Avellone “very tempted” by D&D-free Planescape Kickstarter

What does Fallout 1-2 have to do with Planescape? It's an entirely different situation. The FO games were a new IP, not a sequel to a classic crpg.

The FO games were a sequel of sorts. I remember reading that on the box. They even had Rangers in them.

I think the Lore in PS is too detailed to just clone. Beneath a Steel Sky was a King's Quest type adventure that had Judge Dread all over it (with artwork by Dave Gibbons as well) but you could do that make any near future dystopia setting without having to borrow heavily from the initial inspiration.

I don't think a PS game can do that.

JDR13 said:

What does Fallout 1-2 have to do with Planescape? It's an entirely different situation. The FO games were a new IP, not a sequel to a classic crpg.

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i've never claimed it has something to do with planescape in any way.

You were making a comparison to it not using a license that was originally connected with it. I'm just saying that a Planescape sequel would not be comparable imo.

He should really be using the term "spiritual successor", and not sequel, because that's basically what he's describing.

JDR13 said:

He should really be using the term "spiritual successor", and not sequel, because that's basically what he's describing.

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exactly
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I would like to note however that the FO games and PS:T seemed very similar to me for some reason. I thought FO was better and PS:T got bogged down in its own text and dialogue.

Well he was just talking about whether or not it's bad to take a CRPG based on a P&P game and seperate it from the rules of the P&P game, which is what they did in FO. But it's true that it is a very different situation, because FO was just using the GURPs rules, not it's gameworld.

In general I'm quite happy with CRPGs not using P&P rules. Pen and paper games are extremely different from computer games, and their rules should reflect that.

fadedc said:

Well he was just talking about whether or not it's bad to take a CRPG based on a P&P game and seperate it from the rules of the P&P game, which is what they did in FO. But it's true that it is a very different situation, because FO was just using the GURPs rules, not it's gameworld.

In general I'm quite happy with CRPGs not using P&P rules. Pen and paper games are extremely different from computer games, and their rules should reflect that.

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the problem is for the people (like myself) that liked CRPGs because they used p&p rules, thus had very tactical combat, with lots and lots of options. Instead it's now all just about exploration and more exploration, which I know a lot of people here love, but it's not everybody's cup of tea.

I love the exploration part of things but no RPG has any tactical depth anymore. DA:O's system was no replacement for D&D. All these people crying about D&D, I dunno what the hell they want. Shit like Skyrim where you just can do everything at all times no matter what?

darkling said:

DA:O's system was no replacement for D&D.

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To me, one of the best things of DA:O is the fact that they ditched the D&D rule system. I simply hate the magic system in D&D and I had a blast playing as a mage in DA:O, especially while doing magic combo's with Morrigan.

After playing both Drakensang games I am also of the opinion that The Dark Eye has a better rule system than D&D.

darkling said:

All these people crying about D&D, I dunno what the hell they want. Shit like Skyrim where you just can do everything at all times no matter what?

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Disliking D&D rules does not imply disliking tactical gameplay and preferring FPS/Action like combat.

D&D at the time of PS:T didn't really have very many options at all though. You just picked your class and race, rolled some stats, and that was it. You never made another choice about your character again. If you were a fighter you had a grand total of one option in combat....attack. Modern games (and modern D&D) give many more choices then that, and are frequently much more tactical.

wolfing said:

the problem is for the people (like myself) that liked CRPGs because they used p&p rules, thus had very tactical combat, with lots and lots of options. Instead it's now all just about exploration and more exploration, which I know a lot of people here love, but it's not everybody's cup of tea.

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fadedc said:

Modern games (and modern D&D) give many more choices then that, and are frequently much more tactical.

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You think modern games are frequently much more tactical than 2nd Edition D&D? Are you talking about PnP games or crpgs?

fadedc said:

D&D at the time of PS:T didn't really have very many options at all though. You just picked your class and race, rolled some stats, and that was it. You never made another choice about your character again. If you were a fighter you had a grand total of one option in combat….attack. Modern games (and modern D&D) give many more choices then that, and are frequently much more tactical.

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the general critique of modern D&D is that all the characters become exactly alike. Everyone starts with the same stats and there are too many crossover abilities.

the old rules were an adaptation from other sources, in the terms of characters they borrowed heavily from reality. Stats were basically what life hands you. Not everyone is a perfect specimen when they are born, or culture they are born into. When you were of age you were given a trade, went to college or took a job and it was here that you gained skills.

I've heard that sameness critique before, but it's generally made by people with limited experience with modern D&D. It is true though that the most recent edition did blur the line too much between, for example, magical abilities and physical abilities, but actual character types do play extremely differently, and there is a much bigger difference between, say, a fighter and a ranger or barbarian, then there ever was in the past.

Lucky Day said:

the general critique of modern D&D is that all the characters become exactly alike. Everyone starts with the same stats and there are too many crossover abilities.

the old rules were an adaptation from other sources, in the terms of characters they borrowed heavily from reality. Stats were basically what life hands you. Not everyone is a perfect specimen when they are born, or culture they are born into. When you were of age you were given a trade, went to college or took a job and it was here that you gained skills.

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Well there's no question that modern PnP games are more tactical, in fact a lot of people complain that modern D&D is more of a tactical war game then a RPG. I don't agree, but I can understand their complaint because games do frequently devolve into miniatures maps and tactical discussions.

As for modern CRPGs, it's more complicated. 2nd edition CRPGs were very simple, you got very few choices, and you mostly just bumped your fighters into your enemy over and over until everyone was dead. So the amount of actual tactics involved in play was often very limited. But you did usually have a full party of 6 people, which you don't find in as many modern RPGs. Certainly modern RPGs exist that are more tactical in every possible way then 2nd edition, but many of them are indie games. If you were to compare 2nd edition D&D games to DA:O, I'd say that DA:O was more tactical because you had so many more choices, but of course some might view it as less tactical because you only had 3 characters.

Edit: It also depends a lot on which 2nd edition game we are talking about. Some of the later ones were released around the time that 3rd edition was starting to come out, and as a result, they have features from 3E mixed into their 2E gameplay.

JDR13 said:

You think modern games are frequently much more tactical than 2nd Edition D&D? Are you talking about PnP games or crpgs?

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few options? I don't know what you are talking about.
First of all, it's a party based game, so you are likely to have fighters, clerics, mages, thief, etc. Clerics had lots of spells. Mages had even more spells. Yes, the fighters were just 'attack', but you had to think of if you wanted to use spells, and what spells, or save them for later. This is something that has been lost, as nowadays you have maybe 10 options to choose from, and usually you just use the same 3 things for everything.

You had 2 classes that had some options in combat, and absolutely no options in character creation. I generally found that in many 2nd edition games, you also just used the same couple of spells over and over. They weren't very good at balancing their spells, and there were usually clear winners. But it did depend on the game (BG 2 did a much better job of giving spell options).

But yes as I said before, you did have more party members back then, and that did count for something when it came to tactics. I often miss my 6 man parties.

wolfing said:

few options? I don't know what you are talking about.
First of all, it's a party based game, so you are likely to have fighters, clerics, mages, thief, etc. Clerics had lots of spells. Mages had even more spells. Yes, the fighters were just 'attack', but you had to think of if you wanted to use spells, and what spells, or save them for later. This is something that has been lost, as nowadays you have maybe 10 options to choose from, and usually you just use the same 3 things for everything.

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OK, so what he's saying is that he wants to make an RPG that's heavy on the metaphysics and philosophy. Sounds great to me - assuming he's up to it.

Regardless of how you look at it, the bottom line is that very few crpgs of recent years are as tactical as the IE games or games of that time period in general. Tactical combat is simply not a priority to the vast majority of game developers today, nor does it seem to matter much to the younger generations of gamers.

I'm looking forward to Divinity: Original sin for that reason, although I have doubts about how tactical that game is actually going to be. I also still have the Drakensang games to look forward to since I haven't gotten around to playing them yet.

DA:O was very good, (not as good as the D&D games for me though), but Bioware borked that franchise with the abomination that was DA2.

But yeah.. Indie games is where it's at if you want tactical combat. Knights of the Chalice comes to mind. Too bad I can't stomach the visuals...