Making the Breeding Pits Less Disgusting

[SageAcrin]

I'm starting to have a real problem with this discussion, in that the whole gameplay focus is being focused on(which I do enjoy admittedly), and the point that no amount of "don't go in here" will actually make someone not go in some place in a Roguelike is being ignored.

Generally speaking, the only way to make sure someone won't be offended by this with plot/gameplay is to put an outright, predictable and telegraphed lethal situation right in front of them, and that's basically as good as removing the Pits in practice anyways.

And even then I'm not sure. I've seen too many people open all the Dreadfell vaults and go into them. Players drown townspeople. There is no real life morality or danger sense that can be consistently attributed to a person's actions in a Roguelike. There are multiple Roguelikes where killing and eating all sentient beings that cross your path is normal and every day.

And as long as people keep saying "there should be" and ignoring this fact, this'll be a problem for players. And, to judge by comments I've seen(I've definitely seen more than just SA comment on this), probably a decent sized one.

It doesn't really matter if you feel it should or shouldn't be something that triggers a disgust reaction(It kinda confuses me that the whole killing/eating thing is less frowned upon than this, I admit.). Disgust isn't a logical, thought out reaction.

It's a single dungeon, and one that can be fixed without removal, just by making it not a default. What is the real reason people are ignoring this? Some kind of implication that any self-censorship, even to be nice to people, is terrible? I'm genuinely baffled.

Your ideas aren't your children. They're just ideas. They're not all great. What is the genuine artistic value of large towering vagina covered flesh abominations? I really want this answer, because this discussion has really just orbited this highly important question.

The crux of this is largely a disgust reaction to the imagery and the lack of choice. I've heard good arguments for the lack of choice. I've never heard what the imagery actually brings to the area, artistically, and I've heard from others, repeatedly, comments that it feels like shock value for its own sake, rather than anything coherent with the game as a whole. I agree, to be honest. It doesn't fit the game.

Everyone has said why people are wrong to want this removed. What is right about wanting it to stay? Especially as the only option?

[darkgod]

T4 is more than just gameplay (although it is obviously the primary objective), it is also a story and a world.
This zone is extremely important in that aspect: it shows how terrible the fate of orcs is, how desperate they are to have to sink so low to survive.
It shows they are not all monsters, the guy that created it says he is repelled by what he did.
For what you know and what the orcs you meet know: orcs are thus a dying race.

[Grey]

Players drown townspeople.

Yet they don't moan about that. Why do they moan about the Breeding Pits? Is it just the disgusting text?

Will giving terrified messages and disgusting detail to the townspeople's deaths help matters? ;)

It's a single dungeon, and one that can be fixed without removal, just by making it not a default.

How do you mean making it not a default? If all rewards are removed, and it is introduced by a dialogue that makes it more clearly optional, would that be sufficient? The dialogue could be as simple as "explore the zone yourself" vs "report it to Aeryn", with a very minor reward from Aeryn for the information.

Your ideas aren't your children. They're just ideas. They're not all great. What is the genuine artistic value of large towering vagina covered flesh abominations? I really want this answer, because this discussion has really just orbited this highly important question.

Story-wise the zone is an important element of the orc backstory, which is one of desperation after continued oppression by the other races. The whole history of the orcs builds up to this great fall for them, their society left warped and their very biology pushed to abomination. They have become in a way an evil, monstrous race, a dark shadow of what they were, but they were shaped by those that pushed them into this corner.

For the player's story it also gives the ability to commit genocide, which is meant to be an uncomfortable act. If the greatmothers were just vines or something then it really wouldn't have the same uncomfortable feeling. The fact that they are a mix of atrocity, horror, victimhood and vulnerability all adds to the murkiness of the morality behind the player's actions. When the achievement pops up saying "Genocide" you're meant to be feeling a bit sick with yourself. This is by design.

I don't agree that this doesn't fit in with the game. I think there are many parts that follow similar themes, giving the player uneasy choices. The whole Zigur vs anti-magic thing being a prime example, with a few horrific things in the lore surrounding that side of culture.

Plus there is the whole idea that the player must be a murderous psychopath to carry out the acts he/she goes through with. Most other fantasy games ignore this element of their protagonists.

[Grakor456]

I'm (morbidly) curious... Would we have the same reaction to this sort of... Location if it were Human, Halfling or any other "good" race? Or is it just that Orcs are "evil" from what limited scope we have.

To sort of add on to the whole discussion as to why having the Pits adds to the game's story, I want to answer this. I think that the orcs being "evil" doesn't matter here...in fact, it's the fact that they're not evil that makes the zone work story-wise. If the orcs were "always chaotic evil" monsters, depicting the slaughter of their children would just be shock value and nothing more.

When I first encountered the Breeding Pits, I was rather impressed by the writing in the lore. It does something that's near impossible to do. On the one hand, it's the first glimpse most players are to see that the orcs aren't monsters, that they're simply people forced to extreme acts of desperation. On the other hand, it also provides that moral paradox, the implication that killing the mothers may be what they really want. It humanizes the orcs and yet also provides some small justification for what the player is about to do at the same time. I can't imagine being able to do that in any other way. Without the zone, the orcs would just be simple thugs that no one would feel sorry about slaughtering.

If there is any weakness in the story, it's the current inability to side or sympathize with the orcs. But the PC isn't exactly a grand hero anyway, seeing as almost everything he/she does is motivated by personal greed, if you go by the journal entries.

[SageAcrin]

T4 is more than just gameplay (although it is obviously the primary objective), it is also a story and a world.
This zone is extremely important in that aspect: it shows how terrible the fate of orcs is, how desperate they are to have to sink so low to survive.
It shows they are not all monsters, the guy that created it says he is repelled by what he did.
For what you know and what the orcs you meet know: orcs are thus a dying race.

That's true, but this can be illustrated without grotesque imagery pretty easily.

An example of the imagery being in character to me is Zigur, which is very classic torture imagery used by inquisitions; It fits perfectly.

Here? It's not necessary. There's a wide variety of horrible, desperate concepts that can be used that could be distorting the Orcs racially or be extremely immoral.

Or even a more subtle form of immorality specific to the Orcs. The Orcs place a large amount of tribal emphasis on battle, for example; Any answer they felt that was weakening their race, physically or in their emotional strength, would be seen as a terrible horror, while, well, not grossing out the player. (This is kinda a sissy option to me, I admit; I prefer something more visceral myself, even if the extreme of the Birth Pits strikes me as vaguely tacky.)

Yet they don't moan about that. Why do they moan about the Breeding Pits? Is it just the disgusting text?

I am not going to pay attention to you if you keep saying "they shouldn't be offended". They are.

Saying they shouldn't be fixes absolutely nothing and honestly makes you callous and cold to the fact that a good game is getting hurt in their eyes by it. This is such a small part of the game, and it's hurting it enough so that people seriously have major reactions over it.

How do you mean making it not a default? If all rewards are removed, and it is introduced by a dialogue that makes it more clearly optional, would that be sufficient? The dialogue could be as simple as "explore the zone yourself" vs "report it to Aeryn", with a very minor reward from Aeryn for the information.

The problem is that it's there. There's no amount of explaining to a player that a zone is useless that will keep them from exploring things that are there. They assume they're there to be explored.

Story-wise the zone is an important element of the orc backstory, which is one of desperation after continued oppression by the other races. The whole history of the orcs builds up to this great fall for them, their society left warped and their very biology pushed to abomination. They have become in a way an evil, monstrous race, a dark shadow of what they were, but they were shaped by those that pushed them into this corner.

For the player's story it also gives the ability to commit genocide, which is meant to be an uncomfortable act. If the greatmothers were just vines or something then it really wouldn't have the same uncomfortable feeling. The fact that they are a mix of atrocity, horror, victimhood and vulnerability all adds to the murkiness of the morality behind the player's actions. When the achievement pops up saying "Genocide" you're meant to be feeling a bit sick with yourself. This is by design.

So basically you're saying it has to be a specific kind of icky in order to give it the kick needed?

That sounds poorly designed and written, then. Somehow, you're not conveying the proper impact of the zone.

If you can't get by on murdering the young of a race and killing their ability to stay alive, something is outright wrong with how the area is designed, that it requires vagina blobs to have any impact. It implies that writing mistakes have been made, and that any impact it has is more disgust than emotional. That people are more bothered by the "disgusting" element than the fact that they just ended a race.

Which, to be honest, was my impact when running the area, now that you mention it. The Orcs are largely portrayed as evil, not desperate, because you don't get enough of one side of the story(the Orcs) to change that. Orc lore is relatively a minor part of the game, and there's nothing much that portrays them as decent-and what is there still portrays their racism against other races as a necessary evil to destroy.

Basically, at the best of times the Orcs are portrayed on the moral level of Nazis. That's not a great way to make the player, who is probably not taking the plot incredibly seriously, think in terms of how horrible killing them and preventing more from coming about. (It probably ought to be, but again; Player not taking the plot seriously.)

The Pits are trying to simultaniously portray the Orcs as formerly decent, currently terrible, and trying to make you feel bad about killing the currently terrible ones, without giving you any real feel of the former decency or any particular reason to care. There's no standout Orcs that make you want to care about their race, or great works they do, or even many logical actions.

As mentioned, my reaction to the area was just disgust. Now that you have me analyzing it, I really see why. "Orcs as morally grey" basically falls terribly flat, and all I got out of it was random vagina covered women being drugged into popping out tons of babies. Which, thinking on it, in and of its self undercuts the "morally grey" part since there's no actual countering Orc actions in any lore, ever. There's nothing Orcs have done that can be said to be morally positive in any of the lore I can recall, merely grey(warfare in which neither side is really portrayed as good/bad, as happens with wars), or horrible.

It would actually have more impact to mow down a bunch of children that were apparently enjoying themselves, instead of mowing down rabid, feral beast-like Orc babies, and it would have more impact if you were killing mindless constructions than abominations that are suffering for what they've been put through-the latter just makes you think you're doing a good thing.

Basically, what I actually get out of the various lore is "Orcs were pushed to being evil because they were already pretty much jerks. No surprise here. Also, this area is disgusting.". You don't feel like you're destroying them, you feel like they're destroying themselves. Again; This largely implies that it's not well written, as this is apparently nowhere near the desired feeling.

[Doctornull]

Just to chime in, I started this thread because it looks to me like the current Breeding Pits are costing ToME sales. People say they would like to recommend the game to their kids or their friends who have kids, but they can't because it's got this specific disgusting thing in it.

I've had the experience of chatting with interesting people on line, then they find the Breeding Pits, then after a week or so they stop playing. Most of these people have self-identified as female, but my sample size is small, and it sounds like dudes also find the pits to be disgusting.

Note that people don't dislike the other dark, nasty elements of the game, like betraying escorts -- that betrayal is arguably much darker, but not disgusting at all, and thus it does a much better job of conveying Eyal's conflict and the player's moral role in that conflict.

(In that vein, I'd like a way to betray an Anti-Magic escort as a Mage.)

I'm starting to have a real problem with this discussion, in that the whole gameplay focus is being focused on(which I do enjoy admittedly), and the point that no amount of "don't go in here" will actually make someone not go in some place in a Roguelike is being ignored.

Absolutely agree, especially in this game, which sends really mixed messages as warnings (e.g.: "The Heart of the Sandworm Queen. You could eat it if you were mad enough.", or how the warnings on Dreadfell vaults are the same as the warnings on Old Forest vaults).

Nobody is going to know if they should take any particular warning seriously until they've got experience with what's behind that warning, and at that point it's way too late.

Why do they moan about the Breeding Pits? Is it just the disgusting text?

Will giving terrified messages and disgusting detail to the townspeople's deaths help matters?

Doubling down never helps, so no.

Story-wise the zone is an important element of the orc backstory, which is one of desperation after continued oppression by the other races. The whole history of the orcs builds up to this great fall for them, their society left warped and their very biology pushed to abomination. They have become in a way an evil, monstrous race, a dark shadow of what they were, but they were shaped by those that pushed them into this corner.

Let's figure out how to keep that story element. In this thread alone, we've got four solid ways to keep the desperation and dark tone, but without the puerile gross-out contest. Let's talk about which of those four is the best replacement, or what else could be a replacement.

1/ Pod People - it's a classic, everyone should associate Pod People with evil alien things.

2/ Crystal Skeleton Things - they don't teleport like the other Blight crystal things but otherwise it sounds decent.

3/ Necrotic Filth Vats - might overlap too much with Rak'shor?

4/ Chronomancy Abuse - what I can see looks pretty original, but needs more details.

[jotwebe]

http://satwcomic.com/anything-but-that

So basically you're saying it has to be a specific kind of icky in order to give it the kick needed?

That sounds poorly designed and written, then. Somehow, you're not conveying the proper impact of the zone.

For me the specific kind of icky interacts with the moral ickyness weird and interestesting ways. The orcs are driven to desperate measures to propagate and replenish their people - makes them more relatable. On the other hand, those measures degrade their females and are icky - less relatable. Other other hand their being so disgusting makes killing them easier and anyway, isn't it a mercy, and shouldn't the orcs be exterminated for doing something like this? On the other other other hand, ...

I feel that putting this down with a simple "juvenile" and "GRRM-grimdark" is doing it a disservice. (as an aside, GRRM in my opinion gets unfairly dissed by people who don't seem to get that the grimdark there has a purpose, perhaps due to imitators that equally don't get it but happen to like it)

Still, if it's really such a problem, I think the descriptions could be toned down somewhat, like loosing the vulvae but keeping a bit of birth-machine body horror might remove a lot of objections, but still keep the general feel.

[Grakor456]

1/ Pod People - it's a classic, everyone should associate Pod People with evil alien things.

2/ Crystal Skeleton Things - they don't teleport like the other Blight crystal things but otherwise it sounds decent.

3/ Necrotic Filth Vats - might overlap too much with Rak'shor?

4/ Chronomancy Abuse - what I can see looks pretty original, but needs more details.

Assuming for a moment that I actually agreed with the idea that the area needs to be changed, I personally believe all four of these ideas are poor. The way I see it, the Breeding Pits attempts two things, and any alternative should also accomplish those goals:

1. Make the orcs sympathetic by portraying them as a desperate people forced to commit dark acts for sheer survival.

2. Horrify the player and make him/her feel uncomfortable for what he/she is doing in the zone.

(Edit: My opinion, of course. That's just how I personally interpret the zone.)

All four of these ideas compromise one of those two stated goals. "Pod people" fails exactly for the reason described: it's a horror classic, but orcs are not evil alien things and portraying them as such de-humanizes them. Making them crystal growths does the exact same, and makes the player less uncomfortable with killing everything there. The idea of vats has essentially the same issues as making them pod people. Chronomancy abuse makes the majority of the enemies within the zone combat-capable lore-wise, which makes the player less uncomfortable about killing everything inside.

There's already an issue with the zone that I don't think needs to be made worse. If, as the post above the quoted one suggests, the orcs still aren't being portrayed sympathetically enough, then the answer should be to find ways (perhaps outside of this zone) to make them more likable and sympathetic. De-humanizing them is the exact opposite direction this needs to go for that to work.

[Mewtarthio]

Just to chime in, I started this thread because it looks to me like the current Breeding Pits are costing ToME sales. People say they would like to recommend the game to their kids or their friends who have kids, but they can't because it's got this specific disgusting thing in it.

I wouldn't recommend the game to kids even without the Breeding Pits. It's still got the Melinda quest, the Dreadfell uniques, torture and mutilation in the Spellhunt lores, and plenty of other dark places. The Breeding Pits may be the darkest part of the game, but it's not like the game's family-friendly outside of them.

If, as the post above the quoted one suggests, the orcs still aren't being portrayed sympathetically enough, then the answer should be to find ways (perhaps outside of this zone) to make them more likable and sympathetic.

As a side note, I'm not sure how the orcs aren't being shown as somewhat sympathetic. The orcish history lores indicate that orc society was actually very egalitarian compared to other cultures. Sure, they're aggressive and militaristic, but so were the halflings, and nobody complains about them being unsympathetic villains. Is it just that orcs aren't playable? In that case, the upcoming orc campaign may shake things up a bit.

[Doctornull]

I wouldn't recommend the game to kids even without the Breeding Pits. It's still got the Melinda quest, the Dreadfell uniques, torture and mutilation in the Spellhunt lores, and plenty of other dark places. The Breeding Pits may be the darkest part of the game, but it's not like the game's family-friendly outside of them.

IMHO all the stuff you mention is dark but in a good, fun way.

The people in the SA thread highlighted the Pits as pretty much the only thing which was preventing them from recommending the game to others, so it's not hypothetical. People really don't like the Pits.

[Grey]

I am not going to pay attention to you if you keep saying "they shouldn't be offended". They are.

I've never said they shouldn't be offended. But I'm trying to clarify what it is that's offensive. Is it just the descriptions of the greatmothers? Is it the child-killing? The whole zone? And are things offensive or just disgusting? What's just icky and what's outright wrong? Some people are saying different things, which makes it hard to know what changes will actually help. If we can do a few tweaks to make the zone more palatable then great.

So basically you're saying it has to be a specific kind of icky in order to give it the kick needed?

That sounds poorly designed and written, then. Somehow, you're not conveying the proper impact of the zone.

If you can't get by on murdering the young of a race and killing their ability to stay alive, something is outright wrong with how the area is designed, that it requires vagina blobs to have any impact. It implies that writing mistakes have been made, and that any impact it has is more disgust than emotional. That people are more bothered by the "disgusting" element than the fact that they just ended a race.

You can read a scroll of genocide in Nethack and not care. It's really not a big deal for the player to be killing all sorts of creatures throughout the game - why should they care now? The whole zone would be really uninteresting in terms of both story and moral message if it was just some soulless breeding vats or clone factory. It would have no impact on players whatsoever. People would complete the area without even thinking. The fact that people are reacting to the zone is a good thing. If we can tweak it to make people react without hating the game then that would be better ;)

The Pits are trying to simultaniously portray the Orcs as formerly decent, currently terrible, and trying to make you feel bad about killing the currently terrible ones, without giving you any real feel of the former decency or any particular reason to care. There's no standout Orcs that make you want to care about their race, or great works they do, or even many logical actions.

Players have been crying out for a chance to play the orcs since before the Pits existed. The Garkul lore in particular has made many emphasise with them. If anything they're the race with the most character and the most history. I wouldn't call them "decent", mind, no more than the other races.

Also, this is one stage in orc history. It's part of their set-up for apotheosis in the expansion.

There's nothing Orcs have done that can be said to be morally positive in any of the lore I can recall, merely grey(warfare in which neither side is really portrayed as good/bad, as happens with wars), or horrible.

The orcs are the same as the other races. They have their own heroes, but of course as a race they're very selfish. About the only person that comes across as "good" in all the lore is Linaniil.

It would actually have more impact to mow down a bunch of children that were apparently enjoying themselves

DarkGod hasn't implemented the Zigur orphanage I suggested :(

and it would have more impact if you were killing mindless constructions than abominations that are suffering for what they've been put through-the latter just makes you think you're doing a good thing.

Well, yes, that's really part of the point. When I say it's morally grey I mean more than just it being between good and bad - it's outright unclear and contradictory. In killing the orc mothers you are exercising both pity and hatred. It's this personal pity that is missing from alternatives to the zone.

You don't feel like you're destroying them, you feel like they're destroying themselves.

Also intentional. You complain it's badly written, yet you're saying exactly what fits in with the vision behind the zone. And you're analysing the orc race in far more detail than any of the other races in the game. This is all very positive from my perspective! This one zone brings more to the orc race than the whole game brings to any of the other races.

Just to chime in, I started this thread because it looks to me like the current Breeding Pits are costing ToME sales.

Well, this is a free gig for me, but DarkGod may care about that ;) But if you permit me a moment of pretentiousness, I don't think art should be influenced by sales. To remove a controversial element purely for commercial purposes seems wrong.

People say they would like to recommend the game to their kids or their friends who have kids, but they can't because it's got this specific disgusting thing in it.

Well... fine? As a game I wouldn't recommend this game to kids - it needs some maturity to play. But if kids found it on their own I don't think they'd be seriously affected by it. I'm fairly sure a lot of the terminology wouldn't be understood! I mean it's the text that's being complained about here, we're not actually showing cut-scenes of horrific sights.

And why can't it be played by friends who have kids? Do these friends forgo all grown up books and movies?

I get that some people don't like the zone, but the kids angle is a weird one.

I've had the experience of chatting with interesting people on line, then they find the Breeding Pits, then after a week or so they stop playing. Most of these people have self-identified as female, but my sample size is small, and it sounds like dudes also find the pits to be disgusting.

Interesting - I've only seen guys disgusted. Initially I thought maybe it was too much vulva for some blokes to handle. The word "vulva" can do that. My girlfriend's unfazed by it, but she's a nurse, few biological things upset her ;)

Anyway, I wouldn't mind hearing more feedback on this. I've suggested to DarkGod that the zone be changed into an encounter with a paladin with the following dialogue options:

1: I will go myself and ensure this is thoroughly dealt with.
2: I cannot do this myself... I will tell Aeryn about it, it is in her hands.
3: You want me to kill mothers and children? This is barbaric, I'll have nothing to do with it!

I think this removes all subtlety and spoils the whole effect, but it may hit people over the head a bit more with the idea of it being a moral choice.

[Grey]

IMHO all the stuff you mention is dark but in a good, fun way.

Melinda, naked and abused, lying on an altar (with a graphical picture!) as the seed of a demon is about to be burst from her flesh... is good and fun? I'm not saying I object to the encounter (I did write it after all) but I wouldn't say it's good and fun.

[Doctornull]

IMHO all the stuff you mention is dark but in a good, fun way.

Melinda, naked and abused, lying on an altar (with a graphical picture!) as the seed of a demon is about to be burst from her flesh... is good and fun? I'm not saying I object to the encounter (I did write it after all) but I wouldn't say it's good and fun.

Compared to descriptions of mucus dripping out of a hundred unwashed vaginas, and clicking "stab" on a picture of a baby?

Yes: the Melinda quest, relative to shit like that, is good clean fun.

[Grakor456]

Melinda, naked and abused, lying on an altar (with a graphical picture!) as the seed of a demon is about to be burst from her flesh... is good and fun? I'm not saying I object to the encounter (I did write it after all) but I wouldn't say it's good and fun.

There's also going into a graveyard to murder a pregnant woman (who may happen to be a necromancer, but otherwise doesn't seem to be harming anyone.)

[Grey]

There's also going into a graveyard to murder a pregnant woman (who may happen to be a necromancer, but otherwise doesn't seem to be harming anyone.)

Ah. Yes. That was my idea too. Guess I don't do the light-hearted stuff much? :-/ Apart from the Trollmire poem :)