General Exalted Thread

[Omicron]

Do you allow players to opt out of any other portion of the game on a whim? If so, why is combat the only mandatory game system?

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It depends; some aspects of the game will come to you, others will not. For instance, the potential for crafting to solve issues lies in potential in the game, but it will only be relevant if a player actually seeks to leverage their crafting skill as a solution, so the entire group can opt out of crafting alltogether. On the other hand, NPCs will try to fight you and engage you socially at various points, so these are challenges that I will make relevant to you whether you invested into solving them or not. Various perception-based challenges may also be relevant to you at some point; you can largely rely on Awareness-heavy characters to detect dangers, but if your character is functionally oblivious to their surroundings this will occasionally cause you problems that you can't decide not to have.

 

[azoicennead]

Or you could read my actual points and the thread of the actual discussion and engage them but since you seem content to declare the strawman well and truly defeated I suppose there is nothing more to say to each other. If you're ever interested in engaging my actual point, feel free to do so.

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@Jon Chung dislikes the Craft system because it contributes to the Decker problem, and thus wants to remove it. From this, we can conclude that his beef is not with Craft, but with the Decker problem (because it results in most of the party contributing as much as if they didn't come to the session).
Craft is like this almost by design, because most parties don't need or want multiple crafters, since there's massive overlap for little gain. Thus, when Craft starts happening, one player is doing stuff and everyone else sits around. This is bad. This should not happen.
The solution to this is to abbreviate Craft as much as makes sense.

If you're playing a non-combat game, the same thing is true of combat: if only one player is functional in combat, abbreviate combat.

The problem is that Creation is a very violent place, and the typical player splats (Solar, Infernal) have dedicated religious killsquads targeting them, so there comes a time when "I can't handle combat" turns into "I am dead". Given that we are discussing games within Creation, I'd say it's a reasonable expectation that you have some way of dealing with violence yourself.

Do you allow players to opt out of any other portion of the game on a whim? If so, why is combat the only mandatory game system?

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Because if you don't/can't defend yourself you're an easy target and get killed.

 

[Aaron Peori]

On the other hand, NPCs will try to fight you and engage you socially at various points, so these are challenges that I will make relevant to you whether you invested into solving them or not. Various perception-based challenges may also be relevant to you at some point; you can largely rely on Awareness-heavy characters to detect dangers, but if your character is functionally oblivious to their surroundings this will occasionally cause you problems that you can't decide not to have.

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The problem is that Creation is a very violent place, and the typical player splats (Solar, Infernal) have dedicated religious killsquads targeting them, so there comes a time when "I can't handle combat" turns into "I am dead". Given that we are discussing games within Creation, I'd say it's a reasonable expectation that you have some way of dealing with violence yourself.

Because if you don't/can't defend yourself you're an easy target and get killed.

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If all players require minimal investment in Fight Game Survival Game to be considered viable than such investment should, again, be mandatory.

If a section of the game is mandatory to all players, than all players should be given automatic investment in that area so that they do not get eliminated from the game.

See, the problem here isn't just the Decker Problem, its the Reverse Decker Problem.

If your character has spent all his skill points in Decking then he can't do any of the other things the Shadowrun team needs, so the player gets to sit out those portions of the game. Maybe he says "I stay in cover until the other PCs tell me to move" every now and then at the GMs assistance.

Why should we be forcing players into sitting around twiddling their thumbs for hours and hours on end? Why are we giving the illusion of choice in the game system if players require a minimum combat suite? Just give them the combat suite instead of subtracting its ability dots/charm picks/background dots/merits/bonus points from the supposedly 'free' picks.

 

[DayDreamer]

Why should we be forcing players into sitting around twiddling their thumbs for hours and hours on end? Why are we giving the illusion of choice in the game system if players require a minimum combat suite? Just give them the combat suite instead of subtracting its ability dots/charm picks/background dots/merits/bonus points from the supposedly 'free' picks.

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And you'll note that 3E says something to the effect of "you'll want to spend at least 3-5 charms on combat if you want to be relevant and not die." Not the most elegant solution, but you pretty much are being told that some combat investment is mandatory, but the specific nature of said investment is up to you.

Like, you can ignore that, but it isn't exactly the game's fault that you'll then be irrelevant in large portions of it.

 

[azoicennead]

If all players require minimal investment in Fight Game Survival Game to be considered viable than such investment should, again, be mandatory.

If a section of the game is mandatory to all players, than all players should be given automatic investment in that area so that they do not get eliminated from the game.

See, the problem here isn't just the Decker Problem, its the Reverse Decker Problem.

If your character has spent all his skill points in Decking then he can't do any of the other things the Shadowrun team needs, so the player gets to sit out those portions of the game. Maybe he says "I stay in cover until the other PCs tell me to move" every now and then at the GMs assistance.

Why should we be forcing players into sitting around twiddling their thumbs for hours and hours on end? Why are we giving the illusion of choice in the game system if players require a minimum combat suite? Just give them the combat suite instead of subtracting its ability dots/charm picks/background dots/merits/bonus points from the supposedly 'free' picks.

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Because there's choice in how you deal with combat, so you can't just say "you have this and this and this, the rest is up to you. There are ways to give yourself offensive and defensive options all over the place. Athletics to move away, Dodge to do that, Stealth to hide, Resistance to tank it, the Dawn abilities to dish it out (and block it, with half of them), hell, even Lore can give you direct combat options if you're a Dragon-Blooded.

 

[Aaron Peori]

Because there's choice in how you deal with combat, so you can't just say "you have this and this and this, the rest is up to you. There are ways to give yourself offensive and defensive options all over the place. Athletics to move away, Dodge to do that, Stealth to hide, Resistance to tank it, the Dawn abilities to dish it out (and block it, with half of them), hell, even Lore can give you direct combat options if you're a Dragon-Blooded.

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The PCs in Dungeons and Dragons may pick character classes to select how they engage in Fight Game, but all PCs are forced to invest. If we're going to force all PCs in Exalted to invest, then they should be given the choice of character classes (or templates, or origins or whatever you want to call them) at the start of play. None of this 'want' thing.

If we're turning Exalted into Feng Shui let's not go half measures. That way lies newbie traps and the illusion of choice. Just stat out acceptable beginner PCs with a variety of combat suites that are considered 'minimum acceptable Fight Game investment' and have players pick one. Maybe let them flavor with a handful of Non Fight Game System picks to taste.

 

[Omicron]

If all players require minimal investment in Fight Game Survival Game to be considered viable than such investment should, again, be mandatory.

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But all (my) players don't require such an investment. Again, you can get by with no combat investment. It makes you vulnerable, and it puts the onus on your circle to protect you, but depending on your group dynamics that can be just fine, especially if your lack of combat investment means you could splurge in other areas that are of greater benefit to the group.

If a section of the game is mandatory to all players, than all players should be given automatic investment in that area so that they do not get eliminated from the game.

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No, why? Not everyone gets the spotlight in all scenes, that's fine. You don't get automatic free investment in social influence either. You don't get automatic free investment in anything, because again this is a group game and you can trust your fellow players to compensate for your lacks. However, you get cheap investment, such as having easy access to free Excellencies and powerful entry-of-the-line Charms if you just want a quick "basic superhuman competence" suite.

But you don't have to; you can do without.

If your character has spent all his skill points in Decking then he can't do any of the other things the Shadowrun team needs, so the player gets to sit out those portions of the game. Maybe he says "I stay in cover until the other PCs tell me to move" every now and then at the GMs assistance.

Why should we be forcing players into sitting around twiddling their thumbs for hours and hours on end? Why are we giving the illusion of choice in the game system if players require a minimum combat suite? Just give them the combat suite instead of subtracting its ability dots/charm picks/background dots/merits/bonus points from the supposedly 'free' picks.

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If I force players to "sit around twiddling their thumbs for hours on hand" then yes, surely I have failed.

Fortunately, I am an experienced GM, and I have at my disposal such tools as "run the Decker's thing in an off-time solo session," "cut things short and move on to a new scene when the present one is taking too much time," or "make the scene compelling enough that the non-involved players still get enjoyment out of watching it." I also don't run with sociopaths, so there's a general understanding among my groups that sometimes your character gets phased off for a little while when a scene mostly focused on the skillset of another part of the group, and that's fine because this comes around in due time.

One of the more popular sections of Gloam City Nights featured a single player acting. It worked out because I can read my table well enough that I was confident they would enjoy just "sitting around" watching Song having an important duel, as well as because they still had the agency to cheat in some fashion or break the rules established in-character if things went wrong, so there was tension even for those not engaged in the action. If this had been set not to work out I would have instead split it off into a different, solo session.

 

[notthepenguins]

Category	Speed*	Rate	Accuracy	Damage	Defense	Str. Req.
Light	4	3	+4	0-4		1
Medium	4	2	+2	4-8		2
Heavy	5	1		8-12	-1	3
Overcompensating	6	1	-2	12-16	-2	5

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I don't think you understand how powerful Accuracy is; using a Light weapon becomes the optimal choice pretty damn fast with this setup.

 

[greensun]

So, Exalted has EVA's, Ramiel and traumatized children given more power than is at all sensible.

What it doesn't have is Pen-Pen and Plug-Suits.

I aim to fix that.

Spoiler: Pengwenious the Second, Totem Spirit of Penguins.

Pengwenious is a regal spirit, an emperor penguin standing at 6 foot and with plum of red feathers atop his noble head. His eyes gleam with a brightness that is only out done by the copious amount of jewelry on his person. While not formidable in a fight in any sense of the word, he is a skilled tactician and politician who lended his aid to the Exalted during the Primordial war, his ability to create novel strategies to defeat the massive Primordial created Behemoths winning him much aclaim.

Things have changed, however, for he has disappeared from Heaven and there are rumors that he has defected to hell, acting as a Vizier and mentor to a young Hell-Strider pilot, a girl who was once a red-head, now turned albino, who is the reincarnation of lost requited love.[/spoiler=I regret nothing]

 

[Dif]

I don't think you understand how powerful Accuracy is; using a Light weapon becomes the optimal choice pretty damn fast with this setup.

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Combination of Accuracy and Speed, really. Having torn it apart and rebuilt it prior til now, Speed in ticks is a careful balancing act to toy around with, because you have to remember that out of, say 60 combat ticks, that Speed 4 character will be attacking a minimum of 45 times (15 actions, 3 Rate each), compared to the 12 attacks given to the Speed 5 (12 Actions, Rate 1), and miserable 10 for Speed 6 (10 actions, Rate 1). This gets more absurd if you are allowing Extra Actions to work freely, in which case the numbers grow exponentially.

You really shouldn't go fiddling with sub-5 Tick Speeds unless it is offset by LESS Accuracy, so that slower Speeds hit more consistently for more damage to make up for the vast gulf in action-flexibility.

 

[azoicennead]

The PCs in Dungeons and Dragons may pick character classes to select how they engage in Fight Game, but all PCs are forced to invest. If we're going to force all PCs in Exalted to invest, then they should be given the choice of character classes (or templates, or origins or whatever you want to call them) at the start of play. None of this 'want' thing.

If we're turning Exalted into Feng Shui let's not go half measures. That way lies newbie traps and the illusion of choice. Just stat out acceptable beginner PCs with a variety of combat suites that are considered 'minimum acceptable Fight Game investment' and have players pick one. Maybe let them flavor with a handful of Non Fight Game System picks to taste.

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I mean, if you want to write the next Exalted core book, feel free, but we're talking about a setting, system, and books that already exist and have been published, not one that's being written.

Personally, in every game I run, I tell players "have something to do in combat". I don't care what it is, so long as they're not just sitting on their ass and unable to meaningfully participate.

that Speed 4 character will be attacking a minimum of 45 times (15 actions, 3 Rate each)

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Maximum.
Flurries are expensive, and not appropriate for every action.

 

[notthepenguins]

You really shouldn't go fiddling with sub-5 Tick Speeds unless it is offset by LESS Accuracy, so that slower Speeds hit more consistently for more damage to make up for the vast gulf in action-flexibility.

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To be fair, the post did say Speed was not actually used in their games and those numbers were jut an "I guess if you really want."

But yeah, lowest Speed and highest accuracy is... jeez.

 

[Aaron Peori]

I mean, if you want to write the next Exalted core book, feel free, but we're talking about a setting, system, and books that already exist and have been published, not one that's being written.

Personally, in every game I run, I tell players "have something to do in combat". I don't care what it is, so long as they're not just sitting on their ass and unable to meaningfully participate.

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Ah, I see the issue. You missed the last ten or so pages of discussion where we were discussing the house ruled system proposed by @Jon Chung. Understandable. Start here: General Exalted Thread and follow the conversation forward. Pay particular attention to the part where Jon says it's okay to cut out huge sections of the game because of the decker problem and then insists combat should be mandatory for all players.

 

[notthepenguins]

Ah, I see the issue. You missed the last ten or so pages of discussion where we were discussing the house ruled system proposed by @Jon Chung. Understandable. Start here: General Exalted Thread and follow the conversation forward. Pay particular attention to the part where Jon says it's okay to cut out huge sections of the game because of the decker problem and then insists combat should be mandatory for all players.

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Man, you started this argument off of a discussion over the dot rating of daiklaves; claiming it was about the decker problem all along really guys is pretty goofy.

 

[Bursting Eagerness Soul]

Amusingly enough, 3e solves the "I have a Celestial devoted to doing things for me for 2 bp" thing. Instead, you have the split between Allies and Retainers, with the former being the "possibly peer-level, might show" Merit, and the latter being for devoted servants up to mid-tier-DB-level when maxed out.

 

[SinisterPorpoise]

For perspective, Dace is a signature character and he's a mercenary commander. He fights other peoples battles for pay - apparently even after the signature Circle comes together. I haven't seen anybody decry this as poor writing, or somehow beneath one of the Exalted. It thus seems reasonable to me to suggest an Exalt who lives as a high-grade bodyguard, hiring themselves out to Gods and other noteworthies, such as fellow Chosen.

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Actually I'm fairly certain that several Sidereals have explicit orders of "Make sure this person survives until ____ happens", and several Lunar's participating in the create-a-culture thing are probably fairly invested in the survival of their puppet ruler's.

This is all further exacerbated by wildly different approaches to combat-
For example, I've had players who firmly believe combat should be pursued with efficiency and pragmatism- therefore there's no room for being a large ham or doing big epic stunts. It's "I need this guy ded. I make him ded. can we move on?"
How do you square that alongside the player who wants everything to be a big blow-by-blow, speeches, ham-and-cheese fest?

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If they want to never get Stunts then that's perfectly fine. It puts them at a massive disadvantage, but it's their choice.

 

[Aaron Peori]

Man, you started this argument off of a discussion over the dot rating of daiklaves; claiming it was about the decker problem all along really guys is pretty goofy.

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If you're going to lie please do so in a way that I can't disprove in less than a minute.

No, because you can make the entirely reasonable statement that even if you don't go looking for trouble, due to the setting itself, trouble will inevitably come to you.

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Ally 2 (Lunar Mate/Bodyguard). There, solved. If Ally 2 is insufficient I suppose I spend on Ally 5 (Elder Lunar Mate/Bodyguard). I don't want to make a combat character, therefore I won't. Maybe if I'm feeling saucy I'll spend Ally 1 (Dragonblooded Outcaste Bodygaurd) five times instead. Or mix it up with a Sidereal or maybe even an NPC Solar to handle all the attempted assassination stuff.

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[SinisterPorpoise]

Amusingly enough, 3e solves the "I have a Celestial devoted to doing things for me for 2 bp" thing. Instead, you have the split between Allies and Retainers, with the former being the "possibly peer-level, might show" Merit, and the latter being for devoted servants up to mid-tier-DB-level when maxed out.

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This was exactly the same in 2E, people are just pretending that it wasn't.
Actually "Retainers" were strictly non-combatants, the other one is called "Followers".
edit:

• Allies—Friends and associates who help in tasks.
• Command—Authority over a military unit.
• Followers—Mortals who look to you for guidance.
• Henchmen—Loyal and often ruthless agents who do your bidding.
• Retainers—Personal servants or slaves.

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[notthepenguins]

If you're going to lie please do so in a way that I can't disprove in less than a minute.

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No see, you said that earlier, but the actual discussion chain we're on now starts here, in an unrelated discussion thread.

Character creation really doesn't have to specify how rare something is though. After all, you already start out with something of which there are only 50/100/150/300 a lot of the times (your Exaltation).

And artifacts can easily be part of your story and character concept. Making them too hard or impossible to attain at character creation means you can't do that as easily.
Now, obviously you should justify how you got it, and that justification should reflect rarity - but that doesn't mean you need to make rarity equal being hard to obtain at character creation.

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I have no problem with the "I spent 2bp at chargen and stumbled into a tomb where I found this swag daiklave yo" as a justification so long as "I spent 2bp at chargen and now I have a swole badass Lunar bodyguard who follows me around murder-killing the occasional wyld hunt for me so I can focus on designing Creation's most efficient health insurance plan" is just as valid.

Once you realise the cost of a daiklave is the same as the opportunity cost of a Celestial Exalt ally they seem more important.

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Then people went "uh no, that's stupid" and you started going on about how 2 background dots should let you negate subsystems forever and 2 dots of artifact let you kill anyone you want trivially.

 

[Sucal]

This was exactly the same in 2E, people are just pretending that it wasn't.
Actually "Retainers" were strictly non-combatants, the other one is called "Followers".

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Followers were for mooks though, not for potentially exalted level employees who could make actually effective bodyguards.

Amusingly enough, 3e solves the "I have a Celestial devoted to doing things for me for 2 bp" thing. Instead, you have the split between Allies and Retainers, with the former being the "possibly peer-level, might show" Merit, and the latter being for devoted servants up to mid-tier-DB-level when maxed out.

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I've always wondered if it was possible to get a Liminal Bodyguard that way, but I figure thats best to wait until we have one of their books. Either way, Retainer and Familiars allow for an easy to be 'competent' in combat, or at least survive long enough for the rest of the murder machines to finish. They shouldn't do anywhere near the damage of a mid-level invested dawn, but since the player can run them rather then the GM, its much less trouble.

Unless its a Tyrant Lizard familiar anyway.

 

[Aaron Peori]

No see, you said that earlier, but the actual discussion chain we're on now starts here, in an unrelated discussion thread.

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Ah yes. Because the post 22 posts earlier certainly did not inform the context of my later post at all. Every post must be stripped of all context regarding ongoing discussions in the thread.

For context the discussion about artifacts spring directly from here:

Wow, this isn't a fun conversation, and very few people in it are being pleasant.

I've no objection to fusing Sorcery and Craft to an extent, because a lot of the effects they offer are similar in practical terms. How different is commanding a sorcerous construct from owning a clay golem? How different is having Wood Dragon's Claw cast on you than wielding a bladed cestus of green jade? How different is knowing The Eye And Mouth from using a crystal lens that translates text it passes over? How different is riding a Cirrus Skiff from riding a bamboo-and-blue-jade Dragonfly Palanquin?

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Which is a direct response to the ongoing Sorcery = Craft debate between myself, @Jon Chung, @EarthScorpion and @Aleph. Which had included several points about removing the entire craft subsystem for acquiring a signature sword and replacing it with (to use Jon's words) 2BP.

The post I then made was that if you can spend 2BP to ignore the craft system I have no problem with spending 2BP to ignore the combat subsystem.

But, man, context and reading the entire discussion is hard.

 

[notthepenguins]

Ah yes. Because the post 22 posts earlier certainly did not inform the context of my later post at all. Every post must be stripped of all context regarding ongoing discussions in the thread.

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I think it's pretty reasonable to assume that one is responding to the post they are quoting, and not really truly honestly talking about something someone else said a page or more before, yes.

Maybe that's not what you meant, but like, at that point you're the one arguing with strawmen, because most of us weren't taking Chung's stance in the first place.

 

[Cosar]

Err, isn't that his whole point? That combat is a Decker problem as well if not all players are invested?

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The problem is that having an NPC who protects you doesn't actually address the decker problem: the combat presumably still occurs for the other players after all.

Also, traditionally the decker problem refers to situations where a minority of the players has a complicated subsystem that only they can engage it, not the reverse.

If they want to never get Stunts then that's perfectly fine. It puts them at a massive disadvantage, but it's their choice.

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Not being hammy or doing speeches doesn't actually influence how you get stunts, at least not in 2nd. You need to engage with the environment.

 

[azoicennead]

Ah, I see the issue. You missed the last ten or so pages of discussion where we were discussing the house ruled system proposed by @Jon Chung. Understandable. Start here: General Exalted Thread and follow the conversation forward. Pay particular attention to the part where Jon says it's okay to cut out huge sections of the game because of the decker problem and then insists combat should be mandatory for all players.

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Oh, so you're talking about a system that literally has nowhere to put what you're saying should be there, and if it stopped being theoretical would likely be at least half the GM saying "do this, make sure you have this, this is how it works".
Saying "the system should require you to be combat-competent", and "include example character builds for people to pick their version of combat-competence from" stops making sense when the system isn't formally written out.

 

[SinisterPorpoise]

Not being hammy or doing speeches doesn't actually influence how you get stunts, at least not in 2nd. You need to engage with the environment.

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Yes, I took that to mean that one person says "I jump over the table to close distance and stab them in the back" and the other says "I attack".