Jump to content

What is Gladwell Attempting to Accomplish?


Recommended Posts

I realize this might be a spoiler (which I don't mind) but having done the first quest, I'm thinking Gladwell isn't the sort of person I want to do quests for. He hits at a "greater purpose" but I'd like to know what that purpose is.

 

I'm new to the series but I notice from posts he appears in other games. Could someone enlighten me? It seems like his quests threaten to destabilize an already fragile world. Also he's an A^%&& (you know what). I'd like to just kill him but I'm guessing the Tower colony wouldn't like it and he'd probably wipe the floor with me anyway. God knows I barely made it out of the tower alive after retrieving the notes.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I took an instant disliking to the character the first time I met him. I have killed him in every episode, but the blinker keeps showing up.

 

Just for fun, you might want to play along with him just to see where he is going. That is one feature I like about these games. You can play variations of them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm not the sort of person who plays these games multiple times (though I did for Fallout 3 and Skyrim) so that's why I'm asking. I don't want to do all these things that might have terrible consequences only to find out he wants to destroy or conquer the world. I want to know his ultimate goal so I can NOT do the quests (which is what I'll do if I don't find out). Is there actually a laudible goal, or is he the evil bastich he appears to be?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In Avernum 6 I'm pretty sure you can't kill Gladwell without first doing enough of his quests to learn his goal.

You can, but then the tower goes hostile.

I want to know his ultimate goal so I can NOT do the quests (which is what I'll do if I don't find out). Is there actually a laudible goal, or is he the evil bastich he appears to be?

In short : He wants to be the King.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

How would letting 6 1000 point spectres loose make him King? Is he thinking he's be the only one who could destroy them or something?

 

He thinks Avernum has become too safe and wants to make it wild and dangerous again. Plus, he wants to do things that weaken and destabilise potential threats to his power, like the present government of Avernum.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's funny you should say that. The Tech vs. Magic battle has played out a few times over the years. I took my D&D group into modern day London once (published adventure). They had fun and they prevailed, but they were appalled at how much damage they took for rifles on full automatic. They would have found missile launchers even more annoying. They foiled a bank robbery with submachine gun toting criminals and that's how they interacted with the Tech! It was a hoot.

 

The problem that Magic has is that you need dedicated, highly trained people to learn and use magic. Any yahoo can use an AK-47 with a rocket launcher. And when you have an entire Army unit with modern weapons, you better have a LOT of magic users. The old game Shadowrun with reemergence of magic into the modern world was fun too.

 

And before you say -- some creatures might require magic weapons to hurt them, remember that old Buffy episode. The demon who couldn't be harmed by any weapon forged turned out to be vulnerable to an anti-tank rocket. Maybe a hellfire missile counts in the mystical world as a +5 weapon ;-)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Gladwell was powerful in A5 (no idea what his might were before that but he sold some high level spells so quite powerful most likely) and in A6 if does all his quests and doesn't kill him then more powerful than any known mage (Erika, Solberg, etc) and in comics wizards, sorcerers/sorceresses, etc have quite well handled modern military.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

How well a wizard handles modern tech is completely dependant on the caliber of wizard. The sort that can throw fireballs & lightning and make small magic barriers would be royally screwed. :p

 

The mountain-leveling, time-stopping, reality-warping kind, however, would wipe the floor with any military on earth, assuming the floor still existed when they were through.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The rarity, difficulty, and limitations of magic are entirely arbitrary. There are some conventions that have become common, but they're just that: conventions. I could equally easily imagine a world in which creating a barrier that can stop bullets, tank rounds, and cruise missiles with equal ease is a trivial spell any half-witted apprentice can cast. And in this hypothetical world magic is so pervasive and so simple that everyone learns magic the way everyone in the first world learns to read and write. I can imagine the equivalent of post-scarcity future science fiction run entirely on unstoppable, all-powerful magic. The fact that medieval trappings are common doesn't mean they're necessary.

 

—Alorael, who does wonder where the magic vs. tech dichotomy originated. It's also fairly pervasive, but there's no reason it should be so. Why not have modern wizards enchanting +5 flaming depleted uranium shells? Or assault rifles enchanted so they really do have bottomless magazines? Armored personnel carriers would be a lot more security with ordnance-repelling wards. And while the Force is nice and hyperspace is comfortable, using teleportation and magic portals can take a lot of the difficulty out of FTL travel and a wizard can cast lightning bolts farther than the Emperor can spew blue lightning. Plus with improved understanding of biology and computer science wizards are likely to go around learning Cause Cerebral Aneurysm and Universal Root Access.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

To do those things you have to have magic coexisting with technology (like Harry Potter-verse or Shadowrun). Otherwise that kind of cross pollination wouldn't happen. In RuneQuest, everyone knew a little magic. In Stormbringer, very few did and the really powerful mages were rare -- ditto in Lord of the Rings. In D&D you need years of training but Mages are fairly common (but not typically super powerful the way they were in 2nd edition AD&D). It does differ by universe.

 

Our own "City Beyond the Gate" adventure was 2nd edition so our mages were 10th level or so and were VERY powerful. But still when you have a large group of bad buys with automatic weapons, it's nothing to take lightly. Our mage DID use time stop.

 

Note too that in some universes like Shadowrun, it's difficult to combine magic and tech because they somehow work against each other. The more cyberwear you have the less magic you can do (aggravating). My impression is that Avernum is similar to a weak version of D&D (modern edition). Some of the spells are powerful but not world conquering. On the other hand you can generate an army with a lot of mages and clerics which is a force to be reckoned with. And sometimes, the weakest spells could have a huge effect on a society like ours. Consider healing spells!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Even so. Why is it that when magic and technology exist it's typically in an antagonistic way? Shadowrun's not even the worst offender there, because at least it acknowledges things like digitizing your spellbooks and using fiber optics to get around pesky line of sight restrictions. I'm thinking Arcanum, where magic and technology really can't coexist in the same place without disastrous results. It's a common enough idea but I don't know where it came from and it's not obvious that it should work like that.

 

—Alorael, who would say that Avernum is on the "very powerful" end of the magic spectrum, or at least allow magic to range from weak to immensely powerful. Yes, an everyday mage is nothing a tough soldier can't charge and take down, but the likes of Garzahd, Rentar-Ihrno, and Erika are far beyond that. They're practically armies in their own right. In Rentar's case, she made an army in her own right. Magic made Avernum itself inhabitable when it really wasn't before.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Impact isn't necessarily the same thing as powerful. Lots of human beings in our world make a gigantic impact -- perhaps they cure a terrible disease or lead the American revolution. But they're not necessarily individually powerful. But I take your point. However the spells in the game that a player can gain access to, while useful, don't compare to the ludicrous levels of power available in say 2nd edition AD&D. It compares very well against the current D&D though. Really to make the game playable, you need useful magic but not out of control magic and that's why they all try to thread that needle -- give the players enough power to succeed without so much power they just walk through the opposition.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

For all their foe-demolishing power, PCs rarely make good comparisons for the power of anything in the fiction of a world. (Baldur's Gate, D&D simulator that it is, comes closer than most games.) You can't make an army, but Rentar can. You can't teleport, but Erika can. You can't travel to other planes, but Aimee seems able to. You can't create new forms of life, but the collected Tower of Magi did so. The Empire created its great portal, then Avernum made the pylon system, and there are enough other portals around that it's not impossible to do.

 

The problem is that characters are designed for the game, so they excel at protecting themselves and destroying small groups of enemies. That's fine but not world-changing. That's also necessary because changing the world would often wreck a game.

 

—Alorael, who considers D&D and its evolution a lesson in magic balance. There's no reason magic shouldn't be able to do everything; it doesn't exist, doesn't really have any rules or limits, and you can let it accomplish whatever you want. D&D did, resulting in wizards who were better at everything than everyone else. This was recognized and magic was severely curtailed, leading to wizards who felt like fighters with a slightly different flavor. Making magic that seems sufficiently awe-inspiring without making your game unbalanced is hard, at least in world-simulating tabletop games. In CRPGs it's simple: don't let players do everything magic can do. If walls must be barriers, don't let players blow them up or fly even if other wizards can do these things.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...