Obsidian's Pillars of Eternity [BETA RELEASED, GO TO THE NEW THREAD]

[Roguey]

Um Roguey I am pretty sure that playing and gaming are the same thing.

Remember that P&P has a Dungeon Master and if you try to be a rule exploiting faggot they can shut you down straight away.

You're talking about POWER GAMING.

Houserules are a sign that the rules themselves have failed.

 

[hiver]

Did you just skim through the quote?

Well, no. Obviously. But maybe a shit faced retard newfag can read it for me and explain where it lists all skills and their specific combat bonuses!

cmonn... get at it cretin.

snap - snap!

 

[Infinitron]

in before hiver asking Josh on Formspring about something everybody else already knows

 

[buzz]

Because certain fundamental skills (like Stealth) can clearly benefit from multiple party members taking them and can contribute to party effectiveness in combat, I believe that other skills should do the same in their own way

With all of the skills other than Crafting (specifically), those high-frequency benefits/uses were easy to come by

There you go.

 

[hiver]

in before hiver asking Josh on Formspring about something everybody else already knows

Yeah well, what can i do when my telepathy isnt working! Like yours!

Because certain fundamental skills (like Stealth) can clearly benefit from multiple party members taking them and can contribute to party effectiveness in combat, I believe that other skills should do the same in their own way

With all of the skills other than Crafting (specifically), those high-frequency benefits/uses were easy to come by

There you go.

Examples, stupid bitch! List of skills and a corresponding list of specific combat bonuses you stupid motherfucker moron.

What ARE THOSE HIGH FREQUENCY BENEFITS/USES EXACTLY? Dumbshit.

What are the SKILLS?

Cmonn, that hemorrhoid in your head should be able to reveal this mysteries to me!


- and while youre at it. Explain to me how any of those bonuses are going to be playable or useful without any gameplay created for them too!

 

[buzz]

I like your Tourette reactions.

Why would we have a list of something that's still being worked on? We only have Sawyer's own words and his direction for the game. He already mentioned Stealth, the discussion was about implementing combat bonuses to crafting and he implied that the benefits/bonuses for the other skills were easier to implement.

 

[hiver]

Why would we have a list of something that's still being worked on?

- therefore youre basically talking out of your brain hemorrhoid and you are as stupid and retarded as i said you are? And there is no actual confirmation that all skills (which nobody knows which are at all, as of yet) will have some systematic combat bonuses and how that will remove or negate that there will be gameplay content created to make stats and skills useful.

sounds good to me.

We only have Sawyer's own words and his direction for the game. He already mentioned Stealth, the discussion was about implementing combat bonuses to crafting and he implied that the benefits/bonuses for the other skills were easier to implement

yes, we already went over that. your a stupid moron.

 

[evdk]

Um Roguey I am pretty sure that playing and gaming are the same thing.

Remember that P&P has a Dungeon Master and if you try to be a rule exploiting faggot they can shut you down straight away.

You're talking about POWER GAMING.

Houserules are a sign that the rules themselves have failed.

House rules are a sign that you want to do a few things differently. And the rules count on DM fiat balancing stuff, rule zero and all that.

 

[Roguey]

House rules are a sign that you want to do a few things differently.

Also of a broken game.

And the rules count on DM fiat balancing stuff, rule zero and all that.

In other words, completely worthless for a computer game where there's no human DM, so trying to make a faithful adaptation is a dumb thing to do that only dumb people like Tim Cain would try to do.

 

[buzz]

hiver We don't have actual confirmation of anything until the game is gold and we play it (not even that it's going to be released). Like I said:

I even agree with your and Grunker's opinion that no stat is a "dump stat" as long as there is gameplay content/competent DM where the said stat/skill is important and required. The entire conversation about "systemic use" in a singleplayer non-randomized cRPG is null and void in my opinion. I just wanted to point out that you lack reading comprehension, that's all.

edit: The whole argument is however irelevant anyway since, like Roguey said, this isn't a tabletop RPG nor does it try to somewhat imitate it entirely. It seems to be a combat-oriented dungeon crawler which is fine and dandy, until you realize that the entire "balancing" conversation is what leaded to "streamlining" in the end with modern RPGs.

In other words, I'm pretty sure Diablo 1 was pretty balanced and there were no "dump stats"

Spoiler

 

[Infinitron]

so trying to make a faithful adaptation is a dumb thing to do that only dumb people like Tim Cain would try to do.

Funny that you say that considering Josh Sawyer has worked on quite a few more D&D adaptations in his career than Tim Cain has.

 

[hiver]

brainlessmoron

Yes, you dont have any confirmation or any specific confirmation of that retarded idea you morons just invented.
And you failed, and youve made yourself into a dumbfuck since obviously you just jumped in to get some sweet quick ego points - and now you have shit all over your face.

because youre a cheap stupid retard.
who cannot fucking read.


- edit-

as for diablo... hahaha... hehehe... ahh...
what gameplay was there for its dump stats? or wasnt?

 

[Roguey]

Funny that you say that considering Josh Sawyer has worked on quite a few more D&D adaptations in his career than Tim Cain has.

They didn't even try to be nearly 100% faithful unlike ToEE which used it as a selling point. Josh added a few houserules of his own; an immediate example that comes to mind is how chromatic orb had its higher-level death effects removed, unlike the CO from BG2.

 

[Infinitron]

They didn't even try to be nearly 100% faithful unlike ToEE which used it as a selling point.

Baldur's Gate also used it as a selling point. It was much more faithful than most if not all of the D&D games that came before it.

Josh added a few houserules of his own; an immediate example that comes to mind is how chromatic orb had its higher-level death effects removed, unlike the CO from BG2.

He also implemented the elf resistances to charm and sleep magic, which is something you've bragged about on occasion.

 

[Aeschylus]

Houserules are a sign that the rules themselves have failed.

I know you're just parroting Sawyer, but this is an interesting point of discussion so I wanted to address it. Note that nothing I say here particularly applies to cRPGs.

An obsession with rules and systems is, in my experience, purely indicative of a poor tabletop GM. The rules exist, yes, to provide a framework to play the game in, but they are *not* the point of the game.
This is because game designers are not omniscient, and cannot foresee every single possible situation a tabletop group could get themselves into. Most of the older P&P rulebooks (2nd edition D&D, oWoD, Shadowrun, etc.) had sections encouraging GMs to create their own rules for unique situations not because the rules had somehow "Failed", but because they simply couldn't cover every imaginable situation, and did not want to restrict the creativity of a good GM.
Of course, this doesn't mean that the rules are pointless and unimportant, but the attitude that a game has failed if additional rules are required is laughably myopic, and is indicative of either: someone who has never played a tabletop RPG, or someone who is a lousy GM who can only rote-follow pre-made adventure modules.

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

putting 3 in wis and int would be exceedingly risky.

Would it? Maybe if hostile spells were a common enough threat in the game, and you couldn't reload again and again until you passed the saving throw.

Seriously? You'd build a character with the rationale "doesn't matter if my best fighter easily gets charmed as long as it's infrequent enough for me to savescum my way out of it"? I thought our side was supposed to be the autistic one.

Your point does neatly show the consequences of the Sawyerist approach. You start off easy with just wanting to eliminate pure dumpstats; then, when stats are discussed which aren't purely dumpstats, but situational and infrequent, the mantra becomes: you don't want Embroidering added either, now do you? IIRC this was your point about repair in Fallout: it wasn't used frequently enough to merit inclusion as a skill. But then it becomes necessary to eliminate all situational stats, whether frequent or not, because otherwise you could just use one party member for it: so everything needs a systemic use as well. Then, finally, as with your point relating to wisdom, the objection becomes that it shouldn't merely be systemic if that system (non-physical saving throws) isn't used frequently enough to bypass with savescumming.

And that's the problem: when you're forced to restrict every stat to the requirement that it's both systemic and frequent, you inevitably end up restricting yourself to a small pool of possible stats that fit this requirement.

For a given number of stats, having them all be plausible choices to improve, rather than merely a subset of them, is more complex.

Of course that's true, but it isn't necessary for them all to be equally (or nearly equally) plausible. Repair in Fallout was a completely plausible choice unless you consider it in terms of an extreme "ultimate build" perspective. Removing it as a skill, without "de-systematizing" it like you called it before, by say having it governed by INT + AGI, removes complexity because it eliminates repair as a possible specialization.

Imagine going through GURPS and removing all skills that don't satisfy the frequent + systemic requirement (i.e. the vast majority), do you honestly think you'd end up with a system that's even remotely as complex?

 

[Infinitron]

And that's the problem: when you're forced to restrict every stat to the requirement that it's both systemic and frequent, you inevitably end up restricting yourself to a small pool of possible stats that fit this requirement.

Yes, this is true. I just don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. Unlike Roguey however, I also don't think it's the only right way to make an RPG.

Imagine going through GURPS and removing all skills that don't satisfy the frequent + systemic requirement (i.e. the vast majority), do you honestly think you'd end up with a system that's even remotely as complex?

No, but I never claimed as such. Generally ITT I'm comparing PE with D&D.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

Houserules are a sign that the rules themselves have failed.

I know you're just parroting Sawyer, but this is an interesting point of discussion so I wanted to address it. Note that nothing I say here particularly applies to cRPGs.

An obsession with rules and systems is, in my experience, purely indicative of a poor tabletop GM. The rules exist, yes, to provide a framework to play the game in, but they are *not* the point of the game.
This is because game designers are not omniscient, and cannot foresee every single possible situation a tabletop group could get themselves into. Most of the older P&P rulebooks (2nd edition D&D, oWoD, Shadowrun, etc.) had sections encouraging GMs to create their own rules for unique situations not because the rules had somehow "Failed", but because they simply couldn't cover every imaginable situation, and did not want to restrict the creativity of a good GM.
Of course, this doesn't mean that the rules are pointless and unimportant, but the attitude that a game has failed if additional rules are required is laughably myopic, and is indicative of either: someone who has never played a tabletop RPG, or someone who is a lousy GM who can only rote-follow pre-made adventure modules.

Of course Roguey hasn't played a tabletop RPG, that would require interacting with people in real life. Likely misogynerds and other cis priviledged trash as well.

 

[evdk]

Houserules are a sign that the rules themselves have failed.

I know you're just parroting Sawyer, but this is an interesting point of discussion so I wanted to address it. Note that nothing I say here particularly applies to cRPGs.

An obsession with rules and systems is, in my experience, purely indicative of a poor tabletop GM. The rules exist, yes, to provide a framework to play the game in, but they are *not* the point of the game.
This is because game designers are not omniscient, and cannot foresee every single possible situation a tabletop group could get themselves into. Most of the older P&P rulebooks (2nd edition D&D, oWoD, Shadowrun, etc.) had sections encouraging GMs to create their own rules for unique situations not because the rules had somehow "Failed", but because they simply couldn't cover every imaginable situation, and did not want to restrict the creativity of a good GM.
Of course, this doesn't mean that the rules are pointless and unimportant, but the attitude that a game has failed if additional rules are required is laughably myopic, and is indicative of either: someone who has never played a tabletop RPG, or someone who is a lousy GM who can only rote-follow pre-made adventure modules.

Of course Roguey hasn't played a tabletop RPG, that would require interacting with people in real life. Likely misogynerds and other cis priviledged trash as well.

DM a game for them then and torment them with gender nonconforming dilemmas and creative rules lawyering.

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

And that's the problem: when you're forced to restrict every stat to the requirement that it's both systemic and frequent, you inevitably end up restricting yourself to a small pool of possible stats that fit this requirement.

Yes, this is true. I just don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. Unlike Roguey however, I also don't think it's the only right way to make an RPG.

Imagine going through GURPS and removing all skills that don't satisfy the frequent + systemic requirement (i.e. the vast majority), do you honestly think you'd end up with a system that's even remotely as complex?

No, but I never claimed as such. Generally ITT I'm comparing PE with D&D.

But then I still don't understand your claim that Sawyer's leads to "complexity" in terms of stats. Your point seemed to be that it supposedly enlarged the pool of "plausible" stats, while, unless you implausibly define plausible as systemic + frequent, this clearly isn't the case (which was the point of the GURPS example).

Maybe if you were arguing in terms of complexity of player skill then I might agree. He certainly seems to be trying to get the most out of delicate positioning (probably a bad idea with RtwP, but still).

 

[Infinitron]

But then I still don't understand your claim that Sawyer's leads to "complexity" in terms of stats.

Compared to D&D stats.

 

[Grunker]

An obsession with rules and systems is, in my experience, purely indicative of a poor tabletop GM. The rules exist, yes, to provide a framework to play the game in, but they are *not* the point of the game

You're no better than Roguey, in your '98 way of telling people how to play.

There are a million ways to play. I play both super rules-detailed tactical P&P where light roleplaying just sets the scene and super indepth indie RPGs with barely any rules. And indeed heavy RP games with a heavy ruleset (aforementioned Witcher GURPS campaign, for example) where sometimes rules take precedence, and sometimes they don't.

The truth of most games is just this - the situation between rules, calls and group agreements are always... fluid.

Saying that something isn't the point of the game is saying "the way I play is surperior to the way everyone else plays" and it is ultimately a futile endeavour that most of the P&P community grew out of somewhere around 2007.

 

[Aeschylus]

Saying that something isn't the point of the game is saying "the way I play is surperior to the way everyone else plays" and it is ultimately a futile endeavour that most of the P&P community grew out of somewhere around 2007.

The way I play is obviously superior to the way everyone else plays, otherwise I wouldn't be playing that way.
And I honestly don't give a toss what consensus the "P&P Community" came to.
Although the quote you responded to wasn't really the point I was making anyway (at all), and the way you responded to it makes me suspect that you missed the point entirely.

Edit: Let me try to rephrase my point based on what you've said...
Let's say you're playing one of those 'rules heavy' games -- if as a GM you feel that you have to adhere, completely, to the rules and make no adjustments or expansions, then you are unnecessarily restricted in the scenarios you can create in your game due to the fact that no rules system, no matter how extensive, can cover every single possible scenario you could come up with. Unless you want the game to have literally nothing but combat.

You seem to have read my post as "Rules are dumb and are not part of P&P" while what I was actually saying was "Rules are important, but no rule system is perfect and all encompassing, and hence blind adherence to prescribed systems in all cases is the mark of a poor or inexperienced GM."

 

[evdk]

An obsession with rules and systems is, in my experience, purely indicative of a poor tabletop GM. The rules exist, yes, to provide a framework to play the game in, but they are *not* the point of the game

You're no better than Roguey, in your '98 way of telling people how to play.

There are a million ways to play. I play both super rules-detailed tactical P&P where light roleplaying just sets the scene and super indepth indie RPGs with barely any rules. And indeed heavy RP games with a heavy ruleset (aforementioned Witcher GURPS campaign, for example) where sometimes rules take precedence, and sometimes they don't.

The truth of most games is just this - the situation between rules, calls and group agreements are always... fluid.

Saying that something isn't the point of the game is saying "the way I play is surperior to the way everyone else plays" and it is ultimately a futile endeavour that most of the P&P community grew out of somewhere around 2007.

That's not how I read his post at all, more along the lines of "rules are there to help you, not to be blindly followed." I certainly didn't get any my way or the highway vibes from it.

 

[AN4RCHID]

Um Roguey I am pretty sure that playing and gaming are the same thing.

Remember that P&P has a Dungeon Master and if you try to be a rule exploiting faggot they can shut you down straight away.

You're talking about POWER GAMING.

Houserules are a sign that the rules themselves have failed.

JSawyer.esp