|
My brain starts leaking out my ears when the Martial Arts thing gets described so hopefully there's some differentiation of terms there in the final product. On the subject of Manses, I just want to say that creating your own in 2E was so much more of an investment than either having one at char-gen or finding one that existed that it felt like you were an idiot for trying to build one yourself. So I do hope that Manse creation is simplified a bit, especially for smaller manses. A E4/E5 manse should probably still require National Monument level labor, but the little personal ones I'd like to be something you could build either alone or with a small team. The location of your Manse being a secret is a huge security feature for it, kind of hard to have a secret base when you have 6 teams of workers on it for six months.
|
#
¿
Jun 1, 2013 07:58
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 14, 2024 22:27 |
|
|
QuintessenceX posted: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. As stupid as it is, he's not wrong about this. I'm not going to defend the guy pre-emptively (especially after the last... "explanation") but I can understand the reasoning for waiting at this point. Ferrinus posted:If we both know forty charms, and thirty five of my charms are for combat, and five of your charms are for combat... That's not really a big deal as long as you can't use like, 5 more charms than I can on a turn, even if I have less combat charms overall it just means I have less options when it comes to combat, not that I'm totally ineffective. Same as for non-combat things, where I'll have more options than you. If the root-charms are solid, and can cover a wide enough range of fight-mans situations, it's all good.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 6, 2013 18:29
|
|
|
Ever read a Little House book? Women wore skirts, still busted rear end on the farm.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 8, 2013 17:58
|
|
|
Ferrinus, why do you have this bizarre obsession with Solars having more overall power than the other splats? I mean, ignoring for a second that several of the other splats are corrupted Solars and should therefore be identical in power level, Lunars and Sidereals should be on even level with them at the very least. The only splat that might need to be the little brother just based on history is the Dragonbloods, but they should make up for that by having really ridiculous synergy within their Circles.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 21, 2013 19:44
|
|
|
I think comparing how trivial it is for a Solar to do a full body impersonation of someone with a single easy to get larceny charm, VS. a Lunar who out of the box would have to murder the guy to get his skin after "hunting" him for a few days... If you get the non-murder knack, you end up having a short term disguise that's easier to penetrate than the Solar version and you've spent twice as much exp buying it. This is for explicit shapeshifting. Which is the Lunar's entire shtick. And really the bit I took issue with wasn't "Let's equalize the charms" it was "Let's equalize the charms, but give Solars access to excellency-style stat boosts that make them mechanically better anyway." What is the point of equal charms and inequal base mechanics, that doesn't make any sense.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 21, 2013 22:31
|
|
|
Valhawk that's kind of bullshit because every charm is available to every caste/class of each splat. The caste/class system is more of a guide template and a small boost to what role you feel like playing (melee fighter, mage, whatever.)
|
|
#
¿
Jul 21, 2013 23:00
|
|
|
If the giant monster automatically loses, why are there the bones of dozens of heroes littering the giant monster's lair? Medusa killed hundreds of heroes before Perseus came along. Perseus won because he outsmarted her, and had some magic toys of badassness, which is exactly what I think a PC Solar VS. a Lunar elder should do. The Solar shouldn't be able to walk in and auto-win because he is a Solar. That's what you're
|
|
#
¿
Jul 23, 2013 03:33
|
|
|
Ferrinus posted:I'm obviously not implying that a PC Solar should automatically defeat a Lunar elder... quote:Being the hydra is very different from being Hercules - you approach the game in a different, novel way. However, "defeat the mythological hero in a fight" cannot be one of them. Defining a splat by what it cannot do, is one of the reasons 2E ended up like it did. Solars being the best wizards with their Sun Magic, or the best Artifact guys because really, that was their thing is totally fine. Solars just being mechanically better than every other splat isn't even needed, and I don't know why you insist that it is. Why does the Solar need more dice? That's really the question, and there hasn't been a compelling reason given at all.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 23, 2013 04:00
|
|
|
There is already a class level mechanic in Exalted, it's called Essence Level. An Essence 2 character in any splat will be significantly inferior to an Essence 3 character, because that's the main gatekeeper for charm power. Many charms gain additional benefits as the character gains essence levels or are simply not offered until Essence X is reached. Why does it need to be more complicated than that? Why does an Essence 2 Solar need to be mechanically superior (larger dice pools, etc) than an Essence 2 Lunar? The answers we've been given aren't compelling, and I'm sorry, "Yes they are!" isn't a rebuttal to that. Solars being generalists as they are the Core book is fine, Solars being the best at doing the most "human" things, like making the coolest artifacts or having the strongest sorcery, is also fine. Solars just flat out having more dice than the others, is NOT fine. This feels a bit like arguing with someone who takes the Bible literally, because the justification is always "The Book Says So". (Even if the book isn't all that coherent or contradicts itself or was heavily flawed to begin with.) And in any case, the Solars reappearing at this point in history is destined to make huge waves regardless of if they are mechanically superior simply because the current world-state is a cold war with hot flashes. Both sides on the Lunar/Sidereal conflict are going to be looking to either mass recruit or mass murder the Solars because they're a powerful new piece being added to the board. The US entering WWII. (Not taking that analogy a single step further, but it's the best one I can think of.) The fact that the Solars have the potential to be the King poo poo of Everything again has to be terrifying to the others! That's the whole interesting drama bit. They don't need to superior right now to have that effect. If your Exalted last week Solar has to go significantly up the food chain of the other splats to find an equal sparring partner then something's just wrong. bartkusa posted:If ex3 delivers on both its promises of "Solars can't punk heroic mortals" and "Deathlords can't punk Solars," then wouldn't the power curve flat enough that this argument becomes moot? One can hope.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 23, 2013 16:49
|
|
|
I just hope the vast majority of that dodge charm tree is available at say, Essence 3 and they aren't wasting a ton of time developing charms at a game level no one in their right mind plays at. Or they could make some of the higher essences actually playable instead of an escalating scale of ridiculous. That'd be okay too.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 19, 2013 19:13
|
|
|
Stephenls posted:So looking forward to this being out so people can judge it on content. The last tidbit you all gave us was a 1995 Powerpoint slide of probably-not-final dodge charm names in a definitely not final tree-format. So yeah, discussions are going to circle around to the last interesting thing until there's something new to care about. Also whatever the thinking behind that Lover tree was, you basically made anyone keeping their pledge after that point deal with having to defend themselves against some really ugly accusations of condoning rape-fantasy in elf games. We don't loving appreciate it.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 22, 2013 04:37
|
|
|
Being they've been saying "Dodge is done" and "Melee is done" and "We're working on Archery" I'm going to say "Martial Arts" = the charm set in this instance. Context clues!
|
|
#
¿
Oct 25, 2013 01:08
|
|
|
"Handwave things with a 0 chance of success" just seems like common sense, but I guess the question is if the system/math is clear enough for new Storytellers to be able to recognize when there's no point to rolling. Also sometimes rolling for ridiculous overkill is just fun.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 25, 2013 09:44
|
|
|
The million dollar question is when. Because if it was literally Christmas morning I think we'd all be shocked at this point, (as opposed to like, spring 2014. Or possibly fall 2014, we've been given absolutely nothing.)
|
|
#
¿
Oct 29, 2013 06:59
|
|
|
The problem is right now it really feels like we tossed 100 bux at Duke Nukem Forever: Tabletop Edition. I get that Ink Monkeys, who were responsible for the clean-up duty for 2E, want to make sure the core of 3E isn't going to require that kind of rebuilding further into the line. The delays aren't a big deal. But the lack of communication is a big deal. We paid for the book already, so yeah, we are going to feel a little bit entitled when there is no projected release whatsoever coupled with not even a tidbit of info every now and then. Throw us a charm once a week or something. Something small that proves you're actually working on the book instead of snorting cocaine off hookers. That's all we want guys, it's not a lot to ask. Oh, and no more fiction previews. You don't want us tearing apart a 2 page fluff piece far more harshly than it deserves due to boredom which is exactly what happens every time you release one. Those are actually nice to read in the context of the book, not as snippets in an email.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 29, 2013 20:51
|
|
|
Mexcillent posted:I certainly didn't preorder poo poo cus I'm poor. Why are you even defending them? If you didn't pony up, you don't feel like they owe you poo poo. A lot of us did, and we do feel they owe us something (a completed loving book) and wanting a progress update now and then isn't a lot to ask since we're the ones who paid them to write it. And got them multiple pay increases for doing so during the Kickstarter itself if memory serves.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 29, 2013 21:03
|
|
|
If you're going to discuss a specific post made elsewhere on the internet could you at least link it because no one here wants to wade through the cesspit over on the WW forums just to find it. I'm not going to argue about this but I will say that the attitude of "Be nice to me or I'm taking my ball and going home" just fosters a great big echo chamber and that's really not going to help make the book better, even if you guys enjoy the ego stroke.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 2, 2013 16:39
|
|
|
Attribute pricing has always felt like a failure in the Storyteller system though, because you buy what you want at Char-gen and then just never touch them again. It's an entire subset of character growth you basically toss in the garbage can after the first session. Maybe that's intentional? I don't think it should be. What if I want to start out as an apprentice to a master of punching mans, and I should only logically have 3 or maybe 4 at most strength? I can't, because it's kneecapping the character from the first day. It's really not munchkining to do this either, it's just sensible. I realized it the first time I made a Vampire character when I had never played a tabletop game in my life before, without anyone else telling me it was so. I guess at least it's obvious. It still sucks to start out your stats at the peak with no room for advancement.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 8, 2013 00:19
|
|
|
Wait those were supposed to be sword-wings? 'scuse me while I go laugh really hard because they look way more ridiculous as wings instead of just floating weapons Magneto-style. But comic tie-in art really doesn't worry me any. I highly doubt I'll be reading the comics anyway. Hell, I'm just happy we got a kinda generic art piece to go along with the non-update of the week. I really had been wondering what happened to Plague of Hats, but Evil Hat has done some really amazing stuff and if that's where he went I wish him the best and can't wait to see what he does next. We do appreciate the point of contact Stephenls, and you've been pretty mature about things even when there's disagreements. Rather have you here than Holden, even if you're only an editor. 
|
|
#
¿
Nov 15, 2013 23:59
|
|
|
Stallion Cabana posted:'Favor your combat ability, then also MA because otherwise you'll be weaker then someone doing that for various reasons regardless of what you buy'? This is pretty important. If I am a sword-swinging man, and I want the sword-swinging Martial Art, I shouldn't need dots in Martial Arts. It makes no goddamn sense and got house ruled out of our games a long time ago. Personally I am disappointed that unintuitive and unclear things like 'Martial, Martial, Martial' are being brought over because this was the chance at a new start where those things could have been fixed. I feel like it's a bad decision to hold onto a confusing name due to legacy, and it makes me wonder what other legacy errors are being held onto. Punching a dude is not using a martial art. Hell, I have a pirate character who loves getting into barfights being submitted right now and she would punch/kick the crap out of you but she doesn't know any martial arts, she just fights dirty. "Brawl" isn't any better in that regard. Just call it "Unarmed" or "Hand to Hand" and be done with it, because that's what it actually is and encompasses all the things it does without layering any other expectations on it! I just don't get WHY this is something being deliberately left unfixed. e: 2E is only even playable with a massive amount of houseruling, but we were hoping 3E wouldn't have to be. That was the whole point in making a new Edition. If we look at what very little you guys have told us, and all we see is more houseruling we'll have to do, that kills a lot of the desire to rebuy into the drat game and hype it to our friends. mistaya fucked around with this message at 18:43 on Nov 16, 2013 |
|
#
¿
Nov 16, 2013 18:36
|
|
|
While a quality product is the end goal here, the problem is we also want a quality preview which we are apparently not going to get, even after massively overfunding the product. Compare yourselves to anyone else in the industry right now, even other White Wolf titles (like the Demon one you guys just plugged to us, which looks pretty nifty!) and you'll see why we might be a little bit upset with you.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 17, 2013 07:40
|
|
|
Couple questions on the new map: 1) Are the circles meant to denote 'sphere of influence' type stuff? 2) Is The Caul shown at proper size or is that magnified? (The way it's styled it's hard to tell.) (Sidenote: Fake crease lines look really cool on digital copies and really dumb on physical copies of maps.)
|
|
#
¿
Dec 30, 2013 00:36
|
|
|
Other than what Kai Tave said (which I wholly agree with) remember what kind of people are chosen by the warped exaltations. Infernals are heroes who failed. They were supposed to lead the rebel forces or free the slaves or bring the rogue to justice and they hosed it up on their own somehow. The Infernal exaltation is given to a demon who has to go find a hero who suffered the same kind of loss that the Primordials did. That hero is going to be reborn, with a lot of new power, and a whole lot of motivation to go finish what he or she started. Infernals are driven to accomplish something. Retake the world! It's yours! It OWES you! Abyssals are heroes who died. The Deathlords get pretty involved in the process, and a hero might be groomed for the exaltation without ever knowing it. Agents of the Deathlords keep an eye on potential candidates, and when one does fall, the offer is made. The Neverborn are selling a twisted version of something that doesn't belong to them, something that should have been free. There is a real theme of debt in the Abyssal exaltation. The Abyssal is eternally beholden to his or her Neverborn masters, and they are not shy about using the whip when their hero disobeys them. Destroy the world! We empowered you, obey us! In short, the Infernal is the neighbor's dog that runs around the neighborhood without a collar, while the Abyssal is always on a choke-chain. There's a huge difference not just in style but in tone. mistaya fucked around with this message at 07:46 on Jan 30, 2014 |
|
#
¿
Jan 30, 2014 07:43
|
|
|
Well, you can look it at as a master/slave but I see it more as a lord/knight. One of the things that's neat about the 2E Abyssals that I hope they don't change is that Abyssals are part of an army. Where the others are usually doing their own thing alone or in small groups. The Underworld has it's own society and power rankings, and the Abyssals don't even have to go to Creation if they aren't needed there.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 30, 2014 16:45
|
|
|
I'm pretty sure it says right in the MOEP: Abyssals that if a Solar charm hasn't got a mirror you can make one up. Which is not an excuse for how forgotten they were after their source book was published, but ignoring that seems a bit silly when it's encouraged that you do so. Ravening Mouth of (Ability) is fairly potent mote recovery. Abyssal mote recovery being tied to how much damage they inflict is an interesting concept, but then they gimped it in the errata by putting caps on it (which are reasonable-ish) and trying to dump drained motes into an overdrive pool. This is a problem because like Stallion Cabana said, they have gently caress and all options for acquiring an overdrive pool. Abyssals need some house-ruling to function well, but they are easy common sense fixes. You can get around a lot of the limitations by being creative (For instance, there's a sail-charm that turns your ship into a Shadowland for mote respiration, and you can still get a decently sized Cult without pissing anyone off.) 'Trappings of Death' is silly, but it also gives justification for having Death Knight fashion sense (SKULL BRAS FOR EVERYONE!) Dropping the pointless penalties for Creation-manse and Hearthstones and ignoring Spectral and Avatar keywords is really easy. Ignoring Trappings of Death for the most part (although really, why wouldn't you wear cool deathknight stuff unless you were intentionally undercover?) is also easy. That one I like to at least pay some lip service to though. Resonance is a weird can of worms to me. I think it can be done well, but probably isn't often enough to need a serious overhaul. I mean, if we're talking RAW, well, we're not talking about 2.5. So the obvious house rules have to be considered. With the death of Mirror as a concept I hope the Abyssals can really grow into their own. They weren't the only splat to fall prey to "Must Be Worse Than Solars" mindset, it was just the most obvious since they literally had worse versions of Solar charms. Giving Loyal Abyssals ways to be Heroic without trying to stop being Abyssals is something that is DIRELY needed. It's possible, you can do it, we're doing it in a PBP game right here on this forum. But there's pretty much no support for that kind of story in the text.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 1, 2014 09:43
|
|
|
Yeah I agree with most of your points. I'm not arguing per se, just offering my opinion. Not defining the whole Trappings of Death thing was a good idea. It lets you borrow funeral-dress from whatever place your character was from, or just be as creative as you want to. My Death Knight wears flowing white with a concealing hood, for example, with nary a skull to be seen, as that's how people in her village were buried. It's been altered to be much more combat-capable, and she wears chainmail underneath it, but I think the point is that dead people have a completely different fashion sense to living people. Creation isn't their home so if they're adventuring in Creation it's ok to make them stand out, the way a group of English Knights would stand out in Imperial China. (As long as the sneaky types still have ways to be sneaky, which they do.) RE: The Mirror description- it has a line in it about Solars and Abyssals being able to learn the mirrors of each others charms, and I took that to mean that you could create them if they didn't exist since there are quite a few non-mirror charms that I'm sure Solars could come up with sun-flavored versions of. But it seems like that isn't the case? I don't see any reason NOT to make up your own mirrors if you want something, though, it's not like it's hard to do. I don't care if one of the devs said not to do them because he wanted to (and then DIDN'T, so gently caress him.) 2.0 is RAW, 2.5 can't be RAW because it isn't finished. There's no Glories: Hell/Underworld to patch things up officially. Ink Monkeys did their best but fixing 2.0 was impossible and that's why we're getting a 3.0 fresh start instead of Errata Forever, and it's clear they didn't spend a lot of time on Abyssals when they were doing the fixes for 2.5. Houseruling Abyssals is mostly just ignoring stupid penalties (Avatar and Spectral, the -2 to things in creation) Personally I don't mind the non-respiring motes in Creation thing because that can actually be dealt with in the story in interesting ways but some groups might just ditch it. You can also keep Avatar and just get rid of the Underworld training trip thing, (maybe praying in a Shadowland is good enough to increase it.) Oh, and getting motes from actually being a vampire works fairly well, especially if you have that little 2 dot cult or better yet some kind of elemental buddy with quick healing who doesn't mind being snacked on. That limitation is meant to make it hard to be an Abyssal in Creation, which... makes sense. mistaya fucked around with this message at 20:26 on Feb 1, 2014 |
|
#
¿
Feb 1, 2014 20:22
|
|
|
If you're attacking anyone with an essence pool you can drain motes off them in combat in addition to your stunt motes (and then you can drain the body once you make the kill to top off.) It seems reasonable that Death Knights would be more active in regions or areas that had access to a nearby shadowland, or would make their own if they needed one. Draining extras isn't a reasonable way to get essence back, agreed. But there's a lot of things with quick-healing and big essence pools that you can make friends with if you want to go that route. It's not for every character, but it is an option. I really wouldn't mind if it didn't show up in 3E though.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 1, 2014 21:40
|
|
|
Making the Underworld interesting enough that anyone could have a neat adventure there (not JUST the death-aspected Exalts) would be welcome. About the earlier discussion, is there anything you can say RE: Are all the deathlords just going to be evil again? There's a sidebar in MOEP: Abyssals that asks "Are the Deathlords evil?" and then answering with "Yes." Can you be heroic and also loyal? Or is the whole Cause of Oblivion something that's set in stone and basically means they have to be evil because their actual goal is unmaking everything?
|
|
#
¿
Feb 3, 2014 04:43
|
|
|
I don't want the Deathlords to be good guys, that's not really in their purview. Downplaying the Neverborn is one way to go for sure, since they don't have the personalities of the Yozi and it might be more fun to keep them as an ominous lurking presence that kind of keeps the Deathlords in check. Mainly what I want from the Deathlords is a good reason to follow them, a reason to stay loyal that isn't just the whip (Resonance.) I think one of the things that sucked about the Deathlords in 2E is that several of them were basically taken off the table as potential masters. The Dowager had some really neat themes that fit in with a character I wanted to make, but it says she only has one Abyssal at a time, and it's always a 12 year old. What? Why spend all that word count on making something interesting and then pull it off the table? Eye and Seven Despairs is basically unservable too. Give them all a reason to want Abyssal servants, and give them all a motivation that has options for the Abyssals to do interesting things that aren't just baby-eating and world domination, and I think everyone will be happy.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 3, 2014 08:11
|
|
|
I think there's a few different levels to the argument here which makes sense because people have different things that they feel uncomfortable with. Personally I don't care about Raksi, and I don't have a problem with cannibalism existing in Exalted. I'd really hate to lose that "R" rating. But the thing is, I don't want My Character to have to eat people to perform a basic function of her Exaltation. Especially when other splats can perform that exact same function without eating people. That's one of the major issues with 2E Lunars. Necrotech can be really cool and corpse armies of zombie death things are fun and they should be disturbing but there is definitely a line and "Pregnant Monster That Throws Baby Grenades" crossed the line. e: Honestly I think "Violence against children/Babies" might be the line that people mostly dislike. That doesn't mean bad things can't happen to kids, but things that specifically target children and especially babies should be examined carefully so they don't come off as gratuitous. mistaya fucked around with this message at 19:04 on Feb 3, 2014 |
|
#
¿
Feb 3, 2014 18:26
|
|
|
Well we can go back to talking about Solars if you can sneak us any tidbits!  And if the baseline for "Impersonate a human" isn't EAT THEM AND WEAR THEIR SKIN, then that'd be OK with me. mistaya fucked around with this message at 20:19 on Feb 3, 2014 |
|
#
¿
Feb 3, 2014 20:16
|
|
|
Which wouldn't be terrible, but Lunars have 5 whole dice to add. Shapeshifters want to shapeshift, yo. Not put on makeup.  Go ahead and keep eating people if you want to, but make that like, absorbing their memories and intimacies and Fate and stealing everything about that person. Put that deeper in the knack-list and make it give tempting bonuses to lead heroes astray. Right now, Prey's Skin Disguise is the low-essence entry knack to human shape-stealing and it's full on cannibalism. You have to buy 'Cannibal' to get to 'Not-cannibal'. That's a little bit backwards, yo! Shouldn't cannibalism be an extension, a 'power corrupts' temptation? There's a lot of interesting ground within the Sacred Hunt. What happens to animals or people who are hunted? Maybe their spirits are actually taken into the Lunar herself, and the Lunar can learn to consult them, or gain knowledge/training from them? What if Hunting a master of Snake Style let you then learn Snake Style as if you had a tutor because you can draw on the memories of the dead master? What if it was a way to hold a loved one's spirit with you forever, since Lunars are capable of living thousands of years? Could the spirits within the Lunar talk amongst themselves, or see out of her eyes? The Solar Bond doesn't just apply to Solars anymore, so I really hope we see some new synergies between Lunars and their Abyssal and Infernal mates as well.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 3, 2014 21:52
|
|
|
Stephenls posted:Pregnant zombies that shoot zombie baby bombs is a thing from previous editions that I think is over the top, not something we're looking forward to perpetuating. The thing we're looking forward to perpetuating is the doom engine that sings death songs and is stitched together from the necromantically animated lungs of the unhallowed dead. Which is totally metal, but not really mature, except, again, in the language of parental warning stickers. See, I'm totally on board with things that are cool but not necessarily mature. It just wouldn't be the same without skullapults. We must have skullapults. They aren't mature and they aren't trying to be, they're just fun. Look at all the screwed up monsters in like, Dead Space. There should definitely be monsters that deserve Issac's mighty boot crawling around in the Underworld. And that game even does evil-acid-spitting-babies and somehow pulls it off fairly well! You just have to find the line between 'cool' and 'squicky'. I liked the writeup for Ixcoatli a lot, and hearing that it's trying to give Beastmen more of a worldspace that isn't just savage abominations is actually pretty sweet. Brings up a question I don't think I've ever asked though, can Beastmen Exalt? If they're just being treated as another brand of humans you'd think that they could. Are they seen often outside their domains? It makes me think of the Viera from Final Fantasy 12, (the bunny ladies) who mostly didn't leave their forest but there were occasional exiles and travelers who did. Would they be considered regular folks to the Dynasts, or Anathema?
|
|
#
¿
Feb 4, 2014 01:03
|
|
|
Stallion Cabana posted:"Hey, Little Lunar." This is amazing. Honestly, "Raksi eats babies!" feels more like a rumor that her enemies or rivals started in order to discredit her, or that she started herself in order to make herself really scary sounding. Or maybe she did eat a baby once and no one will ever let her live that one down. ("You eat one baby!") I didn't even know Raksi was the Lunar who invented the tattoos until just now. Lilun is on a whole 'nother level and I think we can safely just light those chapters on fire and hopefully never go down that path again. (I am looking very sternly at Onyx Path.) Honestly at this point, trying to remove something a recurring character is very well known for might not be something the devs want to do, even if that something is kind of dumb. In my stories, I would probably not have it be a literal truth though, even if it does stick around in the new texts. Hopefully they can manage some of the squickier character without going too far. We've done a good job of not rehashing the Abyssal Charm Preview argument for the 'nth time so far, but like, I hope there are some changes to some of the old characters who crossed the line into too-drat-squicky. Like that First Age Solar guy who kept his mate mind-controlled and abused the hell out of her. I don't really want to see more of that guy. I don't think that's a character and story that should be preserved as it was. Baby-eating Raksi is quite tame compared to that.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 4, 2014 05:00
|
|
|
Well, there is a difference between "fiddley" and "10 step combat resolution." Exalted should have some crunchiness, it's always been a crunchy system and expecting it to be like, a single-roll system (like FATE) would be really weird. But if you guys are dedicated to not showing anybody anything at all until the book comes out, sometime in the next 5 months, (If we're lucky! Maybe it's going to be our 2014 Christmas present?) what is the point of even having a discussion about it anymore? This is absolute kiddy gloves treatment compared to things anything SA doesn't actually like, man. This thread is full of people who are worried and disheartened, because we haven't seen anything and we won't see anything. And yes, giving you 100$ (or whatever else we did on the KS) does give us a little bit of a feeling of entitlement, because we funded this project. And when you guys have given us a scrap of info we've given good honest feedback on it, like with Solar EXP. We aren't here just to tear down the game. When we feel like it deserves tearing down (See: Lover Charms) we absolutely will, but I hope to loving God that we wouldn't have to do that for the Solar charmset. I've said this before, but one charm preview a week, using the charmsets that are already completed, and putting a big fat "THIS IS BETA, SUBJECT TO CHANGE" warning sticker on them, would go a long way towards engendering trust that you haven't just run off to Mexico and are snorting coke off hookers with the KS money. "We finished Social charms today!" Without a single example of a social charm, is not useful or interesting and we have to take your word for it because it's sure easy to say that! Having some of the beta-players out themselves has made me feel a bit better, I guess, since apparently SOMEONE is looking at this thing. I mean I've tried to be as nice as I can about the delays and the lack of information, I really have, but eventually frustration becomes a more prominent feeling than excitement, and then I just give up. Because it's not worth getting upset OR excited about something that doesn't exist.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 5, 2014 21:37
|
|
|
I think something that has to be done to keep the Lunar Elders relevant and interesting is to make sure they aren't just the "Here Be Dragons" on the edges of the map. Why is Raksi raising an army of ape men? You don't raise armies to sit in your city and go on parades, you raise them to invade your neighbors. Or maybe you raise them for another purpose entirely, like staving off an imminent Wyld-invasion by the fair folk that no one but Raksi knew about. So when the PC's are implored to destroy the baby-eating jungle witch and they go to do so, they actually reveal that while she was clearly unhinged and not a good guy, she was also defending Creation from a terrible threat and now the PC's must take up her mantle. And maybe they find out more about why she went off the deep end along the way. Or to take another tact entirely, maybe Raksi, as the inventor of the Lunar tattoos, is the reason they work at all in the first place, and Luna in her grief over the slaughter of her mad child takes her blessing from the Lunar Exalted, and they lose the protection of the form-fixing magic and must come up with a replacement or a way to regain Luna's favor and turn them back on again before they're all damned to chimerism. (This could apply to just your PC's as the murderers, or ALL Lunar Exalted for some major world-shaking.) Make the Lunar elders load bearing. Give them a reason to be hiding on the edges of the map, and some major consequences if they were to vanish or die or be killed. The reason Kejack works is that when he dies it's going to have major consequences! A Sidereal game that starts at Kejack's funeral would have all kinds of interesting places to go from there. NPC's need to be able to be dormant if they are not in use, but be important enough that in a game focused on their area, they would be missed if they were gone. It's a difficult thing to do that, but I think it's well worth the effort in trying. I honestly disagree with Kai's "Burn it down and make new ones" approach. I think that the NPC's can be rehabilitated with care, and by leaving their histories open. I don't want to see serial numbers filed off of old characters. I do want to see a couple new faces in with the old though. Don't JUST rehab, give us new things to contrast with the old.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 18, 2014 14:25
|
|
|
Stephenls posted:(I admit when I saw that Charm preview my thought was "10% greater mass; or 10% greater height, length, and width? Because those are two different things....") Now I'm just seeing it as "Your familiar gets 10% fatter every repurchase" and you end up with one of those 50lb cats that get wheeled around in strollers on Youtube. If there's a different in combat between "People sized" and "Godzilla sized" (which there probably should be!) then having the Familiar Ox-body grant Kaiju size probably doesn't make sense, (but Mount-sized probably does AKA Clifford-sized.) It's preview text, and I'd recommend dropping the "10%" specifically because it feels like beta-text that hasn't been run through the flavor-generator, but I think that the charm itself is pretty solid. By 2 purchases your dog should go from "large example of his breed" to "that's... a really big dog" and by 5 purchases to "is that a dog?" But if you can spend this much exp on just upping your familiar's health I hope it can really be a badass combat companion, otherwise there isn't much point. VV-A fair point. I actually really liked the way it was optional in the charm-text too. mistaya fucked around with this message at 07:02 on Feb 25, 2014 |
|
#
¿
Feb 25, 2014 06:23
|
|
|
I'd much rather have the flavor of "and it gets a little bigger, or CAN get a little bigger" as a side effect of the charm purchase than just excising it because you don't like the phrasing, what the hell guys. 
|
|
#
¿
Feb 25, 2014 18:12
|
|
|
If you read the KS update it mentions the characters being shown off were some of the Backer insert characters as well. I don't know if the Lunar woman was one of them, but if she was her art direction would have been up to her original player. That was actually an unfinished sketch, there's another completed picture of a bunch of clothed people (including sword-guy) around a fire talking about stuff. So if the objection is "what's being offered" that was just a little bit of cheesecake thrown in for dessert. You're kinda delusional if you think there's not going to be any scantily clad ladies in Ex3. I'd love more progressive design but I'll take silks and ribbons over say, 90% of the females drawn in the Lunar and Abyssal core books. Most of which just have bare breasts, (and most of those pierced.)
|
|
#
¿
Mar 16, 2014 17:43
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 14, 2024 22:27 |
|
|
I like that he draws women of color and people who aren't Disney-variety beautiful. I just wish he would remember to put more than torn scraps of clothing on them.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 16, 2014 21:41
|
|