Day 91 - Daggerfall Character Creator (Unity Version)
WTF, Mad Libs, Nightmare Fuel ·
Sam’s Take:
I requested that we review this mostly because I just need to talk to someone about it. I’ve never seen a character creator with more going on than in daggerfall. I don’t even know if that’s a good thing, this isn’t a value judgment. I just need you all to imagine that you booted up daggerfall, chose your race, your gender, clicked custom class, then were presented with this:
Alright, let’s break this shit down. First, this is 1996, so people were actually reading the manuals. After scrolling past 8 pages of lore and royal family ancestry diagrams, we finally get to character generation.
So let’s start here:
Okay this isn’t too bad, we can figure this out. Strength is punch stuff, Int is mana pool, Willpower is… different magic stuff, Agility is hit chance, Speed is move speed, endurance is HP, Personality is how charming you are and luck is a complete mystery.
Alright, so we can set up our stats for our class… but then what are these?
Okay, this is doable, we’ve seen this before, we’re just choosing our preferred skills. Wait why are there so many slots, how many skills are-
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! Okay okay, that’s cool and fine, we can handle this. It’s just a list of things. We’ll just read the five pages of skill descriptions in the manual and get this all filled in, making sure to at least have some proficiency in “Spriggan”.
Alright, we’re almost there I think, now it’s time for
I can not move this. I do not know what it does. We will come back to this, don’t you worry. Aight next we have:
We can just choose our max hit points per level? Damn seems like we should bump that up…
WAIT, why is the sword higher? Okay so it turns out raising your hp per level and giving yourself advantages and disadvantages changes how quickly you level up. Maxed out and leveling up 3 times slower if you give too many advantages, and 30% of XP needed per level if you give yourself a bunch of disadvantages.
SPEAKING OF ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES!
Want experience in missile weapons?! We got chu
Do you hate Kite Shields with an unexplainable passion? Take the Forbidden Kite Shield disadvantage!
Wanna be scared of humanoids? What does that do? SHUT UP WHO CARES!
WANNA TAKE DAMAGE FROM THE FUCKING SUN YOU GOD DAMN GAMER FUCK?! YOU’D LIKE THAT WOULDN’T YOU, YOU’D LOVE TO ROLEPLAY THE LITTLE RAT BOY THAT YOU ARE YOU FILTHY PIECE OF-
There are like 80 of these. You can be forbidden from any type of armor, get resistance from any element. Each choice affects your XP gains by different amounts.
Finally, you can choose which groups like and hate you personally, I don’t FUCK with peasants OR the nobility.
Great, got all that, did you read the 40 pages of the manual to understand the things you did (jk the manual is 90 pages).
LOOK AT OUR GLORIOUS FUCBOI
So we’re done right?
Oh.
Oh no.
NONONONO!
That wasn’t the CHARACTER. That was just the CLASS.
We still gotta fill out the questionnaire!!!!
We answer a few questions and commit to a life of fame:
THEN THE GAME COMMANDS YOU WITH THE BIGGEST TEXT I’VE EVER SEEN IN MY LIFE:
We do it.
We CHOOSE THY FACE
And then we’re finally done.
Except for the bonus points.
You can roll more points for your stats then save that roll and try again hoping for a better roll. You may ask if you get infinite rolls. The answer is yes. You may ask again, why don’t they just give you a lot of points, since you can roll for as many as you want and then redistribute. I can not answer this for you. Either way, prepare to spam “reroll” until you get the GOD ROLL and can finally move on.
Add a few points to your skills:
Then choose how much of a gamer you are:
Then FINALLY you are done:
I don’t know if this is good. I just needed someone else to know. To see what I’ve seen. Honestly if this looks appealing to you, then you’d probably like Daggerfall. This maximalist “figure it out motherfukcer” mentality is all over the game, from it’s game world the size of England (not a joke), or the fast travel system where you choose your mode of transportation and how often you take breaks.
Daggerfall is made by freaks. It is made for freaks, and you can get it for free(ak). Even if you are not interested, I really recommend downloading it just to poke around this character creator and understand that people wanted this. Some people still do want this.
Dig into their soul. Take damage from the sun.
Recommend: Yes
Replay Percentage Chance: 70%
Time Played: 16 Minutes
Skeeter’s Take:
Sam’s a freak-ass bitch who really likes getting into the nitty-gritty of a character builder. He likes getting down and analyzing this kind of stuff. While I find it interesting, I normally get bored half-way through a character creator if it’s mostly stats. I tend to like the more cosmetic aspect of creating a character. I’ll spend 1 hour building the Commander Shepard face, only to find out he looks absolutely ridiculous in the first cutscene (yes, I will start again and no, I will not apologize).
Instead of a deep analysis in mind, I went into this character creator with one goal: make a human character.
I’m a weirdo and enjoy roleplaying as myself the first time through an RPG. Or rather, I enjoy a hyper-fictional version of myself where I generally try to make the same decisions that I think I would make in that situation. I always end up way cooler than I am, but that’s the fun of an RPG. It’s a power fantasy most of the time. Start from nothing, become God.
So, I figured the closest thing to me would be a human, since I’m human.
I’m only a filthy Skyrim casual, so my lore knowledge doesn’t run very deep. Thankfully, I see something familiar on the first decision of your character:
In Daggerfall, you choose your race based on your “Home Province”. I was already inclined to pick Skyrim, but since they are also Nords, I feel that is probably the closest thing to a human equivalent. Sure, there’s the Bretons and the other nerds (whatever they’re called), but the Nords feel appropriate and also live in Skyrim, so I’m definitely going with that.
After choosing Skyrim. I was prompted to either pick a class, create my own, or take a quiz to determine my class. I opted to create my own class to get me closer to Human:
I even gave myself some very human disadvantages:
That all looks about right for a human. Standard human skills.
After creating my class, I’m prompted to select my background or take a quiz to determine my background. I opted for the quiz this time. I wanted to see how human I could answer!
Here’s some example questions:
Alright, sounds like my human is in high regard with the scholars - pretty cool despite human intelligence being generally on the low end on average.
Finally, we come to the point I’ve been waiting for - the physical aspects of the character creator! Much to my disappointment, in Daggerfall you only get to pick your face:
Wait a second? Why is there a pink alien for my face options? It’s not just one option either, it seems to be all of the face options are just a pink alien? Oh no! This is really going to throw a wrench in my whole “make a human” endeavor. Something must be done about this!
Thankfully, I brought my emergency “Make Human Surgery Kit” by Mattel! It contains everything necessary for a pink alien human transplant!
After a quick patch job, my hands are sweaty, but my build is completed - I am human:
Recommend: I don’t know how the hell I could recommend a character creator, but it seems in depth. I like the “select your home province” for the race selection and I enjoy the option for quiz auto-fill stats even if it’s always going to be less efficient than building your character from scratch. I can confidently say I’m not going to tell anyone “Go play the Daggerfall Character Creator!”, but I might say “That character creator is pretty neat! Needs more dick sliders though!”
Replay Percentage Chance: 50% (If we ever review Daggerfall)
Time Played: 20 minutes
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