Today I was thinking about kingdoms and player organizations: If this is a sandbox game, settlements will be inhabited by player characters. This means that the deep seeded prejiduce against elves, orcs, humans and other races is no longer a real, tangible force in the game world.
Likewise in terms of RP, certain proffessions don't belong in certain groups: To use the most extreme example, a gunslinger doesn't belong in a low tech tree hugger faction. A paladin doesn't belong in a guild of assasins.
I'm worried that a need to optimize will lead to an all accepting world where dwarves fight beside half-orcs and necromancers fight beside paladins. If it is always optimal for a military force to include units of each class, each military will and diversity will die.
What I'd like to see is a game where it's practical (and possible) to make forces composed of relatively few "classes", with racial limits
This will allow people to flavor their factions- examples:
A village of half orc savages:
-no paladins, no bards, no monks, no wizards
An order of righteous crusaders:
-Limited to good aligned Paladins, Clerics and fighters.
A band of gray elf raiders
-No paladins, druids, or monks/ no units with medium or heavy armor
I could go on and on, but I just got distracted by a shiny thing.
Goblin Squad Member
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Today I was thinking about kingdoms and player organizations: If this is a sandbox game, settlements will be inhabited by player characters. This means that the deep seeded prejiduce against elves, orcs, humans and other races is no longer a real, tangible force in the game world.
Well honestly I find it unlikely that you will have races that are early on. I also don't really see much within the river kingdoms setting that implies much in the way of direct racial hostility between any of the core races, as well I don't picture gunslingers making the cut anytime in the early game, possibly not in the later game.
Personally I see tons of room to roleplay, the nature and design of the game. Factions will develop histories, hatreds and alliances, betrayals etc... of their own history.
Now alignment and roles etc... I have no idea how/if that will occur. Depends largely on how alignment works etc... (namely on ways to prevent forced lose lose situations thrown at paladins by players gaming the system etc...)
However assassinations have been very clear to be an evil act, meaning an assassin will be barred from any settlement with a good alignment by definition.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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If anyone who performs an Evil act is not Good, then it makes sense that anyone who performs a Good act is not Evil- in which case just about everyone interesting will be Neutral.
I'm thinking that there should be room for the Good Sin-Eater: a trained assassin who works for a Good organization, and maintains a Good alignment until they do their job too many times.
What I was thinking originally wasn't just the good/evil axis. That's part of it, but in fairness the alignment system and requirement for groups to maintain a certain alignment should control that to an extent. What I was talking about was general aesthetics and flavor. For example, look at the Alliance and Horde of WoW:
As organizations, the horde and alliance have distinct looks. They are racially segregated. Furthermore the horde has a more tribal, primitive look and flavor whereas the alliance appears more "civilized" and European. In the games inception, these differences were reinforced by the rules (if very slightly) by each faction because each possessed a class the other didn't: The noble paladins for the alliance and the primitive shamans for the horde.
The good thing about games like PFO is that you're not confined to the prison of the game's back story and forced into one of two factions. A player in Pathfinder Online doesn't have to join the alliance or the horde- he has actual freedom and can join (or create)a multitude of player created factions.
But by virtue of that same freedom, couldn't someone create an alliance or a horde? And no, before you get all antsy, I'm not suggesting that the alliance and horde from warcraft be remade in this game. What I'm concerned with is the right of an enterprising group of players to make something that is tactically and culturally distinct- A group that LOOKS and FUNCTIONS differently from most other groups.
FOR EXAMPLE, imagine a settlement of dwarven barbarians. They might wear simple skins and maintain a low level of technology and an up front fighting style.
No fighters allowed! That metal armor is too advanced and it frightens our tribal elders. We hear if you wear it it steals your soul.
Paladins? What paladins? We're a bunch of chaotic hard drinkers who probably haven't the slightest inclination to follow the rules and help others in need.
Sorcerers/Wizards: We're dwarves so we're typically fearful of arcane magic. Our clerics and druids will take care of the magery.
What I'm arguing is that the game can react in one of two ways to the aforementioned groups:
The game can punish them if arcane nuking and control spells are essential to a military, or if any other role/class they omitted from their organization is terribly vital. So the options here would be to ignore flavor and get some wizards for survival's sake or just perish from the earth.
Alternatively, the game can be flexible. If no single "Class" or race is essential for winning wars, players will have much more freedom in shaping how their group looks, feels and fights. If this group of dwarves can get by without sorcerers and wizards by using their clerics and druids as their only spellcasting support, then in my opinion the game works as a sandbox because players are truly customizing their kingdoms.
TLDR: It doesn't necessarily matter that we can create our own organizations- if every kingdom, faction and military happens to work in the same exact way, IE: all 11 classes and races are needed for victory in battle, every group will recruit members from all 11 classes and races. If this happens, the world will feel 2 dimensional and unconvincing as every group that goes by looks like a mirror image of the last.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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If there is a steamroller group, it will be intentionally use the most effective everything. There's no way around that.
I think there is, however, a niche for groups which are effective within a subset of the world; local maximums in power density which are below the global maximum.
Both if those are different from "druid>all", where a homogenous group of an unbalanced type is superior to every other combination.
If there is a steamroller group, it will be intentionally use the most effective everything. There's no way around that.
I think there is, however, a niche for groups which are effective within a subset of the world; local maximums in power density which are below the global maximum.
Both if those are different from "druid>all", where a homogenous group of an unbalanced type is superior to every other combination.
This is indeed a grave concern. Certain classes have a reputation as being "needed" in a group or being generally overpowered in nearly every incarnation of D&D. One of those happens to be a personal pet peeve of mine, the druid.
While my mind has been drifting here and there as to what my ideal clan would look like, I don't think I want to work with druids. Part of it is that they represent a primitive society and look just plain wrong in a guild of siege machine crafters or a cosmopolitan kingdom- part of it is that I just don't think transforming into an animal or elemental is a cool ability- In my opinion it actually looks a bit silly to see men in full plate fighting alongside spellslinging bears.
I also don't much like monks, who I feel also look a bit silly- what with their unnarmed unarmored bodies running around fighting people who have real weapons like some kind of anime character.
I would love it, just ADORE it, if a military could get by without druids, or without monks- or for that matter without any one class and still be effective.
Ideally this would mean that NO class is a sacred cow- This doesn't mean an army of nothing but bards should be as effective as a diverse army- all I'm trying to say is that an army that prohibits certain classes should still be a diverse and effective army.
...god damned bears
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Goblin Squad Member
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Sounds like it's just a dislike of classes based on personal preference.
Personally, I'm not sure I'd wanna be allied with an organization that turned people away because they picked the "wrong" class to play.
I don't care if my allies are perpetually inebriated dwarf barbarians, spellcasting bears with spellcasting bear animal companions, or wizards with a fetish for building golems, if they pull their weight, they're good in my book.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Harrison
I think the issue is less about not liking players choices of class or race, and more about trying to recreate the sense of racial, social, or combative prejudices that are so often featured in fantasy. I don't think anyone's knocking elven wizards, we're just wondering if they'll be vital to a dwarven battle clan. If the player with the elf wants to be allies, it'd probably be fine. But if they're interested in actually joining the iron brotherhood, they'll need to roll up a dwarf.
@Hanz
I'm hoping the focus on skills over classes will allow enough freedom that race or class sensitive groups will be at least viable, if not optimized. It may certainly require more effort with regards to recruitment and character creation. You'll need to make sure everyone is on board and keep track of who's pursuing what to make sure nothing gets overlooked.
Sounds like the kind of thing a multi-game guild might try.