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Personally I am not too much for minigames. If they are optional and fit into the world as a whole and at least are moderately fun (and does not take too many resources from the core game) fine, but mandatory minigames please no. That is not to say I dislike them as such, I just rarely play them. One of the few I liked was pazzak, it was fast, moderately fun and within lore of the game. I would however be irritated if I had to play pazzak 5-10 times in a row, which could happen in such a system even if I was not constantly reloading to get a successful roll. A hard part of the game could result in me dying regularly and thus would also trigger it. If there where to be a penalty like this I would rather go with the style that New Vegas (IIRC) had where you could not play in the casino for something like 1 minute after reloading. A similar system could be made for skillchecks. That is not to say I liked it, but I would prefer it over many other options. The point is: Not liking minigames indeed IS the point. It's all about making some sort of investment by the player. Just imagine you think about to open a chest with your mage, but you don't know if it is trapped ... Today you just try. Error means reload. There is no need to sacrifice some spell-slot or magic energy on a 'find trap' spell. Now think about you have to play a very small, probably boring, minigame that maybe justs take 20seconds before reloading. How do you react? Likely you will make the investment for the spell to avoid that bloody minigame. am I right? I think that adds to the story of roleplaying experience when you don't always have the perfect character(s) which can do everything. It would help the less disciplined people, who want to do this kind of roleplaying but can't resist the temptation, be more disciplined. Like myself . For those who are just annoyed by this simple thing, it could be easily diabled in the options. There are many games that increas in fun when the player has to make a personal investment ... Poker for an instance ;-) So it is not very unusual. Just by the way: Minigames inside the game .. I am also no fan of that..

I just jumped into ths thread this morning and read about the 'my playstyle is my castle' position vs. 'consequence is an essence of rpg'. Well, it might sound offensive but I dont' mean it that way. Did anybody consider a 'minigame' when a savegame younger than e.g. 30mins is loaded? (There's another very big thread about minigames already) This doesn't keep anybody from playing the reload-playstyle but let's the player propably think twice to do a risky action or to reload, since there's more of a consequence, especially when the minigame is not entertaining. I myself use the 'reload spell' quite often, I admit, and because of this I sometimes feel I am missing atmosphere when all enemies already have lost by desgin. The 'reload spell' is overpowering everything.

Being the new kid in the forum I am very fascinated by amount of great ideas here. I searched for 'physixs' but that didn't reveal any post. So, if physixs-effects had already been discussed, please give me the link. I just remember the fun I had with Dark Messiah of Might and Magic. You had loads of non standard solutions for a fight. Now imagine this kind of freedom in a game like BG, even if I don't know how close Eternity will be to that style, just imagine. You could let topple things on top of your enemies by breaking the roof of the building they are in, or set the haystack on fire behind which they are hiding etc. pp. It might become very hard for the KI developer so that the games stays fair between the human creativity and a computer algorithm, but nevertheless I think that would open the door for many new options, not only for a fight. What do you think?

At last I remember a minigame I liked. The swordfights in Monkey Island! (of course) Just epic. Will there be a two-headed money in the game?

Good question, 'where do minigames work?'. I mean you already listed a number of good arguments why they usually do not work in a RPG. Usually I don't like them since I perceive them as time-burner only. I could think of minigames to get you out of a dead end, like gambling for money when you urgently need to buy additional healing portions for next hard fight. In principle that thing you had in BG1, just you might really play. Gambling might be especially interesting when there's a 'Luck' skill that really counts there. Then it even might add nicely to the role-playing and it might be useful to have a lucky bastard in the party. In case a game has a cheat/help system, like in Machinarium, a nasty minigame might prevent the player from using the help system too often. (For me it worked out very well in Machinarium )) One additional general thought: Minigames in general might counter the RPG concept since it takes the minigame-skill of the 'omnipresente authority figure' too much into account where the skills of the characters should count.

I think it is different to the saving throw. It shall not render the spell itself useless. This special talent would not protect against the effect of magic when it hits, just against being the prime target. There are many situation this makes a difference, e.g. everytime a spell affects an area. This new thing would not protect against this. The saving throw against magic or fire or else is still needed to protect against the effects of the spells. I still think this is something really new that adds to the variety of charcter creation and strategy in combats. You might create a quick rogue with low magic resistance. The tactics of such a character to fight against mages might be to get close to them by avoiding being hit by their magic. There can still be a factor of randomness though. The dice roll for 'disconnect from spell' might be unsuccessful.

Hi, I just played through Baldurs Gate with a Fighter ... and Mage previously. As a fighter I really hated that I cannot sidestep slow moving spells to avoid them, for a mage this would be devastating. What would you think about a 'Disconnect from spell' event that might be triggered as a talent of a character or as a spell? What I mean is, when your character is the target of a spell, it may disconnect so it is not the target anymore. There may be various side effects: *slow moving spells are just not following anymore, probably hitting somebody else who stands in the way. *for fast moving spells, e.g. a fireball, you still have to sidestep. When it hits it hits. *for immediant effects like charms, there may be a dice roll. At success the spell just might be ineffective or, much 'funnier', hit the next target in range, friend or foe alike. I think I never saw such a thing in an cRPG but it might be an interesting feature to strategic battles. What do you think? BR, Lutz