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Nessus
Dec 22, 2003

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Ferrinus posted:

Everyone wants to play the game, what are you talking about? It's a bizarre minority opinion that wants to hack away at Solars until only priests and bureacrats remain playable out of the corebook.
Are you saying I am... no true Scotsman, Mr. Morke??

Personally, I want to play the game, but I'm not very interested in Solars. I would like it if the game did not emphasize the Solars as much as it did, because it casts large shadows onto other playstyles and using different Exalt types. If they do something like the old World of Darkness, where there is a lot of systemic overlap but it is written so that if you are doing a "Lunars" game, some of the underlying assumptions are different, and that if you are mixing styles you have to make certain GM calls as to which version is truthy in your game, that would be fine by me.

Also, a creature of darkness is actually determined by who the Unconquered Sun puts on a poo poo-list, ha HA! He COULD have declared all the Primordials to be creatures of darkness! It's completely arbitrary, at the whim of an unknowable supernal godhead!

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LGD
Sep 25, 2004

Ferrinus posted:

The other Exalted occupy different genres than Solars do. They're not members of the same Dungeons and Dragons adventuring party. Actually, the Solars have "Dungeons and Dragons Adventuring Party" on lockdown.

Part of your problem, though, is that as far as I've been able to tell you're a 2E fan and you assume it's only logical and natural for Solars to necessarily be able to pick up and throw mountains, blur like The Flash from one end of Creation to the other, etc.

I'm genuinely not interested in long conversations about Exalted with you, because someone always dies (literally that's why I stopped posting the last few times- funerals on short notice and then I just couldn't bear to deal with several days of missed RPG chat). But I also am genuinely perplexed as to how I came across as a 2E fan- a lot of my posting has been a negative response to the influence of Solar supremacists on the gameline, something far more notable in 2E than 1E. And literally none of that has a goddamn thing to do with whether or not a Solar can do specific feats- it's all about relative power level (within a splats thematics).

It also seems weird that someone who was convinced the only way to interpret the game was as a meta-narrative about Man overcoming the forces of nature (Beasts, The Elements, Fate) would now be insisting that the other splats and their power sets and power level don't really have anything to do with Solar thematics.

Ferrinus
Jun 19, 2003

i'm finding this quite easy, i guess in part because i'm a fast type but also because i have a coherent mental model of the world
I doubt he could've, since he was still under geas or something at the time, wasn't he? Probably some of the Primordials were big fans of all-devouring darkness or whatever even before they were twisted into Yozis, but like, what, Solar warriors were renowned because of the great efficiency with which they could destroy those segments of the enemy forces that glowed black or purple?

It's still hilarious to me that real, live people are going to be sitting down to play Sidereal games or something and just seething inwardly the whole time at the fact that they'd probably lose a duel with the Bull of the North or whatever.

Nessus
Dec 22, 2003

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Ferrinus posted:

I doubt he could've, since he was still under geas or something at the time, wasn't he? Probably some of the Primordials were big fans of all-devouring darkness or whatever even before they were twisted into Yozis, but like, what, Solar warriors were renowned because of the great efficiency with which they could destroy those segments of the enemy forces that glowed black or purple?
Perhaps the Creature of Darkness thing is a workaround they came up with somehow. It's certainly arbitrary, but perhaps it draws from US's ability to define and delineate things. (Perhaps the Solar Exalted helpfully advised their god, perhaps with a sequence of blogposts on LessPrimordial.com.) It is ultimately a rather arbitrary piece of metaphysics and seems adaptable to whatever exigencies the table wants to use.

quote:

It's still hilarious to me that real, live people are going to be sitting down to play Sidereal games or something and just seething inwardly the whole time at the fact that they'd probably lose a duel with the Bull of the North or whatever.
:rolleyes:

Ferrinus
Jun 19, 2003

i'm finding this quite easy, i guess in part because i'm a fast type but also because i have a coherent mental model of the world

LGD posted:

I'm genuinely not interested in long conversations about Exalted with you, because someone always dies (literally that's why I stopped posting the last few times- funerals on short notice and then I just couldn't bear to deal with several days of missed RPG chat). But I also am genuinely perplexed as to how I came across as a 2E fan- a lot of my posting has been a negative response to the influence of Solar supremacists on the gameline, something far more notable in 2E than 1E. And literally none of that has a goddamn thing to do with whether or not a Solar can do specific feats- it's all about relative power level (within a splats thematics).

You're not a fan of Solars in 2E - which you rightly shouldn't be, because most things in 2E were mutated into insane parodies of themselves - but your thinking has been corrupted by the 2E disease. You game themes and setting premises and stretch them immediately to insane and bone-headedly literal heights. Thus, "most powerful" transforms instantly and irrevocably into "most powerful in all circumstances," and a superiority in adventuring/quest-completion is extrapolated unavoidably into some sort of metatextual mandate to ignore everything else in the setting.

quote:

also seems weird that someone who was convinced the only way to interpret the game was as a meta-narrative about Man overcoming the forces of nature (Beasts, The Elements, Fate) would now be insisting that the other splats and their power sets and power level don't really have anything to do with Solar thematics.

Hunter: the Reckoning and Vampire: the Masquerade also have different genres, but they do inform each other.

Nessus posted:

Perhaps the Creature of Darkness thing is a workaround they came up with somehow. It's certainly arbitrary, but perhaps it draws from US's ability to define and delineate things. (Perhaps the Solar Exalted helpfully advised their god, perhaps with a sequence of blogposts on LessPrimordial.com.) It is ultimately a rather arbitrary piece of metaphysics and seems adaptable to whatever exigencies the table wants to use.

This is inane 2E mechanism, is the thing. You see, by applying the Creature of Darkness keyword to anything they chose, the Solars were able to access their highest possible attack bonuses- No!! Bad!!!

Nessus
Dec 22, 2003

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Ferrinus posted:

This is inane 2E mechanism, is the thing. You see, by applying the Creature of Darkness keyword to anything they chose, the Solars were able to access their highest possible attack bonuses- No!! Bad!!!
I'm not sure if I understand you - could you possibly call me stupid a little harder, I think that might help me comprehend your point. :v: e: Oh, also insane, that usually helps too

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!

Nessus posted:

This actually seems like a good breakdown, except for the Night castes - mostly since it would seem that "scouting" is closer to how the Lunars have been presented, with all their sneakiness and shape-shiftery and so forth. And of course the Solar would be GENERALLY very good all round, I don't think anyone's grousing too much over that prospect. But hm, let's look a bit more.

Yeah, it could definitely use tweaking, but I think the key idea that I'm aiming at is that it might be more intriguing is that if the Solars were fearsome not due to being the most badass ever at all the things, but because of their role as leaders that can unify Creation. If the Wyld Hunt doesn't nail a Solar, in three years they're a regional power unto themselves. A circle is a directional power. It would do a lot to explain why the Sidereals are terrified of Solars without making them overly dominant in a mechanics sense.

theironjef
Aug 11, 2009

The archmage of unexpected stinks.

Nessus posted:

I'm not sure if I understand you - could you possibly call me stupid a little harder, I think that might help me comprehend your point. :v: e: Oh, also insane, that usually helps too

Inane isn't insane, and it wasn't in reference to you, but rather to a badly designed mechanic. The Creature of Darkness template was a great idea, but in 2e they gave solars the ability to just faux-attribute it to things so they could punch those things slightly harder. It was silly because it ultimately just added another level to the great big layer cake of how hard a solar could punch a thing.

AdjectiveNoun
Oct 11, 2012

Everything. Is. Fine.
Jesus christ. Solars as-written already suck, and the more Ferrinus posts, the more I wish they were excised from the setting entirely. I can't fathom how anyone finds that bizarre interpretation of Solars even remotely entertaining, outside of the sort of entertainment teens get from reading Terry Goodkind novels and wishing they were as badass as Richard.

Nessus
Dec 22, 2003

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Alien Rope Burn posted:

Yeah, it could definitely use tweaking, but I think the key idea that I'm aiming at is that it might be more intriguing is that if the Solars were fearsome not due to being the most badass ever at all the things, but because of their role as leaders that can unify Creation. If the Wyld Hunt doesn't nail a Solar, in three years they're a regional power unto themselves. A circle is a directional power. It would do a lot to explain why the Sidereals are terrified of Solars without making them overly dominant in a mechanics sense.
If we keep the broad outlines of the First Age stuff, it also explains why there was the broad period of (mostly-) just and good Solarocracy that was only starting to get real weird towards the end; the 2E-ism stuff would tend to suggest that the Solars would have created turbo Solartopia, unstoppable save by mass eruption of death, pretty quickly, while the attitude Ferrinus seems to so-charmingly advance would say that there would be no reason to have an Usurpation, save rank jealousy.

Of course all of this is setting lore poo poo, and could easily turn into one (1) page of stuff in the storytelling chapter. 'Maybe the Solars were actually mostly good and the Usurpation was foolish, unjust, or malicious. Maybe the Solars were maniacs only held in check by their old allies and sifus who eventually died off. Which version is the one that is true? The one you want at your game table, kemo sabe.'

theironjef posted:

Inane isn't insane, and it wasn't in reference to you, but rather to a badly designed mechanic. The Creature of Darkness template was a great idea, but in 2e they gave solars the ability to just faux-attribute it to things so they could punch those things slightly harder. It was silly because it ultimately just added another level to the great big layer cake of how hard a solar could punch a thing.
Well that's fair, I saw it aimed at the previous guy. I agree it's stupid, but why shouldn't Solars have the ability to randomly define an arbitrary thing to be Super Bad, justifying hitting it for extra damage? "Coming up with an excuse why it's OK to beat the poo poo out of someone" is at least as human an activity as "forging a sword" or "writing a book," and if Solars are defined by their supernatural excellence at humanlike tasks, that must logically extend to being the best at coming up with specious bullshit justifying whatever they wanted to do anyway.

Nessus fucked around with this message at 21:29 on Oct 9, 2014

Ferrinus
Jun 19, 2003

i'm finding this quite easy, i guess in part because i'm a fast type but also because i have a coherent mental model of the world
First Age Solars were obviously evil maniacs, or at least the majority of them were. That's why it was such a big problem that they were the strongest Exalted. I swear, do you people know anything about this game at all?

I wonder if there's, like, a secret population of World of Darkness "fans" who are just pissed as all hell that vampire Disciplines are stronger than hunter Endowments.

Effectronica
May 31, 2011
Fallen Rib

Ferrinus posted:

First Age Solars were obviously evil maniacs, or at least the majority of them were. That's why it was such a big problem that they were the strongest Exalted. I swear, do you people know anything about this game at all?

I wonder if there's, like, a secret population of World of Darkness "fans" who are just pissed as all hell that vampire Disciplines are stronger than hunter Endowments.

That's me.

Ferrinus
Jun 19, 2003

i'm finding this quite easy, i guess in part because i'm a fast type but also because i have a coherent mental model of the world
(muttering) My god, my god...

Seriously, though, Effectronica, good news: the game you are looking for is Exalted.

Nessus
Dec 22, 2003

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Ferrinus posted:

(muttering) My god, my god...

Seriously, though, Effectronica, good news: the game you are looking for is Exalted.
Maybe you should take it easy. I haven't ever said "the Solars shouldn't be really excellent at things." Even, perhaps, "the most powerful of the Exalted." My attitude is more like "maybe the Solars shouldn't be so excellent at everything ever that everyone else is defined implicitly as being worse than Solars."

You see the difference here? Superman can be the strongest, and also incredibly super fast, but the Flash can be faster than Superman, without it meaning that the writer of the Flash is trying to dog down Superman, or is mad at the concept of a Man being Super.

Effectronica
May 31, 2011
Fallen Rib

Ferrinus posted:

(muttering) My god, my god...

Seriously, though, Effectronica, good news: the game you are looking for is Exalted.

I'm glad that there's finally a game which is willing to admit that monster hunters should always be obviously tougher and more dangerous than the monsters they hunt.

theironjef
Aug 11, 2009

The archmage of unexpected stinks.

Nessus posted:

Well that's fair, I saw it aimed at the previous guy. I agree it's stupid, but why shouldn't Solars have the ability to randomly define an arbitrary thing to be Super Bad, justifying hitting it for extra damage? "Coming up with an excuse why it's OK to beat the poo poo out of someone" is at least as human an activity as "forging a sword" or "writing a book," and if Solars are defined by their supernatural excellence at humanlike tasks, that must logically extend to being the best at coming up with specious bullshit justifying whatever they wanted to do anyway.

It's delusional, for one. Solars don't need an arbitrary magical way to boost their damage via mental gymnastics. They're the gods of being good at things, and redefining things as vampires just to punch them better is practically the definition of the "cheating to achieve the same results" that is the purview of the other exalts. I guess if there's something they don't need to be the best at it's "being crazy."

Second, it's purely mechanical. I mean yeah you could play a solar that runs around declaring everyone he sees a spooky ghost so he can super-punch it, but that shouldn't be the model of how to maximize your damage, because then anyone interested in damage is basically called on to either declare themselves Pac-Man or just take the charms for their mechanical value and quietly pretend that they aren't declaring an eternal jihad on purported "ghosts."

Ferrinus
Jun 19, 2003

i'm finding this quite easy, i guess in part because i'm a fast type but also because i have a coherent mental model of the world

Nessus posted:

Maybe you should take it easy. I haven't ever said "the Solars shouldn't be really excellent at things." Even, perhaps, "the most powerful of the Exalted." My attitude is more like "maybe the Solars shouldn't be so excellent at everything ever that everyone else is defined implicitly as being worse than Solars."

You see the difference here? Superman can be the strongest, and also incredibly super fast, but the Flash can be faster than Superman, without it meaning that the writer of the Flash is trying to dog down Superman, or is mad at the concept of a Man being Super.

You're okay with Solars being excellent at the Zenith and Twilight skillset. However, they should be excellent at the skillsets implied by all five Castes.

The main error you're making here, though, is this: you've failed to realize that the Justice League and the Legion of Doom are made of Solars.

Effectronica posted:

I'm glad that there's finally a game which is willing to admit that monster hunters should always be obviously tougher and more dangerous than the monsters they hunt.

I mean, was Bard tougher and more dangerous than Smaug?

Nessus
Dec 22, 2003

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theironjef posted:

It's delusional, for one. Solars don't need an arbitrary magical way to boost their damage via mental gymnastics. They're the gods of being good at things, and redefining things as vampires just to punch them better is practically the definition of the "cheating to achieve the same results" that is the purview of the other exalts. I guess if there's something they don't need to be the best at it's "being crazy."

Second, it's purely mechanical. I mean yeah you could play a solar that runs around declaring everyone he sees a spooky ghost so he can super-punch it, but that shouldn't be the model of how to maximize your damage, because then anyone interested in damage is basically called on to either declare themselves Pac-Man or just take the charms for their mechanical value and quietly pretend that they aren't declaring an eternal jihad on purported "ghosts."
I agree with you completely that it would be stupid as hell, and not necessarily in the good way, but the idea of some maniac who takes pains to declare whoever he's fighting to be a SUPER SPOOKY DOUBLE GHOST before he attacks them with his giant metal sun-icon and beats them into a bloody paste seems like a pretty on-point Solar concept to me.

Maybe not a PC Solar concept, though knowing how TT groups tend to get...

Ferrinus posted:

You're okay with Solars being excellent at the Zenith and Twilight skillset. However, they should be excellent at the skillsets implied by all five Castes.

The main error you're making here, though, is this: you've failed to realize that the Justice League and the Legion of Doom are made of Solars.
No, I disagree with you. This is not an error, it is a different interpretation of the same topic. I do not find your interpretation terribly convincing, and the argument is not helped with my "I think it would be better if X" being met with "You're wrong. It is Y." We are not even having the same conversation.

Nessus fucked around with this message at 21:43 on Oct 9, 2014

Attorney at Funk
Jun 3, 2008

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

Ferrinus posted:

I mean, was Bard tougher and more dangerous than Smaug?

Yes - Smaug thrashed around that cavern for like a half hour and didn't so much as maim a single dwarf.

Effectronica
May 31, 2011
Fallen Rib

Ferrinus posted:

You're okay with Solars being excellent at the Zenith and Twilight skillset. However, they should be excellent at the skillsets implied by all five Castes.

The main error you're making here, though, is this: you've failed to realize that the Justice League and the Legion of Doom are made of Solars.


I mean, was Bard tougher and more dangerous than Smaug?

I mean, you look at the Silmarillion. Obviously, when Tolkien talks about how the Noldor managed to cow Morgoth with the fierceness of their arms and the greatness of their deeds, he meant it was so unimportant that a game about First Age Beleriand wouldn't incorporate that into the mechanics.

theironjef
Aug 11, 2009

The archmage of unexpected stinks.

Nessus posted:

I agree with you completely that it would be stupid as hell, and not necessarily in the good way, but the idea of some maniac who takes pains to declare whoever he's fighting to be a SUPER SPOOKY DOUBLE GHOST before he attacks them with his giant metal sun-icon and beats them into a bloody paste seems like a pretty on-point Solar concept to me.

Right in that character concept zone of "it'd be funny exactly once" which is never in the target zone for crunch, yeah.

Ferrinus
Jun 19, 2003

i'm finding this quite easy, i guess in part because i'm a fast type but also because i have a coherent mental model of the world

Nessus posted:

No, I disagree with you. This is not an error, it is a different interpretation of the same topic. I do not find your interpretation terribly convincing, and the argument is not helped with my "I think it would be better if X" being met with "You're wrong. It is Y." We are not even having the same conversation.

I disagree to disagree. The Justice League isn't really a metasplat teamup. There's what, like, one alien weirdo on it?

Nessus
Dec 22, 2003

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Ferrinus posted:

I disagree to disagree. The Justice League isn't really a metasplat teamup. There's what, like, one alien weirdo on it?
Considering what I suppose is the canonical lineup, there are two aliens (one of whom is culturally Earthican to be fair), one demigoddess, one human in service to an intergalactic police force, one cyborg, one extremely wealthy and privileged normal human, one metahuman not otherwise classified, and Plastic Man.
e: oh, and one half-Atlantean

Nessus fucked around with this message at 21:53 on Oct 9, 2014

LGD
Sep 25, 2004

Ferrinus posted:

You're not a fan of Solars in 2E - which you rightly shouldn't be, because most things in 2E were mutated into insane parodies of themselves - but your thinking has been corrupted by the 2E disease. You game themes and setting premises and stretch them immediately to insane and bone-headedly literal heights. Thus, "most powerful" transforms instantly and irrevocably into "most powerful in all circumstances," and a superiority in adventuring/quest-completion is extrapolated unavoidably into some sort of metatextual mandate to ignore everything else in the setting.
Oh, what circumstances are you suggesting Solars should not be the most powerful in? Most seem to boil down to pure aesthetics, and seeing as this is a roleplaying game I'm not sure what "superiority in adventuring/quest-completion" could mean here other than "everything."

quote:

Hunter: the Reckoning and Vampire: the Masquerade also have different genres, but they do inform each other.
Sure. They also weren't nearly as tightly integrated as the various Exalted splats are into Exalted as a whole, and the various themes and mechanics of Vampires/Hunters don't inform what happens in the other gameline nearly as much. Most importantly neither Vampires nor Hunters are fundamentally defined and designed around their relative power level relative to one another in the same manner Solar Exalted are relative to other Exalted.

LGD fucked around with this message at 21:57 on Oct 9, 2014

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!

Ferrinus posted:

First Age Solars were obviously evil maniacs, or at least the majority of them were. That's why it was such a big problem that they were the strongest Exalted. I swear, do you people know anything about this game at all?

I try not to take Dreams of the First Age too seriously, myself.

theironjef posted:

Second, it's purely mechanical. I mean yeah you could play a solar that runs around declaring everyone he sees a spooky ghost so he can super-punch it, but that shouldn't be the model of how to maximize your damage, because then anyone interested in damage is basically called on to either declare themselves Pac-Man or just take the charms for their mechanical value and quietly pretend that they aren't declaring an eternal jihad on purported "ghosts."

Well, one such charm (Solars had two!... for some reason...) had the idea that you were basically so full of hubris that you could declare your own Creatures of Darkness. It also hinted that sort of charm is what got the Sun to blow off the Solars. So there's a germ of a decent idea in there, but mechanically, it's a flop.

The main issue is that the Creatures of Darkness tag was always problematic as it was because even without it, Solars were already better than Abyssals or Infernals at combat; with it, those antagonists become laughable against any Solar that modestly invests in Holy charms. Really, a lot of it comes down to the "Dawn Solution", which mostly just solved the idea that other characters could face a dedicated combat Dawn... and when you give them the ability to throw their Holy charms against anyone, it becomes just a question of how much WP and Limit they're willing to burn, because there is a value of X where you lose, and it's a question of whether or not they want to spend X.

theironjef
Aug 11, 2009

The archmage of unexpected stinks.

Nessus posted:

Considering what I suppose is the canonical lineup, there are two aliens (one of whom is culturally Earthican to be fair), one demigoddess, one human in service to an intergalactic police force, one cyborg, one extremely wealthy and privileged normal human, one metahuman not otherwise classified, and Plastic Man.
e: oh, and one half-Atlantean

Three aliens, right? Kryptonian, Martian, Thanagarian.

Nessus
Dec 22, 2003

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theironjef posted:

Three aliens, right? Kryptonian, Martian, Thanagarian.
I am not sure what is up with Hawkman, I recall that bounced around. But Supes and J'onn are definitely there.

Ferrinus
Jun 19, 2003

i'm finding this quite easy, i guess in part because i'm a fast type but also because i have a coherent mental model of the world

Nessus posted:

Considering what I suppose is the canonical lineup, there are two aliens (one of whom is culturally Earthican to be fair), one demigoddess, one human in service to an intergalactic police force, one cyborg, one extremely wealthy and privileged normal human, one metahuman not otherwise classified, and Plastic Man.
e: oh, and one half-Atlantean

Basically a bunch of Solars, then! One relies really heavily on Evocations, one's got a couple signature artifacts but leans mostly on her own skills, etc. It doesn't matter if one's from the far West while another was brought up in the Realm or something.

The point of the incredibly wide-ranging Solar skill/powerset is to allow for all-Solar circles of dramatically differing characters who nevertheless all exist in basically the same context of "the ruling council of an up and coming nation" or "some wandering adventurers who fight crime wherever they happen upon it" or w/e.

LGD posted:

Oh, what circumstances are you suggesting Solars should not be the most powerful in?

Things outside the scope of the five Castes. Solars shouldn't be stronger (I mean literally, physically stronger, like if we want to see who can pick up Juggernaut and throw it) than Lunars, or better augurs than Sidereals, or whatnot. If you wanted to see who could most quickly and helpfully tunnel through miles of earth or retroactively un-fact facts or something you would not find that it was a Solar.

quote:

Sure. They also weren't nearly as tightly integrated as the various Exalted splats are into Exalted as a whole, and the various themes and mechanics of Vampires/Hunters don't inform what happens in the other gameline nearly as much. Most importantly neither Vampires nor Hunters are fundamentally defined and designed around their relative power level relative to one another in the same manner Solar Exalted are relative to other Exalted.

Entirely true. Now, behold... Hunter: the Vigil and Vampire: the Requiem have different genres, but they do inform each other.

Alien Rope Burn posted:

I try not to take Dreams of the First Age too seriously, myself.

Or the 1e core, apparently...?

Nessus
Dec 22, 2003

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Ferrinus posted:

Basically a bunch of Solars, then! One relies really heavily on Evocations, one's got a couple signature artifacts but leans mostly on her own skills, etc. It doesn't matter if one's from the far West while another was brought up in the Realm or something.

The point of the incredibly wide-ranging Solar skill/powerset is to allow for all-Solar circles of dramatically differing characters who nevertheless all exist in basically the same context of "the ruling council of an up and coming nation" or "some wandering adventurers who fight crime wherever they happen upon it" or w/e.
My understanding is that in the past, many other splats were in turn defined heavily by the need to 'not be Solars,' which meant that while overlap was avoided, it confined their Charm selections and so forth to the margins Solars did not occupy. This makes some sense for Sidereals, but I would hope that the same width of conceptual diversity and sophistication will be possible for Terrestrials and Lunars (and Abyssals, Infernals, etc.) too, even if it means many of their Charms are quite similar to those of Solars.

I am not meaningfully persuaded that this will be the case. Do you think it would 'take away' from Solars if one could put together a Justice League set of concepts for a Lunar or Terrestrial party (or to extend this analogy, at least an X-Men/Brotherhood sort of deal)?

Ferrinus
Jun 19, 2003

i'm finding this quite easy, i guess in part because i'm a fast type but also because i have a coherent mental model of the world
I expect to see things like coteries of vampires and familia of Nobles out of the other splats. Lunars and Dragon-Blooded are definitely best positioned to form Justice Leagues of their own, although they'd feel pretty different.

Nessus
Dec 22, 2003

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Ferrinus posted:

I expect to see things like coteries of vampires and familia of Nobles out of the other splats. Lunars and Dragon-Blooded are definitely best positioned to form Justice Leagues of their own, although they'd feel pretty different.
Yes, certainly. It even makes sense that they might have slightly (hopefully quite slightly) narrower focuses. However, while Terrestrials' strong cultural details kept this problem at bay for them pretty well, it was glaringly deficient for Lunars, and what was present for Abyssals was kind of lovely - even the wonderful Ink Monkey development of Independents did not give you much reason to have a GROUP of Abyssals.

LGD
Sep 25, 2004

Ferrinus posted:

Things outside the scope of the five Castes. Solars shouldn't be stronger (I mean literally, physically stronger, like if we want to see who can pick up Juggernaut and throw it) than Lunars, or better augurs than Sidereals, or whatnot. If you wanted to see who could most quickly and helpfully tunnel through miles of earth or retroactively un-fact facts or something you would not find that it was a Solar.
Lifting havy objects is the purview of the Night Caste. Why are you trying to reduce Solars to mere bureaucrats and scholars Ferrinus? But seriously- how is this not aesthetics? Usually we don't care how an object is moved, an attack evaded, or a society changed, we care about the end results. What are the practical, in-game, results that the other Exalted splats can achieve that do not fall under Solar purview?

quote:

Entirely true. Now, behold... Hunter: the Vigil and Vampire: the Requiem have different genres, but they do inform each other.
Yes, but again they're not part of the same line. What lessons should the other, slightly different flavors of heroic fantasy you can play in Exalted be taking from the part of the line whose core theme is apparently "this dude = inherently better than you at anything you might attempt?"

Ferrinus
Jun 19, 2003

i'm finding this quite easy, i guess in part because i'm a fast type but also because i have a coherent mental model of the world

LGD posted:

Lifting havy objects is the purview of the Night Caste. Why are you trying to reduce Solars to mere bureaucrats and scholars Ferrinus? But seriously- how is this not aesthetics? Usually we don't care how an object is moved, an attack evaded, or a society changed, we care about the end results. What are the practical, in-game, results that the other Exalted splats can achieve that do not fall under Solar purview?

Feats of athletics performed by people of human scope are the purview of the Night Caste. I bet a Night Caste in human form with human muscles can bench more than a Lunar in human form with human muscles because of their superlative technique. Of course, you and I know that Athletics and Resistance (and Awareness, actually) are really weird things to put on the skill list.

Achieving abstract, epic, quest-level goals like "defeat an enemy" is what Solars are best at. Still, knowing for certain which baby in a nursery is the one who will grow up to unite a feuding land or going off to adventure on the bottom of the ocean at the drop of a hat is pretty good, and can easily become critical in the course of some story.

quote:

Yes, but again they're not part of the same line. What lessons should the other, slightly different flavors of heroic fantasy you can play in Exalted be taking from the part of the line whose core theme is apparently "this dude = inherently better than you at anything you might attempt?"

Yes, they are. They are both part of "World of Darkness".

DOCTOR ZIMBARDO
May 8, 2006
Ferrinus as usual is unabashedly correct. If you want to beat an invested Solar, the way you do it is by cheating and making the contest into something he's not invested in. A Sidereal would have to be an idiot to duel a powerful Solar blade-to-blade; Sid wins by turning the contest on its ear and rewriting the Loom of Fate to alter history and turn a sword duel into a hot dog eating contest or whatever. The Lunar obviously wins by changing herself to make the Solar's expertise irrelevant; by turning into a kraken and dragging the Solar underwater or transforming into an immense ankylosaur or whatever and ignoring the sword blows, etc. A powerful Dragonblood's only hope should be to invoke bizarre elemental circumstances, etc.



LGD posted:

Being mediated through the human body and simple tools does not, to me, imply or necessitate innate superiority in all circumstances.

Solar charms on their own are limited generally to the superhuman -- but not transhuman, animal, alien, etc. A Solar can't conjure up ten thousand gallons of water or turn into a whale or square the circle or whatever.

LGD posted:

Yes, but again they're not part of the same line. What lessons should the other, slightly different flavors of heroic fantasy you can play in Exalted be taking from the part of the line whose core theme is apparently "this dude = inherently better than you at anything you might attempt?"

Nobody suggested Solars should be better at anything someone else might attempt, though. A Solar who cannot be beaten in a fair one-on-one sword duel can still be beaten in a two-on-one, or without his sword, or a hot dog eating contest, or if the sun gets in his eyes at just the wrong moment or whatever.

Nessus
Dec 22, 2003

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



Ferrinus posted:

Achieving abstract, epic, quest-level goals like "defeat an enemy" is what Solars are best at. Still, knowing for certain which baby in a nursery is the one who will grow up to unite a feuding land or going off to adventure on the bottom of the ocean at the drop of a hat is pretty good, and can easily become critical in the course of some story.
"Pretty good," "can easily become critical", as compared to "achieving an abstract epic goal is what Solars are best at", eh?

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!

Ferrinus posted:

Or the 1e core, apparently...?

Well, it had "the Realm's rulers turned to tyranny", which is a far cry from "First Age Solars were obviously evil maniacs, or at least the majority of them were". It couched things in vagaries and often with unreliable narration (the Sidereals' involvement isn't even mentioned until their antagonist section, for example). It generally left the full truth of the First Age a mystery - it wasn't until the supplement march of Exalted 2e that the First Age Solars lost all nuance and became fully statted frothing maniacs bent on world destruction.

LGD
Sep 25, 2004

Ferrinus posted:

Feats of athletics performed by people of human scope are the purview of the Night Caste. I bet a Night Caste in human form with human muscles can bench more than a Lunar in human form with human muscles because of their superlative technique. Of course, you and I know that Athletics and Resistance (and Awareness, actually) are really weird things to put on the skill list.

Achieving abstract, epic, quest-level goals like "defeat an enemy" is what Solars are best at. Still, knowing for certain which baby in a nursery is the one who will grow up to unite a feuding land or going off to adventure on the bottom of the ocean at the drop of a hat is pretty good, and can easily become critical in the course of some story.
So why are Dawns better at fighting than a Full-Moon then? Shouldn't their purview be limited to being the best combatants of human scope? And defining "fight a guy" as something that is "abstract, epic and quest-level" is hilarious. Knowing which baby will grow to be a king is a nice trick, but again why are we doing that? Is it to make sure the land will be united? Well a Solar can do that themselves, or if they can't be bothered, can easily inspire and train someone to do that for them. Breathing under water is canonically an outgrowth of Solar mastery of the Survival skill, and like many Solar charms not a particularly natural outgrowth of the human condition.

Seriously, please provide me with examples of things characters would do that fall outside of the Solar purview that are not contingent on means.

quote:

Yes, they are. They are both part of "World of Darkness".
Which was a series of discrete games that had disparate mechanics, sketchy integration of different gamelines lore, and in many cases completely incompatible metaphysics. This is different from Exalted and you know it. And again, the information flows both ways. What lessons should Lunar/Sidereal PCs be drawing here?

edit:

DOCTOR ZIMBARDO posted:

Solar charms on their own are limited generally to the superhuman -- but not transhuman, animal, alien, etc. A Solar can't conjure up ten thousand gallons of water or turn into a whale or square the circle or whatever.
I get what Solar charms are supposed to be an outgrowth of. That is still not an explanation for why being an outgrowth of skill or application of simple tools trumps anything else on any level beyond "because I say so."

quote:

Nobody suggested Solars should be better at anything someone else might attempt, though. A Solar who cannot be beaten in a fair one-on-one sword duel can still be beaten in a two-on-one, or without his sword, or a hot dog eating contest, or if the sun gets in his eyes at just the wrong moment or whatever.
What does this even mean? A Solar is obviously not omnipotent, but that doesn't change that they're still better than anyone else placed in those circumstances. He's still better at anything anyone else might attempt.

LGD fucked around with this message at 22:51 on Oct 9, 2014

Ferrinus
Jun 19, 2003

i'm finding this quite easy, i guess in part because i'm a fast type but also because i have a coherent mental model of the world

Nessus posted:

"Pretty good," "can easily become critical", as compared to "achieving an abstract epic goal is what Solars are best at", eh?

Yes?

Do you know what game this thread is about or not? I'm not here to assure you that non-Solars are as powerful as Solars, because they're not. The usurpation was really hard. If the First Age had been ruled by corrupted and insane Dragon-Blooded guided by malefic Sidereal advisors, a bunch of Solars and Lunars would've had a much easier time assassinating the people in charge and taking over.

Alien Rope Burn posted:

Well, it had "the Realm's rulers turned to tyranny", which is a far cry from "First Age Solars were obviously evil maniacs, or at least the majority of them were". It couched things in vagaries and often with unreliable narration (the Sidereals' involvement isn't even mentioned until their antagonist section, for example). It generally left the full truth of the First Age a mystery - it wasn't until the supplement march of Exalted 2e that the First Age Solars lost all nuance and became fully statted frothing maniacs bent on world destruction.

I don't actually think they all were or should be frothing maniacs, but I feel like it is not controversial to claim that the usurping DBs and Sidereals had a point, and were responding to actually-existing tyranny and injustice, and that the super-powerful, already-beaten-everything-that-once-opposed-them Solars actually and really did prove to be monstrous in a way that only humans magnified a hundredfold could be.

Nessus
Dec 22, 2003

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



LGD posted:

Which was a series of discrete games that had disparate mechanics, sketchy integration of different gamelines lore, and in many cases completely incompatible metaphysics. This is different from Exalted and you know it. And again, the information flows both ways. What lessons should Lunar/Sidereal PCs be drawing here?
"Even by virtue of your high station and tremendous virtue, you are still the subordinate of your rightful rulers, who are objectively better than you save in narrow circumstances. How do you react to that circumstance?"

Which is cool and all, but kind of a narrow story

Anyway I don't think it would be so bad if there were slightly different metaphysical assumptions for the various splatbooks. It would probably be much more subtle and more of a portrayal thing (Solars are threatening/alluring to Lunars, menacing quasi-demons to Terrestrials, dangerous but possibly useful to Sidereals, etc.) than issuing a new explicit factoid.

Ferrinus posted:

Yes?

Do you know what game this thread is about or not? I'm not here to assure you that non-Solars are as powerful as Solars, because they're not. The usurpation was really hard. If the First Age had been ruled by corrupted and insane Dragon-Blooded guided by malefic Sidereal advisors, a bunch of Solars and Lunars would've had a much easier time assassinating the people in charge and taking over.
Exalted: A Storytelling Game In Which Ferrinus Insists Forever That He Is Right.

Do you understand the difference between "Solars are the most powerful" and "Solars are so archetypically the most powerful that all other Exalted must be designed with the full understanding of Solar supremacy in mind"? I do not object to #1. I do object to #2. If I am playing a Lunars game, why do my Charms need to be weird and lovely? Different, sure, and perhaps even not 'topping out' as high as a Solar's, if you insist. But if the refrain of "no, no, that's a Solar thing, if you want to do that don't be a Lunar, be a Solar; we're just going to keep saying a Lunar is whatever we can't define, so that we don't create a thing that the Solars don't have accidentally" is taken as like, the primary design goal - which seemed pretty loving well to be the case for the Lunars - it sucks and is dumb. I think it weakens the whole line.

Nessus fucked around with this message at 22:54 on Oct 9, 2014

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DOCTOR ZIMBARDO
May 8, 2006
Actually I think Raksha are probably better at fulfilling specific grand narrative goals than Solars (indeed they have little choice of perspective other than repeating the same narrations again and again). Solars are process-oriented more than goal-oriented. On the other hand, other Exalts attack underlying assumptions or circumstances if they hope to overcome Solar skill.

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