Quote from: Baron Opal;850359What is the relationship between the people and companies of Onyx Path and the Exalted team?

Because, I loved the Trinity games, and I imagine their team will have a kickstarter of some sort. So far, I don't pledge for unstarted projects, but the Trinity setting is one that I would be tempted to do so.

As I understand the Trinty games are being done by a completely different design team with different objectives.For one, they won't be Storyteller. Also, as far I have heard OP other kickstarter projects have been much better handled. I don't back Kickstarters at all but from those that have invested in others aside from Exalted 3rd by OP they generally seem to be pleased with the results.

But again, this is secondhand knowledge so please don't risk money on my word alone.

Quote from: Nexus;850386As I understand the Trinty games are being done by a completely different design team with different objectives.For one, they won't be Storyteller. Also, as far I have heard OP other kickstarter projects have been much better handled. I don't back Kickstarters at all but from those that have invested in others aside from Exalted 3rd by OP they generally seem to be pleased with the results.

But again, this is secondhand knowledge so please don't risk money on my word alone.

The only other OPP Kickstarter that had any major problems I am aware of was the one for the V20 Companion. I think it was the first KS campaign they ran, in fact. I do know that a lot of people weren't happy with how that book came out, and it was horribly overpriced (originally at least $50 for an 80-page book).

Here are some quotes from the V20 Companion reviews on drivethrurpg:

QuoteI was so unhappy with this book and their Kickstarter, that I threw them up on eBay and took a loss just to get rid of it.
The worst part of this very short book was there is a section of what they didnt include in the book....yeah, rather than include SOMETHING else decent, they blab on about what you aren't getting.

QuoteOverview:
Merits: a few titles and locations with potential.
Flaws: Dry. Shallow. Unimaginative. Dropping names in examples is not an all solving tool for drama and mood.

QuoteThis has to be the biggest rip off in WW history. What Onyx Publishing did is a travesty to all fans by shortchanging us like this.

It has only 80 pages, with about 20% of t being rehashed and useless, the backer names are in one garbled mess and there are typos everywhere.

Everything else has gone pretty smoothly, to my knowledge.

Quote from: Brand55;850392The only other OPP Kickstarter that had any major problems I am aware of was the one for the V20 Companion. I think it was the first KS campaign they ran, in fact. I do know that a lot of people weren't happy with how that book came out, and it was horribly overpriced (originally at least $50 for an 80-page book).

Here are some quotes from the V20 Companion reviews on drivethrurpg:



Everything else has gone pretty smoothly, to my knowledge.

Damn, that's pretty godawful.

Quote from: Nexus;850405Damn, that's pretty godawful.

Yeah. Some people were happy, of course, but a significant portion of the backers were extremely upset. I don't follow the V20 line (or OPP in general) too closely, but it does seem that they learned their lesson.

It remains to be seen if the Exalted team will learn from their mistakes as well.

Quote from: Nexus;850386As I understand the Trinty games are being done by a completely different design team with different objectives.For one, they won't be Storyteller. Also, as far I have heard OP other kickstarter projects have been much better handled. I don't back Kickstarters at all but from those that have invested in others aside from Exalted 3rd by OP they generally seem to be pleased with the results.

But again, this is secondhand knowledge so please don't risk money on my word alone.

As I understand it Onyx Path largely allows each development team to do there own thing and make there own decisions. This is part of the problem with the Exatled team. They have no one pushing them to make decisions and act in a reasonable manner.

But as I understand it Onyx Path has been much more strict on Kickstarter rules lately. They require that the majority of the text be completed before the Kickstarter is launched.

If you want to get Trinity and the developers give you a substantive preview of the material (over 50% of the material) then back it. If they do not provide that then I would wait till its published.

Quote from: DisgruntleFairy;850432If you want to get Trinity and the developers give you a substantive preview of the material (over 50% of the material) then back it. If they do not provide that then I would wait till its published.

I don't see anything like that happening.

Quote from: Snowman0147;850262What made the first edition so much better than the second edition?  I am curious about that because so many exalted players love the first edition, but hated the later editions.

That's easy: the setting wasn't bogged down with a soap opera and hobbled by far too much mythology. They lost the plot when Games of Divinity game out.

Quote from: Intergalactic Threat;850449That's easy: the setting wasn't bogged down with a soap opera and hobbled by far too much mythology. They lost the plot when Games of Divinity game out.

Man. Three long paragraphs of mine perfectly summed up in two short sentences.

Quote from: Luca;850452Man. Three long paragraphs of mine perfectly summed up in two short sentences.

Look at how people discuss it: they talk about it as they would episodic TV, like Game of Thrones. This makes no sense to me. It shouldn't be about the metaplot, if we must have one, but about the setting and, ideally, also the mechanics.

It's become a soap opera, not a game. We didn't need a 3e, we just needed to reprint 1e (plus a few changes, such as get rid of the Limit Break/video game bollocks).

I don't know if this is something that had it's start in 2nd or if it continued from 1st edition, but the canon npcs constantly having to be removed from the game to allow players to do things was ridiculous.

Want to be the first Solar to rediscover Solar level sorcery? Tough shit, we wrote someone else doing it.

Want to start a merc company out of Nexus? Fuck you, we thought of that too.

Want your former incarnation to be a Death Lord and to have a more personal tie to the overall conflict? Just fuck off already.

Throughoout 2nd edition, it seemed like the writing was less about creating a sandbox for GMs and players to explore and more about masturbating to how awesome their own characters were. People hated it in Scion, hated it in Exalted 2nd and I'm willing to bet people are going to hate it in 3rd as well.

Don't know much about either Scion or Exalted, but as much as I dislike nWoD it doesn't seem to have this problem, because there isn't a metaplot. Metaplot seems to focus all it's attention on one conflict. I like it best when there are multiple conflicts provided and I can just pick and choose one that appeals to me.

Quote from: Orphan81;850276There's many reasons, and I'll try to go over some of them briefly.

First, let's talk mechanics...

Simply put, 1e is better mechanically than 2e. 2e attempted to "Fix" the problems of 1e and in the end, just made things worse. The Ink Monkeys coming on "fixed" 2e, but in the end this still made it a horrendous mess compared to 1e.

1e was a lot like typical white wolf. Combat wise, it played like you expected Storyteller to play..It wasn't overly complicated, it didn't have as much charm bloat, and the system didn't have all the fiddly bits that 2e did.

It was still the most complex whitewolf game released at the time, but when you compare it to 2e it seems streamlined and simple. Combat was fun. When the player's guide was released and introduced the "Power Combat" rules addition, it got even better.

There were still "Land Mines" in the system, Charms that could break the game in certain combinations, but ST's and Players could avoid those when they learned about them.

2e just made things way more complicated, it just added so many extra options that were unnecessary. You didn't need 3 different versions of "Excellency" for each charm...1 version worked perfectly, 3 versions just made more complicated ways to spend motes.

Then you get into the whole problem of DV... Defense Value in 2e was so easy to break, and so easy to reach the point where there literally was no point in trying to attack certain characters, because you would never get the successes needed to hit their DV.

1e still had rolled defenses. Even if you had a shit ton of dice, you could still roll poorly, and the attacker could roll well, there wasn't a futility to combat, or the need of a GM to either nerf the shit out of an enemy or overload them with so much accuracy they always had a chance of hitting the PC with the highest DV....which meant they would just obliterate a PC with a lower DV..

1e certainly has warts, but looking back now, I can honestly say 1e was overall a much more mechanically sound system, that was easier to run and easier for PC's to get into.

2e introduced things like "Join Battle" rolls, Battle Wheels, a glut of charms in the corebook, DV and Mental DV, and later on a scroll of errata that basically just rewrote the game from scratch...

Now lets get to style of 1e vs 2e...

Stylistically 1e was the perfect blend of Sword and Sorcery combined with Anime. One flavor did not over power the other. The art alone featured both beautiful Anime pieces as well as more traditional and greco-roman looking pieces..

The world itself had much more of a "Weird" 1930's fantasy vibe to go with the Anime as well. Conan fit right in with Cloud depending on where you were in the world. Old Ruins of a bygone age that were ripe for exploration, a desert capital city where trade was all that mattered....combined with Anime style Pirate Shenanigans in the far west, and an evil Empire that combined Final Fantasy style steam punk with Greco-Roman military discipline.

Furthermore, the world was far less "Crapsack" than 2e. Yes it was still an age of Sorrows, yes it was full of scum and villainy and darkness... but the Solar Exalted were a sign of HOPE.

The Unconquered Sun was shown as an entity that was GOOD. The Solars, while some of them were capable of evil (And even given examples were they were crazy, looking at you Lyta and your Giant Sun Laser sacrifices!) most Solars were unquestionably good, and dedicated to making the world a better place. You had to be exceptional, a Hero to become a Solar, and the Sun often talked to those he Exalted, telling them to go forth and make the world righteous in their sight.

The Solars were not "Lawgivers" they were Heroes, whether greco-roman or modern in their inclinations.

Magitech was also rare, to the point where the Escaflowne Mecha were completely optional. There were no "Cathedral Factories" and the like.

Exalted 1e also had a far more "Mythical" aspect to it. The Sun was not a Giant Warmachine that could fire lasers...It was the sun..

Exalted 1e had more mystery more places for the GM to make up their own stuff and play against type to keep their PC's surprised..

By contrast, 2e seemed to jetison the greco-roman and sword and sorcery elements to completely embrace Anime above all else. Solars were downplayed as being Heroic and made far more ambiguous, Creation got bigger and emptier..You had Magitech all over the damn place..the Sun was a fucking flying machine that shot heat lasers, and everything was over explained with no mystery and no room for a GM to put in their own creations. Everything was overly explained, the crapsack was cranked up, and it eventually become a bloated mess with stupid added Lore elements that seemed to take away rather than add.

Yes - as a GM of several Exalted 1E and 2E games - this, just this explains a lot. I wish this forum had a +1 button or a +1 rep button because this post is golden.

I only ever got to *play* 2E, and was in some great games and in some so-so games.

The one thing I think they've done right with 3E is the map. If nothing else, the map. Looking at the original vs 3E, the massive scale is so much more appropriate to the setting.

Early Exalted did have more of a sense of freedom, even wonder in the setting material. The blend of anime, sword and sorcery, classical myth and other influences felt about right (or could be adjusted to taste pretty easily). Even the fanbase felt more open minded, open to interpretation and homebrews with less of the obsessing over getting things "right" and adhering to the sociopolitical screed the game has steadily become.

Hell, in some ways it was "Trash TV" with plenty of sex, violence and over the top aspects but it was fun, more fun than when it became "Serious Business", IMO.

I might just buy 1e again. The location supplements were decent enough. Don't really need anything more.

Yeah, as far as Exalted goes, I have the core 1e book and I am looking to by the Autocthon book. Once I have that I have enough creativity fertilizer for my Nine Planes campaign.