More Disco Elysium!

[asakiyume]

I had a good ol' time with another session of Disco Elysium--and have now hit a wall (died twice in quick succession) and realize I'm going to have to start doing Real Video Game Things^TM like reading advice on Reddit and jiggering my stats, and [whiny voice] .... whhhhyyyyyy... I was enjoying this so much as a choose-your-own-adventure where I couldn't do anything wrong but now I have to pay attention to stuff like [air quotes] "health" and "morale"? (Though I was quite pleased to have improved my morale by speaking consolingly to a postbox--SOMETHING I WOULD DO ANYWAY.)

Anyway, these moments cracked me up (first and third)/ gave me pause (second one)

Empathy


Nice takedown of the notion that because you're *feeling* empathetic, you actually *are* empathic. Not so! Not only could you just be wrong in your intuition about what's going on with the person (something that once happened to me IRL with a kind of sitcom hilarity), but, as here, you may be completely lacking in insight on how to address the situation.

Second Racist


The first racist you meet is a standard white European-style racist with a French accent. This guy, your second racist, seems, IDK, sort of Central Asian/Turkic in character. ... It was interesting to me to see a different flavor of racism from the one I'm most used to. Not that I didn't know other flavors existed--you don't spend years in Japan without knowing that other flavors of racism exist--but I don't see them much. Points for inclusivity, Disco Elysium! Of diverse racisms!

... But also, I had sympathy for "to serve is noble," and "petulant individualism" made me grin.

NOTE: The retort in white (number 1) isn't the one I chose; I picked one of the replies in red. Guess which.

Your character asks your partner what he thinks of all this, and the answer cracked me up:

Kim's Assessment


But I need to have a consult with the healing angel and her significant other if I am ever to reach the Third Racist.

Comments

Re: The Truth About Truth

[missroserose]

If you will forgive a very slight spoiler, because it's one of my favorite moments and you've already passed it: there's an invisible check against your...reaction speed? I think? that happens after that last exchange. If you pass it, you respond "It will be our lucky racist!" And Kim, with his usual delightful deadpan, agrees, "He will grant us three wishes." I think I caught that one on my third play-through and I about died laughing.

Also, speaking of morale woes: there's a point in the game you may or may not have encountered yet where you're sitting on a particularly awful chair, and you take a hit at one point due to it. One of my favorite reviews of the game that's been floating around social media in screenshot form: "Died because a chair was uncomfy. 10/10."

Re: The Truth About Truth

[asakiyume]

Oh damn, I am so sorry I missed that! That IS hilarious!

I saw on reddit about the chair. Also that I had to pay to sleep inside on night two. Also that I can only cross to the other side of this body of water on a Wednesday. [whiny voice again] It's haaaaaard. [But I will manage. With a little help from the healing angel. The thing is, I feel like I felt in D&D when I played at age 13, and I had been stuck as a fighter because that's what the party needed, but I stubbornly wanted to increase stats as if I were a cleric, and they were like NO. YOU NEED MORE STRENGTH, and I was like, I want more CHARISMA ... like I can tell I am going to have to sacrifice some of my lovely inland empire in order to get stats that will let me not keep dying here. Plus to be able to see more stuff, etc.

Re: The Truth About Truth

[missroserose]

Hrmm. The tradeoffs are real, but honestly not as zero-sum as they might seem at first. The game is structured to discourage minmaxxing initially, but once you've achieved a certain level of basic competency, you can specialize pretty heavily. Plus there are so many choices/conversational paths that come down to random chance (viz. the exchange I quoted above); your stat choices have some effect on what's more likely to come up but you can play again with identical stats and still have to find alternate means of solving the same problems. I guess my point is, don't worry too much about missing out, because there's literally no way to see it all on one playthrough, and also you'll have more choice as to where to put your points as the game progresses.

I'm so glad you're doing the Intuitive build. For my money, that's the best one—Inland Empire and Conceptualization are my favorite stats in the game. Fun fact, though: if you put too many points into one skill, the game starts penalizing you for it. At one point I think I managed to put seven or eight points into Conceptualization, and I started having these random and wild thoughts about the artistic potential of the world around me—which was cool, except they started adding negative modifiers to skill checks, because I was too distracted by trying to invent neo-modern futurism to pay attention to the conversation I was having at the time 😂

Re: The Truth About Truth

[asakiyume]

Awww, I love a game that's entertaining even as it's penalizing you!

Yeah, I can see that about alternate routes. My encyclopedia scoffed at my attempt to come up with any information about the statue, but then the guys playing boules told me everything I could want to know, so take THAT encyclopedia.

But I'm so dumb. It took me until playing yesterday to realize I needed to right-click on money to pick it up.

Re: The Truth About Truth

[missroserose]

DROPPED COIN — The tarnish and grime of the street can't quite hide the glitter of silver. Cash! Visions of all the things cash can buy you bloom in your mind. Food. Shelter. Sweet, sweet alcohol. Other things, that swim half-shadowed beneath the lights but loom large in your subconscious.

YOU — Pick up coin.

INTERFACING [Trivial: Failure] — Hmm. The coin is there, your hand is there, and yet—you cannot seem to quite connect the one with the other. The coin fumbles from your sausage-fingers to continue lying in the street, its glitter now closer to an insouciant wink. You mutter an imprecation before reaching again, only for your fingers to once again fail to grasp it, causing your words to increase in volume.

YOU — "Goddamn piece of mother-loving—"

INTERFACING — Your illiquid syllables of frustration have attracted the attention of the lieutenant. He adjusts his glasses slightly, taking in the tableau. "Harry—"

YOU — "—worthless sonuva—"

KIM — "Harry!"

INTERFACING — You look up.

KIM — "It's glued to the street."

Re: The Truth About Truth

[asakiyume]

its glitter now closer to an insouciant wink

--God I love this game!

Re: The Truth About Truth

[missroserose]

I will take that as a high compliment to my writing 🌹

Re: The Truth About Truth

[asakiyume]

Oh that was you!!

VERY good, very good--I thought you were quoting the game!

[osprey_archer]

I bet your jam was the mysterious *fourth* thing.

Also, yeah! to your first comment. I've definitely noticed a correlation between people who plume themselves on their empathy and people who fail at actually empathy (instead of just ~feeling empathetic) because they struggle to take in information that suggests their empathetic ~feeling is wrong. Maybe because getting it wrong the first time is a blow to their self-image as an empath?

[asakiyume]

Ahahaha, you know me too well. Probably everyone does. I'm a pretty open book. (Plus, it's obviously the most appealing choice, no? Though the pro-communism one also called to me...)

[asakiyume]

Also, re: empathy, it's always reminded me of when people are so sure they know the will of God. Yeah??? Really?? You're sure you're not just, y'know, imagining it? At least with other people there's no question of whether or not the other person exists (well, I guess in some philosophies, Horatio, but let's put those aside). But isn't empathy just a strong imagination? But it's always *your* imagination, limited by your experiences, etc.

[sovay]

(Though I was quite pleased to have improved my morale by speaking consolingly to a postbox--SOMETHING I WOULD DO ANYWAY.)

Pity the poor little pillar box!

(I hope your jam is the mysterious fourth thing.)

[asakiyume]

OMG I **BET** this is what the game was referencing with that incident! Love it. Thank you!

(And yes, it was.)

[sovay]

Love it. Thank you!

You're welcome! It is one of my favorite lesser-known Flanders and Swann. It gets stuck in my head often when I have to mail bills.

(Hooray!)

[amaebi]

Ah, thanks. I was betting on either mysterious fourth thing or Enough of this.

[asakiyume]

^_^

I almost never choose enough of this (or equivalent closers) because I'm always curious how the person I'm talking to will react to the various conversational gambits--I never want to close things off too soon.

[amaebi]

In life, someone who's saying villainous things may turn out to have depths and complexities and internal conflicts and good spots. In games-- not in my experience.

[asakiyume]

I have no experience of other games, but in this one, as people talk, you learn more about the world, and since you're an amnesiac with no native memory, every little bit helps. Like, I didn't have enough "encyclopedia" skills (one of your suite of skills) to know the background of a statue, but by talking to some guys, I found out all about it.

With Measurehead, I'm interested in the stuff he's saying that's separable from the racism--like the stuff about the nobility of service. (I know that's an outlook that's highly abusable and abused, but I like conceptions of it that don't involve exploitation--I feel like they exist, and I admire them.) And as I say, the expression "petulant individualism" made me laugh.

[amaebi]

Here's what's wildly stupid about me: it was only after I had posted that and was succeeding in getting myself out of the flat to run errands that I realized I had been thinking, thus talking, about this in terms of real-life communication with those sorts of people-- not game play! :D

In games, I try to exhaust every spec of information or supplies. In life, I'm so tired of some conversations I've got horribly familiar with, and have ceased to feel like being polite about it.

This game sounds fun. Though obviously I haven't gamed for years and very seldom have much.

[asakiyume]

That makes so much sense! I totally get it.

The game is very fun!

[noachoc]

What sort of game is this? I am intrigued.

[asakiyume]

The internet calls it a noir detective RPG. (Wikipedia calls it a "non-traditional RPG with very little combat.") I have literally not played any kind of video game in 30 years, so I can't really say for sure. I suggest reading raven's entry here, which will give you a feel for the kind of thing it is.

You press tab to highlight things and people you can interact with, and then you interact with them, ostensibly to solve a murder (and probably in the course of it to get your memory back), but really you're just coming to know this postwar city, with all its decrepitude, all its rival groups, etc. It's very engaging, smart, and *funny.*

[smokingboot]

I have never heard of this game and now may have to buy it for my brother - sounds like it's definitely his jam!

[asakiyume]

If it seems like even remotely his thing, then I definitely would! It's great fun.