Design Philosophy info

[Rias]

I've written up some info on the design philosophy of the game which I encourage everyone to check out when they have a spare minute or two. It can be found by clicking on this link to the wiki article or by typing "help design philosophy" in-game.

This document will likely grow over time, and any major updates will be announced. Feel free to ask questions or discuss in this thread!

[Dorn]

Been reading First Law lately or something? Not that I disagree with anything mentioned.

[Rias]

Been reading First Law lately or something? Not that I disagree with anything mentioned.

Nope, but now I want to!

[Lun]

I think everything aligns with my expectations for the world of Arad already. That being said, with the design philosophy so stated, should we anticipate to kind of always be one step behind in terms of player power on an individual basis versus the common foe (like with the current ability implementations where enemies are better trained than we are)? Or is the intent still to bring back legacy CLOK abilities and add in new ones such as the generalized abilities we may have seen in COGG?

[artus]

There's the clok we always new, again. I somehow miss that. It's part of the charm, though sometimes how lost lands is meant to be felt had to be reminded over and over...I'm glad help design philosophy is in the game so people can look it up now. Oh hey, you're not a superhero in here.

I hope we can still soldier on to a much lesser extent, though. It's good to see somoene leave a mark somehow, albeit just oh hey some rando did this here...It's still something regardless of how small it is.

[Rias]

should we anticipate to kind of always be one step behind in terms of player power on an individual basis versus the common foe?

No, it wasn't meant as a statement that mobs will always be tougher than comparative-skill PCs or anything. More that PCs should never assume they're at the top of the food chain, even with capped skills and a bunch of fancy abilities. While certainly not the case for literally every creature out there, there will always be potential for some creatures (or other human NPCs) to be tougher than PCs pound-for-pound. On the flip side, plenty denizens of the Lost Lands may be significantly weaker than PCs of comparable skill.

Bottom line is to just never assume that your character is ever going to be the biggest baddest thing out there, or that the player characters as a group are ever going to have the ability to turn the apocalyptic Lost Lands around into a safe and peaceful New Aetgard or something. The setting should be viewed as an ongoing struggle, not a limited-time campaign arc to be solved.

Is the intent still to bring back legacy CLOK abilities and add in new ones such as the generalized abilities we may have seen in COGG?

Yep! I realize that at the moment many PCs feel particularly disadvantaged due to their lack of special abilities, but that shouldn't be the case for much longer.

Oh hey, you're not a superhero in here.

Pretty much, yeah. Even the player characters with big powerful abilities/spells are in fact learning said abilities from others, after all - they're not singularly powerful one-of-a-kind heroes in the setting. Sorry if that bursts anyone's power fantasy, but I find it much more interesting to participate in an ongoing group effort of more or less "normals" (relatively speaking) than to see some overpowered Prophecied One that solves everything just because they happen to have superpowers greater than anything else in the setting.

I hope we can still soldier on to a much lesser extent, though. It's good to see somoene leave a mark somehow, albeit just oh hey some rando did this here...It's still something regardless of how small it is.

Absolutely! The hope is to get players feeling like their characters are important and valuable when it comes to the struggle for the well-being of their own home factions. They just shouldn't expect to be unstoppable forces in the setting that are above anything the Lost Lands could ever possibly throw at them. Not triumphing because they're exceptional one-of-a-kind overpowered heroes, but because they've got the determination to keep fighting and the willingness to work with others against adversity.