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  1. J

    Dragon Age

    Why? Looks elegant and straightforward from what I've seen so far (limited though that is). Cognitive load for learning it should be minimal.
  2. J

    Why was morale removed from the game?

    Not exactly. When I make an attack roll against something around my level, it is unpredictable. For some values of the dice, I hit and for some I miss. But either way that occurs, it does not break verisimilitude or make the game un-fun for others. On the other hand, when we open the door to...
  3. J

    Was AD&D1 designed for game balance?

    Different xp necessary for level advancement No idea. They're pretty strange. I always assumed the weirdness of MU table was meant to show a slow apprenticeship, followed by a faster progression as magical fluency is achieved, and then another slow patch as mastery is accrued. You can argue...
  4. J

    Dragon Age

    My understanding is that it is a completely new system, but it is intended as a starter game, so the rules should be relatively light and easy to learn.
  5. J

    Dragon Age

    Point taken. But as I understand it the version of Aurora used for Witcher wasn't tile based, allowing them to "lovingly craft" the "world." So, while the player probably interacts with the world is a similar UI, and that will definitely influence some design decisions, especially in terms of...
  6. J

    Dragon Age

    It was developed by a European company who licensed the engine, I think. That doesn't mean Bioware had to know much about the game. People who are actually in that industry, please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the transaction goes like this: Bioware: You want to pay us money to use...
  7. J

    Dragon Age

    Heh. We are on a board full of connoisseurs of fantasy settings. If we were foodies, we'd be eating obscure spices, raw molluscs, checking out the various insect dishes, etc. Once you've had the standard spread of flavors a few thousand times, you want to try the weird stuff. That's a niche...
  8. J

    Dragon Age

    Dragon Age went into development before The Witcher, as I recall. That thing baked for a LONG time. But even if it hadn't.... that doesn't mean it was ripped off from the Witcher. This happens all the time. Remember when 3 asteroid apocalypse movies came out in the same year? Now we have...
  9. J

    Real Life Stuff That's Ripe for Inspiration

    Dead civilizations rock. You can get so much out of them that strikes people as new and different because we really don't know that much about the history of our own world. Mound builders in Peru, for example. I don't remember if it was an alternate theory on these guys or if it was a...
  10. J

    Dragon Age

    Ico. You don't need to flesh out the setting to make it evocative. In fact, I would argue that most of the time, less is more. I also hear Team Ico's other games were similar, but I've not played them.
  11. J

    Dragon Age

    Not really relevant who made the video game, but I knew that, in any case. I was speaking in general terms about the setting, new ideas, etc.
  12. J

    Dragon Age

    Sure. But it's not bad because those ideas have been used before (together or otherwise). It's bad because the execution isn't on a level that allows you to ignore it. Planescape was brilliant, but it was not brilliant because it used "new" ideas like Dickensian slang or a city full of...
  13. J

    Dragon Age

    You are, of course, aware that none of those things originated where you're listing, either. Given 20 minutes of time with my bookshelf, I bet I can find a dozen or so independent urbanized elf concepts from different authors. Most of the visuals in your second section track back to any...
  14. J

    A workable fantasy economy?

    Snoweel, thanks. We've established that a less gamist economy would not add fun for you. I'm not convinced it would be more fun for me, either. You are right that it could get needlessly fiddly. But it's an interesting idea that deserved to be played with without someone crapping all over...
  15. J

    Firefly

    Well, since they can actually get a raw count of internet views (legitimate ones, anyway), that's actually the best of all. Alas, I don't usually watch anything that way but The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, so I'm still not contributing to propping up good TV when it matters. Honestly...
  16. J

    Firefly

    I think that was not a bug, but a feature. The better BSG scripts did a very good job of putting you inside the perspectives of the characters... who had every reason to be confused and conflicted. I love both shows. Alas, I was a late-comer to both. I like TV shows, but I hate Television...
  17. J

    Firefly

    I think we watched different BSGs. Mine had very flappable leaders, a muddy chain of command, people running from the bad guys most of the time, and the only surviving military were explicitly the misfits who spent most of the time bickering and infighting against the most downbeat situations...
  18. J

    [Draconomicon 2] Dragons worshipping gods?

    Thank you. Sometimes the random things that pop into my head are inexplicably interesting. It's a nice change of pace when it happens.
  19. J

    Looking for tips on roleplaying a low charisma

    This is the problem with the mental stats.... I always thought of Jayne as low wisdom, not low charisma. :)
  20. J

    [Draconomicon 2] Dragons worshipping gods?

    That's more or less what I way saying (perhaps badly, what with the digression about behavior of gods and dragons). You can re-fluff however you want, but the fluff as written feels inconsistent on this point. In a lot of ways, the dragons are more present and deserving of out-and-out worship...
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