I have a lot of very specific ideas regarding the environment intended to be created with Philsys--and part of the problem is that a lot of people are disagreeing with what I've laid out, and the other part is that 90% of it is in my head instead of on paper, and I can't bring myself to care enough anymore to bother typing out every justification, explanation, or bit of errata that I've ever considered. Ergo, I have decided to, as a relatively final act, outline what I would like to see, or rather, what my goals for Philsys have always been, accompanied by parenthetical background notes of importance.
The most important parenthetical note, for the record, is that I did not create the foundation of Philsys. The creator of Philsys is no longer with us in a major way--he hasn't gone and died or anything, but as far as his presence at RPGWW, he has ceased to be, and I haven't spoken with him in a while due to both of us often being very, very busy. Regardless, always keep in mind the fact that my goals may have been completely different from his. Thus.
<ul>
<li>Philsys was created to be a classless system with an emphasis on flexibility, allowing for a variety of character types with customized skills and techs.</li>
<li>Survival in Philsys was intended to be based on dodging, avoiding, or resisting damage, not soaking it with excess hit points.</li>
<li>As a corollary to the previous point, damage potential in Philsys was designed to increase rapidly, making combat between skilled fighters extremely quick and very dangerous.</li>
<li>Melee combat in Philsys was always intended to be a situation in which advantages were primarily those of numbers. Ganging up on a single target produces an enormous potential for hits and critical hits. (This is part of why I fail to understand the numerous complaints about fighters being underpowered--no one seems to realize the gang-up potential.)</li>
<li>Philsys was always intended to have relatively simple mathematical formulas and relatively few details to keep track of (which results in the absence of multiple types of saves, obvious stat modifiers, and the like).</li>
<li>On average, an unarmored or lightly armored character should die in two to three hits, maximum (or survive one hit from a devastating spell at most), further emphasizing avoidance rather than absorption.</li>
<li>I have always intended to model a version of reality with a dose of cinematics through Philsys--I have never claimed Philsys was a "balanced" system. Philsys has never been intended to be balanced. Instead, it has been used to approximate relative character strengths.</li>
<li>Philsys has always had the function of limiting character strength, providing a reasonable ceiling for the power levels of player characters. Philsys has an intentionally "low" power ceiling.</li>
<li>With relation to the above point, Philsys characters are supposed to be capable of "epic" deeds at any level, but epic does not mean physics-defying, as in D20. Character level is not supposed to be an important factor in RP.</li>
<li>Philsys has always been a GM-heavy system. Much of Philsys is intentionally left open for prospective GMs to fill in the holes themselves.</li>
<li>Philsys has always been intended for use as a role-playing system, not a roll-playing system.</li>
With these things in mind, I announce my quite likely permanent resignation as head GM and Philsys Guru of the RPGWW Roleplaying Community. My resignation as an administrator may or may not follow in the upcoming time period, but I think I'm going to keep that job until someone decides to tell me I'm terrible at that, too. I'm not leaving the community, just in case anyone might be confused--I plan to stick around, but in a different role.
A special thanks to everyone who's ever RPed under me and told me they enjoyed it.
~Brian "Archmage" Ford <p>
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