rjshae

Yes it's good to have a detailed, life-like setting with realistic touches. The problem usually comes when you get fed cultural information through a firehose (of numerous in-game books) and then little or none of it turns out to be applicable to your gaming experience. 'Show, don't tell' works for RPGs as well.

Write them a check for $1 million and I bet they'd be able to add enough writers to increase the number of companions...

Writh a poem will you? This infernal clown needs it, like a fly needs sh**. Okay, it's a haiku...

No, you can't ride a horse...

Looks up, suddenly interested...

I like the idea but it sounds a little micro-managery. It woudl help if the game presented ability boosters as actionable icons on top of the activation button. That is, if you have a button to activate a specific ability, and if you have a consumable that can impact that ability, then the consumable would appear as, say, a small pic in the corner of the button. You click on the pic to prep it as a chained action, then click on the button to launch.

On some level in the Endless Paths, it would be interesting to find a necrotic 'settlement'. As in the walled settlement in film 'No Escape', this is a fortified encampment inhabited by undead that have retained some vestige of their humanity and are battling for survival against the surrounding hostile forces. The settlement inhabitants aren't necessarily all that friendly to humans--nor are they particularly virtuous in nature--but they do like what surface dwellers can provide so they allow them in... on probation. There the party can trade for some particularly unique items that have been scavenged from the surrounding areas (surviving much as in the shops in Nethack). The party could also do some non-combat side-quests related to the particular issues of the settlement, which only living creatures with souls can resolve. For completing these quests, perhaps they find some tidbits of information that are useful further down. For the settlement to have survived as long as it has, there must be some unique feature that provides protection against the more powerful dungeon dwellers. Maybe an old shrine, or a well of life force provides a ward at the entrance requiring a certain key or crystal to pass?

^^^^ Maybe they're just generating buzz then? Shrug.

Comes in expecting some interesting video game news... ...yeesh...

Ah but it's now sacred snot, to be preserved with the reliquary of Saint Nicholas, the patron saint of children and other little buggers.

I wonder why they can't announce superstar lead programmer and art supervisor that will blow everybody's socks off? If they let the name slip will the Yakuza have them offed or something? I can think of at least couple of reasons: 1) they are currently involved in other work and don't want the distraction; 2) if we knew, it might scare off some contributors... for whatever reason.

It's interesting that the Fudge-based Fate system did so well--the original goal was $3,000! I'd never heard of it before. There's a lot of potentially good gaming material there; I particularly want to have a look at the Traveller and Glorantha releases.

In terms of funding success, here's the top ten Kickstarter list for RPG rules and supplements: $517,255 -- Numenera: A new roleplaying game from Monte Cook $433,365 -- Fate Core $294,628 -- Traveller 5th Edition $260,962 -- The Guide to Glorantha $243,945 -- Through the Breach: A Malifaux Roleplaying Game £177,557 ($275,000) -- Achtung! Cthulhu - The WW2 Keeper's & Investigator's Guides $137,024 -- Shadows of Esteren - A Medieval Horror RPG: Travels $129,640 -- Tenra Bansho Zero - An Art and Culture-Rich RPG from Japan $126,031 -- Deep Magic: A Tome of New Spells for Pathfinder RPG $123,366 -- Razor Coast

Spheres of Power: A New Pathfinder Magic System -- Intended to be a simple and flexible magic system in which a player selects from spheres and talents to create the spells he wants. Succeeding at $11,358It looks like Kickstarter is working out pretty well for most indie PnP RPG projects. Of the Kickstarter projects listed in this thread prior to August 10th, most are, or have been, successful... a few spectacularly so. I only found two that failed to reach their goals: Westwater Role-Playing Game -- cancelled at $1,042 Barbarians of Heavy Metal the RPG -- unsuccessful at $6,103

Perhaps a race-vs.-race or gender-vs.-gender modifier to the faction rating would work? I.e. you may have a favorable rating with an NPC's faction, but the NPC dislikes your race/gender so you get a neutral or perhaps even a somewhat hostile reaction.

Josh said a character's detection radius will be affected by a character's actions. It wouldn't be too crazy to think that "wearing full plate" might be one of those actions. Or, to put it another way, "by a character's actions" might not cover all possible factors that affect the detection radius. Also, your Rogue will have an inherent bonus to sneaking, while your Paladin, most likely, will not. So, if you voluntarily beef up your plate-clad Paladin's sneaking skill, while leaving your Rogue's slightly unbeefed, then I guess you'll have the recipe for lulz at your disposal. Perhaps some classes (Chanter? Ranger?) will have soul-based powers that temporarily allow improved sneakiness while lugging noisy gear? Like an "aura of muffling"; a milder form of a silence spell...

Bah. Everybody has their preferred UI style, and yours will never match mine. We've beaten this dead horse into a bloody pulp.

Traps are much more effective when they are covered by active forces. Placing a couple of traps in the approach zones of archers creates a real headache for attackers. Do they wait while the rogue clears the trap and suffer enemy fire, or do they bull through and suffer the consequences?

Yes, at higher levels the skeletons in IE games were a massive HP soak, to the point where a troupe of skeletons always operated at point. Pretty obvious tactic: target enemy spell casters as soon as possible with magic missiles then arrows. I always liked to have a bless or prayer spell ready; that +1 bonus makes a big difference over the course of a battle. (I never used bard characters, but the bard song would work for that as well.) D&D v3 haste spells were too useful not to cast on the whole party. Practically de rigeur after a while. For me a standard tactic was to plant front line types at a blocking point, when facing a sizable enemy force. Even having one flank against a barrier helped prevent enemy infiltration. Web the enemy rear forces to effectively split the foe in half. if the enemy is attacking from two sides, use grease or choking cloud to hinder one of the forces while the other is ground down.

Mideast peace talks = complete waste of time But it looks good in the press.

From what I've heard, they're going to be rewarding little or no XP for grinding in this game. Most of the XP will come from accomplishing objectives. (But you may miss out on some good loot by avoiding combat.)

While Microsoft was busy chasing tail lights, the competition switched to high performance vehicles and sped off into the sunset.

No, a single mouse movement doesn't matter. But when you're in combat with six characters, the character panels located on side, and the actions along the bottom... you can end up with a lot of screen traverses per combat round. You move to select a character, move down to switch to bow, move up to select the target, move to select another character, move down to pick a spell, move up to choose the target... It all adds up to lower efficiency and greater tedium. I never really clicked on portraits in games where I could directly click on the character on the screen unless it was to check inventory or go to the character sheet to get information/ check status effects. So, for my personal usage, clicking on portraits then clicking on actions makes no real sense. I do realize that is personal and doesn't apply across every user. truth be told, the only games I ever click on portraits are in the more recent 3d games where one has to manipulate the camera at times to get a clear view of the character in the midst of melee. We won't have that problem in PE. When characters became all cluttered together as they often did in the IE battles, along with spell effects flying about, I usually just resorted to clicking on the portraits. Shrug. Different styles.

No, a single mouse movement doesn't matter. But when you're in combat with six characters, the character panels located on side, and the actions along the bottom... you can end up with a lot of screen traverses per combat round. You move to select a character, move down to switch to bow, move up to select the target, move to select another character, move down to pick a spell, move up to choose the target... It all adds up to lower efficiency and greater tedium.

It's not quite as simple as that, actually. Sometimes taking more time will save money, or will yield much greater value for money. Most projects start out with a very small team (the research/design/early development/pre-production/whatever phase), then expand to a bigger team (full development), and then tapers off again in the final production/beta testing/release/whatever phase (not counting testers, which cost less per hour than designers or programmers). The early small-team phase costs comparatively little per day compared to the full production and release phases, and by being extra super careful in that phase you can avoid really costly problems later on. Oh sure, if you plan out the time you need properly you can sometimes end up saving money. Sometimes trying to tighten up the schedule can likewise end up costing you a lot more. But this is not the same thing as saying you can take an indefinite amount of time to get something done. Doing that can significantly increase your financial risks. For me it'd be okay if Obsidian took an extra month or so for a couple of heads to work out the significant known issues. That wouldn't incur a major overhead, and you'll like need those coders to work on fixing the discovered bugs anyway. Releasing a polished product would likely help with sales to people who didn't contribute to the Kickstarter (or at least it wouldn't hurt... *COUGH*Crafty Studios*COUGH*), and hopefully provide momentum for the sequels.