Quote from: Cruxador;946770The current team is made up of whoever wanted to work on Exalted enough to do it, back when they were freelancing for 2e rather than licensing for 3e. The people we've got are the ones who stepped up.

That is true. I don't dispute that. But remember my premise. My starting point is new-WW taking the licence away from OPP and opening it up to a bid or maybe also giving it to a team they hire for it. I guess that opens up new venues and especially, in my scenario, frees it up for rebuilding. So it might garner more interest then back when it transitioned from 2e to 3e with all its restraints.

QuoteYou would think so, but it turns out that most of the people willing to put in the substantial amount of work that a game requires would rather develop their own IPs.

That might be a part of it. But still, Exalted has recognition value and is well established. I think most people can not hope to get that kind of traction with their own IP even if they tried really hard. So i still think it would be a very interesting opportunity to work on a new-Exalted.

QuoteYeah, the ideas behind Exalted are great. Nobody contests that. But everyone has their own ideas for (subjectively) better versions of it and so far nobody has made a big Exalted-buster that does everything Exalted wants to do but way better. I'm not sure anyone can, really. It's not the way that the overall market leans.

As above. And i am not convinced that that many have tried to do an Exalted-Buster yet. We have Gods of the Fall and Godbound who do a good job. But both are quite recent products. We had nothing for years and years. So i am still pretty much convinced that a well done reboot of Exalted could be a very attractive game. Or, if no reboot is possible, another try at the so called Buster. I guess Godbound is such a thing for the OSR crowd. But if your not interested in old school DnD, you're still out of luck.

Anyway, it's all just a big pile of speculation. But every now and then i just get the urge to speculate on an Exalted-done-right...because i would play the shit out of such a game

@ AsenRG - That has never stopped anyone from trying nonetheless More seriously, i know what you are getting at. But i am talking about what Exalted sold itself as in the very beginning and that it never achieved in the slightest with the rules-set it came in.

Quote from: Anglachel;946816I guess Godbound is such a thing for the OSR crowd. But if your not interested in old school DnD, you're still out of luck.

Yeah, that's the position I find myself in

Quote from: Nexus;946824Yeah, that's the position I find myself in

What would you want out of a system, specifically for Exalted? Outside the OSR I'd consider either FATE or ORE (mashing up Wild Talents characters with Reign's Company system).

Quote from: Nexus;946824Yeah, that's the position I find myself in

Might not be your cup of tea, but I put a game called Sertorius that could be in the ballpark: http://www.rpgnow.com/product/134779/Sertorius

Quote from: Cruxador;946770You would think so, but it turns out that most of the people willing to put in the substantial amount of work that a game requires would rather develop their own IPs.

That makes sense to me. I think that licensed TTRPGs are a dubious thing in the first place as far as the benefit of name recognition versus taking a profit cut in a field where almost nobody makes much money. Even if it works out, you always have the threat of losing the license, and once that license is gone, you can't even continue to sell existing product, which hurts more in the PDF era where you can normally keep your entire back catalog alive forever.  

With Exalted, it's a setting that is only popular by TTRPG standards. It's also a deeply divided fanbase, both along setting and mechanical lines. Whatever approach you take, you are buying the hatred of a lot of Exalted fans by picking up the license. It's a game that people deeply love the idea of, but have usually not been happy with in its implementation. You are better off just making your own game that "evokes" Exalted if you want to sell your own take on it rather than taking on the miserable burden of the official license.

Quote from: Baulderstone;946859With Exalted, it's a setting that is only popular by TTRPG standards. It's also a deeply divided fanbase, both along setting and mechanical lines ... It's a game that people deeply love the idea of, but have usually not been happy with in its implementation.

Sounds like 7th Sea.

Quote from: Anglachel;946816I guess Godbound is such a thing for the OSR crowd. But if your not interested in old school DnD, you're still out of luck.

There have been a fair few people who have openly admitted not being into old school D&D or in the OSR crowd that would chose Godbound for Exalted. The D&D/OSR roots are a pretty light touch and only likely to trigger those people who are anti anything that suggests such roots.

As such, I think its more accurate to say that Godbound can be such a thing for anyone who isn't in the anti-OSR crowd, which is a wider group of people.

Quote from: Skywalker;946869There have been a fair few people who have openly admitted not being into old school D&D or in the OSR crowd that would chose Godbound for Exalted. The D&D/OSR roots are a pretty light touch and only likely to trigger those people who are anti anything that suggests such roots.

As such, I think its more accurate to say that Godbound can be such a thing for anyone who isn't in the anti-OSR crowd, which is a wider group of people.

"anti OSR" is a pretty antagonistic way to put it. I simply don't like those mechanics and as I mostly gm for our Exalted group I'd have to interact with them pretty constantly. I don't hate the OSR. I'm not entirely sure what it is. I don't like some of the basic aspects of the system. I am not triggered by them. Triggered usually implies frothing nerd rage and butthurt. And often an expression of contempt for the opinion its used to decry.

Disliking a system doesn't make a person a hater. Hey, I'm glad people that enjoy the mechanics have suitable resplacement but I've given "OSR/DnD" style rules more than one try.I just don't don't find them fun. And when I read Godbound the OSR touches didn't seem light to me or at least what I'd call the similarities. They're be basis on the mechanics. What is the point in playing game you don't enjoy?

Quote from: Anglachel;946816@ AsenRG - That has never stopped anyone from trying nonetheless

True, but you see how much success they've got, too...

QuoteMore seriously, i know what you are getting at. But i am talking about what Exalted sold itself as in the very beginning and that it never achieved in the slightest with the rules-set it came in.

That's exactly the problem.
You're talking about "what Exalted sold itself as in the very beginning".
Someone else is talking about "what Exalted sold itself as in the very beginning of second edition".
Yet another person is talking about "what Exalted sold itself as at the end of the second edition".
Problem is, the three have preciously little to keep them together;)!

Quote from: Skywalker;946869There have been a fair few people who have openly admitted not being into old school D&D or in the OSR crowd that would chose Godbound for Exalted. The D&D/OSR roots are a pretty light touch and only likely to trigger those people who are anti anything that suggests such roots.

As such, I think its more accurate to say that Godbound can be such a thing for anyone who isn't in the anti-OSR crowd, which is a wider group of people.

Not exactly. I'm a Godbound backer and definitely pro-OSR, to the point that I'm starting an OSR session after I post this, using the Low Fantasy RPG:).
And yet I don't want to play Godbound as-is because of the OSR elements.
Mind you, those same elements are no problem to me when I play Scarlet Heroes, which features the exact same take on the OSR part of it;).
Make no mistake, I like the powers! In fact, I am thinking of using them for another game.
I just don't like the two together. Don't ask me why, I can't define it better than "two nice tastes that totally suck together".

Then again, I don't need to use them as-is. I can use Godbound's setting just fine as an expansion of Scarlet Heroes, the rules are the same already. And I can use the Godbound powers in another game that doesn't have "native" powers. I probably will, some day, so I am going to play Godbound - just not all of its parts at once:D!

Quote from: Nexus;946902"anti OSR" is a pretty antagonistic way to put it.

Cool. I didn't mean it to be antagonistic. However, I do think that categorising Godbound as being just for "the OSR crowd" and those that like OSR D&D seems to dismissive of a good chunk of the fandom it has created. Maybe we can just ignore both statements as I don't think generalisations like this really help

Quote from: Skywalker;946912However, I do think that categorising Godbound as being just for "the OSR crowd" and those that like OSR D&D seems to dismissive of a good chunk of the fandom it has created. Maybe we can just ignore both statements as I don't think generalisations like this really help

As you were quoting me, i don't think you read what i wrote. I wasn't claiming it is just for the OSR crowd. I do think it can be an Exalted buster for the OSR crowd, but i was not saying "only" or anything to that effect. Also, i still hold to my statement that if you do not like old school DnD, you are out of luck. Because, as Nexus said, the mechanics are clearly still old school DnD...and that can not be explained away.
I do think Godbound is a neat little game, and i would prefer giving money to its creator before i ever give any $$ to the Ex3e team again, but i still do not see myself playing Godbound as my Exalted fix. It's not my cup of tea, mechanically.

Quote from: Anglachel;946916Also, i still hold to my statement that if you do not like old school DnD, you are out of luck.

I did read what you posted, and I don't think the above statement is accurate. Obviously, how much old school mechanics will cause an issue will differ from person to person, so this may true for you. But I have several players in my group, and there seems to be plenty of others report the same on RPGnet, that aren't fans of old school D&D and are yet still finding that Godbound works just fine for them. As to why, this again may vary from person to person, but there are a lot of mechanics blended into Godbound that remove it from a pure OSR base to some extent.

Quote from: Anglachel;946816That might be a part of it. But still, Exalted has recognition value and is well established. I think most people can not hope to get that kind of traction with their own IP even if they tried really hard. So i still think it would be a very interesting opportunity to work on a new-Exalted.

People don't make games because they think it's going to be a good financial opportunity, though. They do it to make what they want to make. Being successful isn't important if it's not success at what you wanted to do.

QuoteAnd i am not convinced that that many have tried to do an Exalted-Buster yet.

Yeah because it turns out it's really damn hard. And it's been out of style for a while too, grit has been the in thing and we're only recently swinging the other way.

QuoteAnyway, it's all just a big pile of speculation. But every now and then i just get the urge to speculate on an Exalted-done-right...because i would play the shit out of such a game

Hey, you can always make it yourself, eh? Actually, I might do high-powered fantasy for my next project. That's coming after my current one though, and I'm definitely missing my end of march deadline on that.

Quote from: The Butcher;946825What would you want out of a system, specifically for Exalted? Outside the OSR I'd consider either FATE or ORE (mashing up Wild Talents characters with Reign's Company system).

Mine would be on an exploding d6 system probably, with freeformish sorcery based on elements and specific concepts applied to a laundry list of roll-based effects. Combat... Maybe something similar? Maybe a bit more Riddle of Steel with a two-part round but I wouldn't want dice pools as big and it doesn't work well otherwise, and a lot of the details don't fit well. I dunno, something to think about. For social, I've no idea what basic mechanic to use, that's an area where I actually might look to Exalted for some inspiration.
As for exalt type analogues, the base should just be a deified hero, something like the paragon from Dungeons: the Dragoning. But I could probably design something good for primordial deities (Sun, Moon, Earth, Sky, Darkness) and something analogous to liminal with genius loci and stars and whatever. Maybe also some for dead and evil gods, like the Sea, Drums, some dragons and some fae/lovecraftian stuff. Well, probably not seriously working on it before the summer though, at the earliest.

Quote from: Skywalker;946919I did read what you posted, and I don't think the above statement is accurate. Obviously, how much old school mechanics will cause an issue will differ from person to person, so this may true for you. But I have several players in my group, and there seems to be plenty of others report the same on RPGnet, that aren't fans of old school D&D and are yet still finding that Godbound works just fine for them. As to why, this again may vary from person to person, but there are a lot of mechanics blended into Godbound that remove it from a pure OSR base to some extent.

Yes, yes, the old "tastes may vary" sure. BUT...not being a fan of old school DnD and not liking old school DnD is not the same. At least in my reading of it. There are very very few mechanics that i am fan of, and i play a lot of other games nonetheless. So you could say i am playing a lot of games that i am not a fan of. But i am not playing games that i actively dislike. So yes, big difference in my book.

@ Cruxador - Well let me know when your finished with your high-powered fantasy game. I'd be interested to take a look.

Quote from: Anglachel;946816That might be a part of it. But still, Exalted has recognition value and is well established. I think most people can not hope to get that kind of traction with their own IP even if they tried really hard. So i still think it would be a very interesting opportunity to work on a new-Exalted.

Speaking purely for myself, if White Wolf were to offer me God-Kingship of Exalted with complete carte blanche to design a new edition and royalty terms as generous as anyone could expect, I'd still take a pass on it, because Exalted is a man-killing game to design for.

To produce anything like a system that the existing Exalted fanbase would embrace as "Exalted" requires an absolutely savage amount of design and testing, and it will still fail to satisfy a significant chunk of the fanbase. Which, for a game as popular as Exalted is and given the type of superfans it attracts, will most certainly result in deranged jeremiads against the designers, their pets, and their favorite colors. Any attempt to evade this issue by redesigning Exalted to fit a different kind of relationship between the players and the mechanics will just infuriate a different section of the fanbase and alienate a good deal more of them, as the flaws of Exalted are inextricable from the exact things that make it so fun for many people.

Therefore, acquiring the license for Exalted is essentially a matter of signing up to be shat on continuously for several years in order to build someone else's IP for the inevitable day when you lose the license and can no longer sell what you've spent the past X years being shat on in order to make. For this you will be paid wages that a junior IT drone would find unappealing, and acquire domain-specific expertise that is almost entirely useless outside of the license. And when the license does end your odds of translating that achievement into an equal or better new deal with another game are, shall we say, not great.

That's not a good deal.

Until game publishing is able to shell out some real money to designers and producers, a competent game designer is almost always better off building their own IP and collecting 100% of the profits on modest evergreen products. Licensing IP simply cannot pay off adequately on the time and effort sunk into products that will inevitably become unsalable within a few years.

In the old days, when POD and online sales weren't practical, a line was effectively dead in 4-5 years anyway, because all the books were out of the retail channel by then and it probably wasn't worth the money to reprint it. Even if it was still kicking, another cycle was usually plenty to exhaust interest in the game, and the residual fandom wasn't sufficient economic prompting to run a third printing. If your license died in five years, it was annoying, but you could expect to have already sucked most of the juice out of the market by then. Even back then it was an iffy proposition, but you had a chance.

Now? Now there's no reason why your latest magnum opus shouldn't be continuously available on Amazon/DTRPG from now until the heat death of the universe. That residual fanbase no longer requires a full-dress print run to service, and sales can flare back up at any time since you've got your entire back catalog available with a few clicks. Volunteering to turn off those products after a few years now makes for a real, painful cost, and it's not one I can recommend for any IP I can currently think of.