Sylvius the Mad

That's one of the best things about Wasteland 2. What are you talking about? I want exactly that from a roleplaying game - drop me in the world and let me figure out what I want to do. Giving me strong direction is the last thing I want. That's a big part of what's wrong with modern games. Wasteland 2 is incredibly refreshing in this regard.

I just have to echo this. The 3E Cleric is a massively powerful class.

Other game developers should take note - THIS is the sort of announcement that is valuable during development. It discusses mechanics and lore, but doesn't discuss any events or characters within the game, and doesn't spoil anything.

I do, actually. I think that was a good feature in BG - particularly with how the game wouldn't let you access the inventory while paused, so you really needed to think about where all your ammo was in advance. I was very disappointed that every other IE game paused the in-game action when the inventory was open. Hopefully, you'll let us at least control whether the game pauses while accessing inventory.

I prefer not to have my words and actions so irrevocably intertwined. Just because I say I'll press the button shouldn't force me to press the button. I'd rather the words and actions be kept separate, and the actions be done outside of dialogue events.

It depends what you mean by PnP-like. Modern PnP games have very simple mechanics, to avoid making the players do a lot of work in terms of mathematics. That's bad for CRPGs. But that doesn't mean that CRPGs shouldn't use rules that are still theoretically compatible with tabletop gameplay (even if their computational complexity makes actual tabletop gameplay impractical). I would like to see a ruleset that incorporates things like archery range bonuses from firing from higher ground where the bonuses are adjusted for tiny elevation differences, even though that wouldn't work in PnP, but I do not want to see mechanics where the rules are inconsistently applied in the name of encounter balancing, for example, because that's not how PnP rules work.

A good companion is a companion I can customise to suit that particular playthrough.

It should absolutely be possible to build a character who is bad at his class. As for beginner traps, I would argue that later editions (3+) did that more often than the earlier editions did, as the earlier editions offered dual-classing as a get-out-of-jail-free card. Plus, dual-classing allowed you to mix-and-match abilities in non-stanard ways without disadvantaging your character. Do you want your Necromancer to dual-wield rapiers? You can do that in 3E by taking some Fighter or Rogue levels, but that reduces your effectiveness as a Necromancer relative to your encounter level. But in 2nd edition, you could simply dual-class from Thief or Ranger and then your Necromancer ultimately pays no penalty.

I'm not interpreting his meaning at all. I'm interpreting his words. His meaning is unknowable to any but him. Viable does not mean excellent. His remarks leave open the possibility that some concepts will be better served by some attribute distributions, but it does not allow that there exists any attribute distribution that will break any character concept.

That we don't know which specific thing he meant doesn't prevent us from knowing that he must have meant at least one of them. If he's said that each character would be viable no matter how points were allocated, that would actually be good news. That would suggest that each character, regardless of class, could be built a variety of different ways and still be useful and effective. But what he said was this: What it really comes down to is what he means by "character concept". I would think that a concept is something like a combination of class and combat role. So, let's suppose a character that is a fighter archer. My take on Josh's statement is that there is no way to assign attributes to that character such that he will be non-viable. And that strikes me as wrong. It should be possible to assign attributes such that the character won't be good at the thing he wants to do.

Words have meaning. It could also mean that we won't be allowed to assign points in such extreme ways - that viable scores will be mechanically enforced (much like how NWN2 had a minimum score that was well above the D&D theoretical minimu of 3). But either way, that's what he said. And it follows, deductively, from what he said that we won't be able to assign points in a non-viable way. First of all, you mean infer, not imply. And second, no, that's not obvious at all. If it were obvious, everyone would see it, and I certainly don't.

I can't even begin to fathom what it might mean to take something "too literally."

In a fantasy setting, verisimilitude is generally more valuable than realism. But gamist designs are typically really bad at maintaining verisimilitude. I'm willing to be surprised, but this sounds like bad news. It should be possible to design a character suboptimally.

More "gamist" than "simulationist". That's the wrong direction. Simulationist is better.

I have to agree. But then, I think the desire to avoid dump stats is too gamey a motivation. It's possible this all makes perfect sense, but that sense is not yet apparent.