The Sanctum

Apologies in advance for my absence from the blog! I’m very grateful for the increase in posts recently, and for all of your attention and thoughtful comments on the modules. I do want to reply to more of those comments soon, but I’ll probably need a few more days before I can get time to do that properly. Work will be busy for me for the rest of the month, and I’ve been spending all my spare time trying to finish up the Sanctum 1 upgrade.

As for the upgrade: that’s now officially gotten "out of control" (my wife’s words) and turned into a pretty substantial makeover. That’s happened for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that I’ve got a year’s worth of ideas, player suggestions, and improved knowledge about modding to work with. I keep wanting to include all of those ideas, and since I’d like this to be the final update to Sanctum 1, this is the time to make them. So here’s another brief (and non-exhaustive) report on my progress:

• I’ve updated Robin and Orion to use their improved blueprints from Sanctum 2, including Robin’s single class of Rogue. This should make them a little more effective in combat, and relieve most of the pressure on players to take (possibly non-primary) thief skills.
• I’ve moderated the combat balance a little, and also added and tested an option to make the combat even easier still for players who prefer that.
• I’ve redesigned the "picnic swim" cutscene to be more elaborate, and to make use of some features that I also used in Sanctum 2.
• I’m making great use of the features of a new tileset that I added for Len’s Lab, the Secure Area, and the Master Control Room, each of which (along with the lower level of the ruins) has now been rebuilt from scratch. And I added a new twist to make the "repair operation" a bit more interesting and elaborate.
• I’ve also decided to rather significantly expand on the functions of the "Holo-Theater." I’ll won’t say any more now, except that this is what I’m currently working on, and it involves several new areas and encounters.

Comments (6)

In the comments to my last blog post, Wynele brought up a number of very good points about the RP and romance options in Sanctum 1 – some of which raise questions that I’d like to get feedback from players on. WARNING: SPOILERS for both Sanctum modules follow.

Wynele wrote: "The PC passiveness. I’d like to see the PC cave a little less to Robin. I know for story reasons, the two must get along-but even the best of friends want to choke each other out from time to time…

"Some instances I recall off hand. The soul drinker… If you take the violent option (which I though was amusing and in lines with what a rowdy BFF would say) Robin gets angry to put it lightly… The "High handed bitch" remark should probably earn Robin an equally insulting retort. (or a good thwap to the back of the head considering he’s being foolish)"

I was surprised by this comment at first, and only partly because I disagree that Robin is being foolish in that scene. (Neither of you know what getting the venom in your mouth will do to you, and Robin wants a practical reason to agree to your taking that risk.) But I do think there is something to Wynele’s general point here: that the romances are generally written to encourage kindness rather than confrontation. Given the sometimes frustrating complexity of Robin’s romance in particular, that may not always be appropriate. And Wynele’s observation has already given me some ideas about how to address that, including how to improve that conversation in particular. Thanks!

However, after thinking about it, I realized that there’s probably more going on here, something that’s related to the difference between the male and female versions of the module. Sanctum 1 was originally written with Robin as a female character only. When I developed the alternative version last year, I pretty much copied the dialogue over verbatim, except for things like pronoun changes and a few edits for lines that obviously didn’t make sense when spoken to or by a male Robin. I was very interested in feedback from players on whether some of male Robin’s dialogue might not have worked well without some more extensive re-writing, but until now I haven’t seen or received anything to indicate that this was needed.

Now I’m not so sure. To see why, try putting the line that Wynele mentioned back in its original context: as a threat of violence spoken by a male PC to a female Robin who has just been fatally poisoned. Perhaps it’s more my own sense of chivalry than anything else, but I felt that warranted a harsh response – which was later inherited by the male Robin version of the module. Now I’m wondering if I shouldn’t have just re-written this exchange differently for a male Robin. I took more cognizance of issues like this when I wrote Sanctum 2, since the dialogue there was developed with the fact that it had to work for both Robins already in mind. (For example, that’s why Prince Robin only yells at and humiliates the female courtier who kisses him without asking, while Princess Robin actually breaks the arm of the male courtier who does this.)

So now I’m thinking that a more extensive editing and re-writing pass through the Sanctum 1 dialogue may be warranted, to take more subtle nuances of this kind into account. And in line with this, I wanted to pose two questions. First, do players agree that this may be needed? And second, does anyone have suggestions about other exchanges to revisit?

Thanks in advance for any feedback –

Andarian

Comments (10)