Interest Check: Exalted 3rd ed Mu
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I wouldn't mind giving it a try! Let me know when everything's ready to go!
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TANGENTIALLY RELATED...
Exalted has the same compounding XP issue that oWoD had... so, WORSE than 1e nWoD, even. And it's been long enough since I looked at the 3e chart, I forget if they fixed the 'solars spend less xp on everything, in addition to just being better than everyone else' or not. So there's room for fixing things.
... my preferred method is starting everyone at 1 or 0, and giving them a pile of XP to raise things, but that is me.
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I'm moving forward on this, but haven't yet decided on concrete theme ideas. I purchased hosting space, and will be trying this with AresMush as a code base, because I do think the web integration and tools will be extremely helpful. I've got a theme staffer set up who I trust implicitly and who knows the Exalted theme inside and out.
There are some good points made in other posts here, regarding XP creep and the rest- but that's something I'll have to handle a bit later on. I'll keep updating as I go.
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@surasanji Sweet. I know I'm weirdly picky about the chargen:xp ratio thing, but it's not a requirement.
Now I gotta dust of my 3e books and see if anyone who backed Lunars doesn't want the Shiney collector book anymore (I clicked the remind me button on Kickstart, but missed the email. Woe.)
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I've always been really charmed (pun halfway intended) by the Dragon-Blooded and I think a game centered on them has great potential to be a fun mix of action-adventure and lords & ladies hijinks ... sort of like a less uptight anime-flavored Amber game!
So I would recommend being super cautious about copying one of the long-time pain points of Amber games: having a higher up tier of PC that's, well, better than the sort the average person gets to play. The other flavors of Exalted might be better kept as NPCs and/or villains; otherwise you have to walk a very narrow line between allowing too many in play (which risks the game becoming entirely different and no longer meaningfully about the Terrestrials at all) and allowing too few (which runs the risk of DB players getting cranky about being reduced to second fiddles in a game ostensibly about them).
I'm sure it's possible to handle this well. And honestly, the first option is probably a feature rather than a bug for a lot of Exalted fans. Just makes me twitch, is all.
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We've decided on a location, something new to 3rd Edition: The Empire of Prasad. This will make the game more Dragonblooded Focused.
The Empire of Prasad is very much inspired by mythical India- with a caste system ruled by dragonblooded. Technically a Realm satrapy, they're distant enough that they're a power in their own right- so powerful that the Realm's immaculate religion doesn't even hold sway there, instead having been pulled into their own religion.
We're still working on how we'd want Solars and Lunars to work within the theme, as I'd like to lean towards them being playable characters albeit perhaps with some limits in play as the Prasadi DO have wyld hunts and hunt down various Anathema.
In that same vein Abyssals are also likely to be allowed, but highly regulated. There are only 100 of them in all of Creation, a precious commodity of the Deathlords. They will likely be given out to trusted players who can create RP as they will absolutely be antagonists.
This is all subject (and even likely) to change as I hire on staff, and more of the theme and concept is worked out, along with how we're looking to balance things.
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@surasanji WOO. The wife and I are hyped for this.
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@surasanji Did 3e keep the 300/300/100 shard cap? I thought they returned to a more vague/unspoken number, while also introducing new types of Exalts?
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@autumn said in Interest Check: Exalted 3rd ed Mu:
So I would recommend being super cautious about copying one of the long-time pain points of Amber games: having a higher up tier of PC that's, well, better than the sort the average person gets to play. The other flavors of Exalted might be better kept as NPCs and/or villains; otherwise you have to walk a very narrow line between allowing too many in play (which risks the game becoming entirely different and no longer meaningfully about the Terrestrials at all) and allowing too few (which runs the risk of DB players getting cranky about being reduced to second fiddles in a game ostensibly about them).
This, incidentally, is a reason why a creation-wide game could work. DB politics on the BI or in stronger Satrapies, Celestials out and about elsewhere.
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@jennkryst said in Interest Check: Exalted 3rd ed Mu:
@autumn said in Interest Check: Exalted 3rd ed Mu:
So I would recommend being super cautious about copying one of the long-time pain points of Amber games: having a higher up tier of PC that's, well, better than the sort the average person gets to play. The other flavors of Exalted might be better kept as NPCs and/or villains; otherwise you have to walk a very narrow line between allowing too many in play (which risks the game becoming entirely different and no longer meaningfully about the Terrestrials at all) and allowing too few (which runs the risk of DB players getting cranky about being reduced to second fiddles in a game ostensibly about them).
This, incidentally, is a reason why a creation-wide game could work. DB politics on the BI or in stronger Satrapies, Celestials out and about elsewhere.
Yeah. It would be awesome if the plots in Prasad were DB-heavy while players with Celestial Exalts could run amok a little more freely in the rest of Creation, doing PRPs, having adventures. It would divide the game, yes, but it could work, especially if you can have more than one alt.
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@jennkryst said in Interest Check: Exalted 3rd ed Mu:
@surasanji Did 3e keep the 300/300/100 shard cap?
Nope. Exaltation is no longer a known quantity with known rules. It's a miracle that the rest of us can only try to figure out by extrapolation. And yes, there are new kinds of Exalted! In addition to the Getimians (anti-Sidereals) and Liminals (animated corpses), there are the Exigent Exalted, which could be created by any god desperate enough to pay the price to make them. I don't believe we have rules for any of them yet, though.
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@greenflashlight Yeah, my question was more directed towards the comment of there only being 100 Abyssals.
Not being rules for STUFF is a big problem for Exalted. Evocations are going to be tricksy, for example.
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@jennkryst Ah, sorry. I thought you were talking about 300 Solar&c/300 Lunar/100 Sidereal.
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@jennkryst Things are still in construction, obviously, but it seems our team is leaning towards there being a limited number of Abyssal exaltations in our game to keep the splat meaningful.
Again, this is just our idea so far and isn't set in stone. I'm very much a big proponent of antagonistic PCs being given to people who are mature enough to create fun and RP, versus just being the big-bad dude who sucks the fun out of stuff. I've seen that happen too many times to not be a little gunshy of it.
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@surasanji said in Interest Check: Exalted 3rd ed Mu:
@jennkryst Things are still in construction, obviously, but it seems our team is leaning towards there being a limited number of Abyssal exaltations in our game to keep the splat meaningful.
Again, this is just our idea so far and isn't set in stone. I'm very much a big proponent of antagonistic PCs being given to people who are mature enough to create fun and RP, versus just being the big-bad dude who sucks the fun out of stuff. I've seen that happen too many times to not be a little gunshy of it.
Good luck with that. The only time I've ever seen antagonistic PCs not fail horribly is if they are played so dumb that they never succeed against PCs but so smart they always manage to get away. Like a cheesy cartoon. As soon as an antagonistic PC wins against other PCs you'll get almost obligatory complaints about how things aren't fair, the bad guy is over-powered, the PCs weren't given a real chance to succeed, blah blah Bob Loblaw blah, etc...
Some people (way too many people for my liking) think the fun stops the moment they stop succeeding. That's a high barrier to overcome.
Good luck.
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@warma-sheen I hear you and I hope to be able to get it done right.. I'm prepared to fail, if it doesn't work out the way I hope.
I agree with you regarding where the fun starts or stops. Exalted is a character driven game (imho), and failure is and SHOULD be on the table even for powerful exalts.
Losing is a huge part of character growth, I feel, so. I should hope my players expect to win some, lose some and write some great stories in the process.
As I've never run a game before, I'm excited to give it a try all the same.
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@surasanji said in Interest Check: Exalted 3rd ed Mu:
@warma-sheen I hear you and I hope to be able to get it done right.. I'm prepared to fail, if it doesn't work out the way I hope.
I agree with you regarding where the fun starts or stops. Exalted is a character driven game (imho), and failure is and SHOULD be on the table even for powerful exalts.
Losing is a huge part of character growth, I feel, so. I should hope my players expect to win some, lose some and write some great stories in the process.
As I've never run a game before, I'm excited to give it a try all the same.
If you're playing Exalted and winning all the time, then why are you playing Exalted?
Like, I get it. Solars are the exemplary best at everything -- that's their thing, excellence -- but that excellence can only come to real light when challenged; if you never find something you actually need to overcome, you're really just a bully. And yes, Solars eventually all basically become bullies, but the point of the game is before, not after!
Lol.
Sign me up for a Solar who fails five times just so he can succeed the sixth.
I remember one game (it was a Pulp-styled Exalted game) where my Night Exalt (and his crew) kept running into this Abyssal pirate who kept kicking their asses, especially my guy. So I lost, and I lost, and I lost, and I accumulated XP, and I built a Combo that included a Perfect Dodge, and a Perfect Attack and an Extra Action Charm; and then I made sure I had enough Essence. And, like, the fourth or fifth time, my Exalt straight up challenged the guy to a duel. Abyssal said yes. And I blew him up. He escaped, but I almost deleted him out of existence. It was awesome.
It would have been real fucking lame if I had been able to do that the first time.
It's also true that eventually the bad guy has to be willing to lose. If you're playing the antagonist, the narrative contract says you'll win or get the upper hand a lot at first, and then eventually get foiled. That's how that works. The problem with letting players do it instead of the Storyteller is... well... players get attached.
"Excuse the hell out of you. He's a bag of dicks. I'm a carefully curated box of cocks." -- to @GirlCalledBlu upon being misrepresented.
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@coin said in Interest Check: Exalted 3rd ed Mu:
It's also true that eventually the bad guy has to be willing to lose. If you're playing the antagonist, the narrative contract says you'll win or get the upper hand a lot at first, and then eventually get foiled. That's how that works. The problem with letting players do it instead of the Storyteller is... well... players get attached.
Oh yeah, absolutely. That's a major reason why I'm pushing for Abyssals to be invite only more or less- you need to prove you're a mature player who's willing to lose because you play the antagonist. You need to create RP, there are certain responsibilities in playing this character if NOT an NPC controlled by staff.
Chances are such characters would start with a bit more 'oomph' to them in terms of resources, and where they start as well.
Of course, we're not yet set on how we're doing any of that- but I really do like the chance to toss ideas around here on the forum with you guys. It helps me a lot!
