azoicennead
Overly-Affectionate Zombie Squad
- Pronouns
- He/They
Oh, yeah. Having someone doing obvious and unusual stuff near the players is a great way to hook their interest.
And then you get to throw a ragtag bunch of misfits at them!
General Exalted Thread
Wouldn't that mean that some solars are more deadly dead than alive?
Chloe Sullivan
Subdefective
- Location
- 1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale CA
Working as intended, one would think. By the time of the usurpation, plenty of solars had a political rather than martial focus. But they would still need tombs and funerary rites (which helpfully means swag for their later era incarnations, who definately cannot be as casual about not being combat ready).
Sucal
The Devil’s Cut
- Location
- Bottom of the barrel
Well yes.
Having a violent solution to a problem causing more problems is perfectly within themes for exalted! Its even poetic when the solars Yidak destroys his life work just before he was able to cure 'insert problem here', especially when the people who cast him down blamed him for it in the first place!
- Location
- Gladstone, OR
Idealized Accompaniments
Artifact 1
In Dynastic households or the lines of kings, merchant-lords and others, there are wonderous, convenient furnishings. Impossibly shallow bookshelves that sort themselves, drawers or wardrobes that hang and fold clothing, and so on. Many are even larger on the inside, able to hold much more their dimensions would imply.
Variants of these artifacts are found all over Creation, Yu-Shan and even Malfeas, though their specific natures aesthetics vary wildly. Few are made in the Second Age, however, as the expense of furnishing just a room could easily fund a House Legion. A particular school of Dynastic articifers evaluates its aspiring craftsmen, tasking them with making an Idealized Accompaniment as their final examination.
All however, share the same basic functions. An Idealized Accompaniment takes the form of any mundane storage, like a bookshelf, wardrobe or footlocker, and it may hold three times as much as a mundane piece, hidden inside enchanted angles and expanded spaces. The artifact prevents age damage, but cannot preserve perishables.
When retrieving a stored item, one needs only think of it, and the artifact will sort through its contents and present it without fail. Anyone may touch the artifact and pay one mote to be instantly informed of its contents.
AN:
So I wanted to write a simple 'for funs' artifact that was firmly 'decadent but useful tool'. Its essentially space-saving furniture, allowing you to store more stuff in your home. It is however not a security system or even particularly smart about keeping your stuff safe, so it's firmly 'trinket' level. I personally imagine a bookshelf that has kind of a shallow curve to it, with an arc of books, and you 'scroll' through each shelf left to right as you search.
On a similar note, I tried to imply it, but by RAW, it would cost Resources 3 + Exotic Components/Magical Materials to make one of these things. Imagine trying to furnish an entire ROOM with that. Dynasts could do it, but they might not.
Artifact 1
In Dynastic households or the lines of kings, merchant-lords and others, there are wonderous, convenient furnishings. Impossibly shallow bookshelves that sort themselves, drawers or wardrobes that hang and fold clothing, and so on. Many are even larger on the inside, able to hold much more their dimensions would imply.
Variants of these artifacts are found all over Creation, Yu-Shan and even Malfeas, though their specific natures aesthetics vary wildly. Few are made in the Second Age, however, as the expense of furnishing just a room could easily fund a House Legion. A particular school of Dynastic articifers evaluates its aspiring craftsmen, tasking them with making an Idealized Accompaniment as their final examination.
All however, share the same basic functions. An Idealized Accompaniment takes the form of any mundane storage, like a bookshelf, wardrobe or footlocker, and it may hold three times as much as a mundane piece, hidden inside enchanted angles and expanded spaces. The artifact prevents age damage, but cannot preserve perishables.
When retrieving a stored item, one needs only think of it, and the artifact will sort through its contents and present it without fail. Anyone may touch the artifact and pay one mote to be instantly informed of its contents.
AN:
So I wanted to write a simple 'for funs' artifact that was firmly 'decadent but useful tool'. Its essentially space-saving furniture, allowing you to store more stuff in your home. It is however not a security system or even particularly smart about keeping your stuff safe, so it's firmly 'trinket' level. I personally imagine a bookshelf that has kind of a shallow curve to it, with an arc of books, and you 'scroll' through each shelf left to right as you search.
On a similar note, I tried to imply it, but by RAW, it would cost Resources 3 + Exotic Components/Magical Materials to make one of these things. Imagine trying to furnish an entire ROOM with that. Dynasts could do it, but they might not.
- Location
- The sixth circle of Hell (second on weekends)
- Pronouns
- She/Her
A yidak will have similar themes in its powers to the ones it had when it was alive - a scholar's yidak will have "knowing things" powers and be equivalent to a social-focused Third Circle, not a combat-focused one.
On the plus side, that means they won't be an insane horrific murderfrenzy undead monster.
On the negative side, it means they'll be - by yidak standards - smart. Smart enough to, perhaps, break warding lines and mimic human voices.
Well, eh.
I'd say their themes are probably more influenced by the specific madness of the yidak in question (equivalent to a limit break - and probably identical to a Solar's limit break) and the passions and feelings of the Solar, rather than the learned skills or other hun-linked things
So the Overindulgent po is a creature from Buddhist myth, with a massive maw and a bulging belly that feels eternal hunger and must eat constantly, but grows bigger as it eats more so it's eternally famished, while the Heart of Tears po weeps constantly at the state of the world, making cold dark water run from every surface, the sky sob at the sorrows of the world, and the minds of men to be clouded by blackest depression.
- Location
- The sixth circle of Hell (second on weekends)
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Well I was talking about Charms there, or at least echoes of them. The po is the seat of power, after all, and the bleeding rents where the hooks of Exaltation dug into one might retain traces of that Exaltation's power and focus.
Golden Lark
The First Fiction User
(slowly hides his impossible-to-interact-with supership)
Actually wait my big supership is slow as hell.
My tiny supership is fast as hell but doesn't pack a punch.
I don't try to come up with specific solutions from scratch for most problems; I try to build a toolbox of specialized solutions in advance, which I successively pull out as obstacles occur and cause Shyft to tear his hair out.
As a player, I tend to enjoy picking up a plot thread and focusing on it, and trying to use my powers as much to predict the consequences of my actions as much as taking those actions. Minimal force, minimal chaos, minimal disaster, maximum payoff.
Unfortunately that puts the pressure on the ST to decide what I fail to predict/perceive, and he has to walk that fine line between "your magic wasn't quite good enough" and raw ST fiat whenever it's time to get surprised. Mind you there are plenty of ways to bring plot elements in at oblique angles that certain charms can't account for, but the burden and stress of constantly doing so can get to an ST.
(TLDR: It's me! The most stressful player for Shyft to ST around is me!)
- Location
- Virginia
So I have meant to answer this for ages and kept getting distracted:
I shared my idea with respect to this in-thread a while ago. I agree it's complicated; I think the complication is rewarded more if there is some way to quantify the advantages you can gain from trade (as I am trying to do elsewhere).
I agree with this and it gave me ideas for expansion:
- Characters can gain familiarity with a legal system in the same time as it takes them to train a specialty. (Don't make it cost XP though; retroactively adding XP costs to stuff like this causes a similar problem to D&D 3.5 skill bloat.)
- Maybe there are broad trends in legal / political traditions that run along the same lines as Directional language families.
- Like with languages, there can be the notion of speaking it passably versus fluently like a native (although... I can't find reference to rules for this in the Ex3 book?).
- Maybe a character with a Bureaucracy specialty in law or politics automatically has familiarity with the legal and political customs for language families he knows.
- There is room for one or two Charms along the lines of Mastery of Small Manners that grant quick or instant familiarity with a legal system.
Sidebar: note that this is a great place to Introduce a Fact ("the ancient law of This Place We Are In totally guarantees the right to trial by combat, yup yup definitely")
There should be a note saying that Bureau-Rectifying Method also benefits this roll. And there should be Charmtech such that:
is no longer true - the specialized Solar can actually assemble a thoroughly loyal and incorruptible staff.
I like these rules pretty much as-is but have some additional thoughts:
- Some interaction with Backing/Contacts?
- Subtract Backing from the effective Size.
- If you have "adjacent" Contacts (i.e. in the region generally, or in a competing business or crime syndicate, or something) subtract 1 from Secrecy, if you have Contacts directly in the organization itself subtract 2.
- There should be a way to gain Contacts from this.
- I have a more general interest in the fuzziness about Size and sub-units. The Realm is Size 7, OK. If I want to learn information about the All-Seeing Eye, do I use the Realm's Size or guesstimate it based on the number of employees? If I target just the headquarters, does that give me a big advantage?
- Actually the example of the All-Seeing Eye makes me wonder how the support of an actual intelligence organization (as opposed to individual efforts) speeds up or assists this roll - it probably should just provide effective Contacts.
There needs to be a way to interact with Resistance (effects that can make it go up, actions that can make it go down). But these should be more interesting and engaging than "OK, and now I spend a Macro Turn doing the Reduce Resistance action".
With the system I am working on, Capital and/or Organizations have something like Problems or Encumbrance that is basically like this, and one of the advantages of the expanded bargaining system is that the gains from trade can be applied to eliminate these. For example, you might have had to borrow to hire the services of the construction company in order to turn your dot of uncommitted Capital into committed Capital in the form of a skyscraper; because Capital isn't habitually gained or lost from ordinary actions, the cost of this debt is not expressed in the form of a full dot of Capital lost or owed; rather, your organization has a new Encumbrance in the form of a debt covenant allowing your creditors some say in your operations. (The creditor organization has a corresponding Interest in yours on its balance sheet.) This adds a +1 to the difficulty of many management or organizational actions*.
You can reduce Encumbrance by taking actions to resolve the specific problem (renegotiate the debt, maybe social-fu the creditor into supporting your action, maybe having the Capital applied to just generating revenue for a period of time so it can retire the debt), but you can also reduce it through trade - the Interests you receive as gains from trade can be applied to cancel out these encumbrances.
Another example of an Encumbrance would be if you'd incurred the dislike of a regulator (either personally or because your Organization is unpopular with the public), who could interfere with your plans to shut down a factor or buy a competitor.
Obviously these are very Modern-themed and so the idea would need to be modified somewhat for Creation.
*alternatively, I'm thinking of just having a sort of "Encumbrance check" against the number of these, to let you proceed with a given action
You can reduce Encumbrance by taking actions to resolve the specific problem (renegotiate the debt, maybe social-fu the creditor into supporting your action, maybe having the Capital applied to just generating revenue for a period of time so it can retire the debt), but you can also reduce it through trade - the Interests you receive as gains from trade can be applied to cancel out these encumbrances.
Another example of an Encumbrance would be if you'd incurred the dislike of a regulator (either personally or because your Organization is unpopular with the public), who could interfere with your plans to shut down a factor or buy a competitor.
Obviously these are very Modern-themed and so the idea would need to be modified somewhat for Creation.
*alternatively, I'm thinking of just having a sort of "Encumbrance check" against the number of these, to let you proceed with a given action
This makes it clear to me that there really needs to be a way to actually determine Resistance.
Relatedly, one issue that bugs me is how extended rolls with nontrivial difficulties can be extremely harsh on mortals or people with lower ability pools. A mortal with a pool of 4-5 dice might find some tasks essentially impossible. (A legitimate response to this would be "eh, I don't really care, in play this is going to be used by Exalts with large pools and excellencies" or "yeah, I want this task to be impossible for people who aren't exceptionally competent".)
Also, how does this work on something like "The Realm"? Are you effectively instilling intimacies in the entire population?
(for context, I'm referring to his system here: [Homebrew] Bureaucracy Rules - Onyx Path Forums)
- Location
- Ottawa
So, I was banned for two years from the OP forums. Surprisingly, it wasn't for any of the actually-objectionable things I said; it was for telling Rich he underpays his writers.
I assume some of you have also been banned. So maybe you can tell me how to log out. I'd like to browse a couple of threads, but the forum page just says "you've been banned" when I go there off incognito. Is there a cookie I need to delete?
I assume some of you have also been banned. So maybe you can tell me how to log out. I'd like to browse a couple of threads, but the forum page just says "you've been banned" when I go there off incognito. Is there a cookie I need to delete?
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- Location
- Virginia
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Also: FFS OP
Also: goddamnit now you can't edit your various homebrew posts to wherever the homebrew's new home will be, thanks a lot mods
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- Location
- Ottawa
Well, that was surprisingly easy. Thanks!
And yeah, it's inconvenient for homebrew stuff. But not the end of the world. And speaking selfishly, it's only really inconvenient for people I don't know.
And yeah, it's inconvenient for homebrew stuff. But not the end of the world. And speaking selfishly, it's only really inconvenient for people I don't know.
- Location
- New York City
While I certainly feel that what is in essence a permanent ban was definitely not merited, your tone in that thread, particularly over the last two pages, really did get into a very circular discussion that didn't seem like it merited the combative way you were engaging with him.
Is there any way to appeal it and discuss it? Pride is definitely an overrated thing when it comes to internet forums, and maybe apologizing to Rich or engaging with Darksider might solve the problem in a less potentially risky fashion than circumnavigating the ban.
EDIT: I do understand that "risky" is a relative term here. I just mean that it's fairly easy to spot who might be using a sock puppet account by the way they talk, unless you're just using the account to browse. Still might be a good, simple thing to just tell them you're sorry and maybe they'll let it go on that.
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- Location
- Spain
He isn't circumnavigating the ban. He just wants to lurk as a guest, not make a sockpuppet.
- Location
- Ottawa
There's an appeal method. I can't remember the details though.
And honestly, being a guest suits me well enough for now. I spend too much time on this kind of thing; maybe this is what I need to make me spend less.
As for my tone...sure, it was pretty unfriendly. I think Rich's was substantially worse, though.
"You really, really seem to be uninterested in learning anything and only in whatever bad information has gotten lodged in your craw. There's no point in my continuing to try and explain the reality of any of this to you. Later."
is by any reasonable standard more of an attack than
"You apparently didn't pay the Ex3 writers enough to have the right to expect professionalism. Unsurprisingly, the resulting book took years longer than you expected it to. In fact, it's still not fully out. I suspect that your lousy employment practices are partially responsible, and that treating your employees a bit better would've helped a lot."
Which is what I was banned for. Not to refight the battle on another forum, but I think it's pretty obvious that the real ban-reason here is that I defied the authority of the company.
And honestly, being a guest suits me well enough for now. I spend too much time on this kind of thing; maybe this is what I need to make me spend less.
As for my tone...sure, it was pretty unfriendly. I think Rich's was substantially worse, though.
"You really, really seem to be uninterested in learning anything and only in whatever bad information has gotten lodged in your craw. There's no point in my continuing to try and explain the reality of any of this to you. Later."
is by any reasonable standard more of an attack than
"You apparently didn't pay the Ex3 writers enough to have the right to expect professionalism. Unsurprisingly, the resulting book took years longer than you expected it to. In fact, it's still not fully out. I suspect that your lousy employment practices are partially responsible, and that treating your employees a bit better would've helped a lot."
Which is what I was banned for. Not to refight the battle on another forum, but I think it's pretty obvious that the real ban-reason here is that I defied the authority of the company.
If you need somebody to make a "By-the-by, this homebrew stuff has been moved to..." post, let me know. (I can't think of any reason that would violate any kind of rules...)
Sorry you're out, anyhow!
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Jesus christ, two years.
Like what's the point of that? Why would you even?
- Location
- New York City
It seems like the amount of time you put to do one of two things:
1. give someone the time to reconsider their approach to things should they ever desire to come back (sometimes taking a large amount of time away from a forum can do wonders to help people recognize that their approach may be toxic, unhelpful or self-defeating.)
2. To make it not permanent, but long enough that someone whose interest in interacting with the community may trump their feeling of pride such that they'll appeal, make amends and have the ban cut down to a small amount of time or removed entirely.
Which is different from when you ban someone forever because you don't think they'll ever wise up.
I think this is the sort of situation which could be handled with a warning, but, y'know, not my rodeo.
1. give someone the time to reconsider their approach to things should they ever desire to come back (sometimes taking a large amount of time away from a forum can do wonders to help people recognize that their approach may be toxic, unhelpful or self-defeating.)
2. To make it not permanent, but long enough that someone whose interest in interacting with the community may trump their feeling of pride such that they'll appeal, make amends and have the ban cut down to a small amount of time or removed entirely.
Which is different from when you ban someone forever because you don't think they'll ever wise up.
I think this is the sort of situation which could be handled with a warning, but, y'know, not my rodeo.
notanautomaton
I've got 99 quests, I've finished one
I got banned from there for seven days for saying 'u mad bro.'
- Location
- Ottawa
Might take you up on that, one of these days.
I was giving them trouble. Criticizing them, leading them to post defenses that just make them look worse. Now I'm not. At least not on their own forum.
I think they're getting what they want here. And I'm okay with that, actually. But I do wish they'd be honest about it.
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Well, yeah I understand that they banned you.
But two years might as well be permanent.
I mean, if I was banned from this forum, I'd probably forget about it after two years.
NonSequtur
a body
The general rule is that the people who come back are exactly the people you wish wouldn't.
notanautomaton
I've got 99 quests, I've finished one
Can you link to the thread?
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
The general rule is that the people who come back are exactly the people you wish wouldn't.
Good point.