just thinking

ok, its time for something even more immaterial than the last couple of posts. This one is more or less just me ranting about various things loosely related to the game, if at all.

First, addressing the classic angels “holy church” idea. We intentionally want to avoid racial good/evil biases. Differences in culture, education and so on will indeed lead to differences in acceptance of aggressive behavior and so forth, however. That doesn’t mean the ppl we refer to as “celestial” in this game are a complete betrayal of the usual. Our celestials are a group banished to their own “realm” by a creator deity after their part in some sort of catastrophe with the demonic types. They are guilty of disobeying some ordinance or something, but since our deity is more or less a nice guy, the punishment is slightly different from the one the demonic forces received.  Their particular plane is much more accomodating and a lot nicer. This is a result of the creator showing favoritism in carrying out the punishment demanded of the earth spirit thingy.  Now, within that plane, we end up with different groups with varying amounts of zeal in their actions against demonic forces. For some reason, after so long I guess, travel between planes became an occurance/possibility, and so demonic and celestial forces got involved with mortal affairs. Now, for the most part, certain demons who retained their rage after being banished have various agendas in the mortal realm. For the most part, finding artifacts and ways to increase their influence in the mortal realm  are their top priorities. And then, specific factions among the celestial work with mortals against these ploys, when possible. Powers of the two while in the mortal realm are similar to moral denizens, ranging from really strong to friggin weak.  Therefore, their influence exists through various ways, such as possession, agents, alliances, and summoning spells. As for church types, like paladins, those tend to be related to groups who worship the celestials. They mimic the powers of the celestials to aid in the fight against demonic forces. However, this leads to the assumption that all from the demon realm are evil, and this is not true. Similar to the celestial realm, only the more motivated ones in the demon realm end up doing stuff in the mortal realm.

Next is a justification for super abilities without magic. Im going to put this one into a difference in biological adaptation.  As in, the process of improving physique in this world has a much higher ceiling than our own. Also, the actual anatomy of persons is different enough that their bodies can become more sturdy in response to repeated impact. Their muscles are composed of an enchanced version of our own, aided by supernatural energy. The idea is that everyone has ki, but the presence of another energy type diminishes the potential for ki usage, so that ppl using other energies can’t do the most extreme ki maneuvers. This also allows them to reach supernatural strength without the assistance of magic.

To be honest, I think that most classes apart form ki will want to invest in their own specific energy. Ki users will have a unique position, allowing them to ignore magic if they want to avoid any sort of subtle manipulation, as ki will respond to training for any type really.  Certain other types will allow super-natural strength to blossom tho, like celestial, and psionics indirectly. This means, apart from ki, most classes will consist of those who mix dex and magic, str and magic, all three, and pursue magic exclusively.  Whats the point of picking a power type you won’t use?

The magic itself is biological as well, if I haven’t said that. the bodies ability to store and use will be reflective of training. this lets us keep all the stats physiological and trainable.

Speaking of that, we haven’t decided on a leveling system. I know the standard is a set experience value gives you a level during which everything increases, but i don’t know if i agree with that. Anyway, first off, since I’m placing an emphasis on training, Im going to opt for different levels in skills, not gained through skill points, but usage. Also, I feel that since we’re reflecting training, and the bodies capacity for training increases as you train, we should have moves grouped into related sets, and the number of sets you have increases with level in some way. Also, stats should probably be more concerned with the characters actual defeated opponents. To be honest tho, the most sensiable way to handle stats is to have stats increase as you use moves based on that stat. Something like, the more strength based moves you use, the better you are at that. I don’t think our games will have a long enough time span to incorporate loss of stats through neglect, and things can’t go beyond the base levels, cuz the characters won’t age considerably in the course of one game, probably. In this setting, most of the characters customization comes from picking the skill sets, and the variations of those moves, which will probably be something that becomes available with more of the relevant stat. Also, since this is all move related, it seems easy to grind on little monsters endlessly. This won’t work, because progressive overload is needed (<-bs btw), so monsters only lend suitable experience for increasing stats until a certain point, and then stronger monsters are needed.  think of it as doing the same thing endlessly does not lead to endless gains.

In a strategy rpg, this idea doesn’t work as well. Seeing this, I will say that a good idea may be two points per level, and a skill point, but we have to make sure they don’t get too many skills.

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