the battlefield? Someone my charname told "I love you" and begged to stay when she was going to leave...
OK maybe it makes a possessive type of sense with that last part.
But still, she gets magical chains and shackles from a spell/ability that pretty much turn people into slaves and I'm not allowed to object to this?
So I just left the underdark, lovely place and really wished there was a evil outcome that didn't lead to me having to kill or have Phaere killed.preferably having Viconia fight her seeing how there was I tiny bit of jealousy in her words after the night with Phaere.
So anyways, after being forced into a truth or lie session with Elhan, I finally agree to do the quest. Any thing to speed up the clock to the point where I can put a fireball into Irenicus's chest, and then use his smoldering chest cavity, two pieces Graham crackers, a piece of chocolate, and a marshmallow to make a smore.
Then they turn their attentions to Viconia, and questions her loyalty, eve Jaheira freaking comments. And they continue until they force her into a damn Geas!
Where is my input on this?
Oh i forgot, before then you can tell them to just kill her. Do, charname gets forced into the "I don't trust her category." I don't get to object to putting magical chains on someone who been with me since I after I started my journy? Someone Charname trusts with his life on the battlefield? Someone my charname told "I love you" and begged to stay when she was going to leave...
OK maybe it makes a possessive type of sense with that last part.
But still, she gets magical chains and shackles from a spell/ability that pretty much turn people into slaves and I'm not allowed to object to this?
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Comments
In reality most people don't trust them. You loose reputation for just traveling with her.
But I don't think you can talk your way out of the geas either if romancing her or just traveling with her.
And the rest of the conversation with Elhan clearly shows his lack of trust in you as well. You can be used as a tool but you get absolutely nothing in return.
I'm the one who can go get their little lantern from Bodhi.
I'm the only one capable of even challenging Bodhi or Irenicus.
I'm the one responsible for both the death of the matron mother and one of her favored.
What cards does he have?
He knows how to get me into the city... The city that I ultimately fight s shadps Dragon to get their little trinket from and summon their guardian.
Do again whether they font trust me or not, they are in no position to do that bullshit. They need Charname or they will face extinction. I should've just reloaded and see if I could have killed them all, the Drow and half-elfs seem to be the only elves I can tolerate and thaya saying something since I already tired of the race in general.
They don't know you're their salvation the moment you crawl out of the Underdark. You're a complete stranger to them. They recognize on interrogation that you're not Irenicus' friend, and Elhan says "classically speaking" that makes you their ally. But why would they know you're their savior, if you've only just met them?
Now, when you actually do save their civilization, they treat you as their savior. Until then, you're just some random Bhaalspawn who stumbled into their war zone.
At every stage, their level of trust in you is rational:
(1) When you say you're not their enemy, and they know you're telling the truth, they let you live.
(2) When you offer to get the Lanthorn, they give you some assistance, but can't go with you because elven armies marching on human grounds could start a two-front war.
(3) When you bring back the Lanthorn, they let you enter the city--an unheard-of honor.
(4) When you fight Irenicus' monsters, they tell you how to use their sacred artifacts and commune with their god.
(5) When you kill Irenicus, they bring you back to life and treat you as a hero.
You can't expect them to hail you as their savior until after you've saved them.
Edit, They can accuse her all they won't, but depending on how you choose to play, wrongful persecution of her is another. In BG1 and 2 you rescue her from WRONGFUL PERSECUTION, but now she literally being wrongfully persecuted again, and the person who saved her the first two times says nothing? The person she's travelled with for so long and even clhad a romance with just stand there while a trusted/loved/useful ally gets forced into a GEAS just to prove to people YOU DON'T KNOW, she is trustworthy. And this is OK?
I'm not arguing with you. That's why I didn't quote you, or tag you, in my own post. I'll put an Agree on your post, if that clarifies things.
The way I see it, they don't, or they have to force a Geas on the whole team. A evil charname would just tell him to kill her, a good wouldn't allow that to happen to a companion. Neutral, maybe. Even looking at it from the view of lawful and chaotic;
Lawful good- wouldn't let it happen because it isn't right, they don't know her or they would've recognized her beyond her race, so they know nothing of her past crimes.
Chaotic Good- wouldn't let it happen for similar reasons as Lawful, that and he wouldn't let the bound her will like that in any way.
Chaotic Evil- wouldn't have saved her at all and watched her burn at the stakes.
Lawful Evil- wouldn't allow someone else control over his/her comrads or tools. Especially if it undermined the others authority.
In the end, though, while I think more argumentative options from Charname would be entirely appropriate, I don't see Charname actually having a real choice in the matter.
No matter what the defining pretenses that must not be broken are.
Actually your larger point is invalid, because there is no logic what so ever behind the da t you can fight your way out of a ENTIRE Drow city, but you can't fight a army that is broken between trying to defend against Drow attacks and trying to get into the city.
Add onto the fact, there is no way that if you can talk a matron favored daughter into not having sex with Charname and not causing her to turn the whole city against. Coming up with a logical reason why Elhan has no freaking right to impose his will on someone he doesn't even freaking know, especially when he is asking the group that person is obviously is obviously with to fetch the key to their city basically.
There's also the fact that you can't use the Lanthorn, so if you kill Elhan and co., you can't get to Irenicus and you'll eventually waste away. Even if the game did give you the option of just killing all the elves, even if that was remotely reasonable, you'd die anyway.
Second, what Elhan has the right to do isn't the issue here. You don't get to make the choices for him, so the quality of his choices is irrelevant to the quality of yours. He says that either Viconia dies, she submits to a geas, or you all die. Those are your choices. That's the decision you get to make. Viconia's willing to submit to the geas to avoid being killed, so you taking any of the other two options is forcing your will on her more surely than the geas is.
Right because fantasy story never have loopholes or wormholes? It's the only way because the writers wanted it that way, a second way could have easily been written into the story. Not to mention fighting isn't always about, "oh I gotta kill this thing" then again this is balders Gate, I can only remember 1 fight in this game that was more then 'oh kill it." What? He doesn't say we all die, JUST HER! Secondly a high enough charismatic or intelligent character should be able to explain the to a character the illogicality of telling someone in a group of people who agreed to freaking help YOU, if they don't put on these chains we will kill you. Is not only COUNTER PRODUCTIVE in the making the group or its leader NOT WANT TO HELP THEM NOW. Unless they forxe a Geas on the WHOLE TEAM. That's just poorly written hole put in just because "oh know we don't like Drow."
Then I just cant explain it to you, hell I wouldn't be surprised if they had tried to force a Geas on Drizzt, why not he's a Drow and that is all the logic they need to do it.
I hate using this type of example really I do...
But this is no different then if I was to walk into a "fancy" store five of my Caucasian associates. But as we walk around I'm the one getting followed and singled out because I'm black (one of the most loved stereotypes revovles around stealing.) At least one of the other five people that came in with me WILL say something in my defense.
In this case that person should've been the charname, you say charname has no choice because YOU ACCEPT that we weren't given a choice. Based on Drow culture a male SHOULDN'T have a choice but to have sex with a female that desired it especially a favored, but we are given a way to back out of it without death. That should be where the npc choic e is irrelevant, but instead that is allowed to ruin romances with certain characters. Putting a geas on Viconia is just poorly written moment to try and make her presence there acknowledge without taking into account the charnames thoughts or feeling on the situation.
You say this is also an outpost. No. This is a war camp. Both the drow and elven armies are currently outside their respective settlements. The difference is that the elven army is right there when you're having the conversation, while the drow army is largely in the elven city itself.
You say that if you can talk Phaere out of sleeping with you, you should be able to talk Elhan out of geasing Viconia. No. Phaere and Elhan are not the same person. They are not equally persuadable, and there's no reason they should be. Even if they were exactly the same person, just in different circumstances, it still wouldn't make sense. Phaere wants to sleep with a guy. Elhan is fighting tooth and nail to save his homeland from a madman, and sees this as a necessary precaution. If Elhan weren't an order of magnitude more stubborn than Phaere on their respective issues, it'd be bad writing.
You say there should have been other ways into the city, and, well... I think this touches on my main problem with your argument. You seem to think the game should bend itself so that you can get your way. I understand that argument. A lot of people feel that way. They feel like being the player character makes them The One Who Chooses, and that that means they should be allowed to do whatever they want and the game should facilitate that. I couldn't agree less. As a player character, it is your right to make choices, but it is also your right to be royally screwed over by those choices. Sometimes people are in situations where they don't actually have a choice, or more specifically, where some choices will end very badly for them. Baldur's Gate knows this. It's not always perfect, but it knows that "RPG" doesn't mean you always get your way. This is one of the most realistic moments in the entire game, and that's awful, but good storytelling portrays awful things sometimes.
And for the record, I agree that Elhan's very much in the wrong, here. I agree with your analogy to the way black people are treated in the real world, and I'd be among the first to call Elhan racist for his actions. That doesn't mean I think it's bad writing. It just means I think he's written as a racist.
1. There and armed for war before Irenicus's attack.
2.The elves were already prepared for.
If you ask around the tavern in the underdark, the whole were didn't even seem to be a that big of knowledge from how some of the patrons seemed to talk.
And again the Elven army was divided still fighting two battles. It's doesn't matter how close their army might have been to the camp, heck if the battle was actually so close that one army could turn around and attack. They technically already lost that war, sor at the less, that current battle ground because the Drow are arguably close enough to over run them. Heck they are close enough to take the city if they could get in.
I also want to correct you on one thing, I believe the character should have been able to argue it, whether it changed the out come or not, I would have been fine with. There are a few things in this game that you can argue but the ending remains the same.
As far as the second entrance, I thought I said one "could have" been written in, not "should have." In looking over my other post to make sure I worded that correctly because those two aren't interchangeable. I don't believe my character should get its way, but I believe my character SHOULD be able to voice even of it means get put in his place.
I'm trying to remember a game that I felt did dialogue on that level, and I want to say vampires the masquerade. Another crpg based off a tabletop game. You could talk your way through majority of that game, but if your communication ability was right then you got shut down, and there were still parts that even if you tried to be persuasive, you ended up with the ae path.
But at the end of the day, all I am saying is I just was sad that I couldn't voice disagreement about that action. Everything else is more or less mute.
I also think VtM: Bloodlines (I assume that's the one you're referring to, since I don't recall much talking in Redemption) is an awesome game with some really great writing. It's just a pity it devolved almost entirely into fighting at the end. Kind of screwed over social characters, although I suppose by then you'd had plenty of opportunity to level your combat skills.
Yes, I am talking about bloodlines and not redemption, I never played redemption but I heard it was god awful. The thing about bloodlines though is you could play the whole game through social/stealth based characters if you wanted. I remember seeing one guide about beating the game without doing a single fight., even the part with the werewoldf you could stealth through.
With that said, Tremere is the Truth!