One of my favorite video games of all time is the Western CRPG Betrayal at Krondor, set in the Riftwar Cycle universe as written by the relatively well-known fantasy author Raymond E. Feist.
The deft writing in that game is my go-to example for how to avoid that dime-store novella quality "purple prose," that you see so much in D&D fiction, and it easily holds its own against strong contenders in the writing category (Disco Elysium, Baldur's Gate, etc.).
Fair warning if you decide to go play it: spellcasting in the game is almost stupidly OP (cough Skin of the Dragon cough). Still great fun, but the combat is by far the weakest aspect of the game.
the combat is by far the weakest aspect of the game
I would correct that to say balance is the weakest part. The open-endedness of the game is one of its strong suits (which is surprising given how it’s written) but there are many opportunities for an enterprising player to break the game. You can make your party fabulously wealthy just by exploiting the merchants in the game and then use the money to deck out the party with overpowered equipment.
Yeah. A LOT of games have that "economic exploit" where you can generate infinite money. But in BAK just barding alone you can get as much money as you need - no tricks involved.
The bigger issue is giving the player a "Invulnerability spell" where X mana = X turns, and having the spell block both PHYSICAL and MAGICAL damage. Worse, you can (and I did as a kid) find this spell in the first chapter of the game.
If your party gets move priority, there is literally NEVER a reason to not immediately throw it on all three characters. You can even rest WHILE in combat and recover the stamina necessary to cast the spell. Let that sink in for a minute.
I used to deliberately skip getting that scroll after I beat it the first time because it made the game trivially easy.
Also all long-range physical damage (such as with crossbows) was basically pointless. They should have made it so if you successfully hit with a crossbow, the opponent becomes "temporarily hampered" and it halves their movement speed. As it is, it's trivially easy to engage in close combat with almost every enemy in game.
I'd love to see a modernized BAK with more D&D style combat mechanics (attacks of opportunity, flanking, etc.)
That is true but I think he had a fair amount of input, and of course, all the rich lore and universe comes from him.
He actually later officially novelized the game. Kind of an interesting bit of trivia in the video game industry going from literature to game and then back to literature.
The deft writing in that game is my go-to example for how to avoid that dime-store novella quality "purple prose," that you see so much in D&D fiction, and it easily holds its own against strong contenders in the writing category (Disco Elysium, Baldur's Gate, etc.).
Fair warning if you decide to go play it: spellcasting in the game is almost stupidly OP (cough Skin of the Dragon cough). Still great fun, but the combat is by far the weakest aspect of the game.