Dragon's Dogma 2's Phantom Oxcart Ruined My D&D Game

This article is part of a directory: Dragon's Dogma 2: Complete Guide And Walkthrough

Summary

The Phantom Oxcart quest seems to be based on my D&D campaign
Capcom must have broken into my house and stolen my notebook
I am owed roughly one billion dollars

No one is going to believe this, but I don't care. I'm not even sure why I'm writing this except to vent, but I have the luxury of a job that allows me to write just to vent so long as I can tie said venting to a video game, or on occasion, a tabletop game. Here, I am able to do both, as I vent about the fact Capcom stole one of my 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Dungeons & Dragons ideas and put it inside 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Dragon's Dogma 2.

As I tell any reader who will listen fairly often - another luxury - I 16🅘8澳洲幸运5开奖网:write my own Dungeons & Dragons campaigns. I'm currently playing through the same campaign twice simultaneously, once with real life friends and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:once with staff at TheGamer. The latter are nearing the end, and I have the next adventure ready to do. It's not a sequel, but given the current adventure was the first one I had written, it takes lessons from things I wanted to improve from the present adventure and builds on their mistakes. This is where Capco⭕m's thi𒈔every comes in.

This idea existed solely in my head and jotted down in notebooks - I do not literally think Capcom stole it. But ౠI do need to throw this idea out now and feel I may have a case in a billion dollar l🍬awsuit for emotional damage.

In the present campaign, there is something of an A to B feel to each journey. It's 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:a naval adventure, and thus the crew head from island to island, coastline to coastline, as they venture forth. I've tried to make the journeys eventful, with nꦯaval battles or ship boarding, plus optional areas of interest to explore and fishing minigames for my party to become overly invested in, but it all feels too directed. You go to this town, then this town, then this town.

World-Building Is A Key Part Of Dungeons & Dragons

Adventurers looking over a river while exploring a jungle — Dungeons & Dragons Jungles of Chult by Jedd Chevrier

Designing a setting and populating it with characters, challenges, and plot points is my favourite thing about writing a campaign, so the next adventure is also full of unique locations, and I have ideas for others in future adventures too. That's not going away. But the journey to each setting felt a little flat in this campaign, so in the next one, there is more walking on foot, more alternate pathways that offer player choice, more optional 🌸objectives that are less obvious than 'you see an island do you keep going or stop', and more continuity to allow the world to feel less like a series of D&D storylines and more like it is alive. One of these slices of continuity was to be an apparition of a carriage driver who would mysteriously disappear when interacted with💙.

As you might be aware (or would have guessed even if not), Dragon's Dogma 2 also includes an apparition of a carriage driver who mysteriously disappears when interacted with. I've seen him a couple of times in my own game, but haven't thought much of it because there are all sorts of spooky g🍎oings on in the game, especially when you travel at night. It took me until the third time seeing it to realise it wasn't a bug. It was a coincidence, but it could be shaken off. It will be a while before we play through this adventure, and even longer until we meet the ghostly driver. Besides, their storylines could be that similar, right? Right...?

The Phantom Oxcart Is Straight Out Of D&D

Pawns In The Phantom Oxcart In Dragon's Dogma 2.

While searching for links to add to another article of mine about Dragon's Dogma 2 - a hassle to balance out the luxury - I stumbled upon a guide for the ghostly cart's quest, The Phantom Oxcar🦩t. Finally realising there was꧑ a story to this cart and that it was more than just some scares🐓 late at night, I was curious enough to check it out. And now I need to cut my idea.

Spoilers follow for The Phantom Oxcart quest.

Despite seeing this cart before, you can't activate the quest until you reach Battahl, which would explain why I didn't know much about it. Long story short, this cart is a pawn smuggling operation, and to get to the bottom of its misdeeds, you must disguise yourself as a pawn by surrendering your weapons and armour. My D&D tale obviously had no pawns, but it too was a smuggler - with the idea being the players would be too interested in the ghostly nature of the cart and the mystery about where it appears and when to consider the w💙hy, or to closely inspect its illegal contents in spectral disguise.

It was based on the old joke about the man who cycled between France and Germany each day with a suitcase full of sand. The police knew he was a smuggler, but couldn't figure out who would want sand, or why you'd smuggl🍒e something that worthless. Turns out he was smuggling bicycles. The art of misdirection perfected.

As far as I can tell, the ghostly nature of the cart is not a key part of the quest, but more of a narrative device that allows you to spot and be intrigued by it, while also having it disappear prior to you unlocking the quest or if you do the wrong thing during it. My origin of the cart could work, then, but the whole story needs to be reworked and, considering that was the part everything else was built around, I think I will ꧑leave it for the birds. On the plus side, Capcom now owes m🦂e a billion dollars. It's only fair.