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Its similar to mine, only mine has a piloting or speed stat where if it is higher than your opponents, than the opponent halves the defence causing more damage. This allows for low level characters with high speed to damage large characters in battle instead of being out of luck...though it would be termendously difficult for said character to do so since the higher levels would have higher Armour(hp)

A Combat System for Gaia would be an interesting addition...I think, at the very least, there should be some level of randomization in Gaian gameplay.

Sadly, a lot of Post board stuff is either A) Uber-Powered Fighters kicking God's butt in everything, or B) Technical and Over-Extended. There's no amount of skill involved, and there's no amount of random chance involved either.

In addition to basing skills against each other (I brawl with you, your STR is 15 higher than mine, I die), there should be a level of random occurance. That little bit of "Oops, I killed the Dungeon Boss with one roll" dynamic, allowing a Level 1 Character to win against a Level 20...just with a hell of a lot of luck...

And for those folks who worry that the combat system will mess up the writing, there are ways around it. Combat systems will figure out what happens - but players still have to tell the story...

"Mythral drew his father's Ice Brand from it's back sheathe. A magical frost flowed down the cyan crystal blade, making it shimmer in the ghostly torchlight. A look of determination set upon his face, he charges the firebreathing demon before him. He doesn't shout out, or even breath hard...he focuses every once of that energy on the three feet of draconic flesh that made up the beast's tender neck."
*Battle System Generator: The Dragon wins by 19 points - you take 24 damage, and your weapon breaks.*

OOC - Oh screw me...

"The dragon looked at the tiny figure charging him, and seemed terribly amused at the attempt. With a particularly vicious gout of napalm gas, Mythral was stopped dead in his tracks. One moment, his resolve was pure...the next, he lay on the ground, flesh crisp and weeping from the flame. Beside him, his father's sword lay shattered like a summer icicle..."

Players will still find excuse to be lame if they want to be lame, and kick butt if they want to kick but. It all depends on the outlook of the player, and how dedicated the player is to making a good story.

For us, that's easy. I fear this system will affect us poorly...it'll allow us to write better and truer to a drama.
Only the puppet players in Barton Town will need to be excited about a new level of "Blandfest"...

The missletoe event encoperated code that allowed you to select another character and interact with them. Interesting.
The recent items have several options to wear them. Cool.
The zombie event had code that allowed you to attack certain people with timed breaks in between and had code for a life metre.
The fishing allows for real-time Gaia interaction with an interface.
And the new hang-out feature allows for real-time interaction between players.
Basically, I think that based on the code we've already seen in new features and recent events, we can start formulating crackpot theories on how the battle system might turn out. Sure they might be writing completely different code, but it would be smarter for them to use these small events to test different parts of the code for bugs and then use them in the battle system. Is this too far fetched?

All of the new Gaian features are nifty, but I still don't think they will work well in conjunction with RPGs. Or at least, not in ways that interest me.

The battle system seems to only provide you with very limited RP material: a one-on-one battle, one weapon each, one person wins and the other loses. There are no ties, no double-teaming, no creative tricks. Strategy that involves using the environment to your advantage, like battling in heavy rain or throwing a flour sack at an opponent, can't be factored into those stats. And while basing an RP on a battle between A and B is doable, it would be much more complicated, if not impossible, to base an RP on a system battle between A, B, C, and C's golden retriever.

I suppose if you don't mind that restriction, it could work. But relying on a battle system sounds like a whole lot of creative freedom is being lost, plus I would think that it's the GM's job to make sure that players don't powergame or that the battles aren't unfair. Hopefully the players themselves are wise enough to see and report such action themselves. OOC talking would also be important so that the RPers can decide if the expected outcome of the fight is fair and interesting.

sweatdrop It's not -supposed- to have anything to do with forum RPs.... we assume anyway, but it could. We're discussing the problems/advantages of if it IS used for resolving RPG battles. At least, that's what I got from reading the first page O.o I'm admittedly blonde however...

Besides, we don't know what it is yet, for all we know it'll be like a combo of Kissing and that Zombie fight. @_@ If it is... *Stabs Admins because that shouldn't have taken so long to release*

When I first heard of the Gaian Battle System, I merely just thought that it was a little 'system', or more like collection, of battle goods for avatar wear, armour, weapons, etc. I didn't realise it expanded into this whole RPing ordeal, but I've been told is kinda like a version of Neopet's Battledome yes?

I was never one for all these battling games, so I don't really care too much, only that Gaia should stop trying to copy Neopets. domokun