Giantevilhead

I think failure should lead to new quests and stories. For example, if you fail to prevent a town from destroyed by a monster or an invading army, there could be a quest later on where you help the refugees of that town defend against bandits or find/build a new home.

have you played torment? Yes, but the undead are not actually well integrated into the rest of Sigil. The Dustmen and the Dead Nation don't actually interact with the living that much. And they certainly don't have a nation of their own where both the living and undead co-exist harmoniously. I would like to see a culture where the living and undead cooperate harmoniously and necromancy and the undead play a big part in every facet of society from agriculture, to the economy, to industry, to politics, to philosophy, to religion, etc.

Hehe, the first part sounds pretty familiar, haven't been talking to the Dusties have you? The Dustmen don't actually interact with the living that much. They're not that well integrated into the rest of society. And they certainly don't have a nation of their own where both the living and undead co-exist harmoniously. I would like to see a culture where necromancy and the undead play a big part in every facet of society from agriculture, to the economy, to industry, to politics, to philosophy, to religion, etc.

I'll admit to being unfamiliar with that franchise, although I know of it. It's a very old RPG franchise that began in the 80's close to the same time as games like Bard's Tale, Wizardry, Ultima, and Pool of Radiance. Later, it spawned a turn based strategy series called Heroes of Might and Magic. Although it follows a lot of generic fantasy cliches/tropes, it has some very weird, interesting, and rare, but not necessarily unique, ideas.

Depends on how you define "original." If you mean "never done before" than, yes, you are correct. Non-evil undead and good necromancers aren't terribly original. But then, almost nothing under the sun is. If you mean "not very common" or "not mainstream," which is what I'm guessing the poster was going for (and is what people often really mean when they say "original"), then there's an argument to be made that those concepts are indeed original. The main exception to evil undead tends to be vampires, who often get the angst treatment very frequently (for better or worse). But aside from Planescape: Torment and World of WarCraft I'm not sure I can actually think of an example featuring "good" or even clearly nonevil zombies. There's non-evil undead in the Might and Magic franchise.

Where did I say that it was original? I said that I want to see non-evil undead and necromancy.

I want to see non-evil undead. I'd like to see a society where necromancy is accepted and used for the good of the entire nation. Mindless undead like zombies and skeletons can be used to perform menial labor. People can pay off their debts by allowing necromancers to raise them as undead after their deaths. Skilled and educated people could choose to be raised as undead so that they can continue to serve their nation after death. People allow themselves to be fed upon by vampires in exchange for ancient knowledge and wisdom or for apprenticeships.

There is a tactical RPG called Silent Storm that has feature called "weapon familiarity" where the more you use a weapon, the more adept you become. Implementation of a mechanic like that would make weaker weapons you get earlier in the game more viable later in the game.

It means something that is complex and nuanced, presents and considers multiple points of view, and is open to debate and discussion.

I think the key here is variety. I don't see anything wrong with really weird or impractical looking weapons as long as there are also practical weapons. Some people simply like those kinds of aesthetics and there is no reason to exclude them.

There are no realistic armor designs for women, because never was made any of the kind, soldiers have been pretty much 99% male in all of earth. And this is a fantasy game, why bring realism into this? btw I`m not women bashing, turns out I like women, a lot, but this is just the reality of things, women are more comfortable in bikini than FULL PLATE ARMOR What does comfort have to do with it? Men are more comfortable in underwear than plate armor too, does that mean male warriors should all be in their underwears too?

I would say that there are some broad themes that a lot of different ideas could fall under. Idealism vs. Pragmatism - Are you willing to sacrifice your principles for a greater good? Your army conquered an enemy stronghold. You don't have enough food and water for both your own troops and enemies you've captured. What do you do with the POW's? Do you dispatch a group of soldiers to transport them back to your territory, making you far more vulnerable to a counterattack? Do you let them go? Do you break their arms and then let them go? Do you let them starve? Do you put them to the sword? Are atrocities justified if it means a quicker end to a war? The Mongols for example, used some horrific tactics against their enemies. They built a pyramid of a hundred thousand decapitated human heads in front of the city of Delhi, which convinced them to surrender without a fight. The Mongols created a reputation for being so ruthless and terrifying that many of their enemies simply surrendered without a fight, which no doubt prevented a lot of deaths and destruction. Sp should you use such a strategies in order to get your enemies to surrender without a fight as to prevent battles that could potentially kill many more people and destroy much more infrastructure/resources/properties on both sides? I would say that a majority of the conflicts in the game will fall under this theme. Justice/Redemption/Forgiveness vs. Punishment/Revenge - Bad people don't always stay bad. Sometimes good people are forced into situations where they have to do bad things. Sometimes people do bad things without realizing them. Not to mention victims of war. How do you deal with the interaction between those who have been wronged and the people who wronged them? What happens when victims of a crime seek a punishment that may be beyond what should be appropriate? Is forgiveness something that has to be earned? What if a victim never forgives the perpetrator of a crime regardless of how they try to atone for their wrongs? Does redemption have some end goal that can be achieved or is a journey with no true end? What if the family member of someone who died during a war seeks retribution against the soldier(s) who killed that person? How do you deal with an entire family/clan/tribe/nation that feels wronged by another and seeks a war of vengeance? Social/Cultural Norms/Standards and Shifts/Clashes between/in Culture(s) - Our standards and norms are not universal, they are defined by environment, circumstance, the people who hold power, and sometimes seemingly randomly/arbitrarily. What happens when cultures with different norms/standards clash and what happens when there are shifts within the standards and norms of a culture? For example, fire is associated with hell and eternal damnation in certain cultures but it can also symbolize warmth, illumination, and knowledge. What happens when a culture that sees fire as a symbol of evil comes in contact with a culture that sees fire as a symbol of good? Can they learn to trust each other and come to coexist? What if there is significant religious symbolism involved? Is it even possible for a religion that fears and condemns something make peace with another religion that worships that thing? Things get even more interesting when magic, gods, spirits, etc. are involve. Let's say that there is a warrior culture where standards of power, respect, and beauty are defined by physical prowess, strength of arms, and tactical/strategic expertise. However, the mages are beginning to develop more useful and powerful spells, causing a shift in the balance of power. How do the warriors respond to this change? Do they resist? Do they capitulate? Do they attempt to form alliances and peacefully integrate these changes? There would obviously be a lot of factional politics involved. There could also be gender politics involved. Perhaps women were treated less equally or fairly in the warrior dominated culture but since more women are mages, they are now able to achieve greater status and gain more power. Moral Absolutism vs. Moral Relativism - Are some things just inherently evil/wrong and some things inherently good/right, or does everything depend on circumstances. There's the obvious questions of if murder is always wrong or if forgiveness/charity is always right, etc. However, there's also questions based on the fantastical elements of the game world, like are demons/devils (or whatever creature is analogous to demons/devils) inherently evil, are angels inherently good, are certain schools of magic inherently good or evil, is healing magic inherently good and is necromancy inherently bad. What about a society that utilizes necromancy in a pragmatic way that benefits its people? Perhaps they turn skilled and educated people, who are willing, into undead after their death so that they can continue to serve their nation. What about people who use healing magic to prolong torture and punishment? They could chop off a person's fingers and then magically regenerate them or have someone swallow a seed and then magically facilitate the growth of that seed into a tree.

I think a lot of potentially tedious elements should be optional. Inventory size and weight limits should be entirely optional. As should things like starvation, thirst, sleep deprivation, etc. The only "mandatory" limitation should be the amount of equipment a character is actually wearing.

There should be a taunt mechanic that lets characters to goad enemies into attacking them but it should be a skill that needs to be invested/trained in and it shouldn't have 100% success.

There are also magical items that give temporary penalties that later turns into long term bonuses. For example, a sword could have a penalty to attack but once you've killed a certain number of enemies with it, the penalty becomes a bonus.

The simple solution is to create effects that are not immediately implemented or immediately obvious. For example, with the Deck of Many things, if you draw the card that causes you to become the enemy of a demon, that demon doesn't immediately teleport in to attack you. Instead, that demon creates some elaborate plan to sabotage or destroy you that gets carried out over a long period of time.

I don't think it's unreasonable to expect the developers to give more details. They didn't just throw this whole thing together last week. They've been working on it for a while now. Heck, Chris Avellone was asking for Kickstarter suggestions half a year ago.

I just want body shapes/builds to make sense. If you have a mining town where everyone engages in a lot of hard labor breaking apart rocks with hammers and pushing around big carts of ore, it wouldn't make any sense for the men to look like Sylvester Stallone but the women to look like Natalie Portman.

30 Xanatos pileup FTW!

I just hope that Obsidian takes into consideration of how standards of gender and sex (and all social norms) are defined, why it is defined that way, and who defines them. After all, a hundred years ago in China, women with small bound feet were considered attractive, corsets used to be sexy, in some cultures tattoos and scars on certain parts of the body are considered attractive. Considering how they are building a fictional fiction, it's entirely possible to have cultures with completely different gender roles and standards.

The ability to empirically quantify and measure these metaphysical properties does open up some interesting story telling possibilities. For example, if heaven and hell do exist then conceivably, you would be able to measure the amount of good deeds that it would take to get into heaven and the amount of bad deeds to get into hell. So the clergy would almost be like accountants where people can go to audit their souls and calculate how close they are to heaven or hell and how many good deeds they would need to do in order to escape from hell and get into heaven.

Well, I can't see that not messing class balance. Unless every class is a magic-user (which is a pretty interesting idea). But who said that every class has to be balanced? This isn't an MMORPG, there's not going to be competition between different players. I don't see anything wrong with different classes giving vastly different gaming experiences.

There is nothing wrong with cheap powerful magic. The idea of undisciplined people having access to lots of power can be dealt with in a very deep and mature way. It's been dealt with very well in stories like the Twilight Zone episode "It's a Good Life," Kingdom Come, various X-Men stories about mutants with uncontrollable powers, the Spiderweb Software series Geneforge, etc.

I don't think there's anything wrong with a pointlessly destructive PC so long as there are actual consequences to the choices you've made. If you do go around slaughtering everyone, you should develop a reputation, you should be distrusted or hated by everyone, bounties should be placed on you, cities should be closed off to you, and people should cower or run in fear before you.