This was more amusing than usual, due to literally ALL THE DICE. And I noticed you claimed the Infernal token.
How did Piper keep a two-way convo going for that long? Standard stunt mote regen?
And the exorcist lady has a UMI stealth effect going on, huh.
And what might be disturbing levels of interest in the PC.
Looking forward to seeing that work out.
So one thing you'll have noted about Sunlit Sands is that Inks does
not have oodles of diagnostic charms yet. I'm only just now starting to get them. A diagnostic charm, for the record, is one that confers or generates information. Last session I picked up Evidence Discerning Method and Judge's Ear, just in time to talk with Exorcist lady. Information is unimaginable power in almost any situation, especially in games. Part of Exalted's challenge as both player and storyteller, is effectively conveying meaningful, actionable information.
Like, this is something you don't get Told by the game, you have to learn, but as I've said before, even an excellency-boosted Exalt is not actually exhibiting true superhuman capability. They can compress the timescale, or call out genius on demand, but generally speaking, until you have an effect that says 'you can do this', raw successes only carry you so far.
Specifically, I don't have All-Encompassing Sorcerer's Sight, so I can't just flip on the charm and look at Exorcist, roll per+occult and instantly grasp her nature or the effects/mechanics of her powers. I have to do it the hard way by in-and-out of character deduction. It's Aleph's job to make sure that's
possible. And the books don't teach you how.
So, shifting the topic not-so-subtly back to Inksgame...
I had fun this session! We got payoff on a bunch of things I've been setting up (you do not know how long I was sitting on those Exorcist notes and giggling over the scribbles in the margins), started expanding Inks' influence outside Gem (friggin' bullshit 12-success rolls to summarise a polity I'd expected her to only have distant interactions with for another five to six sessions or so goddammit) and cured Ajjim, yay! (I would totally have had him die horribly from his organs melting if he'd failed or botched that roll and maybe one more high-Diff stabilisation roll from Inks, and then given her a traumatised five-year old tigergirl to look after).
We also, uh, tracked down and cornered a stealth-focused Exorcist who'd maxed out her own pool on a fucking 6% probability pair of rolls where Inks did bullshit well and the Exorcist did amazingly badly.
... I really was not expecting that. Inks was meant to find a creepy trail of people who didn't want to acknowledge what they'd seen and had suppressed the memories and needed Inks to almost rip it out of them by force because of how much WP they had to spend to break the 'don't think about it' compulsion; leaving her with nothing but chills up her spine and some disturbing information about her target's capabilities that she could put to use in tracking them down with a custom-made plan designed to compensate for their stealth magic. BUT I GUESS NOPE WE'RE HAVING THIS CONFRONTATION NOW, WHOOP DE DOO.
(Though it might perhaps make more sense now as to why the Exorcist freaked the fuck out when Inks found her the first time. It's a fairly reasonable reaction when your stalkee-waifu of several months shows up literally at your office door and goes "hi, I'm looking for a mysterious culprit who's committed several murders PS it's you".)
(... there were probably better reactions she could have taken than attempting "me no speak the firetongues, sorry" on a Perception 5 genius, admittedly, but in her defence she was taken by surprise and subjected to full blast Inks-prettiness at point blank range. A certain degree of bamboozlement can be forgiven.)
Thinking about this- evaluating challenge is really difficult in Exalted. I was certainly not absolutely maxed out, but these kinds of situations
happen a lot even in fairly simple comparative checks.
Like, we agreed that whoever got 5 successes over each other wins the contest. Further, Aleph levied an External Penalty of -4, which Inks charmed down to -1; so right there, 6 successes were spent just 'not failing'. Now strictly speaking, I likely spent 8m +1wp to get my 5 successes, as I only have Invest 4 at the moment. Anyway, the point is that Aleph as a storyteller has to account for the fact that as long as I have motes, and Inks has around 49 free motes between scenes, Inks can drop 10 or so on handwaving Difficulty 5 or less. She asked me point blank 'why u max excellency all the time'?
This is why Aleph. This is why.
Difficulty generally isn't supposed to go much higher than 7, even though it does in rare magical cases. As the book points out, feats of legend are generally considered Diff 5 by mortals. Exalts just pay ten motes and then whatever successes they roll after that are icing. Exalts are challenged in turn by external penalties more than anything on top of difficulty.
Anyway, strictly speaking, yes the Exorcist should have at least tied that contest, with an expected result of at least 10d or so.
On that note, I'm a pretty strong proponent of 'Game' over 'Writing' when it comes to Exalted. I trust the dice, but Aleph is more used to co-storytelling than I am. So I personally don't plan in terms of plot-beats or 'moments', I more look at the context of the roll and decide (when I'm STing) what the results are in relation to what the player wanted and what other factors I am presently juggling.
I should also stress, that for those of you running or playing the game,
do not rush rolls. You are not supposed to roll until the ST or player has defined all relevant modifiers, doing so prejudices your results.
Whew. Rambling.
