This is not accurate and in fact is self-contradictory.
For example, the two most common complaints (which are dual to each other), lethality and perfects, are commonly cited as individual flaws that can be fixed, and if fixed would produce a system worth using. In fact they are almost universally cited in this way.
But the truth is, that even if they were fixed, and you produced the system "as intended", you would have a game that was not worth the time you would spend playing it. This is not because of the presence of flaws; this is because no one ever put anything worth playing into it in the first place.
The problem is that at its core combat is just life bars with target selection, per-attack (and largely one-dimensional) resource investment, and an anemic* movement system. This would have been lame even in 1971; for 2006 it's unforgivable.
*as actually played; per RAW (which no one uses), it's literally unplayable without trigonometry.
Borgstromancy, for all its fun, is a total failure of game design. I am a huge fan of Jenna Moran, and she's done some amazing game design work - but this was a failure.
Game mechanics have to be designed, first and primarily, to be used rather than to be read.
I agree that game mechanics must be usable, lest they fail to truly be game mechanics at all, just as a piece of pseudocode that fails to compile cannot be considered a finished program. If you go back and read my very recent posts, you will see that I have already said this. Likewise I am in agreement that Exalted 2e was a failure of game design. If I thought it was in any directly useful sense a success, why would I be proposing a vast endeavor to rework it from the ground up?
The underlying issue where we actually disagree seems to be a matter of the philosophical difference between art and engineering. When an art project fails, it becomes psychological quicksand, whole and indivisible yet
unclean, and must be swept aside in it's entirety before the creator can properly move on to something new. When an engineering project fails, it is vitally important that the specific point of failure be identified, the nature of the breakdown analyzed, and everything thoroughly documented, so iterative refinement can proceed. A single small adjustment might be sufficient to resolve any given bug, no matter how catastrophic the results, and throwing out functional subsystems by association means wasting effort on 'reinventing the wheel.'
There is also the question of what the actual design goals are. I don't think Exalted combat
should be a minigame that's consistently fun in and of itself.
AWKWARD ZOMBIE A Dawn-caste tearing into unsupported mortals is just Anakin Skywalker massacring the Sand People... or the trainee jedi. Paranoia combos mean that mature exalts can't be murdered in their sleep, or even slain in direct confrontation at all without a horrible grind of mote attrition. So, any given celestial exalt with combat training is extremely hard to kill. Good strategy, then, means either figuring out how to get what you want
without killing them, either by some mutually beneficial arrangement, or by targeting your enemy's weakest point instead of the strongest.
Erfworld Archives - The Battle for Gobwin Knob - Episode 124 If murder is somehow the only feasible option, don't just charge in like Leroy Jenkins and expect that to end well.
The manga Assassination Classroom is all about a group of heroic mortals - and, later, exalt-like entities - trying to slay the equivalent of a paranoia-combo'd Adorjani 3CD before his task binding wears off. Most of the work is research and setup, preparing an ideal ambush position and softening up the target by noncombative means, rather than dynamic battle tactics; once join battle has been rolled, there are hardly any decisions left to make. Lot like how the Usurpation probably went, though sidereal divination and probability manipulation makes it easier to rule out unworkable plans without needing to forfeit the element of surprise by actually attempting them.
Capturing someone alive
Sunday 8 February 2009 , or breaking determined opposition
without a fight
UNICORN JELLY by Jennifer Diane Reitz in such a way that there's enough left of them to put back together afterward, should be more difficult - and more rewarding - for the same basic reasons it is in real life. Supernatural shortcuts can make that kind of thing easier, but even when you've got all the charms needed to apply overwhelming force with arbitrary precision, when you can win the fight trivially on whatever terms you choose, there's still some very important choices to be made. Why are you fighting in the first place?
Keychain of Creation - Updates Monday and Friday What is the goal? Point being to actually
think about underlying conflicts in-character,
play a role, not merely check with the dice gods to calculate who turned out to be a wise and just king.
In third edition, all that random variability, incomplete information, and resultant collateral damage
just doesn't happen, mainly due to the dissociated mechanics separating withering and decisive attacks. In that paradigm, an effect like Path of the Arbiter Form's perfect defense against unintended harm being caused by your own actions would be silly and largely redundant, instead of a hard-earned license to rescue hostages using a flamethrower.
On the subject of the functionality of yard-per-second movement rules, have you ever tried plugging in a tactical map with one-yard hexes from GURPS, or 25mm miniatures and prefabricated terrain pieces from tabletop wargames such as Warhammer 40k? Please try to contribute
something constructive.
