Year of the RPG: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

And just like that, we are halfway through our Year of the RPG!! We’ve come a long way, through Chrono Trigger to Skyrim, then Kingdom Come: Deliverance and Baldur’s Gate. Our current game, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, is the fifth of the eight games that are being undertaken.

The Witcher cometh imminently, then.

Like Kingdome Come: Deliverance, The Witcher 3 has a pretty established main character in Geralt, who has been in two games prior to Wild Hunt and is even the star of his own book series.

So… not a whole lot of interpretation going on. By my own definitions I’m not completely sold on this game falling into the same “RPG” category as, say Dungeons & Dragons, or even something like Baldur’s Gate or even Dragon Age: Origins or Mass Effect. With a set character, no choice of class, and simply assuming the avatar of Geralt of Rivia, we will see how much RP this G has.

I’m not the only one playing through The Witcher 3 at the moment, so also check out Falcon Game Review’s recent posts on the subject.

The Adventurer

Name: Geralt of Rivia

Class: witcher; warrior; single sword (has one for monsters and one for mortals)

Alignment: Lawful Neutral

Backstory: “Geralt of Rivia is a fictional character, the protagonist of The Witcher series of short stories and novels by Polish writer Andrzej Sapkowski, as well as…”

Oh, I guess i shouldn’t just read from the Wikipedia page…

Geralt is a witcher, a special class of magical creature hunter who lives on the outskirts of society. While most witchers appear to be above  (or beyond) any sort of law or order beyond their own witcher codes, Geralt does believe in law and order, and will support a group that offers strong organization, as long as they aren’t too cruel.

Instead of having political loyalties, Geralt follows his own personal code, which dictates that his word is good, and he will never say he will do something unless he plans on following through with it. He wants the world to be orderly, both when it comes to monsters and men (who can be a different sort of monster), but does have a soft spot for children, like Ciri.

Geralt does not hesitate to kill an unarmed foe if he deems it necessary for the good of “law and order” and rarely does things just because they’re the “nice” thing to do. He will occasionally be generous if he feels like it advances law and order (for instance, he completed a job for free because to ask for payment after killing the beast could cause an issue). He is methodical, loyal, and respectful to those in authority simply because they are in authority. He also believes strongly in a person’s “station,” both his and others’.

And, of course, he is unwaveringly loyal to the people he cares about, like Ciri, Yennifer and (I’m assuming) Triss.

Off He Goes To find Yennifer! (I think)

I am not well-versed in the Witcher universe, but Geralt and I will bumble through and figure it out as we go along! Lawful Neutral seems like it might be a difficult alignment to pull off, since from what I’ve seen there is a lot of “be a hero” or “be a jerk” dialogue, so we’ll see how it goes as the story progresses!

Have you played/are you playing The Witcher 3? Is there anything I must absolutely know before embarking? Let me know in the comments!

Thanks for stopping by, and I’ll see you soon!
~ Athena

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