Editorial Yet another CRPG genre editorial at GameSpot

[Shagnak]

In ye olde AD&D you could hit werewolves etc with a magic weapon OR silver. Have things changed? I still play pnp D&D on occasion, but we play in a kinda "steam-punk" milieu that is obviously short of a trillion different damage resistances (i.e. not Forgotten Realms).

What are you guys using for source material for your campaign?

The world is that of the Iron Kingdoms:
http://privateerpress.com/ironkingdoms/default.php

So, there are big steam powered robosuit thingies called "steam jacks", and there are also firearms, and lots of other cool shit. Imagine dirty old "industrial revolution" England with sword and sorcery and high fantasy trappings and lots of extra badness.
There do not appear to be any of the typical cliched Elves and Halflings and Dwarves from what I've seen so far.
[Edit: Elves and Dwarves do exist though. Elves mainly dwell in isolation from humans and are rarely met, and our group hasn't had much to do with Dwarves yet]

There are "gobbers" which are a Goblin-like race with an affinity for engineering. Think WH40k orks, but less brutal or warlike.

The extra rules have been stolen from other campaigns, such as Midnight:
http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/mn11.html
(Im don't think that is the main URL for the Midnight campaign though...)

From these our DM has carved out his own thing, so Im not certain how much his "vision" differs from the various sources he has used - but I think the world background is essentially unchanged.
It certainly does not feel like traditional dungeon-bash D&D, that's fer sure.

 

[Shevek]

I emailed the Gamespot guy about the whole "sin of tb combat" thing (since I felt ToEE combat was very very good). He replied with this:

Yeah, I loved it. I was referring to it in market terms - most PC
publishers absolutely hate publishing turn-based games, because
real-time games do so much better usually. E.g. with Arcanum, the guys
who made Fallout and Fallout 2 were asked by their publisher to put in a
real-time combat mode. The same with X-Com: Apocalypse. It's a shame
that that's the way it's going, but at least there are still plenty of
turn-based strategy and RPG games on consoles and the GBA.


--
Matthew Rorie
415-344-2573

matthewr@gamespot.com

He seems well informed enough to me.

 

[Greatatlantic]

Uh-Oh, Phone Number!!! Do you think he'd mind if I called him up and asked the following about ToEE:

1. Will it play on my computer?
2. Whats it about?
3. Can a download it for free somewhere?
4. When is the port for PS3 coming?
5. Chocobos?
6. Know any good cheat codes?
-and-
7. When is the 3D Real Time FPS, with minigames, sequel coming out?

 

[Ryuken]

I emailed the Gamespot guy about the whole "sin of tb combat" thing (since I felt ToEE combat was very very good). He replied with this:

Yeah, I loved it. I was referring to it in market terms - most PC
publishers absolutely hate publishing turn-based games, because
real-time games do so much better usually. E.g. with Arcanum, the guys
who made Fallout and Fallout 2 were asked by their publisher to put in a
real-time combat mode. The same with X-Com: Apocalypse. It's a shame
that that's the way it's going, but at least there are still plenty of
turn-based strategy and RPG games on consoles and the GBA.


--
Matthew Rorie
415-344-2573

matthewr@gamespot.com

He seems well informed enough to me.

Well, I thought he was trying to say that, wouldn't have made sense with the rest of the article otherwise.

 

[Jed]

The world is that of the Iron Kingdoms:
http://privateerpress.com/ironkingdoms/default.php
The extra rules have been stolen from other campaigns, such as Midnight:
http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/mn11.html
From these our DM has carved out his own thing, so Im not certain how much his "vision" differs from the various sources he has used - but I think the world background is essentially unchanged. It certainly does not feel like traditional dungeon-bash D&D, that's fer sure.

Thanks, Shag, I'll have to check some of those out when I get a chance...