aluminiumtrioxid

It's strange, however, that I could never finish either Fallout or any TES game, nor bring myself to replay Arcanum, but can play PST or BG1-2 indefinitely...

10 bucks says someone will hop in to yell "that's racist!"

"Shylock: I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge. The villany you teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction." I think he's quite clearly being pictured as a product of the hate he gets for basically no reason. Shakespeare was quite progressive in this portrayal, considering the age and culture he lived in. (Also, if you liked Clavell, you should definitely watch the aforementioned movie Harakiri.) Edit: curse you, jezz555!

It's pretty likely, but it mostly comes across as escapism to me. Which is something I generally don't like (and, in RPGs, even hate - just to stay on topic). A somewhat Druss-like character done right is Tsugumo Hanshiro in Kobayashi Masaki's classic Harakiri. The whole movie is on Youtube, watch it and you'll see what I'm thinking about

Hmm... perhaps: "purity always prevails"... but it's somewhat more complex and hard to put my finger on why exactly does it bug me so much. He seems both extremely naive and hypocritical at the same time.

The ones whose influence I'd love to see without a second thought: - Patrick Rothfuss. You can't really get a much better opening chapter than "Silence of Three Kinds" in Name of the Wind. The guy's got talent. - Robin Hobb. Her white&grey morality is absolutely welcome in contrast of the grim&gritty movement of today. Also, she can write really compelling female characters. - George R. R. Martin. He pretty much started the whole "realistic" fantasy stuff. Also, if there are going to be faeries in PE, I want the devs to use Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell as inspiration. People who have their share of mistakes, but can be used as inspiration nonetheless: - Eliezer Yudkowsky: with Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, he not only deconstructed a fictional universe, but rebuilt it stronger and better in every way. It's also extremely well-written and entertaining. Applying his scientific approach to magic could benefit PE, I think. Not knowing the source material, though, takes away a lot from the experience. Also, he can get extremely preachy, sometimes unbearably so (depending on your ideological stance). - China Miéville. As a writer, he's only decent (although I've only read his first two Bas-Lag books, and some say he came a long way since then), but his ideas are fresh and powerful. - Brandon Sanderson. Until Warbreaker, I was convinced that he's a mediocre writer, but he actually can create compelling stories and characters. But even if he couldn't, his influence is welcome as an "idea guy" - the magic in Elantris, Warbreaker and Mistborn is flavorful and imaginative. People who are kinda popular, but I'd rather not see their work anywhere near PE: - Neil Gaiman. Don't get me wrong, he's a good writer. But his signature gaimanisms are something I'm pretty convinced only he can pull off. Also he couldn't ever manage to write something on par with The Sandman. - William Gibson. Oh my GOD, what a terrible writer he is. Not only are his stories moving at a snail's pace, he reuses the same plot over and over again. Compare Count Zero, Pattern Recognition and Spook Country. - David Gemmel. I understand it's largely subjective, but his writings simply disgust me. His completely outdated moral perspective, inability to create complex plots and characters, this whole "heroic fantasy" stuff which is intellectually on about the same level as 300... ugh. Although I admit I'm extremely biased and could only manage to read Legend. It was punishment enough. - Steven Erikson. Gemmel was at least a mediocre, if dumb writer. He is a terrible one. His dialogues are painful to read. And although he has extremely good ideas (just like Sanderson and Miéville), I wouldn't wish upon anyone the torment of having to read his prose just to gain familiarity with them.

I like weird-sounding titles and spheres of influence. Things that don't really make conventional sense - some of them perhaps become obvious to the initiated, some of them remain inscrutable. Something like this: "Z'Chetne, the Lone Walker of the Thorny Path, He Who Bears the Molten Crown and Resides Over the Ruined Fortress, Architect of the Black Marble Corridors and Weaver of the Thousand Tapestries of Night". Or something less byzantian, but still quite mysterious, like "Sealer of the Silver-Framed Doors and Vanquisher of the Devouring Flame".

You don't necessarily want a realistic system. You want a system which makes sense in context of the game world. For example, in a lovecraftian horror game, there is little reason not to have a Physique ability - the most important fights are won by cleverness and information gathering, full-on confrontation with the creatures of the Mythos is lethal. Having a Wisdom score is also not needed - human beings are utterly insignificant from a cosmic standpoint, while Wisdom implies a higher understanding.

^It's good if you know what you're doing. In a combat-heavy game, it's pretty stupid to have a Physique ability instead of separate str+con entries, but otherwise, the idea has merits (there are very few frail strongmen and exceptionally healthy wimps I know of). I was never a big fan of Wisdom as an ability, so Reason and Will sounds good to me (the only reason we had Wisdom is the cleric anyway, which I've always found a redundant class). These abilities would work quite well in a Lovecraft-inspired dark fantasy game though. It could perhaps use a social attribute (let's call it Presence), since using Will to persuade people sounds rather off.

But if, instead of true random, you use some pseudo-random thingie which makes sure you break even in the long run, everybody can be satisfied.

^Since "Phisical" (more like Physique, innit?) is str+con, and Reason is int+wis, these are justified imo.

Extremely good core principles, somewhat sloppy end results. Great for a weird fantasy game (with some horror thrown in), not so good for PE. Will post ideas to improve it.

I think all classes should have only a few abilities, but these should be both unique to the class and easily diversifiable (is that even a word?). For example, fighters should have two defensive (skill-based, which can give bonuses to light and medium armor, parrying, dodging and counterattacking; and endurance-based, which helps reducing criticals, regaining stamina, shrugging off critical effects and the like) and two offensive (fast, which gives bonuses to attack speed and critical chance; and strong, which gives armor penetration and damage bonuses) figthing styles which each give different bonuses, and some 5-ish active abilities, which do different things depending on which fighting styles have you upgraded and how. This way, there is no need for too many animations, but the same skill with the same animation can accomplish quite different things, depending on your build.

They make the best clubs, actually. (According to my anatomy teacher.)

True. But bitching about where the unimaginable eldritch horrors beyond the ken of man which lurk at the bottom of the dungeon gain their sustenance from is rather silly. I'm all about immersion and internal consistency, but not at the price of interesting gameplay. By the way, the answer to your question is: they feed off the emotions of adventurers and superstitions surrounding this place in the eyes of the populace. Bamm, problem solved most elegantly and without resorting to the extremely boring and unimaginative "it's because of magic" argument.

I almost forgot the possibility that with the death of a party member in heavy plate armor and some effort, we can create our own (literal) Weighted Companion Cube!

Dungeons do NOT have to make realistic sense. Striving for realism (especially in dungeon-creation, but in general fantasy worldbuilding too) is counter-productive, because it narrows down your options greatly. Basically you have to throw out a lot of interesting content, and replace it with less interesting ones, which means less fun. Something to be avoided.

I have to third this assertion. If the dungeon is supppoed to have 15 levels, then how is fresh air, water, and food being brought in to see to the needs of the inhabitants and how is all of the waste being handled? If it's populated by undead or clockwork creatures, then that eliminates a lot of the questions of biological viability, but it still leaves unsolved the question of why all of those entities are sticking around after all of these many decades or centures of abandonment. Something has to account for their presence. Who on Earth gives half a flying ****?

To paraphrase a classic: their blood can be used to drown someone, you can sell their organs and gain enough money to hire an assassin, the bodies can cause serious injuries if shot at someone at high enough velocity, and their bones can be sharpened and used as a weapon. And the beauty of the concept is, these could be done with appropriate spells.

What kind of an idiot doesn't keep some "blow self up"-type spell on their person if it is expected that the enemy combatants will loot their bodies and - against any kind of common sense - start to experiment with the spells found without trying to gain any preliminary information?

I'd prefer it more if your original research would result in discovering completely new spells, but it's neat either way.

Hypercubes.

"Dungeons should always be heavily jaquayed."

I think there are way too many settings where orcs are noble savages. I'd rather go back to Tolkien, and have them as a corrupted slave race. (In my own homebrew setting, they were people kidnapped and repurposed by the not-quite-dark-elves-but-something-like-that cavedweller race; their agression magically repressed, and while in darkness, they got physically more powerful, but their muscles atrophied when light shone upon them. Thus, they are great for menial labor, but not gain a lot by fleeing to the surface).

1. Unraveling disrupts the threads of the magic itself being woven into a spell; hence the name. So it's not the enemy spellcaster's mind being clouded (there are specific spells for that purpose, too, though); but rather a competition where the two magicians wrestle for the control of the same chunk of magical energy being formed to achieve a specific effect. And of course you can blow up spells in their face, when it makes sense as a magical mishap. But if it's a healing spell, for example, it could propagate growth without control, large chunks of flesh appearing in random locations on the intended target, causing considerable distress and physical pain. If it's a curse, it can affect the caster instead. If it's a summon... it may attract the attention of an immensely powerful eldritch abomination, which chooses to heed the call instead of the intended creature. Et cetera. 2. Dissolving/Devouring is spell-specific or target-specific or area-specific, but usually spell-specific, since the time to dispel all spells affecting a target (or target area) takes no less time either way, but you can set up an order in which you want the spells to disappear. You cannot Dissolve a spell which resolves itself in a matter of seconds (most offensive spells fall into this category), since the time required to do so is way higher than the amount you have to react. On the other hand, if you manage to slow them down... maybe. It could be implemented with different talents/feats associated with this skill. Devouring, for example, is a step up from simply dissolving. Basically, you're making use of the magical energy put into creating the spell. And yes, you cannot cast spells while Devouring, but the process is constantly weakening the structure of the target spell, meaning you can feed upon a spell - thus refilling your mana reserves and at the same time reducing its duration - shoot one of your offensive spells, then go back to sapping away the weakened spell's energies. 3. Blocking actually allows you to react reflexively, without thinking, setting up a barrier while casting another spell, but since you concentrate to your own spell, you lose the bonus associated with both anticipating the incoming spell and adapting to it (a reduction in mana cost) and the one with carefully weaving the barrier's structure (an increase in the integrity of the barrier; at low intergrities, it may shatter and only partially or not at all reduce the strength of the incoming attack, while at high integrities, spells may even bounce back from it). You can circumvent these by picking up appropriate feats related to battlefield awareness and pattern recognition, allowing you to retain these bonuses as a part of you actually is concentrating to the incoming spell and setting up the barrier, while you're being occupied with something else. A: When Dissolving, you choose a target spell, which will start to weaken right away (its duration will drop). There is no area of dissolvement, and since you can only Dissolve spells which were already cast, you can't do it in the caster's hand either. That's what Unraveling and Blocking are for.