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Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Ferrinus posted:

First Age Solars were obviously evil maniacs, or at least the majority of them were. That's why it was such a big problem that they were the strongest Exalted. I swear, do you people know anything about this game at all?

I wonder if there's, like, a secret population of World of Darkness "fans" who are just pissed as all hell that vampire Disciplines are stronger than hunter Endowments.

That's me.

# ¿ Oct 9, 2014 21:30

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# ¿ May 15, 2024 13:19

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Ferrinus posted:

(muttering) My god, my god...

Seriously, though, Effectronica, good news: the game you are looking for is Exalted.

I'm glad that there's finally a game which is willing to admit that monster hunters should always be obviously tougher and more dangerous than the monsters they hunt.

# ¿ Oct 9, 2014 21:36

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Ferrinus posted:

You're okay with Solars being excellent at the Zenith and Twilight skillset. However, they should be excellent at the skillsets implied by all five Castes.

The main error you're making here, though, is this: you've failed to realize that the Justice League and the Legion of Doom are made of Solars.

I mean, was Bard tougher and more dangerous than Smaug?

I mean, you look at the Silmarillion. Obviously, when Tolkien talks about how the Noldor managed to cow Morgoth with the fierceness of their arms and the greatness of their deeds, he meant it was so unimportant that a game about First Age Beleriand wouldn't incorporate that into the mechanics.

# ¿ Oct 9, 2014 21:44

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Nessus posted:

I dunno, I was just talking with some guy who assumes disagreement with his opinions on an RPG was a sign of emotional disturbance or possible derangement. That was kind of annoying.

You probably shouldn't talk to yourself then. :shobon:

# ¿ Oct 9, 2014 23:31

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

LGD posted:

So you're denying that powerful NPCs can overshadow and deprotagonize PCs if they have similar power sets and take an active part in the game in anything less than a purely antagonistic role? Or that a character who can do everything someone else can do (and more) better than they can tends to sideline and deprotagonize that PC?

It isn't crazy thinking at all- it makes cross splat play among different Celestials (something people do like) quite bad as there isn't actually any sort of niche protection or unique thing non-Solaroids do better, it generally makes the kung fu-fights worse, and has bad knock-on effects all throughout the gameline- the setting fluff becomes increasingly centered around sucking Solar dick over time and the mechanics of the other splats are hampered/badly implemented because they cannot ever be allowed to exceed what a Solar could do in any field.

Let's apply this to the Silmarillion. Noldor are simply going to be more powerful, more capable than Sindar, and Sindar better than Edain and Naugrim. This doesn't prevent characters from surpassing Noldor, since an Edain and Sindar managed to steal a Silmaril where all the hosts of the Noldor failed, and later a half-Edain half-Noldor manages to do what none of the slain Noldor had done in winning the Valar over to fighting Morgoth. But if Beren went hand-to-hand with Thingol or Fingolfin or Maedhros, he would lose unless he had a lot of luck on his side. Does this mean that a First Age roleplaying game can't be faithful to the source, or that Noldor would need lots of mechanics to make playing them a pain and keep them "on the level" with Edain?

# ¿ Oct 10, 2014 01:18

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Nessus posted:

Beren actually kicked the poo poo out of a couple of Noldor with his dog friend, sir

However, the story also didn't feature lengthy asides about how, "Ah, but if Beren had had the blood of the Firstborn, or had seen the light of the Two Trees, he totally could have scored at least one more Silmaril before Morgoth woke up."

Do you really think that Ferrinus is suggesting that every time someone who isn't a Solar does something a little fairy pops up and tells them that a Solar could have done it better?

Not to mention that having an angel/demigod in dog-shape save him isn't exactly the message you're shooting for...

# ¿ Oct 10, 2014 01:30

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

The actual, factual protagonists of the Lord of the Rings are Frodo and Sam. They are probably the least effectual members of the party in combat, in social skills, or in really just about anything besides Use Rope.

The actual, factual protagonists of ur-shonen anime Jojo's Bizarre Adventure are at a disadvantage against 90% of the foes they face, even with their cool powers, and there's usually a pretty major disparity in abilities between the members of the group.

# ¿ Oct 10, 2014 04:04

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

TheLovablePlutonis posted:

Jotaro like bodied half the villains by himself and except for the fight against Dio he was superior to the opponents in a lot of stuff, except perhaps on gimmicky situations like having his grandfather taken hostage or being forced to play cards or videogames.

He defeats his opponents handily when he can punch them, but he's still at a disadvantage against Dark Blue Moon (lack of air), Strength (trapped in the Stand's grip), Rubber Soul (can't touch this), etc. because they're able to put him in situations where it's hard to punch. About the only one he trivializes thus far is Justice, and that's after Justice has handily beaten Polnareff.

More importantly, Jotaro and Polnareff are more powerful in combat terms than Kakyoin or Joseph, with Avdol somewhere in between with Iggy. Kakyoin and Joseph have out-of-combat knowledge, sure, but that's not so much the focus of things.

# ¿ Oct 10, 2014 04:13

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

hangedman1984 posted:

In a game with Angel Summoner and the BMX Bandit, its not much fun to play the BMX Bandit. Being completely outshined in everything is a problem.

Whoa, I completely failed to notice where Ferrinus argued that Solar characters should all be omnicompetent. Thank you for pointing out its existence. Now I just have to find it.

# ¿ Oct 10, 2014 16:27

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Transient People posted:

Hmm...more or less yeah. I explained it in a very abrasive way that I think may have muddled the issue a bunch. I think there's fundamentally two ways to handle this problem of players not having high system mastery and thus picking only the most obvious options.

A) You can teach them how to play the game properly. Not merely the rules of the game but also its metagame. A good example would be explaining that 'against very strong fighters, you need a defense penalty negator', to use a very simple example. If you make a build that shows off how a Presence heavy character can win combats without raising a sword even once, people will understand how specializing in not-combat will not harm them.

B) You can build the game in such a way that the players are incentivized to not take the laziest road to fun they can find. This can be through mechanical incentives (an example of this is making a 'healer' archetype heal easier and faster than a damaging archetype can hurt, thus making the healer more mechanically satisfying to compensate for the fact that the role is less thrilling for a lot of people), through presentation incentives (the healer archetype has very interesting and attractive fluff that causes people to look into it instead of just fixating on the damage dealer), or through systemic disincentives (your options are limited to playing oddball or offbeat archetypes, such as a healer or face - you cannot play a damage dealer).

Option A requires possibly even more work than just making a good ruleset, because you don't just need to have a keen grasp of your system but also be a great communicator and a good teacher. You pretty much need a secondary team dedicated entirely to breaking down the game in ways newbies can understand to get things done at the same pace - or double the effort from a singular team, with consequent delays.

Option B is what Exalted goes with, in a variety of different ways. Supernals being caste-only is an example of systemic disincentives, setting fiction is one presentation incentive amongst many when it shows diplomats and musicians doing incredible things without fighting, and the mechanical incentives are too many to list, but the way something like Anointment of Miraculous Health works compared to an attack roll is a good example, since it's more accessible and easier to pull off. Going for Option B isn't a bad thing and doesn't indicate the developers found a problem they couldn't solve. It just indicates that they could not or did not want to devote the resources they had available to writing a strategy guide for their own game.

This doesn't really have much to do with what people are complaining about. Indeed, the only thing that really touches on it, like, at all, is this sentence:

quote:

If you make a build that shows off how a Presence heavy character can win combats without raising a sword even once, people will understand how specializing in not-combat will not harm them.

Even then, it's only a tangential relationship, because the basic point that started this was that combat abilities are more attractive because the combat system has much more depth than the rest of the game does. Saying "you can short-circuit the combat system", even if true, doesn't change that combat has more things to do that aren't just freeform dialogue. People will be attracted to combat abilities because combat allows you to do more things, to think more strategically, than noncombat stuff.

So the real A) and B) are as follows:

A) Bring combat and noncombat together, either by simplifying combat or making noncombat activities more strategic.

B) Accept that most players will focus on combat primarily and design around that.

B) is a whole lot simpler and in line with previous editions, but instead we have C) Add a kludge to enforce a particular behavior. Unfortunately, kludges just don't work all that well for role-playing games, where modding is so easy that it can be done entirely accidentally.

# ¿ Mar 8, 2015 05:11

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Transient People posted:

The point where I'd disagree with that is that other systems are sufficiently developed to stand up to combat, though. Social influence at the least certainly is (and if your combats don't have much use for Gambits I'd actually say it's considerably deeper than fighting). Combat was by far the most developed thing in Exalted 2e, but not so much anymore.

There's still a lot more space devoted to combat than to social influence, boyo, even taking that as given. Which I don't.

# ¿ Mar 8, 2015 05:36

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

cenotaph posted:

I don't really buy any of that. If training times exist then how did you have melee 5 in the first place? The rest is just legislating stuff that is should be up to the individual group anyway.

I posted quite a while ago about how the whole xp system doesn't make sense regarding how you can earn xp for doing *whatever* and then spend it on something completely different, like buying melee charms after completing a business deal. Bolting on training times as a nod towards simulation just makes the whole thing more absurd. It's one area of the game that should be permissive by default. It should be a sidebar of optional suggestions at most.

You bought it in character creation. Duh. But you seem to be on the verge of a rant about dissociated mechanics, so why don't you let it all out?

# ¿ May 10, 2015 22:47

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Ferrinus posted:

It's so weird that multi attacks would prove to pose balance problems.

I mean, poo poo, it's two chances to miss, at a minimum.

# ¿ Oct 10, 2015 03:54

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Hugoon Chavez posted:

Yeah, I think I was expecting d&d 3rd => 4th, and instead got d&d 3rd => d&d 3.5 .

In terms of "making the game playable", the former comparison is probably a lot more accurate, I feel.

# ¿ Oct 19, 2015 07:20

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Roadie posted:

Don't be silly. According to their own account they thought deeply about it, and just happened to decide that a mechanic completely identical to oWoD 1e and literally copy-pasted from book to book was best-in-class roleplaying technology.

That's entirely believable, since Greg Stolze did the same thing for his ORE games. It's got some thought behind it, it's just hard to see why you'd ever want to have that disparity without some backing reason, and most of the reasons seem to conflict pretty directly with Exalted as a game.

# ¿ Oct 19, 2015 08:50

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Ferrinus posted:

Put me down on the "it's a bald-faced lie" side, because who on their team remained on the anti side for months? Where are they now?

It's important to note that Greg Stolze's backing reason in Reign was just, like... stupid, and didn't improve the game at all. Well, rather, it wasn't so much "stupid" as "a straightforward description of the decision's effects", with no attempt to account for the fact that those effects were bad. His sidebar was like, this way you're inclined to load up on huge attribute ratings in chargen and then huge skill ratings in play, which, yes, it DOES turn chargen into a dull yet stifling minigame, well done.

In balance, it's probably more of that lovable dishonesty, yeah. But just because neither of us can think of a good reason for doing it doesn't mean that reason doesn't exist, somewhere, somehow!

# ¿ Oct 19, 2015 20:29

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Attorney at Funk posted:

Maybe BP/XP makes sense, and Obama was a communist all along.

Ferrinus posted:

11th-dimensional Exalted.

Anyways, I like the ideas for Bureaucracy, because they'd inevitably involve lots of random charts to generate personalities on the fly, and that's the good poo poo, I believe.

# ¿ Oct 19, 2015 22:17

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Attorney at Funk posted:

When writing NPCs I always just steal gimmicks and identities from internet posters.

"Hitler was extremely good and cool," the Sidereal says as she strikes a Martial Arts pose.

# ¿ Oct 19, 2015 22:26

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Roadie posted:

But which Martial Arts? They're different Abilities now.

If I had meant Martial Arts, I would have written Martial Arts, instead of Martial Arts. Do you think I can't tell the difference between Martial Arts and Martial Arts? Some people. :rolleyes:

# ¿ Oct 19, 2015 23:00

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Chernobyl Peace Prize posted:

Start giving me reasons not to.

*in Jake Blues voice* the brand... the brand!

# ¿ Oct 20, 2015 01:15

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Thug Lessons posted:

loving Sidereals.

I burned my popcorn the other day, so I know that feel.

# ¿ Oct 20, 2015 02:14

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

SunAndSpring posted:

Tell me more about this game

# ¿ Oct 20, 2015 22:14

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Stallion Cabana posted:

Ah yes, Anjei Marama from the 2nd Edition book Dreams of the First Age, Lords of Creation. the authors include Alan Alexander, John Chambers, Michael Goodwin, Lydia Laurenson, Peter Schaefer, Dustin Shampel and John Snead.

At least one of these people, possible two, is blacklisted from ever working on Exalted 3rd Edition.

I hope it was for missing the Ride pun, fursonally.

# ¿ Oct 20, 2015 22:37

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

SunAndSpring posted:

I just wanted to play 2 games of Exalted in a week and then the guy disappears right as he was about to start the game

This is the Great Curse at work.

# ¿ Oct 22, 2015 04:55

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Attorney at Funk posted:

The mishmash of art styles is way better than their decision to put the page numbers in different spots in different chapters, which makes the book way harder to use as a reference document for no discernible reason.

These pdfs are for haunting and seducing, not referencing.

# ¿ Oct 23, 2015 02:22

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

MiltonSlavemasta posted:

Now that this is finally out I am considering running BLESSED ISLE CIVIL WAR, curious about whether roll20/Skype or PbP+Googledocs would be viewed as better by those with 3e experience.

Play by post? Not even once.

# ¿ Oct 23, 2015 10:20

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Nessus posted:

I am nowhere near that passionate about Exalted at this point

*scrub alarm starts ringing loudly*

# ¿ Oct 25, 2015 02:32

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# ¿ May 15, 2024 13:19

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Excelsiortothemax posted:

I'm saying, that at a dull point in his parents story and without any warning , that his mothers body should have rejected his fetus and crushed him up into a paste.

gently caress. Tim. Buckley.

He is a hack writer and should have been off the Internet a while ago.

Nice, comrade. We can use that vindictiveness, though against more... appropriate targets.

# ¿ Oct 31, 2015 07:36

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