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"Would you stake your life on a world that cannot be saved?"

Version 1.07 - Released May 4th, 2012

-Strategic turn-based battles reward careful positioning and smart actions over brute force.
-No typical HP/MP drudgery - Instead, battlers have Body, Mind, and Soul ratings that serve as both health and fuel for special abilities. Knocking any of them to zero means defeat, so heroes beware!
-No level grinding or money hoarding!
-Diverse elemental and weapon-versus-armor system for all sorts of exploitative goodness.
-Structured mission-based gameplay means you'll never have to wander around figuring out where to go next.
-Oh, and no random encounters either, because, seriously.
-Over a dozen colorful characters to recruit and train.
-20+ hours of adventure - multiple secrets, sidequests, and endings!

TV Tropes Page available here! Here be spoilers!

Unofficial Official Wiki available here! Here be spoilers too!

Fanfiction here! Spoilers?! You better believe it!

A play-by-play commentary at Dragon Quill! - Spoilers, slowly but surely!

Text of the entire in-game glossary! Note: Link is working again as of 4/11/14.

Latest Blog

Featured in the RPG Maker Bundle #1!

~RISE FROM YOUR GRAVE~

The Reconstruction was featured alongside a few really great games on the RPG Maker Web main site! Here is the link: http://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/index.php?/topic/23772-rpg-maker-free-game-bundle/

If you're reading this, you probably already played it ages ago, but I want to express my gratitude regardless! So, thanks for the positive buzz and whatnot that made this possible!
  • Completed
  • Deltree
  • RPG Maker XP
  • Tactics Strategy RPG
  • 09/02/2009 05:06 PM
  • 06/07/2015 01:39 PM
  • 09/03/2009
  • 409657
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  • 10605

Posts

The "!" bubbles mark successes for status-inflicting moves like Kidra's Circle About, I believe. And I always assumed Tez blew up the emitter from his ship when he made the Holyland.

Other than that, nothing I really didn't like.
Sounds like you could provide some much-needed counteragruments for this terrible idea of mine! /shameless self-advertisement
Ah, thanks.
In case clarification helps, the Achievements list the optional quests in Fortifel as Scientific Method Part III, Put My Mind To It (Tehgonan's sidequest, I think), and Dealings In Disaster (Which should be either Moke's or Yfus's sidequests, in which case the other one isn't listed), and in the Violet Sands as All That Glitters, Herding, Silver Opportunity, and one that says ?????? and doesn't register as complete, when the ones I know of are Santes's sidequest, Fero's sidequest, and the quest to recruit Tezkhra (which someone said in an earlier post is called The Drop and doesn't show up in the table at all), meaning that there's one that registers as complete even though it apparently doesn't exist AND the phantom sidequest which doesn't exist at all. Oh, and the Chapter 4 section doesn't show The Final Pilgrimage (the second one you do to recruit Kulkulmatz). So yeah, the quest table is screwed. I mostly just wanted to confirm that it was bugged and I didn't actually miss anything, though.

Immediately after posting my first post, I realized I had some other story questions. First, I don't get Kidra's motivation for joining the Guild. Second, what caused the original Blackening? Third, what was the Second Reconstruction? They said the first one was rebuilding from the Blackening and the third happens at the end of the game, and I think they mentioned the second one but never said when it was or what it was reconstructing from. Fourth, the Holy Land was created by Tezkhra blowing up his crashed ship to prevent the technology from being discovered, right? So how did his spirit end up in the Drop? I though it was implied that that island was a spaceship, with the "roots" in the cave looking like wires. And what were the other spirits in the island? Finally, were the disasters that lead to the state of the world in Chapter 6 the result of the Pillars being partially activated? I don't think that was ever made clear.

Oh, yeah, and I also meant to say that the Tatzylvurm fight was the only other part of the game that felt unfair, due to Jarring Roar (or whatever it was called). I was forced to use a party of all Fighters in order to counter-Rush and get close enough to hit it, after which it took a long time to beat but was actually pretty easy.

But, apart from that, no other big issues to talk about. Great game, fun times, kind of burned out after how long it took to beat, but I'll get around to IMTS when I have a few more epochs of free time.
Deltree
doesn't live here anymore
4556
Ten minutes until my carpool gets here, so I'll try!

Silver Opportunity was Yfus' quest, I think. I think what I may have done was list them at the point in time where they became available, rather than their location. The reason for this is that they were initially labeled "Chapter 1," etc. and I changed it to locations at a later date. Or something.

Kidra's basically a spy who joined for cover. There aren't a lot of guilds in Nal that she could tag along with.

The original Blackening was due to the volcano that Fortifel is built around. Probably because of Fortian meddling. Probably due to experiments with machinery.

The second reconstruction followed the outbreak of the blue plague and the peasant revolt.

*coffee break*

Tez's fate will be expanded upon in IMTS and The Drop, though not fully! The wires are due to part of the system that causes the cycle to carry out.

Yes, they were. Tez sort of narrates what should have happened when they were activated.

IMTS is probably even longer! But it also runs a whole lot better and you can set the difficulty any time you want. Good luck, and thanks again!
Kidra is probably the weakest link in the story, I don't really understand why she joined even after the reveal (which I suspect was not originally planned and added later). Why would she need to tag along with a foreign guild? Why would she want to get out of Nal in the first place when it's her job to regulate it? She can't very well be doing that if she's twiddling her thumbs in Fortifel. I guess you could say she wanted to spy on foreign nations, but international politics are virtually nonexistent in the story so it's hard to know why she or anyone else would care. You pretty much just have to shrug and go with it.
Well, I'm pretty sure that's most of it. There are a few other mysteries (like where the Spire came from, why Tezkhra was interested in Moke when they first met, what the deal was with the Greater Shra, what, exactly, the Watchers were trying to accomplish and whether they could actually see through time and space, just what the heck the Tatzylvurm was) that seem like they're setting up for something in one of the other games. And from what little I know of the story of The Drop and the planned story of How Far, it sounds like we'll learn more about the weird anomalous magics (Rulian's necromancy, Havan's "Chaos" powers, Tezkhra's "Order" powers and how they interact with the above). So, I guess these games are far more connected than I thought.
Once again, thank you for being patient with me, and thank you for making these games in the first place. See ya later!
So, I was reading this game's TV Tropes article a little while ago and I came across a rather curious reference. In the final battle, I remember Adi occasionally using an ability with a really vague description - I think it said something about doing "B/M/S damage" even though I'm pretty sure it only affected one health bar at a time, and the description also said something that made me think the article was talking about it when it referred to an ability that "inverts the normal Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors system". But how do you "invert" that system when it's a set of opposing pairs rather than an actual rock-paper-scissors system?
The same passage mentioned that one of the targets in the final battle changed their damage type every turn, but I don't remember that happening so I'm not sure who or what it's talking about.
Speaking of damage types, when an ability's description says it does "damage of own Element" does it mean the user's own Element or the target's own Element? And why did one ability list its effects as (something)+Stun+Stun?
So, I was reading this game's TV Tropes article a little while ago and I came across a rather curious reference. In the final battle, I remember Adi occasionally using an ability with a really vague description - I think it said something about doing "B/M/S damage" even though I'm pretty sure it only affected one health bar at a time, and the description also said something that made me think the article was talking about it when it referred to an ability that "inverts the normal Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors system". But how do you "invert" that system when it's a set of opposing pairs rather than an actual rock-paper-scissors system?
The same passage mentioned that one of the targets in the final battle changed their damage type every turn, but I don't remember that happening so I'm not sure who or what it's talking about.
Speaking of damage types, when an ability's description says it does "damage of own Element" does it mean the user's own Element or the target's own Element? And why did one ability list its effects as (something)+Stun+Stun?

In other news, I'm going on vacation in a couple days, so I might just stop pestering everybody for a while.
Deltree
doesn't live here anymore
4556
Spoilers just in case!


If I remember correctly, Adi has a resonance sort of attack of her own element that does extra damage against someone of the same element, instead of the opposite.

Havan's melee attack changes the damage type it inflicts every turn.


I'm pretty sure it means the caster's own element. It would be rather useless if it inflicted the target's own element, after all!

The extra stun was either a typo, or had a chance to inflict twice. I'm leaning toward typo.

Have a good time!
So, what was with saying it did "B/M/S damage", if that was even a thing?
Deltree
doesn't live here anymore
4556
Oh right. I think the element changed the damage type too ( heat or physical for body, etc.)
With the great lizard's blessing I am posting my ideas for The Reconstruction tabletop RPG. I hope you guys have some comments.

Originally, I was simply porting the combat mechanics, but that didn't really work, so I decided to make some changes.
First, as much as I love the Body/Mind/Soul system, it always felt kinda unbalanced, because it always felt like Body=Physical and Mind/Soul=Magical. That's why I decided to expand the system by adding another category, Speed. This splits the current Body type character into "sturdy" (like Lani and Zargos) and "swift" (like Sirush and Kidra), adding even more fun.
Second, as much as I like multiple health pools, it's doesn't work that well in a tabletop format, so I found a middle ground. Body, Speed, Mind and Soul will represent 4 separate energy pools that fuel your abilities. This energy will recover every round. As long as you have enough energy of a particular type, half of the damage is done to your energy pool and only half is dealt to your HP. So, if you have 5 Mind energy and the enemy inflicts 10 Mind damage you lose 5 Mind points and 5 HP. This also adds another layer of strategy, since you can drain your enemy's energy with your attacks.
Third, the stats work a little differently. Each type (Body/Speed/Mind/Soul) has an offensive and defensive stat. This are used to calculate your Accuracy, Evasion, Power and Defense.
Accuracy-3d6+Offensive Stat
Evasion-10+Defensive Stat
Power-Base power(based on the ability)+Offensive Stat*2
Defense-Offensive stat+Defensive stat
Fourth, I am adding buffs and debuffs. I am happy with the ailments (DOT, Initiative damage and Seal-also known as Disable), but the game could really benefit from having buffs and debuffs that affect secondary stats. It will add so much variety.
Fifth, every defensive stat has a secondary purpose.
Stamina gives you extra HP.
Agility(Speed) makes your turn came faster.
Wisdom affects your debuffs.
Willpower affects you buffs.
Sixth, initiative system is something I made for another tabletop, inspired by this game. Every round you get 12+Agility initiative points. Once you have 40 initiative points you can spend them to perform one action. This system rewards those with high Agility, but it doesn't carry such a harsh penalty for those with low Agility. No, Agility is no longer a god.

I hope someone likes this...
I hope somebody can help me here...
Berylbin Outpost (near Shra Lowlands). The Cartographer wants me to place 5 becons/trails. I failed 2 times now (which amounts to about one real-time-hour)because I can't cross the gap. Nothing that there is to be found noting I can "lend" from that storage dood helps me cross the gap. I havent found a way to use anything at my disposal. The Berry Oil seems like a waste of time so far.

If anyone knows how to close the gap I'd be grateful. My Character keeps telling me that it seems that there was someting closing the gap but was recently taken by the stream. I don't know where to search anymore. I thought the big-ass brick from the two pillars north west should do the trick, but no... :(

Edit: I'm sorry.... seem to have been blind. Didn't notice the wooden plank that I can lend... Guess this will do... ^^'
Deltree
doesn't live here anymore
4556
Don't feel bad; I get at least one email a month from people stuck at the exact same point. Glad you got through it, though!
After a lot of consideration I decided to stick with multiple health pools. I will need to do a lot of calculations, but I will be sticking with low numbers. That is why base stats will not be upgraded directly, but rather through passive abilities. This means I will probably remove essences as EXP, leaving only Skill and Mana points. I'm not sure yet.
Every class starts with 5 action abilities and 2 passive. This are fixed. Each character can also learn 3 more action abilities and 2 more passive abilities. There are no real limitations for this, but it has to be fitting for a character. Working on a few sample classes at the moment, I should have something soon.
I was thinking of making changes to positioning, because it wouldn't work well in a tabletop format the way it is now. Currently, I am thinking of some kind of engagement system, where you can intercept any attack that the engaged enemy performs. This will allow your mage-type character, who has high Mind defense, to engage the enemy caster and intercept any Mind attack aimed at your warrior ally, whose Mind defense is not so high. I think this is in the spirit of the original.
author=AsteronQuestar
With the great lizard's blessing I am posting my ideas for The Reconstruction tabletop RPG. I hope you guys have some comments.

Originally, I was simply porting the combat mechanics, but that didn't really work, so I decided to make some changes.
First, as much as I love the Body/Mind/Soul system, it always felt kinda unbalanced, because it always felt like Body=Physical and Mind/Soul=Magical. That's why I decided to expand the system by adding another category, Speed. This splits the current Body type character into "sturdy" (like Lani and Zargos) and "swift" (like Sirush and Kidra), adding even more fun.
Second, as much as I like multiple health pools, it's doesn't work that well in a tabletop format, so I found a middle ground. Body, Speed, Mind and Soul will represent 4 separate energy pools that fuel your abilities. This energy will recover every round. As long as you have enough energy of a particular type, half of the damage is done to your energy pool and only half is dealt to your HP. So, if you have 5 Mind energy and the enemy inflicts 10 Mind damage you lose 5 Mind points and 5 HP. This also adds another layer of strategy, since you can drain your enemy's energy with your attacks.
Third, the stats work a little differently. Each type (Body/Speed/Mind/Soul) has an offensive and defensive stat. This are used to calculate your Accuracy, Evasion, Power and Defense.
Accuracy-3d6+Offensive Stat
Evasion-10+Defensive Stat
Power-Base power(based on the ability)+Offensive Stat*2
Defense-Offensive stat+Defensive stat
Fourth, I am adding buffs and debuffs. I am happy with the ailments (DOT, Initiative damage and Seal-also known as Disable), but the game could really benefit from having buffs and debuffs that affect secondary stats. It will add so much variety.
Fifth, every defensive stat has a secondary purpose.
Stamina gives you extra HP.
Agility(Speed) makes your turn came faster.
Wisdom affects your debuffs.
Willpower affects you buffs.
Sixth, initiative system is something I made for another tabletop, inspired by this game. Every round you get 12+Agility initiative points. Once you have 40 initiative points you can spend them to perform one action. This system rewards those with high Agility, but it doesn't carry such a harsh penalty for those with low Agility. No, Agility is no longer a god.

I hope someone likes this...


Everything looks pretty interesting! However, I'm a bit worried about the initiative section. Having to keep track of a new number every round for your own initiative seems to be a lot of paperwork for players to deal with. Have you tried it out with the other game you mentioned? If so, I'm curious about how it worked out for you.
Deltree
doesn't live here anymore
4556
Your original idea was neat (though I didn't entirely agree with the physical versus magical thing). I probably would have renamed "Speed" to something like Grace or Wile to keep it from being conflated with a turn-order stat.

If you feel up to it, you can have the health pools grant alternate outcomes depending on which one was depleted. You could either tie it directly to a reward, or as a story branch.

As for initiative, have you considered an AP system in lieu of Agility? Whoever has the highest AP goes first that round (ties decided by a dice roll), but unspent AP is banked toward having an earlier turn in the next round.

Lastly, in How Far I am eschewing Defense stats completely and making health pools the sole survivability factor. I'm going with small numbers, too. That may be less of a headache for you to calculate (though evasion is another matter).
MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD, ONLY MEANT FOR DEV OR PEOPLE WHO PLAYED THROUGH AND CAN EXPLAIN.

What is "something to come out of the watcher program." What was Fell's goal? So, ok, they gathered my guild KraneLoran to come to their immortality emitter powered room, and didn't want the Watcher of the Future activate the pillars. The world would not have the disasters of the first 2 pillars nor the heat-filled cleansing of the main pillar. But since Havan ascended the ladder and killed the watchers imprisoning the watcher of the future only 2 pillars were activated leading to disasters and stuff. What if none of this happened?

I understand that if my guild never followed the ladder then the 3 pillars would've been activated effectively killing everyone and start a new world from scratch.

But what would've happened if the Watcher of the future did not activate any of the pillars, met my people and called it a success calling the watchers from outer space to "take them"?

Is the whole point of this world to produce people strong/capable enough to be space-watchers as well? If so, why would you kill all of them to start anew? "The Idea is to close the cycle whenever technology is arising". Ok... What does this have to do with anything? Why is it suddenly not necessary to wipe out a world because of 16 dudes sitting in a waiting room?

If the purpose of this whole system is practical in that there is some result to strive for, why would there be a "watcher of the future" being sure that a new cycle has to be started because no results arose and being fundamentally wrong about it? If he's just an employee of that space-organization wouldn't he be informed like anyone else NOT to wipe out the world because we are CLOSE to results? At first I thought that Dehl and the others are stupid assuming that "they can wait" but the resolve of the story shows that they totally could have waited. Especially since they are in that immortality emitter room where time flies by. You're telling me the watcher of the future had something REALLY important coming up, so he couldn't wait for like, 10 seconds for another year to pass?

My head just circles.... god... There is something fundamentally not making sense here. I wish there was a bonus-menu after you beat the game with a text dump about all that.

Ultimatively I still just want to know what the goal of the Program is and what would've happened of dehl and the other if everything went according to Fell's plan, assuming she was not lying. If she was lying, I assume the explanation would be that she just wanted those "results" to escape the world before the cleansing and after many eternal years of grieving that their world is gone and they weren't fast enough to stop the activation so it's their fault, would present the opportunity to become... something.... yeah... something... still don't know what the point is... help! :( What classifies a "result"?!


Other than my general confusion this was one hell of a good game! I applaud the developers! Long time no see. The story was gripping and intense if you got invested and No game managed to get me invested for the last couple years. I'm so looking forward to IMTS which I fear won't answer my questions about the end of this game.

Thank you for making this game, really awesome experience.
Deltree
doesn't live here anymore
4556
Oh boy!


The first one is revisited in IMTS.

If the cycle had been a success, the world would have been destroyed anyway and your cheery little party most likely chopped up/experimented upon.

The technological cycle is both addressed in IMTS and also a major part of the forthcoming game that I am working on!

You're half right - exposure to emitters basically makes people lose all sense of time. In the space-folk's world, everyone is immortal and so far apart from each other that time is basically relative to whatever you're trying to accomplish at the moment and is otherwise meaningless. As for Donz leaving at that moment in particular, chalk it up to dramatic tension. Or maybe it takes him a long time to solve the puzzle room.

Sorry for the headache, though it sort of feeds back in to the idea of scope! Originally I had no intention of explaining any of this, but then the game got popular so I felt compelled to make a prequel.


I'll spoil the last question separately just in case, as it's a big part of IMTS:


"Magic" is just an unknown form of energy that's been linked to traces of matter by the scientists who set up these experimental worlds. Tez is one such scientist. The worlds are basically test tubes trying to locate the source of it and how it affects biological entities, but the irony is that the Watchers (who are basically kept in the dark the whole time) see it as some divine conquest and have, over many cycles, defined their own parameters of who's "worthy" (e.g. shown sufficient mastery of the energy). Yeah, it's not the greatest overarching plot, but I doomed myself by only leaving scraps of hints behind in the first game's ending.


I'm glad you enjoyed it otherwise, though! IMTS is a much tighter experience and, other than the ending meant to tie in to the series, stands by itself much more cleanly in content and theme. (In my humble opinion).
author=AsteronQuestar
stuff
I worry that this is going to be way too complicated for humans to handle. It sounds like something that works better for a computer game where you have a machine to crunch and hold all the numbers for you. I've heard that tabletop-style things should generally aim for emergent complexity - a few easy-to-follow rules with a lot of potential application. If you're confident you can handle it, though, go ahead. Experimentation is always good.


author=Deltree
I'm glad you enjoyed it otherwise, though! IMTS is a much tighter experience and, other than the ending meant to tie in to the series, stands by itself much more cleanly in content and theme. (In my humble opinion).
I very much agree with this. If I ever get the time I'll probably give it a more positive (and much shorter) review on Dragon Quill to counterbalance all the crankiness of my Reconstruction series. I think it's probably just a consequence of you having more writing experience under your belt. Do you think it could be that you enjoy/are better at writing sci-fi than fantasy, also? (Maybe the reversed scope theme of big to small helped too. So many moving parts.)
Ro9ge

Everything looks pretty interesting! However, I'm a bit worried about the initiative section. Having to keep track of a new number every round for your own initiative seems to be a lot of paperwork for players to deal with. Have you tried it out with the other game you mentioned? If so, I'm curious about how it worked out for you.

Unfortunately, I didn't get enough people to playtest it. It was a Grandia game, so I couldn't get enough people to test it.
It is actually somewhat simplified version of the original system. Speed in The Reconstruction is even more complicated, since it is recalculated after every single action. This way it is only calculated once per round. Besides, the DM is the one that is supposed to keep track of the initiative, so it doesn't affect the players.

Deltree

Your original idea was neat (though I didn't entirely agree with the physical versus magical thing). I probably would have renamed "Speed" to something like Grace or Wile to keep it from being conflated with a turn-order stat.

I really, really, really like to separate swift and sturdy characters. If you guys think I should remove it I will go back to Body/Mind/Soul. I just think it adds an extra dimension to the game.
I use initiative for turn order, so there shouldn't be any confusion. I hope.

If you feel up to it, you can have the health pools grant alternate outcomes depending on which one was depleted. You could either tie it directly to a reward, or as a story branch.

I actually had a possibly very complicated idea for that. What if reducing one energy pool didn't remove a character out of battle, but rather apply a special ailment? This ailment would block the recovery of this energy (blocking any ability that is fueled by that energy) and redirect all damage of that type to other energy pools. So if your Body is reduced to 0 you would be unable to use abilities that cost Body points and any Body damage you receive would be redirected to Mind AND Soul (and Speed, if that stays). To complicated?

As for initiative, have you considered an AP system in lieu of Agility? Whoever has the highest AP goes first that round (ties decided by a dice roll), but unspent AP is banked toward having an earlier turn in the next round.

That could work, but I think this is closer to the original and it works really well with how stun works.

Lastly, in How Far I am eschewing Defense stats completely and making health pools the sole survivability factor. I'm going with small numbers, too. That may be less of a headache for you to calculate (though evasion is another matter).

That could work. It would kinda be inverse version of the original, where accuracy was not an issue, and stats affected the damage.
I modeled my evasion mostly after D&D 4E, the base chance to hit the target is somewhere close to 50%. So, if the attacker's Strength and target's Stamina are equal, you are left with 3d6 Vs 10. Rolling 3 6-sided dice gives you a result between 3 and 18, with the average being 10/11. Now, if the attacker specializes in Strength and the defenders Stamina is low that would boost your result by a few points.

argh

I worry that this is going to be way too complicated for humans to handle. It sounds like something that works better for a computer game where you have a machine to crunch and hold all the numbers for you.

That shouldn't be a problem, since most of the crunch is DM's part, and that would be me, at least for playtesting. Besides, it would be played in a PbP format, and online sheets are easy to update.

I've heard that tabletop-style things should generally aim for emergent complexity - a few easy-to-follow rules with a lot of potential application.

That's a very interesting subject. Tabletop games range from extremely complicated and crunch-heavy (like D&D and M&M) to simple ones that focus on the storytelling and use rules only when they need to resolve conflict (like Cortex). And then there are many those that fall somewhere between (like almost everything White Wolf published). It also depends on the DM, you can easily play a game of D&D without too much relying on the crunch.

If you're confident you can handle it, though, go ahead. Experimentation is always good.

That's not really a problem. I can easily work with anything I come up with, the problem what would work for players. I am not making this (only) for myself, that's why I am asking others for advise. This is a great homebrew exercise, but that's not the (only) reason I'm doing it.

That was long...
I tried using spoilers, but it doesn't work...