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Message: <blockquote data-quote="vulcan_idic" data-source="post: 3972939" data-attributes="member: 19615">I would probably try to translate it as Iron Captain - interpreting the Head of Capo more in reference to the military rank (or mob rank) and it's translation rather than a literal word for word translation.  Particularly in a relation to a fighting technique speaking of an Iron Captain or Captain of Iron makes more sense to me that talking about an Iron Head unless you're saying that the person using it seems quite dense, which I doubt.  But I'm not terribly familiar with Italian or Latin so don't take my word for it.As for whether D&D should represent pseudo-medieval or asian concepts, I think it should be able to do both.  I think the only limits to "D&D Style Fantasy" should be the limits of my own imagination whatever they mey be and, thus to do so for me, and every other system user out there, be able to represent and tell, with a bit of work and creativity, nearly any fantastical concept concievable by any system user.  This neccesitates a sufficiently simple and flexible system that it allows great, nearly infinite, complexity to be arrived at from various combinations and interactions of those simple, yet flexible rules.  This seems to me the design task they have essentially set themselves whether they voice it that way or not.  And it is in my opinion a tremendous challenge, extremely difficult, but a noble one well worth attempting to achieve, and one which I hope they do succeed in.In terms of naming conventions of feats, if this bothers you past the pale, then in your campaign world...  rename it!  I made an at length paraphrase in the "Enchanters, Necromancers, and Summoners" (which I thought was clever and apt) of a particular scene, the ever famous balcony scene, of Romeo and Juliet, where Juliet makes the surprisingly wise, considering her other actions in the play, comment observing, "What's in a name?  That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."  The feat named "Lightning Panther Strike" turn you off? Call it "Quick Strike" with the same mechanics... does it work?  It will smell as sweet, or sour whatever the name, so why worry about the name, which is certainly changed easily enough.  What about the mechanical content?  Is that acceptable?Which brings me back to something closer to on-post-topic...  I don't really care where mechanics come from - anime, videogame, or swamp slime - as long as they serve the bottom-line purpose to *make the game better*.  Some have commented that too easy access to resurrection type magics cheapen death and make D&D a "cheap videogame rip off", to which my reply is - there are many kinds of videogames, both bad and good.  In my experience and opinion (YMMV - and probably does) in the final analysis whether a videogame is a good one or a bad one has less to do with flashy graphics or game mechanics or concepts as with how good of a story they tell and how well they tell it.  The flashiest graphics or best designed system cannot in the end cover a story with huge gaping plot holes or one that is poorly told while conversely a good and well told story will hold players in a game even through bad graphics and game mechanics.  Back in the days of the original nintendo the games seemed to me to have better stories, because they had to - they didn't have much graphics to fall back on; now that they have amazing photorealistic graphics and pretty pictures, I find many modern games lacking in the story area and merely trying to dazzle me with bells and whistles that, once the first rush fades, reveals a lackluster frame upon which the bells and whistles are draped.And to me this is the best lesson that videogames can teach us about our beloved tabletop RPGs - what ever system you use to play - D&D, D&D 2E, AD&D, D&D 3E, D&D 4E, GURPS, WoD, etc. - have a good story to tell and tell it well - this matters far more than the system used or what the rules of that system were inspired by.</blockquote>

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