Making the Breeding Pits Less Disgusting

[Doctornull]

Quotes are from posts starting on page 205 of this thread: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showth ... id=3457973

Clipping by request of DarkGod.

...but what is the deal with the Orcish Breeding Pits? Game goes from sorta-dark tongue-in-cheek fantasy with achievements named after Dr. Who stuff to some sort of GRRM-Dark super-uncomfortable dungeon full of tit-golems with a Vagina Giant as a boss (A Vagiant for short). It's pretty jarring and lord knows it isn't exactly kid-friendly.

Yeah this is the #1 reason why I don't recommend ToME to my friends.

It's just so incredibly creepy and I mean that not in a fun or enjoyable way.

Not to mention that yeah, it's really creepy and out of line with the rest of the game.

Yeah Darkgod I love the shit out of your awesome game but the Breeding Pits are the one black mark on an otherwise great experience. I'm not sure what to suggest, but it has to be said.

With all the varieties of magic, psionics and other wonky powers at work in the setting, you could have orcish time mages unnaturally accelerating the growth of the young with magic or something with orcish mind-whatevers speeding up their mental growth. It'd be a more interesting series of fights to boot. Or do something else. Nearly anything.

Hell, you can even make it fail sometimes and get orcish mutants if you still want unusual, freakish mobs in there (physical /and/ mental mutants... maybe that's why some of them run on Hate?) but I did not enjoy the Breeding Pits as a concept the way they currently stand.

The first time I played the Breeding Pits I skimmed the lore but I didn't read the mouseover descriptions for the mothers and didn't look too closely at the sprites, and I didn't mind it. The concept of "the orcs turned their women into bizarre mutants for breeding purposes" didn't really grab me, but I got what it was going for.

Then the second time I read the monster descriptions and the "thousand gaping vulvas" or whatever just threw me. It seems like going into detail on it gets unnecessarily dumb and gross.

Things which could replace the current ick-fest:

- Orcs are clones which start out like tumors, but gain structure as they grow onto a blight-powered crystal skeleton. When you fight a "baby orc", the picture is actually a crystal skeleton with a green blob somewhere on it. Also the name is "crystal structure".

- Orcs are grown in blight-powered crystal vats of necrotic filth. They are "recycled" from the flesh and spirits of dead orcs, plus maybe some demon-parts or whatever. They emerge whole from the necrotic filth-pits. You fight necrotic horrors rather than "orc mothers".

- Orcs are clones which come from blight interacting with Chronomancy. The "parent" orc splits the timeline and then fights his own clone unto incapacitation, after which the clone gets re-educated. This kind of Chronomancy is only possible thanks to some kind of temporal blight horrors in this here cavern; kill all of them instead of "orc mothers".

Nth the Breeding Pits issues. One idea (though it comes with a whole host of other problems such as balance issues) is to hook an alternate to the Breeding Pits up and have it be 100% if the user has the "family safe" mode or whatever on in the options to remove both of those as issues.

A few friends and I were talking about this and another one of the problematic issues is sort of the whole "you're killing babies/kids", at least in part (the other issues've already been gone over by you all) - it's just... yeah. I basically mentally zone out whenever in there because thinking about it at all just makes me wish it was removed/replaced with something more interesting and less grotesque.

Let's talk about what can be done to replace the current body horror baby-stabbing gross-out contest with more interesting and hopefully more terrifying content.

Some of the quoted ideas look like a decent start.

Discuss.

[The Revanchist]

I'll strive to not repeat myself. Feel free to call me out.

If I'm not mistaken, the Orcs are in their current ssituation out of sheer desperation. Their entire society had been attacked on all sides, they hadn't escaped the Spellblaze any more than any other race, and the Cataclysm was the same. The Breeding pits are their last ditch effort to revive their fallen race, and as such, they pulled out every trace of decency and sanity.

As for ways to make... Grossness... Less itself... I'm drawing a blank.
I don't really fancy the idea that Orcs are any less alive in any way than any other race. So I'd be pretty opposed to making them monsters powered by arcane energy. Then they're just more violent Shalore.

I'll try to think of compromises though. I agree that this portion is significantly... Darker than the rest of the game.

[IvenGray]

I think the current design of the Breeding Pits is OK. It's just people are not previously warned before they stride into the zone.

Let players know it might be creepy, and let players know it is optional.

We can make it like Curse Lifter. Make the zone hidden until the player come across someone to tell him about it.

Say, a sun paladin patrol team had accidentally discovered the pits, inspected it, and found it horrible. Then the patrol team was attacked by the orc defenders, and they barely escaped. And you came across the dying last member of the team. He wants to inform the Gates of the Morning about it, but he would not make it due to his severe injury. Then he tells you about the pits, about the mutations of orc mothers, and how horrible and creepy it is, and ask you to kill them. Then you get an option of whether to do it, explicitly in the dialog. You can say something like "Massacring mothers and childs? I would never do it!", and the paladin would not show you the zone.

Or maybe you can choose not to believe the creppiness of the zone, and suspect that the dying paladin went insane. Then he refuse to show you the location because your suspicion wounded his pride.

Or maybe by choosing refusing to believe the creepiness, the player get access to the "family safe version" of the zone? He accidentally gets to another pit, where orcs try to bring normal females back now that their race have already prospered. The character mistakes it to be the original one, and thinks the paladin is kidding. And he would never find out the truth. Players can still get Genocide achievement in this version.

[Grey]

I don't see why it has to be family safe. Some other lore has sex references and of course plenty of violence.

The breeding pits are meant to make the player question his role of hero-by-murder. If players are choosing to "zone out" whilst slaughtering babies and mothers in an optional dungeon for a tiny game advantage... well, that says something about human psychology, eh?

The dungeon is meant to make you feel uncomfortable. It's meant to make you want to skip it. It's meant to make you feel bad for the race you are consciously wiping out. It's nice to see people are at least being triggered in some way by it, but clearly it's not making the full leap to making players question themselves.

The idea of finding out about the zone through a paladin who gives some context is a nice one. It would allow the message to be delivered a little more bluntly.

[Stition]

I hope nothing changes about the breeding pits. People don't have to kill everything they see in-game, and if they have a problem slaughtering orc babies... that's on them for doing it. I enjoy how horrible it is to have your character go in there and kill everything, think it adds something no other game really has.
I'm sure there are more people who enjoy the option of a darker game, it's only the people that have a problem killing orc babies they didn't have to that speak out.
Keep the breeding pits please!

[Zonk]

I'm surprised this is such an issue.

The game isn't so 'tongue in cheek' to me, with Corruptors and Defilers and Ziguranths running around, women being kidnapped to act as the catalyst for summoning powerful demons and stuff like that.
Sure, it's not grimdark either but...

The difference might be that the Breeding Pits *are*graphic, both literally(tiles) and in the use of long descriptions. The Genocide name doesn't help though.

But on the issue of killing kids/babies - interesting how there's no issue with killing dragon hatchlings. From what I understand they are quite intelligent beings, not just 'mere beasts'. They could be smarter than the average human! You can also invade snow giant towns, and I don't think they are a particularly warlike species. I guess it's the combination of newly-born and the word genocide(and again, graphics)....


Edit: if people care so much about the idea of a whole species going extinct...do remember there are *other* Orcs(though not mentioned in-game lore yet? but DG has talked about them) which live separately and might reproduce 'regularly' instead.

[Crim, The Red Thunder]

They kind of have to for the orc campaign to make sense, since it's in the future.

I agree that the pits are dark, but simply cutting out the phrase about the multiple vulvae from the description of the orc mother goes a long way towards solving 'family friendly' issues. (Though we are not a family friendly game. I don't think it HAS to stay, but it also doesn't HAVE to go.) The tiles themselves aren't that horrible.

[tylor]

I personally find betraying escorts much more disgusting by far then genocide of orcs. When you kill orcs, you retaliate for (and defend against) their attempts to kill you personally, your allies, and probably your race too. When you betray escorts, you betray the trust of people who depend on you. And, unlike clearing Pits, NOT betraying escorts impose huge penalties, so there is not really a choice here.

[SageAcrin]

Simplest answer to this(and possible other morally icky areas of the game); Tie them to the check that, currently, censors out the boobage from the possible bootscreens.

Then make an alternate version of the Breeding Pits that's less horrifying. Suggested thought here; Orc Breeding Vines. Huge towering plants that disgorge teenage orcs over time. (Orc Breeding Pits are kinda boring and need an alternate anyways. Maybe it could be a nasty, corrupted wooded area, built kinda like Heart of the Gloom.) Have only this alternate come up if the censorship option is enabled, rather than ever showing the original Pits.

Have the same lore style, but with the doctor increasingly worried, not about the (mothers, which are now plants), instead have him become worried that he's creating near-Orc abominations and gradually replacing his entire race, not with true Orcs, but with irrational, violent podOrcs that have none of the traits of the Orcs he knew(purposefully leaving vague if this is actually happening).

Have the Orc campaign just not directly reference either event. It's not necessary; However it happens, the Orcs have no way to continue their race if either version is destroyed, so just leave it vague which one is canon. They're both going to be named "Orc Breeding Pits", no matter what; Just have the campaign reference their destruction.

It fixes a lot of the problems while still leaving the area horrifying. Done well, it can be just as disturbing, but less... grotesque, for lack of a better way to put it.

Something similar could probably be done with Zigur; Perhaps just change a few lines, so that instead of gating them to Zigur to die horribly and painfully, you instead rig the portal to somehow disrupt their magical abilities permanently. (It still makes you a complete jerk, though. )

Thoughts?

[rexorcorum]

Just to periphrase one of the really good articles on Moorcock at http://ferretbrain.com:

Perhaps the point of (the novel, game) is, at the end, the slightly trite "if epic fantasy heroes were real they'd be total monsters", but at least (the author) makes it well.

Meaning, I'm all behind Grey and DG for leaving the pits as they are. They just highlight in an unique way the player's motives as being (mostly) good old greed, disguised as high morals. And, believe me, the location isn't that graphical, both narratively and visually.
___
(If someone's interested, here is the actual article I was referring to: http://ferretbrain.com/articles/article-745

[Grakor456]

First post, but I wanted to comment on this because I think it's interesting.

I personally find betraying escorts much more disgusting by far then genocide of orcs. When you kill orcs, you retaliate for (and defend against) their attempts to kill you personally, your allies, and probably your race too. When you betray escorts, you betray the trust of people who depend on you. And, unlike clearing Pits, NOT betraying escorts impose huge penalties, so there is not really a choice here.

To be fair, the orcs aren't attacking your allies or your race, at least not when you decide to attack them. Putting this into perspective, the only thing you know about the orcs when you head over to the eastern continent is that a group of them wanted to take the staff from you. They made no aggressive attempts to do anything in the west beyond get that staff. The PC then goes to the east, sides with the celestials, and swears to kill every orc alive without even bothering to ask what the orcs really want and who started the war in the first place.

This all leads to my belief that the Breeding Pits need to remain unchanged. Yes, it's a vile and disgusting place...and the PC is committing a vile and disgusting act. He/she is choosing to not attack orc military, but instead attack orcish civilians and children while knowingly dooming an entire race to inevitable extinction (at least, as far as the PC knows from the lore picked up.) This is a repulsive act for anyone to commit, made worse when you read through the various bits of orc lore and learn they're not all evil...desperate and angry at being victimized, sure, but not wholly evil.

The game already does a bit to ease the guilt of what the PC is doing by implying that the orc mothers are in pain and want to die. The horror of the deed that the PC is willing to commit shouldn't be diminished further, and de-humanizing the orcs by making them plants or crystalline magic-critters would do exactly that. You're choosing to commit genocide by attacking non-combatants. That should give you pause. The only grossness that I'd personally want to see changed is the description of the orcish mothers, since that kind of is a bit too graphic.

If anything needs to be done otherwise, it's offer a proper alternative. There's still no way to sympathize/side with the orcs, despite at least one point in the story providing the opportunity for that to be a possibility. I dunno if there are any plans on expanding that possibility, since the orc campaign will, well, be a separate campaign, it may or may not include changes to the current main game.

[Mewtarthio]

Simplest answer to this(and possible other morally icky areas of the game); Tie them to the check that, currently, censors out the boobage from the possible bootscreens.

Strongly disagree. "Troublesome" content in the game serves a purpose: You've got plenty of people defending the artistic value of the Breeding Pits in this thread. Just because I don't want a buxome Liinanil to randomly make me feel like I'm playing Evony every time I load up the game doesn't mean I want to cut content from the game's storyline. The boot images are like book covers: I've got no problem reading, say, A Game of Thrones, but I wouldn't want the sexual content to be on the book's cover, because that would imply the sex is the main draw.

[SageAcrin]

Make it a second, separate option from that one, then.

Doesn't really matter much.

Unless, of course, you're saying "We should force people to play the game the way they don't like to play it, to hell with them!", at which point I'm just baffled.

This way lets everyone have what they want. It's not censorship, it's options. And there are a large mass of people quoted initially-way more than the people straight up defending it in this thread so far, in fact-saying they'd like that option.

[Mewtarthio]

My objection was to the implication that not liking the censored boot options meant that I didn't like the Breeding Pits, either. I'm perfectly okay with the idea that the Breeding Pits are a bit much for some people.

I do disagree with the Breeding Vines, though. The Pits don't work at all if the orcs aren't doing anything particularly horrible in there, and the implication that the orcs are being replaced with an Always Chaotic Evil race goes against darkgod's stated storytelling goals.

[SageAcrin]

It's meant to be just that; An implication, by one orc.

If you think about it, it actually makes the decision more... horrible, in a sense. Either he's right, and the Orcs are gradually and subtly destroying themselves, or he's wrong, and you're destroying the Orc race without any real sense of grey morality like in the normal version.

Would you like to base your moral decision on one person's opinion? It can easily be written to make him seem quite unstable in this version...