Game Mechanics/Rules

[slowdive]

[tuluse]

I'm going to make a very flippant and casual suggestion. Instead of making your own system which very much resembles DnD, why not just use Pathfinder? I believe it's open source, so you shouldn't run into any licensing issues. Then you get a tested system that people are very familiar with.

[slowdive]

Partly because we need a system that is simpler than Pathfinder or D&D for the time being. Also, because I want the system to be flexible and generic enough to work with multiple settings. I figure that developing our own system based on proven ideas would be the way to go for now. Someday, we may look into allowing different rulesets, but for now we need to keep it simple to avoid too much scope creep. The ruleset is not set in stone and is being influenced and shaped from discussions here on the forums.

[Baron]

With DMs and mod makers being prissy control freak know-it-alls, myself aside who has managed to temper genius with humility, is it possible to have the ruleset external? So that if I wanted to modify STRENGTH and call it BEEF, or change d20 into the square root of d100 divided by Pi + 42, that I could just open a file with a text editor and go crazy?

I'm extremely interested in this project as a simple RPG/Ultima 4 style toolset. It seems like a great deal of its appeal would be if it was absurdly simple and customizable. Would it be possible for Users to easily modify functions such as 'Melee Attack' or 'Ranged attack'? Or is it fixed once the engine is released?

[Baron]

I was mostly asking as IceBlink has Str, Dex, Int, Cha... and I've already written a huge amount of dialogue for a game that uses Wisdom as well.

[slowdive]

At this point, the ruleset will not be customizeable. What you can customize is your own classes, skills, spells, feats/talents and races. At this time, the attributes will not be customizeable neither will the combat system or other aspects of the rules system. Eventually, I would like to open this up as well, but we have to start somewhere. Get it working first and then add more features in the future. If there is something in the existing system that needs to be changed (such as needing WIS or CON) let me know. Allowing customization (such as skills, classes, etc.) requires a ton of work to make sure that the program is robust enough to handle all the many ways people will try and use it. Development of the IceBlink Engine won't end with the first launch. I would like to see it continue to evolve as long as there is a community to support it.

[Lurking Grue]

[slowdive]

No problem, I'll add the other two...hopefully in the first alpha...not that they do much at this stage in development

[Lurking Grue]

[youngneil1]

So, back at my home PC, more posting and adventure planning, hehe!

And yeah! to the classic six attributes from me, too. It's really more of a tradition thing I guess, but I got used to that classic attribute combo. It would have worked out with four, but those six give some flexibility to flesh out different characters and spread the usefullnes a little more.