Lancer

I personally don't like the time-triggered dialogue system of BG2. The time-triggered dialogue system meant that you would have conversations with your party in the most unlikely and illogical situations. Not only that but ongoing conversations felt disjointed due to their random nature. I think that you should be able to converse with your NPCs anytime you want whenever you want.. If anything dialgoue should be event-triggered as opposed to a random flag set off after 20 hours of gameplay telling you to hit on Jaheira while battling a black dragon. And what direction was that? IWD was a hack and slash dungeon crawl as far as I am concerned. BG1 actually had a good storyline. And BTW, I loved BG1. It is my second favorite Infinity game. But this was one aspect in which earlier RPGS did a bit better in.

But remember that Ultima VII (both parts) had in-depth NPCs with interesting backstories and solid character interaction nearly half a decade earlier. Good character interaction wasn't some new concept when time BG1 came around. BG's treatment of NPC character interaction in comparison (including BG2!) was a step backwards indeed. Not until Torment did we see a game that continued that high character interaction standard originally set by Ultima VII.

1. Planescape: Torment (Simply The best CRPG ever made) 2. Baldur's Gate I (The popular game that revitalized PC RPGs) 3. Baldur's Gate: Throne of Bhaal (Severely underrated. Loads of fun. Fun high level play in that you get to battle Bhaalspawn as powerful as you. Very epic storyline) 4. Baldur's Gate: Shadows of Amn (Good game but pretty overrated. Way too many repetitive and unoriginal fedex-style side quests. Every Joe-shmoe wanted "this" retrieved or "that" retrieved... The main storyline was a re-hash from the first BG1 particularly the main villain's motives. Too much emphasis on the main villain rather than the PC. Timed dialogue system was a lazy way of doing character interaction. Several technical improvements over the first one though) 5 & 6. IWD 1 and 2: Overrated, trite, and boring hack and slash crap.

I am always interested in a forum RPG what did you have in mind? What a lot of people like to do nowadays is play through IRC or even better.. through some "virtual tabletop" game. This is nothing more than just an online electronic tabletop with chatting capabilities not unlike a chat service. The point of these is to recreate the tabletop experience as closely as possible but on the computer. I love these because you even get an electronic gaming board with the ability to position miniatures in combat, die rollers (in the case of open rpg, they have die rollers for various rulesets), and because you play online it has the big advantage over tabletop in that you don't have to worry about finding a way to get everyone to show up at the GM's house to play. You can effectively play with anyone in the country through its network. Finally, the boundary between players and GM are clearly delineated, which makes running games easy. They are a lot of free utilities online to design your own dungeons, maps, and miniatures (or even just download existing ones from fanbases) and import them into your online game. Here are some that I know of: www.webrpg.com www.openrpg.com www.fantasygrounds.com www.kloogeinc.com www.ghostorb.com www.travellerrpg.com/Catalog/software.html

This would be particularly effective if somehow the bad guys are highly respected, revered individuals in their community whom everyone believes are these awesome heroes that could never do anything bad. If the "REAL" heroes (aka the PCs) were to expose them somehow by planting evidence that would put a significant stigma on the reputation of the revered villains and earn much deserved respect for the PCs. To add to this, maybe the PCs could start off as being disliked by the community or even framed by the aforementioned respected "bad guys" for a crime they never committed. The PCs could effectively give the villains a taste of their own medicine and frame them back. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Would this work if more than one char in LG alignment? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> If the PCs are "forging" evidence to plant against the villains then LGs may have a problem with it. If it is "real" evidence, however, I don't see why it would be a big deal. Especially, if the authorities just won't listen to reason (and/or brainwashed) and the PCs need some more substantial proof in order for everyone to realize that the villains really aren't so good after all.

Only if you don't mind burning money.

I think when your party dies is a good reason to reload.

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Just give the new setting a year or two...

This would be particularly effective if somehow the bad guys are highly respected, revered individuals in their community whom everyone believes are these awesome heroes that could never do anything bad. If the "REAL" heroes (aka the PCs) were to expose them somehow by planting evidence that would put a significant stigma on the reputation of the revered villains and earn much deserved respect for the PCs. To add to this, maybe the PCs could start off as being disliked by the community or even framed by the aforementioned respected "bad guys" for a crime they never committed. The PCs could effectively give the villains a taste of their own medicine and frame them back.

If the PCs have "loved ones" or any prized possession the villains can use those as blackmail material. Even Superman would be hesistant to act against a villain, if that villain has Lois Lane's life in his hands. This would lead the hero to either strike a deal with the villain, or try to trick the villain into doing something stupid. Both options are non-combat related. Hey..It works well in the movies, it could work in tabletop.

Another thing you might try that would be fun and interesting yet be non-combat related.. Would be like going undercover and secretly penetrate a base through sneaking around, camouflage, using your surroundings..etc ala a covert operative. With 3.x rules, this would work best with a rogue-type character but you can have your party or thief character penetrate an enemy base and stealthily attempt to recover the enemy plans, hostage, thing-of-a-jiggy or whatever. The price for blowing your cover would be your death, the hostage's death, loss of the plans ..etc The above scenario can easily be forced if the PCs know ahead of time that the forces inside the castle either far outnumber them or are far more powerful, sending the message home that making a head-on assault would be futile.

The problem is: all my friends played it, so they just have no suprise from it <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I am not saying coping verbatim what was in the game.. But use the examples from the game as inspiration for your own devious plot hooks.

I think that Planescape: Torment was an excellent example of a game that had many, many non-combat solutions to problems. I think a lot of inspiration can be had just going through that game.

If all the feats, many skills, and combat options get stripped out of 3.5e in your game then whose to say that the resultant system will be balanced? If you are unwilling to use another ruleset built to handle real roleplaying, do you have at least a bunch of house rules to cover all the non-combat situations (non-combat skills and what not) not addressed by the core 3.5e rules?

Yeah. d20 Call of Cthulhu is definitely a bad thing. Get 4th edition Call of Cthulhu by Chaosium instead.

I would think this would be very, very difficult considering the heavy focus on combat in the 3.x iterations. It would require some serious playing around with the rules. Your heart might be set on this, but in my honest opinion there are much better rulesets out there for this sort of thing. EDIT: I hadn't noticed that Numbers Man beat me to the punch.. But yeah I would agree wholeheartedly. There would be no use for feats, most skills, and all those combat options. 3.x was specifically made for games high on combat (others would say it was made to appeal to munchkins ). Why not try something like the Call of Cthulhu ruleset instead? It would work very well for a mystery/suspense-type of game. And unlike 3.x it was specifically made for games low on combat with its simplified combat system and heavy emphasis on roleplaying.

Avernum

Humans rule.

I second this man's good taste.

I just got back from eating barbecue baby-back ribs from Longhorn steakhouse. Man, those ribs are da bomb!

My top 10: Planescape: Torment; Target Earth (tie) Order of the Griffon Geneforge Star Wars:Knights of the Old Republic I Ultima VII Baldur's Gate I Fallout I Xenogears Fallout II Deus Ex

That's what I wrote in the first place. But please, continue to turn a thread about console games into an unending discussion about the merits of 2nd Edition AD&D over 3E. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Unfortunately, *that* topic ran its course by the time *I* hijacked the thread.. lol

Warriors of the Eternal Sun was a fun game. But Order of the Griffon for the Turbo Grafx 16 was the best! But it is interesting to realize that both games were based on the Basic D&D ruleset. That's right! Not 1e, 2ndEd, or 3.x! Not to mention that both were based on my favorite DND gameworld.. Mystara. Yep, back in the days not ALL tabletop console/computer RPGs were based on Forgotten Realms. Boy, that makes me proud.

Finally! A breath of fresh air! I concur with this. I had the same experience. I find it surprising that the 3e advocates claim that 2ndED was so hard to learn for them. I didn't have any problems understanding it either and nor did any of my friends that I gamed with.