Amentep

Its not that I want to dismiss it so much as that game definitions due to mechanics don't always line up with the definitions of words used. In other words, the scope of a skill is defined by the creators of the game, not by the English dictionary. Lets say a game defines a combat skill called Assault which is used when any PC attacks a foe first. However the "Avenger" class gets a combat skill called Avenge which is used when an Avenger attacks a foe first who has unjustly committed a crime. So an Avenger dumps points in Avenge and a Bard dumps them into Assault. They go to face a foe who has unjustly committed a crime. The Avenger can use his Avenge Skill and the Bard Assault. And they roughly get the same effect. Now later they meet a guy who hasn't unjustly committed a crime. The Bard can still use Assault for a sudden attack, whereas the Avenger cannot use Avenge. 2 questions are raised - why would an Avenger choose to dump points in "Avenge" rather than "Assault" and why would the game divide out what is in essence a specific case of Assault as a separate combat skill rather than have one skill that covered both situations. This is, in essence, what you're doing when you say a Bard should be able to bluff an intimidation. Not only can the Bard intimidate as well (or better) than the half-orc Barbarian, but his skill is more useful in other situations. And to me this is just wrong. If the idea is to have [intimidate] be a special subset of [bluff] then you don't need both skills. You just need bluff. ObTopic: To me this is further reason why skill tags are unnecessary (because they could confuse the player); I'd also argue that for these kind of skill checks can't ever happen like they would in P&P, so hiding the mechanics makes you less angry when a situation doesn't offer you your skill choice and you think it should (because you're not thinking about having a [skill] tag in front of your dialogue).

I don't mind instadeath spells for either my party or the other party. Not a must, but certainly it could be planned for. I don't want "game over" from spells that end (like Maze for soloers in BGII) or that could be dispelled if other party members were around (like Imprisonment could be with Freedom).

They should spend money on the game. Then if they need review quotes to sell audiences on the game, they can make them up. "This would be the perfect game if Ziets hadn't written a romance. Still 9/10 because I got my Cipher hatemance in." -Chris Avellone, developer, Planescape: Torment.* Or they could pull quotes from the forums here. "The would be the perfect game if they had included more romances. Its still 10/10 though." - Pror Omance, Obsidian Forumite* Or they could pull quotes from the forums at RPG Codex "Anyone who says this game isn't good is just a butthurt consoletard. 9/10 because its not turn based but decline real time with pause." - Master Codexian, P.C.R.P.G, esq.* *Not a real quote; Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental or for purposes of parody.

I'm not sure if the entire game would have to be written around it; it would have to be fairly well integrated in the game just simply for time to devlopment, to fit the game and the NPC involved. So the idea that you can easily drop-in romance to hit an easy "win" for the fanbase doesn't really work most of the times in terms of the game and NPCs, IMO. That said, part of me can't help but wonder if Avellone wrote his reply just because he knew it'd add about 500,000 pages to existing romance debate...now that's just mean

Holy cow! I guess Lucas really is giving up on film.

Abstraction of the number of tries (and broken lockpicks) it'd take to take for a "closely" skilled character to hit the right combo on a lock that's slightly harder than their current skill set would allow them to pick otherwise?

That you're using two things (bluff and intimidate) to express intimidation. Having one thing represented by two things is pretty much a textbook example of ambiguity. Lets look a little closer at what is happening with a typical example "give me that necklace or I'll gut you like a fish". Clearly the intent is to [intimidate] the NPC into giving the necklace over. Clear and straightforward use of the skill. Now lets look at the example as used as a [bluff]. A [bluff] is a deception; a way for the PC to make the NPC believe something that the PC wants the NPC to believe. A typical bluff might be pretending you're royalty to some rabble as a way to get them to go along with your plan ([bluff]"Hello, I am a Nigerian Prince...") Unless you're stating something outside of the realm of believability - [bluff]"I am secretly a blue-bottomed hummingbird transformed into a human form - lead me to your nectar!" which should just make you look Tiax-like crazy - the bluff should have a chance to succeed. In essence the NPCs can believe the PCs story. So why would a [bluff] of an [intimidation] work? The only reason it can work is that the NPCs can reasonably believe in, and be intimidated by, the PC's ability to back up an intimidation. So really what the NPCs have to do is pass an [intimidation] check so that the [bluff] is believable - except if the [intimidation] is passed there's no need for the [bluff]. Ergo [intimidation] is the correct skill to use, as I see it.

I'll wait until I hear more, but I haven't heard anything that has made me think the mechanic for healing (however its handled) isn't going to "work" in the game.

I agree with Sawyer a whole lot; I think his fear of people wanting NPCs to be romance-able even against the design of the NPC is very fair. Because I do think there are some players who feel that the NPCs should be subjugated to the will/identity of the PC, caught in the gravity well of their leadership. I'm against that. I think its poor NPC design to allow players an option to violate who the NPC is just for the sake of giving the PC something "special" (a romance, a quest, or anything else).

I've never understood the point of respecing, personally. Wouldn't use it if it was in the game. This may be because I'm an inveterate restarter of games and spend a great deal of time playing around with character creation. Heck in the Fallouts (all of them) I've picked perks and then kicked myself for not picking one that I realize later was "logically" better for the character I was going for. But no character is "hopeless" to me. Unless s/he turns out like this, of course -

I'd like a moratorium on the the word "immersion" while we're at it. I prefer talking about PC-NPC relationships which is broader in scope and of which romance would be one "tool" in the "toolkit" for the developers to have when creating NPCs and doesn't imply that romances HAVE to be used only that they COULD be used if it fit the character, story, etc.

Man, been so long since I played Wiz8...I really don't remember that. Anyhow I was thinking personality types could be used to have some reactivity from created party members beyond the PC. Would have to be very rudimentary or it'd become too time consuming (and probably why its better to just have them as silent party members).

The whole point of the adventurer's hall was so that the player could - as an option - create character race/class combinations that the player won't see via the NPCs. Because there was no way they were going to do 66 companions. In which case the answer has already been posted - play BG in multiplayer mode. No guarantee Obsidian would implement it that way, especially if the companions are more interactive. Maybe Obsidian will want to try a new way. I suppose they could create "personality" types that align with the 5 companions and then give personality/class/race dialogue to the created party member so they're still somewhat responsive to gameplay events (if lacking in character related aspects). Or they could just create a small generic dialogue tree for created companions. But I imagine that it'd be more like IWD if you have a party of created characters.

I don't think you really need hard numbers to look at a project with a finite budget and a finite production time to realize that ANY element included will alter the focus on other elements. I think the debate devolved into how "trivial" or not this alteration would be but I'm not convinced that complex dialogue trees and world reactivity would be able to be trivial (unless the dialogue itself was rendered trivial which seems counter to romance inclusion). But that's not the only anti-argument; there has also been a lot discussed about whether its possible for even a game with plenty of time / resources to create a romance that has depth, that doesn't defy logic to some sense and that has loads of reactivity from the world as it develops to manage a successful romance. I think the most firmly anti-romance just don't believe it can be done (either now or ever) right, so don't want time spent trying for something that can't be achieved. And that's a valid argument as well, just not one that I'd agree with (I think it can be done).

But why focus on that? Or any joke, for that matter. All jokes, no matter how light hearted or not, make them go ballistic. They call ad hominems and strawmen on us, while they are the ones doing them. Unless someone is actually insecure, and for some the "wanting sexual gratification" thing, there is no reason to get offended by stupid things like that and on top of that reply to posts that have other/actual arguments in the same way. They didn't get offended for mischaracterization, they never said anything like that. The just thought we were hitting "below the belt". And even an argument of it being against forum regulations!"Below the belt" is a weak spot. That shows insecurity, not trying to remove a wrong accusation. Perhaps this is just not interpreting intent properly with regard to what each other are saying; I've never really seen these type of comments as a joke myself but as something that posters were really advocating as the "position" of pro-romancers. So I can understand people being confused and regarding it as a straw-man ("we never argued for romances to wank to") or as an attack on the poster ("You can't refute my points so insteaed you're calling me a creepy guy who gets off on pixels") as opposed to taking it as a joke. Again I can't speak to the specifics of the early discussions since I didn't follow all of it closely (and apparently may have interpreted part of it wrong re: how I read it vs authorial intent).

I think we're somewhat talking at cross-purposes; I'm not talking about the utilitarian nature of skills nor am I talking about the definition of words. What I'm talking about is eliminating ambiguity. If you're going to have [bluff] and [intimidate] in a game (a game mind you, where the definition of such skills can be made so as to eliminate ambiguity) they should be distinct (therefor the use of each shouldn't be ambiguous). Ambiguity in games shouldn't be considered to be a good thing. Therefore if you can [bluff] an [intimidate] situation, then there are indications your game hasn't defined [bluff] and [intimidate] in ways that aren't ambiguous. Note while DMs can be fairly liberal in interpretations it is, IMO, bad for computer games to have areas on ambiguity because they lead to areas of inconsistency.

The only reason why the topic went that way recently is because pro-romance guy said that people who are against romances are lonely and insecure, so this point is invalid. I'm not so sure that's the only reason. That said, I don't believe the anti-romance crowd are lonely and insecure for not wanting romance anymore than I believe the pro-romance crowd is lonely and insecure for wanting romance in games. (Really? Is this what its come to - people on either side of a position calling each other THE SAME THING AS AN INSULT?) Actually I've found some good discussion going on with the anti-romance crowd. Even if I disagree with them (considering myself pro-romance in games), I like to try to understand their position. Most of the arguments about resource allocations, for example, are fair - and even I've said that PE's limited resources could easily mean that development resources could be used elsewhere. This part of the topic tends to devolve into debates over how "trivial" implementing romances are, but long dialog trees, reactivity for the world and other party members - there's a lot going on there that really needs to be taken into account. The arguments about poor implementation in the past is certainly subjective but subjectivity doesn't mean invalidity. For a group of anti-Romances the past implementations of romances have been such that they'd rather not see developers try (either because they don't think the resources are there (see pt 1 of this paragraph) or because they don't believe games (either as they exist currently or period) can't really deal with in a credible way the complexities of a romantic relationship (some people think it can but think the game basically has to be about that). So again there have been a number of good arguments. And in the end if they honestly believe that adding "Romance as a feature" will detrimentally impact the game (by taking development time and effort away from other parts of the game) then ignoring it really wouldn't be an option for them *now* when development is going on (only really an option after development time and effort was spent and they had the game in their hands). tl;dr - there's value in discussion, not in arguing past one another. To be honest, though, I've seen the ***ping to pixels argument made in other earlier threads (as well as references to romance being "creepy" in RPG games); I can understand trying to head that argument off or feeling it mischaracterizes the pro-romance crowd. Can't really speak to the specific back and forth between you and the other users because I've found some of the arguments and dialogues a bit hard to follow.

Care to elaborate? Because I view my 'problem' (not needing bogus emotional and / or sexual validation and / or gratification via a virtual digital relationship) as being a pretty healthy one TBH. Why do you think people who want romance are needing emotional or sexual validation / gratification? I mean we keep circling the drain on this - Anti-Romance: "Romances are stupid" Pro-Romance: "I like romances as a character option." Anti-Romance: "OMG, you **** to pixels!" The logic doesn't seem to follow, IMO, and seems to have no connection to what the pro-romance crowd are generally speaking about. There have been plenty of good points raised by the anti-romance crowd - resource cost of implementing a romance dialogue option with real depth; previous romances showing weakness in current implementation models, just plain focus issues with limited time to develop the game. But the "ooo, people who want romances are looking to make games their stroke material! Ick! Horror!" shtick doesn't make sense. I'm not sure what anything in the pro-romance suggestions would alter this. I don't think anyone has said that your barbarian HAS to romance an NPC...or even that you'd have to take NPCs along. I didn't realize Obsidian had licensed F.A.T.A.L.... EDIT: Horrible grammar (may still be but I fixed the one that glared back at me).

Isn't your example really two checks, though? The [bluff] to believe I'm the Great Zappo and then the [intimidate] of arm ripping? Isn't the point of differentiation when you choose to kill (or not kill) the character? But why would a dev choose to use a [bluff] tag (and thus mechanics) for an intimidation attempt? Just bad design? Accident? Stuff happens, sure, but I think what we're arguing is that this should be relatively easy to avoid provided you make sure you conceptualize skills as separate and not overlapping or instead of creating two skills that overlap create one skill that encompasses both concepts. Seems like either way is less than optimal, though. If I have [tags] and the tags are unclear ("Why is my orc fighter bluffing when saying "I'll rip your arms off!" instead of intimidating? I have no points in bluff!") it doesn't seem to actually help clarify which dialogue is supposed to fit what the player is attempting, just adds another level of frustration.

If the dialogue/statement isn't important only the skill usage, why would you not just put up the [bluff] or [intimidate] tag? By attaching a dialogue option to it, the developers are supporting the use of the indicated skill with that particular dialogue which, if not distinct (ie using [bluff] with intimidating dialogue) makes the use of the skill unclear.

The only problem I have with "riddles" being solved by typing in answers is that often they're solveable regardless of character intelligence. I'd think riddles would be better suited to int checks. Low int doesn't get the answer, average int gets the answer in a group of answers, high Int gets the answer by itself. If you're talking game lore or passwords to be found and entered...then again it comes to it, if I have a slip of paper in the possession of the my PC, why do I as the player need to enter the password...?

Don't see how you got that from what I wrote. I'm arguing if [intimidate] and [bluff] are used interchangeably in "real games" then there is no reason to create separate [intimidate] and [bluff] skills - you'd create some combination [intimidabluff] skill and ease your workload. What you seem to be arguing - to me, and incidentally the only reason I continued posting - is that there is no problem with [bluff] being used for [intimidation]. To which I disagree.

Right, but why would you create ambiguous game mechanics? The whole point of creating [bluff] and [intimidate] instead of [speech] or [interpersonalcommunication] is that there should be a fundamentally different concept between [bluff] and [intimidate] or again you invalidate the rationale to not have them exist under a larger, more flexible skill. Right, you can have them overlap, but it brings in the question of "Why would you design a system where two things serve the same purpose"? The idea that [bluff] and [intimidate] have a unique purpose is inherent in the creation of them as separate skill concepts. I think this is a side topic that derived from examples in this topic that indicated ambiguity between using [bluff] vs [intimidate]. However to make it more on topic, while I'm not for using the [tag] skill system, I'd find it rather confusing to see lines of dialogue that read as intimidation labeled as bluff and vice-versa. Another blow for hiding the mechanics, IMO.

I like ammo to be finite. I also like you to be able to recover arrows from the bodies later.

I always thought it weird to see a flail used the same way as a sword. And didn't the IE games have spears with a chopping motion?