General Exalted Thread

[Jon Chung]

I think Rogthnor's made my point for me, but again, major extreme things - "turned into a sock puppet" - means you punch them in the face.

You do have a good point in your earlier post- namely, that badgering a person ten times in real life doesn't leave them completely defenseless.

But when you badger someone excessively, it IS tiring. Mentally draining, etc. I suppose a tired person would respond poorly to surprises compared to one less drained... but yes, the ten times thing (for people with 10 WP, which is rare) isn't a thing.

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In real life, if someone orders you to eat your own feces, you can ignore them indefinitely. No amount of badgering will realistically cause you to do it. They may repeat themselves until they lose their voice from repetition and it won't actually change a thing. You can punch them in the face, but there are no incentives to do so besides your dislike of the annoying person badgering you to eat feces. There is no pressure. The guy is harmless. There are no negative consequences for standing there listening to him beyond boredom and annoyance.

In the ruleset we're discussing here though, you have ten refusals before you start eating shit (metaphorically because you just died in combat, or literally because the guy ordered you to eat actual shit and you can't refuse), like it or not. You, the player, know this. Given that you know this, does your behaviour towards people who are badgering you change compared to real life? If you say "yes", congratulations, you understand the problem. If you say "no", why does your behaviour not change? Explain your logic.

That being said, having no temporary willpower doesn't mean you're suddenly worthless in combat. If you're drained, you can run away from/attack people who give you orders or try to stab you in the face. So again, not sure where you're coming from here.

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Exalted 2. No WP = no combo activations. No combo activations means no simultaneous perfect defense, flurry breaker and surprise negator, no 2/7 filter with Excellency +5 DVs in front of a perfect soak. Not having these things and entering combat against someone who does means you're dead. Not having these things and meeting five extras with hammers means you're probably dead. Again, as above, you the player know this and should be able to act according to the obvious incentive of "I don't want to die".

I mean, come on. Paranoia combat isn't just boring, it's weak.

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Do you actually know how E2's meta works? If you don't, you probably shouldn't be making strong statements like that. Given that you don't know why being reduced to 0 WP in Exalted 2 means you're a dead man walking, you probably don't.

Here's a short primer: paranoia combat in E2 does not exist because people like spamming perfect defenses, paranoia combat exists because not being able to pull out a perfect, a surprise negator and a flurry breaker all at the same time means you die stupidly easily and rerolling new characters after every combat session is something nobody wants to do. I even have a prewritten explanation for this, sigh.

 

[BossFight]

Do you think your buddy Bob could, in a million years, convince you to drop trousers, take a shit then eat your own feces in public? In real life.

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In real life, if someone orders you to eat your own feces, you can ignore them indefinitely. No amount of badgering will realistically cause you to do it. They may repeat themselves until they lose their voice from repetition and it won't actually change a thing. You can punch them in the face, but there are no incentives to do so besides your dislike of the annoying person badgering you to eat feces. There is no pressure. The guy is harmless. There are no negative consequences for standing there listening to him beyond boredom and annoyance.

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So I have to problems with this.

The first is that exalted isn't meant to emulate real life. It's meant to emulate the iliad and conan the barbarian and devil may cry. In those works, if someone is being annoying you punch them in the face.

Second, you're example seems disingenuous. The way you are phrasing it indicates that not only is it a ridiculous request, but also that it is an poor argument.

And poor arguments don't beat MDV. A better example would if the argument was "ear your shit and I'll give you 10000 dollars" or "eat your shit because otherwise I'll throw you in jail" and yeah, that can and has happened in real life. The right argument can make people do things.

Hell, I just read a story (OP) where the hero was convinced to strip down and dance naked through the streets because of a social attack, and if you've seen GoT a similar thing happens to Cersei

 

[Phyrexia Unbound]

Hell, I just read a story (OP) where the hero was convinced to strip down and dance naked through the streets because of a social attack, and if you've seen GoT a similar thing happens to Cersei

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Not even the worst take on that.

Spoiler: Soul Sacrifice Spoilers

There once was a wise emperor.

Good and just, he was loved by all.

The very image of a ruler the people desired.

No matter the crisis, he stood firm.

His subjects revered him with an almost religious fervor.

But a curious incident arose in the castle town. More odd than curious, perhaps, and more obscene than odd.

A woman walking alone had found her path blocked by a man- a man in a crown and thick robe. This regal stranger then shucked his robe and revealed what he wore underneath.

Namely, nothing. He was stark naked.

A leering grin spread across his face as she shrieked.

The incident had the empire furious.

To think their emperor could do such a thing was impossible.

His unimpeachable daily deeds kept his honor safe. His approval would not be shaked by a salacious rumor.

The people united behind the emperor, and began to hunt the culprit.

It was some villain out to frame their emperor. A plot hatched out of jealousy at his skill and stature, surely.

The emperor remained calm and resolute, not one to be shaken by a coward's ploy. Seeing this, the people loved him more.

And why should he be shaken by this manhunt? He knew the culprit's identity all along.

After all, it was the emperor himself.

He derived pleasure from exposing himself to women.

Which is not to say he was an immoral person. He remained a just and dedicated man. As a result, his actions caused him no end of guilt and shame.

Yet they were actions he'd willingly taken. Try as he might to resist, his urges won out. In time, it became a habit.

Each night he would steal into the city and repeat his perversions.

He never hid his face, yet even so his people never suspected him.

Surely the villain was a master of disguise !

Protect his imperial majesty !

The more he revealed himself, the more they rallied behind him. As his perversion grew, so did their support. It was an inexplicable phenomenon.

The emperor knew his acts were a profound betrayal of his subject's trust. It tore at him.

But the more guilt and shame he felt, the more he was unable to resist the urge to bare himself.

More . . . he had to show them more.

What had at first given a sexual thrill now began to instil a different feeling in him. One he could not express in words.

His actions grew more bold.

Where he'd targeted dark alleys before, he now chose busy thoroughfares.

Inevitably, he was caught. The guards cut him down on the spot and he was gravely injured.

A crowd gathered.

But their faith in the emperor was ironclad. Even seeing his face close up, no one believed it was he.

No one truly saw him.

Who was he then, really ?

It was only then he understood the true cause of his urges.

He wanted them to know the real him.

He'd strained himself for so long. For his people. To be worthy of the crown.

Righteous in the extreme.

Strong in the extreme.

He'd trembled under the weight of his royal persona. Built up an idol with no substance.

It was that idol his people loved.

Not him.

And so he stripped bare.

Cast his crown and robes aside, and he was just a man.

As imperfect as any other.

He had worries. He felt pain. At times, he knew temptation. Fear of betraying his subjects' expectations threatened to stop his heart.

It was enough to make him strip it all away.

But even that had failed. Even stark naked, no one had seen him for the frail human being he was.

Would no one ever know his true self?


Then why was he even born?

Solely to give birth to an idol, hollow and perfect?

It was then a strange vision appeared to him. A white Chalice hovered there, speaking to his mind.

" If you would have your wish, offer a fitting sacrifice. "

The emperor made made his wish.

To shed the robes of royalty that clung even to his bare skin.

To become more bare than ever.

A change took his body.

He cast all that covered him aside, quite literally revealing everything.

Perhaps he revealed too much.


It was certainly no idol onlookers saw. Every witness saw precisely what stood before them.

A wholly exposed monster.

This went far beyond nudity.

His skin was transparent, showing every vein and pumping organ within.

Despite their love for the emperor, his subjects now fled in terror. But the emperor made them look upon him by force. This was the real him. he exclaimed.

But none had the nerve to look. He held them down, forcing them to take in his new form. Most died from fear, their hearts stopped cold.

Even now, his wish goes unfulfilled. Though he's exposed every part of himself, none will look upon him.

And so the too- bare emperor searches still for one brave enough to face him with an unflinching eye.

 

[Sanctaphrax]

So what exactly is the point in dispute here?

I feel like you might've lost track of it.

 

[HamSandLich]

Creatures of Dorkness

Spoiler

 

[BossFight]

So what exactly is the point in dispute here?

I feel like you might've lost track of it.

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I mean, I'm arguing that
A: That players are only incentivized to activate join battle against a target who can consistently beat there MDV if that character is being actively hostile to their interests

And

B: that using violence against an adversary skilled with words is in genre for the setting

 

[Touch of Sepia]

Spoiler: Forum Jokes

Scenario 1: Someone trots out a long dead argument for the twenty time (can be any of a dozen arguments)
-Everyone shuffles back into their respective ranks and says their well practices lines for pages beyond count...feeling competent and a kind of warm nostalgia all at once.

Scenario 2: Homebrew is posted
-Decried and called garbage if it* is read at all (10/90 split)

Scenario 3: Someone posts a game advertisement
-3e player, Solar or bust and if a 2e game, decry what garbage the edition is (thread dump)
-2e player, we are transcendent from playing and only talk about the game (insert pcmasterrace.gif)
-New player, well I've never played, but I can learn (only good ending)

*does not include the reputable and known or landed homebrewers (ES, Revlid, others), in these cases it's 100% read and 0% called garbage

 

[Jon Chung]

So what exactly is the point in dispute here?

I feel like you might've lost track of it.

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1) "Systemic incentives shape gameplay."
2) "Here is a known example."
3) Nitpickers latch on because they don't understand the example. <- We are here.

I'm primarily doing this because of the nostalgia buzz, tbh. That example was probably too esoteric.

I mean, I'm arguing that
A: That players are only incentivized to activate join battle against a target who can consistently beat there MDV if that character is being actively hostile to their interests

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Yeah, here's the thing, right? If it is true that being 0 WP makes you dead in combat or being commanded to do anything for however long because you can no longer say no, someone who can beat your MDV is being actively hostile to your interests because every single one of their arguments comes with the implicit threat of "obey or lose valuable survival resources, without which you are fucked (here are two flavours of fucked)".

Like, here's an analogy - you should treat someone asking you to do something differently from someone telling you to do something at gunpoint, yes? The former is a civil conversation, the latter is a violent threat. You behave differently in response to either of these things.

B: that using violence against an adversary skilled with words is in genre for the setting

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It's not in genre to treat everyone talking to you as threatening you at gunpoint to do what they say. It is totally logical to kill people who threaten you at gunpoint, we don't even need a genre convention for that.

Scenario 1: Someone trots out a long dead argument for the twenty time (can be any of a dozen arguments)
-Everyone shuffles back into their respective ranks and says their well practices lines for pages beyond count...feeling competent and a kind of warm nostalgia all at once.

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I feel like I'm playing Starcraft Brood War or Diablo 2 right now. It's dead on.

 

[boo600]

In real life, if someone orders you to eat your own feces, you can ignore them indefinitely. No amount of badgering will realistically cause you to do it. They may repeat themselves until they lose their voice from repetition and it won't actually change a thing. You can punch them in the face, but there are no incentives to do so besides your dislike of the annoying person badgering you to eat feces. There is no pressure. The guy is harmless. There are no negative consequences for standing there listening to him beyond boredom and annoyance.

In the ruleset we're discussing here though, you have ten refusals before you start eating shit (metaphorically because you just died in combat, or literally because the guy ordered you to eat actual shit and you can't refuse), like it or not. You, the player, know this. Given that you know this, does your behaviour towards people who are badgering you change compared to real life? If you say "yes", congratulations, you understand the problem. If you say "no", why does your behaviour not change? Explain your logic.

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*Shrugs* Again, the "10 times" bit is something I admitted to not quite matching up to RL. As it is, though, if someone tried to convince me to eat feces for more than 2 seconds, I'd try to leave. Walk away. If they kept following me? I can't say I'd punch them in the face, but that's because I'd be filing for a restraining order. Even if it wouldn't normally apply, this is a person who has been following me and relentlessly trying to convince me to eat my own feces. If I can't escape them, I'm damn well bringing the law into this, or other people.

Exalted 2. No WP = no combo activations. No combo activations means no simultaneous perfect defense, flurry breaker and surprise negator, no 2/7 filter with Excellency +5 DVs in front of a perfect soak. Not having these things and entering combat against someone who does means you're dead. Not having these things and meeting five extras with hammers means you're probably dead. Again, as above, you the player know this and should be able to act according to the obvious incentive of "I don't want to die".

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*Shrugs again* Sorry, that would be my own experiences coming into play. Ignoring passive defenses and health-level boosters, my groups have always used 2.5's take on it... even before 2.5. I tend to forget those.

Do you actually know how E2's meta works? If you don't, you probably shouldn't be making strong statements like that. Given that you don't know why being reduced to 0 WP in Exalted 2 means you're a dead man walking, you probably don't.

Here's a short primer: paranoia combat in E2 does not exist because people like spamming perfect defenses, paranoia combat exists because not being able to pull out a perfect, a surprise negator and a flurry breaker all at the same time means you die stupidly easily and rerolling new characters after every combat session is something nobody wants to do. I even have a prewritten explanation for this, sigh.

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As it is, that's more houserule experience coming back to bite me. We've always considered surprise negators to be, given their purpose, sorta like spidey-sense, and given that we never had WP costs for combos in the first place...

My own (disbanded) group's experience aside, I'd like to note something: This still doesn't apply to mortals. A farmer doesn't lose in combat because he's out of WP, he loses because he's a f****** mortal EXTRA. If we're talking about the magical demigods who impose their will on reality, it makes sense that a tired mind would factor into combat. Anyone else? (Well, besides spirits, with their Principle of Motion pools needing refreshes, but...)

I can't comment on 2e's meta, sadly; it's been a while, and I can't remember what was houseruled or not- especially since we gleefully worked with the errata (well. I like to play infernals, ignoring the first half of the book, and non-adorjani/malfean infernals have, defensively speaking, something of a Perfect focus. The update to costs was a shame... but then again, I like to play SWLIHN/Adorjani characters anyways, with some love for cult-forming and TED LSDing, so it's not much of a loss when played well).

I can comment on the idea- namely, that non-magical fighters don't need WP to fight (barring resisting certain effects, which tend to be (pseudo)magical in nature. Other than that... I don't know what else to say.

 

[BossFight]

Here is a known example."
3) Nitpickers latch on because they don't understand the example. <- We are here.

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So we're just gonna argue in bad faith then? Because so far every example you've give has been one where resisting the mental influence was the only tenable choice. Where allowing it to hit your character was not an option.

You claim this is just an example, and others have claimed your exaggerating for effect, but I've asked for better, more realistic examples and you have consistently failed to provide them.

 

[Imrix]

So we're just gonna argue in bad faith then? Because so far every example you've give has been one where resisting the mental influence was the only tenable choice. Where allowing it to hit your character was not an option.

You claim this is just an example, and others have claimed your exaggerating for effect, but I've asked for better, more realistic examples and you have consistently failed to provide them.

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When the social combat rules allow you to compel any kind of behaviour short of knowingly and deliberately committing suicide, "your only tenable choice is to resist influence" is a realistic example.

 

[Jon Chung]

So we're just gonna argue in bad faith then? Because so far every example you've give has been one where resisting the mental influence was the only tenable choice. Where allowing it to hit your character was not an option.

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Yes, because that's an example of the second flavour of fucked - you being made to do anything the attacker wants. The example is horrible because you-the-player are supposed to know that this can happen to you when you hit 0 WP. No WP means you can't resist NMI orders, NMI orders include being made to eat your own shit or things even more degrading and abhorrent, and there is no limit to the attacker making more orders because these basic social attacks are free.

You claim this is just an example, and others have claimed your exaggerating for effect, but I've asked for better, more realistic examples and you have consistently failed to provide them.

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I think you misunderstood the issue entirely, actually. Let's zoom out and take it from the top.

1) Being at 0 WP means you cannot defend yourself in combat and will die.
2) NMI can cause you to do things you really don't wanna do, like eat your own shit.
3) Being at 0 WP means you can no longer resist NMI.

Someone comes up and asks you to do something, using NMI. It doesn't matter what he asks you for - let's even flip this around and say it's something you don't want to do but isn't abhorrent to request, like a large and risky loan of money or property. Guy wants to borrow your expensive prized car to do something stupid with it, you don't want him to break your car. It's your pride and joy.

In order to say no to the dude who wants to borrow your car if he can hit you through your MDV, you need to spend WP. This suddenly puts things in a very different light considering facts 1 to 3 above, right? In real life, that request is just what it is at face value. In Exalted 2, he is going "give me the keys or get 1/10th closer to death or enslavement".

 

[boo600]

I think my point about Paranoia combat still applies somewhat, actually- most of the time, your living god (if you aren't playing a murderhobo) will be fine. Assuming that everyone with a weapon has the ability to kill you, even if it's true, tends to lead to ridiculous use of resources, which tends to end poorly in the game.

A social system needs to have costs and, assuming clear superiority/success on one side's part, to have an actual consequence- i.e. forcing a person to do what you want, and a way to represent saying no anyways that doesn't completely invalidate the system. Having a resource to spend- WP- and additional options that are extreme but free- leave, fight- in addition to the fun one- obey- allows for a reasonable playstyle. It's not necessarily a good thing to use as a standard for all conversations, but most of the time, a peasant isn't going to spend WP to resist Crowned With Fury's UMI, they're going to thing "that exalt is terrifying" and do what they're told. If it's just another peasant, they're going to accept reasonable orders if they feel like it, not turn it into a social dick-waving contest. NMI still has to have an effect, after all, but if it oversteps its bounds there's leeway.

Overall, I don't think Jon has any examples he can give, not because its easy to go with an extreme example and hard to come up with a mild one, but because people being 'persuadable' by social rolls into doing reasonable-to-mildly-unreasonable things is the system working as intended. What he's worried about - where the leeway comes in - is, for example, how do the god-kings deal with influence from a peasant exhausting them enough for a demon to fight them?

The answer there is simple- an exalt who doesn't learn something is still going to be weaker in that area than mortals who do (ignoring untrained penalties). It makes perfect sense for a socially-stunted dawn to be wearied by the prattle of mortals, but if he has an iron will (a reasonable amount of WP) then his MDV rises, and if he doesn't, he'd best learn some social excellencies/dots.

EDIT:

When the social combat rules allow you to compel any kind of behaviour short of knowingly and deliberately committing suicide, "your only tenable choice is to resist influence" is a realistic example.

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You do get to know what they're trying to make you do before you spend willpower. And honestly, is real life any different? While 'social combat' definitely works differently in real life, theoretically you can convince someone to do anything. That being said, if you're being unreasonable, and a person feels such, then I can A) Turtle down and spend WP, B) Leave, or C) Attack. Being forced into situations like that IRL does make it hard to say no, especially if B is involved. While intimacies or general values help, they shouldn't be the focus of the system - gods not more- and again, Virtue channeling if they're asking you to break your honor code.

In order to say no to the dude who wants to borrow your car if he can hit you through your MDV, you need to spend WP. This suddenly puts things in a very different light considering facts 1 to 3 above, right?

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If he can hit through your MDV, then he is A) Persuasive, B) Lucky, or C) He has some kind of leverage. Needing to spend willpower, to take a stand, does make sense. That said, if a random stranger asks to borrow my car, I'm going to walk away, and if he keeps following me, I'm going to warn him that he's threatening me and get a cop/friend/stick with nails in it. If it's someone I know, then there's context involved. A subtle threat from an enemy, a desperate plea in the eyes of a friend... if the flavor fits, use it!

 

[Jon Chung]

If he can hit through your MDV, then he is A) Persuasive, B) Lucky, or C) He has some kind of leverage. Needing to spend willpower, to take a stand, does make sense. That said, if a random stranger asks to borrow my car, I'm going to walk away, and if he keeps following me, I'm going to warn him that he's threatening me and get a cop/friend/stick with nails in it. If it's someone I know, then there's context involved. A subtle threat from an enemy, a desperate plea in the eyes of a friend... if the flavor fits, use it!

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In real life, that stranger asking to borrow your car doesn't get the ability to make you give him all your wealth and then eat your own shit for his amusement after asking enough times, mate.

And by "all your wealth", I mean "ordering you to transfer the deed to your house, ownership of all your funds, stocks and bonds and the petty cash in your wallet on top of the keys to your car" is perfectly OK by the rules of NMI.

You know he can do this to you if you observe that he can make you spend WP to not give him your car, because lol E2 ruleset. Do you respond differently?

 

[linkhyrule5]

So I have to problems with this.

The first is that exalted isn't meant to emulate real life. It's meant to emulate the iliad and conan the barbarian and devil may cry. In those works, if someone is being annoying you punch them in the face.

Second, you're example seems disingenuous. The way you are phrasing it indicates that not only is it a ridiculous request, but also that it is an poor argument.

And poor arguments don't beat MDV. A better example would if the argument was "ear your shit and I'll give you 10000 dollars" or "eat your shit because otherwise I'll throw you in jail" and yeah, that can and has happened in real life. The right argument can make people do things.

Hell, I just read a story (OP) where the hero was convinced to strip down and dance naked through the streets because of a social attack, and if you've seen GoT a similar thing happens to Cersei

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Again, you're fundamentally arguing that because the rules can just be ignored in the right setting, or can be just-in-time patched by a canny ST, that they're just fine as they are.

Why are you living next to the Sarlacc pit?

 

[BossFight]

When the social combat rules allow you to compel any kind of behaviour short of knowingly and deliberately committing suicide, "your only tenable choice is to resist influence" is a realistic example.

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That's not true. If they are asking something abhorent you can fight them, which is in genre, and if they aren't then you can be hit by the NMI.

Like, if they are getting past you're NMI then they are giving a persuasive argument to get you to do something. Maybe they are threatening a loved one, so you respond with force (join battle). Maybe they are a high-pressure salesman so you spend WP to avoid being pressured into a sale. Or maybe their mom just died and so you let the NMI hit you and give the starving orphan the alms she asks for.

Yes, because that's an example of the second flavour of fucked - you being made to do anything the attacker wants. The example is horrible because you-the-player are supposed to know that this can happen to you when you hit 0 WP. No WP means you can't resist NMI orders, NMI orders include being made to eat your own shit or things even more degrading and abhorrent, and there is no limit to the attacker making more orders because these basic social attacks are free.

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Except if they are giving abhorent orders in order to drain your WP, then responding with force is justified in genre.

I think you misunderstood the issue entirely, actually. Let's zoom out and take it from the top.

1) Being at 0 WP means you cannot defend yourself in combat and will die.
2) NMI can cause you to do things you really don't wanna do, like eat your own shit.
3) Being at 0 WP means you can no longer resist NMI.

Someone comes up and asks you to do something, using NMI. It doesn't matter what he asks you for - let's even flip this around and say it's something you don't want to do but isn't abhorrent to request, like a large and risky loan of money or property. Guy wants to borrow your expensive prized car to do something stupid with it, you don't want him to break your car. It's your pride and joy.

In order to say no to the dude who wants to borrow your car if he can hit you through your MDV, you need to spend WP. This suddenly puts things in a very different light considering facts 1 to 3 above, right? In real life, that request is just what it is at face value. In Exalted 2, he is going "give me the keys or get 1/10th closer to death or enslavement".

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So I see to issues with this.

The first, is that you are assuming they manage to drain you to 0 WP. If they keep doing NMI which is draining your WP, then getting annoyed and activating Join Battle is, again, in genre. That means that Exalted has successfully emulated one of its main inspirations, Sword and Sorcery novels. I.E. Exalted is not designed to perfectly emulate the real world, it is designed to encourage behaviours which are common in its inspirational fiction. Attacking people who are annoying you enough to bring you down to complete mental exhaustion is one of

The second is that all your examples so far have been "they tell me to do x". But "Rogthnor, do X" isn't an accurate example of what a good social roll is meant to represent. In the example you gave, they aren't saying "give me your car." They are saying, with tears in their eyes and hope in their heart, "I need that car to take my very sick son to the hospital, could you please give it to me?" In which case, giving the car to them is a natural course of action. You as a player shouldn't be trying to avoid giving them your car unless absolutely necessary.

 

[boo600]

In real life, that stranger asking to borrow your car doesn't get the ability to make you give him all your wealth and then eat your own shit for his amusement after asking enough times, mate.

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And it's the same here. If he's persuasive enough, he can go for it! Once he tries for something this stupid, though, if WP is too much, the person he's asking will leave. If they can't, and they're trapped in a situation? That's leverage, socially, in the real world as well... and there's still WP expenditure and getting really, really tired of this bullshit and Punching Him In the Face.

As it is, though, considering what the guy's trying to do, I think the modern legal system might allow it. If you've cornered me, physically or socially, and after I tell you to leave me alone, you continue to attempt to convince me to give you all my wealth/eat my own feces, then my punching you in the face or, even better, shoving you away (physical attack, counts for the rules) is legally a provoked assault at worst... and no jury is going to look on you with sympathy. Hell, if you've physically cornered me, they'll laugh you out of the courtroom, and social cornering tends to break down with the more ludicrous options. Even in a meeting, where the guy next to you is whispering, once he's badgering you about giving him all your wealth, are you not going to stand up, ask the boss to get this distraction away from you, and leave/throw him under the bus?

Look, I've admitted the system is far from perfect. It hardly covers every scenario. That being said, I don't think we've come up with really new arguments here (new examples, thankfully, we have), and I think it's clear that, for all its flaws, NMI doesn't normally force people to do things unless they're somehow cornered... which tends to force people in real life into doing things, too. If you're speaking of excellency/charmtech-derived cheese, then sure, but asking 10 times is asking to fail a few of those rolls... and it's not like you're not going to be noticed.

So, yes, we're living next to the Sarlaac pit. Why? Because the view's great, and we like feeding it things. If we're halfway competent, we can stay out of the pit, and we've both agreed that 2.5, with the WP-spending cap, added in some railings. Can we move on to something more interesting, like balanced stats for new spells or demons and such, and each admit that the other side has a point? I'm getting a bit tired of this particular debate, because I don't think we're getting anywhere. We DO have points we agree on; why not move on from there?

Edit:

That's not true. If they are asking something abhorent you can fight them, which is in genre, and if they aren't then you can be hit by the NMI.

Like, if they are getting past you're NMI then they are giving a persuasive argument to get you to do something. Maybe they are threatening a loved one, so you respond with force (join battle). Maybe they are a high-pressure salesman so you spend WP to avoid being pressured into a sale. Or maybe their mom just died and so you let the NMI hit you and give the starving orphan the alms she asks for.


Except if they are giving abhorent orders in order to drain your WP, then responding with force is justified in genre.


So I see to issues with this.

The first, is that you are assuming they manage to drain you to 0 WP. If they keep doing NMI which is draining your WP, then getting annoyed and activating Join Battle is, again, in genre. That means that Exalted has successfully emulated one of its main inspirations, Sword and Sorcery novels. I.E. Exalted is not designed to perfectly emulate the real world, it is designed to encourage behaviours which are common in its inspirational fiction. Attacking people who are annoying you enough to bring you down to complete mental exhaustion is one of

The second is that all your examples so far have been "they tell me to do x". But "Rogthnor, do X" isn't an accurate example of what a good social roll is meant to represent. In the example you gave, they aren't saying "give me your car." They are saying, with tears in their eyes and hope in their heart, "I need that car to take my very sick son to the hospital, could you please give it to me?" In which case, giving the car to them is a natural course of action. You as a player shouldn't be trying to avoid giving them your car unless absolutely necessary.

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Unless they can't get past your MDV. Then again, as a player, that's not really your problem, is it? There's nothing to stop you from giving your car, and in all honestly, if its getting to NMI you probably already said no...

Anyway, Rogthnor, I love the examples and agree with your points, but I don't think we're going to convince Jon of them. Want to discuss the practicality of feeding the Kukla to a shark instead? I mean, you'd have to kill the Kukla first, and take control of the shark's mind to make sure it would eat the thing, and keep all of the other sharks away, but what the hell would even happen...

Meh. I have no good ideas left for discussions at the moment, I'm just tired. Sorry, everyone.

 

[Jon Chung]

That's not true. If they are asking something abhorent you can fight them, which is in genre, and if they aren't then you can be hit by the NMI.

Like, if they are getting past you're NMI then they are giving a persuasive argument to get you to do something. Maybe they are threatening a loved one, so you respond with force (join battle). Maybe they are a high-pressure salesman so you spend WP to avoid being pressured into a sale. Or maybe their mom just died and so you let the NMI hit you and give the starving orphan the alms she asks for.

Except if they are giving abhorent orders in order to drain your WP, then responding with force is justified in genre.

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Sigh, one more time.

So I see to issues with this.

The first, is that you are assuming they manage to drain you to 0 WP. If they keep doing NMI which is draining your WP, then getting annoyed and activating Join Battle is, again, in genre. That means that Exalted has successfully emulated one of its main inspirations, Sword and Sorcery novels. I.E. Exalted is not designed to perfectly emulate the real world, it is designed to encourage behaviours which are common in its inspirational fiction. Attacking people who are annoying you enough to bring you down to complete mental exhaustion is one of

The second is that all your examples so far have been "they tell me to do x". But "Rogthnor, do X" isn't an accurate example of what a good social roll is meant to represent. In the example you gave, they aren't saying "give me your car." They are saying, with tears in their eyes and hope in their heart, "I need that car to take my very sick son to the hospital, could you please give it to me?" In which case, giving the car to them is a natural course of action. You as a player shouldn't be trying to avoid giving them your car unless absolutely necessary.

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Do you believe giving in to all non-abhorrent but still undesirable ("give me your car", "lend me a lot of money", etc) NMI commands without spending WP because you're trying to find reasons to not spend WP (since being at 0 WP means you're double-fucked) is a good incentive for the game? Would you say no to "give me your car" if you didn't have to worry about being at 0 WP meaning you're double-fucked or the ruleset said saying no did not cost you WP?

Essentially, are you giving that person your car because you don't want to lose WP? For example, in the case of the lady asking for your car to take someone to a hospital, it's entirely reasonable for you to go "No. I will drive you to the hospital if there is a medical emergency. I am not giving you the keys to my Jaguar!", but here you're giving her the Jaguar. Why?

 

[UrsaTempest]

sigh

Look, to be clear, as an ST and players I've never had a player that knowingly breaks the gentlemen rules and being a shithead (thankfully). However, as an ST I need to know all those trap options and mechanical quirk, if only to prevent me or my players from accidentally falling in it. Then I need to compensate for the compensation, etc.

For example, in one of my early combat encounter has the party fight against various golems that has fairly low health levels, inaccurate attack, but high DV. The result? Punishingly long combat. Lesson learned!

 

[BossFight]

Essentially, are you giving that person your car because you don't want to lose WP?

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No. Im giving it to them because they made a successful social attack and that means they made a conving argument. WP expenditure is to be saved for those times when you, as a player, find the social attack to be completely counter to how you want the story to go. It's a safety net, not a defense.

The fact of the matter is the social system in exalted is meant to give mechanics for how people interact with each other. Its designed to let one character to persuade another. A certain loss of control of your character is an neccessary buy in to use the system. If you don't like that aspect then that's fine, but that's an issue of taste, not an issue with mechanics.

Put another way, if you couldn't spend WP to avoid NMI, it just worked or it didn't, would you consider that better? My guess is no, since you seem to find the idea your character could be convinced to do something outside of your control as inherently detrimental to the game

 

[Jon Chung]

No. Im giving it to them because they made a successful social attack and that means they made a conving argument. WP expenditure is to be saved for those times when you, as a player, find the social attack to be completely counter to how you want the story to go. It's a safety net, not a defense.

The fact of the matter is the social system in exalted is meant to give mechanics for how people interact with each other. Its designed to let one character to persuade another. A certain loss of control of your character is an neccessary buy in to use the system. If you don't like that aspect then that's fine, but that's an issue of taste, not an issue with mechanics.

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Sure, and using your social safety net brings you close to the state of double-fucked. Even if you think you should only spend WP in response to being influenced when you-the-player don't want the story to go there, you-the-player are going to be less likely to hit the veto button if hitting the veto button means you're down resources you need to not die/be enslaved, yes? The veto isn't free, it's spending life.

Put another way, if you couldn't spend WP to avoid NMI, it just worked or it didn't, would you consider that better? My guess is no, since you seem to find the idea your character could be convinced to do something outside of your control as inherently detrimental to the game

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No, I find the idea that resisting my character being convinced to do something costing me physical survivability or resistance to any and all commands from others to be inherently detrimental to the game, because it encourages me to do stupid things in-game like give in to things I would otherwise not have given in to, attacking people I would otherwise not have attacked and so on and so forth.

Which is the point, of course. The fact that these things are tied together in this way makes bad incentives.

 

[BossFight]

Even if you think you should only spend WP in response to being influenced when you-the-player don't want the story to go there, you-the-player are going to be less likely to hit the veto button if hitting the veto button means you're down resources you need to not die/be enslaved, yes?

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I mean, I don't neccesarily see this as an issue though? Like,

A. Encouraging players to use it less isn't a bad thing since it should be a last resort
B. Join battle is honestly a more in genre response then stoic resistance anyway. Like, if you are spending WP to resist then a fight is probably about to begin.

That said, I could see the argument for having it as it's own resource not tied to anything else. Maybe something like a FATE token which can be spent to gain more control of the story in general.

 

[Jon Chung]

I mean, I don't neccesarily see this as an issue though? Like,

A. Encouraging players to use it less isn't a bad thing since it should be a last resort
B. Join battle is honestly a more in genre response then stoic resistance anyway. Like, if you are spending WP to resist then a fight is probably about to begin.

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Hmm, why do you think spending WP to resist influence should be a last resort given the incredible breadth of what NMI considers to be an acceptable order? For example, "give me a lot of money, most or all of your wealth" is simultaneously an acceptable NMI order, something that it is not in-genre to kill people over and something that players are definitely going to resist doing.

That said, I could see the argument for having it as it's own resource not tied to anything else. Maybe something like a FATE token which can be spent to gain more control of the story in general.

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Sure. But with the E2 system as I described, do you see the bad influence of that tight coupling on player decision-making?

 

[BossFight]

mm, why do you think spending WP to resist influence should be a last resort given the incredible breadth of what NMI considers to be an acceptable order? For example, "give me a lot of money, most or all of your wealth" is simultaneously an acceptable NMI order, something that it is not in-genre to kill people over and something that players are definitely going to resist doing.

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Primarily, because its never just "give me all your money" its a well crafted compelling argument to give them all your money. And like, if a person has such an argument you shouldn't be fighting it, you should be falling for it. That's the point of the social system in the first place, and a core concept of exalted. That your characters aren't infallible, and that despite all their powers they still fail in very human ways. The Invincible Sword Princess still falls for Ponzi schemes, and Helen of Troy can still get shanked in a back alley.

More fundamentally however, these sorts of complications aren't failure states for a TTRPG. They're interesting stories to tell and fund adventures to have. Losing your money means you get to have an adventure to get them back, or get to tell people about the time you took on the entire Sultanate with nothing but the clothes on your back.

Having said that, I will agree that the current system doesn't do enough to differentiate how hard a social attack is. Getting me to kill my wife should be considerably harder than getting me to give you five bucks, it shouldn't just be a difference of 1 intimacy. But that is a whole other issue.

Sure. But with the E2 system as I described, do you see the bad influence of that tight coupling on player decision-making?

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I don't think I understand what you are saying here. If the tight-coupling you are talking about is how spending WP to resist social makes you weaker in combat, then sorta?

But fundamentally,I don't think the coupling is all that tight, and when it is I think that serves the purpose of what Exalted is trying to do? Like, I can't see a scenario where I lose more than 1 or 2 WP before starting join battle, and losing 2 WP doesn't seem like that big of a deal?

Like, if you are perfectly evenly matched then yeah, but presumably one person is better at social but worse at combat, which is why they are resorting to this in the first place, and the ability to demoralize an opponent with trash talk prior to battle is something we have seen in both history and in the works Extaled emulates.

I will admit that this leads to some inevitable garbage output, such as badgering someone to give you wealth for five minutes before shanking them in the ribs as an assassination technique, but like, that requires you to deliberately break the system and doesn't seem like it would come up in normal play? Like its so niche that at that point it feels like complaining that the system isn't perfect, and no system ever will be.

 

[BossFight]

sigh

Look, to be clear, as an ST and players I've never had a player that knowingly breaks the gentlemen rules and being a shithead (thankfully). However, as an ST I need to know all those trap options and mechanical quirk, if only to prevent me or my players from accidentally falling in it. Then I need to compensate for the compensation, etc.

For example, in one of my early combat encounter has the party fight against various golems that has fairly low health levels, inaccurate attack, but high DV. The result? Punishingly long combat. Lesson learned!

Click to shrink...

Fundamentally, I think one of the issues I am having is that I don't see how this is a trap option? It seems like something you have to deliberately seek out and exploit, not something that will naturally occur in the progress of play.

Does it produce some garbage outputs? Sure, it can and sometimes does. But these seem so niche as to not be worth the effort to fix when the system works more or less fine and there are much bigger issues with both the gameline as a whole and this specific subsystem