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Strength of Many posted:No one because they're too dense to run a beta test of any of this. Unlike, say.. 13th Age and other recent games. "If we show them the game, they'll criticize us, and Exalted fans are really mean!" seems to be the justification behind this.
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May 31, 2013 03:15
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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. I don't think anyone wants (or expects) a return to 1e (or 2e) Lunars.
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May 31, 2013 06:10
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Modern Wyld Hunts (according to CoCD: Blessed Isle) are 5-10 Dragon-Blooded, as well as a mortal army to support them. Also they're not just a bunch of martial artists! There is usually at least one Immaculate, but I imagine most of them are not-monk DBs. I should hope that a small army and ten Exalted are a threat for a Lunar or two.
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May 31, 2013 13:17
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Nessus posted:I think you're kind of both right, since the books have noted that the Wyld Hunt has been running on fumes and Peleps Deled's hatred of everything that isn't Peleps Deled due to all the Great Houses pulling their surplus heavily-armed maniacs back home, in anticipation of civil war. I believe the books are supposed to be describing both pre-Empress-vanishment and post-vanishment eras too. Yeah it's weird. Some of the books talk about how the civil war that seems to be on the Realm's doorstep is leading to cuts in the Wyld Hunt forces (which normally only feature like 3-5 dragon-blooded), but then it also talks about how they're doubling down since the Solars have started to return in greater numbers.
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May 31, 2013 14:15
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Boogaleeboo posted:It's funny you go off into an entire other game when you have a perfectly fine example in the game in front of you. It's a variant of Past Lives. Celestial Exalted pick up some of the memories attached to the exaltation that they have, Liminals pick up some of the memories of the bodies they are attached to. They aren't those memories and it's not their body. Much like the Celestial isn't their exaltations memories and it's not his 'soul'. Maybe it'll get more complicated on top of that [Because, of course, Liminals aren't stuck with the body they start with. They can upgrade that thing! Whose to say they can't snag memories from new parts?], but it's an aspect Exalted has been dealing with since the beginning. It sounds closer to Eidolon than Past Life, given that Past Life is a previous Exaltation, complete with resurgent personality and etc, while Eidolon is more in the realm of things you remember that aren't exactly your own memories. While Alchemical memories all come from their own soul, they come from many different people, different people with different life experiences, and the impression I get of the liminal Exalted sounds closer to that, just another step removed (that is, not memories from their own soul.) Unless the devs added something new in about how the liminals occasionally get their brains overridden by their bodys' memories and channel them for extra dice or something and I missed it.
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Jun 3, 2013 17:56
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Valhawk posted:Why am I getting the increasing sinking sensation that this is going to be as creepy and puerile as the 2E? Because all signs so far point to exactly that, I guess.
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Jun 5, 2013 08:57
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No, that quote is from the first sample of chapter fiction that came with the Kickstarter.
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Jun 5, 2013 09:36
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Flavivirus posted:Yeah, because an out-of-context example of one character using a weird idiom when discussing how she feels about a somewhat skeevy other character is such a huge problem :eyeroll: Considering the two lunars in that image, I'm not convinced that the quote is actually out of context. Even in the context of the fiction, it was jarring and out of place.
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Jun 5, 2013 10:12
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MiltonSlavemasta posted:Oh, right. Sorry, just woke up. It's not that it makes the Full Moon creepy, it's just so awkward and out of nowhere. "They were not kin, but he was here to help. He even brought friends. He was clearly itching for a fight. Also, she's pretty sure he wants to slow-gently caress her, and we're mentioning it now even though the matter was set to rest before this story even started. Moving on."
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Jun 5, 2013 13:50
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Bedlamdan posted:What is there in this image that makes the problematic quote even more problematic? And I do agree, it's not a very good line. I didn't say there was anything wrong with the picture. I said that the devs have not done a lot to suggest that Exalted 3e is going to move in a direction away from the tiresome shlock-as-maturity nonsense that pretty regularly reared its ugly head in 2e -- in this case, that's in the fiction that accompanies that picture (you know, the out-of-nowhere bit about "raising her tail for that old buck" in a scene ostensibly about planning a raid.) quote: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. That's Ross Campbell, this guy: http://mooncalfe.deviantart.com/
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Jun 5, 2013 17:24
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Nightskye posted:I was right there on the creepy Lover charms, but this is just taking it a little far. I doubt the idea in that fiction there was "wow, this is so mature, hur har." It's just that sexual tension is, you know... part of most human stories. See: most movies and literature. There isn't any sexual tension in this scene, though, or if there is, then this is the most flagrant example of telling instead of showing in human history. My guess is that whoever the author of it was decided, like, "I have this awesome quip about banging drums and lifting tails and I'm going to use it!" and then they just shoved it into the middle of the text with no regard for how it actually fit. I am confident that it is only in the text because the author had that line and wanted to use it, not because they thought it added anything to the fiction at all. It certainly doesn't suggest sexual tension; it straight up says that the subject was laid to rest before the scene started. If it added anything to the story, I would not roll my eyes as hard at it. Heart Attacks fucked around with this message at 18:14 on Jun 5, 2013 |
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Jun 5, 2013 18:12
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Ferrinus posted:If you ask me, the black mark in Nephilpal's record is his attempt to introduce target number manipulation to the World of Darkness for no loving reason whatever. I've always liked his Abyssals and Alchemicals stuff, though I've never read Infernals. Didn't he also do the Mountain Folk? Neph's Infernals Charms I think are pretty widely regarded as being among the best (or possibly the best) Charmset in 2e, as far as being both evocative, engaging, and mechanically sound. Which is not to say there weren't problems with it, but at least those problems weren't rape ghosts.
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Jun 6, 2013 05:46
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With 40 hours left to go, I don't think I can hold out any longer on waiting for some kind of word on how the actual system is going to work. I really like how the book sounds (like, it sounds like it will be pretty), but given that they have told us basically nothing about what will be in besides a few art snippets (I mean, seriously, we had like three or four content previews and none of them were content for the book being backed?) I just can't go through with it. Oh well.
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Jun 7, 2013 00:36
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Bedlamdan posted:Oh, but that was said after the clarification posting on the KS, and made after the "doubling down" as opposed to before it. As for the second sentence: so you agree that any attempt by the devs to show that they don't want the game to be like 2E will just be taken as a web of lies spun to get people to buy a game that panders to creeps?
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Jun 7, 2013 01:05
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Bedlamdan posted:And then we keep going back to what I've been saying: there's no way to show this until they crack open the Abyssals preview and we run over it to see that there's nothing problematic. Until the Abyssals book is done, of course it's going to be all talk, because that's all they can do!
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Jun 7, 2013 01:10
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Bedlamdan posted:What was explicitly rapey in all the other previews they sent out? And they did send out a lot more than that, we got a hell of a lot more spoiler information than one charm tree they are doing their damnedest to backpedal from. Was there really anything nearly as problematic in the Infernal charms that were previewed? How did the Liminals preview relate to rape culture? The liminals preview, like the Infernals preview, like everything else, was fluff; the Abyssals preview is the biggest portion of mechanics we've gotten. The biggest suggestion of things that will actually be placed into the players hands was "rape ghosts, everywhere!"
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Jun 7, 2013 01:27
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Bedlamdan posted:That said, I would like to point out the statement you made is inaccurate. There was a mechanics preview in Infernals, and they previewed the Adorjan Charm tree in a similar manner to the two Abyssal trees. Additionally, the first Abyssals charm tree, the First and Forsaken Lion one, was previewed sometime in 2012. Christ, are you this kind of guy? Sharp inhale, shove the glasses up your nose, AKSHULLY? me posted:They haven't shown us essentially any other content at all. What do we have? Like, two Solar Charms, Solar XP, Abyssal Armor Charms, and the Abyssal Rape Tree, with the Abyssal Rape Tree being the largest portion of any revealed content to date. It remains the case that the Abyssal rape tree is the single largest block of content we've received, it was displayed prominently (ght after Naked and Deplorable, the Pathetic Signature Slayer whose theme seems to be following the theme started by the Lady of Darkness, which is "Slutty women Exalted are scornworthy people!" Yeah, okay, we only saw the picture in the actual preview, but the followup where her theme is "lovely person" didn't really help. Maybe I am not being charitable to them, but I do not think they are doing a lot to make it hard to be uncharitable.
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Jun 7, 2013 01:47
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Ferrinus posted:When "kill someone by loving them" and "buff someone by loving them" are both off the table, all you've got left are, like, mechanical representations of how good your character is in bed, and who exactly needs that? Don't we literally have a long post by Holden or John or someone explaining precisely why the game shouldn't be going to great lengths to mechanically track how strongly you follow your stated sexual orientation or whatever? Was it a problem when sex was just something you did with a Performance roll (or would have been, except Exalted 2e was awesome and by-the-book that only works if you've got an audience, nevermind that) and you could just slap general Performance-enhancing Charms on it?
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Jun 7, 2013 01:49
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Rand Brittain posted:As far as mechanics previews go, it seems pretty obvious to me that there are no mechanics previews because the book isn't done yet. I mean, it's not really even a secret, so I don't know why people aren't jumping to what seems to me to be the obvious conclusion—that Holden and hatewheel have no intention of showing anybody anything that could be criticized until the whole rules draft is ready to be sent to the playtesters. They told us they've been working on this since at least last year. The Kickstarter says that people should expect to have the PDF in their hands by October. If the game has at least eight months behind it (I believe November was when it was announced, and I'm pretty sure they said they started working on it long before then), and they expect to have it in peoples hands, polished and ready to go, in three months, how can they not have anything worth showing people yet? edit: it was probably announced before November, since "before Christmas" was their original release estimate. Heart Attacks fucked around with this message at 03:03 on Jun 7, 2013 |
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Jun 7, 2013 03:00
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Nightskye posted:They put out some of the best books in the 2E line. Add that stuff together and top it off with "We aren't showing people any of the system because they'll get angry if we do," and man, I don't know how you can defend their approach to this.
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Jun 7, 2013 03:28
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GreenMetalSun posted:Glories also contained the bit where the USC was Jesus/Aslan/Captain America who pretty much won the Primordial War single-handedly by beating all the Primordials at once at the Games of Divinity because he's just so awesome. So the current developers have a track record, yeah, I'm just not convinced that their track record, uh, inspires blind confidence.
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Jun 7, 2013 03:44
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quote:Based on the private correspondence I've seen myself, I actually do understand why some of the more concrete reasons for reassurance can't be broadcasted. From an outside perspective, though, I'm aware that this sounds like bullshit and probably shouldn't count as evidence. Now he's learned the Charm that lets him do it through other people.
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Jun 7, 2013 10:38
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Janest's scythe makes me think that her field god spent too much time playing WoW. "What says, This weapon came from the god of a field?" "Sick spikes and a green glow!" Edit: Janest is still the single best thing that has come out of 3e so far. Heart Attacks fucked around with this message at 08:01 on Jun 9, 2013 |
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Jun 9, 2013 07:57
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Kai Tave posted:Honestly, I think it'd be quicker to list the artifact weapons that have been illustrated throughout Exalted's existence that don't look kinda dumb. That's something I don't think anyone has ever really nailed, in my opinion. Yeah, but between this and the demon-sword the Dawn carries, the examples so far have been aggressively dumb. The really plain orichalcum artifact weapons in the 2e core book aren't too bad. I mean, they're kind of plain, but that beats I just got this sweet scythe enchanted with Mongoose, check out that glow. I just noticed that the standard daiklave example in the core book is two swords though so maybe my memory is just not as reliable as I thought it was. Heart Attacks fucked around with this message at 08:19 on Jun 9, 2013 |
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Jun 9, 2013 08:17
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quote:At the very least Volfer's surfboard of a blade looks like it was forged in one piece. Volfer's sword only resembles a sword in the vaguest fashion though.
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Jun 9, 2013 20:45
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MiltonSlavemasta posted:Yo, StephenLS, do you think I could reskin an artifact weapon as a legendary kung fu sutra in the 3e system? Like, instead of being a physical heavy weapon, meditating on it makes my fists break through iron bars and hit like they have a mass that would make no sense in our world. As I come to understand the true meaning of the sutra, I unlock evocations. I seem to recall the devs being adamant that not using a weapon should always be inferior to using a weapon. I'm having a hard time imagining a system where you couldn't cross out 'daiklave' and write in 'magic fists' as a house rule / homebrew situation though.
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Jun 9, 2013 21:36
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Punting posted:Sounds like a deep and saddening lack of imagination on their parts. Yeah I don't really get it either. I think the justification (throughout 2e as into the 3e development, but I'm probably crossing the fandom wiere here -- dev commentary on Exalted is so pervasive and disorganized it's easy to say "I'm pretty sure a dev said..." and then never be able to dig it up!) has been, "People need tools, so people with tools do better than people without them." It's never been abundantly clear to me why magic + tool trumps magic + more magic, though. You might be able to trawl Nishkriya for the official forum thread about martial art vs melee balance, which is I think where Holden kept to the party line with "Even in Wushu the martial artists use swords!"
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Jun 9, 2013 21:43
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What kind of infrastructure does it take to make Janest's wickedsick scythe? Like I've never really appreciated how 'infrastructure!' is a good justification for 'Your magic is inferior unless you have a metal pole.'
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Jun 9, 2013 22:04
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RPZip posted:As pointed out, there are ways to make innate/'chakra'/whatever weapons ineffective just as easily as 'you forgot your sword at home'; disarm can be replicated, lack of access to the tool can be replicated, and in very interesting ways! Disarming an enemy isn't just forcing them to check their giant swords at the door, it's also unbalancing their chakras through seductive influences and agents. Why in the world would you take the time to bake in this limitation to Exalted of all systems? I mean, sure, it can be worked around and stripped out in play, but it's a stunning lack of vision from the development side to try and implement it at all. The predictable response is that I shouldn't care if my unarmed fighter is useless next to her sword-wielding counterpart, because roleplay not rollplay, but eh.
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Jun 9, 2013 23:04
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Bedlamdan posted:If nothing else, if that's still insufficient the weapon-category/tags thing they have going on makes it really easy to fix. "Your hands now count as swords." And then every ST in history disallows anyone that isn't a Sidereal from learning any of Violet Bier of Sorrows, which as best I can tell is the Martial Art whose driving theme is "make Martial Arts not suck."
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Jun 9, 2013 23:12
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Generally speaking, the theme has been, "With equal investment, unarmed loses to armed." Also, "You can use smashfists!" is not any better than "You can use a sword!" for addressing people who want to play unarmed fighters!
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Jun 9, 2013 23:16
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Lymond posted:You can do unarmed with your drat forehead if you want to. Don't pretend that Exalted doesn't have tools for people who like the barehanded / unarmored aesthetic, because it does. Okay man.
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Jun 9, 2013 23:26
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Perfected Kata Bracers are a terrible example, given that they're a 4-dot artifact whose primary benefit is already attached to like 80% of Form Charms. They vary between 'useless' and 'way more powerful than is justifiable'; "agg on CoD!" isn't even on the same page as "Blanket 2m reduction to Style charms"quote:Now this is technically speculation, but it seems like it is going in this direction. The rest of the point doesn't really stand up in light of MA not being limited to unarmed fighting; the guy with the sword can learn all the native Sword Charms and then move on to all the Sword MAs, too. Heart Attacks fucked around with this message at 23:38 on Jun 9, 2013 |
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Jun 9, 2013 23:35
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So... yes, varies between useless (at the low end) and way more powerful than is justifiable at the high end, especially with the errata limiting sources of Accuracy benefits and reducing damage and defense in general.
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Jun 10, 2013 00:04
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The Gate posted:Edit: Also concrete evidence points out that in the entirety of all 2nd Ed Exalted games played the world over, there were no fights in which an unarmed MA PC ever won a single fight with an armed enemy. Ughhhhhhh, so suboptimal. Is it your firmly held opinion that it is good game design for one popular character aesthetic to be inferior to another popular aesthetic by design (say, the way that a Dawn with a sword was inferior to a Dawn with a goremaul was inferior to Dawn with a powerbow and movement charms?)
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Jun 10, 2013 01:45
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Bardlebee posted:But can you get a gold plated book later? This is actually a legitimate question. Resale market! I'm not sure I'd feel good about myself if I had a gold plated copy of the book and it turned out looking like what we saw during the Kickstarter though. quote:This is pretty much my exact response as well. I put in for the pick a demon tier and then everything they did (or didn't do) during the KS caused me to drop down to pdf level. Heart Attacks fucked around with this message at 12:40 on Jun 27, 2013 |
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Jun 27, 2013 12:38
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Ithle01 posted:There's a big difference between being the best and having stupidly overpowered charm effects that are so ridiculous they sound like fanfic. Solars as 'The Best' is one of the founding concepts of the game and in no way problematic when executed sensibly. Having a charm that lets you rip a hole in reality and shove someone into hell because they looked at you funny is the problem. I don't really like absolute best at everything because it ends up making character success feel very external. Batman is the absolute best detective because he's a genius who dedicates his life to his craft; that Solar is the absolute best detective because his tracking magic is more cost effective than the Infernal Joker's hiding magic. They claim 3e is going to make Charms less "Solar Batman uses Super Magic" and more "This Charm is a representation of how awesome Solar Batman is at detectiving," but I'm skeptical of how this will actually be executed.
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Jul 21, 2013 12:57
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AdjectiveNoun posted:And it's hardly some core tenet that mustn't be touched - it's not difficult to replace Solar Supremacy as a theme with Synergy of the Exalted Host and still have a coherent setting. Hey, Solars are still great (but not head-and-shoulders above Lunars and Sidereals great), but the world falling apart isn't because they're specifically missing, it's because the Host is at odds with itself. The source of whatever makes the Solars the greatest of the Exalted could also be something besides "our magic is better than yours so we win." That's not even a fun way to win. I disagree with the thesis that Solars being the best at everything is devaluing to the other Exalts, though -- I think it makes the Solars less valuable as a PC splat. They should be the NPCs that other splats strive against, because it's not very exciting to have all of your striving become, "And then, I used I Win Prana and I won." Heart Attacks fucked around with this message at 13:04 on Jul 22, 2013 |
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Jul 22, 2013 13:01
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Nightskye posted:Undercutting the narrative isn't a benefit. What about when the concern for maintaining Solar mechanical setting undercuts the narrative?
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Jul 22, 2013 14:38
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Nightskye posted:I guess I don't really see how it does, seeing as the setting sort of centers around the Solars as the bright, crazy center of the universe. There were points during 2e where the Usurpation was mechanically impossible unless every single Solar present for the big dinner hadn't purchased a pretty straight-forward defensive suite (unlikely, given that many of the First Age Solars would have had enough XP to purchase every single printed Solar Charm, and presumably 60 of them would have been Dawns.)
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Jul 22, 2013 14:46
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