Kveldulf

uhuh I have a hard time believing that was it. I would be apt to believe he was pressured or bought out if that were true

Agreed. People made their case on both sides of the issue. Obsidian listened and made up its own mind about how best to respond. Respect their decision and move on. The prolonged and irrational anti-"SJW" tantrum is effing infantile. No it is just freedom of speech. And a reaction to their behavior since its getting more and more stupid every day. And now the line is almost completely crossed for many people. Whose behavior? From where I'm sitting, it seems both "sides" get way out of control and lose all sense of objectivity and rational thought almost every single time. As for freedom of speech, indeed. People on both sides exercised their freedom of speech to make their case. Obsidian was 100% free to react in whatever way it felt best. That's how freedom of speech and public debate are SUPPOSED to work. Freedom of speech is great.... but it doesn't escape blow back. Obsidian may have thought of its best interests, but the ultimate message after all of this is, it buckled under pressure by a fringe group and backed down. This looks bad to the rest of the community; worse than keeping it. If a dev thought it tasteless within Obsidian, then that's a reflection of their development, which also means confidence diminished - by those who actually thought the joke amusing.... which it sounds like the majority of its fanbase.

Because a minority has bigger rights than a majority in democracy..... 1) be a minority 2) ask 3) ask again 4) wait 5) receive I get the sarcasm. But something on a serious note about that: a democracy actually fails substantially by itself. the US founders recognized this and extrapolated on this extensively. A republic with a rule of law was the best course to protect.... the minority. The whole thing forgotten in todays age is that real law isn't made from the masses, its found (self evident / natural law ). ^ just something I felt like sharing, as it seems somewhat related

Yea, because the people who wear their genitalia flag on their sleeve are somehow more sensible than mainstreamers who keep it between their legs - discreet. I see more bigotry and hypocrisy from the LGBT than Fred Phelps in Kansas (and I live in ks).

I think a quest would be further amusing on it.... Where firedorn actually got impregnated by some strange Chimera like creature, hence is why he 'attempted' suicide but is now a soulless shape shifter. hahah

Its quite the demand isn't it? Domineering imo. Guess I'll just have to suffer with the homophobic transphobic labels....

Boy the dialogue for that would be funny 'NO, GET YOUR HANDS OFF! I'M A MAN!!!' Or the quest titles for, 'Manhood' 'Womanhood' 'The Horror!' ;P

This is how the public relations speech will look, when it comes out: We thought [serious] [insert humor] and we never thought [serious] [insert humor] So lets just leave the matter of [cowardice] alone and just move forward....

A few more thoughts to consider for Obsidian and the community: What Obsidian invariably did by correcting it, also puts out the strong impression that Obsidian particularly supports LGBT, and that causes things to be even more polarized. It really would have been better if they just left it alone, now they may face an even bigger blow-back from other political spectrums. Another thing, It's very hypocritical to censor one type of joke over other ones in the game. Is it wrong to even have a transphobic character/thing in a story? It's bloddy fiction. Heck, those old IE games were rife with political incorrect things.... look at Arcanum.... at the very beggining of character creation gender gave you different bonuses, hark! But you know, details like that actually helped with immersion. I wouldn't even say the joke is transphobic.... I can relate to Firedorns sentiments - if I slept with a tran on accident.... Heck, I reckon 'most' heterosexuals would feel horrified too, lol. I guess our 'niche' sense of reality/humor gets the shovel though right? Well..... that's even more confidence lost in obsidians decision makers. I would rather a game depict real human tendencies than it being super imposed with political feel goodness.

Well, to me (table-top) RPGs have always been more about collective, interactive storytelling than rule-oriented playing, but you certainly have a point. Characters in Numenera can certainly be "same-y", but I think a strength of the system is that it really allows you to create the kind of character you want that conceptually plays the way you want (though that, of course, depends largely on how your game master likes to handle things), even if they play the same way mechanically. Once, long ago, there existed a few games that were headed toward marrying tactical wargame to RPG.... it was called Warhammer, Warhammer Realm of Chaos & WFRP 1st. Then something happened and the design studio progressively split from the RPG realm. No one revisited the idea seriously until mordheim and necromunda but those were mere skirmish games with light narratives. Man, would I like to see a career based system based on D6 & D66 with the warhammer stat line. I could see it catering to the people wanting a bit of simple and the people wanting good tactical depth.

^ whatever system is developed, people are going to optimize. You shouldn't design a system around its possible abuse. Also, I would rather use thaco if that meant getting rid of Might.

Well as far as any historical texts depicting the long term use of wearing armour in the field/theatre, that's up for debate, and it heavily depends on the period, endurance training and type of harness. If you are speaking of a full harness, sure, you're not going to be wearing that as long, but when you start going into 3/4 harness, thats a different story. Even today's modern infantry carry more than what mid to late period plate was weighing (thought they were shorter on average, but still in ratio, is dramatically less - I reckon). You're right in that you're ability to do hand stands and cart wheels will be hindered, but by how much depends on a few things. Here's a video of a fellow doing hand stands in milanese plate: As I side note, Hollywood and a Twainism has really portrayed armour in a very very poor light. Its all too common to see 'suits of armor' erroneous depicting articulation and range of movement, hideously or worse: some would even decapitate the wearer. Oh and here's a great video documentary from met museum on misconceptions of plate & chivalry... a bit lengthy but enlightening:

I think the better approach is to do away with reaction penalties for armour and either make it where you have to meet a certain requirement or simply prevent the execution of abilities while wearing it. The mechanic to make armour have a trade off has always been gimmicky imo. I don't like to throw in too much reality in games, but I can't help ignore what little I know about full plate harnesses and how 'un-encumbering' they really are.... but that topic would derail the OP.

Yea the barb particularly can't afford to throw on plate unless you really have to or you just like the aesthetic. 25-35% reaction is what I've found to work best for him.

A thing to consider, is that I've noticed the same trend among pnp'ers, that they are more concerned with gameplay mechanics than accurately portraying the universe. For example, I play warhammer fantasy and 40k, and there is quite the division there (but its a wargame so abstractness even more so- similar principle in general though), ahem, where most of the players look to making things streamlined mechanically vs others who are more concerned with the narrative/accuracy of units depicted. [Please understand for the following that I'm speaking in a generic sense - its not true for everyone who favors the whole Might idea, kk?] Usually the ones who care about the narrative have deeper reasoning as to why even value the game. However, guess who has more hands in the franchise - the competitive players (the more gameplay centric guys). The reason for this higher population of gameplay cronies is that I think it has something to do with the propensity of people: in this age, people have their interest too divided that they would rather skid over the surfaces of many interests and borrow shallow concepts to form opinions than really assess a particular hobby ( a sort of mass ADHD). Eh, I digress though... What isn't usually considered by this gameplay-nazi crowd (imo) is the fact the genre and/or setting really is depicted first in an RPG, not the mechanics. Granted things should be balanced in a game, but there are so many ways to accomplish it, but so many people get fixated on a myopic pedantic solution - which again, inherently comes from the band wagon of 'new and improved gameplay'. If there is one thing that Warhammer has gotten right the past few years, is that variety is better than trying to balance things out so symmetrically. League of Legends took this concept and ran with it too. This same concept could be said for having more than 6 stat categories and classless rpgs; they make for a more interesting and immersive setup because of the amount of variety given to the player. Which would you rather have, 100 crazy backgrounds to choose from or 10 classes streamlined for linear tactical mechanics? To think a tactical RPG works with such streamlining is really limiting its potential - from my estimation. Oh.... how I ache for an Arcanum II.

I have to agree about the pathing issues. Even with my micro management mode enabled I still find it frustrating to deal with 'that guy' in my party who just isn't sure where to go or, 'that guy' who forgets how to use a pike over the tanks.

Yep. Why even have stats if the player feels like they're 'not that important anyway'? That's pretty depressing really. Stats are meant to illicit an image in ones imagination in a classic RPG (ahem... immersion). Waving a hand and saying that they're not everything to an RPG is defenitly obvious - its deflecting the issue. What I would be impressed with is some candor from the devs, that even a statment that might infer they fouled up the stats. It would save some face with their pnp fanbase. Right now, I've lost a little confidence in regards to them making a tasteful rule system. As another put it in the forums, having wizards bend iron bars is immersion breaking. Rogues particularly now have more 'inner power' than fighters to move stone walls or other more obvious feats of strength. That's so abstract it sounds like a board game mechanic than RPG. Even applying physics to the situation, a heavily muscled guy is going to wield bigger things easier than a guy with less muscle and generally have more raw physical might than one with less.... unless you are going for cartoonish depiction - like some anime or WOW, etc. Just because there are some instances where less muscled dudes accomplish the same feat as an Arnold equivelant, doesn't mean you should homogenize an also valid generality. It just means you should add another mechanics like skills/feats to do it because its an exception.

Yea. I personally think the more stats the better (8-10). So what if you have some dump stats, at least you have the option to walk around with a Beauty score equivelant to a super model demigod lol. I say embrace them, and let the players that exploit/min-max have their fun more so. Most pnp'ers like the little details and variety. The ones that don't probably have what I call, 'the board game agenda' - which is railroading/streamling too much.

That's quite a patch

My .02 cents: I remember the whole might discussion in beta as well. I was quite vocal about opposing it, but the consensus & devs determined otherwise. I fully understand the points of making might abstract, and even some of the rationality behind how 'muscle doesn't always equate to more damage'. Even with these points made, it was still very counter intuitive. I get the impression the devs were looking for this perfect level of symmetry AND enable classes to have flexibility - so you can have an intelligent warrior. This fell so short its not even funny. At the end of their reasoning, it was all about a very biased opinion that got shoe horned; they liked the idea of something different and I suspect, some had a bias to favor frail archtypes. Seriously, it stinks of some pet project in development that got higher-ups fawning over it. I know that the lead designers are pnp guys, but I get the impression they are sort of posing or, that they play a certain way thats very inconsistent in their group. I don't mind making things abstract for the sake of brevity in a system, but this went too far. Choosing to make exceptions equal to general expectations (like the intelligent warrior with less brawn - that does well in combat, or the wizard who can hit hard in melee) is like saying a dog can piss in a toilet just as good as a human. Unless that dog has some awesome training, he's probably not going to pull through, hence is why you have skills/feats/abilities - to flesh out exceptions - not attributes.

Yea, I've sort of reserved durance to act as a healbot more than anything. Its really hard not too. /shrug Guess I should broaden my horizons on how to play the game, than force my own view of it. heh. You've given me a few things to really think on. [Reaction success: PrimaJunta gained 250 XP]

This is true. I probably don't use them enough, but at the same time, non encounter abilities can only be cast once per rest. I guess in the end, what I'm ultimately saying in this thread is, I thought the barb would be decent at OT (with some hybrid gear), when in reality he's not. And, that 2 fighters seem to reduce party down time (and reloading) so much more than any other tank option - imo Barbarian is not an OT. Paladin is with the correct choice of talents and attributes. It's matter of balance : you can't have a melee AOE dps being too tanky. Of course, having two fighters or paladins will make your party more on the defensive side. On the other hand, a more offensive party relies more on the correct choice of mobs to target and the quickness. Roman legions against Mongol cavalry. Yep. I learned the hard way that the barbarian is not at all going to be a good OT..... 30 hours in You can make it work but its painful (unless that's your thing). Chanter has acted as a good band-aid though. Pain suppression ftw! I was just under the impression that there was some give to hybridizing - after looking at the stats; that I could make him a decent off tank. Nope. This system is more role oriented than I remember the devs leading me to believe ( from last years dev diaries).

The game isn't designed to be easy. There's a lot of combat, and it's intended for people who enjoy combat. What you're doing is like, I dunno, taking a Lotus for a drive and complaining that the ride is harsh when you're on cobblestones. That's not what it's for. You're right to a degree. I've noticed this game favors certain compositions dramatically more than others though - in the early game. That's a rough wake up call for anyone use to the progressively easy mode most rpgs usually start out as. Add-in this: If you don't happen to min/max the right way or take the right composition, you really feel up a creek (Save/load spamming).

I liked the day nights scripts of Arcanum. Very well done. It really made a thief feel more sneaky (or an assassin!). As well as set the mood in general (immersive). I imagine that would have taken a lot more time to develop though.

I hear ya man. Having 'fun' micro managing to the umf degree (while on easy) isn't what I would classify as desirable for a game either (particularly with my job staring at network/system health). I don't mind optimizing but, even on easy it feels like im on my toes. Heh, for an 'easy' mode it really doesn't 't feel much different than the 'normal' mode. Seems some people think hard mode is easy too - which surprises me. I'm wondering if there is something up with the difficulty or creature stats having issues. Or maybe I've just gotten worse at tactical rpgs.... :/