Every game has it's own take on the elements, because of this there are a countless number of elements that can be used. So heres the questions:
1. How many elements would you put in an rpg?
2. What elements would you choose?
Heres a list of elements I've seen so far:
- Fire, Flame, Pyro
- Water, Aqua
- Air, Wind
- Earth
- Nature, wood
- Sound
- Light, Radiance, holy
- Darkness, Dark, Shadow, unholy
- Void
- Body
- Metal
- Mind
- Spirit
The most common combinations are the four elements (Earth, Fire, Air, & Water), the full set (Earth, Fire, Wind, Water, Light, & Dark), the chinese elements (wood, fire, earth, metal, & water), and the form set (body, mind, & spirit)
ID:265708
 Mar 8 2007, 2:45 pm
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Mar 8 2007, 2:52 pm
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Popisfizzy
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Actually there are about 118 elements, I think, not including the ones that probably aren't stable but haven't been created yet.
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From my design notes:
Earth, Fire, Wind, Water, Electricity, Ice, Light, Dark, Ex Light <> Dark Earth <> Wind Fire <> Ice Electricity <> Water Ex will be treated as a non-elemental attack Pretty generic stuff. | |
My favorite part about elements is that they can form a 1337 rock-scissors-paper action that helps keep balance between characters.
Water beats Fire Fire beats Life Life beats Water There's a simple elemental roshambo. Things get even more interesting when you include a greater odd number of elements, such as this: Life beats Fire and Water Fire beats Water and Metal Water beats Metal and Stone Metal beats Stone and Life Stone beats Life and Fire In this cycle of 5 elements, each element beats two others and is beaten by two others. This keeps the odds of winning or losing the same: you have a 1/3 chance of a favorable matchup, and a 1/3 chance of an unfavorable one. However, it decreases the likelihood of a "mirror matchup", aka fire-against-fire. Using an even greater number of elements, you can further decrease the likelihood of mirrors. However, I see 5 or 7 elements as optimal for most purposes. Need more complexity? Allow players to draw power from multiple elements! If you're a warrior with the element of fire and you're sick of being unable to touch stone-based opponents, you can splash metal to improve your matchup! Of course, the more elements you splash, the more you lose your focus... but this is good in RPGs, as it allows players to experiment endlessly with different strategies and elemental combinations. Imagine the power you could achieve by wielding all five elements, bringing to bear your best elemental abilities to suit the occasion... or of mastering a single element, embodying elemental power? When they choice is up to the player, you can bet you'll have some happy elementalists. | |
Fire, is NOT an element. I despise so much when people say the element fire? BWUH!?! Fire, is not an element it's a chemical reaction. Earth, why not it's tangible and solid. Water, why not it's tangible and has properties. Air, well i guess it's composed of molecules. Fire, it's like .... hot air... woop de doo, how is that an element? am i missing some chemical understanding. Fire and ice should tie into air and debatebly water considering they're combinations. Elements should be like,
Earth Air Water Life(referring to tree life) or something , hey i'm just trying to be creative and make the element tangible. hell, i don't even think they cancel out but fire is NOT an element, hear me darnit! FIRE IS NOT AN ELEMENT ITS HOT AIR. ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH...... .... that's my two cents.... actually more like three Darkdemonrad | |
Well, most people consider it a magical element as far as RPG's go.
Other than that though, many old beliefs and religions call upon 4 key elements that make up life. Ninjitsu (beliefs, not religion mind you :P), gypsy, many pagan beliefs (if not all), and more. | |
Darkdemonrad wrote:
Fire, is NOT an element. I despise so much when people say the element fire? BWUH!?! Fire, is not an element it's a chemical reaction. Sounds like somebody has recently been reading The Order of the Stick. Lummox JR | |
Ohh my gosh, that was hilarious!! I definitely need to bookmark that and go through the archives later.
As far as the whole fire!=element thing. Yeah. It's a game. It's for a magic system. It's not real. :) It's pretty widely accepted in games. How many different commercial RPGs have used fire as an element? Did they fail miserably because people refused to play a game that reffered to fire as an element? | |
Actualy, fire can be considered an element. The true reasoning behind the original elements of Earth, Fire, Air, and Water, is just that, Chemistry. The four elements represent the several states of matter. Earth the solid form of matter, water the liquid form of matter, air the gas form of matter, and finaly fire the form of matter in a changing state. Thus, the four states of matter.
But as said before several times, this is an rpg not reality. So please stop stating realistic facts and start stating what I asked for. P.S. Ice should be related to water not air. Frozen air is not ice, frozen water makes ice. Air is just a protaganist, pushing water into it's solid state of ice. | |
Fire is one of the original Greek classical elements. (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Classical_elements#Classical_elements_in_Greece)
The influence of Greek philosophers continued into the Middle Ages and so formed a lasting image that persisted for centuries. Hence the popularity. Additionally, it seems appropriate in a depiction of a world that actually functions according to ancient beliefs (IE where magic is real) instead of modern science. | |
Fire really can't be considered an element under modern science. It's a composition of many elements. It is a gas and in some cases, plasma. I think the fire has be to be really hot to become plasma.
Earth, Air, Water, and Fire are the Classical Greco elements and those silly dude thought they were the basis of everything and that with the proper proportions and ingredients and I believe order, they could compose anything. | |
Actualy, by using those four elements just about any element probably could be made.
BTW, I took a poll today, and 100% of ppl said fire was an element, and completly disagreed with you guys. | |
If you're talking in the magical sense, yea, I geuss they could. In the real world that's far from the truth. I just posted this because that statement seemed a bit vague as to what you were referring to.
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Nope, that was in a reality sense. And by combining multiple elements such as and including fire you can make various other elements. Iether way this discussion is over. I said that this is for an RPG and I MEAN IT!!!!
So stop with the chem lab crap and stick to the topic of the post. I didn't ask your opinion of what elements are true elements, only what elements you would use in an RPG. | |
All this being a direct reply to my post... I just want to make one thing clear:
You do understand that I'm with you on this, right? Anyway. Just out of curiosity, I did some searching on Google to see what some other games are using. One random MUD: water, earth, holy, fire, ice or wind //Pretty generic stuff Some thing I've never heard of called Nephilim Fire, Earth, Air, Water and Moon //Moon? Interesting. Chrono Trigger: Fire, Ice, Lightning (Thought it had more? Don't think this was a good source) Yu-Gi-Oh: Didn't say which, but I read somewhere that it has 12?! Wow, that's overkill. Another thing I've never heard of called Golden Sun: Earth, Wind, Fire, and Water Tales of Destiny 2 (AKA Tales of Eternia): //This is like one of my favorite games by the way. //Also, just about every Tales game out there uses these. Water, Wind, Fire, Earth, Ice, Lightning, Light, Shadow, Elemental(?), and Time Yeah, it seems to me that a lot of games use the same concepts. I already told you which one's I'm using. I chose to have an odd number, all but one being able to cancel each other out, and then one special non-elemental thing which will be pretty uncommon. It all started for me as part of my class design notes. In most fantasy RPGs, magic plays heavily on the elementals. So when I was outlining my mage class and just exactly what they would be like, I had to create what I posted previously. Now that I have the basics done, I can tie elementals into all aspects of my game. Idealy, monsters should have elemental types and weaknesses, items could be enchanted, etc. Theres nothing saying it has to be just for magic types either. Perhaps a fighter could focus on earth, being stronger and heartier, or choose to go wind instead, being agile and light. I don't really have all the kinks worked out, but it's definitely not just going to be an okay, these are the types of spells that you can use" type of thing. | |
Only two things are produced by normal fire: water and carbon-monoxide (it may be dioxide). Everything else is composed of different elements, which are, in turn, composed of electrons, protons, and neutrons (the latter two are composed of two other particles). Fire doesn't create any element, nor can in create anything special in the right combination. I suggest you look through a chemistry book or take a class, because fire is really nothing extraspecial in the chemical realm.
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Let me see.. okay.. Yes fire could be considered an element and let me explain.
1.) Someone says fire is a chemical reaction! 1a.) Yes, but out of the "Three Original Elements" explain to me how to make fire. 1aa.) And if you say rubbing two sticks together I will cry. 2.) Yes blah blah blah its a game, true. And on a game you can have whatever you want. 3.) If you want to get super tech. about it. Air , Water ,Earth ,"Life" are all compounds and they are neither pure "Elements" 3a.) Air ~ Is Oxygen, Carbon, Nitrogen , Pollution. That is a chemical compound which is what you claim fire to be. 3b.) Water ~ Is 2 Hydrogen and 1 Oxygen , but wait Oxygen is in air that means Air is not an element! 3c.) Earth ~ Comprised of rock, water, air , fire, "Life". Man thats a big compound there! 3d.) "Life" ~ life is only controlled by O i don't know Air to breathe, water to drink and o Yea Earth to live on thats a compound. So In Closing.... Apparently according to everyone saying fire is not "Element" you are also saying that Air, Water, Earth, "Life" is not an element. I also have to agree with PF who had a create point but there about 118 "Elements" and over 180 total most of which are unstable! | |
