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  • Locked thread
cenotaph
Mar 2, 2013



pospysyl posted:

I do think the complaints about the spoiled bad mechanics are exaggerated, but there aren't a lot of good mechanics to counter them with.
I don't think they are exaggerated. Bonus points have been a bad idea for over twenty years and they got excised from nwod. It's just damned annoying to be making a character and realize it would be more effective to keep an attribute at one and raise it to two after the first session than just start with it at two. They want to keep that in and they've given us no reason, just sass. The story merits are less of an issue but right now there's nothing to indicate you get them from anything other than GM fiat. Exalted has a bad history with GM fiat.

pospysyl posted:

Honestly, I don't think 3e is going to be great like everyone was hoping or even expecting. I do like the wackier stuff the devs have written, and I have faith that their combat and charms systems will work. The game will probably be decent, but that's about it. I still want usable systems to model the stuff that I really like and I believe that's what I'm going to get, but there is really not much to be enthusiastic about yet.
Aside from not liking the wackier stuff this is pretty much how I feel. The emphasis on first edition style was what got me interested and if they can pull that off I'll be buying some books.

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Sparda219
Nov 21, 2007

Just as some things can be right and useless at the same time, can't something be wrong and priceless?
Since my probation I've had time to think about what I've read and what I've said and I have to say my confidence in the game line is shaken at this point. Without more evidence of mechanical strength and a lot more evidence that the writing team can handle criticism and feedback with maturity and a lick of thought for their fanbase I can't support them as strongly. I don't think I'll pull completely out of the kickstarter but I think I will definitely pull back my pledge to maybe just get the PDF instead of a physical book. (No matter how weak I am for that sweet sweet dead tree.)

HidaO-Win
Jun 5, 2013

"And I did it, because I was a man who had exhausted reason and thus turned to magicks"

Sparda219 posted:

Since my probation I've had time to think about what I've read and what I've said and I have to say my confidence in the game line is shaken at this point. Without more evidence of mechanical strength and a lot more evidence that the writing team can handle criticism and feedback with maturity and a lick of thought for their fanbase I can't support them as strongly. I don't think I'll pull completely out of the kickstarter but I think I will definitely pull back my pledge to maybe just get the PDF instead of a physical book. (No matter how weak I am for that sweet sweet dead tree.)

I'm feeling somewhat similair, I want to embrace a more mechanically robust Exalted 3rd edition but I'm just getting a bad vibe from a lot of the interactions from the kickstarter. I'll sleep on it and make my decision before the end of the kickstarter.

MJ12
Apr 8, 2009

HidaO-Win posted:

I'm feeling somewhat similair, I want to embrace a more mechanically robust Exalted 3rd edition but I'm just getting a bad vibe from a lot of the interactions from the kickstarter. I'll sleep on it and make my decision before the end of the kickstarter.

I've been getting the 'the inmates are running the asylum' vibe here.

As I understand when you do an adaptation of a work, you always want people familiar with the work (or willing to learn it inside and out) but you don't really want fans of a work, because fans get attached to decisions that outwardly look completely and utterly daft. I think it'd have been good to have as one of the core devs someone who liked the idea of Exalted but hated its execution, just to be that little voice in the ear of everyone else being "remember, you guys can gently caress up too."

On the bright side this might just be them being Bad At Taking Criticism Gracefully and not actually a sign that they're going to gently caress everything up forever and ever. On the not-so-bright side... I have to say that.

Lymond
May 30, 2013

Dark Lord in training

pospysyl posted:

Like, taking the Exalted setting as a serious Forgotten Realms style setting is the absolutely wrong direction to go.
Hold on, Forgotten Realms is a serious setting and Creation isn't? :wth:

Lymond
May 30, 2013

Dark Lord in training

Heart Attacks posted:

I think Holden gets off on doing the I know something that you don't thing. He's been doing it since long before he was an important person in the Exalted lineup.
He's also mentioned on plenty of occasions that he's been gagged with NDAs, and he and the team were jumping up and down in impatience to tell people about what they were doing. Assigning a motive like this one is uncharitable and not reasonable.

Der Waffle Mous
Nov 27, 2009

In the grim future, there is only commerce.

Lymond posted:

Hold on, Forgotten Realms is a serious setting and Creation isn't? :wth:

Well, one's this nearly incomprehensible pastiche of real-world cultures and influences that largely started out as some sort of play ground to showcase the creative head's sexual fetishes.

And the other is Creation.








coulda gone either way with this one

Nessus
Dec 22, 2003

After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!



Lymond posted:

He's also mentioned on plenty of occasions that he's been gagged with NDAs, and he and the team were jumping up and down in impatience to tell people about what they were doing. Assigning a motive like this one is uncharitable and not reasonable.
Hm. While I imagine there have been ample bonehead maneuvers, that is a point: is it possible that we aren't getting mechanics "because forums are mean" so much as "NDAs from Iceland, or perhaps the dark will of Richard Thomas"?

MiltonSlavemasta
Feb 12, 2009

And the cats in the cradle and the silver spoon
Little boy blue and the man on the moon
"When you coming home, dad?"
"I don't know when
We'll get together then son you know we'll have a good time then."
If anyone buys the Chargen Example tier and names their character Exorcist of The Creeping Phantom or Chaste Exemplar of Discarding Lust, I will de-creepify and fully write up any three things in all of Exalted Canon

Nessus
Dec 22, 2003

After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!



MiltonSlavemasta posted:

If anyone buys the Chargen Example tier and names their character Exorcist of The Creeping Phantom or Chaste Exemplar of Discarding Lust, I will de-creepify and fully write up any three things in all of Exalted Canon
What tier is that? I'm pretty committed to forcing wiwaxiids into Creation at this point though

Bedlamdan
Apr 25, 2008

MiltonSlavemasta posted:

If anyone buys the Chargen Example tier and names their character Exorcist of The Creeping Phantom or Chaste Exemplar of Discarding Lust, I will de-creepify and fully write up any three things in all of Exalted Canon

It's gone now. We are at the mercy of anyone who wants to write up the Invincible Sword Princess for the thousandth time.

HidaO-Win posted:

I'm feeling somewhat similair, I want to embrace a more mechanically robust Exalted 3rd edition but I'm just getting a bad vibe from a lot of the interactions from the kickstarter. I'll sleep on it and make my decision before the end of the kickstarter.

Yeah, to be honest I've also put myself down for a PDF and that's about it. If it really is worth getting a physical copy over, well, Print on Demand is cheaper.

Bedlamdan fucked around with this message at 19:25 on Jun 7, 2013

Arivia
Mar 17, 2011

Lymond posted:

Hold on, Forgotten Realms is a serious setting and Creation isn't? :wth:

As someone who really likes the FR and was interested in the Exalted kickstarter, I think he means not as detailed and nitpicky, on top of being more narratively subdued.

Like, the Realms generally has tales about one guy who turned into a single bear and won a single important battle, and combats are fought by people with swords versus people with axes. Exalted's mythic base instead puts it as a thousand guys turning into a thousand bears who fought a hundred dragons for a year and changed the course of the Empire for the next thousand years. Exalted is more freewheeling, a lot more :black101: and a lot more interested in absolutely crazy poo poo people do in critical situations. The Realms is just people doing cool poo poo through grit and perseverance - and ultimately not much more than pure human agency - in ultimately human struggles.

Also, one other big note is that Exalted is sweeping but mythic in terms of generalities. It likes telling mythic tales that may or may not be true but are all highly figured and together make up the world. The Realms tells a lot of small things that come together and basically represent nothing more than people living their lives. While Exalted has fiction, the Realms has a one-hundred-and-sixty page supplement about history that is just a giant timeline with a bunch of essays attached. And a lot of the good stuff about the giant timeline supplement was sorting out who was born when and how and when they died, which isn't very epic but works well for that sort of play.

So yeah, the heroic epic setting that Creation is isn't and shouldn't be like the FR, because they serve two different purposes. I think a product like that timeline would suck a lot of fun out of what people do in Exalted, and be super uninteresting and really useless for a lot of groups; conversely it was one of the best products of its edition for the FR. They're both serious, but different kinds of serious, if that makes sense.

Lymond
May 30, 2013

Dark Lord in training

Arivia posted:

So yeah, the heroic epic setting that Creation is isn't and shouldn't be like the FR, because they serve two different purposes. I think a product like that timeline would suck a lot of fun out of what people do in Exalted, and be super uninteresting and really useless for a lot of groups; conversely it was one of the best products of its edition for the FR. They're both serious, but different kinds of serious, if that makes sense.

Thank you, the clarification helps. The little I know of FR comes from playing with a DM who does love his god NPCs, and having Elminster and other level 20+ people faffing around must have given me a skewed perspective on the setting.

Nessus posted:

Hm. While I imagine there have been ample bonehead maneuvers, that is a point: is it possible that we aren't getting mechanics "because forums are mean" so much as "NDAs from Iceland, or perhaps the dark will of Richard Thomas"?
I have no idea. But attributing malice (or perverse satisfaction) when incompetence / restrictions / communication issues are more likely doesn't seem fair.

Lymond fucked around with this message at 19:37 on Jun 7, 2013

Bedlamdan
Apr 25, 2008

Lymond posted:

Thank you, the clarification helps. The little I know of FR comes from playing with a DM who does love his god NPCs, and having Elminster and other level 20+ people faffing around must have given me a skewed perspective on the setting.

In retrospect that really doesn't sound all that different from a setting full of elder exalts and ancient ghosts faffing around.

Lymond
May 30, 2013

Dark Lord in training

Bedlamdan posted:

In retrospect that really doesn't sound all that different from a setting full of elder exalts and ancient ghosts faffing around.

Precisely. That's why I'm willing to believe that FR is a whole lot better than what I was exposed to.

Arivia
Mar 17, 2011

Lymond posted:

Thank you, the clarification helps. The little I know of FR comes from playing with a DM who does love his god NPCs, and having Elminster and other level 20+ people faffing around must have given me a skewed perspective on the setting.

I have no idea. But attributing malice (or perverse satisfaction) when incompetence / restrictions / communication issues are more likely doesn't seem fair.

Even those people don't stand up to armies or giant apocalypses all alone like Exalts do. There's exactly once when a single character tries to fight an army (Nalavarauthoratyl, a giant dragon the size of a city, in Death of the Dragon) and she still loses. And basically all the characters like Elminster go she is crazy absurd powerful before and it doesn't "stick" in terms of that epic action creating victory.

Argas
Jan 13, 2008
SRW Fanatic




The reasoning I've heard passed around on the lack of complete mechanical previews is that Exalted is still CCP's property and putting out complete mechanics could be used as a reason to put out the game now (The mechanics are out, therefore it's ready to make money!) rather than when the writers feel it's ready. It's a bit paranoid but not really surprising considering CCP's attitude on these games.

Bedlamdan
Apr 25, 2008

Arivia posted:

Even those people don't stand up to armies or giant apocalypses all alone like Exalts do. There's exactly once when a single character tries to fight an army (Nalavarauthoratyl, a giant dragon the size of a city, in Death of the Dragon) and she still loses. And basically all the characters like Elminster go she is crazy absurd powerful before and it doesn't "stick" in terms of that epic action creating victory.

I'd still say that losing against epic threats is something that happens more often in Exalted than you think. Geoff Grabowski, when he wrote 1E, wrote it with the assumption that the setting was doomed despite everyone's best efforts. The original idea was less Gurann Lagann, and more Achilles destroying himself because despite being the best of all the Greeks, he was an acutely dysfunctional person.

Bedlamdan fucked around with this message at 19:56 on Jun 7, 2013

BryanChavez
Sep 13, 2007

Custom: Heroic
Having A Life: Fair
Yeah, I hate the idea of Exalted as the 'ten thousand bear-men fighting eighty thousand dragons' game. I know that it's moved on from it, but I like the original canonical idea that everything is (eventually) doomed, heroes are deeply flawed as personalities, and fighting and winning against a dozen Brides of Ahlat is an impressive and heroic feat, even if you're a Solar. As much as I've been down on Ex3 recently, the idea that a Solar would be sweating against several Legionnaires of Silence made me pretty happy.

Mendrian
Jan 6, 2013

BryanChavez posted:

Yeah, I hate the idea of Exalted as the 'ten thousand bear-men fighting eighty thousand dragons' game. I know that it's moved on from it, but I like the original canonical idea that everything is (eventually) doomed, heroes are deeply flawed as personalities, and fighting and winning against a dozen Brides of Ahlat is an impressive and heroic feat, even if you're a Solar. As much as I've been down on Ex3 recently, the idea that a Solar would be sweating against several Legionnaires of Silence made me pretty happy.

I've always had this beautiful dream that Limit Break would just be removed from the game entirely. In its place would be a list of larger-than-life character flaws that grant bonuses (big bonuses) when they're indulged, sort of like the nWoD's Virtue/Vice paradigm. Except for Greek-myth level flaws.

Cool Dad
Jun 15, 2007

It is always Friday night, motherfuckers

That might make me back the kickstarter, rapeghosts notwithstanding.

Hell, can someone just make a generic RPG supplement that is just these so I can use them in every epic fantasy superhero game ever?

MiltonSlavemasta
Feb 12, 2009

And the cats in the cradle and the silver spoon
Little boy blue and the man on the moon
"When you coming home, dad?"
"I don't know when
We'll get together then son you know we'll have a good time then."

Mendrian posted:

I've always had this beautiful dream that Limit Break would just be removed from the game entirely. In its place would be a list of larger-than-life character flaws that grant bonuses (big bonuses) when they're indulged, sort of like the nWoD's Virtue/Vice paradigm. Except for Greek-myth level flaws.

Aristotle held that vices could be an excess of a good character trait, so one who ceaselessly cultivated the heroic virtues might have character flaws like:

Thrasus, the character trait of being too confident, associated with being fearless in all scenarios.

Anaisthētos, someone so even-tempered they take no pleasure in anything. (This one actually sounds a bit dull, so I'd go with the opposite, Akolasia, the vice of PROFLIGATES.)

Asōtia, being generous beyond good reason.

Apeirokalia, making a great display of matters which needn't be made such.

Chaunotēs and Philotimos, believing that one is destined for or deserves an absurd level of greatness, beyond all reason.

Orgilotēs, which can be the hero who brings down her wrath for the right reason and the right time, but brings the full force of her righteous indignation whenever slighted.

Alazoneia, excessive boasting regarding one's accomplishments.

Bõmolochia, never being able to resist mocking people and making jokes.

Now, I'm loving inspired to make a system of rewards for indulging these.

Bedlamdan
Apr 25, 2008

MiltonSlavemasta posted:

Aristotle held that vices could be an excess of a good character trait, so one who ceaselessly cultivated the heroic virtues might have character flaws like:

Honestly, I think flaws like these should be intrinsic to the Solar condition, rather than brought about by an outside Death Curse.

Lymond
May 30, 2013

Dark Lord in training

MiltonSlavemasta posted:

Now, I'm loving inspired to make a system of rewards for indulging these.

My table went apeshit over FATE-style negative Aspects. All they needed was the excuse of FATE points (which they could use to inflict troll declarations on the table) to go absolutely nuts with the Storyteller's compels. We also had a lot of fun with "negative" conditions that gave bonuses in Weapons of the Gods. I'd love to have a general system that could be plugged into different games.

Adept Nightingale
Feb 7, 2005


You should check out Conditions in the World of Darkness's God Machine Chronicle. More immediately compatible with an ST-based system, at the least, and extremely cool. I think I actually like them better than negative aspects, they have a little bit finer level of control.

Sparda219
Nov 21, 2007

Just as some things can be right and useless at the same time, can't something be wrong and priceless?

MiltonSlavemasta posted:

Now, I'm loving inspired to make a system of rewards for indulging these.

That looks amazing, I hope you'll share such a system if you make it. Sounds like it could be an awesome replacement for the current Great Curse.

I'm kind of excited for full color versions of the Blessed Isle and Arms of the Chosen books. It makes me hope they'll splurge in Arms for full illustrations of the weapons a la Anima: Beyond Fantasy.

Oligopsony
May 17, 2007

BryanChavez posted:

I know that it's moved on from it, but I like the original canonical idea that everything is (eventually) doomed, heroes are deeply flawed as personalities, and fighting and winning against a dozen Brides of Ahlat is an impressive and heroic feat, even if you're a Solar.
With Stephen and Geoff on the team, I'm cautiously optimistic that we'll be seeing more of this, if (alas) not the the extent of early 1e.

Thesaurasaurus
Feb 15, 2010

"Send in Boxbot!"

BryanChavez posted:

I know that it's moved on from it, but I like the original canonical idea that everything is (eventually) doomed, heroes are deeply flawed as personalities, and fighting and winning against a dozen Brides of Ahlat is an impressive and heroic feat, even if you're a Solar.

Two and three are cool, but as for everything being doomed - why? We already have Call of Chthulhu, Delta Green, Paranoia, WFRP, a half-dozen variants of WH40K RP, the Dark Sun campaign setting, World of Darkness (both Old and New), and I don't even know what else to fill all your pessimistic RP needs. Why do we need yet another setting where everything's hosed and you're just there to watch the pretty colors as the world burns?

Kai Tave
Jul 2, 2012
Fallen Rib
The way it was frequently pitched back in the 1E days, which I liked, was that the course of Creation was inherently a doomed one only if the players did nothing to stop it. Like, as it stands Creation is on the decline and the various NPCs and factions are busy with their own shortsighted poo poo or clinging to the edge of the cliff by their fingernails. Left to their own devices things are some degree or another of hosed. You, the PCs, have the ability to change that and get it right. Or not, you don't have to, you can do whatever floats your boat. That's what being Exalted means; you have great power, you get to decide what your responsibilities are.

This worked really well with how 1E presented the world as a frozen moment in time; there was no metaplot, that seems to have been more of a 2E thing, so a new game of Exalted by default meant that the PCs were always coming into things in the middle of this moment where the world is holding its breath, armies are massing and poo poo's getting ready to get real, and you get to be the ones to decide the course of history.

I'm not really interested in "you and all your friends are complete assholes and the world is doomed, the game" myself.

Dodge Charms
May 30, 2013

Kai Tave posted:

This worked really well with how 1E presented the world as a frozen moment in time; there was no metaplot, that seems to have been more of a 2E thing, so a new game of Exalted by default meant that the PCs were always coming into things in the middle of this moment where the world is holding its breath, armies are massing and poo poo's getting ready to get real, and you get to be the ones to decide the course of history.
Yeah, this is what I want from the game.

If Creation is doomed and saving the world is impossible, then the Exalted PCs will save it anyway, and it'll just be that much more impressive when they do.

BryanChavez
Sep 13, 2007

Custom: Heroic
Having A Life: Fair

Thesaurasaurus posted:

Two and three are cool, but as for everything being doomed - why? We already have Call of Chthulhu, Delta Green, Paranoia, WFRP, a half-dozen variants of WH40K RP, the Dark Sun campaign setting, World of Darkness (both Old and New), and I don't even know what else to fill all your pessimistic RP needs. Why do we need yet another setting where everything's hosed and you're just there to watch the pretty colors as the world burns?

Because my favorite settings are worlds like Dying Earth and Polaris. It's not pessimism, not for me, anyway. It's very hopeful, in my eyes. Things are going to go to poo poo. In ten years, fifty years, a hundred years, a millennium, eventually the world is going to go to hell. You hold out against the terrible things for as long as you can, and give people a better life for as long as you can, until eventually you can't anymore. You've still made things much better for the five hundred million plus people of Creation. The end doesn't have to come within the game itself, or even in the foreseeable future. But everything is temporary, and that includes whatever wonderful society you've built up.

I suppose in some ways it derives from my spiritual beliefs, as well. The beauty of transience, the bittersweet appeal that something can't be forever, that everything eventually ends. There will never be another place like the kingdom or republic or whatever you carve out in Creation, and at the end of everything your castles will be buried by sand and nobody alive will remember that for one shining moment, everything was better than it had been before. But for the thousands or tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands you helped protect and empower, you were the most glorious creature to have ever existed, even if none of those people have been alive for ten thousand years.

There's this old story about Xenophon's anabasis, his escape back to Greece after being caught far south from his homelands. And during this retreat, he comes across this old, massive city. Huge walls, towering over his army, thicker than anything he'd ever seen before. It was Ninevah, the capital of the Assyrian Empire, but he didn't know that. So he asked local tribesmen what city this was, and who had once lived there, and none of them could recall the names. This was less than a hundred years after Ninevah had fallen. That story always sticks with me, and it informs my storytelling.

So yeah. That's why, at least personally, I like the sense that everything is (eventually) doomed.

bartkusa
Sep 25, 2005

Air, Fire, Earth, Hope

BryanChavez posted:

There's this old story about Xenophon's anabasis, his escape back to Greece after being caught far south from his homelands. And during this retreat, he comes across this old, massive city. Huge walls, towering over his army, thicker than anything he'd ever seen before. It was Ninevah, the capital of the Assyrian Empire, but he didn't know that. So he asked local tribesmen what city this was, and who had once lived there, and none of them could recall the names. This was less than a hundred years after Ninevah had fallen.

Reminds me a bit of Mshatta. While the palace's history is known, its name isn't; "winter palace" is just what the Bedouins called it, because that's where they camped out in winter.

e: Germany's Pergamon Museum is loving amazing, especially because of the Gigantomachy frieze.

bartkusa fucked around with this message at 00:09 on Jun 8, 2013

GimpInBlack
Sep 27, 2012

That's right, kids, take lots of drugs, leave the universe behind, and pilot Enlightenment Voltron out into the cosmos to meet Alien Jesus.

MiltonSlavemasta posted:

If anyone buys the Chargen Example tier and names their character Exorcist of The Creeping Phantom or Chaste Exemplar of Discarding Lust, I will de-creepify and fully write up any three things in all of Exalted Canon

Speaking of de-creepifying, for my MHR hack I came up with this alternative to the whole Lillun garbage for Infernals:

quote:

In between mortal host-bodies, the captured Solar Exaltations are held within the Garden of Earthly Delights, a prison-within-a-prison crafted by the five Reclamation Yozis and set amidst the sands of Cecelyne, six days’ journey from the border of Malfeas. The Garden’s nature is fivefold, for each of the great Demon Princes set one of their souls to its making: Adorjan sent Kekilath, Who Stills the Runners, her seventh soul. He flies above the Garden in an endless mandala, in the form of a raven-headed man with a wolf’s teeth, and slays anything that makes even the slightest tremor.

The Demon City commanded that his second soul, Carinthoi the Maze of Beasts, be given over to the creation of the Garden. Her gates exist only when they are opened; in this manner are the stolen Exaltations protected from outside interference.

Within the Maze of Beasts, Cecelyne placed her thirteenth soul, Nembrul, the Journey Unceasing, by whose will space and distance are made meaningless. Thus the stolen Exaltations, in their attempt to flee, are driven deeper into the prison.

Atop a spire no broader than the span of a man’s arm, yet rising to the height of a mountain, stands Anlyrial, the Piper Blasphemous, twenty-fourth soul of She Who Lives In Her Name. Mouthless and pale, his pipes are winded by the breath of those in Creation who revenge themselves upon their enemies. By his unceasing watch are the Yozis made aware of candidates for the Infernal Exaltation.

Crouching at the heart of the Garden like a bloated spider, ready to flee at a moment’s notice if the outer layers should fail, lies Dysios, the Tale That Is the Telling, the Ninth Soul of the Ebon Dragon. Dysios endlessly whispers the Scripture of the Reclamation: a grand epic of treachery and betrayal, the saga of the Primordial War from the loser’s perspective. With each telling, he spins webs of deceit that crisscross Carinthoi’s endless passages, thick and tangled and sticky. As the stolen Exaltations fight to break free of the webs, they are fouled by the false memories contained within.

When the Yozis identify a suitable candidate for the Exaltation, a lone demon of the First Circle is dispatched to the Garden, walkind a prescribed, maddeningly-intricate path from Malfeas to avoid Kekilath’s notice. Upon the presentation of the seal of one of the Yozis, Carnthoi opens her gates for the span of a single heartbeat, then slams them shut--either behind the demon or on it makes no matter to her. If the demon survives the journey to the center of the Maze of Beasts, Dysios tells the demon a single, terrible lie. This lie binds one of the stolen Solar Exaltations to the demon, but only for a short while: Should the demon be unable to transfer the Exaltation to a mortal host within ten days, the purity of the Solar shard burns it to ash, and that shard is lost to the Yozis forever.

EDIT: Forgot to grab the rest of it:

quote:

On the Thing Infernal
This still exists, but all the “resolve disputes by seeing who can hold their hand in acid the longest!” nonsense is a result of the fact that the Yozis really don’t understand people. They offer these “entertainments” out of the same misguided “understanding” that makes humans feed pet rabbits nothing but carrots, or bait mouse traps with cheese. Most Infernals politely ignore that poo poo and enjoy their sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll. Those few who seriously partake in the Yozis sadism games are held in roughly the same regard as kill puppies for satan characters.

On the Reclamation
Nope. Not possible. The Yozis ain’t getting out, no matter how much the Ebon Dragon tries. The “Reclamation” is the line of bullshit the Yozis feed the Green Sun Princes, of how they themselves are reclaiming the throne unjustly stolen from them by the gods and the Celestial Exalted at the dawn of time, augmented by the false memories and lies of Dysios’ webs.

On the Exaltations
The Yozis could not corrupt the Exaltations they were given. Lacking a force as terrible and alien as Oblivion, they were unable to alter the glorious power of the Unconquered Sun. What they could do was trap them, and over time they learned of the peculiar alchemy of mortal soul, demonic Essence, and Solar Exaltation that results in a Green Sun Prince. This alchemy has two key limits: Firstly, it cannot be performed ex post facto: only by inserting polluted, demonic Essence into the process of Exaltation itself can a Green Sun Prince be born. Second, if an Exaltation should ever escape the Yozi’s control, it is effectively lost to them and becomes a Solar Exaltation once again.

It’s possible that if a Solar were slain in the right conditions (most likely in the heart of the Garden of Earthly Delights) that its Exaltation could be trapped again, thereby increasing the number of Infernal Exaltations available, but so far the Yozis have been reluctant to try: largely because of the obvious risk of letting a champion of the gods into the prison that holds so many of his brethren, but partly because no Yozi wants the others to gain a numerical advantage in terms of number of Exaltations available to them.
On Being a Green Sun Prince

Infernal Exalted are not drawn from those who failed to exhibit the heroism required of a Celestial Exaltation. That’s dumb--the Yozis have no need for such mewling wretches. No, the Yozis seek those mortals who, like them, have been terribly betrayed. They seek mortals who have done what they themselves could not: revenged themselves upon their tormentors. Guided by the piping of mouthless Anlyrial, the Yozis send forth an Exaltation to arrive at the precise moment such a mortal beholds the culmination of their all-consuming quest for vengeance and ask themselves the inevitable question of “what now?” The demonic messenger provides an answer: a vision of betrayal on such a vaster scale that it simply must be answered.

If the mortal accepts, the demon’s form, already stretched to bursting by the awesome power of the Solar Exaltation within, comes undone altogether, melting and flowing into a chrysalis around the mortal’s body. The mortal remains within for five full days as the demonic Essence and the Solar Exaltation pervade her form. In this blasphemous alchemy is a true Infernal Exaltation born. At the same time, the mortal’s mind is assaulted by a torrent of mad, disjointed images and memories. Some of these visions are the true memories of the Solar Exaltation’s First Age incarnation, others are the poison lies borne on Dysios’ webs, and still others are the vague sense-impressions of the Yozis themselves. All are filtered through the lens of the mortal’s betrayal: a merchant robbed of his livelihood by a dishonest business partner sees visions of grasping thieves stealing his rightful glories, while a woman whose parents were carried off by Guild slavers sees visions of cruel Solar warlords driving slave armies into battle, too cowardly to face the Primordials directly.

Once the chrysalis bursts and reveals the newborn Infernal in all her terrible glory, the demon who brought her Exaltation to her is no more--mostly. It lives on in the minor physical changes an Infernal undergoes, in a voice that murmurs in the back of her mind, and in the power for one last act: when the Infernal dies, the demon has just enough power to create a second chrysalis, which traps the Solar Exaltation within the body. Once again, this isn’t permanent: if this sepulchre-chrysalis isn’t returned to the Garden of Earthly Delights and laid to rest within ten days, it dissolves forever and the Exaltation is freed back into Creation to seek hosts as it was made to. It is, at this point, lost to the Yozis forever.

GimpInBlack fucked around with this message at 02:12 on Jun 8, 2013

Excelsiortothemax
Sep 9, 2006
That's a heck of a lot better. Wow.

realbrickwall
Mar 12, 2013
The Garden of Earthly Delights is a pretty cool adventure hook. If the 3e Infernals don't have something better, I'll probably just steal that if it ever comes up.

nrook
Jun 25, 2009

Just let yourself become a worthless person!
On the note of Exalted's mechanics, I always wonder why RPG teams don't try to hire a real game designer to try to make their crunchy game actually satisfying. D&D evolved out of a wargame, and if you want your game's combat to be any good, it's going to have to be a lot like a board game.

Obviously something like FATE doesn't need to be interesting as a game to be compelling. If you're a storygame and combat follows from the narrative, the math does have to work out to a certain extent, but it isn't really that important. But if you want combat to be an integral part of your game, with real tactical choices, why wouldn't you toss David Sirlin or whoever some money to take a month and give you a decent core to work off of?

I mean, having a fun game doesn't matter if your characters are boring and nobody wants to play in your setting, but from what I can see of 2e, it doesn't work out to have cool ideas in a broken game, either.

viewtyjoe
Jan 5, 2009

nrook posted:

On the note of Exalted's mechanics, I always wonder why RPG teams don't try to hire a real game designer to try to make their crunchy game actually satisfying. D&D evolved out of a wargame, and if you want your game's combat to be any good, it's going to have to be a lot like a board game.

Obviously something like FATE doesn't need to be interesting as a game to be compelling. If you're a storygame and combat follows from the narrative, the math does have to work out to a certain extent, but it isn't really that important. But if you want combat to be an integral part of your game, with real tactical choices, why wouldn't you toss David Sirlin or whoever some money to take a month and give you a decent core to work off of?

I mean, having a fun game doesn't matter if your characters are boring and nobody wants to play in your setting, but from what I can see of 2e, it doesn't work out to have cool ideas in a broken game, either.

Because people think they can design a better system. Full-stop. Look at how many fantasy heartbreakers and other stuff there is out there that amounts to "d20 kind of" or something similar to one of the few big systems, but with hilariously bad or broken mechanics. Everyone who designs a game thinks they can build a better system than the last guy who built it. Also, it's difficult to build a system that encompasses power levels from "Dirt Farmer" to "Able to punch out gods without breaking a sweat" and have it work well in every part of the spread.

Also, without dedicated playtesters willing to break the system for you, and a team willing to fix it when it breaks before release, there's almost invariably going to be something in a system that can be abused. When you release a system to thousands of :spergin: who have nothing better to do than break down the math and come up with the optimal solution to whatever systems, they're going to do just that.

Plus, the example of D&D is awful. D&D is probably one of the best examples of needless systems getting tacked onto a game and having characters that completely negate the need for other characters. When it comes down to it, designing a system for a game that can be played by a group at a table is hard. That's one of the reason there were so many awful charms in 2e Exalted. There wasn't any single person who was checking charms and going "This completely unbalances things" or "our combat charms encourage players to basically spam surprise combos at each other and defend with combo-negating perfect defenses until someone runs out of essence to use, then they get splatted."

The biggest reason I'm willing to take the mechanics on 3e on faith is that they've been pretty up front with saying that they are trying to examine things so that nothing is too horrible. This doesn't mean that within a week there's going to be :spergin: about "optimal builds" and all that. Any crunchy game gets that. The hope is that the difference between "twinked out murder-machine" and "clueless newbie build" should be small enough that both players can contribute relatively equally.

If I get burned on this, so be it. I'd rather support something I like a lot (despite rapeghosts) and be disappointed now that I can afford to.

Attorney at Funk
Jun 3, 2008

...the person who says honestly that he despairs is closer to being cured than all those who are not regarded as despairing by themselves or others.
Really most of the things I'd point to as missteps of the current developers are areas where they haven't been smugly confident enough that they could do better. A combination of timidity when trying to adapt past material (the Infernals preview, where they hid their much better idea behind a lamer one because they were afraid people wouldn't get it) and an attachment to legacy mechanics that are just really obviously goofy to someone who hasn't become attached to Exalted's specific way of doing things (a Martial Arts ability, a BP/XP divide).

And then there's that other thing.

Dodge Charms
May 30, 2013

Attorney at Funk posted:

(the Infernals preview, where they hid their much better idea behind a lamer one because they were afraid people wouldn't get it)

Could you remind me of the "much better idea" hidden in the Infernals preview?

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Attorney at Funk
Jun 3, 2008

...the person who says honestly that he despairs is closer to being cured than all those who are not regarded as despairing by themselves or others.

Dodge Charms posted:

Could you remind me of the "much better idea" hidden in the Infernals preview?

The Infernals preview had the Reclamation as a long-form escape plan that would include a second wave of Infernals 2.0. People were like "hey, wait a second, that's super lame" and then they came back and admitted their original idea was a complete de-emphasis of the Yozi and the Reclamation as a plot to free them from Hell, putting the spotlight entirely on the Infernals themselves. This is way better and also actually in keeping with all the things they've said about the way Infernals were positioned in 2E was harmful to the setting.

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