Re: RPG wanted - not AD&D

Nostromo <nospam@xxxxxxxxx> looked up from reading the entrails of the
porn spammer to utter "The Augury is good, the signs say:

Thus spake Xocyll <Xocyll@xxxxxxxxxxxx>, Mon, 24 Apr 2006 05:29:55 -0400,
Anno Domini:

Nostromo <nospam@xxxxxxxxx> looked up from reading the entrails of the
porn spammer to utter "The Augury is good, the signs say:

Thus spake "sheepdog" <ogme@xxxxxxxxxxxx>, 23 Apr 2006 01:01:00 -0700, Anno
Domini:

Are there any other roleplaying [as distinct from combat] systems apart
from Dungeons & Dragons stuff ? - I like NWN but the AD&D system is,
well, you know...tired.

Is there for example a good sci-fi roleplaying game ?

and what are the alternatives to NWN in the fantasy genre ?

er by roleplaying I mean tending towards group story telling...

Vampire The Masquerade:Bloodlines. Best crpg since Fallout/Torment imo -
enjoyed it more than Kotor for example. But be warned, it has vampires & you
play one of then, so you're the bad guy, one way or another ;). Also, some
would call it rpg-lite as it's really an action/adventure/rpg hybrid of
sorts, but I would say so what? Just *because* it concentrates on action,
storyline & atmosphere rather than endless asinine stats & phat loot (though
it has both in moderation :) makes it one of the most immersive rpgs ever.
Period.

It does rely on stats a fair bit though.

Just try getting through the game without hacking or lockpicking.
Or with low (or no) melee or ranged ability, since some encounters
cannot be completed by anything but combat (like all the mini bosses
through the game).

Yeah, but all the stats are really kinda outta sight outta mind until you
decide to look at them & apply your points. I once had 24+ points up my
sleeve - THAT'S how much I enjoyed just playing the game. Mind you, I looked
when it was getting a bit tough :)

Depending on where in the game you were you could rack up 24 points in
no time at all.

The lockpicking thing really annoys me since there's no other way to
open even cheap flimsy doors, even though you're a vampire with
supernatural strength.

Having that sledgehammer should let me smash through any normal door.

Yeah, fair enough. It was limited by the HL2 engine though & the budget, so
make of that what you will ;)

Especially annoying since in some places (Hallowbrook) there are doors
you cannot pass, which then get smashed out of their frames by an enemy
vampire.

Heh, I just rationalised it by assuming I was a baby fledgling vampire w/o
the power to bring down doors & gates & buildings. Or you can just put it
down to not really wanting to break that door down as it would be bad for
the game flow :-/

Yeah but a normal human would be able to break down a door with a
sledgehammer, much less a supernaturally strong vampire.

It does have a pretty good story though, especially if you play
malkavian.

Started as one but then I switched to the Tremere (blood mage) after some
advice here. The Malkavian is a wild ride & quite weird w/o a 'normal' pass
through the game apparently & I'd have to agree.

Tremere was my first run through - focused on Dominate powers in the
early game (since they don't violate the masquerade) and picked up the
Thaumaturgy later - Blood Boil was damn handy later on.

Second run through was Malkavian, heavily oriented towards Obfuscation -
sneak through every mission doing stealth kills - which came to an
abrupt end in Hallowbrook where it seemed everything could see me.

Third run through as a Brujah focussed on celerity and the intimidate
conversation options.

Forth run is a Toreador, who will probably be doing Celerity mostly, and
using the seduction options.

Now if only vamped 0.92 would only extract the damn models for editing
instead of just creating a 0 byte file.

Is this a fan mod or editor? Yeah, I would've liked the Malk model on my
Tremere chick...there's just something about psychotic women dressed in
school girl outfits >;-)

There's a bunch of editors.
Vamped 0.92 is the only one that will extract a model as a d3d.x format
file that can be imported into blender and then later exported and
pasted back into vamped 0.92

The later version of vamped 1.20 will let you view all of the models,
but not extract them.

The gotcha is that 1.20 loads all the .vpks while 0.92 only loads the
one you pick and some of the models have their bits and pieces spread
over more than one .vpk and won't extract.

The fix was to use VPKLTool 3.9a to extract all the various bits and
pieces and then go for the model in 0.92 since it does also see
extracted file directories.

With some tweaking you could even play your tremere using the Jeanette
skin/model.

IE you'd have the model bits and skin pieces extracted (using vpktool)
to
models/character/pc/female/tremere/armor0
jeanette.dx7_2bone.vtx
jeanette.dx80.vtx
jeanette.mdl
jeanette.phy

Which you would have to rename to

tremere_female_armor_0.dx7_2bone.vtx
tremere_female_armor_0.dx80.vtx
tremere_female_armor_0.mdl
tremere_female_armor_0.phy

as well as use vpktool to edit the .mdl file to change where it looks
for textures.
from
models/character/npc/unique/Santa_Monica/Jeanette/
to
models/character/pc/female/tremere/armor0

then copy/move all the extracted jeanette files from
materials/models/character/npc/unique/santa_monica/jeanette
to
materials/models/character/pc/female/tremere/armor0
and edit the .vmt files to change the paths to match (they're plain
text.)

Presto, the tremere default (armor0) now looks like jeanette.

If you wanted to try editing the skin texture, you'd use vpktool to
convert the .ttz/.tth pair into a .tga then painting whatever changes
you wanted, then saving it as a .dds which you would then convert back
to .ttz/.tth using vpktool.
See also
http://hellwolve.blessed-oddity.com/bloodlines/tutorial/basic_tutorial.htm



You can get the vampeds and the import/export script for blender at
http://paine.planetvampire.gamespy.com/index.php?action=files&scatid=18

VPKTool at
http://turfster.cjb.net/

Blender (free rendering proggie like 3dsmax) at
http://www.blender.org/cms/Blender.31.0.html
(only if you want to try editing the models themselves not just skins)

Changing the models can be a bloody nightmare, since a model that still
looks just fine in Blender might be a garbled mess once put back in the
game. You CAN'T delete or add any vertexes or it can't be reimported,
you can only move things around a bit to change proportions or remove
(hide) extraneous stuff within the model body.

IE i'm using the female_raver_2 body for my toreador.
This is the blond with the hair kind of like jeanettes and that silly
visor. I hid the visor within the body, changed the model slightly
(trimmed bustline to be more in keeping with the "Faelike" background)
and reskinned (through cut and paste, palette changes and such) so that
the blond hair is now a fiery red, the tan jeans are now a hot pink, and
there's a lace overlay over the halter.

I wanted to make a slimmer and less busty version of venus (good hair,
best boots in the game), but the mesh is split in so many pieces it just
wasn't possible to edit it easily since smoothing down bulges opened
gaps between pieces.
I may try again.

The Gimp (free graphics proggy like photoshop) at
http://gimp-win.sourceforge.net/stable.html


Xocyll
--
I don't particularly want you to FOAD, myself. You'll be more of
a cautionary example if you'll FO And Get Chronically, Incurably,
Painfully, Progressively, Expensively, Debilitatingly Ill. So
FOAGCIPPEDI. -- Mike Andrews responding to an idiot in asr
.

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