Aaron Peori
Rest in Peace
General Exalted Thread
Yeah, in most every group I've ever played with the vast majority of us just like rolling dice. I would say every group if not for this one campaign of Stars Without Number I was in that had one dude who very vocally held the opposite view.
Needless to say, seeing the makeup of viewpoints on this board has been... educational.
I just graduated with a bachelor's degree in Computer Science and Engineering, and I think rolling dice is fun as fuck. Make of that what you will.
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samdamandias
Apprentice Plane Wizard
Okay. That actually makes a good deal of sense, assuming of course that further charms that take a different priority in the order of operations get published. Heck, a "my dice tricks take precedence over your dice tricks" charm might fit in with the Sidereals or Liminals or Getamins or the other suuuper secret splats that are so secret they aren't even mentioned in the core book.
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To note: the devs have said that Sidereals would have very limited to most of what's called "dice tricks" in the context of the Ex3 core, because their access to TN modifiers is relatively immediate, broadly encompassing, cheap and powerful, so having stuff like what the Solars get on top of that might quickly escalate completely out of hands.
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Jon Chung
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Yes, that's my mistake, a chunk of that got left out. I was actually intending to state agreement with your second paragraph (that's edited in now), the breakdown was to point out that RPGs cannot ignore GM complexity, as the GM already has the hardest job and piling more crap on the poor bastard's plate is not cool.
Edited my post.
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- The end of all things
Good news! There's no need to wait, for your golden overlords have already taken it upon themselves to begin limited tests of this terrifying technique.
Jon Chung
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By contrast, the first thing I do when playing a new game is find or write a dicebot, because the physical process of rolling dice takes way too long by comparison - any time spent on this I consider to be wasted. I want to get my information as quickly as possible so I can resolve my action as quickly as possible and move on to the bit I actually find fun, which is making interesting decisions.
For example, in a Warhammer 40K game, if I decide to have my Dark Lances shoot up a Land Raider, what I want to know is the end result of the shooting action so I can decide what happens based on that result with my next unit(s). The physical act of computing the action is an unfortunate necessity which I would really rather automate.
Similarly, I like knowing what my chances are of having my pair of Dark Lances pop that Land Raider, because that determines how many units of Dark Lance packing 10-man Warrior units I deploy such that they are able to fire on the Land Raider. If this was unknown due to deliberate obfuscation of resolution mechanisms, I cannot make informed tactical decisions and would find this to be extremely unfun.
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Bursting Eagerness Soul
Threadwalking Rating Machine
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notanautomaton
I've got 99 quests, I've finished one
Fun means absoultely nothing. People have fun playing 3.pathfinder. A lot of people. Enough that combined, it's the most popular system in the world.
That doesn't mean that 3.pathfinder is a good system. It is not. It is, in fact, a horrible system. People who like those systems rarely have fun because of the system, they have fun in spite of it, because they're with their friends, or the setting/story is good, and they managed not to accidentally the game. So 'I had fun' means nothing.
And I gave it a chance. In fact, I gave it two chances, before I decided that it was shit and added it to the list of systems that I'll never play without a compelling reason.
Can you truly not tell the difference between having fun because of the system and in spite of it? I like Exalted Third because of it's system. Everything I said up there about it, I have fun because I find Exalted Third fun. Feel free to disagree! But do understand that having fun does mean something when it's because you really like the system. With 2E, I had fun despite the system's best efforts to sabotage that fun. With 3E, I have fun because Exalted Third Edition is fun to play.
You might not like it! Not every system is for every person! That's perfectly okay. But you also can't just dismiss something as horrible because you don't like it, and the more I read here the more I become convinced that this really is a mix of different priorities and different values with the game than actual flaws with the system.
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I again, cite the fact that 3e made massive steps backwards in good design practices. This is a fairly objective proof of 'This is a horrible design decision. Why would you do this?"
They picked a bad way to implement their vision.
I don't agree that they are objectively bad. You and others just don't like them. Dice tricks, craft, Dual Magnus Prana, God-King's Shrike, naturalistic language...none of these things are objectively bad. They all have pros and cons. We can disagree on whether the pros outweigh the cons, sure. But it's abso-fucking-lutely not objective proof that the game is badly designed.
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In Exhibit A, 2nd edition Exalted, we have charts that explain the order of modifiers and the combat resolution steps. Charms are also marked as to when they happen with Step 1-10 flags.
In Exhibit B, 3rd Edition Exalted, we do not have clear order of modifier rules, and charms are written with "You activate this charm at this time" mechanics.
This is an objective step backward.
notthepenguins
Neither Spherical Nor Frictionless
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There are people out there who legitimately like the Scion 1E system; that doesn't make it not a fucking awful system. An anecdotal "but I have fun" is not actually all that useful in a discussion of whether or not a system is actually good. Especially when, to be blunt, you're not demonstrating any significant degree of system mastery to contribute; your "I'm having fun as I la la do whatever with the mechanics" is a valid type of play, but it is not an especially meaningful one when you want your input on a system's actual mechanical merits taken seriously.
No one is saying "you aren't having fun" or even "no one will have fun." They're saying it's a badly designed system, which is a claim that can't actually be argued against with pure responses of "fun."
Diff'rent strokes, I guess! Arguing for the correlation was probably an overstatement on my part.
Let me rephrase that a little, then: I think, to the degree that Ex3 is depending on mathematical obfuscation for its fun, that means that it's going to be less enjoyable the better you understand it. If people enjoy dice-fiddling as dice fiddling, though - obfuscatory elements aside - that's not going to be affected by a better understanding of statistics.
I do a lot of math in my work - I'm also in CompSci, for whatever that's worth - and I just can't... unsee the stats, y'know? I can't be unaware of how these things actually fiddle with the numbers. And given that there are so many changes, with such similar statistical mappings... yeah, I think that does lesson my fun. Anecdotes either way, though!
Let's revise this a little bit. I think you're absolutely right that, say, "natural language" is not an inherently good or bad thing, but rather a thing you can prefer or not prefer.
But when folks are complaining about natural language, I think they are (for the most part) objecting that this particular set of natural language doesn't explain multiple basic rules interactions; that this particular wording has chosen not to explain how fundamental pieces of the game interact. And it's not clear to me that that's a thing with meaningful trade-offs, about which we can hold legitimately differing opinions. It's bad that you can't tell what the cross-Ability Charm combo restrictions are, or that you can't tell what happens when you Clash an Iron Whirlwind, or that no one knows how to activate Charms in an opposed situation, or any number of other examples I could cite. And there's nothing gained in exchange for these; natural language doesn't mandate leaving big holes in your rule set, even if it makes them more likely.
These things are - as nearly as anything in an RPG can be - entirely bad. They're pure downside. And there are a lot of them, particularly in the game's single most-touted front-and-center improvement, combat.
I don't know that these make 3e a bad game overall - again, like you, I'm having fun playing it. On balance, I'd say 3e seems like a better-put-together game than 2e was. But this is a way that 3e's core is bad that 2e's core was not, and I think we can at least say that in that regard 3e is worse-designed than 2e was.
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Imrix
Periodically Malevolent QM
"Objectively bad" is perhaps a little strong, but @notthepenguins is right on the money in pointing out the uselessness of anecdotal "but I have fun" statements. Omicron's point that some people just enjoy the act of rolling dice is useful, it provides reasons and substance to his position that can be discussed. I found it an insight into an alien (but by no means invalid) point of view, and I can therefore debate it. Probably along the lines of, "fair enough, but is so much systemic obfuscation and mechanical overcomplication really the best way to enhance that?"
By contrast, "but I have fun" adds nothing to the discussion. It's simply an anecdote without substance or new information. This isn't the first time people have tried to explain this to you. Please stop acting like it's a useful contribution on its own merits.
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azoicennead
Overly-Affectionate Zombie Squad
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On natural language:
TL;DR their intentional avoidance of precise and defined language for mechanics is an objectively bad design decision. They're actively deciding to make a worse product.
I think part of my feelings on the matter are that, in addition to the fact that I just like throwing lots of dice, a lot of my most memorable moments from campaigns I've been in (and not just Exalted, mind) have been where the dice defy the stats. Maybe your combat wombat hilariously fails to hit a completely normal mook, or your group's bookworm comes out with a clutch knife throw on the Big Bad. Whatever the circumstances, those tend to be the moments that stick out in the for me and the people I play with, even years after the fact. I like having to think on my feet when everything doesn't go quite to plan. As a part-time GM I really, really sympathize with the 'makes encounter design harder' argument, but at least anecdotally there's enough value for me and my group in the 'how will the dice land' moment that I don't think the answer is as simple as 'lol dice tricks are awful'.
This is one way in which I'm in agreement with most of the rest of the board. There's not really much weight to the dev's argument in favor of using naturalistic language to preserve the fluffy aspects of the write ups when Magic: The Gathering knocks this shit out of the park in terms of having mechanically precise wording, along with amazing flavor text fairly regularly. It can be done, therefore it should have been.
Their other argument was something along the lines of 'we could never write something airtight enough that no one could break it, therefore it's a fool's errand to try'. Which is slightly more palatable because while Magic, again, manages to be almost mechanically airtight, its full rulebook covering all possible interactions is hundreds of pages long, and you are required to take a no-fooling full-on exam to get qualified as a judge. That still doesn't excuse their apparent disdain for the notion of even trying.
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No they're not. This is not what "objective" means. There are costs to using "technical writing best practices," do you realize that? They might not be costs you care about, but they exist.
Like, there's a reason legal and technical manuals the world over are an endless topic of jokes, you know? Those "best practices" are extremely useful in the context of things on which people's freedom and livelihood depend, or in the case of things that will literally explode if mishandled.
"A social game I play once a week with my friends for fun" is not one such circumstance.
notthepenguins
Neither Spherical Nor Frictionless
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I would agree that it is certainly worse than the alternative, but there are tradeoffs. Technical language tends toward dry and uninteresting, which is a downside for RPGS, because RPGs require you to be excited about your powers. Of course, I think you can still be technical enough and have interesting writing, but saying "not going The Most Technical is an objectively bad decision" is kinda silly.
The problems of 3E are more related to their idea of how to use natural language rather than the inherent concept itself.
Imrix
Periodically Malevolent QM
From my perspective, those costs are, well, the cost of doing a proper job. That's not objective, but I have a hard time seeing an alternative.
My position here is that the purpose of a game rulebook is to communicate to readers what the rules are with as little room for misunderstanding as is practical. This is separate from the purpose of the ruleset in an RPG, which is to serve as an impartial engine to arbitrate in-game conflicts in the course of play and, as a direct result, facilitate fun and interesting gameplay.
If a rulebook is not effectively communicating what the rules are, in the sense that multiple people can read said rules and come away with differing, equally textually supported interpretations of said rules or situations in which the rules do not apparently work, as there is no rule covering a situation created by other rules, the rulebook has failed. The author needs to amend the text such that there can be no (or as few as possible) incidents of this kind.
From this perspective, natural language writing is directly counterproductive to the purpose of a rulebook.
azoicennead
Overly-Affectionate Zombie Squad
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... Did... Did you guys actually read what I said?
Actually, the Devs have shot themselves in the foot here and here is the reason why: You're defending non-technical writing for something they have already insisted are meant to be Game Pieces, and not statements about the game or setting at large. There is no reason for Charms, having now been utterly stripped of the storytelling element, to have non-technical writing standards placed on them.
A defined Game Piece does not have a requirement to "feel like 'real magic'/Exalted," which is the common justification I see for imprecise wording. There are no Chess boards where all the pawns are different shapes, or the elevation of the checkerboard tiles are different because it is intended to feel like you are guiding an actual army around the board. Because it was a Game designed with the rules to be functional and precise, where the pieces and board (while they can take any form aesthetically) are still mandated to hold a measurement of rules-bound consistency in order to fulfill that primary function of "progressing/completing the game." Chess as a ruleset exists independently of "I just find it fun to move the pieces around" and similar justifications for this reason.
And to be honest, for your last point, why in god's name would I or should I be willing to hand my hard-earned money, time and effort off to someone who treats their milestone flagship product with a laissez-faire attitude of "this is just some bullshit game anyway, so what does it matter to anyone if its not being held to any standard of craftsmanship or quality?"
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The devs hold themselves to very high standards of craftsmanship, which is very obvious when you talk to them semi-regularly rather than in what amounts to howling tribal skirmishes (from either side). They just have a very different conception of what craftsmanship entails.
Also the rest of your post is basically vague irrelevant bullshit that attempts to twist words for lack of an actual point. Ex3 definitely wants Charms to have a storytelling element, to be a storytelling element; I have no idea where you pulled the contrary from. They're abstract, they do not exist as Things within the setting, they serve a fundamentally gamist intent, but they're still each one of them a tiny bit of storytelling captured in a specific mechanic.
I have no idea what you're saying. My post was a counterpoint to yours, and your quoting of yourself does not in anyway contradict what I wrote.
