POLL

I'm hoping that evil dictator won't lock this topic. Anyway I was cruising on VN boards and a thought stuck me. Let's just say for the sake of discussion that Arcanum 2 is in the development and there is a possibility (on top of backgrounds) to buy the CP on the beginning of the game. Would you buy it and how much are you wiling to spend?

This situation is hypothetical and any similarities are purely coincidental. :smile:

 

ick!
what's the point of gaining experience if money can do the same thing? Every gambler/haggler is maxxed out before the end of the first town.

 

Sorry we have misunderstanding here, I mean only on the beginning of the game, when you have choice to buy weapons or whatever. Later of course there is no possibility of that as for the obvious reasons.

 

Money for CPs????!?
That's crazy talk!

 

Is it really a crazy idea though? If a person has enough starting cash, the character could be given the choice to purchase equipment or stats. Make the enhancements sort of pricey so that maybe only one or possibly two CPs could be bought. For example, if a person started out with the "beat with an ugly stick" of "the pits" background, then they could choose to go to a primitive plastic surgeon of sorts and get some of the scars that have accumulated removed and help raise their beauty stat.

I for one, would prefer to spend my starting monies on equipment, but again that would be a matter of personal choice.

 

I agree with Blunder on this i dont see anything wrong with it myself as there is not much you can get with a cp that you could not reasonably have gotten with your starting cash b4 you started adventuring.

 

ooo! Buck got a hammer thingy, never seen that one before...

 

Well how much should it cost? And would Haggle affect the cost? In the demo you only get 400, I don't see a chance of you getting much more than that in the full

 

I guess the truth is that I wouldn't want to see a direct "buy a CP" concept. I like the way "Raised by Monks" works because it gives a justification. It would be jarring to the feel of the story to just buy CPs.

 

Geez.

OK let me explain what I meant by buying CP. On the beginning of the game you have the option to buy let's say 2 CP, however you start playing the game but naked, no armor no weapons no money.
Are we clear now?

So you see Aldin with raised by monks background you have less money and you can't afford to buy more CP.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Sethmage on 2001-05-26 11:32 ]</font>

 

Sethmage-
Let me try to clarify. I was giving "Raised by Monks" as an example of a character backrouund that in effect gives you the ability to trade 600 cash for +1 PE. That is "buying" a CP. The background justification of being raised by monks makes me enjoy the character, it's something to role-play with. If I could just pick any background and then spend 600 to buy a CP, it just doesn't feel right. Why is my character poorer but more advanced? I think it would be easy to come up with backgrounds that let you do this without disrupting the character creation process. (i.e. "Took a Correspondence Course" - Before leaving for Tarant your character decided to spend some of his/her hard earned money to learn how to win friends and influence people; +1CH -600 cash) But without the background it just seems like a cheesy early character boost.
~Aldin

 

I agree with Aldin, and state that such a "Cp-bargain" infact is in effect in the game; by chosing the appropriate background you gain an advantage at the loss of your initial funds rather than a reduction of another statability.
Therefore your question don`t seem entirely valid to me SM, sorry.
You might point out that you cannot spend cp`s in whatever stat you please with this practice, at least not in this build, but as for a A2 release one might guess even more diverse bacgrounds.

- Zen

 

Well gentlemen you have a point here, but. Somebody already stated that every background wich gives you some item for CP is well how shall I put it... crappy? Why you ask? Later in the game you going to have something better to replace the item you got on the beginning, but the lost CP is irreplaceable. So the possibility of having maybe 1 or 2 extra CP is intriguing don't you say. Of course the rest of the backgrounds would need some more balancing to make this work, but as I wrote on the top of this thread this is only speculation. :smile:

P.S. Aldin I thought that for raised by monks background you lose only 300 gold. Most of the backgrounds have 400 gold. Right?

 

I think the idea that you could spend your starting funds to buy a cp or two would give the player simply more scope to be able to create his/her own backround and i dont see a problem with that. If ppl dont want to do that because they want to use the premade backrounds instead then that would be the choice you make no-one is trying to force an idea on you.
And you could also use it to spice an already chosen backround with some of your own ideas...... IMO

 

Sethmage-
You're right, of course. I was mentally doubling everything for some reason.
Bad Buck-
I've always been a big GURPS fan so I agree with you /generically/. With what I perceive as what Troika is trying to do, well defined beginning characters are important. Options that have the ability to "water down" character concepts should not IMNSHO be included.
~Aldin

 

Are you saying that ppl making their own backrounds up would be a watered down version?
Not imaginative enough?
Personally i think that in role playing it is good to make things as free running as possible since most of the systems i have played we have always only used the rule books as guidelines and tried to put a little of our own concepts and ideas into it.
IMO

 

BB,
No, that's not what I'm saying. In fact, I think people making up and/or adding to their character backgrounds is great. It is in fact a basic RPG concept. OTOH, it is an /advanced/ CRPG concept. What I don't want to have happen is for a bunch of newbie CRPGers to get lost creating a character. If you make it an advanced option, they're going to take it and get lost in optimizing stats instead of character. As it stands, choosing a background puts you in the position of being "off and running". And if you want to monkey around with the process, there's always the editor (which I submit that by the time the newbies use THAT they won't /be/ newbies anymore).

 

I take your point well presented and i moust agree.....
(I still think that...........)
:lol:

 

I think making your own backgrounds is a great idea too. Daggerfall was great becuase of custum ability features like such.

 

I'd rather earn my experience right from the beginning. Then again, I love a complete challange. :grin: