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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jack7" data-source="post: 4693229" data-attributes="member: 54707">Forked from: <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showpost.php?postid=4690764" target="_blank"> The Great Conjunction (RPG DESIGN CONTEST) </a>I've forked this thread from the Great Conjunction.DISCLAIMER: These critiques are not intended in any way to color or influence the judging of the contest, but rather to offer constructive suggestions for future improvements of the works offered up by the contest. However if you are judging the contest in any way and feel you might be unduly influenced by what is said here then you might want to avoid this thread.I thought I might add little commentaries and criticisms from the works I've reviewed (from the <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/247021-great-conjunction-rpg-design-contest.html" target="_blank">Conjunction Contest</a>) in this thread. I'll post more comments and criticisms and suggestions as I go along. If anyone else wishes to add their criticisms and comments then this is the place to do so. Now, my power has been out for days due to a massive snowstorm, and so I've had no time or power to do much formal reviewing, but this is what strikes me thus far:Work: Deep BlackAuthor: Joshua GervaisCriticisms: A lot of typos, repeated or left out words, etc. I suggest a careful re-reading and some editing to remove these distractions from an otherwise extremely thought provoking game-work and take on magic as perceptual reality. I understand the deadline pressures with all of the works handed in, I'm just saying you and everyone else will want to tighten up your work with future revisions.Comments: I really like the idea behind this work and I like the idea of magic and other influences altering the perception of reality. This is something I am pursuing in my own work with Esoterica, such as Psychic Powers and Mental Powers, with things like Demon possession, and with Magic as regards Illusions, both arcane and staged illusion/misdirection.I don't want to go into too much detail in this thread regarding the particulars of your work but I have so far enjoyed many of your design ideas and think your overall approach (both generally and mechanically) is extremely flexible, fluid and easy to use. In addition it leaves much room for expansion as well as being intuitive and "magical" in the sense that it is almost a combined mystical/psychological approach to magic. Which I personally highly enjoyed, the way things can skip around in nature and sequence. It leaves a sensation of magic being uncontrollable to a degree, and yet useful all at once. And this is a far, far superior "Vision of Magic" than many of the highly technical/pseudo-scientific approaches I often see as regards the subject. It is refreshing and invigorating magic, not stale and predictable magic, though in some senses it is simple. It is psychological magic, in the high sense of the term, where the mind and soul tend to flow into and out of one another and one is never really sure of exactly what one is seeing or what it exactly means. (That's the way I imagine it working given the setting involved.) Your game suggests that magic has "layers of intention and meaning" and not just simple minded, parlor game "effects." That magic is intimately tied to the characters, their minds, perceptions, duties, past, future, and personal experiences. And that is the best implication of your approach to magic, that magic is both "out-there' and "in-here" all at once and is not just simply a game substitute for modern physics in another guise. Ironically enough it is a modern game setting, and yet you manage to create a magical atmosphere which is not the same old boring, technically and mathematically obsessed, mindless, fire-and-forget, billiard ball battle-magic.I also very much like the idea of the unreliable memory and of what that implies about magic. I have often thought that if magic were real then a good memory would be absolutely key to trying to keep it from altogether escaping the control of the individual attempting to use it. Twisting the memory would have an enormous impact upon twisting a power that already, by its very nature, twists reality itself. I liked your play of turning the memory into a related element of magic itself.I also wish more game designers could grasp this simple concept you articulated:A game shouldn't be limited by the rules, the rules should be constructed in such a way as to help the player exceed himself through his character.I could say some other things but I need to do a more careful re-reading now that my power is back on-line and I think this is a good enough initial critique for my part.Suggestions: Drugs. Technology. Stage Illusions. Certain types of interrogation methods. Sleep deprivation. Suggestion. Genetic manipulation or therapies. Medical procedures. Protracted exposure to the elements. Maybe even exposure to certain spectra of energy radiation, chemical substances, and pathogens. I'm saying these things because I think they could add valuable physical and psychological techniques that would enhance certain in-game situations and encounters, especially given your setting background and general game milieu.There are a lot of interesting game elements you could interject into the background of this game, and a lot of ways you could expand it and take it into some other interesting directions.Overall though I really like what you've done as an initial effort and Godspeed with the contest.I'll post critiques of other works later as I get the time to read and study them. In the meantime feel free to post your own critiques.</blockquote>

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