The best part of this game

[Cardinal Ape]

The best part of this game is that on day one you know 90% of the grand plot. I have not encountered another RPG (video or table top) that has done this. It feels like such a relief to know what your ultimate goal is without having to fight through a perpetual wall of secrets. Other games seem to place so much emphasis on a big end reveal that is supposed to blow your mind, but ultimately leaves you clueless as to what is going on for a majority of the game. You generally don't know what the end goal is until you are standing right in front of it.

 

Its like 'Hey Mr. Elder Wizard if you suspected that your colleague was trying to find a book of the dead so he could raise an undead army to take over the world, why didn't you tell anybody about it? 'Cause now there is an evil wizard running around with an undead army trying to take over the world...'

 

Having my perspective shaken up by Avernum caused me to make a choice in a table top RPG. Its some bad Pathfinder module run by a friend. We get to about level 15, some old wizard shows up outta the blue, tells us some grand story that has nothing do to with anything we have done so far, says it is our parties responsibility to save the world. The group shares a few laughs about the poor writing then accepts the old wizard's quest. Then I throw the GM for a loop. I insist that the party arrest and punish the wizard for his negligence in failing to report a potential world ending disaster. But of course he teleports away because he has more secrets to reveal when we level up....... Secrets are now my favored enemy, it used to be doors but not anymore, oh how I loathe me some secrets.

 

You did something dumb, you got thrown into the pit of the earth. Find a way out and/or punish those responsible. Simple yet beautiful. The next table top RPG I run will be heavily influenced by the storytelling methods used in Avernum: Escape from the Pit. Thanks Spiderweb!