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marurun wrote:

Exhuminator wrote:I approve of how our adventures end up with us slaying everyone and raiding everything.

Suddenly I feel as if you've never played an RPG before...

In some classic CRPGs, there are pacifist solutions. Perhaps not in M&M?

Exhuminator wrote:

marurun wrote:Suddenly I feel as if you've never played an RPG before...

In some classic CRPGs, there are pacifist solutions. Perhaps not in M&M?

It was a throw-away joke. Don't over-think it. The classic RPG model is kill the baddies and loot all their stuff.

Don't fight, children. There's more than enough stupidity to spread around.

Speaking of which, MORE MIGHT AND MAGIC 4!

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There was a cave, surrounded by water, hidden within a secret cove in a small river tributary. CaVE Of ILlUSiONs was poorly scrawled on the sign above the entrance. Ack, Popo, Elkin, Exhum, Sarge, and Bone surveyed the cave entrance thoughtfully and then barged their way inside. Once within, the party found themselves ankle deep in water. Skulls riddled with vermin sat in notches within the walls, while large spears thrust from the ceiling at regular intervals. The party examined the skulls and the spears questioningly, until finally Bone touched one.

"I can make you smarter for a gem," the skull declared.

Bone blinked. "That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard." He set a gem in the skull's jaw, and it laughed with glee.

"You were dumb enough to give me a gem! Don't do stupid stuff! Now you're smarter!" The skull said with a grin and then toppled over.

Bone looked at the rest of the party. "Well, I guess I did learn something," he said with a shrug. Popo laughed so hard, he fell backwards into the spears, which passed through his body without so much as a scratch.

"Guys, the spears aren't real!" Popo bellowed.

"What?" Ack shouted. He immediately ran to Popo and shoved him out of the way so he could be repeatedly stabbed at by the illusion. "Hey guys, these spears aren't stabbing me! This is awesome!"

"Maybe he should pay one of those skulls...," Exhum muttered under his breath.

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After finding a plug at the bottom of the cave and draining it, the adventurers soon discovered the Cave of Illusions to be full of yaks. The spears also turned real, which Ack happily learned as he stood beneath them and was repeatedly stabbed. "Woo! It's like I'm really getting hurt!"

"Yep, definitely should have paid one of those skulls," Bone said to Exhum.

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A short time later, the party found itself standing before a large Tower of Magic. "Well," Bone declared with a flourish of his hands, "this is a wizard's tower. This is my strong suit. I don't want you guys touching anything, because arcane magic is mystical and powerful, and you people simply wouldn't understand."

Popo shook his head. "I don't understand why there is always some stupid magic tower. Why does everyone build a magic tower? It's not like we'd find it shocking. There are freaking cyclops wandering around, for goodness sake. You think anything we see in there would break our minds?"

"What?" Bone raised an eyebrow.

Ack patted Popo's shoulder. "Popo is right. What's the point? Why use magic when I can just hit things with my sword?"

"Yeah, this is the real deal," Popo hefted his ax. "They should make towers of axes."

"Hell yeah," Ack followed.

Bone shook his head. "Well, they didn't, and they don't, because that would be stupid. Now follow me into the arcane magic tower-"

"WAIT!" Sarge shouted. "More importantly than ax and sword towers, why does it always have to be ARCANE magic towers? Why couldn't it be clerical divine magic towers? Instead of the same old boring fireball traps, what if it was full of things like traps that healed you or abolished your atheism and replaced it with a feeling of warmth as God embraces you with His love?"

The party stood in stunned silence. After a moment, Exhum spoke. "Now that...would be truly terrifying."

"Yeah, I'm so glad this is a normal arcane magic tower," Elkin replied. "Hit me with a fireball any day."

"God's love. Ugh," Ack shuddered. The party turned towards the tower, leaving Sarge momentarily frowning in silence before he ran after. Once inside, the party slew magical flying feet, which they were significantly more happy about than any sort of feeling of eternal harmony with their maker.

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Soon the party found themselves inside a castle populated by werewolves and evil wizards, which they easily dispatched despite lacking silver weapons because nothing comes back from being decapitated, disemboweled, dismembered, and then incinerated. Not even werewolves. I mean, come on, that's just stupid. After a day's bloody work, the band of merry heroes turned their attention towards looting, where the real fun began.

"Hey guys, I found a scroll," Ack declared.

Bone raised his hand with a shout. "Wait! Those are sacred scrolls. They cause madness to anyone who dares read them! Only wicked things can come of reading those."

Ack looked over the scroll and quietly read through it. "Yeah, I guess you're right." He dropped the scroll with a shrug as the others watched in horror.

Popo slowly spoke. "Ack, buddy...you feeling all right?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. It wasn't anything important," Ack replied.

The rest of the party looked down at the scroll. Finally, gingerly, Elkin reached down to read it.

"XxJokerFan666xX writes: Suicide Squad was a great movie, and I will give a detailed synopsis of just how excellent-" Elkin suddenly screamed in horror and fell to the floor, writhing.

"Oh God," Sarge shouted, "the scrolls contain rampant fanboyism and comic book nerd forum posts defending crappy movies!" Frantically he dropped to his knees and grabbed Elkin's arm, trying to prevent him from writing 'damaged' on his forehead with a Sharpie. Popo and Bone also crouched down to hold Elkin still as he frothed and roared for Jared Leto.

Exhum turned to Ack. "So why didn't the scroll drive you crazy?"

"What, you think I haven't read a 12-year-old defend a bad comic book movie before?" Ack replied with a shrug. "I survived Affleck's Daredevil."

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A short time later our brave band of intrepid heroes wandered into Winterkill, a snowy city overrun by ghosts. "Help us!" the mayor cried. "You must kill all of the ghosts before we all die!"

Ack, Popo, Elkin, Exhum, Sarge, and Bone bravely strode forth to do battle, hacking apart ethereal ghost bodies left and right. Soon, only phantom remains and pools of ectoplasm were the only evidence of what had happened. The band found a gong, struck it to stop the ghosts, and returned to the mayor.

"You did it," the mayor cried. "But now we're overrun by ghost clowns!"

Ack, Popo, Elkin, Exhum, Sarge, and Bone rolled their eyes and bravely strode forth to do battle, hacking apart ethereal ghost clowns left and right. Soon, only phantom red noses and piles of broken cream pies were the only evidence of what had happened. The band returned to the gong, struck it to stop the ghosts, and returned to the mayor.

"You did it again," the mayor cried. "But now ghost jousters have-"

"Oh, fuck this!" Sarge shouted, and the party left Winterkill full of ethereal jousters gingerly trying not to slip on all the left over ethereal cream pies.

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And thus, another chapter in the tale comes to an end. But keep your eyes to the skies for more MIGHT AND MAGIC 4!

So, I was under the impression the might and magic games were strategy titles. Am I getting them mixed up with something else?

Yeah, you are thinking of the Heroes of Might and Magic series, which is a spin off of strategy games. Might and Magic games are CRPGs in the dungeon crawler vein. They're both fun series to play though, so if you have any interest, I recommend looking into them.

alienjesus wrote:So, I was under the impression the might and magic games were strategy titles. Am I getting them mixed up with something else?

Ooooooh no, those are the spin-offs. The core games, beginning in 1986, basically comprise a large chunk of the second or third "wave" of WRPGs, along with the "Gold Box" Dungeons & Dragons entries, The Bard's Tale series, the Dungeon Master series, and so on... Pure first-person dungeon-crawling bliss.

Good stuff.

And since you're in Europe, try to track down this PAL exclusive port. I imported a copy myself last year:


Ack, keep the stories coming.

I mainly ask because I like strategy games but don't like dungeon crawlers and western RPGs in general. Maybe I'll give the Heroes games a go sometime. I'm pretty infamous for not being a PC gamer though, outside of point and click adventure games. I don't gel with keyboard controls, and gaming on a PC somehow feels too much like work for me.

The Heroes games have a phenomenal reputation. They're probably better regarded than the series they spun off from. Much of the feedback I see has the second and third entries as the best.

I thought the mass quantities of My Little Pony fanfiction I've consumed would have given me a certain degree of immunity to ridiculous 12 year old fanboyism. I seem to have underestimate comic book fandoms....

alienjesus wrote:I mainly ask because I like strategy games but don't like dungeon crawlers and western RPGs in general. Maybe I'll give the Heroes games a go sometime. I'm pretty infamous for not being a PC gamer though, outside of point and click adventure games. I don't gel with keyboard controls, and gaming on a PC somehow feels too much like work for me.

i got u brah