Quote from: Alderaan Crumbs;903798Sadly, I go to bed around then (0330 wake-up and all!), but thank you!

Well, some of us will be awake.  

Quote from: Baulderstone;903584Another symptom of that is the "look but don't touch" attitude toward the setting.

That attitude can also be seen in the setting development with the Powers that Be being made more monolethic and physically powerful and the PCs power levels lowered in the name "ensuring interaction with the setting instead of running roughshod over it" (IOW: making large scale changes). Even groups like THe Guild, which practically has to be given Plot Armor to explain why its managed to keep all Exalts out of power structures and interferring or co-opting it even a local level would be the stuff oa major campaign arc, even a campaign, for Solar Exalted.

Quote from: Warboss Squee;903639Once you populate a setting with NPCs that are doing what the PCs are doing to the point that you need to excise them to make room for the players, you have metaplot.

See Also: Aberrant

Quote from: Warboss Squee;903838Well, some of us will be awake.  

And usually working. Of course, I'm on nights this week...

Quote from: Alderaan Crumbs;903880And usually working. Of course, I'm on nights this week...

True enough.

Quote from: Warboss Squee;903639Once you populate a setting with NPCs that are doing what the PCs are doing to the point that you need to excise them to make room for the players, you have metaplot.

That's not metaplot.  Metaplot is when the NPC's move the timeline of the game along and the PCs have no input on what happens.  Palladium's Rifts, most of the White Wold WoD games, Aberrant as was mentioned, those have very big metaplots.  There's a train that's going to a destination, and there's no way to stop it, so the PCs may as well strap in for the ride.

What's you're describing is more of a limited ability to explore.  You can play in the sand box and do whatever you want, but if you go to certain places, you'll get smushed.  It won't stop you from going there, but explore at your own risk.  Unfortunately, the sand box is very, very small compared to the sections cordoned off.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;903923That's not metaplot.  Metaplot is when the NPC's move the timeline of the game along and the PCs have no input on what happens.  Palladium's Rifts, most of the White Wold WoD games, Aberrant as was mentioned, those have very big metaplots.  There's a train that's going to a destination, and there's no way to stop it, so the PCs may as well strap in for the ride.

What's you're describing is more of a limited ability to explore.  You can play in the sand box and do whatever you want, but if you go to certain places, you'll get smushed.  It won't stop you from going there, but explore at your own risk.  Unfortunately, the sand box is very, very small compared to the sections cordoned off.

And to make things worse, many of the "get smushed here" zones are aggressively unmarked. Not only is there no way to know if you're in one, a lot of them seem to be actively desirable places to go.

I just never got why people take Exalted so terribly seriously.  It's got some cool ideas but it's like a mashup between shonen anime and wuxia movies with a little Greek myth thrown in.  I like crazy shonen anime like One Piece or silly over the top wuxia like Zu:warriors From the Magic Mountain as much as the next guy but it's pretty silly stuff.  People act like the game is some great, important vehicle for Social Change or something.  They act like it's somehow basically different from and more important than other fantasy RPGs rather than just being more over the top than most.  It's absurd how pretentious people are about it.  It's just a more over the top, gonzo version of D&D.  Why do people act like it's this great, portentous thing?

Quote from: Christopher Brady;903923What's you're describing is more of a limited ability to explore.  You can play in the sand box and do whatever you want, but if you go to certain places, you'll get smushed.  It won't stop you from going there, but explore at your own risk.  Unfortunately, the sand box is very, very small compared to the sections cordoned off.

Quite honestly, I enjoyed the setting when the lore was bastardized and pillaged.  Some things we did during our Locust Crusade, or discussed doing:

-Disregard Solars/Abyssals/Infernals completely
-Use only the Deathlords from the book, none others exist
-ST discretion for moving up in Essence Level
-Completely remove things from an area
-Lock Yu-Shan away from Creation

We didn't do all of these, but these were all possibilities for the game.

Quote from: yosemitemike;903972I just never got why people take Exalted so terribly seriously.... It's absurd how pretentious people are about it.  It's just a more over the top, gonzo version of D&D.  Why do people act like it's this great, portentous thing?

Yeah, it's supposed to be kind of a goofy thing.  Honestly, if you don't treat the limiting lore like it's scripture-gospel, throw it out if you want- you got yourself a pretty decent game.  I look at it like superhero comics.  Sometimes I'm in the mood for Superman, sometimes I'm in the mood for Batman.  It feels good to cut loose and blow up a mountain in a fistfight, but sometimes you just want to brawl with some bandits in the mud.

Quote from: yosemitemike;903972I just never got why people take Exalted so terribly seriously.  It's got some cool ideas but it's like a mashup between shonen anime and wuxia movies with a little Greek myth thrown in.  I like crazy shonen anime like One Piece or silly over the top wuxia like Zu:warriors From the Magic Mountain as much as the next guy but it's pretty silly stuff.  People act like the game is some great, important vehicle for Social Change or something.  They act like it's somehow basically different from and more important than other fantasy RPGs rather than just being more over the top than most.  It's absurd how pretentious people are about it.  It's just a more over the top, gonzo version of D&D.  Why do people act like it's this great, portentous thing?

Being pretentious "Serious Business" gaming has been Storyteller's brand practically since the beginning and inevitably comes to color any game line that continues for very long. Exalted and its fandom actually did feel allot more freewheeling and open initially. Discussions were about homebrew setting elements and variant Creations and some pretty gonzo even over the top stuff. Especially on rpg.net. Hell, that style even came to be called "Rpg.net Exalted".

Then partially due to the system being unable to support it (originating in Urban Horror) a more "serious" take was pushed, blaming 2ed failings in part of on trying to cater to "rpg.net Exalted" which was obviously not what the game was meant to be. And allot of the fanbase hopped on board. Discussions became more about the NPCs, setting elements and proving how well you'd internalized the lore, more like talking about a story or novel than a game, another manifestation of that "Look but don't touch" mentality mentioned earlier.

Another example of the game wanting to turn the amp up to 11 when the amp only goes up to 8.

JG

The game struck a chord when it was first released, and struck it well. Over the years, however, it hasn't grown forward, instead taking countless steps backward. I feel the idea and potential of Exalted drives people more than the actual game.

Quote from: Alderaan Crumbs;904071The game struck a chord when it was first released, and struck it well. Over the years, however, it hasn't grown forward, instead taking countless steps backward. I feel the idea and potential of Exalted drives people more than the actual game.

That's the thing with most of White Wolf's stuff.  The games themselves are rather pretentious crap, with a barely there and barely functional system/engine, but the writing evoked something in people, and those people clung to said evocations to the point of admittedly silliness.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;904082That's the thing with most of White Wolf's stuff.  The games themselves are rather pretentious crap, with a barely there and barely functional system/engine, but the writing evoked something in people, and those people clung to said evocations to the point of admittedly silliness.

Those damn corebooks. There's something about them that just has a hook. Really, the basic idea behind most ST/WW/OP games aren't bad at all and those books really sell them. But then more supplement inevitably follow and the "serious artistic merit" and increasingly bloated setting and explanation of how to play the game "right" keep getting shoveled on until that great kernel of an idea is suffocated under pretentious wankery.

Quote from: Alderaan Crumbs;904071The game struck a chord when it was first released, and struck it well. Over the years, however, it hasn't grown forward, instead taking countless steps backward. I feel the idea and potential of Exalted drives people more than the actual game.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;904082That's the thing with most of White Wolf's stuff.  The games themselves are rather pretentious crap, with a barely there and barely functional system/engine, but the writing evoked something in people, and those people clung to said evocations to the point of admittedly silliness.

Going all the way back, Vampire: the Masquerade 1st Edition, plus Chicago by Night 1st Edition, while having some degree of mechanical wonkiness, was a really great game. Unfortunately, there are many, many more books in the line.

The new Exalted edition might have been a chance to pare the game back down. I knew that wasn't the case when I heard there were actually multiple new types of Exalted added without enough detail to actually use them. I'm not a game developer, but if I have a book over three inches thick, and there are setting elements that the system still can't support, maybe they shouldn't be in the game at all.

Quote from: Luca;902293With all due respect, that's quite disingenous. A game system like Exalted (complex, extremely crunchy, theoretically designed to give players lots of significant choices during both character generation and combat) falls apart if you wing it up whenever you're playing the opponents.

No, it doesn't, as evidenced by me having devoted about half my Refereeing time to systems like this. They work ut fine.

QuoteAt that point you might as well wing up the players' powers.

That's for when we play a lighter system, thank you. This is the difference between the two, not my GMing.

Quotegame's tactical depth requires either both PCs and NPCs using the same rules, or, if they're different, they have to be properly designed that way from the start so the 2 different subsystems interact correctly with each other.

Untrue.

QuoteAnd if you lose that depth, then why bother with Exalted's level of complexity?

Because the players like having Charms, of course. And because gaining, losing and spending Initiative maps well to in-game events I don't need to think how to explain what's going on. This, in turn, frees my "processing power" to consider other things a GM needs to consider.

QuoteAnd regardless of any other factor, a corebook with over 600 exception-based powers (with much more to come in the following splatbooks) requires an initial investment which is just plain crazy. That's an objective number, not linked to any specific person's bias.

"Over 600" is objective. "Crazy" is your bias speaking.
It just took me longer to read it, is all.

Quote from: Alderaan Crumbs;902207No, I don't need to ignore rules in Star Wars or Cypher System games. Why? Because they work without having to fiddle-fuck with a ton of shit.

Because (we don't know which Star Wars you mean, but if it's Saga, I'm going to laugh really hard) Cypher barely has any rules past "GM fiats it".

QuoteCan I change things if I want to? Yes, that's an RPG thing. However, I don't NEED to in order to run a combat that won't still be going in a year...

Neither do I. Exalted 3 combats are actually a bit on the fast side, lately.

QuoteAnd yes, most of the most fervent supporters of Exalted are SJW fucktards who aren't gamers and hate the hobby.

Citation needed.

QuoteThe Ex3 crew is a huge group of assholes with one designer not even gaming.

That's your opinion. The guy who's not gaming kinda surprised me, too, but I'm not in his shoes - maybe he's got reasons.

QuoteThe game was promised to be streamlined, which is pretty much synonymous with "quicker".

No. Streamlined means it's more logical, following the same principles everywhere. It does that, compared to the previous edition. Quicker? Well, it is also quicker compared to Exalted 2 with its paranoia combat. It's just slower than other systems, which is where the disconnect comes from.

QuoteThe ST System wasn't built from the ground up and it shows. All they did was mash years of everything into a cluster-fuck system.

Shrug. You can say the same about a few popular systems as well.

QuoteHere's the most glorious rub, though: I'm not wrong about any of the points I've made.

I'm sure you want to believe that;).

QuoteOh, your little emoticons are stupid. And I hate you.

Go fuck yourself, then:D!

Quote from: Christopher Brady;902202By saying that ignoring chunks of E2 was normal, you were implying that it was fine, because if it was done before, what you do now is OK, and anyone complaining about (as if this is the first time anyone has complained) is a bit disingenuous.  It's a cheap internet debate technique.  Please don't use it.

...there were special systems developed by the fans to streamline the running of NPCs which amounted to, more or less, what I'm doing. Yes, what I'm doing now is OK. Been doing it in the last decade, across many systems (odds are, across more systems than you've played).
That much you got right;).

People are free to complain, though. I'm just pointing out that "it's only a slight improvement and I'd streamline it more - in fact, my default approach is to streamline it more".
Now, if they say there's no improvement? Yeah, they are kinda disingenuous.

QuoteYes, it IS worse simply because it was advertised as something it turned out not to be (as in better than the last two versions), it IS worse.

The word you need is not "worse". It's "more disappointing to Chris Brady".

QuoteAnd not only because of the repetitive charm bloat either.  There's a lot of holdovers from 2e that are simply unchecked.

There are, but some of them are stuff the designers like.
That there are holdovers doesn't mean it's not an improvement. It means you wanted it to be better.

QuoteI think you may be projecting your blindness on others.

You're wrong.

QuoteSee, someone who 'blindly hates' is a lot like the 4e haters that never tried the game and immediately parrot the 'Oh, it's like a video game' bullshit that everyone else, who also hadn't seen the game decided to call it, so that they could justify sticking with 3e.  Hating something without looking at it, analyzing it or in some cases actually trying it out, or just hating because X company put it out, that is blindly hating something.

That much, we agree on.
Remind me, how many of the posters in this thread own Ex3? I asked for a show of hands, I think (can't be bothered to look for the post). For some reason, there weren't lots of hands...

QuoteSadly, this is NOT what happened here.  Most of the complaints you are responding too, have actually tried the game system in some fashion.  And found it very, very, very lacking, simply because it's just not different enough from the mess that 2e ended up being (when it turned out that apparently the errata for the core book turned out bigger than the core book.  Or so it was claimed.)

"Not different enough"=/=not improved". "Enough" is subjective.
And I've changed the parts that I don't like, so my "enough" still requires more. It's just closer to the current product.

QuoteAnd this is where inability to understand mechanics comes to the fore.  Not an insult, but it's clear that you've not actually thought it through.

YOU are accusing ME in "inability to understand mechanics"?

QuoteOne part effects another, even D&D's spell system, each of which is a separate rules block that don't interact with the base system is effected by certain other factors.  Like the Saving Throw, each class in most of D&D's lifetime has a unique modifier on what type of effect the spell is using.  In AD&D for example, some Spells used the Charm saving throws, other went with Death.  But those mechanics were tied to other things that weren't Spells either, like a Dragon's Breath, which again, each class some of which did not use magic at all got.  A Gorgon's Breath, if I remember correctly (and I may not, but it's just an example) also used the Death saving throw number.  I could be wrong, but hopefully you know what I'm talking about.

All these systems are interlinked, by changing one, you change others.  Some might seem that big, others rewrite the entire system in it's effect.

True, it does. The way you derive those numbers, however, has no bearing on the system - only the number itself matters.

QuoteSo, by ignoring the antagonists chapter, that actually cascades into other rules, like most of the Charms, of which they actually affect said antagonists in some fashion.  By ignoring one section, you are in effect ignoring another.  One thing is interlinked to another, and by ignoring one section, you are, apparently without realizing it, ignoring a rather large section of the system.

Once again, no I'm not. Or if anything, my NPCs just make the game harder - which is always fine with me.

QuoteBy not using the antagonists as they are, and letting your players believe that all the charms they want to use actually has meaning,

They do - without said charms, the NPCs would trample them.
You don't assume that I'd change the NPCs according to what the players' numbers are, do you?

Quotebut actually don't because you're not actually using what the charms will be affecting is lying.

As pointed before, that's BS. Whether you decide that an NPC has Dex 4 Melee 4 and a specialty, or just decide he's rolling 12 dice when the weapon is accounted for, doesn't matter.

QuoteYou fooling your players into believing something that's not true.  How is that not a lie?

None of my players is stupid enough to believe I'd use stock NPCs. They know me better than that.

QuoteFLAG ON PLAY!  Using an ad hominem attack to try and dismiss argument.  Shows weakness of own argument.

Bitch, please. After calling me blind and a liar, you don't get to use the "ad hominem" card:D!

QuoteBut the most important section of the book, even if it's the smallest, is the Antagonists.  And I'm not just talking the combat monsters, I'm talking those that would want to challenge the PCs, in physical tests, like combat, but athletics counts as well, mental tests, like puzzles or general knowledge, and personality tests, like negotiations or intimidation and every thing in between is relegated by their stats, what charms (if any) they have and other factors.  By ignoring that tiny, ten percent, you've just affected the entire system in a way that's apparently too subtle for you to have realized.

That's only true if you change the possible range of results.

QuoteUh, sticking your entire arm in water for a couple of seconds, and sticking 10% of your arm in acid.  The acid, despite being less of it on you, will still do more damage in the long rung than having your entire arm into the average American bathtub water.

Stupid comparison is still stupid.

QuoteWhat you believe and what you're doing are two different things, evidently.

No.

Quote...Really?  Really?  Wow.  

Really.

QuoteI'm not going to change your mind, and that's fine, but it's clear that you have no idea what the scope of the complaints are, and blindly dismiss them because your OK with the mess that you have is like dancing the mamba with nitro glycerin in each hand.

Just because you've gotten away with it unharmed, does not mean that dancing with nitro glycerin is safe for everyone to do it.

Funny comparison, but still has nothing to do with the rest of it.

Quote...BOOM!

Dramatic.
Exaggerating.
Doesn't prove your point.

[QUOTE="yosemitemike;903972]I just never got why people take Exalted so terribly seriously.  It's got some cool ideas but it's like a mashup between shonen anime and wuxia movies with a little Greek myth thrown in.[/QUOTE]
It's got a nice setting;).