RDR2 basically happens right at the point where advancements in transport technology would start to make that no longer the case, iirc.
General Exalted Thread
RDR2 basically happens right at the point where advancements in transport technology would start to make that no longer the case, iirc.
- Location
- Ekaterinburg, Russia
From what I remember from 2E, the Great Geas had not explicitly forbidden the Mountain Folk from being on surface, especially not under threat of petrification.
I recall that it was along the lines of "unless invited by a Celestial Exalt, and/or under orders/contract to work for them, may not spend more than a month aboveground".
Am I wrong?
- Location
- Pittsburgh, PA
On my end, I tend to use @EarthScorpion's rewrite where the Men of Adamant were Autochthon's original creations, who then crafted the Men of Jade to provide cheap, disposable soldiers for the Incarnate Rebellion - and then banned further production of them once the war ended, because the Jadeborn fell far short of their exacting quality standards, and any offspring they carved would be even worse.
General Exalted Thread - Megathread - Pen & Paper | Page 1213
Dunno, I'll have to check.
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Okay, now I've read The Realm. I have thoughts on it, which I will provide later, when I have more time. Some parts impressed me greatly, some parts were to be expected and some points actually quite disappointed me. As a whole, it is definitely a good book, though.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
- Location
- United States
You are ignoring content by this member.
Show ignored content
Shame Medo didn't get included in the book, since I think it's a fairly interesting new satrapy. It's a place where ancestor worship is a positive thing that's not Sijan for once, there's a cool Slavic aesthetic to them, and it's tied to Tepet which, in my opinion, is one of the more interesting Houses due to its position. Did we really need the Lap detailed again? It's a good book, but oof, there was some missteps here and there.
To some degree, each edition must assume the previous doesn't exist and that new people will not have read or will not buy old books. This was abused somewhat in 2E with the large sections copy pasted, but the Lap is nominally more relevant to more games than Medo.
No you're not.
MiracleGrow
Miracles for only $19.99 [They/Them]
- Location
- DOOR STUCK DOOR STUCK PLEASE I BEG U
My commission for my Dawn just finished. Loved the little extra thing he added in like the hair.
Her pants look a little goofy, but her circle struggled to at least get her to wear that.
Her pants look a little goofy, but her circle struggled to at least get her to wear that.
Last edited:
- Pronouns
- she/her
What's her story?My commission for my Dawn just finished. Loved the little extra thing he added in like the hair.
Her pants look a little goofy, but her circle struggled to at least get her to wear that.
The Realm book just came out The Realm - Onyx Path Publishing | Exalted 3rd Edition | DriveThruRPG.com
The Realm - Onyx Path Publishing | Exalted 3rd Edition | DriveThruRPG.com
MiracleGrow
Miracles for only $19.99 [They/Them]
- Location
- DOOR STUCK DOOR STUCK PLEASE I BEG U
Ana is essentially the Solar boogeyman of a Dragon Blood game I ST. But I also got to play her a couple of times.
Backstory wise I kind of have to be tight lipped about it. I really want to use Ana for some of the stories I want write. Beyond that Ana is a classic murder machine Dawn who uses both the Bow and her Artifact 5* sword Omincida. It can talk and I think you can figure out it's personality from the name alone. One of the times I got to play her she slaughtered the small army of a Infernal, killed him violently and took his heart as a trophy. She continued on with doing thing's like baiting Wyld Hunts after her, setting garrisons on fire, and destroying immaculate centers. It took four other solars to convince her to chill the hell out and join the circle.
She scared the piss out of my group of new exalted players the first time she showed up. Good lord was that funny, I really need to type out these games here.
Last edited:
Kalzky
The Patron Saint Of Thowing Stuff In The Sun
- Location
- MI
I just can't imagine why.
MiracleGrow
Miracles for only $19.99 [They/Them]
- Location
- DOOR STUCK DOOR STUCK PLEASE I BEG U
She is uhh, heroic in her own way. Even when she likes to say that fighting her means you give up ownership of your heart. Or uhh, throwing direboars into her Night castes house while they are sleeping as a joke. But the Night egged on a Tyrant Lizard to go after Ana last week. So its fair and they are besties so it's okay.
Her defining Intimacy is to be one of most renowned warriors to have ever lived. Notice I didn't say heroic or wretched.
Hm, so you say. But don't expect me to be surprised when a group of
(no but she is pretty cool tho')
MiracleGrow
Miracles for only $19.99 [They/Them]
- Location
- DOOR STUCK DOOR STUCK PLEASE I BEG U
Thank you~Hm, so you say. But don't expect me to be surprised when a group ofmeddling kidsDragon Blooded and theirdogWolf familiar pull off her mask and reveal a Slayer Caste Mark hiding under her Dawn Mark
(no but she is pretty cool tho')
Now I just need to get the Night Caste commissioned. Who is a utter shit weasel and her natural expression and purpose in life can be summed up as >:3
Solars can be terrible people, too. They can be like Voldemort, they do great things, terrible things, but great.
Honestly, my experience is that Solars who aren't terrible people are very much the exception, at that. Turns out the whole Epic Motivation thing tends to cause characters who are, to put it politely, somewhat intense and prone to disregarding other people.
Far as I can telll doing away with that was one of the things 3E actually did right.
Storytelling Action Part 1
- Location
- Gladstone, OR
So I have another large project on my mind- a sort of aggregate 'storytelling advice' essay that is large enough that I'm probably going to post it as a serial instead of one singular piece. This essay derives most of its concepts and terminology from Exalted 2nd edition, but I hope to write it with an eye towards being both edition and system agnostic- a lot of what I want to cover applies to a number of games.
So without further ado-
Storytelling Action - Part 1
Introduction
There are numerous issues, possibly even crippling flaws with how tabletop RPGs are designed and presented to players. Very little of this is intentional or malicious- just the product of design tradition and inertia. Tropes like character creation, character advancement, purchasable skills, modifiers- call them tropes or cliches- I'm sure you all know what they are when you see them.
This essay aims to discuss and dissect one of the larger endemic problems of TTRPGs, rooted in some of its oldest developmental DNA: Combat mechanics often take of the lion's share of actual rules and wordcount in any given publication. Combat, and by extension physical actions are often given the most granular rules and the most complicated resolution mechanics.
A consequence of this emphasis is how many games confuse use of rules with fun or progress. Speaking for myself, I do appreciate the interaction and manipulation of rules as the boundaries of a playable space (In Magic the Gathering parlance, I am very much a Johnny). Exalted is not unique in how a significant portion of it's mechanics and design space are given over to combat resolution.
I hope to, over the course of this essay, offer insight and prompt discussion on how to develop more interesting action and combat scenes in both Exalted and any game.
A History of Violence
The modern TTRPG hobby grew out of Dungeons and Dragons and similar products back in the 70s and 80s. DnD was by no means the first or only one of its kind, but it was definitely foundational. Instead of covering history that we all largely know in broad strokes, I'll lay out some relevant points.
On Conflict
Conflict has a lot of meanings- but most of the time we see it either as the description of adversarial competition or contest, or in the narrative sense of 'What is the story about, who, what and why are these forces clashing'.
In context of mechanics, conflict is a poor word- I would encourage the use of contested or competitive. Conflict is best used to describe motives, causes and ideals, and how two or more characters can butt heads over them. Man vs Self, Man vs Nature, Man vs Man, etc- those are conflicts. Trying to see who parries what attack is a contest.
Most of the time, in media both classical and modern, an ethical or moral conflict is portrayed using a physical one. The Jedi vs the Sith, almost any given Shonen series, modern superhero comics and more. All of these are using the 'tool' of superpowered beings to create an interesting spectacle that is about their ideals more than their prowess. The superior moral and ethical philosophy wins the the debate by winning the fight. It's the same basic logic as the Mandate of Heaven- if you win, you clearly have the mandate. If you don't win, you clearly didn't.
Portraying this sort of morality play is difficult- especially organically. I know I didn't recognize it as being a thing until it was pointed out to me, but once I saw it, I couldn't stop seeing it in almost all the media I consumed. Developing good and playable conflicts is a discussion for later.
Action, Combat, Progress
Some games are designed to guide players implicitly or explicitly to a given end- usually back to the core gameplay loop. Exalted 2nd edition was actually very subtle about this in some ways, blatant in others. A great many of its mechanics (especially Charms) were written under the assumption that they were intended to push 'Non-action' scenes towards 'Action scenes'. Unfortunately, a great deal of Exalted's mechanical budget for 'action' was tied up in Combat.
This is not necessarily a bad thing, as a general design conceit. It was not great for Exalted however, even if it had an interesting metaphorical or metaphysical conclusion you could draw. If all your 'Not fighting' mechanics pushed you towards fighting, that would alienate a significant portion of your potential playerbase who don't want to fight.
Further exacerbating the above phenomenon is what I'd call the 'Sold' effect. I've brought it up before elsewhere, that people are often sold on some element of the game or interpretation, versus what the game actually is or best at arbitrating. Many people are attracted to Exalted for the gonzo elements, wacky hijinks and memetic jokes that surround the property, for example.
This has the consequence of creating a bias in storytellers, that Exalted the game is about something, usually fighting. Which to be fair- it kind of is! It's inspirations all celebrate and glorify the kind of hyborian fantasy that is straight out a Frazetta or Vallejo painting, it's a setting rich with characters and beings that sound like really fun fights. This isn't a bad thing in and of itself!
Unfortunately, it creates an uncomfortable expectation- which is made even more pressing when players knowingly or unintentionally silo out their competences- how many of you have played games where one player is the obvious combat champion, or similar? If the majority of the game is courtly intrigue, that one player is going to feel left out- so the storyteller contrives- and I mean that as I say- contrives- a fight to give them something to do- to the detriment of the rest of the group.
I'd call this 'Comic Fight Pacing'. Which is the idea that fights sell comics, so fights happen with regular if alarming frequency.
Action vs Combat
It is a very easy psychological trap to look at the rulebook of any game and see that it has a very large, complex section on Combat, and come away thinking 'wow, I should probably use those rules if there are so many!'.
Action however, is not solely Combat. Action instead is better described as movement, verb, effort, endeavor, pursuit. It is the [Thing] you do when you want [something] Done. In a game like Exalted, Action can be divided into three broad groups, and following the pattern established by other games, Physical got the majority of the content, followed by Social and Mental.
Physical Action is easy- it's the most intuitive thing to imagine and grasp because we humans are innately physical beings who understand basic concepts like run, jump, punch, climb. Even slightly more esoteric physical things are easy to understand like 'balance' or 'high ground'.
Social and Mental action are more difficult, because I believe we as a media-consuming culture don't really recognize good social and mental action scenes. It's not that they don't exist- it's that trying to convey them in a shared play experience at a table is hard, because the tools and terms to describe them are often borrowed from physical combat mechanics.
Action versus Progress
I want you to imagine a good fight scene you watched recently- or something you played in a game, tabletop or video. I want you to really think about it for a second. And then I want you to ask yourself the following question.
"What did I actually achieve in that sequence?"
You might be surprised at how little meaningful progress you might have made. It depends obviously on context and a bunch of other factors. Most videogames have very small progress loops by design- you fight your way through a room, you negotiate a coordination and environmental challenge. The goals and motives exist in very small, specific slices that can be easily contained in an hour or less span of playable time. Or is usually sliced up even smaller.
Examine Halo 1 or Metal Gear Solid 5 for extremely tight gameplay loops.
Tabletop games by contrast have massive gameplay loops. Time is one of your most precious resources when playing them. Many games often also encourage 4-6 hour sessions just to give enough time to do something.
Finally, Progress
So what is Progress?
Depending on how you ask, it can be a lot of things. It's easily represented by numbers rising- by having more XP, more character assets, more ways to do stuff. It can be defined as 'Having spent time/effort to achieve a goal', and that goal in turn having persistent or at least acknowledged effect on the game as a whole.
Getting stronger, navigating the character building 'game' of an RPG is totally a form of progress- it is however one that takes the lion's share attention away from other kinds of progress. Exalted I feel was intended to be a game that firmly pushed progress away from Experience and into players by way of their Charms.
The point is, it's easy to confuse lots of movement and spent energy for lots of progress.
The Death Game
Death is boring. Killing people is boring. Say it with me.
This is a controversial thesis , in context of a rolicking hyborean age fantasy game experience like Exalted, or
The greater fandom that is TTRPGs. Combat is a huge element of gameplay, due in no small part as to how it is the most developed and easiest to quantify with numerical traits and clearly has rising/falling dynamic changing of values.
Humans, especially gamers, like it when numbers change.
But in terms of narrative structure and even fun, death is boring. Death removes characters. It makes you make decisions based around the idea of 'If I don't choose the right course of action, I lose the ability to play my character'.
Or, it's presented as the best solution to a complex, enduring problem (an antagonist character). Death means the antagonist cannot hassle you again. This is more of a problem in 'narrative' systems like Exalted that have an expectation of continuity and implicit progress, where the campaign is tracking your circle's advancement through the world. The antagonist exists to disrupt progress, or is perceived as such by players, and thus dealt with in a decisive manner.
Compare to Dungeons and Dragons, which as mentioned, has consistently moved more towards an 'engine' style of design where the setting and internal consistency is secondary (but not ignored) in favor of a tightly balanced combat and encounter ruleset.
We have been conditioned by numerous games to believe that combat is progress. And that within that slice of gameplay, that killing is progress.
Now, is this a firebranded tirade against combat systems and death-in-games? No, not at all. I fully support the cinematic majesty of being able to scythe through dozens of Extras with the sweep of a sword. What I'm saying is more that killing dudes in and of itself though is boring.
Oh, it's nice and novel the first few times you realize how stupendously lethal your character is, both in terms of narrative (they're that willing to get their hands dirty), or how mechanically lethal they are (the mechanics show their ferocity). But in terms of narrative health of the campaign…. Not so much.
Tying it all together
So I covered at least in broad strokes the idea of Action, Combat, Progress and Death. I plan on expanding these topics more in subsequent releases. Before I leave though, I want to end with something immediately useful:
A bad action scene happens in an empty space, because there hasn't been any action in a while, and is often reduced to the most basic motive of 'The bad guy wants to kill the PCs'. This is a common trend, so I decided to write out a formalized test that might help you all in the future! I hope to expand on all these topics too.
The Action Test!
Think of this like the Bechdel Test, but for Action Scenes! Your scene 'passes' the test when:
(1) it is in a defined space with numerous actual or potential traits
(2) its not included because there hasn't been a fight recently
(3) motivated by something other than 'fight to the death'
So without further ado-
Storytelling Action - Part 1
Introduction
There are numerous issues, possibly even crippling flaws with how tabletop RPGs are designed and presented to players. Very little of this is intentional or malicious- just the product of design tradition and inertia. Tropes like character creation, character advancement, purchasable skills, modifiers- call them tropes or cliches- I'm sure you all know what they are when you see them.
This essay aims to discuss and dissect one of the larger endemic problems of TTRPGs, rooted in some of its oldest developmental DNA: Combat mechanics often take of the lion's share of actual rules and wordcount in any given publication. Combat, and by extension physical actions are often given the most granular rules and the most complicated resolution mechanics.
A consequence of this emphasis is how many games confuse use of rules with fun or progress. Speaking for myself, I do appreciate the interaction and manipulation of rules as the boundaries of a playable space (In Magic the Gathering parlance, I am very much a Johnny). Exalted is not unique in how a significant portion of it's mechanics and design space are given over to combat resolution.
I hope to, over the course of this essay, offer insight and prompt discussion on how to develop more interesting action and combat scenes in both Exalted and any game.
A History of Violence
The modern TTRPG hobby grew out of Dungeons and Dragons and similar products back in the 70s and 80s. DnD was by no means the first or only one of its kind, but it was definitely foundational. Instead of covering history that we all largely know in broad strokes, I'll lay out some relevant points.
- DnD was first and foremost, and especially in the modern era, a combat engine- derived from other combat and movement systems in precursor games.
- The important thing to remember, is that DnD and the like revolve around a very clear gameplay loop of 'Go to fight, engage in fight, manage resources, recover, repeat.' It's designed around the idea of encounters being the majority of the playable content.
- As a consequence, to this day, a great many games revolve and focus on combat resolution mechanics- storytelling, persistent advancement and so on were all added later. This is not to say that these additional elements were 'weak', just that the mechanics were already biased in favor of opposition and adversarial resolution.
- Physical actions and phenomena are easy to quantify with numbers or simple logical qualifiers, and as such can be more readily defined in a mechanical system. Further, physical actions are easier to imagine compared to more ephemeral feats such as statecraft and logistics.
On Conflict
Conflict has a lot of meanings- but most of the time we see it either as the description of adversarial competition or contest, or in the narrative sense of 'What is the story about, who, what and why are these forces clashing'.
In context of mechanics, conflict is a poor word- I would encourage the use of contested or competitive. Conflict is best used to describe motives, causes and ideals, and how two or more characters can butt heads over them. Man vs Self, Man vs Nature, Man vs Man, etc- those are conflicts. Trying to see who parries what attack is a contest.
Most of the time, in media both classical and modern, an ethical or moral conflict is portrayed using a physical one. The Jedi vs the Sith, almost any given Shonen series, modern superhero comics and more. All of these are using the 'tool' of superpowered beings to create an interesting spectacle that is about their ideals more than their prowess. The superior moral and ethical philosophy wins the the debate by winning the fight. It's the same basic logic as the Mandate of Heaven- if you win, you clearly have the mandate. If you don't win, you clearly didn't.
Portraying this sort of morality play is difficult- especially organically. I know I didn't recognize it as being a thing until it was pointed out to me, but once I saw it, I couldn't stop seeing it in almost all the media I consumed. Developing good and playable conflicts is a discussion for later.
Action, Combat, Progress
Some games are designed to guide players implicitly or explicitly to a given end- usually back to the core gameplay loop. Exalted 2nd edition was actually very subtle about this in some ways, blatant in others. A great many of its mechanics (especially Charms) were written under the assumption that they were intended to push 'Non-action' scenes towards 'Action scenes'. Unfortunately, a great deal of Exalted's mechanical budget for 'action' was tied up in Combat.
This is not necessarily a bad thing, as a general design conceit. It was not great for Exalted however, even if it had an interesting metaphorical or metaphysical conclusion you could draw. If all your 'Not fighting' mechanics pushed you towards fighting, that would alienate a significant portion of your potential playerbase who don't want to fight.
Further exacerbating the above phenomenon is what I'd call the 'Sold' effect. I've brought it up before elsewhere, that people are often sold on some element of the game or interpretation, versus what the game actually is or best at arbitrating. Many people are attracted to Exalted for the gonzo elements, wacky hijinks and memetic jokes that surround the property, for example.
This has the consequence of creating a bias in storytellers, that Exalted the game is about something, usually fighting. Which to be fair- it kind of is! It's inspirations all celebrate and glorify the kind of hyborian fantasy that is straight out a Frazetta or Vallejo painting, it's a setting rich with characters and beings that sound like really fun fights. This isn't a bad thing in and of itself!
Unfortunately, it creates an uncomfortable expectation- which is made even more pressing when players knowingly or unintentionally silo out their competences- how many of you have played games where one player is the obvious combat champion, or similar? If the majority of the game is courtly intrigue, that one player is going to feel left out- so the storyteller contrives- and I mean that as I say- contrives- a fight to give them something to do- to the detriment of the rest of the group.
I'd call this 'Comic Fight Pacing'. Which is the idea that fights sell comics, so fights happen with regular if alarming frequency.
Action vs Combat
It is a very easy psychological trap to look at the rulebook of any game and see that it has a very large, complex section on Combat, and come away thinking 'wow, I should probably use those rules if there are so many!'.
Action however, is not solely Combat. Action instead is better described as movement, verb, effort, endeavor, pursuit. It is the [Thing] you do when you want [something] Done. In a game like Exalted, Action can be divided into three broad groups, and following the pattern established by other games, Physical got the majority of the content, followed by Social and Mental.
Physical Action is easy- it's the most intuitive thing to imagine and grasp because we humans are innately physical beings who understand basic concepts like run, jump, punch, climb. Even slightly more esoteric physical things are easy to understand like 'balance' or 'high ground'.
Social and Mental action are more difficult, because I believe we as a media-consuming culture don't really recognize good social and mental action scenes. It's not that they don't exist- it's that trying to convey them in a shared play experience at a table is hard, because the tools and terms to describe them are often borrowed from physical combat mechanics.
Action versus Progress
I want you to imagine a good fight scene you watched recently- or something you played in a game, tabletop or video. I want you to really think about it for a second. And then I want you to ask yourself the following question.
"What did I actually achieve in that sequence?"
You might be surprised at how little meaningful progress you might have made. It depends obviously on context and a bunch of other factors. Most videogames have very small progress loops by design- you fight your way through a room, you negotiate a coordination and environmental challenge. The goals and motives exist in very small, specific slices that can be easily contained in an hour or less span of playable time. Or is usually sliced up even smaller.
Examine Halo 1 or Metal Gear Solid 5 for extremely tight gameplay loops.
Tabletop games by contrast have massive gameplay loops. Time is one of your most precious resources when playing them. Many games often also encourage 4-6 hour sessions just to give enough time to do something.
Finally, Progress
So what is Progress?
Depending on how you ask, it can be a lot of things. It's easily represented by numbers rising- by having more XP, more character assets, more ways to do stuff. It can be defined as 'Having spent time/effort to achieve a goal', and that goal in turn having persistent or at least acknowledged effect on the game as a whole.
Getting stronger, navigating the character building 'game' of an RPG is totally a form of progress- it is however one that takes the lion's share attention away from other kinds of progress. Exalted I feel was intended to be a game that firmly pushed progress away from Experience and into players by way of their Charms.
The point is, it's easy to confuse lots of movement and spent energy for lots of progress.
The Death Game
Death is boring. Killing people is boring. Say it with me.
This is a controversial thesis , in context of a rolicking hyborean age fantasy game experience like Exalted, or
The greater fandom that is TTRPGs. Combat is a huge element of gameplay, due in no small part as to how it is the most developed and easiest to quantify with numerical traits and clearly has rising/falling dynamic changing of values.
Humans, especially gamers, like it when numbers change.
But in terms of narrative structure and even fun, death is boring. Death removes characters. It makes you make decisions based around the idea of 'If I don't choose the right course of action, I lose the ability to play my character'.
Or, it's presented as the best solution to a complex, enduring problem (an antagonist character). Death means the antagonist cannot hassle you again. This is more of a problem in 'narrative' systems like Exalted that have an expectation of continuity and implicit progress, where the campaign is tracking your circle's advancement through the world. The antagonist exists to disrupt progress, or is perceived as such by players, and thus dealt with in a decisive manner.
Compare to Dungeons and Dragons, which as mentioned, has consistently moved more towards an 'engine' style of design where the setting and internal consistency is secondary (but not ignored) in favor of a tightly balanced combat and encounter ruleset.
We have been conditioned by numerous games to believe that combat is progress. And that within that slice of gameplay, that killing is progress.
Now, is this a firebranded tirade against combat systems and death-in-games? No, not at all. I fully support the cinematic majesty of being able to scythe through dozens of Extras with the sweep of a sword. What I'm saying is more that killing dudes in and of itself though is boring.
Oh, it's nice and novel the first few times you realize how stupendously lethal your character is, both in terms of narrative (they're that willing to get their hands dirty), or how mechanically lethal they are (the mechanics show their ferocity). But in terms of narrative health of the campaign…. Not so much.
Tying it all together
So I covered at least in broad strokes the idea of Action, Combat, Progress and Death. I plan on expanding these topics more in subsequent releases. Before I leave though, I want to end with something immediately useful:
A bad action scene happens in an empty space, because there hasn't been any action in a while, and is often reduced to the most basic motive of 'The bad guy wants to kill the PCs'. This is a common trend, so I decided to write out a formalized test that might help you all in the future! I hope to expand on all these topics too.
The Action Test!
Think of this like the Bechdel Test, but for Action Scenes! Your scene 'passes' the test when:
(1) it is in a defined space with numerous actual or potential traits
(2) its not included because there hasn't been a fight recently
(3) motivated by something other than 'fight to the death'
- Location
- United States
You are ignoring content by this member.
Show ignored content
Oh man I've seen some bad fucking takes in the Exalted community over the new books, mostly just entirely over the LGBT stuff in them. So bizarre, you figure people who have a problem with that shit wouldn't stick around in a game line that's had a fair amount of LGBT rep, but 2e did bring in some real fucking weirdos so I suppose I shouldn't be surprised to see people melt down over 3e's Realm allowing gay marriage (in the same circumstances as a love marriage, so rarely) and it being ok with trans people.
Chloe Sullivan
Subdefective
- Location
- 1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale CA
I'm having a hard time parsing that statement.
What I was told was that "The realm was against Dragonborn not breeding, they were totally fine with you being as gay as you like on your own time."
Frakir's brother
Goodbye.
- Location
- The Sea of Trees
That's what I thought, the obligation was to continue your bloodline, but gayness was perfectly fine. I think I remember something about same sex affairs being preferable so as to avoid children unplanned.