Some Fable questions

[Chronos]

I just got Fable: the Lost Chapters for my Mac. Well, no, more precisely, I got it for Christmas, but I only just installed it and started playing it. And I have some questions that aren’t covered in the manual:

1: How exactly does “alignment modifier” work? I had assumed that using things with positive numbers moves your character more toward the angelic end of the scale, and things with negative numbers move your character toward the demonic end, but this doesn’t seem entirely consistent. For instance, the healing spell, which the text says is only available to the righteous, has a negative number listed for its alignment modifier, while the summon spell, which the text seems to imply is evil, has a positive number. Are these just typos, or is there more to the system than I’m seeing?

2: Are all NPCs wooable? There are some blue-aura (i.e., unimportant) ladies who have hearts over their heads and get all giggly just from me walking past, but there are also some green-aura (relevant to a quest, or merchants, or the like) women whom I’ve tried plying with chocolate, gems, flirtations, and manly poses, who don’t seem to react to me at all. Am I wasting my time, or do they just take a lot more effort than the giggly girls?

3: What’s the relevance of the “scariness” modifier on some clothes, tattoos, and such? I assume that a greater “attractiveness” makes it easier for me to win the hearts of others, but scariness seems to be an independent variable. Are some NPCs just more attracted to the bad-boy type? Are there Intimidate gestures I haven’t unlocked? Would villains and/or helpers eventually start running away from me?

4: The menu has an option called “photo gallery” that’s perpetually grayed out. I imagine I can take screenshots and refer to them later, but I haven’t found any option to actually take the screenshots.

5: At some point, I managed to bring up a window that listed all of the different monsters I’d killed, and how many of each of them, but I can’t seem to find that in the menus any more. Where is it?

[Zeriel]

@Chronos

1: How exactly does “alignment modifier” work? I had assumed that using things with positive numbers moves your character more toward the angelic end of the scale, and things with negative numbers move your character toward the demonic end, but this doesn’t seem entirely consistent. For instance, the healing spell, which the text says is only available to the righteous, has a negative number listed for its alignment modifier, while the summon spell, which the text seems to imply is evil, has a positive number. Are these just typos, or is there more to the system than I’m seeing?

I haven’t played it in years…but my brain is trying to tell me that those are bounding conditions, maybe? If you’re too evil you can’t heal, etc?

2: Are all NPCs wooable? There are some blue-aura (i.e., unimportant) ladies who have hearts over their heads and get all giggly just from me walking past, but there are also some green-aura (relevant to a quest, or merchants, or the like) women whom I’ve tried plying with chocolate, gems, flirtations, and manly poses, who don’t seem to react to me at all. Am I wasting my time, or do they just take a lot more effort than the giggly girls?

As far as I know, yes, you can woo most green-aura people–there are even some items you can’t get without marrying the major of the big town whose name I can’t remember.

3: What’s the relevance of the “scariness” modifier on some clothes, tattoos, and such? I assume that a greater “attractiveness” makes it easier for me to win the hearts of others, but scariness seems to be an independent variable. Are some NPCs just more attracted to the bad-boy type? Are there Intimidate gestures I haven’t unlocked? Would villains and/or helpers eventually start running away from me?

As I recall, some people are more affected by extremes of one or the other of attractiveness and scariness.

[smiling_bandit]

@Chronos

1: How exactly does “alignment modifier” work? I had assumed that using things with positive numbers moves your character more toward the angelic end of the scale, and things with negative numbers move your character toward the demonic end, but this doesn’t seem entirely consistent.

Apparentl;y positive numbers are evil points. I don’t know why either.

2: Are all NPCs wooable? There are some blue-aura (i.e., unimportant) ladies who have hearts over their heads and get all giggly just from me walking past, but there are also some green-aura (relevant to a quest, or merchants, or the like) women whom I’ve tried plying with chocolate, gems, flirtations, and manly poses, who don’t seem to react to me at all. Am I wasting my time, or do they just take a lot more effort than the giggly girls?

The cool badass hero girl isn’t, nor is the Guildmaster. With one exception, you can woo any generic NPC. The exception is Lady Grey.

3: What’s the relevance of the “scariness” modifier on some clothes, tattoos, and such? I assume that a greater “attractiveness” makes it easier for me to win the hearts of others, but scariness seems to be an independent variable. Are some NPCs just more attracted to the bad-boy type? Are there Intimidate gestures I haven’t unlocked? Would villains and/or helpers eventually start running away from me?

Honestly, aside from doing weird thigs with the NPC AI, it seems to have no point whatsoever.

Me? No, I’m not bitter over the fact that peter Molyneux is a worthless hack.

[Chronos]

The cool badass hero girl isn’t, nor is the Guildmaster. With one exception, you can woo any generic NPC. The exception is Lady Grey.

Yeah, I’ve pretty much given up on Whisper. Even if she were wooable, you tend to only see her in the middle of quests where there’s not really much time. And romance with Lady Grey is tied in with the storyline, so it makes sense that she’s not subject to the usual wiles. I’ve been trying to pursue the Bowerstone witch, but I’m thinking that maybe I need to finish the quest she’s involved with first (I’ve only found two of the four blue mushrooms). Oh, and I hope it’s also not possible to woo your mom or sister, but I haven’t tried that.

Apparentl;y positive numbers are evil points. I don’t know why either.

But on the other hand, a tattoo of ancient demon-cults will have a negative alignment modifier, while one representing virtue will have a positive one. I’ve mostly just been going by the descriptions, but it sure seems like there’s typos somewhere.

Also, I found the answer to question 5: The list of your kills is under “personality”, for some reason.

And a couple more questions:
6: Are there any subtle nuances to choice of weapon? It looks like there’s just one number that describes the damage, and that the only difference of speed is between “heavy” and “light” weapons. If I have two weapons, both light, is there ever a reason to use the one with the lower damage number?

7: What are you supposed to do if you pick up a Crunchy Chick in loot? Sooner or later, it ends up showing up in the food/health potion hotkey slot, and won’t go away until it’s eaten, but I don’t want to eat Crunchy Chicks (it’s evil to do so). I guess you can sell them, but it’s not always possible to run off to a merchant in the middle of a battle.

[smiling_bandit]

@Chronos

Yeah, I’ve pretty much given up on Whisper. Even if she were wooable, you tend to only see her in the middle of quests where there’s not really much time. And romance with Lady Grey is tied in with the storyline, so it makes sense that she’s not subject to the usual wiles. I’ve been trying to pursue the Bowerstone witch, but I’m thinking that maybe I need to finish the quest she’s involved with first (I’ve only found two of the four blue mushrooms). Oh, and I hope it’s also not possible to woo your mom or sister, but I haven’t tried that.

Yup, Lady Grey is the only non-generic NPC you can marry (I was actually saying Briar Rose was the awesome girl, and she does rock). In fact, the only non-super generic/Lady Grey girl you can woo is tied into Grey’s marriage questline, and she’s still not given a name!

But on the other hand, a tattoo of ancient demon-cults will have a negative alignment modifier, while one representing virtue will have a positive one. I’ve mostly just been going by the descriptions, but it sure seems like there’s typos somewhere.

Well, yeah. You see, you don’t get good or evil points for using spells. They’re just more effective (but in a trivial, hard to evil notice way) for people with the right alignment for the spell. And I can’t even figure out what the numbers actually mean on the spells. But they are reversed for spells, I just don’t know how to interpret them beyond that.

6: Are there any subtle nuances to choice of weapon? It looks like there’s just one number that describes the damage, and that the only difference of speed is between “heavy” and “light” weapons. If I have two weapons, both light, is there ever a reason to use the one with the lower damage number?

I think range does work properly, but the difference is so small it hardly matters.

7: What are you supposed to do if you pick up a Crunchy Chick in loot? Sooner or later, it ends up showing up in the food/health potion hotkey slot, and won’t go away until it’s eaten, but I don’t want to eat Crunchy Chicks (it’s evil to do so). I guess you can sell them, but it’s not always possible to run off to a merchant in the middle of a battle.

They are handy for getting one or two legendary weapons (for the Demon Doors).

[Chronos]

Oh, I see, you were saying that you can only woo generic NPCs. Well that’s a shame. Why would I have any interest in some lady who doesn’t even have a name?

Well, OK, there are a couple of barmaids who have names who’re falling for me, but they still don’t have anything beyond a name.

[smiling_bandit]

@Chronos

Oh, I see, you were saying that you can only woo generic NPCs. Well that’s a shame. Why would I have any interest in some lady who doesn’t even have a name?

Well, OK, there are a couple of barmaids who have names who’re falling for me, but they still don’t have anything beyond a name.

more or less. This is what peter Molyneux thinks “choice” and “consequences” are in games: you have few choices, none of them significant.

I hate that guy. And his games.