Tale

Pick a source, any source. Depending on your opinion of the current state of Star Wars, this might be considered good or bad. There's an episode 7 planned for 2015. Found the press release.

Farscape Doctor Who Babylon Five Deep Space Nine Firefly House MD Some mix of Stargate SG-1/Atlantis Even the filler was good. It's just the filler is harder to enjoy now that I've watched it all 6 times. And the non-filler is still my favorite show of all time. From the attack on the shadow depository to sabotaging Scorpius' command carrier (Talyn :'( ). And Scorpius joining the crew.

Avoiding respec applies more weight to the choices. Similar to how allowing you to make/unmake/remake plot based decisions would make them all seem less significant. Being able to alter choices makes choices into exploratory trials. There's already a system you can use for trying out character builds in the adventurer's hall.

They can be. The players won't accept that blame, however. Randomness disconnects choice from consequence. Because the choice isn't the final arbiter, the randomness is. What is the effect you're trying to get here? If you simply wish to make downsides for ideal options, simply include downsides. Why make it random?

Considering that magic healing wasn't that powerful in D&D, I'm not sure I see the confusion. It took what, level 5 before a Cleric could heal even "moderate" wounds? Nobody was magically reattaching severed limbs or anything like that at those levels, yet the adventurers didn't drop dead from raiding your average goblin camp. Taking a wound doesn't represent having an axe lodged in your skull. Even HP was already an abstract involving luck and fatigue.

I wish the system was flexible enough that respecialization was simply never needed. That's my ideal. Every attribute point, every skill selected, has viable utility towards progression. It's a bit of a pipedream, I understand that. But I still ask that it be aimed for as far as is reasonable. Beyond that, I would prefer that a few screwups in the character build should be able to be made up with party composition, assuming you're not actively trying to sabotage the entire group's build. And assuming you're playing on normal.

Which one? I liked the framing in 1, 2, and Brotherhood. Revelations was just terrible. I'm not familiar with how 3 works out, just how it ends.

I prefer feat selection. Talent trees tend to be too restrictive and with wildly varying utility to the talent selection.

The mage solution is terrible not because it's predictable, but because it is superior. They should be equivalent. Like, maybe you go to get the mages, and the boy kills his own mother. Hey, your hands are clean and you didn't have to kill anyone. And the boy may be yet saved! But... hoooo boy. I mean, that brings up a lot of interesting questions. Is it okay just because your hands are clean? Do you want to burden a child with that knowledge? etc. If it's predictable, then you have to take responsibility. You can't just blame it on randomness. Random outcomes to choices simply have no power. Because the player can dismiss them. "It's not my fault." They take the risk because the random element is to blame, not their choosing. If you want consequences, they need to be assured and known.

There are a dozen ways to do it. You can have fun with it. For example, write a sequence with lots of stuff happening in it. Don't explain WTF is happening, just write the scene. Then chop that scene in half. Start at the second half. It might be an argument, a sword fight, a car crash... anything. Start your novel there and frame the narrative from that point onwards. Let the rest back-fill naturally. This will work better with some genres than others. The other one I use all the time is to write three chapters then switch them around, a variation on a theme. My latest submission does this (I swapped chapter two for three and got rid of a whole lot of exposition). If you send me a chapter I will happily read it as a completely impartial observer. Thanks for the offer. By the time I get around to it, I'll probably forget. I'm still completely new to actually writing prose. I did figure out how to do my first chapter too. It's kind of silly because it's the actual beginning of the story I had planned. But my original plan was to use it as a flashback, so I never considered it. The new structure abandons flashbacks altogether and that's probably for the best.

I liked that it was attempted, but it fell flat because the personal part didn't go anywhere. It was basically three stories, two of which weren't personal at all, that only connect because they had to. I think the passive issue mainly arises from the intense railroading so that all three of the stories end the same way. The player doesn't feel he mattered, he just was along for the ride. Anyway, finished the "scenario" campaign for Fallen Enchantress. I have no idea why that campaign exists.

I could use more detail to make sure you're not misunderstanding anything somewhere. Unequip all equipment from the character. What's the character's armor rating? Now equip the armor. What armor is it and what's the new rating?

Fallen Enchantress campaign. I like the production quality of their cutscenes, but it's a tedious jaunt otherwise. Think I should finish Unfinished Swan first, actually.

This is the official forums, not very active: http://social.biowar...egory/172/index The Steam forum for the game is not very active, but you can check it for similar problems: http://forums.steamp...play.php?f=1060 Or you could just tell us what the problem is. I've played it pretty recently so I might have an idea.

Of Orcs and Men? Just how good it is? It's on my wishlist and I'm debating whether to wait for a sale or just grab it.

That'll be enough of that.

I just can't trust a game that's been in amateur development for 8 years. At some point, they should have narrowed it down to something shippable, instead of keeping the objective as being an "AAA" game. Even if they got their money, I'm not sure they'd still finish it.

I did some editing of the thread, far more than I should have to. Keep the discussion civil and on-topic.

They shouldn't. The idea of souls influencing characters should be left for NPCs. Maybe if they want to get meta, the player can be a stand-in for the character's soul. If the soul is influencing character decisions, you either remove player agency by declaring it for the player. Or you're making a silly distinction of letting the player choose between soul and self which is needless complication that doesn't actually explore the theme. It's just letting the player pretend he's exploring a theme he probably doesn't even understand. You're missing it. The player has a choice as to how and why do something. For example, save that pregnant woman or the king? You can save the woman because you save two lives and the king has more people caring after him, or you can do it because you hate the guy, and other possibilities that can be presented in the dialogue and the narrative. Some time later you learn that something similar has happened in the soul's past. At that point, we see whether the pc made the choice influenced by the past, and in which way, or not if he didn't get influenced. I'm missing it because that doesn't make any sense to me. The player already knows why the PC made the choice. In fact, you just asked him why. Turning around and saying "it's because of the past life" or "because of no reason, lol" based on a comparison against the writer's arbitrary script isn't something that sounds even remotely beneficial.

I'm mostly stuck trying to figure out how to make the first chapter interesting. You have to get your hook out there, otherwise both publishers and readers won't bother with the rest. I feel I may have backloaded mine a bit. And I'm wary about using in media res. I'm thinking a lot about how other novels do it. Pratchett hooks people with the humor that just pervades the entire thing. So he can pretty much start anywhere. As could Douglas Adams. George R. R. Martin starts Game of Thrones off by basically lying to the reader, introducing the "Others" who aren't anywhere else in the bleeding 1st book. I don't think I want to do that. I guess I should summarize what my overall tone and hook are going to be and build something that represents that. Ooh, maybe as an impetus for the more boring intro I was avoiding. Don't avoid it, just push that to Chapter 2 and make Chapter 1 something interesting that would cause it.

Trying to figure out how and where to start my novel. This attempt has been my most fulfilling one, except for the complete lack of a place to actually start the story.

Is this the classic hit points = blood argument? Hit points didn't translate directly to damage in D&D, either. Getting stabbed in the chest doesn't make you closer to dying, it makes you actually dead or so close you won't be fighting back. If the HP mechanic was meant to represent how many stabs you can take before dying, most characters would have 1-2 HP. Since its inception, it's meant a combination of things such as fatigue and luck. Don't believe me? AD&D DMG page 82.

Closed by OP request.

They shouldn't. The idea of souls influencing characters should be left for NPCs. Maybe if they want to get meta, the player can be a stand-in for the character's soul. If the soul is influencing character decisions, you either remove player agency by declaring it for the player. Or you're making a silly distinction of letting the player choose between soul and self which is needless complication that doesn't actually explore the theme. It's just letting the player pretend he's exploring a theme he probably doesn't even understand.

Simple negativity bias. And as people take more note of unfavorable outcomes, the mind tends to assume a pattern. The human mind developed to be pattern seeking, but it takes a lot of shortcuts to get there. It's fairly pervasive. It could be a contributing factor to many overblown phenomena. Edit: Moving sentences causes pronouns to get funky.