Tale

might i ask about what you're writing? One is a story about a Halfing Paladin, followed by a critical re-examination of the previous story suggesting that it is actually a popular myth combining several stories and exaggerations. Another is a story about an otherwise insignificant military officer with a backstabbing addiction. Or maybe he just hates both the people he was hired to spy on and the people he was hired to spy for. Today I'm thinking I'll write about fantasy thieves. I'm thinking a thief with a conscience. In which he steals from a little old lady, feels really bad about it, returns it, and begs to be jailed.

I don't have any hard answers for you. But you can try to contact Obsidian for answers at info@obsidian.net. I've heard that it's kind of swamped at the moment and may take some time for response. Paypal will continue to be open for a little while, but I don't know how much longer.

Means to an end? An adventuring party isn't a birthday party. They join up to do something, not just hang out. As long as the greater objective overrides the objections, they deal with it.

There seems to have been a misunderstanding.

I like the idea when there's a large cast of companions. Then you can replace them. But with only 8? If they come to blows, let it not be to the death. Can't afford the attrition.

This thread seems to be more about Dragon Age and Bioware than Project Eternity. There's room for that discussion over in Computer and Console, indeed a few threads go that way from time to time, but it's not really constructive here.

Aside from work, writing. I've been writing for the past three days, played almost no games. Nothing serious, just trying to improve.

"Success" simply shouldn't be a concept relevant to choice. Choice is about character expression, not challenge. And there's no real justification for limiting roleplaying possibilities in a roleplaying game. Outcomes of choices should represent various concepts and work with the player to create an interesting story. To work with the player, as opposed to against him, you kind of have to acknowlege his interests and compromise with them for your wishes for the story. Not just writer fiat him into the mud. Choices don't lead to failure. They are arbitrated to fail. You can't say a conman respecting aspiring cons is against realism. An inability to find a way out is either trying ultra hard to create the corner case where it is difficult or not trying much at all to find an alternative. There is no inherent outcome to any rational scenario, there are ranges of possibilities to draw from. Sorry if I'm being a bit aggressive here.

Roleplaying isn't meant to be a challenge. I don't even know how to make sense of that concept. You can't say someone is roleplaying "wrong." Your idea of "sensible action" is just your personal roleplaying preference. "Detours and failure" work absolutely fine so long as they still contribute to the goals. They just do it indirectly. The conman respects you, you still failed, and he gives you another path. Or maybe he points you to another path that you can work through ("I've got a friend who can help you out"). He doesn't try to force you to roleplay a different character before he lets you through. It's like low-int dialogue. Low-intelligence dialogue isn't "sensible actions." It's stupid, it's silly. It is its own path, because it's not failure.

You don't have to repeat yourself anyway. It is okay if someone doesn't understand you. I say this not as a moderator, but as a guy who has seen way too many forums and posts. It is okay to just say your piece and move on. We don't need to agree. We don't need to compromise. We don't need to understand. There is not a single thread anywhere else on this forum where everyone is on the same page or sees eye-to-eye. It's just nice to express your opinion, get what understandings you can, then just kind of move on. There are too many people with too many variable interests to even play at consensus.

Being dragged through the mud isn't another path. Because it's not contributing to your goals. For being dragged through the mud to contribute to the goals of the player, that would be indeed contrived. The question is "why are you trying to con the conman?" And how does this result help you get there? If it doesn't, then it's simply the game insulting you for trying.

Not a big fan of the idea. Yeah, it sounds great, until you realize that an RPG is cooperative between DM/designer and the player, not competitive. Choice based failure ends up coming across as the designer making value judgements on your roleplaying style. Saying "play my way or the game is going to suck for you." It's a kick in the shins to player agency. All choices should be validated in some way, and I don't consider it really validated unless its validated along the same lines as why the player chose it. But I leave wiggle room for partial validation. Like if you try to con a more experience conman. Okay, so you fail, but maybe the conman could respect your attempt and give you something of value.

Yes, you can. The globals could do it or you could message one of us rank & file and we'll pass it along.

I've always wanted to see a story where dragons are given their due. Gigantic behemoths with so much weight they can barely move. I think we've explored vicious dragons enough. I want dragons that are basically gigantic scaled cows. A little more dangerous than a charging elephant.

Avellone spoke, I think it was recently, about being disappointed with the writing for Gann because his class choice didn't really factor into his character. So I should hope not. If the character is tied in a fundamental way with their class, changing that class might be a little too strange.

Let's not derail this into a Dragon Age thread, please.

Thank you for this. The mind-mapping software, FreeMind, looks pretty dang nifty.

I'm trying very hard to separate "things I like in a plot" from "things that plots I hate did not have." I'm sure there's a lot of overlap, but it can be deceptive. I like a plot make sense. I like characters to have understandable, even if not relateable, motives. I want there to be choices that I want to take. I want the outcome of those choices to be connected to why I took them. I like characters to develop. I would like antagonists to have their development as well as the protagonists. It's not necessary, but it's nice to have. And this development needs to be understandable. I want thematic consistency. I want the plot teach me things and expose me to ideas, then reinforce or smoothly develop those ideas as the narrative continues. I am essentially asking that the events of the plot be a culmination of what comes before it. Which sounds probably simpler than it really is. I want to see the foundation for victory laid out in the beginnings. I want to witness how and why the characters change over the course of time, I don't want that to be background information. I want all the little victories to contribute to the greater victories. I want the character development to contribute to the challenges and victories along the way.

It's kind of funny that there's probably going to be more dungeon levels than character levels in the game.

Either or. I've got Walking Dead, the Blackwell series, the Still Life series, and Syberia in my backlog. Among much more.

Hey, your guess is as good as mine.

I'm in one of those moods where nothing is good after playing Mask of the Betrayer. Tried Max Payne out for a couple hours and I'm getting a little bored. Tried Divinity Divinity out for a couple minutes before getting bored. TPS down. RPG down. Maybe I should give adventure games a shot. I like adventure games.

Information on that has not been revealed yet. Hopefully soon-ish.

I want to believe. Good luck.

What's wrong with a few elements ignoring the desires of a few people completely? You can't make everyone happy. For me, there are several elements of the proposed design that ignore my interests. But there are other elements that make it up in the balance. I should hope exclusion of romances aren't the tipping point for too many people.