The Kingdom Mine - Let's Play Betrayal at Krondor!

Betrayal at Krondor Theme





Introduction, Part 1





Assassin in the Camp




Owyn stumbled back, and as he lost his balance and sprawled on the ground he saw Gorath spread his wrists, catching a descending sword blade on the chain with a sharp ringing sound before the elf twisted the links and sent the weapon skittering into the darkness. The elf struggled with the newcomer, and before Owyn could regain his feet or Locklear draw his blade the prisoner had spun behind his attacker and forced him to his knees.



Shock







As Locklear and Owyn doused the fire and gathered their belongings, Gorath looked for supplies. Feeling a bit like a vulture, he turned the body this way and that as he searched for anything that might be of use to them on their journey. All in all, he supposed that if he were the dead man, it wouldn't matter to him any longer what happened to his belongings.



There wasn't much. The rations were quickly distributed, and the moment Gorath opened the pouch to reveal the glint of lockpicks Locklear stepped forward, his drawn blade leveled at the prisoner while his free hand snatched the pouch. “A friend of mine taught me a few tricks with these,” he said, smiling wryly at the other two, “So I think I'd best hold onto them for now.”

Gorath said nothing, merely looking the disheveled Squire over once before turning his gaze towards the path that led to the King's Highway.

Introduction, Part 2

I never pictured Locklear with a rapestache like that, but I'll admit it doesn't not fit the character.

Gorath just looks wrong, though.

(I'm kind of a big Feist fan. Looking forward to this one.)

Awww yeah

I remember when Sierra gave this game out for free as a promo for a barely related and much inferior sequel. Being 12 and new to video games (doubly so computer rpgs) I didn't get very far. I had plenty of fun nicking myself while applying deadly poisons to my weapons though!

Betrayal at Krondor was fucking hard at the beginning. It is the epitome of Western RPG design. Drop you into a context-rich, wide-open world with very little explanation of what to do or how to do it and let you figure it out on your own.

The rewards were great, once you got over that initial hurdle though. This shit is bringing back some memories. I can still remember the terrible animation as Gorath leaped forward, his manacles making a decidedly unrealistic clanking.

"Alright then, but if you've already been attacked three times, how do you know that keeping to the King's Highway is any better?" Owyn asked, his eyes darting back towards the corpse. "For all you know, there are more like him every few miles all the way from here to Krondor."

Before Locklear could reply, Gorath broke in, his lips twitching in the faintest of smiles. "The boy's right. Also, we've neither enough food for a direct journey nor enough money to purchase it. Even if the direct route was free of danger we would need to take the time to reprovision ourselves."

The squire looked ready to reply sharply for a moment, then sighed instead. "Alright," he muttered, "but what do you suggest? If we double back towards Tyr-Sog and the Inclindel Gap we can head down the eastern side of the Yabon hills, but I'd be very surprised if there weren't more damned moredhel that way, still hot on our trail."

Owyn frowned. "Well, we could continue south for a ways, then cut east towards Hawk's Hollow or Questor's view."

(Decision time, ladies and gentlemen)

Betrayal at Krondor (1993, Dynamix)

Betrayal at Krondor was my introduction not just to PC RPGs, but to RPGs in general. It's based on the Riftwar books by Raymond E. Feist, and because of its heritage (I guess) they decided to try and present the game in a very "literary" way, which dovetails nicely with the somewhat limited graphics of the early 90s. The game is broken into chapters, and the insanely copious "flavor text" is both relatively well-written for the time and all presented in the form of a story. So instead of the "This is a pack of rations. You eat it when you're hungry" -style of description you'd generally get when looking at stuff in most adventure games or even older RPGs, you get something like:



The rest of the game is quite solid, with a turn-based combat system I've always been fond of even if it is a little simple, and some really nice hand-drawn backdrops in places. The biggest problem a lot of people had with it at the time (the fact that there's weapon and armor degradation and repair, and that you need to keep a supply of rations on hand and avoid eating poisoned or spoiled food) is something I actually enjoy, although that's probably not everyone's cup of tea. Anyway, my plan is to try do this LP in as narrative a form as possible in order to match the the text, so we'll see how that goes. I'm going to leave things like "Which route do I go" and "do I do this or that sidequest" up to y'all, as well as any Moredhel word locks and trap-ambushes. Because I know the game pretty well (I've been replaying it about once a year most years since it came out in '93), I'll handle things like which skills to tag and when. The game mechanics are more or less “point-based” rather than level-based, and skills are advanced through use like in the Elder Scrolls games. So yes, this means that if you want to get better at Haggle or Barding relatively quickly, you need to sit around haggling for everything from every merchant and buying and playing practice lutes until they break. I'm not going to describe that sort of grinding, but I'm going to do it unless you specifically want me NOT to and to try a straight run through. It makes the game harder, but it's certainly do-able.

“Sequence-breaking” is similarly rewarding, and I use quotes because you're given very general goals in most chapters and for most of them you can wander around pretty much the entire world map. This means that, in theory, you can get a lot of very good equipment by going to certain areas, assuming you can unlock the chests and survive the combats. Also, since there's a fixed number of combats in the world, and they reset between chapters, you're going to improve your skills more by running around more. However, since it can break the immersion in the narrative, and since chests DON'T respawn like battles, it can render the later chapters a bit boring and straightforward if you take it too far (It's entirely possible to get enough gold to buy nearly the best swords and armor in the game before the end of Ch.1, for example). I usually suggest moderate exploration outside the region of a Chapter's main quest: enough to get a bit more fighting experience and money, but not so much that you're left with thousands more gold than you really need. There are some other places where it's possible to make a serious profit, but we'll go over those when the time comes.

As far as backstory goes, there's a summary of the Riftwar novels in the manual. In an attempt to keep these first posts from getting TOO huge I'm not going to repost it here unless there's massive audience interest. I'll try to work some of the back story into my narrative sections, and those who do want to see their summary can check out the manual on Replacement Docs.

Finally, I've included links to MP3s of the soundtrack much as DeeMer is doing for his Star Tropics LP. I think it adds a great deal to the experience, and it's pretty damn good music too, so I highly recommend you take a listen. Hosting is courtesy of poetfox, and the MP3s themselves started out life as OGGs from Quest Studios (check them out, they're great). I would've just linked to them, but I want you all to be able to listen in-browser, and while most of you probably have something that'll do that for MP3s I didn't think you'd be able to do the same for OGGs.

With all of that established, you have a goal (Get to Krondor) and a map:



Let's Play Betrayal At Krondor, shall we? Unless everyone really wants to see starting stats/spells/items NOW, I'm going to go into those as they come up. I love how text-heavy this game is for a graphical RPG, but the downside of that is that you can become glutted with text and start skipping it all, which would be a shame.

I always pictured Locklear having black hair. There is probably a very thorough description of him that I totally ignored, though.

Pointless trivia: In the novelization Krondor: The Betrayal, Owyn is the son of the Baron of Timons. In the game, I think he's the Count of Tiburn's son. Tiburn is northeast of Krondor, while Timons is southeast, so in the book, Owyn is actually on his way to Krondor and Locklear decides they should band together for a little while. This was probably to get rid of the part where Owyn is threatened to join the party.

Also in the middle and at the end.

I especially remember it for a bit of game design that was about 60% great and 40% frustrating. In the source books, wielding magic is difficult, draining work - few magicians, and nearly none in the part of the world the game's set in, are capable of prolonged magical combat. The game reproduces this faithfully: casting magic firsts drains character stamina (and fast), then after that's gone, it starts draining HP directly. It changes the gameplay quite a bit from your standard RPG setup - any spellcasting has consequences, which adds an interesting level of risk management to combat.

Where it goes wrong is balancing it out. The game maintains several other bog-standard '90s RPG conventions unchanged, including "magic-users are worthless in physical combat" and "lots of enemy encounters". As a result, your spellcaster ends up being dead weight and/or dead meat in most battles with random goons, and with only a three-person party, there's no room for that.

Ohhh, god. I remember that ration icon.

And chests. I remember lots and lots of locked, trapped chests.

Also, as Mazian said, spellcaster died a lot.

Well, really, everyone died a lot. Lots of reloading of saved games...

Music was catchy, though.

Actually, if you play your cards right, your spellcasters can become incredibly potent. It's all about finding the right spells early enough in the game to get your casting accuracy up, and being willing to soak up some damage.

If I haven't gotten many suggestions on which way to go by tomorrow afternoon, I'll go ahead and choose for you. Since this is my first LP, advice is appreciated: Should I be giving people more hints as to what's available where? Should I just go ahead and make the decisions myself for the first chapter?

Hawk's Hollow is closer. Let's see what they've got there!

I am content to have my memory jogged. I want to say "go to LaMut" because I remember spending a lot of time around that city for some reason.

Man I love this game, my brother and I spent hours trying to get the damn thing to work on XP when it was re-released with the book, and we still remember a lot of the word chests (and reference them often).

Giving a few hints is always nice, since it lets people get a general feel of pros and cons of going a certain way.

I'm going to say let's go to LaMut and visit the Tsurani.

All I know is they go to LaMut in the book. I plan on playing alongside the LP anyway, so it's hard for me to decide!

I remember starting this multiple times. I would always go into one cave and get consistently annihilated. Eventually I finally passed (or ignored) it and got to the rest of the game, and it was awesome.

I also actually liked Betrayal at Antara, which used a modernized version of the engine. Although I guess I'm in the minority because they never continued that series.

Oh, this is going to be great... this was one of my first RPG/PC RPG exposures, as well, so I've got a lot of fond memories of this one. (They got less fond when crystals were involved, though...) This game was also my introduction to Raymond E. Feist, so I'd always thought Locklear was supposed to have a moustache. Go figure.

I also liked the weapon sharpening/food ration mechanics: it didn't feel like the game was punishing you, but rather that it rewarded you for remembering to treat your equipment well. All the armour and weapons were standard issue across the world, too: you didn't have any unique weapons to risk losing (at least, I don't remember too many).

Finally, I thought the magic system was pretty solid, actually -- if nothing else, all the spells had cool names like "Fetters of Rime". That's two vocabulary lessons right there!

First stop: Hawk's Hollow. And then: Adventure!

I say we backtrack. Head to Yabon, then to Tyr-Sog, Loriel, and Hawk's Hollow. Get off the King's Highway and take the back route.

((Alright, unfortunately it looks like Ringworm got thoroughly out-voted. If you're reading this and you want me to wait longer next time before calling it one way or the other, by all means speak up here or PM me. South it is.))

After several minutes' deliberation, it was decided. "Alright, we'll strike south for the Garrison of LaMut. If Earl Kasumi can't spare an escort for us, we'll cut east towards Hawk's Hollow and try to slip South to Krondor by that route," Locklear said, giving a short sharp nod. "Before we go, let's make a quick check of the area. If Haseth had any friends about I'd prefer to deal with them before we get moving.

A quick search revealed no further moredhel, but did turn up a small campsite that seemed to have been abandoned for some time.



Several pieces of charred wood and a circle of small stones were all that remained of the small campfire. "Looks like someone lost a box," Locklear said. "Might be worth investigating."





"Well, that's something, at least," Owyn noted as Locklear poured the handful of coins into his purse. "Enough for a few days' rations at the next in." Locklear just grimaced, glaring resentfully at the leather pouch's sadly deflated state. "Check your gear and let's get moving," he muttered, sighing and rolling the purse up so that it wouldn't rattle before shoving it inside his belt.





Their equipment inspected, the three made their way south. The trip was pleasant, or would have been if they had been able to stick to the road. Instead they skirted the hills to the west, slipping between the pines and keeping eyes and ears peeled for signs of pursuit from behind, or ambushers waiting ahead. Still, they made good time, and it was several hours later when the sight of a low rectangular shape just off the road caught Gorath's eye. Following the direction of the dark elf's gaze, Locklear moved forward to inspect the strange chest, and his eyes narrowed as he noted the embossed plate set below a strange set of wheels.



"I've never seen a lock like that before," Owyn murmured, crouching and leaning in to inspect the symbols marked on a series of metal wheels.

Riddles and Locks

"It's a wordlock," Gorath said. "The chest is spelled against picks, probes, and most simple opening cantrips, and so only by using those wheels to spell out the proper word can the lock be opened. Delekhan's agents have scattered chests like these throughout the kingdom, and since few of your kind can read or speak moredhel they're used as a secure way to pass goods and information back and forth."

"What's this say, then?" Locklear asked, rapping the plate below the combination lock with a knuckle.

"It's a riddle, to help the couriers remember the words," Gorath said, then snorted in disgust. "Idiocy, but there are enough of my people moving about in the Kingdom proper by now that there cannot help but be some idiots among them. Still, it may be that their idiocy is our good fortune..."




((Since this one's ridiculously easy and is basically the "Demo" Wordlock, I'm solving it immediately, but from here on out whenever I come to one, I'm pausing until someone on this thread guesses it.))

Locklear finished examining the armor, then tossed it to Owyn. The mage grunted under the impact, staggering a little.

"You can't be serious..." he said, eying it dubiously.

"Dead serious," Locklear replied. "I'll show you how to fasten it. It's not much, but it's better than nothing, and since I already said we're not leaving you for dead on the roadside we might as well try and keep you alive."

"Don't worry," he added after a moment, grinning, "After a few days, you'll barely notice the chafing."

"Good to know," Owyn replied dryly, fumbling a bit with the straps before Gorath and Locklear moved to help him. With the young man strapped into his new equipment, Locklear turned to the other item in the chest.




"Well, I suppose we can always use spares, or sell it off if it becomes too much of a burden to carry," Locklear murmured, shoving the blade lengthwise through the straps at the top of his pack. "It looks like that's all there is in this one, so we should get back away from the road and keep moving.

The Day wore on, and by the time they neared the outskirts of LaMut the sun was slipping westward towards the tops of the hills, casting longer and longer shadows across the king's highway to their left. Then, just as they paused at the crest of a ridge, Owyn caught a faint sound, something that sounded like a shouted "Hold There!"

Elvandar ((Don't ask ME why they named one of the main NPC conversation tunes after the elven capital))

Elvandar














Having exhausted all avenues of communication, Owyn and Phillip chatted for a few more minutes while Locklear and Gorath waited, Locklear looking impatient and Gorath keeping his usual impassive expression. Finally, the young mage saw the junior squire off, and turned back to his companions.

"Well, what about that chest he mentioned. Do you think it's worth checking out?" He asked Locklear. "You admitted we needed supplies."

Locklear nodded. "We'll see if we come across it on the way, but it's starting to get late and I'd rather not make camp outside of LaMut when we're this close to it and its garrison. They moved on, and a quick check of the area revealed not only a chest, but also a suspiciously fresh mound of dirt by the roadside as if something had been recently buried...

The hole was not deep, and it took only a minute or two working with their hands to reveal its contents.



"I'll keep this," Gorath murmured, slipping the liquid into his pack. "I have some skill with bow and crossbow, and should we come across any I should be the one to repair and carry them."

Locklear just grunted, moving to his feet and guiding them back towards the chest that Phillip had mentioned.









As Gorath shouldered the burden of the spare armor, Owyn slipped the shell into one of his belt pouches. "We'll see if we can't sell this somewhere along the way," he said, smiling slightly. "Although I don't know if LaMut's the best place to try."

They moved on, and it wasn't long before they arrived at the turn-off for LaMut. The sight of the town's sprawling outskirts lifted their spirits, and the thought of a warm common room and fresh food spurred them westward.




LaMut





Locklear led the party uphill, approaching the keep that housed LaMut's Garrison. "I don't know if Earl Kasumi will see us," he told Owyn and Gorath as they approached the outer gate. "But if nothing else I can get word of what's been going on in the region. If Moredhel raiding parties have been moving south, the garrison commander should have gotten word."

LaMut





Owyn looked thoughtful as they made their way back down into the town. "The Blue Wheel?" He suggested, gesturing towards a brightly painted inn of distinctly Tsurani design, its colors almost garish in comparison with the more muted earth tones of Kingdom construction. Gorath and Locklear both nodded, and soon they were standing in the inn's common room.



"I've a bit of experience haggling for goods," Owyn said as the other two claimed seats at one of the vacant table. "Give me the funds and I'll see what I can do about getting us more rations."




Owyn seemed momentarily tempted, but a look at their meager funds dissuaded him from the rich liquor, and he settled for several packs of preserved rations instead, carrying them back towards the table just as another figure made his way there from the opposite direction.

The Mercantile

As Dubal moved back towards the wall, pipe in hand, Locklear turned towards the Innkeeper. The man had the short, broad-shouldered build and dark skin of a Tsurani, and like most Tsurani he was wrapped in layers of fur to ward off the chill of a world that would always seem bitterly cold to one from a world as broiling hot as Kelewan.

Introduction, Part 2

Introduction, Part 2

Introduction, Part 2









"Interesting," Gorath murmured as Locklear returned to their table. "It would seem that, if we choose, there is work to be had here to fund our trip south."

Owyn nodded. "I've heard about the Mac Mordain Cadal. There might be more down there than just the Brak Nurr and the reward, even if most of it is closed off from that cave in Dubal mentioned."

Locklear frowned, and was silent for some time before he finally replied. "I don't know," he said, staring at the table. "I know we need funds, but that mine goes for miles, and we could be a week or more working for that reward. As for Makala's ruby, that Kiefer is a lead sure enough but Loriel's quite a way from here, and north..."

((And That's enough image spamming of this thread for today. Looks like despite Ringworm getting outvoted there's now a reason to head back north. There's also the matter of the Mac Mordain Cadal which is, in RPG terms, the first "dungeon" we can explore if you so choose. Do we seek the reward in the Mac, along with enough loot to hopefully pay for Sumani's combat lessons and perhaps some lessons in weapon and armor maintenance from the dwarves as well? Do we search out the stolen ruby? Do we do both? Or do we ignore these quests and press South and East towards Hawk's Hollow?))

EDIT: ((Also, is screen-capping these conversations in their entirety too spammy, image-wise? I'm debating just capping the first couple of talking heads, then transcribing the rest to text from here on out. Thoughts?))

I'm a big fan of Feist. I remember when I got the Sierra newsletter that had a story on this game and I was thrilled - it sounded like the most awesome thing imaginable. The article had a brief piece on how Feist got started writing which was very well done. It also talked about his involvement with the game which sounded great.

Sadly, I owned a Mac growing up so I didn't play this game for the first time until 2000 - and didn't get very far because I could only play it at work after hours. I tried again a few years ago and got about to Mac Mordain Cadal before I got distracted by other things.

I think we definitely have to do Mac Mordain Cadal, but maybe we should get the ruby thief first?

I know the feeling. I really shouldn't, but it's so tempting! Ah, memories...

(Actually, one of the reasons I haven't replayed the game in the last several years or so is because I do have good memories of it, but I wasn't sure if it would still be enjoyable -- a thought that arises mostly because I re-read some Feist not long ago, and it had definitely not aged well. So, hurray for LPs that will assist in this Important Decision!)

As for what to do next: BRAK NURR!

Post some shots of the world road travel. The game has basically the same sort of aesthetic as Drakkan on the SNES, which wasn't used too many times.

*nods* I intend to, I just knew that I'd be filling these early posts with all the conversation from LaMut.

Your vote on course of action, Nunix?