First off, my apologies if this thread is not where it is supposed to be. If so, maybe you could cut me some slack, since I am a newbie here. Maybe. What I have is a draft for a new computer game, and, maybe, certain crew could use some parts of it? Anyway, being romantic, since we are all RPG players here, there are two main character types in Insomnia: Enchanters, and Practitioners, even though some characters are pretty much mixture of the two. Practitioners would be what Fighters are in most RPGs, pretty much. And Enchanters are like Wizards, but more connected to material things, since they can fight with more weapons than before, and enchant swords for fellow Practitioners. Anyway, the title, Insomnia, is because in this imaginary world, there are a lot of things, everyday banal things or otherwise familiar from our own world. And this world, Insomnia, is a dream world, really, because protagonist, you, is in it, and wakes up on Earth when you finish the game, sort of like Wizard of Oz. So, here are just a few descriptions of Insomnia's PCs, as an.. aperitif? Hm.. And, of course, my English is not fantastic. Of course. Practitioners: Pumpkin-patch Cobweb Clay Mech Pumpkin-patch If you like marksmen, sharpshooters, and Lee Oswald, then Pumpkin-Patch is your man! He is a long-range specialist, particularly with longbow, but he certainly is not lagging behind having other long-range weapons in mind. Needles to say, his hand/eye coordination is great. His setback is, he is not muscled and strong, therefore not that good in melee combat, when he switches to swords. Pumpkin-patch has head just like pumpkin on Halloween, and this is the source of his peculiar name. Cobweb Cobweb, also called Locksmith, is quite similar to Thieves from other RPGs. His skin is transparent, so he looks like somebody skinned him. You can see his muscles and veins, but this is because, he has the ability to hide in shadows, thanks to properties of his skin. Looks creepy, but good! Also, when in dungeons, that is indoors, he easily walks on the ceiling while detecting traps, if the ceiling is smooth, avoiding traps on the floor! There are little traps on the ceiling in Insomnia, but there are also walls and ceilings that are not smooth, and Cobweb cannot walk like that on that kind of surface. He has well known thieving abilities, pick pocketing etc. And the more he advances in level, he has more of his special ability, that is, he can throw web, similar to Spiderman. Alas, Spiderman has a lot more web than our Cobweb. He can use this web like invisible or visible snare, and sometimes those who get caught in it, hang upside down for a few moments, while you are kicking them. What a rush! If the opponent is too strong to be caught in the above web, then he can use the web to blind him, aiming for his eyes. So, instead of a thief in your party, even though there are opponent thieves, what we have is the Cobweb. Clay Clay, who is also called Bodyparts, is a character who easily changes his body parts. For instance, if you take a hand of a strong fighter, you can rip Clay's default hand, and put this one instead. So Clay is, really, the result of a lot of other creatures. And Clay does not have to be all Practitioner, as he can be Enchanter two, a nice little combination of the two! For instance, you can open his chest and replace Clay's heart with Enchanter's heart, which will give him some spells this Enchanter type has! You can put him eyes of an elf, giving him a better vision, etc. So, Clay can look funny, but funny does not necessarily mean that he will act funny. He can be a nice little tank and/or Wizard, combined throughout the game they way you see fit. Was this funny? I don't think so! Mech Mech is a wooden automaton, suitable for rapid fire. A halfing or gnome inside uses it, called the pilot. Mech's week point is fire weapons, which can damage it the most, since he is made out of particular strong wood, but wood that can easily be set on fire. Mech has two pairs of hands, suitable for crossbow, as Mech cannot use bows. Instead of crossbows, Mech can use swords, but only with his lower pair of hands. If you like four crossbows firing at the same time, you will have Mech in your party. Another thing about Mech, is that the gnome pilot can cast spells of his own, if he leave the Mech. So what you have is basically a wizard gnome and Mech all in one. But keep in mind, that gnome can cast spells only if he gets out of the Mech, and Mech can engage in combat only if there is a pilot inside of it. Enchanters: Chef Bookworm Painter Florist Chef Chef is quite original Enchanter. He can summon a creature Jelly, for example, or a Pudding. Both are immune to slashing weapons, I suppose, and there are different types of these fine monsters from our Chef's portable little kitchen. As he advances through levels, he can summon a Jelly Ball, the most powerful weapon of his, particularly at higher levels. This ball bounces inside a room of your choice, faster and faster, damaging all, including allies, if near. However, this ball has no damage against a magic shield. For these reasons, it is recommended to use Jelly Ball when members of your party are not inside the above room. At higher levels, Chef can use it more per day, and the damage is quite devastating. A powerful combination of two spells in outdoors, are the entrap spell and Jelly Ball. The entrap spell creats four walls around opponents, so they cannot escape. Then Chef creates Jelly Ball inside these walls, so the Ball bounces of walls. At higher levels, he can create two Jelly Balls at the same time! Chef can also lure opponents like Siren when they are not hostile, luring them with nice food aroma, which has luring magic ingredients. Enemies that respond to this are lured in a trap, as there is no food, rather our fellowship of six, attacking them when they leave their formation. Chef can cast, for instance, poison mushroom spells, and cook onion in battle, making his opponents cry, and this count as a blind spell. Painter A standard enchanter has half attack spells, and other half is defensive spells. Painter is mostly attacking spells! He uses paintings just like magic scrolls, which he memorizes the same way, but he can also use most of the attack magic scrolls, that is, usual attacking spells. He buys canvas in appropriate shops, and then he can paint them. This means that he can combine certain spells, painting them together, creating a combo, a combination of spells you prefer. At higher levels, this combo can go even up to four spells, all in one painting, painted by you! Another ability of his is that he can use some paintings painted by other artists, if they have either of four elements: water, air, fire, or earth. The more elements a painting has, it is usually more powerful, unless the painting is quite expensive. If quite expensive, one element will suffice to produce a lot of damage. This is why it is a good thing to have a thief in your party, since he can steal this picture from a powerful rich bloke at earlier levels. Painter can also paint portraits of some NPCs, for which he gets a nice little sum of money from noble ones. Bookworm Bookworm has the most spells in comparison to other enchanters, twice as much at the beginning, and at the highest levels even trice! But the setback is, that he cannot cast the most powerful spells, that is, spells of the highest level, and most spells from penultimate level. Florist Florist, also called Mandrake, uses plants to his advantage. He uses, for example, poisoned spines of cactus, propelled as poisonous darts through a particular straw. He can summon carnivore plants too. He can also use nonpoisonous cactus spines enlarged by his magic, firing them just like a machinegun! He also presses certain plants in his big book, and then memorizes this pressed plant like a spell. He can also combine pressed plants in one scroll, sometimes, just like a combo. He uses a little of the standard spells, as he gives most of his attention to his plants. He uses roots of plants as entanglement spell. He can also summon twice a day his deadliest creature, which is Ent. This a powerful summoned creature in the game, but has weakness for fire. He uses flowers mostly because of their scent, which accts like a mind spell, or poison, and spiders are quite vulnerable to this.

hmmm, are you willing to be teared apart and given a totally humiliating advice that would cause you to run from games forever?

[Edited by - Borkhan on December 9, 2006 2:39:29 PM]

think about that question before answering him. He'll get brutal.

i agree caldiar. i am definitely not a PC = politically correct critic. i will never describe (and that is PC fact) cannibals as: the people with difficult to meet needs.

but do i get off the topic? irrelevant? showing no knowledge?
what do you prefer: sugar coated answers that will help you zero, zilch, nada or maybe the so called brutal opinions with whose you can debate and sharpen your idea?

lol you're just brutally honest.

Personally I like that but other people will run away crying if people bash up what they thought was a brilliant idea too much.

Somehow I get the feeling, that you do not particularly like my RPG ideas. Well, you could blame Tolkien, because I watch Lord of the Rings seven times a day. But this is all right, because what a difference a day made? Twenty-four little hours, and Borkhan up my ass. If I get an opinion from Forkhan as well, I will take his fork as a souvenir. I suppose ideas have been exhausted, so it is hard to be original now days.

Quote: Original post by Rollsbee
Somehow I get the feeling, that you do not particularly like my RPG ideas. Well, you could blame Tolkien, because I watch Lord of the Rings seven times a day. But this is all right, because what a difference a day made? Twenty-four little hours, and Borkhan up my ass. If I get an opinion from Forkhan as well, I will take his fork as a souvenir. I suppose ideas have been exhausted, so it is hard to be original now days.

ok ill take a day or two and i WILL come to back you. cya

OK; as agreed above, comment without gloves. My commens start with =

First off, my apologies if this thread is not where it is supposed to be.
=You are right.

If so, maybe you could cut me some slack, since I am a newbie here. Maybe. What I have is a draft for a new computer game, and, maybe, certain crew could use =some parts of it?
==It will take a special kind of a crew.

Anyway, being romantic, since we are all RPG players here,
=We are not all RPG players here. And certainly not all of us are romantic.

there are two main character types in Insomnia: Enchanters, and Practitioners, even though some characters are pretty much mixture of the two.
=Meaning, you have THREE character types.

Practitioners would be what Fighters are in most RPGs, pretty much. And Enchanters are like Wizards, but more connected to material things, since they can fight with more weapons than before, and enchant swords for fellow Practitioners.
=Fighting with weapons equals in your game= connected to material things?

Anyway, the title, Insomnia, is because in this imaginary world, there are a lot of things, everyday banal things or otherwise familiar from our own world.
=So, the inability to sleep, insomnia, equals = banal things?

And this world, Insomnia, is a dream world,
=Marvelous, inability to sleep is the background for a dream world!

really, because protagonist, you, is in it, and wakes up on Earth when you finish the game, sort of like Wizard of Oz.
=Thank you for using one of the most overused cliché endings.

So, here are just a few descriptions of Insomnia's PCs, as an.. aperitif? Hm.. And, of course, my English is not fantastic. Of course.
= It is not your English that is the problem. It is the logic of your story/characters.

Pumpkin-patch
=Love this name. Who was his father – the Cabbage kid?

Cobweb
=Good one – Son of a Spiderman?

Clay
=And sister of Earth

Mech
=mech… never heard such name...

If you like marksmen, sharpshooters, and Lee Oswald, then Pumpkin-Patch is your man! … Pumpkin-patch has head just like pumpkin on Halloween, and this is the source of his peculiar name.
=Basically he is a water-head, meaning no brains? And the idea to mix comparisons to include Lee Oswald with Halloween pumpkin – a killer!

You can see his muscles and veins, but this is because, he has the ability to hide in shadows, thanks to properties of his skin.
=So, skinning someone alive = making him invisible. Do you fell invisible reading this?

Looks creepy, but good!
=Yes, the old good creepy bloody dude…

Also, when in dungeons, that is indoors,
=And some dungeons in your game are either outdoors or without doors?

he easily walks on the ceiling while detecting traps, if the ceiling is smooth, avoiding traps on the floor!
=I like that. The antigravity guy, walks the ceilings, this way avoiding traps OPPOSITE of ceilings – the floor.

Alas, Spiderman has a lot more web than our Cobweb.
=Damn monopolist!

He can use this web like invisible or visible snare,
=Now we have a live skinned guy, who is therefore not only invisible, but can throw invisible snares. On invisible targets maybe?

and sometimes those who get caught in it, hang upside down for a few moments, while you are kicking them. What a rush!
=Yeah, kicking totally disabled beings, what a rush! Any rape rooms there?

If the opponent is too strong to be caught in the above web, then he can use the web to blind him, aiming for his eyes.
=Yeah, blind the guy with a web or trip a woman with loop…

For instance, if you take a hand of a strong fighter, you can rip Clay's default hand, and put this one instead.
=So, if you marry a strong fighter you can, as a marriage present, rip Clay’s default hand (btw. What the heck is a default hand?)

So Clay is, really, the result of a lot of other creatures.
=a writer amongst them.

For instance, you can open his chest and replace Clay's heart with Enchanter's heart, which will give him some spells this Enchanter type has! You can put him eyes of an elf, giving him a better vision, etc. So, Clay can look funny, but funny does not necessarily mean that he will act funny.
=Yeah, rip his heart, disembowel him, rip his eyes out, let us have fun!!!!

Mech is a wooden automaton, suitable for rapid fire. A halfing or gnome inside uses it, called the pilot.
=So, Mech is a wooden auto firing menace. What is he firing, nuts?

Mech has two pairs of hands, suitable for crossbow, as Mech cannot use bows.
=Logical, if you have two pairs of hands, you cannot use bows.

If you like four crossbows firing at the same time, you will have Mech in your party.
=Somehow forgetting, that for a crossbow you need TWO hands.

Another thing about Mech, is that the gnome pilot can cast spells of his own, if he leave the Mech. So what you have is basically a wizard gnome and Mech all in one.
=Not at all, as you yourself wrote, that gnome can cast only, if leaving the Mech; that means, not being one anymore.

Chef is quite original Enchanter. He can summon a creature Jelly, for example, or a Pudding.
=That’s original. What about pancakes spell, I love pancakes.

Chef can also lure opponents like Siren when they are not hostile, luring them with nice food aroma, which has luring magic ingredients. Enemies that respond to this are lured in a trap, as there is no food, rather our fellowship of six, attacking them when they leave their formation.
=Read this once again carefully. It is more than lurid.

. Painter is mostly attacking spells!
=No flesh?

He buys canvas in appropriate shops, and then he can paint them.
=Yeah, as opposite to paint them first and buy them later.

if they have either of four elements: water, air, fire, or earth.
=Gasp. How original. Newer heard of this idea.

Painter can also paint portraits of some NPCs, for which he gets a nice little sum of money from noble ones.
=Meaning that all NPCs are either peasants or cads.

But the setback is, that he cannot cast the most powerful spells, that is, spells of the highest level, and most spells from penultimate level.
=Making him a darling of all power players.

Florist, also called Mandrake
=Mandrake was a hypnotists, just an info.


Summing it up:
Your game is based on
Cook, who acts as a siren (in spite of his belly)
A painter consisting of spells
A guy, who cannot advance,
A four handed empty wood joke
Clay, the ultimate victim of Jack the Ripper who is an antigravity thief blinding people with invisible webs
And
A Lee Oswald type of pumpkin

I suggest to try to sell this concept to Addams family.

[Edited by - Borkhan on December 16, 2006 11:19:24 PM]

I do not get enough oxygen in my brain, because of the deviation in my nose. But I have enough oxygen to say that you gave me good tips.

congr. on your attitude. i think that the main flaw of your concept is vaccillation or oscillation between usual RPG concept and children/funny/simplified concept. It just does not go together, like pudding spell and a walking nightmare without skin. I propose you decide on that first.

btw.
Invisibility - why dont you check the latest technical advance - it looks it will be possible to have it soon. and then you dress your thief in this advanced material, and voila.

ripping eyes, hands etc. weel, it has been done, in the king of the games, Torment. Check it out, if you can. It would be very informative for you or anyone trying to invent a new concept. The game is old, but out of this world (in several ways :-))

Cook concept - i propose you develop two strains of abilities for the cook - one to make better and better meals, so you can heal with them, sell them, make friends etc, and second to make more and more poisonous foods - well, to poison people... (especially if you mix them).

good luck