Quote from: Christopher Brady;910323I may be remembering incorrectly (and I really could, I'm asking if anyone else remembers this) but wasn't there this online community that REALLY loved the Sidereals?  To the point that even some of the devs felt 'obligated' to respond to them in some fashion?

All the splats had their vocal fans and which one was more obnoxious depended on who you asked but, from my perspective, it did seem like being a vocal Solar fan became a negative "Solar Fanboy" being a big slam and conversational code "Your opinions can be ignored". Most of the major Solar fans I knew when left the game, the community or both.

That said, Sidereals do have allot of very active fans. Their 1st edition splatbook rreally play the "from our point of view" drum hard, painting them as the unsung heroes of the setting holding Creation together despite the other Exalt's bumbling ham fisted "heroics" and outright evil with abilities that make them vital the setting unlike the others splats. Readers that clicked with Sids really brought into that plus the Sids fit more into one of the usual Storyteller structure of small group secret masters of the world/secret society engaging in political shenanigans and black ops then Solar/Lunar "Wandering Hero" so it makes some sense that many WW player got them more.

The big complaints I remember about the earlier presentations of the Usurpation were that it make the Solars look "too powerful" and that having any doubt as to its absolute nessescity "deprotagonized" the Sidereals and Dragonblooded. I remember those voices getting pretty loud, particularly on rp.gnet.

Quote from: Michael Gray;910220The Great Curse is actually a) not that bad in play, b) mostly a bookkeeping exercise/PITA for the GM, and c) not really neccesary. In my opinion. Players get pretty hubristic all on their own.

I'm surprised that the designers didn't consider that.

JG

Quote from: James Gillen;910343I'm surprised that the designers didn't consider that.

JG

Trying to prevent your customers from screwing up their games by playing them wrong is a long standing tradition.

Quote from: James Gillen;910343I'm surprised that the designers didn't consider that.

JG

Quote from: Nexus;910347Trying to prevent your customers from screwing up their games by playing them wrong is a long standing tradition.

They are THE originators of 'BadWrongFun' or 'You're playing it WRONG!'.  We still get backhanded derogatory statements about how playing Vampire as Superheroes with Fangs was somehow not 'intended'.  And anyone who plays and works with White Wolf ascribes to that mentality.

Quote from: James Gillen;910343I'm surprised that the designers didn't consider that.

JG

Considering their target audience, so am I. I mean, do we really need rules for being a domineering ass who wants everything done our way with no dissent or adherence to truth?

Quote from: Michael Gray;910224One success I HAVE had with using the Great Curse is to take the barebones of the Limits (Berzerk Rage, Heart of Stone, etc.) and tell the players: "Guys, every once in a while I want to see you flip out in the manner prescribed by your Limit. If you don't and the longer it goes I'M going to trigger it and it's going to be real, real bad." It takes all the "Did this action go with his Limit? How many points did he get?" bookkeeping aspect of it and also let's it not be as predictable to the players.

Yeah, I can see that working, but I can also see it failing miserably with the wrong players and/or wrong GM:).

Quote from: Alderaan Crumbs;910250That reasoning is silly. Out-of-the-gate, Solars are beasts (at least they used to be). If they stubbed a toe and went on a murder spree, or got butt-hurt over man's inhumanity to man and ran away and hid under a bed for years, the First Age never would've occurred. Plus, the first Exalts were presumably more powerful in order to you know, do their jobs. The devastation would've been enormous. The Great Curse doesn't mean shit to anyone else, in practice. It's a crap mechanic and James Gillen's correct that Aberrant did it, which by its very existence means it did it better.

I see Solars as divine representations of everything SJWs hate: power and being the best. I'm surprised they weren't written as religious Conservatives who fought daiklave control. They're the fall guys for everything.

WW/OPP has a near-masturbatory lust for punishing power for the sake of it being power and it's utter garbage.

OK, that post is just so funny I don't want to reply.

Quote from: Orphan81;910287I've actually always been a fan of the great curse, at least the first edition version which affected everyone. The whole usurpation was the fault of the sidereal Exalted.

The more of them which work together for vision, the more devastatingly inaccurate the vision is. They saw the Solars going mad and had their big meeting.

They saw 3 outcomes.. The world ending, the world continuing in a lesser format if they kill the Solars and raise up the dragon Blooded.. Or the Golden age continuing if they did their job and advised and helped the Solars deal with their madness.

Naturally the curse muddled the vision and they chose wrong.

I also found it an interesting plot point the great curse was unknown to all the Exalted. It would be an interesting plot point if the great curse was discovered as being a thing affecting all Exalted.

Edit : On my phone, so grammar is bad.

It's mostly unchanged two editions later, and I like it as well;).

Quote from: Christopher Brady;910357They are THE originators of 'BadWrongFun' or 'You're playing it WRONG!'.  We still get backhanded derogatory statements about how playing Vampire as Superheroes with Fangs was somehow not 'intended'.  And anyone who plays and works with White Wolf ascribes to that mentality.

I can recall some grouchy columns in Dragon Magazine about people playing D&D wrong by Gary Gygax. You can find plenty of other accusations of BadWrongFun in Dragon's Forum. Then you had Call of Cthulhu players who got upset about players solving problems with dynamite rather than dying like they were supposed to. Marvel Superheroes had its Karma mechanic to make sure that you got punished if you tried to play "monsters with cool powers" rather than "heroes without fangs".

There was never anything particularly new about Storyteller's system or the problems surrounding it.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;910357They are THE originators of 'BadWrongFun' or 'You're playing it WRONG!'.  We still get backhanded derogatory statements about how playing Vampire as Superheroes with Fangs was somehow not 'intended'.  And anyone who plays and works with White Wolf ascribes to that mentality.

There were fans arguments about "Badwronggfun" but WW made it part of their brand.I was pretty invested in their games for awhile and that sort of preaching and finger wagging was pretty consistent. How "elite" and special their games were was pushed as a selling point. and it worked, the pretentiousness actually drew in more fans. Go figure. But the finger wagging for "doing it wrong" ranged from post by the staff on forums to articles in the books themselves like the infamous "This is not the Superfriends" screed in the Aberrant Player's Guide.

Plus "You're playing it wrong" has been a rote response to mechanical issues up to Exalted 2nd Edition. Game doesn't hold up at the table, obviously people are playing it wrong (which gets back to wiggle wording and such). I can't  say "everyone" that worked for WW espoused this but it did seem to be the company line and its public face. And its hung around until now.

Quote from: Baulderstone;910655IMarvel Superheroes had its Karma mechanic to make sure that you got punished if you tried to play "monsters with cool powers" rather than "heroes without fangs".

I think this is a false equivalency. AFAIK, the writers of Marvel Superheroes never got into discussions or wrote articles chastising gamers for playing Supervillains are ignoring the Karma rules as "doing it wrong". There were, IIRC, even modules and supplements that altered the Karma rules for different subgenres.

Karma was a genre enforcement rule but didn't, IMO, come across as ham fisted and heavy handed as things like The Great Curse or as square peg some of the "Angst O'meters" in the various WW game (it worked for Vampire but some of them others... not so much, IMO). But more importantly there wasn't as much tsking and tutting over wanting to play the game differently.

Quote from: Baulderstone;910655There was never anything particularly new about Storyteller's system or the problems surrounding it.

The Badwrongfun issue wasn't unique to White Wolf but it was very prominent with them and something that the company itself often seemed to promote instead of a fan originated idea.

Quote from: Baulderstone;910655I can recall some grouchy columns in Dragon Magazine about people playing D&D wrong by Gary Gygax. You can find plenty of other accusations of BadWrongFun in Dragon's Forum. Then you had Call of Cthulhu players who got upset about players solving problems with dynamite rather than dying like they were supposed to. Marvel Superheroes had its Karma mechanic to make sure that you got punished if you tried to play "monsters with cool powers" rather than "heroes without fangs".

There was never anything particularly new about Storyteller's system or the problems surrounding it.

Quote from: Nexus;910659There were fans arguments about "Badwronggfun" but WW made it part of their brand. I was pretty invested in their games for awhile and that sort of preaching and finger wagging was pretty consistent. How "elite" and special their games were was pushed as a selling point. and it worked, the pretentiousness actually drew in more fans. Go figure. But the finger wagging for "doing it wrong" ranged from post by the staff on forums to articles in the books themselves like the infamous "This is not the Superfriends" screed in the Aberrant Player's Guide.

Plus "You're playing it wrong" has been a rote response to mechanical issues up to Exalted 2nd Edition. Game doesn't hold up at the table, obviously people are playing it wrong (which gets back to wiggle wording and such). I can't  say "everyone" that worked for WW espoused this but it did seem to be the company line and its public face. And its hung around until now.

Nexus nails it dead.  I'm not saying that no one ever did it before, or had mechanics that wanted to guide players into a certain play style, but like Nexus just posted, they made it into a gaming philosophy that their fans took to heart.  From the language they used, to the integrated mechanics and various 'morality' tracks, they made "Your doing it WRONG!!!" into their own.

Never heard of any other company writing and publishing a series of modules as an inside joke to mock and ridicule their own fans like WW did with the V:TM Diablerie series of modules.

So, if something is true, and you post it on a forum, can it still be considered to be a personal/group attack? Well, unsurprisingly, on rpg.net, the answer is yes. Especially if you "attack" their favorite people :rolleyes:

Context: https://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?786912-Gathering-People-scammed-by-Richard-Thomas-Onyx-Path

On a side note - Wouldn't it be hilarious if something like that would gain momentum and kill OPP? I mean considering how many times proponents of their side (aka the outrage crowd and SJWs) have gone on boycott-rampages (aka actively calling for boycott [for example on rpg.net] and using their pull to get stuff taken down from drivethru etc. ) against other publishing groups who, allegedly, have "done something wrong/bad" * ? I would call it sweet fucking karma, bitches!

*whereas normal people would just call it matter-of-taste and live-and-let-live. Don't like something? Vote with your wallet, don't go around and moralize make-believe games, asshole!

Quote from: Nexus;910660The Badwrongfun issue wasn't unique to White Wolf but it was very prominent with them and something that the company itself often seemed to promote instead of a fan originated idea.

Early Vampire actually did encourage different play styles. The original Storytellers Handbook was full of optional campaign models. The turning point was when Dirty Secrets of Black Hand, which presented a campaign model that was far too gonzo for the fans, who lost their shit over it. White Wolf became a lot more boring from that point on, and the most rabid fans became writers. It became all about canon and metaplot.

So it ended as much as expected.  He should had gone to Kickstarter.  They forced Rich to hand out refunds in the Exalted Kickstarter.

Quote from: Baulderstone;910798Early Vampire actually did encourage different play styles. The original Storytellers Handbook was full of optional campaign models. The turning point was when Dirty Secrets of Black Hand, which presented a campaign model that was far too gonzo for the fans, who lost their shit over it. White Wolf became a lot more boring from that point on, and the most rabid fans became writers. It became all about canon and metaplot.

I agree  very early Vampire, like 1st ed (and early Storyteller over all) weren't as bad about it. Inmates taking over the asylum has been another problem with Storyteller for some time, until now really as I see it as one of the things that lead to Ex 3.