Darloth/TrithLog
[17:24 Friday] Darloth: Exalted tries hard
[17:24 Friday] Darloth: To a point, it's okay
[17:24 Friday] Darloth: But past that point (I think it's essence 4 ^_^) it fails
[17:24 Friday] Cruithne: probably because I like exalted at every level, except for needing cleaning.
[17:24 Friday] Darloth: (Essence 4 solars, that is)
[17:24 Friday] Cruithne: yes. ess4 it goes mad
[17:25 Friday] Darloth: It's because it doesn't have enough... of whatever it is, to counterbalance the ever-increasing need for more
[17:25 Friday] Cruithne: at ess4, there's nowhere left to go.
[17:26 Friday] Darloth: I think Nobilis does it with a mix of social constraint, diceless mechanics, and very, very focussed ability
[17:26 Friday] Cruithne: you've got these insanely powerful effects already
[17:26 Friday] Darloth: Ess 4-5 basically seems like "more often"
[17:26 Friday] Cruithne: It's something I'm looking into..
[17:26 Friday] Cruithne: But I prefer my exalted at ess 2-3 anyway
[17:26 Friday] Darloth: You already have a defense that can never be beaten. You can use it on nearly everything, if you can afford it
[17:26 Friday] Darloth: It's a little sad because the sorcery scale is a bit off.
[17:27 Friday] Darloth: Ess 5 sorcery feels just right
[17:27 Friday] Cruithne: I feel that's where the game is at it's best, because you're not overly madly powerful, but you're powerful enough to be awesome.
[17:27 Friday] Darloth: But solar charms are an entire essence-level in front
[17:27 Friday] Cruithne: It's also exalted's anime feel that I love.
[17:27 Friday] Cruithne: hehe.
[17:27 Friday] Darloth: What they get at essence 2, everyone else gets at 3, and likewise
[17:28 Friday] Darloth: could fix that by moving the sorcery charms down a step for solars
[17:28 Friday] Cruithne: eh?
[17:28 Friday] Darloth: Sorcery at essence 2! Even more reason for siddies to hate them!
[17:28 Friday] Cruithne: that'd be..
[17:29 Friday] Darloth: not actually that different.
[17:29 Friday] Cruithne: well... it'd help with trying to limit the game to essence 2-3.
[17:29 Friday] Darloth: It's usually spell availability that's the limiting factor, for a start
[17:29 Friday] Cruithne: yeah
[17:29 Friday] Darloth: Plus, at ess 2 you have less Essence (so less successes) and less essence (so less spells per day)
[17:30 Friday] Cruithne: I'm looking at ways to make exalted play better with minimal adjustment.
[17:30 Friday] Cruithne: houserules need to be explained, that takes time.
[17:31 Friday] Cruithne: Also, my tick hack...
[17:31 Friday] Cruithne: I'm pondering a rate = attacks availible over (speed) ticks.
[17:31 Friday] Cruithne: So you can flurry, but they can be spread out, and you can interupt with them, etc.
[17:31 Friday] Darloth: yeah...
[17:32 Friday] Cruithne: and it feels less 'attack... wait, wait wait... attack'
[17:32 Friday] Cruithne: it's 'attack, parry, attack attack, dodge, start over'
[17:34 Friday] Darloth: Exalted's combat system really kinda sucks. Before charms, there's not much too it.
[17:35 Friday] Cruithne: So does it's chargen, imo.
[17:35 Friday] Darloth: possibly so
[17:35 Friday] Cruithne: You can be Ability 5 with ease, making growth all about charsms.
[17:35 Friday] Darloth: in fact, exalted sucks. The setting is good, but if only it hadn't been white wolf.
[17:35 Friday] Cruithne: which is okay if charms were more diverse, i guess.
[17:35 Friday] Cruithne: Haha :)
[17:35 Friday] Cruithne: I do like storyteller, and I think there's promise.
[17:35 Friday] Darloth: have you seen Weapons of the Gods?
[17:35 Friday] Cruithne: But i'm going to need to get a hacksaw
[17:36 Friday] Darloth: I just think we're hacking it so much there's not much left
[17:36 Friday] Cruithne: i started again.
[17:36 Friday] Darloth: we need to look at it from a core design perspective. Do we honestly WANT abilities running from 1-5?
[17:36 Friday] Cruithne: from a fresh 2e slate.
[17:36 Friday] Cruithne: hmmm.
[17:36 Friday] Cruithne: well...
[17:36 Friday] Cruithne: I, regardless of any factors, like the multiple dice vs tn system/
[17:37 Friday] Cruithne: of course, i like that in SR4 too...
[17:37 Friday] Darloth: what's wrong with 1-min(5,2*Ess)?
[17:37 Friday] Cruithne: So, hrm.
[17:37 Friday] Cruithne: ......
[17:37 Friday] Cruithne: Just make it worse. But hmmm.
[17:37 Friday] Darloth: why's that make it worse?
[17:37 Friday] Cruithne: hang on..
[17:37 Friday] Cruithne: isn't that how it is now?
[17:37 Friday] Darloth: no
[17:38 Friday] Darloth: At present it's 1..min(5,Ess)
[17:38 Friday] Darloth: meaning you need to get to essence 6 to break the essence boundry
[17:38 Friday] Cruithne: so, you'd need to be ess 3 under the above system.
[17:38 Friday] Darloth: if, at essence 3, you could start raising abilities to 6...
[17:38 Friday] Cruithne: which... hmm.
[17:38 Friday] Darloth: and then 8 at essence 4...
[17:39 Friday] Darloth: It gives characters more room to grow
[17:39 Friday] Cruithne: it does. Also, rule of 10.
[17:39 Friday] Cruithne: Sounds awesome on paper...
[17:39 Friday] Cruithne: Leads to exalts doing stuff that goes waaay beyond legendary. Do you know what 14 sucesses is?
[17:39 Friday] Darloth: and since abilities are actually really expensive up that high, xp wise, might balance out the charms, charms, more charms factor.
[17:39 Friday] Cruithne: it's the god-damn planet!
[17:40 Friday] Cruithne: Howso? If they're more expensive that high, people will go for charms instead.
[17:40 Friday] Cruithne: Maybe spread charm effects out a bit..
[17:40 Friday] Darloth: Not necessarily. Some people for IC or OOC reasons want to be the MegaBestSwordsmanEVAR!!!
[17:40 Friday] Cruithne: So, move some effects hgher up the essence scale.
[17:41 Friday] Cruithne: Making for essence 4-5 being less OMGWTF.
[17:41 Friday] Darloth: Yeah.
[17:41 Friday] Cruithne: Make it so that up to ess 5, you're still in the boundaries of 'normal'
[17:41 Friday] Darloth: Plus, if your natural pool is 14 dice, then your pool adders etc can go larger
[17:41 Friday] Cruithne: at ess 6, break the damn rules.
[17:41 Friday] Darloth: Meh, that may be too much
[17:42 Friday] Cruithne: consider the size of those pools.
[17:42 Friday] Cruithne: 14 dice, 14m later, 28 dice...
[17:42 Friday] Cruithne: That's a lot of pool.
[17:42 Friday] Darloth: yes, and?
[17:42 Friday] Cruithne: Hmmm...
[17:42 Friday] Cruithne: Not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. )
[17:42 Friday] Darloth: the difficulty scale already needs to be reorganized.
[17:42 Friday] Darloth: and people can already get gobbets of dice
[17:42 Friday] Cruithne: Yeah, true.
[17:43 Friday] Darloth: this only really lets SOLARS get -EXTRA- gobbets
[17:43 Friday] Darloth: Lunars, limited by attributes ARGHigh costs...
[17:43 Friday] Cruithne: *snigger8
[17:43 Friday] Darloth: siddies, are using Essence anyway...
[17:43 Friday] Darloth: DBs, okay, so they can get more dice! Whoohoo, an extra few dice. They need them
[17:43 Friday] Cruithne: haha.
[17:44 Friday] Cruithne: charms...
[17:44 Friday] Cruithne: need more dynamism.
[17:44 Friday] Cruithne: I'm tempted to experiment with just removing the charmslot limit.
[17:44 Friday] Darloth: I think some limit is necessary
[17:45 Friday] Cruithne: probably.
[17:45 Friday] Darloth: a) because limits can be bent, or broken - this leads to feeling more powerful, and defines character abilities better
[17:45 Friday] Darloth: b) to define combos
[17:45 Friday] Darloth: c) to keep things sane.
[17:45 Friday] Cruithne: yeah, comboes are nice.
[17:45 Friday] Cruithne: But made too expensive to make now.
[17:45 Friday] Darloth: combo system is broken at the moment
[17:46 Friday] Darloth: So, charms are broken, charcre is broken, powerlevels are broken, setting is great, feel is great, combos broken, difficulty levels broken...
[17:46 Friday] Cruithne: All broken, broken, broken.
[17:46 Friday] Darloth: We need our own system with its own character creation, roll examples, difficulty lists, charmtrees, etc.
[17:46 Friday] Cruithne: Gah. It needs to be done from nothing.
[17:46 Friday] Cruithne: Just built around the system.
[17:46 Friday] Darloth: Yep.
[17:47 Friday] Cruithne: exalted was originally a hack-job of Vampire...
[17:47 Friday] Darloth: we both agree that the Attribute + Ability system works quite nicely
[17:47 Friday] Cruithne: Yes.
[17:47 Friday] Darloth: Although there is scope for other weirdness
[17:47 Friday] Darloth: Jadeclaw makes the whole "I can never beat his roll" thing less of a problem by changing size of dice and not totalling rolls...
[17:48 Friday] Darloth: Weapons of the Gods does weird things, but in general has... ODD rolls.
[17:48 Friday] Cruithne: I've experimented with systems like that in the past.
[17:48 Friday] Cruithne: It adds randomness issues sometimes.
[17:49 Friday] Darloth: You ltake the three highest, add them, possibly shift in a double from your stored pool and divide by pi to calculate your awesomesauce, add 3 red chakra and mix for 20 minutes till smooth
[17:49 Friday] Cruithne: haha.
[17:49 Friday] Darloth: Seriously, you should read it
[17:49 Friday] Cruithne: assuming retaining of ST, I want to remove the rule of 10.
[17:49 Friday] Cruithne: It just furthur augments massive pool effects.
[17:49 Friday] Cruithne: And creates annoying flukes.
[17:50 Friday] Darloth: aren't annoying flukes part of anime?
[17:50 Friday] Cruithne: When multiple 10s appear, it really messes things up.
[17:50 Friday] Darloth: we need more tokens and counters
[17:50 Friday] Darloth: Make the rule of 10 something you pay for
[17:50 Friday] Cruithne: Yes, but when someone rolls 10,10,10,10,9,7,5,3,1... it becomes. argha
[17:50 Friday] Darloth: like Edge in SR4
[17:50 Friday] Cruithne: tokens and counters. aaah.
[17:50 Friday] Cruithne: like.. yeah
[17:51 Friday] Darloth: hehe. You should look at Albedo
[17:51 Friday] Cruithne: (Heard the GMS remix of Red Fraction?)
[17:51 Friday] Darloth: (Yes, I believe it's my favorite)
[17:51 Friday] Cruithne: (it's nice, yes)
[17:51 Friday] Darloth: The entire system is build around pools, not die pools but pointpools
[17:52 Friday] Darloth: and you use these pools to do things with dice. It also has fixed-values all over the place
[17:52 Friday] Cruithne: (Oh, I need to ask. How're you going for tomorrow being here-ness)
[17:52 Friday] Darloth: 90%
[17:52 Friday] Cruithne: 'k.
[17:52 Friday] Darloth: I feel okay right now, I'm getting some work done... I believe I'll survive
[17:53 Friday] Cruithne: Hehe.
[17:53 Friday] Darloth: although I still have no ideas for anything to DO in this hotel
[17:53 Friday] Cruithne: I'll probably be late. People want me to drink, but I have declined. However, I have people around anyway for some anime and suchlike, and I'll need to nap too.
[17:53 Friday] Darloth: okay
[17:54 Friday] Darloth: but more pools, tokens, reserves, soybeam trading, etc
[17:54 Friday] Cruithne: I personally like exalted's essence system.
[17:54 Friday] Cruithne: and charmtrees.
[17:55 Friday] Cruithne: I think they're good ideas, just that everything's crammed into too small a space.
[17:55 Friday] Darloth: what do you like about the essence system?
[17:55 Friday] Cruithne: It's like MP, and sits well with me.
[17:55 Friday] Darloth: considered making it smaller?
[17:55 Friday] Cruithne: Maybe we need a system for.. wait, those are called excellencies. :)
[17:55 Friday] Cruithne: smaller/
[17:56 Friday] Cruithne: I'd like to take the existing charmspreads and spread them out over the essence levels more. And ability levels, to a lesser extent.
[17:57 Friday] Darloth: well, the 1m/1die correspondance is neat, but the sheer scale of essencepools makes it difficult to grade effects
[17:57 Friday] Darloth: most systems use smaller numbers
[17:57 Friday] Darloth: for bigger effects
[17:57 Friday] Cruithne: So, smaller pools?
[17:58 Friday] Cruithne: making spending essence a bigger thing?
[17:58 Friday] Darloth: yeah. Maybe as much as /3 or /5
[17:58 Friday] Cruithne: We can fiddle. I like essence atm, but there's always room for improvement.
[17:58 Friday] Darloth: I also like different flavours of essence, but I've always liked that and it's perhaps overcomplex for this
[18:00 Friday] Darloth: But my general reasoning is this
[18:00 Friday] Darloth: Those 1m expenses...
[18:00 Friday] Darloth: What do they buy yoiu?
[18:00 Friday] Darloth: Also, is it WORTH tracking them?
[18:00 Friday] Cruithne: You're often spending those in chunks of 8 or 9 though.
[18:00 Friday] Darloth: for things like lighting your castemark
[18:00 Friday] Darloth: knowing the time of day
[18:00 Friday] Cruithne: Oh pffft.
[18:01 Friday] Darloth: what is the smallest actually USED, MEANINGFUL expenditure of essence?
[18:01 Friday] Cruithne: No-one ever uses those
[18:01 Friday] Darloth: I'd say it's the 2-3 mark
[18:01 Friday] Cruithne: Hmm.
[18:01 Friday] Cruithne: I find myself using the 1st excellency more than most effect charms.
[18:01 Friday] Cruithne: and the 2nd.
[18:02 Friday] Darloth: excellencies annoy m
[18:02 Friday] Darloth: me
[18:02 Friday] Cruithne: thematically?
[18:02 Friday] Cruithne: or mechanically?
[18:02 Friday] Darloth: both
[18:02 Friday] Darloth: 2e core is built around them
[18:02 Friday] Cruithne: okay then...
[18:02 Friday] Darloth: But they don't fit the setting
[18:02 Friday] Cruithne: yes, it is/.
[18:03 Friday] Darloth: or at least, their mechanical interpretation doesn't
[18:03 Friday] Darloth: Wouldn't it make more sense if you automatically had all excellencies for all caste/favoured abilities?
[18:03 Friday] Cruithne: hmmm.
[18:03 Friday] Cruithne: it would, actually.
[18:03 Friday] Darloth: these are anime heros - why do they need to LEARN to get better at their Schtick?
[18:03 Friday] Cruithne: (I hate re-rollerss though. kill them)
[18:03 Friday] Darloth: As a rather expensive and apparently fundamental capability.
[18:04 Friday] Darloth: (Rerollers are a good thing)
[18:04 Friday] Darloth: Why don't you like them?
[18:04 Friday] Cruithne: I find them hard to rationalise
[18:04 Friday] Cruithne: they feel too meta
[18:06 Friday] Darloth: Meta... meta...
[18:06 Friday] Darloth: (Sorry, Leblanc being given massage next to me, rather distracting.)
[18:06 Friday] Darloth: Anyway
[18:06 Friday] Cruithne: Maybe what we should be aiming for is a faster game. less mote counting, less thinking about how to deploy a charm for best effect, and just getting on with the shiny anime goodness.
[18:06 Friday] Darloth: Yeah.
[18:07 Friday] Darloth: Meta - Why is rerolling better?
[18:07 Friday] Cruithne: it's just a simple case of a reroll is like a retcon.
[18:07 Friday] Cruithne: the roll's been made, the event is done... err.
[18:07 Friday] Darloth: Let's assume that anime characters may, in many cases, be luckier than normal people
[18:09 Friday] Darloth: what if the player isn't happy with a roll, feels it's out of character
[18:09 Friday] Cruithne: hmm.
[18:10 Friday] Darloth: If it's an anime... an anime being told as a story...
[18:11 Friday] Darloth: Then players should be able to steer the story in the direction they prefer, yes?
[18:11 Friday] Cruithne: suppose...
[18:11 Friday] Cruithne: it bears though.
