Soulsteel panoply edition.
>What is Exalted?An epic high-flying role-playing game about reborn god-heroes in a world that turned on them.
Start here: http://theonyxpath.com/category/worlds/exalted/
>That sounds cool, how can I get into it?Read the 3e core book (link below). For mechanics of the old edition, play this tutorial:http://mengtzu.github.io/exalted/sakuya.html
It’ll get you familiar with most of the mechanics.
>Gosh that was fun. How do I find a group?Roll20 and the Game Finder General here on /tg/. good luck
>Resources for Third Edition>3E Core and Splatshttps://www.mediafire.com/folder/b54o6teut3fx6/Exalted_3e
>Errata for Third Editionhttps://docs.google.com/document/d/1n3ooTmopm3CBxW5jwPp1761xsaIccea-5XIhVM_PQEc/edit
>Other Ex3 Resourceshttps://pastebin.com/fG1mLMdu
>Resources for Older Editionshttps://pastebin.com/BXSGuFdQ
>Collection of Exalted Hackshttps://pastebin.com/gtZnycJs
>Stuff that might be interestinghttps://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/the-exalted-thread-with-no-original-ideas.317216/
Last thread:
>>95837260Thread Questions: What's your experience with Abyssal Artifacts? if you don't have any, pic a random object and describe it as Soulsteel item.
https://perchance.org/object
Has anyone ever used one of these fuckers?
Do you ride it, or do you just sic it on someone?
>>95899423 (OP)The ones in the current book or soulsteel items in general?
>>95899492If you have its command codes, both; some might also have more comfortable accommodations and be borderline pilot-able.
If you don't have the command codes, it's a nuke that you have a sword fight with while bantering.
>>95899423 (OP)to whomsoever updates, the novella What Lies Forgotten and the Essence Player's Guide manuscript are both in /newvola
>>95900244Added. Please download to confirm they're working.
>>95899423 (OP)Weekly Update
>FINAL DRAFTInfernals
The redline curse has (temporarily) been held at bay
>Art DirectionAlchemicals – Awaiting art notes stil
Champions of the Divine Flame – With HIVE
>LayoutEssence Novella Omnibus – With Travis
Miracles of the Divine Flame – Still working on it
>PressExigents – Quoting
Exigents Screen – At Studio 2
Sidereals – Quoting
Abyssals – pdf out to backers
the big news of course is that the abyssals backer pdf is now out. i don't kow what's changed in their work process but the proofing, indexing and page numbering phases seem to be much faster at times than before. if anyone does have a backer pdf and could upload it somewhere in reach, we'd all appreciate it. likewise, there's an errata sheet available, send corrections to mistakes you find if you feel like it https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd4sXbQ0HhHE-QQkeZbXqtUtD3h4gZZEqs2vsihXzpzritZQQ/viewform
that said, it's a toss up if either this or the omnibus come out first. novellas need less oversight and these ones are already released but it's taking longer than i thought it might, so it could come out after or even by remote chance hold out for the novella stretch goals from the player's guide
>>95900381it's working perfectly, thank you
Okay, but do people actually play EX3 or just complain about it here?
>>95900544This ain't D&D, Exalted ain't big enough for people to know how to whine about it through osmosis alone.
>>95900544>Okay, but do people actually play EX3 or just complain about it here?Some people play it but for the most part people who bitch about it use other systems despite cannibalizing 3e or Essence for parts.
Basically the same as WoDg's relationship with V5.
>>95899701I was talking about soul steel in general, fishing for any stories related to it.
Once had a story I did where one of the Abyssal PCs in my game wanted to try and pull He Who Holds In Thrall back from the edge of Oblivion. We created a soulsteel Grand Gimscythe out of one of the Beast's claws pried from it's corpsebody. Called it The Smallest Talon of the Beast.
Basically helped him restore the name of Mardukth to the collective consciousness of Creation, and make it remember who it was once again.
>>95901357Sounds pretty neat but I really don't know any of these NPCs.
>3e Solars
What are the best charms for running away from fights (and just in general)?
>>95900544I complain about 3e because I play 3e and don't want to play 3e, but have developed a bad habit of putting which game / system we play next up to vote and after talking over potential games with my group rather than forcing a decision.
>>95902020>running away from fightsTravel Without Distance is the standout, especially if your shaping rituals are the ones which let stack up a bunch of sorcerous motes to insta-cast something. Leaping Dodge Method is practically necessary for breaking immediate contact if you aren't teleporting out somehow, so that'd be the other S-Rank charm. After that it's mostly hiding / disguising yourself, for which entry level larceny/stealth charms are the go-to.
>>95900544I play 3E. Sometimes I also complain about 3E, because I have my fair share of issues with it, not ones that prevent me from having fun with it, but enough of them that I'll try to get my group to give Demake a try next time we play Exalted. Sometimes I complain about people complaining about 3E, too, because some anons aren't content complaining about all the genuine issues 3E has and instead choose to make dumb claims about material they either haven't read or haven't understood.
>>95899492>in 1e, these were explicitly made by the Dragonblooded and not the SolarsNot sure how to feel about that. But cool I guess. Interesting how later editions said it was Solars.
>>95903937>complaining about all the genuine issues 3E has and instead choose to make dumb claims about material they either haven't read or haven't understood.This is really eye opening, once you read the books of any edition, you realise many people here just blow smoke up everyone's arses and hope no one disagrees.
>They're basically just trying to do < otherwise irrelevant pop culture parallel > but failedThis shit is the most common and it's so jarring to read because every single time the mf demonstrates he hasn't read the material.
>>95904060>As the Deliberative gained control of more and more of Creation, the mighty dragon-machines slowly gained in number, yet declined in military usefulness.This is also from their 1e writeup and it's interesting to see how differently the First Age developed in 1e vs 2e (or even 3e). The 2e Deliberative basically took over Creation day one via the Creation-Ruling Mandate, while the 1e Deliberative had much a slower expansion taking control of the world one step at a time. I mean, the Dragonblood had enough time to manufacture dozens of Artifact N/A while the Deliberative still didn't fully control Creation kind of slow.
It has me imagining that an exploration of history post-Primordial War would start off looking a bit like the Age of Sorrows Creation does now, with the Exalted through the Blessed Isle and a thousand kingdoms out in the Threshold that would resist a take-over, except everything's still flush with power and the Threshold kingdoms are full of magical nonhumans.
>>95904103>They're basically just trying to do < otherwise irrelevant pop culture parallel > but failed>This shit is the most common and it's so jarring to read because every single time the mf demonstrates he hasn't read the material.Yeah, that shit's infuriating. It always makes me think that the anon in question must have very narrow interests and very limited exposure to media and is trying to interpret everything he encounters from that narrow, limited perspective.
How much of a penalty to detect someone hiding at Extreme range?
>>95904885Technically there aren't any canon penalties based on rangebands... however, Keen Sight Technique letting you make out details at one hundred yards as if you were point blank, while also describing itself as performing difficulty 2-3 feats as if they were Difficulty 0 would indicate that ~100 yards is equivalent to ~2-3 Difficulty, which is about 4-6 dice, call it five dice. So, you could say that Awareness at a hundred yards has a -5 penalty. I wouldn't, and instead would increase the difficulty to spot by a flat amount on top of the successes scored in an opposed roll, because penalties effect chances differently (a -5 penalty would make it impossible to spot anything at a hundred yards for the average sentry, which doesn't gel with what we expect rationally, while +2 or even +3 difficulty is possible to achieve with a lucky roll).
How far is one hundred yards? Probably medium range, I guess? 'on the horizon' in Exalted is about 2-3 miles away according to 2e Core, though 3e hasn't spoken up on how the implications of the flat earth should be portrayed as far as I'm aware (which as an aside I've noticed has lead to a lot of 3etards thinking you can see infinitely far across the seas by just looking horizontally, and has them thinking the Imperial Mountain can be seen in the distant threshold 'anywhere in Creation'). We could maybe approximate the extreme rangeband as being a mile away if it's supposed to match up with Unsurpassed Sight Technique, but that charm doesn't have a mechanical bonus so it's hard to calc with. If it's bonus is equivalent to Unsurpassed Taste and Smell Technique then it's +Essence successes, minimum 2, on top of Keen (Sense) Technique in which case spotting at a mile's distance is supposed to be around ~Difficulty 4-8, and an 'equivalent' penalty to apply would be -8 to -14. If you must go with a penalty I'd go -10, but I'd instead add five successes to the other side in a rolloff for the same reasons as mentioned before.
>>95904885>Extreme range?Missed that extreme range is a term from Essence specifically, range bands are 3e.
I'd probably make it Difficulty 5 to spot at that range. In a roll-off I'd give the person hiding a two success bonus rather than apply a penalty to the character trying to see them - for one thing, it gives away valuable information to the spotter if you penalise them based on range like that. Then if the person hiding rolled low than five successes I'd raise the Difficulty to spot them up to five to represent the difficulty of spotting somebody at that range at all, regardless of whether or not they're hiding.
>>95905200The question was for 3e.
>>95905208I'm pretty sure it's the same as Essence in that regard.
>>95905581Ranges are a little different in Essence, and difficulties and bonuses/penalties are calculated differently, with different implications. I'm the anon that answered the question and the difference does matter. It's why the answer changed between editions.
>>95905772My bad then, I thought the differences between Essence and 3e were negligible in this case.
Where do I find the rules to generate Beastmen ?
>>95907245In 1e where they belong. Just give them appropriate mutations and specialties relevant to their animal parent
>>95907272So what would you recommend for a half horse?
>>95907437Start with the Horse stats from the core book. So Bonuses to movement actions, feats of strength and senses. Then apply the two abilities horse have:
>Brutal Kick: Enemies smaller than human size that take 5+ damage from the horse’s withering stomps are knocked back one range band and fall prone.>Swift-Hooved: Horses apply the double 9s rule on all rolls to disengage or withdraw. When trained, they may apply this Merit to rush rolls as well as a latent abilityThen see what works for a horse from the solar and lunar merits section.
Merits: Boundless Endurance, Fleet of Foot if their parent was a racehorse or Mighty Thew if they were a pack horse.
Mutations: Hooves, Bounding Legs, Imposing Features (Mane).
>>95904103>>They're basically just trying to do < otherwise irrelevant pop culture parallel > but failed>This shit is the most common and it's so jarring to read because every single time the mf demonstrates he hasn't read the material.The great curse officially exists to "copy some scenes from media"; and unofficially to railroad players.
>>95907683The Great Curse exist so the characters would shot themselves in the foot every once in a while or else the Celestials would have no real conflict beyond a mostly meaningless clash of personalities.
>>95907801Because the 1e writers knew players couldn't be trusted to roleplay those elements properly and would treat it like D&D where your characters are the flawless heroes. So they chose to railroad them to better emphasise the idea of the setting
>>95907801NTA
>or else the Celestials would have no real conflict beyond a mostly meaningless clash of personalities.What?
Irl we hardly need a curse for people to kill each other now imagine any retard can be given a nuke and the world has like 10 different guys trying to destroy it.
There in no need for it.
>>95907808I don't see that as a bad thing let them be the only good guys in a fucked up world.
>>95907820>I don't see that as a bad thing let them be the only good guys in a fucked up world.By all means run your game that way. The writers wanted the Exalted to be inherently flawed, and succeptible to power corrupting, so they came up with the curse to mechanise that behaviour. But it's your game, not theirs, ignore them if you want, I do.
>>95907808And almost no one gave a shit about that.
>>95907801Aren't the clashes of personalities the very thing the GC was trying to emulate?
>>95907820>I don't see that as a bad thing let them be the only good guys in a fucked up worldIt is WW, the PC are supposed to be glorified background characters.
It is one of the reasons for why I thought exalted was really weird at first.
>>95907869This is the greatest irony of the setting, caused by the hubris of the devs.
>>95907861>The writers wanted the Exalted to be inherently flawed, and succeptible to power corruptingI find it very funny because exalted was supposed to be a critique of the great men theory yet the creators had to implement a literal curse that makes the great men go mad.
Signaling the opossite message.
See
>>95907869That guy is actually awesome but was cursed to suck.
>>95907861It's mostly a matter of people not caring for what the writers were trying to achieve or disliking the end result at their tables.
It doesn't really help that half of the other playable exalts don't have it and are fine.
>>95907881>Aren't the clashes of personalities the very thing the GC was trying to emulate?More of an inherent flaw despite their greatness, like in the story of Gilgamesh. But they didn't trust players to rp that stuff, so they forced it on them.
>>95907920My rework, was that each exalted had a completely different great curse.
For example, for the Lunars, it was the tell.
>>95907881>Aren't the clashes of personalities the very thing the GC was trying to emulate?Not really, at least in the first edition they were trying to give problems for the PCs with their virtue flaws. Like Herkules going apeshit is the reason he even does the 12 jobs.
>>95907923Gilgamesh isn't a good example, he started a deeply flawed, after character development, he became great by the end of the story.
He stopping being a dick is the whole point of the story, this development doesn't exist in the great curse paradigm.
>>95907983Only audiobooked it once, maybe its Hercules like
>>95907973 said / Conan punching a camel
>>95907808In my experience players roleplay frequently roleplay flawed characters just fine. In fact PCs going mad with power when given the chance, with players making the occasional "Are we the bad guys?" joke OOC, has pretty much been the norm for the people I've played with.
>>95907936Just remove the Curse, brother, and the Tell too. You don't need them.
>>95908070NTA but Gilgamesh was a giant asshole a true tyrant in every sense of the word.
His friendship with Enkidu is supposed to kickstart his self-awareness arc.
>>95908106A new fragments was found a few years ago, it describes the cedar forrest.
>Perhaps more surprising is the revelation that the Cedar Forest was, in the Babylonian literary imagination, a dense jungle inhabited by exotic and noisy fauna (17–26). The chatter of monkeys, chorus of cicada, and squawking of many kinds of birds formed a symphony (or cacophony) that daily entertained the forest’s guardian, Ḫumbaba. The passage gives a context for the simile “like musicians” that occurs in very broken context in the Hittite version’s description of Gilgameš and Enkidu’s arrival at the Cedar Forest. Ḫumbaba’s jungle orchestra evokes those images found in ancient Near Eastern art, of animals playing musical instruments. Ḫumbaba emerges not as a barbarian ogre and but as a foreign ruler entertained with music at court in the manner of Babylonian kings, but music of a more exotic kind, played by a band of equally exotic musicians.>The aftermath of the heroes’ slaying of Ḫumbaba is now better preserved (300–308). The previously available text made it clear that Gilgameš and Enkidu knew, even before they killed Ḫumbaba, that what they were doing would anger the cosmic forces that governed the world, chiefly the god Enlil. Their reaction after the event is now tinged with a hint of guilty conscience, when Enkidu remarks ruefully that [ana] tušār ništakan qišta, “we have reduced the forest [to] a wasteland” (303)… This newly recovered speech of Enkidu adds to the impression that, to the poets’ minds, the destruction of Ḫumbaba and his trees was morally wrong.
Is it just me or is Achilles in his tent the second worst common example after Heracles and his children?
>Achilles sulks in his tent away from the drama
This is a fucking group game lol, this stuff is straight up obnoxious and doesn't add to the drama in the same way it adds to the drama in the story. Roleplay and stories are different mediums with different considerations
>>95900544>Sword of Creation was DDOSed, but was inactive anyway>OPP forums are inactive and broken>Sufficient Velocity is a weirdly cliquey circlejerk, sometimes a guy will post some good homebrew>the fancord is embroiled in the Sufficient Velocity clique endlessly pissing themselves and marshaling all their forces to defend the honor of a majorly annoying poster who got warnedThis is currently one of the better places to discuss 3e. In the English speaking world at least.
>>95908849why would nogames care about that
>>95907801>The Great Curse exist so the characters would shot themselves in the foot every once in a while or else the Celestials would have no real conflict beyond a mostly meaningless clash of personalities.Yeah these extremely powerful individuals with different ways of viewing the world and many material incentives to wage war with each other would never get into conflict.
>>95904344Its so depressing that guy is always the OP and is always in this thread despite seemingly being miserable about White Wolf (see: his favorite catchphrase being "its a White Wolf-ism") and Exalted (he's never posted anything positive in these threads, its always bitching and moaning). Motherfucker only likes bad isekai/xianxia shit and that's it, but he'll never leave.
>>95908917>>OPP forums are inactive and brokenThey were fixed a while ago.
>>95908980White Wolfism dude here, the last thread I made was by 2023.
And I say positive things from time to time, white wolfism is just a catch-all terminology for the devs' bad habits.
>>95909056>And I say positive things from time to timeWhat, when the fucking planets align?
>>95909075When a cool piece of artwork is published for 3e. I praised Essence's new solar charms
>>95909075>when the fucking planets align?Sure, let's try to be positive for a change... I got nothing.
Does your character have money and muscle?
>By a lake once in forest darkness
>A monk his soul was saving,
>Ever in stern occupation
>Of prayer, fast, and labor.
>Already with slackened shovel
>The aged man his grave was digging,
>And only for death in peace and quiet
>To his saintly patrons prayed he.
What are your sources inspiration for Abyssals?
>>95910168>What are your sources inspiration for Abyssals?This.
https://youtu.be/IJNR2EpS0jw?si=C3iSTD8cj9Sb9uhK
>>95907900Ding Ding Ding. We have a winner. You are exactly right Anon. The writers absolutely thought that they were making a critique of “The Great Man” theory while inserting a mechanic into the setting that completely undermined any point they could ever try to make.
>>95907861>The writers wanted the Exalted to be inherently flawed, and succeptible to power corrupting, so they came up with the curse to mechanise that behaviour.Except that by giving them an unavoidable curse they have ruined that point. Like every time they want to try and make a point about power corrupting it can be written off as The Great Curse. They have inadvertently given the insanity defense to all of the characters they were trying to critique. You can’t be held responsible for any terrible actions you might have taken because ultimately there is a permanent inescapable malignant influence on your psyche affecting everything you will ever do.
Ultimately, the writer’s reach far exceeded their grasp when it came to writing this setting.
>>95910246They shot themselves in the foot by giving the curse actual lore. maybe if it was a more meta thing people would be willing to engage with it.
>>95910289>maybe if it was a more meta thing people would be willing to engage with it(pic related) Eh, not really. The issue is that The Great Curse as both lore and mechanics is inherently flawed because at a conceptual level it removes agency (and therefore accountability) from characters. It makes it so it’s impossible to say anyone possessing it is truly bad because well it could just be the curse driving them to insanity. Likewise, players don’t want to be told, “by the way you are limit breaking now so your character needs to fly off the handle and do shit you don’t want them to.” Player’s will instinctively rebel at the idea of being told that they “must” do something, hence why the best railroads in gaming are when the tracks are there, but players don’t notice them. Player’s don’t need to be forced to do shit in order for their characters to take morally ill conceived actions. I promise you, the first time you put something in front of them that they can’t bully their way past (socially or physically either works) you will be amazed at how quickly they become the most underhanded devious reprehensible mother fuckers imaginable in order to get their way/what they want. I mean it can get vicious. And it’s even better because they feel justified to do it in the moment. Their desire to succeed overrides any empathy they might have. Hell, just have an npc tell them no in negotiations and watch how quickly they will resort to intimidation or violence if no easy bargain can be struck.
This is a far better execution of the ideas Exalted is trying to present than anything that the great curse will ever achieve.
>>95910468I get where you are coming from, but I am mostly throwing spaghetti at the wall to see if any of it actually sticks and actually sells the idea rather than sell it as a "fuck you and frenzy" in one of the game lines where it doesn't feel appropriate to do so.
>>95910246>They have inadvertently given the insanity defense to all of the characters they were trying to critique.An insanity defense doesn't work that way; one is still responsible for their actions even if done in an altered mental state. Its why you can get prosecuted for brawling while drunk or jerking off in public while on shrooms. You have to be proven to be completely off your rocker at all times to the point where you don't understand basic tenets of reality. As the Great Curse is manageable (as shown by effects that reduce limit) and reasonably predictable (it happens usually in result to certain scenarios/stimuli), it can't be used as a way to excuse an Exalted for any of their actions.
Also, citing that some Solar ghosts became better people after they died is funny considering that there's also 13 of them that became responsible for the greatest atrocity ever performed against Creation. Doesn't seem like losing the Great Curse immediately makes you a good person, huh?
>>95910566>one is still responsible for their actions even if done in an altered mental state.Legally speaking not, it is one reason for why Hercules is considered to be likable despite being so detestable even by his contemporaries.
>>95910566>there's also 13 of them that became responsible for the greatest atrocity ever performed against CreationThat's strongly debatable. There's stiff competition for 'greatest atrocity', even beyond that which atrocity is greatest is going to change a lot depending on who you ask, even out of character. The Great Contagion (or even the Great Contagion + Balorian Crusade treated as one mixed cataclysm) is probably top five but I doubt it's number one for most. Many would cite the Usurpation if asked, and some would say the War, whether because they're Primordial apologists or because they think the Underworld/Neverborn existing is just that bad. The Return of the Scarlet Empress and the endgame of the Locust Crusade with Autochthon assuming direct control would also be worse. The Time of Cascading Years and the Three Spheres Cataclysm would be up there too.
>>95910246>Like every time they want to try and make a point about power corrupting it can be written off as The Great Curse.But nobody in-setting knows about the Curse (except maybe Jupiter)
>>95910894>Endgame>Locust CrusadeThe Locust Crusade was the initial treatment that introduced Alchemicals and Autochthonia in Time of Tumult, the chapter "Crusaders of the Machine God". It doesn't assume that there's a set path, because the author was out to make an adventure scenario and the Exalted can easily knock the path of Yugash's conquest of the southwest off course.
The Locust War, a chapter-long scenario alternative in Exalted: the Autochthonians, is what you're thinking of. It's extremely railroady and pumps Yugash's forces up with so much hype (when it isn't jerking off the NPCs in it) that it damaged the perception of Autochthonia as an interesting thing to put into your game. Not open-ended, doesn't really work with suggestions,so much as it tells you what's going to happen and if you don't like it then get fucked.
>>95911215>But nobody in-setting knows about the Curse (except maybe Jupiter)And Lytek, and the Deathlords, and the Neverborn, and the Yozi, and probably quite a few of their Second and Third Circle Demons, and maybe some of the Exalted of the First Age.
Not that that matters though, because the anon you're replying to was arguing about things happening out of character. When they [the devs] want to try and make a point about power corrupting it can be written off [by us] as the Great Curse. Who knows what in-character doesn't matter from our perspective, if the Exalted are ultimately not to blame for their awful actions under the sway of the Curse.
...of course the Anon completely ignores everything they do outside of the impact of the Great Curse and the behaviours the Great Curse encourages leading to a world where Exalted are entirely of their own volition committing great atrocities, but that's neither here nor there and depending on the rendition (2e's being particularly bad about this) the greatest elder Exalted might not ever be outside of Limit Break.
>>95910894Everyone who'd cite Usurpation without also citing everything FA Solars did to give reasons for Usurpation, or also citing the Primordial War which was basically just the first Usurpation with the one taking place later being Usurpation Vol. 2, should really stop listening to Desus.
>>95911532>Everyone who'd cite Usurpation without also citing everything FA Solars did to give reasons for Usurpation, or also citing the Primordial War which was basically just the first Usurpation with the one taking place later being Usurpation Vol. 2, should really stop listening to Desus.It's probably the most common disaster people would cite though, because it's the one the corebook (and Sidereals, and Lunars - and for some reason Dragonblooded are written as if it's got a bigger impact than the BC/GC too) cares about most. The Great Contagion and Balorian Crusade are generally framed in the core books as reasons why the Usurpation was bad more than than independent tragedies. Stuff that's in the core books tends to have outsized weight on the playerbase because everyone starts there and a lot of people don't read much further. Most players play Solars, ergo most players care about the great atrocity done against the Solars.
>>95908917I noticed that aside from people being weird in the meta discussion channel, that server has been strangely palatable since that shit went down. No organized clique to take their place I guess.
>>95910566>An insanity defense doesn't work that way; one is still responsible for their actions even if done in an altered mental state.this depends on the legal jurisdiction and what exactly induced the insanity. You're applying particular US states laws as morality.
>>95910566>Also, citing that some Solar ghosts became better people after they died is funny considering that there's also 13 of them that became responsible for the greatest atrocity ever performed against Creation.They were also corrupted directly by the Neverborn in 1e and 2e, when they were all Solars. Not sure what your point is here.
>>95910468This is a really salient post. It makes me really fucking wonder how exactly Grabowski's group was playing to make him so concerned about the game he had to add the Great Curse. EVERYONE brings up the "I don't want my group to play like Lawful Good Paladins", and leaving aside how that's a player's choice...Creation is already a setting without easy one size fits all solutions. Even major benevolences have consequences. How did they deal with the Guild? Or do they deal with two rival kingdoms with legitimate grievances? Even forcing peace is a not neutral option.
GC as a meta opt in thing like Essence had could be cool I guess for really encouraging those stories and for fellow players to have buy in not to be too squicked out about it...and for those few Exalts that desperately do need some form of limit track for some particular setting things, like Alchemical Clarity or Abyssal Resonance...they had that shit before the Great Curse was even a thing for them.
The poster boys for the Great Curse are the Solars and comes up in every discussion about the GC, but they literally do not need it to occupy the same setting history, because the bulk of their issues is that they have lots of easy, society sweeping powers and naturally form power blocs centered on themselves. The Limit Track barely interacts with the sometimes decade long madness that certain Solars of the First Age do.
>>95911570I don't think there's any robust ethical framework that would excuse the Exalted's actions because of the Great Curse, which is a sporadic phenomena among most Exalts that can be mitigated or resisted. Think of it like a mental disorder: I don't think most people in this thread (or out of it) would say that most mental disorders free one from a responsibility to adhere to moral strictures.
>>95911644There is no mention of mental coercion being a factor for the Deathlords accepting the Malfeans/Neverborn's bargain in 1e or 2e Abyssals. They made an offer and these Solar ghosts (now freed from the Great Curse) accepted it.
>>95910468>>95911728I'd say the biggest issue getting in the way of LBs representing what the writers wanted is it's pretty much exclusively treated as a punishment and you effectively only hit Triggers when being forced to go against your own interest.
The Fallen London Quickstart had an alternative take on its LTs and LBs — instead having them represent your desires and ambitions, growing in power the more you succeed in pursuing them, used for mechanical benefits, and bestowing greater benefits the higher your raise the Limit. But the higher your Limit rises, the harder it gets to resist going to extremes as the GM prods you with opportunities to feed your obsessions. And while you can effectively roll Willpower to try and resist or spend Willpower to refuse your impulses decisively, you as a player get by far the best benefits out of going along with it. Because corruption pays
>>95912075nta but on the mental disorder thing, that is a lot more contentious philosophically and among the public than you're implying across lots of moral frameworks. the existence of the GC being known means that it can be played around and treated (conceivably).
>No coercion
dying a horribly traumatic death, being a ghost (who are known for being defined by traumas and alien from humanity), approachable by incomprehensibly convincing beings and infused with alien underworld energies is not a normal situation.
>would say that most mental disorders free one from a responsibility to adhere to moral strictures.
what is bro waffling about. the main reason we lock them up is because we DON'T trust them to have responsibility. letting them out and relying on responsibility already shitted up a bunch of hoods.
anti solar motherfuckers will say anything
>>95912215Freshly dead ghosts generally aren't particularly alien from humanity, trauma might get you some slack but not enough to excuse agreeing to slay the world, Neverborn aren't suave master manipulators but barely coherent balls of anguish, and the Deathlords were only infused with alien energies after they agreed to join forces with the Neverborn. They took the offer because they were horrible pieces of shit, plain and simple.
>what is bro waffling about. the main reason we lock them up is because we DON'T trust them to have responsibility. letting them out and relying on responsibility already shitted up a bunch of hoods.Most people with mental disorders aren't locked up, though.
>>95912697>Neverborn aren't suave master manipulators but barely coherent balls of anguishThe one over the silver prince is, see the story of the fallen wolf.
>>95910546>>95911728I think the missing piece that everyone forgets when it comes to why things are what they are in Exalted is the creators themselves. The creators/writers of Exalted are all PEAK gen X up until some of the people we have working on later 3E and Essence. A generation almost entirely characterized in the media they have created by their rejection of authority, distrust of societal systems, and snide skepticism. Even if they are trying to emulate pulp fiction, epics, and mythological storytelling, they fundamentally can’t get the one thing that they need to pull it all together. These things were fucking EARNEST. They meant what they put down on the page. There was no facetiousness to be found. And that is just incompatible with most of Gen X and Millennials. Gen X because they can’t trust anything, and Millennials because nothing is allowed to be taken at face value, but rather with “subcontext”. And I say this as someone who hovers right on the edge of both demographics.
This is why Exalted as a game will never truly get better until it’s in different hands. Now that it’s being handed off from Gen X to Millenials for writers we will just see a slow flanderization of the setting as the unwelcoming problematic elements are slowly trimmed away at in favor of making it “welcoming” to all players (in other words remove anything anyone might deem offensive. No edges allowed only bland samey monotonous spheres where all fantasies are allowed and everything is permitted). You need more than someone who likes Exalted to write Exalted; you need someone who likes and appreciates (without reservation) all the material that inspired Exalted to write Exalted.
>>95912697>Freshly dead ghosts generally aren't particularly alien from humanity, trauma might get you some slack but not enough to excuse agreeing to slay the worldThis is a coercive agreement and in most reasonable jurisdictions and moral frameworks is seen as invalid, the difference in Exalted is that you cannot renege on it metaphysically. Also, freshly dead ghosts are still pretty outside the normality mind of a human person. The books across editions are clear on this, 1e Abyssals talks about it more cleanly.
>Neverborn aren't suave master manipulators but barely coherent balls of anguishYou're messing around with editions here. I was under the impression you were talking about 1e / 2e exclusively since 3e does not confirm which side of the Usurpation the Deathlords were on nor their Exaltations. 1e and 2e Neverborn are actual agents who can convince, be tricked or trick. Additionally, y'know, coming into contact with a creature like a Neverborn who focuses his entire presence on you is a level of social influence few in setting are ever going to encounter, let alone encounter when they're a weak ghost.
>Most people with mental disorders aren't locked up, though.You didn't read the next part of his message tho, and you're removing the context that we're obviously talking about people with severe mental disorders that are likely to cause harm...and which many developed countries preemptively lock up, while other countries don't. The issue is contentious and again, not as prescriptive as you're describing.
>>95912775So the bane of exalted is the irony poisoning from the devs? ironically enough, the four great Chinese novels that helped to inspire exalted, also could not be taken by their face value
>>95912843Despite I agreeing with the 1/2e!Neverborns being capable of manipulation, I believe that the Deathlords' actions are entirely on them.
They are the men who sold the world, to keep what they were already doing before their first death.
>>95912882I think the Deathlords aren't saints either too, I just think there's a lot more dimensions to that argument than them inevitably being predisposed to doing that. The Great Contagion argument is not so simple that you can say the Usurpation's perpetrators are unrelated to it, these are things that are meant to be open ended questions.
>>95912775This is the most Gen X post imaginable; you decry the people who literally created this game as frauds who just don't get Exalted and think that you're the only sincere person in a society of insincere posers. Bill Clinton has made you his bitch forever.
>>95912215I simply think that the story on offer in 2e's Underworld book doesn't work if your assumption is that the Neverborn can just mind control ghosts to do what they want. The logic of everything falls apart if we accept what you're putting forward, to say nothing of trivializing the choice by some of the Solar ghosts to do one last heroic thing before slipping into Lethe.
>>95913185To be fair 1e devs published 1e!Lunars.
And 2 of the original exalted types, and the game premise itself too, don't align with how they are sold.
>>959127751e and 2e were pretty sincere, the problem was WW's bad habits.
For example, the Deathlords being such villain Sues to the point the book outright mocked the reader/ST/Players.
>>95912942They are like the Joker, despite the writers claims, they are ultimately a bunch of sadistic psychopaths with too much favoritism.
>>95913185>I simply think that the story on offer in 2e's Underworld book doesn't work if your assumption is that the Neverborn can just mind control ghosts to do what they want.the neverborn don't get the opportunity or wherewithal to do that to every ghost...
also mind control =/= coercion. people are coerced into doing things IRL all the time and mind control does not exist irl, and yet we'd still acknowledge that coercion took place. I think you're just very invested in a particular point of view that the game line holistically has never fully adhered to.
>>95912843>This is a coercive agreementThat's not true by any stretch of imagination. Nobody was coerced to accept the Neverborn's bargain. 1E's Exalted: the Abyssals outright staes that most of the defeated Solars who were offered that bargain refused it, which makes it pretty damn clear that acceptance was not compelled. Some few dead Solars were just big enough shits to freely and voluntarily sell the world for power and a chance at revenge.
>>95913578...Er, I'm on your side here, but compelled and coercive are two different concepts.
>>95913710The first definition Merriam-Webster gives for 'coerce' is 'to compel to an act or choice', though. They're related concepts, but I specifically used compel in order to account for irresistibly convincing persuasion as well as straight up coercion. Neither of these was going on, as the scenario described in 1E Abyssals is just that the Neverborn offered fallen Solars power in return for service, most refused, and some agreed.
Talking about the Deathlords.
Did the devs ever did something with the concept of them not raising at the same time? With some like the mask being younger than the others?
There is literally zero need for the great curse.
I will give essence one thing and it is that it has a good idea to encourage Solars to extremes without it by giving them extremely potent powers that lock them in to their intimacies and virtues.
All you need is to have interesting secondary effects for the powers of the exalted fore example encourage Solars to become extremists, Lunars to gain derangements or would zones, Infernals to infect reality with demonic influence, Abyssals to bring unintended death and shadow lands and sidereals I dunno what could work for them.
>>95913992Imo that's there only to imply that the most detailed deathlord is the weakest so even if you beat him he was actually the weakest the next guy will rape you.
>>95914165I wouldn't even necessarily tie something like that to Charms, I'd just have some mechanic for the larger than life heroes the Exalted are to benefit from their grand passions but only if they actually act on those smart passions even when it isn't prudent. Maybe bring back something like channeling Virtues but for Intimacies, but the way you "pay" for it is that the next time there are good reasons to not act on the Intimacy channeled you have to act on it. Or maybe tie it to Willpower restoration? I think just some general but entirely voluntary mechanic to reward putting pride/revenge/whatever drivees your character above reason would be the way to go.
>>95914467For Solars that's ok but all the corrupted Solaroids do need to have negative sides to their powers.
Otherwise they are simply different colored Solars.
The same for the other exalted to a lesser degree.
>>95914536Their powers definitely need to be different, but I think that's different from their powers needing to have downsides. Without giving Charms any negative effects, you can just give Abyssals, for instance, powers that are at their best when used to kill, destroy and degrade, and that require some real planning and effort to use more constructively and less destructively. That'd serve much the same purpose while still leaving the option of putting in that planning and effort to avoid causing others harm.
>>95914536Infernals were pretty different during 2e, the green solar problem was caused by 3e/Essence.
>>95914777Correct and in great part it was because it turned them into inhuman beings that is the kind of thing I think works best.
>>95914750>Abyssals don't need negatives except for all of these ones.Ehhhh you are practically describing my point.
For example abyssals could create manses but they spread shadow lands or the classics of healing but with corpse body parts and enough of them turns you into a creature of darkness
>>95914957>>Abyssals don't need negatives except for all of these ones.That is not even remotely what I said.
>Ehhhh you are practically describing my point.Then you expressed your point unclearly. Powers geared towards destruction but useable for other ways with some thought is pretty obviously not the same as powers having unavoidable destructive side effects.
>For example abyssals could create manses but they spread shadow landsLike, to take this example, Abyssal Manse creation powers inherently causing shadowlands is specifically the kind of tacked-on side effect I don't like.
>>95915003It is like Sekiro's immortality, it has side effects to the people around him.
For example, the Abyssal would need to be careful to not poison the land with their miasma explosion technique.
>>95915040I'm pretty sure that's represented by the random consequences of resonance
>>95913315It took time to turn the Deathlords into villain sues. As originally conceived in the Storyteller's Companion, they were more mysterious than they were powerful. But the Mask had to be a threat to be in the core, the other Deathlords had to be bad news, and then Autochthonians morphed into the First and Forsaken Lion Show in its last chapter, Engines of Extinction, where the actual game is about the Deathlord rolling the Machine God and no one can stop him.
And 2e didn't let up until the Infernals became the cool new thing on the block, and the Ebon Dragon became the new Villain Sue to end all other Villain Sues.
>>95915368NTA but that's why I don't like the great curse or it's equivalents.
It's better to have the negative side effects built into the powers of the Abyssals instead of in a separate system same goes for Solars, Infernals, etc.
Honestly what's cooler?
>Abyssal uses her lethal gas to murder people but if she uses it to save a little girl she has an autistic episode
Or
>The Abyssal's deadly gas quickly create shadow lands if used so murder many people or used several times in the same place.
>>95915003>Like, to take this example, Abyssal Manse creation powers inherently causing shadowlands is specifically the kind of tacked-on side effect I don't like.So you want to play a palette swapped Solar and not an Abyssal.
>>95915495Depends on the kind of gameplay lop that you like.
The latter fits more for an assassin.
>>95915544No. No, I don't, and I've no idea how you could possibly come to that conclusion from anything I said. I think Abyssals should have powers and themes distinct from Solars, I just don't think they should have side effects randomly stapled on to their powers. Give Abyssal Manse powers a boost when they're dealing with Underworld-aspected Manses and also give them powers to taint Demesnes with the Essence of Death and watch the average Abyssal Manse architect be sorely tempted to spread that deathly Essence around to make an optimal use of his powers - just don't throw in Shadowland-spreading effects for an Abyssal who'd rather not corrupt geomancy of Creation even if it means not being able to make a full use of his powers. Put killing powers in all the Abilities, that's fine. Have Abyssal Medicine be more about raising the dead and plagues and shit, but don't punish the Abyssal player who puts real effort into figuring out how to actually use these powers to help people. Let Abyssal social Charms be all about bringing a touch of decay to Intimacies, but let the guy who'd use those powers to destroy a revenge-obsessed lunatic's hatred use his powers to their full extent without giving him shit.
>>95899423 (OP)to whomsoever updates, the abyssal backer pdf is on g0fi1e<DOT>i0
/d/SfcLP6
3e's lack of cleavage is gay as fuck
>>95915544Abyssals being defined by being Solar minus with drawbacks, but suspiciously not better at combat and killing people because Dawnfags will cry, was always a thing people yelled about.
>>95916722>Abyssals being defined by being Solar minus with drawbacks, but suspiciously not better at combat and killing people because Dawnfags will cry, was always a thing people yelled about.Has Dawn always been the underachieving Cast or am I misremembering? Something about how their combat specialization doesn't actually help them out all that much in the long term and their cast power also being kind of ass.
I just downloaded the abyssal book and holy shit , the art is dog shit garbage , the abyssals look so generic , the dusk caste is wearing modern age clothing just like most of the characters in the art of the book , onyx path really doesnt give a shit about the art or look of its product , its such 180º from 1e and 2e.
>>95903924>Leaping Dodge MethodOnly works against ranged attacks.
Iconics
md5: 9cffe68091fb63e9dbf04cf77ed03d3b
🔍
Who is the best and worst iconic?
>>95918392Silent Pea looks the most interesting out of that bunch. The worst is probably the moonshadow mostly because she doesn't look like an Abyssal or like she is tied to anything else.
I think the Sidereal in blue is funny, mostly because I thought they actually named an iconic character ADHD for a split second.
>>95900456>FINAL DRAFTWait, they’re not trying to kickstart Infernals?
This guy got kicked to death by Luffy.
Do Dynasts hate the Immaculates? Ie, they fear a monk showing up suddenly and giving them a knuckle sandwich and they can do fuck all about it? Or are they maybe a little jealous of their strength but otherwise don’t have a problem with them (in general)?
>>95918636To be fair with his current level of power, Luffy should have little problem kicking the shit out of most statted 3e Exalts.
>>95918366>Only works against ranged attacks.Charm text follows, it says nothing about applying only to ranged attacks. Could you cite your source? Understand that errata is non-canon.
>With a thought, she grasps the flow and is carried away. Upon a successful Dodge, the Solar may invoke this Charm, burning her momentum to create a sudden burst of movement. She may leap backward, forward, up or down (if applicable) a single range band.
>>95918723>Do Dynasts hate the Immaculates?Dynasts fucking love the Immaculates, what the hell are you talking about? The Immaculates step out of politics in ways that let them help the common dynast who runs into trouble. Why would the dynast fear the person who's life mission is to back them up when absurd monsters start crawling out of the woodwork looking for vengeance for the crimes of your forefathers? There isn't any reason to be jealous of someone who's a better martial artist when they're on your side! They aren't even necessarily better martial artists than other dynasts - it's not like only Immaculate monks are allowed to be taught the Immaculate Dragon Styles, they're open to any of the Dragonblooded who want to learn and have the time and effort to train up.
The first thing my Dragonblood players do when they get into any new town is check in with the local Immaculate, because they love those guys. It's always good to know where to call when shit goes sideways. Very much like having the ghostbusters on speed dial.
>>95918120Both Dusks and Dawns underachieved in that respect, but mostly down to the anima power pre 2.5.
>>95899423 (OP)I feel like whoever was responsible for writing the Guild books didn't read anything about the rest of the setting given how much they glaze them.
>>95919258>I feel like whoever was responsible for writing the Guild books didn't read anything about the rest of the setting given how much they glaze them.Manacle and Coin fits 1e just fine. 1e's setting is much more simulationist and high-power crap basically doesn't exist unless you use a 2e/3e version of content that was up to interpretation at the time. The expectation was that Cantata of Empty Voices would be a crippling and killing effect to start the Usurpation with that left the Solar Tribe spilling from the temple gates with blood streaming out their ears. Half of Savage Seas would be summarized in a paragraph in 3e because the little guys matter so much less.
>>95919378The Guild is fine when it's a mortal organization that only exists because it manages to thread the line between the Lunars and the Terrestrials, where the Terrestrials directly controlled the Blessed Isle, the Lunars controlled tribes near the edge of the Wyld, and somewhere in the grey zones between the Guild operated and functioned as a sort of middleman operating under the radar. Terrestrials are weak enough that a mortal-ran Guild is still somewhat feasible, while Lunars had little interest in menial matters of business so they just didn't care to interfere too much.
Which is also why they're pretty much fucked in every canon with the return of the Solaroids, since they actually do have an interest in business and they're popping up everywhere to claim territory. The Guild is doomed to either be annexed into a Solaroid's operations or, more likely, just split apart entirely as it's dismantled.
What never made sense was the idea of the Guild as this organization of Machiavellian geniuses outwitting exalts.
>>95918392Not objectively the worst but I fucking hate the Endings, she's just the temu version of the girl from How to Train Your Dragon
>>95918584this is an informal view of the production chain at onyx path
>Predevelopment/Outlines>First Draft>Redlines>Second/Final Draft>Developmentthe earliest a book will crowdfund if the development is nearly finished and seems refined
>Manuscript Approvalbetween
>Post-Approval Developmentand
>Editingis when a book usually crowdfunds
>Post-Editing Development>Art Notes>Art Direction>Layout>Proofing>Indexing>Pressfinal draft is getting most of the writing finalized before development proper starts. if we're lucky and it goes fast, it may be in a state to be kickstarted by year's end, but it's a solaroid book with big setting changes for the edition, so probably not
>>95919405>What never made sense was the idea of the Guild as this organization of Machiavellian geniuses outwitting exaltsGlazing the Exalted so often, to the point you can't see through how far you've taken them beyond the place they're supposed to be, is the main reason why you and people like you fail to understand how the Guild could operate. Exalted are mortals with some powers, not gods made flesh.
>>95919563Exalted are mortals with some rather significant and versatile powers, and while the Guild being able to hold its own against the Exalted and even triumph over them in some situations is fine, on a general level they're obviously at a disadvantage when dealing with Exalts. It's a matter of mortals with 'some' powers vs. mortals with no powers. Aside from that, even if there were no Exalted at all, the Guild's sheer scale would be utterly unbelievable in the context of Creation. The idea of a mortal-run merchant alliance as a major power is fine, though it should be at most a Directional rather than global thing, but the Guild as it actually exists is one of the worst and least believable bits of writing in the game.
>>95918466most of the names were chopped because it's focused on the art. in order i think it's
>Volfer - Dawn/Perfect Soul - Zenith/(Iselsi) Shen - Twilight/ Novia (Clario) - Night/ Prince Diamond - Eclipse>Azu Tegama Asarkon - Full Moon/Sazay Shadow-Dancer - Changing Moon/Silent Pearl - No Moon/Tula the Reaver - Casteless>Easy-Come Dozan - Journeys/Adhim (Kassar) - Serenity/Koraia - Battles/Nayalu (Eika) - Secrets/Silent Moth - Endings>Sesus Eshuvar - Air/(Tereya) Kingfisher Swift - Earth/Left-Hand Chalima - Fire/(Ledaal Sivarin Indri) Righteous River (Overflows its Banks) - Water/Yushoto Mathar - Wood>The Kingeater - Dusk/The Voice That Speaks in Silence - Midnight/The Mariner of the Final Shore - Daybreak/The One Who Walks Behind You - Day/The Gallows Bride - Moonshadowthough from the fiction and art i'm pretty sure walks behind and bride were swapped by mistake
>>95919606The guild does sound like an organization that mainly exists to not write a thousand smaller factions.
>>95919965The Guild is, basically, a thousand smaller factions.
I once called it the adventurer's guild to new players by accident and haven't been able to convince them that it's not just a tired old repeat of cliche since.
>>95920061To be perfectly fair, they aren't all that wrong.
>>959192581e Guild makes sense if you consider the fact that a lot of the Guild is actually supernaturally backed + Creation is smaller.
2e Guild is crazy. Brem Marst had a fucking one on one meeting with the Empress and somehow got out of it unscathed. 2e Guild is even MORE mortal dominated but is crazily competent and yet the whole "decentralized decentralized decentralized" mantra is thrown around.
3e Guild is a product of two different dev groups with two different ideas. 3e Core out and out states that the Realm's economic power RIVALS the Guild. Yeah, not the Guild rivaling the Realm, the Realm rivaling the Guild. The way the Directorate is written makes it seem a lot more decentralized, and most of the writing in the books seems to consider The Guild as a unified faction.
Across The Eight Directions tries to mitigate it, by again throwing around the word decentralized and downplaying their level of organization. One of the new devs suggested that the Guild is tantamount to a religion unto itself which is why they can coordinate so well on some things but are otherwise 'decentralized'. Again though, there's too much writing in 3e that seems to be a product of the idea that The Guild is one thing rather than a phenomena. It is not as bad as the 2e over reaction in Masters of Jade, though.
My personal take is that the Guild is great in the Scavenger Lands and maybe a bit beyond it. Being a premier force in the Scavenger Lands is nothing to sneeze at, it has good reasons why it can be so big and why Exalted on either side are reluctant to try and take it down and means other direction merchant groups aren't defined by their relation to the Guild. The Guild playing supernatural factions off one another is GREAT. The Guild having Keyword: Decentralized shoved up every direction's ass is boring.
>>95920162>Directorate is written makes it seem a lot more decentralizedAddendum, that should say MORE centralized.
>>95919965>>95920061>The guild does sound like an organization that mainly exists to not write a thousand smaller factions.>The Guild is, basically, a thousand smaller factions.this always confused me.
>>95920162Creation wasn't smaller in 1E than in 2E, at least not significantly.
>My personal take is that the Guild is great in the Scavenger Lands and maybe a bit beyond it. Being a premier force in the Scavenger Lands is nothing to sneeze at, it has good reasons why it can be so big and why Exalted on either side are reluctant to try and take it down and means other direction merchant groups aren't defined by their relation to the Guild. The Guild playing supernatural factions off one another is GREAT. The Guild having Keyword: Decentralized shoved up every direction's ass is boring.I fully agree with all of this, though.
>>95920231>Creation wasn't smaller in 1E than in 2E, at least not significantly.
>>95920061The historical adventurer's guild, is something that the Dragon-Blooded would have.
>>95920162>One of the new devs suggested that the Guild is tantamount to a religion unto itself which is why they can coordinate so well on some things but are otherwise 'decentralized'.I like this idea a lot.
>>95920231>>95920309For some 1E discussion on Creation's size: https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/exalted-size-of-creation.69358/
>>95920363I think it's a good idea. I don't think it made the jump to text yet.
>>95920309IIRC wasn't a lot of it written with the assumption it was Medit size and there was mixed singles?
>>95920177Because it's nonsense for the most part.
>>95920560I've heard people claim that, but I don't think I've ever seen a source supporting that claim.
>>95920889I think it is because of the composition of the world map.
It is Mediterranean shaped, but with Asian/South America to the east, and the southeast Asia replacing part of the African coast.
>>95920923There's China in the middle of that 'Mediterranean' which is also not enclosed by land in the West, so it's not even very Mediterranean shaped.
>>95920970The blessed isle is Atlantis, it was meant to sink down.
>>95921040That would be funny but I don't think it would work well.
>>95908917>>the fancord is embroiled in the Sufficient Velocity clique endlessly pissing themselves and marshaling all their forces to defend the honor of a majorly annoying poster who got warnedI'm morbidly curious
Who has a pdf of Abyssals they're willing to share? I was strapped for cash a couple of years ago and only got the manuscript.
>>95908917>This is currently one of the better places to discuss 3e. In the English speaking world at least.I'd have to agree with that, though I think that's kind of a sad state of affairs considering how dumb the discussion here can get at times. Still, anonymity here means at the very least that there aren't as many weird feuds and allegiances and such than on some other sites.
>>Sufficient Velocity is a weirdly cliquey circlejerk, sometimes a guy will post some good homebrewI think SV's megathread peaks a lot higher than /exg/, but it's worse on average. SV posters mostly seem like they've at least read the books, and as you say there's occasionally some good homebrew there. It also has those weird feuds and allegiances I was talking about, though. One of the things that annoy me the most about the SV thread is that there's an active poster who's also a 3E writer and who just can't seem to take any criticism about 3E. I mean, I don't expect people to stop being a part of the fandom when they become writers or anything, and I don't expect them to stop having opinions, but a writer getting outright aggressive when 3E is being badmouthed really puts a damper on discussion.
>>95921148Exalted's map is "hyperborea", a time before time, the east will split in two (Asian and Americas) over the course of the ages.
This narrative was kind of lost over time, similar to how the first age is "ours future".
So…..Solars. At what point do they become too much to handle "normally" by the Realm (ie Wyld Hunts)? What happens after that point? Whole armies sent out? High-end Sidereals come gunning for them?
>>95921509As soon as they figure out how to use their stealth, awareness, and athletics charms.
>>95913185>ImplyingDamn, you’re tilting at so many windmills here I may as well call you Don Quixote.
>you decry the people who literally created this game as frauds who just don't get Exalted…when did I ever say any of this? How can the Creators fail to understand their own product? What I am saying is that the Creators come from a certain time and place and that their worldviews will inevitably shape the product they create. And while this is completely expected of anyone creating anything, there can be knockon effects that will occur when the sources of inspiration that someone is using to create their own thing are taken in and regurgitated through a worldview that is substantially different from what was the norm at the time that those works were written. It’s the telephone issue at work; drawing of a drawing of a drawing and all that). However, adapting genre pastiche to create your own work also can come with the burden of expectation, and if anything this is where Exalted as a game line has its largest failures.
In fact I think this is probably why Exalted has a player retention problem. It sells itself on the premise of “You are a demi-godesque being in a world full of corruption and problems. Now what are you going to do about it hero? Can you fix the problems of your predecessors while resisting the same fate?” This is very appealing because it’s a powerfantasy about fighting injustice (which is one primal human urges you can tap into). The issue is that once perspective players actually get to know the lore and mechanics of the setting they often find that it falls far short of the sales pitch. Then most leave, and those that stay just end up homebrewing either the lore or mechanics until it does feel more like what they were sold. Hell, most of the problems talked about here come down to this same incongruity of expectation vs reality.
>>95913185>and think that you're the only sincere person in a society of insincere posersAgain, when have I called any of the writers of Exalted insincere? I think they are absolutely being sincere. It’s just that that their worldview will color any work they make with a level of cynicism that is fundamentally incompatible with a epic/mythic fantasy tabletop game meant to be played by people. I mean White Wolf was literally founded by Gen X, and staffed mostly by Gen X. And what is the through-line we see in their games? Well it’s gritty, cynical, edgy fantasy where the existing people/systems are always a problem to be combated and possibly overthrown. I mean have you LOOKED at 2e’s Infernals. You think it’s a coincidence that the best splat to come out of 2E was a bunch of edgy iconoclasts who existed to reject and tear down the existing system through the powers of eclectic punk rock weird shit and that their end game was to embrace their strangeness to the point that they achieved near godhood by building up a world entirely of their own making? These fuckers were the apotheosis of Gen X mentality. It’s no wonder the 3E devs don’t want to touch them. Those same values and ideas of cool are almost an anathema to the mindset of most Millennials. Hence the retooling of them into something those devs can get behind like revolutionaries fighting injustice (yawn).
>Bill Clinton has made you his bitch forever.Uhhhhhh, what? Why do you assume I’m from Gen X? Here, let me try my hand at equally baseless stupidity.
>Anon thinks that trying to attack someone's character is a valid subsitiution for trying to actually address the point he was making.>Anon has a strangely irrational seeth when someone critiques a piece of media he likes.>Anon would rather create strawmans to attack than have valid discussion of the topicLet me guess anon, Millennial?
>>95921554>How can the Creators fail to understand their own product?See Raksi.
Or more recently, Deltarune's accidental rape scene.
Authors are humans after all, sometimes they accidentally hit gold or shit.
For good and for bad, fans can also notice things that were not intended.
I’ve been out of Exalted since 2e and thought it was abandonware — I was surprised to see it still in development with even a 3e out. Although I note the pace is very slow and at a glance 3e seems like a huge downgrade.
>>95921659I have a lot of problems with 3e, but genuinely, 2e seems like fucking ass to play. Errata or not errata.
>>95921554>It sells itself on the premise of... ...The issue is that once perspective players actually get to know the lore and mechanics of the setting they often find that it falls far short of the sales pitchI think this is intentional.
>Werewolf, when you will you rage?>raging will lead to nowhere.>Vampire, the hidden nocturnal manipulators.>You are actually in the bottom of their pyramid scheme.>Changeling, restoring wonder to the modern world!!>actually you are doomed harder than creation.>Hunter, humanity taking back the night!!>You are actually another doomed supernatural being.>also hunter, divinely empowered to fight the malignant supernatural forces!!>you powers suck, unless they were not playtested, so supernatural guerrilla tactics.
>>95921659Why'd you think it was abandonware?
As for 3E, opinions are divided - some people like it, some really dislike it, some - like myself - have issues with it but find it still playable.
>>95919563The exalts are far more than just mortals with powers, they’re superhumans with a more powerful mind, body, and soul, with the ability to rewrite fate to their liking and defy the laws of creation and do the impossible. There is no paradigm where the Guild would manage to pull one up over these people, they’re strong, smarter, and way more powerful.
>>95921737>raging will lead to nowherePlay editions that aren't W5.
>>95921826I dunno — I think it was the real slow pace of releases made it seem like the game was over. Also the Infernals were just color palette swapped Solars which seemed really low effort, although now that I see that they STILL haven’t been updated I guess they don’t know what to do with them so maybe they were ill-conceived as a faction to begin with.
>>95922325It was a theme even before the 5e car crash, rage isn't enough to combat the Wyrm, the garou had to think things through.
Which they were incapable of doing.
>>95922387>Also the Infernals were just color palette swapped Solars which seemed really low effort,What edition are we talking about? Because 3E proper doesn't have Infernals yet, while 2E Infernals were both very different from Solars and quite popular.
>>95922387>>95922727Maybe he means Abyssals, which were palette swapped solars, to the point that they made Mirror charms so both could use most of each other's charms interchangeably
>>95922817That'd make more sense.
>>95922387If Abyssals were what you meant, they have been updated for 3E. They're kind of alright, not amazing, but not as much just color-swapped Solars as they were in 2E.
>>95922387>I guess they don’t know what to do with them so maybe they were ill-conceived as a faction to begin with.It was the opposite, they removed Infernal's parts to create other Exalted types, so Infernals ended up lost.
It may have been intentional, since 3e!Infernals were made disposable by design.
>>95922702>the garou had to think things through.>Which they were incapable of doing.Just like white wolf lol
>>95921737Eh, I don’t think it’s intentional. More like a side effect of what I believe the anon who frequents these threads would call “white wolfism.” I think that most of the White Wolfisms all share the same source. Namely, that the people working at the company absolutely fancied themselves as writers first and game designers second. I mean they literally named their system the “Storyteller System.” Honestly, it wouldn’t be surprising that this was the case. MANY tabletop game developers are actually failed/ameture writers. It’s like how many game developers desperately just wanted to work in tv and film production. This isn’t bad in and of itself, but the thing is that making something meant to be interacted with is inherently different than making something to be passively consumed. There is a give and take in any kind of story that is meant to have player input that just isn’t present in premade stories.
So, you have a group of people who want to make their own shit and they do it. And as I was talking about in my previous post they take the things they grew up with (pulp fiction mostly) filtered through that edgy cynicism that pervades Gen X and we end up with WoD. But then they give it off to players and a funny thing starts happening. Players don’t interact with their setting the way they are supposed to be. See the creators had an idea of what things should be and players wanting to up-end that status quo didn’t sit too well with them. So, how do you keep players in check? Why you just put things in the setting that they can’t hope to do anything about of course. Inescapable truisms and unbeatable npcs. That’ll teach players to think they can stomp all over MY creation. This kind of overship is common among all creators, but only in interactive mediums does it really start to become detrimental to the purpose of the product.
>>95922325>>95922702The point was that they were too retarded to actually do their job and ended up dooming the world. By the 90s, you are so far beyond the point of no return that the least shit option was resetting the world.
Tieing this back to Exalted, were they trying to write a similar scenario with the Lunars specifically, or is this parallel supposed to be about the whole world?
>>95921737I think this is exactly how The Great Curse came about. Grabowski was probably playing with people who heard the sales pitch I was talking about and took it to heart. I can imagine that players being being “too good” was what set him off. After all, most people will gravitate towards being good unless deliberately playing evil for the novelty and he couldn’t be so inexperienced as to not know this. Rather, what I think caused him to sperg out was that his players kept trying to “fix” things. Because Exalted makes the players explicitly powerful enough to enact world changing events, I’m guessing players kept looking at all the conflicts and problem that are meant to be inherent to the setting and went “sure, but I can fix that.” So he went back and created The Great Curse because “No, fuck you, you can’t just completely upend the thing I created and ruin the POINT I was trying to make that you are obviously missing. So instead have this incomprehensible, inescapable, unstoppable thing that will make sure that no matter what you do it the status quo will reassert itself.
>>95922325Makes perfect sense for werewolf tho.
And it has been the case way before 5e werewolf history is a series of massive fuckups led by rage and hubris.
>>95921737>>Hunter, humanity taking back the night!!>>You are actually another doomed supernatural being.>
>>also hunter, divinely empowered to fight the malignant supernatural forces!!>>you powers suck, unless they were not playtested, so supernatural guerrilla tactics.I don't get this are you talking about two different types of hunters or two takes on the imbued?
>>95925219Both apply to the imbued.
People wanting hunters hunted 2.0. Got disappointed by the supernatural elements.
People who were attracted by the supernatural elements and/or artwork, were disappointed by the proto-asymmetrical horror nature of it.
A common joke is that Reckoning was a different game depending from where you were looking from.
>>95921737>>You are actually another doomed supernatural being.Ehhhh not really the imbued were created specifically to survive the apocalypsis and help humanity rebuild they are exalted so long as there are humans there will be imbued.
>>95919414Noted, thanks. Yeah I was never really sure about the production chain. I'd normally finish with a pessimistic complaint about how I've lost all hope for Infernals but even I know I'm beating a dead horse here, I can't even bring myself to believe 3e will end before muh Infernals are savaged because the kickstarter money they rake in is ridiculous.
>>95919965>>95920061And on a lighter note this is always how I understood the Guild, yeah. It's not an empire like the Realm, it's not even a faction in the sense the Silver Pact is. As I've understood it, the Guild an informal network of trade relationships between numerous separate mortals with a taste for money and a reputation accrued by successful investments.
>>95920363>>95920553>3e>decent ideas that have to be explained on the hugbox discord instead of making it into the fucking text itself, while regional cuisines get in insteadTruly one of the iconic duos of all time.
>>95925510Let me phrase it another way, why wouln't you, as an imbued, get killed or cleansed along side other supernaturals?
>>95918392I actually like the Solar and Lunar iconics just fine.
Sidereals and DBs I think look a bit boring and by Abyssals the art direction has completely fallen apart, totally bland.
>>95919038Because many Immaculate Monks treat the "Dragon-Blooded need to be enlightened and virtuous leaders and examples to mortals" part of doctrine as seriously as the "respect and obey your Exalted superiors" part and will use their superior kung fu to lead an honest to God peasant rebellion if they decide you aren't living up.
>>95921290which poster is this?
>>95925786>Let me phrase it another way, why wouln't you, as an imbued, get killed or cleansed along side other supernaturals?Because most monster hunters and individuals with xenocidal grudges discriminate better than than 'i kill all super-beings no exceptions'. Anybody can be a sorcerer, so all mortals can count as supernatural critters too, from the perspective of the same kind of committed madman who has a problem with the imbued for having superpowers. If they're indiscriminatory enough to have a problem with all spirits their end goal destroys the world, and at a certain point you have to throw up your hands and call them irrational crazies.
>>95910468To be fair though, the Great Curse while it's conceptually retarded doesn't actually come up all that much. In my own group we've never actually had a character interact with the Great Curse because of acting against their character, it was only ever for other reasons. Mechanically, the Great Curse is mostly fine desu.
...it's the LORE aspect of the Great Curse that's really retarded. The entire draw of Exalted is being overpowered as fuck. That inherently draws players who will want to abuse that power because it's fucking fun as hell. You don't need a Great Curse to convince an Infernal femboy to create a shrinking plague so he can stuff tiny cute boys up his ass, they'll do that on their own because they have damn near infinite power and fucking ZERO accountability.
>>95922702>>95925085>>95925118>>95925214Tell me you didn't read Revised without telling me you didn't read Revised. (Just like the people who made W5).
>>95912775you act like the passing generations will just magically value the old stuff more. they won't. you'll see more things that will be added that you don't like as long as it exists, even if there are things you like added to
>>95925131I think it also exists to satisfy WW's "self-pity" and "self-aggrandizing" needs.
It is part of their power fantasy.
For example: awakening's "woe is me, I am not almighty enough".
It is the reason for why 2e!Solars and Infernals were specially targeted in 3e.
They were not woes, the player base was too shameless/sincere.
Similar thing happened to 2e Geist and Lostlings.
>>95926286>Tell me you didn't read Revised without telling me you didn't read Revised.It's like most people have only read W20 and couln't be bothered to look at the older stuff.
>>95928045>For example: awakening's "woe is me, I am not almighty enough".I think they were trying to sell the idea of "you might be strong but the Gods are stronger" but for the most part it doesn't really work with the high end powers.
>>95927105How could you read the second paragraph of that post and possibly come to the conclusion that I think that handing things off from one generation to the next is going to fix anything? I literally say that Millennial writers taking over has only led to the real time flanderization of the setting with each release as they try to align it more with their own sensibilities. It just so happens that those sensibilities are to make things as broadly appealing and welcoming to everyone at the cost of genre and details that made the setting interesting and drew people in in the first place.
Broadly speaking, I’d say that Millennials are the most censor happy generation to exist since the Greatest Generation. The fucking Hays Code has nothing on what they’ve been doing to media for the last decade. And what’s worse, they feel completely vindicated in their particular form of pearl clutching because “It’s making things more welcoming for everyone don’t you know. Are you saying we should make things that will offend or hurt people? Everything should be for everyone and if you don’t believe that you are just a (insert bigoted slur of choice).” There is nothing more dangerously destructive than those filled with righteous indignation that sincerely believe in their cause.
>>95927105People like this can never be trusted to work with mythological/fantasy worlds because they will always try to apply their own morality to everything in those worlds. And the fact of the matter is: epic/mythological fantasy has never conformed to modern ideas of morality. Epics are about larger than life characters doing larger than life things. Old heroes didn’t have to be good, they just had to be great. It was all about arete. And so you have the heroes of old doing all kinds of shit that is quite offensive to modern sensibilities. Trying to clean this up will only result in a setting and characters that lack the very pastiche you are drawing from in the first place. This is why I said in that post that the people needed to write Exalted aren’t the fans of Exalted, it's the people who enjoy and appreciate the works that inspired Exalted. The generation is irrelevant, only the mentality matters.
>>95929339>I think they were trying to sell the idea of "you might be strong but the Gods are stronger" but for the most part it doesn't really work with the high end powers.>Why mage are so strong? Could I nerf them a bit?>DaveB: mages are so strong because of their enemies, namely other mages, so mages must be overpowered.>How do we fight the enemies? They seem unreachable.>DaveB: you got it wrong, the tyrant gods already won, you can't touch them.>The rules of the other enemies feel underwhelming, any tips to handle them better?>DaveB: They are weaker on purpose, for example, the seer are clipping themselves by joining a pyramid scheme.The horror of Awakening is about how the titular mages aren't privileged enough, inconveniences of existence oppress them.
2e edition is focused on the mysteries/dangers of the fallen world, the same mysteries/dangers they can easily bulldoze
>>95929443>n in the first place.>Broadly speaking, I’d say that Millennials are the most censor happy generation to exist since the Greatest Generation.It is wrong to say that a single generation is more censorship heavier than the others.
All generations have their own share, it is getting worse thanks for the internet.
>>95929448so what, you want the writers to make a scene where Perfect Soul forcibly explores someone's body? shit, I don't recall any of the Solars doing that kind of thing in the caste books
>>95931437>forcibly explores someone's body?You can just use the word rape; and Havesh was from the caste books, and another Solar was exalted just before pirates could gang rape her.
>>95926034>and at a certain point you have to throw up your hands and call them irrational crazies.Like most of the imbued.
>>95931672Imbued have different kinds of extremists; some would kill all supernaturals just as much as another would be the quintessential I can fix her guy trying to redeem all the monsters.
>>95931730True, stil weird they felt the need to make the Imbued their own supernatural thing.
>>95931758Makes perfect sense imo.
Otherwise, you already have all the rules you need for normalfag hunters. It is better if they have their own monster-hunting powers to be able to have both flavors of monster hunting.
In Exalted logic, is a hermit witch supposed to be as capable of crafting powerful things as some kind of laboratory magic guy?
>>95933013Mechanically? Yes in 1e and 2e with the caveat that you need the relevant specialities for things like Fate, Genesis or Magitech. In 3e, there are some nebulous and arbitrary conditions for making actual First Age magitech that vaguely require more infrastructure and maintenance, but otherwise yes.
>>95933013Of course not.
A solar with the help of a dedicated laboratory will have a big advantage to a solar just working on a hut.
A factory cathedral allows for grand-scale projects that are almost impossible to do alone unless he is some kind of mad retard willing to work decades/centuries to build something gigantic alone.
>>95929503>2e edition is focused on the mysteries/dangers of the fallen world, the same mysteries/dangers they can easily bulldozeAnd they even made the Lower Depths safer for mages, kek.
>>95925892Just thought of something. What if, say, a mortal traveling monk visiting a town where the local DB lord was clearly do something improper? Would the monk just report back to his temple or monastery without getting involved? Or would be approach the DB, with all due deference and apology of course and try to see if the DB would kindly accept the right course?
>>95922727Wait…if Infernals are popular, why haven’t they been refreshed?
>>95933470>Wait…if Infernals are popular, why haven’t they been refreshed?NTA but because:
>They are not as "important" for the setting as Solars, BDs and SIdereals.>Tradition that old exalts get their turn first so Lunars and Abyssals take prescedent.>ANd finally they are going to have big changes done to them for the worst imo.>And alquemichals go last because they are practically irrelevant for the setting and not really al that popular to be honest.
>>95933013No. In every edition, infrastructure, access to reliable and powerful resources, and prior knowledge and research have always mattered. Someone with all of those might have other advantages like a powerful artifact or cult of fanatical zealots willing to do whatever it takes to help her most meager wish, but these are powerful advantages and shouldn't be lessened just because someone wants both playstyles to be equally viable.
>>95933470>Wait…if Infernals are popular, why haven’t they been refreshed?Because while they, in 2e, had a strong following, that version of them isn't popular with the developers and that following had a relatively small portion transition to 3e, with most of them instead sticking to 2e or simply attritioning away over the decade since the 3e reveals.
>>95933606By the time an edition is through with the early books, the best Lunar Charms can be found in the Alchemicals books.
I want to have a mildly supernatural assassin. The gimmick I had in mind was that she'd have a sling and the ability to make or source silver bullets with her target's names on them, which always hit if they're slung at that target, and with a limit of one named bullet per person.
Would you think these should be available via thaumaturgy, or would it balance better as first circle sorcery?
>>95933848That's too powerful for either option.
It's basically a perfect attack.
So…..how fucked are you if an ancient Sidereal comes for you? Is there realistically a way to win?
I last checked in on Exalted about the time they were giving us previews of magic aboriginal cum baths. Could anyone give me a short update on whatever retardation they've managed since? Assuming they haven't somehow developed a burning urge for tonal consistency and quality (ha-ha-ha).
>>95933953As a mortal / DB of course you're fucked. As a Solar you just bodyslam them. Everyone else depends on many more factors
>>95933929>It's basically a perfect attack.Yes, it's a perfect attack. That's within the range of First Circle Sorcery, even more so with a bunch of limits and prep time added that make it more like a curse. Thunder Wolf's Howl is unblockable and undodgeable and much less limited, and there are a bunch of unblockable or psuedo-unblockable effects like The Titan's Icy Breath, Flying Guillotine, or Sting of the Ice Hornet.
>>95933953Do you know the ancient Sidereal is coming for you, and who are you, where are you, how well informed are you as to things in Creation, and which edition is this? To be clear you're probably fucked no matter what, but there are some ways you could be less fucked. It also somewhat depends on the Sidereal - an ancient Sidereal sorcerer is a much different threat to an ancient Sidereal martial artist, bureaucrat, or artificer. You're almost certainly fucked no matter which path they've taken but the paths you can take to avoid a fucking vary.
>>95933953>>95934133You might have a chance even as a mortal if you're E1 or E2 and can Beckon or have someone summon and bind a Gethin (Compass: Malfeas pg145) to take your identity. That redirects all divinations targeting you to the Gethin, which takes on your shape, and gives you an effect that is treated as if you suffered Arcane Fate (but probably isn't the legitimate effect, so depending on your ST the specific exceptions that make Sidereals immune might not apply - hopefully won't matter, though). The Sidereal pops in before the day is over (they can get anywhere in Creation within that timeframe easily), kills the Gethin disguised as you, and thinks you're dead. The Blind Prophets Great Curse effect would support their assumption that they've got you, if you're in 1e, but I don't think gethin are necessarily canon there so good luck.
>>95934126Apparently a writer plagiarized Junji Ito, and there are a bunch of art pieces that looks suspiciously like AI
>>95934126>Assuming they haven't somehow developed a burning urge for tonal consistency and quality (ha-ha-ha).Their lore chapters have improved in terms of quality. Consistency not so much, but Sidereals and Abyssals were better written otherwise. Haven't heard as much praise for Alchemicals but there's also less people who vocally care. Beyond that not much. The development cycle is so slow that you're not really that far behind.
>>95934126Nothing particularly bad. Abyssals are out for backers and they're alright, Alchemicals were Kickstarted and they're alright. Art is still as bad as ever, but the writing varies from bland to actually good.
>>95934851Alchemicals was overall a very good book, and I'm talking as someone who was only reading that on a lark rather than giving a fuck.
I think most places are pretty good. I do really wish they'd have cleared up some confusion on whether elementals actually exist naturally beyond Summon Elemental spell alteration.
>>95933848seems fair, though I'd make it undodgeable but not unblockable
>>95899423 (OP)to whomsoever updates, Art of Exalted 2e is on g0fi1e<DOT>i0
/d/U9mV0G
>>95920177Nta, I think what
>>95920061 actually meant was that even though the Guild is one org, it's so widespread and loosely organized each regional branch is fairly independent and has a lot of leeway to operate as long as they're making a profit.
>>95933447I should mention that the DB standards for "doing something clearly improper" is really, really, really low.
Hosting orgies, beating up slaves, or raising exorbitant taxes are not things that would typically get reported because keeping terrestrials being on top trumps ethical concerns most of the time. A lot of dynasts know enough to hide skeletons in the closet so there's the question of if monks actually would find wrongdoing at all. And that's not even getting how many immaculates are dynasts themselves and would covertly favor their own houses.
For the immaculates to actually move against a DB he'd have to really cross the line like openly opposing the government or be found dealing with Anathema.
>>95919661Wait the green Twilight guy is an Iselsi?
He only had one passage in the core book.
>>95939578Okay, sheltering Anathema would absolutely earn anyone a knuckle sandwich. I understand that just doing pedestrian corruption and greed is normal. But what about taking ALL of the peasant’s crops and livestock forcing them to eat grass and causing the young men to go into banditry etc? That should earn at least a lecture about the right path. I also like to imagine there are Immaculates who just…like hitting people. Always looking for an excuse to take out the Team Play bat.
What I like about the Immaculate Order is that it ISN’T a religion, it’s The Truth, and if you’re against it you are by definition evil.
Also, what’s the status of the Fae? I remember way back when that with the defense network down they are becoming an extreme threat — is that still a thing?
>>95939825>what’s the status of the Fae
>>95939825Technically it's not really the defense network being down and more that no one knows how to login to the command console to activate it.
>>95939777>I also like to imagine there are Immaculates who just…like hitting people. Always looking for an excuse to take out the Team Play bat.Peleps Deled is basically this and he's a long time signature water aspect.
Eventually the other dynasts got tired of his shit and shipped him off to the Wyld Hunt. He also wasn't entirely blameless because he was so autistic about the texts he'd beat up and even kill other people about misreading the texts, even if they got one word wrong.
>>95939850WTF. Is going on here?
>>95908849It doesn't work well as a GC example.
The whole story of Achilles in his tent is that Agamemnon takes Achilles' slave girl to replace another he had to give up.
In modern terms it's somebody taking your gf to replace one he recently broke up with. If you want a GC example where the hero has an uncontrollable chimpout Achilles mutilating Hectors body for a week after his death is a better one.
Is it better to put dots in multiple combat skills or just one?
On one hand archery 3 and melee 3 seems worse than melee 5, on the other hand it feels weird a veteran soldier only had one combat skill.
>>95940289Just one. Only time you'd need more than one is if you were worried about like, a flying enemy or somesuch hovering out of range.
>>95939932o! the guy in the comic that kill a monk because "there is no interpretation of the texts"?
>>95940289in most game (2nd ed), i take martial arts and nothing else.
with enough martial art styles charms you can use some ranged weapons with the martial art skill. (wood dragon, righteous devil and lightning hoof from the top of my head)
>Pic related shows up to your mortal city
Realistically what can any mortal do about this except surrender?
>>95940289if you're fighting right (ambushes) multiple skills are better depending on the situation
>>95940037Conky meeting with the first Solars.
>>95939825Not really. The Scarlet Empress and the subsequent manifestation of the hannya in the Wyld utterly annihilated their capacity to wage war on the scale where someone would need to use the Sword of Creation. The raksha within the bordermarches and the Wyld zones within Creation are essentially stranded nobles-in-exile ruling patches of what was once an empire large enough to swallow Creation whole.
>>95940607So the Wyld is NOT a boundless outer realm encroaching constantly into Creation? It’s just a border area with some aliens scattered about? That’s a lot different from what I remember.
>>95940407Run away as far as they can and die anyway.
>>95940428While that's helpful, specialization is the better option in most cases.
>>95941036There's the Wyld where the Raksha live and that place acts as a borderlands between Creation an some absolute nonsense beyond that. I don't think the writers gave enough of a shit about the Wyld to make an interesting scenario.
>>95918584Who the fuck would give them money for a version of Infernals that's just slightly less death themed Abyssals instead of having the interesting Yozi Charms concept?
>>95941420I wish Infernals were just directly made by the Yozis instead of being yet more corrupted Solars.
>>95941036There was some intention to have it be a bunch of interesting places, for lack of capacity to really describe an endless profusion of fantasy realms. Exalted: the Fair Folk was supposed to be like that, but since everything ended up being expressed mechanically using toolbox rules for Fair Folk, very few people deigned to pay attention or care much about it. Certainly not enough to consider a run through the Middlemarches a fun campaign when there was already so much written about Creation.
>>95908917Where do I go to talk about a good edition?
>>95941448Back in time to 2001. The only question is what will be more jarring to you - the sensation of being sent hurdling back faster than light, or the whiplash of the core not having a leaping dodge Charm.
>>95941531I'd argue that 2.5 is the only mechanically barely functional edition, and that the only way to get good lore is to use a combination of 1st and second edition sources, throwing out the WoD tie ins from 1st and the "HURR DURR RAPE" edgelord shit from 2nd.
>>95939404>Nta, I think what >>95920061 (You) actually meant was that even though the Guild is one org, it's so widespread and loosely organized each regional branch is fairly independent and has a lot of leeway to operate as long as they're making a profit.Sort of, except that the Guild doesn't really have regional branches. What it has instead is a coalition and association of independently acting traders and merchantmen. When there is something that might be called a local Guildsman or Guild branch office what's actually happening is that there's a local Guild-affiliated middleman organising things between local suppliers and caravans, and the ultimate authority over them isn't anyone in the top-end Guild heirarchy, it's whichever guild prince decided they'd make a lot of money, bought a spot and hired staff. Alternatively, it's something that a bunch of guildsmen who have affairs in the city have collaborated to set up together, usually starting off by setting up a Guild Council of the most involved factors and artisans.
What the Guild at the top-level directs (as opposed to independent action from members of the Guild) are three main things. First, it links foreign assets together, builds a sense of community between distant lands and naturally competitive elements, and brings people into the fold. Second, they set and enforce trade standards and internal law among guildsmen - that is, the guild sets measurements, valuations, standards of practice, stuff like that. Third, it tries to generate wealth and increase it's influence by doing things like setting up it's guildsmen in favorable arrangements - that is, it sets up cartels, negotiates local monopolies between merchant princes who would otherwise cooperate, works to open localities to trade and exploitation.
The Guild itself is 90+% about setting things up on the international scale so that those lower on the pyramid can do their own thing and feed success back up to them.
>>95940607OK Holden.
Demake isn't canon.
>>95940407Negotiate. Inform the Immaculates and pray. Possibly if it's low Essence despite it's power you could use wards. Beckon a Second or Third Circle Demon. Maybe there's some local artifice / manse with essence artillery that's not been completely ruined by time. There might be local spirits or powerful heroes who could be talked or manipulated into solving the issue - if the giant is trampling on Chiaroscuro, it could be tempted into walking into Grandmother Bright's district and promptly smited, or if it's trampling into Nexus you can leave it to the Emissary. If you have local shadowlands you could try having it step into them at night and be trapped in the Underworld.
No, I'm not sure how the mortals are supposed to lead it anywhere. Bake a giant cake, slap it on a cart, and drive it around with horses, maybe? Lay a trail of breadcrumbs/loaves? Fireworks?
>>95940607This isn't even true in 3e.
>>95941666It's described very much like a pseudo franchisee scenario mixed with the masons at massive scale, in short. An extremely effective one.
beeg cc
md5: 6605ff5defd22b1f0315dc9afb3eef76
🔍
>>95940407Surrendering to a superior giant woman is a win condition for heterosexual males. There is no dishonor in wanting to win on your terms.
>>95939578The part about exorbitant taxes depends on just how exorbitant they are. The kind of taxation that genuinely threatens to drive peasants to starvation is something the Order generally reacts to.
>>95939777Check out 1E'ss Exalted: the Dragon-Blooded, section entitled "Active Interference" starting on page 77, or alternatively 3E's the Realm, section entitles "Unrest, Protests and Uprisings" starting on page 95. Those sections contain largely the same information detailing the Order's overall attitude to such a situation. In short, the Order would most likely feel obligated to interfere. How an individual monk would go about it isn't described, but I'd expect it to depend on the monk's temperament, abilities, experience, confidence and so on. Reporting the situation to the nearest temple would be a no-brainer and something that'd happen no matter what. Maybe the monk would first approach the offending Dragon-Blooded, quote the Immaculate Texts at him and politely ask him to please stop oppressing the peasantry, but my feeling - and this part is just my feeling, not really based on anything concrete - is that the more proper course of action would be to let a higher Immaculate authority decide how the Order should approach things.
>>95941448Here, as long as you don't cry about other people liking a different edition. Other than that, I've occasionally seen some 2E-related discussion when I've popped in to see what's going on in r/exalted, but that place is mostly 3E, too.
>>95942045It's sort of interesting that everyone I've ran into incidentally... Can't stand 3rd. In RPG circles I frequent it's all either "What's Exalted?" or "Ugh, I can't believe they ruined all the important parts of the setting when they brought 3rd out by getting rid of the higher concept stuff and adding Exigents destroys the whole point of exaltation as a concept" type thoughts.
Personally speaking I got into the lore and bought a bunch of books on drivethrurpg late in 2e's life cycle, but didn't get any games. Then I paid in to the kickstarter for 3rd and was interested in promises of taking what worked about 3rd but streamlining and taking some of the edgelord crap out... And then one of the backer previews had "Summon swarm of rapist ghosts" as a charm in it. By the time the book actually came out after ludicrous delays, I'd lost interest and never got around to actually reading it.
...And now I'm finally getting a game, a friend asked if I was interested in joining an infernals PBP that intents to go full Devil Tiger at some point because I'd rambled at him a few times about finding the shit about primordials and the wyld cool. Should be fun, I'm playing a haltan beastman (for speed mutations) who's completely autistic about mail delivery, became a scourge, and now takes as many adorjan speed charms as possible.
>>95942098While that is interesting, I doubt it's more than a coincidence.
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>>95942114That is, to be clear, why I said it was interesting. I can see now that I'm getting back into it that the wider community beyond just people I've personally spoke to seems to favour 3rd.
Also, here's the base dash and jump I've got going at chargen before activating any temporary speed boost charms. I don't think it's going to take me all that long to break the speed of sound once I've got racing vitaris and flashing passage going at the same time.
How strong would a fully mobilized Harborhead be, assuming a gestalt of 2e and 3e lore to make them as powerful as possible without explicit player shenanigans.
Our game has descended into debating whether we should break the trans prime directive to tell Ahlat he is obviously the biggest egg of all time, evidence by how Ahlat constantly collects strong lesbians who do girly activities like braid their hair and fight with swords.
If we help her transition with the Shepherd at the Crossroads Charm, we'll get a powerful ally against the Realm. The intervention is Thursday. Anything else we should have in mind?
>>95943121>How strong would a fully mobilized Harborhead be, assuming a gestalt of 2e and 3e lore to make them as powerful as possible without explicit player shenanigans.They've overhired their army and don't have the economy to support it, which is why they're one of the most likely groups to go to war or otherwise be an active player and are by default a constant raiding force in the region. Their armies are currently fractured and in disarray because of poor organization, but in terms of numbers they're considered ridiculously huge, probably the largest force in the South unless there's something hidden in the unspoken margins and only maybe equalled if the Tri-Khan gathers up all the delzhan nomads into one great big horde and bullrushes somewhere. I realise this is 1e but Houses of the Bullgod is probably the most detailed and in-depth description we get of Harborhead gives them five army groups, each with a hundred thousand soldiers, and the actual number is slightly more than that because of active recruitment still swelling the numbers and much more than that if levies are taken into consideration, because Harborhead is full of civilian fighters who could very well pick up sticks and bumrush somewhere similar to a Delzhan horde if they were sufficiently roused.
Big disorganised army is basically the sum of it. It's the kind of force that Tiger Warrior Training Technique works well with, if you ally with them.
>>95943121>Our game has descended into debating whether we should break the trans prime directive to tell Ahlat he is obviously the biggest egg of all timeI miss Yozis and Solars hip-tossing people across the universe and characters hijacking the sun and flying it into the Ebon Dragon's face.
>>95943958How many times did such thing actually happen in your games, though?
>>95944018Not frequently enough, mostly because it's hard to sell that image unless your group is weirdly familiar with Changeling
>>95944018Once, in our long campaign, and it was beautiful.
We hijacked Ligier instead though.
Our campaign actually did end after we tried to infiltrate the Jade Pleasure Dome and gave the Incarna a fight of their lives. 2 sessions and we lost.
My character (Zenith) pleaded mercy since we didn't technically kill anyone, and the Night offered to provide suggestions for shoring up security. The Maidens kicked our asses so fucking hard that we basically would be cripples for five centuries, and Unconquered Sun made us swear a few oaths that we could never brag about what we did. Luna advocated on our behalf.
This was in 2e in 2022 during lockdowns, and was the conclusion to our 6 year campaign. Even though something like that happened once, doesn't mean it's any lesser. Philosophies like that would have deprived us of Alchemicals and Forest Witches, great pieces of lore that likely barely anyone ever includes in their games.
>>95944058>that image unless your group is weirdly familiar with ChangelingThe lost or the dreaming? If the former 1e or 2e?
>>95944233I was mostly talking about Lost 2e and their takes on shaping actions.
What are some interesting game premises for a first time group?
Only run solars if the first time group is well invested in the setting, their history is distant and their thematics less evocative of elaborate character archetypes. Blank slate.
Every other archetype has strong hooks to get you oriented in the world. Dragonblooded have their families and honour and elemental powers to build around. Abyssals have overbearing bosses to either work around or flee, and their interactions with the underworld and death. Lunars have established organisations, nature, animal archetypes. Old infernals have the fact you're the tiny seed of a potential world-god, and the backing of hell. So on.
Solars have "You're better than everyone, also, sunlight sometimes." You can have a fun character, but you're doing all the creative legwork and there's a good chance someone in your group might struggle with that if they aren't already immersed.
>>95945357There's a thaumaturgy in 2e that basically calls all Solaroids to you begging for help. I ran a long game starting out with someone discovering that and using it to call the circle together, including three Solars, one of the solar's Lunar mates and an Abyssal. They beat the Fae threat and each got a Mouse of the Sun as a Familiar for free and it convinced them to stay together and go murder-hoboing until they decided to build a safe place for true believers
>>95945815Solars only appeared in the last five years, and in the non-meta character creation most of them don't have combat charms and probably don't flare their anima very often. The Solars are the Kardashians of Creation and become figures of local fame and fortune very easily. And once they have power, logic demands they will want more.
>>95945846I'd figure most have some thought towards self defence in this setting, even if they're lowballing it hard by not being a melee dawn or martial arts monster.
A solar with a few dots in a combat skill and one relevant charm can beat up most things of comparable low essence score - if you only mean most in terms of frequency not category.
>>95945857>I'd figure most have some thought towards self defence in this settingAs a PC sure, you're gonna take combat charms. But as an NPC, if your Supernal is Linguistics, Medicine of Bureaucracy there's no logical reason for you to take more than a battle excellency
>>95945867Yeah and that excellency will protect you from everything your backwater community might see short of the wyld hunt or another celestial exalt bumblefucking by, so it's kinda important to have it because the world is pretty harsh and unstable even when avoiding the big power players.
>>95945815That's kind fo the point, nbut you're also right. Solars are supposed to be the rightful kings of Creation, returning in mankinds darkest hour to usher in an age of glory and splendour the likes of which hasn't been seen since the high first age. But we don't know anything about the First Age, do we? Solars have no fetters or lifelines like the Silver Pact, the Realm, the Deathlords or the Yozi to steer them. On one hand there's complete and tolat freedom for them but on the other, why should you care about them? They're just another gaggle of glowing godlings that threaten the world like Getimians, Hearteaters, or some rogue Exigent.
>>95945867>>95945893Excellency won't do shit to a guy sneaking up on you.
>>95945893Solars are humans turned up to 11. Most Sailors don't know Krav Magar, most historians can't swing a sword. In-game everyone takes a couple of combat charms because they know that random encounters are going to happen. But taking the "humans, but better" logic of Solars, most of them except Dawns and Nights wouldn't default to combat as their main profession. Priests, Scholars and Diplomats would probably spend their non-meta charms on non-combat options since they assume they have Dawns to protect them in their circle.
>>95945903 True! Also, who's sneaking up to murder the baker who exalted as a Solar two years ago and has been using all her charms to dominate the wedding cake industry in a 200 mile zone a little ways south of Halta?
>>95945916And if you don't have a circle because you're this guy
>>95945925 and 80% sure you fit the definition of anathema so have been lying low and cakebossing your way to a comfortable resources 4 life?
>>95945925The other bakers.
>>95945938>pick up management related charms from expanding your business empire>Use them on the guards you hired for your estate, boosting their effectiveness beyond the mundane>You are now immune to stealth attacks from mortal fucking bakers
>>95945977>the other bakers were permitted to be next to you for business >they kill you before the guards can do anything about it
>>95946006Permitted by who? Why were they in my bakery? Why weren't my guards there?
>>95946023Oh, then they weren't, in fact, permitted to be next to me, at least not without my guards also being right there. Phew, I was worried there for a while, but I'm glad to find out that my security arrangements worked as planned and I'm still alive and well.
>>95946032>no one will ever be allowed to approach me ever for any reason except guardsyou're completely retarded
but what more can you expect from someone who thinks a single excellency is good enough
>>95945834Sounds pretty neat.
>>95946051No, anon, but people who I know to have cause to wish me dead will never be allowed to approach me without my guards also being present. That seems like a pretty basic precaution for a rich and powerful person with serious enemies.
>>95946068you wouldn't know shit
you only got the idea about hostile competition from me
>Steps away to do the dishes
>Some guy becomes convinced the person arguing with him is me
For the record, I do think that short of elaborate corporate espionage you're not going to find business rivals inside your own bakery. If a goddamn solar manages to get to the point where large scale corporate espionage rather than a rival sending assassins to their home is a problem without buying more defensive charms then they didn't deserve to be a solar in the first place.
>>95946079This sure seems like a super plausible scenario. A non-combat Solar who's not allowed to do anything whatsoever to boost his security or even to be aware of any threats to said security, no matter how obvious, is probably not literally impossible, so I guess you could be doing worse, anon. But no, even if I don't doubt the other bakers in specific I'm going to take some measures to make sure I'm safe on account of my wealth obviously making me a tempting target for all sorts of shady individuals, so my guards will be there. Maybe these mortal bakers with no combat experience or combat training call overcome them? I wouldn't count on it, though.
>>95946109>i would simply uh... le never let anyone get close to me for any reason except guards!wow
>>95946123Anon. are you genuinely confused about the difference between never letting anyone near and always having guards near?
>>95946123The guards are for surprise negation dingus, we already established this solar has about two dots and a perfunctory excellency in one of the four combat skills because they're not combat focused but they're also not suicidally unaware of creation being dangerous.
>>95946140>the guards would simply be uh... always next to me, forever!jesus christ
>>95946157The point of bodyguards kind of is to be there, anon. What, you think I'm paying for nothing?
>>95946173this isn't even being a nogame, you're just an actual retard
Am I being too autistic if I point out the baker solar is a canon character and she has a lunar mate who would probably murder these highly skilled rival baker assassins you're inventing?
>>95946191Alright, anon. Tell me more about how you imagine a rich person's security to work, if the idea of guards being present is so ludicrous to you. Also tell me about how you'd imagine your players to react if they'd put points in Followers and specified those followers to be guards, only for the ST to declare "None of those guards were on duty when the assassins snuck up on you, lol, why would you expect them to do their job?"
No one has ever killed anyone who has bodyguards, especially not normal people. It's literally impossible.
>>95946196If anything, you're not autistic enough to get caught up in this shit.
>>95946213That's not what the argument's about, though. Anon's arguing that those bodyguards wouldn't even be there because of reasons, which is pretty different.
>I have definitely been in a game where I got killed in 1 or maybe 2 turns in humiliating fashion while my character was asleep
The thing is...he might not be lying, but he took the wrong lesson from that experience.
>>95946218>That's not what the argument's about, though.that's literally what it's about
you are saying that you're invulnerable to mundane people because of guards which is completely fucking retarded
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>>95941685>>95942018No, they've pretty consistently been described as remnant exiles more concerned with enjoying themselves then killing the world these days. The way they enjoy themselves is generally deleterious to human life and there are very powerful warlords here and there that can threaten regions, but they're not a problem that would require the invocation of the Realm Defense Grid; the Empress would have sent a legion or several to crush any raksha prince that was in her way.
>>95946229>you are saying that you're invulnerable to mundane people because of guardsNo, anon. I'm saying that the guards are a factor, another anon's insisting that for some reason they aren't.
>>95946234no, you were saying that you're invincible because of a permanent encirclement of guards that never allow anyone else near you, ever
because you're a drooling retard
>>95946245Point to where you think I said that, and I'll explain to you why you're a borderline illiterate retard who can't understand written word.
>>95946218Theoretically, bodyguards aren't infallible, have gaps in their schedules and such.
Also - If a baker solar wants to expand their business beyond doing all the baking themselves, they have charms for enhancing mortal performance.
If they've used those charms on their guards, no goddamn mortal is getting past them without at least enlightened essence, at which point I have to wonder where in the fuck is a rival baker getting the funds to hire a supernatural ninja?
>>95946255>Also - If a baker solar wants to expand their business beyond doing all the baking themselves, they have charms for enhancing mortal performance.>If they've used those charms on their guards, no goddamn mortal is getting past them without at least enlightened essenceThat was kind of the point made by another anon here
>>95945977, I'm pretty sure.
>>95946254just going to say again that initially you hadn't even conceived of there being potential rivals that would want you dead
you have no idea how anything works in or out of the game, you're dumb as a fucking brick
>>95946267How does that point - an imagined one, but let's let it be - relate to the usefulness of bodyguards?
>>95946278bother your wrangler with this, tard
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>>95946232Likewise, 2e also lays out that the raksha still hanging out in Creation or near it are a scattered bunch of refugees that are no longer cohesive enough to pose a threat to the entire world. The Time of Tumult presents new opportunities to all, I suppose, but in general the courts aren't capable of erasing the direction they're in.
>>95946262Nah that was me (also the anon who initially brought the baker example up), I'm just reiterating the point because the argumental moron didn't pick up on it because he's too busy arguing with someone else who he's convinced himself is me despite
>>95946097 this.
This conversation reminds me of caste book night, where Havesh failed a hit because the old man was wearing mail under his clothes.
>>95946303To be fair, Havesh was a mortal at the time, and not even one with any previous experience in assassination. Then again, struggling to assassinate an old man, not even an old warrior but an old artisan, was apparently a grand enough deed to meri a Solar Exaltation, so the Unconquered Sun's standards must be pretty low.
>>95946314You'd think a limp dick assassination from someone with solar potential would get you an infernal exaltation.
>>95946330Infernals have to fail at something actually impressive, don't they? Getting beaten to death by the old man might've gotten Havesh an Abyssal Exaltation, though.
>>95946314>A scorned baker tries to assassinate you>Your impenetrable wall of guards stops him>The baker suddenly exalts and kills all the guardsKino.
>>95946346I mean, that'd actually make more sense than the guards just magically not being there when needed.
>>95946314>>95946330Strangely enough, nearly all nights from the caste book, were exalted after a big failure.
The ones that weren't had their backs turned to the wall.
>>95946346This is more or less Ses exaltation, but the guards tried to kill him while he was sleeping.
>>95946381Ses dealing with hardened career criminals rather than bakers, and being a hardened career criminal rather than a baker, made the whole thing rather more impressive, though.
>>95946369Caste book? Sorry, enlighten my dumb 2e only ass.
>>95946437Like the World of Darkness, 1e had books detailing the subsplats of Solars and Dragon-Blooded.
Talking about their story, philosophy, role in the world and in circles, expanding the story of the iconics, introducing new sample characters, introducing new charms and artifacts.
"Dreams of the first age" was a reference to chapters in the Solar's caste books.
Has the manuscript to infernals been leaked yet?
>>95946579It wasn't even written yet
>>95946585Really? I could've sworn there was people talking about getting some backer or something? Fury of the Infernals or something.
>>95946604Perhaps you're thinking of the Abyssals backer pdf? There was some discussion of it recently.
>>95946670I don't think so. I believe it was the Essence book or something.
>>95946303More than that, the old man knew that someone was going to come after him. Not only did he have the armor, he didn't have the element of surprise working against him... which is, quite frankly, a very trying thing for a mortal assassin to deal with, because most of the ways that you kill people as an assassin revolve around surprising them.
The old man was also a silver smith. A successful smith of any kind is probably going to be built and pretty tough in ways that a scrawny, half-starved outcast to his culture (Havesh) would be. Given that Havesh basically forced his way into the door of that job after the actual assassin backed out because he wasn't getting paid enough, audacity was the only thing that he had going for him. His only other skill was being a tour guide for foreigners, remember; he was only there because the actual assassin hired him as a local who knew his way around the city.
I can, however, allot that maybe the book didn't do the best job emphasizing this, since Havesh's character sheet is from a year after he stopped being a scrawny, half-starved chuld of poverty and had been literally eating everyone else's lunch as The Vanisher. Between the food, fucking the spouses of his victims, and killing more victims, he got pretty swole.
>>95946196>she has a lunar mate who would probably murder these highly skilled rival baker assassins you're inventing?Are you talking about the one from the 2e guild splat who ate all the pastries in the bakery that were meant as a delivery for the Guild, because she didn't want her mate making deals with the Guild?
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>>95950583That's not the belly of a woman who just ate 54 cakes you cowards
>>95950625She's a shapeshifter, her belly looks how she wants it to look
>>95950625she has, uh, bottomless gullet attitude or uh metabolism skyward prana or something
>>95942026that is merely a regular sized cc you lying footfag cunt
>>95950911NTA but otomes aren't that small normally.
>>95950911You're meant to self insert as the little guys, little bro. Size is relative.
>>95918392The Changing Moon is my fav of the nu-iconics. Embodies what Changing Moons should be while looking cool.
Red Jaws was cool too but I always felt he was more like a Full Moon.
All the abyssals suck. I really liked how all the older abyssals had some sign of undeath. These guys just look normal.
>>95950904All-Consuming Crucible in 3e. It explicitly notes that you can eat any amount of normal food with a Stamina + Athletics/Resistance roll.
>>95951644>Red Jaws was cool too but I always felt he was more like a Full Moon.This is because the caste changed after 1e.
