PrimeJunta

I'll just say one more thing about this whole chainmail bikini thing. I'm not the least bit bothered by chainmail bikinis as such. In fact, if done well, an erotic cRPG could actually be pretty damn good, especially if done in top-down isometric format like PoE, since it would necessarily avoid the embarrassingly awful pixel-humping you get in first- or third-person OTS perspective. It'd have to suggest more and reveal less. The tropes that do irritate me are simply these -- One, asymmetry, aka the "men get platemail, women get bikinis" trope. In general, men are portrayed as people you want to be, while women are portrayed as things you want to possess. This is reflected in the way they're dressed. Two, titillation overload. If everybody's showing an enormous amount of flesh all the time, it becomes the default and loses all power. Ever been to a nude beach? I spend my summers in southern France and many of the best beaches are nude or clothing-optional. After the initial unfamiliarity/discomfort wears off, you get used to it, and being nude is just what you are at the beach. (It's also way more convenient than faffing about with bathing suits.) I would like nudity or revealing clothing to be there for some reason other than just to titillate specifically men, and I would like that reason to make sense in the context of the game world. My gigantic magic golden codpiece suggestion in the other thread was obviously tongue in cheek, but I was also making a point. At the very least, the physics of the world should work the same way for men and women: if we have both men and women as warriors, and it makes sense for men to wear sensibly-designed, protective metal armor in combat, then it should also make sense for women. Conversely, if, say, we have a high-magic world with a tropical climate where magic items are powerful enough to render metal armor obsolete, sensibly-designed metal armor would make no sense for anyone, and warriors of all sexes should be dressed accordingly. And, of course, if we have a world where men and women have different roles – say, only women can be priestesses or witches, and only men can be knights or diplomats – the clothing should reflect that. (Throw in a couple of fertility goddesses and magic powers driven by sex, and half-naked badass women would make total sense.)

Cool. So, what level are you in VtM:B, roughly, once you reach the Giovanni mansion? ... That's right: there is no answer to that, because there's no such thing as "level" in Storyteller. I realize this is a matter of semantics (your definition of "leveling mechanics" is broader than mine; broad enough to include games with no notion of "level"), but I prefer to distinguish between character advancement mechanics in general and leveling mechanics in particular. This is because it is a significant mechanical distinction. (Cf. class-based RPG systems and class-less RPG systems with skill trees. They do more or less the same thing -- character advancement and differentiation -- but in different ways.) I agree that RPG's do need character advancement mechanics. However I am pointing out that level/XP is not the only way to accomplish this.

Levels and XP are second-order abstractions. You can build a perfectly good RPG without either. Just award character points directly, which you can use immediately to buy skills, talents, or whatever the character advancement abstraction in your system is. If you want to support specialization, put the skills in a tree, with the more powerful ones costing more and being further down. The Storyteller PnP system works like this, as do its computer implementations, e.g. VtM: Bloodlines. It wouldn't be hard at all to make, say, a class-, XP-, and level-less D&D 3.0/3.5. Just assign a character point cost to each feat, skill, ability, and spell level, lay them out as hierarchies so that, say, you can't take a higher-level spell slot before taking a sufficient number of lower-level ones, and recalibrate XP awards to award character points directly instead. No more leveling up, just buying abilities immediately when you advance.

I'd back a classless, level-less, XP-less party-based isometric fantasy cRPG. Mechanically I'd even prefer one to what we have.

I'm all for opening cans of worms. There is a risk of screwing things up, but if you never risk anything you just end up with something that's perfectly bland which is not much fun. I'd much rather have them take risks and fail, even if failing means being inadvertently offensive. I trust Obs to be mature enough not to fall into the obvious traps. They are, after all, the makers of such thoughtful and sophisticated (future) philosophical masterpieces as South Park: The Stick of Truth.

I was going to write something but then I read what Nonek wrote and now there is no point. Just this, though: I like companion NPC's with their own agendas. Like Veronica and Boone from New Vegas, for example.

@Wombat I think it's largely a matter of terminology. Some of the words in PoE don't mean what we're used to them meaning, if you get my drift. There was a lot of anxiety about that in the attribute thread. There is something odd about a heavy-hitting rogue, or a Mighty wizard for that matter. Personally I don't care all that much. It's largely a matter of what you're used to. Int, Wis, and Cha don't really make much sense either, and there are plenty of rogue fantasy archetypes who excel at dealing death in melee -- the Gray Mouser comes to mind, and as a swordsman he was second to none, even Fafhrd. I can see how it would bother some of the more conservative-minded amongst us though.

It's funny how different people latch onto different things as essential to the IE experience. Many of these are in fact the things I don't like about them. Some that have come up are grinding for XP, hard counters, obvious dump stats, rogues as relatively useless combatants, clerics as required healers. I suppose that's quite human. When we develop an attachment to something, we often become especially attached to the flaws. I remember a Top Gear episode where that obnoxious older guy was complaining that the Abarth 500 just isn't the same as the old, great Abarths because it's not completely stupid, as in, it's possible to get into the back seat, there's room in the boot for things, and the engine doesn't overheat so bad they would have to leave off the cover. There really is something to that. Maybe the IE games were like British sports cars of yore where having two out of oil pressure, temperature, and electricity working at the same time is pretty good really. If PoE turns out to be a Toyota, will it be as lovable? I sure hope so, because demanding that games be worse to be better seems like a dead end to me.

4 would not bang

Does too!

Also that's gotta be extremely painful if she has to tie her shoelaces. That corner will dig into her solar plexus like ow. Edit: Or sternum.

Is too.

@JFSOCC I have a feeling it might not be all that grim. Different classes tend towards different ability and skill mixes. If the checks are connected to the abilities and skills, class will influence them indirectly. So a Wilderness Lore check will favor druids and rangers even if it's not specifically tied to those classes. Personally I would prefer it that way, like with the "holy warrior order stronghold quest" from the other thread.

In the interests of fairness, if skimpy female armor is in, I demand that the most powerful male armor in the game is a giant codpiece that loses all of its magic if worn with anything else. You would, of course, have different versions, from padded, boiled leather, chain, and plate, with the latter two of all the grades of steel available, and the highest-level ones gold-plated and studded with gems of various colors. Surely we wouldn't want to deny men the choices the women get, no?

Interesting challenge. I've played lots of low-combat D&D, including many sessions with no combat at all, but the game would be drastically different if killing wasn't in at all. But I'll try. I'll try to keep as much of the IE/PoE style intact, to sketch out something that you could do by modding one of the existing games, rather than something completely different (like an adventure game for example). My game is set in Khumbu-Lo, a great island in the middle of an ocean. It is peopled by immortals, sustained by ancient magic they no longer understand. This magic is powerful enough to restore any amount of damage: even an individual who is completely disintegrated will re-form the next day, completely intact, including memories, skills, and personality. There is no disease. Hunger and thirst are present, but once past a certain point, starvation simply stops. If you stop eating and drinking, you'll be weakened and end up looking like an Indian ascetic, but will continue to survive in that state indefinitely. This magic affects all animal life. It also makes all of it completely sterile. Nobody and nothing ever dies, nobody and nothing is ever born. Other than plants. Needless to say, everybody's vegetarian. Khumbu-Lo is an extremely violent society, precisely because the cost of losing a fight is so low. Since it has all of the problems other societies have -- poverty, tyranny, slavery, oppression -- conflict is common. There are wars, oh yes. Because nobody ever dies or is permanently physically harmed, violence against people is not a very useful way of resolving these conflicts. Instead, those on the losing side are dispossessed, exiled to barren, unwanted areas, or enslaved. Wars, vendettas, and battles for territory are about material goods: destroying fortresses, depriving the enemy of vital resources, or physically pushing them out of an area. Slave rebellions have the rebels take up arms en masse and fight their way out to set up an enclave of their own. These are not that common because the slave population is relatively low and slavery is a temporary state. Since slaves don't have much to lose, the potential for rebellion is much higher than in mortal societies. Consequently slaveowners keep their slave populations down to manageable numbers and, lacking the sticks of owners of mortal slaves, provide them with sufficient carrots to keep them from rebelling. Most of the time. The aristocracy uses heavily ritualized combat -- duels or between groups -- to resolve matters of honor. These are public spectacles, much enjoyed by everyone. There are also professional gladiators reknowned for their skill at fighting entertainingly. The lower classes simply fight amongst each other, or attend brutal prizefights. So, you could have pretty much the whole gamut of classes, races, mechanics, items etc. from any of the IE-style games, and write in a fantasy story suited to the setting. The removal of death would change your quests in material ways; for example there would be no "bring me the head of X" or "kill be N rorgwulfs" simply because you couldn't, they'd never be dead. Instead, you would be, I dunno, stealing valuable objects, destroying dangerous artifacts, collecting bits and pieces to create a dangerous artifact, discovering forgotten corners of Khumbu-Lo, perhaps eventually talking to strange beings from outside time that know something of the nature of the curse, or blessing, lying over Khumbu-Lo. Another twist would be that because combat is always survivable and the biggest risk you're running when engaging in it is losing all your stuff, there should be more scope for avoiding it altogether. I would take care to design in a pacifist solution to every conflict in this game, and I would use a class system where not every character is necessarily awesome in combat. If you want to, you could build a cloaked catburglar type who's adept at avoiding or getting out of fights with all his stuff intact and of relieving others of their belongings without fighting them. Or someone who accomplishes her goals through gathering information and knowledge and using these effectively to manipulate events to her wishes. Your extra credit? I'd introduce an explorer. Call him Dr. Breathingrock. He's the first outsider to arrive in Khumbu-Lo in thousands of years, shipwrecked on the coast, all alone, with nothing but a journal, a compass, and a revolver with six bullets. He's no good at fighting, doesn't speak the language, doesn't (to start with) even realize that nobody (including himself, as long as he's there) won't ever die.

I'm all for mutually exclusive content but IMO class is not a very interesting thing to connect it to. I prefer companions, faction affiliation, and character history. Put another way, rather than a paladin stronghold quest, I'd like to see a holy order of warriors stronghold quest, open to anyone satisfying the quest requirements – e.g. high enough reputation with the holy order, suitable personality traits, and sufficient martial prowess. Wouldn't necessarily have to be a paladin.

I wonder if someone broke them on purpose and carted off most of the fallen-off bits, e.g. to build something else. I think they'd end up looking much like that if you had super-sticky magic mortar. It's a popular way to make ruins in any case.

First off, can I have a pet goat? Please? Master's Call would just be so perfect for it. Second, I like the way these classes are shaping up. However, I also would like to hear more about cross-class talents. A goat-less archer would be fun too, so I hope I'll be able to make an effective one based on one of the other classes. (I don't particularly care for the idea of goat-less rangers, though; messing with a class's core distinguishing features sounds like a bad idea.)

I like the idea. Also good replay fodder for the ultra-powergamers who just might be able to beat the encounter anyway.

The gnoll stronghold in BG1 has respawning gnolls. Quite quickly-respawning at that; the first time I got there I scouted forward extremely warily and it felt like I'm being constantly attacked. (The second time I went in fast and barely noticed the respawning though.) Same for that ruin in the East with endless waves of kobolds. I'm sure there were plenty more.

@teknoman2 That's correct. Thanks for setting the record straight.

@Karkarov very well put, couldn't agree more.

Woo, backed. Looks great, and it's trying to do something that hasn't really been done yet.

@Labadal Arcanum has combat XP. However it's awarded in a screwy way. You get it for every hit on an enemy, and it's personal rather than divided between the party. This in fact screws things up big-time as a "social" character who relies on minions to do the fighting will get way less XP than others, and a character with high accuracy but low damage will get way more XP than a character who does the same damage with fewer hits. This seriously screws up one of the most attractive features in the game, i.e., that it's possible to do things in a crazily wide variety of ways. (On second thought, let's not discuss the various ways in which Arcanum is unbalanced. That would be a long discussion. I figure MCA has already given Tim Cain a piece of his mind about it anyway.)

First off, I believe there won't even be a persuasion skill in PoE. Attributes and other skills will be checked however. I also believe it's likely that these will be for your main character only, i.e. you can't spread them across the party. I agree that if, indeed, it is possible to spread the required "talky" skills across the party, this aspect will get a great deal diluted. Second, two of the points I listed aren't about ability/attribute checks at all: they're about reputation mechanics. These aren't subject to this problem. And third, the other two points are about raising the cost of talk solutions. The upshot of these adjustments is that you'll have to work harder to be able to resolve things through dialog. If reputation mechanics are solid, you won't be able to max out your rep among all factions and all personality traits. This means that you'll have to play more strategically if you want to resolve things by talking: make hard choices about which factions or personal reputation traits to cultivate and which to ignore. Screw it up and these solutions simply won't be available, and even in the best case, you'll never see all of the talky solutions in a single play-through as some of them will be mutually exclusive. So yes, ultimately you will click on a dialog option, and that single click as such can only ever be as interesting as a single click can be. The interesting part is making that dialog option available in the first place. That's strategic difficulty, which is every bit as important as tactical difficulty.