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>>97552719
>TQ: Roleplay challenge: You are each a 1e Primordial War veteran or 2e late First Age luminary viewing the 3e Age of Sorrows. What are your thoughts?
Back in my day we just shot the fuckers. None of this fancy-pants dancing around the point. Just you, stab, and kaboom, and usually a bunch of people blocking or dodging. Then they did it too. That was honest fighting.

Initiative is a mindset for the weak, and my reincarnation needs to stop embarrassing me by being in it.

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>>97552719
Since it's Valentine's Day tomorrow, have your PCs ever been romantically been involved with anyone else, be they another PC in the Circle or an NPC? And how did the romance affect the campaign?

>>97551676
>These are all things these faggots actually believe and have argued for. There are more extremely bad takes from these fuckable holes if people want to help me list them.

>None of the combat systems work so we should remove all of them, to be replaced by ventures/one roll resolution.
>Combat characters ruin the game.
>Stealth and more specifically ambush ruins the game.
>Social has unlimited action economy - you can say ten things in a row for ten influence actions before anybody else gets a go.
>You can't walk away from / ignore social because it's too fast.
>You are immune to all social actions once you've decided to walk away / ignore them.
>Lunars don't exist.
>Sidereals have always been justified.
>No True Dragonblood exist, it's all shapeshifted Lunars / Sidereal in RDs / mortal sorcerers with disguise magic / godblooded who aren't even disguised / Solars with 'fire-like' anima flare / Abyssals with 'water-y' anima flare and the signature pale skin aspect markings / Infernals with 'green' anima flare and 'aspect marking' mutations / etc
>Everybody should already know and accept my homebrew/houserules even if I've never described them and they're not in a book
>The 2e Lunar Bond mindrape charms are good, actually
>The 2e Thousand Stream Project and 3e forever war are both worse than 1e barbarian Lunars
>Halta's population numbers make sense and are appropriate to the setting
>Halta's population numbers don't make sense and are not appropriate to the setting, but Harborheads do and are
>All of Exalted's demographic numbers make sense
>None of Exalted's demographic numbers make sense
>Exalted is bronze/iron/rennaisence/modern/post-modern technologically (take your pick)
>Unwalled settlements do not exist because of the prevalence of dangerous roaming monsters

>>97552796
Yes. With PCs and NPCs both, with different characters. I have found romance to be exceptionally powerful and good for campaigns, but sex to be destructive and bad for campaigns.

>>97552854
>>Social has unlimited action economy - you can say ten things in a row for ten influence actions before anybody else gets a go.
Considering the existence of certain charms implying the contrary, how did Holdorke let this scape? Didn't they play test it?

>Lunars.
They are only kept for ERP purposes, and rupaul like drag races.

>>97552854
>Five guys with sledgehammers are stronger then a solar.
>Every single place in the realm has advanced anti-shapeshifter tech because lunars.
>Nothing can travel as fast as a modern plane, except solars.
>Dragonblooded have absolute no way to track people.
>Mortals can handle moving at exalted speeds and can be picked up and carried without worry.

So fucking many. Sooo fucking many of the years.

>Battlegroups can produce an amount of individual combatents in a fight equal to the number of people in said battelgroup. So 1000 people in a battlegroup is potentially 1000 people you have to fight 1v1.

SO MANY.

>Social system should only work against NPC's to not disrupt the power fantasy.
>Attacking willpower should be banned.

>>97553008
1e!Lilith was walking freely in the Realm, it was a show of her changing moons infiltration prowess, but I don't think they did anything with this plot point.

>Social system should only work against NPC's to not disrupt the power fantasy.
They should have made npcs/pcs fully asymmetrical, instead of the halfway state of 3e's.

>Attacking willpower should be banned
Nothing good came from attacking Willpower, or messing with your enemy's mote costs.

>>97552854
This fag sounds like he hates fun.

>>97553008
>>Social system should only work against NPC's to not disrupt the power fantasy.
>>Attacking willpower should be banned.
This is correct, though?

>>97553056
I don't really know how to word this properly but I've always thought it was good game design when you're allowed to "mess with" as many vectors as possible, even if it's a nightmare to balance.

An example of this is attacking motes and willpower, but it's also being able to do X thing on steps you normally can't do a thing, or adjusting how a rule works, things like that. In Exalted 2e you have charms, merits, health, willpower, virtues, intimacies, every single various tick and speed and step, limit. The way Exalted fucks with all of these things as a whole is what makes it neat.

I'm not going too into this however because it's a pain in the ass to talk about.

Let's not forget the crazy guy with a chip on his shoulder a mile long who was saying that treating your players as if they are more important than imaginary NPCs is is the same as condoning mindrape charms, and also cried about people not liking Infernals enough

>>97553092
Balance first, gimmick second. Gimmicks are great to read on paper but if the gameplay experience is bad, and it almost universally is, then just go with what is balanced. The developers need to learn this.

>>97553092
The problem is that stuff like Willpower and mote costs are the structure of the game itself, affecting them is like if you could change the rules of the game itself, because of this, these kind of effects are so horrible to balance.

Communityfag is getting more unhinged by the day.

>>97553093
If you're absolutely sure this is a real thing and not something you're making up then,

>Storytellers hits players with combos totally rewriting their intimacies.
>Storyteller hits players with combo in combat that instantly removes a single player.
>Storyteller has NPC that is far more powerful then even five solars working together and has 50+ charms, or worse, literally all of them.
>Thinks "has all charms" is okay game designs.

>>97553149
You keep spamming. It's not my fault you're no longer part of the community. Maybe if you behaved yourself.

>>97553158
This is also a problem, but this isn't the same thing as the guy crying about social charms being asymmetrical and calling it the same as lunar specific mindrape

>>97553008
>Every single place in the realm has advanced anti-shapeshifter tech because lunars
I support this, but not to such an extreme. I think the Wyld Hunt (1e/2e ver) should always have some means of checking for shapeshifters because otherwise they'd be fucking stupid, they literally hunt shapeshifters for a living.

What I think the whole of the Realm has is advanced techniques that're encoded in rumours/myths/legends and spread by a number of factors most importantly the Immaculate Faith that talks about how to basically spy-check people. Cold iron vs Fae is common knowledge everywhere, and 'check if they know about an old shared experience' or checking around if animals act strange and maybe even try targeting them with thaumaturgy/Art of Husbandry vs Lunars would be known tricks just like how sunlight/garlic vs Vampires or wolfsbane/silver vs werewolves or never making a deal with the devil or rubbing lamps for genies and easy ways to break the three wishes rule got spread around IRL. The more people resort to folklore the more the messages and techniques get muddled and confused, but religions are generally really good (relatively) at keeping the key important notes of rituals and knowledge like that straight so long as they don't have direct political implications.

>Mortals can handle moving at exalted speeds and can be picked up and carried without worry.
That one should be fine for most things, I think. Stunts should allow you to pick up a mortal and Mountain-Crossing Leap Technique with them in your arms. It's genre appropriate if nothing else.

>>97553207
Pc vs NPC social imbalance is a problem since vampire the masquerade, the devs made sure that typically high generation PCs couldn't use dominate against typically low generation NPCs

Threadly reminder that only the most genuinely deranged lunatics defend the social rules.

>>97553216
>the devs made sure that typically high generation PCs couldn't use dominate against typically low generation NPCs
I'm not huge into WoD but my understanding is that WoD players complain about the opposite being the case all the time. Something something elder problems methuselah everywhere etc etc?

>>97553207
This is my inexperience talking but I really don't know a ton about the lunar mindrape stuff besides the memes I've read. I've only had positive game experiences regarding the bond in both 2e and 3e, even if it wasn't always romantic.

I am going to try though so if any of this sounds made up it's because it is. I feel like I get the gist though.

>Thinks the Lunar-Solar bond should only be one way.
>Thinks the red rule doesn't apply to the Solar-Lunar bond.
>Constantly asks for a lunar mate to roleplay romance with even when other players aren't interested.
>Constantly talks about rape every single time lunars are mentioned, no matter the context.

These seem real enough but someone else is going to have to say for sure.

>>97553216
I agree. Players should just not need to socially defend. Defending is for NPCs

>>97553227
I've never seen it be anything but positive in real games. I've only seen people theorize it or use obviously fake stories

>>97553226
Methuselah are the before mentioned low gen npcs.

PCs are typically 13th gens, the lower the number the better; with generation 3, and sometimes 4, being statless plot devices.

>>97553065
I could narrow it down to arguments I actually believe in and would be willing to argue for if you prefer? Most of those are just shit I see. Hell, some of the things in there I do support are ones I would only support because I think they're fun to argue for.
>There are no true Dragonblood in the Age of Sorrows, only pretenders in it for the benefits
>No combat system is good and one roll resolution for all combat scenarios improves the game significantly, especially pacing.
>Sidereals are justified and always have been.
>Kingdom of Halta's demographics are appropriate.
>Unwalled settlements do not exist because of the prevalence of dangerous roaming monsters

>>97553245
>>Sidereals are justified and always have been.

This might be one of my favorite. I can have fun with this one.

>>97553245
>>Unwalled settlements do not exist because of the prevalence of dangerous roaming monsters
This one is new to me, is it related to 3e's portrayal of thaumaturgy?

>>97553254
>This might be one of my favorite. I can have fun with this one.
1e!Sidereals was not so subtle pointing out that the vision of bronze was going to end up as a second vision of dark.

>>97553260
The books make it sound like the sidereals literally had no chance of losing. The bronze path, removing all the solars and out smarting them, was the easy thing. At the height of solar decadence but still.

desu it also says in some places just how risky it was but not nearly as often as it says that the bronze path had no chance of failing and that's why it was chosen. God solars are fucking weak amirite.

>>97553256
>This one is new to me, is it related to 3e's portrayal of thaumaturgy?
No, it's mostly based on some things said in earlier editions. I think I pulled mostly from 1e when I came up with the idea, but it's been a while since I actually argued for it so I don't remember clearly. Particularly, (I think it was in Scavenger Lands? Or S&S? Maybe even Lunars?) they described mortals (especially the 'civilized' mortals) as huddling up in walled cities trying to keep the constant danger of the world at bay, and the farming peasants outside of those walls as one step from barbarian / barbarian slave, with barbarian raids capturing the slaves then trading the excess back to civilization (often via the Guild) in return for goods for the tribe. Every settlement by necessity needs emplaced defenses or strong guardians because otherwise it doesn't stick around, and this is backed somewhat by even scraggly little nothingburger towns in the deep north like Wrangler's Knob being walled on one side by a river/lake and on the other by a full palisade, even though they do have a relatively powerful and aggressive supernatural protector fully paid up and willing to defend them. It's also not something that's ever really contradicted throughout 1e or 2e's books, with basically every place I check having some kind of natural or constructed defenses, usually both, to make them into a hard target that random monsters can't wander into and barbarians can't easily take.

>>97553270
Yes, but it was the Sidereals coping. and the writers subtly sneaking them as the strongest
>The vision of bronze didn't work as we planned, but at least, it is better than the fate of Creation depending on the activation of a Twilight's super weapon.

The description of the three visions, was also accompanied by the "blind prophets" sidebar, that describes everything wrong with said visions and the course that Sidereals took.

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>>97553260
>1e!Sidereals was not so subtle pointing out that the vision of bronze was going to end up as a second vision of dark.
It's not saying conclusively that it was going to end up as a second vision of dark, only that the change was there. It's also worth noting that all of the things that are causing problems in the vision of bronze timeline could also have fucked over the vision of gold - the not-Usurpation of the vision of gold still involves a civil war where the Sidereals cooperate with some of the Solars to cull the excesses of the First Age (including a lot of Solars) and probably still sparks off an attempt at a Dragonblooded revolution, the Great Contagion might well have shown up and sparked off a Solar civil war that the Balorian Crusade could have exploited the hell out of, and the Deathlords absolutely still form in the chaos of the not-Usurpation, the only real difference is that the Yozi probably don't get their hands on a bunch of Solar Exaltations to turn them into Akuma/Infernals (Akuma was what was happening in 1e, and they'd eventually return to normal Exaltations rather than being a permanent change like in 2e), and it's debatable whether the Infernals were even going to be worse for the world when we saw everything play out in 2e with RotSE on one side and Devil-Tiger redemptionists on the other.

Basically, the Sidereal choice to go with the vision of bronze is justified (especially in 1e) because everything wrong with it also was wrong with the vision of gold, and just as things outside fate cause problems in their foresight with the bronze vision the gold vision is also not guaranteed to be possible. Just relying on the Solars to fix everything isn't actually a solution when Sidereals, who are on a similar level if not the same or even higher level with SMA, can't. Sidereals also have no responsibility for making the world a better place, only to keep it being a place, so the gold path being 'better' doesn't factor for their decision.

>>97553301
Your shit's all retarded when literally every bad thing that happens post Usurpation is described as essentially "The Solars would have deftly handled this but they're dead and nobody else could do it"

>>97553316
>Your shit's all retarded when literally every bad thing that happens post Usurpation is described as essentially "The Solars would have deftly handled this but they're dead and nobody else could do it"
It's literally not described that way by anyone but meta-commentary from people in the surrounding community - that is, Solar fags. It's not described that way in the books. Sometimes they'll say that the Solars at the height of their power (or much more often something that the Solars at the height of their power had built) would've been able to crush some problem or another, but consider that the only line where Solars stay at the peak of their power is the dark vision, where either nothing happens and everything gets worse or the failed gold vision where culling the excess fails and the redemption-believer Sidereals are defeated along with their Solar allies.

Solars had single target solutions to the Great Contagion, but surprise, so did the Sidereals. The actual best solution to the Contagion in all of Exalted is in the hands of the gods, since Celestial Wine can cure the Contagion and can be produced at scale, but it didn't help because it wasn't produced at scale and there was definitely not enough, not in time for it to work.

>>97553341
Bro, literally the entirety of post usurpation history is full of the failure of the other Exalted to deal with problems decisively and it's not exactly subtle. You're high on your own supply and calling everyone else who disagrees a Solarfag, which is some bitter ass bitch behavior

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>>97553301
>>97553341
>I'm going to just say the vision of gold was also a worst case scenario because of shit I made up
>I'm also just gonna pretend the Sidereals didn't fuck up dealing with the megaplague that killed 9/10 of all living things. It was just as keikaku

>>97553341
Imagine what a Twilight at the height of his decadence could do with the Great Contagion. There wouldn't be a Creation left. Hell I bet any other the Ponies could make things worse if they really put there minds to it.

Something something a solar teams up with the invading fey and damns Creation even sooner all because the sideeals didn't take the bronze path.

I never thought I would see Siddiewank come back into style.

>>97553341
>The actual best solution to the Contagion in all of Exalted is in the hands of the gods, since Celestial Wine can cure the Contagion and can be produced at scale, but it didn't help because it wasn't produced at scale and there was definitely not enough, not in time for it to work.
Excuse me commissar, if the "actual best solution to the Contagion in all of Exalted" was in the hands of the gods. Then why didn't the gods, who have been consistently described as adversely affected by the Contagion due to the adverse impact it had on many of their domains, simply stop it themselves? Keep in mind not all gods are gods of disease, death and desolation, nor are all gods too addled by the Games of Divinity to wipe their own asses.

>>97551721
Based. Controversial opinion but there's plenty in those chapters I like such as Infernal social privileges in Hell, it's just that several paragraphs of fluff are completely overshadowed by a throwaway edgy line and the description of Lilun.

Even if they were nerfed into the ground in 3e (they weren't, the bar was in the Mariana Trench but I was impressed and relieved. Principle-Invoking Onslaught can do Aggravated damage by stunting! You can summon miles of darkness that leech motes, health and willpower out of people! They have the best Feat of Strength Charms in the game, bar none!), as long as they weren't totally mishandled I would still find them the coolest of the Solaroids. At the end of the day I just like the final form-having, demon-summoning, crimson wind transforming warlocks cooler than either the demigod Hamon users or the Requiem Chevalier Vampire refugees from a purely aesthetic level.

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>>97553696
Forgot relevant pic, Sidereals could never pull off this fit.

>>97553301
>Sidereals also have no responsibility for making the world a better place, only to keep it being a place, so the gold path being 'better' doesn't factor for their decision.
>making the "muh duty" argument in fucking Exalted, the game (allegedly) about classic heroics and player exceptionalism
I like how you moved the goalposts of the argument so far that you might as well be arguing that 2e Abyssals are also justified in killing Creation because they have no responsibility for making the world a better place, only to stop it from being a place and exact the Neverborn's horrific vengeance on all that breathes as well as some that doesn't (which according to your appeal to authority argument, is ontologically correct because all Exalts should be good little functionaries who never question their patrons)

>>97553341
I love how you're arguing with a straight face that Fate is always correct and prophecy is completely infallible in a setting where several of the hostile forces arrayed against it are explicitly outside of Fate.

>>97553696
The Infernal Allthing is the best design decision I've seen made done for a game in a good long time. I love everything about it, from the extravagance to the fact that it's actually an honest attempt at making the infernal comfortable.

2e suggests it's a temp thing while 3e seems to suggest that it'll last as long as the infernals allow it to last. I have to admit, I'm fine with the idea of Yozi being cruel that you either have to free yourself from or take command in some fashion, but I also love the 3e idea where the infernals are basically their new games of divinity.

Infernal fans are eating good.

>>97553696
Sorry, I can't agree. I think their aesthetics are lame more than anything else, but I also think the yozi themselves are super lame. I don't know why people spend hours yapping about vagueposts: the ancient evil. It all feels weird for weirdness's sake and I guess I'm over 25 and don't care

>>97553702
I've had my Solar do that with his anima banner since 1e. It's gold tho

>>97553743
Each to their own. Just like Pat Mills hasn't stopped drawing edgy over the top comics way past his 30s, I'm never gonna not find Solars inherently less cool than Infernals even though I actually like the paladin aesthetic in a lot of games. I just really enjoy a take on warlock powers that includes a lot of physicality, sentient artifacts, becoming less of a person and more of a force of nature, and a god-monster transformation.

>>97553753
I hope you had fun with it, anon. Was it specifically demonic batlike gold wings? Really leaning into the Anathema reputation there.

>>97553725
Agreed. Comparing 2e and 3e's Allthings, instead of absolutely preferring one over the other I kinda want to blend the lore for both together to make something that isn't excessively ballbusting but also has a deeper look in Infernal social roles while having a bit more grit. I do have a preference for the extravagance of 2e's take on that Allthing, but I like how the basic concepts for both feel inherently complimentary.

>>97553795
>I hope you had fun with it, anon. Was it specifically demonic batlike gold wings? Really leaning into the Anathema reputation there.
Wings made out of swords

>>97553800
Fair enough, I'd say that's a slightly different aesthetic to demon bat wings though.

>>97553743
Tbh Exalted kind of does a bad job at making most people look cool, which is weird for a game where theoretically lots of them should be. The Ebon Dragon is kind of inherently at an advantage simply because most people aren't 50 mile long dragons made of darkness.

>>97553802
I don't I think it's a meaningful difference in terms of looking otherworldly and powerful.

>>97553804
>The Ebon Dragon is kind of inherently at an advantage simply because most people aren't 50 mile long dragons made of darkness
Yeah but, I don't know that's not a personality trait you can interact with. Like I don't care in any other way except to put him in the dirt because that makes me look better, you know what I mean?

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>>97553696
>Excuse me commissar, if the "actual best solution to the Contagion in all of Exalted" was in the hands of the gods. Then why didn't the gods, who have been consistently described as adversely affected by the Contagion due to the adverse impact it had on many of their domains, simply stop it themselves? Keep in mind not all gods are gods of disease, death and desolation, nor are all gods too addled by the Games of Divinity to wipe their own asses.
Anon, the answer to your question is literally in the words you quoted. Celestial wine was a mass producible cure to the Contagion that wasn't being mass produced in sufficient numbers to resolve the Great Contagion. Celestial wine is made by the gods. This is what I mean by it's in the hands of the gods, but it didn't help because it wasn't produced at scale, so there wasn't enough in time for it to help.

>>97553480
>>97553499
>>97553715
Ultimately, my argument boils down to the fact that the vision of gold has all of the flaws of the vision of bronze when it comes to anything outside fate throwing off Sidereal prognostication. Any claims that a successful gold timeline would work are equally flawed because the Sidereal prognostication that revealed it is also flawed. It is exactly because prophecy isn't infallible that the Sidereals were justified in taking the lower risk option with lower payoff.

Out-of-context meta commentary from us, with all of our foresight, also shows that the vision of gold is going to have a lot of problems hitting it that aren't necessarily going to leave it in a better position than the Age of Sorrows we have now. We, out-of-context and with all the information in the books, have no real idea if supporting the Solars would have worked any better long-term than the Usurpation even in the situation where the attempt worked out. The best we can do is supposition, and most people default to thinking the grass is greener on the other side rather than any amount of reasonable cynicism.

>>97553833
>I don't have a single fact to back this up but I don't like Solars so it wouldn't work and Bronze is best
lolfag

>>97553680
I never left, but people stopped challenging me.

I still get warm fuzzies when I remember the time I was accused of being a bronze faction Sidereal IRL.

>>97553480
>Bro, literally the entirety of post usurpation history is full of the failure of the other Exalted to deal with problems decisively and it's not exactly subtle.
To this more specifically, yeah. You're right. But I don't really think the Solar Exalted were necessarily going to make it any better. >>97553509 is someone I think is joking, but he's also right that they could have made it worse. Not even in that they could have experimented on the Contagion to make it worse, but that it effecting any Solar could have had them turning on each other looking for the inventor the exact same way Chejop Kejak and Uvanavu turned on each other and locked the Bureau of Destiny in place during the early stages of the outbreak in the canon timeline, only with the possibility of Solar-tier weaponry and empires being turned on each other as the paranoiacs overreact.

>>97553711
>I like how you moved the goalposts of the argument
I feel like they didn't move from 'Sidereals are justified'. The only real goalpost move would be adding 'From a certain point of view', but I figured that would be assumed, since obviously their actions couldn't be justified to everyone (i.e. justifying them taking the bronze path to the Solar Exalted would be... well, you'd have to be a real solid Sidereal wanker or pragmatist of a Solar).

re: Abyssals specifically, I think everybody has some responsibility to themselves. That involves making life better for the people around you, if not necessarily the world. I would not consider the actions of the Abyssals in abstract justified to anyone other than the Neverborn, though some of the individuals might be. Yes, that idea that you have a responsibility to the people around you applies to Sidereals as well, and yes, many Sidereal fail in that responsibility in one way or another.

>>97553852
The entirety of your objection is making up shit and pretending to not grasp that the reason all of these failures were written into creation's history it's to show that the world needs (You), solar player buying the core book. That's it. It's not more complicated than that.

>>97553838
>I don't have a single fact to back this up but I don't like Solars so it wouldn't work and Bronze is best
I think the Gold faction is justified too, though. All Sidereals are justified is my starting statement, and that includes all goldies.

Beyond that, obviously we have some facts to back things up. Prophecy not seeing outside fate, and that applying to the vision of gold and vision of bronze is a fact both ways - as is often pointed out to me, the vision of bronze is flawed and leads down a dark path in the age of sorrows unless it can be recovered by some serious heroism, and I assert that so was the vision of gold.

Everything that actually happens down that path is, of course, down the path of 'could' and 'maybe'.

>>97553696
>Based. Controversial opinion but there's plenty in those chapters I like such as Infernal social privileges in Hell, it's just that several paragraphs of fluff are completely overshadowed by a throwaway edgy line and the description of Lilun.
Honestly true. There is the complaint that the first few chapters don't match the tone of the rest, but... honestly? I wouldn't have noticed if it weren't for the rapetrains and Lilun, and especially Lilun getting pictures. I could have taken a lot of shit going down in Malfeas in stride, and the actual organisation of Infernals was great. Ultimately they were loved because of it - the backstories of Infernals sucked hard, but you skip those anyway, and the bits you actually interface with personally, in play? Fucking awesome. They did green sun princes right.

>>97553864
The point you missed was that none of them were justified in taking the Fate of creation into their own hands. It was all their hubris

>>97553861
>all of these failures were written into creation's history it's to show that the world needs (You), solar player buying the core book. That's it. It's not more complicated than that.
I do grasp that the Doylist reason they're there is because the developers want to make the resurgent Solars matter. I'm pointing out that just because they wanted to that, doesn't mean that what they wrote actually works that way. They take a cynical approach to everything other than Solars, but that choice not to look at Solars the same way is an authorial approach rather than some in-character divine intervention or halo of fortune. We can't assume that it'll stay there when we look into things that aren't actually in the books both because those parts will more often be written by Storytellers exploring niche parts of the setting and because authors change (as 3e shows) and Solars might not always get that bias in their favor.

>>97553876
>The point you missed was that none of them were justified in taking the Fate of creation into their own hands. It was all their hubris
Actually, that's one of the points that 1e Sidereals are justified in doing, because the mechanics of Sidereal Exaltation in 1e involve Sidereals being required to take fate into their own hands. The Exaltation literally selects for people who will take the fate of Creation into their own hands and anybody who isn't willing doesn't get Exalted. With that kind of selection bias in play, and with the specifics of the 1e Great Curse (yes, bad excuse, whatever) and social atmosphere (without the Great Curse) encouraging Sidereals to only listen to other Sidereals and only consider their opinions as worthwhile/valid because of their positions of priviledged information and proven track records of duty towards the maintenance of Creation, they are more justified than anybody to keep doing it. They have more reason than even Solars to feel they're the only ones who should make those choices.

>>97553891
So you understand that this world is an artificial creation and things are done with a specific purpose in regards to the people who will be playing the game, but you don't like what that says. Cool, I don't care what you have to say.

>>97553902
>but you don't like what that says
I don't know how you got that from what I was saying. What I was saying is that, if the devs wanted to say "The Solars win at everything forever, providing you the player of a Solar the perfect power fantasy," and what they wrote was "The Solars died to the Dragonblooded in the Usurpation, and spent the time since either locked in a cage or getting spawn camped by the Dragonblooded inquisition, and now most of them are back except half of them are corrupt and the rest don't have the mechanics to let them win in anything other than straight fights and are regularly shown taking Ls in the narrative," then we're going to extrapolate what we think is appropriate from the latter even as we understand the intent was the former. We aren't here to run games that align to author intent, we're here to run games that are fun. Sometimes that means style, tone, intent, all of it's up for change, and even parody. Most often it means taking things in the setting and going with what seems reasonable based on them, without even considering what the authors might want. Do you really want your games to be a bunch of holdorkisms everywhere that canon doesn't explicitly outline?

>>97553891
You're riding a really long book to just say that you're biased. I don't mean to discredit all the thoughts you put into this, but everything you've said in boils down to you understanding that the game and its lore is written in a way to create a world of crisis that only the solar exalted can save but that doesn't appeal to you. Which is fine, it's okay if that doesn't appeal to you. But you're not going to convince me that Sidereals were right with that logic

>>97553918
Nothing you've said sounds fun though. It sounds overwrought and that you don't like the authorial intent. Nothing you've said sounds like you agree with the intent of post-grabowski Exalted, you just like the contrarianism that comes with a lot of their writing

>>97553921
>its lore is written in a way to create a world of crisis that only the solar exalted can save but that doesn't appeal to you.
It does, though? I mean, yeah. Again, the Gold Faction in the Age of Sorrows is justified. They're looking out at a world of chaos and the return of the Solars is the light at the end of the tunnel they can use to put everything to order and bring back the good old days when the world made sense. They're taking reasonable precautions in an attempt to prevent the Solars going mad - literally the only people in the setting to canonically actively try to counter the Great Curse, even without knowing that it is a curse, through therapy and counselling and reasonable introspection and review.

I wouldn't agree that ONLY the Solar Exalted can save the world and I think most developers would agree going by how they pretty regularly say that anybody could win, but I do think they're a key piece on the board that everybody should need to pay attention to. I like that. I like that Solars are important. I don't think they should be everything, or that the whole of the world should spin on their heads, but absolutely their efforts should swing things wherever they go.

>>97553944
Yes, that is how the core book is written and the synopsis of the setting is written. It's also how they regularly talked until they had to soothe criers in their inner circle. I know because I was there when they had to assure people that despite everything, they were just as important, when prior to that the canned answer they would give is that you used other exalt types for different experiences and not because you wanted to be as effective or be able to do the most important things.

>>97553940
>Nothing you've said sounds fun though.
That might be a matter of taste.

>It sounds overwrought and that you don't like the authorial intent.
>Nothing you've said sounds like you agree with the intent of post-grabowski Exalted, you just like the contrarianism that comes with a lot of their writing
I'm not sure we 100% agree on what the authorial intent was, and you're right that I didn't like it at specific parts of the game - I didn't like how much Solars got wanked in the midst of 2e for sure, since it had a tendency to put everybody else in the dumpster and shit on the setting in general - but at other parts I absolutely loved it. I'd be a little careful stuffing everything into the box of post-Grabowski. Feels a little reductionist to put Essence, 3e, the 2.5e era Ink Monkeys, and the rest of 2e all in the same box.

>>97553967
I'm going to give you a hot take. Solars are supposed to be wanked. It is the main selling point of the character type, and why they are the main splat and main characters of the setting. It was never supposed to be an all inclusive setup where you choose your power ranger. If you take out their primacy, you've taken out the main appeal.

>>97553981
>If you take out their primacy, you've taken out the main appeal.
I only lessen the bias towards them, not remove it altogether. The realistic take is that Solars are schmucks stuck at E1-5 for another century in a world where elder celestials call the shots and can take them around back for a solid personality re-arranging slap around the head at any time. I'm not doing that or advocating for it. Solars are important and matter and yes, they get a wank now and again. The reason I disliked Solars wasn't because they were getting wanked, or even the level they were getting wanked to, it was that the way they were going about wanking them was by dunking on everyone else and rubbing their faces in shit.

If they'd been pushing Solars ahead by actually promoting their skills and talking up their heroics that would've been a good thing, but instead it was an endless cavalcade of everybody else drilling holes in their brain to build backdoors the Solars could use to fuck them. Sometimes, like with Venus' baths, they left those backdoors open for literally anybody that didn't fit in the perfect bubble including demons, the dead, fae, you name it, all so that the Solars could have their day of fame (that involved no skill or effort of their own and was purely put there because Venus and everybody she talked into the idea was braindead).

>>97553981
I'll put it another way. The way Solars got wanked in 2e was small dick shit and made them look bad. I think that toning it down as you pull back from that stuff and reorient towards Solars themselves being independently excellent instead of everybody else sucking or making way for them makes Solars look much better overall.

>>97553808
Not at all. It takes one hell of a personality to impress me more than merely being a 50 miles dragon made of darkness. It's not impossible. I would say Dalinar from the Stormlight Archive series is an imposing enough man to qualify. I am just saying that of the personality traits you can interact with in Exalted as a game, none particularly interest me more than the Ebon Dragon's combined with his eldritch kaiju status.

I mean...who exactly am I supposed to be overawed by? The fucking politicians of the Realm? The amazingly written elders of the Silver Pact? The overworked fate ninjas? The comically self-absorbed Deathlords?

>>97553245
If Kingdom of Halta's demographics are appropriare, then numbers for the rest id the East should be buffed up significantly.

Watching the Vision of Bronzefag dig himself deeper trying to pretend he has any better reasons than "Sidereals are cooler okay, and really they should have been the real power behind the First Age, please ignore the fact that they have their own version of the Great Curse skewing their judgement" skewing his judgement reminds me of why I'm glad I no longer interact with the Exalted online community much.

This is a game for you and your friends, trying to talk to the terminally online turbo autists will just result in floods of headcanon being poured at you.

>>97554003
>>97554026
If that bothers you, how do you think solar fans feel when people explicitly try to take their main appeal of being basically the main character of the setting away? Because it's never about pushing them up to be as cool as they should be, it's also trying to tear them down just like you feel like your favorite guy got torn down.

>>97554147
You think yozi have interesting *personalities*? Holy delulu

>>97554151
I mean I somewhat agree, mostly for Nexus. Almost a million people is kind of small by comparison, given that Nexus is a much bigger deal. That being said, the numbers given to the Scavenger Lands in total outstrip Halta significantly, and it's not too far out of whack.

>>97554170
>you feel like your favorite guy got torn down.
If you think Venus is my favorite guy you're mistaken. If you think my favourite guy is Exalted, the game in general... yeah, okay. Maybe you got me, and I guess I feel for the Solar players, but I feel like it also defeats your point to argue that.

>If that bothers you, how do you think solar fans feel when people explicitly try to take their main appeal of being basically the main character of the setting away?
I don't think anybody's suggested it, least of all me. You're acting like a reduction is a removal, and it's not.

Also, I feel like this equivalence you're trying to create between me saying that Solars shouldn't be wanked the way they are because it ruins everybody else and makes them look smaller for the way they're doing it and the way the developers pushed up Solars by tearing down the rest of the setting isn't exactly a correct way to describe the situation. For one thing, I'm pushing to make every part of the game better, not just one.

I understand that the idea of reaching an equitable balance is somewhat anathema to people who want Solars on top always no matter what, but hype for characters in-character should not be a basis for design decisions, and hype out-of-character needs to be taken in context of the whole user base, not just the vocal ones. Doing otherwise is how you get a shit world that people don't want to play in, even if the characters you could be playing with are really cool, and people end up houseruling out half of what you wrote (see: people ignoring all the ways the world explodes if you don't do anything in 2e) or outright playing in different settings (see: Shards).

>>97554208
Brother you take way too long to get to your point, and secondly you took the hypothetical you as incredibly personal even though I don't know your real opinions be on you being kind of insufferable and long-winded. What I said was I barely ever see people raise up solar exalted when they want to make things more equitable. The shit I see around here is people talking about all their Ls and saying that they're boring and not actually powerful or strong.

>>97554208
>>97554026
>>97554003
Saying you want to make Solars "more excellent" while also reducing their explicit protagonist power (their big thing) is the very definition of talking out of both sides of your mouth.

>>97554273
>Brother you take way too long to get to your point
Yeah I've been trying to stop that for a while thanks for pointing it out.

>you took the hypothetical you as incredibly personal even though I don't know your real opinions
It didn't read as a hypothetical you, we've been going back and forth for like three hours now and I figured it was a comment in that context, referring to the one character I did name. Sue me, I guess.

>What I said was I barely ever see people raise up solar exalted when they want to make things more equitable. The shit I see around here is people talking about all their Ls and saying that they're boring and not actually powerful or strong.
Yeah, I kind of dislike that. Talking about Solars being boring in particular has always felt like such an ass take to me. In some specific contexts I'd agree with them not being powerful or strong, but that's the 'realistic' shit I was talking about earlier which is really just the elder problem wearing clown makeup. When I see people talking them down as not actually powerful or strong or not able to make an impact in contexts like hammers or battlegroups or geopolitics it just makes no sense.

>>97554304
I outlined my opinion pretty concisely >>97554026 I think. Maybe baby words will work.

More wank is not more good if the wank is done bad. Less wank is more good if the wank removed is bad wank. Add some good wank while bad wank removed for more more good.

>>97554208
You don't really care if Solars "look good", you just don't want your favorite splat to be outdone by them.

>>97554330
I know it's hard to understand because I started from the position 'Sidereals are justified', but it's possible to care about more than one thing at a time and not everything can be effectively broken down into us vs them.

I think it's a community we're going to have to kind of get over this "every exalt is equally the main character" thing because it makes these discussions really stupid. Especially when you have the cover boys/girl Solar Exalted and one of their main themes is explicitly being the main character of the setting. Like, it's okay for them to be that and to be the most important and most powerful ones, and to be able to do everything the others can +1. Because they're the main characters after all and mixed circles have always been problems. In the context of single splat play, them being the best isn't an issue. The only problem is mixed play. I think the better thing to do would be to make rules for taking a character of a less powerful splat and making them stronger when they are in a solar circle so that it feels more even for that player

>>97554363
>community
Okay look I hate to do this but my guy learn new words

>>97554372
As a loosely affiliated enthusiast group.

>>97554379
ok sure

>>97554363
>I think the better thing to do would be to make rules for taking a character of a less powerful splat and making them stronger when they are in a solar circle so that it feels more even for that player
Solars being stronger than other splats isn't even part of the problem being discussed. Powering up other splats solves nothing. The only problem is that Solars put other people down in their narrative to push themselves up, not that they're too strong mechanically. If anything, Solars are weak mechanically and have to push hard to fit the position they're being forced into by their overarching narrative, which leads into some of it's own issues since it sometimes forces people to optimize combat or die to all of the things coming out of the woodwork to harass them when they'd really rather play a little more chill.

>>97554386
>If anything, Solars are weak mechanically*
*compared to their narrative position
Obviously, Solars are pretty damn strong mechanically. It's just that in 2e there's really no Solar who can go a round with a Deathlord and survive. There's no circle of canon Solar Exalted who can do that either. Pretty sure every Solar in the Scroll of Exalts could go up against some of the elders and they'd die for nothing. PCs are typically built way way better than white wolf NPCs but many elders are still unstoppable.

It's more even in 3e and you can take down elders, but then you wrap around to the fact that Solars are supposed to be hunted/opposed by guys who're weaker than them and win, like the Wyld Hunt and such. Kind of a problem because they can be taken down from below much more easily than 1e/2e.

>>97554386
What narrative? Solars being the main character also includes the narrative, which does make them the most important and most valuable people in the world. The world has been suffering for their absence and it has been waiting for them to return, that's the premise from the word go. The other Exalted have always had a major component of their story where they have often struggled and failed to fill the shoes of the Solar Exalts. You can't walk that back without robbing Solars of their importance. It's King Arthur and the Round Table and not the Superfriends. The knights of the round table all have their own really cool stories, but King Arthur's is the most important story and they exist around him.
>inb4 "Well this particular version of the legend..."
Don't care to get into the nitty gritty about the analogy, I know you understand it.
>>97554402
White Wolf having shitty mechanics that don't align with intent is nothing new. That's why you're better off finding a better system to port the setting into.

The solars returning at what is possibly the lowest point in history, with literally everything going wrong, is also very analogous to the myth of King Arthur reawakening in Britain's hour of greatest need. They really should have focused on that instead of the jade prison

>>97554409
The big sweeps aren't the problem. You can absolutely walk back crappy specifics without robbing Solars of anything important. Especially the stuff that is actually just stupid.

>So, unbeknownst to most of the gods who come to the baths to plot, converse, relax and heal in total safety, their security is illusory. For the Solars have returned, and their sword hands will not be stayed within the baths. Whether or not any Solar would ever realize this fact is another matter entirely, but it remains a dark secret that the Division of Secrets has not shared.
This is from compass: yu shan about the bath of venus, where everybody Venus could get together swore to do no harm within the baths and bound themselves with an effect equivalent to the Primordial Oaths, except she couldn't find a Solar so they can do what they want. She found Chejop Kejak and a Lunar and a Dragonblood and every plant and animal and kind of being in Creation but couldn't get a Solar.

Yes, the Solars are literally mistletoe, in case you didn't notice.

The part where she and everybody involved is a drooling retard is the part where demons and faeries and undead and akuma and behemoths and literally anything she couldn't get her hands on also aren't bound. So... the Solars were meant to be mistletoe except the developers fumbled and now demons have an impenetrable Primordial Oath-bound castle in the middle of Yu Shan available to anybody who can actually get there.

>>97554363
Exalted's an RPG, not a story. Main characters are whoever players at a given table play. Not everything in the setting needs to be playable, but all the splats designed first and foremost as playable splats - as opposed to, say, Dragon Kings, who were playable in 1E and 2E but weren't primarily designed with that in mind - absolutely should have equal amount of main character energy.

>>97554450
Look I've been wanking Sidereals pretty hard but agree to disagree on that one. Yes PCs should have what it takes to be a main character but splats definitely don't need to have equal MC energy.

>>97554450
>Exalted's an RPG, not a story.
WW innovated the "rpgs as a interactive set of novels" paradigm, even when the books don't have a metaplot, they are still written as a CYOA.
It explains a lot about certain designs and fanbase interactions.

Just to be clear, I am not justifying or defending it, I am explaining from where this "main character syndrome" came from.
I believe, it is a really bad idea for Exalted to have been written like this.

>>97554470
Agree to disagree it is, then. I think all splats should have their own equally interesting and sugnificant shit going on. It's fine that part of Solars' deal is that they're the most powerful, but, like, in terms of design goals every splat should be equally important to make cool, interesting and fun to play. As a part of this, different splats, including Solars, should have their own, distinctive strengths and weaknesses.

>>97554363
About Solars being the main characters, there is enough 1e material, that points to the opposite.

Dragon-Blooded and more importantly Sidereals are the secret mcs, with Solars only existing to bait D&D players into playing this game.

>>97554444
You say that like it doesn't set a stage for a demon to get in there and you get to fight them like a radicool kid

>>97554509
Nah, Solars shouldn't have weaknesses. They should be good at everything because they are every kind of hero

>>97554509
>in terms of design goals every splat should be equally important to make cool, interesting and fun to play.
>As a part of this, different splats, including Solars, should have their own, distinctive strengths and weaknesses.
Yes, absolutely. I just don't think that equates to main character energy. Playing what-would-normally-be-NPCs is some of the coolest stuff around regardless of the game, Exalted just has it built closer into the foundation.

Main character energy is more like telling you that you are the only one who can make a difference, or saying you have the potential and all you need is time to overcome the world around you, or that only you can enter the vault and obtain the ancient treasure because of your special trait, or whatever.

>>97554544
>You say that like it doesn't set a stage for a demon to get in there and you get to fight them like a radicool kid
Yeah, and that's cool and all, but it's also very clearly not intended. It's the developers being stupid because they're blinded by hype, making a whole bunch of other characters stupid because they don't think for two seconds while slapping in Solar slop, and anything interesting about it has to be made in post by people trying to justify the developer's stupid decisions with their own cool storylines. It's very demonstrative of what was wrong with 2e and why people could still enjoy it - because they could make their own fun when the developers were up their own asses tasting sunlight.

>>97554552
Why should they be every kind of hero, though? Nothing about being the righteous kings of old returned - or wicked tyrants of old returned, which Solars also are - or being Chosen of the Sun or exemplars of human excellence or any other part of actual Solar themes requires that. Making Solars every kind of hero with no flaws or weaknesses isn't even pushing other splats down to lift Solars up, because it doesn't even make Solars cool - it just makes them bland abd boring.

>>97554567
Solars were made to bait D&D into playing exalted, because of this, they castes are based on a rpg party.

>>97554552
>Nah, Solars shouldn't have weaknesses. They should be good at everything because they are every kind of hero
They have a few. The Great Curse, for one. They're really kind of bad at fine operations from far away for another - they can shoot and blast just fine, but it's kind of hard for them to pull a lever on the other side of the room without moving from the spot, especially if it's behind glass or something. The main one is/should be that the greatest powers a Solar can access require specialised endeavour within a pretty specific field of competency, and no individual Solar can do everything, or even flexibly use their field to cover every problem.

>>97554567
Because that is the design intent of Solar Exalted. They are the champions of champions, the greatest of mankind from every walk of life. They are both savage berserker and serene samurai, the poet and the mathematician, they express all of mankind's potential and so they are every hero. More practically it's so you can have the core book and be set for every archetype you can think of, while other splats are a narrower lens for a more specific experience

>>97554589
Bro that's a basic stunt. Wtf are you talking about, you don't even need to be Exalted to do that.

>>97554592
And Sidereals are even wise & great, exalted from birth from the top of the top of mankind; having insight compared to solar elders, from the get go.

>>97554592
You can have a variety of archetypes in the corebook without having Solars be able to do everything or be everything.

>>97554602
Yeah but that's, again, a much more tailored and specific experience. If I wanted to play a Solar born wise and great with all that jazz, I could. It's just Sidereals have been narrowed to that scope.
>>97554604
You could, but that would only be a variety and not everything. The practical answer is that they're designed to be everything you could want if you just have the core book.

>>97554615
>If I wanted to play a Solar born wise and great with all that jazz, I could. It's just Sidereals have been narrowed to that scope.
Solars are also special from birth, but far less than Sidereals.

>>97554630
I can decide that my character has the greatest of all destinies and that's still ok for Solars. I see what you're trying to do, not that destinies fucking matter, but you're trying to nitpick something that is 100% between player and ST and treat it as if it's somehow a unique play experience for Sidereals when you obviously know the difference.

>>97554435
As it stands, it feels like there's no reason for anyone to give a fuck about their return, in game or out.

>>97554645
I blame fags taking personal offense that their Dragonblooded Brotherhood isn't the star of all creation and crying to the devs for 15 years. I remember the official forums being full of people making a big fuss about their Not Solars not being able to be Solar Important, up until some of them became devs and/or the people in their play groups became devs.

>>97554643
>I can decide that my character has the greatest of all destinies and that's still ok for Solars.
Solars only really have destiny 3~2, the highest destinies are reserved for Sidereals.
Even if you character have destiny 5, it is like that you are the sole exception, a Solar that can be peer to the avarage Sidereal.

I am not wanking sids, just pointing out the two facedness of white wolf
Even if you give

>>97554669
You know that doesn't matter. I even started by saying it doesn't matter. It literally doesn't matter. Solars also don't have fucking Breeding. Who cares? If me and my ST say my dude is the most important and has the greatest destiny over all Sidereals, that is still a Solar concept because, frankly, destinies mean fuck all to Actual People Playing The Game and if you try to continue down a pedantic path we can instead talk about Sidereals getting punked by things without destinies.

>>97554679
Sorry but you will be breaking the secret meta plot canon.
And even if you had the destiny 5 background, contrary of the typical solar 2~3, you character still is a mere mortal brained chump, who will require more than 100s years of cultivation to reach the avarage Sidereal's foot.

>>97554679
>You know that doesn't matter. I even started by saying it doesn't matter. It literally doesn't matter. Dragon-Blooded also have fucking Breeding. Who cares? If me and my ST say my dude is the most important and has the greatest destiny over all Sidereals, that is still a Dragon-Blooded concept because, frankly, destinies mean fuck all to Actual People Playing The Game and if you try to continue down a pedantic path we can instead talk about Sidereals getting punked by things without destinies.
As we can see, Solars are as heroic and mc like as the Dragon-Blooded, since all arguments can apply to both

>>97554728
There are people who actually believe this
>>97554761
Not really. Destinies are a mechanic that may as well not exist. Breeding does exist but it only matters in the context of Dragonblooded. Breeding is actually a much more important part of actually being a DB and the stories related to them than destinies are. That's why this was a stupid tangent and it doesn't change that Solars still do every concept. Weak attempt at a gotcha that perhaps intentionally missed the point.

>>97554777
>There are people who actually believe this
Tell this to 1e devs, they even made sure to have Sidereals power creep Solars.

You can literally make a Solar concept that's an awakened essence super savant that would be functionally identical to the Sidereal default start. It's just not mandatory. For certain Exalted, some parts of backstory are mandatory but not so for Solars, which is why you can be anything. Niggers here really be trying to smokescreen a well known feature

>>97554827
Everyone involved with Sidereals had a massive, barely contained bias for them and would literally pitch fits if you talked about bad things happening to them in your games. Forgive me if I wish them the worst

>>97554843
It is because of the "you think X is a big deal? eat shit, these are the actual deal" trope from White Wolf.

Reading 1e, it is noticeable that Solars took some bullets designed for the Dragon-Blooded.

Holden tried to pull it against 3e Infernals.
>You think you are relevant, mr demon sultan? Eat shit!! Those are the true Infernals!!!

It's... really not hard to imagine the Solars making everything worse. They literally did it once before when they failed the first time. They could also bring upon a utopia. Point is who wants to roll those dice.

The idea that the Solars could end creation and usher in an age of dark isn't really up for debate, it's the thesis for the whole of exalted.

The most fantastical thing about this setting is that DBs, despite being hedonistic rich noblemen, have a single attribute or ability above a 2.

>>97555213
Why wouldn't they? They're Exalted, they live in a highly competitive society, theumy have access to best educatiob possible, and they can't leave everything for their underlings to handle as the elites of their society are also said society's most important assets who absolutele need to be out there doing shit and taking risks in person for the Realm to remain as big a deal as it is. Even looking at real world history, elites being indolent as useless hasn't really been universal, or even the norm. Medieval knights were fit and knew how to fight, Caesar and Pompey were both good generals, Cicero actually was a good orator, and so on.

>>97555253
>Even looking at real world history, elites being indolent as useless hasn't really been universal, or even the norm. Medieval knights were fit and knew how to fight, Caesar and Pompey were both good generals, Cicero actually was a good orator, and so on.
lol

>>97555213
They aren't modern day nepobaby industry plants, in modern terms, they are more like those rich dudes that do discusses about how "universities will lead you to nowhere", while sending their own children to the best universities that money can buy.

>>97555303
Nope, it's always been the same shit.

>>97555304
Nah, weak Dragon-Blooded/royals were eaten alive by their peers.

>>97555260
Do you have some kind of an actual argument to make, anon? You do understand the basic fact that not every period in history has been the same as ours, right? There have, for instance, been times when rulers of nations have been expected to lead armies in person.

>>97555323
Never happened.

>>97555328
Wrong, it's always been the same. You're delusional to believe otherwise.

>>97555329
Saying "nuh-uh" over and over again is the lowest effort, lowest quality form of trolling there is. Apply yourself, anon.

>>97555329
The Iberian peninsula was infamous for being in a "king dies >> divide kingdom to sons >> sons kill each other to become solo king >> king dies >>>....".

>>97555339
I think he is an official writer, or somebody really close to a writer.

>>97555363
I think there's a roughly 0% chance of that, or at least nothing indicating it. This form of trolling where an anon first says something exceptionally stupid and then just replies "nuh-uh" to everyone dumb enough to argue with him - like me, in this case - is something you see sometimes on 4chan, and it's never anything more than lazy attempt at baiting people.

>>97555419
I am pretty sure 1 or 2 lurks here, and that kind of shitposting is common among one.
"The I got it" shitposter.

>>97553008
>Every single place in the realm has advanced anti-shapeshifter tech because lunars.
The Realm and any other big Immaculate state should have some kind of security discipline as a standard practice though. Safety passwords at the very least.

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468 KB JPG

>>97552719
Happy Valentine's Day! Who is your favorite Incarna, especially among the Maidens? Independent of the virtues and flaws of their respective Exalted, mind you. Should Five Days Darkness be an honorary member and the official Calibration god? And please post Exalted fanart, especially with a love/romance theme (or just of Venus outright like >97552796).

Do you think I could just lift Sauron's plot wholesale and it would work?

>>97556291
Meaning what? What part of it, who's the Sauron stand-in, and so on.

>>97554827
Everything power creeped Solars except possibly for Lunars. Abyssals had a revised Solar-like set that eschewed speedbump Charms and introduced the concept of higher traits automatically improving a Charm. Alchemicals took it even further. Technically, even the Dragon-Blooded power-creeped them in a way by having leaping dodges before them (in a match on the old WW forums, a lone Immaculate master managed to kill a Solar because of this). That's why there would be occasional patches, first in the Caste books, then the Charm rewrites in the Player's Guide's Power Combat section, and then in Cult of the Illuminated.

>>97556291
Yes, it would work, the setting already has like 3~4 Sauron-esque Deathlords.

>>97556651
>, even the Dragon-Blooded power-creeped them in a way by having leaping dodges before them (in a match on the old WW forums, a lone Immaculate master managed to kill a Solar because of this)
This is really funny to me for some reason. Imagine being a sunlit master of war and losing because the other guy is just better at jumping good than you.

>>97557753
>Who would win in fight.
>Shapeshifting master of darkness?
>Guy who jumps good.

You'll never guess.

>>97557753
If I'm recalling the fight correctly, the Immaculate didn't even need to do a leaping dodge, so it was more because the Solar couldn't jump good at all - and indeed, none could, canonically, until the Night book came out. For a brief time, Lunars had that over them!

(I'm not sure if the results are archived anywhere. I thought there might be some kind of record on the unofficial Exalted wiki, but no dice.)

>>97557753
>This is really funny to me for some reason. Imagine being a sunlit master of war and losing because the other guy is just better at jumping good than you.
Mobility and attacks range are two of the best stats to have, it is known since masquerade days.

>>97558063
Breaking the action econ, being too fast to be hit, scry and die...

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>>97558112
Yes, kiting and those are well known by D&Dfags for decades.

>>97558162
The rock paper scissors element of exalted mixed with the mechanical complexity and narrative nature of the system is just chefs kiss.

>>97558438
>The rock paper scissors element of exalted
What rock paper scissors? There are strictly best builds in almost every edition. Did you mean the puzzle boss element?

>>97558448
Because of the XP element and how the system works it's hard to cover every single defense for your character, leading to an importance on keeping track of the narrative your character is involved in and what he's doing IC. This has a rock-paper-scissors element where no one can be protected from everything at all times, yet where they are also super effective against other things.

Add this with other things and you get a fun system. Say, your circle being able to cover up your flaws.

>>97556291
I've strongly considered doing it before, so I'd say go for it. Hell, I'm playing a Twilight right now and I'm strongly considering forging some artifact rings to hand out myself.

Not gonna talk about Lunar shapeshifting or their place in the setting.

Why are so many Lunar charms just like, worse versions of Charms that get written later? Even their unique ones like being able to flurry sorcery is just copied from that point onward. Don't get me started on the amount of Charms that only work in your territory when your territory is both relatively small (in most games) and also takes a lot of time to set up.

Why do 3e guys glaze Lunars so hard?

>>97559692
>Why are so many Lunar charms just like, worse versions of Charms that get written later?
The Lunar hater answer is that Lunars are just worse versions of Exalted that get written later. I'm struggling to think of a more reasonable and measured response.

>>97559692
Power creep and mechanical creep.
Some niches people believed that 3e Lunars had, weren't niches in the first place, with some splats already covering them in older editions; with their only real advantage being accidental in nature, to the point the devs worked really had to erase it.

>3e Lunar glazing.
For a long time, the only things that they were the Solars and Dragon-Blooded.

>Territory.
The devs gunned for "strong in it" but may have hit "weak outside of it", it is a common occurrence with locale based characters.

>>97559692
>>Why are so many Lunar charms just like, worse versions of Charms that get written later?
Because Lunars are the 3rd splat to get written, and every splat builds upon the designs of the previous ones.

>>97560046
>Because Lunars are the 3rd splat to get written, and every splat builds upon the designs of the previous ones.
I think it's more that it's the first real Vance splat. Very little of the Dragonblood book was built on, given that we never saw even a hint of even the better ideas from it again.

>>97560046
Not gonna lie, this is why every splat book should also release with errata for previous books. There's hardly any physical print anymore, it's so easy to justify having a living document game

>>97560170
It would require them to go fully digital, and re-do the layout every time

>>97560170
>There's hardly any physical print anymore, it's so easy to justify having a living document game
While true, it does still draw some people in. Literally last thread or the thread before (cbf checking) there was some guy who found a physical book, became interested, and was asking which edition he should be investing in.

>>97560313
Nah, D&D4 was actually really praised for unabashedly doing errata. If you weren't one of those people who had sworn to hate the game no matter what, you appreciated that they were constantly bug fixing it, even if that wasn't reflected in the print copies. With that said I remember older games often having compendiums in the back of the book which were just rules updates.

>>97560313
boo hoo nigga

>>97560846
Layout takes time and money, and Onyx Path is not flush with cash

>>97561177
cry me a river retard

>>97560632
I am still not convinced, mainly because of the difference of style, in both mechanics and way of writing.
White Wolf loves mixing lore & purple prose with mechanics too much
I can see it if they did a separate booklet.

>>97561212
That's a personality problem, not a logistical one. If they could stop huffing their own farts, it wouldn't be difficult at all to include a 20 to 30 page plaintext section at the back of their hardbooks for the most relevant errata that the new book warranted AND a general living document for download.

>>97561294
Yes, but in this case, the personality molds the production logistics.
They don't have what it takes to do as you said, and Rich isn't willing to pay them.

>>97561178
What's a river retard? Like a water elemental that was dropped on its head while being summoned?

>>97552719
Going off of >>97552796, what do you need to consider when depicting romance is Exalted? And does anyone have any relevant art for such romantic scenes?

>>97562135
It might sound silly but I find a good romance to be when the characters can have scenes together where they act flirty together and it works. Romantic scenes are important and so is talking to the other player(st included obvs) but it's the tiny flirts that happen throughout the game that I really enjoy.

I'm personally terrible at ERP and the actual passion behind it if that makes sense. At least I feel like I could be better at it. ERP isn't really my thing though and I don't really know too many people into it. I've heard Exalted has a place dedicated to it but that might have been an old thing.

tl;dr little flirts/dates are awesome, erp always feels like two people actually flirting IRL and I don't really get it.

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>>97562135
I haven't gotten to actually *play* Exalted yet, and historically haven't been involved with romance in games that I have played, but I would think it important to consider the effects of power dynamics on romance - Exalted is full of those.
>Solar-Lunar bonds
>mind-affecting and social charms, etc., even if they aren't used
>the social structure where DBs are considered superior beings to be obeyed (and in the first age, other exalts too - and in the current age, this is true for members of the Cult of Illumination as well)
>physical strength of Exalts, particularly celestial exalts
>longer lifespans of exalts (especially in the first age where they had access to strong charms and antiagathics)
>expectation of exalts having multiple partners: DB orgies, summoning neomah, prevalence of prostitution, longer lifespans, etc.
>the high prevalence of drugs, even limited to recreational ones rather than d/r drugs
>callousness of exalts to mortals' suffering
>ease of obtaining wealth as an exalt compared to a mortal
Probably others as well.

>>97553260
solar wank, ew.

>>97554201
not holy, the opposite of that (the keyword doesnt work for them, teehee!)

>>97562520
tits out for TG!
i miss keychain of creation.

>>97563165
It is more "tragedy wank" and, it is hard to explain, world destroying self pity.

>>97563201
And lunarquest :(
Was re-reading that today after having gone through a hefty chunk of the 2e books (when I read it last I think I had only read the core book and one or two others), and there's a tonne of lore subtext that I missed in my original read due to lack of knowledge of the setting that I get now

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>>97563201
>>97563443
I got into Exalted initally because I saw Misho and thought "Why does he have a smily face on his forehead?"

>>97562135
>what do you need to consider when depicting romance is Exalted?
You've got to work out what genre of romance you're pursuing, for starters, and make sure you're both working together, if not necessarily on the same level. If you're looking for drama and the other side doesn't understand/respect that and is looking to instigate smut instead then it's not going to work out. On the other hand, if you're looking for slice of life comedy while the other side is looking for tragedy and you both acknowledge the other angle it's entirely possible to work together to achieve both so long as you're giving as well as taking, setting each other up and taking opportunities when they arrive.

It's also somewhat important that the romance knows its place and stays in it's lane. If the romance is supposed to be mostly offscreen then you need to keep it there unless it does something that everybody agrees on to change it's position. It's fine to have it show up now and again in that case, but don't fuck with the other players by bringing it straight onto the mainscreen all the time or referencing it every other minute you're together. The other side of that is that if the romance is one of the main themes of your game then don't sideline it even if there's a bunch of dramatic events getting in the way. If you've built the game around it then the romance does deserve it's spotlight and it's taking something away if you put it on the backburner. Fold it into everything if that's the case.

Ultimately, roleplaying romance is just like roleplaying anything else and should be treated with the appropriate respect. It doesn't become something you should slack off with or think the arc will be fine as it is just because it's romance, and like when you're roleplaying Drakon McGoblinblood's drug-fuelled rampages or Invincible Solar Princess' arrogant pride it's important to plan it and play into it, not just declare it.

>>97562135
>what do you need to consider?
Nothing. Get horny. Make mistakes. If Exalted really is supposed to be representative of myths, then catastrophically ill-thought out romance is part and parcel of the experience.

>>97564093
>Make mistakes. If Exalted really is supposed to be representative of myths, then catastrophically ill-thought out romance is part and parcel of the experience.
It still takes thought and effort to do that right in the context of a roleplaying game. If you aren't thinking about what you're doing and don't consider your actions as you go you'll completely ignore that you're making mistakes and fail to follow up on or develop into actually having catastrophic consequences. Mistakes being an intended outcome doesn't change that you should be intentional when making them.

Lunars should have the Solar excellency (Att+Ability) and Solars should have the old 2nd Excellency that adds successes instead of dice. Makes them equal in raw power but still gives Solars their super specialness

>>97565135
>Makes them equal in raw power
Does that though?
Does that REALLY?

>>97563175
I'm going to hurt you

>>97565135
Lunar's Attribute+StuntedAttribute is already stronger than the Solar Excellency in 3e anon. Having a strong excellency isn't what makes a splat strong, or Sidereals would be it.

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>>97563201
I got into Exalted this year, and this is the way I feel about all of this. Maybe the lore and the art was the writers' magical realm. Maybe the rules were unnecessarily complicated and badly explained. But the 2k1-12 run, and the motion it had at that time was Awesome. Keychain of Creation from 15 years ago is a time capsule of that era, and I love it.

>>97565709
>Maybe the lore and the art was the writers' magical realm. Maybe the rules were unnecessarily complicated and badly explained.

That's the entire White Wolf catalogue for you.

>>97565739
Exceptions exist, when they are writing fan & hater fics.

>>97565709
>I got into Exalted this year, and this is the way I feel about all of this. Maybe the lore and the art was the writers' magical realm. Maybe the rules were unnecessarily complicated and badly explained. But the 2k1-12 run, and the motion it had at that time was Awesome. Keychain of Creation from 15 years ago is a time capsule of that era, and I love it.
I got into Exalted about ten years ago, when 3e was just coming out. I had spent a year or two reading 1e and 2e and getting more and more invested until I bit the bullet and decided to run a game, at which point I was told the new edition was coming out and decided to give it a go instead. This pretty well describes how I felt.

>>97565955
While that might be true in terms of lore, the mechanics have been consistently shit.

>>97566057
Some rules only exist to force you to play as said fan/haterfics.