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Calde posted:Sidereals work perfectly well as their own thing, but trying to play a game of any other Exalt type yet include Sidereal machinations runs afoul of all their systemic advantages. They know about you, you don't know about them, etc. Since all their advantages are hard and crunchy, yet their disadvantages are soft and based solely on RP, it can definitely feel like "why don't they just ninja-murder all the Solars/Deathlords/whatever personally". Hopefully 3E will address some of that by making fights way less certain between elders and the newly Exalted (so Sidereal elders have an unsatisfactory level of risk in direct intervention), at least. The problem is that Bronze Faction Sidereals have been defined as one of the primary antagonists that Solars and Lunars face but their circumstances and powerset don't seem to acknowledge that. They are so absurdly untouchable, mobile, anonymous, and even when you find out who they are and what they're up to it takes both research and effort to force them to commit to an engagement. Until Sidereal errata they could simply choose to destroy your life while trolling you from Yu-Shan. I understand that the Sidereal player will now leap from his chair and raise an urgent hand in the air and go "yes, but! Politics / circumstances / mote pool size / raw numbers", and so on. I can absolutely believe that from a Sidereal perspective these kinds of factors make it inconvenient or impractical to go out and just murder or torment any Solar that's making noise. Even so, "these dudes could kill you but you're not worth the bother" is a terrible way to set up one of the main antagonists for the default player splat! It undermines the core conceit behind Exalted of "you get to play people who matter and are shaking up the world": either they don't come after you, which means you're not that big a deal, or they do come after you and end you. I appreciate the third edition information that you guys are pointing out—it suggests drastic changes in the opportunity cost of Young Celestial Safaris and sounds like a huge improvement. My rant was aimed at first edition Sidereals, which I find problematic even though a lot of people go on about how magical that book is. Lymond fucked around with this message at 12:02 on Feb 7, 2014 |
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Feb 7, 2014 11:59
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If I was writing Sidereals 3rd edition I'd consider removing Shun the Smiling Lady for the same reason as Raksi's baby eating because seriously 90% of the time I see "I hate Sidereals" it's that charm front and centre.
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Feb 7, 2014 15:37
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Shun the Smiling Lady arguments really highlight the fact that despite the ostensible integration of all the various Exalted in the same world from the start unlike the oWoD where crossover play was "do this at your own risk" and only kinda sorta supported (and not very well) a lot of the Charm design came from a place of "taking this one Exalted type in isolation, this works totally fine, therefore it's fine to throw it into this wider context with nooooooo worries at all, yep." Like, all the arguments I really saw in favor of abilities like that were "But it's brilliant in a Sidereals only game!" except the issue is that each new Exalt-book wasn't just a big book of new PC stuff but a big book of NPC stuff too. Everybody else has sort of hit on the issues with Sidereals specifically which only compound the issues with Charms like that...Calde summed it up best, Sidereals get wonky but very useful hard mechanical advantages and their limitations are mostly handwavey stuff that tends to boil down to "well they wouldn't troll you with Shun the Smiling Lady because, okay?" I'm positive that they won't do anything like ditch the Charm because it seems like the more people dislike something in Exalted the more that encourages the writers to want to keep it around. The obvious solution is something they've vaguely alluded to so far which is "don't have it so NPC antagonists are literally using the same PC-grade abilities and poo poo" so you aren't having to deal with inter-sourcebook arms races, but in general I think it's also maybe a good rule of thumb to not give antagonists the ability to gently caress with the PCs without any means of defense until someone erratas it in later.
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Feb 7, 2014 15:59
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That feels like an effect that will naturally improve if the game is cutting down on perfect effects and developing better defined social mechanics. The abstract idea of a persistent social debuff is dead-on for what fate mojo should accomplish, it just need retooling to make it fit into a conflict.
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Feb 7, 2014 16:12
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Lymond posted:The problem is that Bronze Faction Sidereals have been defined as one of the primary antagonists that Solars and Lunars face but their circumstances and powerset don't seem to acknowledge that. They are so absurdly untouchable, mobile, anonymous, and even when you find out who they are and what they're up to it takes both research and effort to force them to commit to an engagement. Until Sidereal errata they could simply choose to destroy your life while trolling you from Yu-Shan. I'm a card-carrying Sidereal apologist. I love me my Sidereals. But you are absolutely correct; what works well in a Sidereal focused game to emphasize their themes as invisible fate-ninja bureaucrats is absolute chaos when you try to use Sidereals as antagonists. The 'they have better things to do than kill you' argument is an incredibly mushy way to paper over all those problems that is unsatisfying for all those Solar and Lunar players whose characters are walking around unmurdered too. It's like being left at the altar... you wage wars and conquer cities and topple the social order to raise yourself as a God-King and where's your Endings Caste assassination squad? Oh, they couldn't make it, repairing the fabric of causality, you know how it is.
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Feb 7, 2014 16:16
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To paraphrase someone from the last TG chat thread, "The primary conceit of Shadowrun is that shadowrunners exist. Arguments to the contrary are dumb especially when they're coming from the writers." Same with Exalted. It sounds like they have a problem with conveying that the Sidereals have finite resources and a a large element of risk.
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Feb 7, 2014 16:22
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A_Raving_Loon posted:That feels like an effect that will naturally improve if the game is cutting down on perfect effects and developing better defined social mechanics. The abstract idea of a persistent social debuff is dead-on for what fate mojo should accomplish, it just need retooling to make it fit into a conflict. Right, "persistent social debuff" is absolutely a thing that falls under the Sidereal umbrella of "guys who dick with other peoples' fates to do stuff," but the execution was lame and all the defenses of it seemed to boil down to "well if you look at it like that then you're roleplaying wrong." Speaking personally, something I'd like to see out of Sidereals is a little more bureaucracy. For characters that fans love to typify as "bureaucrat ninjas" Sidereals don't really seem to have to go through a whole lot of the stuff in order to do things like strike someone's name from the official book of people destined to fall in love, it's "oh well I guess you've committed some Essence, welp good enough." Calde posted:The 'they have better things to do than kill you' argument is an incredibly mushy way to paper over all those problems that is unsatisfying for all those Solar and Lunar players whose characters are walking around unmurdered too. Just wanted to sneak in another edit to say that, in the particular case of Shun the Smiling Lady, the text of the Charm straight-up says that "vindictive" Sidereals might use it simply to gently caress with someone because they're pissed at them. So the argument that Sids are just too busy to care about dicking with Solars or Lunars falls even flatter when the book tells you "actually some Sidereals like screwing with someone's destiny because they're angry, or maybe because they're overzealous, or maybe they were, y'know, bored or whatever. It happens." Kai Tave fucked around with this message at 16:37 on Feb 7, 2014 |
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Feb 7, 2014 16:27
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quote is not edit
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Feb 7, 2014 16:36
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Kai Tave posted:Right, "persistent social debuff" is absolutely a thing that falls under the Sidereal umbrella of "guys who dick with other peoples' fates to do stuff," but the execution was lame and all the defenses of it seemed to boil down to "well if you look at it like that then you're roleplaying wrong." Where's our Bureaucracy preview, Stephenls????? Kai Tave posted:Just wanted to sneak in another edit to say that, in the particular case of Shun the Smiling Lady, the text of the Charm straight-up says that "vindictive" Sidereals might use it simply to gently caress with someone because they're pissed at them. So the argument that Sids are just too busy to care about dicking with Solars or Lunars falls even flatter when the book tells you "actually some Sidereals like screwing with someone's destiny because they're angry, or maybe because they're overzealous, or maybe they were, y'know, bored or whatever. It happens." Ha, good catch. Jenna knew it could be abused and was totally ok with that, yikes. Shun The Smiling Lady is the worst Charm, ugh. Were I to try and run Sidereals nowadays, I would go with a fan rewrite of the whole Charm tree like this one or move to a whole different rule system altogether.
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Feb 7, 2014 16:47
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Calde posted:I'm a card-carrying Sidereal apologist. I love me my Sidereals. But you are absolutely correct; what works well in a Sidereal focused game to emphasize their themes as invisible fate-ninja bureaucrats is absolute chaos when you try to use Sidereals as antagonists. The 'they have better things to do than kill you' argument is an incredibly mushy way to paper over all those problems that is unsatisfying for all those Solar and Lunar players whose characters are walking around unmurdered too. It's like being left at the altar... you wage wars and conquer cities and topple the social order to raise yourself as a God-King and where's your Endings Caste assassination squad? Oh, they couldn't make it, repairing the fabric of causality, you know how it is. Now that sounds like some great infernal/fey motivation in the making. Oh, I see how it is. I put decades of blood, sweat, and toil into reshaping all the hundred kingdoms in my image and crown myself Tsar-Centennial, but you can't spare one loving day out of your high-holy schedule to disrupt my coronation? No? Maybe a few brush-stokes to scribe a prophesy that a pretender would rise to oppose my reign of terror? Not even send along a bottle to poison the wine at my inaugural orgy!? Some ultimate enemy you turned out to be.
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Feb 7, 2014 16:52
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Probably a bit late to pop in and say this, but if you're still reading this thread, StephenLS, I was super cynical about Exalted 3E and really regretting spending money on the kickstarter and now I'm not quite as cynical, so well done and thanks, you got me excited for it again. 
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Feb 7, 2014 16:56
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I don't mind the lack of Sidereal assassination squads when the Deathlords have gone from mysterious underworld power to Team Oblivion and the Yozis have poo poo like Akuma running around. The Bronze Faction are anti-villains, it makes sense that they'll give priority to the groups that are pretty transparent about their desire to skullfuck the universe.
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Feb 7, 2014 17:02
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Changeling: the Lost actually did something interesting with the special powers in that game, all of which were "contracts" because everything is fae forever. Basically, every contract was your typical WoD "pay [RESOURCE] and roll [DICE] to produce [EFFECT]" special ability, except that if you used a contract in a particular circumstance or context (unique to each one) then you got to use it at a reduced cost, or it had greater effectiveness, or sometimes it simply worked automatically without any need to roll. The idea being that each contract had a specific clause or loophole you could exploit to your advantage (again, fae), but if you didn't really care about that then you could just brute-force it. Something like that sounds like a good place to start if you want to emphasize the whole "incredible power constrained by red-tape" thing Sidereals are supposed to have going on. You can either wait until conditions are just right to freely strike someone's name from the book of love (the sucker's approach), you can go out and manipulate things to create the proper conditions that allow you to strike someone's name from the book of love (the preferred method), or you can just do it but you run the very real risk of being audited by Internal Affairs (oh gently caress).
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Feb 7, 2014 17:04
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Kai Tave posted:Changeling: the Lost actually did something interesting with the special powers in that game, all of which were "contracts" because everything is fae forever. Basically, every contract was your typical WoD "pay [RESOURCE] and roll [DICE] to produce [EFFECT]" special ability, except that if you used a contract in a particular circumstance or context (unique to each one) then you got to use it at a reduced cost, or it had greater effectiveness, or sometimes it simply worked automatically without any need to roll. The idea being that each contract had a specific clause or loophole you could exploit to your advantage (again, fae), but if you didn't really care about that then you could just brute-force it. Honestly, I would love for the Sidereal blowback mechanic to be primarily social instead of metaphysical. I have a lot of hate for most baked-in "morality" systems in Storyteller games because they tend to lead to "How can I play my character without doing what the game designers stated was immoral so my character doesn't start sucking/becoming unplayable?" instead of the more interesting "How can I go about achieving my goals without earning the ire of those in my community?" Every Sidereal could have a tendency for how they tend to buck the established power structure. "Say My Name" could involve wanting to be flashy, to be known, to get out of the shadows, while "Just This Once" could involve a tendency to team up with ostensible enemies of Fate for a greater cause. And pray you never meet the "Loose Cannon Who Gets Results." A limit break could even be the Maidens raising eyebrows and saying "Let's make some room in the Loom for them. See what they do." It grants you additional power for the scene, but whatever you were flipping out over had better be worth it, because you're going to have to justify it during the debrief.
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Feb 7, 2014 19:23
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Calde posted:Where's our Bureaucracy preview, Stephenls????? A_Raving_Loon posted:Now that sounds like some great infernal/fey motivation in the making.
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Feb 7, 2014 21:29
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Calde posted:[Sidereals] know about you, you don't know about them, etc. Why would Sidereals know all about you?
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Feb 7, 2014 21:35
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bartkusa posted:Why would Sidereals know all about you? Solars tend not to be quiet on the Loom Of Fate - it's not a surprise that they'd tend to get noticed once they start throwing power around.
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Feb 7, 2014 23:19
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As time goes on the more I wish I could take back my pledge. It's taken me a long time to get to this point where my malaise has overcome even my resignation. I just get the impression that Exalted 3e is going to definitely be improved and a number of steps forward, but still quite short of actually being a great game mechanically. I should have known when they said "more charms!", I should have taken that as the singular sign that things weren't going to turn out fully to my satisfaction, but the little bits that leak out just feels like too much effort is being put towards maintaining mechanical familiarity, which leaves a lot of the core issues hanging around. It's not that you can't balance and work out all the possible combinations with 200-400 charms per Exalt type spread over as many as 25 categories (or way more with with martial arts or sorcery), but boy howdy, it sure sounds unlikely. It's really hard to keep the faith I had when I dropped over $100 as time goes on. We have StephenIs who doesn't actively play the game (has he ever?), I felt pretty downed when Plague of Hats bailed out, and even designers I respected like Holden went inexplicably strange on us, to put it kindly. It's really, really hard. I want the best for it but I don't see how I'm not going to be disappointed at this point. 
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Feb 7, 2014 23:57
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I have actually played Exalted yes. In fact the very last gaming session I ever played was the... third...? session of an Exalted campaign that started when the 1e corebook was released. That campaign was interrupted by a move and I never found a group at my new highschool.Kenlon posted:Solars tend not to be quiet on the Loom Of Fate - it's not a surprise that they'd tend to get noticed once they start throwing power around. Loom scrying sucks, and has been totally blown out of proportion in terms of how much info it can actually grant you since the 1e sids book. I think the 1e Sid book's position was like "Studying the Loom can probably net you, uh, some information? Probably." It's not Google Maps. Stephenls fucked around with this message at 01:29 on Feb 8, 2014 |
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Feb 8, 2014 01:26
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They also live in the city of the gods. Much news reaches there.
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Feb 8, 2014 01:43
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Stephenls could you respond to this post? I mean as far as I can see you tend to ignore people's concerns about how you're handling development.
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Feb 8, 2014 01:46
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Stephenls posted:I have actually played Exalted yes. In fact the very last gaming session I ever played was the... third...? session of an Exalted campaign that started when the 1e corebook was released. That campaign was interrupted by a move and I never found a group at my new highschool. That's good to hear. You should do it again!
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Feb 8, 2014 01:47
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Stephenls posted:Loom scrying sucks, and has been totally blown out of proportion in terms of how much info it can actually grant you since the 1e sids book. I think the 1e Sid book's position was like "Studying the Loom can probably net you, uh, some information? Probably." It's not Google Maps. It's not going to net you what the Solar likes on his breakfast cereal and what color his underwear is, but I always figured that when Solars start doing things that affect large numbers of people (conquering a city, for example,) it would be something that could show up sufficiently for a Sidereal to then investigate in the more old-fashioned ways.
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Feb 8, 2014 01:48
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Kenlon posted:It's not going to net you what the Solar likes on his breakfast cereal and what color his underwear is, but I always figured that when Solars start doing things that affect large numbers of people (conquering a city, for example,) it would be something that could show up sufficiently for a Sidereal to then investigate in the more old-fashioned ways. Is that the way it should work? Does Loom scrying that works that way make for a better game?
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Feb 8, 2014 02:06
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Stephenls posted:Is that the way it should work? Does Loom scrying that works that way make for a better game? This is anecdotal, of course, but: yes, yes it does. Loom scrying is awesome. I enjoy, as a player, having the Loom as a resource, because it's fun to interact with and weird and it's the sort of thing a bunch of secret agents working on behalf of destiny itself ought to have access to. As an ST, of course, it's wonderfully useful as a means of dropping leading hints for plots and the like on players as well. Heck, I actually expanded the Loom into an omnipresent augmented-reality dream world of pure information in one game, but I do weird things when I run games.
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Feb 8, 2014 02:21
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I don't actually remember the particular metaphysics of the Loom of Fate, but insofar as it reflects Creation as opposed to directs it there should probably be some way to look at it and see that crazy stuff is going down. Of course, you'd probably look down and see that there are two hundred separate episodes of supernatural power dramatically derailing Heaven's designs, and of those maybe three or four could be circles of Solars. On the other hand, you wouldn't find me complaining if the Loom of Fate were the means used to inflict destiny on Creation, but not something which worked reciprocally - you could look at the Loom and see that there was supposed to be a war on between nation X and nation Y. Then you could go and find that nations X and Y had been united by some demagogue into a harmonious empire and know that something had gone terribly wrong.
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Feb 8, 2014 03:14
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(Personally I think trying to get info about Creation from the Loom should be about as difficult as reading a million by million cell spreadsheet where the contents of each cell update about once per second, and the whole thing is being displayed at once as a binary string on a screen the size of a football field. You need Charms to do this. They're called the Sidereal Lore tree. But that may just be me.)
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Feb 8, 2014 03:34
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There's also that comic at the end of the core book where Kejack is shown watching the events of all the other comics by looking at the loom. The idea the Sids having world surveillance of events of note was presented, even if later writing didn't do much to back it up.
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Feb 8, 2014 03:44
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Stephenls posted:Is that the way it should work? Does Loom scrying that works that way make for a better game? It worked for my games - they were Solar based, and having the Sidereals start to show up after they started to really exert their presence on the world around them went very well.
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Feb 8, 2014 04:07
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I tend to assume that the Loom gives you vast amounts of almost meaningless raw data that requires either specialized magic (Sidereal Lore Charms) or a vast team of highly-trained number-crunchers to make sense of. Basically, it gives you a copy of every receipt printed in the world and using those to figure out a nation's GDP is your problem. In theory you could use that economic data to pinpoint the location of a famous criminal or to determine what city President Obama is visiting, but it's harder than just looking it up.
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Feb 8, 2014 04:22
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The Loom is a perfect opportunity for a sidebar detailing certain things to consider about the Loom and how'd they change things.
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Feb 8, 2014 04:37
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Stephenls posted:You need Charms to do this. They're called the Sidereal Lore tree. I'm sold on this version. (Then again, you want to be careful that it doesn't lead to a "nyah nyah your powers don't work here due to Setting" thing elsewhere than Creation)
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Feb 8, 2014 04:47
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A_Raving_Loon posted:There's also that comic at the end of the core book where Kejack is shown watching the events of all the other comics by looking at the loom. Is that the comic which implies that Kejack went on a bender and freed the Solars?
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Feb 8, 2014 08:08
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ErichZahn posted:Is that the comic which implies that Kejack went on a bender and freed the Solars? I think that one was the one where the Great Contagion was happening, and Kejak drank himself into oblivion on Celestial Wine both to avoid catching the plague and also because he was losing his goddamn mind trying to deal with it.
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Feb 8, 2014 08:24
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ErichZahn posted:Is that the comic which implies that Kejack went on a bender and freed the Solars? That was one of my favorite bits with Kejak really, because it reminded us that THE archetypal Kung Fu Wizard of the setting was still human underneath it all. But yeah, it didn't say he freed the Solars, but it certainly did show him having second thoughts. Of course, by the 'modern day' he's been forced to double and triple down on it all.
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Feb 8, 2014 08:28
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I never read much about the Loom. I thought I read somewhere that it could be used to predict when and where Solars could exalt. How would that work?
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Feb 8, 2014 11:05
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Gearhead posted:That was one of my favorite bits with Kejak really, because it reminded us that THE archetypal Kung Fu Wizard of the setting was still human underneath it all. But yeah, it didn't say he freed the Solars, but it certainly did show him having second thoughts. What book was this in?
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Feb 8, 2014 11:44
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bartkusa posted:I never read much about the Loom. I thought I read somewhere that it could be used to predict when and where Solars could exalt. How would that work? Look for people whose lives will contain huge enough deeds to be worthy of becoming chosen. I'd imagine it's about as reliable as weather forecasting. You can tell there will be a large Rebellious System moving in from the east bringing 2-6 inches of a mix of rain of arrows and hail of flaming debris, arriving at the walls of the city some time within the next two weeks. It puts out a high-risk exalt warning, you just don't know exactly where the cyclone of heavenly wrath will touch down or which way it'll spin.
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Feb 8, 2014 16:51
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bartkusa posted:I never read much about the Loom. I thought I read somewhere that it could be used to predict when and where Solars could exalt. How would that work? This probably isn't supported by the actual books since I only read 1E books a while ago, but I thought essentially Solars after they exalted were decoupled from the Loom - they're adrift from destiny able to make their own path, and as a result when they begin kicking at the pillars of heaven threads begin to unfurl from the Loom as this rogue agent changes things. I've got no clue how you would predict where Solars exalt prior to exaltation, but you could watch for high-destiny blips that suddenly "go dark"?
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Feb 8, 2014 17:21
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A_Raving_Loon posted:Look for people whose lives will contain huge enough deeds to be worthy of becoming chosen. I'd imagine it's about as reliable as weather forecasting. You can tell there will be a large Rebellious System moving in from the east bringing 2-6 inches of a mix of rain of arrows and hail of flaming debris, arriving at the walls of the city some time within the next two weeks. It puts out a high-risk exalt warning, you just don't know exactly where the cyclone of heavenly wrath will touch down or which way it'll spin. This is kind of awesome and pretty much the exact kind of weirdness I want out of my Sidereals. Helena P Blavatsky posted:This probably isn't supported by the actual books since I only read 1E books a while ago, but I thought essentially Solars after they exalted were decoupled from the Loom - they're adrift from destiny able to make their own path, and as a result when they begin kicking at the pillars of heaven threads begin to unfurl from the Loom as this rogue agent changes things. I've got no clue how you would predict where Solars exalt prior to exaltation, but you could watch for high-destiny blips that suddenly "go dark"? I don't think that's true--if I recall correctly only the Fair Folk/Primordials (since they existed before the Loom) and the Dead (since they aren't supposed to exist and anyway have the Calendar of Setesh to govern their destinies) are outside fate. Maybe you're remembering the bit about how the gods Exalted mortals to fight the Primordials because, unlike the gods, mortals never swore an oath of obedience and nonaggression to the Primordials? EDIT: Solars definitely do tend to tear up the weave like a bored cat diving into a pile of knitting, but that's an artifact of the crazy large-scale poo poo they pull and the fact that their sudden return wasn't exactly accounted for in the Bureau of Destiny's ten-year plan. Admittedly I could also very well be wrong; I tend to mostly ignore the really high-resolution setting fluff books. Hell, last time I ran Exalted the only setting resources I used were the 1E quickstart, Games of Divinity, and some bits of Manacle and Coin. Oh, and the opening fiction from the 1E core, but that's just because the game was set in Chiaroscuro. GimpInBlack fucked around with this message at 17:35 on Feb 8, 2014 |
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Feb 8, 2014 17:33
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