8/2/99

Going through the idea submissions from last week once again I noticed that some of you seem to be interested in hearing more about how interactive the game is, how it allows you to role-play in the world and how your different attributes reflect this. Like every drama “Torment” sets up a premise that will hopefully get the player intrigued and throws him in a situation that needs to be resolved. In our case the poor souls is waking up in the Mortuary and has no clue what happened to him. If that’s not enough to get you going, a floating skull with some very cerebral comments is wise-cracking the minute you wake up, making sure you understand that something weird must have happened. How’s that about a premise? Of course, there is an explanation to all this. There’s a good reason why you are human and yet seem to be immortal - two things that should mutually exclude each other. There are reasons why people look at you the way they do and why some people like you and others don’t. To find out what it is, is of course the objective of the game and I won’t give it away here. So, once you solved the game and know what happened to your character the fun is over, right? How could you possible find re-playability in a game where you know the solution? It’s the same problem adventure games had been struggling with forever because it is just not as much fun to go against the evil you know than the evil you don’t know, right? In “Torment” we have tried to insert a few interesting twists and elements that will make sure that even the evil you know is not necessarily the evil you can predict or calculate. That way, although you might know ultimately what happened to you, it will not make your life any easier or tolerable. It is a design challenge and the designers on the “Torment” team have taken the challenge with quite a bit of idealism. What happens in the game is that everything you do is tracked by the program and just like a real-live dungeon master the game can adjust its ‘play’ to your play. If you think you’re a real wise guy and think you can outsmart or predict the computer, he might just throw something your way that will catch you completely off-guard. Just because computers think logically doesn’t necessarily mean they’re stupid. As you shape a personality in the game, the computer will keep a watchful eye on you and start thinking how he could possibly make your game more interesting, given that personality. In practice it could look like this - although this is not a real example from the game. Imagine you have a character that is utterly dexterous and you find yourself in a situation where it is essential not to catch the attention of people around you as you try to sneak around forbidden grounds. Sadly you run smack-dab into a ghoulish creature that is just about ready to shriek for alarm and gets ready to attack you with its filthy, long, blood-stained claws while it opens its jaws to reveal some 3-inch long tusks. If you had a very intelligent character the computer could give you a chance to run… but you’re not so smart. If you were to be a very magically potent character, the computer could offer you the solution that you immediately weave a spell and make the creature forget it ever saw you. It doesn’t work for you either because magic is like a book with seven seals for you. However, you are dexterous and that means that you will be able to snap the creature’s neck before it even knows that you launched an attack. While this may not seem like much of a variety at first, the result does add to the game substantially. If you had run away, it is obvious that the creature would nevertheless be aware of your presence and set out for a hot pursuit. If you had cast magic you would have triggered an alarm in the area that detects magic and now not only does everyone now know you’re there, they even know you’re a spellcaster and bring on their own necromancers. As a dexterous character you don’t have to deal with that problem because you just left-handedly killed the guy. Unfortunately you’re not intelligent enough to carefully dispose of the body and only two minutes after the incident the alarm goes off when one of the ghoulish colleagues tumbles across the choked body. From this little scenario already you can see that an awful lot of possible outcomes can be derived, and the more details we build into the game, the thicker the network gets. Once you reach a critical point you can almost be certain that no matter what you do as a player, it always has an effect on the overall game because your character has a slightly different outset every time he gets into a situation. The same is true regarding the character’s alignment. It can have a serious effect on the world you are in. If you are known to kill everyone in sight you shouldn’t be surprised that no-one is actually asking you questions or that all the quests you are eventually offered fall into the ‘Can you dispose of this guy for me?’-category. It’s not necessarily a bad thing because those brooding sites of crime inhabited by the low-lives you’re about to encounter also serve as an intricate network of information. Information in fact hat can be vital to you and help you solve your quest. On the other hand if you’re a lawful good character, you’re quests are more likely to include some noble deeds to restore or maintain the balance of the world. Since many of the people playing with such powers are usually very well connected once again you will have the chance to gather vital information, this time just from a different perspective, which adds another interesting element to the game. While the essential information could be the same in both cases, their permutations are certainly different with personal spins and cultural colorings depending on who you got the information from. Think of this in the scope of the entire game and I am sure you will start to understand how exciting it will actually be to re-play the game and try different routes. They will offer you a very different game and insight into areas of the game you had not been able to see the other time around. Of course there are a number of other elements still that we employ to make sure the game will be fun during your repeated visit, but those are hidden in our little chest of secrets… I hope this has helped you get a slightly better feel for how the game will change depending on your overall playing. Next time I’ll try to tell you a little more how party members can make a big difference… Guido Henkel Projekt Direktor

Planescape: Torment & Design: © 1998 Interplay Productions. All Rights Reserved. © 1998 TSR, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Planescape, the Planescape logo, Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Torment, the AD&D logo, and the TSR logo are trademarks of TSR, Inc. and are used by Interplay under license. TSR, Inc. is a subsidiary of Wizards of the Coast, Inc. Interplay, the Interplay logo, Black Isle Studios and the Black Isle Studios logo are trademarks of Interplay Productions. Exclusively licensed and distributed by Interplay Productions. All other trademarks and copyrights are property of their respective owners.