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Fans posted:Yeah but it's still a lot of "Look at all this interesting stuff that might be about to happen" rather than "Look at all this interesting stuff that is actually happening" This is a very good thing. I've read old RPGs that are so static in their metaplot that they actually have sections on how to deal with players when they realize they can't affect the story.
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Oct 16, 2014 16:20
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Alien Rope Burn posted:I'm not saying anything like that that I can tell, but there is at least an ideal that Creation is far from, at the very least defined by heavenly law and the roles of the Exalted. You have to do this if you set it just before the Realm Civil war too. It's the same amount of work. quote:It's the issue a lot of the 90s metaplots fall into, and the deeper you define such conflicts, the less they end up being about the players. No the issue with the 90s metaplots is they kept moving the timeline on. If Exalted started at a random date and just described "Here's what's happening at the time the game opens, in the Sixth Season of Rising Fire" and sticks there it'll be fine. It breaks down when you release a source book that moves the timeline on, which means anything the players did doesn't fit with the setting anymore.
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Oct 16, 2014 16:23
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Stephenls posted:I can think of at least three power blocs who would argue against the legitimacy of Heavenly law, at least one of which might have a legit position. That's not to say you can't have some level moral relativity and factionalism, but at the same point there has to be some question of "what is the conflict of the game?", and to some extent Exalted has that with the core game where the PCs are presumed to be opposed to things like the expansion of the Deathlords, Fair Folk, dealing with local corruption and dilemma, etc. That isn't to say the PCs can't pal around with a Deathlord or build a crime empire on the backs of the downtrodden, but that the game comes with easy conflicts for players to latch onto. Fans posted:You have to do this if you set it just before the Realm Civil war too. It's the same amount of work. Not really, and the reason for this is that the further you push the timeline of a conflict forward the more past events become fixed. If you don't fix those events, it becomes even more work for GMs running that conflict, as well, so it's a catch-22. Also, when you set a conflict in motion like that, it focuses the game on that particular conflict. Having multiple potential conflicts makes it easier for GMs to pick and choose which they want to focus on.
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Oct 16, 2014 16:49
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Alien Rope Burn posted:That's not to say you can't have some level moral relativity and factionalism, but at the same point there has to be some question of "what is the conflict of the game?", and to some extent Exalted has that with the core game where the PCs are presumed to be opposed to things like the expansion of the Deathlords, Fair Folk, dealing with local corruption and dilemma, etc. That isn't to say the PCs can't pal around with a Deathlord or build a crime empire on the backs of the downtrodden, but that the game comes with easy conflicts for players to latch onto. The core conflict of the game is that the returned Solars are thrust into a world where the Realm is looting the Threshold to keep itself in material wealth and slaves. The Realm has the backing of Heaven, because Heaven prefers stability to chaos. The Deathlords and Fair Folk represent the chaos Heaven fears, but most of the actual people in the world are very evidently hurt much worse by the Realm in practice than by the Fair Folk and Deathlords, even if unchecked Fair Folk and Deathlords would in theory hurt people much worse than the rapacious but ordered Realm does. So what do? (Additional ambiguity is achieved by e.g. not having Heaven's backing of the Realm be universal or divine -- it's mostly the Sidereals, acting as Heaven's agents, who back the Realm, but on the other hand it's not like Heaven's bigwigs have put a lot of emphasis on stopping the Sidereals from acting in their name lately, has it?) Stephenls fucked around with this message at 17:09 on Oct 16, 2014 |
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Oct 16, 2014 16:54
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I wouldn't at all mind seeing a Shards-style book with a bunch of possible future elements for Creation that could be fit into century-spanning campaigns.
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Oct 16, 2014 16:57
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Stephenls posted:So what do? What you're describing is a situation, but not the conflict. "So what do?" is the essential question of any RPG. It isn't really a conflict per se without getting more specific. Apocalypse World's Fronts are an example of the type of conflicts I mean, like the Wyld Hunt would easily be a Front, for example. You could, of course, get a conflict that's more abstract, like having Solars vs. The Great Curse but you'll still likely have more tangible conflicts woven in to that sort of thing. From a writing standpoint you may not want to tightly define "these guys are the bad guys", but from a GM standpoint, you have to know what sort of conflicts a game is going to lead into. Games like Wraith: the Oblivion or Unknown Armies are described "hard games to run" even though they're well-loved by those who read them, and I think that's chiefly because they're vague and unclear regarding what the essential conflict of the game is. Rand Brittain posted:I wouldn't at all mind seeing a Shards-style book with a bunch of possible future elements for Creation that could be fit into century-spanning campaigns. Having something like Legend of the Five Rings' Imperial Histories would be a great idea, I think.
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Oct 16, 2014 17:24
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Having something like Legend of the Five Rings' Imperial Histories would be a great idea, I think. Although, my #1 wish for new Exalted material is a book of cults that makes various religions in Creation sound as genuine and appealing and I-want-to-play-a-person-like-that as the Jarish sections of Autochthonia did.
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Oct 16, 2014 17:30
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Rand Brittain posted:Although, my #1 wish for new Exalted material is a book of cults that makes various religions in Creation sound as genuine and appealing and I-want-to-play-a-person-like-that as the Jarish sections of Autochthonia did. Related, I'd like to see examples of cults where the spirits themselves genuinely buy into their own dogma, instead of just being cynical extortionists. Introduce some real depth that way, such that you don't need that "They're All Jerks?" sidebar in whatever Ex3's iteration of Roll of Glorious Divinity is.
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Oct 16, 2014 17:49
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Thesaurasaurus posted:Related, I'd like to see examples of cults where the spirits themselves genuinely buy into their own dogma, instead of just being cynical extortionists. Introduce some real depth that way, such that you don't need that "They're All Jerks?" sidebar in whatever Ex3's iteration of Roll of Glorious Divinity is. I don't know about buying into their own dogma as such, but I'd definitely like to see more options for spiritual relationships that are actually relationships. Ahlat's cult is probably a good example—he's kind of an rear end in a top hat, but I think he legitimately cares about Harborhead in a way that would make it possible for PCs from there to have a meaningful spiritual relationship to him.
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Oct 16, 2014 17:51
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Rand Brittain posted:I don't know about buying into their own dogma as such, but I'd definitely like to see more options for spiritual relationships that are actually relationships. Ahlat's cult is probably a good example—he's kind of an rear end in a top hat, but I think he legitimately cares about Harborhead in a way that would make it possible for PCs from there to have a meaningful spiritual relationship to him. I mean spirits that actually believe that the dogma and codes of behavior they espouse are genuine good things for their worshipers, rather than just making known their preferences for their favorite brand of religiously-mandated phone-sex and feeling like the proles should be grateful for the privilege.
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Oct 16, 2014 18:24
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Rand Brittain posted:I don't know about buying into their own dogma as such, but I'd definitely like to see more options for spiritual relationships that are actually relationships. Ahlat's cult is probably a good example—he's kind of an rear end in a top hat, but I think he legitimately cares about Harborhead in a way that would make it possible for PCs from there to have a meaningful spiritual relationship to him. The totem spirits from Werewolf are also an excellent example. The spirit gets something, and their worshipers get something. I'm actually writing an RPG for my friends to play with this as one of the main setting points. The party has a contract with a particular spirit, and in exchange for worship the party members get divine help. Better gods give better benefits, but need more worship to make those better miracles happen. TwoQuestions fucked around with this message at 18:35 on Oct 16, 2014 |
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Oct 16, 2014 18:32
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Rand Brittain posted:Although, my #1 wish for new Exalted material is a book of cults that makes various religions in Creation sound as genuine and appealing and I-want-to-play-a-person-like-that as the Jarish sections of Autochthonia did. I'd also dig that shards-style book, even if it was like a 64-page PDF with outlines and summaries. Stephenls posted:"The setting is doomed, but we're not going to talk about that almost at all because we assume you don't dig on the same sort of epic tragedy that we do" was much better than "The setting is doomed, and we are going to harp on it all the Goddamned time." 
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Oct 16, 2014 19:23
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The World of Darkness isn't doomed at all. Victory over the Exarchs is frankly right around the corner.
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Oct 16, 2014 19:26
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Fans posted:Yeah but it's still a lot of "Look at all this interesting stuff that might be about to happen" rather than "Look at all this interesting stuff that is actually happening"
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Oct 16, 2014 20:10
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If you're not gonna post art critiques in the comments, I sure will.
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Oct 16, 2014 21:42
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Ferrinus posted:The World of Darkness isn't doomed at all. Victory over the Exarchs is frankly right around the corner.
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Oct 16, 2014 21:51
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That's not fair at all. In fact, Webster's dictionary defines 'pedant' as
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Oct 16, 2014 22:14
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Nessus posted:Is the latter referring to WoD? Pretty sure he means Exalted 2e and its heavy focus on high-powered threats like Yozis, Deathlords, and ishvara.
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Oct 16, 2014 22:22
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Rand Brittain posted:Pretty sure he means Exalted 2e and its heavy focus on high-powered threats like Yozis, Deathlords, and ishvara. I, for one, enjoy the fact that in Exalted 2E I have infinite amounts of high level threats to pick and choose from but when I have to design some opponents for roughly Essence 3 or whatever Dragonbloods I have to make them mostly entirely from scratch. (I don't enjoy this at all, actually.)
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Oct 16, 2014 22:46
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THe funny things, after playing 2E Exalted for a few eyars, the game is definitely mroe fun at low levels. Our most fun game is one where everyone agreed beforehand not to powergame.
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Oct 16, 2014 22:58
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Nessus posted:Old/classic world of darkness, you jesuitical pedant! Funny thing is, the canon ending to OWoD has the Werewolves winning. Civilization's wrecked, the Weaver has lost its grip on the Wyrm, balance is restored, and at least some of the Garou and Kinfolk lived. Solid win on their part, all thanks to a badass Stargazer who chased the biggest and baddest of the Black Spiral Dancers down the Spiral itself to take a swing at the Weaver's bonds.
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Oct 17, 2014 02:52
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It was also revealed that Hunters were (potentially) powered by Satan. He wanted to save the world that he fell in love with and gave each awoken mortal a piece of him so that they might reclaim they world for their own. White Wolf is just always weird.
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Oct 17, 2014 08:09
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Excelsiortothemax posted:It was also revealed that Hunters were (potentially) powered by Satan. He wanted to save the world that he fell in love with and gave each awoken mortal a piece of him so that they might reclaim they world for their own. 
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Oct 17, 2014 08:22
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Zereth posted:I'm pretty sure that's, for one thing, so the PCs can get involved in more than a couple of local things given that unless you can get legit access to heaven you don't really have any good long-distance travel methods in Creation or you break out the first age air-travel stuff. poo poo is going to go down, soon, all over the place. If it was actively going down it'd be too late to do anything about most of it by the time the PCs got anywhere they didn't start at. It also means that if the GM does not want to deal with a particular threat in a particular part of the world, he can just go: "It's just about to happen... but not within the timeframe of this game. So instead you're dealing with this other thing which I think is way cooler."
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Oct 17, 2014 10:39
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Excelsiortothemax posted:It was also revealed that Hunters were (potentially) powered by Satan. He wanted to save the world that he fell in love with and gave each awoken mortal a piece of him so that they might reclaim they world for their own. Except for the Demon: the Fallen material that portrayed Lucifer as being ambushed by an Imbued extremist and being surprised and somewhat offended by what had been done to him, and the material which implied that the Imbued were empowered by the Ebon Dragon and the Scarlet Lady, who were angels. That's not inconsistent with what you said, though. oWoD lore has a long and proud history of contradicting itself.
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Oct 17, 2014 11:13
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Nessus posted:I'd thought they were the quasi-Solars, but I guess that does fit for our Lord and Master. The Unconquered Sun is Lucifer, obviously.
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Oct 17, 2014 12:48
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Attorney at Funk posted:The Unconquered Sun is Lucifer, obviously. No no, man. Malfeas and the other Primordials are actually Divis Mal and his crew who have ascended to the higher tiers of Nova-hood, and Exalted is the Universe theyc reated to escape to. Proof? Divis Mal-feas. 
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Oct 17, 2014 13:14
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I'm not aware of any Hunter material that suggested they were empowered by the Devil. I'm aware of more than a bit that suggests the two Ministers doing the empowering are the Ebon Dragon and the Scarlet Queen, and the Ebon Dragon (oWoD-flavor) is kinda more sinister in aspect than a lot of Imbued would expect. (However, there is a bit that suggests Christianity, and the True Faith merit, were Lucifer's gift to humanity and an attempt to make them not so vulnerable to supernatural predation.) Stephenls fucked around with this message at 16:20 on Oct 17, 2014 |
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Oct 17, 2014 16:05
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Honestly that might have been it, it's been awhile since I read the books. I'll see if I can find it. Also, that is something I miss in Exalted. A being that turned away from the God(s) because they thought what they were doing was wrong, was punished for it, labeled an evil being, but now tries to help those that are less than him. (I know I just described Solars but I'm looking for spirits than anything else, someone that the PCs can interact with......or even Satan from the Mark Twain claymation movie)
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Oct 17, 2014 17:47
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Excelsiortothemax posted:Also, that is something I miss in Exalted. A being that turned away from the God(s) because they thought what they were doing was wrong, was punished for it, labeled an evil being, but now tries to help those that are less than him.
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Oct 17, 2014 18:25
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Excelsiortothemax posted:Honestly that might have been it, it's been awhile since I read the books. I'll see if I can find it. Rakan Thulio! Just ask him, he'll tell you!
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Oct 17, 2014 18:42
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Stephenls posted:Rakan Thulio! Just ask him, he'll tell you! Man, the only reason I'm not dismissing Thulio's character pitch* out of hand is Griffith from Berserk. And I don't see Kentarou Miura anywhere in those writing credits *For those of you who don't yet know, apparently his grand revolt against Fate and Heaven is all because...the man he was in love/obsessed with chose someone else, and he became convinced that Destiny had either ordained that or just not done anything to stop it. Yes, classical epics have characters like Achilles, but I get the impression that we, modern readers, are meant to take Rakan seriously? Because drat, talk about a hard sell.
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Oct 17, 2014 20:52
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Thesaurasaurus posted:Man, the only reason I'm not dismissing Thulio's character pitch* out of hand is Griffith from Berserk. And I don't see Kentarou Miura anywhere in those writing credits Incel is a real and legitimate condition, and the fact that Destiny doesn't provide waifus is a serious problem with the setting.
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Oct 17, 2014 20:55
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I for one appreciate that the writers have proven their commitment to fixing Abyssals by making the necessary one note bad guy a Sidereal instead of an Abyssal.
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Oct 17, 2014 21:49
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Thulio's argument is more like "Who are the gods of Heaven, to set the destinies of men in their courses?" Except, of course, he knows the answer, and it's "Those petty politicking jerks I used to share office space with." It's one thing to rail against the injustice of destiny to an uncaring sky, it's another to do it when you've personally been involved in the sausage-making and know that the war last year between Varang and Harborhead that killed umpty-thousand people was planned as a concession to Ahlat so he'd vote yes on a funding bill some other god needed to pass to afford a new yacht. (But yes his motives for kicking off his rebellion are more than a little compromised.) Stephenls fucked around with this message at 02:36 on Oct 18, 2014 |
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Oct 18, 2014 02:30
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Stephenls posted:Thulio's argument is more like "Who are the gods of Heaven, to set the destinies of men in their courses?" Except, of course, he knows the answer, and it's "Those petty politicking jerks I used to share office space with." It's one thing to rail against the injustice of destiny to an uncaring sky, it's another to do it when you've personally been involved in the sausage-making and know that the war last year between Varang and Harborhead that killed umpty-thousand people was planned as a concession to Ahlat so he'd vote yes on a funding bill some other god needed to pass to afford a new yacht. Yeah. It makes him much more petty for it. You couldn't make a speech like this one turn out worth a drat like it is if it was just bitching about one's boss. "We're the result of one dude getting spurned by his mancrush" is a lovely position to put an entire splat into. It's worth rethinking because nobody wants to be the lapdog of someone so worthless.
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Oct 18, 2014 02:56
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Honestly I don't mind if the reason he started his crusade was compromised but hopefully he actually does believe in what he's fighting for or the whole thing rings a bit too hollow to make an entire splat out of. Especially since the Lunars kind of could have done the War on Heaven thing instead. While you're poking around Stephen I wanted to ask something, or maybe just point something out. We've talked about fluff vs. mechanics in book text before but a friend noticed something when looking at my No-Moon's sheet yesterday that gave us a good laugh. The MOEP: Lunar's No-Moon Anima Power posted:A No Moon Lunar may attune her Essence to that of the new moon. She must spend at least one mote of Essence, and may spend up to twice her permanent Essence in motes. In doing so, she gains a shadowy penumbra that causes attackers who cannot see through darkness to suffer a -1 external penalty. This aura amplifies the occult power of the Lunar for the remainder of the scene, allowing her to reduce the cost of all Charms that explicitly require an Occult roll by one per mote of Essence used to power her anima, though the cost of a Charm cannot be reduced by more than half. This aura also allows her to reduce the Essence cost of all spells cast for the rest of the scene by one per mote of Essence initially invested in her anima, but the cost of a spell cannot be reduced by more than half. Now, I'd crossed this out, and below it put: What This poo poo Actually Means posted:You can spend up to Essence x 2 motes to power your anima. Attackers without nightvision take a -1 external penalty. Motes spent on anima reduce the cost of all occult rolls including spells by that many motes, up to half cost. This turns on automatically at 11 peripheral spent. I'm not saying I want our new books to be completely bare bones, but there's gotta be a happy medium in there somewhere. The shadowy penumbra shouldn't obscure the drat mechanics is what I'm saying. I'm expecting great things from you Mr. Editor.
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Oct 18, 2014 02:56
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Transient People posted:Yeah. It makes him much more petty for it. You couldn't make a speech like this one turn out worth a drat like it is if it was just bitching about one's boss. "We're the result of one dude getting spurned by his mancrush" is a lovely position to put an entire splat into. It's worth rethinking because nobody wants to be the lapdog of someone so worthless. I think it's possible for people to arrive at conclusions like "the gods have no interest in our happiness; they shouldn't be running things" from the starting point of "I personally have suffered great disappointments" without your raison d'etre being hopelessly compromised by your own stake in it.
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Oct 18, 2014 03:05
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Rand Brittain posted:I think it's possible for people to arrive at conclusions like "the gods have no interest in our happiness; they shouldn't be running things" from the starting point of "I personally have suffered great disappointments" without your raison d'etre being hopelessly compromised by your own stake in it. It's easier when you don't personally know said gods, though. Much easier.
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Oct 18, 2014 03:14
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mistaya posted:I'm not saying I want our new books to be completely bare bones, but there's gotta be a happy medium in there somewhere. The shadowy penumbra shouldn't obscure the drat mechanics is what I'm saying. Don't worry, I'm sure that Sail alone will have thirty different variations of "your glorious solar sailboat cuts through the waves, exactly unlike how this sentence will cut through any confusion about if you can use Sail with non-water vessels".
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Oct 18, 2014 03:31
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