- Location
- Virginia
I'm pretty sure we were supposed to drop this line of discussion, folks.
General Exalted Thread
- Location
- Singapore
Yeah. Let's talk about something more productive.
Like what Lunars are good for.
Stop: I'm pretty sure I was clear before
i'm pretty sure i was clear before
But apparently not, so I'm gonna be a bit more forceful here.
I warned you to tone it down Kaiya. I explicitly said to avoid the abrasiveness. However, since you can't seem to control yourself in this situation I'm gonna take the choice out of your hands for a bit and give you some time to cool off.
And that's perfectly fine. She doesn't need to unlock her profile if she doesn't want to. However Gamerlord, I've already told you to drop the topic.
There's literally no reason for you to be discussing something that was already deemed off limits. So this is my final warning: either drop the topic and leave well enough alone, or take a timeout. Your choice.
As for the others...well. This hasn't become an 'all the Exalted fans are assholes so let's talk about how and why they're such assholes' thread. So let's stop talking about that, and get to talking about something a bit more productive.
If you can't, then that's something I'm gonna have to deal with. And y'all aren't going to want me to deal with that, so please be on your best behavior.
I warned you to tone it down Kaiya. I explicitly said to avoid the abrasiveness. However, since you can't seem to control yourself in this situation I'm gonna take the choice out of your hands for a bit and give you some time to cool off.
And that's perfectly fine. She doesn't need to unlock her profile if she doesn't want to. However Gamerlord, I've already told you to drop the topic.
There's literally no reason for you to be discussing something that was already deemed off limits. So this is my final warning: either drop the topic and leave well enough alone, or take a timeout. Your choice.
As for the others...well. This hasn't become an 'all the Exalted fans are assholes so let's talk about how and why they're such assholes' thread. So let's stop talking about that, and get to talking about something a bit more productive.
If you can't, then that's something I'm gonna have to deal with. And y'all aren't going to want me to deal with that, so please be on your best behavior.
- Location
- Washington, USA
Thanks. Lot of stuff on The Alexandrian addresses common yet subtle factors I wouldn't be able to articulate nearly so clearly in my own words.
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- Location
- Earth Prime
This sounds like a nice segue for me to air an old idea I had back when Terrifying Argent Witches was being created. I never really got into that branch of them, though I appreciated the impetus behind it: Specifically, that Lunars are, as I think one of the Ink Monkeys put it, hamstrung by the fact that the Sidereals grabbed too much of the design space because the first draft of Lunars didn't take anything but "shapeshifting monsters."Like what Lunars are good for.
I've noticed, too, that Lunars, because they're supposed to focus on shapeshifting, have a lot of Charms, Knacks, etc. that give them bits and pieces to make each Lunar able to have a somewhat unique take on shapeshifting. No Lunar is an all-encompassing shapeshifter without a ton of investment.
Unfortunately, splats and NPC-things that have "shapeshifting" as a side tool wind up getting less-well-granulated Charms or abilities which wind up being far more encompassing in a single purchase. This is an interesting happenstance that makes a certain amount of sense: designing The Shapeshifter Class makes you want to fill its trees with cool shapeshifting tricks, but also avoid making them have "too much, too soon." So you have lots of incremental elements that give new bits and pieces of the full all-encompassing shapeshifting power.
Meanwhile, the splat that just has a reason to dabble in it, you don't want them focusing on it, so if they pick it up, you want them getting just one or two tools and moving on. But then the idea behind it is to still have some disguise and/or combat shifting, so their one or two things build a lot into them, making them better at it than the Lunar who is equivalently invested.
This is not an easy problem to solve, and I won't pretend to have a solution right here and now. I just wanted to mention it.
Unfortunately, splats and NPC-things that have "shapeshifting" as a side tool wind up getting less-well-granulated Charms or abilities which wind up being far more encompassing in a single purchase. This is an interesting happenstance that makes a certain amount of sense: designing The Shapeshifter Class makes you want to fill its trees with cool shapeshifting tricks, but also avoid making them have "too much, too soon." So you have lots of incremental elements that give new bits and pieces of the full all-encompassing shapeshifting power.
Meanwhile, the splat that just has a reason to dabble in it, you don't want them focusing on it, so if they pick it up, you want them getting just one or two tools and moving on. But then the idea behind it is to still have some disguise and/or combat shifting, so their one or two things build a lot into them, making them better at it than the Lunar who is equivalently invested.
This is not an easy problem to solve, and I won't pretend to have a solution right here and now. I just wanted to mention it.
Lunars, to me, are Stewards and Wardens, with a bit more emphasis on the latter. Solars rule. Sidereals shepherd. Lunars sheepdog.
Sidereals manipulate from the background, directing things with subtle guidance and precision strikes. They do flit in and out of society in various guises, but their presence is ephemeral. When they show up, they're the bit player who is important once or twice and then forgotten, but who played a pivotal role, even if just in laying some foundations for the main characters to build off of.
Solars rule. Often, they're the main characters. If not, they're the guiding force, the overt mentor and hero who intervenes to give the protagonist space to grow, or something to which to aspire.
Lunars are neither of these things. Lunars as mentors and guides are mysterious, but memorable. Gandalf and Merlin, not Wise Peasant Woman #3 Who Gave You A Meal And Helped You Look At A Problem Differently That One Time. A Sidereal might be the urchin who died in your arms to give you a heart-felt moment of reflection. A Lunar would be the urchin who you keep coming across and eventually realize is a Prophetic Waif.
But that's only the small overlap they have with Sidereals; it isn't all they are.
Lunars are wardens and stewards by taboo. They are the Monster in the Dark. They mentor and protect, but they also threaten and terrify. They're the Monster that keeps kids in their beds at night, rather than out roaming the woods where less-caring beasts might find them. They're the terror that makes it dangerous to wander too far from town...but also that makes attacking the town a fool's errand. Like Nature, they appear uncaring and impartial, but in reality they provide protection, because while breaking their taboos will get you hurt, it is far less likely to get you killed than that which the taboos protect you from (other than them).
In terms of reforming the setting to accommodate them, not all Lunars retreated to the Wyld after the Usurpation. Some stayed behind, a resistance force against the Sidereal tyranny. There is a shadow war between shapeshifting spies and disguised assassins who can hide anywhere that takes place in the Realm. There are Lunars in places of high influence, subtle and overt, which guide their own Patrician allies and Dynastic cohorts. The Sidereals have the inside track with the ruling power, but there is a Cold War-style détente between those Houses with Lunar allies and the dominant Sidereal-backed factions. Officially, there are no Anathema in the Realm, other than a few wild monsters occasionally hunted. Equally officially, there are no Sidereals.
Both the REalm Lunars and the Sidereals use the Wyld Hunt as a tool against each other. Neither dares expose their agents, or themselves as what they are, not because the Sidereals just like being secret puppetstring pullers (though they do), but because the Lunars and their agents would quickly turn a Wyld Hunt on any who were exposed. Often, Lunars and Sidereals know each other well, as rivals and as enemies and even as strange friends on opposite sides of a philosophical war. But neither dares shout "ANATHEMA" and point at the other, for fear that the same will be done to them. Neither wants the attention.
So it is a shadow war, a cold war, a spy thriller out of the 1970s.
- Location
- Washington, USA
Sounds about right, yeah. Also potentially ties into some ideas I had for 'undocumented functions' in the moonsilver tattoos, including the real limiting factor which prevents Lunars from learning SMA. I mean, if you were running a conspiracy, and saw some way to set things up to permanently prevent your newly recruited agents from accepting a specific sort of bribe, something that only enemy agents could ever possibly offer, which also happens to be a powerful weapon that such a hypothetical traitor might then use against you...
As for the "secondary shapeshifter" problem, I won't claim a complete solution either, but here are some factors which might be good starting points:
- Lunars have access to a big chunk of the animal kingdom without any knacks, potentially including really weird (but technically natural) stuff like the snot-monsters from Rathess in Compass: East. Other shapeshifters should usually get just one specific form per charm purchase or equivalent, like how Sidereal Astrology makes it possible to transform into a crow, or Infernals get the various shintai charms. Neomah are an interesting case because they can potentially change into many different things, but only for one purpose, so it's still not an endlessly adaptable toolbox.
- Disguises are not shapeshifting. A solar with maxed-out Larceny and some sewing-related Craft might be able to make the world's finest, most flawlessly impenetrable fursuit, but dressing up as a mouse doesn't let you slip through inch-wide holes in the baseboards, dressing up as a fish doesn't let you breathe water, and dressing up as an eagle doesn't let you fly, or even improve your vision, unless that's paid for separately.
- Introduce some relatively cheap countermeasure - low-rated artifacts, maybe stuff ordinary mortals could acquire if they're feeling paranoid - which can be used to detect and/or restrain raksha and other types of shapeshifters, but specifically not Lunars, even when they're just starting out.
- Location
- Washington, USA
I'm actually really curious now. What would you say are the defining characteristics by which a thing can be categorized as magical? What would you say is the exact opposite? Is it conceivable for something's degree of magicalness to be ambiguous or nonbinary? How would you go about explaining the distinction (and it's larger relevance) to, say, a small child? Please, consider me a neutral third party, a potential ally or mediator, willing to be persuaded. I have no pre-existing personal investment in the specific issue, but am almost always eager to learn about other perspectives.
By my reckoning, charms are things used to model the superhuman abilities of Exalts. Its Hercules' world rocking strength, Orpheus' ability to make the god of death cry with his music, Atalanta's speed, Odysseus' cunning, etc.
None of these things are spells that they cast, there's no magical words spoken, no rituals, no pageantry that is associated with spell casting at all. Exalted just DO things things because they are Exalted.
In some cases, they might look like magic to an outside observer, but thats the result of ignorance of how the world works (from an in-universe perspective). A Water Aspect Dragon Blooded can breath under water, but thats because its a thing Water Dragon Blooded can do. Fish don't cast spells to breath under water, and neither do they.
If you were to hit a Solar with a Counter Spell, or a Dragon Blooded with an anti magic field, the Solar would still be able to call a sword of golden sunlight and the Dragon Blooded would still be able to breath under water because these are intrinsic traits inherent to the Exalt in question.
Another example not related to the Exalts would be Thaumaturgy (at least in 2e). Thaumaturgy is a result of Creations physics being very different from the real world. You aren't casting spells when you use Thaumaturgy, you're exploiting your superior understanding of how the world works to arrive at a desired result.
Sorcery is where the real money is if you want magic.
- Location
- Earth Prime
Part of the point of it is that there's little difference between what D&D 3e terms (Ex) and what it terms (Su) abilities in Exalted. They're more or less the same thing. "Magic" is just a thing that is in the world of Creation, and you don't "do magic." You just kind-of are magical, and that makes your abilities superior.
There is no "suddenly, it's mind control" when you add dice to a social roll, or even when you use a Charm that makes you supernaturally good at instilling fads and taboos in those around you by your exquisite example. In 2E, they did differentiate between natural and unnatural mental influence, but they overused UMI because it's mechanical effect was required to make ANY social efforts stick, so it mutated from being "evil mind control" to "anything really good and persuasive," which diluted its distinction AND made people treat it like, well, evil mind control, thus making social characters impossible to play "well."
There is no "suddenly, it's mind control" when you add dice to a social roll, or even when you use a Charm that makes you supernaturally good at instilling fads and taboos in those around you by your exquisite example. In 2E, they did differentiate between natural and unnatural mental influence, but they overused UMI because it's mechanical effect was required to make ANY social efforts stick, so it mutated from being "evil mind control" to "anything really good and persuasive," which diluted its distinction AND made people treat it like, well, evil mind control, thus making social characters impossible to play "well."
I'd argue that, by the standards of DnD 3.5, Charms would be qualified as Extraordinary Abilities rather than Supernatural Abilities.
If memory serves, Supernatural and Spell-like abilities would be affected various counter and anti magic effects, while extraordinary abilities wouldn't. Since charms can't be affected by counter magic, this means they are (again, by DnD 3.5 standards) extraordinary abilities.
The rest of your post is spot on, though.
If memory serves, Supernatural and Spell-like abilities would be affected various counter and anti magic effects, while extraordinary abilities wouldn't. Since charms can't be affected by counter magic, this means they are (again, by DnD 3.5 standards) extraordinary abilities.
The rest of your post is spot on, though.
My two cents on why the Exalted thread is so contentious is because Exalted is incoherent but not obviously so, which means people, myself included, project thrir feelings on what the game Must Be on each other.
Whereas even in the Mage the Ascension arguments people were aware of how everyone was basically playing different games in different settings with some points of congruence and therefore most of the arguments were somewhat more abstract.
So just... Keep this in mind I guess? Everyone's Exalted is different and you shouldn't get mad if their tastes differ (with the exception Mages are the best and can beat any Exalt and anyone who disagrees is wrong)
Whereas even in the Mage the Ascension arguments people were aware of how everyone was basically playing different games in different settings with some points of congruence and therefore most of the arguments were somewhat more abstract.
So just... Keep this in mind I guess? Everyone's Exalted is different and you shouldn't get mad if their tastes differ (with the exception Mages are the best and can beat any Exalt and anyone who disagrees is wrong)
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- Location
- Ottawa
I think it's a cultural norm thing. Newcomers calibrate their own behaviour based on what appears to be normal in the community, so once a community becomes nasty it tends to stay that way. And over time people who are inherently nasty become more likely to take positions of prominence, with outsized influence.
The magical Charm thing seems like a conversational dead-end so I'm going to ignore it. Like I said a few posts back, arguing over the definitions of words (like "magical") is always a waste of time. But even nonmagical Charms would be spell-like in D&D, mechanically.
- Location
- Washington, USA
Key difference between SLAs and Supernatural abilities in D&D is that the former can be affected by counterspells, while the latter cannot. Supernatural abilities still go away in an Antimagic Field, though - closest analogue to which in Exalted seems to be the Greater Sign of Serenity, and that does shut down non-permanent Charms.
- Location
- Washington, USA
So, you're saying you don't consider 2e-style thaumaturgy to be a type of magic? It can and often does involve the "magical words spoken, rituals, and pageantry that is associated with spell casting," arguably more so than some applications of sorcery. Countermagic breaks ongoing thaumaturgical effects.
What about necromancy, or the martial arts?
- Pronouns
- They/Them
2e thaumaturgy is of course supernatural - from our perspective. From the perspective of Creation, it's completely natural, a standard process of a world completely and utterly different from our own.
- Location
- Washington, USA
From the perspective of Emerald or Iron Circle Countermagic, Spell-Shattering Palm, and other anti-sorcery effects, the sort of thaumaturgy that mortals go to school to learn (as opposed to the sort that gods do instinctively) is 'supernatural' enough to be a valid target.
What about thinking of it in terms of the Protection ring - Wikipedia model? Observable natural phenomena in Creation are the UI, underlying laws of causality are the OS, mortal-accessible thaumaturgy is the ability to boot up 'safe' processes in Ring 3, emerald circle sorcery is Ring 2 hacking, sapphire circle is Ring 1 supervisor functions, and the adamant circle corresponds to a terrifying capacity for meddling with core system processes.
Martial arts as magical techniques was a mistake, and has been rectified in 3e. Thaumaturgy is muddled, being referred to as both an extension of Creations natural laws and minor miracles in its introductory paragraph in the corebook.
Necromancy is sorcery but colored black, and sorcery is magic.
One thing I feel bares mentioning is, if everything in Creation is magic to one degree or another, is anything actually magic?
Like, Creation operates on a fundamentally different physics engine than the real world, and only resembles the real world on a superficial level. Things that we would regard as magic, unknown and mysterious phenomena that defy conventional physics, are well documented, understood and cataloged phenomena that operate perfectly within the confines of Creations physics engine. What we would understand as "magic", be it thaumaturgy, charms or sorcery, the denizens of Creation would regard as "science".
We call the strange and wondrous phenomena of Creation "magic" because its a fantasy setting and fantasy settings typically have magic and miracles, but from the perspective of the people in Creation, they live in the real world and not a fantasy setting. Telling them that thaumaturgy/charms/sorcery is magic would get you the same kind of looks that we would give someone if they told us that air planes or smart phones are magic.
Personally, if I were writing Exalted 4e, I'd ban the word "magic" entirely, bring back 2e Thaumaturgy and treat sorcery as an advanced version of Thaumaturgy in the same sense that my smartphone is an advanced abacus.
And yes, I realize I'm getting to abstract Wattsonian/Doyalist philosophical bullshit, but its a thought I had about this whole topic and felt like sharing it.
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Imrix
Periodically Malevolent QM
I really think it's just SV's Exalted community specifically. The aggression, hyperbole, and vitriol are a lot more common than on other sites, and the mood is generally much more caustic, cynical, and kind of cruel.
Which is saying something because at least when /tg/ is discussing Exalted, the worst vitriol is just water off a duck's bill
Personally I just do most of my discussion on the discord nowadays: Discord - Free voice and text chat for gamers
mothematics
How wide is the concept of "you"?
- Location
- the bottom of a coffee cup
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Nooooot 100% sure what my takeaway from this should be. Its interesting, but I don't quite understand why you linked it at me.
Its probably obvious, but my coin was flipped and the "stupid" side was face up this time.
- Location
- Pittsburgh, PA
Well yes, thaumaturgy is magical. Literally everything in Creation is magical, from breathing to dying of gangrene.
The fundamental contextual difference is that just because it's magic doesn't mean it's some sort of ineffable mystery force that can't be examined in detail. There are rules, and thaumaturges learn those rules in order to know best how to exploit them for their own ends.
Honestly, I'd expect it to get the opposite result; a scientist tells a Creationborn sage that magic doesn't exist, and the sage goes "Well what the bloody hell do you think what you do is?" and they spiral into an argument before each realizes that the other is describing the same concept using different words. In Creation, idiot yokels think magic is an ineffable mystery force beyond comprehension, much like how idiots IRL will believe any goddamn thing if you stick the word "quantum" in front of it. Meanwhile, thaumaturges know that magic is the underlying structure of reality, and that learning how to take advantage of its rules is the key to power. (Unless you get Sorcery, at which point you can tell magic to take a hike, you've got miracles now). In Creation, "magic" is the word for "physics", and "thaumaturgy" is the word for "science".
EDIT: I'll admit that in retrospect, thaumaturgy probably also includes elements of weird politics, bureaucratic forgery, and otherwise exploiting reactive systems, because Creation is a place where you can conjure rain with a sufficiently elaborate scam pulled over on the local storm gods.
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- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I frequently have my characters refer in-character to their "Exalted magic" because they were once mortal, had a singular dramatic event that granted them great power, and as far I'm concerned that's enough for people who would consider "I know the rite which consecrates a weapon so that it will make ghosts bleed" as simply "wisdom" to go "oh shit, something's different, this is m a g i c," including the person in question.
But even so these characters don't recognize Charms* as individual spell-like abilities or even as existing at all. These are not individual feats of magic; they are just "the magic of [Chosen type]."
Of course, that's only in-character. As @EricD has taught me, "magic" only properly refers to the summoning of ghosts or demons (scholars and theologians disagree on which) for the purposes of obtaining secret knowledge. Everything else is modernist pop culture claptrap and we should not stand for it.
*I will, however, 100% refer to some arbitrary action such as "attacking with a Full Excellency, this Charm and that one Charm" as "THE LEGENDARY HEAVENLY-DRAGON-SPLITS-THE-SKY TECHNIQUE AS PASSED DOWN BY MY ANCESTORS" but I mean I do that for every game.
But even so these characters don't recognize Charms* as individual spell-like abilities or even as existing at all. These are not individual feats of magic; they are just "the magic of [Chosen type]."
Of course, that's only in-character. As @EricD has taught me, "magic" only properly refers to the summoning of ghosts or demons (scholars and theologians disagree on which) for the purposes of obtaining secret knowledge. Everything else is modernist pop culture claptrap and we should not stand for it.
*I will, however, 100% refer to some arbitrary action such as "attacking with a Full Excellency, this Charm and that one Charm" as "THE LEGENDARY HEAVENLY-DRAGON-SPLITS-THE-SKY TECHNIQUE AS PASSED DOWN BY MY ANCESTORS" but I mean I do that for every game.
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Yeah, I'd agree with most of this. My concern is that "magic" has a very specific meaning when it comes to a fantasy setting, so using that specific word to describe the physics engine of Creation is problematic and creates confusion.
- Location
- Ottawa
It really doesn't.
EDIT: Okay, that's not constructive. I don't want to get into the argument proper, but I shouldn't let that make me leave the explanations out of my posts.
Different fantasy settings define magic very differently. Different people in the real world define magic very differently. I've had people tell me in all seriousness that advertising is magic.
No matter which definition you choose to use - I have no interest in debating which is best - the other definitions do exist.
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