alphyna

I want this BADLY.

Actually, what I wouldn't like is trying to incorporate everything from this thread into the game. Choose one theme (or maybe a couple, like suffering and the nature of belief in PST) and explore it thoroughly. With that I can allow for a lot of different topics. You have souls? Right, let it be the "you're a nice guy born with a lousy soul, what do you do" thing. It's not the most interesting thing in the world for me, but it'll work if discussed in detail.

What makes a person. Not "an accomplished person", but — what is the essense of human being. Also, general "philosophy". Gods. How do you even live in a world with gods? Like, you may be the paragon of virtue, but some haloed **** decides that you don't suit their plans, and bang! You're dead! How do you deal with it? Come to think of it, it works without gods too. You can walk the street and be hit in the head by a brick. Randomly. No one cares if you're good or bad, it's pure chance. How do you live with that? No good, no evil, lose-lose situations. Grey and grey morality. You know the drill. Also what I'd really love to see is the invocation of the "good job breaking it hero" trope. A typical PRG hero rushes into the action and offers to help the matters even if he wasn't invited. I'd like to see him do it and make the situation worse because he doesn't really understant its subtleties. That can also be the source of the main conflict!

No (Persuade) button. If I'm persuading, write the text option persuasively, dammit! And don't indicate that I'm using the skill, I think I can figure it out. No cliche-breaking which is cliche in itself, like Brienne-like tough paladinish chicks. No cliches, by the way. No tediuous micromanagement for the sake of "realism". No general two-sided conflict. Storylines with two parties opposed are fine, but the main story has to be a bit more complex. No infodumping where possible.

Will I be the first to point out that OH MY YOUR KEYLEE AND JAYNE FIGURES ARE SO NICE? Well, they are. Happy birthday.

I think you've missed the point. Ego-stroking (the player, not the character!) doesn't have to be positive. Morte lied to you because all his guilt, all his non-life was bound to yours and he wanted to stay with you. Ignus nearly worshipped you previously, thus being so easily manipulated into attacking you, the master who didn't love his best student as mach as the latter wanted. Vhalor dedicated both his life and afterlife to judging you. All that is ego-stroking at its best, it's what makes you the main character: you are important to them, and they show it. No one said anything about this affection having to be love and general cheering. This is better shown on Annah's example, I believe. She contempted you, and what did it turn into? Right. All strong emotions blend together somewhat on a certain level. But would that be ego-stroking the player without the romance? Yup, still would be. 'Cause she contempted you, you personally, and that made you special. I think that's what Chris is talking about.

22. I think my avatar says it all. Planescape: Torment. (My second favourite game is actually Pathologic, which you can argue is sorta RPG-ish.)

Technically PS:T did have an antagonist, but your confrontation was not with him, but with the world and with yourself. The challenge and the story come from two facts: a) everyone around you is completely nuts, and you get to choose whether to bring some order and peace to this chaos or to embrace it, b) there's a mystery drama going on about your past, and you get to solve it. Personally, my main confrontation was with said mystery. It drove my desire to keep playing. Would I be disappointed if the big boss was not a charater but an interactive thing, sensory-stone-like? If well-written, not a single bit. To me, the highest point of the game wasn't even him, it was talking to your incarnations. And it's not him you overcome in the end. So yeah. The confrontation and the main character's development are important. Tying them to a single bad guy? It's one possible way to go, but not the most interesting one — IMHO.

That's actually a great thing! I'm a fan of the idea that Kreia is also Ravel (I also find her in other games, not necessarily Obsibian/BI, but that's just me). I think including Ravel once again would be an awesome thing, althougn more like an inside joke, so she really shouldn't be the main antagonist. Just, you know, a character.

I get what your say but your view is more applicable to a real life scenario than an actual story, because its the conflict that drives the villain and therefore the story. But within the confines of a simple three stages story structure its the villain that initiates the conflict. PS:T is a great example of a story without a main villain, although you could argue that the nameless one was the villain since his actions initiated the conflict and he is also the main antagonist. So... I'm confused. You agree that it is possible to have a story without the main villain (PS:T being an example), but you don't want it? Why? True. Relatable ≠ apologetic, and deep ≠ whiny. Well, once again it's simple the matter of good writing. As for your PS: it's about personal preferences, but that's not what I meant. I think it would be rather nice for the character to be an ordinary adventurer with a medieval set of morals (like "it's ok to kill a bandit without judge and jury"), and for the villain to be just the guy with a modern one, who is horrified by the protagonist, although he does nothing over the top. I think any adventurer is a criminal from a moredn point of view; such a clash of morals would be a fun thing to play. Sut that's just an idea.

See, it's the point where writing is needed — to ensure the protagionist has stuff to do in the world apart from his confrontation with the main villain. If the villain's the only reason for the main character to start acting, the latter is somewhat bland, don't you think?

Nope, I think you did If a conflict is real, no one really creates it, it arises itself from a complex set of differences among various worldviews. Someone can trigger it, true, but it doesn't even have to be the antagonist. Frankly, I prefer PS:T-type villains, who didn't even do anything wrong, but the protagonist simply had to go (no hard feelings!), or maybe Firefly-type villains, who are also not really villains, but simply represent a different worldview. And I would definitely love a game where the conflict is created by the protagonist (once again, see PS:T). One more reason to do them properly, eh? Non-destructive, say? It's actually the adventuring party who slaughters monsters and, well, everything that moves. Give me the pacifist villain who wants to stop the main character because he goddamn murders people!

It's hard to argue with the OP's post: creatures' abilities should be unique and diverse. That almost goes withowt question. However, I'm tempted to answer not the post, but the topic. What makes monsters interesting and unique? Well, they're not ogres, wraiths and succubi. They are something new, original and only partly predictable due to properties they share with well-known DnD creatures. Also you learn about their strenghs and weaknesses while talking to NPCs. Yeah.

Totally not confused with The Witcher by virtually everyone.

Anything without the word "soul". There's also a funny pattern: all my favourite games (well, all two) tend to have a punctuation mark in the middle. So for PE to become one of my favourites it has to be Project: Eternity, which looks stupid. Erm. Project! Eternity. Yeah, that'll do.