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So looking over the player's guide, I'm getting a general impression that Jade Regent bears some striking similarities to Fire Emblem. The guide suggests that Jade Regent centers on the following:
1. Management of a caravan and resources for said caravan.
2. Multiple NPCs whom characters can form relationships both platonic and romantic. These relationships give both solid role playing and tangible in game benefits if cultivated correctly.
3. It covers a lot of travel and plot elements take place in a variety of locales ultimately settling on relatively small forces confronting large armies.
4. The plot centers around a young noble who finds an artifact and needs to use it to gain a throne that is rightfully theirs but has been taken by force and/or political manipulations.
A number of these are also overall good elements of storytelling and familiar (if not necessarily common) fantasy tropes. Mind you, I'm not complaining in the least and instead think it fantastic if more than likely unintentional. I just thought I would bring this up and was wondering if anyone else had noticed... Either way, this adventure path has me very excited and I can't wait to run it. The first adventure alone has thoroughly blown me away.
So looking over the player's guide, I'm getting a general impression that Jade Regent bears some striking similarities to Fire Emblem. The guide suggests that Jade Regent centers on the following:
** spoiler omitted **
A number of these are also overall good elements of storytelling and familiar (if not necessarily common) fantasy tropes. Mind you, I'm not complaining in the least and instead think it fantastic if more than likely unintentional. I just thought I would bring this up and was wondering if anyone else had noticed... Either way, this adventure path has me very excited and I can't wait to run it. The first adventure alone has thoroughly blown me away.
I had a similar thought but for me it feels like a bioware style game, probably closest to the Dragon age series with the relationships and all. But the caravan thing makes me think of Mass Effect 2 and the "build your crew" concept.
Of course none of this is a bad thing I told my group about this idea last night and the general response was "cool, lets run it".
Creative Director
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Bioware's RPGs had a huge influence on Jade Regent, particularly the Mass Effect and Dragon Age games. Those games have a huge influence on most of what I design, in fact, because I find them to be EXCELLENT examples of how to build a compelling story within the framework of a system of rules. You'll see this influence on my adventure in Serpent's Skull, "Souls for Smuggler's Shiv" as well.
I've never heard of Fire Emblem before, so any "inspiration" there is coincidental. A quick google shows me it's a Nintendo game (which explains it—I don't really play many Nintendo games at all). So what you're seeing is in fact probably Bioware and Nintendo seeing each other have a great success with a type of game and shifting their own design philosophies as a result, so that when I come along and get inspired by Bioware, I suppose in a trickle-down method I'm being inspired by Fire Emblem.
Although it could just as easilly be both me and Nintendo being inspired by Bioware, I guess; I'm not sure what kind of timeline Fire Emblem is running with, but I've been influenced by Bioware and their designers since the90s when they were doing games like Baldur's Gate.
What is Fire Emblem ?
It's long-running console RPG series that's a square-grid based "tactical" RPG with a mix of an Eastern-style rules system and a very Western-fantasy flavored world. It's known for its rock-paper-scissors approach to weapons and magic types*, a strong focus on comradery and romance, and a very unforgiving "permanent death" system, as all playable characters (with a few exceptions) are unique and die for the remainder of gameplay when they run out of hit points.
*Example: Lances beat swords with reach, swords beat axes through finesse, and axes beat lances by sundering the haft.
Although it could just as easilly be both me and Nintendo being inspired by Bioware, I guess; I'm not sure what kind of timeline Fire Emblem is running with, but I've been influenced by Bioware and their designers since the90s when they were doing games like Baldur's Gate.
Possibly the other way around, but unlikely. The first Fire Emblem game was in 1990, but the series stayed in Japan until 2003 and an international release on the Game Boy Advance.
Personally, I just see both the Fire Emblem series and BioWare's long pedigree of rock-solid RPGs as being excellent combinations of game and storytelling, and any trope overlap is coincidental.
[Fire Emblem is] known for its rock-paper-scissors approach to weapons and magic types*, a strong focus on comradery and romance, and a very unforgiving "permanent death" system, as all playable characters (with a few exceptions) are unique and die for the remainder of gameplay when they run out of hit points.
The permanent death system is my favourite part of Fire Emblem. It makes every battle an awesome challenge. Coupled with the extraordinarily simple yet romance/friendship system, where each character has a limited number of 'conversations' they can spend on getting to know their companions, it makes for an amazing experience; every playthrough can be different as different characters get to know each other and gain bonuses from their relationships.
Fire Emblem is far and away one of my favourite games to sit and play and just enjoy--especially with turn-based combat, which I find much more cerebrally challenging than the realtime combat in (e.g.) Mass Effect.
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Bioware's RPGs had a huge influence on Jade Regent, particularly the Mass Effect and Dragon Age games. Those games have a huge influence on most of what I design, in fact, because I find them to be EXCELLENT examples of how to build a compelling story within the framework of a system of rules. You'll see this influence on my adventure in Serpent's Skull, "Souls for Smuggler's Shiv" as well.
This actually slipped past me. I've played very few of Bioware's games. Of the older AD&D series I only ever played Icewind Dale and 3/3.5's Neverwinter Nights. I got Dragon Age for my birthday last year and I still can't get it to run properly. Sigh. Back on topic though, regardless of what influences inspire ideas in the Adventure Paths, I must applaud you guys on a job well done. After all, only the first adventure is out and I'm already chomping at the bit, so to speak, to run this one.
Fire Emblem is a relatively niche series and of my gaming group, I'm the only one that plays it. Still, it just goes to show how well designed these adventures are if they can inspire fond memories not only of roleplaying, but of going through other fun games I've had the chance to play over the years. Here's looking forward to volume 2.
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Bioware's RPGs had a huge influence on Jade Regent, particularly the Mass Effect and Dragon Age games. Those games have a huge influence on most of what I design, in fact, because I find them to be EXCELLENT examples of how to build a compelling story within the framework of a system of rules. You'll see this influence on my adventure in Serpent's Skull, "Souls for Smuggler's Shiv" as well.
I've never heard of Fire Emblem before, so any "inspiration" there is coincidental. A quick google shows me it's a Nintendo game (which explains it—I don't really play many Nintendo games at all). So what you're seeing is in fact probably Bioware and Nintendo seeing each other have a great success with a type of game and shifting their own design philosophies as a result, so that when I come along and get inspired by Bioware, I suppose in a trickle-down method I'm being inspired by Fire Emblem.
Although it could just as easilly be both me and Nintendo being inspired by Bioware, I guess; I'm not sure what kind of timeline Fire Emblem is running with, but I've been influenced by Bioware and their designers since the90s when they were doing games like Baldur's Gate.
Seems to go both ways. How do you feel about the DA2 elves? The bw guys were saying that was how they wanted to make their elves unique, looks like they just ripped the pathfinder look.
There are a large number of games that use the features listed. There are also a large number of different Fire Emblem games that feature different stories and characters and it wasn't the first to use a caravan, relationships, or the hero rising to power nor will it be the last.
I did think the rock/paper/scissors mechanic to Fire Emblem has always been pretty weak. Other strategy/rpg games like FEDA, Shining Force, FFT, Ogre Battle, Disgaea, and so on outclass it.
On side note: when are we going to get an Adventure Path that spans generations?
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Creative Director
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Seems to go both ways. How do you feel about the DA2 elves? The bw guys were saying that was how they wanted to make their elves unique, looks like they just ripped the pathfinder look.
Since Bioware started working on Dragon Age before Paizo even existed, I suspect that they didn't just rip off our look for elves. And for that matter, I don't think they did rip us off; their elves are a bit "thicker" than ours. In any event... I've drawn enough inspiration from Bioware products that if they do the same from Paizo's, I'm not only cool with that, I'm really honored that they noticed!
In any event, I like what they did with elves, especially the bit where there are elven alienages in human cities. VERY unusual for elves; that element is what I would point out as their "Unique Bioware Elf" element.
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Creative Director
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On side note: when are we going to get an Adventure Path that spans generations?
Since an adventure path is all about one group of characters going from 1st to about 16th level... restarting that with a new generation isn't really something that the APs are built to do.
But if you wanted to do so, you could probably do "generational APs" pretty easily by simply running multiple APs back to back, and advancing the timeline 25 years or so every time you do a new AP and then having the new characters be the children of the previous PCs.
Seems to go both ways. How do you feel about the DA2 elves? The bw guys were saying that was how they wanted to make their elves unique, looks like they just ripped the pathfinder look.Since Bioware started working on Dragon Age before Paizo even existed, I suspect that they didn't just rip off our look for elves. And for that matter, I don't think they did rip us off; their elves are a bit "thicker" than ours. In any event... I've drawn enough inspiration from Bioware products that if they do the same from Paizo's, I'm not only cool with that, I'm really honored that they noticed!
In any event, I like what they did with elves, especially the bit where there are elven alienages in human cities. VERY unusual for elves; that element is what I would point out as their "Unique Bioware Elf" element.
I think he meant the ( IMO horrible ) redesign of the elves in DA2. Which, again IMO, does look nothing like the elegant elves of Pathfinder.
Some elves look good in the new look, like the male prostitute in the Blooming Rose. And some others look horrendous, like Zevran.
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Seems to go both ways. How do you feel about the DA2 elves? The bw guys were saying that was how they wanted to make their elves unique, looks like they just ripped the pathfinder look.Since Bioware started working on Dragon Age before Paizo even existed, I suspect that they didn't just rip off our look for elves. And for that matter, I don't think they did rip us off; their elves are a bit "thicker" than ours. In any event... I've drawn enough inspiration from Bioware products that if they do the same from Paizo's, I'm not only cool with that, I'm really honored that they noticed!
In any event, I like what they did with elves, especially the bit where there are elven alienages in human cities. VERY unusual for elves; that element is what I would point out as their "Unique Bioware Elf" element.
I love that too, but when they announced they were doing something new and unique with the elves for DA2 (changing the appearances from DA1) and showed me eyes with large ears and dark eyes with no whites I was a little stunned =p
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Creative Director
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I love that too, but when they announced they were doing something new and unique with the elves for DA2 (changing the appearances from DA1) and showed me eyes with large ears and dark eyes with no whites I was a little stunned =p
Well... I've actually talked some of of the folks who work for/at Bioware, and they're gamers just like the rest of us. So again... if it was our design for elves that inspired the way they changed their elves in DA2... cool!
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I love that too, but when they announced they were doing something new and unique with the elves for DA2 (changing the appearances from DA1) and showed me eyes with large ears and dark eyes with no whites I was a little stunned =pWell... I've actually talked some of of the folks who work for/at Bioware, and they're gamers just like the rest of us. So again... if it was our design for elves that inspired the way they changed their elves in DA2... cool!
IIRC, a long time ago, in a Red Box far far away, the Elves did have big pointy ears and eyes with no white showing.
Maybe an instance of a common cause producing similar effects.
Or I am mixing this up with something else. It was a very long time ago after all.