Dwarves can be divine too!

origen · Post by **origen** » Fri Jan 16, 2009 5:32 pm

I just thought I would throw out a topic to anyone who is still here. One of the things that has always bothered me about DW is that there are some classes that you can't be based on your race. While this may make sense with Red Claws, should this affect so many other classes? Just as a few examples, you can't be a Dwarven Paladin, a Beggen Warrior, Senrat Psi-Knight or a Half-Orc Arcanist.

Since this is the one area that we can control, what are people's thoughts?

Domhnall4h · Post by **Domhnall4h** » Sat Jan 17, 2009 1:01 pm

It's an old standby of prior DnD editions. Dwarves could only be fighters, thieves, or fighter/thieves etc... It was a very poor design decision then, and for DW or any modern game to have it reeks of lazy and poor design now.

At least in the Pen and paper game, 99% of DM's wouldn't adhere to that rule. In a computer RPG, the player is stuck.

I don't even like the thought of base classes, like the generic Warrior or Monk, having any racial or gender or even equipment restrictions. Perhaps more elite classes in a dual/multi-class system could, but then those would be representing in-setting organizations, and not just a general profession. Dwarven Axelord, or Elven Archdruid or an Amazon or what have you.

This last is in my own design; base classes with no restrictions at all, and elite classes which offer race,gender restrictions as well as skill restrictions, equipment, and what not.

Growler · Post by **Growler** » Tue Jan 20, 2009 2:14 pm

Partly agree with the dum..I mean dom on this.

But I'm okay with whoever's dev'ing selecting restrictions on classes based on race or even gender--there's already restrictions based on ST/WIS/etc attributes, so why not on other aspects?

Could be annoying tho if the class restrictions seem arbitrary.

Part of what makes a game interesting is learning what the various limits/restrictions are, then trying to work around them..or at least optimize your party.

But if clsses aren't restricted, then at least make the little Beggen pay for pretending to be a real Warrior! Say.. he can't even hit anything taller than himself (93% of all monsters). Or a Half-Ork for trying to pass himself off as a smarty Wizard, yo. Takes 2x longer to learn spells (or double expense) and requires 2 turns to execute a spell.

Or--make the attribute requirements even higher for certain races/sexes.. so you'd have to be (roll) a super-strong Beggen to be allowed into the Warrior caste..class.

Nice to know the dom is so very egalitarian tho!

Domhnall4h · Post by **Domhnall4h** » Tue Jan 20, 2009 2:33 pm

The half-orc trying to be a wizard would be more dependent upon intelligence, not race. While the thought that there would be a cultural reason that a particular race is less apt to a certain profession, that isn't a good reason to fully ban that race from the profession.

In many ways, SS followed the old Bard's Tale mold too closely.

origen · Post by **origen** » Tue Jan 20, 2009 7:04 pm

Especially since a Half Orc can be an elementalist, but not an arcanist. What up wit that?

Growler · Post by **Growler** » Tue Jan 20, 2009 7:27 pm

origen wrote:Especially since a Half Orc can be an elementalist, but not an arcanist. What up wit that?

Orcs are considered 'close to the ground' -good noses & such.. so guess it makes a little sense to allow them 'elemental' powers rather than Arcane.

Grodst · Post by **Grodst** » Sun Jan 25, 2009 10:58 pm

Gotta have arcane rules to wench about!

Some class restrictions fed off the stats for the races. Higher bonuses to Str offset by lower Int/Wis kinda leads to no Mages there, same for hobbits/beggins, etc.

Domhnall4h · Post by **Domhnall4h** » Mon Jan 26, 2009 9:49 pm

Actually, it still made no mechanical sense. This is from the standpoint of a designer and a gamer. An Orc mage would be less effective (due to lower INT) as a mage, which clearly balances out the +1 or 2 to-hit and few extra HP he shouldn't be using as a freaking mage anyway.

Halflings made less sense, as IIRC they never had an INT penalty like that, only STR/CON for DEX/CHA. There was no aesthetic reason to restrict the hairy foot halfling from being a mage due to stats, again only very early on would the extra -1 or -2 to AC due to DEX be useful. And CHA was never useful. The loss in HP made up for that extra AC; and they should have been equal to humans, mechanically, in terms of actual spellcasting potential.

But a Halfling could be a Fighter, which in the DnD mechanics REQUIRES high STR, and really needs high CON. Meaning that the Halfling could be a class that it was mechanically poor at...

Growler · Post by **Growler** » Tue Jan 27, 2009 12:20 am

I'm working on RPmicroGame and want to make gender, race, and profession differences great enough that you can really 'feel' them during gameplay.. But still try to balance things out in a larger sense (say, all else equal--females not as strong, but have better fine dexterity/speed).

Dom, what stuffings have you designed?
Complete games - pooter or pen'n'paper?
Mods..?

Generally, I'd say a well-designed game would be optimally played by having a wide variety of chars..incl different genders, races, professions, etc.

Along those lines, cool to have special items &/or spells that help allow (otherwise poor choices) be really great fighters or whatever. So, Dom's example of a Halfling could be an exceptional fighter in the end.

Domhnall4h · Post by **Domhnall4h** » Tue Jan 27, 2009 12:19 pm

I had a mostly complete cRPG coded on an old laptop that burned up. I redesigned the entire thing from the ground up afterwards, and is nearing the next stage in development (me becoming less apathetic towards humanity). I've also done work on a mod or two, and a number of maps for various older TBS games. I might even still have some floating around on a backup. Finally, the game mechanics I used both in my old cRPG and the current design are built to be used as a PnP game, though this is so I can test balance without needing my laptop around or enough content implemented into the game engine (which isn't at a playable point yet).

While I have no idea who paid for these scientific studies (which always can determine the outcome without any testing done whatsoever), there have been several done which show that there is no difference in physical potential in human genders. I originally thought about having specific racial differences in their genders, but dropped it as unnecessary, and likely to get me chewed out for "promoting gender inequality" Ultimately, the main differences in men and women in their physical capabilities have historically been determined by social and cultural forces; otherwise women can match men in pretty much any field other than complete and utter apathy.

As the bulk of the character development rests on a skill based system, it makes no sense to have any racial or gender restrictions; the characters actually learn what they want to use. There are classes, but I'm not getting into them right now. Thus, the Halfling fighter (somehow magically transported to my world, because I hate halflings) has the potential to be within a few points of damage of a human or dwarf fighter. Which can be covered by buffs, enchanted weapons, and pure dumb luck.

Thus, my design is of the POV that the character (and in turn, the player) makes what they will of their abilities, not some arbitrary set of restrictions based on inhaling large amounts of hallucinogenic drugs. Race and Gender play little part in the potential abilities of a character. There are some race-specific traits, like claws and a tail, which do have effects, but those are coded externally from each race.

Well, there is the one race which is gender neutral; but I'm not getting into that either.

Where gender and race does come into detailed consideration is the diplomacy system, and to a lesser extent reputation/karma system. Also, while mechanically it's of no consideration, the setting is detailed to the point that each race tends towards it's own religions, sects, organizations, and the like. I have about 18 pages on a single race called the Rinei, and only less than half a page detailing their mechanics.

Growler · Post by **Growler** » Tue Jan 27, 2009 2:22 pm

Not so sure 'bout any studies suggesting equivalent physical human gender potential.. but if so, then Origen can (with effort?) give birth.

Years ago NASA put men & women thru exhaustive tests & concluded that women were every bit as doggedly determined as the worst (most competitive) of men in all kinds of endurance & pain tests. But dudes are on average--excepting Bulgarian women--able to run faster, jump higher, throw stuff faster/farther, and bench press more.

All for one simple evolutionary reason...men are utterly expendable, so must constantly prove their/our worth by flinging arrows and being hidebound. Also, belching at God-angering decibel-levels.

So gotta have some gender difs in any self-respecting RPG!
That said, I'd happily code dwarf or orc women to be stronger than human dudes. And balance out other advantages for the fairer sex. Smarter..more comely, higher dex (if not speed), better piano-playing skills, and even keep CON the same since women can truly suffer every bitter good as a cry-baby guy.

Dom, sounds like you've given all this a hole lotta thought. Mayhaps..too much. Which is dang near cool in my book of forgotten lore and skanks.

So when/where can we see some of your creations?
Even the book-long descripts.. which I bet are bizarrely interesting.

Good luck finishing your cRPG and def post here when ya do.

word of friendly techno-advice: backup.

8 & even 16 gigger USB thumbdrives are dirty-cheapo these daze, yo!

Domhnall4h · Post by **Domhnall4h** » Wed Jan 28, 2009 11:19 am

Again, most of the physical differences are easily explained as women aren't exactly pressured to fling arrows and dung at enemies all day. With few exceptions throughout history, military matters was entirely male, from the lowest conscript to the highest general. There is social pressure on me to slaughter the village and make salves of their children and roasts of their women even now.

Thankfully, I've grown far too lazy to do that, so I write video games.

If anything, that woman who had 8 freaking kids shows that women should get a considerable bonus vs pain-based effects. And dwarves don't count. They use their babies as shields and ammo during combat, and eat kitten roasts.

Back in the days of my mostly complete engine, 3.5" floppies were it. In fact, there were no USB drives, and my laptop had a mighty 80486 processor @ an astounding 33mhz. 2 mega bytes of RAM with no kind of video at all, and a tiny PC Speaker for sound. The source file was over 5 mb in size then.

I try to do regular backups now, using an SD card for my old phone. It's cheap, but it works well; not enough right now to fill up 2gb.

Mods and maps may still be floating around the internet, but I can't say for certain as I've lost track of most of those games. Recently found a floppy disk backup of my UGE modules though, but I still have about 300 3.5" disks to go through.

Amusingly, the long racial descriptions were made because I got bored. There's a lot more detail than I'll bother to include, as it makes no sense to include eating habits, recipes for cooking their children, and whether or not they consider yetis a delicacy and why. Mostly I'll keep the religious stuff, as it offers plenty of opportunity for conflict and quest development in-game; racial prejudices, for more conflict, and the recipes for eating their children.

Last night I wrote two pages on a single town of less than 3500. It was a bare framework just to give me ideas later on quests. I can easily pull about 10-15, and offer the player a dilemma. All off of a small town with 3500 residents divided among 4 major factions, and 4 races. And most of the factions are not racial either.

My problem lies in coding; while it's enjoyable work to me, my skill is sub-par at best. Especially since I want an easily modified engine, with the bulk of the content/setting kept in RAW files and not hard coded into the engine. In fact, the game mechanics could probably be hammered out in a few months. I already have most of the spell effect functions written (all the generic damage spells have one function they call). Weapons are deceptively simple, because I've got such a streamlined combat mechanic. Again I have the damage function implemented.

The big issue is graphics, making it easily modded, and various specific functions like unique spells. Then there are the non-spell magics' mechanics, bard spell-song mechanics, and (God-help-me) diplomacy mechanics.

Growler · Post by **Growler** » Wed Jan 28, 2009 4:27 pm

Couple quick quests:

what language/s do you code in?

you doing it mainly for yoself or to give/sell?

open-source??

what attributes/variables do you assign to weapons?
and any other items, etc you don't mind revealing..

I'd be interested in hearing about your combat mechanics.. soopa-crucial since most time in playing RPG is hacking & slashing.

how much does luck (chance generally) play in yer game?

for the wreckord: yetis/Growlers are divine delicacies, as in, only for divine consumption.

Domhnall4h · Post by **Domhnall4h** » Wed Jan 28, 2009 6:17 pm

Duly noted; BBQ or baked in a quiche.

C++ is my arcane mumblings of choice in this matter. More because it can be leveraged into a career easily than any specific capability of the language, though it's portability is a plus.

Open-source is an unanswered question for myself. In the end, if i can use OS code to cut back of development time (specifically in the graphics and sound department, which I haven't touched) I probably will; and if I use any OS code, then the entire source will be released. If I do a from-scratch build, I may not.

I will be working on a GUI editor for the engine, quite possibly prior to any release just so I can easily build the inner world without having to write out the scripting. At any rate, my goal is an easily modified engine, and as such I want to provide real tools for that purpose. Think FRUA in a sense, except the graphics style is closer to M&M: WoX/IoT and there isn't tactical combat (yet).

You should be able to add races, classes in both base and elite trim, weapons, spells (so long as they fit within the hard-coded effects), songs, and graphics without needing to rebuild anything. Or spend hours writing text scripting.

Combat mechanics are pretty typical D20 style stuff. Roll a die, add your attack bonus to it, and hope it all beats the defense of the thing you want to hit. There are specific rules for severing limbs and heads (and tails and wings). As well as the odd insta-kill that may be cut out if I find it too powerful. Paper testing hasn't shown it to be yet.

I do fully intend to have diplomacy be a viable option though. More because I haven't seen it done, and I remember vaguely reading a forum thread saying it couldn't be done.

There's a couple things put in just for that reason. I added a cat-girl race due to one forum user spending several large posts saying how much he/she/it hates catgirls. However, I hate halflings, thus they will never be seen within my game world.

Luck plays the usual part, but I'm not going to rely on rolling for stats. I prefer point-buy myself. Might have rolling for the points themselves, sorta like The Summoning.

As far as who I do it for, it's for me. Obviously; one does not invest time and money into a project for no reason, and I'm too apathetic to do it for any lovers old or new. I've wanted to make my own game since the days that Ultima 6 and Wizardry 7 could be bought new in stores. I actually did once, though it wasn't released.

The finished product will likely be sold, to finance the next project. I have about 4 general ideas for other types of games and want to do them almost as much. I'm interested in this enough to be going to college in order to hone my skills in coding, and to get the degree that says I can make a career out of it, just because of this project.

Growler · Post by **Growler** » Fri Jan 30, 2009 3:26 am

Sounds like ya got a lifepath plan in effect. Just steer clear of any politics & all will go swell.

I've heard that C++ is generally the way to go--and typically for the reasons you cite. As for open source, seems the DW folks decided to go OS for their graphics engine & possible some other aspects? Maybe audio?

Helpful to hear about your project..even tho' leaving halflings out seems a tragic crime--one which having cat-girls more than makes up for 8)

Not being fam with FRUA, I looked it up...which led to Dungeon Craft, which looks pretty cool for making semi-generic? games. I may play with that. Anyone here tried making games via DC?

For what it's worth, when it's ready to market or sell.. I'll pre-pay for a copy..long as it's under, say.. $12.55

Are the college courses in coding pretty decent?