Company News TSI's Gateway will let you transfer characters between Seven Dragon Saga, Torment and Shadowrun

[Clockwork Knight]

This sounds...fun? I don't understand the complaints either. According to the quote the games may even allow you to fudge the conversion one way or another if you aren't satisfied with the results.

 

[Telengard]

Why do it? For one, there's a number of players who identify with their alter-ego character, and will transfer them over lock, stock, and barrel to any game. Just the way it is. For another, it's pretty simple to do. In fact, in ye olden pnp days, these conversion things were sometimes actually included in the core rulebook. The converters were pretty simple affairs that didn't take more than a couple paragraphs and some algorithms, and this will probably be harkening back to that same design.

After the industry got bigger, and after a couple court cases, no one does this officially anymore. But it's still quite popular unofficially.
http://www.angelfire.com/on2/westernshores/con2.html

Spoiler

1st & 2nd Ed. AD&D characters to the Palladium megaverse.

THE 8 ATTRIBUTES*

STRENGTH = PHYSICAL STRENGTH. Exchange 1 for 1.
DEXTERITY = PHYSICAL PROWESS. Exchange 1 for 1.
CONSTITUTION = PHYSICAL ENDURANCE. Exchange 1 for 1.
INTELLIGENCE = INTELLIGENCE QUOTENT. Exchange 1 for 1.
WISDOM = MENTAL ENDURANCE. Exchange 1 for 1.
CHARISMA = MENTAL AFFINITY. Exchange 1 for 1.
COMLINESS = PHYSICAL BEAUTY. Exchange 1 for 1.
Comliness was not used in 2nd edition AD&D, so just reuse charisma.
BASE MOVEMENT = SPEED. Exchange 1 for 1.
* All the AD&D combat / save modifiers from high/low attribute are now lost, in exchange for the ones provided by palladium. Also see other notes at end of this document.



COMBAT
NATURAL A.C. = Armor Rating & SDC / MDC.
10 - A.C. = A
A + 5 = A.R.
Any A.R. point above 18 is exchanged for a parry, dodge, & roll/fall bonus.

E.G.
10 - -9 (AC) = 19(A),
19(A) + 5 = An A.R. of 18, & +5 to parry, dodge & roll/fall.
(21 - 18 = 6).
A x 10 = SDC. (Minimum SDC pf 30)
For Rifts the magical Player races (not clesses) have thier SDC & HP added together, and then exchanged to MDC 1 for
1. (Faries then have thier MDC /2).

ARMOR A.C. = Armor Rating & SDC / MDC.
10 - A.C. = A
A + 5 = A.R.
Any A.R. point above 18 is exchanged for extra SDC at a rate of 1 for 5.

E.G.
10 - -9 (AC) = 19(A),
19(A) + 5 = An A.R. of 18, & 30 extra SDC.
21 - 18 = 6, (6 x 5 = 30).
For Rifts the magical armor have thier SDC exchanged to MDC 1 for 1

HIT POINTS = HIT POINTS.
Exchange 1 for 1, allow platers to keep H.P. gained from any CON modifiers to date.

THAC0 = 20 - Thac0 = strike bonus.
NO. OF ATTACKS = Attacks per melee, No Attacks +2 = attacks per melee
MORAL = Moral no. # /5 = Save vs Horror Factor bonus.



Saving throw substatute table.
Drop the AD&D saving throw base number and use the palladium base number instead. Also take your AD&D saving throw modifiers and apply them as a save bonuses in the palladium system. Average bonuses together where needed.

Palladium Save Cat. = AD&D's Applicable Bonus.
Palladium. = AD&D.
Magic, Basic = Spell
Poison, Non-Leathal = Poison
Magic, Ritual = Death Magic, Polymorph
Poison, Leathal = Poison
Magic, Circles = Breath Weapon
Comma /Death = Death Magic
Magic, Wards = Rod, Stall, or Wand
Insanity = N/A
Horror Factor = See Moral (above)
Psionics = Petrification



OTHER
SKILLS = SKILLS. Take skill target number (Applicable AD&D attribure +/- any modifiers) and multiply it by 4.5 to get the palladium skill %.

COMBAT SKILLS = WEAPON PROFICIENCIES. Keep the bonuses gained from the AD&D system as is, but add a parry bonus equal to the "to hit" bonus gaines from the skills. Also when a characters weapon speed is reduced by one factor (Combat & Tactics 2nd edition book) ignore the speed change and give the character +1 to initiative. Finally add +1 to Strike, Parry, & Dodge per 5 levels of the character.

EQUIPMENT = EQUIPMENT. Keep the same when possible.
WEAPONS = WEAPONS. Keep the same when possible.
Magical weapons have a parry bonus equal to thier strike bonus. (Also see Equipment Page)
EXP TABLE = Keep using the players characters current advancement chart.
EXP VALUE = Drop it, Use Palladium's XP System.

ALIGNMENTS:
True Neutral = Anarchist
Lawful Good = Pricibled
Lawful Evil = Miscreant
Chaotic Good = Scrupulous
Chaotic Evil = Diabolical
Neutral Good = Unprincibled
Neutral Evil = Aberrant



MAGIC CONVERTION FROM AD&D:
To Palladium's P.P.E. based magic system.
Give the spell casters a base personal P.P.E. of 20 per level. (For warrior / theif subclasses with spell casting ability give 10 P.P.E. per level.)
The GM may give NPC spell casters a current & maximum P.P.E. of 50 per level. (For warrior / theif subclasses with spell casting ability give them 15 P.P.E. per level.)
After all spell casters in the palladium universes can store more than thier personal ppe maximum.

WIZARD / ILLUSUIONIST
Spell level (1-9) = P.P.E. cost*.
Cantrips = 2 P.P.E.
1st = 5 P.P.E
2nd = 10 P.P.E
3rd = 20 P.P.E
4th = 30 P.P.E
5th = 40 P.P.E
6th = 75 P.P.E
7th = 100 P.P.E
8th = 150 P.P.E
9th = 300 P.P.E
10th(Spells & magic) = 1,000 P.P.E

CLERICAL / DRUIDIC
Spell level (1-7)= P.P.E. cost.*
Cantrips = 2 P.P.E.
1st = 5 P.P.E
2nd = 15 P.P.E
3rd = 25 P.P.E
4th = 45 P.P.E
5th = 85 P.P.E
6th = 150 P.P.E
7th = 300 P.P.E
Quest magic = 5,000 P.P.E

* The G.M. has the wright to adjust the P.P.E. cost as he feel's fit for his campaign.

To Palladium's older 1st edition (non rifts) magic system.
Allow them to keep thier current casting system, or change it as follows (G.M.'s choice):
The spell monster his current number of spells per day from each spell level in exchange for the spells per day table & the magic combat tables found on page 58 of Palladium Fantasy RPG (1st edition) for wizards & illusionists (page 143 for clerics/driuds.), page 93 of Revised Heroes Unlimited for a H.U. campaign, & pages 41 & 42 of Transdimentional Turtles for a T.M.N.T. campaign.



OTHER NOTES
Skills & Powers (AD&D 2nd Ed.) style attributes must be averaged back together again before conversion, The ony exception being the sub attributes for charisma. The leadership sub attribute can be used for Mental Endurance & the Appearance Sub attribute can be used for Physical Beauty.

Also see the psionics conversion pageBy Clicking Here, & Martial Arts conversion page



For An Example of AD&D to Palladium Click Here.

 

[Raapys]

It's gimicky useless shit. And the cost for this shit, including planning, meetings and cooperation efforts, maintenance, development, etc., will quite likely be surprisingly high, depending on how advanced they make it. Heck, it probably already is, since several important people have already spent many hours just planning and considering this proposition. Which might be acceptable if these companies had dozens of millions to spend on these games, but they don't.

And ultimately, wtf is this for? You're not even gonna save time; it'll be quicker to enter the other game's character creator and put in name/race than importing it using some third party utility. And if you're gonna do the whole 'stat import' shit, how is the game gonna handle that? You're gonna play the lvl 1 content with a lvl 20 character? I'm no Sawyer, but even I think that sounds like bullshit.

Okay, so you fix that. You balance the game depending on how powerful a character you import. Great, you just wasted tens/hundreds of thousands more. Good job. But the your game doesn't support characters that are this high level, what now? Fine, expand the entire system. There goes another few tens of thousands. Now balance xp rewards etc. so the character can still level up and whatnot, and add high level items to that area, etc., etc...

Nah, this is getting expensive. So let's force the character back to level 1 instead. Fine, but now what was the point again? Losing time and skipping character creation by importing some dude from another game who is stripped of everything and reset to base stats?

However you twist and turn this, there's just no other outcome than wasted cash and dev time.

 

[daveyd]

My Elven Decker is going to be pissed when he gets transfered over to Seven Dragon Saga / Torment: ToN and asks "Where's the nearest Matrix jack point?" and NPCs are like "What the fuck are you talking about?"

 

[Fenris 2.0]

Legend of Faerghail did this back in the days - you could import Characters from Bard's Tale and the Fantasy Series... IIRC they would turn into midlevel characters. You could get some new Race/Class Combinations this Way; i.e. a Bard was turned into a Blacksmith; a Class that was restricted to male Humans and Dwarves in LoF and Pixies from Fantasy turned into Half-Orcs

 

[Curious_Tongue]

When I see a Kickstarter game sitting on the shelf of GOG, it looks pretty lonely and vulnerable.

Having those games connected somehow seems like a good way of giving them mutual support.

 

[VioletShadow]

Sounds like it could be fun guise! Stop bitching!

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Fun is for casuals

let me tell you about hate

I doubt they'll put that much effort into it.

 

[Telengard]

It's gimicky useless shit. And the cost for this shit, including planning, meetings and cooperation efforts, maintenance, development, etc., will quite likely be surprisingly high, depending on how advanced they make it. Heck, it probably already is, since several important people have already spent many hours just planning and considering this proposition. Which might be acceptable if these companies had dozens of millions to spend on these games, but they don't.

And ultimately, wtf is this for? You're not even gonna save time; it'll be quicker to enter the other game's character creator and put in name/race than importing it using some third party utility. And if you're gonna do the whole 'stat import' shit, how is the game gonna handle that? You're gonna play the lvl 1 content with a lvl 20 character? I'm no Sawyer, but even I think that sounds like bullshit.

Okay, so you fix that. You balance the game depending on how powerful a character you import. Great, you just wasted tens/hundreds of thousands more. Good job. But the your game doesn't support characters that are this high level, what now? Fine, expand the entire system. There goes another few tens of thousands. Now balance xp rewards etc. so the character can still level up and whatnot, and add high level items to that area, etc., etc...

Nah, this is getting expensive. So let's force the character back to level 1 instead. Fine, but now what was the point again? Losing time and skipping character creation by importing some dude from another game who is stripped of everything and reset to base stats?

However you twist and turn this, there's just no other outcome than wasted cash and dev time.

Color me shocked - shocked! - that a golden age developer does something popular from the golden age when making a throwback game to the golden age. It's such a blatant waste of resources, and all just for the sake of nostalgia. I mean, why waste millions of dollars making a throwback game that'll at best barely scrape some profit when you could make a DA:O clone and be way more popular and monetarily successful. It boggles the mind.

 

[Kem0sabe]

Rpgs with vastly different character systems having those characters ham fisted into each other...getting some kind of Frankenstein thing.

Or in other words, the perfect gimmick character for your second or third playthrough of a game, which is exactly what this sort of thing is meant for. And plenty of people have fun with those.

As i said, its good they are collaborating, but i would rather see something like the inxile / obsidian asset and code sharing than this, as most of the games are using unity as it is.

Edit: Also would be interesting to see various developers working on a shared universe, similar to D&D, but without the problems with content rights, they could then use on their rpg's. Something that would span 1000's of years and encompass anything from fantasy, to steam punk, to modern setting and cyberpunk.

 

[Greatness]

Seems like a waste of time to me. I guess some casuals might like it since they wouldn't have to put any effort into learning a new character system. Although once they realize that they're still getting gimped characters I'm sure even most of them would stop using it. Developers are rarely good at their own games, why would anyone want them to try and translate a character they've never played to another game they've never played.

It's hard to imagine any way I'd ever use this. Perhaps if it automatically converts, resizes, and moves portraits to the correct folders to be usable in a different games. Even then there's no way I'd ever install an "independent app" just to do that. I might use it temporarily if it's just a simple lightweight executable with no install, but that's about it.

There's just far better uses of a programmers time than something like this. I'd much rather the developers work on fine-tuning their game's mechanics than something as absurd as implementing support for random 3rd party apps that try and translate build choices between completely different systems.

 

[Raapys]

Color me shocked - shocked! - that a golden age developer does something popular from the golden age when making a throwback game to the golden age. It's such a blatant waste of resources, and all just for the sake of nostalgia. I mean, why waste millions of dollars making a throwback game that'll at best barely scrape some profit when you could make a DA:O clone and be way more popular and monetarily successful. It boggles the mind.

I've yet to hear a single reason for why anyone would want it, which makes it useless.

And what should shock you is devs going to kickstarter to beg for cash for the chance to make a game while throwing stacks of it on a bonfire.

 

[Archibald]

Rpgs with vastly different character systems having those characters ham fisted into each other...getting some kind of Frankenstein thing.

Or in other words, the perfect gimmick character for your second or third playthrough of a game, which is exactly what this sort of thing is meant for. And plenty of people have fun with those.

What stops you from creating some gimmick characters in five minutes on your own? I reckon that you'll make more interesting character in this way than whatever that conversion will produce.

Honestly timing of this looks interesting since their Kickstarter is getting launched too... is it just a marketing trick to get more eyes on their Kickstarter attempt? After all, as I understand, nothing has been done to create this system yet, asides of few folks talking about it.

Color me shocked - shocked! - that a golden age developer does something popular from the golden age when making a throwback game to the golden age. It's such a blatant waste of resources, and all just for the sake of nostalgia. I mean, why waste millions of dollars making a throwback game that'll at best barely scrape some profit when you could make a DA:O clone and be way more popular and monetarily successful. It boggles the mind.

Was it really popular? Transfering characters from one part of the series to another - yes, but transfering character from series X to series Y? This thread is literally first time I saw someone speaking about it in such high regard since 90s.

 

[Infinitron]

What stops you from creating some gimmick characters in five minutes on your own? I reckon that you'll make more interesting character in this way than whatever that conversion will produce.

But part of the fun gimmickiness of it is finding out just what kind of weird shit the conversion will produce (and then having to deal with that). It's like, what happens when you convert a Shadowrun decker into a Torment character? How does that even work? It'll be cool to find out how they do that.

Maybe you have to be some kind of programming geek to really get it. Some people here are treating this thing way too literally/seriously

 

[Raapys]

I'm a programming geek and I don't get it at all. It's not gonna open any new opportunities; if it did, it would be too expensive to implement and/or it would effectively mean that one game is DLC for another game, which is bad either way.

Why is it so interesting whether it will convert 5 int in SRR to 5 or 10 int in Torment?

 

[Cosmo]

Some people here are treating this thing way too literally/seriously

Yeah, seems like the asperger congress is in session...

The two goals of that little feature are very obvious and simple.
First what Infinitron said, and second it's just a nice little bit of PR, whose accomplishment lies in claiming the heirloom of the Gold Box games while tying the game to the already well-known and successful kickstarters (they'll desperately need that publicity if they don't kickstart SDS).
So yes, just a smart but harmless move, and if you really want to hate on something so peripheral, you really need to get your priorities checked. But i guess if you're that type of no self-awareness sperg, that remark's lost on you anyway...

 

[Zetor]

Yeah, I have no idea why people are getting bent out of shape here. Even in the 80s/90s, cross-vendor and cross-game transfers were a thing that didn't hurt anything. Its main use was having some sort of 'character/party continuity' between games... also, sometimes it was just plain fun, like importing magic items into Centauri Alliance. Some examples I posted in the other thread:

• Magic Candle 2: import from the action game Keys to Maramon (Mindcraft)
• Dragon Wars: import from BT1-2 (Interplay)
• Hillsfar: import from Pool of Radiance (SSI)
• Bard's Tale: import from Wizardry, Ultima (Interplay)
• Centauri Alliance: import from M&M, Wizardry, Ultima, BT series (Broderbund)

 

[MicoSelva]

Sounds like a fun gimmick that will see little use and will be rather complicated to implement, although standardizing character file format between games is a cool idea that could prove friendly to modders. This is not something that would sell me a game, but I will gladly check it out when it is created.

 

[Telengard]

Color me shocked - shocked! - that a golden age developer does something popular from the golden age when making a throwback game to the golden age. It's such a blatant waste of resources, and all just for the sake of nostalgia. I mean, why waste millions of dollars making a throwback game that'll at best barely scrape some profit when you could make a DA:O clone and be way more popular and monetarily successful. It boggles the mind.

Was it really popular? Transfering characters from one part of the series to another - yes, but transfering character from series X to series Y? This thread is literally first time I saw someone speaking about it in such high regard since 90s.

It was popular enough that people designed whole game systems around the idea, such as Thieves World (81) and WotC's The Primal Order (92, and for which they got sued). One must remember this is a time before d20 philosophy, character builds and min/maxing took over the industry. And as Zetor illustrated, computer games of the day followed suit. It was all just a part of the philosophy of the time.

 

[Crooked Bee]

This sounds p. cool.

 

[Ninja Destroyer]

I want a Terminator RPG with that gateway system.

 

[taxalot]

There is no chance in hell this feature would work correctly and, even if it did, why would you use it ?
Keep your character names if that's all you care about. I get importing characters as long as they are from the same universe and from a similar ruleset, but this is just retarded.

Yeah. I totally seee myself importing my good-with-shotguns decker from Shadowrun to Seven Dragon Saga. This is going to work well.

Just because they did it too in the 80s doesn't make it a good idea.

 

[norolim]

I'm glad the different studios are forming a traditional RPG alliance, but this particular tool seems a bit pointless to me. I like creating characters in RPGs. Character crertaion is one on the defining characteristics of the genre for me. So, meh.

Oh wait, I know. This is just the beginning. Sort of a test and technology development platform for a future target tool that will allow gamers to transfer themselves into games and experience a new level of immersion. Yes, yes, now it all makes sense.

 

[Dorateen]

What I'm potentially excited about is the implication of Shelley's words "carrying over our adventuring parties into different RPGs." I wonder if Gateway could turn out to be a back door method of taking parties created by the player in a game like Seven Dragon Saga, into a design that originally allowed only developer provided NPCs. Might just be able to play Shadowrun afterall. And if Obsidian gets on board, who needs Pillars and their Adventuring Halls!

 

[Lady_Error]

If this was a character exchange between Seven Dragons Saga, Pillars of Eternity, Underworld and Bard's Tale IV - it would make more sense. Bringing characters from a sci-fi game into a fantasy game is just... stupid?