Tyranny

Playing more Tyranny. Is this the first game where you get actual bonuses for sleeping with prostitutes?

Maybe it’s just my imagination (enabled by good game design), but I feel like even though I’m being pushed around by authorities I’m badass enough to do whatever I want. In the name of justice even. Can’t get across a bridge guarded by some sellswords? If they won’t listen to reason then they deserve to die by my hand. I didn’t even have that solid a reason to get to my destination, but that is of no matter.

This Sirin brat really got me riled up, I wanted to make her know her place but the only dialogue options I got at the second meeting were to recruit her. At first I was annoyed, but then I thought how these games sometimes allow you to do horrible things to your companions. And I realized the only way to make her suffer might be to keep her close, it did make sense. After enlisting her, I was met with more of her defiant talk, while strangely also growing fond of her. It’s like I want to keep her in the party precisely because I dislike her. And that’s how controversial characters should be written! Is this what love-hate means? (No.) Or saying the same inside four walls; don’t let first impressions rule. My first task is to get her some respectable cloting, what kind of slut garments are those? With nothing else at hand (those useless merchants), I don her in the ceremonial fatebinder armor, except for the hood as she has that cursed ugly helmet locked on. I do get her frustration. So for now I’m keeping the hood myself, something to let the common folk recognize a fatebinder. I’ll get that helmet off her, even if she would betray me and attack with some form of mind control, I’ll have my magical defenses trained up by then. She will pay of treachery.

I just want to say this game might be the first one to encourage me in actual roleplay. I don’t think it’s that the decisions I get to made are so powerful, but that the range of decisions has been crafted to suit me whatever I want. The game is about being a servant to the overlord and that’s what I always wanted to do (after learning that I could). Games like Fallout New Vegas try to let you decide on the “whole good-evil spectrum”, but basically that’s just two or three scripted paths, maybe not as powerful as you thought, and once settling on one you don’t get to move that much inside it. If you think about it, it makes perfect sense for an rpg to aim to give just one core roleplaying experience and do that really well.

Playing more Tyranny. This game continues to exceed my expectations.

The player is the fatebinder of Tunon, Archon of Justice, and has been granted the right to solve disputes and dictate law of Kyros. Considering how RPGs all the time have you settle disputes, this characterization is pure genius. The player has real authority to decide, rather than the usual glorious heroes know what’s right for us -routine. The role puts the player below the archons who direct the war efforts, but allows weight in ruling over their disputes. And the people below will respond to player’s demands, although not without hesitation. It’s truly a perfect balance for this type of game.

I like this game much better than the Pillars. It’s like they fixed stuff they got wrong and happened to pick a setting/story I enjoy. I found it awesome how the game rewards you for being villainous. The choices to be made in main story and side-quests feel often pleasantly heavy (I think the reputation skill benefits could be harsher though). I kept chuckling for five minutes after kicking a rebellion leader from a top of an enormously tall spire, to deliver with her body a message I had my “personal scribe” write on my dictation. Then using the impact to bind the rebel’s closest ally to my servitude. That was some power trip :D

I think the magic in this world is really cool. The archons use strong, uniquely personalized magic that makes them feel something like Gandalf and Saruman. Makes you choose your words carefully in their presence, but still keeping them human (compare to the gods of Pillars who could pretty much only make me see some visions). Then there is the mysterious Kyros whose “edicts” some something like spells at the power levels of nuclear weapons, causing permanent effects on a continental scale. So impressive in power that shall only be delivered by highly esteemed “fatebinders”, one the player happens to be of. That kind of truly mystic spells are interesting in fantasy, I remember someone saying that’s why Gandalf is so much more interesting wizard than some Potter who casts spells from a given list. It’s nice to have rules for the magic, but also nice when you feel like there are some rules but you don’t know what they are. I get some level of feeling what the edicts can do, and probably that there is some serious limit to how often Kyros can bring them about. In any case, it works because it’s the immortal Kyros casting them, not the player or any other mortal.

Finished Tyranny. It was a good game, though the ending felt rushed and around midpoint it lost all difficulty.