RPG Roundtable #2 at RPGVault
RPG Roundtable #2 at RPGVault
Editorial - posted by Spazmo on Sat 6 September 2003, 15:54:15
Tags: Black Isle Studios; Chris AvelloneRPG Vault have posted the second installment of their RPG Roundtable series. This one discusses character development with BioWare's Brent Knowles (funny, BioWare is notorious for having diddly-squat in the character development department), Arkane Studios's Raphael Colantonio, Piranha Bytes' Kai Rosenkranz, Spiderweb Software's Jeff Vogel (Yay!) and the one, the only, Obsidian Entertainment's Mr. Chris Avellone! Here's a part of MCA's thoughts on the topic:
I want to see development outside of stats, and more related to the character's personality developing. Granted, you can't throw out stats without ruining the enjoyment a lot of players have with stat crunching, but I'd love to see a system that blends a PC's personality and stat development together in one package, and then dumps them in a world where both are important. For me, the key moment of a role-playing game (at least pen and paper) is the interaction you get from other player characters and NPCs and any changes that occur in your character as a result. I would like to see more games that take advantage of (and track) personality types and traits to help a player define a character and give them more tangible benefits (some of this was done in the SPECIAL system in Fallout, and it was a refreshing change, though there was no tracking throughout the game). Before I left Black Isle, Josh Sawyer had worked up some nice personality-tracking mechanics for the Jefferson project, which were a breath of fresh air.
See, now, that sounds like a damn fine idea. Perhaps now that they're unburdened by Interplay's horribleness, Obsidian can make some damn fine games. If they can escape BioWare's crushing horribleness, of course.
Spotted at RPGDot
I want to see development outside of stats, and more related to the character's personality developing. Granted, you can't throw out stats without ruining the enjoyment a lot of players have with stat crunching, but I'd love to see a system that blends a PC's personality and stat development together in one package, and then dumps them in a world where both are important. For me, the key moment of a role-playing game (at least pen and paper) is the interaction you get from other player characters and NPCs and any changes that occur in your character as a result. I would like to see more games that take advantage of (and track) personality types and traits to help a player define a character and give them more tangible benefits (some of this was done in the SPECIAL system in Fallout, and it was a refreshing change, though there was no tracking throughout the game). Before I left Black Isle, Josh Sawyer had worked up some nice personality-tracking mechanics for the Jefferson project, which were a breath of fresh air.
See, now, that sounds like a damn fine idea. Perhaps now that they're unburdened by Interplay's horribleness, Obsidian can make some damn fine games. If they can escape BioWare's crushing horribleness, of course.
Spotted at RPGDot
