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Okay, first, unrelated note, when I typed in the title of the thread, autofill suggested "your mom".
Okay, now on to business.
There was a meeting of the four DMs a little while back, and we came to a lot of conclusions about how the game world is going to change.
Now, I'm doing this all by memory, so I may be editing this post as I remember more stuff we talked about, but I'm sure I'll be able to remember most of it.
First Major change worth noting: Shit is about is get MUCH harder.
We have all been playing this game enough to understand how it works, we have also played long enough to know how to use our heads to solve a situation. As such, you will all see a massive increase of difficulty when it comes to monster battles. We are done fighting goblins and animals that you can just hack and slash your way through. The monsters you will start fighting are going to hit harder and require actual strategy and intelligence to fight. Now I'm sure you can already tell where I'm going with this; you are going to start dying. So don't run through modules thinking that "Oh, nothing bad will happen" because it will. Please have ideas for new characters in your head at all times, because you never know when your character will be next.
Second: Multiple Characters
We have decided there needs to be a system for creating new characters. You can not just create a bunch of throwaway characters that you don't care if you lose or not. If you are allowed to create a ton of new characters, then you don't get attached to them and you will tend to not play with them as carefully as you should. That being said, your first character MUST reach level five before you are able to create a new character. Furthermore, you may only use one character at a time during modules. You cannot have one your your extras just tag along and sit in the background of module, this makes the strategy of group composition kind of nonexistent. Forcing you to choose what character you bring forces you to make smarter choices. "Oh, we are going to X location, Y character is good for this" Now lets say you're sick of your current character but it isn't level five yet. You can make a new character even if it is not level five, but you must "retire" your current one. Meaning, you cannot use that character for anything at all until the new character you just created is, you guessed it, level five.
Third: Ships!
Short one here. Our current ship is going to go away, we will roleplay it in somehow. But we now have a ship system in place for building, running, and using ships. They will cost a lot of money and they will take a long time to be built; but you will need one.
Fourth: Weather
Weather will now play a role in how your characters preform. We will be working out a climate map in the near future to be able to roll for what kind of weather it is in specific locations. Weather will have major effects on how every aspect of your game works. E.g. Rain might make it easier for you to critically miss.
Fifth: CRITICAL MISS!
Speaking of critical misses, We have developed a system for how severe you will miss. I wont reveal any specifics about how we decide, just so we can keep the suspense, but I will tell you this. The severity of a critical miss could range from simply humiliating yourself all the way up to mortally wounding yourself, or giving yourself a major permanent disability. As I said before, shits getting harder and less forgiving. This same system will work for critical hits too, ranging from simply hitting a good area off your target to all out annihilating it. Fun!
Sixth: Prototypes
We have lots of unique weapons in this game. Some are very powerful, but also have drawbacks. We've found that many people shy away from these weapons because of these drawbacks. So we will be planning on introducing a prototype system. Simply put, an NPC, currently unknown to us who it will be, will offer specific characters the chance to test his crazy inventions in the field of battle. These weapons will offer great perks, but will also have major defects in them that cause them to be very risky to use. Seems like any other perk weapon, right? Wrong. After a set amount of times you use this prototype in combat, you will be able to bring it back to him and he will make improvements upon it, and cause some of the risk to go away. You may then go out and continue to use it more, then bring it back later for improvements. This adds a risk and reward system to the game, allowing for more decision-based game play. The system is still in its early development, so specifics are available currently, I'll draft up an explanation and post it in this thread later on.
Seventh: Time
Let me ask you something. What month is it in Archaem? Okay, how about what day? Season? Year?! No one knows. We intend to fix this. We don't really have a system drafted up, but it's in the works. We will unveil it as soon as it is done. Stay tuned!
Eighth: Age of Consent
Haha, no, it's not what you think. Basically, there is a specific level at which your character may partake in many of the more risky and more rewarding things. For instance, The Deck of Many Things, as well as the new Prototype system. Can you guess what level this is? Thats right! Its level five. That is the point at which we felt you have made a meaningful connection with your character, and thus should be able to take risks with him. This prevents people from making a new level one character and instantly drawing from my deck and BAM level 8, or getting their hands on an awesome prototype. If you have a character you've worked hard on, then you'll be more apt to pause before taking large risks with it.
Ninth: IF IT BLEEDS, WE CAN KILL IT
HEY GUESS WHAT. Did you know you have blood inside of you? And if you lose that blood you die? Of course you do! We now have a system for bleeding. Basically, if your character gets stabbed and fall unconscious, you can't just breathe a sigh of relief and say "Well, I'm out of combat. No, your character is going to start bleeding and taking damage until you die. Now, for the sake of suspense, I wont reveal how much bleed damage you take, you'll just have to assume you need urgent care. So stock up on those healing potions, you're going to need them.
Tenth: Pick on the weak.
Picture this; you are a bad guy, and you see a group of people, among them is a burly fighter and a weak thief. Who are you going to attack? If you picked the fighter, you probably have downs syndrome. You're going to pick off the weakest people first. That being said, we now have a system for NPCs selecting targets. How they choose to fight will depend on their alignment and intelligence. Again, no specifics, you'll have to observe how things go and then make assumptions. Thats all I'll tell you.
Eleventh: PRAISE THE LAWD.
Religion. It is going to play a larger role in how NPCs respond to characters of specific deities and alignments. There isn't a whole lot more I can tell on that subject, its still in development. When its done, I'll post a few more details, but you'll have to figure most of it out for yourself.
Twelfth: Humans Only
The world of DnD is not a tolerant one. Some races look down upon others, and some get along great. This is going to play a larger role in NPC-PC interaction. If you are a crazy beast person, people will probably tend to fear you more and respect you a little less. So just remember, its nothing personal, everyones just racist.
Thats all I can remember at the moment, if any of the DMs can remember something I didn't just post it here. I'll be posting details on the more incomplete ideas here as we create more detailed systems for them.
Feedback plz.
Okay, now on to business.
There was a meeting of the four DMs a little while back, and we came to a lot of conclusions about how the game world is going to change.
Now, I'm doing this all by memory, so I may be editing this post as I remember more stuff we talked about, but I'm sure I'll be able to remember most of it.
First Major change worth noting: Shit is about is get MUCH harder.
We have all been playing this game enough to understand how it works, we have also played long enough to know how to use our heads to solve a situation. As such, you will all see a massive increase of difficulty when it comes to monster battles. We are done fighting goblins and animals that you can just hack and slash your way through. The monsters you will start fighting are going to hit harder and require actual strategy and intelligence to fight. Now I'm sure you can already tell where I'm going with this; you are going to start dying. So don't run through modules thinking that "Oh, nothing bad will happen" because it will. Please have ideas for new characters in your head at all times, because you never know when your character will be next.
Second: Multiple Characters
We have decided there needs to be a system for creating new characters. You can not just create a bunch of throwaway characters that you don't care if you lose or not. If you are allowed to create a ton of new characters, then you don't get attached to them and you will tend to not play with them as carefully as you should. That being said, your first character MUST reach level five before you are able to create a new character. Furthermore, you may only use one character at a time during modules. You cannot have one your your extras just tag along and sit in the background of module, this makes the strategy of group composition kind of nonexistent. Forcing you to choose what character you bring forces you to make smarter choices. "Oh, we are going to X location, Y character is good for this" Now lets say you're sick of your current character but it isn't level five yet. You can make a new character even if it is not level five, but you must "retire" your current one. Meaning, you cannot use that character for anything at all until the new character you just created is, you guessed it, level five.
Third: Ships!
Short one here. Our current ship is going to go away, we will roleplay it in somehow. But we now have a ship system in place for building, running, and using ships. They will cost a lot of money and they will take a long time to be built; but you will need one.
Fourth: Weather
Weather will now play a role in how your characters preform. We will be working out a climate map in the near future to be able to roll for what kind of weather it is in specific locations. Weather will have major effects on how every aspect of your game works. E.g. Rain might make it easier for you to critically miss.
Fifth: CRITICAL MISS!
Speaking of critical misses, We have developed a system for how severe you will miss. I wont reveal any specifics about how we decide, just so we can keep the suspense, but I will tell you this. The severity of a critical miss could range from simply humiliating yourself all the way up to mortally wounding yourself, or giving yourself a major permanent disability. As I said before, shits getting harder and less forgiving. This same system will work for critical hits too, ranging from simply hitting a good area off your target to all out annihilating it. Fun!
Sixth: Prototypes
We have lots of unique weapons in this game. Some are very powerful, but also have drawbacks. We've found that many people shy away from these weapons because of these drawbacks. So we will be planning on introducing a prototype system. Simply put, an NPC, currently unknown to us who it will be, will offer specific characters the chance to test his crazy inventions in the field of battle. These weapons will offer great perks, but will also have major defects in them that cause them to be very risky to use. Seems like any other perk weapon, right? Wrong. After a set amount of times you use this prototype in combat, you will be able to bring it back to him and he will make improvements upon it, and cause some of the risk to go away. You may then go out and continue to use it more, then bring it back later for improvements. This adds a risk and reward system to the game, allowing for more decision-based game play. The system is still in its early development, so specifics are available currently, I'll draft up an explanation and post it in this thread later on.
Seventh: Time
Let me ask you something. What month is it in Archaem? Okay, how about what day? Season? Year?! No one knows. We intend to fix this. We don't really have a system drafted up, but it's in the works. We will unveil it as soon as it is done. Stay tuned!
Eighth: Age of Consent
Haha, no, it's not what you think. Basically, there is a specific level at which your character may partake in many of the more risky and more rewarding things. For instance, The Deck of Many Things, as well as the new Prototype system. Can you guess what level this is? Thats right! Its level five. That is the point at which we felt you have made a meaningful connection with your character, and thus should be able to take risks with him. This prevents people from making a new level one character and instantly drawing from my deck and BAM level 8, or getting their hands on an awesome prototype. If you have a character you've worked hard on, then you'll be more apt to pause before taking large risks with it.
Ninth: IF IT BLEEDS, WE CAN KILL IT
HEY GUESS WHAT. Did you know you have blood inside of you? And if you lose that blood you die? Of course you do! We now have a system for bleeding. Basically, if your character gets stabbed and fall unconscious, you can't just breathe a sigh of relief and say "Well, I'm out of combat. No, your character is going to start bleeding and taking damage until you die. Now, for the sake of suspense, I wont reveal how much bleed damage you take, you'll just have to assume you need urgent care. So stock up on those healing potions, you're going to need them.
Tenth: Pick on the weak.
Picture this; you are a bad guy, and you see a group of people, among them is a burly fighter and a weak thief. Who are you going to attack? If you picked the fighter, you probably have downs syndrome. You're going to pick off the weakest people first. That being said, we now have a system for NPCs selecting targets. How they choose to fight will depend on their alignment and intelligence. Again, no specifics, you'll have to observe how things go and then make assumptions. Thats all I'll tell you.
Eleventh: PRAISE THE LAWD.
Religion. It is going to play a larger role in how NPCs respond to characters of specific deities and alignments. There isn't a whole lot more I can tell on that subject, its still in development. When its done, I'll post a few more details, but you'll have to figure most of it out for yourself.
Twelfth: Humans Only
The world of DnD is not a tolerant one. Some races look down upon others, and some get along great. This is going to play a larger role in NPC-PC interaction. If you are a crazy beast person, people will probably tend to fear you more and respect you a little less. So just remember, its nothing personal, everyones just racist.
Thats all I can remember at the moment, if any of the DMs can remember something I didn't just post it here. I'll be posting details on the more incomplete ideas here as we create more detailed systems for them.
Feedback plz.
Last edited by TacticalBacon on Mon Mar 26, 2012 2:39 pm; edited 2 times in total
