jezz555

Our Lord and Master. chuck norris jokes...very...very...old

I mean, charismatic and effeminate are two different things. I think because you brought up Jrpg's most people assumed you were talking about some sort of effete fabio-haired...well we all know the archetype. But I don't think there's anything wrong with a charismatic villain in the vein of say hitler or rasputin, who is able to draw people to him and turn them against you, I think that can at times, make for a better villain than just a giant monster guy. But that's not to say I'm in favor of some kind of anime-villain, the last thing I want this game to turn into is another final fantasy. I'm not saying theres anything wrong with JRG's but, this is not one, and lets keep it thaat way.

Was it really necessary to state this? It's a given that the game isn't going to live up to all of our expectations, but this is a forum, and until something new is realized their isn't much else to discuss.

higher lethality, or tougher muggers I guess.

yeah no references, I mean real world/pop culture references are one thing, but I may have to commit hara-kiri if they make any internet meme references. Thankfully I doubt they will.

I say let people say what they want. As long as people aren't just trolling and they have legitimate beliefs to espouse I have no problem with them espousing them, and I'm not going to get offended if they choose to employ sarcasm or w/e. Maybe it's just me, but this whole topic just seems a little patronizing.

The paladin archetype as it stands expects perfection from a character, you have to be good in all cases, and that's impossible imo, perfection is not something attainable. It's not "bashing religion" to suggest that the religious are capable of sin, the bible suggests exactly the same thing. I would once again disagree this idea you've been attempting to push that morality is absolute, but judging by the fact that you haven't brought up any reasonable examples to the contrary and I have, I doubt I would gain any traction in that pursuit.

Well in PE people use "soul" power or whatever, as opposed to divine power(I think) and supposedly the gods are more humanized and less elemental/omnipotent. So you could maybe get around the whole, your god is going to destroy you if you don't follow him, thing. But I grant you that is the biggest obstacle to this idea, and imo one of the biggest problems with the paladin class. Another possibility could be, like you said, a paladin who is tested instead of just out and out evil, like maybe his fickle and petty god forces him into actions that conflict with his personal morality and he's forced to choose between blind belief, and doing what he thinks is right. Interesting stuff. So you are suggesting a paladin who is motivations are more personal, and altruistic as opposed to divine? Fine, but then were is he getting his powers from?

Pretty much my thoughts on the matter, not a dating sim, not a hack and slash, but a cRPG. I really know what you mean.

Not necessarily, a paladin to me is just a knight with a code (and maybe some divine magic) but not necessarily a good one. In Ad&d paladin's get all these abilities that center around them being incredibly good and morally just so it makes sense that they can only be CG but it still kind of sucks. The problem I have with that depiction is that it implies that morality is absolute which, in real life, it's really not. A paladin might be a religious zealot, they might be morally and ethically narrow minded, but does that make them good? We've seen examples in history of people fitting these characteristics slaughtering people by the thousands. The funny thing about narrow mindedness is that it can lead you to genocide. I would like to see for once paladin's that aren't just good for no reason, but instead are insincere in their oath's or religiously devout, but overly sadistic in their persecution of the unholy. Otherwise you just have the cardboard cutout goody-two-shoes paladins that have been done, time and again. To be clear I fully support the possibility of a kind and moral paladin who protect's the weak like an old dc comics superhero. But I want the option to diverge from that path, a characters class shouldn't determine their personality. Why is it that a fighter can be Conan, or king arthur or a rogue can be Altair or robin hood but paladins are forced to all be carbon copies of one another?

I can see your concern with players making characters with ridiculous backstories, etc. but I would argue that that's just what a few players will do. Just because a few players create Mary Sue characters doesn't mean that we should lock out characters from a starting age. I guess people could make stories about how their character killed the greatest wizard of all time right when they were born but are still unexperienced as a wizard (see Harry Potter). It either makes for an interesting story or it doesn't. That isn't for you to decide, it's for the player to decide. Edit: Either you like the story that that player has created with his character, or you say that the story is riddled with Mary Sue characters and makes for a weak story. But limiting creativity from players by just forcing everyone to be a certain age, doesn't equate to a role-playing game for me. In regards to skills relating to levels or age, I would still have to argue that it would be more prudent to look at any skills, experience or level strictly from an adventuring perspective. A baker might be a great baker when he has pots and pans and cooking oil, but an experienced adventurer-cook is more of a survivalist, cooking things he can find out in the forest and knowing which mushrooms are poisonous and which aren't. Similarly, regardless of how many years you've been living, if you have no experience adventuring and surviving out in the dangerous world all by your lonesome, you aren't an experienced adventurer. Looking at everything from a survivalist/adventurer perspective allows you to still have extremely detailed backstories for your characters, who have just -until now- never adventured outside of their communities. Fair enough like I said. I did have one player once who played an archmage who had lost his memory after a backfired spell and thus had to re-learn everything at basically gandalf age, and that was interesting and worked out well. But more often than not it's just characters wanting to start off cool, instead of working to get there, I'm not saying that's what you would be doing, but I certainly see the potential for it.

I think that whole archetype is a little divorced from reality. I would rather paladin's in the game not be restrained by moral absolutism and instead by society, were they are expected to be good and chivalrous because of their knightly oath, but their is nothing actually forcing them to fit that stereotype. So you could be a corrupt paladin who secretly worships heretical gods, or takes under-the-table brides from the local riff-raff or a good guy if you wanted. I guess what I'm saying is I don't want being a paladin to limit your opportunity to roleplay as it so often does. Because you can have a billion different takes on fighter and monk, but a paladin is always going to be a paladin.

as a guy who is always looking for new and interesting ways to make my character look more like a sex offender I fully support this thread.

Okay you clearly took offense...Look I'm not a teenager I'm well into middle age but I am a man and this is a male perspective, so if you want to dismiss it on that basis go right ahead. I know that trust is important in relationships, but I slept with plenty of people I didn't trust before I was married. That's romance as well. I did love those people, not for very long maybe but regardless. Sex and love are not different matters entirely, not to guys like me anyway, I'm not really sure if your a man or a woman based on your post but I'm going to go out on a limb here and say your probably a woman, so I'm sure your perspective is going to be a little different. But I digress, like I said when I was actually in my teens I watched a lot of chick flicks and had a similar outlook on the whole thing as you do now, which is to say I was really into "true love" and "serious relationships" and all that stuff. But as I've grown older and learned more about people I've stopped caring about labelling things as "serious" and "not-serious" and just taken what life threw at me. And I like to think I'm happier this way. Heck maybe, I'm the naive one here, you could be right. But for me love and sex are very much connected and brief romances are no less beautiful, and that's my two cents.

I agree with Hormalakh on this point: you should see xp like "experience in adventuring". A sixty-years-old character starts at level one because he did never adventure before. Age should be nothing more (and nothing less) than an aesthetic, roleplaying choice! So, Josh Sawyer post is very good news for me! But skills like jumping and swimming go up as your level increases, not to mention speech skills and performance skills. Was your guy sealed in a box for sixty years? How did he make a living without any skills? To use an example, I saw a lot of players back when I was playing D&D who would want to come up with super-elaborate cool-guy backstories that involved their characters say slaying hoards of dragons, conquering cities, leading rebellions ect. and my response to them all would be more or less the same, "your first level, you haven't done any of that stuff yet." If you want to be a bad-ass you have to become a bad-ass, you have to build a reputation yourself,you have to play your life, you can't just say that it already exists, besides it's more fun to actually feel like you accomplished something instead of just instantly gratifying yourself. That's what the level progression is all about, or should be anyway. So are you saying that all old people are high level then? Classes and levels are arbitrary and unrealistic, do you get level 20 bakers? Most PCs seem to reach epic level before reaching 25 years of age. So saying that being old and level 1 is unrealistic isn't really a problem as its just a game mechanic. Its simple enough to assume the character has had no reason to go adventuring before. Going by D&D( or at least 3ed) baking and other crafting abilities are skills which you are able to put more points in as you level up. So the best baker's would be 20th lvl bakers because they would have the most skill points in craft(baking). But commoners follow a different progression from adventures(which is to say none at all) because they are supporting characters so the point is moot anyway, adventurers are heroes they get to progress. Experience may not always be directly analogous to what one might refer to as "life experience" but imo it should be, or at least more so. I will grant you that the status quo is unrealistic, but what I would advocate for is a system that's more realistic, not just a different kind of unrealistic.

my bad, double post

There's plenty of old people in real life that aren't qualified to greet the door at Walmart....pretty sure a few could slip through in PE. so your a sixty year old guy not qualified to greet the door at Walmart...and then you somehow become an amazing adventurer? At sixty your not really growing anymore, that's the point. age and xp, (if we assume realism is a factor) would seem to be linked, i.e. you should gain more xp as you get older.

You mean, apart from Haer'dalis and Aerie, Khalid and Jaheira, Xvar and Montaron, Aveline and Donnic . . . Heck, even Zevran in Dragon Age: Origins had a previous love he tells you about. Granted, that's ANOTHER unfortunately common trope--the "dead wife" or girlfriend. That's one that could stand to be subverted. Where's the bitter divorcee with child support and alimony payments? That sure describes a lot more guys I know than any other trope I've seen. Well most people who have a wife at home probably don't become adventurers. Other party members may have had liaisons in the past but its likely that if they are out seeking their fortunes on the open road they have no real attachments to the outside world.That said however, I think party members falling in love with each other should happen, but it makes sense that it would be less common because simply by virtue of being the leader and self-described alpha male of the group the PC is likely going to come across as the most attractive to any would be suitors. But I party member on party member romance has been done before in some rpgs(maybe one of the mass effects?) I just can't think of which right now.

I don't mean to make any assumptions about your personal background, I am well acquainted with what happens when you assume, so please don't take offense at this. But this whole post sort of smacks of the kind of person who doesn't have a lot of real life experience with romance. As a man, It isn't really enough for me to just have a platonic relationship with a girl I like, I don't know any guy for whom that would be the case. Not that I wouldn't help a girl out just because, but more than likely if I like a girl, there is an ulterior motive. It's a little naive to think that romances are all about blushing and stuff, generally they are pretty physical. This post would have seemed perfectly reasonable to me in my early teens, because I used to watch a lot of romantic comedies/drama's and didn't really have any experience with the opposite sex but It doesn't really hold up to experience. And once again don't take that personally, I don't claim to know your life.

well that settles that. PE tops out around 12? where are you getting that from, because I would kind of take issue with that... eh still. I'm not saying its incredibly unreasonable or something, but I think they are a lot of good arguments against it as I like to think I've shown, and the only real argument you've brought up is that you think it would be cool. And it seems like your main objection to the current system, at least in your first post was just that the portraits don't usually match, which could be remedied fairly easily. No the issue I have against forcing my character to be 20 years old, is: 1-that it forces my character down a certain path with only a limited amount of backstory that he could have lived before starting his newest adventure 2-stop railroading my characters 3-it starts to look ridiculous that my level 1 elf is aged 150, and learning his first magic missle, whereas my level 9 human aged 21 knows fireball. Was the elf j***ing-off for the past 130 years? 4-stop railroading my characters 5-Portraits won't match up to ages. 6-seriously....stop railroading my characters. 7- It can bring in interesting game mechanics (see others' posts). 8- It's not too realistic. I didn't really see any arguments other than "this is how it's always been done" from you though. Hey fair enough dude, If you want it that badly then I hope you get it. My argument to clarify, was only that its always been done that way, because it fits a first level character the best. It is ridiculous that an elf would be lvl 1 at age 150 unless elves mature very slowly in PE, but it's also ridiculous that you would be lvl 9 at age 21, I never advocated for lvl 9 characters being 21. My point was that it makes sense for a first lvl character and that's why in games they typically are, hence why I was advocating for a character that ages throughout the course of the game. So your lvl at least to a certain extent matches your age, because I think that's more realistic and you get to play your character at many different ages instead of him just being frozen at one age. But that may be to hard to implement, idk.

No, Morrigan was not trying to be Kreia. She was always taking a selfish/pragmatic view of the situation. She never challenged you on "morally questionable" or self-serving actions. Kreia challenged you on every choice you made and wanted you to think, learn, be insightful and be self-critical about your decisions, and to avoid thinking in terms of black & white morality. I don't think it's really necessary for a character to "challenge" you. I don't regularly have people in real life judge my actions like that, and I sort of find that annoying when npcs do it. I would rather an npc act in a realistic way and not attempt to mentor me all the time( I mean Kreia sort of was a mentor but I digress). I liked Morrigan because of her voice acting which I thought was really emotive and generally good, I liked her because of her story line( Her mother is a dragon and she gives birth to the anti-christ what's not awesome about that) and I liked her because towards the end of a game I grew attached to her in a way I really didn't with any of the other party-members in DA:O, who I just thought were kind of uninteresting losers, but for whatever reason I liked her.

so...mexico...or canada?

eh still. I'm not saying its incredibly unreasonable or something, but I think they are a lot of good arguments against it as I like to think I've shown, and the only real argument you've brought up is that you think it would be cool. And it seems like your main objection to the current system, at least in your first post was just that the portraits don't usually match, which could be remedied fairly easily.

The problem with having just a few skills is that it starts to feel like DA:O, which made the skill system feel very vanilla. If this approach is taken, I'd also like some means to tailor each of the handful of skills into particular sub-specialties. That is, you still get to spend points to increase selected skill ranks, but every few rank increases you get to select a focus for those skills. Take a Mechanics skill: that would give you skills with lockpicking, disabling traps, setting traps, repairing devices, and so forth. At, say, every two ranks, you could select a focus in one of those areas. Like +5% bonus in lockpicking padlocks, for example. At higher levels you would continue to improve in mechanics, but you could then also select a +5% in lockpicking doors. &c. Well I think in DA:O what kind of annoyed me was that the skills weren't especially utilitarian or powerful but you didn't get that many of them either. So it was like you had a fireball spell, and one that made you a spider and that was like it or for a rogue you had a couple little skills, but their was nothing especially cool or unique you could do with them, so you're points were basically wasted. Let's just not make the system like DA:O...ugh. I would prefer if the skills were handled more like AD&D, were there aren't a ton of spells, or skills, but they can each be seriously useful if you know what your doing and you can mostly avoid the crappy ones.

False, if I see a big honking fiery bird, I'm going to want to kill and loot it. Phoenix feathers are worth good money around these parts. Good luck with that. Not only it would murderdeathkill you, but if you somehow do manage to kill it, it would instantly explode in fire an all that would be left are ashes. From which it would be reborn, renewed and invigorated, ready to whoop your ass. The only way you'll get a feather from it is if you ask nicely. lovin the demolition man refrences bro