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| Questions about Magic and Melee | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: February 9, 2015, 9:02 pm (1,321 Views) | |
| Onime No Ryu | February 9, 2015, 9:02 pm Post #1 |
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I'll be your Undertaker this evening
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So I've talked a lot about how I feel about magic and melee and the roles they have in RPs. I wanted to go more in depth with that and have a real, honest discussion about a method of making them separate, yet equal that I or someone else could use in future ideas. Keep in mind I'm not trying to attack or offend anyone here, I just have some honest feelings, not all of them positive, that I wanted to talk about involving this subject. I'm open to any and all forms of criticism, comment, question, etc. I personally have a few major issues with magic (note, these titles aren't really tropes, just what came to mind when trying to describe them succinctly):
Jack of All Trades, Master of All Trades - In games like D&D, Fire Emblem, most MMOs, etc, characters will usually have "classes" that determine what they can do. A Cleric can heal people, a fighter can whoop ass up close, a rogue can pickpocket and unlock things and detect traps, and a mage can set things on fire or blow them up from a distance. In the average 4-6 person party, everyone will have their particular role, their field that they are good at, and by working together they'll make up for each other's weaknesses. I feel like, currently in our RPs, we don't have enough differentiation between what characters actually do a lot of times. A large portion of people tend to make what I'd call a "spellsword," or in some cases, "spell-fists," where the character can fight and cast spells equally well. In some circumstances this can be alright--I tried to avoid this with Lee in VoC, by making his magic only revolve around making his fighting that much stronger. He can't fight at two different ranges, he can't set enemies on fire, he just gets stronger. The magic is also tied less to simply functioning as a competitive gameplay thing and more to Lee's personal story. But honestly, for a long time now, I've felt like in all of our fantasy RPs that we're kind of forced to use magic or else we fall behind in terms of how well we can fight, how much damage we can do, etc., and no one likes it when their characters come off as lame or useless. And I feel like that's led to a trend of characters that can do everything equally well. They can fight. They can throw fireballs. They can heal. They can use barriers and illusions. They can debuff or cause status effects. What CAN'T they do? Not only that, but they're pretty much good at everything they choose to do. Rarely is anyone ever bad enough or less practiced at one thing that they make mistakes when trying it out for the first time or for other times afterwards. No matter how long they've practiced said thing, they're just as good at it as they are everything else. Infinite Ammo - Rarely, if ever, is there any kind of MP cost. Magic is always implied to be somewhat draining on a person's stamina, but mathematically speaking someone could just throw fireballs all day and there's nothing really stopping them from doing it or being justified in it. Granted, no one's a big enough jerk to just spam their biggest and best spells over and over and over. But sometimes there are disputes about fights and things, and I think those disputes are much more easily solved when there are limits in place. Limits on health, limits on stamina, limits on magic. NTNP's done a pretty good job of this in Megido's current setup, I feel. He also had an interesting system in one of his Zelda based RPs. Health and stamina aren't usually fudged, I feel, because they're more...down to earth? Concrete? Like, we can relate to feelings of tiredness and pain in our characters, but we can't relate to the feeling of wielding enormous magical power. So I feel like there's more tendency to abuse magic. But I don't think it's fair to get something for nothing. I think there should always be some kind of cost or consequence to using magic. In the Blood vs Learned Skills - Relating to the first issue I talked about, I often feel like characters are too skilled or know too much given what's known of their backstories and their ages and things like that. I've trained in Karate for almost 11 years now. I still don't think I'd come out on top in a fight against a professional MMA fighter or a pro boxer. And I certainly don't think I can go head to head with the top chess masters in the world. I barely know how to play chess. Don't you think learning to manipulate the fabric of reality through magic would be a bit more complex than learning how to play chess? So do you really think it'd be possible to be a master of magic, a master of swordsmanship, and whatever else is required for the characters' backstory in one lifetime? If the setting is one where certain people are just born with the ability to use magic, it's a little bit better, because at least then people either pick up the magic faster with natural talent, or the ability they are born with is as natural to them as breathing so of course they'd be very good at it, and would then be able to devote time to learning other skills. But at the same time, it's overpowered as hell for someone to be born with certain kinds of abilities that they can use without any kind of practice. It's a hard balance to find--and one that I don't think we've ever really found, to be honest. No Rules - In our RPs there are never any very clear explanations of how magic works. It's always very free form. I know it's hard to have rules on magic without taking away some of people's creativity--telling someone "I'm sorry, but that ability wouldn't work in this RP" is often a good way to keep them from joining the RP at all. But at the same time I feel like it just makes magic too powerful, too convenient, and just too...too...too magic, if that makes any sense. It's one thing to come up with creative solutions to a problem. It's another thing to have an Instant Win button, and I feel like magic falls under that far too often. I'd much prefer well thought out and balanced magic systems. Planet of Hats - What this trope refers to is when, often in sci-fi shows, characters visit a world that's themed around one particular thing and everyone is exactly the same because of that thing. It's a hat they wear. It's also present in fantasy, usually involving multiple races. Dwarves are always short, stocky, swarthy, bearded, gold loving, axe and hammer swinging, roughhousing fellows. Every single one of them. Even the women. Things like that. I feel like the hat our RPs have been wearing for a long time is "battlemage." Sure, people try to come up with creative spells and abilities all the time, and that's good. But it just doesn't feel like many of the characters are truly stand out and unique sometimes. Imagine if, when the characters join up, there's a recruiter with a clipboard asking what they bring to the table. In a D&D game, it'd go something like: Close Range fighter, Tracker and Animal Handler, Espionage and Scouting, Healing, Magic. In one of our RP's it'd go like: Magic and Fighting, Magic and Fighting, Magic and Fighting, Magic and Fighting. Do you guys see where I'm coming from with all this? Is anyone besides me interested in talking about this in depth and maybe trying to come up with some ideas for magic that could be implemented in the future? |
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| Garm0099 | February 9, 2015, 9:11 pm Post #2 |
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Marksman
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I agree with everything you have stated. I think more specialization in characters would be a good thing and would keep balance and fun both high at the same time. D&D does this and they even have a wide variety of classes too to keep people who like to dabble in everything satisfied so adopting something similar for future rp's would totally work in my opinion. |
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| DVD Player | February 9, 2015, 9:15 pm Post #3 |
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Mdl. No. 00X "Burrito"
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In VoC, we have: - 1 Paladin - 3 "Cloud Knights" (high-dex swordsman with light magic) - 3 Battlemages (balance of melee and magic) - 2 Archers - 1 Fighter - 4 Mages - 4 Warriors (Melee - Weapons) This does not include NPCs/Boss enemies or really any of Sin's characters because I forget what exactly is an NPC and what is her character. I think our take on magic is less "Everyone's a Battle Mage" and more of the League of Legends approach where even the melee-focused classes have magical abilities, but those won't be as center-stage as others. This is actually a pretty good spread (and a little hard to put together considering our lack of solid classes) Also side note: I attempted to bypass this in FA with different races having access to different abilities. "Battle Mage" was not a class you could do as a human. I also added Skills as something that takes ability slots; saying what your character is actually good at. We had some good characters in that RP. Edited by DVD Player, February 9, 2015, 9:17 pm.
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| DVD Player | February 9, 2015, 9:20 pm Post #4 |
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Mdl. No. 00X "Burrito"
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ALSO I STILL REALLY REALLY REALLY WANT TO DO A POWERSUITS/MECHA RP |
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| Person A | February 9, 2015, 9:38 pm Post #5 |
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Best to sleep on it.
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I definitely remember when you brought this up earlier, and I agreed at the time. I still do now, and I've taken some measure to have some balance between the sword and magic schooling. I look at what I had earlier, and... Yeah. -Hypatia was literally just me tossing in another magic system on top of the Fairy Tail one, and Ruben was just me serving my obsession with Etrian Odyssey Untold at the time. Not good examples of balance at all, haha. -Etrian Odyssey... less said, better, I don't want to remember that, haha... -From Ashes, if you took what that was for magic, I had... Human with strength buffs, I believe, Hybrid with complete support/healing (And a taser for self-defense, hardly powerful), and... I don't want to talk about either Titans I had, they were me trying to figure them out and failing every step of the way. Might've been because I made them too battle-mage-y, and they all more or less were "meh." For the current RP (Veil of Chaos) that actually involves magic (or magic-like), I've got two non-boss characters. This was after you brought this issue up, and I've been taking care to make sure I balance it out well enough. -Volke has a mix of wind magic and physical moves, but more leaning on wind. Still, though, he isn't exactly 100% proficient in either: maybe slaying 4 peons at the most with either his blade or his magic, and it'll probably stay that way for quite a while. He's not going to be powerful as he is, more balanced between the two and a squishy rogue character overall. If he ever leans to one side (Probably will), he'll end up upping his physical skills more than his magical, and have his magical serve as assistance to his physical (His magical attacks will all link to his sole physical attack "Medvind") -Ritzea is definitely mage-y, but... uses a sword. Yeah, battle-mage, she's guilty of that. If we talk "gameplay" terms, there's no real excuse (and, really, the sword's only there to complement her backstory, even if I've been upping her Strength and Intelligence both). Plot-terms, she's learned magic from her unique accessory shoving magical knowledge into her brain, but she's been learning how to use a sword for her life. But I definitely have no plans for her to be a physical fighter in the long-term, other than the sword. She'll only have magic spells. As for reeling it in, making rules and adjustments for it... Well, I'd hope that the roleplayer would understand these things and balance it as necessary. This outlines a guide pretty well for roleplayers, try to keep it within the realms of belief. I agree with Roth, too, that he did a pretty good job keeping it all under control with the race specialties and whatnot. |
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| DVD Player | February 9, 2015, 9:51 pm Post #6 |
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Mdl. No. 00X "Burrito"
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I also feel I should point out; I'd rather we kept rules in RPs to a minimum. It makes everything harder and less accessible for the RPer and the RP admin. I'm still kinda on the ropes about stats, but Sin has found a good way to implement them. |
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| Person A | February 9, 2015, 10:06 pm Post #7 |
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Best to sleep on it.
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I... haven't really seen much implementation on stats in the grand scheme of Veil of Chaos, truth be told. Sure, theoretically someone with a higher dexterity stat would be faster, but... even if we have those numbers, when have they actually mattered, outside of the weapons we use? Sure, the 80~ Intelligence Sera has means she could blow up six or seven with one Fireball, but why does the ~20 Amaterasu end up being able to do likewise to 5 with one Black Needle? Both are magically inclined mages who have a natural-born proficiency to magic, so... do those numbers just don't matter, or what? To be fair, the stats do help keep track of stuff, like whos faster or more physically inclined, but aside from that, they really take a back seat in the grand scheme of things. And sometimes they should be in front, like Vitality. How much can they withstand with that number, then? Rules on magic, though, yeah, that limits the creativity of the RPer. To be fair, I haven't been creative at all, but then, well, other people have! Just asking to keep it reasonable (and, considering how many people have called other people out on things, I feel like others can keep one RPer in check easily enough) should be enough. Edited by Person A, February 9, 2015, 10:07 pm.
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| Garm0099 | February 9, 2015, 10:09 pm Post #8 |
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Marksman
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I completely agree. Stats are weird, restrictive, and obtrusive in my honest opinion. That being said, I feel like we are all adults and competent enough writers to the point that we can try to keep to a certain power level or keep to a minimal class system without having to have our hands held by numbers. And by minimal I'm talking like the player brings forth an occupation/class their character would have and then GM can just go "yeah sure sounds fine". That or I'm also a huuuuuuge fan of low fantasy and cyberpunk stuff so I mean if you guys want no magic for an rp, someone could make something of one of those genres and you would totally have me as a for sure member! |
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| Primera Espada Yggdra | February 10, 2015, 1:19 am Post #9 |
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The Kitty Cat, Mew!~
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I'm gonna take a wild guess that Andromeda is the Paladin? |
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| DVD Player | February 10, 2015, 1:23 am Post #10 |
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Mdl. No. 00X "Burrito"
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Yes. She didn't quite fit the generic "Warrior" label. |
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| Onime No Ryu | February 10, 2015, 5:10 am Post #11 |
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I'll be your Undertaker this evening
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Yay lots of feedback while I was sleeping! Thanks guys! Now for my responses: - 1 Paladin Magic, Fighting, and Healing. Granted, mostly fighting, but those spells are no doubt going to become stronger. Sword. - 3 "Cloud Knights" (high-dex swordsman with light magic) Diesis: AoE Magic, Fighting, Healing, Buffing, Debuffing. Saber. Vormund: Magic, Fighting, Buffing, Debuffing Tristram: Single Target Magic, Fighting. Sword. - 3 Battlemages (balance of melee and magic) Aria: Magic and Fighting Darion: Magic and Fighting Volke: Magic and Fighting, granted, mostly fighting. Rapier and Dagger. -2 Archers Jason: Ranged and Close Fighting. Sword and shield and bow. Eduardo: Ranged and Close Fighting. Rapier and Crossbow. -1 Fighter Lee: Barely pure fighting because of magic buffing, and only that because otherwise he couldn't keep up. -4 Mages Angelo: Magic and Fighting. Katana. Sera: Magic, Defensive spell Amaterasu: Magic, utility and offense Ritzea: Magic and Fighting, granted, mostly magic. Sword. - 4 Warriors (Melee - Weapons) Feng: Greataxe/greatsword, recently Xenon: Sword and shield Brandt: Spear Aran: Halberd I might have gotten some of those wrong, lemme know if I did. Only once we get into the more melee oriented people do we really get some variety--I know, at first it seems like that's not any better than magic, because it all falls under "fighting." But there's a great deal of difference between how one fights with a spear and how one fights with a sword. It can be the same for magic, and often is, as each character is focused around accomplishing specific goals, and many of them use different primary elements. But there are still many characters who use multiple elements, sometimes to do pretty much the same thing. How many characters on that list can truly be said to be unique, to be doing something, fulfilling some role or niche, that only they can do and do well? Now, I grant you, with our playerbase we're not going to be able to avoid overlap. A D&D party can usually, at the most, have around 5 to 6 completely unique character roles. A front line fighter, an offensive mage, a support/defensive/crowd control mage, a rogue, a healer, and a diplomat. And most of those will still overlap a little just because. We've got around 10-12 people who are regularly active in most RPs that come up. But still, if there were more clear limitations or people just stopped following the trends of spellswords, I think the overall balance and uniqueness of each character would improve. One problem I can immediately see that some people might have is the "uselessness" of characters like devoted healers and supporters. No one wants to be left out of the monster slaying, and I totally understand that. But even if the "position" doesn't sound as fun, as creative as all you guys are don't you think you could come up with a way to make those characters fun by focusing on their actual traits, actions, things like that, and making them entertaining characters rather than pieces on the board whose only purpose is to move to the next tile and take out the next enemy?
How does it make things less accessible, though? I mean, I can understand sometimes having rules means that a character has to be changed from the original vision or sometimes has to be scrapped completely because they just don't work in the setting, but how many people have dedicated characters that are shared between multiple RPs with absolutely no changes to them? Most of us tend to adapt our characters, or make entirely new ones, for every RP, with every incarnation being a little different in some way.
I agree that we're not seeing enough implementation of the stats, but I also place a large deal of responsibility for that on the player base. Even if we're comparing our stats to each other and responding appropriately--everyone's acknowledged that Feng is the Hulk, for example--it's not affecting how we portray the characters. We're still fighting, dodging, etc. as if we're all perfect pros, and I know that's a hard thing to break away from because you want your character to feel powerful and useful, but at the same time there needs to be some struggle and tension, you know? Granted, I'm probably one of the worst people about dodging all the time--I think Lee's only been hit, or in over his head, like three times? For example, talking about Ammy having less magic power than Sera statistically, but Yggdra and Persona are still playing the characters the same way. Not to say either of you are wrong or anything, but we HAVE had a few disputes about Yggdra doing things with Ammy that sometimes come off as a little unbelievable or unfair, right? So why not play Ammy down a bit, and show the differences between her and characters who are higher leveled or have higher stats? I disagree that limits on magic and rules will always limit creativity, though. I'm a believer that limits actually bring out more creativity, it's just that that creativity is focused into other aspects of the character and the writing. I mean, try to write a paragraph, right now, about any story from your mind you can create. No limits. It's hard to even start thinking of something concrete, much less choose from all the possibilities, right? Now, write a paragraph about a story in which you are at the zoo with a date, and you stumble and somehow fall into the lion's enclosure. Sure, now you can't write about magic and wizards without being wierd...or can you? Do you see what I'm talking about, how having limits can change the way creativity is applied, and make it more focused and concentrated, rather than it just being "oh, I'm using fire magic in a slightly different way?" |
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| DVD Player | February 10, 2015, 11:36 am Post #12 |
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Mdl. No. 00X "Burrito"
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The more work it requires to make a character, balance a character, and use the character; the less accessible an RP is. Heck, just think of this in terms of video games. The Casual games, the ones that anyone could jump into and enjoy, were the simple ones with very straightforward mechanics. The less accessible ones are the ones with a lot of things the player needs to learn before they can jump into the game really. For instance, compare say Guitar Hero games to a Civilization game. Which is more accessible and friendly for anyone to just jump right in? If I wanted hard stats and a very mechanical-focused RPing experience, I wouldn't be going here for it. Let me put it that way. Also, when you were looking at the characters, I think you got "A magic-focused character that happens to have a sword" confused with "A character that combines both sword work and magic work". Also the third cloud knight was Declan, not Deisus. As I said, I didn't include Sin's characters because I forget what's an NPC and what's her primary character. So let's look at these again. For that, this concerns the Mages specifically: - None of Angelo's spells center around the sword or sword-fighting. The Katana is mostly there for show and as a last-resort weapon. His primary role is a ranged/support mage for the rest of the fighters. - Ditto with Ritz. She has heavily support-focused spells that compliment teammates and work with that. None of the spells really focus on the sword at all; it's just there as a last-resort weapon. I'd all suggest you actually look into the character's individual strategies before dropping blanket statements that all magic-focused characters are the same. For instance, let's look at the Battle Mages. Darion as a fighter has a very ranged-focus to his magic, with a couple support spells that assist his fighting. Aria, on the other hand, has a very point-blank focus on her magic. This works into comparing a battle-mage with a more defensive strategy to one with a very aggressive offensive strategy. Volke's style is close to Aria's, but with a stronger focus on the melee side of things, and with not so much a point-blank close-range necessity. We can also look at the Cloud Knights that are pretty varied I would say. Tristram has a snow-ball focus on his magic, working towards a late-game battle where the longer things go, the stronger his attacks get. His is more of a balance close to a Battle Mage, but with a stronger focus on the weapon than the magic. Declan, on the other hand, has a combo-focused set of spells where one support spell on its own would be completely useless, but combined with another makes for an even stronger hit. As the RP progresses, it'll become even more apparent as the combinations get bigger and more complex. These also would work between individual spells. I think right now, you're paying too much attention to the fact that our characters are USING magic, and not HOW we are using the magic. The magic and special techniques gives us a lot more room to specialize characters in our own way, and we've all found our own niches in how they work. Heck, if you recall I used a THIEF in VoTM with ZERO damage-dealing spells. I don't think the problem is that the magic is making us stay within our niches and that it should be limited, I think people should just be encouraged to step outside their comfort zones more. |
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| Dreaming Sun | February 10, 2015, 12:03 pm Post #13 |
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MOO MOO MOO MOO MOO MOO MOO MOO MOO MOO MOO MOO MOO MOO MOO
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I agree that many of the problems you've raised are real issues. I do, however, think you're wrong about the magnitude of these issues. Many of them don't exist at all. Let me go through bit by bit. First of all, let me use VoC as a reference point. The problem I have with the last post of yours is how biased it is towards making your point. It's easy to manipulate data in that way - looking at what the characters abilities say rather than the overall idea behind the character. But if you look at the subtleties of all the characters (like you did with Lee - he's as much "Magic and Fighting" as many other characters are, but you're phrased him in such a way that makes him seem unique) Let me try and redo the list. I'll only do characters I'm familiar with since I think that'd make my point well enough. Aria: Bludgeons enemies with heavy, fast hits. Stuns and staggers enemies with Sound to create openings. Volke: Quick, concise, aimed and measured slices with his rapier and knife. Moves quickly and accurately. Jason: Quickly shifts between short range and mid range combat, hoping to outmaneuver an enemy and whittle them down. Eduardo: Snipes down enemies from long range with his crossbow. Lee: Holds the front line with his punches and kicks. Angelo: Uses darkness magic to distract enemies and create openings through confusion, before heavy Katana finishers. Sera: Creates a fiery defensive line, and holds it in place with powerful Fire blasts. Amaterasu: Lands powerful and quick magical strikes from range to whittle down enemies. Ritzea: Sets up situations with her magic for others to capitalise on. Basically, whenever you say a character uses "Magic and Fighting", yes, you're right. But are they all the same? Definitely not. It's like saying that everyone who does Sport does exactly the same. But nope. You can have a Soccer Player or Basketballer. You can have a Martial Artist, you can have an Engineer who plays sport on the weekends. They're all completely different characters whose magic allows them to fill in their particular niches. So with that in mind, let me target your points: I've already given you an argument about how the Jack of All Trades problem isn't nearly as big as you perceive it. More or less, it isn't born out of maliciousness - having options is fun. Aria, she's a spellsword! And I think most people will agree with me that her whole thing's about getting an enemy offguard for heavy bludgeoning attacks. That's an interesting fighting concept - and one that becomes difficult, if not incredibly boring, without making her a Spellsword. Niroth could, yes, have made Aria a girl who hammers an enemy incredibly hard without magic to knock them out. But that becomes immersion breaking with Aria's character type. An "Aria" character who tried to fill the same (unique) niche without magic would be very different to what she is now. There's a problem with characters learning fast, yes, but that has nothing to do with the idea of spellswords - that's a whole different issue, mainly to do with overall pacing of an RP. With regards to Infinite Ammo, you got it exactly right. No one's dickish enough to use their ultimate spells over and over. And if someone did? Everyone would be at that person's throats. There's no issues. There might be no rules, but if there were any rules, they wouldn't be broken in this current state. Would you rather a distinct Magic Meter in VoC? Giving them a limit that physical characters don't? I don't need to say how that's rather silly. When you talk about Learned Skills, it's really just suspension of belief and Rule of Cool. I mean, yes. Older characters should be stronger than younger characters. But we all have less ability to empathise with, and write, older characters than we do characters in the 15 to 25 range. And recall that RPing often has wish fulfillment acting as some motivation. It's expected for characters to learn slightly faster than normal people, to keep pace. Again, though, this is a point that's part of a larger pacing/learning issue, and doesn't have much to do with magic specifically. Ideas about Rules of Magic are incredibly subjective. You've got people like Sanderson who makes complex as hell magic systems, and people like GRRM and Rowling who give basically no explanation at all. I, personally, am happy with either side. But again, no one uses magic as an insta-win button. It's not a real issue for the community here. So, you talk about a Planet of Hats? As I said, if you look at it, many people use Magic and Fighting. But every single character is different. Every character acts in a different way for their specific niches. Isn't that exactly what you want? Variety? Because it's all there already. tl;dr, 1) no one's stupid enough to allow most of the problems you talk about to exist 2) learning quickly's a problem only indorectly related to that of magic 3) every character has a niche, and being a spellsword's often the best way to fulfill that niche Edited by Dreaming Sun, February 10, 2015, 12:07 pm.
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| Primera Espada Yggdra | February 10, 2015, 12:17 pm Post #14 |
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The Kitty Cat, Mew!~
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Well... to give my feedback on this, in VoC, we level up primarily on the number of enemies we've killed. Mages in particular would have to end up having some kind of AoE spell. Out of the four mages, Ammy is WAY behind Ritzea, Angelo and Sera. Why? She doesn't have a spell that's really AoE. Because of this, I'm tempted to give Ammy an AoE spell in the future, likely after the bridge battle. Why? Because so she can catch up. Otherwise she's going to be way underleveled and her potential in future fights will get lower and lower. All I did in the RP was meant for her to not fall behind, but even in those I limited myself. The other mages are at least double her level, and I don't want it to stay this low. Of course, that's unless she's allowed to have a big growth spurt in the future. Now take a look at healers and supporters. Their role is primarily to help their allies, not to kill. If we had someone like this in VoC, he or she would fall behind because killing monsters is the primary way to get experience. Therefore, people would be discouraged to play as a pure healer and supporter because they would get little to no experience for it. Training outside of battle isn't that great either. Why? By spending time on having your character train, they are likely to lose that time on character interaction unless another character is present in the area. You still don't get that much experience compared to actually killing monsters anyway. |
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| Person A | February 10, 2015, 12:39 pm Post #15 |
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Best to sleep on it.
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Ahahaha... I don't have anything to add that Niroth and Emin already mentioned, so I'll point out that I've been doing a pretty bad job implementing that support-teamwork bit that I was going for with Ritz. Mainly her AoE spells to set up for allies have outright killed the enemies because I figured that she was getting up there in levels against them. So even though she is support, like she was ID'd, not a lot of people capitalize on it. So there's the purpose of spells versus the actual use of it. Like using a screwdriver as a key to break open a lock.l, not the intended use. Let's look at another example, one that Yggdra brought up. Ammy has no AoE damage spells. But with that said, would be pretty sure people would call you out on it. ...Also, last exp gain post, Onime counted things like buffing other players and healing, so you're technically wrong on monsters slain being the only source of exp outside of training. Edited by Person A, February 10, 2015, 12:48 pm.
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| Onime No Ryu | February 10, 2015, 1:50 pm Post #16 |
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I'll be your Undertaker this evening
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You have a point, but on the flipside, consider the more "hardcore" games. A lot of the gaming community consider them to be better in a lot of ways. Is some of it pointless elitism? Yes, definitely. But some of it is also an effort reward ratio--they put time into learning to be good at those games, and when they are rewarded for it there's a feeling of satisfaction. Now with something like Dark Souls there's a very iffy line. I, personally, always had a problem with the Souls series because I didn't feel like dying fifty times to the same enemy was worth the piece of gear I couldn't even use yet that I got after beating them. That kind of thing can be heavily subjective, and the amount of difficulty compared to the amount of reward has to be balanced out too. I don't want to say that people should put the same effort towards RPing that they do towards practicing for a sport or doing well at a job, because I know that's what this sounds like. But also, I DO want to say that putting a tiny bit of effort into reading and "learning," if you can really call it that, a few ground rules and limitations isn't THAT hard and people shouldn't be scared of it like it's some huge rulebook that's going to be thrown at you every time you toe the line.
Yet how many times have there been arguments relating to how powerful, broken, Sue-ish, etc. certain characters were BEFORE we started using stats more often? Remember the old days when everyone whined about everything if even one person got something they didn't have or everyone else earned something that they didn't? I remember a lot of those because I was the one people always got mad at if my character, god forbid, trained for something or made an effort to improve over time as opposed to waiting for handouts from the admin. Any kind of system that makes combat related growth a more automatic and easily understood process--both the doing of it and the limitations of it--is A-okay in my book. I'd all suggest you actually look into the character's individual strategies before dropping blanket statements that all magic-focused characters are the same. And I'd suggest you go back to the profiles and look at how many of those magic spells actually do something niche-like as opposed to just being "lightning themed/dark themed/water themed fireball."
This is another good point--there CAN be as much variety within magic as there is within martial arts, or weaponry, or things like that. And a lot of times there is. But part of the problem, too, is that whereas a weapon user sticks to one or two weapons and fighting styles, mages most of the time can instead harness so many elements at the same time, or use their one element in so many different ways even if it doesn't make any intuitive sense. For example, "fire barriers." Those are pretty popular spells, I'm not trying to call out anyone in particular. But whenever someone makes a fire barrier I always facepalm. Flames aren't solid. They can't stop projectiles. If you have the counter argument "the projectile is burned up before it reaches the person," then that implies those flames are so hot that they can, in a split second, disintegrate anything that comes near them. So why not just turn them on and WALK TOWARDS the enemy? On one side, you have mister swordsman who trained to parry, stab, and slash. On the other hand, you have mister mage who has Fire, Water, Earth, Wind, Heart, and everything else at his command--or else he has Fire alone, but he can fight with it, he can defend with it, he can heal with it, he can buff and debuff with it, he can fly with it, and he can support with it. It's way too much. I'm a fan of having single but versatile powersets, but that's just. Too. Much. And I think people would step outside their comfort zones more if being a mage wasn't immediately being all powerful. If magic was limited, you wouldn't have people worried so much about that particular aspect of "falling behind," like Yggdra is below and like I am with my melee characters. If we could all be assured that, assuming the same level of effort on behalf of all characters, everyone would be equal in their own separate ways, people wouldn't be nearly as afraid to try something new.
See what I said above to Niroth's assertion of the same point. You're both definitely right on some counts, but there are still a great deal of similarities between a lot of those characters, and some of them still have a lot of variety that wasn't even addressed, mostly via elemental typings.
Yes, but it doesn't always make for good storytelling. When you throw the hero every option under the stars to beat the badguy with, where's the tension?
I mentioned NTNP's RPs earlier, and how both of them used BOTH magic pools and stamina points. Physical characters should have limits too--but right now the reason I'm addressing magical limits is because they're nowhere near as existent.
I can totally accept waiving things here and there--I mean, Lee's sixteen, and already far more capable than any real world martial artist probably has a right to be. There's some stuff you've just got to fudge for the sake of a story. But I just think it's ridiculous that a 20 year old can be a master swordsman and a master mage when both fields should easily take over ten years of study each. If they were just a master of one I could understand it, even though they're still so young, but it's the principle of "do one thing ten thousand times, not ten thousand different things." The way I see it, right now, mages are able to do ten thousand things--and they're able to do ALL of them at an expert level. Whereas physical classes are stuck with their one good thing--which is only as good as SOME of the Mage's ten thousand things.
Except for whenever any kind of puzzle or not-immediately-obvious situation comes up and the first reaction is "LET'S BLAST IT." Like it has been in numerous RPs in the past.
This is a legitimate concern, and makes me wonder if EXP based on "Skill Usage" like Skyrim might be more applicable to RPs than EXP based on "victories won."
Lee trains the most out of anyone and yet his section of the "Character Relations" chart is driving Persona insane. What you've gotta do with training isn't just talk about how they threw fireballs at a target for an hour. You've got to explore the character themselves. Look at all the stuff Lee thinks about to himself, all his internal struggles or flashbacks or whatever, that he has while he trains. That develops him, personally, inwardly, as a character, while interacting with others and battling develops him outwardly. |
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| DVD Player | February 10, 2015, 2:24 pm Post #17 |
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Mdl. No. 00X "Burrito"
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To your talk of hardcore games, I say: http://www.polygon.com/2015/2/10/8012451/games-have-basic-huge-accessibility-problems-that-we-celebrate Being hard to access isn't a good feature, in my opinion. If your game is hard to the point that a large number of people can't play it, that's called a design flaw. In perfect honesty, I DON'T have fun with NT's stat system. I join because I find the setting intriguing and lets me use different characters than other RP's. NT was also the one to suggest I ditch the stat system for FA, and already I'm toying with ways of removing stats and limits ENTIRELY from an RP while still keeping it balanced and fun. It's not impossible, and it's certainly very possible if you get creative with the RP's mechanics and think of ways to prevent the Sue characters from happening. Two examples of this: I/O and FA's ability system. For FA, I removed stats entirely and focused on ranked abilities with a maximum rank of 3, with 3 primary abilities: Skills, Arcana, and Augments. On a base level, every character was physically and skillfully capable as the other. Exactly the same. Using augments and skills modified this; if you had a rank 1 Strength augment, you were automatically stronger than someone without a strength augment by like 33% (or a reasonable amount in the RP). Likewise, if you have rank 2 training in martial arts, you were automatically better at close-range melee than a character with a rank 1 training. This system let me design a way to make it clear what areas a character was good in while keeping power-creep, progression, and over-specialization all in check. For I/O I would have worked on a similar system, except I was going to eschew progression entirely in favor of everyone starting at a good, strong level and staying at that level. This removes the "Sue" and "Overpowered" problem. And while I'm on the subject of player progression, training posts are incredibly boring and I would prefer if "training" was removed as a mechanic from RP's. I don't want to read about someone doing tons push-ups and how exhilarating it is. I want to read character interaction and development. And in all honesty Onime, I skip all of your training posts because the idea behind a training post is VERY BORING. This has nothing to do with what you're writing, but it's just what I'm reading I am not interested in any bit. I don't care at all for how many chin-ups a character did and even if you sprinkle in inner meditation it's still very dull to read. Training is ALSO why we've had to deal with "powerful mary-sue's" in the past, because it puts the progression in the hands of the player and lets us grind all we want. It turns the game from a healthy level of progression as we go through the story alone to everyone running through the tall grass so they can surpass the next challenge. It breaks the RP experience intensely and is a very flawed system, even with limitations set. Grinding isn't fun in any sense. As for the spells, I was actually paying very close attention to each character's abilities as I was writing my post. Yeah, we got obvious themes. So what? There's nothing wrong with liking a good, basic fireball attack. Nobody HAS to go super crazy unique with their spells. Yet besides this, as DS elaborated, we have all gone into our own niches over how to implement these spells. There is actually VERY LITTLE overlap in the kinds of spells we've chosen. Anyways, after re-reading your posts it's clear you're dealing with a lot of "What-if" situations and "but YOU CAN do this". We're not morons, and nobody's out to break and abuse the system. You present a lot of situations of "Yeah, but you COULD have a fire barrier that acts like a physical barrier!" or "You COULD be a master mage who's laying waste to everything they see!" I don't believe anyone here is picking and building characters because they're being competitive in their builds and how they want their's to be the strongest and best. We're all building the characters we want to build and there's nothing wrong with that. Besides that, a lot of these complaints don't look like serious issues. If you're going to complain about the overall skill level of a character contrasted to their age, then I'd suggest you look through their bio's and see how much time was actually spent training in their life. Heck, if you pay attention to Aria's fighting, it's painfully amateur and basic with the "fancier" moves being done just because she thinks they look cool (and yes, I WILL be making it a character point that she hasn't actually had any formal training in how to fight or use magic and that her fist-fighting is plebeian). Honestly, as RPers here I don't think we actually NEED that hard of a stat/limit system. I trust all of us in our RPing abilities, and it's not like we're making games for a large group of people who will abuse the system. Nobody here's out here to abuse systems; we're just here to make the characters we want to make. Give us more credit instead of assuming we're all just going to make over-powered mary-sues. |
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| Dreaming Sun | February 10, 2015, 2:49 pm Post #18 |
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MOO MOO MOO MOO MOO MOO MOO MOO MOO MOO MOO MOO MOO MOO MOO
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You need to realise that if a key part of your argument is "look at me, look at what I can do!" you need to send warning signals off in your head. Yes. Lee has interacted with a lot of different characters. But how much depth do all those relationships have, compared to those that stick around 3 or 4 characters? That's the type of thing that's easy for others to see, but difficult for the writer due to natural biases. And if you have to tell people, "Look at my character, can't you see how well I've developed him and how interesting he is?" there's something wrong. Either they already agree with you and there's no point saying it. Or they don't, and saying it makes you look stupid.
The Latin Alphabet. Hindu Arabic Numerals. Hiragana. LaTeX. What's similar between them? The fact that they're all types of writing. Now, is writing a story in English, writing a number, writing a Japanese story, or writing a complex formula, exactly the same? Of course not. So. Sera's Fireball, Ammy's Black Needle. Darion's Jet Stream. Ritzea's Light Axe. They're all projectile damage attacks, yes. But let's look at their particular niches. Sera's attack fits her niche as a defensive mage - high setup, high impact. Ammy's fits hers as a quick, fine attack - likely gets an OHKO, passes on through. Darion's works to combine with his physical attacks - weakens and slows them to improve his damage. And Ritzea's works as a support - sets up a situation for others. In addition, keep in mind that these are more or less "bread and butter" abilities for mages. The equivalent for a melee fighter is "Sword slash" or "Jab". It's silly to complain how everyone's slashes and jabs are the same because they should be everywhere. But even then, the niches are different - Feng's basic attacks are going to be so different to Lee's. You're missing the forest for the trees. Yes, there are some similarities if you look down really closely at all the abilities. But if you look at a tree and a person closely enough you'll find Carbon atoms in both. But there's still real differences.
Examples? When, recently, has someone actually done anything and everything highly competently? Everyone has their niches, and everyone's acting on it.
Did you ever hear anyone say, "Man, Lee is incredibly weak, he'll be left behind the rest of the party if he doesn't get magic?" Yes, he was weaker than everyone else, but it was also narratively justified, and at least personally, there was always an expectation he'd grow rather strong. But you jump the gun and give him magic, make him stronger, then make a point about how if he didn't gain magic he'd be left behind. That's like me going to higher year uni class, struggling, then before I try and actually learn anything, cheat and then make a point about how cheating is necessary. You could have willingly decided to not give Lee such an artificial power up - but even before the power up, recall he had among the highest kills in the entire group.
I've got a decent understanding of geography and social history. I know quite a bit about natural history. I keep myself well invested in current affairs. Can I do quantum physics? No. I can RP. I can present arguments quickly and in ways that can be easily understood. I'm great at analogy and explaining higher level concepts to those that might find it difficult to. Can I do quantum physics? No. I'm good at math. I have a great understanding of classical physics and chemistry. I can manipulate matrices fairly competently, can differentiate and integrate pretty well. I can run Maple and Matlab. Can I do quantum physics? No. Options aren't everything. Competence is. Every character's building competence in their own niche. And think about this - in some way, all of those things I list is helpful in understanding and manipulating quantum mechanics in some form. If someone built up all those skills with the goal of being a theoretical physicist, are they a jack of all trades? Hardly. They're working towards being a theoretical physicist. It's just that all of those broad paint strokes are needed for that goal. Like how so many of our characters need some "basic fireball" attack before they can be a siege mage/deadly prankster/freezing striker/offensive support.
In VoC, a physical character can kill about 5 units a turn. Can attack for, say, 4 or 5 turns before they rest. In VoC, a magical character can kill about 5 units a turn. Can attack for, say, 4 or 5 turns before they rest. How are the limits on a magical character less existent then that on a physical one?
We've gone through the puzzle thing before, and it's irrelevant to the discussion. The place of puzzles are difficult to find in an RP. Edited by Dreaming Sun, February 10, 2015, 2:57 pm.
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| Onime No Ryu | February 10, 2015, 2:49 pm Post #19 |
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I'll be your Undertaker this evening
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Then I guess the better question would be: Why does everyone make boring spellswords? Why is having magic so integral to the idea of an interesting character? Why was I ridiculed in the past for making nothing but martial artists, when nowadays everyone makes nothing but spellswords or some equivalent? Why is it a running joke that Matt makes generic heroes when everyone else comes up with some kind of magic for their character every. single. time? |
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| DVD Player | February 10, 2015, 2:54 pm Post #20 |
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Mdl. No. 00X "Burrito"
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Why are you equating the past to today instead of focusing on the present. You talk as if none of us have grown as writers or designers for our characters. Seriously, give us credit where credit is due. Stop treating us like we're the same RPer's we were 10 years ago. |
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| Onime No Ryu | February 10, 2015, 2:55 pm Post #21 |
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I'll be your Undertaker this evening
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Because it's the same thing, only now no one wants to hear it because it's them and not me. |
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| DVD Player | February 10, 2015, 3:01 pm Post #22 |
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Mdl. No. 00X "Burrito"
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No, we're not. Pay attention to the kinds of characters we make. You'll find many of us have been making a variety of very different characters and moving outside of our comfort zones. You'll find that Matt isn't making the same characters he did long ago; you'll find I'm not making 1-dimensional villains or try-hard anti-heroes; you'll find even Kaze has started making non-tank characters. I said it before, I'll say it again. Stop treating us like we're the same RPer's we were 10 years ago. We clearly aren't. |
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| Person A | February 10, 2015, 3:12 pm Post #23 |
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Best to sleep on it.
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Let's calm down here. No, seriously, this is sounding less a discussion and more an argument now. To answer those questions for myself, I make "boring spellswords" because I've always been interested in the fantastic, which, for me, is the generic sword and magic spells that I never got to have. Those little things that keep me interested. For you, maybe they're boring. For me, they're an incredible world that I get to explore that I never get to otherwise, aside from maybe reading about it.
THIS is why I make "boring spellsword" characters. Maybe they're boring to read, sure, but I still want to write them. I like how they play out. And, even then! EVEN THEN! It's just a neat little thing for me! In the long term, I'd prefer to focus on the story, the narrative that I've been planning for my boring spellsword Volke, my stupid Mary Sue Spellsword Ritzea! It's just what interests me, and I'm sorry for using exclamation points! I don't know how people treated you in the past about martial artists, but the few times I've seen you RP they were hilarious! Well-written! Funny! ADMITTEDLY, you had some magic here for your character that you probably forgot! But, y'know what? It was still good to read, and you're still a good roleplayer! Fuck those guys in the past who said I know I, personally, don't ridicule people for making spellswords today. I know it's a valid point, when you brought up the whole "how is everyone good at both of those, I've been doing martial arts for 11 years!" I took that into consideration! But at the same time, I'm not focusing on the whole spellswords mechanic! I'd rather look at the narrative that we're all wonderfully writing, rather than scream at people for making unbalanced characters! That means I won't yell at Roth for making a sound-based melee fighter! I'll praise him for making Aria such an interesting character! Bridging the past to who she is now, and leading to the abilities she has now! I will yell at Yggdra for making Amaterasu such a weird character that doesn't fit in, not because she's blowing up people with one spell, but because it doesn't make sense to me! What I'm saying is that no one here is making fun of anyone else's characters. If that happened in the past, we're all adults now! We can poke at people for fun, like how Kaze makes swollen tanks, or Yggdra making solely powerful characters, or Matt making a "generic hero"! But so what? Why does that have to be focused on more than the narrative we're writing? Edited by Person A, February 10, 2015, 3:15 pm.
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![]() Mover, Shaker, Brute and Breaker. Master, Tinker, Blaster and Thinker, Striker, Changer, Trump and Stranger. Worm: Power Classifications
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| Garm0099 | February 10, 2015, 3:18 pm Post #24 |
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Marksman
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These are all good points but honestly its not like anything in our rps are going to change. The reason we have magic is because it just sorta augments already present abilities for the characters. Without magic we basically get left with jabs/stabs/slashes/whatever which while personally I would be fine with (SERIOUSLY GUYS LOW FANTASY IS SO AWESOME) but I know many would find it gets dull quickly. I think the point that Onime is trying to make though is that we've sorta hit a point in our RPs where you NEED magic to keep up. Not only that but it works in the reverse too, you need martial capabilities to keep up as well. If someone has 1 thing they do very well, what do they do when someone comes along who isn't weak to that one thing? Along with that, Magic for the most part is something with very low barrier to entry meaning pretty much everyone can have it. The systems basically lend themselves to making as Onime has taken to call them, Spellswords (yes you can have different names to specialize in certain things, but he has a point, they use spells and swords basically). There is no reason for most characters why you WOULDN'T just make a character know magic and be capable of melee combat. While this isn't necessarily a bad thing, I feel like it's just sorta been causing, and sorry for bringing Magic the Gathering terms into this, a power creep. Over time our characters have been getting stronger and stronger as a result of "why not's" and "not wanting to be left behind". Or at least that's how I see it. Sadly there isn't much of a way top fix it except maybe next time we make an rp (too late for the ones we have), just sorta establish a low bar for power maybe that moves into high speed progression. That way you start with a few skills and then from there you either specialize in said skills or you round yourself out, similar to D&D. Hell at that point I wouldn't even be opposed to quadratic wizards and linear fighters being a thing. My ideas suck though because I don't GM nor do I create systems for games, my skill set just lies in interpretation of rules so ignore me xD |
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| Sin | February 10, 2015, 5:51 pm Post #25 |
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Slow and steady...
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When I made Veil of Chaos, one of the things that remained at the back of my mind was to keep a balance between melee and magic and I like to think I did it pretty well. I went with a battlefield style because one guy wielding a sword will be able to do what one mage wielding their magic can do in the same run of time. We're all adults here and I'm reasonably certain that the bulk of us understand that. I didn't feel the need to police every little thing because with the exception of only one person I can think of, we're all here to tell a story and have our characters evolve over the course of it. The statistics systems I always use aren't there to be the be-all-end-all of making decisions. They're a reference for the most part and something to help everyone see where they stand. I've always been a fan of customization and seeing my work pay off and become something that I can be proud of because I did it. Building a character in an organic matter just feels less appealing to me. But, if I make it so that people can fight and do things to level up and earn points to spread across their characters attributes and award gold and items that they can use to build their character up, then everyone will automatically have more of an attachment to the characters they're using because they've become more involved vicariously. When you really think about it, when was the last time any of us actually sat in the chatbox for hours on end talking about some aspect of an RP? The last time I recall was during Veil of the Malfested. We haven't had a heavy stat-building RP since then, most things that've popped up have been more traditional in regards to RPing. With something like this, it just sparks conversations, brainstorms and everything else because there's more to do. One person might start on about where they want to take their characters next. They might want to build up vitality so they can take more damage in a fight before retreating. Do I do it by levelling up and devoting more points into that stat? Do I learn a new ability to help in that regard? Do I look to spend more gold on items that will increase durability? Can someone else learn a skill to help me out? What combo attacks can we do? If you're heavier than I am and able to take more damage, should you lead the charge while I hang back and attack from afar? Each topic breeds a new idea and in all honesty, watching you guys go back and forth with my RP being the root of it all, it feels good. It feels like I'm watching my children grow up and that's why I do this and why I spend as much time here as I possibly can. I'm proud of my work and I'm proud of how it brings everyone together like it does and allows us to have fun. So many conversations and discussions about what's going on, what's to come and what you all can do to improve the characters you've created is just fantastic. When I designed the stats and the items and all of that stuff, it was to promote discussion and customization because those are things that I am attracted to when I'm looking for something fun to do. If I start playing a game that doesn't let me change my appearance or customize my character(s) at all, it won't keep my attention for very long. All of the games I play the most have thousands of hours in to them because I'm able to do that stuff so when I make RPs, I always try to implement as much customization as possible because, as far as I know, we all enjoy it. As for everyone just using "spellblades", that's not really true. While I'm guilty of it, that's only because that's literally the way I end up going in games that I play when given the chance. I prefer to be magically inclined characters that are in the mix and there's only so much you can do with a staff so it often gets replaced by a sword or something of the sort REALLY quickly. It all comes back to what people are comfortable with. I understand Onime's argument and it's perfectly fine for him to feel that way, but the truth is is that when I made Veil of Chaos, I made sure to keep all of the bases covered for when people made their characters. Experience WAS rewarded for supporting. Experience WAS awarded for kills. If a character isn't earning as much experience, then it's likely because that character is probably designed to be behind everyone else. Amaterasu is a perfect example of that. She's a little kid who has no place on the battlefield so it makes sense for her to be behind the others and she likely won't catch up for a while if Ygg continues to play her properly in that regard. Not every character has to be a high-level badass for everyone to have fun. Sometimes it's enjoyable to play the underdog who always gets their butt kicked. Sometimes it's fun to play the tactician who sits back and observes. Sometimes it's fun to play the hard-headed daredevil who charges in head-first without a care in the world. The characters abilities have no impact on anything at all. Everyone is playing a VERY diverse array of characters and THAT'S what matters. Many niches are filled in every regard whether abilities are taken in to account or not. Writing this has been excruciating because I can only use two fingers on my left hand. :| |
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5:53 PM Jul 10