Hi,
This is something I'm in two minds about, so I'd welcome opinions from other players, and hopefully from some designers too.
Basically, what I'm suggesting is that not only are many RPGs are crammed to the rafters with barrel after barrel full of mostly unnecessary objects, but the padding extends to a swag of attributes, modifiers and resistances that are also mostly of very little use either.
For instance, the main Stats screen for BD lists a grand total of 34 different figures!
How many of these are actually worth our attention, and how much is really just 'window dressing' to make you feel that whole thing is deeper than it really is?
I suspect that developers know that many gamers who buy RPGs will just choose a warrior, find a big sword and some half-decent armour, and get hacking without ever worrying too much about the rest of the stuff. And you can't really afford to have too many of your paying customers getting terminally stuck half way through the game just because they neglected their Shadow resistance in favour of Fire, or just didn’t rate the importance of Initiative highly enough. So for "play balance" reasons they make the effects pretty minimal. They also know that it costs extra time and money to build a game that has any genuine path divergence.
But why not just drop at least some of the fluff in favour of fleshing out the aspects might actually add real difference to the playing experience? <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/question.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
