BetrayTheWorld

I also think it's cool that people behind the making of the games are getting more exposure due to the kickstarter model. It paves the way for the pocket protector rock star of the future. lol

The reason I say hidden is because of basically one thing. There are people who play games not to ... play them, but to "game the game" or go after achievements and treat the game they are playing as some sort of weird trophy item. Then there are also people who for whatever reason hate alignment, probably because they only ever see it done wrong. Ultimately the idea is about allowing the player to create the character they want, giving the game a way of reacting to that character in a "reasonable" way, making npc's slightly more "real", and just helping to immerse you in a game without forcing you to be "Shepard". Sometimes knowing these things are there though can get in the way of that and make you think I need to score XYZ instead of just making you focus on being the character you want. At least for some players. I understand, but I still think that hidden values would be less appealing overall than transparent values. So far as your idea for character creation asking a series of questions, there is a MUD called Accursed Lands that did this for their character creation, and it's actually really enjoyable to create a character there. There's normally about 8-10 questions that start out like: "When you're 5 years old, x happens and you're left with a decision, do you do A, B, C, or D?" The questions aren't the same each time you play either. There is a random element to it, and subsequent questions are reactive to the answers of earlier questions. In general, it's a really immersive character design method that helps people flesh out where their character came from, and what sorts of things happened to them to shape who they become. Using this sort of thing in character creation doesn't need to be limited to only effecting starting morality or reputation either. It could actually equate into bonuses or penalties in skills and attributes as well, which I think would only add to it's value and enjoyability. I encourage you to connect to Accursed lands and create a character there to see what I mean, if you can stomach a text-based RPG long enough to make a character or two.

Well thought out, overall good post. I like and agree with all of your ideas, except the part about making all the stats hidden. I don't see a need for that.

Well said, sir or madam.

No. If you don't like reloading when something goes wrong, then don't. Others don't have time to play through a game more than once or twice. Some people would prefer to have the experience they're looking for the first time through. I don't think there is any logical reason to stop them from being able to do that. If this was an "optional only" setting that you could select at the beginning of the game to keep yourself from yielding to temptation, I would support it. However, barring that, see the first word of my post.

It does. You level up and get skill points to spend. That is representative of you gaining that experience. If you choose not to invest points in lockpicking, then it is YOU who decide that your character didn't learn anything from the lockpicking he did leading up to that. This argument doesn't carry any weight against the lockpicking skill point investment at all, unless you're arguing for a system which completely takes away "skill points" in favor of a system that let's you get better at ALL skills by using them. And while I do like the idea of a system that let's you get better at skills you use, these systems are far from perfect, and open to lots of exploitation(Oblivion, sneak walk against a wall while you go see a movie, anyone?).

Sneak Hug

And who in their right mind would -believe- you when you said, "I have this map worth ten thousand gold..." Certainly sounds like a scam to me.

Now would be a perfect time to lock this thread.

The thing is, what "class" is an assassin then? Ultimately, this argument doesn't hold weight when compared to the rest of your post. If rogues have sneak attack, which you say they should, then along with their other skills, they are the class most ideally suited to be an assassin. I'm not saying EVERY rogue needs to be built this way. Rather, I'm saying that giving people the choices on how they want to play/make their character should be a major priority. Let's take a look at what an assassin needs skill-wise, versus what a thief needs. Assassin Required Skillset: A method of attack that can dispatch an unsuspecting target quickly, so that they can escape.(ie, poisons and sneak attack) Sneak/Hide so they can reach their target unaware. Disarm Traps/Pick Locks, as above. For the same reasons, the following skills, if they exist: search, disguise, spot, climbing, bluff, diplomacy, intimidate, etc. To assist in getting away if things go poorly, tumble. Typical rogue skillset: Rather than rehash all of the above, which are ALL standard rogue skills in D&D, suffice to say that pretty much every rogue skill is either directly useful for an assassin, or supports the skills that are. (Such as search supporting the disable trap skill - Can't disable what you don't see.) Again, this doesn't mean that every rogue would focus their efforts on being the best assassin they could be. My point is, it's a natural fit. So one rogue might focus less on the poisons/sneak attack aspects and more on the picking locks/slight of hand aspects. It's all in their objective. As an example, there is an assassin and a thief. One's target is the man sleeping in the bedroom, while the other's is the safe owned by the man sleeping in the bedroom. Both require the same skills to get to their target. It's not until they're already there, ready to do the deed that any differences become evident. In story form, the above two individuals would look and sound nearly identical all the way up to the point of being inside the bedroom with the man and the safe. I am the assassin, my objective is to get to a location undetected, and kill something. I am the thief, my objective is to get to a location undetected, and steal something. Note that only one word changes. EDIT: I'd also like to point out that I've never argued for rogues to have the same base attack bonus as fighters, so I'm certainly not of the point of view that rogues should be "do-it-all ninjas" that turn into a fighter when they get caught. As it has always been in D&D, a career fighter should always be better in a straight up fight. The increased base attack bonus, along with fighter-specific damage and attack feats accomplishes this. It seems like people arguing in this thread are ignoring just how huge an advantage the BAB progression is that fighters get.

I'd like to just get off of this subject completely. I actually enjoyed the debates going on in this thread until it got hijacked by religion. Gods exist in the game. Religion exists. Atheism likely doesn't exist because people know that the Gods exist. If previous games are any indication, then there will likely be characters that don't worship any particular deity. There really isn't a debate to be had about it. Whatever they're going to do with it, they'll do with it, and it will likely be fine. Even if there ARE details to debate, this thread really isn't the place to do it. If you're really wanting to argue specifics of religious ideas in game, I'd suggest starting a new thread on that topic. This thread is about the general idea of mature themes in the game.

and his competitors would raise their prices. At first, this idea sounds brilliant. While this is a realistic assumption based on real markets, assuming the pool of competitors is small enough, I don't think it should apply here on much of a noticeable scale. There are several reasons for this. First, in an RPG, there are several things that are to be considered abstractions. One of those things, as represented in a "big" city in a game, is it's merchants. Sure, mechanically, you may only have the option of purchasing weapons from 1-3 merchants in a town. However, this is simply a representation of the available merchandise. In a "real" big city, you'd have many such options, so driving 1 of them out of business would impact the overall marketplace minimally. It's not until you impact the majority that you'd see these kinds of changes occur. In smaller villages, however, this issue wouldn't necessarily apply. It's very feasible for a village to only have 1 blacksmith. Second, if such a system was implemented, it'd need to be forgiving enough not to discourage players from playing a particular style of play. You wouldn't want to make playing a thief less viable because using your thieving skills makes the rest of the game more difficult(ie higher prices). While there are probably ways to implement this sort of thing effectively, I'd prefer to see effort spent towards making thieving more realistic, so that "cleaning someone out" isn't really as viable of an option. I've noticed in several games, people stand by and watch you pick locks in their house, empty their drawers, and still speak to you as if everything is hunky dorey. I'd prefer that people in the game care about their belongings, and actively seek to protect them. As far as pickpocketing goes, I think a system that had increasing difficulty for subsequent attempts would work well. This would be accompanied by the ability to target specific items in your target's inventory for theft, and create a scenario where people would need to carefully choose the items they tried to steal, rather than just stealing everything they see. It's also more realistic. If you bump into someone on the subway, and lift their wallet, you can probably get away with it if you're good. But if you bump into someone 37 times, leaving them wearing a pair of socks and a smile, I don't think they're going to accept your "Scuse me, sir."

Actually, it'd be less work than that if you grouped weapons together that were used in the same way. For instance, a handaxe and a machete are two different weapons that are functionally used in exactly the same way. Both are single-handed, chopping-only types of weapons. Therefore the abilities and animations associated with their use wouldn't have to be different. Further, single-handed weapons that had both chopping and thrusting capability could share -some- animations with those as well, narrowing the number of animations that need to be created. Basically, I don't think we need to oversimplify a good idea.

I'm normally all for more options, but this one, I think I could do without. I may be incorrect here, but even in "Ironman" mode, if you die, I think you can restore to the beginning of your play session. I think all ironman mode does is disable you being able to save your game except when you quit. Which, really, if that's what it is, it should be renamed inconvenience mode, because all you have to do to override the system is quit the game, restart, and load from your previous save. If, on the other hand, their ironman mode is truly a "die and start over" situation, then that's cool, and it certainly adds a sense of mortality to your decision-making in the game. Even if the latter is the case, I don't think your idea is a bad one, it's just not appealing to me.

Freaking Gizmo?!?! lol, I'd love to see this race in a game. Maybe they have an inherent racial ability to turn into gremlins once a day.

Fixed.

I'm in favor of pretty much all additional options that allow us to further customize our characters. This one is no exception.

If the Rogue had some Class specific abilities in town (Street Smart) that makes it easier to Gather Information, Find Quests, Get Gold and so on and so forth I would choose him over something else. Combat is not everything. What is important is the Adventuring aspects. How does he benefit the group in the Adventure? Is he charming? Difficult to catch? Sneaky? Knows to use the alleys better than others? Can climb up the wall and sneak into a window, which your Fighter in Full Plate Armor wouldn't do as adeptly. I recommend taking a thought or two at "Tasks", being able to send out Party Members in cities on Tasks. One such Task could be "Burglary" or "Business/Gather Information". * Burglary would be sending out your Rogue to loot homes for Gold. Even loot Shops (if there were any in the AoE Ring). This way you could even hit 2 places in the town at once, your Rogue is off in to the Northwestern section, and you take care of the South Eastern section. A Cipher in your party could call back the Rogue instantly (but at a penalty to the loot he could've gotten). Your guy sent on Burglary could be caught and set into Jail, or talk himself out of it with some gold. He could get attacked by Thugs in an Alleyway and you have to come to his aid. Mechanically: Press "M" -> Right-Click on Map -> Choose Tasks -> Choose Burglary -> Who will do it? -> Place AoE Ring -> Rogue Leaves Party for a duration of time * Business/Gather Information Gather Information, you send off your Rogue and he is sent to Gather Gossip, Quests, Handle Business (grab the Gold that you earned). Being able to handle stuff that are mundane, making you not have to walk around the entire town just to find a Quest Giver or manage the business. In and Out type of thing. The Rogue wouldn't just give you the quest, but he would pin-point where the Quest giver is so you still have to talk to him. While I think some of these are good ideas if implemented properly, I don't think that it would necessitate taking staple combat abilities away from the rogue. You can expand on these things with a class, thereby making them more interesting, without taking anything away, and it won't hurt balance. Basically, these are game mechanics that are already realistic and accounted for in various versions of PnP D&D. They just aren't normally implemented in cRPGs.

I wasn't proposing this. Nor was I proposing the animal body, human torso thing that is so popular in fantasy writing. I'm talking about races that make some sort of evolutionary sense. Like, what would an arachnid who developed further along it's evolutionary timeline to the point of intelligence look like? Act like? Etc.

Since this is a new IP, how about a few extra races who aren't just humans of varying size with/without pointy ears and hairy feet? I feel like many of the playable races in games are simply too human-like. Let's mix it up a little bit. How about intelligent beings evolved from other mammal and non-mammal species? Insectoids? Arachnids? Avians? Reptiles? Amphibians? Crustaceans? I think it would be cool to see how an insect or arachnid society would evolve. They could end up with vastly different values and ethics from their more human-like counterparts.

I wouldn't mind, but since this is an original IP, if they -were- implemented, it might be under a different name, with different culture, and maybe not at all like what you're expecting. However, name aside, I would certainly be interested in seeing a (perhaps recently liberated) slave race that is physically strong with a tribal culture.

Doing damage to enemy while staying away from his attack range. Yup, this is kiting in a nutshell. But anyone who read the thread knows that the OP meant "pulling". Either way, both tactics are silly when dealing with an intelligent enemy. The only way kiting should work is against a beast with sub-par intelligence, and even in that case, I'd think said beast would realize that they weren't catching up to you, and were only being hurt more, so they'd likely run and hide. All natural beasts have the "fight or flight" system of behavior. And even when dealing with apex predators, nature has given them a strong sense of self-preservation. It may not be their first instinct to run, but it's still an instinct in the right circumstances. Point is, kiting shouldn't work very well. Pulling, on the other hand, should only work if done through circumstances that are believeable. If you cause a ruckus attacking someone, they should shout out for help. If you pull them away from their group by making a small sound that they go to investigate, then quickly dispatch them within the time-frame of a round, this sort of pulling is acceptable and realistic.

QFT.

I'd highly prefer that this was not the case. Not everyone likes grinding through a game on the highest difficulty levels that force you to use silly exploits/tactics to make it through the game, just to be able to play a race that you're interested in trying out. Also, while I don't mind there being a power differential, I don't think it should be nearly as extreme as you're talking about, and should probably use some sort of system similar to D&Ds racial power system to keep the game balanced.

Right, because how would having magic AND racism in a game make any sense at all? The two are obviously mutually exclusive, and using ANY realistic elements in a game that already includes fantasy elements would detract from the experience. As a matter of fact, why have anything that's recognizable from reality at all? Trees? Humans? Recognizable geometric shapes? No, no, and no. Let's just have a black screen so that we can't see anything "realistic" or "gritty" that might kill our immersion. That's it!! Black screens with only sounds of our magic happening, and "beings" speaking in languages we couldn't possibly comprehend. No, wait, the sounds might be familiar. Let's just cut sounds out completely too. That'd be a great game. Imagine the possibilities.