Thus Spake Zaraborgstrom/GracesPwnJ00

Graces Pwn j00

Tar Markvar: I looked at the Graces, and I can't tell why certian[sic] levels of Graces have certain effects. Why does having no Cups mean I'm a cthonian god (I imagine this is incorrect, but for an example)?

Rebecca: The same reason that having no Valor makes you a sniveling worm.

The Cup is what makes other people understand you. In Fair Folk, your entire post could be summed up as "Man, Rebecca has a low Cup."

If you have no Cup, then you're this alien thing that no one gets, like if I wrote a Tekumel/My Life With Master crossover using the Phoenix Command engine and explained the rules mods in haiku. That'd have Cup 0.

If you have Cup 5, then everyone looks at you and goes, "Oh! Wow. You belong in my world."

If you could explain why that was invisible to you, it would probably be helpful. My latest theory is that I should spend less time explaining how things work and more time explaining why they're there. It's really explicit what the Cup is---I mean, all the words and concepts are *there*---but maybe it would have helped to say:

"Entertainers are supposed to be manipulative bastards that everyone loves. So this is a trait that measures how much everyone loves you.

"But wait!

"What about free will? What about Exalted not really having mechanics for love?

"Fine. The Cup just measures how easy it is for others to feel Compassion for you. How much you're worth fighting for. How easy it is to fall in love with you. How much you feel like, you know, a lost puppy or a fair maiden or glorious entertainer or handsome lad from back home. Instead of the alien monster you really are.

"If you have Cup 0, then you don't have this. They see the alien monster. The Compassion 5 guy doesn't have to empathize with you unless he has a history of Compassion for rocks, monstrous should-be-dead gods, and, you know, mathematical lemmas."

Or maybe that wouldn't help at all, but would just add words and confuse things more.

Let me know; I'm working on a game engine and it'd be useful!

TM: Why couldn't the Staff Grace be called the Temperance Sphere or the Diplomacy Art or something that makes sense?

RSB: Because Staff Grace was in the outline, because I believe learning the word 'Grace' is actively useful in play, and because

. . . okay . . .

Because Odin had a staff on which he wrote his bargains with the giants to make them unbreakable, and when he wound up in a bind, he had to break the staff and destroy the source of much of his power in order to escape his oaths. That's what I remembered after staring at "Staff Grace" in the outline and going "what the heck? How does this correspond to diplomacy?" for a few hours.

If you call it the Diplomacy Art, then you don't have a staff on which you can write your bargains with the giants. You won't accidentally recreate the Ring of the Nibelung while eating pizza and rolling dice. And I'd rather that people shrug and go, "Whatever, I'll figure it out in play" and have a fun time in play than understand it instantly and have nothing interesting happen in the game. ^_^

TM: I had the same problem with Nobilis. It's all pretty to ask someone what their Auctoritas is, but couldn't you call it a "shield" or a "barrier" instead?

RSB: Enh. Unhelpful; people would then think it was a shield or a barrier, and this would lead them to error!

Comments

General quoting etiquette: If someone misspells a word, ignore the misspelling or correct it. If you leave it as is and write [sic], that's generally seen as a subtle put-down. Which it is here, obviously, but it's not very classy.

OK, sorry for the quibble. -MeiRen