Is there anything more paralyzing than a blank slate?
Iâve had Fallout 2 open for three hours. I have played it for zero. Iâm bleary eyed. Exhaustion is clinging to my eyelids like some mad brigand swinging from a chandelier. How did things end up like this, I wonder. Why canât I just make a few simple decisions and, you know, play a video game?
Itâs just⊠there are all these numbers. And skills. And traits. What if I make the wrong choice and, hours later, have to start over to play the way I want? This always seems to happen to me when I start a new RPG (or a classic I havenât played before), and most recently Iâve been stuck at the starting line in both Fallout 2 and Wasteland 2. Thus, Iâve decided to lay out every step of this vicious cycle in hopes that others can break it before they fall into the pit of weary indecision I only just climbed out of.
Phase One: Existential Dread
This one sets in before I even start playing an RPG. Itâs the reason Iâve put off playing some legitimately great games for ages. I look at the game icon on Steam. Itâs a tiny world of possibility, a portal to a vast land my eager eyes and hungry hands have never touched.
And decisions that will STICK WITH ME FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE.
My virtual life. But still, that means Iâve got some serious thinking to do. I need to go to my Consideration Corner, put on my Consideration Cap, and beat the stuffing out of my brain with my Consideration Bat. And thatâs kinda stressful! Just the idea of it. Creating a new character from scratch is fun, sure, but itâs also work.
And in many RPGs, itâs not just work-work, itâs guesswork. You pick a bunch of skills and stats without fully knowing what youâre getting into. Even with all the preparation in the world, you could still end up getting a raw deal.
Phase Two: Grim Determination
OK, OK, itâs time to dive in. I can do this. I will grit my teeth, open a stat sheet, break out my calculator, and put on one of those hats you see people wear when theyâre doing finances in old TV shows. I can do this. I will do this. How bad can it be? I mean itâs just some sliders and a few staâ
Fuck.
Iâm gonna need some help.
Phase Three: Google
âBest [Insert Game Name Here] character builds,â I type into Google. That should give me some quick guidance, right? I donât want to copy them necessarily, but I want an idea of what stats and skills work best for various play stylesânot to mention which ones might be entirely useless despite how cool they seem. In more complex RPGs I consider this a necessary step (except when Iâm reviewing them, for obvious reasons). Case in point: I never wouldâve known that luck is basically worthless in Wasteland 2, or that intelligence isâin some waysâmore important than charisma for conversations in Fallout 2.
Good, good. Basic advice. Iâm feeling better now. Thanks, guides and walkthroughs. Now I guess itâs nearly time to get startâ wait, one-hand specialization makes better snipers than sniping in the long run, you say, Fallout 2 forum person? But someone else disagrees entirely? Oh jeez, this just got complicated.
Phase Four: Obsession
It has been hours. Actual human hours. This forum thread goes on for 83 pages, and god damn it I will read all of them. I NEED TO KNOW if one-hander is a more optimal pick for my build than small frame. I mean, one of my traits obviously has to be gifted. Obviously. But I need every last drop of anecdotal evidence to help me decide on the other. I must drink it all in, hold it in the deepest bowels of my knowledge, and keep it there even though the information overload burns like Iâve eaten ashes.
This one guy, he argues that one-hander gives a bonus to most of the more useful weapons in the game, and with some careful stat balancing you can get better range and accuracy than any sniper. And heâs got math to back it up. But this other guy, he says itâs all poppycock, horsefeathers, and other fantastic dismissal words that never shouldâve gone out of common usage, and heâs got math too! If I go with small frame, he says, I wonât be able to carry quite as much, but Iâll be orders of magnitude better in combat. Magnitude! And Iâll be able to try out so many more weapons, whereas one-hander is kinda limiting.
It all seems to suggest that this stuff matters so much. It matters MORE THAN ANYTHING ELSE IN MY LIFE RIGHT NOW. I will not leave until Iâve seen the end of this argument two dudes had four years ago. I need resolution. I need something definitive. I crave it, from the top of my messy tangle of hair to my rot-stench armpits to my overgrown toenails. I beg, all alone in my dark room, a series of quiet rasps: âPlease, please, please. Someone make up my mind for me.â
Phase Five: Fuck It
OK yeah, that forum argument was pretty much worthless. I pick small frame because Iâm bored and tired and I never want to hear about percent margins on crit chances ever again. Did I make the right choice? Who knows. All my other stats are allocated pretty well, so even if I didnât itâs not the end of the world, right?
Right?
Phase Six: Appearance
Oh god, I still havenât done anything with my character(s)â appearance yet. No biggie, though, itâs not like I get really obsessed over this stuff too hahaha.
[Two more hours pass]
Phase Seven: Doubt
Iâm a few hours into the game now and things are going fineâbetter than fine, actuallyâbut what if I was wrong before and maybe I should just roll another character or six to make sure yeah yep that sounds like a good and reasonable thing to do ok I will do that.
Thoughts
In all seriousness, there are some things I think game makers can take away from all this, stuff Iâd like to see in more RPGs to make this process a little less of a hassle. Donât get me wrong: Iâm all for real consequence in gamesânot just the illusion of consequenceâbut I think there are better ways to create it than by tossing players into a deep end of nebulous decisions and telling them to swim.
Foremost, I think RPGs should at least include a modeâif not a default optionâto re-spec stats and skills conveniently. The nature of an RPG, whether old-school or modern, is that your character evolves over time, so itâs impossible to really understand what youâre working with until youâve invested a fair amount of time in a character. If people want to play without an option to re-spec early and often, cool. But for people whoâd rather try out a bunch of stuffâmix and matchâI donât see why they shouldnât be able to.
More clarity in terms of what skills and stats actually mean would also be good. I donât think written or video descriptions cut it, either. The process needs to be more hands-on. Maybe some kind of test room where you can try different basic configurations against various enemy types would be good. Admittedly thatâs only feeding into the obsessive tendencies of folks like me, but itâs still better than having to scour the Internet for information that might still prove unreliable.
Another option is to overhaul the way RPGs unfold altogether, to let players begin playing with a blank slate and evolve their character through gameplay and decisions made on the fly. The Elder Scrolls games have been doing that to a certain (though definitely not full) extent for a long time, and action games that incorporate RPG elements like Shadow of Mordor do it tooâalbeit with less complexity.
Also for the record I donât actually hate making new charactersâjust elements of it. Starting a new game can be daunting, but itâs also the moment of greatest possibility. Who knows what youâre going to encounter? Who knows what your character will evolve into? Itâs exciting, even if, like me, you canât keep your mind off all the nitty gritty details. So hereâs to fresh starts and trying new things. Just know that doing so might take me a little longer than most people.
To contact the author of this post, write to [email protected] or find him on Twitter @vahn16
