RPGVault has posted the
first installment of their second RPG Roundtable feature, in which they talk to five developers about character development. Here's a snippet from Brent Knowles, lead designer on BioWare's upcoming Hordes of the Underdark expansion for Neverwinter Nights:
Often, with skill-based systems, the characters run the risk of all becoming the same - there are no wizards or fighters or rogues, but clever combinations of all the "class archetypes". Everyone becomes some kind of weird skill-mesh - the master swordsman who throws balls of flame and can easily disappear into the shadows when threatened. While this can be fun, it threatens to ruin the "world-feel". I like my lands populated with clear-cut wizards, rogues, fighters and clerics. Deviant fighter-mages should be rare, not commonplace.
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