Quote from: Holden;19471764Not actually true.

There was never a Bureaucracy sub-system.

There were never plans for there to be one.

Jenna wrote one (1) Charm which referenced a "Begin Project" action, which, in her mind, was something storytellers could understand based on the basic resolution actions of the rules, as interpreted by 2e's very formal rules-language. Basically it's like if she said this Charm triggers off a "Wake Up" action instead of "this Charm activates when the character awakens from sleep." All it meant was, you use this Charm when you start a project.

This was an edition where being unconscious was a formal action you took every 5 seconds.

Because of the extreme formality of 2e's rules-structure, everyone went looking for the formal Begin Project action that nobody ever intended to write or thought there was any need to write. And for years after, they pined for that missing Bureaucracy system that someone wrote, but man, it musta got cut.

It not only never existed, it was never supposed to exist. It sure never got cut. It never got CONCEPTUALIZED. If it had, Neph would have had old drafts or ideas and we would not have had to start from scratch when we did the CRM in response to popular demand for Masters of Jade. Like a lot of stuff in 2e, banging that system together convinced me in retrospect that it was servicing a nonexistent need and was an active detriment to the game, because it pulled the scope way the hell away from the game's larger-than-life heroes. I mean, it contained rules for easily resolving a global trade war between the Guild and the Realm, which is like... Jesus Christ, that's a whole chronicle right there, or should be.

Was there any edition of Exalted that was, even at some point in the lifespan, NOT a clusterfuck?

Quote from: Nexus;860050Was there any edition of Exalted that was, even at some point in the lifespan, NOT a clusterfuck?

So far, 1e is the least clusterfucky. Not exactly a cakewalk, but nothing someone used to running RIFTS couldn't handle.

Quote from: JamesV;860052So far, 1e is the least clusterfucky. Not exactly a cakewalk, but nothing someone used to running RIFTS couldn't handle.

I think that most of 2nds cluster fuckery came from the shitty copy pasta early on and the hack attempts to address it later on.

All of this just keeps bringing back how 1st ed was the superior model. I can't understand why the decision to not just clean up 1st ed and make it more streamlined wasn't instituted.

Quote from: Orphan81;860195All of this just keeps bringing back how 1st ed was the superior model. I can't understand why the decision to not just clean up 1st ed and make it more streamlined wasn't instituted.

That would be my preference (and I have done most of that through house rules already). Much of the first half of 1e holds up well but could easily be streamlined.

Oddly, 50% of the required streamlining was made in 2e, such as excellencies, static defences, and a unified mental influence mechanic. However, 2e, then added 500% more waffle on top of that.

I'd say allot of the "real points" to Exalted seem to have changed despite all; the callbacks to the good old days too. Its kind of like Ronald Regan is practically deified by some Republicans but would be considered to moderate or even "Leftist" by much of the parties' current standards.

Quote from: Orphan81;860195All of this just keeps bringing back how 1st ed was the superior model. I can't understand why the decision to not just clean up 1st ed and make it more streamlined wasn't instituted.

Because it wasn't superiour.  It had the same problem that Werewolf did:  Combat.  The Perfect Defenses were a hassle on their own, and there were several charms that simply broke the game.

And which didn't get fixed in 2e.  All 2e really did was add more stuff to an already broken mess of a game and made it worse.

Now, if you were able to hand wave all the problems away in 1e, more power to you, but there was obviously enough of a backlash to get a second edition going, otherwise, they wouldn't have tried to 'fix' things.

Quote from: Warboss Squee;860056I think that most of 2nds cluster fuckery came from the shitty copy pasta early on and the hack attempts to address it later on.

I'm not sure if "copy pasta" is a typo or intentional.

JG

Quote from: James Gillen;860214I'm not sure if "copy pasta" is a typo or intentional.

JG

"copy pasta" was a slang term so I think its intentional.

It was.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;860212Because it wasn't superiour.  It had the same problem that Werewolf did:  Combat.  The Perfect Defenses were a hassle on their own, and there were several charms that simply broke the game.

Perfect Defenses aren't just a hassle, they suffer from a pretty fundamental design flaw: they are boring. Something which exists only to negate and shut down more active options is awful game design.

To me Perfect Defenses always seemed to be mostly a patch for Storyteller's inherent lethality. It is a system original designed for Horror and Dark Urban Fantasy where combat generally should be nasty brutish and short.

A hasty patch that brought some unfortunate repercussions such as a sort of arms race on the offensive end as attack and damage charms became more and more lethal to make sure that when something eventually landed it was worth it. So you ended up with combat that was "Missile Tag", fragile characters firing Insta-Kills that had to be absolutely stopped because otherwise the fight was over.

In fairness, I had the impression that much of the longing for 1e was more about the fluff and mood than the mechanics. Though I do feel they were generally cleaner and it was easier to work around the issues than the later improved versions in 2nd.

I can understand that nostalgia. The 1e core and Scavenger Sons is what really got us into Exalted. Of course, everyone seems to have slightly different ideas about what was so appealing, is convinced their impression and preferences are absolutely "Exalted as it was Meant To Be" and everything else is heresy that is ruining the game or is, at best, misguided nonsense so we get Exalted fandom as it stands.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;860212Because it wasn't superiour.  It had the same problem that Werewolf did:  Combat.  The Perfect Defenses were a hassle on their own, and there were several charms that simply broke the game.

And which didn't get fixed in 2e.  All 2e really did was add more stuff to an already broken mess of a game and made it worse.

Now, if you were able to hand wave all the problems away in 1e, more power to you, but there was obviously enough of a backlash to get a second edition going, otherwise, they wouldn't have tried to 'fix' things.

Completely disagree with you here. 1e IS the best edition of the game with the best rules. 2nd Edition didn't seek to try and clean up 1e's mistakes, it decided it wanted to build a new system completely from the ground up that was even more flawed from the get go.

All the "Fixes" that went into it just made it worse.

1st edition wasn't as concerned with making sure the Exalted had Charms which could accurately simulate a battle with a Primordial. It was a little more loosey goosey with the rules.

2nd and 3rd ed, is trying to model things like 3.5 Dungeons and Dragons, making sure there is a rule for every single situation that pops up...intricate and detailed rules which just make your eyes glaze over.

I ran multiple, successful 1e campaigns. Some of them blew up because of the rules, and some of them I had to keep a steady hand along with my players to avoid the rules landmines, but it was a completely workable and fun system...

Every 2nd edition game I started petered out by the 4th session. It just wasn't as fun. The super focus on making extended rules for every situation, and reworking combat entirely and adding more complexity just made the game worse. The rules got in the way of the game rather than enhancing it.

3rd seems to be following this pattern.

So I repeat...1e is the best version of the Exalted rules and it really makes me wonder why they didn't bother trying to clean those up to make a new edition of Exalted...rather than re-inventing the wheel both times now.

Edit: "DV" and "The BattleWheel" were two of the worst innovations Whitewolf came up with. Showing up in Scion as well...No matter how much the "Battle Wheel" tried to speed up combat, all it did was bog it down and slow it down by making everything more complicated... "wait how much does this weapon add or take away from my speed? How much does this action effect my speed? how much does this power effect my speed?" where DV made it far to easy for characters to simply be flat out IMPOSSIBLE to be hit.

Rolled Defenses added an extra roll, but at least added a luck mechanic where a less accurate character still had a chance of hitting a target. If you wanted to build an enemy who could hit a high DV character it meant they would just destroy everyone else in the party.

Whoa, I didn't expect this to happen.

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?753409-Exalted-Ask-the-Devs-pt3-Merged-x3&p=19477230#post19477230