Originally Posted by: grimjester Thanks for the insight.
Okay. I've heard about your plans for the use of the specialized Tarot deck before, but never in writing, and in such detail.
I think that the idea will appeal to New Agey kind of people. I am mildly interested myself, as a potential GM, and as you know, I enjoy playing in your Elthos game world. The thing is, I don't know how many other people will be interested in the Tarot aspect. For my super hero modern world, I don't want the Elkron playing a major part, but I could easily see, and probably enjoy, a modern campaign where the player characters are enlightened about the Elkron.
I agree with you about the New Agey people. I think, though, that it may be compelling for any GM who has the idea that they want some sort of coherency in the mystical backdrop of their worlds, but have never been able to make that work because there's no readily available framework into which symbols and correspodences tie together and "make sense". That's the big advantage to the Elthos Tarot. This applies to New Agey GMs (and non GMs who may simply be interested in the Elthos Tarot on its own, separate from the game system), but may also appeal for that reason to non-New Agey GMs as well. I'm not particularly New Agey myself, and it still appeals to me a lot. In fact I created the Elthos Tarot because I wanted a coherent mystical symbolism to work with and couldn't find one. Seven years later - I have one. I'm nice guy. I share it. Now WE have one. :) But of course, not everyone is interested in that side of the game, and there's a lot of Gamists out there who enjoy the game for its tactical aspects, in which case all this hubbub about the Tarot won't make a wit of difference. That's ok. They can ignore it safely and still use the Elthos ODS for it's tactical aspects if they like that side of it.
Originally Posted by: grimjester
It is now clear that the Elkron are to be integrated with the ODS and I support your vision 100%. The cards are beautiful too, and should make for some much needed eye candy in the ODS. However, I think that the option to click off Elkron references as a one time setting is a good one if you want the system to appeal to more people, because although I can't give you numbers, I'm betting that a significant percentage of people will be turned off by the Elkron.
Yup. Understood. For now I'm going to say please ignore it. I'm adding this to the features list but it's more of a "nice to have" option than a "OMG the game is broken" kind of thing. I will, however, definitely have to put up some verbeage on the site about what's going on with the Elkron and make the Tarot Page stand out more for GMs. That needs to be beefed up before I do, but it's not a huge amount of work. Can do. I'll add those two things to the To Do List. Thanks.
Originally Posted by: grimjester
I think that you really need to expand the rules to include the Tarot, the Elkron and your other goals if that's where you want to end up. As a player, I am simply tuning out the names of the various Elkron and substituting deities from other cultures and games to establish a reference, but in the end, I don't appreciate them because I haven't seen much tangible evidence or discussion of them in the game. Yes, I know that you've weaved them in, but as a player, I'm not seeing the beauty of it the way you are.
Agreed. I'm planning to do that.
Originally Posted by: grimjester
Elkron aside, what was going on with the Cleric, Thief and Spell Chanter sections in skill management? Is this configurable? If it isn't, I see this as a problem if Elthos is supposed to be a cross genre system. I am also confused by the codes, despite the key. I know that I could pour through the rules and the rest of the site to clear things up, but I'm giving you my first impression, which I believe is important. You don't want someone to be turned off by something early on and give up. A wizard format, where options are explained and taken in a specific order might help. (That would be A LOT of work, wouldn't it? :D )
Yes. A LOT of work!! :shock: ... Making that Wizardy is something I'm not quite prepared to do because it is a LOT of work, and really quite unnecessary once the GM gets the idea of how that section works, which takes about 10 minutes. What I can do, and I think this is a good idea, is provide a MUCH better instruction manual for that page, and maybe even an explanatory video to make it easy to understand.
Here's what the GM needs to know about that screen:
Skills are configured according to who can learn them. Remember, any class can USE a skill without learning it, with a Skill Level of 1. Skills when learned give a bonus on Skill Level, but cost Skill Learning Points. Naturally, some Skills are not appropriate for some Classes, while other Skills may be appropriate for all Classes. The difference between Primary and Elective Skills is how much Experience they award when used. Primary Skills, which are specific to the given Guild Class, earn more Experience when used successfully. For example Fighters using Weapons skills earn more Experience than Fighters using an Elective Skill such as Leather Working. Some Skills, on the other hand are downright Prohibited by certain Classes. Clerics can not, for example, learn Pick Pocketing. Some Skills, like Kung Fu, can only be learned by specific multi-classes. So in that case the sub-classes are Combined into a Multi-Class. Monks are Thief-Fighter-Clerics. So Kung Fu Skills, which can only be learned by Monks, requires the Combination of those three Sub-Classes to learn the Skill, and when learned by a Monk it is as a Primary Skill. From the system point of view these selections show up in the list of Available Skills for the Character, either in their Primary or Elective Lists, according to their Level (unless the override checkboxes are clicked, which then shows all Skills).I realize that is a bit complicated. But not *That* complicated, and my feeling is it is not quite worth creating a very difficult-to-program wizard interface (not even sure I have an idea how I would approach that) to compensate for. If I can provide a clear definition of how the system works, that's easy enough to understand, then that should, I think and hope, suffice. Otherwise I will indeed have to reconsider the design. I may have to reconsider it anyway, of course, but that is what the GM testing is all about. And thanks for taking the pains and time to help me with this!
Parenthetically, what you might find really annoying is the Guild Class Screen where you have to assign "Thief" "Fighter" "SpellChanter" and/or "Cleric" as the base Classes for any new Multi-Classes you create. That should be, and will become, checkboxes.
All of which is not to say that I have totally missed your point about these four Primary Classes being tied at the hip to the Fantasy Genre. I think that's what you were getting at. Yup. That does seem to be the case. But is it really? We can discuss this one philosophically of course. But from a system perspective changing that aspect would indeed be a HUGE amount of work. HUGE. read that again. HUUUUUUUGE. So I won't take that one lightly. But I will consider it, if it turns out that having those four as the specific base classes causes a HUUUUUGE problem with the multi-genre aspect of the system.
:)
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