Thanks again. I had forgotten to conceptualize Quarantine Layer and Pole of Smoke as the Bio-mechanical organ systems they are. Aditionaly, looking for overseers to negotiate with never crossed my mind.
General Exalted Thread
Thanks again. I had forgotten to conceptualize Quarantine Layer and Pole of Smoke as the Bio-mechanical organ systems they are. Aditionaly, looking for overseers to negotiate with never crossed my mind.
Revlid
blob of bugs
- Location
- England
Where "gear" can cover any Background, really.
It's just that Artifact is one of the more consistently worthwhile Backgrounds/Merits (lol @ Influence), while also being one of the ones that receives the least attention in terms of tying it to the setting. I've often idly contemplated a Background system that works by literally being about a Background. If you want a Merit, you buy it with dots granted by your Background. If you have a Background, it ties you to the setting, and comes with automatic Influence and Contacts consummate with its rating.
So if you're a former member of a Great House who Exalted and fled the Blessed Isle with a ceremonial daiklave stolen from your manor's mantle, then you have the Former Dynast Background, and people know you as a Former Dynast, and you have contacts appropriate for a Former Dynast, and you have access to Merits appropriate to a Former Dynast. In this case, you spent those on a Daiklave.
Increase the rating of your Former Dynast Background, and you get more Merit dots to play with, but more people know you are a Former Dynast and will contact you based on such. You can reverse the cause-and-effect, here - if you get more Merit dots appropriate to your Former Dynast Background, your reputation increases appropriately. So if you use your Former Dynast connections to develop a trading business past the Threshold that can feed you Resources, word of that will get back to your family, and you'll have more merchants doing business with you as the ex-Realm merchant prince.
You shouldn't be able to get stuff or do stuff without it impacting on the setting, so why not make that a mechanical requirement? It also lets you fold away some fairly redundant Merits like Reputation or Influence into the basic assumptions of a Background rating - you're a Resources 5 lord of the Guild, but you have no Influence? You've got a Cult spanning a whole Direction, but no Reputation? Just fold that into the Background.
Even something like "this Infinite Chakram was a blue drop from a Wyld Hunt instance" can lean on your Wandering Swordswoman Background, ensuring that your reputation as the lady who slew a member of a Wyld Hunt spreads, and rogue gods consider cosying up to you for protection.
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- Pronouns
- He/Him
Mmm, gonna steal that.
Revlid
blob of bugs
- Location
- England
I'd recommend tying every dot of a Background to a particular event or accomplishment that reflects how it increased in importance, and shapes and flavours how its Contacts/Influence functions work*. Call them Milestones or something. Doing so basically removes the need for Merits to fiddle around with xp lost and gained, since it means a) you need to DO STUFF to get Merit dots, b) every time you DO STUFF to get Merit dots the ST has a big sidebar saying "hey, here's how and why this should fuck them up".
(as opposed to "screw them over", which was the previous resort)
It also means you need to keep doing those things to keep your Merit dots - if you neglect your spy network, your reputation and resources as the Shadow Lady will wither, and you'll lose Background dots. You could even calibrate this, if you wanted, by offering options for Casual or Strict Backgrounds, which respectively require less or more attention and "upkeep" than normal, but offer fewer or more Merit dots. An active Dynastic Heir or an Autopolitan Exalt would be an example of a Strict Background, where your every move is under total scrutiny but the rewards are rich.
It also also means you can rework character creation around your Backgrounds. Everyone describes X Milestones ("that time I killed a raksha", "my first stint in prison", "a childhood of wealth and adoration", etc) from their character's pre-game past, and gets Background dots for those, along with appropriate Merits. They also get Y Ability dots with each Milestone, reflecting how it shaped/represents their skillset, and Z Attribute dots of their choice. Then choose your Charms. Done.
You should probably crib from the FATE chargen for structure, or players could easily get lost. Ask specific questions for each Milestone, like "where did you grow up" or "who were your parents" or "what does victory mean to you" or "who are your friends". If 7 Background dots didn't seem like too much to start off with (given that the ratio of Background dots to Merit dots is almost certainly not 1:1), I'd encourage going all Malfean and asking for a Reflective Milestone, an Expressive Milestone, an Indulgent Milestone and so on.
*This particular aspect is something cribbed directly from how Scion 2e is going to be doing Legend, by the way - you don't increase your Legend just because your magic pecs are huge, you develop a stronger Legend when you use those pecs to deflect a mistletoe shiv aimed at the reincarnation of Baldur. That's a Deed, and the cosmos recognizes you for it. Of course, so will others... Everyone! Check that game out! Its writers are cool and attractive people who gave serious consideration to creating their own font just so they could print certain transliterations accurately!
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Chloe Sullivan
Subdefective
- Location
- 1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale CA
I approve of this. It's basically a formalized version of how i already built my D&D characters.
- Location
- Gladstone, OR
@Revlid I'd even extend this into a handful of other aspects/traits like Thaumaturgy and Sorcery- if you are a thaumaturge, you should start with some Arts based on your Background/Milestones, or at least some Procedures. Same if you're an established Sorcerer at Chargen- youshould start wtih some Spells that you already learned/used/became famous for in your backstory
And- initiation into Sorcery should basically be a Milestone, with comesurate boons.
And- initiation into Sorcery should basically be a Milestone, with comesurate boons.
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I have long since bowed to the superior wisdom of the Scion 2e developers.
Especially since they seem to be considering why they are actually doing things instead of just adding stuff due to "DURRR LEGACY CODE" which is a wonderful thing.
- Location
- New York City
This talk of Backgrounds informing mechanics seems to actually be the fundamental framework of Onyx Path's new Storypath System that they are using for Scion and for Trinity, incidentally.
EDIT: Which, d'oh, was pointed out.
I recently redid my current player character from the ground up, and for each step of character creation, I characterized each step and tried to give context to why she had each thing, and it was both really helpful for refining her personality as reflected in mechanics, and was a lot of fun, because it felt like everything was 'justified.'
EDIT: Which, d'oh, was pointed out.
I recently redid my current player character from the ground up, and for each step of character creation, I characterized each step and tried to give context to why she had each thing, and it was both really helpful for refining her personality as reflected in mechanics, and was a lot of fun, because it felt like everything was 'justified.'
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samdamandias
Apprentice Plane Wizard
Mmm. So let me see if I'm doing this right. I've got a Dynast, one of his prized possessions is a suit of ancient power armor that has been passed down for generations, and is recognizable not just as old power armor, but "House Whatsemfacee's Ancestral Armor". This dynast knows the armors reputation, and will only wear it under one of two circumstances:
1) There is some super important or super formal event where it is important that his house show their flag, and possibly wants to remind people of their history, although he might also arrange for the armor to be displayed somewhere.
2) Major shit is about to get kicked in, and he doesn't care who knows it.
Bursting Eagerness Soul
Threadwalking Rating Machine
- Location
- Wisconsin
I can't wait for the inevitable Exalted port.
- Location
- New York City
Yeah, I'm very interested in something like that. It will probably be a lot mechanically lighter than Exalted, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.
I thought about using Exalted and attempting to do some kind of 3rd Edition Modern thing based on some homebrew setting material my group came up with, but I cringed at the thought of trying to rework Charms slightly / I was also not enjoying the though of coming up with rules for firearms or explosives or anything like that.
I thought about using Exalted and attempting to do some kind of 3rd Edition Modern thing based on some homebrew setting material my group came up with, but I cringed at the thought of trying to rework Charms slightly / I was also not enjoying the though of coming up with rules for firearms or explosives or anything like that.
- Location
- Ottawa
Sure.
The short version is that Artifact creation isn't broad enough, active enough, or fun enough to be an entire ability. You should be able to define your character as a Crafter first and foremost, but defining your character as an artifact-maker first and foremost has problems.
Here's a bulleted list of issues:
-Artifact creation is a downtime activity. Even in 3e, it takes a long time. And apart from time, its main limitation is the availability of materials. So Artifact creation tends to be overpowered or underpowered unless you happen to be playing your game at exactly the speed with exactly the level of material availability that the developers had in mind.
-If you go too deep into Artifact creation, you end up with a character who basically isn't good at doing anything active. Characters who suck in adventure time but are awesome in downtime probably shouldn't exist.
-You don't make Artifacts alongside the rest of your group. So there's an inherent decker problem. The more time you spend designing the Six-Metal Shrike, the more time your friends spend zoning out. 3e clearly tried to address this by bribing people to use Craft in minor adventure-friendly ways, but the result was obviously quite bad.
-Artifact creation is basically the same for many different types of Craft. The ultimate hatmaker and the ultimate goldsmith have pretty similar options for the kind of magic items they can make. So if a designer wants to differentiate, they end up doing clumsy stuff like making people buy the same ability multiple times.
-Artifact creation is generally not interesting in and of itself. The things which make real crafts interesting don't translate to the table. It's basically just an extended roll. So if it's the main form of challenge your character aims to overcome, you'll not have much fun. 2e tried to fix this with its fetch quests and 3e tried to fix this with its slots and points. Neither approach is good, and both make the decker problem even worse.
-A Charmset focused on Artifact creation is not a good one. First of all, it's inevitably gonna be boring. Dice tricks and time-shorteners galore. And if it's not unsatisfyingly short, it's likely to allow ridiculous levels of mass production. Nobody wants to let Thrice-Radiant Misho make 5-dot Artifacts casually, but if he has 30 Artifact creation Charms then anything less seems kinda lame. Again, look at 3e Craft. Note the Charm that you use when you have ten Legendary projects on the go.
These problems can be managed if Artifacts are just one area of Craft. But if Craft is all about Artifacts, then they get really serious.
The crappiness of 3e Craft is, I believe, a direct result of these problems. John tried to make being "the Craft guy" interesting and worthwhile, but apparently didn't realise he had to cut back the focus on Artifact creation in order to do so. So we get this trainwreck.
Anyway, I'm prepared to put my money where my mouth is here. I rewrote Craft to be less Artifact-focused and I genuinely believe it's a major improvement. If you like John's version of Craft and dislike mine, then I guess for you the Artifact focus might not a problem.
Just as a note for contrast, Kerisgame Abilities folded Craft, Occult and Medicine into Occult (which is basically the Magic Science ability) as part of compacting things down to 15 Abilities. Hence, the "crafter" is actually the occultist, and thus has lots of useful things they can do outside of the dramatic-scale actions. Like saving lives and knowing things about how the world works.
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Which is, for the record an absolutely wonderful way to see the craftsman, because it means that smiths will be pseudo-priestly people that placate the spirits in the forge, just like actual smiths in Antiquity were mystical figures, seen a bit akin to wizards.
Therefore, folding Craft into Occult and keeping the name of the Ability as Occult tells us that doing crafting is part of the magical nature of Creation and requires one to know the spirits.
I see this as a feature, very much.
Revlid
blob of bugs
- Location
- England
One fairly in-genre option would be to eliminate Craft entirely, and just replace that Ability with another relevant Ability. Forging a sword? Melee. Baking a cake? Socialize. Designing a ship? Sail. Reflect the omnidisciplinary ideal that shows up in wuxia a lot.
Exalted tends to be "harder" than this, however, and it does eliminate the "Artisan" as an actual archetype/niche. Ultimately, it's better-suited to (and accomplished by) the paradigm used in Legends of the Wulin, where you have one "Ability" and that is Kung Goddamn Fu.
Exalted tends to be "harder" than this, however, and it does eliminate the "Artisan" as an actual archetype/niche. Ultimately, it's better-suited to (and accomplished by) the paradigm used in Legends of the Wulin, where you have one "Ability" and that is Kung Goddamn Fu.
Apropos to nothing, I just want to share here with the thread one of the most remarkably Autochthonian instruments I have ever laid eyes on. Not just in tone and method of play, but in the spirit behind it: The Hurdy-gurdy.
Like some kind of hilarious classical mashup between a bagpipe, hand-cranked grinder-organ, violin and a synth keytar, it successfully manages to look and sound like an instrument, but somehow a thousand years of parallel development removed from what we currently understand them to be.
(4:20 in is where the tempo really kicks up)
And yes, for those of you curious of how it fares in a more "modernized" context, it even comes in a contemporary electric spin.
You can shred on this. It is an un-fucking-believable piece of musical engineering.
Like some kind of hilarious classical mashup between a bagpipe, hand-cranked grinder-organ, violin and a synth keytar, it successfully manages to look and sound like an instrument, but somehow a thousand years of parallel development removed from what we currently understand them to be.
(4:20 in is where the tempo really kicks up)
And yes, for those of you curious of how it fares in a more "modernized" context, it even comes in a contemporary electric spin.
You can shred on this. It is an un-fucking-believable piece of musical engineering.
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Truly this is a feat of magical engineering, barely thought possible before.
Why?
Diplomacy with spirits is explicitly one of the functions of the Alchemicals.
Clarity gives up to +3d to dealing with spirits.
Furthermore, the charm Interpolative Syntax Emulator has an Int 5 submod that doubles that bonus, AND performs the equivalent of Mastery of Small Manners for mechanical spirits.
Slap on some social Charms as well, or add low-level artifacts like Trinket of Dignified Conduct(Artifact 2), Quickmouth Apparatus(Artifact 2) or a Deception Engine(Artifact 1).
- Location
- Gladstone, OR
So I'm mulling over @Revlid 's idea a bit more and a thought occurs- we already have a fairly good idea of what this kind of thing looks like in-2e and setting: Dynast and Sidereal Chargen. Before I get into that, I'm going to just toss some ideas at the wall and see what sticks-
Exalted/chargen likes 5 and 7, because they're odd numbers and you can't get perfect parity, you will have a spike somewhere, or a dip. So let's assume that you can pick 7 milestones at character generation before any bonus-point like purchase. (Don't assume XP/BP split, just, bear with me).
I personally subscribe still to the '2 is mortal average' rule of thumb, so applying that here, I'm coming up with the following: If we assume that a Background is 'how much of this has formed my life to this point, how much am I tied up in it', then 1 should be "worthy of mention but not unique", 2 is "average example of Background", 3 is 'Noteworthy', 4 is 'Known within your field' and 5 is 'known outside your field'.
And- we can have more than one background, so long as they make sense.
Moving back to DBs and Sidereals- A Dynast in chargen is expected to allot their dots a given way before the player can start chosing- now in a very real sense, the player is still choosing , they're just choosing thematic milestones that explain their purchases. Further, you could assign fairly straight-forward milestones and associated trait ratings right out the gate.
So in general, you can create 'example' backgrounds like Revlid's Runaway Dynastic Scion or 'Diehard Immaculate'. These could alsobe used as shorthand to stat out NPCs as well, assuming they come with relevant traits.
A student of the House of Bells (the military academy, iirc) might have a handful of example milestones like 'Was accepted on schollarship' or 'Earned their place in tournament combat'- examples given for each 'dot' level..
Exalted/chargen likes 5 and 7, because they're odd numbers and you can't get perfect parity, you will have a spike somewhere, or a dip. So let's assume that you can pick 7 milestones at character generation before any bonus-point like purchase. (Don't assume XP/BP split, just, bear with me).
I personally subscribe still to the '2 is mortal average' rule of thumb, so applying that here, I'm coming up with the following: If we assume that a Background is 'how much of this has formed my life to this point, how much am I tied up in it', then 1 should be "worthy of mention but not unique", 2 is "average example of Background", 3 is 'Noteworthy', 4 is 'Known within your field' and 5 is 'known outside your field'.
And- we can have more than one background, so long as they make sense.
Moving back to DBs and Sidereals- A Dynast in chargen is expected to allot their dots a given way before the player can start chosing- now in a very real sense, the player is still choosing , they're just choosing thematic milestones that explain their purchases. Further, you could assign fairly straight-forward milestones and associated trait ratings right out the gate.
So in general, you can create 'example' backgrounds like Revlid's Runaway Dynastic Scion or 'Diehard Immaculate'. These could alsobe used as shorthand to stat out NPCs as well, assuming they come with relevant traits.
A student of the House of Bells (the military academy, iirc) might have a handful of example milestones like 'Was accepted on schollarship' or 'Earned their place in tournament combat'- examples given for each 'dot' level..
I just had a rather poor view of the Quarantine Zone itself. I was seeing it more as a wall patrolled by autonomous kill-bots. I think this was mostly because the section conserning Alchemical motivation for Xexas in the Autochthonia book that mentions diplomacy is impossible.
To quote from Compass of Celestial Directions: Autochthonia, "Xexas holds no hope of compromise with its environment;
the spirits of the scrap plains below are mad and vicious, and the destroyers of the Quarrantine Layer beyond parley. The hanging city instead seeks Champions to extend its influence beyond the confines of the Pole of
Smoke."
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Impossible is kind of the task for which you requisition Exalted.
Mortal diplomacy may be impossible; Alchemical diplomacy is only difficult.
Or should be; depends on how you choose to run things.
I mean, you could talk and come to some sort of mutually beneficial agreement.
You could also sneak in and Personality Override Spike the destroyer patrolling a particular area to let authorized parties through.
Or impersonate something with authorization codes to change their tasking.
- Location
- Spain
I don't agree. Creation is a very different place if the anwer to that question is one, five or a hundred.
And here.... well. Moral and ethical challenges are actually ultimately grounded in practical problems. "Should i turn this bunch of rescued orphans in an army of child supersoldiers" it's only a meaningful question if having an army is necesary (Or at least useful) for your plans.
Nah, bro. Do it the Abyssal way.
Turn the orphans' hun souls into child supersoldier ghosts, their po souls into child supersoldier hungry ghosts, and their bodies into child superzombies.
Get three times the bang for your dead orphan buck!
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
And here we see that EarthScorpion is a friendly and great person who makes sure to recycle as to not harm the environment!
Be like EarthScorpion!
Revlid
blob of bugs
- Location
- England
In Bioshock, you're presented with the choice of murdering small children for the sake of unimaginable power, or letting them live.
Except it's not like the game enters hard mode if you make the "moral choice" not to eat their sea-slug tumours, so letting them live isn't some great principled stand or sacrifice, it's just a matter of not being a huge dick for no reason. Hell, it's worse – you're rewarded for letting them live with stuff that's arguably better than the power you'd get from chowing down on sea-slug tartar!
So yes, utility and relative power are absolutely relevant to ethics, because utility and relative power determine when you have to (or are tempted to) compromise your principles. If you never have to, or it's never a really pressing temptation, then anyone who does start swimming in the deep end of the alignment pool just looks like a sadistic dick wielding their infinite power in horrible ways for no real reason.
So the question of whether a Solar warrior can kill ten men on their own matters. As does the question of a hundred men, and a thousand, and a million – because as much as Exalted likes to play with questions of "do you have the right to kill a thousand men on your own" or "oh fuck you just killed a thousand men on your own", it's also important to have the question of "you can't kill a thousand men on your own, what are you going to do to get out of this situation?".
Are you going to commit a few war crimes to even the odds? Call in favours you really shouldn't? Run away and live to fight another day? It's important to have these questions forced on the players.
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