Thread: New BRP game
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Old March 28th, 2008
lawrence.whitaker's Avatar
lawrence.whitaker lawrence.whitaker is offline
Loz
 
Join Date: Oct 2007
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Hmmm - I think you have a contradiction here...

Quote:
There has been every effort made to remove any trace of artificiality that is commonly present in RPGs.
Quote:
If an elf knows magic, why would he waste time learning about technology or spiritualism? They wouldn't.
On the one hand you say that you've made every effort to get rid of artificiality, then you say, emphatically, that because you know magic, you won't be interested in technology or spiritualism. Why not? Aren't minds curious? In the real world, people have very diverse interests. You simply don't get such mutual exclusivity. However, you do in roleplaying games, where there's a desire to achieve a certain game balance, and that's the very sort of artificiality you say you've completely removed.

Your elf might very well believe that magic is superior to tech or spirtualism (though how magic and spirtuality are so mutually exclusive, I fail to see), but every discipline offers a different way of doing something that might offer an advantage over another. Why would I drive a car if I can fly? Because flying costs magical energy, I'm presuming, and I might want to conserve that for something else, yet I still want to get downtown. I might also want to transport a passenger or a load. That might be tough if I fly, so a car (or a cart, or a subway, or a plane) might be much more expedient.

You cannot, in all honesty, say that all these things co-exist, and that you've removed artificiality, and then go on to say. 'But elves never drive cars or use guns because they have magic. So there.' If you really have removed artificiality, then you'll get tons of diversity.

I'm not trying to pick holes are dismiss your ideas - or to be deliberately provocative, either, but I think Vhraeden may be in danger of some contradictions that you then have to spend a heck of a lot of time explaining away (which is essentially what you're doing in the bits you've quoted from the book). If you genuinely have removed artificiality, and created a setting that provides a great base for cultural conflict (whilst promoting how the worldviews differ) then you shouldn't need to spend time in justification and explanation. It'll be inherent in the themes, the setting and the system.
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