Corvus Metus

I think part of the reason games do it is... Well, in most cRPGs you start out as a 1st "level" character (different for games with no actual levels - but the concept is the same), and either way... You're inexperienced. Age, to a certain degree reflects experience. Why does the 60 year old PC know crap about anything?

Ravenloft has them both in spades. It is low-magic settings, where the magic exists is often very dangerous on a spiritual level, and unless you're in a more "enlightened" nation you'll get a mob of angry villages with torches and pitchforks trying to kill you if you cast your magic to openly. Superstitious locals, and all. To me, I depends all on how is handled. Maybe in the setting, there is only one vampire. He was once a human wizard, in love with an elven maid, who rebuffed his advances because while she did care for him, she could not bare to lose him to age (assuming elves are long lived)... However, he could not take no for an answer. He practiced a nercomantic rite in hopes of gaining immortality - but something went horribly wrong. He gained immortality but lost his soul - in horror, his love killer herself, throwing herself from the window of his castle - now, he dwells in his castle, haunted by the soul of his dead love, and has grown bitter and hateful. He now hunts the near by village, preying on young lovers - drinking their blood, yes - but also part of their soul. *Shrugs.* A way to play the vampire, in something that might fight the setting (or might not). It isn't so hard to do similar things with werewolves, too. The problem with stuff, is never, ever the actual creature - but the way things are handled.

If the world of P:E is developed enough, they can have a lot of hooks, without promising anything. In the Hobbit, you hear about the Necromancer, which Gandolf goes off to deal with. In Lord of the Rings, you learn that the Necromancer is Sauron. Tolkien never planned the connection, but when writing a sequel to his own story - he discovered a little plot point he could use. P:E can do that, easily, I'd say. Maybe not have any real plan for a sequel but leave little tidbits they can pick up on even if they don't have plans for it.

I voted Baldur's Gate, as it was a superior game. While I'd agree with anyone who said that Planescape had a better story, it felt more like a Choose Your Own Adventure book at times, than it did a cRPG.

I'd be disappointed if there was no "min-maxing" to some degree, especially since the established goal is to blend everything that was great about the IE games into one big ball of awesome. What made every non-Planescape: Torment IE game great was the combat and min-maxing aspect (although I'd argue Baldur's Gate also had story going for it). To take that away, in my opinion, defeats the purpose. Also, min-maxing in RPGs isn't always DPS - a lot of people forget that. My favorite character (in table-top) D&D (3.5) could deal some decent damage - but couldn't last more than a couple rounds in an extended melee without support. However, he had very good saves and had the ability to ignore pretty much any spell effect on a successful save - and spell resistance to boot. He was min-maxed, but his role wasn't killing everything in one blow. It was to support the other fighters and more or less take out enemy mages.

Guns work great in fantasy, IMO. Two of my favorite fantasy settings (Warhammer and Ravenloft) make extensive use of guns. I wouldn't even mind seeing a repeating gun, a rare prototype giving as "field" testing. Don't think it completely beats believability if the setting has magical swords with flaming blades.

If you've played Dishonored, then you know that rats are a terrifying force capable of stripping the flesh from an armored man's bones in a matter of seconds. So... you want PE to be a parade of well-executed cliches. You want PE to be Dragon Age Origins? And using all your resources for war is not adaptability. Developing a way to make a house out of ice in the arctic is adaptability. Humans are adaptable. Orcs, as you describe them, are not adaptable. Humans spread accross the globe thanks to adaptability. The Romans conquered the Mediterranean because they adapted to use new ideas and abandoned the old ones that failed. If Orcs were adaptable, they wouldn't have a cozy cliche niche as evil, bloodthirsty, barbarian monsters, they'd be just as varied as humanity. I don't want PE to be anything like DA:O. Dragon Age was a parade of poorly executed tropes in a poor attempt to make "dark fantasy". However, I don't want (and don't expect) change simply for the sake of change - and with nearly every fantasy setting these days making traditionally evil races sympathetic and understandable, going back to the "roots" would actually be a refreshing change. Then again, I'd personally like to see PE draw a lot of influence from the Ravenloft campaign setting, not so much in gothic atmosphere, but the ability to simultaneously play both moral ambiguity and evil at the same time.

I'm not a fan of the modern Bioware-style romances. "Hey, you're cute." "Want to ****?" "Sure!" "*Cue porno music.*" "Awesome. We're a couple now!" It comes off as to me, more as fan service, than legitimate character development. I don't mind the concept of in-game romances, in theory but most of the time the Bioware-style is disappointing, especially with the "love = sex" portrayal. I'd personally want to see a well-written chaste/asexual romance in a game for once, rather than everything basically leading up to sex and that being the end of it. Likewise, I'd like to see a relationship that's purely sexual, with no emotional l attachment involved - and unlike a certain character in DA2, they never come around to the idea of monogamy. But more than that, I want to see other sorts of relationships. I felt that Imoen and <CHARNAME> had a lot of potential, developing their brother and sister relationship - and I want to see oaths of brotherhood, and just close friendships.

This, really. Some of my favorite characters held radically different beliefs than myself – I’ve never understood why a small, sometimes vocal majority of people were upset that they’ve had to play someone different than themselves. I’m a believer myself, but some of my favorite characters were atheist or otherwise believed that gods were beneath them – just a I’ve played characters with radically different political beliefs, etc. My favorite part of role-playing games is being something I'm not.

Hmm well in LotR the orcs were created by Morgoth as a mockery of the Children of Illuvatar (elves). Don't recall much info about their society such. But imo that's still a pretty weak motivation - "they're evil cuz that's how they were made!" Tolkien himself was disappointed with the idea that they orcs were considered "irredeemable" however - I recalled reading somewhere that he felt he wrote himself in a corner. I say run with that. Make the "orc" a violent, wicked creature - but have them live in a part of a world where the have no choice but to live the way they do. Maybe they live in a harsh, inhospitable land where they don't have enough resources to survive without raiding - or maybe they're a slave caste, beaten and mistreated, lashing out. There's a lot of ways you can run with traditional fantasy tropes, without changing it just for the sake of changing it. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind playing with or even playfully mocking traditional fantasy archetypes. Planescape: Torment did that (largely because the Planescape setting did that) but it also respected its roots, to speak. It wasn't change, simply for the sake of change. I'd much rather see well-written "cliches" than poorly written changes for the sake of changes. (Of course, I expect Obsidian will do a great job no matter what they do - however, with a lot of the "ambiguity" that is common in modern fantasy fiction sometimes I feel going a "traditional" route would actually be more refreshing.)

I don't want to see any trope mocked. I don't even want to see it subverted. I want to see it done right. Evil orcs? Sure. I love me evil orcs. But explain why they're evil. Like the orcs of Middle Earth, they live in a violent and degenerate society, in a part of the world where resources are used almost exclusively for warfare - if they don't adept, they die.