The fundamental problem is that people have become so dependent on game mechanics that they are willing to let the mechanics control their character.
The specific manifestation of this problem here is the perceived conflict between "rape is mechanically optimal" and "characters shouldn't commit rape." Because of the primacy accorded to the game mechanics, the only solution to this problem that people are willing to accept is to do something with the mechanics. The possibility that players will choose not to have their character commit rape is utterly incomprehensible to people.
I don't think it's "control", but you know that statement "when all you have is a hammer?" You have a limited number of charms. I assume CBT is fairly balanced (on the Exalted IRC Holden mentioned it in its current form might be too powerful), so you have an incentive to play Solar James Bond or Solar Casanova. It incentivizes you to, if you're a social character who wants to convince single targets who may be attracted to you, it's a very good purchase, and that incentivizes social characters to all maybe dip into the Sexy Times tree. Maybe having so many charms will remove that problem! Maybe I'll have tons of 'Talking' things to do with my XP so I never ever think of branching into the Sex Charm tree. But to say that because people look at RPGs and the game mechanics are awarded at least equal thrift to the setting everyone is Doing It Wrong is kind of... patronizing?
That's why Ex3 is not being written as a legal document. For the game's long-term growth, it is necessary to break players out of this attitude.
Take a moment to really think about the difference between a system that incentivizes characters for behaving a certain way and a system that enables characters to act a certain way. The former leads to bullshit buzzwords like "system optimal" while the latter allows people to play the characters they want to play.
Yes, the former system is pretty much
all RPGs. Exalted 3e doesn't get out of it. It
incentivizes characters for behaving in a certain way (wearing armor into combat, using weapons, treating mortals as expendable resources unlike relatively irreplaceable Exalted). It incentivizes lone-wolf characters to know a lot of broad tricks and be proficient in a lot of areas. They split XP into Your Charms-XP and Everything Else-XP to incentivize people to buy things that aren't just native charms.
I keep harping on this when people talk game mechanics. Game mechanics
mean things. They are, in a way, more meaningful than the flavor text. Look at "Tippyverse", for example, and D&D debates. There are significant numbers of people who legitimately ignore the setting in favor of the game mechanics. This is how RPGs work. If the Exalted 3E design mechanism is "okay let's try to divorce game mechanics from the setting", that's good. I don't like it but it's an admirable goal, just like writing James Joyce's
Ulysses or Faulkner's
Sound and Fury was an admirable goal and I hate both books with the fury of a thousand angry Malfeases (Malfeai? Malfeapodes?).
If you've seen Battletech, or D&D, or a lot of other games, you'll notice that oftentimes, even if the game starts off probably being an abstraction, it is extremely likely that in the end that won't last. The crunchier the game, the more likely going "the rules aren't actually a legal document simulating the world" is going to be something that will be ignored again and again. This is especially because nothing else in Exalted 3E looks to be an abstraction. It's not Nobilis, where you roll Swords to see if you can bring peace by being that good at Swordsmanship, or to maybe dazzle your paramour with the beauty of your sword
katas. Exalted is a crunchy game. Crunchy games, like it or not, no matter what you say, or what
@hls says, are
probably going to end up being treated as simulations.
"Game mechanics are not canon" is a great mantra but as Vs. Debates should show you people use them all the time, because the game mechanics in a lot of games are setting-important. You might say that guys like Tippy are stupid and doing it wrong, and I don't think you're wrong (in fact I agree that the Tippyverse is stupid!) but
he is popular. Like, this is a guy explicitly ignoring game mechanics in a game which has game mechanics that aren't much abstracted than Exalted 3e's (abstract ranges/engagement zones are definitely in Exalted's favor in abstraction but like I said a while back you can argue that this isn't really making it less 'simulationist', but just focusing on the things that are important to simulate), and he's made his own pet "This is what D&D Should Be Like" universe and people like him for it.
In fact, when you try to 'debate' D&D this is what you end up facing, and this is because gamers do see game mechanics as telling you what the world is like. And why shouldn't they? They define the playspace. It's easier to see the game mechanics as not telling you about the world the more abstract they are (Nobilis, FATE, etc), but Exalted 3e doesn't simplify the game so much that it can ride on that. And in a real way, by adding so many new charms and so many interesting things, it means people may be more inclined to see Charms as particularly simulationist. Even when there's a sidebar. In Exalted 2E, there was a sidebar talking about how charms are often very individualized and many people have variations and personal quirks in their charms, but
I think most people forgot about that, or in the end at least didn't really pay attention to it. Because Exalted 2E was super-simulationist and that encouraged people to think that way. You can say that Exalted 3E is less simulationist but the rules we're getting don't look like it.
But again, I don't think it's possible to give setting absolute primacy in that way and totally ignore game mechanics, and that's why I criticize. Fundamentally here, I think I might have gotten a little vitriolic, but I criticize because I love. I want Exalted 3E to be the best damn Exalted. I disagree with a design premise he's making. And some of you agree with him, and some of you agree with me, and that's fine. Reading how Holden's thinking in his design process is great. It's phenomenally useful. It helps me. I hope reading how people are thinking has helped him make Exalted 3E better given his core postulates.
It's hard. Believe me, I know it's hard. It took me years to figure this shit out and I was only able to do it because my work happens to be based on convoluted German systems theory that deals heavily in communication, the construction of subjective viewpoints and the inability to understand meaning in reference to external contexts.
But I felt so much better after I figured it out.
I don't think you 'figured it out' insofar as you concluded one possible viewpoint out of many is objectively correct. I can make the counterargument that a legalist understanding of how rules influence people to behave in certain ways, or perhaps to break said rules, is critical for the advancement of the game's long-term growth, because
people like rules. They want things which tell them what they can or cannot do. They want ordered systems and neat playboxes. They want rules that let them make characters they like, but because of spotlight and competitive natures, they want rules that let them make characters they like that aren't less powerful than similar characters they don't like which other people like.
In the end, I don't think either of us are right or wrong, but both attitudes are important to understand and account for.
