Editing Stories

Stories takes Icesus from the old reincarnation system to a new reincarnation system.

Reincarnation process has been modified to provide more-customizable characters. Numerous other evolutionary improvements have also been incorporated:
* Before, there were size differences between races alone. Now, there are also size differences within races. For example, all dwarves are no longer leveled to 125cm, but can vary in height.
* This means that the re-sizing of weapons and armor will be more important.
* Also, if a dwarf had to use an ax with two hands, a dwarf tall enough might be able to use it with one hand only, and vice versa.

With the new reincarnation mechanism in place, character creation now takes place according to the phasing which is described below.

= New steps of reincarnation =

# Gender and race are selected first. The hometown is no longer selected when the race is selected, but is selected later.
# Your character stats (strength, dexterity, constitution, intelligence, wisdom, charisma) are determined in this phase. You can modify your stats at this point in a way that depends on your chosen race. For example, strength comes cheap to an antaeun, whereas intelligence is expensive.
# At this point, you choose the kingdom of your character. The number of kingdoms you can choose from depends on your total worth in experience points. Note that new characters have to always choose Valkor, but the further you progress in the game, the more choices will open up for you. Once you have chosen your kingdom, you will have access to a selection of kingdom-related attributes, skills, spells, and resistances.
# Each kingdom has a varying number of stories. Stories offer a framework for starting the 'chosen career' of your character. They do not only help you define your initial traits, skills and spells, but they also help you define your character's overall take on life, his base philosophy, aspirations, fears, and so on. It is encouraged to use these elements for role-playing purposes too.
# Once the kingdom and story are chosen, it's time to choose your hometown. Aside from reputation, this choice is still otherwise purely cosmetic. Note that the number of your options now depends on the kingdom you have chosen, as well as your story. As before, new players can't choose their hometown and they will all start from Vaerlon.
# Your character creation is now complete. Once you have created your character, you will be granted access to use the new command 'kinfo', which will replace the command 'bginfo'.

=You get one roll=


''"You get one roll, because that's how Gygax would do it." - Dave Winters''


Note that pretty much every step of reincarnation is now irreversible, and if you want to take any step again, you have to do the entire reincarnation again. You may not know right at the beginning of reincarnation how it will go and which doors will open along the way, and which will close.

This takes character generation towards a "Gary Gygax" approach: You roll the dice and you are stuck with your roll. It's not always what the player wants, but it is what the dice wants - meaning you could potentially have a character with some qualities that you just have to live with. Good, bad or ugly, your attributes are what they are, and they can an impact on how effective your character will be in the game.

If you don't qualify for the kingdom or story? You don't play it. Built into the system is this ethos we recognize, play according to this ethos and it changes everything about your experience, because suddenly, things are at stake. The finality is purposeful. We blanch and grit our teeth, because of course players always want what's best for players and in this case it is high stats/skills/spells/resistances. Of course everyone wants a good character.

Our new reincarnation system follows this Gygax edict. It means there are consequences - you were born a certain way and you cope with it. Winters was clear about this - he maintained Gygax's implicit position in that have to enforce the rules for players so that the game, and the stakes of playing, feel real.

= How to join =

We are currently running beta tests, which are semi-open for everyone interested. Tell Cyto when you are about to reinc next time and you will be taken to the new reinc. After sufficient tests, the new reinc will replace the old reinc entirely. No-one will be force reinced at that point though - everyone can migrate to the new system whenever they want.

= Appendix =

* This chapter is a shortened modification from David Goldfarb's awesome article "The dice can kill you" which you can find in full from here:
https://www.polygon.com/2014/7/14/5898063/the-dice-can-kill-you-why-first-edition-ad-d-is-king