Fearabbit

Lephys, I believe Gromnir wants to say that the Rock-Paper-Scissors system is popular. Not a bad thing. I agree with you that the comparison is often a bit wonky since you know what you're facing beforehand. (That's different in Pokemon, for example, where you don't know which type the next Pokemon you fight will be. The Rock-Paper-Scissors comparison works well here - and yes, it's one of the reasons why the series is so popular, too.) Tamerlane's example of a robot that is weak to lightning but is also charged up by it is awesome, by the way. I honestly hadn't thought of this option. Would be very cool if some monsters in the game had a weakness like that.

I like to play games in the "size" they were meant to be played - which means that if a game was optimized for a resolution of 800x600 pixels, then I rather stretch it and get a blurry or pixelized image than making everything super tiny. So that's what I actually care about - when will the blurriness become noticable. And I'm not too worried about that. Many of the finer details in the game will actually be 3D or particle effects that will hopefully scale properly. If it's only the background that gets a little blurry while texts, 3D models and so on stay sharp, I'll be okay. But in any case, since mstark mentioned the PPI values for future monitors: I was wondering what the maximum PPI value is that a normal monitor needs. According to Wikipedia, the human eye has an angular resolution of 1' (one arc minute or one 60th of a degree). This means that in average conditions, two dots can be seen separately if there is an angle of 2' between them. This means that you can't see them separately if they are at an angle of 1.5' from each other. Now I'm sitting at least 30 inches away from my monitor. If d is the distance between the two dots, x is my distance from the monitor and a is the angle, then we have the relation d = x * tan(a), which can be simplified for small angles to d = x a. The PPI can then be calculated by dividing 2 by d: PPI = 2 / d = 2 / (x a) = 2 / (30" * 1.5 * 1/60 * 1/360 * 2 pi) = 150 pixels/inch (rounded) The same calculation yields a distance of 13" to 14" between your eyes and your iPhone Retina display with 326 PPI that you have to keep so that your eyes can't see the pixels. Usually, you don't get much closer than that, so the calculation is good. So that actually means I'll never need a monitor with more than 150 PPI. (And this is the conservative estimate. If I try to be more precise and use a distance of 35" between me and the monitor I get 130 PPI as a result.) Which is, of course, still a lot more than the measly 90 PPI I have right now. But the point remains - if the upscaling happens in an interval that you can't actually notice with your eyes, then it doesn't matter. By the way, 2560 pixels on a 24" monitor are actually 120 PPI. That's why I don't like the PPI value, it's very tricky. What you just did was to claim that next-gen monitors would have to upscale the game by 29%, when in reality it's only 15% when you compare monitors of equal size. Not to mention that current Macbooks have a resolution of 2560 horizontal pixels, just like the game, at a screen size of 13", which translates to a PPI of 227. That's plenty. TL;DR: 1) Things won't be tiny if you upscale them, as intended. 2) Desktop monitors only need 150 PPI at most. 3) Your numbers and comparisons are wrong, because PPI is a bad unit if you use different monitor sizes.

Intelligence in D&D is the ability to use logic and deduction. It also shows how good a character is at studying, learning things by heart, stuff like that. Wisdom represents the ability to think critically and learn from experience. A mind that looks at a situation from all different perspectives and gets insight from doing this. (So the attribute is more like your "Wisdom Potential".) So the priests and monks are not wise because they have learned doctrines and follow them. The priests and monks are wise because wise people are drawn towards this kind of philosophical life. And ideally, the teachings of their religion have them question their beliefs constantly, so that they actually build up wisdom by constantly arguing with themselves and their brothers and sisters. Wise people are also the purest examples of what priests should be, just like strong people are the purest example of good warriors. So when you only have one important priest character in your game, chances are you're gonna make him/her high on wisdom. I think the problem lies in the terminology, because intelligence is a very broad term. It's hard to imagine a low-INT person with a high WIS score because we think that low INT means a character is dumb. I'd say a dumb person would be someone who is both low on INT and low on WIS - that's a person who doesn't know the right way to go about something before-hand, makes a mistake and then learns nothing from it. But I agree that D&D doesn't have the best attribute system. It's sorely lacking Willpower as an attribute, if you ask me (especially with all those Will rolls going on in the game anyway).

@Jarmo: Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe "free play" is not really possible in Arcanum because most of the cool locations are impossible to get to if you don't follow the plot. Caladon and the Elven cities for example. I remember checking every stupid harbor for a ship to Caladon, and the option simply isn't there. Plus Tarant is much cooler after you come back from Caladon. Some very cool high-level quests. I really recommend following the main plot at least until you've been to Caladon. By the way, I love the music, but sometimes it really brings you down. Melancholic strings in combination with desaturated colors and decaying buildings are basically the main reason I never stay in Cumbria for too long. In general the atmosphere in Arcanum can be a bit depressing.

Depends. I like ingame books but some of them just don't interest me. I'd say that the history of the Dyrwood would fall into that domain unless it had some relevance to the plot. However, I love reading short stories, legends and fairytales set in the world of the game. Morrowind, for example, had both - and while it took me some time to finally read the Brief History of the Empire, I've read all the stories like Withershins, A Dance in Fire, The Black Arrow, A Game at Dinner and so on.

Okay... so how good is compression? Because to my knowledge, you can compress a texture down to maybe 15% of its uncompressed size, i.e. roughly 7 times smaller. In order to be downloadable the game shouldn't be bigger than 10 GB so that would give us 7 x 10 = 70 maps. That doesn't sound like much at all, and we didn't even consider that music, sounds and voice acting need a lot of space too... That said my calculation is probably completely wrong. EDIT: Actually it sounds about right, though I guess the game could be bigger than 10 GB. I just hope it won't be too much, with my ****ty Wifi connection it takes ages to download 10 GB.

The villain(s) should definitely appear several times in the game. But not in the way Ganondorf or Bowser keep coming back. Because that means I'd have to fight and defeat them several times, which is repetitive and boring. There's this classic situation that goes like this. You meet the villain three times, and this happens: 1) You lose (at the beginning of the game to show how powerful the villain is) 2) You win, but he escapes (in the middle to show that the tide is turning) and then 3) You win and kill him for good (in the final battle) Everytime you're in some kind of villain's lair, in some kind of trap or whatever. Most likely there will also be mooks to kill in the second and third encounters. I think we need to get rid of that. There are other ways of fighting a villain, and there are other kinds of villains. Personally I'd love it if we didn't have to fight the villain himself in the end at all, because his fighting prowess isn't the danger - his strategic mind is, and after we managed to foil his plans and defeat his army, he just isn't a huge threat anymore. Two villains I like very much in fantasy literature: Tarquin from The Order of the Stick - anyone reading the comic will know what I mean. He's challenging the whole notion of defeating the villain, and he's mostly powerful because he's a good General and a cunning schemer. Taking him out requires a unique approach. Tarquin's a classical Evil-with-a-capital-E villain, yet he keeps things interesting. Adron from the Khaavren Romances (by Steven Brust, hands down my favorite fantasy author) - He's not even a bad guy, though history remembers him as such. He saw the decadence of the emperor and knew something had to be done, and he was absolutely right about that. His approach was interesting, but not "evil" - it just so happened that it coincided with another event, creating a resonance that destroyed the whole capital city and weakened the defenses of this world against another. (Simply put, bad stuff happens.) What's interesting is that he's introduced as a very likable character. Yes, he's planning a rebellion, but he has good reasons for that and he accepts that his friends, the protagonists, are bound by honor and loyalty to be on the opposing side (the one of a decadent and brutal emperor). His last words to the protagonist? "Don't tell them that I meant well." So... yeah. There are many possible ways a villain can be designed and some of them are still very fresh and rarely used.

I'm sorry, I don't get it. What's an EP? A scary bonfire story or something like that? Please, someone explain this thread to me, I'm horribly confused. :D

I can see where you're coming from. But I wouldn't completely disregard restrictions. I mean, as long as they are balanced and the player can choose freely to take them or leave them, what harm do they do? I feel like your remark about a "Good Guy" trait is directed at my "Pure of Heart" suggestion. All I can reply to that is: I specifically proposed strong restrictions on gameplay because sometimes, I feel like playing a character who suffers from these restrictions (or chose them), but it's nice if I get something in return. Take the "Honor the Dead" trait I proposed - that is something that certain roleplayers do when they play a Paladin. They want to be a character who has honor and who wouldn't loot a body (and forbids his party from doing it). That is a restriction and usually they get nothing in return. The trait system is perfect for this - they get to play the character they want and they get a little bonus for that. I do not think that this is a bad thing. Like I said, these different types of traits can coexist. You can have background traits and you can have character traits (the only difference being that the former tell a little story about your past while the latter leave more room for interpretation), you can have neutral traits and beneficial/detrimental ones, and you can have some that impose strong restrictions on your gameplay while others simply shift things around a little bit. And hopefully all of them change dialogue sometimes.

You probably don't know the systems from Shadowrun or GURPS, which work this way: You get a certain number of points that you can spend on traits. Beneficial traits cost you points, while detrimental traits give points back. The number of points traits cost or give you depends on how good/bad they are. Just as an example, let's take Lephys' proposed traits: Let's say Silken Voice can be bought for 5 points, Keen Aim for 10 points; Clumsy gives you 10 points back and Arachnophobia gives you 5 points back. At character generation, you get 5 points that you can spend on traits. You really want Keen Aim, but that costs 10 points, so you have to take a detrimental trait. You could take Keen Aim and Arachnophobia (5 - 10 + 5 = 0), or you could take Keen Aim, Silken Voice and Clumsy (5 - 10 - 5 + 10 = 0). The choice is yours, your detriments are not tied to your benefits, but you have to find a way to balance things out. (And in this example, the game is even generous and gives you 5 points from the start; it could also simply say that you start with 0 points.) So no, this is definitely not something that only masochists will do. It's just a different approach, and in my opinion both can work in the same game. A balanced trait like your OCD would simply cost 0 points. But for some traits, it's just better if you don't force them to have a positive or negative side as well - a positive side effect of having Arachnophobia? That would seem very contrived.

I'm not good at coming up with descriptions for traits, so I'll keep them short. But I would like to see something like: Pure of Heart - You are simply a good person who wishes nobody ill and thinks ill of nobody. Because of your friendly and genuine behavior, people love you and want to help you as much as they can. This means that you get discounts in stores and persuasion checks are easier for you than for others. However, it makes you very gullible as well - people find it easy to manipulate you and bend you to their will. You also can't find it in your heart to hurt even your biggest enemies, so that you always have to try diplomatic solutions for quests first (the "let's just kill them" options are not available to you if there are multiple options available). Detriment: Honor the Dead - Your honor forbids you from looting dead bodies. Detriment: Party Class Restriction - Because of your beliefs, you will not allow companions of a certain group of classes in your party. The more classes you restrict yourself from, the more "trait points" you get. (This makes it possible to play for example a pure party of rogues while giving you points that you can spend on beneficial traits.) Benefit: Family Heirloom - You can choose an item that has been in your family for generations. You will start with this item and it will always level with you so that it will always be a viable piece of equipment. Benefit: Animal Friend - For some reason, wild animals (that don't count as monsters) will not attack you if you don't attack them first.

Has the world gone mad? No, reaching into a fire is not an adequate comparison to implementing a fun mechanic that many people enjoy into an RPG. And that's like, the whole point. If it's as if you're putting your hand into a fire, then you're already strongly biased against pickpocketing. It's not like pickpocketing needs this one special feature that makes it not horrible (i.e. the wet cloth around your hand). For me it's the other way around, pickpocketing is already a good feature, but right now it has an unnecessary aspect to it that makes it not much fun. So it's more like trying to light a nice candle by using a match with a hand soaked in flammable oil. Also I vehemently disagree that every proposed solution is heavy on resources. That is simply a false statement, in fact most systems here are so easy that they could be scripted in one afternoon, I reckon. Not to mention that some of them would probably involve less calculations than what's been done in the IE games before (the "always succeed if skill is high enough" system doesn't even need a roll, for example). And please, don't forget that this is supposed to be an RPG. Obviously everyone has preferences when playing the game, but that does not mean that your Lawful Good is the way that most people take or the one that should be catered to the most. A good crime system is crucial to a believable world, whether you make use of it or not.

Hiro, your argument is all over the place. I can't even tell if you're against visualized emphasis in general, the use of asterisks in general or simply against this one specific example from IWD 2 where (I agree) the emphasis did not add anything to the sentence. For what it's worth, I don't like asterisks either. And I don't like the overuse of emphasis if it doesn't add anything. I do think visualizing emphasis in some way (preferably by using italics) is very important, however. In your IWD 2 example, it doesn't matter whether it's "Hey, *I* could stay here and *you*..." or "Hey, I could stay here and you...", the emphasis doesn't add anything. But like Lephys said, there are other examples where emphasis can be important - and I would hope that in such cases, it will be present in P:E and not dismissed completely just because we don't want to use a visualization that still stems from game resolutions that were too small to have italics or bold text. Asterisks are outdated, italics and bold text is the way to go.

I actually think that's a bit more complicated than what I proposed. But yeah, I know my post up there was all over the place. Let me try to sum up the most important points... 1. Decide whether to play it safe or take the risk. 2. If you play it safe, three options: Wait till you're better, use (quest-related*) distractions or only take the easy stuff. (This is basically all that's related to "pickpocketing" as the crime, everything below should be part of the usual crime system.) 3. If you take the risk, prepare to run away and hide. [basic combat with the guards, only you try to run away from it] 4. If you run, don't let the guards knock you out or corner you in such a way that you can't run anymore.** 5. If you can hide, lay low for a while. [Not sure yet what "getting away" and "laying low" mean gameplay-wise] 6. If they do corner you, they'll put you in jail. 7. Once in jail I guess there can be several ways of making it interesting - a trial you can weasel yourself out of, escaping, whatever. *) By that I mean that distractions shouldn't be items you can buy or something you can generally do, because that would defeat the purpose of having many layers to the system - but many pickpocketing attempts should be part of quests and these quests can have special conditions, allowing you to use dialogue pickpocketing or prepared traps etc. **) I think fighters have a class feature that allows them to keep enemies from running away? So something like that could work against you. Also when running away, the guards might be able to attack you a couple of times, so if you're unlucky you might get knocked out. In the latter case, you don't die but also wind up in jail. Also, stop me if this is starting to get too complex but I thought that maybe the pickpocketing menu could work like this: - An NPC has clothing, right? So what if this clothing has pockets, straps and so on where items might be placed. - Depending on where they are placed, your pickpocket skill determines whether you can see the item or not. No matter your skill, you'll always see a purse dangling from the belt, for example, but you might not see a watch in the coat pocket. - The slots also have a predetermined difficulty - coat pockets are easy, but pockets on tight trousers are difficult, and so on. - So the each pocket has a "difficulty" rating and a "visibility" rating. - So you see a menu with several slots. You see their difficulty and depending on your skill, you see whether something's inside. - There may be multiple items inside a pocket. - You can empty out all pockets that are marked as "can be pickpocket without alarm" for your skill, but you can choose only one from those that "can be pickpocket but alarm the NPC", whether you there's an item in it or not, and whether you can see that item or not. (If you can see what's inside, and there's nothing in there, the pocket may be made impossible to pickpocket if only to avoid accidents.) - Additionally, all clothing has a difficulty rating, which is VERY high and never goes lower than "will alert the NPC". So a skilled pickpocket could grab the whole cloak from an NPC, but will have to run away afterwards. (This may be complexity overkill but I imagine it could be fun.) I think that sounds more complicated on paper than it would actually be when you play it, and the system itself isn't much more complex to script than a normal inventory. Would like to hear what you guys think about it.

My preferred system is always that which is very simple and intuitive while feeling kind of realistic. Some of your ideas are excellent in that regard, but others seem a bit confusing and/or frustrating. For example, if a merchant suddenly didn't want to sell me stuff because I robbed him once, that's very vague and I'm not likely to remember it. (What, I'm supposed to keep track of who I rob?) In any case, my thoughts on the matter. I fear they won't be as nicely structured as yours. 1) Pickpocketing can be done in several different ways. One is the sleight-of-hand method where the victim doesn't realize he's being robbed. Another is the more typical variant for crowded places like bazaars and so on: You simply grab the item (the purse dangling from the belt, for example) and run away as fast as you can. I always hated it that pickpocketing in games is this very binary "either you succeed and nobody notices a thing, or you fail, don't get the item and get arrested" system. If I get caught stealing the item, the fun is only just beginning! Idea: Items can be in different places of the body and they vary in weight. Depending on where they're kept and how heavy/big (i.e. obviously missing when removed) they are, there is no chance of stealing them unnoticed. Example: You rob a passerby. A menu appears that tells you he has three items - an important letter in his coat pocket, a purse on his belt and his valuable rapier in his sheath. The slot with the letter is green, indicating that with your current pickpocketing skill, you can take it without him noticing. The purse is in a yellow slot, i.e. you can get it, but you'll have to run away (it's only secured by a small strap that can be cut through). The rapier is in a red slot - it's heavy and you can't easily access it. There's a Thieves Guild quest to get the letter, and you could finish that up right now. But once he notices the robbery, the NPC will be more alert, raising the pickpocket skill you need for the other items so much that your only option is an open robbery in a dark alley, which will make you a known and hunted criminal (I just had that idea and I quite like it!). You decide that the rapier isn't that important, but you do want to get the purse. That means you'll get the letter, then cut the purse off and run away as fast as you can, while the NPC calls for the guards. 2) The example above applies to crowded areas. If you are in a room alone with someone, or if a person has already seen your face because you were talking to them, you won't be able to run away (unless you want the guards to look for you). Basically, if you know a person, then you'll have to distract them to turn the "yellow slots" into "green slots". This is where the dialogue pickpocketing system comes into play. One thing to consider: Generally in RPGs, NPCs only talk to the main character (which is a bummer because it makes no sense that my dumb half-ogre barbarian would do the talking - and fail at it - when there's a cunning rogue right next to him BUT ANYWAY). My main character may or may not be the rogue in the party, so the option to pickpocket someone during a conversation should appear independently of my main character's skills. 3) Consequences - what should they be? In my opinion, we don't want a generic system here. No reputation drop (doesn't make sense if you don't get caught) and no "everyone suddenly turns hostile". Consequences shouldn't be tied to failure, they should be tied to the way you achieved your goal, and to the quest that set you this goal. Basically, if a quest can be completed by pickpocketing something, then there should be some cool consequences. (In my example above, you could find out later that the letter contained state secrets that are now in the hands of a rival nation, or maybe some NPC wrongfully ends up in jail.) Another possibility is to make the generic items you can get via sleight-of-hand (the ones in the "green slots") more rare as you commit more and more crimes in one city. People become more aware that there are pickpockets about, and the green slots turn into yellow slots, forcing you to make a run for it more often or put more points into pickpocketing. But wait, what happens when you run away, anyway? What happens if you get caught? - You take a "green slot" item: Nothing happens except for the consequences of stealing that item (see above). - You take a "yellow slot" item: The NPC cries for help, guards chase after you. You have to leave the scene of the crime and go into hiding for about a day. If you don't succeed in running away, the guards will take the stolen item and put you in jail. - You want to take a "red slot" item: You'll have to rob or kill the person. Robbery means the person sees your face, so killing them will be safer... but of course that means a murder investigation sooner or later. The consequences of robberies and murders should be handled by a general crime system, and I'd very much welcome at least a rudimentary murder investigation somewhere in that... but that's not really the point of this thread, so let's forget about this for now. The real question is, do these possible failures for pickpocketing (ending up in jail and not getting the item) still encourage the player to reload? Well, yes. Of course they do. That's why they are so far removed from the crime - the idea is that generally, the player succeeds in stealing the item and getting away with it. In the case of running away, there's a general "go into hiding" penalty that can't be avoided and thus doesn't encourage reloading. Getting caught when running away is like dying in combat - you seriously screwed up and yes, reloading is totally cool in that case. Unless you want to roleplay getting caught, or maybe there's even a quest that requires you to get caught. Nobody gets punished for reloading after getting caught, but there is a way to keep playing if you do not do that, and it's more fun than having to kill every NPC in the town because you got failed at pickpocketing 2 gp and now everyone is hostile. And of course with a crime system that makes you go to jail instead of simply killing you, there's the possibility of adding a whole lot more that makes "failing" actually fun. Escape from prison, building up a good reputation with criminals the more you get caught (street cred, so to say)... sky's the limit. Basically if there's always one more bit of content that results directly from you "screwing up", then the game keeps you interested in your own story, and you won't feel the need of reloading.

Good tip. I just uninstalled the open beta a couple of days ago because I never could get into it - the setting and the harsh rules weren't to my taste - but I wish people would recommend games that fit the bill more often, just on the off-chance that the other guy hadn't heard of it yet. So thanks for that. So what I want is Age of Decadence with fights that you can actually win if it comes down to it, and with magic. I guess.

Dragon Age, of course! Now I remember those random encounters, and yes they were very annoying. I think most of them were tied into the main story, however. But yup, other than Dragon Age, I can't remember any RPG that had this specific problem. There are other reasons why I don't like combat in most RPGs. For example the discrepancy between being the hero and murdering hundreds of creatures because the game left me no other choice, then getting berated for this type of gameplay I didn't enjoy in the first place by games such as Shadow of the Colossus (or Spec Ops The Line). I'd love to see a game where the number of enemies I face is realistic and where I don't kill all of them. I'd love to see an RPG that was 90% dialogue. Won't ever happen, though. :/

This may be the worst example ever, but: that's exactly the point, nobody says that there can't be exceptions. Orcs are dumber than humans on average. You all act as if that meant they couldn't be intelligent, when clearly that is not the case. By the way, I think it's funny that people get so PC about this. It makes it impossible to talk about this issue. As an exercise, someone could explain to me how a Greyhound is not faster than a Chihuaha, or how a Malamute is just as strong as a Poodle. This is not phrenology, it's biology.

There's one crucial difference especially: One statement can be represented in the character generation system, while the other has to evolve during the game. But it's not "bad fiction" and "fiction proper". Saying that halflings are half as big as humans is not bad fiction, it's a fundamental truth in this world. The same goes for "orcs are generally not as intelligent as humans". Your example where orcs are outcasts who therefore rely on practical skills is one that has nothing to do with modifiers - you shouldn't get a bonus to Crafting, because being good at Crafting results from individual talents and life choices, while the average IQ of your race depends on the size of your brain and things like that. Basically it's like gender vs. socialization. All women have breasts, but being a woman doesn't mean you can cook well. You get the +2 modifier for the Breast Roundness attribute, but if you want to be good at Cooking you'll have to put some skill points in yourself.

What I don't understand here is how you can separate the mechanical differences from the fiction so easily and then say that they don't match. In my opinion, the difference between two races in the fiction is just so that it warrants a bonus or penalty to certain attributes. The fiction usually doesn't say "Orcs are like humans, but green. +2 to Strength." It says: "Orcs (on average) are stronger than humans, and if you want to know how much stronger they are, it can be represented by a +2 modifier to Strength." Also I'd say that an "insignificant" difference is represented by a +1/-1 very well. That is insignificant, all things considered. You can usually balance it out completely if you choose to do so. But it might just help you to get a feeling for the race. "I could play this half-elf fighter just like I played my human fighter last time and balance out the +1 DEX so that in the end I have the same stats as before. But you know what, this is a half-elf! I'm going to keep his DEX a little higher, just because."

Well, if I execute anyone who doesn't call me the Great And Glorious Liberator... absolutely. Good will always triumph in the end. But sometimes that means killing everyone who disagrees with that sentiment.

Uh, no? Why would I do that? I think of the character generation as the menu of a fancy restaurant. And I assume and demand that none of the food is rotten. It's nice that you find pleasure in "solving the optimization problem", but that isn't what an RPG is about and you shouldn't demand this as a feature. If an RPG with 10 classes can only be played through to the end if you choose a specific one and level that one in a specific way, then that's a design flaw. I agree that you should be able to play a character that's bad at his class... deliberately. For example it can be fun to play a Fighter with the trait "Afraid of weapons and armor". A character should only be bad at his class if his skillset really looks like that was a bad idea. Another option is to have a game where character generation actually isn't in the hands of the player. The game gives you a random character and you have to make do. That can be fun if you know it beforehand, and if the game encourages you to not just start over if you roll a bad character. Playing a weakling who sometimes has to choose morally questionable options simply because he can't survive the game otherwise is a thrilling experience. (It's what I loved about FTL: Faster Than Light, for example.) But like I said, you have to know beforehand. And for P:E, something like that shouldn't be default, though I can imagine it as a mod or as a hardcore mode.

I really like the fact that you guys put some thought into the problem of having two party members of the same class. I think ideally a party where everyone has the same class should be kind of viable too. Since I'm guessing that (in addition to Ciphers) Druids, Priests, Wizards and Chanters will be able to chain their powers too, that only leaves the less magical classes. I'm sure you'll come up with something though. More Paladins/Fighters could mean more order in the party, and therefore better defense... Barbarians/Monks could get offensive bonuses and Rangers/Rogues could get better chances at critial hits because they act in unison to expose weak spots of their enemies. Something like that. In any case, I hope we'll hear more about the different classes and companions soon. ...Especially now that we know that this all has some sort of theme to it. It was just an offhand comment, but now you got us all excited about the story and the themes of the game. :D I hope you'll choose to share some of that soon. Oh, maybe this is a question you can actually answer: Now that you have determined the main themes as well as the main outline for the story, are you expecting to give the project an actual name soon?

I hate it when this statement appears. Dude, there are like 10 different definitions. Take your pick, but don't judge others for choosing a different one. I've explained why I want STR and INT attributes before. It has to do with the role attributes should be playing in an RPG. However Sawyer's reply that was posted by Infinitron up there sounds very promising. If I can create a character where you can see at a first glance that he's a "dumb brute" or some other archetype, then that's all I wanted and I'm excited about this new system.

That's a very bold statement. I reply with another one: D&D's attributes are designed in a way that everyone can at least imagine something. Does high INT mean that my character is good at logic and deduction, research and magic? No. It means that you have designed an intelligent character, nothing more. "Intelligent" is an adjective we commonly use to describe people. "Strong" is a popular adjective, just like "charismatic" or "wise". "Dealing high damage (with both sword and spell)" or "very accurate in combat" are less often used as descriptors, and don't give me any idea about the character. The attribute system is a ranking of different adjectives that people would commonly use to describe other people. Therefore it should always give you very broad idea, but never a detailed picture. Concerning the difference between beauty and charisma: Personally I don't see the problem. You wanna play a brat, you give her low charisma. But then, I never defended D&D's system. I don't even like the character creation in D&D very much. Personally I prefer the system from Fallout or that from Arcanum (which does differentiate between Beauty and Charisma, by the way). In principle though, while D&D's attributes don't tell you everything about a character, what they do tell you gives you a general idea about looks, strengths and weaknesses. And that is what attributes should do. They shouldn't be abstract ideas that only represent numbers in some hidden calculations.