X-treme Forum

For a while now I've been working on an idea about the four elements. (Earth, Fire, Water, Air) Actually it's been a lot of diverse ideas that I suddenly have realized I could put all together.

First off is the magic system which consists of stones (four kinds) that go into four slots in a diamond pattern, each slot represents, Good, Evil, Order, Chaos. So the location you put the stone and it's type determine which spells you can use. Ex. Fire in the Chaos slot will do forest fire. Also the connection to the other stones in the diamond will matter. Ex. Fire and Earth will create Lava. There will also be a consideration given for conflicts. Chaos and Order are opposing and Good and Evil are, but Good is sympathetic with Chaos and Order, etc. Also

The stones and slots will affect other aspects of the game, like the weapons. Also each character will have an alignment and a element. (I haven't decided if it should be a choice thing or randomly selected or XDM choice.)

I know this seems needlessly complex, but it should work fine with a properly constructed graph. (I also know this sounds un-XDMish but I still think it can play it loose enough to be fun.)

All of this culminates in a fifth element and a fifth alignment, which isn't really an element or alignment exactally but composed of all of them: life.

I'll do a different post on the setting and adventure later.

I have my Killer Bunnies project before this one, I'd rather make my rookie mistakes there, so I'm not exactally working on this right now, just preliminary thoughts.

Thoughts? Concerns? Epithets?

I had to get off the computer for a bit. 

I've been toying around with an idea for fencing combat that uses Rock, paper, scissors, lizard, spock.

I wanted something that was more than "Roll to see if you hit".  I want the player to have to declare and think about "In what manner or style are you going to try to hit."

I'll replace Rock with "Parry and riposte" or Paper with "Bind into 4th"

You could do Rock = "Earth" that sort of thing.

For me its really just been a mental thought and in fact these posts are the most I've actually typed about it.

For the fifth element you've labeled it Life.  That sounds good to me; some other options could be Manna, or Lapis Philosophorum  (which is the Philosopher's stone).  Another thought is "Breath of Life" that implies a spark or catalyst; which is getting close to "soul".

In how I'm looking at it right now (tomorrow it may change) Life is more like the organic body or the hunk of meat;  which is a mixture of the previous elements not something new.

A label like "breath of life" implies Sentience.

I guess you could also label it "The Force"

Loved that movie…