Combining Crystals

[Hajimaru]

Will it be possible to combine the natures of crystals. For example:

• Earth + Fire = Magma Spell
• Air + Lightning = Storm Spell
• Fire + Water = Boiling Water Spell
• Water + Air = Ice Spell
• Lightning + Earth = Glass Spell (Mirrors, Illusionary, etc.)

The list goes on.

[King B]

I think Kaden addressed this already on Maruset's question thread. Initially that is what he had envisioned.

http://www.cdbzrpg.com/forum/showpost.ph...postcount=

But I think it would be disadvantageous for the story aspect if too much focus is put on the crystals. If a fire specialist wants to cast some sort of lava spell, needing Earth element is almost too much of a restriction. Also, Anyria does have terrain. So if you wanted boiling water spells I guess you could carry a bucket of water around and use a fire spell on it? I don't know. Feels like this element won't make the game more interesting but only put more limitations upon RPers. Personal opinion of course, ignore if you don't like.

[Kaden]

I just wanted there to be less emphasis on the mechanics. CDBZ has a lot of that and I wanted Anyria to do something different.

Like I said in Maruset's thread, if your spell makes sense with the Crystals/elements your trying to use, then it will probably be fine. There will almost certainly be places where staff need to step in, but hopefully they are few and far between.

[Hajimaru]

Groovy. I actually prefer the loose method you're leaning toward. I've always said that simple is better.

When you overcomplicate things or add too many stipulations/clauses, things will certainly go haywire. I watched it happen numerous times over on "Another Destiny" and "Friend or Foe." (Not the FOF spinoff here on Chubbs).

Anyhow, thanks for the speedy responses.

[Kaden]

I don't see it as a matter of complication. It comes down to the overarching design direction of the RPG. If you want to set up an environment where people can be competitive with one another, you need a way to quantify their achievements and progress throughout the game. Another Destiny was actually set up for that pretty well, I think (obviously there have been a handful of iterations, but I feel that was largely true for most of them).

What caused things to go "haywire" was that people chose not to be competitive. They just wanted to do their own thing. When you try to be freeform where there's lots of structure... it doesn't work out great.

This method is definitely not perfect. There's a great deal of subjectivity to it and I'm sure there are going to be competitive situations that will a lot of people upset because there's nothing hard to look at. It goes from "well he had more CA" to "well he was a better writer" and the latter is much less palatable.

I had lots of opportunities to work more rigidity into the RPG, but chose not to because I wanted there to be significant differences between Anyria and CDBZ.

[Hajimaru]

Yeah don't get me wrong, AD was a blast down to its very last breathe, I'm deeply sad it sort of died out. However as a staff member I lost count how many times I had to re-explain the stat systems, which changed roughly once every 4-6 months. It was fantastic for competitions sake, but a lot of players just couldn't fully grasp it.

I'm almost certain there will have to be SOME kind of change to the system in the future, it's nearly inevitable. Luckily trial and error helps to mold things to be more efficient.