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Tarrasque Cult

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    RPG, strategy, paper&pen RPGs, Music, Composition

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  1. In Baldurs Gate we had a calendar, a month count, but it actually didnt matter. What if we have a calendar with seasons, harvest, festivals and quests to do and so? Is it too hard or out-of-lore? I want my cold-focused Mage to be stronger during winter, and my druid more powerful during summer.... Is it possible? *** We could even get a "bad name" for promising resolving something and totally forget after exploring some unknown ruins.
  2. This is a minor suggestion to embellish and give a deeper dimension to characters and companions and also making players get more art related to the game. Since we will be playing this game for lots of hours and my characters will probably face months or even years in "game hour", i would like the possibility to make them register their journeys and i could get those registrations. This could be a very funny way and a great excuse to players to get fine desktop wallpaper, epic poems, cool songs, all made by the great artists that will be part of the making of Project Eternity. We could get JPGs with sketches of monsters, NPCs, simplified 1 minute versions of the soundtrack, poems and epics written in text... Instead of making us go to Obsidian forum to get these pieces of art from PE staff (whenever available), we could get those inside the game: "In the village in Storm Mountain Peak, after reaching the temple belvedere, you character can get an amazing painting from INSERT ARTIST NAME" These could be done with paintings, sketches, poems, chanting, songs... What exactly I am talking about: Example 1: After a major victory in a hard battle, my companion could say "This battle inspired me, i'll write a song about it this night", and your character could enforce or reject that artistic inspiration. Example 2: As reaching a completely remote place or a never seen before dragon, the talented priest wants to paint or draw the scenario to show to his church. Again, a dialog comes and you can enforce or reject that "We have no time for that now". Example 3: After 3 months of journeys together, the bard could make a poem about your travels "The Ballad of My Character". Example 4: The druid, inspired by the greatest forest he has ever been, plays a new tune in his flute to express that happiness. Example 5: The "exotic" barbarian that recently joined the group, excited about being part of our part, grabs his awesome tabla and makes fine rhythms with it. ****
  3. How about no! Not in the main quest line. I don't want another unsolved "Gnome Half-Ogre Breeding Conspiracy". Leaving those raped and kidnapped woman helpless was heartbreaking for my paladin-like character.
  4. It is not exactly apocryphal, the quote comes from Heisterbach, a writer contemporary of the massacres. Although he could have "invented" the saying, the other font, the Pope itself, wrote about the massacres: "within the space of two or three hours they crossed the ditches and the walls of Beziers was taken. Our men spared no one, irrespective of rank, sex or age, and put to the sword almost 20,000 people. After this great slaughter the whole city was despoiled and burnt, as Divine vengeance miraculously...[iN: Costen, The Cathars and the Albigensian Crusade, pag 139-140]. *** I hope people know that Knights of the Round Table is mythical, not historical. And as J Sawyer stated, the Song of Roland is a mythical writing also, about a military leader written centuries after the facts. So, can we rule out that Charlemagne and his mythical 12 knights of the round table had not to do with slaughtering of saxons in Verden? The Roland account is much more myth than reality, he was a military leader that followed the practices of "christianization-by-the-sword", a popular practice by the Pope's Church. So, i reinstate, from the historical perception, a paladin is a fanatic defender of their faith (and reign, and church), a defender of all that is good and right from his perspective (ie. slaughtering pagans is a good deed).
  5. I liked the mixed system, tending to BG one, but as suggested by Mikaw it was funny to rest for 8 hours, kill a boss, rest another 8 hours just 30 minutes after... I would like something like this: - Inn quality influences in how much and how fast you can approach. - Tent and sleeping sacks could also be important and lootable items to have. I remember an adventure I played where a powerful mage made a cursed "Sack of Endless Sleep", where anyone sleeping in that bag would never wake up, unless someone took him completely out of the bag and did a Remove Curse spell. In the same way, a Tent like Hermione's one in Harry Potter would be a very powerful magical item, giving Inn-quality rest to characters. - I would also like option "Campfire Rest" or "Night-light Camp" option, to avoid being followed (less chances of random encounters). ***
  6. Wow, guys, thanks a lot for the great answers! I didn't think this post would get any much attention... *** What i meant is this: good and evil are historically and culturally defined, depending on the culture and moral grounds you take perspective from, a good thing can be a really bad one. In most religious wars are like that, like the Albigensian Crusade when catholic christian, in the name of the Lord, massacred thousands of cathars in France. A Franciscan Monk finds money accumulation and usury a vile crime, while it is for many protestant schools of Christianity a form of worshiping the same God. We could also take many acts of God of the Old Testament as evil from our modern perspective. What I mean, any story that can be reduced to a simple good vs. evil is a shallow one, like when they ruined Matrix series reducing the great philosophical debate of the first one into a moral rubbish shallow good guys vs. bad guys. As someone stated, I want decisions that make sense inside the game culture, an understandable and fisiable verisimilitude between its inner moral basis and the actions of characters, not a masked judeo-christian cliché collision of good versus evil behind every action we take. For example, from a historical perception, Paladins are fanatics defenders of their faith, capable of massacres as the cited Albigensian Crusade: "Kill them all, let God choose his own". In ADD 2ed, paladins could feel bad about their acts and fall "untune" with his beliefs, losing powers, banned from their religious Order, making them to seek Attunement, or Redemption to his God. Which make great role playing scenarios. In a great project as this one, a good story should have these kind of dilemmas... Even less "Important" ones, as a Druid that doesnt want to destroy The Old Hollow Tree, even if it the Treant is accused of evil deeds in some community. This sort of dimension is that makes a great story. *** A good point in favour the Devs is the story of the first BG1, the Iron Shortage and the role of Sarevok to be the new Lord of Murder after a massive war and death toll of two great armies colliding, were awesome! Can we solve the Gnome Conspiracy this time? I don't want to find that the kidnapped women forced to breed a new race of half-ogres are hopeless again!
  7. Can we please not reduce the plot of this amazing project into "Super Devil wants to dominate the world and creates an eternal dictatorship and we have to stop them"? I have great rejection to plots based on shallow "good vs. evil" line. Maybe it is my history major, summed up with the reading of my old dusty books from AD&D, stuff like Complete Book of Villains, Dungeon Master Guide, specially the part of story creation and motivation, or my many years of DM-ing... well, i just don't like to be caught into moral presumptions of a eternal battle of good vs. evil. It is very annoying to reduce the rich world of possibilities and motivations to "stop the Super Devil" storyline. These are for kids... I want my character dragged into political assassinations, dethrone of legitimate kings, favors in exchange of land, nobles unwilling to accept the new regent while the true king is too young, or priests fighting over the control of the richest church around; a rich businessman that lost his horses to a local arrogant noble and has no one to appeal since the local courts are all nobles in favor of that arrogant prick... The universe of possibilities is tremendous, so, please, do not reduce the plot into a "good vs. evil" shallow.
  8. It might be weird but hardly in a negative way. If my companion starts to act in a way authentic to who the companion is I will applause because he is supposed to be driven by his own purposes and goals, if I suddenly lose control of a companion because he wants to do what he wants to do, I'll gladly sit back and enjoy the show. It gives a sense of feeling that they are alive. Playing Baldur's Gate in Multiplayer with friends, your friends characters are "companions" and they all serve their own purpose and you have little control except advice and suggestions through "Skype" or other "Voice-Talk"-Communication Third-Party Programs. In Planescape: Torment, Morte was suddenly taken away from me, why? I started to wonder, as you say in your post, and I got confused. But it also intrigued me beyond words in a "got to stroke my beard muttering 'hmm'.."-kind of way. Loosing control of Non-Player Character? *thumbs up* Loosing control of Main Character? *thumbs down* I'm with you. I would love if the thief of my party just disappears without much explanation, just before entering a huge city. Then searching for some job with the local guard, you discover that he is wanted for some crimes. I love party-related quests, giving them life, as you said. Not just cities, the party could ran into unknown woods and the druid says he must do something during the night, leaving the party to solve problems of his clan, or ambush the main character the next day (as following a master plan)... In fact, i would like some skills that forced me to lose party members: 1. Ranger uses "Hunting", disappears from party for 5 hours, returns with food and animal skin. 2. Bard uses "Gather Information" in a city, disappears from party and returns 2 hours later, with new infos (or nothing at all). 3. Wizard finds (with party) huge hieroglyphs in ancient sealed tomb and stays there deciphering it, while the party goes killing the undead around. Something like that...
  9. To me that's just rehashing the age-old binary distinction between a STR tank and a DEX tank. We have to go deeper than that to solve these issues in my opinion. Personally the last thing I want is to have to level up armor. Not necessarily, IMHO strength only influences how heavy can your armour be. If we get a Skill like "Armour Using" (STR based), heavy and intricated armour, complicated ones, would be harder to wear, requiring more practice, it will generate lots of penalties for one not skill in. For example, historically a full plate was made specifically for a single knight, anyone else wearing it would have lots of problems to adapt (the skill is the capacity to adapt to certain armours). Anyone that has already used a heavy combat coat (like in Kali Silat or Kempo) knows that this stuff is really tyresome and requires ability just to wear it. And if we put Dodge as a Skill that boosts your defense (your chance to avoid hits), based on DEX. To end this dicotomy, not a great problem for me (what is the big problem using this division anyway?) we could have lots of other skills that would boost evasion and damage reduction... I can see a "Combat Tactics" skill based on Wisdom, improving your position during battle benefiting evasion. Or a high skilled user of a Sword gaining frequent parrying bonus to Defense (to avoid hits). A good spear/polearm fighter would in fact never let another fighter get into his "Guard" (this is why it was the most common soldier weapon). The same goes to Acrobats and the chance to avoid some strikes with incredible corporal feats. We could have many skills depending on both, the math summing skill points (or proportions of it) can be complicated for pen&paper RPG but it will be very simple for a videogame. This would be the game very diverse and sinergy between skills much more fluid. I'm all for a skill-based system, classless, but i dont think this will be the way.
  10. Oh, right. Well, that's completely impossible on a technological level. The 3D rendered backgrounds are being individually hand-painted for a 2D iso look. There are no tiles (unless Obsidian decides to use them, which I think is doubtful). Yep, as i thought. Either we would get really boring and repetitive maps or a huge pile of cost just to add few extra areas...
  11. If i can make some humble suggestions here, we can first take the problem into two branches. 1. Armour - the equipment itself, dedicated to lessen the damage impact on you. It is based purely in equipment, skin (such as D&D barbarians) and magic that absorb damage. 2. Defense - the capacity of avoiding hits, based on dexterity, deflection (from weapon and shield), parry skill (a form of deflection). Example: An Iron Golem, a massive metal "automaton", has high Armour but low defense, as it is easy to hit it with your weapon but it is hard to make any damage. A asian-like monk, a fast and agile human, has very low armour (since it wears no armour), but has a very high defense, as it is very hard to strike it with your weapon. *** It is kinda confusing in D&D 3ed that added "deflection bonus", "magic bonus", "armor bonus", dexterity bonus. In Icewind Dale 2 for was very misleading the bonuses when you had rings of protection, bracers of defense and magic armour... This way there are only two types of bonus "Defense Bonus" or "Armour Bonus". **** Once we treat this as two completely different things, it would be very easy and game-friendly to make armours and items based on it. This way, we enter in another breach much more cool and hystorical (IMHO) about armour: 1. Armour based on culture/region Examples: 1. Leather Armour (description: a standard "insert hegemonic culture name here" leather armour). 2. Wildfolk Leather Armour (a common leather armour from the nothern Wildfolk). 3. Imperial Couraiss (a glatiatorial armour from the Empire "X") 2. Defense techniques based on culture/region. 1. Imperial Infantry Technique (a combat skill from Empire X dedicated to improve defense with Shield + Weapon) 2. Imperial Spear Technique (a combat skill from Empire X dedicated to improve attack with Spears) And so on... **** The point is to make hundreds of teachers around the world and according to role play you can learn techniques from different cultures and mix them freely, making very unique characters... Dont know if it is viable, but this is the rule when i'm the DM in my group (with house rules).
  12. The problem is actually not about the tagging, it is about if they matter and will change something in the game, or not. Example: If you are in a party in company of a Paladin, he/she might not like if you bluff or intimidate fragile ones. you still can do it, but in a good rpg, the paladin would intervene preventing it, allowing the threatened NPC to flee. Example II: A druid would refuse to attack wilderness creatures, specially when the party is invading their territory. He/she could even side with the creatures. Or if you lie and someone perceive it, you would be known in that town for such, dimishing the trust of the folks AND of your partners. I loved when (cant remeber which Baldurs Gate) two of my party members, which where friends, started to fight me tired of my lawful good decisions, attacking me after a discussion. In Planescape, the dialogues between Nameless One and Dakkon about religion/philosophy were awesome. And i would like to know clearly, that decisions my character makes can affect my party or NPCs. *** Even worse consequences. If you systematically choose intimidation and rampant violence against NPCs you could even don't get dialogue options, people would be scared by your figure even before it. Or if you are too soft, too often, a fighter could leave your party because you are not the leader he thought you were. ********* Well, hope that add to the discussion
  13. For me it depends on "how random". I'd still rather have themed wilderness areas where a particular ecosystem is at play and there are some NPCs with specific motivations. Just trekking through the woods in search of monsters to kill has long since lost its luster. As i stated, "randomly generated according to region on map" (geography and lore).
  14. I've just see a topic with this discussion! My bad, OP can delete it!
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