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Stellaris is probably the least detailed, least complex game that Paradox Development Studios has ever released. Which... isn't saying much. Paradox are a bunch of utter lunatics who I deeply admire, despite having never really quite been take with their games. They always tended to just be a bit too fiddly.

Myself, I seem to prefer Civ's more abstracted, kinda board-gamey style. Love a good game of Civ IV. Then again, I also like Space...

I really need to go try SMAC.

I wrote a bit about this in my post, but it's brilliant, and it is most definitely unlike its sequels in at least a few respects.

It's also, in a very real sense, the end of an era. It was the one and only unarguably great game that came out of the insane experiment that was Ion Storm (DESIGN IS LAW!)—and I say that as someone who will gladly gush about Anachronox, a game that almost nobody has played.

Beyond that, it can really be seen as the pinnacle of Warren Spector's career, the end of a long arc of progression that began with his work on Ultima VI (note that the Worlds of Ultima series, where he really got to go all-out, is 100% free on GoG. The second one is probably the more worth your time of the two).

In another sense, it's kind of a swan song for Looking Glass. Which I know is a weird thing to say: Looking Glass was thousands of miles away and not involved. But Deus Ex was probably the last AAA game to really take the Looking Glass philosophy and run with it. It may be as close as we ever get to the final form of the legendary Immersive Sim.

Although as I've said before, really anything by Looking Glass is worth playing. They're like some weird funhouse reflection of id founded by people who were gamers first and hackers second, rather tha vice versa. And their games are just as brilliant.

Ooh I like these two, they have an interesting chemistry.

(This also reminds me I should finally get around to finishing Good Omens... This summer, I swear.)

Since the new Good Omens show is out, I have to ask, did you have any actors in mind when designing the agents?

Anyway, I look forward to seeing more of these two. (Though hopefully Faust will keep mum about some of his recent activities around here...)

Specifically 'Human Revolution' and to a lesser extent 'Mankind Divided'.

Human Revolution is better in terms of being...well...not a game that seems cut off short. It feels like a full experience, rather than a rather long demo for a game that should have been longer.

Mankind Divided has far more depth of gameplay, and a load of cool stuff, but the story seems like it cuts off far to early, and the game honestly feels unfinished. Even then, it has a much more interactive game environment than the previous title, which really gets me involved. I like games where you can fiddle around with a lot of stuff, and there's a bunch of cool things you can do with the environment in Mankind Divided.

Haven't played the original Deus Ex, or the sequel (which I haven't heard good things about), but it's on my list of things I want to play at some point.

I'd also highly recommend the yet-to-be-released 'Cyberpunk' title, based off the tabletop RPG of the same name. Actually, the video game version is 'Cyberpunk 2077', and AFAIK, there isn't a tabletop instalment with the same year in the title. It looks frakking incredible. To the point where your decisions alter the way NPC's react to you. I'm really glad it's from the makers of 'The Witcher', and not someone like EA. Because we all know how that'd go.

Another title I'd recommend is the Batman: Arkham ___ series of games. Well, excluding the third and fourth titles. Arkham Asylum and Arkham City both make you feel like you're Batman, and if you don't think that's a good thing, then I don't want to know you ;).

I have been obsessively playing this game for two weeks now, and my god is it amazing.

I've never been much of a fan of strategy games, grand or otherwise, and most of my friends know this. I've turned down more than a few requests to purchase a Civilisation title in the past. So, to have a game such as Stellaris recommended to me by a friend was unusual, especially given the fact that I'd never heard of this particular title, even in passing.

Thus, I watched some gameplay on Youtube, and at the next Steam sale, bought a copy.

It is frakking amazing. The depth to which your civilisation can be built is amazing. Fleet battles are fully simulated with hits and misses happening as the physics engine permits. The sight of a massive battlefleet flying over a strange new world, each ship arranged into formation is incredible, even on my puny Mac.

Even if you aren't a fan of Grand Strategy (or strategy for that matter), I highly recommend you get a copy of Stellaris. It's a bit pricy when it's not on sale, but sales are pretty frequent on Steam, and Stellaris pops up in the selection of midweek discounts more often than you'd think.

After watching the new Good Omens TV show, and after Iximaz binge-read the entirety of the book—have a new agent pair from the show's universe.

Meet Zaphoriel and Faust, an angel and demon who get stuck together as partners in the DMS.

(Contains spoilers for Good Omens.)

Though I have been a Sub/Preferred member for years. But they drop XP up all the time. And from what I've seen the slow XP rate for F2P is not bad.

Because you can certainly play past Level 20 of The old Republic now, and have been able to for the last 2-3 years at least. I mean, yeah you get XP slower, but you can still easily get to the overall level cap of 50 before the end of the storyline. And it's just as awesome from level 20-50 as it is from 1-20 (and if you're willing to get a subscription from 50-70 as well). The last two expansions (Knights of the Fallen Empire and Knights of the Eternal Throne) really drive home the 'your choices matter' and can make Light/Dark side choices a lot more interesting (but you do have to pay to get the full experience with both, KotET follows on immediately from KotFE). In case you can't guess I've played through The Old Republic a lot, and while all the storylines are decent the best (in my opinion) has to be the Imperial Agent, especially in terms f the feeling of having all those choices.

I don't know my MMOs well, but most of them have an RP scene. But it's largely player-lead.

If you want to get into *roleplaying* rather than *rollplaying* for real though, the best advice I can give is to get involved with a good Tabletop group. Adventurer's League and the like are pretty rubbish for this usually, but if you can find a party or get some friends together or something you can get that "playing a character" experience far better than any computer RPG.

But in the realm of singleplayer gaming, there are still computer games that let you embody a character and get invested in a story. Bioware games tend to do this well—it's kind of what they do. But seeing as you're playing their MMO, you probably don't need me to tell you that, nor do you likely need me to tell you to play KotOR, Mass Effect, Baldur's Gate, or Dragon Age. But I'm telling you anyways just in case.

The great Western RPGs are kind of all built around this to a greater or lesser degree, but early on most of them starred cardboard PCs that were little more than standins for you. I mean, unless you're playing Ultima, and in that case, the player character literally is you. Which was cool in Ultima IV, but afterwards largely just happened because Ultima IV did it and it didn't serve to provide any substantive message about being a moral person or anything like it did in that original game (don't... mention Ultimas 1-3. I mean, you can, there just isn't much point). Prior to the mid-to-late 90s, roleplaying was really the province of weirdo experimental text adventures, and if you're not an oddball like me you'll think those have aged pretty badly. Visual Novels also had some kinda-roleplaying-ey stuff in them (Fate is very good at forcing you to get into Shirou's mindset or die, at the very least...) but are in no way what you're after and really the medium constrains them from doing too much there. So I'm going to take this from the top.

If you want to play RPGs that let you play a character, really roleplay, you have to start with the aformentioned Bioware games and the games of Bioware's cousin, Black Isle Studios. Who created Fallout 1 and 2, and the much-celebrated Planescape: Torment, which is probably the closest to what you want: sometimes dubbed "the best book you'll ever play" it's full of words, words, words and words, all spoken by exceedingly memorable characters. Like yout talking skull companion who I swear must have been an inspiration on Dresden's Bob The Skull.

These games aren't always the best at roleplaying (they have a strong combat focus, etc) but they do give you the chance to embody a character and inhabit a world that feels pretty alive.

Black Isle died in the early 2000s, but its spirit is kept alive by its two child studios, Inxile (the torchbearer for That Oldschool Fallout Spirit by virtue of being the team behind Wasteland 2, and the people behind Torment: Tides of Numenera, the in-all-but-name sequel of Planescape) and Obsidian Entertainment (the team who actually got to make Fallout: New Vegas and put out Pillars of Eternity, which is very much in the same densely-worldbuilt kind of vein of Torment and so on). Obsidian's offerings are probably going yo be of more interest to you.

Although speaking of worlds that feel alive, The Witcher games are pretty amazing at delivering that. Even if Geralt is... less than the most interesting to play (although he is very attractive, as Iximaz will attest).

A lot of people point to Bethesda games as great games to roleplay in, and... no? See, I'm of the opinion that Bethesda games are more hack-and-slashy games than RPGs per se (albeit with an extremely well-constructed lore around them), and I've never felt like anything other than a psychotic murderhobo while playing one. It's telling that of the 3D Fallouts, it's the one made by Obsidian that is generally most beloved by the fans (which makes sense: they're staffed with people who literally built that franchise. And then Bethesda didn't give them a bonus because of Metacritic...). What I will say is that you totally can roleplay in a Bethesda game. I know plenty of people do. But I don't feel like the game will help you along.

No, I don't hate Bethesda, I just feel the need to balance out the undeserved unconditional praise they get.

I don't think I've really missed any big name in RPGs...

Except. There is another kind of roleplaying: Experiential roleplaying. If you want to play a game and rather than customizing, building, or embodying a character more really just... feel like you're really there, there is one company that could do that better than anyone else and its name was Looking Glass Studios. Thief: The Dark Project (and it's re-release Thief Gold) and its sequel Thief 2 are stealth games, not RPGs. They are build on an old, creaky, graphically outdated game engine from the late 90s, the look terrible, and in some cases you have to download a fan patch just to make them run. However, if you really want to feel like a sneaky thief breaking into the houses of the wealthy and powerful in a weird fantasy city, I can't recommend these games enough. They are simply incredible pieces of game design, and they really make you feel like you're there.

While Looking Glass itself really only made RPGs on DOS that are so old and ugly I can't expect anyone but me to play them, they did parter with a child studio of theirs, Irrational Games (yes, that Irrational Games) to make System Shock 2, widely regarded as one of the greatest RPGs ever made. And while it's not the best for roleplaying (characters don't exist because everyone is dead except you), it's another game that really creates that "like you're really there" feeling, in this case of oppressive dread over being locked on a spaceship with a psychotic evil computer who hates you.

Irrational went on to make the Bioshock games in the same vein, and everyone loved those, so... yeah.

The other Looking Glass alum RPG worth mentioning is Deus Ex, the yin to SS2's yang and the game that's usually mentioned in the same breath. Lots more opportunities to roleplay here, even though it's primarily an action game. You may not be interested in it. I dunno. My advice? At least try to play it anyways. The Steam Summer Sale is starting soon, and Deus Ex regularly goes for 99¢. So does SS2, but that game is harder to recommend because it's really hard to beat and doesn't control quite as modern.

Actually, most of the games I've mentioned are old and thus cheap during summer sales. Most of them are worth it. Hopefully, some of them scratch your itch. The BioWare ones probably will, Tabletop games definitely will, the rest... I am less sure of. It really depends on what you want out of a roleplaying experience. But with luck, one of them will.

Let's just say that your choices matter a LOT, and if you screw up, the game lets you know it.

I'm sure this cloak will prove very useful. :D

*has never played Pokemon*

I stopped playing Star Wars: The Old Republic because once you reach level 20, you can't level up normally unless you pay for a subscription. I didn't want to spend any money on a game where everything was so far apart that I spent more time just getting from one place to another than doing anything else, but I loved the dialogue options that raised my character's Light Side or Dark Side score. They made me feel like I was actually playing a role, not just completing quests.

Pirate101, a game I'm utterly obsessed with, lets you choose your character's backstory during character creation, which affects gameplay. I liked getting to customize my character in ways beyond name and appearance.

Are there any other games that do stuff like this?

Have an Invisibility Cloak and a totally not pirated copy of Pokémon Sapphire!

There was definitely borrowing from the canonical whale-wizards for Talia's people, and reference back to the book on the mechanics and perils of shapechanging. I wouldn't be surprised to know that I accidentally adopted a theme or two, too.

Part one of the Permission checklist is community interaction. We're all here to hang out and chat with each other and write stories together first, and spork badfic second.

For what it's worth, you seem like a cool person to know, and I'd like to see more of you in the PPC.

I didn't realize that I'd have to unlearn seven years' worth of lurking habits before I'd be able to get Permission.

I've always been a shy person online and in real life; that, and I'm still adjusting to being in a sporking community where everyone isn't being nasty about everything all the time.

Should I attempt to delurkify myself and request Permission again later?

We've got Alex Bjørnsen, Alex Dives, Alex Orange, Alex Warren, Alec Troven, and Alec Trevelyan... Lots of 'em.

I've not been tackling this Permission request because I didn't want to reject it on the sole grounds that I don't recognize you, in case one of the other Permission Givers did.

However, it's been five days since you posted, and I feel like you deserve some sort of response.

So, to the other PGs—anyone here who's interacted with Su&Mo enough to say they pass that part of the checklist? A quick poke through the archives turns up that they've been around at least since February, but I've got hardly any recollection of seeing them.

Do I detect a bit of reading going on in the background? I feel like you've been poking through Deep Wizardry recently (though the 'trapped' sequence also has resonances with Equal Rites).

Also, you may be pleased to know that technically, Young Wizards takes place in the Star Trek canon, due to Diane Duane namedropping the Song of the Twelve in one of her Trek novels. ^_^ So Talia isn't all that far from home.

(Also also also, is this like the third Agent Talia we've got? How is that the name that pops through as HQ's most popular?!)

hS

My favorite new Pokemon are Wooloo and Corviknight.

I also like the idea of kaiju-sized Pokemon, though knowing when to utilize that option in battle might be confusing.

Now to wait months for the next one...

That way I don't have to blow twice the price just to complete the Pokédex.

I don't have Minecraft, sadly.

So if you have Bedrock you can't connect.