Cross Aspect Restrictions/Prerequisites

I agree about linking everything together. However, the way I understand it, the aspects of the character are supposed to be linked by flavor, not bonuses. And honestly, flavor (like literally everything, utility talents, combat talents, hit points, everything being renamed for some quality of or relationship to burning wood because that matches a character's personality and upbringing...somehow) is going to create much more of an organic link amongst a character's qualities and amongst characters themselves than "if you take this utility talent/choose this race/choose this destiny you also do +3 damage in battle/gain access to this move down the line/are now playing an alicorn".

The purpose of separating the sections from each other statwise is specifically so that players don't feel pressured to take any specific Utiltiy Bonus or choose any specific race or destiny or boon "for the combat capabilities", or vice versa - or, more pressingly, force themselves to make an entirely different character because of party demands.

"Dude we need a Minotaur's Stomping to help our party out, and could really use someone with the Quarreler's Destiny so to distract our foes while we fight, come on man."
"Well...why don't you make a quarreling Minotaur then?"
"Duh. Because I'm the changeling with the extra medical ability in battle, and we need his sneak attacks. If I'm the Minotaur, we lose the changeling."
"But...I wanted to play this sailor donkey I'd thought up..."
"Well, that's tough nuggets for you, isn't it?"

I know, I know, unlikely scenario - who plays a donkey, after all? But still, giving certain combat capabilities to certain races cannot end well; the players themselves will be choosing races for combat rather than roleplaying - something that, frankly, doesn't happen with utility talents except among those who really don't care about roleplaying in the first place. [/inaccurategeneralization]

I know, I know - if a race shouldn't matter, why have race-specific utility talents? And to be honest, yeah, that's a bit of a grey area in this system. Personal opinion: to have neither utility talents nor combat talents rely on race makes things a little boring, to be honest,while having both rely on race makes things restrictive and stuffy and "your party needs this" obligatory. But just having utility talents rely on race strikes a nice balance between the two - again, I don't think anyone's gonna see any specific utility talent exclusive to another race and say "yes that one I need that one let me just change my character completely" because utility talents aren't, to be blunt, as powerful or as important(seemingly-important?) as a combat talent or destiny would be. And change names of stuff around a bit, and you get my arguments for the other qualities too.

Long story short: we're trying to run a non-restrictive system regards what you can and cannot take, and the system we have in place already restricts some of the freedom regards the relationship between races and some utility talents. That's more than enough.

Yes, that is what I was saying. That is what the people who are in charge of this system have been saying since Day One.

But the point remains that if certain races (just to name one scenario you have proposed) get certain bonus to combat skills that other races don't, there are more non-roleplay reasons to play those races, which is bad. Destinies giving combat bonuses means there are combat, aka non-roleplay reasons to choose those destinies, which is bad because Destinies are supposed to be character-based, not combat-based. Boons are also supposed to be roleplay-only benefits for the entire party, not combat benefits.

One should never be thinking of the combat applications when one chooses something involving roleplaying. It restricts one's freedom by making them feel like they have to take certain talents in order to be more effective in combat; it introduces the element of min-maxing to the game which gets in the way of setting up your character properly roleplay-wise.

And if you really want to use the Duct Tape and Electric Claws, why not just take the Stab Combat Talent and call it "Electric Tape Trap" or something like that? And don't the rulebooks specifically state that GMs are allowed to let ponies use utility talents in combat as a standard action if they so wish?

And assuming that both the answers are "Yes", is that any reason to permanently write into the rules ways in which utility talents may alter which combat talents you can get which may alter what destinies you can get which may alter what boons you can get etc. etc. vicious cycle and in the end each type of pony is set in this completely linear pathway from the very moment they choose their first combat talent?

I had this same idea a while back, but the way people can reflavor their moves, it doesn't really matter. We could say "Pegasus Talent, do a divebomb form the air, this much damage", but why bother with the extra clutter when the player can just pick one of the other talents and SAY its a divebomb from the air.

There is only one plausible advantage I can see, and that is a Pegasus in flight could be immune to damage from the ground, but again, the flavor text means anyone can have a ranged attack, and since attacks always hit, there's no chance of not being hit, in the air or not.

But why did you buy the large-brand puppy chow?!

... what

Fury of the Tempest wrote:... what

I made a man so confused he forgot his typing quirk.

I am proud of my life.

Two things Furry have you ever been in a game? and Writer may be trying to become the Resident Freak

If your first answer is no then you are welcome to join my group.

EDIT Writer (Mc)ninjaed me...

AProcrastinatingWriter wrote:But why did you buy the large-brand puppy chow?!

Ha! Dresden for the win!

(Sorry I have nothing else to contribute to the conversation. I'll just show myself out...)

I say this is a nice idea... But just that... Odds are in practice it'll be bad all over cause of the min-maxin'...

I have to say, I think it would be too much work to bridge the gap between combat and utility while maintaining balance. I mean it would affect every single aspect of the game. And what combat ability could technically be only used by a specific race or skill build when it's encouraged that everything be renamed to flavour your character. And the thing with prerequisites is that they lead to min maxing as you've said, which I find, tends to pulls away from the roleplay aspect of it. I just think it would be easier for the players to just flavour their characters to achieve the effect they want.

How about this? Combat and Utility Talents are to remain separate, full stop. The whole system would need a complete retooling to change that, and that's not happening as of now. Carry on.

Dan made a specific design choice when creating the game, and decided that combat aspects and non-combat aspects shouldn't interact. That's why you can't use Utility Talents in combat, and why Destinies never affect combat. See, the goal is to let the players make a character with any personality/skills they want, without gimping them in combat, and to prevent the players from having to go "Well, I'd really like to have a painter griffon with a 9 in Horse-sense and Precision, but if I play a baby dragon with a 10 in Athletics I can do more damage when I'm in combat" or "I'd like to have the Explorer destiny, but being an Archmage gives me a boost to my magic attacks".

Okay folks, this is a really confuddled issue – so let me see if I can explain it. Remember, someone who’s new to the forums might not have heard or seen everything I’ve written to explain the method behind our madness.

Fury of the Tempest wrote:[color=blue]Alright, we know that Utility Talents can be restricted to species and/or have Prerequisites of other Utility Talents.

What if thats not the only options? Why not have some species have combat traits or combat talents which only they can use?

This is a classic RPG idea. In D&D elves have special racial feats only they can take and special combat benefits for being an elf. So does almost every other race.

However, we took a bold step with Pony Tales and decided to avoid that. Here's a quote from what I posted in How to Design Races.

No Combat Bonuses or Penalties
There are two great sides to building a character, building a great roleplaying concept and building a cool combat strategy. Since both are completely different elements of gameplay, players often enjoy playing a certain way in combat and a very different way for their roleplaying character concept. One of the core design statements of Pony Tales is that players shouldn't have to choose between the combat gameplay they enjoy and the roleplaying they enjoy.

A racial choice is clearly the purest character-concept choice you can make. It's a huge roleplaying choice, so we don't want it to have anything to do with combat. In RPGs, I'm often put in the position of choosing between a character concept I love (like a Warforged Druid, a metal construct that wants more than anything to connect with nature) and having my build be awesome in combat (other races are far superior for druids). Thus, I've never been a Warforged Druid. To my sadness.

This is why we decided not to give Earth Ponies a HP boost and why not a single racial option in the core rulebooks affects combat at all. Combat bonuses will be used in the traits system, items and combat talent options. Races are for roleplaying.

It's a weird problem, but basically I'm trying to protect the system from myself. Whenever I build a character, I like building an ultimate badass. But when I play, I actually want to roleplay. So I can't justify taking cool, fluffy non-combat powers to myself over in-combat benefits. I always feel like I'm losing out. By making the two elements completely separate (only items will have some overlap) - we get to make sure players can focus on building their favorite roleplaying concept and their favorite combat mechanics without feeling like they've missed out on anything. If I wasn't bound by canon, I'd get rid of racial requirements for utility talents too (we did do exactly that in the Living Legends version of this system). But sadly, only Unicorns can use magic according to Faust and only Pegasai can fly... So we're a little trapped there.

Or what about using a Utility Talent to unlock a combat trait or talent? Or any over similar combination? Or why not have Destiny limited Talents/Traits? Or maybe even Boon limited?

You can definitely have destiny-limited utility talents, but we try to avoid limiting things in general. Let’s say there are eventually 20 destinies in the system. If we make a talent destiny-restricted, then only 1/20th of the players who might want that talent actually qualify for it… So if we want to expand the utility options for players, we have to make twenty destiny-restricted talents for every single everypony talent. Worse, some players are going to want a destiny-restricted utility talent but not want the destiny it goes to, so they’re going to be either playing without their favorite destiny or without their favorite utility talents. It makes things a lot more pleasant and open if we just let any destiny user choose any utility talent.

So, while the idea is neat and reminiscent of classic RPGs… It actually does lead to a less pleasant character-building process and also a more complicated one. Plus, we’d have to design vastly more things than otherwise if we wanted to increase player options in a meaningful way.

When doing something makes things harder for both designers and less pleasant for the types of players the system is made for – we generally try to avoid it.

And that’s the method to our madness.

Fury of the Tempest wrote:... Yeah I thought this is how it would result.

Let me just clean things up on my end.

First, I wasn't talking about species or destinies giving BONUSES to combat, I was talking about them unlocking different combat abilities that aren't any more powerful then the others, just a bit more... unique. If people argue that the flavour can be changed to allow this... well personally I don't think that will work, but as Staric pointed out I am new and I haven't yet played the game... so I might change my opinion on that.


As for the other stuff... well I guess it could make things a bit harder for the developers but less pleasant for the players? Not sure... I guess a different way of thinking of the destiny restricted utility talents could be that they are branches of the destiny... like the inventor being good at inventor certain type of things or... the tycoon being good in one particular market or things like that.


Actually, what do people think of that idea? Having the destiny's have a few options themselves that still fit the flavour?

And linking stuff like the destinies and boons... well I guess that could be done by the PH and not needing to do it mechanically... but I just think that some boons would be more compatible with some destinies then others and that it should be reflected somewhat mechanically...

We're not talking about bonuses either. If a race has specific moves, like a Unicorn getting some magical burst or a Pegasi getting a strike with their wings, then somepony would still want to play one race more than any other because they don't like the idea of getting their hooves dirty even if they like the Flight. Sort of like how, currently, Earth Ponies seem to be the most popular because of the Pinkie-esque unique talents.

Changing the flavour of the talents actually works very very VERY well. I have a baby dragon character so all of my talents revolve around blowing flames, Inky Quills (One of the other players) had a writer where all of her moves were writing related, Soaring Song had a divebomb, this pegasi I have has water related skills... Changing the flavor is one of my favorite parts of making characters.

Some destinies do have various branches, like the Dragon Disciple one, and boons like the neigh-team have various paths they can go along.

I don't know what you mean by Boon and Destiny linking though :/ the only real thing I can think of is the Inventor Destiny having the items as its lv 6. Can you explain that a bit :? ?

LoganAura wrote:We're not talking about bonuses either.

Right. Well, not just about bonuses (I did mention them in my own post).

It comes down to simple scenario. If we let anyone choose any utility talent and any destiny, they get to choose their favorite utility talents and their favorite destiny. They are happy. However, if we tie the two together and make some utility talents require choosing certain destinies - quite a few players will be torn now. They might like the utility talent a lot, but they might not like the destiny it goes with - they might envision their character as a powerful archmage but if we give the Master Detective a cool investigative utility talent that could be easily reflavored as magical scrying... Now the player needs to choose between playing their ideal destiny and the new utility talent. Either way, they won't be playing their ideal character. Heck, I even want to get rid of the race-specific utility talents (and I might at some point) - Inky Quills moans about how she wants to use the cool pinkie-pie-esque Earth Pony utilities but as her character concept is a unicorn she can't... Despite the fact such abilities could easily be explained through unicorn magic.

Combat Talents/Traits are even worse. Imagine if someone wanted to play a damage-over-time build in combat but wanted to play a Master Detective outside of combat... And his favorite Damage-Over-Time combat talents/traits were in the Archmage destiny. What's the player to do? They have to choose between the roleplaying character they love and the combat they love. We don't want to do that to players.

Fundamentally, the only reasons to limit the choices of talents/destinies in this way is for flavor reasons. Mechanically it doesn't imbalance anything to let everyone choose anything the way we're designing the game and it opens a lot more options for building characters. Flavorwise it works, but since the system puts huge emphasis on reflavoring your character's abilities to mean anything you want - the flavor reasons kind of melt away too.

So, while it's a classic RPG element... Once you think about the core game experience, there's really no reason to do this in the first place. It just limits players while making more work for designers.

Fury of the Tempest wrote:Like I said. It might just be because I'm more used to D&D then Pony Tales.

Yeah, I get that too. Trust me, it was weird as heck trying to design this game - we tried to pick apart every aspect of even our favorite roleplaying games and see if we could improve them. Maybe we missed the mark of course, but this particular design idea seems to have playtested pretty well so far. =)

Fury of the Tempest wrote:Didn't get much response on the idea of branching Destinies through... which we don't really have.

I'd be really interested to see more about what you have in mind for this. I'm not sure what you mean by branching destinies. You mean choose one level 4 feature and then get two options of level 7 features? Because that'd be awesome. More work for designers, but awesome!

There was the Lovers destiny in the forums and the Self-discovery destinies can kind of fit along that line, but if someone can think up a great destiny that branches that would be awesome!