elenuial

I personally don't mind anachronistic music too much, considering that the majority of authentic period music from before 1700 or so would likely sound horrible to contemporary ears--especially if you get into secular music. Go back a few centuries and look at what most people in Britain were singing, and you'll find soccer hooligan songs instead of Ralph Vaughan Williams. In some sense, all of this music is anachronistic. Comparing western rpg scores to renaissance-era music is like comparing renaissance fairs to the renaissance. And when you consider the fact that this is a fantasy world with multiple inspirations, your palette can open up considerably. So use whatever you'd like (especially if you can get live musicians!) so long as it is works emotionally and evokes the setting/mood you want. Just not another LoTR score clone. XD Actually, rather than spouting off at the mouth like I know what I'm talking about, I'd love to hear more about some of the alternate instrumentation being considered! I know it's kind of the trend right now to hit up the middle east for that sort of thing now, which is totally a direction I'm okay with. I'm just wondering if we should expect stuff like the orchestrated chanting in the trailer, or a more eclectic mix. I'm looking forward to the theremin/sanshin/didgeridoo trio most! XD ETA: I second the thoughts about Avatar: the Last Airbender! There was some pretty great sound work on there. Actually, maybe more relevantly, I think whoever worked on Planescape: Torment did a good job of creating a different kind of feel more often than not with their music, but still being appropriate. If I'm remembering correctly, that is.

Sooooo... you don't complain about the knight dude wearing some sort of heavy armor. You don't complain about the mage guy wearing what is essentially bands of metal linked together for a shirt. The woman with functional armor, though? That's your problem? Whenever someone criticizes the chainmail bikini, people always howl that it's fantasy and the rest of us should be okay with unrealistic stuff in a fantasy. The same argument doesn't apply to plate mail? If you want your chainmail bikini, fine. Put it on the effing men.

A TRUE adventurer must be ALWAYS READY to STAB all impediments to his desires in the face AT ALL TIMES. Sheathing? Just another one of those impediments. Adventurers are real jerks, come to think of it.

If there was a non-fire option, I might go with that. Even Sun-Tzu thought fire was kind of harsh. But, yeah, no world-leveling plz.

Maybe I'm just excited by the idea of the reward for a dungeon crawl being something besides MOAR LOOT.

Well, they are more or less an equivalent of bards. Are they? You could easily take that reading, but it seems like they're stretching for something a little bit weirder. Don't get me wrong. Bard was my favorite D&D3 class. But there's a lot of potential to do something interesting with a class that use "exhortations to the unconscious memory of wayward souls and the diffused spiritual energy of the world."

That sounds... really awesome, actually.

I'm interested to see more about the Chanters. They looked like a new and different kind of class outside of the standard D&D stuff, and I'm wondering what kind of role they'll take on in the game, both in terms of combat and non-combat mechanics.

Actually, that's a good question: people get awfully divided over whether the world levels or not. I personally prefer an un-leveling world, so long as there are clear "Here there be monsters bigger than YOU" signposts. But I also think the OP was asking a different question: how do you feel about encounters that just can't be won with smashing? And I like those encounters. I think the best-designed and most interesting are ones where you have the chance to escape intact if you end up over your head, rather than a script TPK to advance plot.

A fully-realized mercantile trade city written with an eye towards historicity would be boss.

Stories are more interesting when the protagonists suffer a setback.

You know what would be crazy? Having non-white humans and a respectful take on non-white culture as the majority culture in a city. I would settle for the "fantasy races are analogues of real world races" trope if peeps did something beyond "elves are one kind of white; dwarves are a different kind of white; etc." I mean, that's pretty much never going to happen. But one can always dream...

YOU want a power fantasy. Not me. If I want to induldge in a power fantasy, I'd go for different games. Ditto. If you want a power fantasy, why don't you play every other major game produced? Power fantasies are easy to find. Contemporary culture is designed around giving people power fantasies. I have hope for something more nuanced from this game.

Okinawa is an island, but it is considered a part of Japan. And Japan is a bunch of islands, but it is considered a part of Asia. What's the big deal, UK? <---is in Okinawa, Japan, of course. Where we also drive on the left side of the road.

Admittedly, it does sound a little bit like Powerthirst. To be honest, though, the old school player enhancements would be pretty boss.

Monks in fantasy don't have to be AZN mastah killahs. Barbarians don't have to be Grignr wannabes. Even if steps are taken to move away from the stereotypes, history matters, and "monks" in D&D inspired fantasy have been exoticised Asian ripoff characters without any respect for the source culture (or bothering to notice there's a difference between various Asian countries), while other aspects of Asian cultures, languages, and even physical characteristics are entirely ignored. It would be like having an rpg set in feudal Japan with carefully crafted classes plucked from the culture and history, but also including one class called "Fencer," depicting a white dude in a kilt, horned viking hat, and leiderhosen who fights with a rapier and dagger Florentine style while talking about all he does for the glory of Allah. (And I would play that character, because that sounds stupidly awesome, but my point stands.)

You know what I would like to not see? Elves. Effing elves.

Brenda Brathewaite makes great games. Anyone who needs evidence should google her name and "Train" and then keep in mind that anything you read doesn't come close to the experience of actually playing it. I also got the chance to play her Irish Game, which is also quite an astonishing piece of work. She worked on some of the original cRPGs, for crying out loud. Maybe her and her company's PR isn't so great, and they haven't figured out how to do the Kickstarter thing properly, but I will say that whatever game comes out of it is almost certainly going to be *good* if not great. Hell, Ian Bogost's endorsement is good enough, I think: their talent is wasted on Facebook games.

One possibility is to use tattoos like in PS:T. Conversely, I live in an Asian country, and so I really DON'T want to see kung fu monks (but would love to see actual Asian culture depicted in a non-stereotyped exoticized-for-Westerners way). ;P

I could be reading too much into things, but it looks like they're approaching classes in a similar way to D&D 4E, by looking at what they do mechanically on the battlefield rather than by flavor/concept. So while Fighter often means "Dude with sword" they might mean it as "Tank/Meat shield." Even if they're not doing that 100%, they're at least definitely considering the roles the classes will play mechanically as much as the conceptual role. Personally, I would love it if they just focused classes entirely on combat mechanics and had a separate set of traits or customizable attributes for flavor stuff that only interacts weakly with combat role. For example, picking "Rogue" got you the glass cannon role in combat, as expected, but you could choose whether that took the form of "Sneaky dude with daggers" or "Big guy with giant sword" or "Wizard who focuses on the Burning Hands spell VERY effectively," etc.

"Other cultures made weaponless fighting styles so Monks are not Asian" & "Naginatas should be a weapon used by this class as well" That should probably speak for itself, but in case it doesnt: If I had my druthers, the monk class would get tossed out of most western fantasy rpgs, though I'd love to see more rpgs that root the whole world in other cultures more firmly, rather than borrowing some stereotypes. A Chinese kung fu rpg? I would SO get behind that. Especially if they allowed the "Awkwardly Plate Mailed White Guy" as a class. Let the players choose, right?