Hi Dark, Oh, I think you slightly misunderstood what I was saying. Obviously, there have to be acceptions based on game play, plot, etc but by and large what I am getting at is that even completely imaginary characters, weapons, and other items have to act somewhat realistic in a game world. I.E. in a way that is plausible.
For instance, in Mysteries of the Ancients there are healing potions all over the place made from Phoenix tears. Well, we all know that these are completely imaginary items since the Phoenix is a mythical bird. However, I don't believe even a magic potion like that should restore you to full health instantly. It would take at least a couple of minutes to restore your health and strength to normal. Even in Harry Potter in the Chamber of Secrets when Harry is injured it took Harry a few minutes to heal when Forks healed him with his tears. So basically even though Phoenix tears are magical, completely imaginary, I'd say that most people realise that any cure magical or not shouldn't be instantanious. As for weapons imaginary or not they should have some restrictions. Using your example of Iceman's ice weapon you pick up regardless of how imaginary it may be things like min and max range still apply. If the ice weapon is two feet long then obviously you have to have a very minimum of two feet between you and the enemy in order to aim the weapon at the enemy. You shouldn't aim towards the floor and hit the enemy square in the face. You still need room to actually point it at the enemies face, and if you hit the enemy square in the face that is believable. You see what I mean? Its interesting this topic has come up, because I have been discussing this very issue in a gaming article I'm writing on creating games, developing memorable characters, etc. It seams all too often when people creat characters for a game like Dungeons and Dragons most players try to take the god-moding strategy by inventing the most invincible, most powerful, and absolutely perfect character imaginable. What I think people overlook is that some of the best heroic characters in fiction have weaknesses and make mistakes just like everyone else. That's what makes them memorable characters, because they aren't all knowing, perfect, and display human characteristics all of us have to deal with. For example, let's take Professor Dumbledore. He shares many of the characteristics we would expect in a heroic wizard such as being kindly, wise, a powerful wizard, and has a list of achievements as long as your right arm to prove it. To Harry, Hermione, and Ron Dumbledore is larger than life. However, by the time the seventh book is released we find out Dumbledore is not all he seams. He has made mistakes, a hidden past few know about, and has made poor choices/decisions that he shouldn't have. Even in Chamber of Secrets one wonders why someone as wise and smart as Dumbledore would hire a complete frod like Lockheart to take up the job of Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. It could be as simple as no one else for the job as was stated, or Dumbledore wasn't aware of exactly how much of a frod Lockheart was when he hired him. Either way it turned out to be a poor decision, because when push came to shove Lockheart was a liability rather than a help to Harry and Ron when they go to rescue Ginny from the Chamber of Secrets. The point I'm aiming for is that characters are more believable when they aren't so perfect and wonderful after all. They must face challenges that even there own strength, character, and abilities may not be able to overcome. They must be sorely tested. Not even super heroes like Superman and Supergirl are totally perfect. Whip out some criptonite, and you'll reduce them to weak mortals hardly able to stand. In Superman Returns when Lex Luther stabs Superman with a criptonite knife Superman nearly dies and probably might have if Lois Lain hadn't showed up in time to rescue him and pull the criptonite knife out of his back. Its a reminder of Superman's own mortality we rarely see when fighting normal villains, and a reminder no matter how big and powerful you are there are always weaknesses that can be exploited. There is an old joke that proves this point. Q: If Batman and Superman were having a fight and Batman didn't have any criptonite who would win? A: Batman, of course. He always has criptonite hidden in his utility belt, and always comes to a fight prepared. What this joke really means is that if you are prepared even the mightiest hero or mightiest super vilain can be defeated. Everybody has a weakness. Batman who his undoubtedly a light wait compared to Superman could in theory beat Superman in a fight if he knew Superman's weakness and could use it to good advantage. In fact,in some of the DC Comics Batman has defeated a number of super vilains simply by being prepared. For instance, Dark Seid is undoubtedly one of the most evil and powerful enemies in the DC Comics universe. He is a god-like enemy, but Batman has defeated him in at least two cases i know of. In the 1980's there was a Justice League comic were Dark Seid used a boom tube to capture the JLA members and take them to Apocalypse. During the battle Dark Seid tried to destroy the JLA by hitting them with the omega beams in his eyes. Batman pulls out a small mirror from his utility belt and reflects the omega beams back at Dark Seid defeating him. In the recently released Final Crisis series Batman retreaves the bullet Dark Seid used to kill O'ryan and fires it into Dark Seid's chest killing him. So when we talk about realism in games there has to be a realistic way to handle even imaginary items and characters. It would probably be unrealistic and unbelievable that Batman could take on Dark Seid in a real fight, but in both cases mentioned above DC Comics came up with a realistic situation where Dark Seid could be defeated by even one of the weaker members of the JLA through simple means. Where more powerful heros like Superman, Supergirl, Wonder Woman, and Green Lantern failed to get the job done. That's ok as long as it is plausible. Which I think was my entire point of this long message. I'm not so much concerned about realism so much as the possibility of the thing which makes the diference. If something isn't possible then it isn't possible. However, if something is possible and sounds plausible then by all means do it. Cheers! --- Gamers mailing list __ [email protected] If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [email protected]. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [email protected].
