Yin and Yang

[Psychomorph]

A discussion in the Romances in the latest Bioware titles. brought me to some thoughts, so I move the post here:

A thought occured to me. What if Thaumaturgy is a female trait. That means females would be naturally gifted. Males are not all huge bodybuilders, so many of them would have sort of a strong "female side" and would excel at Thaumaturgy (note, it's not about what gender is more powerful, but more naturally gifted, initially at least). That means going for a super huge, testosterone pumped Gorilla of a dude, would naturally balance his talent for more physical abilities (naturally and initially, can still develope to be an expert mage, but comes not easy). Some females however are more dude than girl, lol. They'd be larger and stronger and affinity would naturally go more toward the physical side.

What if you had a little Yin/Yang-ish sign above your character in the character menu. Yin means "dark", which is the female side and goes for the passive, affective, indirect, hidden and mysterious traits (stealth, magic, intelligence, etc). Yang means "bright" and goes for the active traits (strength, speed, energy, persistance, confidence, etc).

Interesting and somewhat contradictory is, that the male trait means power (physical and mental) and is a big advanatge and skill for high Thaumaturgy. So the most aggressive and dangerous Thaumaturges have been noted to be the strongly Yang sided ones. The female trait may also influence a strong and heavy character, like making a warrior agile and stealthy (think of the character Richard B. Riddick, one of my favourite characters in film, because of strength, confidence, but also agility, stealth and intelligence).

Things, traits and affinities would overlap basically. That also means that thaumaturgic features would change based on your male/female balance. A strong Yang character developes a more faster, aggressive, devastating magic, while a strong Yin character would go for a more passive, deceptive, and difficult to identify (and defend against) magic. As you can tell, a female trait is not weakness, but strength in its own way.

Also, you could shift the Yin/Yang balance during the game. A strong male sided character can develope a stronger female side, which at some point could become the dominant part. That would lower his physical abilities, but allow for other potential.

 

[Oona]

It's a cool idea, but it seems unneccessary. I mean, we customize our characters weight/height/musculature, so we have an idea of what they will be more adept in, we don't need the yin and yang symbol to show us what we already know. And as you said, there will be female characters with more 'yang' than 'yin', and vice versa, so it doesn't really add anything to the game.
Also, an unbalanced yin and yang symbol would look awkward. And it seems very out of context since the yin and yang is of oriental origin.

Yin and yang does not exactly mean female traits and male traits, in eastern spiritual paths both men and women will strive for balance between the two, because a lack of or extreme yin or yang in a person leads to disharmony. The one cannot exist without the other.

 

[Psychomorph]

Agreed on most, so what about a Celtic pagan symbol for "balance" then?

You are right that we can customize the traits and appearance, but I was heading more toward the balance element. The picture above is in no way clearly thought through, just the general idea thrown into a picture, but it is about opposing traits and you define them. The moon is the main tendency, the more you move it to the right, the more and dominant the "male" attributes are. The star is a compromise to avoid making this system too stale, it allows you to define side attributes, that can be totally opposing to the main tendency, but these are the subordinate aspect. The further away the moon and the star are from each other, the weaker both get, but the moon is always strongest. Keep them together (kind of Turkish flag) and "balance" shifts to "focus" and your attribute and traits are totally focused (be natural born mage, or natural born warrior).

edit: To make it interesting, focused attributes can eventually influence the appearance a little bit, so both, moon and star at the very right, may make your male and female character more muscular, edgier, while the moon and star at the very left, leaner and less masculine.
edit2: To add to the edit, as I mentioned initially, the female side is the strong thaumartigic side, but male side means power, so a male dominant mage can still be very competent and insanely powerful. Ahh, this is complicated matter.

Not sure if makes sense, this is the general idea of it, which wasn't clear in the first post, because ideas come on the fly to me. I did not end this post the way I initially began it (edits may be on the way lol).

 

[calithlin]

As interesting as the mechanic might sound, I think Madoc has mentioned a few times that sliding bars, meters, etc regarding character appearance/personality is too similar to some fantasy games and not a mechanic they're looking to implement.

 

[Psychomorph]

Yeah, I hope they do it better and more intuitive than what has been done before.


What about a circular scheme where you can freely position the things?

 

[calithlin]

'Perception, speed, other, whatever'

I love your naming conventions, hah!

 

[Omegoa]

The concept is interesting, but have you ever met a woman? They are certainly the more powerful (read violent) of the two genders

 

[Tony]

The concept is interesting, but have you ever met a woman? They are certainly the more powerful (read violent) of the two genders

What's this mythical "woman" creature you speak of? I thought they were attempting to keep this game low-fantasy!

 

[calithlin]

What's this mythical "woman" creature you speak of? I thought they were attempting to keep this game low-fantasy!

New meme: Ridiculous Sui Generis Low Fantasy claims.

 

[Omegoa]

What's this mythical "woman" creature you speak of? I thought they were attempting to keep this game low-fantasy!

They're sort of like werewolves - once a month they emerge to terrorize the world of man.

 

[Vincent101]

I think your idea is fantastic! I love the balance of things, and the male/female change is fantastic.

The only thing I can say, however, is that this may promote power-gaming where players build for a particular style of combat, rather than for roleplay purposes. If you were to make every physical and mental effect more subtle and with many more changes rather than just to enhance or change combat abilities, then I could definitely see this working.

 

[Psychomorph]

Just realized that I totally lost focus in my third post big times. The second picture with the circle is wrong, because the original idea was about dualism. That's why a bar (generic or not) is the right design because a line connects two ending points.
Dualism means two, opposing worlds within an individual and the way the balance is set between the two elements is what defines his/her foundation. It's the core of your in-game character that you set and build/develop it from there on. Now, while it is the core and it is set, things are not set in stone. Things flow and traits can change, but they never change completely and the foundation remains the way it was set, only the building that is built on it can take various shapes. You can shape it.

In the first picture, the attributes to the left and right of the bar are not random and the idea behind the designed is what I forgot to explain.
These attributes (perception, agility, strength, etc) are not buttons you click on to select them, these are the base descriptions of the two opposing sides.
The color blue on the left is the female side, the dark and spiritual side (that's why I suggested that Thaumaturgy would be a female attribute). The red side at the right is the male, bright and physical, material world.
The attributes closer to the bar are brighter in the picture, because the level of brightness displays how present and active that base attribute is. The attributes that are further on the outside are the attributes that are the most respective traits of that side. The attribute "Strength" for example, would be the most distinct and boldest of all male/red traits, this does not mean muscle matter, it is strength in all shapes and ways possible and is not limited to gender, it's a trait, be it physical or spiritual and this trait is the strongest in that category. To make it as present and active as possible, you need to move the "moon" as far as you can to the right, the more you move it to the right the brighter and thus more activated the trait becomes.
To gain a maximum of that most respective attribute (let's use "Strength" again) you need to set the moon marker at the very right side of the bar. That gives you most access to the powers of the "male side", but makes your character most hard lined, stale and less receptive for other, opposing attributes. You may excel as a warrior, as a king or any other role based on the "male trait", but you will be limited in other ways.
Moving the moon marker more toward the middle, weakens the most respective attribute (less strength), while the less respective ones remain strong. This "balancing" may weaken your strongest traits, but opens way for other, interesting traits.
Full balance (50/50) may be the most receptive and educational state, but your character will be most average and less interesting and will likely never really excel at anything, but will have all the possibilities.
Etc, etc...

I am not eloquent enough to explain it all in a short and effective way, but I hope you get what I mean. So why am I making so much fuss around it? While it may seem over complicated, the idea behind dualism is a very simple one, probably the most simple of ideas. You have two opposing sides with their most respective attributes and a lot of room in between these sides (shades of gray), where attributes become weaker, stronger, interchange and create unique attributes on their own and you have access to all of it by simply setting a mark on a bar. This however will set the foundation of your character.

Interesting is, that the opposite of one side has both a literal and non-literal meaning. When red is strength, than blue is weakness. That is the literal opposition.
The non literal opposition would be that if red is strength, which is advantageous, blue has an attribute that is the total opposite, but has its own advantage (so it can't be weakness, so the opposite is not literal).

 

[Psychomorph]

I think your idea is fantastic! I love the balance of things, and the male/female change is fantastic.

The only thing I can say, however, is that this may promote power-gaming where players build for a particular style of combat, rather than for roleplay purposes. If you were to make every physical and mental effect more subtle and with many more changes rather than just to enhance or change combat abilities, then I could definitely see this working.

As a game it allows you to shape your own character, unlike real life where you are born the way you are. If someone wishes to build a character to dominate at a particular skill, than he or she would be aware that strength in one way can be weakness in another. And that is EXACTLY the thing about that dualistic system, it is impossible to create an overpowered, have all skills, character. Simply impossible. You can excel at one thing, but you will undeniably suck at another, and in a game world like SG, you will never know when you need the one or other trait. You will suck at anything at any point and you'll need to find your own (akin to your character's foundation) way to deal with it. Being a perfect warrior doesn't mean you will always win, you will lose in ways more painful than you can imagine.

 

[Tony]

I think your idea is very interesting but I also think a similar system (in a more basic form) already exists in Sui Generis. Madoc said the skill points you have will be very limited and it will already be impossible to be a master of all things. If you focus most all your points into thaumaturgy then you have to sacrifice other major skills to do so.

EDIT: the more I ponder your idea the less I think it would fit in Sui Generis. Usually when people learn something about one thing they can apply that knowledge in other areas. There is a synergy to learning. I study chess and I apply the principles learned from chess when I practice Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (taking the space your opponent leaves behind, causing your opponent to succeed with his plan before it's beneficial to him, etc.). I don't think we should be punished in Sui Generis for being proficient in one area since this doesn't logically make sense. I agree that we should not be able to master all things, but a simple skill point allocation system already solves this problem. I don't like having another system on top of this that limits how well we can do something based upon an artificial mechanic.

 

[Psychomorph]

Yeah, I know that SG will have all sorts of limits, as Madoc explained and you may be right that this duality thing is not suitable for SG.
The way I understand, in SG you begin as a clean slate and develop yourself during the game. My perception is that you are never a clean slate. As a human, you may not be as predefined as an animal, but there are still individual attributes to every human that give you a shape before you shape yourself. And more than often humans follow the way that was set for them, which isn't wrong. One with a talent for arts would be a fool to not follow that path. He can refuse, but it will come to his disadvantage. But following that path doesn't mean you're limited to it, you can develop other skills and reach a state of proficiency equal to what you were gifted with or even above.
You can change yourself as much as you have the stamina and energy to do this, but the things that are natural to you will always come easier to you. It will always take an art guy less effort to do artsy things and he always will be likely to reach a very high state of proficiency.

My thinking was that you predefine the character, which will be unchangeable. You set the foundation. That means certain things will come easier for you, but that does not mean that you're limited in any way, as said you can go and learn anything, only the abilities that are most opposed your "foundation" will be harder to learn and master, while those who correspond with your foundation will be easier to learn and master.
If undecided, you can always go for a more balanced character. That way you become more average, not particularly skilled at anything and not particularly a fast learner, but that will give you the chance to adopt a variety of skills at an equal rate. Of course, you can go for more focus and concentrate at fewer but specific skills and the more you do this, the easier it will become to learn other similar skills, which by the way does not only apply to an average character, but to any. This of course was all already discussed and stated by the developers, I am just building it into the duality concept, because it perfectly belongs there. It's like building a web, you can thicken the knots and increase the areal density of knots.

To make it short: The idea was to give you a quicker start by building the foundation of your character. If you want to be nothing but a mage, than define your foundation that way and you get a faster start. If you're uncertain, be average and figure out what you want during play. Every decision has it's consequences though. Be average and you will have advantages and disadvantaged because of this, while going for one extreme will have its own advantages and disadvantages. However, you will not be limited in any way because you happen to have a talent in a certain area. You can learn anything at any time, but there are limits. The limits are as individual as your foundation is.


The wall of text above is not my attempt to convince anybody, I don't feel like I need to at all. I just want to be crystal clear of what I'm trying to say (once I started to explain, I gotta finish it), because it apparently wasn't fully understood (which I don't blame anybody for, I am not that skilled at explaining complex things efficiently).
And of course, this may be just too complicated for a game, or simply not what the developers have in mind.

 

[Cooper Holt]

The concept is interesting, but have you ever met a woman? They are certainly the more powerful (read violent) of the two genders

*Facepalm*

 

[Cooper Holt]

Just realized that I totally lost focus in my third post big times. The second picture with the circle is wrong, because the original idea was about dualism. That's why a bar (generic or not) is the right design because a line connects two ending points.
Dualism means two, opposing worlds within an individual and the way the balance is set between the two elements is what defines his/her foundation. It's the core of your in-game character that you set and build/develop it from there on. Now, while it is the core and it is set, things are not set in stone. Things flow and traits can change, but they never change completely and the foundation remains the way it was set, only the building that is built on it can take various shapes. You can shape it.

In the first picture, the attributes to the left and right of the bar are not random and the idea behind the designed is what I forgot to explain.
These attributes (perception, agility, strength, etc) are not buttons you click on to select them, these are the base descriptions of the two opposing sides.
The color blue on the left is the female side, the dark and spiritual side (that's why I suggested that Thaumaturgy would be a female attribute). The red side at the right is the male, bright and physical, material world.
The attributes closer to the bar are brighter in the picture, because the level of brightness displays how present and active that base attribute is. The attributes that are further on the outside are the attributes that are the most respective traits of that side. The attribute "Strength" for example, would be the most distinct and boldest of all male/red traits, this does not mean muscle matter, it is strength in all shapes and ways possible and is not limited to gender, it's a trait, be it physical or spiritual and this trait is the strongest in that category. To make it as present and active as possible, you need to move the "moon" as far as you can to the right, the more you move it to the right the brighter and thus more activated the trait becomes.
To gain a maximum of that most respective attribute (let's use "Strength" again) you need to set the moon marker at the very right side of the bar. That gives you most access to the powers of the "male side", but makes your character most hard lined, stale and less receptive for other, opposing attributes. You may excel as a warrior, as a king or any other role based on the "male trait", but you will be limited in other ways.
Moving the moon marker more toward the middle, weakens the most respective attribute (less strength), while the less respective ones remain strong. This "balancing" may weaken your strongest traits, but opens way for other, interesting traits.
Full balance (50/50) may be the most receptive and educational state, but your character will be most average and less interesting and will likely never really excel at anything, but will have all the possibilities.
Etc, etc...

I am not eloquent enough to explain it all in a short and effective way, but I hope you get what I mean. So why am I making so much fuss around it? While it may seem over complicated, the idea behind dualism is a very simple one, probably the most simple of ideas. You have two opposing sides with their most respective attributes and a lot of room in between these sides (shades of gray), where attributes become weaker, stronger, interchange and create unique attributes on their own and you have access to all of it by simply setting a mark on a bar. This however will set the foundation of your character.

Interesting is, that the opposite of one side has both a literal and non-literal meaning. When red is strength, than blue is weakness. That is the literal opposition.
The non literal opposition would be that if red is strength, which is advantageous, blue has an attribute that is the total opposite, but has its own advantage (so it can't be weakness, so the opposite is not literal).

No. I would hate to even consider having to manipulate my character because of their gender. I completely disagree. It shouldn't matter whether you are a man or a woman. A guy can be as magical as a girl, and a girl can be as physical as a guy. I am almost disgusted. To think that someone would even think of that...

I like the line idea. But not the female-male idea. Even if it's just a mind set or something..
And yes, I read it all.

 

[Tony]

I think I have a fair grasp on what you are saying. I still wouldn't like this system simply because I like to choose my path as I learn more and more about the game (as I'm playing it). I don't want to have to make a choice before I ever start the game that will affect my abilities all throughout the rest of the game. What if I choose to make my character start out more proficient in thaumaturgy and after playing the game for a week I decide I hate thaumaturgy and prefer to use it as little as possible. Now I'm stuck knowing that I nerfed my character at the start of the game so I'll probably end up deleting my character and starting over. I hated this part of D&D games where you could choose a background that would give you bonuses in some areas when you had no idea what the game was all about.

If they made your idea as an optional choice in character creation I think it would be great for those who had a very clear idea about what type of character they wanted to play. But there is no realistic way to implement a duality system that wouldn't just break immersion for me (that I can conceive). People are more complex than a simple slider that says if you choose A then you're going to be less proficient at B.

 

[Cooper Holt]

Just realized that I totally lost focus in my third post big times. The second picture with the circle is wrong, because the original idea was about dualism. That's why a bar (generic or not) is the right design because a line connects two ending points.
Dualism means two, opposing worlds within an individual and the way the balance is set between the two elements is what defines his/her foundation. It's the core of your in-game character that you set and build/develop it from there on. Now, while it is the core and it is set, things are not set in stone. Things flow and traits can change, but they never change completely and the foundation remains the way it was set, only the building that is built on it can take various shapes. You can shape it.

In the first picture, the attributes to the left and right of the bar are not random and the idea behind the designed is what I forgot to explain.
These attributes (perception, agility, strength, etc) are not buttons you click on to select them, these are the base descriptions of the two opposing sides.
The color blue on the left is the female side, the dark and spiritual side (that's why I suggested that Thaumaturgy would be a female attribute). The red side at the right is the male, bright and physical, material world.
The attributes closer to the bar are brighter in the picture, because the level of brightness displays how present and active that base attribute is. The attributes that are further on the outside are the attributes that are the most respective traits of that side. The attribute "Strength" for example, would be the most distinct and boldest of all male/red traits, this does not mean muscle matter, it is strength in all shapes and ways possible and is not limited to gender, it's a trait, be it physical or spiritual and this trait is the strongest in that category. To make it as present and active as possible, you need to move the "moon" as far as you can to the right, the more you move it to the right the brighter and thus more activated the trait becomes.
To gain a maximum of that most respective attribute (let's use "Strength" again) you need to set the moon marker at the very right side of the bar. That gives you most access to the powers of the "male side", but makes your character most hard lined, stale and less receptive for other, opposing attributes. You may excel as a warrior, as a king or any other role based on the "male trait", but you will be limited in other ways.
Moving the moon marker more toward the middle, weakens the most respective attribute (less strength), while the less respective ones remain strong. This "balancing" may weaken your strongest traits, but opens way for other, interesting traits.
Full balance (50/50) may be the most receptive and educational state, but your character will be most average and less interesting and will likely never really excel at anything, but will have all the possibilities.
Etc, etc...

I am not eloquent enough to explain it all in a short and effective way, but I hope you get what I mean. So why am I making so much fuss around it? While it may seem over complicated, the idea behind dualism is a very simple one, probably the most simple of ideas. You have two opposing sides with their most respective attributes and a lot of room in between these sides (shades of gray), where attributes become weaker, stronger, interchange and create unique attributes on their own and you have access to all of it by simply setting a mark on a bar. This however will set the foundation of your character.

Interesting is, that the opposite of one side has both a literal and non-literal meaning. When red is strength, than blue is weakness. That is the literal opposition.
The non literal opposition would be that if red is strength, which is advantageous, blue has an attribute that is the total opposite, but has its own advantage (so it can't be weakness, so the opposite is not literal).

I don't want to have a male character with "female" traits. Why is the colour blue, spritituality, and thamauturgy associated with "female"?
I don't want the powers and abilites to be set in stone (although you say they aren't, your examples strongly suggest they are) as polar opposites/sexes. That's the last thing I want.
I almost felt a little sick when I read "I suggested that that thaumaturgy be a female attribute". I don't want anything to be associated with gender.
I am a guy in reality, and I want my character to be a male who uses thaumaturgy. I don't want thaumaturgy to have anything to do with female.
I kind of like the line idea, but I would go for a more basic approach.

I sincerely hope Madoc agrees with me.

 

[Psychomorph]

Move along, this is not the post you are looking for...