Jediphile

SJ have released lots of rulebooks, yes, but their way of doing it is completely different from WotC. WotC released a game that was very basic and rigid with little or no diversity for players to explore, then slowly introduce that diversity in the gazillion of prestige classes, optional classes, new feats, new spells, etc., that they introduce in their many rulebooks. SJ does it the other way around - they create a core that has about all the skills and traits you could want, then they build on it. There may come new skills and traits in subsequent books, but if that happens, it is not because they 'deliberately held it back for the purpose of more profit down the line'. At least, it is not my impression of SJ, though it is of WotC. Besides, after several revisions early on, core GURPS remained more or less consistent for 20 years before they finally did 4th edition. And 4th edition isn't even that different. If anything, it just tries to put all those wayward skills and traits into fewer books, so that the critique of many rulebooks will be less. Yes, the books are pricey ($40 a piece), but you get a full game with almost endless options by getting just two books.

Yes, but that's a personal preference, not an objective appraisal. You pretty much say it yourself, when you admit that 2e is probably not the best, and perhaps not as good as 3e. There will always be a personal preference for certain games among certain, but that is usually because of the nostalgia and experiences they've had with those games. I have most of my best RPG experiences from 2e (as noted in another topic) simply because that was what we played when: 1. I was introduced to role-playing games 2. When we had the most fun playing RPGs. That impression lasts, so if someone voices criticism of that system, I will rise to defend it. But when I do so, it's out of those fond memories, which really originated from my friends and my GM and not from the crummy rules at all. Fortunately, however, I have played enough different RPGs to have fun with several systems, and so I don't automatically associate fun with a specific system. Over the years I've had fun playing OD&D (Basic D&D), 1e, 2e, 2e Player Option, 3e (though not so much), d20 Star Wars, Call of Cthulhu (5th edition), Shadowrun, Exalted, Vampire, LUG Star Trek, GURPS, and probably a host of others that I forget... Playing so many games has granted me the virtue of fun with many games, and so I know that the fun did not derive from one system so much as it did from the people I gamed with. This brings me to the conclusion that no system, however basic and simple, is the source of the fun on the basis of its accessibility - it is and always will be the people you game with who make or break the game. The system can be as brilliant as you want it to be - the game will fail if the players don't get along. Vice versa, the system can be as horribly flawed as possible - the game will be entertaining and fun if the people involved get along socially. For me role-playing is really just an excuse to hang out with friends, have fun, and swap stories - we probably spend more time talking about our lives than about the game. But the game is the focal point - without it we might not get around to meeting at all, and without it we might not have any fun that evening at all, life being often unfair and depressing... All this has left me in a position of judging an RPG- book not by its cover, nor by its association with fun gaming sessions, but instead on the hard value of its contents, because I can separate the fun of the game from the quality of the writing. And this evalution tells me that d20/3e is a poor RPG system, that classes and experience levels are outdated concepts, and that you don't need fixed archetypes to have fun with the game... among other things.

No - not having a life helps :D

Precisely. If someone wants to do a KotOR-like game where the main character is a non-force-user, then fine - go ahead. Heck, if it's any good, I would play. But it would not be KotOR, so it shouldn't be named as such.

So you do mean the Force powers the Exile should have had after being cut off from the Force for several years. Got it. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> You can take it either way you want it. From a pure rule-based point of view, he should have had a few force powers from the beginning. Whether they let those be optional, as they really should be rulewise, or whether they want to dictate them on the basis of powers returning from his 'reconnection' to the force makes little difference to me.

Oh, you mean the Force powers the Exile should have had after being cut off from the Force for several years? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> No, I mean those force powers a 1st level jedi gets as per the rules. Although, f they had supplied them under the pretense of powers he spontaneously "remembered", then that I would have bought that. Sophistry, yes, but I'd still buy that excuse.

He chose not to, right. But he didn't deal with the matter at all - he suppressed it. I see Nihilus as a sort of "force neurosis" that grew from that suppression.

Yes, but don't forget that he cut those ties to separate himself from the darkness that his experiences and choices on Malachor V had bestowed upon him. My point is that this darkness or dark side is Nihilus in some form. Still doesn't explain why this took a decade to happen. The Exile was plenty around jedi after his events on Malachor V, yet he didn't gain any force powers then. Why? And why didn't he form force bonds during his long seclusion? Surely there are force sensitive people pretty much wherever he went... Maybe not jedi or sith, but then force adepts of some kind. He didn't bond with them. He only bonded when returning to the Republic. As for Kreia, it has been discussed and mused before just where she jumped into the whole plot. It seems Revan visited her before going to the unknown regions, but he left the responsibility of maintaining things in the republic (in the LS version) with T3. T3 locked the navi-computer, and T3 sought out the Exile, when things looked grim for the republic, so where did Kreia suddenly come from? I doubt she went with Revan and T3 to the unknown regions and then returned with T3, but she's on the Ebon Hawk, when T3 repairs it at the beginning of the game. I find it quite possible that Kreia realized the whole situation from her association with Nihilus and wanted revenge. After all, Nihilus was the one to cast her out, so what does she do? She finds his "lost half" and manipulates him to a confrontation with Nihilus. If she knows that the Exile and Nihilus are the same, then she knows that whatever the result, it will be the end for Nihilus - if he kills his real self, then he ceases to be, and yet he cannot drain himself either. Therefore the Exile is the perfect key to her revenge against both Nihilus and the force itself. Not far from what I suggested, I think. In effect, the Exile denied the dark side within himself, so instead it "fled" to the dying body of another jedi, and that jedi would be someone close to the Exile, since that would make the connection stronger. The Exile's dark side then used that dying body as a host and revived it through the force. But it cannot make life where none exists, so it can only prolong the inevitable and not so much live as avoid dying. So the resulting being is closer to some form of undead and can only continue to exist by draining the life of others. It is probably not aware of this itself. When Nihilus drains Jedi, it's probably in the attempt to obtain genuine life for itself, futile as the attempt might be. It knows nothing of its true self or of the Exile. It only begins to sense that 'other self' when the Exile returns. And isn't it odd that all those Sith hunt the Exile as 'the last Jedi', when there are clearly plenty of other jedi still around (Vrook, Zez-Kai-Ell, Atris (well, after a fashion...), Vash (not yet dead at the time), Kavar, and likely several others too). That's probably because Nihilus senses the Exile much clearer than anyone else for good reason.

Yes, but only so that d20 will permeate the market and push out the competition. Once that happens, they'll control the industry, and then those licences can disappear fairly quickly, since it will no longer be in the company's interest to allow them. Besides, WotC sells the core mechanic separately together with FR stuff. FR has always been a seller, and nothing sells like rulebooks. Of course, people also need some adventures to play with, but that is a notoriously dangerous market (as TSR discovered...). So why should WotC take that risk if they can get others to do it for them? Yes, there is method to the madness...

Right now? Music from "Batman Begins" by Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard. Pretty good, too. Usually enjoy movie music the most, though that may have to do with attempts to find atmospheric background for RPG sessions... By the same evaluation, the music for "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl", "Edward Scissorhands", "Sleepy Hollow", and "Conan the Barbarian" is also pretty good. The music for the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy is also excellent, but does not work well as background - it's just too good and noticeable somehow. That said, I've recently also been listening a lot to the music from "Star Wars, Episode III: Revenge of the Sith" - John Williams rules!

My point exactly. Do we want that practice in the RPG market? I don't, but WotC is working towards it.

No, but he was still cheated out of the force powers he should have had from the beginning. If those had become available later, then fine. Heck, I'd even accept it they were dictated by the game when made available, but to just cut them out? Ach! I want to begin as a level 1 jedi and begin making my lightsaber when I reach level 2.

I understand that, but naturally I must argue from my own position and own point of view. After all, I have no other frame of reference to argue from when the topic regards what I like and don't like. And naturally I don't want to think about what others want - I want the game to be whatever I like to play. Don't we all?

To be perfectly honest, I want to play a jedi with full powers all the way through in KotOR3 - I hated that they let the Exile begin as a jedi, but didn't give him the force powers the rules give him from the beginning :angry:

Wow! Still pretty nice. Btw, I wouldn't call that cheating per se, since the game allows it. Personally I had a hard time defeating him even with loads of grenades as a level 5 scout!

Yeah, KotOR1 twice was it for me - one as lightsider, one as darksider. They were both as males, however, and I did begin a third game as female, but I didn't finish, since it just wasn't interesting enough... And KotOR2 I only finished once as a lightsider male. The dark side beckons, yes, but I felt like a pig playing dark side in KotOR1 - there's just neither challenge nor satisfaction in behaving like a jerk to everyone you meet

I know what you mean, but I still think that the niche you refer to could be filled by games that are much better than D&D. No, GURPS lite probably isn't it, but are certainly other possibilities. A GURPS like variant where templates are set up akin to D&D and where the rules are simplified might be a good beginning, for example. And hopefully d20 won't be the only choice, but WotC do indeed try to make d20 the industry-wide standard by getting other companies to accept the d20 standard. They said so themselves here. And though they carefully avoid saying it out loud, the end effect of their strategy is to smother everything else into submission in the same way Microsoft does...

All good reasons, except that my two decades of good memories stopped at 3e - it was just not the same game. But yes, it's a brand name, and WotC is making damn sure it stays that way - if people ever found out there are games out there that are infinitely better than D&D, then WotC would have a real problem. Well, that's a matter of opinion. Personally I don't find 3e fun, and even 2e is showing strain a lot - I only play 2e because I cannot switch my system mid-game. Who says you should? Nobody here is going to send mob squads to your house to make you play GURPS or WoD or whatever instead. If 3e is your cup of tea, then more power to you. I find it it be a horribly flawed and inferior system, however, and I argue why. That's about it, really... If you want to embrace a better system, then there are many reasons why you might want to, though. Many of these have already been mentioned here. However, that is your choice to make.

Only problem is that a game like you suggest would be all but impossible for the devs to design plotwise. What are they going to build the story on, if they cannot assume the main character to be a jedi or sith? I know this may seem forced, and probably was in the previous games, but then most CRPGs tend to be fairly linear. It's a case of choosing the main character to be very fixed and then use what you've definitely established to build a story on that is tied very closely and personally to that character, or to write a very generic story, where the NPCs carry the plot forward. I tend to go with the former, and KotOR3 is likely to do the same, since the previous games did. Also a few other points: 1. The game is called "Knights of the Old Republic" - that indicates jedi knights. There is no question that it's about the conflict between jedi and sith. What game doesn't put its main character right in the middle of that conflict? 2. If you're not going to be a jedi, then how will the light side/dark side choice have any meaning? The choice between the two has been the one deciding factor for how each game has played out so far (if we overlook the cut content of KotOR2), and you want to cut that out? I couldn't disagree more.

Exactly.. I am not saying it is any different from AD&D. My point is precisely to illustrate that AD&D is not the only broken system in this multiverse. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Nobody has argued that GURPS or any other system is perfect. We've only argued that it or other skill-based systems like it are inherently better than class and level-based systems like d20.

You don't need a class-based RPG system to have templates. Any game can have templates. GURPS has a number of books only with templates for how to build characters. They are a bit boring to read through, but they are there if you need them. Or take a game like Last Unicorn Games' ICON system for Star Trek - it had templates, in the form of the various branches of Starfleet, merchants, klingon warriors, and what not. But you didn't need to use them, and if you didn't want to, you were perfectly free to use points to create your own template from scratch. That's much better game design. GURPS sticks with the point system in the core books because creating example characters would take up too much space and because they presume people will want their own unique characters, but if you want to make up examples and then have players form their characters on that basis, then that is certainly possible and perfectly valid. And that being the case, there really is no need for doing fixed classes in any system.

When I say house rules I am exclusively talking about rules which address aspects which are broken about the system. And virtually all systems (not just AD&D) are just flat out broken. I.E. GURPS at high character point totals. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> By that, I take it you mean GURPS characters become overly powerful once they've accumulated and used many characters points? How is that different from 2e or 3e D&D? Those characters are not just overpowered, they're virtual gods next to the common people!

I doubt it will settle anything, though. The thing with the internet is that playing PBeM (Play By eMail) comes much closer to freeform RPG than standard tabletop, where you roll dice and discuss the rules, so the success or failure of such a game would depend far more on the narrative provided by whoever would GM such an effort than whatever rules he or she uses to run the campaign with. Besides, such games can take an awful long time to play, unless you get people to coordinate their schedules so they can all be online at the same time. Since we're a worldwide community, that is next to impossible.

You are mistaken there. Let's say I'm only rolling 1 dice, and I have to hit a 6 (a 7 in my game). I have a 50% chance of getting a success, and a 10% chance of rolling a 1. With more dice, you don't have a greater chance of failure as the 1's have to outnumber the successes. With each new dice, again you have a 50% chance of success, and 10% chance of rolling a 1. In addition, if you have a specialty, you get to reroll a 10 and possibly get multiple successes on one die. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I do tend to side with Lancer here, since this has been my experience in WoD games too - the higher your pool gets, the greater the chance is of rolling that annoying one, and that can really ruin your result. It doesn't make much sense that building a higher dice pool actually increases my chances of rolling failures. I was made aware of this by a long-time Werewolf player, who embraces all things WoD, and yet he still agreed that this was a bit of a design flaw... They did that better in Exalted, where 1s are completely ignored if you roll just one success, but they don't use that in the other WoD games.