Telepath RPG: Servants of God Interview

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Written by BuckGB on February 7th, 2011

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Rampant Coyote: Your website suggests that the NPCs in the player's party have dynamic relationships with the player character. When I hear that, the first thing I think of is the Baldur's Gate series. How does TSoG compare? Are the dynamics more story-based, or based more on your general actions sort of a continuous scoring of faction or karma?

Craig Stern: There are some similarities with Baldur's Gate, in that your choices will impact which characters join your party, stay with you, help you, or in some cases even hurt you. People will remember certain things you say or do, but I very specifically chose not to include (cosmic scorecard) elements in the game like alignment or karma. It's always struck me as a clumsy mechanic to tell the player (that was a Good thing you did, and now all Good people in the game will like you more,) or (that was Evil, so now you are more Evil.) That's not how people actually behave, and it doesn't fit with the message I'm trying to send with TSoG.

Because your party is essentially the head of its own faction within the game world, your teammates won't generally respond to choices you make as far as allying with other factions. Rather, your relationship with each character is tracked on an individual basis. The small-scale choices you make around them, as well as how you conduct yourself during certain missions, will impact their opinion of you, but not the fact that you chose to (for example) ally with the Assassin's Cult rather than with the Order of the Black Rose. That said, there are always exceptions to the rule, and it is entirely possible that a certain faction may try to assassinate one of your party members if you aren't paying attention to what's going on in your ranks.

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