HangedMan

In Arcanum, early on, you can get your first companion to do some talking for you. Something like that would be pretty cool, imo; so if you want to play a neanderthal-ish barbarian, you can, and you can go "Uhh... robe-man. You make the talky at him/her/it", and then it's kind of out of your hands.

I agree, and lend my voice to the chorus. I'd like to suggest it go even further, though; if I can tell their's going to be an ambush, or a character is going to screw me over down the line, I'd like to see the option to ambush them. Possibly even with the option to mock them for their stupidity, and gloat about it.

I really like this idea. Especially the part about making the filthy blighting criminals worth something good.

I am also joining the chorus in wanting tos ee a psionic class. However, I'd like to see something closer to the Soul Knife from D&D, as a viable option. Soul Knife is pretty much... you use your psionic powers to create a rather personal weapon. As you gain levels, you can give it different enchantments, even swap them out for new ones, or otherwise change the blade around to do what you want with it. Call me crazy, but, their is just something sort of profoundly awesome about killing the Big Bad with a sword made of your desire to kill the Big Bad.

Ps:T, for me. ToEE is a close second, though. And, rounding out the trifecta, Arcanum.

Oh yeah, like the bit where cavalry charged disciplined pikes... and won? Ah, yes, that's why there are no humans. And all the laws of physics are different. And organs are in different places. And and and... And why in PE's world, their actually IS such a thing as a free lunch! But seriously, on topic, I am for more realistic armor designs. Having said that, though, I wouldn't mind if their were one or two joke-ish items, like an enchanted mythril bikini of deflection/distraction. Or a ridiculous gate-smashing mace that's been enchanted to only weigh 1/10th of its actual weight. Or at least some plausible-armor that also has amazingly fabulous and garish colors. Not all of it, not even most of it, just one or two examples apiece floating around out there. Their is even an opportunity for snarky-funny commentary in the item description.

I approve of Tieflings as a race!

A contrarian would.

I personally prefer turn based. I pitched in $20, but I'd go all the way up to $100 if it would bring us closer to a turn base option. Arcanum managed to handle turn based or real time pretty well, in my opinion.

A thousand times yes. More choices are almost always better.

I would like to see Martyrs as a character type. I've just always been fascinated with martyrdom, though. Another idea: Why not do a slight spin on archetypes, and go with Tarot based archetypes? The Persona series does this, and really, their is such a thing as a Jungian Archetype; I think using them as a skeleton for characters is a good idea. Mind you, a skeleton. Once you've got the bones, you need to add all the muscles, tendons, ligament, fat cells, genitalia, skin, hair, and pretty colors. And in this convoluted metaphor, yes, those are all special character traits that may go along with, or deviate harshly (or somewhere inbetween) from the archetypal 'skeleton'.

And if this is the case, what would people think of that? I rather like having memories myself, thank you. Not that the denizens of that world necessarily know the nature of their afterlife. I suppose it would all depend on the life you lead. Some people might be upset that they don't get to remember all the cool things they've done, or the fact that they are the reincarnation of a Super Cool Hero/Villain/Sidekick/etc. Now, venturing intoa topic that is likely to get bent out of shape, how would knowing this stuff effect something like suicide? Would people, knowing that they can well and truly start over from scratch, who are experiencing lives of misery, be much more willing to kill themselves? How does society handle that? Or, if memories and such can be preserved, how does killing oneself (and maybe not even through genuine suicide; what about martyrdom?), how does this affect a persons soul in the long run?

Haha, so here I come, head full of ideas I want to get down, and as I read along... I discover most people have had the same idea! Fancy that. Anywho, I do have somethings I wish to add, though... I like this idea. Additionally: Maybe for that first hour or so after resting, you get a minor penalty to represent the fact that you're still waking up. Their could also be a perk or background choice that mitigates the penalty. A thousand times this. I love the idea of time sensitive quests, as long as the time limit is plausible. It probably goes without saying, but, on the topic of quests, I would love to see most quest results have an additional effect down the line. For instance, maybe you saved an adventuring archer along the way; later on, in some encounter when you get ambushed--just as an example-- he suddenly pops up, and kills one of the enemies, and generally makes the other enemies panic. That panic can be exploited, and allow the player to turn around an otherwise bad situation. Why does that happen? Because the archer felt like he owed you one. But, now that debt is paid, and he's got work to do elsewhere, so don't expect to see him again for some time, if at all. Or maybe he just sort of turns into the equivalent of the Mysterious Stranger perk. I have nothing to add to this. I just love this idea. A thousand times this. A bit of fantasy racism/sexism actually makes a whole lot of sense. Unless we're dealing with a society that is entirely one-hundred-percent egalitarian, the idea of which actually hurts my head, and would kill my own immersion, unless done exceedingly well (something like a hive-mind society; like how all worker bees really are equal to all other worker bees, etc).

I like this idea.

Just throwing out an idea there for what happens to souls when they pass on. Maybe they get purified, sort of scrubbed clean of all that accumulated personal experience, reprocessed, and packaged up into a new body? Kind of like reincarnation, but you don't really get any of the past lives influencing your current life thing going on. Could their be a finite amount of 'soul' material? Maybe that's why their are a lot of people with "anemic" souls, to use Pop's idea; their's just not enough spiritual mojo to go around, so their souls are stuffed with filler material (like adding breadcrumbs to hamburger to stretch it out).

I think something like Crossroad Keep from neverwinter Nights 2 would be awesome. But, unlike that one, give us a lot more options to flesh the place out; if we want to have this scummy bar/brothel/gambling den vice-town, or this holy-pure-cloistered-chapel-community or anything in between, it should be doable. That way it can reflect our characters, and also help us out; if I'm playing a sneaky thief/assassin type, maybe I want their to be an herbalist on call to brew up nasty potions for me. So on, so forth.

My own thoughts on the matter... As far as races go, I think more options would be awesome. Even just throwing in the half-human-half-something-else things. But especially, I would like to see odd races like Tieflings. Maybe they could be hard mode, because most people would have a serious bias against anyone bearing any obviously infernal traits (or maybe they'd be honored by some folk). And as for party size... why not make it so that we can use every single character we have at any given time? Of course, then it becomes a matter of leaving encounter balance up to the players. It wouldn't be fair to make all the end game stuff require you to have all the companions, because what if you missed two along the way? You'd be screwed.

I fully second this.

I agree with almost all of what these two posts mention, which is why I'm quoting them; it's basically my own thoughts, but in a manner more eloquent than I can muster up. However, I would like to see a morality, or perhaps a personality system. I honestly don't think their are too many people who will play the game going "I only need five more points to be a certified Nice Guy! Wow-wee!" or something similar; and really, if somebody does want to play that way, and has fun doing that, then why stop 'em? I think it would be interesting to have this system also influence some skills. For instance, do you typically solve problems by violently butchering the people that cause them? Congratulations, all that killing and complete disregard for human life makes you a lot better at intimidating. Meanwhile, nobody really wants to actually sit and have a peaceful discussion with somebody that carries around the heads of their enemies as a grisly trophy, so you could suffer a penalty to Diplomacy.

I would like to see a system like Arcanum's, personally. I think it's one of the best systems devised, and that the only way to really imrpove it would be to add some sort of Fallout-styled Perk system.

I'm throwing my voice into the chorus. An SDK of some sort would be awesome. If not backgrounds and new locations and the likje, then why not editing/creating new NPCs and items and such? Plus, I'm sure creative reuse of resources might make new landscapes plausible.

I'm joining the chorus in saying that please don't include a sleep function. A mana bar with a system of perks that allow you to have more mana/higher mana regen, as mentioned by Aoha, seems the best idea to me.