PlaneShift
Gameplay => General Discussion => Topic started by: Garile on February 23, 2008, 10:24:43 pm
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I have been thinking about magic. It seems to be all around us in Yliakum and almmost every character has atleast some basic ranks in magic making it very comon.
However in Rp it's used rather differently by a lot of people. A lot of that has to do that we aren't really sure what limits there are to magic and how exactly it works, but also influences from outside.
Now the main questions I have been asking to roleplay magic as correctly as possible in my eyes are
1. What are the limits of magic. What powers magic and what can magic do with what amount of power. One answer I found here in descriptions seems to be that the energy itself comes from our body itself. So this would mean if our body is in bad shape and so it's energy drained and disrupted we wouldn't be able to do magic even if our mind is still focussed. On the other hand it seems things like the crystal can be used as power for spells aswell reading the "creation" story. A question ofcourse would be if mortals would be able to find and/or use such suplements of power.
2. how would magic be used in everyday life if it's comon. If everyone is a magicuser to some extant wouldn't that mean magic would be used for simple things aswell? wuldn't that mean that magic is used to help you do your job better and gain an edge on you competeters by giving that swords that extra sharp edge or extra hard metal composition? Or even just to make your food taste a little better? Wouldn't it be used to make your life easier with things like washing clothes and such chores?
Just think of how civilization right now uses technology and is it really farfetched to think that if everyone can use some magic that we wouldn't have shady Merlin like people but move more towards experts who use their magic to make a living by providing a service others need or that makes other peoples life easier?
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For your first question, I've always based magic-wielding off of the will, because that's what makes sense. The stats that magic are based off of don't all seem to really work... Charisma? That's just strange. It's an interesting question though. I'd be glad to see it answered by Xillix.
To answer your second question, I could be wrong, but I don't think that magic is supposed to be quite so common as it is at the moment.
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Personally I'm not a big fan of magic on PS. Part of the reason is that it's one of the things that is very heavily based on grinding ... another part is the lack of limitations when it does get used in roleplays.
If I use magic in roleplays I make a point of only using spells that are actually in-game. Sure I'll write it out all fancy and things with nicer special effects in my wording than the mechanics often show. The spell itself and the effect it has will be taken from an actual spell. I find that the best way to things reasonable. Magic is a subject that has a big impact on the imagination of people. It's a concept in fantasy that is often shown as an extremely versatile source of power. Obviously it's also a very easy way to make a powerful character. Just give them some unique magic ability and we're off.
I'm not critising everyone who does this, it can be done and it is done well by some people ... just not my cup of tea.
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hmm yes that was what I was thinking aswell. That magic perhaps isn't supposed to be as freely as it seems to be right now. Knowing the basics how magic works and moreover what would be comon and what should be impossible. definately improves roelplaying I think.
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Charisma? That's just strange.
i actually think Charisma is a great stat for doing dark magic. The devil itself is supposed to be tempting and I see things like that as important in dark magic. And the Crystal way is the exact opposite. Quite logical for me, that it also uses charisma. It is also quite important that you can't use Charisma (or INT or WIL) in adjacent or friendly ways.
Short: I really like that thinking about the magic.
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I agree with Zan to the extent that I think most people don't use magic well. However, I've always ignored in-game mechanics for magic, at least in PS, and I don't think anyone can accuse me of trying to make an all-powerful character just so I can run around and be a godmodder.
It's not practical to use the in-game mechanics to base your magic RP off of, though. The mechanics for magic right now suck. There are hardly any spells. Much like a thief has to ignore the fact that he can't actually mug, pickpocket, or accost anyone, nor can he climb walls to get away, dive through windows, stab someone in the back someone with his dagger, or slink around in the shadows, so a wizard has to ignore the fact that magic is pathetically weak with in-game mechanics, and there are too few spells.
If it's announced that magic is supposed to be weak within PS, then I would understand, but that has never particularly been my impression.
I do agree with Zan, though, in his complaints that "it's one of the things that is very heavily based on grinding ... another part is the lack of limitations when it does get used in roleplays."
It annoys the crap out of me to see some of the RPs that have been going around for the last while in which everyone and their brother seems to be possessed of surprising. unnatural, and nigh undefeatable magic power. They claim that they're not invincible, but they force other people to create characters just as powerful to defeat their own, and set a bad trend.
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Phinehas, the mechanics for just about everything suck right now. :P
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I think the magic system in PlaneShift and the way it handles attirbutes, like charisma, is pretty good. It's think it's true however that the process of translating the concept to game mechanics has gone somewhat wrong. The cost of magic training and what you gain by it in means of different spells and spell power has been severely lacking.
The number of spells has majorly increased recently, so that is improving, but the cost/power ratio is way off compared to swords/axe/dagger. It would also be nice if there are more non combat-related spells.
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Charisma + magic = NO!
I have always said that. Charisma is a personality trait, like Humor. You don't see Humor being used in casting spells. Charisma is the ability to gather people to you. Can it affect the outcome of a magic spell? Maybe. Consistantly? No.
Pretty people are more charismatic than ugly people of the same personality. Does beauty now play a role in magic as well? Will a model be able to out magic a quasimoto because he is better looking, and therefore has more charisma?
Charisma has nothing to do with the casting of magic. It is simply how others perceive you. A man alone in the woods has Zero charisma. Charisma only works with other people around. What could it work for, or aid with? Charming spells (mind control)? Maybe. Who are you going to charm? Other players? No. NPCs? Doubtful. Creatures? That is a joke. Creatures do not perceive charisma in people, so it would be useless.
Maybe courage spells. Make your group feel good about themselves so they can fight better. Happy time. I can just hear the battle cries now. "Need CG buff now!"
Dark Way spells. Oh really. You are going to use dark magic on people and things, yet stay highly charismatic to others? Maybe to dark characters. But then your spells would have little effect on good guys who do not see you as charismatic. That brings me to my next point.
Let's take a look at the ridiculousness of charisma itself. Charisma is NOT a constant. It is how others see you. You may have high charisma with one person, yet the guy next to him will think you are a complete fool. Yet the charisma stat treats them both the same when it comes to spells. That is godmoding MY character into say I see you as a charismatic person.
Ya, sure, level your character's charisma all the way up. Anyone who can actually roleplay a character with maxxed charisma is a god in my book. How exactly do you 'train' it anyways? Spend some money and have people like you more? Is that really going to make your spells work better? Think of the person you can't stand the most in the game, then remember this.
Any idiot can max charisma in the game, and use that to affect your character.
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@ UTM: I cannot agree with your evaluation of charisma. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charisma) It need not be a positive effect as people are just as apt or even more likely to stare at a horrible train wreck as a beautiful panorama. Charisma is the ability to capture another's attention and hold it. It does not need to be pretty. Have you never met someone who let their looks open all the doors for them but just doesn't seem to be there when you try to talk to them? Rasputin wasn't pretty nor was Jim Jones, Charlie Manson, Mick Jagger, Rodney Dangerfield, Steven Tyler, and a host of others that became notable (or notorious) personages.
Of course, you complain about training charisma and ignore everything else. Perhaps you would prefer that the stats worked more like D&D where they only get altered by aging and magic. It is a design choice to have stats training and the way it works is not great but I would make it so that there was a lower range for the stats and training was a lot more difficult. It is also a design choice for there to be stat modifiers to skills. Given that there are three physical stats to modify the physical skills, the three meta-physical stats balance the system. It does not really matter what they are called or how they are described it is their game function that is important. If you do not like them you are free to completely ignore the game mechanics and define you character on any terms you can get people to accept. Nobody can see what your stats are.
You have this big bugaboo about charisma I have heard over and over again. It is true that you have previously suggested alternate ways to work it but IIRC they called for removing the meta stats completely and putting nothing in their place or just changing the names/descriptions.
The game mechanics are for interacting with the game -- you are responsible for what happens when interacting with the players.
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Look at how many definitions of "charismatic" actually include magical or religious references. Charisma is more than just looking good or getting laughs. These stats were important in table-top RPG, and have been developed and argued in many different ways. Even if you come up with an alternate system of stats, they will mimic the D&D system. And if D&D rules did apply as was mentioned, it would be near-impossible to increase stats at all -- and there were good reasons for this.
http://www.google.com/search?q=define%3Acharismatic&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
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Charisma is not how people perceive you, UtM. Charisma is how you make other people perceive you. It's a power of influence on the minds of others. When someone looks at you and talks to you, their perception of you is created by, amongst others, your charisma.
This dictionary entry might be interesting to you:
Main Entry:
cha·ris·ma
Function:
noun
Etymology:
Greek, favor, gift, from charizesthai to favor, from charis grace; akin to Greek chairein to rejoice — more at yearn
1 : a personal magic of leadership arousing special popular loyalty or enthusiasm for a public figure (as a political leader)
2 : a special magnetic charm or appeal <the charisma of a popular actor>
Is it a coincidence that a dictionary happens to describe charisma as "magnetic" or "magic"?
No.
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I don't care what it is defined as. What it really is is what matters. Charisma is not magic. It is not spirital. It is a collection of personality traits that -as I said in my very first statement- Charisma is the ability to gather people to you. It is not in any way a single aspect of your personality.
And NO, it is not how you make people perceive you. It is the combination of two or more persons' personalities interacting with each other. Like puzzle pieces, some personalities with fit together great, and one person will say they find the other very charismatic. Others will not fit together well at all, and one person will not even want to be around the other. You can NOT quantify this variable unless you put in both sides of the equation! Two very charismatic people are not going to find each other as charismatic as others who are the 'lowly masses'. Someone who can't stand another person is not going to find them as charismatic as other, and may find them to be a complete baboon. Stupid people may find a person very charismatic, while intelligent people will not.
George Bush.
Do I understand your point of view? Yes. But I find it flat and unenlightened. I mentioned the positive side of charisma in my examples because that is what people are most familiar with. I guaranty I understand both sides of charisma far better than both of you, given your arguments. Do not assume to try to give me definitions. I stand by what I said, that good looking people will almost always be seen as more charismatic than those that do not look as good, given the same personality. Even that rule can be broken.
Thom, your own definitions carry the demise of your argument. Both hold the word 'popular'. Look up the definition for that.
And I will also stand by with everything I have said about players and mental stats. No one should ever be able to have stats beyond their ability to roleplay. No one here has the ability to play a character with 'max' charisma. Saying this stat is not to be used in RP is ludicrous. That is creating two systems and worlds in the game.
Eventually, I will see charisma removed as a static stat, or I will quit.
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To me charisma has an impact on if I will still consider one pretty after I had known that one better. That way one may be ugly to me on first sight, but by high charisma gain a pleasant appearance sooner. Physical beauty (if its more than symmetrie) wont be the solid base that defines one's charisma.
It may use as a parenting attribute if magics were like fun fair's tricks: To be able to fake supernatural facts successfully by blinding people with your way to act and im-/express. But since magic in PS is based on real energy, charisma doesnt make much sense to me (same as linking wikipedia-source-info =P).
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Personally I don't like intelligence any more than charisma. Both are character traits. Just like a player with little charisma can't play a very charismatic character .. a player with a limited intelligence can't play a very intelligent character. So in my eyes neither of them work well as stats. I say replace them both with a stat called 'magic'. That stat can then represent the skill a character has in casting spells in general. It works for all magic ways and increases mana as well as spell range, damage or duration.
It would be possible to replace the physical portion of the charisma attribute with some untrainable stat to represent someone's beauty .. but I really don't see the point of something like that. Use your descriptions to project your character's appearance and let others decide the attraction of it. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder after all.
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Exactly.
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I do not agree with your arguments, although I recognize parts of it such as the fact that training charisma is a little bit awkward. I especially dislike you calling my arguments flat and unenlightened.
However, I know you've set your mind and I'm not going to sway you.
So that's that.
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It's a bit arrogant to assume you know how magic works. For all we know the trait that affects Dark Way the most could be height, or likability. Perhaps your power to use the Dark Way depends on how others perceive you.
I do somewhat agree with removing Cha, Int and Will but, mainly because people will never roleplay those stats (if you roll a low int person you probably won't roleplay an idiot ;) ). But, it's magic, what do we know?
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I'd have to say I'd agree with Waylander in the fact that we don't really know how magic is supposed to work (at least some of us I guess.). However when it comes to the fact of Charisma and Intellegence I'd have to agree with UTM. I see where the arguments are coming from (especially prolix's) but the fact is the need for charisma to be applied is more for a table top rp than for ps.
In table top rps each person is more so assigned a role. You don't get to choose or level your stats, you just get them. If your the evil mastermind you could be super smart yet physically weak. If your the hero you could be physically charasmatic but a dumb brute. If you the dansel in distress you could be mentally charismatic and physically but no have no way to protect yourself. In ps thats not the case. Sure strength, weapon skill, and magic skill are things you should be able to train. However your charisma and intellegence should fit the roll you are trying to play and no one is telling you that role.
In other words, from what we do know about magic right now, who says I couldn't be both mentally and physically uncharismatic and yet a master of the dark way? It's silly to think that how attractive I am to people (regardless of whether its physical or personality wise) should effect my magic. Of course, in ps up could be down and I could be completely wrong. However does this mean I should be able to level my charisma or intellegence? Sure, I say its possible to gradually get smarter by learning/reading but firstly many people rp what they want regardless of the level and secondly I think I should choose how I should rp my character. If I'm a complete idiot irl and I get a high level intellegence character how good do you think my rp will be? It will suck. Same works with charisma regardless of the definition. If I have no charisma irl yet I get a super high charisma character how will anyone rp with me? If I try to base my character on my stats but really have no idea how to rp it than no.
Things like strength and endurance are different. I don't need to be strong irl to rp strength. However I think I might want to be charismatic or at least know how someone with high charisma would act to rp it because from the sounds of it everyone disagreeing would rather rp by straight stats, something that may just lead to a lot of bad rp.
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I would step in and have my say but I am curious how the rest of you feel.
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I am curious here, just how big a tree can you uproot with your 200 strength using only your hands? How many boulders can you stand having piled on you with your 200 endurance? How many arrows can you dodge with your 200 agility? Who is to determine the appropriateness of how you role play these numbers, they are just as meaningless as the metaphysical stats as far as I am concerned. Why is it a lemur can even be 1/2 as strong as a kran? Is a kran with a 200 strength stronger than a lemur with the same strength? Surely his larger frame and silicon based physique would allow him greater feats unless maybe lemurs are made from nanotubes...
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I'm with Zan, UtM, and Duraza. Also, I think that only intelligent people should allowed to play wizard's. That way we can be elitist like we should be, and keep all the lesser scum out of something they don't really know anything about. :D
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There isn't really much more to say to this. The simple fact that people will ignore their mental characteristics when it comes down to roleplay (I'm guilty of this but only because it's impossible to level Nurahk to level 3000 int/cha ;) ) makes me believe that they should be removed, changed.
Magic, at least from how I see it, would be restricted not necessarily to those who are intelligent (though that would be a limit) but, to those who can get the glyphs... Merchants and Rich people, perhaps adventurers. The stereotypical old, grey beard would have a hard time.
I stick with my previous comment though, unless you can point me at a doc that states how magic works (which wouldn't surprise me), there's no reason why charisma shouldn't determine Dark Way aptitude. The question is whether or not Charisma should really be a stat at this point.
Prolix: A Kran with 200 strength is as strong as a Lemur with 200 strength due to game mechanics. In the future I imagine Kran will have a high strength limit.
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I really do not think anyone can play anything they are not.
Certainly someone who is clumsy will always be bumping into walls and getting stuck in the geometry despite maxed out agility just because they cannot steer their character properly so agility has to go. Someone with low endurance may not be able to handle all the steering or could develop carpal tunnel syndrome or all the poor role play so endurance has to go. Someone with too much strength will surely break their keyboard too often and rather be out pumping iron than to bother with this silly game so strength has to go. I really doubt there is anyone playing the game who has maxed out their personal capacities so that eliminates all stats that can be maxed. So what is left? Remove all the stats and skills. Now since we are talking about realistic play most of the races have to go because they are not realistic -- no cat people here on earth nor rock people or demon or flying reptilians.
You are playing a fantasy game so if you cannot suspend your disbelief long enough to accept the game mechanics then why are you still here? Really the character stats are not all that original but they are not all that bad either. Perhaps you would prefer to replace them with these two: physical aptitude and magical aptitude. You have strange ideas I do not want to subscribe to your newsletter. :-[
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Prolix, then tell me .. what effect does intelligence and charisma have on the game aside from casting spells?
Other stats serve several purposes, right now those two can be replaced by a single magical aptitude stat .. as you called it. Intelligence doesn't let your character complete quests more easily and charisma doesn't make you more beautiful. Players do all the things those stats should be doing and I don't see that changing much.
Besides your endurance example is rather poor, anything after that just made me chuckle. :P Exaggerating things into the extreme isn't usually a good way to win a discussion if you ask me.
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Just because a stat is not used currently in the game programming does not mean that it is useless. Or had nobody noticed this is a beta of a game?
Game mechanics are required. Not having them produces a grey area where the only recourse for players is either referring to a GM to resolve disputes, or somehow working it out on their own. You may be able to remove certain numbers or stats from the players interface, but they cannot be removed from the game. These stats and numbers will never be "original" because the use for them is the same, no matter what kind of RPG it is.
The constant references to table top D&D are still valid because TSR worked out these systems long ago based upon logical problem solving within a game environment, using elements and ideas that are naturally common to all games that came after. So did quite a few others, including Steve Jackson's GURP series. There are just so many different ways you can refer to character stats, but the need of them in a game is the same as any other game of this type.
This is because these games are not unique; you can change skins, wording, themes, music, but the mathematical relationships between the components of data and the problems that arise from creating a system are going to mirror every game produced back to the beige Blackmoor D&D editions of long, long ago.
The only difference between PS implementation and older D&D is that in a proper table top campaign the GM would enforce the players playing their characters as they were rolled. Under no circumstance would players be allowed to enforce their own arbitrary rules of RP, progression or conduct on the game environment. D&D was a true RPG because you had no choice, at least if you had a good GM, you had to roleplay the character.
What a GM did and the in game actions of the GM had to have consistency with the ruleset otherwise the players would call you on it. There was plenty of leeway for interpreting the rules, but arguments were resolved quickly. In PS the arguments go on and on, cycling over the same ground every year. All these strange ideas for "new" things to somehow get past game mechanics are useless and this is not going to change. He who does not learn from the past repeats it anyway.
Strict enforcement of adherence to game mechanics is frowned upon by some elitists because it would negate the ability to have one set of rules for the elite, and another set of rules for the other players. This is what we essentially have now, and is proved in the fact that RPs degenerate into arguments most of the time. I say the same law should apply equally to all characters, whether they like like it or not. Having a strict system of game mechanics that applies to all characters is highly important, removing stats would just be going backwards. Flame on, but thanks for reading.
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Well said Eldoth!
Zan, at the moment intelligence and charisma have at least one other affect and they are required at a certain level to equip some magical swords. Perhaps that is not sufficiently different from magic, though. I do imagine that they will be used for some crafts. It may be harder to decide which skills charisma will apply to but it will likely be significant in musical skills at the very least.
Hiding the character stats seems like a very good idea. Also if you are going to do that you could also hide any advances in those stats so that people will only know if they can learn/use something is if they can find someone to train them or they can equip it. The reason someone cannot equip/learn something should also be hidden although I think you should be able to equip just about anything. If you do not meet the stat requirements you just cannot get any benefit from it. Similarly with training, a trainer might well accept your money despite the fact that he judges you unable to learn.
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Characters with high charisma might be able to charm NPCs. Soon.
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Thanks, Thom! Very interesting. Sounds like charisma won't be removed any time soon. Have fun in Runescape, UtM!
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Characters with high charisma might be able to charm NPCs. Soon.
That's awesome. I want to make out with Jolik... even if he has no lower jaw. But still! ;D
I think charisma is a good attribute to magic. It's the skill of persuasion, which takes a smart, tactical person. That ties in with intelligence. Makes sense to me.
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Strict enforcement of adherence to game mechanics is frowned upon by some elitists because it would negate the ability to have one set of rules for the elite, and another set of rules for the other players. This is what we essentially have now, and is proved in the fact that RPs degenerate into arguments most of the time. I say the same law should apply equally to all characters, whether they like like it or not. Having a strict system of game mechanics that applies to all characters is highly important, removing stats would just be going backwards. Flame on, but thanks for reading.
Strict enforcement of the game mechanics is frowned upon because the game mechanics are extremely limiting and incomplete. And having an elitist attitude towards elitists doesn't make you better than them. :P
As for the future uses for intelligence and charisma stats, if the Devs have enough plans and uses for them then obviously they won't be disappearing .. however I still stand by my point that they are rather confusing since a lot it is in the hands of the player, not the mechanics.
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As for the future uses for intelligence and charisma stats, if the Devs have enough plans and uses for them then obviously they won't be disappearing .. however I still stand by my point that they are rather confusing since a lot it is in the hands of the player, not the mechanics.
I'd still be agreeing with Zan. No one ever said that the creators of the game made them for no reason. Obviously they have plans to use them. I just feel it silly. Should I be able to charm an NPC because I have high charisma or because I use my rp skills and select words that are charming? Really to me the obvious choice is the second. Game mechanics are good but relying on them to heavily pushes the game to a hack and slash leveling game more so than a Role Playing game. Last I checked ps is supposed to be a Role Playing game. Why do you think table top rp games exist in the first place? To focus more on true rp than leveling to be able to say my character can do more things than yours.
Now maybe I'm wrong and there really is some great system in place. However all I can see right now is two characters going up the an NPC, one with high charisma one with low. They ask the same question but because the guy with high charisma spent his time leveling he gets a better answer. Is that rp? No. What is rp? When two people, regardless of levels, interact with the NPC. I know that actually expanding an NPC's ability to speak is very difficult (as I've heard so many times) but leveling seems like the easy PL way out that other crappy games take and I don't want ps to be one of them :)
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Actually, no it does not have to push it to a hack and slash. This is old thinking. What we need are commands that enhance RP.
Let us say that Duraza attempts to hypnotize a character. This process must be fair. The only fair way to do it is by rolling against stats. This is simplistic on purpose, it could be a very complex system of rules. But as an example...
So, both characters roll against their charisma. If they both make the roll, then stalemate for one round and both players lose some "energy". If Duraza makes his roll and the other character does not, then the other character is hypnotized. If the other player makes his roll, and Duraza does not, then the character laughs and walks away.
When people always bring up "powerleveler", "hack n' slash" and a bunch of other useless terms, we fall back into old patterns of thinking. Just because basic game mechanics have been done and redone a thousand times, does not mean that there is nothing to invent. We need NEW game mechanics in PS. I humbly suggest that we put our energy towards identifying new systems of game mechanics that enhance RP, rather than spending our time worrying old bones that the dog buried years ago.
I rather like how Duraza mentioned "using words that are charming", it is possible that certain phrases or words could enhance these sorts of commands. These things, such as rules and commands that allow rolling against stats and other values, would not be hard to implement even at this time. Parsing a particular type of style from dialect and form would have to be later, but I could see that working as well. Much in the same way that you have to say specific things to NPCs to complete quests. How about spells where you must speak the verbal component of the spells?
While I understand Duraza's point about the guy with high charisma getting the answers because he leveled, I cannot resolve it. Should everyone just get the answers because they are there? What system of judging progression and experience should be in place? Are you saying that we should not judge it at all, so people just get to be whatever just because? That rather goes against the paradigm of the quest system that is already in place. I do sometimes think that a lot of people are going to be disappointed by this game when the game mechanics are more developed.
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eldoth, I happen to write for PlaneShift Settings. I was not talking about playing the game. As a member of the team, I am in a position to influence things (and have to a large degree) for the betterment of the game. The loss of my writing would be a far larger loss than ditching the silly CHA stat.
Waylander, who knows, I may end up writing exactly how magic works.
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Heh eldoth I read your post and it makes me feel like I'm an old player :P Yeah I do follow think in some of the ways of older players I know/knew but thats not always a bad thing. Sometimes the "traditional" way of doing things is the best way. Like when you have a grandpa who has to have something this way and no other way. Because really he knows its the best way to do things.
I totally understand what your saying but I'm sticking by my point. What is the use of a mechanic when rp easily can replace it? Game mechanics should be there to enchance rp, as you said, not replace it. That whole thing with rolling charisma is uneeded in my opinion, an unnecessary step. Game mechanics should focus on all that which players can not do on their own.
To explain why I think that this mechanic is simply limiting rp I'll take your example. What will happen when people find out that they can be hypnotized by Duraza? Why they will all max their charisma. This way Duraza really has no edge to them despite the unrealistiness of the city suddenly becoming Duraza proof. The only people Duraza still has a greater edge on is new players and the rpers that really don't care for the mechanic anyways because they think its silly. Its like a while back when I first started playing. What was the first thing anyone told me to do? Go to leverus, do his quests and get an energy glyph. Why? Because then you can heal yourself in battle. So what will be first now? Go max charisma. That way Duraza doesn't have as good a chance at hypnotizing you.
Regardless of how much you may want to disagree its how people think :P What do people say ingame now to a newbie? Sell the air glyph, buy armor/weapons, and go to the sewers to fight. How do they know they have the air glyph? Because it's suddenly "common sense" to pick the air glyph because every newbie knows its the best way to get on the road quicker to leveling up. Does anyone say, want to go to the tavern for a drink? Only the "leet rpers" would say that, people who don't like using the game mechanics as much. To everyone else its common sense the first thing someone new to the city wants to to is fight rats in a dirty sewer.
Noticed I'm going off topic a lot so to wrap it up I think stats like Charisma aren't needed. Adding this whole "roll" thing only shifts away from rp. You don't see it because you've been here a while and know what its for. A newbie will just consider the fact that there is a roll and maxing charisma gives them better odds. No rp skill needed, just hack and slash.
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When things like charisma, intelligence and so on don't base on stats and rather base on the ability of the player to talk and what he knows, then there is not much of a reason to actually play a RPG. If you want a world where what and how you says things has a huge impact on others reactions: there is one: right outside of that small 17 or 19 inch frame. Yes, you can implement a very intelligent AI to be able to react in a very interesting way on your charming words, but that would be more of the side of a virtual reality and less of RP.
If you just don't like the area where you life and the weakness of your body (stereotyped and exaggerated) than you want a virtual reality to dive in.
If you want to be somebody different then you want to roleplay. For that you need a system that makes it possible to be somebody different in that system. A big part of the system are the stats, which stand for your character (which is not yourself anymore) and the system interacts with the stats and not your ability to charm people with weird talking. That IS part of the role.
Yes, especially MMORPGs are also virtual realities for many people, but for me the question is:
Will PS be more of a RPG (with stats like charisma and intelligence) or a virtual reality (with an enourmous AI and a cyber suit to interact with the game, a holo deck :-P )
The About section on planeshift.it says:
PlaneShift is a Role Playing Game immersed into a 3D virtual fantasy world which is FULLY FREE to play.
Which wouldn't be against a virtual reality point, but in my opinion: you can't excell in both at the same time. It is either not realistic enough or not RP-like enough. You just can't be yourself (in another world) AND play a different role at the same time.
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I have to take issue with the concept of charming words. If that were to be implemented what you would have is endless guilds with their lists of these charming words and newbies would be making Amidson dance the Virginia Reel just for laughs. How would that improve things? At least having stat restrictions delays the inevitable. You could perhaps have a combination of the two but about the only thing that would do is force those who choose not to join a guild to discover the secrets the hard way. They may prefer that, of course.
By the way where is the role play skill involved in talking to npcs anyway? Unless you are ready to wait however many years it will take to develop their ai that should not be much of a consideration. I suspect they will always be extremely limited in the range of responses compared to other players so perhaps you are expecting too much from the game. The npcs are there to expose the settings and to allow you to advance your character. I do not see how you can expect more. Enlighten me. Would it make you feel better if you eventually discovered in context that everything in the game except the other people connected to the server were programmed illusions? It might help you cope if you assume that is true.
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Fact1: Not a single player in Planeshift has the ability to believably roleplay a max CHA character.
Fact2: Anybody has the ability to roleplay a 300 STR character.
Fact3: Not a single player has the ability to roleplay a max INT character.
Fact4: Anybody has the ability to level up to and play a magic casting/master swordsman character.
Fact5: Strength can not be bypassed. You can not lift more that your STR says you can. Same goes with END and AGIL.
Fact6: INT and CHA can be bypassed, and are ignored by not only players, but game features themselves, such as quests.
Fact7: Your character's CHA and INT do NOT exceed your own when playing with other people.
Fact8: Any idiot/moron can max all skills and abilities ingame.
Question: How are you going to react to that idiot/moron with max INT and CHA? See facts 1, 3, and 7.
Let me make this perfectly clear. That person who could not roleplay to save his/her life is well within rights to say both that they are smarter than you, AND that you are compelled to listen to what they have to say, and even to feel compelled to do what they ask. You would be the bad roleplayer for not going along with it.
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It would be just as easy to say not a single player has the ability to believably role play a race other than human as there are no other kind of people on Earth therefor everyone must be human. There is not a single player that has the ability to believably role play a magic user as the magic in the game has no real life correspondent and so cannot be believed therefor magic must be removed from the game.
If your character is dumb as a post and equally charismatic because you never bothered to level anything you can always say "you seem to be a nice fellow but I do not understand a word you are saying therefor I am going back to chewing on my bunions."
If you are going to get all wrung out over believability how can you ever be satisfied in a fantasy setting? It is by nature fantastic and unbelievable.
Besides all that you are trying to make an out of character game mechanic an in character consideration. Your character has no idea if his intelligence is 20, 200 or eleventy million.
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It would be just as easy if you knew nothing about the skills it takes as a writer to create believable worlds. I assume you know nothing of writing in this case if you use that argument. By believable, I mean convincingly. Yes, someone can play an elf or a dwarf convincingly to the point where you can imagine they could be real, even though you know they are not.
There is even a term for it. 'Suspension of disbelief'. Look it up and learn something. It is a psychological trait of humans. One I understand very well, and apparently you do not at all.
I also see you did not answer the question. Maybe instead of getting hung up on one word, you should have thought a tiny bit about the rest of the text.
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Prolix - you need better examples, comrade.
- Aside from the fact that all current in-game races are humanoid, and have relatively superficial biological/psychological differences (ie - there isn't anything I could call truly alien), there are certainly people creative enough and capable enough to RP outside 'the box,' from a perspective the average homosapien couldn't quite grasp. Or to put it another way, just because you're human doesn't necessarily make you human.
- What is 'believable' exactly? Literally, capable of being believed. As long as your actions seem plausible and within the rules (as defined by Settings and/or whatever the roleplayers involved agree upon), anyone can 'believably' play a magic user, or any other character.
- In short, saying something doesn't have a real-world parallel doesn't mean it's invalid, it just means a higher degree of creative thinking is required in order to make it viable.
Having said that, from everything I've seen of Planeshift the goal is not to have a fantastic and unbelievable setting, but rather a separate unique worldspace that, despite playing by different rules, does have its own rules to play by.
With regard toward the original questions, regarding the prevalence and usefulness of magic, Yliakum is apparently flooded with it. The Azure sun is constantly outputting a considerable amount of energy, both physical and magical in nature, so I see no reason not to consider 'magic' the equivalent of electricity... an omnipresent element of life, but only rare individuals (see Nikolai Tesla) know its deepest secrets and how to really get the most out of the stuff.
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I just sit here and shudder at the thought of someone coming up to me and saying, "You have to like me because I maxed my CHA!"
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This is a good discussion. The example using charisma was a bit simplistic, in a real table top game the characters would never have maxed charisma and the outcome of such a situation would include more data in the calculation.
The reason that I appear to support the game mechanics argument is simply because it gives a way to make the basic system fair to all players. The current RPs in the system are decided on a subjective basis.
Of course, that statement pre-supposes that one considers the progress of the character itself, as enforced by mechanics, fair.
While the NPC server continues to allow low level characters to kill high-level monsters, then that can never be fair. The ease of training stats is directly related to this, and also the trainers should be much harder to access.
I completely agree with Duraza regarding that the character would go an max their charisma. This is the problem, one should not be able to max any stat until a significant amount of time has been spent playing the game.
I also don't think you should be able to max anything around Hydlaa. The trainers that finally max a stat should be on the 8th level or something. It is far too easy now, I totally agree with that.
But how can we have a framework that is fair to all players? There needs to be some way to enforce a system of progression that does not rely on subjective judgements and everybody flighting their own rules of conduct.
As I understand it, settings department is not going to be making decisions concerning game mechanics. What do Talad or Venge say about this? Are they going to remove stats completely, just from the player interface, or not at all?
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This is a good discussion. The example using charisma was a bit simplistic, in a real table top game the characters would never have maxed charisma and the outcome of such a situation would include more data in the calculation.
Are you suggesting that the AD&D Paladin is an unplayable character? One of its basic requirements was a maximum humanly possible charisma of 18. And yet I have seen hundreds of them over the years, at the table or in any one of the computer games put out using the system.
Prolix - you need better examples, comrade.
- Aside from the fact that all current in-game races are humanoid, and have relatively superficial biological/psychological differences (ie - there isn't anything I could call truly alien), there are certainly people creative enough and capable enough to RP outside 'the box,' from a perspective the average homosapien couldn't quite grasp. Or to put it another way, just because you're human doesn't necessarily make you human.
- What is 'believable' exactly? Literally, capable of being believed. As long as your actions seem plausible and within the rules (as defined by Settings and/or whatever the roleplayers involved agree upon), anyone can 'believably' play a magic user, or any other character.
- In short, saying something doesn't have a real-world parallel doesn't mean it's invalid, it just means a higher degree of creative thinking is required in order to make it viable.
No I do not think so. Tell me why so many people play enkidukai like rather large cats when they specifically are unrelated to cats? Sure they appear to have a feline appearance but they did not evolve from cats, there are no cats in the game and by rights should not be played as a cat. Do I have to go looking for wherever it was that it was written that they are not cats? Next time I see hear enkidukai purr I am going to have a hairball.
Another thing how is it possible that two dissimilar races can breed and produce a pure-bred one or the other? Everything I have experienced tells me that only very similar genuses can be mixed and the result will have traits drawn from both parents and more than likely will be sterile.
I really think the next time I see Phinehas in the game, with whatever character I happen to be playing, I will challenge him to incinerate me. "Prove that you are all that, geezer! ... What? I'm still standing? ... Charlatan!"
You see, when the basis of the game depends upon the suspension of disbelief you have to swallow it whole and not pick and choose which bits you find tasty. Some bits may be harder to get down but it is all part and parcel of the whole.
Anyone saying "You have to like me because I maxed my CHA!" is not role playing and can be ignored, if they say it in an OOC manner (/tell) you can make up some kind of back story as to why your character does not like him. A charismatic person attracts those people who think he has something to offer them that they want. They play on your personality flaws and if they hit the wrong buttons then they fall flat. Your mistake is to assume that anyone with a max charisma is infallibly attractive which is not humanly possible. It would take god-like levels to compel you to do what you clearly do not want to do. At the best the response to the person saying you have to like me is to say to yourself "is there anything about this character that I can latch onto, however small, to enable me to go along with him." If the answer is no then you may remain unaffected or more likely have have a powerful adverse reaction. If the answer is yes then the result would be to go along with him until the negatives overwhelm the one magnified positive. You may wind up saying to yourself 'what was I thinking', a neutral residual or you may end up hating them.
Another thing is that if all the people you start encountering have maxed charisma then the effect will be significantly reduced as no one or other will stand out.
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In other words, if the player does not have the skills to roleplay their high charisma stat, you will find a way to ignore it, and only a person with true player charisma will be taken heed of by you, even if they have low charisma stat ingame.
Thank you for proving my point.
Paladins in MMOs? Sure, you can call something a Paladin in an MMO, but once again there is a complete separation between how players will react to the so called charisma stat, and how the game reacts to it. Only a closely monitored game such as PnP can have true paladins, as the GM can force the issue with other players.
A gold-painted brick is still a brick. This is going nowhere. There are obviously two camps here. One that wants game mechanics to apply eqaully to both player and system interactions, and one that thinks it is OK to have two separate levels of interactions.
Finally, there is such a thing as breaking suspension of disbelief. This happens when it no longer enjoyable to gloss over the things that are not convincing.
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In other words, if the player does not have the skills to roleplay their high charisma stat, you will find a way to ignore it, and only a person with true player charisma will be taken heed of by you, even if they have low charisma stat ingame.
Thank you for proving my point.
No you misunderstand me. I am saying that Charisma is not a magic bullet. I am also saying it is a two edged sword that can cut either way. If someone who has a maximized charisma tells you to kill your lover it is exceedingly unlikely that you will do so unless you already want to do it whether you realize it or not. I am suggesting that if someone has to tell you that their charisma is maxed the best they can hope for is that you try a little harder to justify for yourself (the player ... not the character) complying with their wishes. I, the player, may be vastly impressed by your awesome spiel but if what you require is directly opposed to my characters essence, I, the player, will have to dig deep into my characters background to see if there is any excuse to go along even a little. If not I may just have to attack you for being a fair seeming abomination.
By the way Charisma is more than just a way of speaking and text is far more likely to be misinterpreted than spoken word which more likely to be misunderstood than without a visual component. You may well think your speech is being persuasive but I may think you are just insulting my heritage. You seem to imply that charisma is some monolithic thing that cannot be considered in context. You also seem to imply that only people fluent in English can be charismatic in the game.
Certainly let us have one level of game mechanics -- just as soon as an npc is as versatile as I am. When the ai is as sophisticated as the people it attempts to model then, maybe it will be possible.
You expect the impossible and think it is a reasonable position.
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Removing charisma as a stat from the game is impossible? Charisma is some monolithical thing? I am done here, as you clearly have not been reading what I have written.
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Prolix, you are correct, you have seen hundreds of maxed characters over the years. I did however treat things a little differently in my table top campaigns. I did not exclude the possibility of maxing stats, but I felt back then that it was rather unrealistic and I would make it very difficult to do so. This attitude came from playing with some other kids who would show up with uber-characters with tons of magic items, et cetera. My immediate group of 2-3 friends was very focused on roleplaying the characters as they were rolled, and enjoyed playing this way. The rest, I killed off often. What can I say...
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I have to take issue with the concept of charming words. If that were to be implemented what you would have is endless guilds with their lists of these charming words and newbies would be making Amidson dance the Virginia Reel just for laughs. How would that improve things?
How many leet people do you know who are going to actually try endless amounts of pharses in a role playing tone in order to unlock secrets? On the other hand how many leet people do you know who would have no problem maxing charisma just so they have a bigger effect on NPC's? There is a BIG difference. Besides, what are you ultimately doing? Taking the easy way out. Deciding that you rather promote more game mechanics than rp, which may I remind you is what planeshift is supposed to be about, role playing. Game mechanics serve the purpose to help PROMOTE roleplay, regardless of the reason. The leet who does waste their time will still need to roleplay to get what they want, a win for us not them.
By the way where is the role play skill involved in talking to npcs anyway? Unless you are ready to wait however many years it will take to develop their ai that should not be much of a consideration. I suspect they will always be extremely limited in the range of responses compared to other players so perhaps you are expecting too much from the game. The npcs are there to expose the settings and to allow you to advance your character. I do not see how you can expect more. Enlighten me. Would it make you feel better if you eventually discovered in context that everything in the game except the other people connected to the server were programmed illusions? It might help you cope if you assume that is true.
I know that it is unlikely for NPC's to ever be able to respond to every situation. It is not immpossible for one to make a few "creative pharses" that could be figured out by actually talking to the NPC. Posssibly after having a chat with the NPC he/she may tell you a bit about themself. Maybe he is a tired guard and you suddenly ask if he would care for a drink. You being the rper may suddenly unlock a quest because of your willingness to rp, not because you sat around and typed pharses over and over till he responded.
When things like charisma, intelligence and so on don't base on stats and rather base on the ability of the player to talk and what he knows, then there is not much of a reason to actually play a RPG.
Yes, especially MMORPGs are also virtual realities for many people, but for me the question is:
Will PS be more of a RPG (with stats like charisma and intelligence) or a virtual reality (with an enourmous AI and a cyber suit to interact with the game, a holo deck :-P )
The About section on planeshift.it says:
PlaneShift is a Role Playing Game immersed into a 3D virtual fantasy world which is FULLY FREE to play.
Which wouldn't be against a virtual reality point, but in my opinion: you can't excell in both at the same time. It is either not realistic enough or not RP-like enough. You just can't be yourself (in another world) AND play a different role at the same time.
How do you expect to play a role you can't comprehend? The idea of playing a character smarter than you are is stupid within itself (no offense meant there). We are role playing in a virtual reality, this is what planeshift is. It is simply a reality different from our own. Doesn't mean that I should suddenly bow down to the guy with 200 intellegence even though he doesn't know 2+2=4.
The reason that I appear to support the game mechanics argument is simply because it gives a way to make the basic system fair to all players. The current RPs in the system are decided on a subjective basis.
Answer yourself this question, is life at all fair? No. Rp should be the same, unfair. Just because you try doesn't mean you are ever going to win. For the sake of realism this is true. It is also the only way that no one can be the best. "Fair" is another thing that leads to hack and slash (yes I brought it up again). In hack and slash since mechanics are "fair" to everyone anyone can level themselves to death and become an uber master of everything. In a role playing game do you think it's realistic that everyone can do everything? Do you think its fair that I try to just be a dark mage yet I have to deal with uber warriors who've mastered all the magics? You can't be "fair" and be realistic because the real world is simply not fair.
I completely agree with Duraza regarding that the character would go an max their charisma. This is the problem, one should not be able to max any stat until a significant amount of time has been spent playing the game.
I also don't think you should be able to max anything around Hydlaa. The trainers that finally max a stat should be on the 8th level or something. It is far too easy now, I totally agree with that.
Thats not really going to solve anything. All it means is a longer time to level which just leads to more hacking and slashing. More work to level means more leveling, possible bots, etc. Not going to fix anything and I still see no way this helps role play.
If someone who has a maximized charisma tells you to kill your lover it is exceedingly unlikely that you will do so unless you already want to do it whether you realize it or not. I am suggesting that if someone has to tell you that their charisma is maxed the best they can hope for is that you try a little harder to justify for yourself (the player ... not the character) complying with their wishes. I, the player, may be vastly impressed by your awesome spiel but if what you require is directly opposed to my characters essence, I, the player, will have to dig deep into my characters background to see if there is any excuse to go along even a little. If not I may just have to attack you for being a fair seeming abomination.
Sorry but what happened to all that game mechanics supporting you were talking about before? From the sound of this your basically saying whats the point of Charisma? If you are suddenly leaving the final choice ultimately to my character than why have the stat that doesn't truely matter? This is what we've been arguing the whole time and whether you want to admit it or not it sounds like you agree with it. What is the point of any mechanic that just tries to replace rp? What is the point of a mechanic that according to you we can overide with rp? Why not just rp and save the time of caring?
You expect the impossible and think it is a reasonable position.
Actually I think I expect what is already being done. People already live without charisma and intellegence, rping what they want how they want it. You want to add this whole system using the two stats that really aren't needed in the first place. What I want already exists. What you want is going agaisnt grandpa's old way of doing things and while sometimes new is attractive that shiny new toy is usually a disappointment. I think I'll stick to my old dusty paddleball as it has proved loyal time and time again :P
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Sigh. Where to begin. I guess I will start the next post down on this compose page.
As I said before the game mechanics are there to interact with the game. No game mechanics <<==>> no game.
You want to remove the game mechanics remove the npcs, you can't roleplay with them anyway. Then you will not need any stats at all. You will need some mechanics of course if you want figures and movement and whatnot but you might as well import them from doom it will save a lot of work. You want magic and stuff? well maybe Heretic(?) is available. Guess there won't be any training because there are no npc's to teach you might be able to have player training but where will the trainers learn their trades?
What is impossible is to have one system for both player and game use. How would you feel if the next time I meet you anything you say but a small subset of predetermined phrases get you the response "you sound like a mad mud-dobber, go away before I get mad." Surely the npcs are not likely to do more than that anytime soon so why should the players? One system after all. The point is the game mechanics are always going to be more limited than player inventiveness. Adding the character stats that you so hate is a building block to the kind of functionality you seem to want. Right now there is just the first riser set and the first runner is ready to be nailed to it.
Think about this for a second, I said it would take godlike levels of charisma to compel someone to do something they really do not want to do. the character stats are quite likely to be unsigned integer data types that would mean the maximum possible stat value of 65535 which would be top of the godlike range what is your measley 300 compared to that? They might be unsigned char but that would limit them to 255. How much charisma would a person need to have in real life to convince you to cut off one of your healthy fingers? How badly would you have to want whatever they were offering? You are telling me I have to do your characters bidding because its charisma is trained as high as it currently can? Give me a break. I might if it isn't too outlandish and I might look for a reason even if it is outlandish if the idea amuses me personally and I want to play along but if it is really out of character I probably will not go along with it.
As for intelligence it does not guarantee sensible behaviour or even success. All it really indicates is the ability to learn but there can be other aspects of the persons makeup such as dyslexia or physical constraints such as myopia that can be hindrances.
I think there will be a lot of people that will join a guild just to learn what the ardent puzzle solvers have already discovered, then they will quit or lurk and set up another guild possibly with another character and share their newfound knowledge with others of their kind. Isn't that a common complaint around here? Why would they learn something for themselves when others have it already?
Ok next post ... what is it... Ahh yes. Back in the day (little beige World of Greyhawk books or AD&D 1st Edition, kind of hazy now when paladins became available) you only got to play a paladin if your sixth roll of three six-siders in front of the DM was 18 and the previous five were such that met the bare minimums for the class. If you came late into the campaign you still started off with nothing but by the book at first level unless the DM was feeling generous or ran Monty Haul dungeons. Later on you still generally needed to roll up a character at your first session but often you you were slid in several levels back of the lowest regular character.
Next. UTM, already dealt with the impossible referent, monolithic meant that max character charisma was unstoppable, must-be-obeyed as seemingly suggested previously in the thread. That was also dealt with in the data type paragraph.
That about covers it to my last post, unless I missed something that was important to someone?
Hey Xillix, feel free to make your deferred comments anytime now, I am running out of steam. I promise to take them as personal opinion and not game canon, can't speak for anyone else though
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Well this thread has gone quite the different way here. *smiles* A good different way though.
Problem with stats is that stats are most succesfull when there are limits.
Limits like being a certain class or a certain amount of points you can distribute. These limits make sure you have strengths perhaps but definately also weaknesses If you want the uber warrior you will have to accept you will be as stupid as the back end of a door and will be tricked easily and will not be able to use advanced tactics but will only know enough when and not to run at the enemy becuase his teammate told him. (extreme example but you get the picture)
Stats are there not only to get weaknesses that way, but also to limit what people can roleplay. You want to be the ulber hero with the intelligence of da Vinci and the strength of Hercules? In Planeshift this seems to be possible. Tht is one of the reasons why mechanics are oten frowned upon by roleplayers. becuase the gamemechanics at the moment don't force you to make decicions in how you develop your character.
"Everything should be possible" in this case simply means everyone simply levels everything. And that is really the most dissapointing part of Planeshift becuase instead of creating different persons it really makes everyone the same. The only difference is on what part of the road we are and how fast we travel it. All the sideroads are mostly ignored.
As for Moons suggestions that it is ipossible to RP max strength I have no idea what he is talking about. With intelligence and Will it obvious is hard to look what a rak exactly means, but with strength we clearly know what it means to be that strong. We know what an anvil weighs and we know how much strength it takes to carry it.
I also don't think looking at the anvil I mentioned beore the max in strength atm is an unbelievable amount of strength leadin to godly acts. I mean with max strength I believe you can't even carry two of those anvils so why exactly is it impossible to roleplay it believable? Or do you mean what you expect the devs to eventually make strengths max?
Still strength really seems to be rather obvious with an inventory you can easely see how much someone can carry. That only means you have to gues aproxamately how much effort it would cost to do the thing you want to RP compare and you'll have a pretty good idea. Good enough for a believable Rp in my eyes atleast.
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Edit @ Garile: I never said it is impossible to RP max STR stat. I said that was possible. :)
@Prolix
The faction system will deal with how NPCs react to you. That makes charisma a redundant system that is not needed.
As for the rest, nothing you have written addresses that fact that a player is not forced to play to others' or their own charisma or intelligence stats. Your examples are inane, extreme, and prove nothing. You do not address the character that has low charisma stat because of the lameness of Creation, yet the player can convince a tavern full of people to do something they would normally not. You do not address the character with an average charisma, yet the annoying player is avoided by people who would normally go along with what he is suggesting. Even your 'max' example is lame and full of "Well maybe" and "what if" so that you can avoid using the charisma stat if you don't want to.
"Well maybe my character does not like your smile, then I can ignore your high CHA stat, and decide not to go to the tavern with you, even though I was about to go there anyways."
"What if I am drunk, so the character seems to have more charisma than their stats say they do? Then your low CHA character can easily convince me to go to the arena."
You are modifying your own character's 'reality' to adapt to your abnormal reaction to other character's so-called charisma stat. Some would call that godmoding.
You also resort to the age old (and very lame) argument that if someone wants one stat removed, you might as well take them ALL out. That is the childish 'all or none' argument, and does not float any kind of boat.
So, your character has a high charisma stat. What exactly is that? Is he dark and imposing? Is he the intelligent, powerful speaker? Is he jovial and endearing? Is he the wisecracking funny guy? Is he suave and charming?Is he crazy and fun (you know him as the guy who can convince anyone to do crazy things just for fun)? Is he huge and intimidating? Is he solemn and serious? Is he the wormy guy with the magic tongue? Is he a combination of the above? CHA is not useful as it is intended, as it does not even define what it is. Zak would react positively to the 'dark and imposing' charisma, but would gut the 'jovial and endearing'. Jayose would find the 'wisecracking funny guy' to be a mud-dobber, while would find himself drawn to the 'intelligent, powerful speaker'.
Charisma is a terrible catchall, as it refers to many completely different aspects of a personality, and what can make one person seem charismatic to another.
Back to magic.
Is the Suave and Charming guy going to be able to cast 'charisma' based spells in the same way the Dark and Imposing guy will, if they have the same 'charisma level'. What of the Huge and Intimidating? Is he a magical match for the Wormy Guy with the magic tongue? Which of all the above is going to be able to magically charm a raging trepor the best?
If charisma is how others perceive your character, is it others that govern how powerful your spell is? If you start acting like an uncharismatic, jerk, is that going to reduce your CHA-based magical powers? How exactly does CHA affect magic in the first place? Does your charm (only in the case of a charming person) draw more mana to you? How about the imposingly dark and charismatic guy or Crazy and Fun guy?? What effect do those have on making his spells more powerful?
When you can answer all of the above with one satisfactory, all-encompassing answer, I will bow my head and admit you are right.
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As I said before the game mechanics are there to interact with the game. No game mechanics <<==>> no game.
Just one comment to assert something that has already been said. No one is trying to remove mechanics from the game. Game mechanics, as I've said time and time again, are very helpful in the promotion of rp. I simply come here trying to remove a SINGLE mechanic that I do not feel serves this purpose. Did I ever say we should ditch mechanics completely? No, I said they help. Did I say certain mechanics don't need a little work done? No, and I'd expect so because planeshift is still beta. All I ever said is that I feel one mechanic to not be serving any purpose and I fail to see any purpose for it in the future that is worth the time of implementing. Thats all now, I'm done :)
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I'm sorry that I don't understand the mechanics too well, never having used magic in PS myself, but wouldn't it be possible to make the process of learning magic such that only a true bookworm would learn it? For example, all glyphs would require far more careful work on them for every individual spell. It would need more work, but all wizards would be more of the Merlin/Gandalf/Saruman type.
As for charisma, I'd say there's simply no need to call it that way, "Magical Charm" could be used as a name instead, so nobody has any problems...
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@Prolix
You do not address the character that has low charisma stat because of the lameness of Creation, yet the player can convince a tavern full of people to do something they would normally not.
Poor role play, pure and simple, on the part of the person doing the convincing. The others cannot be assumed to know this person has low charisma but if they do then it is poor role play on their part too unless they have some other motivation for going along. It could also be poor role play on their part if the low stat character was properly unconvincing and they went along with it anyway. That might have to do with OOC info such as the player behind the character. Many variables must be considered in evaluating what ifs and often too many are missing.
You do not address the character with an average charisma, yet the annoying player is avoided by people who would normally go along with what he is suggesting.
Nothing says you have to like someone. It may be that this person is moody and has bouts of erratic behavior mixed with periods of extreme likability. Some people might prefer his chaotic moments others prefer his reasonable ones.
Even your 'max' example is lame and full of "Well maybe" and "what if" so that you can avoid using the charisma stat if you don't want to.
"Well maybe my character does not like your smile, then I can ignore your high CHA stat, and decide not to go to the tavern with you, even though I was about to go there anyways."
"What if I am drunk, so the character seems to have more charisma than their stats say they do? Then your low CHA character can easily convince me to go to the arena."
Your examples are rather self-serving and miss the meaning I was trying to convey. Charisma in RPGs traditionally gave an indication as to your leadership abilities. If you had a high charisma people would be more likely to follow your lead. Those who shared your value system were most likely and those who held opposite views were the least likely. Indeed those against you were more likely to move against you personally if it looked like you were gaining followers. Another thing it is used for is to limit how many npc followers you could get. If you have low charisma you will have difficulty hiring the mule driver for the money run through the dangerous territory. It will likely cost a lot more. Certainly if you are in good with a faction you might get assigned that muleskinner but if the faction leader does not like you the peon you get assigned will probably run off at the first sign of trouble. The quality of the favors you can call in is affected by your charisma. Of course I am talking about run of the mill favors not ones to help you save the world -- everyone is counting on you.
You are modifying your own character's 'reality' to adapt to your abnormal reaction to other character's so-called charisma stat. Some would call that godmoding.
It appears that you think that charisma is some kind of irresistible force that compels people to do what you want them to do. For that kind of effect you are godmodding. Not me. I do not care how cute and cuddly you are, if I hate cute and cuddly I am going to whack you with a stick rather than tickle your belly.
You also resort to the age old (and very lame) argument that if someone wants one stat removed, you might as well take them ALL out. That is the childish 'all or none' argument, and does not float any kind of boat.
Granted some of my rhetoric is uninspired, I believe that of both sides of this debate.
So, your character has a high charisma stat. What exactly is that? Is he dark and imposing? Is he the intelligent, powerful speaker? Is he jovial and endearing? Is he the wisecracking funny guy? Is he suave and charming?Is he crazy and fun (you know him as the guy who can convince anyone to do crazy things just for fun)? Is he huge and intimidating? Is he solemn and serious? Is he the wormy guy with the magic tongue? Is he a combination of the above? CHA is not useful as it is intended, as it does not even define what it is. Zak would react positively to the 'dark and imposing' charisma, but would gut the 'jovial and endearing'. Jayose would find the 'wisecracking funny guy' to be a mud-dobber, while would find himself drawn to the 'intelligent, powerful speaker'.
Any of the above. They had a saying way back when "Different strokes for different folks." Why should everyone react the same way to any given personality type? How would that be good role play? If your character is a snobbish prig he will likely be horrified by the bawdy tavern wench with the high charisma and the thing that will horrify him the most is the attraction he feels to someone who behaves in a manner that is disgusting to him.
Contradictions of personality are good role play, one sided cutouts are not.
Charisma is a terrible catchall, as it refers to many completely different aspects of a personality, and what can make one person seem charismatic to another.
True it is kind of nebulous but so what? That does not bother me. Life is full of abstract things, people manage to get by all the same.
Back to magic.
Is the Suave and Charming guy going to be able to cast 'charisma' based spells in the same way the Dark and Imposing guy will, if they have the same 'charisma level'. What of the Huge and Intimidating? Is he a magical match for the Wormy Guy with the magic tongue? Which of all the above is going to be able to magically charm a raging trepor the best?
I would assume that the spells one finds easy to learn and prefer to cast would be those which suit the casters personality, however that is not likely to be reflected in the game mechanics. The suave and charming guy is likely to learn and prefer charm spells as he just wants to get his way with no hard feelings. The dark and imposing guy would prefer domination spells as he wants what he wants and doesn't give a fig for what his victim thinks. All this assumes enough spell variety to make a difference. Huge and Wormy question depends on too many unconsidered factors to answer. As for the trepor the quick answer would be the one with the highest animal handling skill or the most appropriate glyph/spell combination and otherwise unanswerable.
If charisma is how others perceive your character, is it others that govern how powerful your spell is? If you start acting like an uncharismatic, jerk, is that going to reduce your CHA-based magical powers? How exactly does CHA affect magic in the first place? Does your charm (only in the case of a charming person) draw more mana to you? How about the imposingly dark and charismatic guy or Crazy and Fun guy?? What effect do those have on making his spells more powerful?
I do not believe I have ever said charisma is how others perceive your character. I believe that is your misconception. I said it is how your character is able to affect another. That may sound like the same thing to you but what I am saying is that it is the difference between what I intentionally imply by something I say and what you infer from what I say even if I did not intend that meaning. My charisma is inherent in me how you perceive it is up to you. If your willpower is strong you will not be swayed by my ideas despite thinking that they are very well presented. You will note that I have a significant presence but you will be unmoved.
When you can answer all of the above with one satisfactory, all-encompassing answer, I will bow my head and admit you are right.
There you go, expecting the impossible again but I have done my best. I do not need you to admit I am right, you are entitled to your opinion, different strokes and all that. I do not even need you to agree with me or for you to stop trying to have charisma dropped from the game. I doubt you will succeed but if you can present some kind of alternative to it which will cover all areas where it is planned to be used, you might. I do think you add a lot to the community and it would be sad if you left but nothing lasts forever.
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That was one of the longest posts I have seen that answers nothing. Congrats. Nearly every single response you had to one of my quotes completely avoided what they were actually about.
Look again, read harder, and this time answer how the mechanics of the game can deal with these situations. Yes, your character is charismatic. Now is Zak going to follow you or gut you?
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I think it's getting time for the people involved to take a step back, count to ten, calm your breath and ask yourself where you're going with this.
The discussion was great but it's now deteriorating into 'sling same old arguments at opposition yet again.' I honestly haven't read the last page of this thread because I doubt it's going to be worth my time doing so. Learn to argue your side and let go .. the rest is up to the Devs anyway. ;)
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That was one of the longest posts I have seen that answers nothing.
I personally think that Prolix was very exact with the explanations. You may or may not agree, but your above post looks just a little childish to me. There are millions of role players that learned to deal with the stat charisma from D&D and Co. and just because you don't like it or never understood it (which seems to be the case, referring to your explanations of charisma) you don't want it in the game. This is a valid opinion, but just stating that the D&D stat charisma like it exists is something different and everybody that argues for the stat is wrong, is not a valid way to deal with the problem.
Roleplaying is also about mental stats like intelligence and charisma. The player behind the char not having the ability to make a good speech is not nice, but completely OOC.
Yes there is actually a GM missing that says "well, your speech sucks, but you won the roll" in PC interaction. Sitting around a table you have always somebody like that present. This IS an issue. My idea would be to declare the stat in a more obvious way, maybe even that you can judge the charisma of a char by certain looks to improve the RP interaction between players.
Anyways, the game is NOT only about PvP interaction (go in an irc channel for that..). It is difficult to use the mental stats of chars in PvP, but for me this would not be enough reason to take these away from the game completely. There is also the possibility to just not try to roleplay any mental stats in PvP, neither high or low ones.
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Very exact, yes. Address what I wrote, no. Not a single thing he wrote dealt with the separation of player to player vs player to mechanics issue, nor did they address how the system will differentiate between different types of charismatic personalities.
Neither of you have answered how Zak could listen to one type of charismatic personality he likes, yet kill someone who is equally charismatic in another way that he does not like, when the system uses a blanket approach that deems all charisma equal in NPC reactions.
The faction system does this better. The single charisma stat does not, and will not.
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Pardon me if I perceived all of your examples to be player to player interactions. I did not see anything to indicate differently. Of course you want to have player to npc interaction to be exactly the same as player to player, as far as I can tell. That is just not possible. It is like expecting your robot dog from Japan to behave exactly like your neighbors poodle, their nature is entirely different although they have some slight similarities.
As for Zak, he is going to do exactly what he is programmed to do no more no less unless there is a bug in his systems. If you have a high charisma he is more likely to let something slip inadvertently because he wants to impress you. If you are rude and seem stupid he might tell you the same thing in a different manner just because he thinks you are stupid, you annoy him and he wants to get rid of you. The only difference may be the words that wrap the particular nugget of information he needs to pass on for the quest. If you are planning to turn him into a psychopath that attacks anything that does not please him you will likely need some other kind of trigger than charisma.
If you are looking how to use charisma in the npc interactions you are writing do not go it alone. Consult with the people who are developing the code to find out how they can see implementing it. I think the key to writing good game dialog is to decide what you want it to accomplish, which ways it could go wrong and all possible outcomes before you write the first line. People will only complain if something seems really odd in whatever manner, most of the time you will be able to go with the first implementation.
I have said all along that npc and player interaction are different and that means that the character stats must be approached differently when considering their meaning in the respective context. Charisma is just one tool in the box, it will break if you try to use it for the wrong jobs.
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The faction system does this better. The single charisma stat does not, and will not.
Charisma is not about the way you use it. If you have a high charisma, than you can use either way, good or evil. Like you can choose the crystal or the dark way. Like Intelligent people can use their intelligence to destroy the world or just make a profit or to help the society.
Factions are different, they are mainly about the direction not an ability of yours.
So if you don't have the right factions, but high charisma than you still have a chance of succeeding. If you have the right factions then you don't need good charisma to succeed. Charisma is basically just a more general way to reach something while factions only work where they fit.
Agility and Strength affect the damage done, but this does not mean that one of them is redundant.
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/me shugs.
You should leave this up to someone who actually knows how to write diverse personalities and how they interact with each other. I see you still do not understand.
Have fun grinding to get charisma.
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Thats it, i just realized that it is not possible to talk to you in this topic.
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/me shugs.
You should leave this up to someone who actually knows how to write diverse personalities and how they interact with each other. I see you still do not understand.
Have fun grinding to get charisma.
Have fun with your cookie cutter gingerbread men. Seriously, your example character types seem extremely one dimensional. It may just be due to the brevity of your descriptions but you do not seem to allow for much in the way of nuances. Would it be possible that Huge and Intimidating had a phobia for white haired dwarves? Could Suave and Charming guy be tongue-tied by effeminate young boys? Where is this diversity you speak of? Are there a legion of Dark and Imposing guys distinguishable only by the designer label on their cape? It is not enough to separate the different archetypes you need to separate the similar ones too.
Expect the impossible and you will usually be disappointed.
/me coughs up a hairball
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Let's take a look at the ridiculousness of charisma itself. Charisma is NOT a constant. It is how others see you. You may have high charisma with one person, yet the guy next to him will think you are a complete fool. Yet the charisma stat treats them both the same when it comes to spells. That is godmoding MY character into say I see you as a charismatic person.
Now you are just being ignorant. Try to read everything someone says before you make inane comments.
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hmm personally I think that quote looks at charisma the wrong way.
I think charisma should show how much you can influence someone from there normal reaction. If for example you are a bandit and you meet up with a guard who knows you are a bandit I think you'll have to be veeeeeery charismatic to the impossible to win him over to the extant that he wont arest you, but the charisma may influence how he arrests you.
If you have a high charisma he may care for the fact that you have a family and although he arrests you he may give you the chance to not let your kids see you taken away as you often see in the movies or you might hae such a low charima that the guard doesn't care at all and cuffs you infront of your kids and drags you away.
Charisma is only how much you can infuence someone, but it doesn't change the starting point. It doesn't change the values someone has and it isn't a magical switch. that is why factions is a great addition to charisma I think becuase factions would show how an NPC would normally react and your charisma score can minimize the damage or enlarge the positive.
Obviously player versus player these scores are hard to implement, just like in D&D you have skills like Bluff you can't automaticly use against other players characters leaving playercharacters a lot more room on how to act depending on the DM ofcourse.
Problem is ofcourse here we have so many playercharacters instead of the only 4/5 that D&D useally has. It gives one the feeling pretty fast of an underused skill. Obviously that is kinda easy to say if nothing has been implemented yet.
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I read every word of this thread. Repeating yourself will not help especially when you are repeating your misunderstanding. Charisma cannot be how others see you because then it would be a quality of them. It is a quality that you possess, how others react to it has nothing to do with you. You have charisma, someone else reacts positively, negatively or neutrally to your charisma. Their reactions differ, your quality does not, as such. It may be that you have control of your charisma turning it on when needed or off when you want to offend or you may be less sophisticated and it remains at whatever level it has constantly or it may be erratic and varies with your mood.
Have fun grinding to get charisma.
This would seem to be the most significant thing you have said in the thread. From it I infer that it is not Charisma, per se, that you object to but rather the whole leveling system, a.k.a grinding, and you think charisma is the low hanging fruit from which to begin your attack. I am surely reading more into it than you intended but I believe it is a valid inference nonetheless.
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Charima is equal on both sides. It is eqaul parts observer and observed. As I have siad before, a person alone has no charisma at all. You have no one to affect. You can not seem to grasp this concept. I have no misunderstanding.
Charisma is the meshing of two personalities to produce a reaction in both people, whatever those reactions may be. It can not be one set number. There are too many variations on how two personalities will mesh. The system treats all personalties as if they are the same. You have a CHA stat of 120. That means every single NPC is going to react the same to that stat. Every single spell is going to react exactly the same to that stat. It does not matter what type of charismatic personality you have, whether you are a nice guy or nasty.
Your understanding of my examples is simplistic in nature. You do not agree with me. However, those who do have a deeper understanding do agree with me.
And no, you are very wrong once again in judging me. You could not be futher off base. I do not care about grinding or training in this case. I care about things that are meant to affect my roleplay and gameplay. If someone has the ability to cast a 'high charisma' spell on me, they had better be able to back that stat up with some roleplay abilities. And with the high levels you can grind to without having to have any RP skills at all, I have serious doubts this will happen. If not, then there is a serious problem.
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Charima is equal on both sides. It is eqaul parts observer and observed. As I have siad before, a person alone has no charisma at all. You have no one to affect. You can not seem to grasp this concept. I have no misunderstanding.
That is just wrong. Even if I accepted the argument that it takes an observer and an observed which I do not the observer cannot help but observe himself unless he is completely sensory deprived. Even then he cannot help but experience himself unless he is brain dead in which case he hardly counts. Some people like themselves, others do not. Do you like yourself? Why?
No, charisma exists regardless of outside considerations. You are mistaking the perception of charisma with charisma itself. This is not a zen riddle, this tree makes noise.
Charisma is the meshing of two personalities to produce a reaction in both people, whatever those reactions may be. It can not be one set number. There are too many variations on how two personalities will mesh. The system treats all personalties as if they are the same. You have a CHA stat of 120. That means every single NPC is going to react the same to that stat. Every single spell is going to react exactly the same to that stat. It does not matter what type of charismatic personality you have, whether you are a nice guy or nasty.
The number that is applied to the charisma stat is the relative strength of the characteristic just like all the other stats. It does not give any indication as to the nature -- pleasing or perilous. The npcs cannot determine whether you are witty and gay or dark and brooding, the number gives them an indication of how much consideration they should give to you. There certainly are other factors that come into play in their determinations such as your beloved factions but of themselves they do not complete the picture.
Your understanding of my examples is simplistic in nature. You do not agree with me. However, those who do have a deeper understanding do agree with me.
Perhaps it was your examples that were overly simplistic.
And no, you are very wrong once again in judging me. You could not be futher off base. I do not care about grinding or training in this case. I care about things that are meant to affect my roleplay and gameplay. If someone has the ability to cast a 'high charisma' spell on me, they had better be able to back that stat up with some roleplay abilities. And with the high levels you can grind to without having to have any RP skills at all, I have serious doubts this will happen. If not, then there is a serious problem.
You do not care about training so it is expendable. Training is part of the game play, there is no system that allows you to specify anything that the game provides a mechanism for and it will only get more mechanisms added in the future. There will be less that you can fudge. If you are role playing that you have abilities that mechanisms are provided for without using those mechanisms you are in effect cheating. If you can cast a high level spell of any sort on me without even an actual glyph or even any system derived skill in that particular way then you are causing a serious problem. Are you going to role play that you did buddies quest that got you that phantom glyph that you are using to cast that spell or are you just going to "find it on the ground" when no one is looking? In either case you have no business casting that spell when the mechanics say you cannot.
Someone cannot cast an offensive high charisma spell on you unless you accept a challenge so if you automatically accept challenges you might want to reconsider. I would consider any spell that would cause you to lose control of your character as offensive and cannot at the moment think of a charm spell that could be cast upon you without your consent.
It appears to me that those who agree with you think PS is "A Night at the Improv" and not a role playing game.
If you are only role playing with others that think as you why do you care what the numbers are? The ones you can see are not the ones that you play in any event. Surely if you plan on ignoring any system that does not conform to your preconceptions you can ignore charisma. Just pretend it does not exist.
Perhaps I am misjudging you somewhat and you actually do level your characters. I cannot say for sure, I'll accept it if you confirm it. Your position leads me to think you generally do not. If you do then some of the things I say may be more off base than I think.
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I agree somwhat with Moon to the exent that the charisma can only be "measured" if two people meet, but that doesn't mean charisma only exists when two people meet.
Charisma in my book shows the ability of someone to have other people act differently then normal in your favor using your own behavior. Obviously the stat itself can not really encompas everything, but then again just as with all stats it is several things grouped together.
But then again why would every NPC react the same? Charisma may have more influence on a NPCcharacter that has a weak personality then on a NPC that has a strong personality. And who knows perhaps there will even be a randomness factor in the system so you wont even get the same reaction with the same charisma symbolizing you are having a bad day or perhaps a very good day.
Then you have factions that show what the normal reaction to you would be around and you have a system that isn't to unrealistic.
I think the main question here is how much you want RL to dictate your character. obviously interacting with people you will be limited to what you yourself are able to think of, but shouldn't your character be able to do things and think of things you yourself may never think of?
Do you want to limit charismatic people to people who first did an charismatictest OOC?
That isn't really in the spirit of RP in my book where you want to play a character that ISN'T you.
One should find ways to work around the limitations RL throw up not make the game so RL stuff influences it as much as possible. I don't want to play myself ingame and I am guessing neither would you.
A good roleplayer will only level things that he thinks he can back up in roleplays. And if someone casts a spell on you in roleplays that asks for a high charisma and a glyph nd he has both gamemchanicwise, but you feel he isn't charismatic at all you will have to deal with it really. Someone with a high charisma can be an ass and can have bad days. Someone with high charisma isn't someone with a halo on top or a magicaura that magicly changes peoples reactions.
I do see your point Moon, but I really feel you are overreacting to the thought of someone coming up to you flashing their stat at you and evily saying "LIKE ME"
That isn't how charisma works in RL and I would laugh at anyone trying to do that ingame.