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fool_of_sound posted:Out of curiosity, could you give an example of a crunch heavy game you think is well designed, and Exalted 3e should have taken cues from? Sure!
Edit: I'll also throw in Burn Legend as a good example of how far you can boil down Exalted and still have it recognizably be Exalted. Alien Rope Burn fucked around with this message at 21:36 on Oct 23, 2015 |
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Oct 23, 2015 21:22
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While I do agree that solars are boring as heck, saying that every splat should be in the core book is silly. It's like saying all 30 4e dnd classes should have been in the core. The splats all have vastly different themes and stories they are meant to tell, so its actually even more weird than saying all 30 classes should be in one book. Yeah solars are boring and I would prefer alchemical to come first, but I wouldn't say that I'd like alchemicals in the core book without changes. The charm trees being impossible to understand or remember sounds more like a personal issue - yes, there are a lot of them, but I can name cool ones out of every ability. So you know,this is a subjective criticism. I've only played three sessions of it before, but the combat flows pretty quick. A 5v5 combat vs. Five Immaculates ended in around 30 minutes. This compared to 2e where said combat could take 2+ hours. So I would say that core issue was fixed. You obviously didn't read the backer copy, because multiple trees went through massive changes, integrity went from.being a boring ability everyone complained about to one people think is cool and interesting. Evocations were cut down and some small guidelines were made. Now most artifacts have 4-5 evocations max nos, not 18 like ypu point out, and most of them can be unlocked without xp by bonding with and doing things the weapon 'likes' which is cool. Craft still is insane though.
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Oct 23, 2015 21:54
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TheLovablePlutonis posted:Have you tried going into the Exalted thread on this forum or on /tg/ (recommend this one, they are chiller) or in other forums and asked people "Hmmm why do you like this?". Unironically seconding /tg/
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Oct 23, 2015 21:56
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I'm not necessarily saying they should have all Exalts in the book, but they should have enough information for a GM to use them at the very least without homebrewing poo poo. (Maybe have had a Player's and Storyteller's book? Crazy, I know.) They don't. It would have also been nice if they made Solars less boring, too! But they didn't, though I realize enough people are probably happy enough with their rather generic themes. As for the charm trees, what I mean is simply: if you can remember the general mechanics what every charm does by name - or, say, even just every charm in a single tree (how about Craft?) - my hat's off to you. I imagine GMs will have to do a lot of digging into books mid-session like I had to, presuming you're running Exalt NPCs and not just winging it. As for the combat speed, fair enough! I admit I haven't gotten the chance to playtest much, I was just judging in that it doesn't seem to have less to keep track of than before; I used to have pretty long fights with a party that wasn't mechanically savvy enough to do 2/7 filters or other similar nonsense. I haven't had the time (and probably don't even have the inclination) to read all six hundred pages to analyze every change, but I don't expect my opinion to significantly alter based on what I'm seeing. It seemed similar enough on a skim-through, but thanks for correcting me there. Mind, don't tell me what I read or didn't read, that's a dumb and angry thing to say. I didn't mention 18 evocations, you'd have to dig into my post history to find back when I complained about that. It's better that there are other ways to get evocations, but evocations are still another mechanical chunk that's poorly implemented and not terribly necessary.
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Oct 23, 2015 22:22
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Here, I'll bite! I like Exalted because: It's a fantasy setting that includes a lot of pre-LotR inspirations that the "traditional fantasy wheelhouse" of Tolkien-derived stuff ignores—weird fiction, Tanith Lee's Flat Earth, and also lots and lots of anime. Within that wide range of inspirations, there's room for a lot of stuff—wuxia battles in Nexus, weird wuxia battles with the Forest Witches and whatever the hell their whole deal is, pirate adventure around Abalone, political intrigue on the Blessed Isle, the Arabian Nights in Chiaroscuro, and James Bond shenanigans dropping in from Heaven. It's a game engine that provides a lot of inspiration for cool powers and feats through the Charm system. I'm willing to admit that if the idea of picking out a set of powers out of a long list of possibilities doesn't sound like fun to you, Exalted may not be the game for you. But if it does, Charms can really help flesh out the logic of how a given Exalt's magic works and give you lots of ideas for your own homebrew. It's also a setting that's conscientious about having cool gay and trans characters as sexy heroes, which is important to me. I'm a big fan of Sidereals, but everybody has their own favorite character types, since the setting is big enough for pretty much every genre to fit in somewhere. If you're interested in figuring out which parts of the game might be your jam, there are lots of people in the Exalted thread with opinions on which books in previous editions might suit you.
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Oct 23, 2015 22:24
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Thank you for the descriptions, it's good to see that they seem to have fixed so many problems. I guess the Charms section is meant to be used like an encyclopedia? Like, you write down how the charms for the major NPCs work and that's it. You could argue that a vast list of powers is a feature, not a bug, assuming that the Charms are all reasonably fun.Effectronica posted:He could even ask me, and I'd give a sincere answer, even as Public Enemy Number Four or whatever. that was supposed to be bait for you to prove to everybody that you can contribute to a conversation without being passive-aggressive about it you fool now the opportunity is wasted and we'll have to wait until next season for your redemption arc
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Oct 23, 2015 22:42
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You could also just run Exalted like a sane GM and not use player mechanics for one off NPCs/enemies. Or at least simplify them.
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Oct 23, 2015 22:46
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fool_of_sound posted:Did you know Effectronica is a near perfect anagram of Happyelf? Mere coincidence, Happyelf doesn't wish for the death of that many people.  As for Exalted, I like the idea of it better than the reality. I like the weeaboo fightan heroes, I like that Solars are written to be deliberate game changers just by existing, I like the almost Mystara-like clusterfuck of setting themes and the gigantic world where anything goes, but the reality of Exalted is Charm trees and system mastery and character concepts being mechanically and narratively worthless in this gigantic world where anything goes and ten year olds getting raped endlessly when you least expect it. Ravished. Whatever.
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Oct 23, 2015 22:46
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So Mouse Guard's 2nd Edition will be out in physical format in a few short days. I tried looking on Archaia's website and Twitter and couldn't find anything regarding an ebook release date. Does anyone have an idea if/when it will come out for PDF/ePub? Reading things on a tablet has spoiled me.
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Oct 23, 2015 23:28
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Sure! Adding to this, Weapons of the Gods/Legend of the Wulin is a crunchy wuxia RPG that has some stuff I think Exalted could take cues from to its benefit. Among other things it has the Great Game which is a literal social combat system that you can use for broad-reaching works related to warfare, bureaucracy, influencing regions spiritually/philosophically, etc. It would have been better for them to take their cues from that than, for example, when asked whether there would be some cool bureaucracy crunch for the game where Bureaucracy can be a literal superpower and the primary player splat are nicknamed Lawgivers, laughing off the idea altogether. Also I would say the more pertinent influence Exalted could draw fro D&D 4E is clear and precisely codified power formatting, making it abundantly clear where flavor text ends and rules related text begins.
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Oct 23, 2015 23:57
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If I ever run Exalted again it'll be in Cortex Plus. Any system which can handle superheroes can handle exalts, and the rest is all fluff anyway.
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Oct 24, 2015 00:09
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potatocubed posted:Any system which can handle superheroes can handle exalts, and the rest is all fluff anyway. Pretty much. Kai Tave posted:Adding to this, Weapons of the Gods/Legend of the Wulin is a crunchy wuxia RPG that has some stuff I think Exalted could take cues from to its benefit. Among other things it has the Great Game which is a literal social combat system that you can use for broad-reaching works related to warfare, bureaucracy, influencing regions spiritually/philosophically, etc. I hear Legend of the Five Rings has a social combat system that I have read has been also well received. Happen to know any differences between the two? Speaking of Exalted in general, I know tgchan (which evidently is a spin off of /tg/?) had some Anon host an illustrated quest in the Exalted world called Lunar Quest. From what I recall it was very Anime (ie light on plot resolution and heavy on how cool the characters are) but it did a decent job somewhat representing the setting. And there was a step by step Social Combat sequence that was either straight out of the Exalted rules or a hack, I'm not sure. http://tgchan.org/wiki/Lunar_Quest This had the social combat mid way down: http://tgchan.org/kusaba/questarch/res/399781.html 
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Oct 24, 2015 00:53
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Traveller posted:As for Exalted, I like the idea of it better than the reality.
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Oct 24, 2015 00:54
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I think despite hilarious art and delays 3rd ed is probably leaps and bounds the best Exalted has been, but it's still in the place of 'if you don't like it this won't win you over'. It seems very happy to be a very niche game, which, I dunno, I guess when you're just a part of a huge brand you can afford to be niche?
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Oct 24, 2015 01:09
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Helical Nightmares posted:I hear Legend of the Five Rings has a social combat system that I have read has been also well received. Happen to know any differences between the two? I'm not really familiar with L5R's system at all, sorry. Weapons of the God's Great Game was, if I recall correctly, something that was added in the WotG Companion and wasn't in the core rulebook itself...I don't know if the Legends of the Wulin spiritual successor incorporated it or not. And if I'm recalling correctly it was also something that Jenna Moran came up with. The way it works, roughly, is that first everyone involved lays down what stakes they want out of the conflict (I want to rout the armies of Shu, I want to institute sweeping bureaucratic reforms, I want to promote and the adherence of my philosophy of choice) and then decide how far-reaching things are aiming to get...is this on the level of a fighting tournament, a village, an entire region, etc. From there you draw up a 13th Age/Fate-esque map of zones pertinent to the conflict, areas of influence that will be important battlegrounds. The map is abstract but not made up of abstract things, they're actual places you can go to like The Buddhist Monastery or Pig Sty Alley. And then you have a no-fooling battle. You create "stones" which are essentially like little wargame units except they can represent anything from an allied gang to wealth that you're spreading around to the measure of your spiritual and philosophical conviction. You yourself count as a stone as well, and the conflict proceeds in rounds with initiative and everything as you raise more stones, move them to various areas on the map, and take a variety of actions in order to achieve your goal. You can battle it out with other peoples' stones which works exactly like combat, right down to various approaches (conservative, standard, aggressive, etc) having weapon-like stats, etc. It's been years but I remember it being a legitimately cool system that was flexible enough to encompass a variety of different conflicts and projects. edit; Here's a thread on RPGnet of someone doing a tutorial/walkthrough of the basic concepts behind it. Kai Tave fucked around with this message at 01:28 on Oct 24, 2015 |
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Oct 24, 2015 01:24
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That is pretty darn cool.
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Oct 24, 2015 01:33
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Tatum Girlparts posted:I think despite hilarious art and delays 3rd ed is probably leaps and bounds the best Exalted has been, but it's still in the place of 'if you don't like it this won't win you over'. It seems very happy to be a very niche game, which, I dunno, I guess when you're just a part of a huge brand you can afford to be niche? It's a White Wolf game. It's made to appeal and sell to White Wolf fans primarily.
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Oct 24, 2015 01:45
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Helical Nightmares posted:Pretty much. The author/artist is a big Exalted fan; they used to have a decent enough webcomic at one point.
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Oct 24, 2015 01:47
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Kai Tave posted:I'm not really familiar with L5R's system at all, sorry. L5R doesn't really have a social conflict system as such. There are a handful of social skills you can roll or defend against someone's roll with, and a few of the courtier schools have one-off special techniques, but it's not anywhere near one of the game's focal points as far as mechanics go. quote:Weapons of the God's Great Game was, if I recall correctly, something that was added in the WotG Companion and wasn't in the core rulebook itself...I don't know if the Legends of the Wulin spiritual successor incorporated it or not. And if I'm recalling correctly it was also something that Jenna Moran came up with. You do recall correctly, and no, it didn't make it into Wulin. The Great Game does look super cool but I've never gotten a WotG game going long enough to try it out.
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Oct 24, 2015 04:45
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Exalted is a cool game because it's a game where I can talk about how my Twilight who was the Best Doctor Ever performed surgery on a patient who had a arrow pierce his heart while under attack by a martial artist who was on fire, using her hooked sword with her feet to fend off said flaming martial artist and even kill him. Without ever stopping the surgery, getting hit, or letting the flaming guy hit her patient.
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Oct 24, 2015 05:17
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Rand Brittain posted:Here, I'll bite! This is bridging off from what you were taking about but it's strange that people consider D&D and its ilk to be Tolkien-derived; the standard races come from Tolkien, but not much else migrates over. You can see that in how differently a game like The One Ring, which actually tries to play like a Middle Earth story, plays out from the standard high fantasy dungeon-crawler. The wargaming and pulp novel roots are harder to articulate, I guess?
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Oct 24, 2015 06:25
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Nuns with Guns posted:This is bridging off from what you were taking about but it's strange that people consider D&D and its ilk to be Tolkien-derived; the standard races come from Tolkien, but not much else migrates over. You can see that in how differently a game like The One Ring, which actually tries to play like a Middle Earth story, plays out from the standard high fantasy dungeon-crawler. The wargaming and pulp novel roots are harder to articulate, I guess? It's not the first time that I've seen Exalted opposed to some nebulous "generic Tolkien fantasy" that is basically D&D. Which only really means that Exalted rips off from other sources. Let's not pretend it's Tekúmel.
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Oct 24, 2015 06:48
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Traveller posted:It's not the first time that I've seen Exalted opposed to some nebulous "generic Tolkien fantasy" that is basically D&D. Which only really means that Exalted rips off from other sources. Let's not pretend it's Tekúmel. Yeah that comparison comes right out of the core (2e) book's introductory paragraph: The Lord of the Rings vs. The Ramayana, The Iliad, Journey to the West, The Arabian Nights, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert E. Howard, Fritz Leiber, Japanese videogames, manga, and anime
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Oct 24, 2015 07:00
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Nuns with Guns posted:Yeah that comparison comes right out of the core (2e) book's introductory paragraph: The Lord of the Rings vs. The Ramayana, The Iliad, Journey to the West, The Arabian Nights, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert E. Howard, Fritz Leiber, Japanese videogames, manga, and anime How well does it reflect any of those sources, though? I don't play Exalted, though I do like that list of influences. I read that... but then I think back to MERP, which despite being the grandpappy of Middle Earth gaming, missed the whole high fantasy, world-trekking quests angle while worrying itself over how many biscuits you had in your half-ruined pack.
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Oct 24, 2015 14:30
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Bieeardo posted:How well does it reflect any of those sources, though? I don't play Exalted, though I do like that list of influences. I read that... but then I think back to MERP, which despite being the grandpappy of Middle Earth gaming, missed the whole high fantasy, world-trekking quests angle while worrying itself over how many biscuits you had in your half-ruined pack. Whatever flaws Exalted may have, it's certainly designed to make you feel very powerful. It's one of the reasons porting it to other systems always ends up feeling so underwhelming; it's hard to match the feel of being able to throw 25 dice on a big roll.
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Oct 24, 2015 14:35
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fool_of_sound posted:Whatever flaws Exalted may have, it's certainly designed to make you feel very powerful. It's one of the reasons porting it to other systems always ends up feeling so underwhelming; it's hard to match the feel of being able to throw 25 dice on a big roll. I can understand that. It's like why while I can't stand to play RIFTS any more, I just shake my head at the thought of converting it to FATE or the like.
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Oct 24, 2015 14:38
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Bieeardo posted:I can understand that. It's like why while I can't stand to play RIFTS any more, I just shake my head at the thought of converting it to FATE or the like.
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Oct 24, 2015 15:00
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MadScientistWorking posted:Which is kind of hilarious given that if you are throwing large amounts of dice in that game you are doing it wrong. This is the first I'm hearing about this. I thought Exalted 2e was about buckets of dice. Though I do know 3e is more focused on dice tricks than large dice pools and are against large dice pools. Most likely to improve table play. Also, on the subject, why do people hate dice systems that obfuscate your CoS/CoF? I mean, I get it for games that are more "game-y", but, if the math works out, why does it matter? As long as you know your character is good at something and it's what they would do in that situation, shouldn't that meta-knowledge not matter?
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Oct 24, 2015 15:31
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Covok posted:This is the first I'm hearing about this. MadScientistWorking fucked around with this message at 15:45 on Oct 24, 2015 |
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Oct 24, 2015 15:34
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Covok posted:Also, on the subject, why do people hate dice systems that obfuscate your CoS/CoF? I mean, I get it for games that are more "game-y", but, if the math works out, why does it matter? As long as you know your character is good at something and it's what they would do in that situation, shouldn't that meta-knowledge not matter? But to be much more blunt, telling people "don't worry about the math in this inherently math-based game" is stupid as poo poo.
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Oct 24, 2015 16:25
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Yawgmoth posted:Because those systems generally (a) have lovely math to begin with, (b) make it hard to figure out how good you are & how much better you will get by spending X resource, and (c) often end up having some really stupid stumbling block to the basic concept of the game, e.g. oWoD's fucky math that made it possible to buy a dot in something and then get worse at it because of an increased botch%. Basically, there is never a reason not to make your math as clear and understandable as possible. Unless you suck poo poo at math, in which case get someone who IS good at math to un-gently caress your system.
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Oct 24, 2015 16:41
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Bieeardo posted:How well does it reflect any of those sources, though? I don't play Exalted, though I do like that list of influences. I read that... but then I think back to MERP, which despite being the grandpappy of Middle Earth gaming, missed the whole high fantasy, world-trekking quests angle while worrying itself over how many biscuits you had in your half-ruined pack. In theory Exalted is set up to feel like a lot of those stories. Solar Exalted have the same sort of demigod power of an epic hero with a fatal flaw that brings them trouble: Odysseus's constant boasting and taunting, Rama's pride that caused him to exile Sita, Sinbad's restlessness that drives him to travel away from his comfortable life and endanger anyone that follows him, etc. Implying Exalted draws from the "older pulp writers" and D&D doesn't is a bit silly though, since Gygax was waaaay more of a Conan fanboy than anything else, and Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser's adventures are obvious inspirations for D&D-style murderhoboing. Exalted does try to enable over-the-top Wuxia as much as it can, but that is still wrapped up in a ruleset designed by White Wolf for the very specific cross-section of people who are fans of both anime/wuxia and White Wolf games, so it's definitely going to turn as many people off as it turns on. Nuns with Guns fucked around with this message at 17:26 on Oct 24, 2015 |
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Oct 24, 2015 16:42
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Yeah, I like what Exalted is trying to be, but it's tied to a clunky system that doesn't line up with its "fast-paced anime action" premise.
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Oct 24, 2015 16:48
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Evil Mastermind posted:Yeah, I like what Exalted is trying to be, but it's tied to a clunky system that doesn't line up with its "fast-paced anime action" premise. To be fair, it's apparently going more for greek myth meets wuxia than anime from what I heard.
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Oct 24, 2015 17:02
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How crunchy should a system trying to emulate mythology be? I feel like it needs at least a bit if it expects to emulate all the different mythological beasties and the differences between the powers of various gods.
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Oct 24, 2015 17:34
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paradoxGentleman posted:How crunchy should a system trying to emulate mythology be?h ways. Matter of perspective and preference, honestly. You can probably make an argument forand against crunch in the emulations of most things. It more comes down to making the system drive forward the themes, motiffs, and other elements of the genre: that could be accomplished either way, but only if the dev understands design, understands what's his emulating, and has a clear and workable focus.
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Oct 24, 2015 17:38
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Is there any game like Exalted that isn't a mechanical nightmare featuring awful setting lore? Just wondering because it always seemed like the one game that could handle the kind of poo poo you'd see in Devil May Cry or Bayonetta and I've always wanted to try run a game that goes Platinum big.paradoxGentleman posted:How crunchy should a system trying to emulate mythology be? Not at all. We're talking about poo poo where metaphysics and phrases like "And so the sun went away and hid in a cave forever, and everyone was sad." are pretty common so having a lot of hard rules seem counter intuitive.
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Oct 24, 2015 18:43
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ZenMasterBullshit posted:
"Sun, roll your Hide in Shadows skill; you have to roll against DC 25 because you're a big shiny ball of fire. And did you purchase your Inflict Sadness feat?"
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Oct 24, 2015 18:59
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Simian_Prime posted:"Sun, roll your Hide in Shadows skill; you have to roll against DC 25 because you're a big shiny ball of fire. And did you purchase your Inflict Sadness feat?" hey what if the sun is a bird?
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Oct 24, 2015 19:11
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ZenMasterBullshit posted:Is there any game like Exalted that isn't a mechanical nightmare featuring awful setting lore? Just wondering because it always seemed like the one game that could handle the kind of poo poo you'd see in Devil May Cry or Bayonetta and I've always wanted to try run a game that goes Platinum big. That's what I'm running for my next campaign, in Strike!. Feng Shui 2 would also work if you want a more tailored system.
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Oct 24, 2015 19:13
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