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Ferrinus posted:And RPG elements! I'd rather not, frankly.
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May 10, 2014 16:15
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Ferrinus posted:And RPG elements! Wait, gently caress! My experience with Craft Guy tended more towards "he builds Skull Fortress and releases his eight evil Robot Masters (and eight thousand supporting robot troopers)" - occasionally the skull part was literal of course - rather than "awesome custom swords for everyone" or "Craft Guy accomplishes nothing, for his powers require a while to complete." I can certainly see how the latter would occur and be frustrating so hopefully the needle will be threaded better. As for the diplomacy guy, the blood ape example was glib: however, if the craft guy can "fix" Creation by building manses and poo poo, surely the diplomat should be able to do the same by waging peace. I suppose the systemic issue was that with crafting matters (and to a lesser extent, military ones) you had fairly easy and quantifiable goals, and they were relatively hard to take away - your swag, and to a lesser extent, your army, are at least concretely defined. Whereas if you're going to do spy/stealth stuff, diplomacy stuff, or religion stuff, you seemed to be a lot closer to freeform.
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May 10, 2014 17:52
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Besides the obnoxious time constraints, the near-total detachment from the rest of gameplay, and the fact that crafted goodies cost the same XP whether you made them yourself or just bought the appropriate background, my main complaint with the Craft ability is that it shrank all the majesty and grandeur and wonder and triumph and tragedy of the First Age to "Shiny MIT nerds make a bunch of MacGuffin widgets to solve every problem ever." Sorcery, Wyld-Shaping Technique, and Eclipse Oaths are also big offenders here, especially when so many, many problems following the Usurpation were concretely tied to not having a Solar on hand to pull a miracle out of their rear end and just make it go away. It got to the point where the writing often made it feel like the return of the Twilight and Eclipse castes was the Big loving Deal, which kinda did the other three a disservice.
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May 10, 2014 18:15
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Thesaurasaurus posted:Besides the obnoxious time constraints, the near-total detachment from the rest of gameplay, and the fact that crafted goodies cost the same XP whether you made them yourself or just bought the appropriate background, my main complaint with the Craft ability is that it shrank all the majesty and grandeur and wonder and triumph and tragedy of the First Age to "Shiny MIT nerds make a bunch of MacGuffin widgets to solve every problem ever." Sorcery, Wyld-Shaping Technique, and Eclipse Oaths are also big offenders here, especially when so many, many problems following the Usurpation were concretely tied to not having a Solar on hand to pull a miracle out of their rear end and just make it go away. It got to the point where the writing often made it feel like the return of the Twilight and Eclipse castes was the Big loving Deal, which kinda did the other three a disservice. And yes, obviously, there was no reason why a Dawn couldn't learn sorcery or engineering (though nobody else could duplicate the Eclipse oath, it would seem); but the converse didn't seem to be true. So it was like in practice you had two niche castes, two "general utility" castes, and then where the real big money action was.
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May 10, 2014 18:30
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My experience with Craft was that either it was worthless (no down time, no facilities, etc) or basically took over the show (Lets go hunt for parts to make a sword! Now lets go hunt for parts to make armor!) and overall both ways were boring. Except one time where we played a bunch of Dragonblooded who literally just went around playing Monster Hunter, beating up big monsters and then crafting their bones into weapons and hides into armor, so they could go hunt bigger monsters - but that was because it was the basis of the campaign and everyone agreed, not because a Twilight player got pissy about wanting to be able to use his abilities. Wyld-Shaping was so stupid that I never was in a game that didn't ban it, and I don't think I ever even played with an Eclipse - everyone in the small group I found after my bad experience thought that they had really terrible caste skills, and no one wanted to use them.
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May 10, 2014 19:14
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KittyEmpress posted:My experience with Craft was that either it was worthless (no down time, no facilities, etc) or basically took over the show (Lets go hunt for parts to make a sword! Now lets go hunt for parts to make armor!) and overall both ways were boring. And yeah, it seems like the clutch play for Eclipses is to use their caste power - a lot.
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May 10, 2014 20:00
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thatbastardken posted:Yeah that's what I did, gently caress putting some dumb fictional name in. Invincible Sword Princess didn't put my money in the kickstarter. I figure I may as well hedge my bets and use a dumb fictional name, just in case things go south. In fact, I'm not sure I pledged for it at all! What was I talking about?
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May 11, 2014 02:58
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Oh boy will it be fun to see Artie Finklestein listed among the ranks of the Exalted! Went with an Abyssal name because gently caress using my own.
Big Hubris fucked around with this message at 05:16 on May 11, 2014 |
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May 11, 2014 04:37
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Taking a U-Turn back to the other conversation, should I be concerned if I haven't seen a kickstarter survey in my email by now for Exalted?
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May 11, 2014 05:20
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Yes, it means they have taken your money and run with it.
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May 11, 2014 05:24
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Bardlebee posted:Taking a U-Turn back to the other conversation, should I be concerned if I haven't seen a kickstarter survey in my email by now for Exalted? I haven't gotten mine either, and I don't think any of my group has, so no, you're fine.
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May 11, 2014 05:26
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Yah still waiting for mine. I'd be worried if nothing shows up next week.
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May 11, 2014 07:01
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Stephenls posted:This is completely unrelated to Holden and John being super-excited about a fun Craft system. That mostly comes from... well, as I said on Facebook myself, I remember the Skype conversation we all had where we tried to work out how to handle Crafts. And one of us said "Well, okay, what games have fun crafting systems?" And then the rest of us when "Um, there's... no, wait, how about... gently caress. There are no fun crafting systems, are there?" The 4th edition D&D Artificer, for sure. Dude just pulls cool stuff he made earlier out of his gear and chucks it around. Make a roll, throw a spikey wire trap, or a little robot that carries your crossbow around, or whatever. Less about slaving over a hot forge (though he can do that too), and more about using the results of crafting (and occasionally the act of crafting) during regular gameplay and combat.
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May 11, 2014 08:25
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I got my survey and it turns out I miscounted 5 dollars so I don't get the custom charm pdf. But I do have two books. I also used my real name because gently caress it, I put the money into this, I might as well put my name into it. For me, it's also kind of a thing like, I am happy with what I've seen for 3E from the playtest, so I'll put my name on it. really wish I could do something to fix that 5 dollar mistake though.
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May 11, 2014 18:02
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I'm sure there is a reason, but I don't know why they don't already know what we selected. It's kind of weird. I also got my survey. Filled that out real quick. Now we wait for another 3-4 months at best for the PDF but now at least there is some tangible movement besides playtesters saying its pretty great. I also can't wait to read it because I don't want to make a campaign based on 2nd edition canon when I will be running 3rd. I understand maybe 3rd won't change too much, but I'd rather not take the risk.
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May 12, 2014 03:46
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Bardlebee posted:I'm sure there is a reason, but I don't know why they don't already know what we selected. It's kind of weird. The answer to this is basically "Kickstarter is dumb and awful in a bunch of ways".
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May 12, 2014 05:35
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Stallion Cabana posted:really wish I could do something to fix that 5 dollar mistake though. Yeah, I totally missed that was a thing? Hopefully it'll be available later. You'd think a project this big would be using BackerKit or the like, but I'll just throw that on the stack of things that I've found disappointing regarding how this kickstarter's been managed.
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May 12, 2014 05:45
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Yeah, I totally missed that was a thing? Hopefully it'll be available later. I sent a message to him and he said he can't do anything about it now but did say that you can buy the Custom Charm Compilation on Drive-thru later. So if you did like me and hosed up the money, remember that that and the older books should both be on Drive-thru, while the screen, bookmarks, and the like probably won't be.
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May 12, 2014 05:48
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Playtest report: http://ericminton.wordpress.com/2014/05/12/exalted-3e-playtest-mortal-combat/ Here's the worst-looking part: "The combat began with Karis splitting her actions and..." I thought we weren't making multiple rolls per turn, Obama! In general, it looks really good, and it actually does spill some system information - we now know pretty much for sure that combat momentum is something you build up for yourself, rather than something you build up against an enemy. I gotta tell you, though: it looks goddamn stupid how even the names of mechanics are all replaced with [REDACTED]. Who the gently caress do these people think they are. Jesus Christ.
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May 13, 2014 04:59
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Ferrinus posted:Playtest report: http://ericminton.wordpress.com/2014/05/12/exalted-3e-playtest-mortal-combat/ quote:This was easily made into a [REDACTED] as we went and it worked like a charm using a variation of the new grapple rules. Cue twenty page thread arguing over whether this means "worked like a charm" or "worked like a Charm"
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May 13, 2014 05:03
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There seems to be a guy in that playtest flowing between Melee with a greatsword and Brawl, which is what I intend to do on my Solar, so hell yeah.
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May 13, 2014 05:05
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Ferrinus posted:It looks goddamn stupid how even the names of mechanics are all replaced with [REDACTED]. Who the gently caress do these people think they are. Jesus Christ. Especially since the game was supposed to be delivered 8 months ago to 90% of the people reading that. I would make an analogy to video game Kickstarters, but people would just nitpick it, so I will just say that my primary impression was eye-rolling at poo poo still being under wraps, even in such a small preview.
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May 13, 2014 05:09
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No no, you guys don't understand. That writeup isn't trying to keep anything under wraps, that's actually what Exalted 3E looks like. Instead of risking a new edition alienating loyal fans with unwelcome rules changes half of the book's text consists of [REDACTED], letting you fill in the blanks with whatever you deem best for your game for a true theater of the mind storytelling experience. For example, Ferrinus will be pleased to know that Martial Arts is described as a [REDACTED] which [REDACTED] [REDACTED] instead of [REDACTED]. The Exalted 3E Infernals supplement will simply consist of [REDACTED] copy-pasted over and over again for 250 pages.
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May 13, 2014 05:18
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Kai Tave posted:No no, you guys don't understand. That writeup isn't trying to keep anything under wraps, that's actually what Exalted 3E looks like. Instead of risking a new edition alienating loyal fans with unwelcome rules changes half of the book's text consists of [REDACTED], letting you fill in the blanks with whatever you deem best for your game for a true theater of the mind storytelling experience. For example, Ferrinus will be pleased to know that Martial Arts is described as a [REDACTED] which [REDACTED] [REDACTED] instead of [REDACTED]. But we'll carefully arrange the Infernal [Redacted]s into a header, paragraph, and sentence structure that makes it look like a real work.
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May 13, 2014 05:30
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Stephenls posted:But we'll carefully arrange the Infernal [Redacted]s into a header, paragraph, and sentence structure that makes it look like a real work. That was quick.
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May 13, 2014 05:32
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Ferrinus posted:Playtest report: http://ericminton.wordpress.com/2014/05/12/exalted-3e-playtest-mortal-combat/ I'm just going to say this right out, by the way, and maybe Holden will shoot me in the head for it later: You can split your action, but there is a sharp limit on how many actions you can take, and you can't do two of the same type of action. That means no attacking twice. People worried this signifies we've been lying the whole time about The Death Of Flurry Awfulness can go back to worrying about something else. (Combat seems to benefit from being able to divert your attention between two separate things, at a cost of effectiveness; this becomes a degenerate behavior when you can do this to become more effective at combat rather than e.g. "I want to try to Defend Other the dude I'm supposed to be bodyguarding and also pick up the precious magic thingy that just got dropped.") Stephenls fucked around with this message at 05:38 on May 13, 2014 |
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May 13, 2014 05:35
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Stephenls posted:I'm just going to say this right out, by the way, and maybe Holden will shoot me in the head for it later: You can split your action, but there is a sharp limit on how many actions you can take, and you can't do two of the same type of action. That means no attacking twice. People worried this signifies we've been lying the whole time about The Death Of Flurry Awfulness can go back to worrying about something else. Yeah, this is what I actually expected. I assume that if you guys tried really hard you could've still kept it down to one roll ("roll the lowest dicepool, then assign successes -1 to your first action, successes -2 to your second...") but in truth it's not big deal as long as you follow the basic philosophy that, if you want to kill someone as fast as you can, you just roll a single attack at them each turn, no frills.
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May 13, 2014 06:03
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Ferrinus posted:Yeah, this is what I actually expected. I assume that if you guys tried really hard you could've still kept it down to one roll ("roll the lowest dicepool, then assign successes -1 to your first action, successes -2 to your second...") but in truth it's not big deal as long as you follow the basic philosophy that, if you want to kill someone as fast as you can, you just roll a single attack at them each turn, no frills. Oh good, this was my houserule for Ex2 flurries - you can split your action to do two things that you could logically do at the same time. You can attack with two weapons at once, or juggle and attack, or climb and attack, but it's impossible to actually attack someone twice at the same time with the same weapon. (If your weapon is bent enough that you can do that, it's one attack, suck it)
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May 13, 2014 06:13
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3e doesn't even allow two attacks with separate weapons, though.
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May 13, 2014 06:20
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Stephenls posted:3e doesn't even allow two attacks with separate weapons, though. I'm curious as to what dual wielding looks like. The most bare bones possible version is probably a "dual wielding" tag that has some game functionality in the same way the "shield" tag does, and then the ability to choose either weapon to actually attack with. The question is, are there incentives to make your weapons match, incentives to make your weapons differ, incentives to keep a hand free... (I assume "having some Brawl" is pretty good incentive for the lattermost, there)
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May 13, 2014 06:25
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I'm super glad that now I can kick a dude down and then stab him with my sword and not be completely screwed by the dice mechanics and flurry penalties. I want my present!
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May 13, 2014 08:37
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Ferrinus posted:I'm curious as to what dual wielding looks like. There's a new skill spun off from Martial Arts for it. :iamafag: . . . Also: Let's say I wanted to get into Exalted
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May 13, 2014 08:48
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Ettin posted:There's a new skill spun off from Martial Arts for it. :iamafag: The four books they offered during the kickstarter are a good start. I have physical copies of all of them, but even I sprung for the $20 to get all four in a nice pdf format that isn't some pirated piece of crap. The four in question are Scavenger Sons, Games of Divinity, Savage Seas (actually you probably want to skip this one because it's 120 pages about boats), and Creatures of the Wyld. Personally, I'd add Blood and Salt as well as Manacle and Coin to the list, bear in mind M&C is about finance and money so not a huge draw for most people. The second edition book Compass of Celestial Direction 2: The Wyld is also pretty good, so is Book of Sorcery #4: Roll of Glorious Divinities. In terms of avoid....wow I could go on for a while. Pretty much half of second edition could fit in that category because so much of it is awful for so many reasons.
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May 13, 2014 09:02
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Ettin posted:There's a new skill spun off from Martial Arts for it. :iamafag: Legitimately you should look into Shards of the Exalted Dream which is basically a collection of alternate universe mini-settings spun off of Exalted the same way that other WoD Shards books were. There's a space-fantasy/sci-fi one with a heavy Battlestar Galactica flavor, there's a modern day Street Fighter-esque one, etc. It's a great book because it plays up the cool parts of Exalted while excising most of the awful stuff by basically ignoring 95% of everything that makes up Exalted proper. It doesn't really make the mechanics any better, but in terms of "I'd like to run something Exalted-esque in a better system" Shards is basically a huge book of rad game ideas without surprise child porn or furry rape camp sidebars. I disagree with Ithle01, you should actually avoid more like 5/6ths of 2nd Edition, maybe more. Like, if Exalted in the platonic sense is a game full of tantalizing concepts held back by uneven execution and some questionable content choices then 2E is the edition where all those tantalizing concepts got buried under a seven-layer dip made up of the sort of unnecessary "worldbuilding" detail that you might expect to find in a TVTropes collaborative project with virtually no editorial oversight from the line manager, and meanwhile all that questionable content gets traded in for content that somehow manages to be even more questionable. Fluffwise the 1E Dragonbloods book used to be held up as a really good supplement for laying out the deal with the Dragonblooded Dynasts and life on the Blessed Isle, while the 1E Sidereals book was supposed to be great if you're the sort of person who just loving loves Jenna Moran and doesn't give a poo poo about how balanced or comprehensible or user-friendly your gaming supplements are as long as they're whimsical and clever. Lunars have never really had a good book, 2E Lunars was better than 1E but getting kicked in the balls is better than the 1E Lunars.
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May 13, 2014 09:18
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Ferrinus posted:I gotta tell you, though: it looks goddamn stupid how even the names of mechanics are all replaced with [REDACTED]. Who the gently caress do these people think they are. Jesus Christ. It would make sense if the charm names are killing words, slaying or maddening all who read them. Otherwise it's pretty silly. Ettin posted:Also: Let's say I wanted to get into Exalted Do you want to just read the best / worst of the line, or are you looking to get a overall understanding of the game line as a whole?
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May 13, 2014 14:11
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Ettin posted:There's a new skill spun off from Martial Arts for it. :iamafag: As far as specific books go, here is some advice: Step 1: Acquire Infernals. Step 2: Open book to the first page of Chapter Three. Step 3: Apply power saw. Step 4: Burn Chapters 1 & 2 without reading, no regrets.
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May 13, 2014 14:20
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Punting posted:As far as specific books go, here is some advice: You can probably skip chapters 3 and 4 as well, although reading them won't actually sear your eyes or get you arrested. Honestly you should probably just read the Charms and skip straight to the Broken-Winged Crane. Or just not read them at all, since 3e is going to use a whole new paradigm anyway.
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May 13, 2014 14:35
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Or even just not worry about Infernals, which in a game where you play as wish-fulfillment style power gods, somehow still come off as a bunch of huge mary sues.
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May 13, 2014 14:41
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Skipping the feeder baby rape, Infernals is my favorite Exalt type type to play. The demon material is generally really fantastic (in a way that "fantasy" rarely refers to these days, they have an evocative and well-designed (as far as 2e goes) charmset. They mainly suffer from their schizophrenic fatsplat where certain chapters are some of the best in the game line and others are the loving worst in the game line.theironjef posted:Or even just not worry about Infernals, which in a game where you play as wish-fulfillment style power gods, somehow still come off as a bunch of huge mary sues. Not seeing that as a drawback. 
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May 13, 2014 15:06
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theironjef posted:Or even just not worry about Infernals, which in a game where you play as wish-fulfillment style power gods, somehow still come off as a bunch of huge mary sues. This is unbelievably true. Ignore the Infernals hardcover, there's nothing worth reading in there, not even the Charms chapter that many people adore. It's easy to incorporate the awesome elements of Hell in games with summoners, Sidereals, or Eclipse Castes; Infernals seem to shift the focus upward to the Yozis themselves in a way I find utterly uninteresting. Good Exalted books to read to get an idea of what the game is about : Manacle & Coin, Games of Divinity, Scavenger Sons, 1st Ed Dragon-Blooded hardcover, most of the Aspect Books, Blood and Salt.
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May 13, 2014 15:35
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