Post originally by Chris Adams at 2005-04-02 18:37:23
Converted from Phorums BB System

More Designer Response--

Hi Dan, Dave Fooden gave me the heads up about your review awhile back. I'm glad you enjoyed exploring the world of Chi-Chian, and your review is a splendid and fair one.

Overall, I have no problem with your opinion of the game. I have a couple odd notes as to the facts of the design...



<i>---I would suggest allowing players to treat a spent Chi point like a doubles roll, thus ensuring that they get at least a little bang for their buck.</i>

This is not a bad suggestion, and it might not unbalance the game. Remember, NPCs can spend Chi, too...




<i>---I've never seen this approach before in an RPG, but I like it. It also may make the game more attractive to non-gamer fans of Chi-Chian, serving as a comprehensive worldguide.
[plus]
The format would have been even more useful if the majority of the cross-referencing hadn't left out the page numbers.</i>

Thanks, I'm glad you dig it. There's a kind of Gygaxian holdover attitude in RPGs that there's "no way" characters could know as much about encounters in their own world as a player would. In any high tech society, there would be books, Google, podcasts, Com, etc. etc. In a cosmopolitan setting, assuming total character ignorance is just bad metagaming.

This also touches on your cross-referencing issue. Far from being a proofreading error, the cross-references without page numbers are deliberate. Those are the ones that use the standard encyclopedia/dictionary term "see"-- it simply means what it means elsewhere in literature: Look up the alphabetical listing! We only list page numbers for references *outside* the encyclopedic chapter.

Honestly, it's a breeze to use. It's a human reference book standard.

To be fair, we do mess this up once or twice. An x-ref for "Sora (see)" is no help, since her listing is under "Mitsui, Sora"-- but this is just an oversight within our overall alphabetical intent. (And we do apologize for these individual failures and oversights.)





<i>---I do have to question the wisdom of putting creature stats in with their descriptions, however, only because the book describes this chapter as fair game for players to read.</i>

That's because it's a roleplaying game. If the stats say the encounter would be tougher or smarter (or weaker or stupider) this is usually how characters would already perceive this type of creature to be. It's Manhattan, not the unexplored wilds beyond Greyhawk.

And in many cases, like mutants or Patahn Pahrr, the PCs won't know whether they're grunts or elites until they fight.

Put simply: I don't care if you can see the numbers-- it's dice + roleplaying not poker + cash kitty. Aetherco/Dreamcatcher games don't exist for the purely min/max set. They are amply served already.

That being vented, the rules and play balance of the numbers should be fair. If the system outlined in Chapter 2 needs fixing, it should be fixed.



<i>---I can't fathom why it is that in a world in which genetic engineering can create seemingly anything imaginable, trees are extinct and wood is the most valuable substance on Earth.</i>


Yeah, that's one of those "work within the license" deals. Voltaire is exuberantly creative, and his Chi-Chian universe has grown to accomodate the needs of a darkly brilliant storyteller. However, none of it was thought out or made to work together beyond the needs of the plotlines he was writing at the time. Our job was to make it a game, and thus, all the parts had to make sense going in.

Seriously, over 90% of the Museum chapter are pure Voltaire ideas. But over 90% of the way they interact had to be figured out by us game guys. (The only "canonical" element that had to be changed was an instance where the war in which Soma Mitsui deployed BioLogic technology was stated to take place decades *before* the war during which Soma was *born*. I remember Volt grinning and saying, "Yeah, okay, *that's* important.")

So the lack of cloned trees in a biotech playground was a noticable problem. I mean, yeah.


We make a stab at explaining it on page 101: "The intrinsic monetary value of wood is now debatable, since Mimitsu has devised a way to grow it under laboratory conditions..."

A clearer explanation is simply: Sure, they could grow trees, but it's value has been inflated due to imposed rarity.

Just like diamonds in our own day. In case you didn't know, the modern diamond indusry has vaults that are simply overflowing with their signature shiny rocks. If all were suddenly released into the market, diamonds would rapidly become nearly valueless.

So the wealthy of 3050 keep wood (and oxygen) rare, instead of free.



Anyway, thanks for giving Chi-Chian a spin!

Keep watching the dice,

Chris
Aetherco/Dreamcatcher