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Patrat posted:Back on the subject of "dexterity is the God stat" it seems one way to deal with it would be to chop an attribute out of each category. With regards to Social/Mental attributes I have always found nWoD's attributes to make morse sense.
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Jun 17, 2014 20:17
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theironjef posted:I feel like there's two answers here. One is because they wanted to write some sex charms and forgot to try and be broad with them. The other is because if you remove the sex stuff from Bliss Trick it turns into a goofy social combat excellency-replacer. Basically spend 3 minutes talking with the king about bridge abutments, watch him shudder to an unexpected climax, and then launch into your magically assisted argument for land grants or whatever. I don't know about the latter, especially since I was explicitly avoiding overt sexual stuff. I was more thinking like, 'use this to enhance a date/meal/other fun thing to make it truly amazing to them, then bam, bonuses to convince them of stuff'. Why does it have to bring them to 'a climax' to get the effect? It's gross. It doesn't have to be sex, and bliss can mean a million and one things other than sex. Why does this bliss have to only extend into sex, when bliss and sex are completely unrelated (and bliss originally means 'joy from heaven' and referred to religious fervor type stuff, but now just means 'extreme happiness'. neither of which seem very related to 'good sex'!) Basically, there are a lot of things that could be done that could be used to make broader charms not focused only on sex. KittyEmpress fucked around with this message at 20:34 on Jun 17, 2014 |
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Jun 17, 2014 20:29
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When you play nWoD enough you get real tired of the resistance attributes, though. I think a deeper problem with Performance charms is that so many are specialty-locked. This one ONLY dances, this one ONLY sings, this one ONLY fucks. It's like having separate Melee charms for axes and maces. Celestial Bliss Trick should be: You give a private, intimate performance to another character. They become extremely pliable in the short term, and in the long term develop a Defining obsession with experiencing that performance again.
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Jun 17, 2014 20:37
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NIV3K posted:With regards to Social/Mental attributes I have always found nWoD's attributes to make morse sense. I think the problem with nWoD attributes in Exalted is that there's guys who have charmsets built off the attributes. I can't imagine, as a prospective Lunar player, being excited by Composure charms. (I'm not really interested in Appearance charms either, but I can at least picture someone who would be) I think the problem with nWoD attributes in general is that the resistance traits (Resolve, Stamina, Composure) are really good, to the point that the game encourages you to max them as much as you can within your character concept. Someone who doesn't plan on using a lot of powers with social attribute rolls is well served by going 1/1/4 Presence/Manipulation/Composure, because a couple dice shaved off of your intimidate rolls just aren't worth as much as extra Willpower, Initiative, Perception, etc. I'd prefer to see a system where attributes were shaved down or eliminated entirely, but that doesn't square with the Exalted Experience of having hundreds upon hundreds of charms to leaf through and get excited or eyeglazed over. So, whatever, basically.
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Jun 17, 2014 20:38
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I was thinking less about the requirement of an orgasm (though it's hilarious that it's not a spell component, but rather a spell result), but the part that is a spell component, that being that you have to spend 3 minutes minimum. This looks like proof that your exalt is good at sexifying, but really it's there keep the charm from being a social combat weapon for general use. Without it, this charm is an Orgasmo arm gun. Even with it, how hard is it to make a character that defines sex as arguing with royalty ("gently caress your narrow definition of sex, you prudes. It's more than penis in vagina"), then just use this dumb thing to get Essence autosuccesses every action during a general social combat? Is that something that would be overpowered without the whole sex-nonsense rider? I genuinely don't know.
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Jun 17, 2014 20:40
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theironjef posted:Even with it, how hard is it to make a character that defines sex as arguing with royalty ("gently caress your narrow definition of sex, you prudes. It's more than penis in vagina"), then just use this dumb thing to get Essence autosuccesses every action during a general social combat? Is that something that would be overpowered without the whole sex-nonsense rider? I genuinely don't know. That's literally exactly what Penultimate Unity of Form does. It still causes orgasms, I guess, but you could have it be from a really good performance of "Stairway to Heaven" instead of loving.
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Jun 17, 2014 20:52
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ErichZahn posted:Also, it's Monk Seducing Demon Dance now. Roadie posted:"The Solar moves sensually through the eight steps of silken ecstasy, provoking her spellbound audience. This is dance lasting three minutes, ending in an Appearance + Performance roll with (Essence) bonus dice against the group’s Resolve. If successful, it inspires intense lust for the Exalt. Success guarantees that characters who are sexually attracted to the Lawgiver will attempt to seduce her. Characters who are not sexually compatible with the Solar instead experience strong admiration for her, and will be inspired to speak with her at least once." Wait, this is real? This is an actual playtest charm? They actually made the Super Stripper Prana I invented to make fun of Sex Batman? What the gently caress? How do you do a worse job of grasping Exalted core thematics than second edition?
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Jun 17, 2014 22:15
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Very stubbornly.
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Jun 17, 2014 22:19
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Stubborn Bore Defense
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Jun 17, 2014 22:26
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Old Kentucky Shark posted:Wait, this is real? This is an actual playtest charm? They actually made the Super Stripper Prana I invented to make fun of Sex Batman? ... Oh god. I just had a terrible, terrible thought. This is what they're doing with Solar charms. About loving people. What are they going to do with Lunar charms 
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Jun 17, 2014 22:29
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"So why not take a bunch more generally useful social charms and change them to only work on or during sex" was actually the absurd hypothetical I conjured up for the purpose of demonstrating why the reasoning behind e.g. the Abyssals preview was dumb. I guess that's one way to retort! Seriously, though, splitting up Performance charms by the skill specialty that happens to apply to their associated roll, and then writing a capstone charm like "congratulations now you can use whatever kind of performance you wanted to in the first place" is lazy and stupid.
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Jun 17, 2014 22:33
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Does anyone know how many Solar charms there were in all of 1E and in all of 2E? I'd like to see the numbers compared to how many charms are slated to be in Ex3.
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Jun 17, 2014 22:44
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I think this kind of thinking is easy to fall into. You look at a Charm and think, "What I was really thinking when I wrote this Charm is that someone would use it for sex. Why not call a spade a spade and just say it's a sex Charm. Better to say what I mean than to hide it under the sofa" is sort of the reasoning, I should think, for that sort of thing. I think in general (not speaking specifically w/r/t the leak), the writers should move away from Charms that are only their to enable specific characters or archetypes. "We must have a seduction Charm because seduction characters are such a classic trope" is like the easiest thing in the world to stumble into. True, Seduction Guy ought to have some play space, but he doesn't really need his own specific Charms; instead, he should be trying to adapt existing Charms towards seduction. Using tools to enable your archetype is like a million times more fun than hitting the button marked "seduce."
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Jun 17, 2014 22:46
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Old Kentucky Shark posted:Wait, this is real? This is an actual playtest charm? I don't know if I'm alone in this, but I consider the "consolation prize" of guaranteeing someone will try to speak to you at least once is way more useful than the primary effect, since it's almost always appropriate, doesn't get you creeped on by people your Solar might prefer to keep a strictly professional relationship with, and brings them in range of your social guns without pre-setting the context. I think if you made a "nerfed" custom charm that didn't have the primary effect, it'd be better value for XP for many character concepts.
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Jun 17, 2014 22:52
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Roadie posted:"The Solar moves sensually through the eight steps of silken ecstasy, provoking her spellbound audience. This is dance lasting three minutes, ending in an Appearance + Performance roll with (Essence) bonus dice against the group’s Resolve. If successful, it inspires intense lust for the Exalt. Success guarantees that characters who are sexually attracted to the Lawgiver will attempt to seduce her. Characters who are not sexually compatible with the Solar instead experience strong admiration for her, and will be inspired to speak with her at least once." 'Its okay to have badly written magical powers that mentally coerce/force people into loving you, but not when its same sex! That would just be, like, weird and stuff.' Its disgusting on so many levels!
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Jun 17, 2014 23:06
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Strength of Many posted:'Its okay to have badly written magical powers that mentally coerce/force people into loving you, but not when its same sex! That would just be, like, weird and stuff.' That's definitely unfair; the Charm's written in the well-established context of sexuality in Creation being all over the shop. The actual problem is that bisexuality is so prevalent you might not ever get the secondary effect 
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Jun 17, 2014 23:09
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Mengtzu posted:I don't know if I'm alone in this, but I consider the "consolation prize" of guaranteeing someone will try to speak to you at least once is way more useful than the primary effect, since it's almost always appropriate, doesn't get you creeped on by people your Solar might prefer to keep a strictly professional relationship with, and brings them in range of your social guns without pre-setting the context. Nope, I had the same exact thought. The primary effect seems stupid as gently caress, worthless in 90% of play, and really only worth using if you combine it with some charm that gives you bonuses after sex. Meanwhile the secondary effect makes it useful in getting people to actually approach you in a way where you can hit them with social fu without getting into creepy basement dweller status.
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Jun 17, 2014 23:09
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Mendrian posted:I think this kind of thinking is easy to fall into. You look at a Charm and think, "What I was really thinking when I wrote this Charm is that someone would use it for sex. Why not call a spade a spade and just say it's a sex Charm. Better to say what I mean than to hide it under the sofa" is sort of the reasoning, I should think, for that sort of thing. This. My favorite story of play is my Craft Twilight that really really really wanted to focus on Water stuff, crafting potions, brewing, and leatherwork, in a system where Craft mostly just meant "roll for daiklave, then roll for airship" When I convinced my ST that the 2nd edition speed-up crafting combo meant I could distill and age 10-year old whiskey in 18 months it was the happiest day of my campaign.
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Jun 17, 2014 23:24
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I think the applicability of these Charms is at least partly a reaction to EX2. Writing social Charms for Solars, especially for Performance, was loving hard because Jenna covered so much goddamn ground with the few things in the core book. And then in the rare occasions new non-killbot Charms were published for Solars, many followed her lead and made them overbroad. I think there's a happy middle ground somewhere, maybe that will show up in the next leak. Of course a lot of these problems would be solved with a completely different set of traits. With the "pick 5 of 8 to be Caste Abilities" one of the major reasons to have the five-fold symmetry is out the window anyway.
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Jun 17, 2014 23:31
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It seems to me that you want to specialize performance charms by effect on the audience, not by means of performance and effect on the audience. Like, there should definitely be a charm that gives people the hots for you - I just don't understand why it has to be a dance instead of a poetry reading or guitar solo. If you divide charms up purely by effect, rather than by a combination of means and effect, then you avoid the uncomfortable situation where someone really wants their Essence in automatic successes to try to persuade an NPC of something, but doesn't want to sleep with the NPC.
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Jun 17, 2014 23:35
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Plague of Hats posted:Of course a lot of these problems would be solved with a completely different set of traits. With the "pick 5 of 8 to be Caste Abilities" one of the major reasons to have the five-fold symmetry is out the window anyway. Ride & Sail could be combined; so could Occult & Lore. Get rid of Socialize & Linguistics entirely (additional languages could just be a merit). You could probably combine Medicine & Survival, too. At least talk about combining Investigation & Awareness, and Thrown & Archery. Probably Athletics & Dodge, too. There's probably an argument for Resistance & Integrity getting combined, too, but that gets a little alltribute-y (though, I guess Lore/Occult and Athletics/Dodge probably has the same issue).
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Jun 17, 2014 23:54
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So I was looking at the map and wondering, "how the hell do people get to Western islands in Bronze Age ships?" So I did some crude copying and pasting and clone stamping.  It seems like something like this would give some actual sailing routes to the islands and from there to the Caul, and then you can chop off the left-hand part of the map past the Caul and most of the "giant empty ocean" aesthetic of the original map is gone. But then that's just me, I dunno. Thanatosian posted:I am... strongly inclined to agree with you on this. I would combine Ride and Sail with Survival and make it Wayfaring, including all general travel and foraging stuff under it and helping make it more distinct than sort of the sideways Resistance specialty Survival is used as half the time. Roadie fucked around with this message at 00:25 on Jun 18, 2014 |
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Jun 18, 2014 00:04
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Sometimes I feel like Exalted is the only line in White Wolf that never grew out of that early 90s White Wolf phase where they were just absolutely convinced that unlike those other Pen and Paper games for BABIES we here at White Wolf handle ADULT and MATURE subject material, because we're ADULTS.  NWoD for the most part, grew up and learned to actually handle some adult subject matter in a tasteful way. Exalted, well...
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Jun 18, 2014 00:06
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Roadie posted:I would combine Ride and Sail with Survival and make it Wayfaring, including all general travel and foraging stuff under it and helping make it more distinct than sort of the sideways Resistance specialty Survival is used as half the time.
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Jun 18, 2014 00:06
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Captain Oblivious posted:Sometimes I feel like Exalted is the only line in White Wolf that never grew out of that early 90s White Wolf phase where they were just absolutely convinced that unlike those other Pen and Paper games for BABIES we here at White Wolf handle ADULT and MATURE subject material, because we're ADULTS. The general rule about banning anything sex related while elf gaming is a reasonable precaution against this exact sort of thing. Asexual violence hobos is a tried and true method across pretty much every system.
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Jun 18, 2014 00:14
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Roadie posted:So I did some crude copying and pasting and clone stamping. Yeah that's really good, though personally I'll probably run it so that empty space has a bunch of Micronesia level tiny islands you can't see on the map because creation is huge.
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Jun 18, 2014 00:18
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Thanatosian posted:That is a way better idea. I think my ideal arrangement would be something like: Dawn: Melee, Ranged, War War is 2e War + a little of 2e Performance + a little of 2e Bureaucracy. Melee is 2e Melee + 2e Martial Arts. Ranged is 2e Archery + 2e Thrown. Zenith: Presence, Resistance, Resolve Presence is 2e Presence + 2e Performance, but with some stuff poached out of it for War and Socialize. Resistance is 2e Resistance + a little of 2e Survival and some of the defensive Martial Arts Charms. Resolve is Integrity with a new name and more active implications (e.g. Resolve Charms can give you bonuses to skills under certain situations or whatever). Twilight: Craft, Medicine, Lore Craft gets 2e Craft plus all the Wyld shaping stuff from 2e Lore. Lore is 2e Lore + 2e Occult, because in setting those are the same drat thing. Medicine is 2e Medicine, but with some stuff from Awareness, Investigation, and Survival poached for it. Night: Athletics, Awareness, Subterfuge Athletics is 2e Athletics + 2e Dodge. Awareness is 2e Investigation + 2e Awareness. Subterfuge is 2e Larceny + 2e Stealth. Eclipse: Bureaucracy, Socialize, Wayfaring Bureaucracy is 2e Bureaucracy + some of 2e Linguistics. Socialize is 2e Socialize + some of 2e Linguistics + a little of 2e Presence/Performance. Wayfaring is 2e Ride + 2e Sail + 2e Survival. Roadie fucked around with this message at 00:27 on Jun 18, 2014 |
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Jun 18, 2014 00:24
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Strength of Many posted:'Its okay to have badly written magical powers that mentally coerce/force people into loving you, but not when its same sex! That would just be, like, weird and stuff.' You seem to be trying real hard to find things to get offended about. For any issues people might have with the sexual content, nothing the Exalted team has ever written would lead one to believe that same-sex pairings would be deemed "incompatible." If such a limitation did apply to members of the same species, then it would seem to point to the charm being less "mind-rape" than "supernaturally attractive/charasmatic," because the limitation would be based totally on the charm subject's preferences rather than your own. And Exalted is by no means a game where you can assume every character is human- rock people, asexual constructs, and concepts embodied as geometric shapes are all characters you might reasonably expect to encounter, so giving the charm an effect when dealing with entities with who loving is not a plausible thing to do seems reasonable. The subsequent point that the mechanical outcome of the secondary effect of this charm is often more appropriate and useful than the primary effect is well taken, if not always sensible after you've performed an explicitly sensuous dance before a crowd. It would seem like you might want to recast the charm as your character busting out dance moves (and/or another kind of performance) that are so sick everyone is instantly interested in you, with a secondary effect that if you decide to make that dance sensuous you can also make anyone compatible want to bone you as well. Of course that raises the question of why you can't make the crowd feel other things towards you as well, which probably pushes you towards an even more generalist charm design, sub-modules, or keeping the charm's narrow "people would like to have sex with me" focus. LGD fucked around with this message at 01:02 on Jun 18, 2014 |
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Jun 18, 2014 00:57
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Roadie posted:I think my ideal arrangement would be something like: ... This is pretty solid, cut out attributes and you got it imho.
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Jun 18, 2014 01:09
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Strength of Many posted:'Its okay to have badly written magical powers that mentally coerce/force people into loving you, but not when its same sex! That would just be, like, weird and stuff.' Actually, it's because a charm higher on the tree exists to allow you to coerce people into loving you if they wouldn't be interested in you because of their sexual orientation. Rose-Lipped etc explicitly allows you to violate sexual orientation. edit: It's actually pretty funny to me that they include an entire section on "Unacceptable Influences" that is like "People can't be charmed into having sex outside their orientation" and then they add a charm that says "You remember that section? Forget it.  "
Mormon Star Wars fucked around with this message at 01:32 on Jun 18, 2014 |
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Jun 18, 2014 01:30
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axelsoar posted:This is pretty solid, cut out attributes and you got it imho. That's something like Fate, right? I heard Fate Exalted didn't turn out so well. Plague of Hats posted:I think the applicability of these Charms is at least partly a reaction to EX2. Writing social Charms for Solars, especially for Performance, was loving hard because Jenna covered so much goddamn ground with the few things in the core book. And then in the rare occasions new non-killbot Charms were published for Solars, many followed her lead and made them overbroad. I think there's a happy middle ground somewhere, maybe that will show up in the next leak. There's definitely a sweet spot when it comes to constraint. Too much and you force people to choose between doing stuff they don't want to or doing nothing at all. Eg. Celestial Bliss Trick for the reasons Ferrinus mentioned - have sex with something or you can't get the bonus. So no playing an incredibly charismatic castrati singer or celibate sorceror or religious crusader who, in addition to her efforts against the Evil Empire, finds sex sort of disgusting and encourages abstinence. It's juvenile, it coerces people into playing out sex with mechanical incentives, and it locks off a whole range of interesting character concepts. Too little constraint and you get something like "You get double nines to arouse an emotion in an audience" which is completely flavourless and suggests nothing. You want to suggest as much as possible while constraining as little as possible. Intimate, personal performance is the sweet spot. It could mean sex or it could mean a specially prepared poem. Strength of Many posted:'Its okay to have badly written magical powers that mentally coerce/force people into loving you, but not when its same sex! That would just be, like, weird and stuff.' LGD posted:You seem to be trying real hard to find things to get offended about. Yeah. In a game full of legitimately questionable stuff you make poo poo up more than necessary.
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Jun 18, 2014 01:30
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Bigup DJ posted:That's something like Fate, right? I heard Fate Exalted didn't turn out so well. The issues I had with running exalted in Fate was the fact that Fate kinda has no rules for what to set difficulties too and pretty much no rules for extras or whatever the system for making powers was. We play exalted-ish stuff on a homebrew system right now, works really well.
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Jun 18, 2014 01:52
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Thanatosian posted:I am... strongly inclined to agree with you on this. Resistance in its current form is already fused from what was one Resistance and Endurance. If you were to fuse integrity with anything, it'd be to absorb any times the system uses willpower as a stat instead of a resource.
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Jun 18, 2014 02:03
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Bigup DJ posted:That's something like Fate, right? I heard Fate Exalted didn't turn out so well. You heard wrong; I've been running a campaign using the Exalted setting and the Fate ruleset for just about a year now. (Technically, two campaigns, since everyone died in the first one and the game picked up a year later with the same players but a new circle of characters.)
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Jun 18, 2014 02:10
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Captain Oblivious posted:Sometimes I feel like Exalted is the only line in White Wolf that never grew out of that early 90s White Wolf phase where they were just absolutely convinced that unlike those other Pen and Paper games for BABIES we here at White Wolf handle ADULT and MATURE subject material, because we're ADULTS. The leak has convinced me that the exalted writers are actually posting from a wormhole that leads to 2005, because the revolutionary new system quirks of Exalted are apparently 9 Again (or their variant thereof, 'double 9s' could just mean they count as 2 successes like 10s do) and similar, so give them a few more years to work out the kinks and they might make it all the way to making an Abyssal Menses merit.
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Jun 18, 2014 02:12
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Roadie posted:Also, technically Penultimate Unity of Form could be used with Celestial Bliss Trick to "unleash a torrent of unimaginable ecstasy" via oratory, music, dance, or song, which I find pretty funny. So what you're saying is that a Solar who is really good at Yodeling should find the highest point in a city and put on the most awkward performance in history (well, probably not in the history of Creation...)?
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Jun 18, 2014 02:29
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Obligatum VII posted:So what you're saying is that a Solar who is really good at Yodeling should find the highest point in a city and put on the most awkward performance in history (well, probably not in the history of Creation...)?
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Jun 18, 2014 02:50
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I'd actually argue that Ride, Sail, and Survival should be shuffled around into Wayfare, Pilot, and Husbandry, with Wayfare covering long-distance journeys and the logistics of such, survival in the wilderness, travel times, etc.; Pilot covering vehicle use of all kinds; and Husbandry covering familiars and riding and also e.g. farming and training hunting dogs or monsters or whatever. This is a bad idea because Husbandry is a stupid name for a skill and try as I might I have never ever been able to think of a better one. (Animal Ken, lol.) Wayfare is good, though! Thanks, I hadn't thought of that. (But Wayfaring is bad. Extra syllable isn't needed.) (Bit late to implement.) Also that map adjustment is good but the arc of the islands needs to move just a smidgen north (and maybe a bit east) so that there's a nice arc drawn from the westernmost tip of the penninsular North, across the easternmost edge of the Coral protectorates, down the Neck and Wavecrest, the southernmost tip of which would end up pointing at that island cluster where Bluehaven hangs out.
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Jun 18, 2014 05:38
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Animal Ken is the Lunar mate of Bonfire Barbie.
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Jun 18, 2014 05:39
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Attorney at Funk posted:Animal Ken is the Lunar mate of Bonfire Barbie. That drew a legitimate out-loud laugh from me. Thanks.
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Jun 18, 2014 05:43
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