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Old Kentucky Shark posted:I don't think the Lunar elders really fill inevitable archetypal roles, though. Lunars in general don't, because their splat was something of an after-thought in 1e. If Raksi and Ma-Ha-Suchi in particular had never existed, I don't think people would have even noticed their absence in the way that they would have if the Scarlet Empress or Memnon or Ketchup Carjack were missing. I gotta disagree with you here. Insofar as the Lunars exist at all, they have to have a Baba Yaga, a Genghis Khan, etc. That's actually how I understood Raksi and Ma-Ha-Suchi before I read about them on the internet. If the 3e team just tossed every established Lunar over their shoulder like a habitual drinker does with their bottle right after blinking at something unbelievable offscreen, they've still got a lot of space to populate, and it's like of course the western ocean is going to have some giant ancient sea monster dude, of course there's going to be a furious warlord of a marauding beastman army somewhere, etc.
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Feb 16, 2014 23:15
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Why would you have to replace them or come up with someone who fills the same niche at all? Creation does not hinge on these characters or niches existing.
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Feb 16, 2014 23:15
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For two whole editions Creation hasn't actually hinged on Lunars existing at all, but insofar as we want them to exist and to have a powerful and ongoing influence on the history of the setting we've got to give them some important badasses and those badasses should probably fill at least some of the archetypes. I mean, would you say the Lunars shouldn't have a Baba Yaga figure at all? Because if they do get one it's going to be somehow analogous to Raksi. The only compelling reason I see to scrap the character entirely is some attempt to avoid or manage negative fan reactions, but you're just going to get other fan reactions to the tune of "oh this is just Raksi with the serial numbers filed off" anyway. Also, if you don't believe that the 3E writing team has managed to completely exorcise the demons of 2E, you'd have no reason to expect that a completely new evil but influential sorceress figure wouldn't be as or more embarassing to read about and discuss as 2E Raksi was, regardless of her having a new name/geographical location/whatever.
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Feb 16, 2014 23:20
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Stephenls posted:Yeah, this. Except, in my experience, the moment you release a version of a previously promising but badly-executed idea that is well-executed, people immediately jump all over it and go "This is so cool now; it's great that you fixed that sucky thing and made it great!" Sure. Until then, though, you don't get to be confused that you're dealing with all the baggage of the sucky thing you haven't made great yet.
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Feb 16, 2014 23:20
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Stephenls posted:This may be me being selfish: Shards is not the sort of project I dig working on. Like, I understand the impetus you're expressing, and I get where you're coming from, because retooling existing media is a hell of a drug, but I also think, in the larger sense, that the current Exalted writing crew have been sounding a lot more like Exalted Fan Fiction Authors lately than Exalted Authors. And that's not really the thing I wanted to buy.
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Feb 16, 2014 23:23
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Attorney at Funk posted:Sure. Until then, though, you don't get to be confused that you're dealing with all the baggage of the sucky thing you haven't made great yet. I apologize if I come across as confused. It just seems the same people asking me to justify the same things the same way over and over again, at some points. I've made these arguments before; you should know my position. That the book is late and talking about these things is all we have to do until it's out doesn't mean my position has changed.
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Feb 16, 2014 23:24
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Ferrinus posted:I gotta disagree with you here. Insofar as the Lunars exist at all, they have to have a Baba Yaga, a Genghis Khan, etc. That's actually how I understood Raksi and Ma-Ha-Suchi before I read about them on the internet. Ferrinus posted:For two whole editions Creation hasn't actually hinged on Lunars existing at all, but insofar as we want them to exist and to have a powerful and ongoing influence on the history of the setting we've got to give them some important badasses and those badasses should probably fill at least some of the archetypes. You seem to be speaking for me in these matters. 3e Raksi will not be an idiot-child obsessed with sorcery and fixated on cannibalism because insane, 3e Tamuz will not be a misogynist because of being a gay man trapped in a loveless marriage with an abusive older woman, 3e Leviathan will not be Sad Emo Whale, and 3e Ma-Ha-Suchi will not be former-lothario-turned-rape-monster, but there's still value in the original archetypal pitches for Raksi, Tamuz, Leviathan, and Ma-Ha-Suchi and just throwing them out and replacing them with palette-swaps in order to appease people who are grossed out at all those things fixes nothing. Stephenls fucked around with this message at 23:34 on Feb 16, 2014 |
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Feb 16, 2014 23:28
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Stephenls posted:I apologize if I come across as confused. Of course, neither has theirs, and there's no particular reason for them to stop talking. It's regrettable but you're kind of in the position of dual obligation here: you're not allowed to give us anything except the ad copy we've got no real reason to believe or disbelieve (which forces us to fill in the gap with our pre-existing impressions on you and the material you're trying to reclaim) but you're also not allowed to let us go in circles ruminating on how crappy that stuff was. It's a lovely position, and I feel bad for you. But it is what it is. We're in a position were we have nothing to offer you but an article of good or bad faith, and you have nothing to offer us but a calculated absence of signs and wonders.
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Feb 16, 2014 23:33
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The dude already said there are going to be entirely new signature characters for Lunars and the other Exalts. These Lunar elders that were badly rendered before will remain setting elements and potential story NPCs just like the Deathlords or powerful Dragonblooded elders or what have you. They've even said they're adding at least one new Lunar elder, and maybe more. These dudes are not the only exposure to Lunars anymore. If the new characters are awful then we can bitch about that. I don't understand why you're complaining about taking old Exalted content and making it cool when that is the entire basic premise of 3rd edition. Yes these characters were terrible and if your group is so traumatized that you can't use them then don't, but if they come out cool my players, who have no Lunar rape baggage, will think they're cool and I won't even mention spousal abuse.
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Feb 16, 2014 23:35
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Attorney at Funk posted:Of course, neither has theirs, and there's no particular reason for them to stop talking. It's regrettable but you're kind of in the position of dual obligation here: you're not allowed to give us anything except the ad copy we've got no real reason to believe or disbelieve (which forces us to fill in the gap with our pre-existing impressions on you and the material you're trying to reclaim) but you're also not allowed to let us go in circles ruminating on how crappy that stuff was. Yep! Attorney at Funk posted:It's a lovely position, and I feel bad for you. But it is what it is. We're in a position were we have nothing to offer you but an article of good or bad faith, and you have nothing to offer us but a calculated absence of signs and wonders. Fair enough.
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Feb 16, 2014 23:35
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Ferrinus posted:I think Stephenls is right here. Like, arguably, the specific names "Raksi", "Chejop", etc are so loaded down with audience baggage that it's impossible or at least highly unlikely that their reinclusion will help rather than harm the game, regardless of their actual portrayal, but you'd pretty much have to replace then with renamed, palette-swapped versions of themselves since they fill such important, archetypical roles. If Raksi vanishes but Iskar the crazy jungle witch-queen who rules over a horde of lemur-men shows up, it's like, okay? Everyone will just think of her as not-Raksi anyway. For all that I hate the idea of bringing back characters because they're already there, I think you can rehabilitate them. Some of the Lunar rewrites in Terrifying Argent Witches are just great - there's no mention of rape in the Ma Ha Suchi writeup! No mention of baby eating in the Raksi writeup! The abuse in Desus and Lilith's relationship is given a single sentence and presented as one rumour among many! As an aside, I finished writing up the first draft of Intimacies for my Exalted hack! They're basically Motivations, Virtues, Intimacies and Willpower all mashed together.
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Feb 16, 2014 23:47
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Bigup DJ posted:For all that I hate the idea of bringing back characters because they're already there, I think you can rehabilitate them. Some of the Lunar rewrites in Terrifying Argent Witches are just great - there's no mention of rape in the Ma Ha Suchi writeup! No mention of baby eating in the Raksi writeup! The abuse in Desus and Lilith's relationship is given a single sentence and presented as one rumour among many! Color me impressed. I'd even use this material in my games: a Ma-Ha Suchi writeup that focuses on him being a smiling hate-filled rear end in a top hat who undermines nations through diplomacy and keeps the barbarian beastmen hordes in the background as just a tool would have made the cut for a campaign set in the East that I ran. There's stories I could stomach to tell with this.
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Feb 17, 2014 00:36
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Ferrinus posted:If the 3e team just tossed every established Lunar over their shoulder like a habitual drinker does with their bottle right after blinking at something unbelievable offscreen, they've still got a lot of space to populate, and it's like of course the western ocean is going to have some giant ancient sea monster dude, of course there's going to be a furious warlord of a marauding beastman army somewhere, etc. Yeah, but there's no reason that our Baba Yaga, Ghenghis Khan, or Tiamat has to look anything like the guys we have. Sometimes you've gotta just dump old continuity to make a fresh start.
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Feb 17, 2014 00:38
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Ratoslov posted:Yeah, but there's no reason that our Baba Yaga, Ghenghis Khan, or Tiamat has to look anything like the guys we have. Sometimes you've gotta just dump old continuity to make a fresh start. But sometimes you don't, so... which is which? This is ultimately a matter of taste; I am more interested in working with the set we have than doing the work of coming up with a new set that a) fills the same archetypes as the existing set, and also b) feels like a natural and organic outgrowth of the setting and not a reaction to the old set (difficult, since they would be a reaction to the old set). Doing that second thing involves spending a lot of energy just to get us to where we are now minus some fan reaction baggage that I am confident we can shed easily enough by just not printing lovely things in our Lunar elder writeups anymore. We can spend the creative effort we save on new stuff that's a lot more relevant to the play experience than a bunch of elders who are supposed to be background most of the time.
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Feb 17, 2014 00:49
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I can sympathize with them not wanting to do dump all the past material. It's not even about the structure of a creative process so much as it is about their motivations for undertaking the process in the first place. At heart Exalted 3e is to some extent a reactionary exercise. It's made by people who liked 1e but not 2e, and want to recapture what they feel is the more compelling take on Exalted, the one they fell in love with. It's very much a labor of love by Exalted fans. And if I've learned anything about Exalted fans over the course of following 3e development, it's that they tend to have really strong, really specific ideas of what parts of the game do and do not belong. So ultimately it's on them to sell their vision to us, and they don't actually have any reason to do so until they've got a book that they can point to, that they can say stands on its own merits as a demonstration of that vision. Until then we're left with nothing to draw on but the source material they're drawing on (which is, first and foremost, prior editions of Exalted) and our opinions on that material and on the people whose vision we're buying. They made an executive decision not to give us any new information that might change those opinions, so unless they change that decision we're left in a holding pattern - us going in circles over arguments that've been had hundreds of times before, them trying to slow the entropy of good will that comes with these huge delays. Nothing about this is going to change until the book comes out or until we (the fans and customers) or they (the developers) systematically alter their approach to these delays. The thing is, nobody has any reason to do that. They've got all the kickstarter money, and a book in progress that they're convinced will be worth the wait. Meanwhile we've got no reason to extend them any more trust or faith than we already have. It's all super mechanistic and I'll be glad when it's over and we can [enjoy or revile] the [Dragon Age: Origins or Duke Nukem Forever] we've been [hoping for or dreading].
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Feb 17, 2014 01:04
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Ferrinus posted:I mean, would you say the Lunars shouldn't have a Baba Yaga figure at all? Sure? I mean hell, I'm not really sure how "Lunars = Baba Yaga, naturally" in the first place. Or Genghis Khan for that matter. It seems to be you could just as easily do those with a Sidereal and a Solar respectively. Or some sort of freaky spirit and a Solar. If you even had to do those things at all. I guess I don't get how if you decide to toss all the cruddy old NPCs out of Exalted that it means you have to replace them with patently obvious carbon copies with the serial numbers filed off. They could, y'know, come up with some new ideas. It's not like taking the crazy, baby-eating jungle witch out of the setting and replacing her with a different NPC, different archetype included, would leave some gaping hole in the foundation of the game.
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Feb 17, 2014 01:10
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What is Kejak's role in the setting that has to be filled? Because I always thought he was kind of lame, even in first edition.
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Feb 17, 2014 01:10
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Attorney at Funk posted:I can sympathize with them not wanting to do dump all the past material. It's not even about the structure of a creative process so much as it is about their motivations for undertaking the process in the first place. There is that, too, yeah. You can be all "Ew, fanfiction," and there's some merit in that worry, but if Holden weren't a big enough fan of Exalted to run it out of his kitchen at no pay for a year and a half, you might be getting a 3e but it wouldn't be this one by this team. As much as I know John isn't held in high esteem around these here parts, he's actually the least conservative, least fannish member of the team, and the most likely to throw things out in favor of new ideas that he thinks will be better.
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Feb 17, 2014 01:12
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Kejak's role was sort of described earlier in the discussion, he's the signature representative of "the old guard" and also "the guy who made the hard decision which hosed everything up and now the world is the broken mess you need to fix, but who insists that it had to be done." His purpose, like the purpose of most Exalted NPCs apparently, is to stick around in the background and be a useless lump until the players decide they want to kick his rear end (unless the GM takes a shine to him or the rules get in the way).
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Feb 17, 2014 01:15
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Stephenls posted:As much as I know John isn't held in high esteem around these here parts, he's actually the least conservative, least fannish member of the team, and the most likely to throw things out in favor of new ideas that he thinks will be better. It was actually your, Holden, and Hatewheel's ability to articulate problems with the line, and your bold insistence that you could do better, that got me genuinely interested in Exalted (as opposed to, well my friends are super into it so I'll give it a shot when it comes out). I can't speak for other people, but the extent to which you've disappointed me, personally, is the extent to which you've backed down on (no 'system as statement' compared to 'don't we want an ability called 'martial arts' on the character sheet?') or gone mealy-mouthed over (defending the BP-XP disparity because 'paper balance is impossible', calling an Abyssal charmset without the previewed Lover Clad powers 'antiseptic and dull', the famous 'these apparitions are not for rape' excuse) legacy mechanics and narrative conventions that are, from an outside perspective, intensely goofy at best and downright revolting at worst.
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Feb 17, 2014 01:22
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Kai Tave posted:Sure? I mean hell, I'm not really sure how "Lunars = Baba Yaga, naturally" in the first place. Or Genghis Khan for that matter. It seems to be you could just as easily do those with a Sidereal and a Solar respectively. Or some sort of freaky spirit and a Solar. If you even had to do those things at all. I guess I don't get how if you decide to toss all the cruddy old NPCs out of Exalted that it means you have to replace them with patently obvious carbon copies with the serial numbers filed off. They could, y'know, come up with some new ideas. It's not like taking the crazy, baby-eating jungle witch out of the setting and replacing her with a different NPC, different archetype included, would leave some gaping hole in the foundation of the game. It would, though. The ancient forest witch is a cool character that deserves to be in Exalted. Her plus some new NPC is better to have around than the new NPC alone because Exalted in general and the Lunars in specific are better fleshed out by having that mythic archetype around. You can't really do those as easily with a Sidereal and a Solar. Like in 1e and 2e you were probably better served doing so because Lunars were entirely redundant to the game as a whole, but a game with well-integrated Lunars should make Baba Yaga a Lunar or maybe an Abyssal, not a Solar or Sidereal. EDIT: Well, not an Abyssal, she needs to be old and respected. If she's not a Lunar, she's a Deathlord. Attorney at Funk posted:I can't speak for other people, but the extent to which you've disappointed me, personally, is the extent to which you've backed down on (no 'system as statement' compared to 'don't we want an ability called 'martial arts' on the character sheet?') or gone mealy-mouthed over (defending the BP-XP disparity because 'paper balance is impossible', calling an Abyssal charmset without the previewed Lover Clad powers 'antiseptic and dull', the famous 'these apparitions are not for rape' excuse) legacy mechanics and narrative conventions that are, from an outside perspective, intensely goofy at best and downright revolting at worst. It appears that you can speak for at least one other person !!
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Feb 17, 2014 01:24
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If you're going to insist that Exalted would be a lesser game without a Baba Yaga analogue in there (a premise I'm not entirely sure I agree with) then sure, make her a Deathlord. Because Deathlords have also largely been boring, background-dwelling lumps (there is a pattern here) and maybe something like that would make them at least somewhat more interesting. I'm sure there are at least three other interesting and cool mythio-historical archetypes/analogues you can find out there to apply to a trio of Elder Lunars.
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Feb 17, 2014 01:36
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Anyone else want to try tackling the problem that would result from every published NPC being a great person who you want to put in the foreground and spend time with? I have to go shopping.
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Feb 17, 2014 01:40
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Kai Tave posted:His purpose, like the purpose of most Exalted NPCs apparently, is to stick around in the background and be a useless lump until the players decide they want to kick his rear end (unless the GM takes a shine to him or the rules get in the way). Kai Tave posted:Really, no NPC should be sacred because an RPG is, or should be, about the PCs first and foremost and NPCs can go pound sand. Even NPCs like Chejop Kejak or the Roseblack or whoever. These seem like conflicting sentiments to me. Is it bad that Exalted NPCs are lumps that only exist to be pounded on by PCs, or is it bad that prominent, well-defined NPCs exist because they draw focus away from the PCs?
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Feb 17, 2014 01:44
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Baba Yaga the Deathlord works differently than does Baba Yaga the Lunar. Deathlords haven't had an ongoing war against the Realm and the Sidereals, Deathlords only have a dozen or so peers and also inscrutable masters, Deathlords are secretly slaves and have little choice but to work through proxies, etc. Abyssal characters have different relationships to Deathlords than Lunar characters have to elder Lunars. Also, at the end of the day, the Baba Yaga wasn't a ghost. She was alive and hungry.
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Feb 17, 2014 01:45
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NPCs ought to exist in the background and be "subordinate" to PCs in the sense that the PCs are the ones who matter, the NPCs aren't. The problem with Exalted has been that the writers can't leave the loving NPCs alone...well okay, the other problem is sometimes the NPCs are boring and uninteresting even by the standards of "dudes who reside in the background, waiting for the PCs to enter, stage left." But definitely one of the issues with Exalted as of late, and it's more than just NPCs this problem has occurred with, is that the NPCs have gotten way more detail than they need, much of it bad, which is time and attention that could have been spent towards other, more interesting ends like virtually anything else. It's not a hard and fast rule that you can't have detailed NPCs that are interesting and cool, I'm simply suggesting that Exalted's collection of NPCs, by and large, aren't very. And while NPCs belong in the background, there's a difference between "these NPCs exist in the background to serve the enjoyment of the PCs" and "we've replaced the Elder Lunars with a collection of amusingly-shaped rocks, let's see if the PCs can tell the difference."
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Feb 17, 2014 01:52
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Kai Tave posted:NPCs ought to exist in the background and be "subordinate" to PCs in the sense that the PCs are the ones who matter, the NPCs aren't. The problem with Exalted has been that the writers can't leave the loving NPCs alone...well okay, the other problem is sometimes the NPCs are boring and uninteresting even by the standards of "dudes who reside in the background, waiting for the PCs to enter, stage left." But definitely one of the issues with Exalted as of late, and it's more than just NPCs this problem has occurred with, is that the NPCs have gotten way more detail than they need, much of it bad, which is time and attention that could have been spent towards other, more interesting ends like virtually anything else. This looks like an argument against swapping out the existing Lunar NPCs with an all new, all different cast to me.
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Feb 17, 2014 01:54
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Kai Tave posted:NPCs ought to exist in the background and be "subordinate" to PCs in the sense that the PCs are the ones who matter, the NPCs aren't. The problem with Exalted has been that the writers can't leave the loving NPCs alone...well okay, the other problem is sometimes the NPCs are boring and uninteresting even by the standards of "dudes who reside in the background, waiting for the PCs to enter, stage left." But definitely one of the issues with Exalted as of late, and it's more than just NPCs this problem has occurred with, is that the NPCs have gotten way more detail than they need, much of it bad, which is time and attention that could have been spent towards other, more interesting ends like virtually anything else. Ah, okay, I understand the source of my confusion. It seems like you're simultaneously advancing a design claim about the structural role setting NPCs have in building a line, and an aesthetic claim about how the existing setting NPCs are kind of crappy. You then made arguments in service of both of these claims independently, which at first blush are sort of contradictory (since the solution to the former is to make sure they're not driving story-agents, and the solution to the latter is to make them dynamic and engaging, which necessarily means they to some extent demand engagement). So it seems like what you want is setting NPCs that occupy the largely passive role you're imputing to the current setting NPCs, just, different ones. Because the ones we've got now suck. Am I still misunderstanding you?
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Feb 17, 2014 01:58
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Kai Tave posted:Kejak's role was sort of described earlier in the discussion, he's the signature representative of "the old guard" and also "the guy who made the hard decision which hosed everything up and now the world is the broken mess you need to fix, but who insists that it had to be done." His purpose, like the purpose of most Exalted NPCs apparently, is to stick around in the background and be a useless lump until the players decide they want to kick his rear end (unless the GM takes a shine to him or the rules get in the way). That's pretty much why I dislike him. The representatives of the old guard are an entire faction that he is simply the head of. I'd find it more compelling if everyone who was around for the prophecy was dead and the younger Sidereals (of either faction) are simply toeing the line because it's what they were taught. I also think corrupt bureaucracies shouldn't have a figurehead that you can punch in the face to make you feel like you're solving problems. Honestly though when I ran Exalted I just sort of ignored published NPCs and made up whatever fit the particular game best. Occasionally I used one with some rewriting.
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Feb 17, 2014 02:00
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Ferrinus posted:I think Stephenls is right here. Like, arguably, the specific names "Raksi", "Chejop", etc are so loaded down with audience baggage that it's impossible or at least highly unlikely that their reinclusion will help rather than harm the game, regardless of their actual portrayal, but you'd pretty much have to replace then with renamed, palette-swapped versions of themselves since they fill such important, archetypical roles. If Raksi vanishes but Iskar the crazy jungle witch-queen who rules over a horde of lemur-men shows up, it's like, okay? Everyone will just think of her as not-Raksi anyway. Like, everything else aside, doing a literal find and replace with Ma-Ha-Suchi to a different name entirely and keeping the good stuff and removing the bad is empirically a better idea than doing that and keeping the name. I know, it sounds dumb and hollow, but even poo poo as basic as a name holds tons of baggage and if I got to introduce Ma-Ha-Suchi 2.0 without having to justify his existence that would be rad. At least, that is my perspective as a ST.
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Feb 17, 2014 02:02
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Attorney at Funk posted:It was actually your, Holden, and Hatewheel's ability to articulate problems with the line, and your bold insistence that you could do better, that got me genuinely interested in Exalted (as opposed to, well my friends are super into it so I'll give it a shot when it comes out). I agree with all this. If StephenLS or any of the devs could give definitive responses to all the issues raised here all my concerns about how 3E's being handled would disappear! Stephenls posted:Anyone else want to try tackling the problem that would result from every published NPC being a great person who you want to put in the foreground and spend time with? I have to go shopping. What problem? That sounds great! I mean you don't have to put them in the foreground but why bother having NPCs if people can't use them in their games? The NPC writeups in Terrifying Argent Witches are really great in that regard.
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Feb 17, 2014 02:03
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Stephenls posted:I think we must be working from a different set of assumptions; at no point does it occur to me not to attempt to inject depth and nuance into a pantheon of ancient god-monster boogeymen. I keep getting tripped up by things like "I have to explicitly state that we don't intend to make these guys 2-dimensional villains only good for hunting down and killing." Stephenls posted:Not to be your friends and support network, for starters. Certainly not to be role-models for ethical conduct. See, I'm having trouble reconciling these two statements because it sure does sound like Creation would be categorically better off without them, and I was given to understand that even the most optimistic and idealistic campaigns would, by necessity, involve putting some of the old guard up against a wall because they're a bunch of awful old reactionary fuckers who do far more harm than good. Baba Yaga gets points for being stylish as all gently caress, but if I recall correctly, the main reason nobody killed her was because they couldn't - depending on which version of the folklore you go by, she was the daughter of Mother Russia itself, and flatly could not die so long as Russia stood. This is rather less of a consideration in Exalted, where one of the fundamental premises is that there is nothing you cannot kill if you really put your mind to it. Also, from the bolded portion, I take it that there'll be a lot more distinction between the Silver Pact (assuming it still exists, as such) and the crazy elders' pet agendas? Because "friends and support network" seemed like the whole drat point of the Pact, at least insofar as PCs would care about it. Stephenls posted:Anyone else want to try tackling the problem that would result from every published NPC being a great person who you want to put in the foreground and spend time with? I have to go shopping. I'm not asking for paragons of secular humanism here, just people where you'd feel at least a little conflicted about plotting their eventual murder. I mean when we hear that Lookshy and Skullstone are the lynchpins of resistance against Realm subjugation in the Hundred Kingdoms and the West, respectively, it makes me wonder what the hell the Lunars have even been doing this whole time.
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Feb 17, 2014 02:04
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axelsoar posted:Like, everything else aside, doing a literal find and replace with Ma-Ha-Suchi to a different name entirely and keeping the good stuff and removing the bad is empirically a better idea than doing that and keeping the name. I don't agree at all. I'd immediately just think of the angry beastman warlord as Not-Ma-Ha-Suchi. More broadly, just because the Abyssal Exalted have been done poorly in the past, I wouldn't want them scrapped in favor of the Void Exalted, or something. I just want them done well.
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Feb 17, 2014 02:05
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Bigup DJ posted:I agree with all this. If StephenLS or any of the devs could give definitive responses to all the issues raised here all my concerns about how 3E's being handled would disappear! They're not going to do that, Bigup DJ. That's why it's disappointing.
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Feb 17, 2014 02:06
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cenotaph posted:That's pretty much why I dislike him. The representatives of the old guard are an entire faction that he is simply the head of. I'd find it more compelling if everyone who was around for the prophecy was dead and the younger Sidereals (of either faction) are simply toeing the line because it's what they were taught. I also think corrupt bureaucracies shouldn't have a figurehead that you can punch in the face to make you feel like you're solving problems. I dunno, I feel like Kejak's there less to be punched in the face and more to give self-righteous Solars a bitter monologue about how the Usurpation was necessary and damming he did what he had to do and you can kill him if it makes you feel better but he'd do the same thing again if he had to. He's there to serve as a mouthpiece for the idea that maybe the Solars really did have it coming. A bunch of younger Sidereals relating that secondhand lacks the same punch.
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Feb 17, 2014 02:09
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Ferrinus posted:I don't agree at all. I'd immediately just think of the angry beastman warlord as Not-Ma-Ha-Suchi. Right, and this comes back to the thing about Exalted fans. You, Ferrinus, Exalted Fan, have a different suite of things you think are cool (Abyssals, Lunar NPCs) and worth salvaging, and things you think are lame and could stand to be de-emphasized (warstriders come to mind) than other Exalted fans, such as axelsoar or Kai Tave or the developers. This is a function of how incredibly big and kitchen-sinky Exalted is as a setting. To quote one friend of mine, "Exalted contains all animes and vidcons within itself." In the end none of this is really, like, a useful argument. It's just a bunch of people with a decade of preconceptions rubbing their feels against each other, and occasionally either cooing like a baby or making colicky cry sounds. (Also like a baby.)
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Feb 17, 2014 02:10
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cenotaph posted:That's pretty much why I dislike him. The representatives of the old guard are an entire faction that he is simply the head of. I'd find it more compelling if everyone who was around for the prophecy was dead and the younger Sidereals (of either faction) are simply toeing the line because it's what they were taught. I also think corrupt bureaucracies shouldn't have a figurehead that you can punch in the face to make you feel like you're solving problems. EDIT: Not even violently, he's at the Gonna Die Any Month Now stage of Sidereal lifespan as I recall.
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Feb 17, 2014 02:12
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Attorney at Funk posted:They're not going to do that, Bigup DJ. That's why it's disappointing. We'll answer those concerns eventually in a definitive way; it may, or may not, be a definitive answer you like or can accept. But further information is not available here.
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Feb 17, 2014 02:14
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Attorney at Funk posted:They're not going to do that, Bigup DJ. That's why it's disappointing. A man can dream.  It's just so awful watching people put out all these really clear critiques of what's wrong with development and then having StephenLS ignore them completely and respond to stuff which just isn't that important in the scheme of things - minor quibbles over the setting and so on. I mean it's just a game and in the end I don't really mind how it turns out, but like I said, it's awful watching someone ignore all these glaring problems.
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Feb 17, 2014 02:15
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Stephenls posted:We'll answer those concerns eventually in a definitive way; it may, or may not, be a definitive answer you like or can accept. But further information is not available here. Unsurprisingly, I am disappointed to hear that.
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Feb 17, 2014 02:18
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