Hagen
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Posts posted by Hagen
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It defines the Character's overall personality, allows the DM to design his campaigns without having to try to account for every possible variation, and defines roleplaying expectations.
An alignment is never required to define a character's personality. A character in a RPG is barely different from, say, a character in a book. It is up to the player / the author to define the character's personality. It doesn't need to be expressed in game mechanics, it just needs to exist somewhere, whether it's purely in the player's head or scribbled onto some notepad. It's that personality that defines roleplaying expectations.
Without it, you have a Character personality that is largely ad-libbed, inconsistent, and often ends up with the Character being an Avatar for the Player's personality rather than the Character being seperate. It largely starts entering LARPs land where the Player is the Character, rather than the two entities being seperate..Why would a character suddenly become inconsistent just because his personality has not been forced into the constraints of an alignment? If that were true, no book author could write any believable character without giving them an alignment first, because writing a character is a very, very similar creative process to playing one in a roleplaying game. If Tolkien had no note that said "Sauron is lawful evil" (or whatever really), the Dark Lord of Mordor would have suddenly started to build orphanages or something?
Further, it's hell for the DM, since he has no reasonable expectation of how any given event will play out, since now all actions are completely arbitrary. A Paladin can pee on an altar, because there's nothing that defines the Character's personality as an individual who would never do such a thing. Campaigns themselves rapidly become ad-libbed since the DM constantly has to deal with the random actions of players.A paladin is free to pee on an altar, and the God in question is free to strike him down with some lightning from the sky. I've been a gamemaster for years, none of the system we played used alignment, and I never had to worry that any paladin crapped on his deity's altar or any acolyte ever told his inquisitor "y'know, I think the God-Emperor is the biggest douchebag in the known galaxy". Honestly, if players are unable to make up a character personality that fits the setting and the storyline and act at least moderately sane in that character's role, well, then roleplaying maybe ain't the right hobby for them.
Alternative systems, such as Reputation systems, are plagued by far worse problems than a Alignment system. Since now you attach values to actions, you end up with utterly ridiculous situations, such as a town's hero suddenly killing nearly everyone and ending up with an neutral reputation. Or worse, the "Pay a fee to commit a crime" scenario, where you identify someone who has something you want, find a reputation sink in the town, kill the person and then go donate your reputation back up.That potential trouble is easily avoided by defining a robust reputation system. As a general rule, a good reputation is frigging easy to ruin - the local hero who is caught stealing will very quickly stop being a local hero. And you simply need to define "points of no return" - kill somebody, and your rep can never go over a certain point again. No matter how much your donate to charity after murdering someone, you'll still be a murderer and appropriately unpopular.
TBH, the only thing I've ever seen a Reputation system, or any other Alignment alternative do is facilitate people's desire to take arbitrary action and avoid consequences.Consequences do not require the presence of an alignment, it requires simply common sense from the game master, or, in the case of a computer game, the scripters of the system. You desecrate an altar - bad things happen to you, no matter what alignment you are. You murder someone - people will hate you, no matter what's on your character sheet.
I think alignment is mostly a constraint. A crutch, at best.
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Whenever someone brings up alignments, I think of that entry in the "Real men, real roleplayers, loonies and munchkins" list.
Real men are lawful good.
Real roleplayers don't use alignment.
Loonies are amoral silly.
Munchkins are whatever gives the most plusses.
Ancient humor aside, I agree with one of the lines above.
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Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines will always have a place in my "all time awesome" list.
It managed what only very, very few games ever did during my gaming "career" - making me stay awake and play until 4 AM during the week, wandering to work like a frigging zombie, not regretting a thing about it and doing it again the next night.
Here's one to Troika!
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I just increased my pledge because it's the last week and I felt it was worth giving it one final push.
Hope my car won't need any repairs or some such next month.
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I voted for "follow the same rules but have an unique feature". Said unique feature shouldn't be anything super-powerful, just something that fits with the theme of the character and gives them a little quirk, makes them stand out just a little bit.
Also, I'm no fan of wildly exotic companions. In PS:T, exotic companions worked well because the entire place was full of exotic creatures, and a party of six totally average humans would have looked weird and out of place.
However, in a more down-to-earth setting I like my companions to be much less exotic. No demon lords or vampires in my party, please. That type of companion takes something that should be rare and exciting and dangerous - in this case, demons and vampires - and turns it into something common, something familiar. Because it hangs out in your party every day. "Oh look, a coven of vampires, like our old pal Edward here." Yay.
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Yep, voicing concerns is akin to running in circles with burning hair, Ned. You nailed it.
Not interested in a flame war, kid. Have a good one.
Sorry, are you perchance Chris "E..xtremely childish" Priestly? :D
http://social.biowar...14315447-1.html
"I'm not evil, I'm actually very nice and kind. I can prove it. Here, loan me your wallet and sister/mom/daughter for a few minutes." Today's pearl. Ah, the Bioboards..
Erm, that was kinda harsh. :D I have no interest in anyone's mom. And I'll also stop derailing this thread, hehe.
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Alrighty Mr. Flanders, whatever they do is fine with you. That's ok too. *thumbs up*
I said "so far", not "whatever". I'd rather see what they come up with and not run in a circle like my hair was on fire before we even had confirmed dev statements on the topic.But hey, to each their own.
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So now that we have a confirmation that, after all, it's "if at all"... what about the apologists that all of sudden had started liking level scaling, but "smartly implemented"? Are you sad?
No.
My opinion is that level-scaling can be done smartly and doesn't always completely fubar a game.
I do not need it to be present, I'm indifferent about it. If they can pull it off without any level scaling, fine! If they choose to implement it somewhere for playability's sake, also fine.
It's hard to please everyone with their design decisions, but so far, I think Obsidian is doing a really good job. No need to bitch and moan just yet.
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It depends how you define "player skill". Action gaming skills as in swinging swords and dodging via keyboard/mouse? No! Strategic/tactical skills as in what classes did you pick for your party, what skills, spells and equipment did you choose and how are you using it in tactical combat? Hell yes!
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Maybe you should just wait and see and let Obsidian do their thing instead of writing it off like this on principle.
They may still surprise you in a good way and present a tactical combat system that's deep, challenging and fun to play.
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Nope.
No you don't.
Only if your power scaling and mechanics in general are ill-thought.
Heck, not even then.
Then the alternative is what? Everything grows slightly more dangerous in relation to how far away it is from the starting point of the game?
Look, I'm all against stupid power scaling à la D&D and such, but somehow, you have to ramp up the challenge as the story progresses. Otherwise the beginning of the game will be hard and will then get easier as you progress.
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Their reply to the question makes absolute sense. If you have a large world and want to give the player freedom of choice when to go where, you have to include some form of level scaling. Fixed creature levels *everywhere* are just a gentler form of railroading.
Also, level scaling can be done very differently from "lowly street punk (lvl 1) will be a lvl 20 badass when I come back later". Instead, encounters can spawn more creatures of the same type with more dangerous abilities. That's how you defined encounters in the NWN toolset, for example. If the player is level X, spawn Y - Z amount of creatures of types A, B, or C, etc.
Places that are meant to be challenging should not scale below a certain level (i.e., dungeons), and some places should not scale above a certain level either (street thugs and such should be about the same difficulty everywhere, there's no reason for a city to have tougher street scum just because I was a higher level when I got there).
Places that are level-scaled should retain the original level they are scaled to. A den of lowly bandits should remain a den of lowly bandits, and a crypt of horrible undead should not scale down to accommodate a low level party.
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The PC should not ascend to ridiculous level of power unless there's a compelling story reason for it. But I'd prefer it if that wouldn't happen.
I suggest the following to keep the PCs power somewhat realistic and in line:
- increase attributes on level-up sparingly (DA: O, as good as it was in some aspects, gave you a ridiculous amount of attribute points which was bad)
- increase hitpoints only if the governing attribute (usually constitution) is increased or an appropriate passive skill is taken
- realistic progression in weapon and armor quality - no stuff like a low quality sword doing 5-10 damage and a high level one 60-90
- increase the PC's power by allowing them to learn better combat maneuvers and skills
In the end, I want the feeling that an experienced PC is a veteran with an edge, not some inexplicably unkillable tank that mows down entire armies.
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Agreed that rogues shouldn't be DPS king. They can still bring a lot to a party - dirty tricks in combat like poisoned blades and arrows, stealth (if light level and cover permit - no invisibility button please) and reconnaisance, lockpicking without making a frigging racket and alerting the next three rooms full of enemies, earning the party money with pickpocketing or cheating in gambling, etc.
Rogues even could be *extremely* valuable for jobs like "you need plot item X, but killing the current owner will cause you a huge reputation loss with faction Y" - the rogue just sneaks in and steals the item, no one's the wiser, faction Y has no reason to hate you.
Point (wo)man - the rogue sneaks ahead of the party, scouting for traps and enemies and improving the chance that the party will avoid ambushes and in fact may be able to set up an ambush of their own. Some classic old RPG - was it Wizard's Crown? I don't remember right now - asked you who'd be on point whenever your party moved across the world map, and used the pointman's skills in stealth and perception and such to roll for encounters and to decide who surprised whom.
There's LOTS of awesome stuff for rogues to do, and they don't need to be DPS kings at all to be useful.
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The Vancian casting system is a relic of the bad old times that should have been laid to rest a decade or so ago.
I have posted this in the old poll before - I would prefer something similar to the Ars Magica system, in short:
-separate skills for different aspects of magic (creation, fire, body, etc)
-overall ability to cast a spell = add skill points for the aspects that spell uses, difficulty depends on complexity
-casting fatigues the caster (unless a "better than necessary" success is scored), fatigue causes increasing negative modifiers
-powerful spells require a long casting time that must not be interrupted
-any spells meant to have a permanent effect (i.e. all healing spells for example) require the expenditure of a magical ingredient
-extracting magic ingredients (from defeated magical creatures and such) should be a skill of its own
-optional: magical ingredients are categorized by magical aspects too and can only be used for spells in which the aspect is present
This limits spellcasting by:
-fatigue (resting should only be effective once per 24 hour period to avoid spamming)
-casting time (for very powerful spells)
-magical ingredients
Overall, I feel a system like this makes spellcasting a more involved process than just loading some spell slots and firing them off.
Well, that... and I just don't like the whole memorisation idea.
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So because it's a game, it shouldn't include any political issues at all. Problem: this is literally impossible.
It should include political issues that are present as part of the setting and story. A fantasy RPG is a work of fiction, after all. Therefore, any political issues portrayed in its story are likewise fictional. Why insert real life issues into a game unless the intent is to use it as a propaganda platform?
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Why in eff's sake do these useless discussions keep springing up like shrooms from a pile of sh..?
I want Obsidian to make an awesome game with a great story in a new setting of their own. They write the story, they decide about the setting, adn they decide what conflicts/issues exist in that setting.
"Real world" political agendas of whatever color should just GTFO. I want a game that entertains me, not something that shoves whomever's views down my throat.
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Enemies should drop whatever they logically carried. Wolves and other animals drop nothing, unless you got a skinning knife, the appropriate skill and time on your hands. Bandits drop some ****ty composite armor where some parts might fit some of my companions. Knights might drop a plate armor, but it should be darn heavy to carry off.
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I would like for NPC thieves trying to steal from your party too, and the presence of a thief in your group improving your chance of avoiding it / catching them in the act.
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Fantastic update! I really like what I'm seeing so far. So far, great ingredients for a fascinating setting and story.
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Vancian is probably my least favorite magic system. It seems rather arbitrary to limit spell use to X amount of spells of level Y per day.
Did anyone play Ars Magica? Now that game had an awesome magic system. Each magical aspect had its own skill value, and spells generally required the combination of two of them. Creo (I create) Ignem (Fire) for example were two skills that handled everything from a flash of flame to horrible conflagrations laying waste to a small town.
Spell power was balanced by:
a) Fatigue: Every cast spell would potentially fatigue your magus, and fatigue gave increasingly negative modifiers on pretty much everything
b) Ritual: Powerful spells could not be cast with the snap of a hand, but required the magus to prepare for it and remain undisturbed during the casting
c) Vim: extracted magical energy, from magical creatures or sites or artifacts. Powerful spells and any spell that was meant to have a permanent effect (for example, EVERY healing spell) consumed an amount of vim as appropriate for the spell's power.
Instead of just introducing arbitrary restrictions like the Vancian system, Ars Magica balanced spell power through a combination of time required (rituals) and rare resources (vim) as well as fatigue acting as a kind of mana pool. That made it feel sophisticated, and casting a major spell meant the spending of both time and resources and was an accomplishment in itself, more than just clicking on your level 9 spell slot.
But the devs have already stated that a character's magical potential is tied to his or her soul, so most of this discussion is probably pretty moot anyway.
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I simply want Obsidian to do their thing. If that includes a romance I find appealing, great. If it includes a romance I don't find appealing, no problem! If that means there won't be any romances at all, I won't complain. If they can include an optional and mature love story, by all means, they should go right ahead.
However, the inclusion of romances tends to open some cans of worms, and I want *none* of those.
First, the people with the checklist. As soon as a dev confirms the inclusion of romances, there WILL be people who'll let the devs and writers know which sexual orientations absolutely need pandering to and how many romanceable characters are required for them lest the game be branded as non-inclusive. And if worst comes to worst, you'll find yourself running around with a gaggle of PC-sexual companions in tow who are just waiting for you to mis-click the heart icon.
Second, romances can lead to characters who are obvious romance-bait and are either uninteresting or downright annoying if you are not into their respective romances. Yes, I get that some people are totally into the "fix the broken whiner with tru wuv" sub-plot, but all those of us who are not are still stuck with the broken whiner. Luckily it has been stated that all companions in PE will be optional, yay.
Third, I really don't want this forum turn into some kind of BSN enclave. If we all wake up one day and find that the thread "Storyline discussion" has 200 pages, but "Fenders - She's a keeper" has 3000, then - in my opinion - something has gone wrong.
I want this to be an Obsidian game, and I want them to handle story and potential romances as they see fit. I do NOT want another twilighty trainwreck like DA2.
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I can live without them, but if Obsidian includes them in their setting, why not? Warhammer Fantasy also has firearms and it feels medieval fantasy-like enough, so I'm sure Obsidian can pull it off too.
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I admit, I probably wouldn't be fond of drawing maps on graph paper again.
But I want a game with strategical and tactical depth, something that gives me a real challenge and makes me think.
I want to find my own way, not follow a quest GPS. I want to feel great for making good tactical decisions and I want my party annihilated for bad ones. I want to manage resources and healing. Heck, I'd love a morale system like the good old "Wizard's Crown" had on the C64 (anyone remember that?).
How do you want armour to work?
in Pillars of Eternity: General Discussion (NO SPOILERS)
Posted
A combination of avoidance, deflection, and damage reduction.
The lighter your armor, the better your avoidance.
Plate armor and shields may additionally deflect some weapons (mostly stabbing and slashing attacks, but not maces or hammers).
Hits neither avoided nor deflected cause (the weapons damage roll - the armor's armor rating) damage points.
To compensate for blunt weapons being undeflectable, stabbing weapons could score bigger critical hits against lightly armored targets (representing deep piercing wounds) while slashing weapons could cause bleeding against lightly armored targets (representing deep gashes).
Might be a bit complicated, but the nice thing about CRPGs is that you can keep all this under the hood and not require a GM to memorize a lot of extra rules.