|
A_Raving_Loon posted:These were planned antagonists for my last Infernals game. I statted out Kaiser Wilhelm II as a Slayer antagonist for a Dragon-blooded game set on the Russian side of the WWI Ostfront. In my game he practically jumped at the opportunity to sell his soul in exchange for the regeneration of his withered left arm and the chance to be a true Teutonic warrior emperor.
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2015 17:58
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 30, 2024 22:54 |
|
|
Attorney at Funk posted:ah but then each charm would basically resemble a d&d 4e power card, which were inert and flavourless and crucially "usable at all by any person in an actual game"
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2015 19:19
|
|
|
NIV3K posted:Just confirming what we all already figured would happen. This behemoth needs to be whittled down. I wonder where the most likely spot is for them to cut word count from. But they can't do that! They just can't! It's too late! The book is out of editing!
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2015 21:16
|
|
|
The biggest surprise here is that someone emailed a 900+ page document for a single book to someone else and thought "nah, this'll be fine" for even a second.
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2015 21:21
|
|
|
I mean the real issue here is that the devs'/fans' blinders over how Great and Wonderful the setting of Exalted is has led to ridiculously bloated lore sections that have no business being in a corebook. If you want a three paragraph blurb on every drat city in the Realm, throw it in a follow-up supplement that's free to all backers of the original core. As someone with absolutely no nostalgia for any of these NPCs, the enemies/NPCs section at the back of the book could stand to have an ax taken to it as well. edit: there's 89 pages of setting material and 190 pages of various NPCs/enemies with ~flavorful writeups~. It's silly. Crion fucked around with this message at 21:29 on Feb 10, 2015 |
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2015 21:25
|
|
|
Crion posted:I mean the real issue here is that the devs'/fans' blinders over how Great and Wonderful the setting of Exalted is has led to ridiculously bloated lore sections that have no business being in a corebook. Chopping the setting like an awful experience for anyone new to Exalted and trying to run it.
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2015 21:37
|
|
|
bartkusa posted:Chopping the setting like an awful experience for anyone new to Exalted and trying to run it. I'd disagree there. Keep all the general ideas, the generics, write-ups on some of the "core" areas like the Scavenger Lands, etc. but what I always found to be the biggest barrier to entry when I first picked up 2e was all the excessive loving setting info/vocabulary and trying to remember it. Like, do I need to know what the four cardinal directions of Creation usually lead towards? Yes. Do I need to know what the Scavenger lands and the Blessed Isle are? Yes. Do I need an essay on the setting's Original Calender Do Not Steal? Fifty write-ups of NPC's that the GM will probably never use unless he desperately jerks off to the metaplot? No.
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2015 21:41
|
|
|
To be fair to these dudes, in a very real sense the target audience for a lot of these kickstarted OPP books is "people who liked the earlier versions."
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2015 21:51
|
|
|
I think stuff about the calendar and economy and so on are good, but you could easily save space by just chopping half of every direction's example cities. You could also delete KEYWORDS: None from the majority of the Charms in the game, or in general compress and standardize Charm templating. You could also delete the experience costs chart wholesale.
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2015 21:52
|
|
|
I'd definitely take an axe to the charm text before the setting or NPC stuff, just because the charm text as it's constructed now is way more clearly superfluous as opposed to simply indulgent.
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2015 21:56
|
|
|
Poor Lea! I remember him mentioning a while ago that he'd be deleting the words "Silver-Voiced" from the front of every Charm in the Nightingale Style for the sake of clarity and space-saving. We can see, of course, how well that worked out for him.
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2015 22:01
|
|
|
Ferrinus posted:Poor Lea! I remember him mentioning a while ago that he'd be deleting the words "Silver-Voiced" from the front of every Charm in the Nightingale Style for the sake of clarity and space-saving. We can see, of course, how well that worked out for him. If this is what the book looks like AFTER he edited it then I shudder to think what got turned in to him.
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2015 22:03
|
|
|
Someone who sinned greatly in their past life, I'd assume.
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2015 22:04
|
|
|
So this is why the book took so long! Its was originally 3000 pages before editing!
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2015 22:19
|
|
|
TheLovablePlutonis posted:So this is why the book took so long! Its was originally 3000 pages before editing! It's the only logical explanation.
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2015 22:20
|
|
|
Ferrinus posted:Someone who sinned greatly in their past life, I'd assume. "Is.. is this leather?" "Of a kind, yes."
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2015 22:23
|
|
|
The Charm Text is the biggest offender. There are probably too many specific location-writeups as well. Having a big bank of NPCs is really helpful to just drop them in until you get the hang of generating some, but a lot of the bio text is arguably unnecessary. Regardless, excited for my Kickstarter update telling me the book has gone into NEO EDITING now that it's been to layout after finishing editing.
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2015 22:25
|
|
|
Yeah, it sounds like there are too many NPCs but having a range of stock people for examples and/or easy use in case people bull into some totally unplanned area sounds like a Good Thing.
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2015 22:30
|
|
|
It's not even a registry of NPCs. There's a handful of specific named NPCs in the spirit/god/demon section, but the rest of it is statblocks and description for fairly generic and customizable antagonists you can drop into a game. The thing that bloats that section is the fact that, unlike other White Wolf games (which can get away with this basic structure without incident) as a fantasy fighting game Exalted needs a stack of varied, ready-to-use enemies. Its logistical demands are closer to something like the Monster Manual than something like Vampire or Mage.
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2015 22:34
|
|
|
Yeeeeaah, I'd say that the two things to cut down here are the World Lore section (it's enormous, guys. Sorry, but it could be trimmed down to a third of its size and still say everything it needs to) and the charm fluff text. No need to delete any mechanical effects, but you could easily save fifty pages with fluff deletions.
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2015 22:40
|
|
|
Transient People posted:Yeeeeaah, I'd say that the two things to cut down here are the World Lore section (it's enormous, guys. Sorry, but it could be trimmed down to a third of its size and still say everything it needs to) and the charm fluff text. No need to delete any mechanical effects, but you could easily save fifty pages with fluff deletions. From what was said on rpg.net, the section most likely to get the axe (or at least pared down considerably) was the antagonists section.
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2015 22:44
|
|
|
Transient People posted:Yeeeeaah, I'd say that the two things to cut down here are the World Lore section (it's enormous, guys. Sorry, but it could be trimmed down to a third of its size and still say everything it needs to) and the charm fluff text. No need to delete any mechanical effects, but you could easily save fifty pages with fluff deletions. If the charms were structured like D&D 4e power cards (except, I don't know, all put on fancy scrolls or something instead of color-coded squares) Exalted would immediately be twice as appealing to me as far as making and playing a character in it goes. You'd also cut the 400 pages of spells and charms in half. I think the World Lore chapter serves basically the same function as the Antagonists chapter, insofar as it gives people ideas and things to use when they don't want to build every session and every plot twist from scratch. They could both stand to be trimmed, but the way the charms are written is the most egregious offender, bloatwise.
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2015 22:48
|
|
|
I'm actually wondering if this is the pre-editing book. I don't really have any evidence indicating that, but it just seems like there is a lot you can do to cut down on this without losing substance.
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2015 22:51
|
|
|
Attorney at Funk posted:If the charms were structured like D&D 4e power cards (except, I don't know, all put on fancy scrolls or something instead of color-coded squares) Exalted would immediately be twice as appealing to me as far as making and playing a character in it goes. You'd also cut the 400 pages of spells and charms in half. If we had actual charm trees to follow instead of piles of unformatted text we got in the pre-layout version, things would also be a lot simpler.
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2015 22:51
|
|
|
Bedlamdan posted:If we had actual charm trees to follow instead of piles of unformatted we get in the pre-layout version, things would also be a lot simpler. It'd be easier to use as a reference, but crucially it wouldn't take up any less space, which is the issue at hand.
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2015 22:52
|
|
|
Attorney at Funk posted:It'd be easier to use as a reference, but crucially it wouldn't take up any less space, which is the issue at hand. The 'things' in my original post was pretty much just chargen in this case, because yeah, the bulk of the space is being taken up by Charms. But part of the reason the devs didn't just release the pre-layout text to backers when the leak dropped was because they weren't yet sure what to cut. A lot is one the table for removal, depending on how things go, including the antagonist's section, setting section, and charms.
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2015 22:55
|
|
|
I assume somebody is working on actually useable Charm cards as we speak, kind of like how somebody has to for character sheets every time a WW game comes out.
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2015 22:56
|
|
|
I could get behind moving antagonists and setting info to a free PDF, because that'd be great for a GM to hand out to new players who don't want to buy a corebook yet.
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2015 23:01
|
|
|
Attorney at Funk posted:If the charms were structured like D&D 4e power cards (except, I don't know, all put on fancy scrolls or something instead of color-coded squares) Exalted would immediately be twice as appealing to me as far as making and playing a character in it goes. You'd also cut the 400 pages of spells and charms in half. Agreed. The design of how the powers were written was one of the best things in DND4, and I'm sad no one seems to be stealing it.
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2015 23:08
|
|
|
MonsieurChoc posted:Agreed. The design of how the powers were written was one of the best things in DND4, and I'm sad no one seems to be stealing it.
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2015 23:13
|
|
|
If I recall correctly, Holden Shearer was smack dab in the center of grognard fury about 4E.
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2015 23:25
|
|
|
Aren't we also getting a paid for fully developed professional official version of Anathema?
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2015 23:47
|
|
|
Ferrinus posted:If I recall correctly, Holden Shearer was smack dab in the center of grognard fury about 4E. 
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2015 23:48
|
|
|
slut chan posted:Aren't we also getting a paid for fully developed professional official version of Anathema? Not exactly - the Anathema crew has access to this stuff before the rest of us, so they'll be able to get it up and running faster, but they aren't getting paid for this any more than the devs are, which is to say, less than you'd earn at mcdonalds.
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2015 23:50
|
|
|
Nessus posted:In which direction Which do you think.
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2015 23:51
|
|
|
Ferrinus posted:Which do you think. Never mind that White Wolf had a (pretty awesome) card based combat system for Street Fighter in what, '94?
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2015 23:58
|
|
|
Holden always seemed very cynical about the kind of mathematical, mechanical balance 4e was aiming for.
|
|
#
?
Feb 11, 2015 00:07
|
|
|
To be fair, there are fun + cute things to think about in Exalted 3e, like how the only unique caste ability on the Eclipse list is Sail, the charm with the "probably don't take this if you aren't doing a water game" sidebar. Oh how we can laugh.
|
|
#
?
Feb 11, 2015 01:17
|
|
|
Who gives a gently caress about eclipses.
|
|
#
?
Feb 11, 2015 01:20
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 30, 2024 22:54 |
|
|
Chernobyl Peace Prize posted:To be fair, there are fun + cute things to think about in Exalted 3e, like how the only unique caste ability on the Eclipse list is Sail, the charm with the "probably don't take this if you aren't doing a water game" sidebar. Oh how we can laugh. OTOH, their Anima now lets them sanctify oaths they overhear 
|
|
#
?
Feb 11, 2015 01:30
|
|