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Attorney at Funk posted:These really seem like in-character philosophical problems rather than out-of-character philosophical problems unless you're existentially terrified of someone playing a divinely ordained superhero straight. e: In the, "UCS is a shockingly powerful but ultimately finite" being, not the, like, bulls and swans stuff.
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Aug 14, 2018 20:39
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Let's just take a moment to remember this setting would not exist without Kid Rock's musical contributions to 1e's lead developer. G_d bless.
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Aug 14, 2018 20:40
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Rand Brittain posted:Whatever else you can say about 3E, everybody can be thankful that it killed the "the Yozis were right" arguments forever. God, I got really tired of those. I mean, has it? The basic fact of the usurpation remains. It's on the reader to be brave enough to reject private property as a cornerstone of morality.
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Aug 14, 2018 20:41
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Ferrinus posted:I mean, has it? The basic fact of the usurpation remains. It's on the reader to be brave enough to reject private property as a cornerstone of morality. As a sapient nWoD morality track, I
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Aug 14, 2018 20:56
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Joe Slowboat posted:Hey, I'm not the one insisting that the philosophical position of 'Exaltation cannot be deserved within the world of the game' needs to be baked into the setting. It's not a question of "does it need to be." Any setting where a certain subset of people are of at radically more powerful than others is implicitly suggesting such a question. Joe Slowboat posted:I just don't think that the particular framework of 'Exaltation is inherently and inescapably unjust' actually helps construct stories the way 'Empire is inherently and inescapably unjust' does. If you don't like that framework, don't make use of it. If neither the players of the GM want to bring the question up, it doesn't have to come up! But when you say that not only do you not want to make use of it, but the rule book should discourage other players from make use of it, you come across as a little insecure. You can try and tattle to the UCS that other people are playing the game wrong, but it won't do you any good. They don't need his permission.
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Aug 14, 2018 21:02
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...real weird way of phrasing that, there. My whole argument has been in response was to people endorsing 2e's active insistence on putting the framework of 'you're a lucky chump and many better people than you didn't Exalt' in the books, and pardon me for being annoyed at being called a fascist apologist for saying 'hey I thought that framework was kinda bad for flexible storytelling, I prefer if Solars aren't always framed that way by the book.' But apparently this means I'm literally worshiping an extremely fictional sun god? I'm explicitly arguing for more flexible and open setting writing and you're acting like I'm telling people they're playing the game wrong. EDIT: Like, seriously, Second Edition made explicit a number of the things I'm saying are restrictive. Third Edition has been good, in my opinion, about steering away from that. I'm not asking for any other explicit framework to be inserted into Third Edition, I'm asking that it be left general and ambiguous. I'm also of the camp that the Sun probably doesn't need to be characterized much at all, so that different tables can do different things - but all of the 'autonomous hunter-killer Exaltations sent by a WoW addict' from 2e were a very specific, expansive framework for undermining the culture hero side of the game. I'm glad they're gone from the canon writing and think they should stay gone. Joe Slowboat fucked around with this message at 21:27 on Aug 14, 2018 |
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Aug 14, 2018 21:17
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Easy there. No one's calling you a fascist. The framework of 2e wasn't "you're a lucky chump and many better people than you didn't Exalt," it's "you're a lucky chump (because anyone who exalts is a lucky chump) -- but now that you have this power, what do you do with it?" That's also the 3e framework. The fact that it's some NPC god instead of a magic shard doesn't change that. Someone mentioned Superman earlier, but I think the better example is Spider-man. Peter Parker was just some rear end in a top hat until he got bitten by a radioactive spider. No one says that Spider-mans is a lousy hero because that spider could have easily bitten some other, more worthy rear end in a top hat (a certain editor-in-chief aside). Instead, one of the most beloved things about him is exactly how he is some shmuck, and how he has to try his damnedest to be the best person he can with the powers and responsibilities that he has. That's the Exalted framework. Schwarzwald fucked around with this message at 23:34 on Aug 14, 2018 |
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Aug 14, 2018 21:44
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I think it is okay when Solars justifiably have faith in themselves, and also when they justifiably don't. If their faith or lack of faith is not justifiable, that's okay too. Who dares debate me?
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Aug 14, 2018 21:52
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That’s not the framework for any existing type of Chosen - not even Dragon-Blooded (spider-blooded?) since they’re lucky accidents of birth, not lucky accidents full stop.
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Aug 14, 2018 21:53
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The anxiety over whether Exalted characters "deserve" their power feels like the anxiety over mages having a more comprehensive setting cosmology than vampires do. Some invisible but terrifying rhetorical power.
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Aug 14, 2018 21:59
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The real question is whether Yurgen Kaneko really deserved to be so much fiercer a warrior and braver a leader than his fellow Icewalkers before his exaltation.
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Aug 14, 2018 22:10
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Rand Brittain posted:Whatever else you can say about 3E, everybody can be thankful that it killed the "the Yozis were right" arguments forever. God, I got really tired of those. Wait, that was an argument? I mean supposedly the Solars had it coming, but the assholes who rewrote reality on a daily basis just to be dicks didn't?
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Aug 14, 2018 22:13
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The real question is why Yurgen Kaneko isn't a cat.
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Aug 14, 2018 22:13
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Joe Slowboat posted:...real weird way of phrasing that, there.
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Aug 14, 2018 22:56
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TwoQuestions posted:Wait, that was an argument? I mean supposedly the Solars had it coming, but the assholes who rewrote reality on a daily basis just to be dicks didn't? Oh, you sweet summer child.
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Aug 14, 2018 22:56
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Zereth posted:Look I'm not actually very familiar with 3e okay? I wasn't "endorsing it" so much as "not really aware of how it had changed in 3e" Sorry about that! Some people were arguing that 2e's framework is the only morally acceptable version of Solars, and I took umbrage. The phrase "fascism splat" was used. Regardless I think we can all agree that the worst position was "because Primordials have much more elaborate and complex souls than humans, they are right to treat humans like we treat trees and plants" and also that it's bad that I remember that argument at all.
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Aug 14, 2018 23:14
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Wasn't that mostly the one guy whose screen name was the Ebon Dragon? Are we sure that wasn't the actual Ebon Dragon?
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Aug 14, 2018 23:28
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Nessus posted:Wasn't that mostly the one guy whose screen name was the Ebon Dragon? He was just a CHUD who hung around too long.
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Aug 14, 2018 23:28
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Rand Brittain posted:He was just a CHUD who hung around too long. Didn't he get booted from both the WoD forums and the Big Purple?
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Aug 14, 2018 23:43
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He was one of those people who found it easier to make sockpuppets than follow rules, yes, and who also thought it was cool to tell people he would just sockpuppet instead of having manners. He got booted from basically everywhere except Exalted IRC, where he hung around far too long because they didn't enforce any actual bans for years.
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Aug 14, 2018 23:45
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Was this also the extremely offputting sexual fantasies poster? SachKrisLucy or something?
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Aug 14, 2018 23:57
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Joe Slowboat posted:Was this also the extremely offputting sexual fantasies poster? SachKrisLucy or something? You mean the guy who really wanted Trial of the Scarlet Empress in direct-to-video on his bunk? No, that was somebody else.
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Aug 14, 2018 23:58
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Joe Slowboat posted:Regardless I think we can all agree that the worst position was "because Primordials have much more elaborate and complex souls than humans, they are right to treat humans like we treat trees and plants" and also that it's bad that I remember that argument at all. It’s true. Robbing and killing the titans WAS a moral imperative.
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Aug 15, 2018 00:03
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I've been trying to learn Exalted since, I dunno, ages and Ebon Dragon was about the most unhelpful person ever because I didn't realize until later it came from the elaborately crafted fanon he had in his head.
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Aug 15, 2018 00:16
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Wasn't that the case with a majority of the posters on the old forums?
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Aug 15, 2018 00:21
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My impression was that only a minority of players on the old forums played Solar Exalted games, and a small minority at that.
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Aug 15, 2018 00:57
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2E Exalted Forums had a whole lot of people who had never played but had elaborately designed headcanons, figures, backstories and characters for when they eventually got to play in Exalted. in 3E at least on the OP forums it seems like people are playing the game a lot more.
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Aug 15, 2018 06:09
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That's because combat actually mostly works as advertised in 3E.
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Aug 15, 2018 06:12
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Joe Slowboat posted:Sorry about that! Some people were arguing that 2e's framework is the only morally acceptable version of Solars, and I took umbrage. The phrase "fascism splat" was used. I mean, the Primordials were, at least post-Infernals, always meant to be something quantifiable, graspable, and incredibly petty even on human terms. Like, the sum of what we know about the Yozis as people during 2E's fluff was that they were written around human mental illnesses and personality disorders, as if the cast of Always Sunny were also living it up on Mount Olympus. You can figure out Malfeas; maybe the soul hierarchy thing is weird and confusing initially, but he's still basically just an angry narcissist who can glare at you so hard you get cancer. Ultimately, loving Isidoros is a living black hole who is still willing to not crush underfoot those who have the courage to beg him not to do so, so what the hell is Adorjan's excuse? It was also a thing in 2E that the Raksha found humans entirely unremarkable, except for the fact that they were just as capable of 'thinking big' as the gods or the Primordials, in terms of what they can envision. Bedlamdan fucked around with this message at 06:35 on Aug 15, 2018 |
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Aug 15, 2018 06:32
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Joe Slowboat posted:It's not a question of liking the characters. It's a question of whether the setting as written supports those characters and doesn't (like many RPGs do) insist that they're nothing special, there's others like them, your story does not have any fundamental worth. Nobody is or was talking about characters being Nothing Special, just about characters not being explicitly, literally, The Most Special, and it's frankly kind of weird that you keep referring to literally a fraction of it being not sheer merit as some conspiracy to make characters suck as much as possible. Let me lay it out explicitly: in the vision of exalted that I am arguing for, characters are special, and also lucky.
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Aug 15, 2018 09:09
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The lucky Exalted are Dragon-Blooded, and, in a highly technical way, Sidereals.
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Aug 15, 2018 12:39
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Stephenls posted:(This is because DB Exaltation in the context of the Dynasty is at least partially a metaphor for unearned privilege.) Hey Lea. Welcome back. So I’v been thinking on this statement in particular for the past couple of days and it finally came to me why it felt off: making DB Exaltation a metaphor for unearned privilege seems redundant when the fact of the Scarlet Empire is itself unearned privilege. Their position at the top of the social order is based on brutal conquest , subjugation, and expropriation of all the world’s resources, starting with all the poo poo they looted from the Old Realm and the entire social order that props them up through the threat of violence against any who dare dispute its rightness. You don’t also have to cast Terrestrial Exaltation as somehow an inborn spiritual failing to throw shade at their legitimacy!
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Aug 15, 2018 18:19
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Thesaurasaurus posted:Hey Lea. Welcome back. It's not so much that it's an inborn spiritual failing as it is that having their Exaltation be unearned dovetails nicely with their place in the setting.
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Aug 15, 2018 18:32
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At least in how I read it, I get why that might be the case from writers but that doesn't mean I agree with the idea that the DB exaltation is 'unearned'. Maybe in 2E it was when you literally rolled a d10 based on the breeding of your parents to determine if you Exalted as a DB, you could say it's unearned, since that's got nothing to do with you. But the book in 3E seems pretty clear that it is earned. Admittedly the whole 'progenetive Essence' thing kind of muddies it, and I deleted that section from my game immediately upon reading it, but the book still at least tries to suggest that if you are worthy you'll exalt regardless of how much 'progenetive Essence' you got, and it's social norms that push you down, not your own inability, since you're just as strong as your peers. To do otherwise paints the Dragonblooded as 'Lesser' Exalted and going back to their 2E description where people were unironically calling them Orks or 'Mookxalted'. And if the idea is still to present that I'm not sure why 'Progenetive Essence' was created at all, since I thought that was to reinforce that Dragonblooded can't really be effectively mass-produced, they're each heroes and mighty in their own right. If they're still unearned upper middle class WASPs coasting by on Mommy's money, the 'Progenetive Essence' is meaningless because you've already stated they're worthless.
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Aug 15, 2018 18:56
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Yeah that's definitely wrong. Realm aristocrats don't earn their births and Dragon-Blooded don't earn their exaltations, and the books don't claim otherwise.
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Aug 15, 2018 19:05
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Stallion Cabana posted:At least in how I read it, I get why that might be the case from writers but that doesn't mean I agree with the idea that the DB exaltation is 'unearned'. Maybe in 2E it was when you literally rolled a d10 based on the breeding of your parents to determine if you Exalted as a DB, you could say it's unearned, since that's got nothing to do with you. But the book in 3E seems pretty clear that it is earned. I don't think that's right. It's entirely hereditary, and you either have the dragon factor or you don't. If you have it, you'll Exalt eventually regardless, and nothing will make you Exalt if you don't. There's no "worthiness" involved in the process.
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Aug 15, 2018 19:05
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wow. The book sucks then.
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Aug 15, 2018 19:07
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Stallion Cabana posted:At least in how I read it, I get why that might be the case from writers but that doesn't mean I agree with the idea that the DB exaltation is 'unearned'. Maybe in 2E it was when you literally rolled a d10 based on the breeding of your parents to determine if you Exalted as a DB, you could say it's unearned, since that's got nothing to do with you. But the book in 3E seems pretty clear that it is earned. Rand Brittain posted:I don't think that's right. It's entirely hereditary, and you either have the dragon factor or you don't. If you have it, you'll Exalt eventually regardless, and nothing will make you Exalt if you don't. There's no "worthiness" involved in the process. As I read it, you do need a heroic spirit to exalt as a Terrestrial. But you ALSO need the blood of the dragons, enhanced by progenitive essence. The greatest hero in the world cannot exalt as a Terrestrial without that bloodline. However, the bloodline isn't enough. Approach Terrestrial Exaltation being "unearned" the same way you approach colonial privilege being unearned. Yes, the explorers and generals and scientists of a colonial empire are very good at what they do (typically), but so are other people. They didn't earn the chance to show their merit, it was just given to them by circumstance. Whenever a Solar exalts, there were a dozen other people just as good who didn't exalt. Whether by chance or the whims of the Sun, one hero is chosen over her peers. Whenever a Terrestrial exalts, there were millions of other people who never even got to compete for the exaltation. Their bloodline didn't contain the magic spark, and so they are not Terrestrial Exalted. The ones who Exalted are still extraordinary heroes, the best of their generation. But their ticket to compete in that contest was bought by ancestry, not merit.
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Aug 15, 2018 19:09
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Rand Brittain posted:I don't think that's right. It's entirely hereditary, and you either have the dragon factor or you don't. If you have it, you'll Exalt eventually regardless, and nothing will make you Exalt if you don't. There's no "worthiness" involved in the process. Now if you're going to be a fanatical egalitarian you should totally rip down the stars from the heavens too, but that one doesn't come up much 
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Aug 15, 2018 19:10
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Stallion Cabana posted:wow. I'm beginning to think that Exalted fans do not actually like Exalted.
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Aug 15, 2018 19:11
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