The Sharmat

Accidental romances are a huge problem in some games. Thanks for that, Bioware. No, it's ok. I didn't want to know anything about Jack's backstory anyway.

Or you could just not romance anyone. That's why it's an option. Do you not become emotionally attached to characters in games you play? What about books or films? I thought that was the whole point of having characters in the first place.

I've actually seen people insist that Avellone should not be allowed to write romance because it would end horribly. I welcome a horrible end. Tragedy would be fun to see for once. It's not tackled in that many games. Usually the protagonist gets what they want.

Hah! That did actually annoy me in Mass Effect. Racism and speciesm aren't really the same thing. No one would argue that an entity with compound eyes has better spatial resolution in their vision than an entity with vertebrate eyes.

Yeah, dropping gold off in a vault feels like busy work to me.

Why is there no "Gold should not have weight" option? A firm negative is not the same as being indifferent.

I don't really require that because I'll just assume it's the sort of minor concession to gameplay over realism that is standard for the industry. Not all compromises are bad. EDIT: Yeah I'm with Tamerlane now. I think everything that can be said on the subject has been said. If no opinions have been altered then they're not going to be. At least not here, in this thread.

Oh, defining everything would be a terrible mistake. You always need something over the horizon. Anything else not only limits content, but makes the world feel small.

I could live with -1 or -2 strength default, honestly, I just don't think it's a smart move in terms of marketing and I can perfeclty understand why people wouldn't like it. I just find the idea that female fighters are such an absurd concept as to throw all logic out the window ridiculous.

The WNBA would destroy a band of kobolds at basketball and you know it. Most fights in RPGs aren'te cream of the crop vs. cream of the crop. Besides, I was arguing against the notion that women lose against men 100% of the time in all physical confrontations, to the extent that they shouldn't even bother wearing armor because women in combat never happens ever and is fantasy directly comparable to unicorns.

It is? I haven't seen a lot of those accusations thrown around. Accusing people of throwing them because they disagree with you is as bad as doing the things you've described.

We are? Do you feel the 100,000 orcs we've all killed in various RPGs were the best of the best?

Man, think of how much time and money the Greeks and Romans would have saved if only someone had told them this.

This may be generally true, but there were a few exceptions. Parts of Mass Effect got it right. Inevitable, as it's written by a team of writers rather than one person. Flaws won't be consistent throughout. The Garrus one was actually well handled and touching, I thought.

Why? If a woman is magically as strong as a man in your setting 'just because', then armor has the same utility for all parties as if all the combatants were male.

Less utility is not the same as no utility. Women tiring more quickly in heavy armor does not make heavy armor useless for women. But that's the point. She's exceptionally large and could beat many average men due to being a very above average woman. A man her size would have her once again at a physical disadvantage, but most men aren't her size. And any trained man? Really? A 5'3 man that weighs 110 pounds should, nine times out of ten, beat a 6'5 woman that weighs 220 pounds?

But as this thread has demonstrated, that depends both on who you're talking to and what sort of fantasy game it is. I'm not asking for a blanket ban on games that feature bikini armor. I'm just saying it's absurd in a fantasy game that takes itself seriously. I think Delterious meant that men and woman can wear the same sort of armor because we both have two arms, to legs, and a head; and further that if in your mind both genders wearing bikini armor is fine because armor is just cosmetic, why not just have both genders wear regular armor?

To be fair, substance abuse is kind of the point of substance abuse. Like potato chips are the point of potato chips.

Indeed, which is why we have threads like this to discuss the specifics.

It's important to me both in game and out of game. I'll voraciously read up on lore that never turns up in the game and is only available in supplementary materials, if it's creative and well made. It's the setting that MADE Morrowind for me.

We aren't really. I'm just arguing on those terms because all other arguments have been ignored. Generalizations are not invalid, but they're just...general. Not representative of every case by definition. For an example in fiction: Take Brienne from A Song of Ice and Fire. She's a female that fights in the traditional style of western European knight...and she can do it, because she's six and a half feet tall and heavily muscled, truly on the shallow end of the bell curve. Thank you. And we're dealing with a party of adventurers who are most likely very exceptional people. Perhaps you know you're going to be moving through a warzone. Or due to some quest you just HAVE to speak to someone in one of the army camps. Or maybe you're one of those females that lead and command armies without fighting in the front line; which you've acknowledged exist; and you don't want to be killed by a stray arrow? You...you have to be doing this on purpose.

I'd love to see a genuine romance arc initiated and carried through most of the story only for it to end horribly on some crucial plot point. Drama is fun. Some aspects of Mass Effect's romances were a step in the right direction (having sex with one character prematurely actually ends the relationship entirely, since she assumes you didn't want anything serious), but they never really tried anything like that.

Ok Dan, let's accept your premise. However, people in wars don't tend to respect your feelings. You don't have to WANT to fight to be in a combat situation. Now you're a woman fighting a man. You know that you're going to lose if this stays a one on one affair, because physics dictates that no woman can beat a man in a physical confrontation under any circumstances. Wouldn't you like armor that's actually protective so you can last as long as possible until someone rescues you, instead of immediately being gutted because you just had to show your midriff?

In your setting, Dan, why would anyone bother with armor at all? It's heavy, limits vision and movement, and is stiflingly hot.

But if you have magic you haven't thrown physics, logic, and consistency out of the window. You've just replaced one set of physics for another. Violate your setting's physics willy-nilly and you'll rapidly have an inconsistent, incomprehensible, unenjoyable mess of a story.