Abberant also suffered from the system not being very playable as well.

The Mega-Attributes and Enhancements were awesome in terms of the concepts they allowed, don't get me wrong. As a kid who had grown up on comic books, I was 17/18ish when Abberant first came out, and I hadn't ever really grokked the idea of someone being "Super Charasmatic" or "Super Manipulative" before.

Abberant broadened my horizons on just what "Super Powers" and "Super Heroes" could be.

That being said, the game was terrible in terms of mechanical design. There were so many traps and pitfalls in terms of actual mechanical balance it was easy to design a character who wasn't very good at anything at all.

Combat was also very "Quick Draw" ish, in terms of who ever won initiative tended to win the fight. Unless you went out of your way to overload on Defensive powers, a 2 dot Quantum Bolt could pretty much kill anyone.

God Help you against the character who decided to put points in both Mega-Strength and Mega-Dex.

The setting was fascinating though, outside of the rail road metaplot parts.

Back on the Topic of Exalted though..

I've pretty much given up on 3rd edition based on what I'm hearing. It sounds overly complex, and the changes to the setting don't sit well with me. The writers on it have also come across as very condescending when it comes to honest inquiries from their customer base...

They sort of pull off this "We're the Keepers of Exalted, and lo plebeians it shall be we who bestow the sacred knowledge of the setting onto you, if we find you worthy..."

I could understand being cagey until you had actually had a system developed in the first place....but after that, why not show it off? Why not get feedback from it? Shit that's what the rest of Onyx Path does. "Hey take a look at what we've developed, give us feedback, what do you think?"

It's like Exalted has become a damn mystery cult.

Quote from: Warboss Squee;809143It's funny, but when I think of what I would do if I had the power of a god, which Exalts arguably do, it's never, hope the numerous actors with bigger sticks find me to be a backburner issue to be squashed when the current issue is concluded.

Although in my observations of history, "My god can beat up your god" is a fairly accurate representation of religious development.

JG

Quote from: Kiero;809169Not just the oWoD games; look at the starting array for an nWoD character, then look at the stat-line for a cop in the Antagonists section of the book. Apparently cops are paragons of humanity to which no starting character could aspire.

Damn, I'd heard that but I figured that it was an exaggeration.

Have you seen those dog stats?  The dog is wittier than most starting characters.  That is right your going to be out witted by a dog.  How does that feel?

Quote from: Snowman0147;809417Have you seen those dog stats?  The dog is wittier than most starting characters.  That is right your going to be out witted by a dog.  How does that feel?

Rough.

Quote from: Bren;809427Rough.

You sir just won a internet cookie.  *Hands over that internet cookie.*

Quote from: Snowman0147;809449You sir just won a internet cookie.  *Hands over that internet cookie.*

Why thank you.

Quote from: Nexus;809392Damn, I'd heard that but I figured that it was an exaggeration.

Unfortunately not. The basic starting array in nWoD will give you an incompetent novice who is notably less capable than many "ordinary" people. The cop has literally double the number of Attribute points that a starting nWoD character does and 50% more skill points. Every cop is a superhuman, apparently.

It's why I looked for an alternative schema when we played Mage: the Awakening (and got it in the form of Proximi), and insisted we didn't use it for Mass: the Effecting. The recommended starting character in M:tE has about 50% more characters resources than a default nWoD one, meaning they are actually competent from the off.

Not that boosters of the system want to hear that, of course. That's without getting into the whole issue people seem to have with what the numbers mean. Such as being able to drive a car (ie having spent time learning the skill and passing the test) doesn't require you to put at least a dot in Drive.

I mostly just default to something close to oWoD point totals:

Attributes 7/5/3, Skills 13/9/5, Merits 7, everything else RAW.

For additional badassitude, sometimes I just give XP, but sometimes I give 15 "freebie points" oWoD style (which can buy dots of Attributes 4:1, Skills 2:1, Merits 1:1, supernatural powers 7:1, without the escalating costs of XP).

I admit I haven't looked at nWoD 2e (GMC, B&S, etc.) yet but this is how I've handled it so far.

And once again the Exalted fans and devs show how bad they are at taking any form of "critic" ... it's hilarious.

Read through this thread :
http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?746910-%28Exalted-Atomic-Robo-RPG%29-So-Brian-Clevinger-put-some-thought-into-doing-Exalted-with-the-Atomic-Robo-RPG



I think it's really sad how...passive agressive they all get.
Sure there are different tastes, but still, i think especially as someone who seems to think of him/herself as being a professional, you should be more...well, professional...about such things.
But then maybe i just have too high expectations of those guys who seem to think that they are professional designers of games.

Quote from: Anglachel;810195And once again the Exalted fans and devs show how bad they are at taking any form of "critic" ... it's hilarious.

Read through this thread :
http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?746910-%28Exalted-Atomic-Robo-RPG%29-So-Brian-Clevinger-put-some-thought-into-doing-Exalted-with-the-Atomic-Robo-RPG



I think it's really sad how...passive aggressive they all get.
Sure there are different tastes, but still, i think especially as someone who seems to think of him/herself as being a professional, you should be more...well, professional...about such things.
But then maybe i just have too high expectations of those guys who seem to think that they are professional designers of games.

Yeah the developers have never been very professional about but I it stands to reasons as allot of them are former fans of the game. Exalted really is a case of the inmates taking over the asylum. And they;re creating the game they want and would enjoy.

But fans (and has been been pretty much standard procedure in Exalted) act like once their fan group becomes vocal and ascendent its tastes are "what the game was always supposed to be" and people that disagree are e heretics or some fringe minority that is to be tolerated but not pandered too.

I will be glad when the book finally drops so the developers will stop playing this silly "I know a secret and its awesome but I won't tell! *teehee*" bullshit. The evasive answers and vague hints follow by smug practical gloating are annoying as people scrabble to try and decipher them But OTOH, the current fanbase seems to really enjoy it so what do I know.

Edit: thought in all fairness the quoted material in the OP did come across as aggressive and a bit arrogant too.

Quote from: The Butcher;809583I mostly just default to something close to oWoD point totals:

Attributes 7/5/3, Skills 13/9/5, Merits 7, everything else RAW.

For additional badassitude, sometimes I just give XP, but sometimes I give 15 "freebie points" oWoD style (which can buy dots of Attributes 4:1, Skills 2:1, Merits 1:1, supernatural powers 7:1, without the escalating costs of XP).

I admit I haven't looked at nWoD 2e (GMC, B&S, etc.) yet but this is how I've handled it so far.

To be honest, I think most of the GMC updates are superfluous bloat that adds little. With two exceptions: the change to the basics of the combat mechanics (something most people had been doing anyway) and to XP.

For the former, it removes armour and weapons from dicepools, instead making the them part of the resolution step after you've established whether or not you hit. Which removes the incongruous business of heavy weapons being more "accurate" because they add more dice.

For the latter, XP is flattened, ironically not far from your values above. Merits and Specialities are 1XP per dot; Skills 2XP per dot; Attributes 4XP per dot; and supernatural stuff varies.

Quote from: Kiero;810212To be honest, I think most of the GMC updates are superfluous bloat that adds little. With two exceptions: the change to the basics of the combat mechanics (something most people had been doing anyway) and to XP.

For the former, it removes armour and weapons from dicepools, instead making the them part of the resolution step after you've established whether or not you hit. Which removes the incongruous business of heavy weapons being more "accurate" because they add more dice.

For the latter, XP is flattened, ironically not far from your values above. Merits and Specialities are 1XP per dot; Skills 2XP per dot; Attributes 4XP per dot; and supernatural stuff varies.

Interesting. Thanks for the input. And yeah, I've been doing that to weapons and armor too.

I think I'll cave in and get GMC and V:tR 2e. Or maybe I should wait for WoD 2e proper?

Quote from: Anglachel;810195And once again the Exalted fans and devs show how bad they are at taking any form of "critic" ... it's hilarious.

Read through this thread :
http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?746910-%28Exalted-Atomic-Robo-RPG%29-So-Brian-Clevinger-put-some-thought-into-doing-Exalted-with-the-Atomic-Robo-RPG

That thread quickly became a contest to see who can out pompous blowhard each other.

I didn't think the OP came across as aggressive and arrogant. Ok, maybe just a little. But he has some good points. Exalted 3e could have been great if they finally let go of the idea that it needs to be bound to Storyteller-as-it-is. I am not even saying they should have gone the light-weight rules way or say adios to everything exception based. But an infusion of some newer design ideas couldn't have hurt.

I am always flabbergasted by comments along the line of "this is how the Exalted fanbase wants it". I mean yeah, some of the fanbase want it that way. But all? No, definitely not! I am not even convinced that the majority of the fanbase wants it that way (considering how many online-discussions there are about "how can i do Exalted right?" i am more inclined to believe the opposite). But the Devs make it sound as if that's the case. And as there is no hard data on it, nobody can really gainsay them.
The reason they are not interested in really changing Exalted, imo, is more along the lines of: a) they're just too lazy to get off their collective asses and do some real work in the design compartment b) it's possible that they, the dev team, really like the way Exalted works, mechanics wise. I mean tastes differ, right?! So it is possible that there are some gamers that like to have clumsy, overwrought and break-tastic game-mechanics... :eek: