Alorael at Large

Ambitious, and kudos to you for recognizing that reinventing the wheel with new classes is a terrible rabbit hole to plunge down without a lot of forethought followed by a lot of work. That said, while I am not a playtester, I foresee a few major problems. I'm going to start with a basic disagreement: I don't think essence is life force, at least not for those using it to shape. It's more like shapeable stuff, or capacity to shape and maintain stuff. It's a refillable resource, and shaping and killing or absorbing creations has no permanent cost. 1. Classically no one wants to play the cleric because of the heal-bot problem. Requiring a feat and spending XP to heal? Not going to be popular at all. Allow clerics as normal and just say they're the experts in healing craft. 2. Summoning has the same problem, especially since D&D summons are, especially early on, heavy on the cannon fodder and light on anything you'd keep around. You'd just be throwing away 100 XP on a badger. No one wants to do that, and no one's going to be unhappy as the under-leveled summoner. I think it might work better to allow those summoning with spells to use two slots instead of one and keep the summoned creature permanently, but those spell slots remain unusable as long as the summon is active. Like using essence. (Off the cuff, not playtested, might be broken, but at least palatable.) 3. Feats that mess with XP are probably a bad idea. Either they'll provide too much or they'll provide too little. They're a balance nightmare... and they're not fun. Feats should add fun to the game, and this is an entirely passive and extremely slow benefit. I think the idea with Shaper Tactics is to offset all that XP loss, but... no. And the Shaping skills are in the same boat. 4. Shaper Mutation is entirely vague and I'd be afraid to take it without rules. Self-shaping is the same, but again has a narrow margin between broken and useless. 5. Just rename the Craft <whatever> feats as Shape <whatever> and you're good. I'd go with keeping it even simpler. Don't modify rules or make new feats. Keep everything as-is as much as possible. You need to do something about permanent summoning (and I suggested something above), but stick as close to base rules as possible. From the thinking I've already put in, Arcana Unearthed/Evolved (not to be confuse with Unearthed Arcana) has always struck me as a better fit, mostly because of more flexible caster classes and different feats to inflect flavor. Permanent shaping isn't really a D&D forte, though, so it'll be some kind of stretch however you do it. And that's another set of rules you'd need to pay for and learn; probably not close enough to justify the costs. —Alorael, who would go for pushing flavor more than careful adherence to the mechanics of Genforge. Just say anything not carefully shaped from an essence pool in a lab is unstable and won't last more than a short time, then leave such things to NPCs. It's not quite faithful to the Geneforge PCs, but you can keep the world working as expected and the D&D rules working too.

Economic concerns also show up; they tend to be variations on the environmental concerns with a different spin. —Alorael, who is the least exciting kind of vegetarian. He doesn't really like meat, so he doesn't eat it as a matter of preference. He gets to feel good about all the side benefits and carefully doesn't think about how eating eggs and dairy products means he's still a part of the Big Ag problem. Except when he can get eggs of known and estimable provenance.

I'm a vegetarian because I don't like animals. If we ate fewer of them we'd raise fewer of them and there'd be fewer of them around. —Alorael, whose last store-bought eggs came from the chickens pecking around behind the store. Not all stores are supermarkets.

Fair enough, Slarty. When I can't put together what I'm trying to say in a way that's not offensive there's a weighty burden of evidence suggesting that I'm wrong and offensive. —Alorael, who was going to say more, but he's actually better off not. Except that the #notallgays was a throwaway joke with no resemblance at all to #notallmen except for the phrasing he used, and he did not mean to suggest otherwise.

I put my foot in my mouth there, I'll admit. But there is a lifestyle that goes along with gay culture. Kind of artistic, pretty Bohemian, and so on. A stereotype? Sure, but I have friends who proudly lived and lived it, both in its heyday decades ago and now. Active participation in gay culture's probably a much better term and not laden with the slander associations of "gay lifestyle" and all the same caveats apply. Not all or even most gays... (#Notallgays?) The rights of men are not under any threat. They really never have been. —Alorael, who hazards that men will largely be better off with gender equality. It's not zero sum, a rising tide lifts all boats, and so on. Mostly, though, there's an economic analogy: inequality is bad for everyone except for the now-famous 1%; gender inequality is bad for the vast majority of men, probably. No, I don't have a citation, just a hunch that a more equal society is a better-functioning and healthier society for everyone.

Controversy Discussion is not the same as fanning the flames. I like the former. Abortion I do not like abortion and am not comfortable with abortion. Neither is reason to restrict it. To my mind the ethical arguments fall largely on the side of pro-choice, and the practical arguments, which will get much outcry as though they have no weight in the face of morality, are overwhelmingly in favor of legal and safe and available abortion. LGBT I support full legal protection and full marriage rights. As an aside, while there's no LGBT lifestyle, there is a gay lifestyle. Stereotypically, at least, but it does come from a real phenomenon. It's just that it's not descriptive of all gays; I have no idea what the stats are, but I think it probably doesn't describe most gays. It's just a kind of lifestyle that doesn't have another word for it. Aliens They're almost certainly out there somewhere very far from us. Even farther if you want something more exciting than prokaryotes. Globalization Globalization is very complicated. I'm not for or against it; it's real, I think it's inevitable, and the important thing is to temporize harms and maximize gains. Animal Captivity This seems to be about zoos. So... I think those are fine. Animal husbandry involves horrific treatment of animals on a vast scale, but well-run zoos aren't part of that and their role as entertainment, outreach, and as an element of conservation efforts is important. Feminism I am a feminist. I don't agree with all feminists about everything; that's impossible, given the number of disagreements within all the waves of feminism. But the basic tenets (and lots of nitty-gritty specifics) I believe fervently. Gun Laws A human right? Uh. That's a pretty big coup for the NRA. A guaranteed constitutional right, I'll buy for the USA, but I don't think other countries with more restrictive laws are suffering under some terrible, inhuman burden. Personally, I'd rather be in that situation. Weapons belong in the hands of law enforcement (sparingly) and the military. And, yes, probably hunters, with tight regulation. No one else. They are a public health catastrophe on a grand scale that somehow have become a political sacred cow. God[/i] The existence of god(s) is fundamentally unknowable. Yes, that means I'm an agnostic by the formal meaning. But I'm inclined to believe there's no supernatural anything out there. Human Timeline This, too, will pass. Humans will go extinct eventually. Entropy dictates that if all else fails! Will we die soon? I very much doubt it. Even massive nuclear war or horrific ecological catastrophe probably won't kill everyone. Heck, evolution could do us in and replace us with successor species better at being human than we are. —Alorael, who believes that aliens have no right to force all LGBTSQIA individuals worldwide, men and women alike, to have abortions at gunpoint, as that would lead to human extinction.

Chronological order of release is a little bit messy; series overlap. It's roughly like this: Exile Nethergate Avernum, original trilogy Geneforge Avernum, second trilogy Nethergate: Resurrection (actually in the middle of Geneforge and the Second Trilogy) Avadon Avernum, remake of original trilogy —Alorael, who otherwise thinks Kel's response conveys story order perfectly.

Blades has always been a thing of its own, too. After the constant backlash over BoE here on his own forums I'm honestly a bit surprised Jeff even tried for BoA. —Alorael, who doesn't even think BoE was ever a fantastic seller. Okay, apparently, but he was under the impression that it never matched Exile 3.

D&D, the grandfather of hit points, has offered up any number of tortured explanations. Sometimes hit points really can't be anything but health. Sometimes they can. Mostly they are game mechanics. —Alorael, who accepts unreality from his CRPGs and mostly plays games that don't use HP for tabletop.

I agree, it's often a good game design decision even if it's totally unrealistic. But then, realism would probably mean permanent crippling after taking a couple of serious hits in a battle. In any case, realism or not, good design or not, taste is taste. If SkeleTony doesn't like it he doesn't like it. —Alorael, who mostly thinks that rapid healing opens up different kinds of battles. If you don't heal in between then areas often run on attrition, either running out the party's health/energy/whatever or their consumable resources to restore those (downside: often instead it's a test of how often you're willing to waste time going back and healing up). If there is automatic healing you can make each battle difficult, but it's harder to get the same slow grind where optimal management of even easy encounters matters.

That reasoning is true of most people working most jobs. Most people still don't want to lose their jobs, you know? I understand that you don't like the remakes; that's fine. But saying that even if they're necessary for solvency Jeff shouldn't make them is pretty crazy. It's not like he's hurting anyone. Not even by an extreme utilitarian, anything not maximizing good is bad, standard; going out of business means no potential new, good stuff interspersed with the remakes. —Alorael, who also notes that Jeff's professional credentials are also probably hard to use. He didn't finish grad school. His only job since has given him years of experience as an admittedly lousy programmer, real-world experience running a business that doesn't translate to businesses that can afford people who run them, and game design. Maybe that last is worth something. But it's a hard sell to tell a guy in his forties that he can always flip burgers, especially in an economy where you still can't, necessarily, find burgers to flip.

Geneforge modding is limited to script modification. That means you can change dialogue, special attacks, items, and monsters, but you can't alter geography or change fundamental mechanics of the game. Or rather, doing so would require a level of access to the game that is really, really difficult and probably illegal. Jeff actually used to make tools for DIY versions of his games. Blades of Exile and Blades of Avernum for the Exile and (original) Avernum trilogies, to be precise. People have made some really fantastic scenarios, but the amount of work it required for Jeff to make the tools available and usable (lots) versus the amount of money it brought in (little) and amount of anger he got over the flaws in the tools from fans (also lots) made it so that he's quite clear that he never intends to do that again. —Alorael, who thinks that's a shame. Blades is a really powerful, fun thing to play with. But it's probably not to be for Geneforge even if a lot of people would be happy to see Blades of Geneforge too.

Based on what? He's slowing down, but Avadon 2 doesn't really seem like a burned-out game. —Alorael, who hates to prognosticate too much on what Jeff may or may not do some 2-3 years in the future. Or more, if Avadon ends up as more than a trilogy,

The creative spark obviously isn't gone, since Jeff's also doing new stuff and also adding at least a little bit of new stuff to even rereleases. But he's a businessman. He's doing this for a profit and to feed his kids (and, as he has mentioned a few times in the blog, eventually send them to college). Sure, he could do something else, but his work for long enough to call it a career, and in fact his only career, is selling his own games. He's going to do it in a way that maximizes his profit. And sometimes may alienate people, it's true, but he's in it for the money and the artistic integrity comes strictly second. —Alorael, who actually harbors the suspicion that despite the cynicism Jeff could not, in fact, actually manage to churn out games with no artistic/creative spark driving them. But he's definitely not unwilling to be flexible when it comes to making sure the profits are there. Because this is a business, not (just) a labor of love.

He gets mention, at least in passing, in A2 and A3, but he's never in any kind of spotlight. It's a little difficult, what with him being canonically dead. —Alorael, who supposes anything's possible in re-remakes. Garzahd gets a surprise cameo in A4, and maybe Jeff feels like more callbacks to old villains.

The short answer is no. The Geneforge series is over. The next game out will be Avernum 2, then probably Avadon 3 and Avernum 3. After that we don't know, but that's at least a cuople more years. But never is a long time. The Avadon series will itself end someday, and maybe Jeff's next new world will be more to your liking. Jeff has ended a series before, adn then expanded it years later, so there might be more Geneforge yet. And if all else fails there will probably eventually be Geneforge remakes, too. Maybe after Avernum 3's remake is done. —Alorael, who will just say that you shouldn't give up hope of ever getting exactly what you want, but the wait's going to be a long one.

What you dislike is one of the things I find most charming about Nethergate. The area is full of people doing their own things and with their own needs. It isn't a few central quest givers driving everything, it's messy and busy and you can find interesting things around every corner and over every hill. —Alorael, who will go ahead and make that edit. It seems sensible. Glorious Revival is found in the Crypt of Ceremonies, right?

Il Doge di Venezia has very sad, much forgotten, so ruling noble, wow. —Alorael, who supposes some other doges might take issue, but they're less famous so no one cares.

I'm actually curious to know what seems slow and difficult to implement. And, for that matter, what implementing means here. —Alorael, who has no particular issues one way or the other, except to note that a new system actually does require implementation in that it must be designed and, ideally, tested. AIMhack is already past that, and if no one's working on new versions that doesn't mean the latest ones were less than serviceable.

Imgur does not require you to log in. It requires you to provide an image, including by drag and drop, and to click the upload button. That's all. —Alorael, who imagines that is ever so slightly less work than Facebook. Because hey, no logging in!

Take a look at Fate Core and Fate Accelerated Edition (the slightly rules-lighter version). Both are pay-what-you-want, including free. They're generic, drama-driven, classless, and between the two I think one might hit the sweet spot for complexity for you. —Alorael, who actually isn't a huge Fate fan himself. But it has its devoted followers, it meets your requirements, and it's at the very least worth a look. Plus it runs on a kind of story-driven gaming that's worth a little familiarity even if you ultimately go for something else.

Consider that those first three rights start with "all men are created equal" but the intent of the framers was very much not actually all men (that Thirteenth again!), and that now we've very much clarified that it's not all men but all people. The Ninth Amendment is perhaps the most important part of the Constitution. We have rights that the Framers not only didn't imagine but didn't believe in. That's a good thing. —Alorael, who will also point out that the Bill of Rights is never, ever considered to enumerate exactly ten narrowly-defined rights. It protects a whole lot of rights. For one thing, take a look at the First Amendment: it is, itself, a list of protected rights. But speech and press are just two forms of communication; one could argue that, say, writing on the internet isn't protected. No one can successfully argue that. Freedom for all kinds of expressions has been derived.

The refund guarantee is a pretty big draw if you have any uncertainty. Supporting Jeff is nice otherwise. —Alorael, who has an active opposition to Steam. It's nice to have a reliable games library, but services like Humble Bundle and Good Old Games do that too without requiring you to launch another program, possibly with an internet connection, every time you want to play something. A small headache, to be sure, but it is one.

I can't offer much about the swords, but I imagine that after you get through killing someone the armor's likely to be in sorry shape. Besides, would you really want the armor that has demonstrably failed to protect someone? —Alorael, who will just go with the swords breaking themselves out of the shame of having let down their wielders. Swords are very sensitive about these things.

I'd start with Geneforge 1. If you find the engine too clunky, try the next game. In general I'd say G1 is kind of the basis for a lot of stuff and has a really great story, Geneforge 2 and 3 are probably the least necessary and you can play either one to get an idea of what's going on, and Geneforge 4 and 5 are both highly worthwhile. —Alorael, who might pick G3 over G2. You get an introduction to a couple of rather important characters.