Jediphile

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.

Hehe - better not tell my players this.... "

Yes, but there is a big difference between house rules that fit the individual campaign style of the GM and house rules that try to fix the broken rules of a system. You seem to cast those two in as the same, but they're not. Most campaigns will, in any system, throw in their own tweaks here and there, but that's a matter of individual preference among the players and GM. This doesn't indicate that the rules are flawed, just that the players and GM want to do something a little differently. In short, they add those tweaks because they want them - not because they need them. The same cannot be said to be the case for my 2e revisions with regard to the dual-class options, for example - those I definitely introduced because the existing rules were terribly flawed and, worse, a wide open opportunity for exploitation.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}> Precisely. I've run into this particular wall again and again in 3e. In one game, we were playing in Forgotten Realms, and I wanted to make a sly wizard, loosely based on Garak from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. For those of you who don't know him, he is a spy with an awful lot of bad history posing as a tailor on a space station, but he lies every chance he gets, and he is very slick and very smart about it and a master at nasty comments and subtle threats (that doesn't do him justice at all, but it's what I can do now...). So I needed my character to be really sly - he didn't have to be a thief, he just had to that sort of 'evil charm' and be really subtle. Now, you can infer that any way you want, but in 3e, the way to become 'silvertongued' is to build the Innuendo skill - a lot! But I couldn't do that as a wizard, because the rules wouldn't let me. That's bad game design! Uhm... Not to put too fine a point on it, but is that precisely what you've said you did with 2e rules? I know I did...

The point is that it doesn't need to be. In fact, a good GM can make such a disadvantage nearly unnoticeable. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> A good GM can make the flaws of event he worst system not matter at all. But if the GM is that good, what could get out of a system that was much better? And as EnderWiggin said, an flawed system is still a flawed system. A good GM can get around that, but why should he have to? Shouldn't the system be tested and flawless to begin with? Yes, I know that will never happen, but I think we can get a good deal closer to perfection than we do in 3e...

Since this is the PnP forum, I guess you've all had them - those defining moments that were so much fun or so much terror or so much... whatever, that you're still playing RPGs or at least remembering with the hint of a smile on your face. So let us reminisce and embrace nostalgia... I'll go first with one of my experiences. The game was AD&D 2e. We were playing in the Mystara setting (not that it matters) and were in some northern lands exploring some mountains. The group was a fierce human warrior (about level 10-11 or so), a powerful human wizard (around level 12 - that was my character), and a halfling thief (about level 9 or 10, I think). In the mountains we came across a fairly large red dragon whose alignment was apparently "hungry"... A harsh battle commenced. We approached the matter with strategy, of course, so the warrior charged the dragon and kept it away from the rest of us. He struck it with powerful blow while taking great damage himself, while my wizard stood in the back and aided his attacks with spells. The halfling, of course, decided quickly that this was all very dangerous and so disappeared to the shadows... Meanwhile the battle raged on. The warrior and my wizard were doing severe damage to the dragon, though the warrior was hurt a lot himself as well. This went on for long rounds, while the thief waited. But he eventually decided to at least do something with his time, so he told the DM that he would sneak behind the dragon. This also took several rounds while the warrior was hemorrhaging hit points and my wizard was beginning to run low on spells. But we were making progress at least - the dragon was visibly hurt too, though it wouldn't go down yet. The halfling thief had found his way behind the dragon, though, and decided that he would try to backstab it. The DM warned him that the dragon might turn on him, even if he failed the attempt, and that his chances were not good, since he didn't have a good hit-probability, didn't have a magic weapon, and didn't have high strength, while the dragon had a very good AC. Indeed, the halfling would need to roll a natural 20 to hit at all! I think one of us (might have been me, but I honestly don't remember) noted that this would logically not be possible, since the rules stated that backstabbing was relevant only against humanoid beings. And besides, the halfling would not be able to reach the dragon's "back" in any event... The DM shrugged it off, however, because, as he said, "what are the chances of success anyway?" But the halfling was adamant to try and rolled the dice. Of course he rolled a natural 20. Now, I should point that in these days, we played natural 20s as straight double damage. If you rolled a natural 20, then you rolled damage roll plus damage modifiers and then it was twice that. However, since this was a thief, he also got his backstab modifier, which, along with the double damage, added up to quadruple damage on the dice roll. However, since it was a nonmagical weapon and the halfling had no damage modifiers, the damage inflicted would be four times whatever he rolled on his 1d6 die for damage. So he rolled his d6... And he rolled a 1. The dragon took 4 lousy points of damage from his massive backstab... And then it rolled over and died... Actually the rest of us besides the guy who played the halfling haven't talked much about this since, so maybe it's not the best story...

Yes. You have a problem...

But if they mean so little, then why bother having them at all? Why not just give people points to build with and then let them go and buy what they want among the skills and traits and what have we? Not to offend, but any idea of classes will always face that criticism. But HPs are still accumulated by level, I take it. A rule like you describe seems more to be invented to fix a problem than to restructure the system and remove the flawed parts. I could accept HPs after a fashion, but only as a representative of how much damage a particular part of the body can take before it is injured or worse. I once played a Cthulhu campaign where we used a system (stolen from Twilight 2000, IIRC), where each body part (torso, head, arms, legs, chest) were assigned "hit points" based on the character's constitution/health stat (2

Tell that to Ahlan Matale!!! <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I would, but he keeps firing that blaster at me every time I come within range... :D Seriously, weren't those people all mercilessly killed by Malak's forces? I'd say good riddance if it wasn't for all the bloody trouble of reconciling their differences...

This was from part 7. So shortly after a casualty of Exar Kun during the Sith War? Remember that Dantooine became a casualty of Darth Malak during the Jedi Civil war and 4 years after Dantooine became this casualty you are solving a Mercenary problem on that planet! So at least 44 years after Ossus became a casualty of Exar Kun it looks to me that this is not so "shortly". I mentioned the planet because I wanted to mention some Jedi planets which IMO should also be in Kotor III. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Well, yes, but given just how bad the devastation of Ossus was at that time, it doesn't seem relevant to me to let it have any significance yet. I mean, Ossus still looks like a ruin when Luke comes by more than 4000 years later... But that's just me. Besides, I tend to think Sith worlds will be more important that Jedi worlds in KotOR3, since that is presumably where Revan went, and where the Exile followed.

They don't get to have a choice. The clones are "grown" in tanks and are never allowed to obtain consciousness until Palpatine wants to jump into one. This way he can die about as many times as he likes and still survive in a new body. Luke's apparent fall to the dark side is really just a pretense to get close to those tanks so he can destroy them, though Luke doesn't resist the dark side quite as well as he thought, either.

Huh?!? Where did that come from? Not saying you're wrong, but I have no recollection of anything to suggest that. Did or miss something or does anyone else remember this? Can anyone point where this was suggested in KotOR2?

Too bad they didn't say this in the movie. But then how could they - nobody had heard of Battle Meditation until the Saga of Nomi Sunrider was written almost a decade later... Well, he *was* only revived during the "Dark Empire" trilogy of series. That means he lived 14 or so comic books beyond ROTJ - that's not too bad. It would have been much worse if kept dragging it on long beyond that, but they did close the Pandora's box they opened inside the series itself. So even if you don't like it, they did at least clean up the mess themselves. And how did she "see" that - as a Miraluka, she is completely blind. Even if we do establish Nihilus as male and leave the Exile to be either male or female, that still doesn't preclude the idea that the Exile is Nihilus. After all, the 'nothingness' that the Exile would have abandoned couldn't have lived on by itself without manifesting itself in some form and incarnation, and so it could have entered and revived the body of whatever near-dying jedi was around on the field of battle on Malachor V. Problem solved. Indeed, I suspect it took the dead or dying body of someone close to the Exile - a fellow jedi or perhaps the Exile's master.

Essentially making a mistake similar to that made when Mystara was to be an AD&D campaign world... And to think WotC vowed to never repeat the failures of TSR... When will they ever learn?

True enough. Several GMs just pass the problem over and ignore low-level encounters, but I roll the dice for random encounters every time - just because the PCs are powerful doesn't mean that the world has suddenly been depopulated by kobolds or orcs or whatever. If I do roll an encounter of, say, nine orcs, I just tell my players, "you encounter nine orcs, do you want to play the fight?" The answer is always no, since there is no reason to go through the pointless dice-rolling exercise, but I ask anyway. That way the idea that orcs and whatnot still exist is kept alive. I may give token xp out for this, since they are so few that it really doesn't matter, but I don't give treasure. The players accept that, though, because I also play with critical misses, and nothing is worse than breaking your favorite +4 sword in a fight with a small group of wolves - yes, that did happen to us once... A workable solution. I do play straight 2e in this area, though, and allow the full bonus to each and every attack. One player is now a 16th-level minotaur-turned-human warrior and has been built with 2e Player Option rules specifically towards the goal of being a two-hand sword grand master who can use a two-hand sword in each hand. If I changed the rules, it would be really unfair on him, because he worked for years to get his character to be the combat-monster that he is now. I do challenge the group with equally powerful monsters on occasion. They fought some bugbears trained by Bargle in the Black Eagle Barony recently that gave them a run for their money - the wizard cast a Phantasmal Killer on the bugbear leader, but while he failed the save, he did manage to postpone the effect until later in the battle with the Hardiness high-level skill from the DM Option: High-Level Campaigns book. While the players initially moaned about this, it eventually won the battle, because it turned out to take effect just as things were looking bad for the group. So I don't think I need to import that rule, though I will seriously consider it, if I begin another 2e campaign. I'm far more likely to introduce a rule that states that rolls of 1, 2, or 3 always miss, while only a 1 results in the dubious pleasure of rolling my critical miss tables...

Actually two of my players are married... to each other. They have two children now, and she was *demanding* that the rest of us gather at the table to play a day or so after giving birth! I must be doing somthing right as GM... I just talked to her yesterday because I have to move and therefore may have to shut the campaign down a little before I intended, but she was adamant that we should continue playing, even though they both work full time jobs and have little spare time with two kids growing up. I guess she's been infected badly with RPG-fever

I don't agree. Palpatine's clones were a bit of a surprise when introduced in the "Dark Empire" comic books. And they did serve to explain something that had always bothered me in the films. I mean, take a look at ROTJ - Luke is on the Death Star II with Vader and Palpatine and there are some confrontations. Now, in spite of anything Luke does on the Death Star, the rebels do disable the generator and do enter the Death Star so they can destroy it. The whole point of the story was that Luke *had* to face his father and destroy the emperor, because nobody else could (except Leia, as Yoda suggests in ESB). But by the end of ROTJ, it really doesn't matter, because Luke could have turned to the dark side, been killed, or whatever and the Death Star II would still have been destroyed and Palpatine and Vader would still be just as dead... Palpatine's clones *did* fix that problem, because it showed us that Luke could never have defeated him there, and it wasn't until his spirit was finally exorcised that Palpatine was finally defeated. Too bad about the crappy "Empire's End" books, though - they could have been a lot better. As for Nihilus, it depends a lot on how he returns. Imagine having the Exile's old friends face off against Nihilus, defeat him, take off the mask and then see... The Exile! That could be great, I think :cool: