Interview Golden Land Q&A at Gamer.nl

[Saint_Proverbius]

Tags: Golden Land

<A href="http://www.gamer.nl/">Gamer.nl</a> has posted an <A href="http://www.gamer.nl/viewdoc/732">interview</a> with <b>Eugene Bratkov</b>, the script writer for <A href="http://www.goldenland-rpg.com/gl_html.php">Golden Land</a>, that wacky skills and turn based CRPG from <A href="http://www.burut.ru/">Burut</a>. Here's a taste:
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<blockquote><b>8. Will the player be restricted to prescribed classes, or will he have the chance to customise his character in the way he sees fit?</b>
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E.B.: In GoldenLand there's no such idea as character class, because it is artificial division, limiting the player in many ways. The development in one or another way is defined by the player, by choosing the character's behavior, choosing which skill to improve and which can be left at its current level, and so making great warrior, good magician or thief - at his choice.</blockquote>
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I have to agree. Classes are fairly arbitrary. I'm not sure why wizards can't wear armor or why a barbarian can't learn to use wands.
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Spotted this at <A href="http://www.shacknews.com">Shack News</a>

 

[Spazmo]

Well, most good RPG systems will let your wizard wear armour, he just won't be good at it. The idea is that when you choose a class, your character will train in a given set of skills and powers, like magic for wizards and combat for barbarians. However, most good RPG systems will also allow you to switch classes on the fly (multiclassing in its many forms) and start training something else.

But ultimately, the best system to make Jack-of-many-trades characters are skill-based systems like Fallout. I think a good system would have a pure, classless system, but would also feature "classes." These classes would not be a rigidly defnied collection of powers and features, but rather a sort of reccommended setting package that would choose the appropriate skills for that character. So if you tell the game you just want to play a fighter, it will choose a bunch of combat and survival skills and choose statistics that are appropriate to your "class" and would continue to do so throughout the game. Of course, if you want, you can still use the pure classless system. Classes would be for those who are a little scared of all the numbers and choices.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Well, most good RPG systems will let your wizard wear armour, he just won't be good at it. The idea is that when you choose a class, your character will train in a given set of skills and powers, like magic for wizards and combat for barbarians. However, most good RPG systems will also allow you to switch classes on the fly (multiclassing in its many forms) and start training something else.

Most good RPG systems just allow anyone with the strength, or skill, to wear armor use it.

 

[Walks with the Snails]

A lot of it just has to do with game balance. I think Rolemaster's system, which 3E copied with arcane spell failure, was pretty good. The most generally potent type of magic, essence, had pretty steep penalties for any kind of armor, and you had to make a roll that could always cause a spell failure because of the nature of the system. Channeling, divine magic, had no penalties for non-metal armor and penalties (though smaller than essence), for metal armor. Paladins got bonuses to the roll, though, since heavy armor kind of comes with the territory. Mentalists could use any kind of armor, though they took penalties for wearing a helmet, which only affected some critical hits. Of course if you were good enough (by being an experienced caster, taking more time to prepare, and/or learning up the transcend armor skill) chances are you'd cast the spell with little trouble. If you want to let people use armor and cast spells, there needs to be some balancing factor for magic in general, like spells take a long time to cast, are easy to disrupt, have a chance to fizzle, or something like that. Blanket prohibitions on armor and magic, like 2E AD&D, are pretty dumb, and the unskilled argument falls apart if you do learn how to use it, like a fighter/mage or bard would. If the old-fashioned dynamic that mages are easy to kill goes away, though, something will have to give or everyone will use it all the time because it's suicide not to. Not that you can't have a game where it's assumed everyone uses magic, of course.

As far as learning, anybody could learn spells in RM, though different classes learned different skills easier than others to represent their pre-game education. There were some jack-of-all-trades classes, though they paid for their lack of specialization by not really having any skills that were really easy for them to learn. It makes sense, really, if you're a specialist in weapons and hand-to-hand combat, like a fighter, you're probably going to pick up related skills like tactics and combat maneuvers easier than another very specialized craft, like magic. That's mainly what I think is dopey about 3E mutliclassing, it's not that I don't think people are able to learn new things, but you don't just pick up a new profession overnight, there's usually a lot of training (and retraining) involved if it requires any kind of skill or knowledge for basic competence. In Rolemaster, there are a multitude of classes to cover different kinds of specialties or combinations, like people who want to fight and cast, though they of course don't pick up either one quite as handily as someone who just wants to be really good at one thing. Anyone can still learn anything, it's just some things come easier than others. Most systems I've seen that just let you pick up anything, anytime, with no restrictions, don't really reflect that.

 

[Araanor]

Rolemaster is a really cool system. It was a while since I checked up on it, but I think it's the same edition out now. There are literally skills for everything, and they're divided into different cathegories so you can put points into the cathegories and become slightly better at all the skills within. Say, one into one-handed swords cathegory (likely not entirely accurate), and get better att long swords, short swords, scimitars and whatever. Characters can be extremely personalized with all the options available at creation, and later.

I never liked D&D.

 

[LCJr.]

From what I've read it looks like it could be very good. They seem to be inspired by Fallout/Arcanum quite a bit so thats a plus. I've checked out their website and several interviews but so far I have found any mention of what the "uber-plot" is. I'll keep my eyes open for demo and see what I think then. I just really hope they get a native english speaker for the US version, I found it somewhat amusing to see swords and spears referred to as "pricking" weapons

Back off topic: I really liked Chartmaster but found it a bit too cumbersome for PnP gaming. Would work really well on the PC though. One of the things I really liked though was the way handled armor and damage. The heavier the armor the easier you were to hit but the less damage you took.

 

[Walks with the Snails]

Yeah, same here. For PnP, I actually preferred D&D just because you didn't have to spend most of the game session looking up charts, and it didn't take a spreadsheet (I'm serious) to make and level up your characters in an accurate and timely fashion. I think it would actually be great system for a CRPG, though, since its main drawbacks would all be taken care of by the computer. You'd have to make the charts a little more generic, though, a lot of times the very specific details you ran into with the charts required the GM to override them if they didn't make sense for the particular situation.

 

[Araanor]

I suppose you're right. But it's still cool, heh.