|
RPZip posted:It doesn't really change anything numbers-wise even if you dump out all the player-option type stuff, like classes, their associated powers, equipment, spells, rituals, charms, whatever. Exalted has 90 pages of system rules (Chapter 5) plus another 54 of associated rules terms (Chapter 4). 4e has 30 (chapter 8 PHB), plus another 42 in the DMG (chapter 3 and 5, skipping 4 since it's basically part of the antagonists/MM section). Even given that the D&D books are quite a bit smaller than the leaked PDF it's not a good ratio. 1. Not all rules are relevant for all character types, i.e. the crafting rules, sailing rules, strategic warfare, crime & investigation in that section. 2. How big or how little the book will be with actual formatting is not yet known. 3. Comparing two different systems with differing priorities on what kind of game they're trying to make, and by virtue of their page count no less, is a silly thing to do. Like, half the rules there are for the social system, whereas D&D boiled it down to 'roll charisma, maybe with modifiers based on arguments.' Bedlamdan fucked around with this message at 06:23 on Oct 18, 2015 |
#
?
Oct 18, 2015 06:20
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 28, 2024 13:50 |
|
|
Bedlamdan posted:1. Not all rules are relevant for all character types, i.e. the crafting rules, sailing rules, strategic warfare, crime & investigation in that section. #2 doesn't matter since I was going on relative size, not absolute, and the giant list of For everything else,  . People seemed to think that Exalted is some kind of rules-light system packed with fluff which is hysterical if you've ever actually skimmed it, much less read it.
|
|
#
?
Oct 18, 2015 07:00
|
|
|
Well, as long as you don't get in a fight, it's relatively simple.
|
|
#
?
Oct 18, 2015 08:26
|
|
|
RPZip posted:For everything else, No game based on Storyteller has ever been rules-lite. Exalted is one of the crunchiest systems out there, with one of the worst knowledge-barrier to entries thanks to the huge charm list. I don't think it's the absolute worst offender when things like GURPS and Shadowrun (pick an edition) exist. I wouldn't expect DnD to top it though. 3E's crunch makes more sense and is less obnoxious than 2E's crunch. That's about the most that can be said for it.
|
|
#
?
Oct 18, 2015 21:56
|
|
|
mistaya posted:3E's crunch makes more sense and is less obnoxious than 2E's crunch. That's about the most that can be said for it. This is true, but I feel like it's missing the magnitude of just how de-shitted the rules have been between editions. 2e combat was awful to the point of being almost unplayable.
|
|
#
?
Oct 18, 2015 22:00
|
|
|
Its lore is also much less obnoxious than 2E's. When you get right down to it "like previous editions of Exalted, but playable" is all most anyone wanted from Ex3.
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2015 00:17
|
|
|
fool_of_sound posted:This is true, but I feel like it's missing the magnitude of just how de-shitted the rules have been between editions. 2e combat was awful to the point of being almost unplayable. The worst thing that can be said about Exalted 2e's combat is that it tried to trick you about how terrible it was. When you first come to the system, fresh faced and bright eyed, it almost seems like it works. Combos fit together, Charms let you do some really baller things that no other RPG would ever let you get away with, and a pretty cool system overall that seemed like it had a lot of places to hang neat gimmicks on. Only by carefully evaluating the system or accidentally chugging to a complete stall a couple of times did it become clear what was going on with it. It looked really good from the outside. Compare that to DnD 5.0, a game whose shortfalls are apparent to anybody who pages through the book a couple times. Exalted 2e was so dense that you often missed the pitfalls until you were in the middle of a 6 month game. Even the 2.5 updates just stapled more complicated solutions on top of an already over-complicated game.
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2015 01:10
|
|
|
Mendrian posted:Exalted 2e was so dense that you often missed the pitfalls until you were in the middle of a 6 month game. Even the 2.5 updates just stapled more complicated solutions on top of an already over-complicated game. This is exactly what happened to me, complete with 2.5 being finalized partway through my campaign.
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2015 01:14
|
|
|
Yeah, same. Trying to run Exalted at one point probably aggravated my depression. "Literally drives people insane" might be slightly exaggerated but still, jesus christ it was bad.
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2015 01:15
|
|
|
spectralent posted:Yeah, same. Trying to run Exalted at one point probably aggravated my depression. "Literally drives people insane" might be slightly exaggerated but still, jesus christ it was bad. lmao
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2015 01:46
|
|
|
Attorney at Funk posted:Its lore is also much less obnoxious than 2E's. When you get right down to it "like previous editions of Exalted, but playable" is all most anyone wanted from Ex3. Honestly, almost all of my disappointment with the leaked material so far is that this seems to be the entirety of what the devs did. Like, that's good, sure, but it's just weird to me that they seemed to have given no thought to things like "is having 25 Abilities a good idea?" or "is there an actual reason to have things rated 1-5 that's not 'oWoD did it that way'?".
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2015 04:08
|
|
|
Roadie posted:Honestly, almost all of my disappointment with the leaked material so far is that this seems to be the entirety of what the devs did. Yeah, I think I was expecting d&d 3rd => 4th, and instead got d&d 3rd => d&d 3.5 .
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2015 07:17
|
|
Hugoon Chavez posted:Yeah, I think I was expecting d&d 3rd => 4th, and instead got d&d 3rd => d&d 3.5 . In terms of "making the game playable", the former comparison is probably a lot more accurate, I feel.
|
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2015 07:20
|
|
|
Roadie posted:Honestly, almost all of my disappointment with the leaked material so far is that this seems to be the entirety of what the devs did. They absolutely did not consider that sort of poo poo, let alone more obvious and easier to change poo poo like the BP/XP split.
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2015 08:16
|
|
|
Zereth posted:let alone more obvious and easier to change poo poo like the BP/XP split. Don't be silly. According to their own account they thought deeply about it, and just happened to decide that a mechanic completely identical to oWoD 1e and literally copy-pasted from book to book was best-in-class roleplaying technology.
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2015 08:41
|
|
Roadie posted:Don't be silly. According to their own account they thought deeply about it, and just happened to decide that a mechanic completely identical to oWoD 1e and literally copy-pasted from book to book was best-in-class roleplaying technology. That's entirely believable, since Greg Stolze did the same thing for his ORE games. It's got some thought behind it, it's just hard to see why you'd ever want to have that disparity without some backing reason, and most of the reasons seem to conflict pretty directly with Exalted as a game.
|
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2015 08:50
|
|
|
Effectronica posted:That's entirely believable, since Greg Stolze did the same thing for his ORE games. It's got some thought behind it, it's just hard to see why you'd ever want to have that disparity without some backing reason, and most of the reasons seem to conflict pretty directly with Exalted as a game. ORE has other related implications, because while the WoD/Exalted d10 dice pool generally scales linearly in terms of dice:successes, ORE gives diminishing returns on higher stats if you only need a single set to succeed. Stolze is also nice enough in Reign to consider the implications of buying up stats, buying up skills, and what XP vs BP means, and so even if a player may disagree with his conclusions, the issues are acknowledged and laid bare. bewilderment fucked around with this message at 10:58 on Oct 19, 2015 |
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2015 10:50
|
|
|
Zereth posted:I recall a dev, when asked how they were planning to make Bureaucracy a Cool And Appealing Thing To Take, made a joke making fun of the idea. My response was "So why are you keeping it in the game then?" and I don't recall an answer happening. It's adorable to watch the lack of responses to people asking why War gets special rules subsystem treatment for abstracting large numbers of NPCs into a single mechanical unit. Somehow it's completely ridiculous to expect the same from Bureaucracy.
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2015 14:05
|
|
|
Ride and Sail are still separate abilities, while Performance is allowed to be several things at once, but not Socialize which is different. Somehow.
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2015 14:20
|
|
|
It IS completely ridiculous to conflate a battle group with a "social group" or whatever, though. While a hundred fungible goons can beat the hell out of you they are unlikely to sway you in an argument or make you fall in love with someone or even win you an election.
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2015 14:36
|
|
|
DOCTOR ZIMBARDO posted:It IS completely ridiculous to conflate a battle group with a "social group" or whatever, though. While a hundred fungible goons can beat the hell out of you they are unlikely to sway you in an argument or make you fall in love with someone or even win you an election. A hundred Goons wouldn't be able to beat you up either, they'd just run out of breath.
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2015 14:59
|
|
|
DOCTOR ZIMBARDO posted:It IS completely ridiculous to conflate a battle group with a "social group" or whatever, though. While a hundred fungible goons can beat the hell out of you they are unlikely to sway you in an argument or make you fall in love with someone or even win you an election. Advertising firms and Super PACs sway the purchasing/voting decisions of individuals. I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to say here.
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2015 15:07
|
|
|
Calde posted:It's adorable to watch the lack of responses to people asking why War gets special rules subsystem treatment for abstracting large numbers of NPCs into a single mechanical unit. Somehow it's completely ridiculous to expect the same from Bureaucracy. *Which, given that the Solars of old doing that was an actual serious problem, seems like a feature to me honestly. "poo poo wait are we just falling into the same old traps? Were the Sidereals right to overthrow us?"
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2015 15:12
|
|
|
Fans posted:Ride and Sail are still separate abilities, I used to say this because thematically they're really similar, but when you look at the charms they're actually quite distinct. Ride's charms mostly focus on in-combat mobility and allowing your mount to fight, whereas Sail's charms are about narrative mobility and naval combat. If anything, you should probably combine Ride with Survival because animal husbandry fits a lot closer than seamanship with what Ride does. The parts of Survival that are actually related to survival can get folded into Resistance instead.
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2015 15:16
|
|
|
Hugoon Chavez posted:Yeah, I think I was expecting d&d 3rd => 4th, and instead got d&d 3rd => d&d 3.5 . No, this is exactly what D&D 3rd->4th looked like, in that the main pitfalls of 4e were unchallenged lovely legacy mechanics.
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2015 15:34
|
|
|
I'll just use Reign for the domain mechanics like I end up doing for every other game.
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2015 15:37
|
|
|
Calde posted:Advertising firms and Super PACs sway the purchasing/voting decisions of individuals. I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to say here. "There is no such thing as society" - The Iron Lady
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2015 15:42
|
|
|
DOCTOR ZIMBARDO posted:It IS completely ridiculous to conflate a battle group with a "social group" or whatever, though. While a hundred fungible goons can beat the hell out of you they are unlikely to sway you in an argument or make you fall in love with someone or even win you an election. Okay but I'm not sure what the alternative is, and regardless whatever flaws it might have representing organizations as homogeneous groups would still be superior to essentially not representing them at all mechanically.
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2015 15:46
|
|
|
Thug Lessons posted:Okay but I'm not sure what the alternative is, and regardless whatever flaws it might have representing organizations as homogeneous groups would still be superior to essentially not representing them at all mechanically. It's a pantheistic setting. You go to the gods, not the masses. There are no masses.
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2015 15:50
|
|
|
DOCTOR ZIMBARDO posted:It's a pantheistic setting. You go to the gods, not the masses. There are no masses. I'm confused.
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2015 15:51
|
|
|
I think what the doctor is saying is that while you survey the results of your nationbuilding like an EU game or whatever and once you *have* power you can use domain rules to measure your efficacy on that scale, in-genre the way you actually accrue and effect that power in the first place isn't from whipping up popular support (short of causing riots or revolutions or the kinds of things that battle groups *are* for) but by identifying and focusing on specific power players which is exactly the sort of interpersonal stuff Exalted's rules are set up to accommodate as it stands. Personally I'd still like the option to fiddle with a slider labeled ECONOMY or whatever if I were playing a king in an RPG where my being a king was relevant rather than an aesthetic flourish, but there's something to recommend the other idea, not least of all that it actually works in the rules. Attorney at Funk fucked around with this message at 16:03 on Oct 19, 2015 |
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2015 16:01
|
|
|
It does strike me that most of the benefits that you can possibly get from owning a Kingdom in Exalted, you can just as easily get from a single noble Raksha you bind into being your minion via Solar social charms and/or Eclipse oaths. Sweet equipment on demand? Yep, awesome clothes? Yep, palaces? Go for it. Hordes of expendable minions? Absolutely. Also an enslaved Raksha noble is much more portable than a kingdom.
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2015 16:22
|
|
|
Attorney at Funk posted:I think what the doctor is saying is that while you survey the results of your nationbuilding like an EU game or whatever and once you *have* power you can use domain rules to measure your efficacy on that scale, in-genre the way you actually accrue and effect that power in the first place isn't from whipping up popular support (short of causing riots or revolutions or the kinds of things that battle groups *are* for) but by identifying and focusing on specific power players which is exactly the sort of interpersonal stuff Exalted's rules are set up to accommodate as it stands. That makes sense, thanks.
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2015 16:23
|
|
|
Thug Lessons posted:I used to say this because thematically they're really similar, but when you look at the charms they're actually quite distinct. Ride's charms mostly focus on in-combat mobility and allowing your mount to fight, whereas Sail's charms are about narrative mobility and naval combat. If anything, you should probably combine Ride with Survival because animal husbandry fits a lot closer than seamanship with what Ride does. The parts of Survival that are actually related to survival can get folded into Resistance instead. And that's why Exalted has 9 attributes and 25 abilities. Sure, some of them are thematically similar, but if you look closely at the giant list of things-that-are-not-actually-rules then you'll find that they're actually quite distinct!
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2015 16:47
|
|
|
RPZip posted:And that's why Exalted has 9 attributes and 25 abilities. Sure, some of them are thematically similar, but if you look closely at the giant list of things-that-are-not-actually-rules then you'll find that they're actually quite distinct! You're missing the point entirely. The Ride ability is something that should not exist for several reasons, the only problem is that people want to roll it into a different ability that it has little to no similarity to mechanically rather than one it synergizes with.
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2015 17:04
|
|
|
Even in political stories like the West Wing, which is all about being in charge of a country, you don't get to make decisions the way you do in many political video games. A game that works more like Exalted should would be Crusader Kings 2, where you don't really set sliders or whatever. An even better basis for the politics of Exalted would be Hidden Agenda, which is probably the best politics video game ever made.
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2015 17:08
|
|
|
DOCTOR ZIMBARDO posted:Even in political stories like the West Wing, which is all about being in charge of a country, you don't get to make decisions the way you do in many political video games. A game that works more like Exalted should would be Crusader Kings 2, where you don't really set sliders or whatever. An even better basis for the politics of Exalted would be Hidden Agenda, which is probably the best politics video game ever made. I already said that a CK style dynast game would be badass
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2015 17:10
|
|
|
I don't think that abstracting bureaucracies the same way you abstract armies would be a bad idea at all. They wouldn't be giant social action takers the same way battle groups are giant physical action takers, but for stuff like crafting, research, or sailing, or whatever, it'd be nice to actually have a concrete measure of why your city is better at public works than your rival's. EDIT: Actually massed social-action-takers would also make sense if you assume they represent, like, the popular consensus/background radiation of propaganda/carefully-cultivated overton window. Effectronica posted:That's entirely believable, since Greg Stolze did the same thing for his ORE games. It's got some thought behind it, it's just hard to see why you'd ever want to have that disparity without some backing reason, and most of the reasons seem to conflict pretty directly with Exalted as a game. Put me down on the "it's a bald-faced lie" side, because who on their team remained on the anti side for months? Where are they now? It's important to note that Greg Stolze's backing reason in Reign was just, like... stupid, and didn't improve the game at all. Well, rather, it wasn't so much "stupid" as "a straightforward description of the decision's effects", with no attempt to account for the fact that those effects were bad. His sidebar was like, this way you're inclined to load up on huge attribute ratings in chargen and then huge skill ratings in play, which, yes, it DOES turn chargen into a dull yet stifling minigame, well done. Ferrinus fucked around with this message at 17:15 on Oct 19, 2015 |
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2015 17:10
|
|
|
DOCTOR ZIMBARDO posted:Even in political stories like the West Wing, which is all about being in charge of a country, you don't get to make decisions the way you do in many political video games. A game that works more like Exalted should would be Crusader Kings 2, where you don't really set sliders or whatever. An even better basis for the politics of Exalted would be Hidden Agenda, which is probably the best politics video game ever made. This is all true, though it's hard to fault someone who wants to sim their favorite nationbuilding game in Exalted since a core appeal OF Exalted is the ability to run any particular video game in its setting. (and a lot of video games are expressly supported by the rules, like Dynasty Warriors or whatever)
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2015 17:17
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 28, 2024 13:50 |
|
|
Ferrinus posted:I don't think that abstracting bureaucracies the same way you abstract armies would be a bad idea at all. They wouldn't be giant social action takers the same way battle groups are giant physical action takers, but for stuff like crafting, research, or sailing, or whatever, it'd be nice to actually have a concrete measure of why your city is better at public works than your rival's. I'm not completely sure but I think this is actually the way it's supposed to be right now, except without any mechanics to back it up. Just look at all the Bureaucracy charms that talk about affecting an organization on a mass level. Maybe I'm wrong though and what you're supposed to do is have the GM create a bunch of organizational leaders for these charms to interact with, which could be cool but also might just create added hassle.
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2015 17:20
|
|