The Gaming Den

Ok, so we have...

Cultures/Setting/Background/History

Lots, awesome, believable, and not obviously copies of existing cultures. This is done IMO.

Magic

X amount of flavours (....Water, Fire, Life, Death; and the special one Void); do we have earth and air as well?

System

Warp Cult?

Gaijin Activities?

I don't think that this is a real concern, since once we figure out our desired results, we can write this up in like no fucking time at all. If we all get too squabbly Frank will just lay down some curb-stomping and say what he wants, so that's fine too.

Classes

.... colours? or you pick a main type of magic, then can pick supplemental magic(s) of a different type?


What else?

What else have we talked about that we haven't finished? Stats? (is that system related? probably). What else?

The culture foci were originally written for SAME.

The TNE class system is actually quite different: 5 power sources X 6 attributes = 30 power lists; each class has two power lists from the same source. The total number of possible classes is 150, with significant overlap.

If we're not going to use the proposed system for TNE, the culture focus project should probably have a different name to avoid confusion with the M:tG-based TNE.

So, we pick a stat, then pick a power source; then do it for a second stat, and a second power source?

Then make up a name for the class then and there?

Because I could see that working.

Judging__Eagle wrote:So, we pick a stat, then pick a power source; then do it for a second stat, and a second power source?

Then make up a name for the class then and there?

Because I could see that working.

No, you pick a pwer source, then you pick a stat, then you pick another stat. However, I could see either your idea or the original one working. It depends on how worried you are about 'theme protection'.

In one of the original Sumeru examples, the "Naraka" (black mana in the M:tG version) power source had the disciplines Blood/Sacrifice (Constitution), Necomancy (Strength), Hellfire (Charisma), Decay (Wisdom), Shadow (Dexterity), and Pestilence (Intelligence). A Warlock would be Con/Cha (Blood/Hellfire), a Malefactor would be Str/Wis (Necromancy/Decay), and an Assassin would be Dex/Int (Shadow/Pestilence). Those would be the base classes. If you want to be a Plague Lord, you just go Wisdom/Intelligence.

http://www.eternalspires.net/wiki/pmwik ... n.HomePage

I think, rather than magic, we need a general phlebetonium layout, with clearly defined domains of what's magical, whats qi-based, and whatever else is inherent in the metaphysics of the system--Username17's metaphysics post in the Wuvu-au-lua thread, for example, implies at least one type of phlebetonium, Ghost, which is not a category of magic in the setting, and we could also add electricity as a fairly obvious energy source.

Then each of these types needs a thematic power list. Magic in the setting right now has seven subdomains, of which the classical elements are fairly self-explanatory, life has persuasion, death has mind-control, and void has anti-magic. The other types of phlebetonium will need other domains, which:

1. Should be distinct enough that each feels different and
2. are actually functionally different.

To accomplish this, many types of powers which in D&D are usually considered magical will have to be redefined as not "magic". Like, do you want to jump really high? Would that be an air spell, since it's kind of like flying, which is probably in the magical domain of air? No, it's going to be something completely different, like making/finding a gap in the ambient Ghost around you and slipping through it, or sending tons of electricity through your body to cause your muscles to spasm, or something else which does not involve spells. This will probably involve limiting the traditional "metaphorical extension" of magical domains. The assignment of persuasion to Life magic and mind-control to Death magic in the Wuvu thread is an example of the bad way to do things.

I am proposing this as a mechanism to allow balancing of different character roles. It is not a claim about whether fighters/wizards should be better or equal. That argument is boring. But I would also like to add, in case wizard partisans take offense at the redistribution of powers which in D&D are obviously magical, that even in D&D, psionics exist as a parallel phlebetonium with many of the same functions, and no one's arguing that they shouldn't conceptually exist.

Ghost's death renamed. As for "not magic", it didn't exist in the original concepts. Characters do stuff. Period.