30 réponses à ce sujet

[jmlzemaggo]

@ Dallo, Skyrmir, RyanDarth & gaoneng 

Caereena - Krakona Rising isn't only a perfect exemple of what I was saying above. It's one of my very very few bedside games, un de mes "jeux de chevet".
One of these very few NWN modules I replay once in a while, when I'm in need of all the NWN power. Being willing to replay a module shows how near it is to you. 
The way your module starts tells already a lot about its ambition and imagination.
That module's got an identity. I know him, sort of speak...
Why? I don't know really, but it's heavy, dense, together. It's almost like a corpse, and a corpse you like.

And, to finally let you go back to your real life, its rythm is excellent. 
Can you explain why a good book is a good one? I can't, not really.
All I know is I can't stop reading it. It belongs to my library, my life.
I'm very serious when it comes to gaming... 

Modifié par jmlzemaggo, 14 septembre 2010 - 09:09 .

[jmlzemaggo]

On Topic for a change!!! :innocent:

Quick one bout that "social skills" situation in CKR: Maybe the hostage has to die. As simple as that. He isn't meant to be saved. As if you play it straight, like one should, and don't reload like a madman like myself... and Olivier , the guy dies. It's one of this loss a story has to suffer to be a story.

Okay, okay, , I know... I'm out.

Modifié par jmlzemaggo, 14 septembre 2010 - 09:40 .

[rogueknight333]

olivier leroux wrote...

...At least not if you don't cater to other characters' fortes in the same way that you cater to socially skilled characters.

This is actually exactly what I try to do. The downside with this is that while PCs will run into some scenarios perfectly tailored to their talents (I hope), they will have problems with other scenarios because these were designed with a different type of character in mind. You win some, and you lose some (or at least have a harder time).

To clarify further what I was saying here, It obviously won't do to penalize players too much for not being the right sort of character (unless of course the module was specifically designed for a PC with particular talents, and this is made clear in the documentation), but I personally don't object to occasionally doing so (in some manner that is not too severe of course), because it makes it more rewarding when you do turn out to have the right talents for the situation. For example, if I choose to play a PC with a talent for talking his way out of trouble, instead of some uber powerbuild who would never bother with frills like Persuade or Bluff and uses CHA as a dump stat, then it would be nice if I were sometimes rewarded for this, and the obvious way to provide a reward would be precisely in having enhanced role-play opportunities or a more interesting storyline, since by playing such a character I have indicated more interest in such things than in pure power.

That said, there are certainly many ways to mitigate the problems you mention if one thinks it important and is prepared to put the effort in. I quite like your idea about making failure have consequences that are humorous or otherwise interesting for the player, if perhaps still disadvantageous for the character (though I'm not sure how practical it would be to do this for every failure, at least if you use as many skill checks as I do). You have also introduced a valuable distinction here: what is rewarding for the player and what is rewarding for the character are not necessarily going to be one and the same.

One thing that I occasionally do, if I want to include a skill check in a quest too important to simply let the PC fail, is set things up so that he can keep trying the check over and over again until he succeeds. The DC goes down with every new attempt, so he is sure to eventually succeed no matter how poor his rank in the skill, but, on the other hand, the XP reward, and perhaps other benefits, eventually obtained for success also goes down with each failed attempt (which may not be entirely logical, but does make sure both that a skilled PC will be rewarded, even while any PC can ultimately succeed). As for using one skill to represent all three, or providing a synergy bonus, or otherwise implementing what amounts to a customized ruleset, while this is of course perfectly doable, there are a few disadvantages to this. One being what I already mentioned, namely that many players may not want to bother with learning a new set of complicated rules for every module they download, if such things became common. Another is that if you have to design a character specifically for the custom ruleset of a particular module, this creates problems if you want to bring in an imported characrter, or use an imported character from that module to play in others. None of these is a fatal objection of course, just some downsides to balance against the advantages.

[olivier leroux]

Dallo wrote...
It's a pity that The Builders Project is pretty much defunct these days else I'd be leaning on you to whip up a piece for the Design Manual (ie Guide to Building - Part 2), using your own ideas plus the goodies proffered by rogueknight and Fester Pot 

Yeah, a real shame about the Builders Project, must have been a lot of fun back in the days. Sadly I came late to the party when all the beginners of yesterday had already become veterans or more or less retired from NWN. I really miss such a self-help group for newbie builders. Granted, nowadays we have lots of helpful guides and there's always this forum but it would be nice if there was something beyond that, too; new builders exchanging ideas and inspiring each other, challenges, that sort of thing. Two years ago I tried to initiate a new guild in the spirit of the Builder's Project but it quickly fell apart again due to some odd quarrels about a common PW project most of the members weren't even involved in... Somehow PWs always lead to fighting, heh. I'm collaborating with two mature and 'professional' PW teams at the moment but actually SP mods have always been my main interest. I'd enjoy mod building challenges like the "Hermit's Chalice" contest as I think it's much more fun to learn the ropes that way instead of all alone on your own. But these days it's hard to find newbie builders who feel the same...


Anyway, going a bit off-topic here....

@rogueknight333
The idea with one single skill for all influencing tactics was more wishful thinking than an actual suggestion. True, for a moment I thought about how to integrate it into NWN, e.g. by using only the Persuade skill (and advice players to concentrate on that one) and then take measures that those classes that don't have it as class skills get according bonuses to the check in order to make up for it. But I don't like such makeshift solutions a lot and I agree with your objections.

Modifié par olivier leroux, 15 septembre 2010 - 12:27 .

[taltamir]

I fully agree with every single point the OP made, those are terrible design decisions.
Moreso, the mod designers followed up on cues from the NWN official modules, and those showed terrible implementation which has cropped up in many other modules.

Beyond what the op said, I have a few extra grievances with that system:
First, many will look at your raw ability scores instead of your skills, even further crippling your build choices.

Second, most will associate persuasion with good, intimidation with evil, and bluffing with chaos. Even if your alignment doesn't shift, the actual roleplaying results will be in the above vein... this makes it even harder for classes, if you want to be "nice" and persuade people, well, play a cleric, monk, or paladin. thats it. Fighters can intimidate but not persuade.

Third, some encounters require that you have multiple of those skills for satisfactory roleplaying resolution. That is, you need to intimidate, bluff, AND persuade... and each individual problem can only be solved in this one particular way (no bribing, no intelligent dialog choices, no nothing...)

Fourth, almost always there is no / reduced reward for solving something via diplomacy... if you fight you gain XP and loot, if you talk you lose out on both. I am not saying that the person you just talk to should reward you directly always, but you should get XP, and maybe killing less people and solving more problems diplomatically can improve the economy in various ways, or maybe you make up for that in other places... point is, it should penalize you

the stupidest thing about it, is that it was a design decision of bioware... in the pen and paper version all 3 were a single skill called diplomacy:
http://www.d20srd.or...s/diplomacy.htm
but bioware decided to split them into 3 seperate skills.

Modifié par taltamir, 10 novembre 2010 - 09:26 .

[CheeseshireCat]

There's another point why I hate these skill is. They are meant for a multiplayer. Read that as "party" for PnP.

I mean... If your character doesn't have one as a class skill, on low levels, it can be compensated by CHA bonus. Get in range of level 10 and the difference between what you even *can* have due to cross-class skills not only costing 2/point, but also more importantly *limited* to 1/2 max, becomes essentially "either these skills don't matter at all or you are limited to what your class's are".

Also... WTF is Appraise linked to Int while being used to haggle is above my comprehension. It's one thing to have an idea how much stuff costs, it's entirely different to convince someone to give you a discount (persuade) or to make *them* think it is more expensive (bluff).
Edit: Insert Lore here, too...

Therefore... Would I make a heavily storyline mod, I would most likely handle them in some different way.

Not to mention the Fester Pot's approach of using spells in conversation, which isn't supported in standard game at all. Though as we already discussed it with him, trying to stay too close to paper rules just doesn't work well because of mechanics and stuff, either, so you need to design and fine-tune the system really well...

Modifié par CheeseshireCat, 28 novembre 2010 - 07:46 .