Farbautisonn

People generally have too thin skin. There is no harm in pointing out that things do not make sense from a RP perspective. We all learn. Even people who have RPd for years still learn. We just learn less frequently, and more often find us selves teachers rather than students. And I am fine with that.

I'd love for Obsidian to do something New Vegas -esque, but I think that the scope of major open world games such as Skyrim and Fallout, is a wee bit out of their grasp just yet. I'd love to be proven wrong though.

Ive tried to create RP events on KotOR. It didnt go well. Mostly because paladins. People who have little undestanding of long term gains vs Short term satisfaction. In MMORPGs there is next to none roleplay outside of decidedly RP Guilds. And the good ones are far and inbetween. Having 8 characters on each side I would say that makes it possible to create scenarios where roleplayes got their fill. But unfortunately not.

Very, very interesting. Thank You for this link.

Problem here is that if I were the smart Evil who needed to ingratiate myself with the locals / work on my reputation / build my peasant army of cannonfodder, Id likely refuse payment and then get the rabble to cheer me on as a paragon of virtue and honour. Bonus would be that whenever some ninny came along to seek me out for my crimes then the locals would likely trust me more than the hamfisted merc who happened to be venturing through. So I would know that he was there, before he know I was there. Its Mao and "on political strategy and guerllia warfare" (Giaps bible) 101. You make the locals love you and provide you with shelter and safe ground whilst you take what you need from your enemies.

I dunno, most stories are cowardly intelligent evil vs brave dumb farmboy. I hate that to no end. Thats almost as bad. But "cowardly" is usually mistaken for "sneaky" and "machiavelian cunning" in most stories. I dont like stand up fights. If I can kill you in your sleep, with a 155mm howitzer, from 60 miles away without anyone knowing that it was me or why the building you lived in desintegrated, Ill call that "fair".

"Hamfisted idiotic evil vs brave intelligent good". Im tired of seeing evil archvillains employ idiotic tactics, employ moronic lieutenants and becomming moronic themselves. It would be nice to have some descicions where being "good" nessecitated extreme brutality and being "evil" was possible without resorting to brute force and shortsighted gains.

Semmemon comes to mind. He is the one evil that is never really explored in any game. Intelligent, soft spoken, low key, strictly in it for the power and meticulously measures out violence and intimidation as his most valuable commodity. He is more likely to be percieved as "Lawfull good" than "lawful evil" because he is so very meticulous in his planning. He wont shun violence but he leaves hamfisted brutality, sadistic depravity and shallow threats to other less intelligent persons. These also attract the brunt of the "Heroes" combatting them. In most interesting games Ive played, the realms have been in turmoil with the Fzouls and Entreri's, whilst the Szass Tams and especially the Semmemons have come in and finished off both heroes and villains alike. They rarely make mistakes and never twice. Keyser Söze is another of my favorite. Again, the unseen hand that is more interested in profit and power than anything else. More "intelligent evil" than "Enforcer turned Boss". Top Dollar, of The Crow, Is another of my favorites. Low key player, but had he not been opposed by an immortal he would likely have become a very hefty player in the underworld... if he wasnt allready. Brutality and depravity, plus a quirky fetish for bladed weapons and a hands on approach that strictly speaking isnt beneficial for him, but it offsets the intelligence and business like attitude toward violence.

Strictly speaking LotR is basically a story about an intelligent weapon. If you choose that point of view.

Youre a rat bastard cynic. I like that in a person.

Well I actually like intelligent weapons. I loved lilacor but he does get rather annoying. I wouldnt mind an intelligent weapon as long as there was a chance of artifact possesion or some other danger to using it. One of my favorite intelligent weapons by a gm was that of a beatifull dagger that had apparently the soul of an extremely beautifull female thief inside. She latched onto the thief in the party and whenever he got into a fight the dagger started whispering of the women he had bedded, the fights he had won and how great a guy he was (morale bonus). On the downside she was extremely jealous and would cause the rogue to disregard any woman of beauty (giving a minus to reaction with females and especially so of the noble or powerfull kind). In the end the guy was almost dependent on the weapon in a "gollum'esque" kind of way, consumed by his desire to "get her out of the dagger". Made for interesting questing.

Please no. No bioware cinematics or "streamlining". No halfarsed plotholes, unbelievable dialogue and suspension of disbelief breaking lore crashes. Hudson, Gaider and the bioware crew had their shot. Time to move on.

Oooer... innovative! Having the cypher scan surface thoughts. Nice. Might actually turn the Mass Effect esue "Evesdropping questing" into something interesting.

From humble beginnings, this thread is looking to be one of the more interesting ones.

I see your point. "High evil rep" is usually what we are presented with in most RPGs. And it frankly annoys the crap out of me. We are presented with characters who rise to power intelligently and by use of extremely measured force, only to see them devolve into petty hamfisted tyrants. Its the Fzoul esque type. Then we have the more Medium evil rep. The Saszz Tam type ones. They are every bit as evil as the Fzoul esque types but they are more likeable and they generally try to apply force in measure. Finally we have "intelligent evil" as I like to call it. Sememmon type evil. If you didnt know the guy or what his goals were you would pretty much mistake the guy for "lawfull good". Freindly charming good, pays your party in advance and even if you falter doesnt try anything stupid. He just bides his time, makes other plans. The Sememmon type evil however is the least explored type of evil in any game to date, even PST where good and bad was relative. Its the real challenge of RPG AI as I see it. Making Sememmon type characters on both sides of the fence. Both as antagonist, but certainly also as protagonist