General Exalted Thread

[RedV]

You can't do that any more than you can un-kill someone. Infernal Charms are generally built to make you increasingly inhuman and insane in exchange for being powerful and extremely convenient as long as you use them in their intended way. You don't get to buy the useful tool, use it and then undo the negative effects of buying the tool afterwards.

If you don't want to treat every personal relationship as something you can sever at will as if it had never existed, don't buy Freedom Lets Go. If you don't want to forever look at the world through a lens that only raw metaphysical power is attractive, don't buy Demonic Primacy of Essence. If you don't want to be bound to forever be more effective whenever you lie and be incapable of being effective while being honest, don't buy Witness to Darkness.

Of course, if you want the stuff that have these things as prerequisites, you probably are going to buy them, and that is a permanent alteration to your nature - less human, more Primordial.
These things are usually placed as prerequisites to juicy powerful effects for a reason.

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I think he's talking more on whether you can give up your knowledge of the charms itself, losing access to them, to mitigate the problems they cause.

I'm not sure how that interacts with 'no takebacks', but there should probably be a way to do it as a major campaign, if only to allow the player to remake their charmspread if they realize that they don't want to play that kind of character.

 

[Graypairofsocks]

I'll write up a post on what I mean in a little bit.

 

[Jon Chung]

I think he's talking more on whether you can give up your knowledge of the charms itself, losing access to them, to mitigate the problems they cause.

I'm not sure how that interacts with 'no takebacks', but there should probably be a way to do it as a major campaign, if only to allow the player to remake their charmspread if they realize that they don't want to play that kind of character.

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This falls neatly into the category of no takebacks. I wouldn't allow it any more than I'd allow time travel to undo a willingly made bad decision, for the same reasons. Besides, the player explicitly decided to buy the power, the power tells you what it does upfront with no trickery and the player did it anyway, so the player now rightfully has to live with it.

If the problem is that they didn't read the charm description and had no idea what the downsides are, it's probably fine to deal with this as an out-of-character retcon, but if they willingly choose to become like the Ebon Dragon in order to wield his mind-twisting powers, they don't get to use said mind-twisting powers freely then later go "oops, uh, I don't want to be like the Ebon Dragon anymore" and undo the purchase. They can try to be honest and straightforward while they have Witness to Darkness permanently on their character sheet.

 

[veekie]

Well, the way I personally see it is that Autochton's disease is intrinsic to him but not ALL of him. Certainly not the Faith and Dogma parts, but definitely intrinsic to his Innovation element.
What his deficiency produces is the ability to transcend limitations, the ability to deliberately alter his own nature, and his ability to innovate. So you don't necessarily need to take the disease to attain much of his charms. Being mortal already overqualifies you for most of the early charms, though I would expect some of these charms to explicitly remove the ability to forsake basic human needs until you transcend them.

I.e. rather than putting in a Tumor mechanic onto his charm tree root, the individual charms might bar you from extending your lifespan by normal means(and then later charms let you trade more things to raise it), bar you from ever reducing or forsaking the need for food, water and air(and then later charms may give you the ability to stockpile and convert nonstandard resources in place of these), etc.

 

[Imrix]

This falls neatly into the category of no takebacks. I wouldn't allow it any more than I'd allow time travel to undo a willingly made bad decision, for the same reasons.

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I don't agree. Fundamentally, if they want to unlearn a charm, either they've barely done anything with it and decided that it says unwanted things about their character, in which case it's a matter of little import... or they've done some significant things with it, and the results have led them to want to be rid of this power. In which case, okay, they can unlearn the charm - but what they did with it still happened, and still has consequences. If they twisted the mind of their lover with Ebon Dragon Charms at the height of a story arc, then there's a lot of potential in the character tearing the power of the Ultimate Darkness from themselves, and then trying to convince their former lover of the truth of what they've done and how much they've changed.

Essentially, you view the unlearning of these charms as a negation of consequences, like time travel or resurrection. I don't. I view it as a reaction to consequences, which engages with and perpetuates the stories.

 

[Jon Chung]

I don't agree. Fundamentally, if they want to unlearn a charm, either they've barely done anything with it and decided that it says unwanted things about their character, in which case it's a matter of little import... or they've done some significant things with it, and the results have led them to want to be rid of this power. In which case, okay, they can unlearn the charm - but what they did with it still happened, and still has consequences. If they twisted the mind of their lover with Ebon Dragon Charms at the height of a story arc, then there's a lot of potential in the character tearing the power of the Ultimate Darkness from themselves, and then trying to convince their former lover of the truth of what they've done and how much they've changed.

Essentially, you view the unlearning of these charms as a negation of consequences, like time travel or resurrection. I don't. I view it as a reaction to consequences, which engages with and perpetuates the stories.

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You make an explicit decision to make your character more Primordial and less human by taking that sort of charm, it's not like the charm description is lying to you - you know exactly what you're doing when you pay the 8XP to learn Murder is Meat. The correct thing to do here is not to allow the player to take it back if they regret it later, much like a player's decision to, let's say, kill some NPC may turn out in hindsight to have been a bad idea, but is still an immutable fact of history.

Example. You chose to learn Freedom Lets Go. Your character can now stop caring at will. If you regret it, don't ever actually activate the charm, but hey, you're never going to be rid of it. Maybe it'll be handy in the future, like if your sentimentality for a NPC is holding you back from massive political gains. Maybe you might think about using it, for the attachment is holding you back and Adorjan teaches you to cut off your legs so you can run faster. It's always gonna be there, offering tasty options.

Like in your quoted example, if the character regrets using Ebon Dragon Charms on their NPC lover, great - they can try to never use them again. Doesn't do anything with regard to the fact that they used them, or the fact that they now know them and have to deal with Witness to Darkness fucking up their attempts to confess their sins and receive forgiveness (if even possible without using even more Ebon Dragon Charms, kek). Doesn't stop the option to use Golden Years Tarnished Black whenever that would be useful from always being there. They decided to learn to be like the Ebon Dragon. They are now more like the Ebon Dragon.

That's the consequence that I want preserved and you would allow the PC to undo. This applies equally to the other splats, as well - a Solar Night Caste who's learned to wear anybody's face is not going to be allowed to forget Perfect Mirror because they've suddenly developed a case of squeamishness about impersonating people's daughters, giving their targets hugs and activating Crashing Wave Throw.

 

[Bursting Eagerness Soul]

Well, the way I personally see it is that Autochton's disease is intrinsic to him but not ALL of him. Certainly not the Faith and Dogma parts, but definitely intrinsic to his Innovation element.
What his deficiency produces is the ability to transcend limitations, the ability to deliberately alter his own nature, and his ability to innovate. So you don't necessarily need to take the disease to attain much of his charms. Being mortal already overqualifies you for most of the early charms, though I would expect some of these charms to explicitly remove the ability to forsake basic human needs until you transcend them.

I.e. rather than putting in a Tumor mechanic onto his charm tree root, the individual charms might bar you from extending your lifespan by normal means(and then later charms let you trade more things to raise it), bar you from ever reducing or forsaking the need for food, water and air(and then later charms may give you the ability to stockpile and convert nonstandard resources in place of these), etc.

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Yeah this seems reasonable. Maybe a way to incorporate it would be to have the state of Being Mortal count as Tumor 0 for the charm mechanics and peg that as the baseline for his charms, with higher levels further in. And then, while you have any non-zero level of Tumor, non-Tumor charms that let you transcend needs are altered/don't work as well.

 

[EarthScorpion]

That's the consequence that I want preserved and you would allow the PC to undo. This applies equally to the other splats, as well - a Solar Night Caste who's learned to wear anybody's face is not going to be allowed to forget Perfect Mirror because they've suddenly developed a case of squeamishness about impersonating people's daughters, giving their targets hugs and activating Crashing Wave Throw.

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"Among its practitioners, this technique is usually known as Uguu~ Fu."

 

[Peanuckle]

What if it was a mutual thing?

Sometimes Isidoros might walk through Autocthon's factory, because he felt like it.

Other times Autocthon vivisects a bunch of SWLIHN's favorite species because he was wondering how they worked.

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IIRC Autobot studied the Lintha extensively to learn how mortals might best use essence. Maybe Kimbery didn't know, or didn't care? Autobot loved the lesser races because they struggled through weakness like him. The other primordials might have only seen them as pets or momentary distractions from the Games of Divinity.

 

[RedV]

Does anyone feel that Terrestrial Spirits kind of swallow the space of Elementals? I mean, the Volcano God you sacrifice to should ideally be a Fire/Earth Elemental, with Spirits taking up the 'overseer' role (when they, say, come down from Yu Shan and see that the Elementals are paying their tithes to Heaven and the prayers are going well)

Like, you have local river elementals and tree elementals and insect elementals ( who resemble animal spirits and dryads and shit) and actual spirits are more like Dionysus when they come down from Heaven, overseeing the baser workers?

This might give more focus to the spirit niche of 'bureaucrats from Yu Shan' and gives Elementals something to do (being the forces of nature and the 'lower deities') which I don't think they get as a default.

 

[Sasha]

So... my game just sort of fell apart. One moment we're blowing up a wagon full of meth, the next someone is arguing with the ST about botches, 2 people have quit, and a third is probably on the way out.

I'm actually really sad right now. I was having a lot of fun and things were just starting to heat up in the story.

 

[Unbanshee]

So... my game just sort of fell apart. One moment we're blowing up a wagon full of meth, the next someone is arguing with the ST about botches, 2 people have quit, and a third is probably on the way out.

I'm actually really sad right now. I was having a lot of fun and things were just starting to heat up in the story.

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Some people play to win, others play to enjoy the experience of playing. It sucks when the two styles clash and break up gaming groups.

Let the ST know you liked how the game was was panning out and keep in touch with everyone who you want to game with in the future and maybe they can rope you into another game, or you can rope them into one you find.

 

[Shyft]

So this is primarily for @EarthScorpion with regard to the Trivial/Minor/Major Strategic Actions he's developed. @Aleph and I have been using them in Inksgame, and I have enjoyed them, but there is an issue that might be worth examining.

Trivial actions are, strategically, the fastest, usually comprising a single scene or handful of smaller scenes. Those same actions however, often take the longest to resolve on-camera because they're on camera. So there's almost a drive on my part as a player to 'slow down' a given action because I can abstract it into a single roll over however many weeks as a Minor Action, at the cost of granularity or 'spotlight awesomeness', which are both subjective but important qualities. Note that there's no real mechanical precedent for slowing things down- i haven't done so yet in-game.

I guess the question is, how many Trivial scenes are expected to happen per-session? Per Player? Do you have a mental framework that prevents meandering or roleplaying delays? Should there be mechanics or assumptions that curtail that?

Another angle to explore- what is the 'assumed' median unit of strategic time? The most common one that is meant to be invoked with regularity on the part of PCs or STs. Further- is the player supposed to be empowered before Charms to say 'I want to do this as a Minor/Major'. Trivial actions as you described them are 'of opportunity' or meant to allow for the fun on-camera actions like heists or whatnot, so that's more or less fine.

 

[EarthScorpion]

So this is primarily for @EarthScorpion with regard to the Trivial/Minor/Major Strategic Actions he's developed. @Aleph and I have been using them in Inksgame, and I have enjoyed them, but there is an issue that might be worth examining.

Trivial actions are, strategically, the fastest, usually comprising a single scene or handful of smaller scenes. Those same actions however, often take the longest to resolve on-camera because they're on camera. So there's almost a drive on my part as a player to 'slow down' a given action because I can abstract it into a single roll over however many weeks as a Minor Action, at the cost of granularity or 'spotlight awesomeness', which are both subjective but important qualities. Note that there's no real mechanical precedent for slowing things down- i haven't done so yet in-game.

I guess the question is, how many Trivial scenes are expected to happen per-session? Per Player? Do you have a mental framework that prevents meandering or roleplaying delays? Should there be mechanics or assumptions that curtail that?

Another angle to explore- what is the 'assumed' median unit of strategic time? The most common one that is meant to be invoked with regularity on the part of PCs or STs. Further- is the player supposed to be empowered before Charms to say 'I want to do this as a Minor/Major'. Trivial actions as you described them are 'of opportunity' or meant to allow for the fun on-camera actions like heists or whatnot, so that's more or less fine.

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To a large degree, this system is based off a mix of my experience with a DB game I was in back at university, and then cross-referencing other "large scale / small scale" systems and works - especially the Total War series, which with its "Turn based strategic scale / real time battles" kind of operates at an Exalted empire-building scale (ie, above the character scale).

So, what would happen in the DB game is the GM would ask us what our plans for the season would be, and that'd set up the background activities and produce plot hooks for the session. That's why the Major Action/Minor Action stuff operates on a seasonal basis - and Trivial actions exist to allow players to just take time to get the team-up stuff done.

Do also note that Trivial Actions do not need to be a scene, if they're suitably trivial. For example, with @Aleph, stealing treasure from the local prince if she's just doing it to get her hands on a piece of art or to acquire funds in the local currency doesn't need to be a major heist - that's just a one roll thing.

As a result of that, if your character doesn't want to take any Trivial actions and wants to focus on getting their major projects completed, that... just happens. Narratively, that's the story of your deeds going "Six months later, Inks looked over at her new dam with a contented expression. It had been hard work, but it was finally done".

For the question of the default, as it stands it basically exists at a practical level at the moment, working off rule of thumb for "how long something should take". A Minor Action is one that takes a few weeks - a Major Action is one that takes the best part of a season (probably 2+ months). As a result, in the current provisional model, the pre-Charm time to do such things basically involves the player saying their overall goal, and the GM breaking the goal down into sub-tasks which may or may not have dependencies on previous tasks. As a result, the default assumption is that the player doesn't have much control over the length of time the Tasks take.

Now, on the other hand, I can easily see space for such things - for example, if @Aleph wanted to survey an area for manse-OK geomantic sites, I'd offer a Minor Survey or a Major Survey, with the Major having a reduced difficulty due to taking more time over it/covering a wider area and so being able to inspect more prospective sites.

Again, as it exists, the system is more of a loose framework to give a shared vocabulary for marking out blocks of downtime for "I'm going to be doing this" and also for allowing team-work in a more meaningful way than the canon teamwork rules. For example, in canon, your War-focussed Dawn caste is basically useless when your Twilight plans to build a manse. In this system, the Dawn can carry out the "gather the workforce" stuff because with his War things, he can justify using War to improve the physique of the peasants they hire through training so what begins as undernourished peasants, with a season of exercises and proper food, becomes a well-trained and drilled workforce (that the Dawn can later call upon when they need to raise an army). And that means the Twilight doesn't need to carry out the Gather the Workforce action, and can instead focus on Sourcing the Materials - except, wait, no, their Eclipse with their Bureaucracy can do that, which means the Twilight is freed up to Negotiate With The Local Elementals which ensures that the local elementals will cooperate with the building and won't try to subvert it. And so between them, they've put three Major Actions of effort into it, and by the end of the Season, the Twilight has a trained, healthy workforce, has plenty of marble and the required amount of jade, and the elementals are pacified and cooperative. Which means they've just got to build the manse itself, which is the work of a few seasons of labour which may not even need the party there if they have a trained supervisor who can handle overseeing the physical construction now that the elemental won't object.

(that is to say, they can outsource the Oversee Construction action to a trained thaumaturge or something)

 

[Shyft]

To a large degree, this system is based off a mix of my experience with a DB game I was in back at university, and then cross-referencing other "large scale / small scale" systems and works - especially the Total War series, which with its "Turn based strategic scale / real time battles" kind of operates at an Exalted empire-building scale (ie, above the character scale).

So, what would happen in the DB game is the GM would ask us what our plans for the season would be, and that'd set up the background activities and produce plot hooks for the session. That's why the Major Action/Minor Action stuff operates on a seasonal basis - and Trivial actions exist to allow players to just take time to get the team-up stuff done.

Do also note that Trivial Actions do not need to be a scene, if they're suitably trivial. For example, with @Aleph, stealing treasure from the local prince if she's just doing it to get her hands on a piece of art or to acquire funds in the local currency doesn't need to be a major heist - that's just a one roll thing.

As a result of that, if your character doesn't want to take any Trivial actions and wants to focus on getting their major projects completed, that... just happens. Narratively, that's the story of your deeds going "Six months later, Inks looked over at her new dam with a contented expression. It had been hard work, but it was finally done".

For the question of the default, as it stands it basically exists at a practical level at the moment, working off rule of thumb for "how long something should take". A Minor Action is one that takes a few weeks - a Major Action is one that takes the best part of a season (probably 2+ months). As a result, in the current provisional model, the pre-Charm time to do such things basically involves the player saying their overall goal, and the GM breaking the goal down into sub-tasks which may or may not have dependencies on previous tasks. As a result, the default assumption is that the player doesn't have much control over the length of time the Tasks take.

Now, on the other hand, I can easily see space for such things - for example, if @Aleph wanted to survey an area for manse-OK geomantic sites, I'd offer a Minor Survey or a Major Survey, with the Major having a reduced difficulty due to taking more time over it/covering a wider area and so being able to inspect more prospective sites.

Again, as it exists, the system is more of a loose framework to give a shared vocabulary for marking out blocks of downtime for "I'm going to be doing this" and also for allowing team-work in a more meaningful way than the canon teamwork rules. For example, in canon, your War-focussed Dawn caste is basically useless when your Twilight plans to build a manse. In this system, the Dawn can carry out the "gather the workforce" stuff because with his War things, he can justify using War to improve the physique of the peasants they hire through training so what begins as undernourished peasants, with a season of exercises and proper food, becomes a well-trained and drilled workforce (that the Dawn can later call upon when they need to raise an army). And that means the Twilight doesn't need to carry out the Gather the Workforce action, and can instead focus on Sourcing the Materials - except, wait, no, their Eclipse with their Bureaucracy can do that, which means the Twilight is freed up to Negotiate With The Local Elementals which ensures that the local elementals will cooperate with the building and won't try to subvert it. And so between them, they've put three Major Actions of effort into it, and by the end of the Season, the Twilight has a trained, healthy workforce, has plenty of marble and the required amount of jade, and the elementals are pacified and cooperative. Which means they've just got to build the manse itself, which is the work of a few seasons of labour which may not even need the party there if they have a trained supervisor who can handle overseeing the physical construction now that the elemental won't object.

(that is to say, they can outsource the Oversee Construction action to a trained thaumaturge or something)

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Alright, so it has a sort of implicit framing or 'turn structure'. And I agree that teamwork is a major mechanical element. Running concurrent actions should be easy. Dependencies should be kept to, if not a minimum, made very managable. You want to avoid blocking issues.

The explanation does help.

 

[EarthScorpion]

Alright, so it has a sort of implicit framing or 'turn structure'. And I agree that teamwork is a major mechanical element. Running concurrent actions should be easy. Dependencies should be kept to, if not a minimum, made very managable. You want to avoid blocking issues.

The explanation does help.

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Yeah, the Season is basically the turn here - hence the whole "One Major, one Minor" or "Three Minors" thing per season. It's enough time that a character can do one big thing and then one smaller thing that can either be something like "run the organisation I'm in charge of" or "help another PC", or someone can do a bunch of smaller things being a jack of all trades.

And the Seasonal basis has another advantage - it means that the likely problems the PCs get will be very seasonal based. In the South West, for example, @Aleph knows that the season of Fire is hurricane season. If she starts doing major actions then, especially big naval actions - well, she better have magic that can avoid a hurricane, or else she might lose the entire fleet. In the East, characters should probably avoid pulling too many workers from the fields in harvest time, but during the Season of Air a lot of day labourers will have nothing to do so that's the perfect time to start a road-building campaign... if you can handle the climate. And so on.

 

[Wi'se]

So... my game just sort of fell apart. One moment we're blowing up a wagon full of meth, the next someone is arguing with the ST about botches, 2 people have quit, and a third is probably on the way out.

I'm actually really sad right now. I was having a lot of fun and things were just starting to heat up in the story.

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Some people play to win, others play to enjoy the experience of playing. It sucks when the two styles clash and break up gaming groups.

Let the ST know you liked how the game was was panning out and keep in touch with everyone who you want to game with in the future and maybe they can rope you into another game, or you can rope them into one you find.

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In my group we're all long childhood friends that happened to end up doing gaming together than people that met because of gaming. The closest to 'strangers' were like when significant others, little siblings, and cousins joined in. The few times we let a stranger with a mutual interest in, it ended in epic disasters since the people tended to have massive mental health issues (for example, and this is after we parted ways, one guy ended up in jail after stabbing someone with one of the knives belonging to his absurdly large collection). So we thankfully avoided most of that nonsense from imploding our games. The downside is, we're so full of house rules and unspoken head cannon that I'm sure it word be awkward AF to bring in new people.

So if you can mange to bring together a like minded group, it's awesome, especially if you do become good enough friends where you never have to worry about someone ruining the fun by trying to 'win'. The drawbacks though to such long bonded groups lie in the above paragraph. Good luck though

 

[RedV]

People who have significant experience with 3e- I have an E2 Brawl Supernal Solar who isn't as good as combat as he should be because I haven't invested too much in defense.

I'm thinking of taking either Dodge or Resistance (I have sxp saved to buy the skill up and all) charms in downtime, so is a Brawl + Resistance build or a Brawl + Dodge build more effective?

 

[Salty]

People who have significant experience with 3e- I have an E2 Brawl Supernal Solar who isn't as good as combat as he should be because I haven't invested too much in defense.

I'm thinking of taking either Dodge or Resistance (I have sxp saved to buy the skill up and all) charms in downtime, so is a Brawl + Resistance build or a Brawl + Dodge build more effective?

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Dodge has a perfect.

 

[Lioness]

IIRC, there was a really vague guideline somewhere in 2e core.

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I know.
It's just my experience that 2e storytellers really needed to be told that the flow of the narrative was far more important than rewarding bonus successes. What was particularly unfortunate was when social situations ended up coming across as magical mind control.

 

[RedV]

Dodge has a perfect.

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Is Dodge better for defensive dips than Resistance, then? I thought SSE was once per scene- does combat when played out mean that it provides a better effective defense anyway?

It's my first time with actually playing 3e instead of 2e so I haven't actually seen this version SSE in action since it's like a one player game and I haven't fought any Solars.

 

[Accelerator]

How does one choose what kind of naming scheme there is for demons? Any kind of guideline?

I'm wishing to make a first circle demon based on forge of night. I'm not sure what form it should be like, but its basically meant to repair or make things whole again. People, broken vases, ruins? Destroyed dragonlines.

Problem? Remember what Alvuela said? Remake the place? Same thing. When the first circle demon rebuilds stuff, they do it and taint it with yozis. Maybe you lose an arm, and then the one that it grew back for you is now one that resembles a crab pincer. Maybe the shattered vase you have now has malfean brass in it. Maybe the destroyed painting they fixed up now has prayers to the Yozis on it.

And when they heal people? They get better. But they change. They get essence, yes. They get charms, yes. Thing is, those are all demonic. So you can slowly lose your humanity, and gain power, even though that is from demons.

That's my idea. Sorry if I seem to copy it from somewhere else.

 

[Jon Chung]

I know.
It's just my experience that 2e storytellers really needed to be told that the flow of the narrative was far more important than rewarding bonus successes. What was particularly unfortunate was when social situations ended up coming across as magical mind control.

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It is, though. A totally unmagical social attack hitting with one threshold success could compel the target to do anything short of suicide or contradicting their Motivation.

 

[Lioness]

People who have significant experience with 3e- I have an E2 Brawl Supernal Solar who isn't as good as combat as he should be because I haven't invested too much in defense.

I'm thinking of taking either Dodge or Resistance (I have sxp saved to buy the skill up and all) charms in downtime, so is a Brawl + Resistance build or a Brawl + Dodge build more effective?

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I'd say Dodge is overall the more powerful of the two but Resistance has synergy with armour if you're going in that direction.

 

[RedV]

I'd say Dodge is overall the more powerful of the two but Resistance has synergy with armour if you're going in that direction.

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Thank you! I'm not going for armour, so I suppose Dodge it is.