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QuintessenceX: Aug 11, 2006; We are reasons so unreal

PrinceRandom posted:

My only problem is I don't want Lunars to be EXLUSIVELY "tribal Conan's or Pocahontas". It should cover basically anyone who thrives on survival, from undiscovered tribes to outlaws to mortal Dynasts rejected by their families.

This seems relevant to your post

Holden posted:

I'll get this out of the way so it doesn't immediately tackle the thread off a cliff and into a bottomless pit:

In 3e you can play a Lunar who was born and grew up in Nexus, who joined the Guild and made a fortune in business, who regularly attends high-society galas in expensive imported Calinese silk gowns, sips tea with her pinky out, and who thinks the centralized welfare state is a pretty great idea. This is just as viable as Solar Conan. Good? Good.

That said, there's a default stone-and-leather slant that colors Lunars. This is your guide to not freaking out: what's going on and why.

Let's start by looking at the idea of "barbarism," because people conflate a lot of stuff into that word. Let's split it up into three sub-concepts:

• Ideological barbarism - barbarism-as-philosophy, barbarism as a deliberate rejection of civilization

• Political barbarism - barbarism-as-lifestyle-- the daily socio-economic-technological realities of groups we identify as 'barbarian' in Exalted

• Stylistic barbarism - the visuals and tropes conjured up by the word 'barbarian' for us, the audience, mostly composed of fantasy readers

We'll start with that first one, because it's the one people are scared to death of. Ideological barbarism is some kind of intentional "barbarian ethos," of the sort that people sometimes think Conan espoused because of quotes that get tossed around-- and to be fair, Conan did say things like "barbarians are much more polite than civilized men, since civilized men do not think, as a matter of course, that they may have their skulls cloven in twain." Ideological barbarism is a deliberate rejection of 'civilized comforts' on philosophical grounds-- a demonization of city-dwelling folks for being 'soft' and 'weak' and 'false' and generally 'non-people,' and thus valid targets for abuse. It's a platform for glorifying the lifestyle of the "political barbarian" (see below) and justifying the superiority of his way of life.

In First Edition, the Lunars were built around ideological barbarism. It was their rock, their way of life, and their thesis as a splat.

Now forget about that completely for a moment-- pretend it has never crossed your mind, because we're going to look at political barbarism as something fully divorced from that concept.

Political barbarism is "real" barbarism (as your average fantasy-fiction-consuming American would understand the term) -- i.e. it's the daily realities of "barbarian" type peoples. In the real world, this is an incredibly diverse grouping that you really don't want to generalize about because it runs the gamut from the historical Mongols (who almost conquered the world) to the plains nations of North America to the Mayans and Olmecs, who had incredibly complex and sophisticated societies and empires, despite that they never really did much of anything with metallurgy or the wheel.

We're going to simplify it down to "guys who don't really build cities, or sustain themselves primarily on sedentary agriculture, or have really good metallurgy or at least not the capabilities for large-scale application thereof." I.e. the wilderness-dwelling, furry-underwear, we-call-our-boss-a-chieftain crowd.

These are extremely diverse groups in Creation, as in the real world, but there are some generalities you can lay down that won't be hilariously wrong too often. Generally they're located in resource-poor regions and are exploited or marginalized by more powerful neighbors. Generally they have much stronger ties to the local spirits than 'civilized' folks do, because they have much greater need of divine protection and assistance. Generally they are impoverished in comparison to their 'civilized' neighbors. Generally some degree of predation on other communities is necessary to handle the necessities of life (you'll notice everything keeps tying back to the fact that these are people situated in resource-poor or otherwise undesirable locations).

Notably, the political barbarian is usually not an ideological barbarian-- like Conan, give him the chance to fill his pockets with jewels and indulge himself in wine, women, fine clothing, and to otherwise reap the benefits of a high-sophistication society, and he'll jump at it. There's a reason these guys raid settled, built-up locations: They want the poo poo those guys have.

Finally, stylistic barbarism is kind of our tentpole here-- there's a definite aesthetic vibe to sun-darkened skin and rippling muscles, which are on display because the character in question is just wearing some animal skins; to a character well-versed in the ways of the wilderness, with honed instincts and practical wisdom; to the idea of fast living, easy violence, and living in the moment. This often doesn't actually mesh with the realities of the political barbarian, but it's the imago that guides our attempts to categorize him, above.

So what about Lunars?

The idea in First Edition was that each splat was a dedicated aesthetic and stylistic package, except for Solars, who were highly versatile. Solars could do most everything, but if you wanted a custom-crafted experience FOCUSED on one thing, you went to the other Exalts: DBs were there for decadent political intrigue, Abyssals for gothic melodrama, and Lunars for barbaric savage fantasy. As a result, they were modeled after the stylistic barbarian, and to really hammer the experience home, were built as ideological barbarians. They were philosophically anti-civilization and anti-intellectual. They were barbarians because "civilization makes you weak."

3e Lunars are not ideological barbarians. Many of them were not born to barbarian peoples (although many were) and have no particular fondness for or attachment to a minimalist frontier lifestyle. They enjoy luxury as much as any other Exalt.

3e Lunars also can't quite be said to be political barbarians. I mean, some of them were! Because political barbarians are marginal peoples, they often don't have much in the way of resources to exploit-- the Realm often looks at them as nuisance groups or potential slave labor pools rather than subjects to be assimilated and exploited. This often pushes them even further out into the wilderness, away from the Realm's sphere of influence. Alternately, those in resource-rich environments (such as the forests of the deep, deep East) are often living in hostile areas that are difficult for outsiders to reach. What that all adds up to is, "a Lunar living in a barbarian society is often much more difficult for the Wyld Hunt to quickly and efficiently target than one living in the Lap." There's natural selection at work there.

But think back to what we said earlier-- the political barbarian is a dude who comes from certain circumstances. He's not usually ideologically married to his lifestyle-- even if he says "being dirt-poor is a virtue!" he is generally saying that because he has no way to change his situation so he may as well take some kind of pride in it. Given the sudden ability to go out and grab whatever he wants from the world, he will generally do so-- his outlook and ambitions won't remain limited and provincial for very long. So even Lunars who are born of barbarian cultures will usually get a perspective bigger than that culture in short order-- either by moving outside of it directly, or by taking it over and transforming it and starting to bump into their political and supernatural neighbors, necessitating a bigger-picture view.

They are, however, intended to partake of stylistic barbarism-- they're designed for it from the ground up and many of their problems in Second Edition came from a deliberate attempt to reject this, I think as a result of conflating it with the other two kinds of barbarism. The fact of the matter is, to the degree that the Exalted splats echo other source material, Lunars are werewolves, tribal legends, and pagan culture-heroes. They're supposed to look rough-edged compared to the more refined Solars; their Attribute magic is supposed to look raw and powerful compared to the deft, polished sheen of Ability magic; their shapeshifting points to a primal font of imagery and aptitude-- their archetypes are "warrior, trickster, shaman."

You can put a twist on this and have Lunar who emphasizes polished sophistication (same as you can have a heavily-armored Sidereal)-- you absolutely can! The Vikings were one of the earlier cultures to have both lawyers and lawsuits. Nothing up there says Lunars have to be simple or dumb. But there's a lot of stuff in the Lunar design that pushes toward a powerful, primal, nature-saturated set of iconography.

The trick, of course, is answering the question "Well, why?" If they tend to get a bigger view of the world and a greater ability to achieve their ambitions than the average tribal dude, why would they continue to hang around and mess with margin cultures? 1e answered "because they are barbarians on an ideological level-- they have a philosophical devotion to the SUPERIORITY of that lifestyle."

That's not the answer 3e is going for. There are some things about 3e Lunars we're not ready to reveal yet, but in general, what we're looking at is to retain some of the baked-in barbarian iconography-- it's a VERY strong wellspring of concepts and images to play with, and I think we'd be fools to discard it in favor of something more amorphous or shallow-- and to maintain the setting phenomenon of heavy Lunar involvement with politically barbaric cultures (note that "heavy" is not "exclusive"). The impetus to such involvement in 3e comes from the history that has shaped the Lunars, and the realities of their current position in Creation. What that means is that, yes, a Lunar may decide to burn down a city or tear up a road-- but if he does so, he has a specific reason for it, because Lunars aren't motivated by the idea that "cities and roads are bad."

Why even do it this way at all, if there are so many thorns to navigate around? Mostly because it's cool. I've been working on Liminals for most of the day today, basking in how awesome it is to get to play with all these peripheral themes branching out from the core idea of Frankenstein-- clone stories, alienation stories, stories about belonging-- and reflecting, occasionally, on how the werewolf gets an even broader range of stuff to play with if you blow it up enough-- never mind bringing in things like the Anansi stories or Robert E. Howard's evocative writing to back it up. All Exalt types need a strong well of iconography to draw on, and it would be foolish not to go mining in a vein as rich as the one the old school Lunars offered up.

I was going to go into the particulars of Lunar-barbarian involvement in 3e in this post but it's already like, jesus, almost 2,000 words long? If I keep going much more I'll have to revive Ink Monkeys and make it a blog post. So how about instead, I open the floor to questions and discussion? If you want to know more about why Lunars are positioned the way they are, shoot. If you don't like the idea of barbarian anything, let's look at the reasons why it may not have been presented in an appealing manner in the past. The shorter and simpler your post, the more likely it is to get a response. Also, before posting it, scroll back up to the top and read the second paragraph again, because it didn't stop being true over the course of the last 1700 words.

# ¿ May 31, 2013 06:24

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 09:05

QuintessenceX: Aug 11, 2006; We are reasons so unreal

I've always been confused about how prevalent manses/demenses are supposed to be. Was there ever any statement given on how common or uncommon they are? That being said, I've always just treated most castles as manses and most town centers having a few manses since they seem like natural gathering spots.

# ¿ May 31, 2013 20:34

QuintessenceX: Aug 11, 2006; We are reasons so unreal

"he might want to bang her like a fine drum"

That line from the Faxai fiction aside, I've been pretty impressed with the art they've got going on for this edition.

# ¿ Jun 5, 2013 05:56

QuintessenceX: Aug 11, 2006; We are reasons so unreal

It's just a really bad line that I haven't been able to drop since the fiction dropped. I liked the fiction for the most part and I respect it for being a super rough draft. I highly doubt something that awkward would make it to the final stages. By and large though, I've gotten the distinct feeling from this kickstarter that it's been kind of like... "oh poo poo we're getting too much funding, think of random poo poo to put down as a stretch goal." There's only been a few goals that legitimately feel like awesome stretch goals - Anathema, Sorcery, etc. The rest of the book upgrade poo poo and moreeeee novels sounds boring as hell to me.

# ¿ Jun 5, 2013 16:23

QuintessenceX: Aug 11, 2006; We are reasons so unreal

theironjef posted:

Who's the one that only draws skinny bald black girls with lots of facial piercings and either underboob or just full boob? I've seen that same character as a skunk, a chimera, a human, an alchemical (rocking a gearhawk), 3 of them at once with jetpacks... the guy just seems to have a stock character.

Don't forget underwear with hearts on them.

# ¿ Jun 5, 2013 17:20

QuintessenceX: Aug 11, 2006; We are reasons so unreal

Strength of Many posted:

I'm bored and rule discussions about 3e keep coming up, especially with how they've basically been implenenting other people's rulsets or house rules as core mechanics, so I feel like posting some of my own that I'm using in 2e currently and in the past.

Wait, they're just copying peoples house rules as core mechanics? How do you know this given that they haven't even really said anything about the core mechanics

# ¿ Jun 6, 2013 03:49

QuintessenceX: Aug 11, 2006; We are reasons so unreal

Strength of Many posted:

Removes the purpose of Willpower management as a resource. I also don't care about their PD or ping changes so that's another factor behind it.

The 2.5 errata was more or less other people's house rules that have been floating around for years, tweaked and rewritten to fit their (and the fandom's) inane biases. Their track record across previous books (Alchemicals especially) and Ink Monkeys articles of writing really either really bland garbage, really bland broken garbage, or hyper specific garbage was mostly Holden and Hatewheel's work. Again, all of it catering to the paradoxical fixations of their fandom, and most of it incredibly uninspired mechanically speaking. Anything noteworthy was the last vestiges of Neph's work, such as Thousand Correct Actions and Broken Winged Crane. This does not set a good precedent for their lead writers assigned to mechanics.

Momentum is, thus far, looking like a gimmicky system for recharging what are the equivalent of Encounter/Daily powers from 4e (see: Tyrant Lizard stat block.) The social system sounds very strongly like its going to be the Doors one from nwod. Chances are their mass combat fixes will be Swarms from nwod, if not an 'adaptation' of Hordes and Squad rules from Dark Heresy and Deathwatch.

Man, you and I don't have the same tastes at all. I dug alot of the Ink Monkeys poo poo and so far I've really enjoyed most of the books put out by the new group. Who is Neph, just out of curiosity?

# ¿ Jun 6, 2013 05:20

QuintessenceX: Aug 11, 2006; We are reasons so unreal

Mikan posted:

We can't know anything because they still refuse to release actual mechanics, all we have to go on are vague promises and out of context previews. I'm still surprised so many people are willing to take a chance on this.

I completely agree. I cannot tell you how frustrating it was when I realized that combat was pretty much over before it started in 2E. I'm waiting on some replies from Holden, but if I don't hear from them I'm going to go from 500 dollars pledged to 35 in a second specifically because of the lack of a mechanics preview.

BryanChavez posted:

Michael Goodwin. He worked on the Alchemicals (1e), Abyssals (Both), and Infernals (2e), I believe. Other things too, I'm sure, but that's what I recall most distinctly. As far as I know, he's a very controversial author, with a lot of people having strong feelings one way or the other about his work. Or at least a few very loud people. Since I don't really have a dog in the race of any of the Exalts he wrote for, I don't have much of an opinion on him myself. I do very much like the work the Ink Monkeys have done so far, though. With one glaring exception, obviously.

Why isn't he around anymore? He seems like he had a good run then. Admittedly 2E Abyssals were boring as poo poo, but Infernals had some excellent charm/crunch.

# ¿ Jun 6, 2013 06:10

QuintessenceX: Aug 11, 2006; We are reasons so unreal

Ferrinus posted:

Yeah, John's explanation doesn't actually make any sense and sounds like a cover for him either being unsure of how to handle things or stubbornly dug in.
.

I disagree. I understand the desire to give a genuine apology and he's just saying that anything he says right now will be perceived as disingenuous.

# ¿ Jun 6, 2013 18:21

QuintessenceX: Aug 11, 2006; We are reasons so unreal

Ferrinus posted:

Uh, why. Why would it be. It'll be a bid for money either way, since his answer will determine the future popularity and status of Exalted among people who object to rape ghosts.

It's possible that other people won't come to the same conclusion as you, or think in such an objective fashion. An apology means less to some people if the apology is being done while in the middle of a huge drive for funding. If the apology is given when there's not an immediate ask involved, it might strike some as more sincere. It's not that this is wrong or right, it's just his take on it. His statement basically amounts to "If I apologize now it might not be sincere enough. I want to wait."

# ¿ Jun 6, 2013 19:42

QuintessenceX: Aug 11, 2006; We are reasons so unreal

Ferrinus posted:

That's stupid, though. As BryanChavez says, apologizing doesn't cost you anything.

Sure, but people have their own ethics.

John Murururururke posted:

The Niobraran League represents a vast host of different races, cultures, and belief systems. They were not a proper League until the destruction of the Lintha Empire. Many of them were enemies. But one thing many of these disparate races had in common, was belief in the Voice of the Trench. The great trench, at the deepest part of the ocean, where the poles reach a true confluence, is believed by them to be the source of the universe, the origin of Creation. To them, the Voice of the Trench is God. His Chosen are the Spoken, which he called into existence. They too have the power of the Voice to call things into being. They can call upon the powers of the oceanic gods, for example, calling down the brimstone rain that fell upon the Burning Isles as in the beginning. They can call upon the aid of sea creatures and pelagic horrors and command them. They can call upon the powers of the tsunami, the quake, the maelstrom, and the vent. They are terrifying champions and counterparts to the Chosen of the Depths, who are quite a bit different.

Gonna play the poo poo out of a Crab Exalted

# ¿ Jun 6, 2013 19:57

QuintessenceX: Aug 11, 2006; We are reasons so unreal

Bardlebee posted:

So quiet lately.

Has there been any new news on the new edition such as when it will be released and potentially shipped?

The release date is slotted for October. I highly doubt we see the book before November, however.

# ¿ Jun 17, 2013 23:28

QuintessenceX: Aug 11, 2006; We are reasons so unreal

NIV3K posted:

At this point we have gotten probably about 2/3 of the play testing material, so it is within the realm of possibility to have the PDF released by June. More realistically I would say sometime between July and August.

Are you having a good time with the new material? What's your overall opinion so far?

# ¿ Apr 12, 2014 22:36

QuintessenceX: Aug 11, 2006; We are reasons so unreal

I feel like the comic was awesome when it was talking about evocations and hinting at some of the new 3E stuff. The rest was good, just not as gripping as I wanted it to be. I guess I'm just expecting everything to be Strawmaiden level of awesome. It left me excited to see what was up with that Lunar. That part about Rakan creating a message/compulsion that spread throughout Creation was sooooo loving cool. I've loved Sidereals since I first started reading about them, and I really hope that this is a Sidereal effect, not a Getimian effect. Also, any confirmation that the backer characters were in there? I reallllly can't wait to see how they use my characters name in the 3E core.

Edit: I'm also a big fan of the message it sent about Solar supremacy. Visiting Flare doesn't seem to be some sort of poo poo-stomping murder machine and neither does Eternal Nova. I want Solars to be dominant, just not dominant enough to the point of rendering everything else irrelevant. Also, I dig the way the comic contextualized charms as being part of a character/characters legend rather than something external to the character.

QuintessenceX fucked around with this message at 00:48 on Apr 25, 2014

# ¿ Apr 25, 2014 00:31

QuintessenceX: Aug 11, 2006; We are reasons so unreal

So has P3 of playtesting started yet? Also, have any sample evocations been released? I know that we had Volcano Cutter but we don't know the specifics of it's powers.

# ¿ Apr 26, 2014 04:56

QuintessenceX: Aug 11, 2006; We are reasons so unreal

Alien Rope Burn posted:

I understand it will contain the glorious return of Sharkdad.

Actually, he got punched to death by confirmed returning Solar shark-puncher, Tammuz.

# ¿ Apr 26, 2014 16:45

QuintessenceX: Aug 11, 2006; We are reasons so unreal

Ithle01 posted:

So basically we're all just agreeing that the release schedule on the OPP website is terrible and the whole idea of it should be scrapped? Okay.

I feel like there was some discussion from Rich Thomas or someone high up awhile ago on why that website was wildly inaccurate when it comes to Exalted. Still, it sounds like the final phase of playtesting is happening and that means we're probably about 2-3 months out from a pdf, I'd imagine.

# ¿ Apr 27, 2014 05:10

QuintessenceX: Aug 11, 2006; We are reasons so unreal

Wait, reward surveys are out? I backed this book to the tune of 500 dolla dolla bills and I haven't gotten anything. What tier's have gone out already?

# ¿ May 10, 2014 00:46

QuintessenceX: Aug 11, 2006; We are reasons so unreal

Just got done testing out the 3E combat system with two dawn castes rolling pure melee trees and the results were interesting so I thought I'd post some odd thoughts here so I can get feedback from you guys.

Holy poo poo Math. There are so many numbers to keep track of that are fluctuating up and down. With shifting initiatives, motes, and charm interactions like Excellent Strike and Hail-Shattering Practice means that there's a bit more book keeping in this edition. It felt slow, but it could just be because it was our first time playing with two combat specialized Exalts.
Flashing Edge of Dawn is stupidly powerful, especially against a standard health level track opponent.
How would you guys resolve interactions like Bulwark Stance and Excellent Strike? If Bulwark Stance imposes a number of penalties on a damage roll equal to the number of 1's on the attack roll (capped at the Exalt's essence) and Excellent Strike let's you reroll 1's, would Bulwark Stance get cancelled out since the final roll technically doesn't include any 1's?
Combat is way more engaging in this version. From the bit that we played, it seems like combat strategies are a real thing since there are very real risks to defensive and offensive styles of play. My friend played incredibly aggressively, keeping my character pinned and crashed for a majority of the fight. This lasted until he was more or less tapped out of essence (consistently at <5) and my dawn was able to reset powers and use Perfect Strike to crash him and use his substantially larger mote pool to finish the fight.
The way counterattacks work in this alpha version are a bit weird. The fact you can only Solar Counterattack decisive strikes is weird since, if someone is using a decisive blow against you, it stands that you're not rolling in initiative. Am I reading this wrong?
All in all, it's pretty engaging and the system feels pretty satisfying. Our mortal vs mortal games were enjoyable and even though this one was slow, with a bit of thought and some more prep work like calculating out the cost of multiple charms in advance, the combat should be pretty fast paced and entertaining.

# ¿ Jul 13, 2014 06:39

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 09:05

QuintessenceX: Aug 11, 2006; We are reasons so unreal

Kaza42 posted:

So, there was supposed to be a 3rd edition playtest run at Gencon, and the spots for it filled up basically instantly with a great deal of hype and excitement surrounding it. It turns out, however, that Onyx Path never gave the group organizing the playtest the rules, so a 2.5 edition game happened instead. Bear in mind that this was an officially approved event (it's not like a fan group was running it without OP's permission), and that people paid $6 per ticket for the opportunity.

It's a shame that they aren't totally unrelated to OP, it would have been amazing if they had just run the leak instead of the official rules they were promised.

No, but seriously, gently caress the team behind E3.

Anyways, I had a question about Battle Groups. Do Battle Group stats come from their leader or do they come from the average stat of the beings making up the group?

QuintessenceX fucked around with this message at 01:23 on Aug 4, 2015

# ¿ Aug 4, 2015 00:40

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