Well, that's it, the group's dead.

This message is not archived
 >> Stay informed about: Well, that's it, the group's dead. 

Richard Clayton <rZIGeclaZIGyton.DeleteThis@verizon.net> wrote:
>Christopher Adams wrote:
>> Richard Clayton wrote:
>>> Hand-of-Omega wrote:
>>>> This group...dead?
>>>>
>>>> I SAY THEE...NAY!!!
>>>>
>>>> Fortunately, I have just finished mastering Void Circle
>>>> Necromancy...And so I command this group to RISE AGAIN!!!!
>>>>
>>>> I invoke the hallowed name of Rii'Ch'd Klai'Ton!!
>>> Summoned, I come. Beckoned, I attend. Commanded, I serve.
>>
>> Comedy gold.
>>
>> I'm quite interested in ye Neuwe Worlde of Darkenesse. Less so Mage, but then
>> that was always going to be true. I think Vampire is very cool and Werewolf is
>> actually much better. I'm also excited about Promethean!
>>
>> Speaking of which . . . I might as well post some info on that.

> Yes. Please do so! It might be the first nWoD "splat" I buy-- not that
>I don't like the nWoD, I just don't own anything beyond the corebook,
>because I already *have* a vampire game, a werewolf game, a magician
>game, et cetera. But I don't have a Frankenstein game!

While I did get the other nWoD splats, Promethean is the
one that I'm really looking forward to, for much the
same reason as yourself.

Then again, I don't have a good modern Faerie game (at least not
without bending, folding, and mutilating Exalted: The Fair Folk),
and I'd like one of those.

~P.
 >> Stay informed about: Well, that's it, the group's dead. 

Patrick Baldwin wrote:
> Richard Clayton <rZIGeclaZIGyton.RemoveThis@verizon.net> wrote:
>> Christopher Adams wrote:
>>> Ibn Tumart wrote:
>>>> Hmmm... that's actually a pretty interesting premise. I don't mind the
>>>> lack of pessimistic mopiness either. Might be worth picking up at the
>>>> used bookstore next time I go, though I imagine it's not a game that's
>>>> easy to find players for.
>>> What game apart from Vampire and D&D is?
>
>> /Exalted./ I find once people get a grasp on the basic concepts of the
>> game, they fall all over themselves to play it. For a while I was
>> running TWO games, with a total of 12 players, until I decided I simply
>> couldn't handle that much writing. (Not without quitting my job, anyway.)
>
> Couldn't use some of the same material in both games?

Not really, no. I find that once /Exalted/ players get into the swing
of the game, they are quite happy to come up with their own list of
things to do. ("Recover my burial panoply from my old tomb, check. Found
my own religion, check. Next up: Conquer Lookshy.") The positive side of
this is /Exalted/ games practically write themselves; the negative side
is that "canned adventures" are of limited use.
Also, one of the two groups had a total of SEVEN players, and I decided
that is a larger crowd than I can comfortably handle.

> While I've had excellent success with that tactic in D&D,
> I'll admit the nature of Exalted characters might make
> it a bit harder.

Yeah, I used to do the same thing back in my D&D days. It just doesn't
work for me in /Exalted/. D&D has pretty clearly defined goals: Smash
monsters, steal treasure. Repeat until level 20. But games of /Exalted/
often involve reshaping the entire world, so a plot arc you wrote for a
previous game often becomes moot.
--
[The address listed is a spam trap. To reply, take off every zig.]
Richard Clayton
"During wars laws are silent." -- Cicero
 >> Stay informed about: Well, that's it, the group's dead. 

Hand-of-Omega wrote:
> Nothing to add, I just find it funny as hell that the thread that's
> revived at least some debate on this NG is still titled this...^__^
>
> Maybe it should be changed to "the group's mortally wounded"?^_~

It's not dead. It's pining for the fjords.
--
[The address listed is a spam trap. To reply, take off every zig.]
Richard Clayton
"During wars laws are silent." -- Cicero
 >> Stay informed about: Well, that's it, the group's dead. 

This message is not archived
 >> Stay informed about: Well, that's it, the group's dead. 

Patrick Baldwin wrote:
> Richard Clayton <rZIGeclaZIGyton DeleteThis @verizon.net> wrote:
>> Patrick Baldwin wrote:
>>> Richard Clayton <rZIGeclaZIGyton DeleteThis @verizon.net> wrote:
>>>> Christopher Adams wrote:
>>>>> Ibn Tumart wrote:
>>>>>> Hmmm... that's actually a pretty interesting premise. I don't mind the
>>>>>> lack of pessimistic mopiness either. Might be worth picking up at the
>>>>>> used bookstore next time I go, though I imagine it's not a game that's
>>>>>> easy to find players for.
>>>>> What game apart from Vampire and D&D is?
>>>> /Exalted./ I find once people get a grasp on the basic concepts of the
>>>> game, they fall all over themselves to play it. For a while I was
>>>> running TWO games, with a total of 12 players, until I decided I simply
>>>> couldn't handle that much writing. (Not without quitting my job, anyway.)
>>> Couldn't use some of the same material in both games?
>
>> Not really, no. I find that once /Exalted/ players get into the swing
>> of the game, they are quite happy to come up with their own list of
>> things to do. ("Recover my burial panoply from my old tomb, check. Found
>> my own religion, check. Next up: Conquer Lookshy.") The positive side of
>> this is /Exalted/ games practically write themselves; the negative side
>> is that "canned adventures" are of limited use.
>
> Indeed, it always seemed that would be the natural way for
> an Exalted game to go. None of the ones I've actually
> managed to play in did that; most of the people running
> the games, and indeed, most of the other players, just
> didn't seem interested in the character-driven world
> shaking plotlines. Or the magitech.
>
> Not to say those games weren't fun- they were. But I
> really want to found my own religion (by accident,
> due to my overwhelming charisma and legendary deeds),
> and then lead a holy crusade to re-conquer Creation
> alongside my Circle, after having recovered our
> Royal warstriders from our ancient fortress hide
> away in the far Eastern woods.
>
> Is that so much to ask?

Some people, particularly GMs, do not "get" /Exalted/ in that respect.
Most typical RPGs involve what I call "episodic continuity"— much like
an episode of a standard American television show, things are expected
to end more-or-less where they started. Bart Simpson has been on
television for 15 years and he hasn't even finished fifth grade! (Note
that most of my favorite shows do not adhere to this standard.) In a
typical game of D&D, you will certainly grow in power; you might even
become a fairly significant player in Greyhawk or the Forgotten Realms,
but the status quo is not expected to change much.
That is not Exalted. Every one of the Chosen has the capability to
reshape the ENTIRE WORLD. And they will. As a Solar, you have perhaps
150 or 200 peers in Creation. Already the newly returned Solars are
leave great marks on the world: The Bull of the North, for example,
recently smashed the legions of a whole Great House of the Scarlet
Dynasty. The Children of the Sun have been absent for fifteen centuries,
and their return heralds the end of the Age. If your group only does
dungeon crawls and the occasional round of "defeat the evil wizard," you
are missing out on much of the game's potential.

"/Exalted/ takes place in a world that is definitely on the brink of
SOMETHING... it could be an age of chaos, it could be a new golden age.
The real question is, 'What are you going to make it?'" -- Geoffrey C.
Grabowski

>> Also, one of the two groups had a total of SEVEN players, and I decided
>> that is a larger crowd than I can comfortably handle.
>
> Yeah, that's rough. I wouldn't be real happy with that
> in D&D, much less Exalted.

There are people with whom I could comfortably game in groups of seven.
This was not such a group.

>>> While I've had excellent success with that tactic in D&D,
>>> I'll admit the nature of Exalted characters might make
>>> it a bit harder.
>
>> Yeah, I used to do the same thing back in my D&D days. It just doesn't
>> work for me in /Exalted/. D&D has pretty clearly defined goals: Smash
>> monsters, steal treasure. Repeat until level 20.
>
> It certainly lends itself to that style of play, of course.
> But I'd say D&D, much like any RPG, is what you make of it.

True, but the backstory and mechanics of /D&D/ do not lend themselves
to the same sort of game as /Exalted./ AFAIK /D&D/ has no Feats along
the lines of "I am so glorious and terrible that my enemies fall on
their swords rather than fight me" or "I make a speech so moving and
powerful that the entire dragon of Realm heavy infantry instantly rebels
against its officers and swears to serve under my banner." And, of
course, if a typical mid-level barbarian or sorcerer could easily
overthrow a country or set up a new religion... why aren't they?

>> But games of /Exalted/
>> often involve reshaping the entire world, so a plot arc you wrote for a
>> previous game often becomes moot.
>
> Aye, but setting based adventures should be moderately usable.
> Good set-pieces with interesting things to stunt with, for
> example.

Still, such things are of limited use. Every adventure needs a "carrot"
of some sort to keep the players interested and motivated, and the
prizes sought by the Chosen tend to be as particular and individual as
the characters themselves. After all, a dungeon full of gold and
miscellaneous mundane treasure probably is not as appealing to a Circle
that already rules most of the Scavenger Lands. There are things most
players crave, such as powerful artifacts or First Age lore, but there
probably is not a big enough market for such things to justify printing
a whole book.
--
[The address listed is a spam trap. To reply, take off every zig.]
Richard Clayton
"During wars laws are silent." -- Cicero
 >> Stay informed about: Well, that's it, the group's dead. 

2006-05-30 <Yn4fg.214848$WI1.177899@pd7tw2no>, Stephenls wrote:
> Jordan Abel wrote:
>
>> Can you provide a citation saying that a sleeper being interested in
>> magic wouldn't make them count as a witness for purposes of Paradox?
>
> In Awakening or Ascension?
>
> Also, huh?

In ascension - you were saying this (i quoted, you snipped) was
something in the old mage game that didn't carry over to the new for
you, when I don't even remember anything like that in the old one.
 >> Stay informed about: Well, that's it, the group's dead. 

Richard Clayton <rZIGeclaZIGyton RemoveThis @verizon.net> wrote:
>Patrick Baldwin wrote:
>> Richard Clayton <rZIGeclaZIGyton RemoveThis @verizon.net> wrote:
>>> Patrick Baldwin wrote:
>>>> Richard Clayton <rZIGeclaZIGyton RemoveThis @verizon.net> wrote:

<SNIP>

>>> I find that once /Exalted/ players get into the swing
>>> of the game, they are quite happy to come up with their own list of
>>> things to do. ("Recover my burial panoply from my old tomb, check. Found
>>> my own religion, check. Next up: Conquer Lookshy.") The positive side of
>>> this is /Exalted/ games practically write themselves; the negative side
>>> is that "canned adventures" are of limited use.
>>
>> Indeed, it always seemed that would be the natural way for
>> an Exalted game to go. None of the ones I've actually
>> managed to play in did that; most of the people running
>> the games, and indeed, most of the other players, just
>> didn't seem interested in the character-driven world
>> shaking plotlines. Or the magitech.
>>
>> Not to say those games weren't fun- they were. But I
>> really want to found my own religion (by accident,
>> due to my overwhelming charisma and legendary deeds),
>> and then lead a holy crusade to re-conquer Creation
>> alongside my Circle, after having recovered our
>> Royal warstriders from our ancient fortress hide
>> away in the far Eastern woods.
>>
>> Is that so much to ask?

> Some people, particularly GMs, do not "get" /Exalted/ in that respect.

Oh, they "get" it, at least in my experience. They just
seem to think it's a bug, not a feature.

>Most typical RPGs involve what I call "episodic continuity"? much like
>an episode of a standard American television show, things are expected
>to end more-or-less where they started. Bart Simpson has been on
>television for 15 years and he hasn't even finished fifth grade! (Note
>that most of my favorite shows do not adhere to this standard.) In a
>typical game of D&D, you will certainly grow in power; you might even
>become a fairly significant player in Greyhawk or the Forgotten Realms,
>but the status quo is not expected to change much.

That's certainly what most people seem to expect, yes.

> That is not Exalted. Every one of the Chosen has the capability to
>reshape the ENTIRE WORLD. And they will. As a Solar, you have perhaps
>150 or 200 peers in Creation.

To that, I give a big "kinda".

A newly returned Solar has a whole lot of people in Creation
who are his peers when it comes to power level in the moment.

Older Exalts of almost any type will dance on his souls.

Maybe even literally.

This situation certainly changes, but there's going to be
someone with a bigger stick for a long, long time.

Eventually, it's only horrific, ancient things like
Ma-Ha-Suchi or the Mask of Winters.

You may come to a stage where you can face them in
single combat and make them cry, but I think any
story that did that would need to use some serious
"and as the years go by you continue to train and
adventure. Have some XP".


>Already the newly returned Solars are
>leave great marks on the world: The Bull of the North, for example,
>recently smashed the legions of a whole Great House of the Scarlet
>Dynasty. The Children of the Sun have been absent for fifteen centuries,
>and their return heralds the end of the Age. If your group only does
>dungeon crawls and the occasional round of "defeat the evil wizard," you
>are missing out on much of the game's potential.

Preaching to the choir, but Amen!

<SNIP>
>>> Also, one of the two groups had a total of SEVEN players, and I decided
>>> that is a larger crowd than I can comfortably handle.
>>
>> Yeah, that's rough. I wouldn't be real happy with that
>> in D&D, much less Exalted.

>There are people with whom I could comfortably game in groups of seven.
>This was not such a group.

Eh, I could LARP in larger groups, and in fact used to
prefer LARP groups to be as big as possible, but I
start running into annoying logistics issues with groups
at the 7+ size.

>>>> While I've had excellent success with that tactic in D&D,
>>>> I'll admit the nature of Exalted characters might make
>>>> it a bit harder.
>>
>> Yeah, I used to do the same thing back in my D&D days. It just doesn't
>>> work for me in /Exalted/. D&D has pretty clearly defined goals: Smash
>>> monsters, steal treasure. Repeat until level 20.
>>
>> It certainly lends itself to that style of play, of course.
>> But I'd say D&D, much like any RPG, is what you make of it.

> True, but the backstory and mechanics of /D&D/ do not lend themselves
>to the same sort of game as /Exalted./ AFAIK /D&D/ has no Feats along
>the lines of "I am so glorious and terrible that my enemies fall on
>their swords rather than fight me"

Nope, don't think so. What's the Exalted Inspire Suicide
Charm?

>or "I make a speech so moving and
>powerful that the entire dragon of Realm heavy infantry instantly rebels
>against its officers and swears to serve under my banner."

Actually, a sufficiently high Diplomacy check (DC 25, I
think) could do that. However, most of the D&D players
I know find that, again, a bug not a feature.

>And, of
>course, if a typical mid-level barbarian or sorcerer could easily
>overthrow a country or set up a new religion... why aren't they?

In some of my games, they have. But no, that's sure not
the default.

>>> But games of /Exalted/
>>> often involve reshaping the entire world, so a plot arc you wrote for a
>>> previous game often becomes moot.
>>
>> Aye, but setting based adventures should be moderately usable.
>> Good set-pieces with interesting things to stunt with, for
>> example.

>Still, such things are of limited use. Every adventure needs a "carrot"
>of some sort to keep the players interested and motivated, and the
>prizes sought by the Chosen tend to be as particular and individual as
>the characters themselves. After all, a dungeon full of gold and
>miscellaneous mundane treasure probably is not as appealing to a Circle
>that already rules most of the Scavenger Lands. There are things most
>players crave, such as powerful artifacts or First Age lore, but there
>probably is not a big enough market for such things to justify printing
>a whole book.

Oh sure, no real reason for White Wolf to do it. But it
seems the sort of thing that might be worthwhile for fans,
particularly if it's just posting some stuff you've already
done for your own game up on a public forum. There's sure
enough Charms people made up floating around.

~P.
Listening to Fear Factory, and now thinking about
a Grand Goremaul called the Edgecrusher.
Ah, the angry young metalhead is still in here somewhere.
 >> Stay informed about: Well, that's it, the group's dead. 

Patrick Baldwin wrote:
> Richard Clayton <rZIGeclaZIGyton RemoveThis @verizon.net> wrote:
>> Patrick Baldwin wrote:
>>>> Some people, particularly GMs, do not "get" /Exalted/ in that respect.
>>> Oh, they "get" it, at least in my experience. They just
>>> seem to think it's a bug, not a feature.
>
>> They are wrong. It is a feature. /Exalted Second Edition/ is much more
>> clear on this point than the first edition.
>
> De gustibus non disputandum. What is a bug and what is
> a feature always seemed largely a matter of what the
> user wants or likes versus what they don't.

I politely disagree. /Exalted/ is a game designed to empower players to
reshape the world, and the writers and developers are on record as
saying so. There is no wrong way to play an RPG as long as everybody has
fun, but you cannot really call one of the core concepts of the game a
"bug."

> But I do like the fact that 2nd ed. is clearer about
> this. It's good to know what the people who created
> a thing thought about it's intended use.
>
> <SNIP>
>>>> Every one of the Chosen has the capability to
>>>> reshape the ENTIRE WORLD. And they will. As a Solar, you have perhaps
>>>> 150 or 200 peers in Creation.
>>> To that, I give a big "kinda".
>>>
>>> A newly returned Solar has a whole lot of people in Creation
>>> who are his peers when it comes to power level in the moment.
>>>
>>> Older Exalts of almost any type will dance on his souls.
>>>
>>> Maybe even literally.
>>>
>>> This situation certainly changes, but there's going to be
>>> someone with a bigger stick for a long, long time.
>>>
>>> Eventually, it's only horrific, ancient things like
>>> Ma-Ha-Suchi or the Mask of Winters.
>
>> Oh, by "peers" I did not mean that a new Solar has only a few hundred
>> people who can rival his power; only that there are only a few hundred
>> like him in the world. Solars have been gone for a long time, and now
>> that they are back, they will reshape the world. The point I tried to
>> make is that your "standard" D&D setting is crawling with sorcerers,
>> fighters, barbarians, thieves, and so on... but in the Time of Tumult,
>> the Solar Exalted are appearing in numbers for the first time in 1,500
>> years. Meanwhile, the Lunars finally break their self-imposed exile to
>> the edges of the world. And the Abyssal Exalted appear for the first
>> time, as the Deathlords move openly against Creation...
>
> Ah, so it was more of a "the PCs are in fact special" as
> opposed to "the PCs can in fact kick most everyone's
> ass".

Right. Some entities will probably remain more powerful than individual
PCs, only because they have centuries or even millennia of accumulated
power. Frex, Chejop Kejak, Mr. Essence 10, is likely to remain more
powerful than any single player, only such high degrees of spiritual
enlightenment power cannot be reached in fewer than a thousand years.

>> If you do not want to play a game in a world about to be forcibly
>> reshaped by godlike powers-- of which you are one-- then /Exalted/
>> probably isn't the game for you. (^_^)
>
> It's funny though- while I would tend to think the
> same, they certainly seem to enjoy the game with
> that aspect minimized or ignored. The flavor and
> tone, as well as the combat mechanics, seem to
> be a big draw all by themselves.

That's fine. As I said above, there are no wrong ways to play an RPG,
as long as everybody has fun. Of course, most gaming systems are
designed for a particular mood and style of play. /Exalted/ supports
gritty stories of hardscrabble mercenaries and in-way-over-their-heads
occultists almost as well as it supports games of glorious living gods
of heroism and excellence. Still, the mechanics and the backstory
certainly nudge Chosen characters toward ruling, ravaging, or reshaping
Creation.

> Although I differ from most of the people who
> run Exalted in my group in some of my preferences
> in terms of style too- I *really* dig the weird
> magitech, they don't.
>
> Wonders of the Lost Age made me a happy monkey.

Apparently this is one of the major divisions in the game's fanbase;
some people prefer the whole "Bronze Age high fantasy" feel, while
others are titillated by magical flamethrowers and giant suits of
powered armor. It is one of the few points of the game on which
Stephenls and I disagree.

>>> You may come to a stage where you can face them in
>>> single combat and make them cry, but I think any
>>> story that did that would need to use some serious
>>> "and as the years go by you continue to train and
>>> adventure. Have some XP".
>
>> Not necessarily. The last game I played in this area ran for around 18
>> months, and by the end of it the PCs had accrued enough XP to build a
>> circle that could have curb-stomped the Mask of Winters (as statted in
>> the first edition corebook).
>
> Could an individual Circle member pull that off?

No. But the Circle could have, easily. Even if an enemy cannot be
defeated in direct combat (like Chejop Kejak), that simply means PCs
must think of different ways to overcome the challenge.

>> (They each had a large amount of banked XP,
>> because none of them had wanted to have a long downtime for raising
>> Attributes and Essence.)
>
> Heh, I tend to blow mine on Charms. They're so shiny.

My players already had most of the Charms they wanted, up to Essence 3.
Unfortunately, raising Essence to 4 or 5 requires a period of seclusion
and meditation, and they did not really have the opportunity to run off
to the mountains and contemplate their navels for a year. I had planned
to offer them a good pile of downtime after the completion of the
current story arc.

>> This was with the default XP awards, by the way. The only "house rule"
>> I added was a free point of XP for a three-die stunt, but this was only
>> rarely invoked.
>
> Nice.

It is actually in the 2e corebook now, BTW. This pleased me greatly.

>> I never LARPed, but I have tabletop gamed with well-behaved large
>> groups and had no significant problems. (Except for the occasional bout
>> of "dude, I can't reach the chips, pass 'em over here!")
>
> My biggest issue with larger groups, even well behaved
> ones, is I find that big groups make combat slower,
> and thus less exciting to me. Personal quirk.
>
>> Still, I feel
>> five players is about my preferred limit; a larger group means
>> comparatively less spotlight time for each player, and in in /Exalted/
>> it's FUN to have the spotlight. (^_^)
>
> Hopefully, it's fun to have spotlight time in whatever
> game you're playing.

True, but you can really show off in /Exalted./ One of the coolest
things about stunting is that they provide a limited sort of "failure
insurance." Since you are never penalized for trying something really
cool, there is no disincentive to at least make the attempt.

[snip]

>> This is another thing I like about 2e, by the way. The rules for using
>> social-fu on your enemies are much more clearly defined. It also
>> introduces the concept of "unacceptable orders"-- briefly stated, you
>> cannot normally command a person to do something immediately and
>> obviously suicidal, like "stick this knife in your throat" or "make
>> sweet love to the Kukla." (It is explicitly mentioned, however, that
>> extras may obey suicidal orders, at the ST's discretion.) These rules
>> are meant to encourage players to social-fu enemies into doing something
>> more interesting than "kill yourself."
>
> Very much like the "unacceptable orders" explicit limitation.
> Hopefully, it'll make people a little less wary of the
> potantially open-ended nature of what you can do with powerful
> social skills when the most abusive, stupid things are
> clearly off limits.

That's not the issue at all. "Kill yourself!" is not off-limits because
it is abusive. It isn't abusive, really; if you simply want somebody
dead, just put an arrow through his throat and be done with it. Hacking
somebody to bits is considerably faster and easier than making him serve
you.
The real problem with commands of "DIE!" is that they are BORING, and
in /Exalted/ that is the cardinal sin. Social combat is very, very
powerful-- no less so in 2e than it is in 1e. But now, if you want to
avoid coming to blows with the Immaculate Monk guarding in the library,
you need a cooler and more interesting "attack." "Kill yourself" is the
social-fu equivalent of "I hit him with my mace."

> i<SNIP>
>>> Oh sure, no real reason for White Wolf to do it. But it
>>> seems the sort of thing that might be worthwhile for fans,
>>> particularly if it's just posting some stuff you've already
>>> done for your own game up on a public forum. There's sure
>>> enough Charms people made up floating around.
>
>> Unfortunately, White Wolf has to make money; they can support only X
>> new supplements per year, and they must focus on the ones likely to give
>> them the largest return.
>
> Hmm, sorry I wasn't clear enough above. What I meant was
> that I know White Wolf would have little motivation to
> do it as they wouldn't make enough money from it, but
> that I thought fans, who seem to cheerfully create and
> collect tons of material for the game and make it available
> on the Internet, might collect this sort of thing together
> themselves.

Heh heh. So what's stopping you?
--
[The address listed is a spam trap. To reply, take off every zig.]
Richard Clayton
"During wars laws are silent." -- Cicero
 >> Stay informed about: Well, that's it, the group's dead. 

2006-06-01 <J5Jfg.1715$ap3.1104@news-server.bigpond.net.au>,
Christopher Adams wrote:
> Jordan Abel wrote:
>>
>> In ascension - you were saying this (i quoted, you snipped) was
>> something in the old mage game that didn't carry over to the new for
>> you, when I don't even remember anything like that in the old one.
>
> I didn't get that impression - I though Richard was just confused by the idea
> that having an interest in and investigating magic would cause an
> effect called Disbelief.
>
> But, then, if you haven't grasped the magic system in Awakening, that's
> understandable. It's part of why the mages call the world the Lie
> - the Exarchs have convinced humanity that magic doesn't exist so they
> can have it all to themselves, and unless you're Awakened or
> a Sleepwalker just seeing magic happen can't shake that deep-seated
> picture of reality.

Yeah, but he was saying that he was confused because it was different
from the old game - but there was nothing in Ascension saying that
sleeper interest would make things easier (and it follows from what _is_
said, combined with simple logic, that it would likely increase the
paradox risk)
 >> Stay informed about: Well, that's it, the group's dead. 

Richard Clayton wrote:

> Apparently this is one of the major divisions in the game's fanbase;
> some people prefer the whole "Bronze Age high fantasy" feel, while
> others are titillated by magical flamethrowers and giant suits of
> powered armor. It is one of the few points of the game on which
> Stephenls and I disagree.

Bronze age pulp fantasy, actually. "High fantasy" carries too many
connotations of Tolkien, chivalry, and/or bad Tolkien pastiche such as
the Wheel of Time, all of which Exalted is not.

OTOH, I love Lookshy. Just, as an anomaly.

> It is actually in the 2e corebook now, BTW. This pleased me greatly.

1 instant XP for a 3-die stunt is actually in the 1e corebook as well.
 >> Stay informed about: Well, that's it, the group's dead. 

Stephenls wrote:
> Richard Clayton wrote:
>
>> Apparently this is one of the major divisions in the game's
>> fanbase; some people prefer the whole "Bronze Age high fantasy" feel,
>> while others are titillated by magical flamethrowers and giant suits
>> of powered armor. It is one of the few points of the game on which
>> Stephenls and I disagree.
>
> Bronze age pulp fantasy, actually. "High fantasy" carries too many
> connotations of Tolkien, chivalry, and/or bad Tolkien pastiche such as
> the Wheel of Time, all of which Exalted is not.

Right.

> OTOH, I love Lookshy. Just, as an anomaly.
>
>> It is actually in the 2e corebook now, BTW. This pleased me greatly.
>
> 1 instant XP for a 3-die stunt is actually in the 1e corebook as well.

You are mistaken. It is not in the 1e corebook. Page 270 suggests a one
point bonus to session XP for a player who "does something really
amazingly cool, comes up with an startlingly good idea or even just
saves your butt by having the rulebook when you forgot yours at home,"
but that is a rather oblique reference at best. It certainly is not a
specific endorsement of giving out a point of XP for a three-die stunt.
--
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Richard Clayton
"During wars laws are silent." -- Cicero
 >> Stay informed about: Well, that's it, the group's dead. 

Richard Clayton wrote:

> You are mistaken. It is not in the 1e corebook. Page 270 suggests a
> one point bonus to session XP for a player who "does something really
> amazingly cool, comes up with an startlingly good idea or even just
> saves your butt by having the rulebook when you forgot yours at home,"
> but that is a rather oblique reference at best. It certainly is not a
> specific endorsement of giving out a point of XP for a three-die stunt.

No, that's the section I was thinking of. "Does something really
amazingly cool" is the definition of a 3-die stunt, innit?

I always figured it was the result of whoever wrote Page 270 did so
before the stunt rules were finalized.
 >> Stay informed about: Well, that's it, the group's dead.