- Location
- ?
And obviously I disagree on that.
It's frankly kind of depressing that I worked on this set for a year and 90% of the discussion is about the first Charm being bad.
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General Exalted Thread
And obviously I disagree on that.
It's frankly kind of depressing that I worked on this set for a year and 90% of the discussion is about the first Charm being bad.
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
You've ran into the problem that the main Dragon-Blooded player here (that is to say, me
) doesn't really play 3e, or is interested in it in any significant degree.But I've followed your Charmset quite a bit and think it's pretty well-done - and even if nothing else, quite an impressive effort - I think the Charms are interesting and look fairly good mechanically, though I'm not the greatest of judges there, your work is certainly commendable and so is your dedication to this - I wished I could commend you on more, but I've run into the issue that I'm just not interested in 3e, which renders me rather incapable of properly complimenting them on their full merits.
I have threadmarked them however!
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- Location
- Ottawa
Yeah, sorry about that. Didn't really intend to pursue this so far; just picked it as a convenient example of my problems with your approach.
Tell you what, I'll go through the Charmset and see if I can offer some more constructive comments. I'll probably put them on the document, seems more practical than doing it here.
- Location
- ?
Thanks, I appreciate it.
Touch of Sepia
Artisan of the Vital Tincture
- Location
- Connecticut
I don't subscribe to that - Exalts are Exalts. I've played with a Dawn who shirked any responsibility and swept barracks rather than train soldiers. I've had npcs every bit the equal and more of equal aged Exalted PC's. Each Exalt is an individual with their own drives - I don't give PC's any special treatment. I'd feel special treatment would break immersion, but then I run story focused.
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Walker of the Yellow Path
Ho There!
- Location
- The Land of Memes
In 3e, are their Charms or effects that protect from Knockback?
That's an entirely valid playstyle, but it's not the default assumption:
Stephen Lea Sheppard said:
Stephen Lea Sheppard said:
Imrix
Periodically Malevolent QM
*Waggles hand*
The published material actually doesn't make a statement on that either way, and SLS, while often pretty smart, isn't a definitive source. As far as I can tell, the game is open to either interpretation, depending on what suits your game better.
- Location
- New York City
Third Edition does explicitly state his key point, that NPCs do not use training times and advance as the ST feels is necessary on p. 179. Just giving context, he was speaking in reference to that in the above quotes.
So I don't know if that was the assumption in previous editions, but it is the assumption in Third.
So I don't know if that was the assumption in previous editions, but it is the assumption in Third.
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- Location
- The Pagoda of Masks
This, the red rule and similar things are made explicit in 3e now, but I've always assumed them to be the case. You give stats to NPCs based on what they are supposed to be able to do, not what they should be able to afford if they had to worry about XP.
- Location
- New York City
I think they're reasonable assumptions to make for most games, but I can see that that the assumption is inadequate for some folks. Different strokes for different folks.
Touch of Sepia
Artisan of the Vital Tincture
- Location
- Connecticut
Not really. Red Rule, sure whatever, if you want to play more LotR than Game of Thrones. Preferably, everyone grows to deal with it - actors are expected to kiss on stage even in High School.
Then, what I'm seeing here is 3E, "NPCs do not use training times and advance as the ST feels is necessary" - which speaks nothing to PC's advance faster than anyone else. Plenty of games cover large spans of time or last a long time. I don't freeze the progression of the rest of the world when the PC spotlight is not there - the PC's in Whitewall continue to advance as those in Rokanjin or whatever.
That said, I slow exp gains by intervals till it's a drip - letting PC's gain the majority of their experience from that point with writing asides/philosophies/crafting explanations and so on. Enriching the content of the game and the characters, can only fit so much into a ~5 hour session a week. Plus, baby Exalts all have meteoric rises when they first come about - and slow by steps after that. Least, that was my take away from 2E and I don't see ever making the transition to 3E (wasted so much money on Core - sigh).
- Location
- New York City
I'm... Not sure I follow the point you're making. 3e also says that PCs advance faster than NPCs by virtue of using these systems.
If I'm understanding you correctly, you're saying you dislike that, and prefer to do things differently, and you give exp when your players do bluebooking type stuff, writing stuff between sessions? I feel like I'm missing parts of what you're trying to say here.
- Location
- Library
Why again Lunars are doing nothing? Creating and empowering old scraps of Order Conferring Trade Pattern to bootstraps local economy in inhuman short period of time and then equip the whole army to send in against Realm satrapies in good, old "dead by thousand cuts" game against Dragon-blooded is minimum of what they can and should do. (Now, this pose difficult problem to Sidereals - should they destroy old ruins and scraps of magic holding Creation together against Wyld to deny Lunars strategic advantage against Realm? Exalted Tragedy is made of such choices...)
Well, given that on sufficiently long period of time all fiat currencies crash and burn in predictable way, can you blame him? Also, remember why Bretton-Woods ended? Triffin dilemma. France under de Gaulle ended the polite lie that dollar can be exchanged for physical gold by demanding to exchange french reserves of dollars into the gold. The USA officially reported reserves melted from 20'000 ton after WWII to less than 9'000 ton, collapsing London Gold Pool and wrecking some havoc in your country (if I am right that you are from UK?). I mean USA still enforce offloading its prodigious inflation on whole world by essentially holding the gun to the head of everyone else, but BRICs lead by China is working to end it, which will... not end in happy way.
That is, to stay on topic of epic Exalted, great plot for campaign. I run only one story for Sidereals, and they were facing conspiracy of Western trade conglomerates (guilds? I don't run single GUILD, because Creation too big for that) backed by Lunar coven (because I wanted Lunars to be something other than barbarians and they are great businessmen and businesswomen with their shapeshifting and charisma, as it turns out) , which conspired with God of Silver to crash realm fiat currency like de Gaulle did to USA by using web of trade agreements with satraps and Great Hauses.
Efficient Secretary Technique is overpowered.
Yes, actually. I can completely and comprehensively blame him. Goldbugs are just plain wrong. The main supply of pro-gold-standard people these days resides in libertarians, Austrian-school economists, and other people noted for their complete detachment from "how economics works in practice". Gold has no intrinsic value and you don't want your currency tied to a commodity, least of all one that's actually used for things.
And jade is used for a lot of things. Hell, as I already said, jade is deflationary by its very nature because there are tonnes and tonnes of uses for jade and so people are going to take your jade dinars and turn them into Stuff.
(Also, your "on sufficiently long period of time" is a weasel term - especially when we know for a fact that prices have been much more stable on fiat money than the wild swings they experienced on the gold or silver standards.)
- Pronouns
- They/Them
They've been more stable on modern fiat money. Yes, you're right, Goldbugs are horrible, but there's at least some reason to think, for instance, that fiat currency is something that a pre-modern government (which has pre-modern government tools of state control) can't really pull off correctly. That doesn't make gold better, it just makes the government unable to make (or even know about in some cases) the best choice successfully.
Fiat currency done badly (which is to say done by a country that doesn't have the level of control to prevent run-away inflation that most modern countries have, easily.)
I mean, that said, yes, it does sound like Jade's a stupid non-fiat currency. But it could simply be that they're unable to implement Fiat currency without it running into problems that basically fuck it over or make it liable to be replaced in the long run (IE, China never got a century into a fiat currency regime in pre-modern times, again not because fiat currency is the devil, but just because they were unable to regulate certain things.)
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- Location
- Singapore
To you, does every dragonblooded have a jade daiklave?
No, not every Dragonblooded is a warrior.
And of those that are warriors not all of them use swords.
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Well, the Dragon-Blooded character I'm playing, Chiming Minaret wields a Moonsilver-Jade Reaper Daiklave that can do all kinds of weird shit, but has also recently taken to using a bow of Orichalcum-Jade, with which she casts Flight of The Brilliant Raptor and anihilates enemy formations with aimed bolts of stolen solar fire.
- Location
- Ottawa
Wait, since when is Grabowski opposed to fiat currency?
I've never heard anything about that.
I've never heard anything about that.
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
For the game that I'm doing for @horngeek:
Ys-Avarna
In the wood-warped waters of the Dreaming Sea, to the south of the island that is Ysyr lies Ys-Avarna; a tributary polity, subjugated to the whims of the sorcerer-lady Ys-Ereshikin - who bound it in chains with her mastery of the Black Art fivescore years ago - as part of Ysyran geopolitical aspirations towards complete dominion over the waters of the Dreaming Sea as to control the trade. Ys-Avarna resisted the conquest, yet could not do much in the face of their own graves rising against them and eventually submitted themselves to the will of the sorcerer that would become their lady. After two hundred years under Ysyran dominion, Ys-Avarna has transformed from an oppressed polity to a crown jewel in the Ysyran expanse, and is now under the administration of Ys-Ereshikin's successor; Ys-Ereshimi, whose militant aspirations towards the southern steppes has filled the hearts and minds of many Ys-Avarnans with dreams of glory and fame in service to the Ysyran war machine.
Ys-Avarna itself is a fertile and beautiful land - emerald grasses and vibrant wildlife, occasionally interrupted by the viridian waters of the Dreaming Sea make the island a jewel in the crown of Ysyr, and it's many villages and townships have achieved much fame in the empire for their craftmanship and skill in shaping the uniquely Avarnan hearthwood - a unique kind of tree that grows exclusively on Avarna and which has the hardness of steel with sufficient cultivation and thaumaturgical treatment - that has become a valuable export declared a property of Ysyr's sorcerer-lords first and foremost, to prevent it from being used by Ysyr's enemies. Ys-Avarna's people are dark-skinned and tall - a result of living on the fertile and sunlit land for so long. The Avarnans came to the island in the year of RY 13; settling the fertile land with scattered villages and townships, finding plenty of resources and thus avoiding resource conflict for several generations; it was not before the sixth generation of Avarnan children had passed that the first signs of war had set their mark on the land. The population of Avarna then was too small to allow for effective warfare, but armour material was plentiful in the form of hearthwood, which led to the development of the Merciless Puppet-Champion - a wooden suit of armour, taller than any man and controlled by a pilot within, with the use of hundreds of strings. Instead of warfare, a system was developed where Merciless Puppet-Champions would duel in order to settle disputes - this system grew obsolete as the population grew and was capable of sustaining regular warfare, but the use of the Merciless Puppet-Champions remained an integral part.
Ys-Avarna has no singular ruler, but it used to have a single code of law, maintained and interpreted by the landastinga - the chief judicial body of the island, which was supported by various, more local folkastinga which ensured judgement for more common crimes, as opposed to the administrative duties often associated with the landastinga. The Ysyran conquest changed this and subjected Ys-Avarna to the legal code of Ysyr, as well as let the island be ruled by Ys-Ereshimi, who mostly rules with a lax, laizzes-faire style to pursue her studies in The Black Art, but occasionally intervenes in judgements made by her appointed magistrates; she has taken no apprentices, but has recruited a fearsome bodyguard of four Ys-Avarnans and their black-lacquered Merciless Puppet-Champions - an unprecedented number of Puppet-Champions. While Ys-Avarna is thus technically an absolute monarchy, subject to the whims of Ys-Ereshimi, it is practically a cluster of city-states, each of them using different systems of government, from tyrrany to even democracy.
Ys-Avarna serves a vital role to Ysyr, for not only does it allow them to more effectively control the trans-Dreaming Sea trade, but also allows them to launch attacks on the southern steppe tribes and serves as a vital harbor between Ysyr and Palanquin, where ships can be maintained, repaired and equipped for various tasks. As such, Ysyr has vested significant military power to ensure that it is well guarded and protected at all times, with a fleet of fifty ships - these consisting of one score and five triremes, bolstered by a strong core of ten quinqueremes, which carry the sorcerous products of Ys-Ereshimi to do it's gruesome work, while fourteen quadremes make a devastating opposition and the single hexareme, that is the flagship - which bears the name of The Queen of Creation And The Waves Upon It's Seas - is captained by Ys-Ereshimi herself. To attack Ys-Avarna head-on would be an exercise in futility and nigh-impossible without magical aid of some sort, and this is before factoring in the workings of the dread sorcerer-queen who rules it.
(And yes, I have reasons that they use triremes now shut up.)
Ys-Avarna
In the wood-warped waters of the Dreaming Sea, to the south of the island that is Ysyr lies Ys-Avarna; a tributary polity, subjugated to the whims of the sorcerer-lady Ys-Ereshikin - who bound it in chains with her mastery of the Black Art fivescore years ago - as part of Ysyran geopolitical aspirations towards complete dominion over the waters of the Dreaming Sea as to control the trade. Ys-Avarna resisted the conquest, yet could not do much in the face of their own graves rising against them and eventually submitted themselves to the will of the sorcerer that would become their lady. After two hundred years under Ysyran dominion, Ys-Avarna has transformed from an oppressed polity to a crown jewel in the Ysyran expanse, and is now under the administration of Ys-Ereshikin's successor; Ys-Ereshimi, whose militant aspirations towards the southern steppes has filled the hearts and minds of many Ys-Avarnans with dreams of glory and fame in service to the Ysyran war machine.
Ys-Avarna itself is a fertile and beautiful land - emerald grasses and vibrant wildlife, occasionally interrupted by the viridian waters of the Dreaming Sea make the island a jewel in the crown of Ysyr, and it's many villages and townships have achieved much fame in the empire for their craftmanship and skill in shaping the uniquely Avarnan hearthwood - a unique kind of tree that grows exclusively on Avarna and which has the hardness of steel with sufficient cultivation and thaumaturgical treatment - that has become a valuable export declared a property of Ysyr's sorcerer-lords first and foremost, to prevent it from being used by Ysyr's enemies. Ys-Avarna's people are dark-skinned and tall - a result of living on the fertile and sunlit land for so long. The Avarnans came to the island in the year of RY 13; settling the fertile land with scattered villages and townships, finding plenty of resources and thus avoiding resource conflict for several generations; it was not before the sixth generation of Avarnan children had passed that the first signs of war had set their mark on the land. The population of Avarna then was too small to allow for effective warfare, but armour material was plentiful in the form of hearthwood, which led to the development of the Merciless Puppet-Champion - a wooden suit of armour, taller than any man and controlled by a pilot within, with the use of hundreds of strings. Instead of warfare, a system was developed where Merciless Puppet-Champions would duel in order to settle disputes - this system grew obsolete as the population grew and was capable of sustaining regular warfare, but the use of the Merciless Puppet-Champions remained an integral part.
Ys-Avarna has no singular ruler, but it used to have a single code of law, maintained and interpreted by the landastinga - the chief judicial body of the island, which was supported by various, more local folkastinga which ensured judgement for more common crimes, as opposed to the administrative duties often associated with the landastinga. The Ysyran conquest changed this and subjected Ys-Avarna to the legal code of Ysyr, as well as let the island be ruled by Ys-Ereshimi, who mostly rules with a lax, laizzes-faire style to pursue her studies in The Black Art, but occasionally intervenes in judgements made by her appointed magistrates; she has taken no apprentices, but has recruited a fearsome bodyguard of four Ys-Avarnans and their black-lacquered Merciless Puppet-Champions - an unprecedented number of Puppet-Champions. While Ys-Avarna is thus technically an absolute monarchy, subject to the whims of Ys-Ereshimi, it is practically a cluster of city-states, each of them using different systems of government, from tyrrany to even democracy.
Ys-Avarna serves a vital role to Ysyr, for not only does it allow them to more effectively control the trans-Dreaming Sea trade, but also allows them to launch attacks on the southern steppe tribes and serves as a vital harbor between Ysyr and Palanquin, where ships can be maintained, repaired and equipped for various tasks. As such, Ysyr has vested significant military power to ensure that it is well guarded and protected at all times, with a fleet of fifty ships - these consisting of one score and five triremes, bolstered by a strong core of ten quinqueremes, which carry the sorcerous products of Ys-Ereshimi to do it's gruesome work, while fourteen quadremes make a devastating opposition and the single hexareme, that is the flagship - which bears the name of The Queen of Creation And The Waves Upon It's Seas - is captained by Ys-Ereshimi herself. To attack Ys-Avarna head-on would be an exercise in futility and nigh-impossible without magical aid of some sort, and this is before factoring in the workings of the dread sorcerer-queen who rules it.
(And yes, I have reasons that they use triremes now shut up.)
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Namely, that the Dreaming Sea is much more like the Mediterranean in how it operates than the oceans that the Realm normally operates with, IIRC.
DO I SEE
A MAJOR ANTAGONIST FOR DILARA
I THINK I DO
(For context, I'm playing a character from the nomads of said southern steppes)
Are you going to be compiling your play-logs and sharing them Kerisgame style? And if so, could we have links?