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White Wolf's World of Darkness

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veekie said:
Lesser evil mostly because the Whites benefit quite a lot from human civilization and are thus never really going to cross the line on more than a personal level.

Most of the vampire control over society is tied to various proxyies and representatives anyway. Too much work to actually administrate compared to having addicted/dominated mortal patsies do the work.
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Actually the White Court has a powerful strangehold on the entertainment industry and is using it as a means of slow, subtle social engineering by conveying terrible messages that warp modern society in an empty, vapid thrill/entertainment-addicted culture.
 
hyzmarca said:
I don't think that Mages are Broken Sidereals.
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*coughs*

Whispers from the Exalted Ones said:
We are the voices of the time before this time. We are the fire that burns within you. We are your hand upon the locus of creation, and your transfiguration.

Once, we were as great blazes, and now we are as the campfires of men. Once, we shaped the turning of the heavens. Our desires changed the destinies of men and ended kingdoms. Now we are made lesser, echoes of the greatness that once was, choked slowly into silence by the doom that our own hands wrought.

Our story is one of hubris. Once, we were party to a crime so great that words cannot contain it. We laid our hands upon the pillars of heaven, and our bloodied knives gave birth to death itself. Our payment was the power to shape the fates of men, and we took it, for we were young and proud in those days.

And the power we had gained brought us nothing but sorrow. We were senseless with our power. Our road to perdition was paved with a hundred curses, each worse than the last, brought down upon our heads by the sin that brought our might.

In penance, we sought to mend the ills of the world without realizing that we ourselves were sickened. A war raged over creation's destiny. Blindly, we followed prophecies that we ourselves had pronounced. Although the signs showed us that our pronouncements were in error, we closed our eyes to them. Surely, our vision was not in error. Rather, the portents of ill omen were mirages. The signs we ignored must only be the anxious dreams of cowards and old women.

We were wrong, and the world was broken for our error. Since then, it has been the way of things. Ceaselessly, we strangle one-another, while the world around us grows ruddy with the sunset of creation. As age piles upon age, our pride builds for us a mountain of murders so great that a man might stand upon it and have commerce with the sad and shabby things that once were gods.

This is our punishment. No good can come of the power that our sins won when the world was young. I have seen what must be done. I have spoken with the victims of our awful crime, as they lay sleeping in their tombs. I have set my face into the darkness.

I will bring justice into this world. I will return to those who are its rightful owners. They are not unforgiving, my new masters. In the dark places beneath the underworld, they will teach us the error of our ways.
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Make no mistake. Exalted may have changed, but it was written as the long past of the oWOD.
 
Omicron said:
Actually the White Court has a powerful strangehold on the entertainment industry and is using it as a means of slow, subtle social engineering by conveying terrible messages that warp modern society in an empty, vapid thrill/entertainment-addicted culture.
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I mean, the Courts are (not very subtle) metaphors. Reds are drugs, Whites are mass media, Blacks are goths...
 
The Laurent said:
Being fair, it's at least implied that White Court is sorta in Dresden's list. It's just, like Marcone, he views them as a lesser evil (for whatever reasons, debatable though they are) and thus something to be dealt with later.

Except later hasn't happened yet, really.

I think Marcone's never going to die.
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The White Court isn't the lesser evil Lara Raith is the lesser evil. So long as she controls Lord Raith, the White Court is mostly on leash. And though she is probably more dangerous, personally, than any potential usurper, having her in charge is generally better than dealing with the chaos of a White Court civil war and followed by the winner deciding to eliminate those pesky wizards.

Marcone stopped mattering a long time ago. He's gone from the big man at the little table to the little man at the big table. In the current setup, Marcone is a guy that Dresden can get guns and manpower from. But Harry isn't dealing with minor magical criminals anymore, he's dealing with world-ending horrors. Compared to "lovecraftian creature from before time and outside of the universe who wants to eat reality," "Chicago's Godfather" just isn't at all impressive.


Sydonai said:
Wait, this is an entirely different subject and interesting on its own.
Can we talk about this instead?
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Yes, we totally can. Lets say that the Hyperborean Age was a real time period in oWoD. Because why not? Conan gets up to some shenanigans, and ends up on 34th Street in New York.
 
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hyzmarca said:
The White Court isn't the lesser evil Lara Raith is the lesser evil. So long as she controls Lord Raith, the White Court is mostly on leash. And they she is probably more dangerous, personally, than any potential usurper, having her in charge is generally better than dealing with the chaos of a White Court civil war and followed by the winner deciding to eliminate those pesky wizards.

Marcone stopped mattering a long time ago. He's gone from the big man at the little table to the little man at the big table. In the current setup, Marcone is a guy that Dresden can get guns and manpower from. But Harry isn't dealing with minor magical criminals anymore, he's dealing with world-ending horrors. Compared to "lovecraftian creature from before time and outside of the universe who wants to eat reality," "Chicago's Godfather" just isn't at all impressive.




Yes, we totally can. Lets say that the Hyperborean Age was a real time period in oWoD. Because why not? Conan gets up to some chinigans, and ends up on 34th Street in New York.
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Theoretically, yes, but I think narratively, while he's lost some of the spotlight, I think Butcher likes him as a character too much to completely cast him aside. I mean, I'm saying that as someone who does grow attached to my own characters.
 
Revlid said:
Developer statements and actual printed material make it explicit that:
a) Exalted can and do develop new Charms on the fly in response to unforeseen exigencies
b) while printed Exalted Charms present benchmarks for Solar power, an endless array of Charms exist in-potentia
c) Exalted can and should waive training times as dramatically appropriate, though this is not reliable
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Okay, I know next to nothing about Exalted, but how in the infinite Hells is a game with this set up supposed to be fun? At all? If the PCs are literally capable of pulling "Spell that does exactly what I need exactly when I need it to one shot ANY combat or noncombat situation" out of thin air at any time...

From where I'm sitting the best way to GM that kind of game is to stand up, dramatically sweep your arm across the table, hurling all the Exalted books and character sheets onto the floor, then you portentously proclaim "That's it, from now on we're playing the Warhammer Fantasy RPG and you all start as Ratcatchers."
 
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Wade Garrett said:

Okay, I know next to nothing about Exalted, but how in the infinite Hells is a game with this set up supposed to be fun? At all? If the PCs are literally capable of pulling "Spell that does exactly what I need exactly when I need it to one shot ANY combat or noncombat situation" out of thin air at any time...

From where I'm sitting the best way to GM that kind of game is to stand up, dramatically sweep your arm across the table, hurling all the Exalted books and character sheets onto the floor, then you portentously proclaim "That's it, from now one we're playing the Warhammer Fantasy RPG and you all start as Ratcatchers."
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It's actually great fun and called Time Wizards. But you know, that's a game for comedy rather than wuxia.
 
Wade Garrett said:
Okay, I know next to nothing about Exalted, but how in the infinite Hells is a game with this set up supposed to be fun? At all? If the PCs are literally capable of pulling "Spell that does exactly what I need exactly when I need it to one shot ANY combat or noncombat situation" out of thin air at any time...

From where I'm sitting the best way to GM that kind of game is to stand up, dramatically sweep your arm across the table, hurling all the Exalted books and character sheets onto the floor, then you portentously proclaim "That's it, from now one we're playing the Warhammer Fantasy RPG and you all start as Ratcatchers."
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That's not typical play. At all. Even a little bit. That's like...total GM fiat. In the 'technically not completely disallowed by the RAW' way.
 
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Wade Garrett said:
Okay, I know next to nothing about Exalted
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Indeed.

In this case, the information I'm presenting is specifically a rebuttal to the idea that the Exalted cannot develop new magic in response to out-of-context problems, and to the idea that if they're caught flat-footed they're entirely fucked. You can't just spontaneously acquire new powers with no basis or cost on the fly.

To put in Mage terms... I don't know, let's say you're suddenly facing a cave-in, and you've only got enough dots of Correspondence or Space or whatever to get yourself out – but your best friend is also there, and he's going to die. You've got enough xp stocked up (or thereabouts) to buy that extra dot of Teleport Arcana, and you've been working toward developing it, but you haven't had enough downtime to actually add it to your sheet. As a result, the Storyteller says "yeah, sure, this dire situation is the incentive you need, and working on pure instinct and desperation you teleport both of you out of the cave. Spend the xp, fill in that extra Sphere dot."

In Exalted, the Storyteller is explicitly encouraged to behave that way, because that's the exact genre being played to by the PCs. Also, every power you could possibly get is already something you've been "working toward developing", because Exalted Charms are trees of powers based on Abilities or Attributes rather than existing in a vacuum.

If we imagine you've got a custom anti-teleport Charm written up that lets you just plant your feet and say "no, fucker, you come here, and you've got both the Athletics dots and the prerequisite powers, you're already the kind of character who deals with teleportation like that, so there's not much problem with the ST just letting you spend the xp and take the power in the heat of the moment, rather than getting chumped over and over until you can meditate the Charm onto your sheet.

hyzmarca said:
The White Court isn't the lesser evil Lara Raith is the lesser evil. So long as she controls Lord Raith, the White Court is mostly on leash. And they she is probably more dangerous, personally, than any potential usurper, having her in charge is generally better than dealing with the chaos of a White Court civil war and followed by the winner deciding to eliminate those pesky wizards.
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I think we can be totally honest and say that Harry's logic behind generally tolerating the existence of the White Court stems at least in part from from "they are the sexy vampires". The Black Court and Red Court, by contrast, are not well-populated with gorgeous porn stars.

The White Court aren't any better than either of them, they just a) stay out of sight, out of mind, and b) look very nice when they do show up.

...man, this is a really nice Exalted and Dresden Files General you've all got here. I might stay.
 
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Revlid said:
Indeed.

In this case, the information I'm presenting is specifically a rebuttal to the idea that the Exalted cannot develop new magic in response to out-of-context problems, and to the idea that if they're caught flat-footed they're entirely fucked. You can't just spontaneously acquire new powers with no basis or cost on the fly.

To put in Mage terms... I don't know, let's say you're suddenly facing a cave-in, and you've only got enough dots of Correspondence or Space or whatever to get yourself out – but your best friend is also there, and he's going to die. You've got enough xp stocked up (or thereabouts) to buy that extra dot of Teleport Arcana, and you've been working toward developing it, but you haven't had enough downtime to actually add it to your sheet. As a result, the Storyteller says "yeah, sure, this dire situation is the incentive you need, and working on pure instinct and desperation you teleport both of you out of the cave. Spend the xp, fill in that extra Sphere dot."

In Exalted, the Storyteller is explicitly encouraged to behave that way, because that's the exact genre being played to by the PCs. Also, every power you could possibly get is already something you've been "working toward developing", because Exalted Charms are trees of powers based on Abilities or Attributes rather than existing in a vacuum.

If we imagine you've got a custom anti-teleport Charm written up that lets you just plant your feet and say "no, fucker, you come here, and you've got both the Athletics dots and the prerequisite powers, you're already the kind of character who deals with teleportation like that, so there's not much problem with the ST just letting you spend the xp and take the power in the heat of the moment, rather than getting chumped over and over until you can meditate the Charm onto your sheet.
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Ah. Basically an "How it works when handled in the game/lore is a completely different beast than how it works in VS Debates" sort of thing?

(See also DnD spellcasters, Warhammer 40K psykers, Force Users, Servants and yea verily OWoD Vampires)
 
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Wade Garrett said:
Ah. Basically an "How it works when handled in the game/lore is a completely different beast than how it works in VS Debates" sort of thing?
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Well, the game takes that common play-easing conceit and makes it clear that it happens in-setting, too. Shounen fights – sometimes characters genuinely do manage to just push themselves to the next level, mid-battle (read: spend xp without training times, or go into xp debt to let the game go on). It's not to be relied on, but it does happen.
 
Wade Garrett said:
Ah. Basically an "How it works when handled in the game/lore is a completely different beast than how it works in VS Debates" sort of thing?

(See also DnD spellcasters, Warhammer 40K psykers, Force Users, Servants and yea verily OWoD Vampires)
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Yes, very much so. Exalted tends to have issues in versus debates with some people assuming an Infinite XP E10 Exalt. Revlid's Example of a dire circumstance but the right Exalt with the right focus in the right time is much better. Or something dramatic enough to allow you to skirt the rules, like suddenly mastering an MA capstone in the heat of battle against your hated rival or whatever (If the fight were desperate/the moment cool enough I'd totally let the MA Dawn in my game manifest Blinding Nova Surge to have a really cool moment against a rival using the same style).

Ridiculously Average Guy said:
So could a crazed Mage recreate an Exaltation by pasting together fragments harvested from other mages over time?
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Do you want them to? If so, then yes, in your own game. There is no canon support for anything of the sort at all in any way, so any such exercise will rely on homebrew and headcanon.
 
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Wade Garrett said:

Okay, I know next to nothing about Exalted, but how in the infinite Hells is a game with this set up supposed to be fun? At all? If the PCs are literally capable of pulling "Spell that does exactly what I need exactly when I need it to one shot ANY combat or noncombat situation" out of thin air at any time...

From where I'm sitting the best way to GM that kind of game is to stand up, dramatically sweep your arm across the table, hurling all the Exalted books and character sheets onto the floor, then you portentously proclaim "That's it, from now on we're playing the Warhammer Fantasy RPG and you all start as Ratcatchers."
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Well...actually you sort of described high power Mage :p(I know it doesn't exactly work like that, but in a no-limits VS argument where everyone has every charm and every spell possible...)

Actual terms in Exalted? It takes substantial amounts of time to learn each charm, even more time to learn the prereqs and develop the Essence necessary to qualify.

So let's take a few use cases:
Drop a circle of Mages into Creation -> The Loom of Fate eventually notices the disruption, and the Mages probably kicks ass for a time before local powers adapt solutions to their bullshit and take advantage of/subverts/defeats them.

Drop a circle of Solars into the WoD -> The local powers eventually notices the disruption they are causing, a few get wrecked in nasty ways before they identify what the fuck is going on, before local powers adapt solutions to their bullshit and wrecks them in a way they can't counter(no subvert option here, one thing Exalts are genuinely good across the settings at is not being subverted).

Exalt + Mage, white room, final destination -> Mage gets wrecked...what did you expect, dropping the preparation and recon guy in attack range of the close up murderizer guy?

Exalt + Mage, Generic Setting, both tasked to kill the other -> Toss up, but I'd bet on the Mage generally speaking since they can identify, locate and prepare to deal with a threat more quickly than the Exalt equivalent, if they're willing to risk a bit of paradox.
 
Ridiculously Average Guy said:
So could a crazed Mage recreate an Exaltation by pasting together fragments harvested from other mages over time?
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But why would you want to?

Sidereals broke the Maidens' DRM and so mages don't have to deal with inferior closed charmset peasantry when they can be freeform magic master race.

(They also get to point at the ex-Solar Hunters and laugh. And laugh. And laugh.)
 
Fenrir666 said:
If you buy into the 'Exalted is WoD's past', the Hunters are what remains of the Solar Exaltations or whatever, like Abyssals being Vampires and Sidereals Mages and Lunars Werewolves. I am so glad this is no longer a thing.
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Playing into that theory for a second then, the fuck happened to the Solars that they ended up like that?
 
Ridiculously Average Guy said:
So could a crazed Mage recreate an Exaltation by pasting together fragments harvested from other mages over time?
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There is at least a vague canon approximation of this in the Ascension book's Judgement Scenario, with the Holy Union rote. One could interpret the Psychopomps as being remnants of the Exaltations' host-seeking mechanism, so Holy Union reunites your fragment of Exaltation with a different bit, and also lets you accumulate more bits at XP cost of the Avatar Background (up to your Arete, unless you start eating other peoples' souls).

Of course, what this actually ends up doing is makes you a Stormwarden with a really high Avatar rating. It's also from an obscure end-of-the-world scenario and acquired from a Grimoire that gets revealed because PLOT.
 
dragonx99 said:
Playing into that theory for a second then, the fuck happened to the Solars that they ended up like that?
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The world detonated or got eaten or what the fuck ever happened to change the Exalted into the various WoD splats. There's not exactly a whole bunch of canon material devoted to this, it was a stupid 1E/early 2E gimmick that was later left behind and removed completely in 3E.
 
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