Jan 11, 2018, 7:34 PM

@ganymede said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:

Pyrephox said this as well, but the path isn't putting up a roadblock to prevent socially-inept people rising to power. And that's what I was getting at, obliquely.

I never said there should be a roadblock. In fact you should be able to claim power through brute force - ranks aren't the sole product of social engineering.

But since you can do so as either Robert Baratheon or Littlefinger, yet being Robert lets you do so and be part of more types of scenes on a day to day basis (since Bobby can be part of diplomatic delegations but Littlefinger can't be part of combat), and as a bonus you are able to bash Littlefinger's head if he pisses you off, yet being Littlefinger gives you very limited venues to fight back... that impacts gameplay. It impacts theme.

And we're not even talking about the social consequences that should be attendant with being a combat monster, generally. No matter how genial Vlad the Impaler might have been in his court, one cannot forget that he was Vlad the Impaler, as reviled as he was feared, as he was beloved in hindsight.

Sure, and that's why Vlad should buy Intimidation. But he also should be an one-trick pony in that regard - sure, he can scare the shit out of people but he can't give a good speech to rouse the troops, tell a good lie, convince someone to make a bad deal thinking it's a good one, etc.

And in a good social system doing such things should have a value roughly equal to impaling people. Else why do the same skills cost the same XP?