6. Lock Up Your Daughters... That Ancient Evil Is Back Again!"
I know that the general idea of a RPG is to have some sort of villain or catastrophe appearing when your character emerges from whatever holes hes been hiding in, but if you want to live in these worlds theyre not exactly the safest places. Either Satan has popped up and wants to rule the world or theres an ancient race of radioactive pumpkins thats going to attack your village the very next day. Id love to see an estate agent try to sell some of the houses that have been offered in some RPG games, even with their usual pack of lies it would be difficult to sell a farmstead that comes under dragon attacks once a month. In fact let me go off on a tangent here, why on earth is every village and town built near some sort of well of evil or active volcano. Who in the right mind sees an ancient graveyard and witnesses the dead rise from the grave every night and think You know what this place needs? A few houses and a kiddie pool, maybe a blacksmith as well." It seems the safest place to live is the village where the games hero grew up as all the monsters would be at a low level and would be as harmful as a butterfly; in some cases they are butterflies. Of course Lord Whatever doesnt think like this and decides that his castle will be lovely if its placed over an ancient burial ground, next to the Fortress of Rather Evil Witches and down the road from Necromancers R Us. Furthermore if the only way to defeat said ancient evil or provide world peace and happiness is with a special magical item why on earth hasnt someone thought to keep this item close by? If I was living in the Capital Wasteland and the Brotherhood of Steel knew the exact location of a GECK Id definitely want to know why they havent gone to get it themselves. I know theres a lot of radiation round the front and the vault is full of mutants but heres the kicker. You just told me theres a back entrance and youre all heavily armed, go get it yourselves. Whilst the residents of Fallout can hardly be blamed for not re-locating, NPCs in Skyrim and Oblivion dont really have an excuse. Whats that? A local town has been attacked by deidra/dragons? I guess Ill stick around here, its not like theyll see this giant walled town as a threat and attack it. As my father once said, lightning never strikes twoh my lord, a dragon has burnt my house to a crisp.