Anatomy of Failed Design: Exalted

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Thu May 28, 2015 5:42 pm

You could do Exalted with dicepools, but not with the TNs they currently have. You'd be looking at something like TN3 on a d6, no explosions. I'd still rather do it on a curved or linear RNG since regularly rolling more than 12 dice starts to become a pain, but it's possible.

Of course, it's a moot point since the numbers in this game are so fucked once you get out of the low-power levels, but still.

Silent Wayfarer · Post by **Silent Wayfarer** » Sat May 30, 2015 1:20 am

Sigh. I really don't know why I bother, but here, let's try again. Since I'm talking about alignment of incentives, let's define what sort of incentives I'm actually examining first, since people seem to be confused. Specifically, I'm talking about what the player wants to do in the game, and how the game incentivizes the player's decisions and desires.

Using a rough abstraction, let's divide this into two sets: what the setting/narrative layer encourages you to do, and what the system layer encourages you to do. What I generally look for in a well-designed RPG system is a situation where the two are in agreement: what your character is encouraged to do by the game setting and what you the player are encouraged to do by the game system do not conflict. It should never be the case that in order to take the mechanically optimal action, you inevitably take a nonsensical in-setting action, or the reverse where in order to take an appropriate in-setting action, we must take a mechanically retarded action. The player's desire to be mechanically effective and the player's desire for immersion/roleplaying should not be mutually exclusive, because hitting cases like that is a great way to ruin one's fun.

For example, since this is an Exalted thread, let's take a look at the original 2E social combat system. Mechanically, it used to be possible for anyone who could reliably beat your MDV in normal, non-magical, no-Charms social combat to put you into the mechanical trap of obeying the attacker's order without resisting or losing all your willpower resisting and obeying the attacker's every order anyway as you were now out of willpower... or being killed by a surprise/perfect attack combo you were incapable of stopping without willpower. Lose-lose situation, etc. However! Declaring Join Battle and entering combat placed you into the short-tick timespan where you don't particularly need to worry about social attacks. Well then.

What is the mechanical incentive for the player, if he gets into a conversation like that? Resist the first attack which reveals the size of the hostile's social pool, and if sufficiently large immediately declare Join Battle and flee the scene or immediately attack as there is no other move that allows the player to avoid being enslaved or killed. What is the roleplaying incentive for the player? Presumably, having philosophical conversations with antagonists before fighting them is something players want to do, and is entirely appropriate to the setting, it's inspirations, etc, etc, except that to get that scene to happen, the player must ignore the mechanical incentive (no willpower = enslaved or dead). If one follows the mechanical incentive, that scene can't happen: after the first exchange of philosophical positions, pools are measured and combat is immediately declared as whichever party is less socially capable tries to murder the one who is before they lose all their willpower.

Here we see that the game's story layer and its system later are in opposition, which tells us that the system has a problem. So. What I want is alignment of incentives: what's smart in the story layer should be smart in the system layer, or the system is not doing its job. Similarly, if something is smart in the system layer but retarded in the story layer or vice versa, the system is not doing it's job. If the system isn't doing its job, why am I paying for it?

[USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST]

DeadlyReed · Post by **DeadlyReed** » Sat May 30, 2015 3:37 am

Not surprised.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat May 30, 2015 7:50 am

Was that the Onyx Path forum or Big Purple? Considering how much power old White Wolf freelancers have at Big Purple, I would honestly believe either answer.

In any case, it points directly to the fact that the inmates currently in charge of the asylum do not even want reasoned and reasonable discussion of game design. They've so thoroughly conceded their own ability to write rules well that they stick their fingers in their ears and start shouting "La la la, I can't hear you!" the moment people talk about what a well design rule would even look like.

They aren't good at their jobs, and on a pretty amazingly surface level, they understand and admit this. But they would like you to give them money anyway.

-Username17

Omegonthesane · Post by **Omegonthesane** » Sat May 30, 2015 8:11 am

I found this on Google, with a search for "what's smart in the story layer should be smart in the system layer".

Unfortunately RPGnet claimed database issues when I tried to link directly, but the cache is still available.

The warning note only states he was banned from the thread, rather than why. RPGnet's forums in general seem to be unusable at this instant so I can't dig out context.

Silent Wayfarer · Post by **Silent Wayfarer** » Sat May 30, 2015 8:25 am

Yeah, it's from RPGNet, by Jon Chung. RPGnet's servers exploded today for some reason.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat May 30, 2015 8:40 am

When did they ban Jon Chung?

In any case, Jon Chung has always been the counterfactual me. If I was the "nice" and "supportive" critic that all the tone trolls claim I should be in order to get my voice heard, I'd be Jon Chung. But of course, the chucklefucks at Onyx Path, Paizo, Catalyst, or WotC have no intention of listening to a Frank Trollman or a Jon Chung.

They object not to the style of the argument, but to its conclusion. If you analyze things rationally and critically, you can see flaws and rank solutions as better or worse. And that is what they are afraid of. Because the fact is that quality levels in the RPG industry really aren't very high and the talent pool is extremely incestuous. If you start having standards of quality, probably most of the people working in the industry today are going to get fired. And I'm pretty sure they know that.

And that's why they lash out at me. And that's why they lash out at Jon Chung, even though he is the "nice" version of me.

-Username17

Silent Wayfarer · Post by **Silent Wayfarer** » Sat May 30, 2015 8:58 am

He was threadbanned, not forum banned, probably because they couldn't find anything to actually ban him for.

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Sat May 30, 2015 9:23 am

FrankTrollman wrote:When did they ban Jon Chung?

In any case, Jon Chung has always been the counterfactual me. If I was the "nice" and "supportive" critic that all the tone trolls claim I should be in order to get my voice heard, I'd be Jon Chung. But of course, the chucklefucks at Onyx Path, Paizo, Catalyst, or WotC have no intention of listening to a Frank Trollman or a Jon Chung.

They object not to the style of the argument, but to its conclusion. If you analyze things rationally and critically, you can see flaws and rank solutions as better or worse. And that is what they are afraid of. Because the fact is that quality levels in the RPG industry really aren't very high and the talent pool is extremely incestuous. If you start having standards of quality, probably most of the people working in the industry today are going to get fired. And I'm pretty sure they know that.

And that's why they lash out at me. And that's why they lash out at Jon Chung, even though he is the "nice" version of me.

-Username17

Ironically, people on rpg.net like to bash Chung for being a dick.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Sat May 30, 2015 9:42 am

They probably banned him for using 'retarded' instead of a more PC word.

Silent Wayfarer · Post by **Silent Wayfarer** » Sat May 30, 2015 12:38 pm

Longes wrote:
Ironically, people on rpg.net like to bash Chung for being a dick.

The emperor has no clothes, etc.

RadiantPhoenix · Post by **RadiantPhoenix** » Sat May 30, 2015 5:46 pm

OgreBattle wrote:They probably banned him for using 'retarded' instead of a more PC word.

The exact mod quote is:

BlackHat_Matt wrote:So, between uses of "retarded" as a pejorative and your habit of stomping into Exalted threads and making them unpleasant, I think we'll just go ahead and threadban you.

I'm... not seeing anything reflecting a "habit of stomping into Exalted threads and making them unpleasant", unless there's supposed to be a "no arguing allowed" rule.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Sat May 30, 2015 6:18 pm

RadiantPhoenix wrote:unless there's supposed to be a "no arguing allowed" rule.

Welcome to RPG.net.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat May 30, 2015 6:25 pm

RadiantPhoenix wrote:I'm... not seeing anything reflecting a "habit of stomping into Exalted threads and making them unpleasant", unless there's supposed to be a "no arguing allowed" rule.

There was a period when several of the mods were working for White Wolf. Obviously, White Wolf does not exist any longer, so none of them work for White Wolf now. But the mods at Big Purple are explicitly and extremely partisan towards White Wolf and its products. Less so than they used to be, but still to a pretty amazing extent.

So basically RPG.net encourages a culture where White Wolf fanboys hurl abuse at anyone who says anything remotely critical of White Wolf or its products. The mods will back those people up, and give out warnings and bans to anyone whose hackles rise even a little bit when confronted by pro-White Wolf poo slinging. This in turn means that anyone who calmly and simply states the blindingly obvious about flaws in White Wolf mechanics or production schedules or writing will predictably and unfailingly be subjected to a shit storm that will fill the thread and possibly carry over to multiple threads.

Thus, since John Chung will patiently explain definite rules problems and story continuity errors in Exalted to anyone who will listen, his very presence "makes threads unpleasant" on RPG.net. Any sane person would attribute that fact to a gross and consistent failure on the part of the mod community at Big Purple, but for the mods to come to that conclusion would require more introspection than they are capable of. Much easier to just blame John Chung for the fruits of the culture of intimidation and stupidity they have created.

-Username17

Slade · Post by **Slade** » Sat May 30, 2015 7:30 pm

RadiantPhoenix wrote:
OgreBattle wrote:They probably banned him for using 'retarded' instead of a more PC word.
The exact mod quote is:
BlackHat_Matt wrote:So, between uses of "retarded" as a pejorative and your habit of stomping into Exalted threads and making them unpleasant, I think we'll just go ahead and threadban you.
I'm... not seeing anything reflecting a "habit of stomping into Exalted threads and making them unpleasant", unless there's supposed to be a "no arguing allowed" rule.

Yep, I was banned for a week from forum for disagreeing with a topic once at RPG.net. Technically it was one day and then another mod decided to dogpile and gave me another ban for same incident so it became a week. So yeah, they are terrible mods.

Oh, and you can't ask the mod why they banned you: http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?738 ... Texted-You

"We are going to start suspending people every time they do it" they started that last year.

RadiantPhoenix · Post by **RadiantPhoenix** » Sat May 30, 2015 8:27 pm

Another forum I hang out on gives two appeal attempts -- one to the staff, and one to elected officials. The latter becomes public.

I guess that's the difference between a forum run by random gamers and a forum run by lawyers.

TiaC · Post by **TiaC** » Sat May 30, 2015 8:45 pm

RadiantPhoenix wrote:Another forum I hang out on gives two appeal attempts -- one to the staff, and one to elected officials. The latter becomes public.

I guess that's the difference between a forum run by random gamers and a forum run by lawyers.

This one? Of course, it was founded in response to a huge mod shitstorm on another site, so it really cares about having good moderation.

Orion · Post by **Orion** » Sun May 31, 2015 3:23 pm

Exalted design: Essence.

What resources should people be tracking in a game like Exalted and how should they be replenished. Exalted, as we all know, allowed you to regain essence from stunts, at a rate that vastly outstripped normal rest. It was ambiguous just how many stunts you were supposed to be able to pull off, so basic assumptions about magic accounting varied from table to table, which made balance completely unworkable. You could either write a combat game that assumes passive mana regen, or one that doesn't, but going with ambiguous regen conditional on player narration is madness.

Meanwhile, outside of combat moves, the essence sinks worth talking about are sustains (some are for personal combat, but others are for things like powering up a sidekick enough to do minor mission independently) and "big deeds" like where you blow 30 points to build a fort real fast or bind a demon or conjure land out of chaos. My questions: Should doing a big surgery, political speech, or crafting leave you too tapped out to fight, and if so for how long? Or should they run on a non-combat resource? Similarly, what kinds of sustained effects do we actually need to charge for?

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Sun May 31, 2015 3:46 pm

I think Warhammer Fantasy 3ed system would work well for Exalted and Charms. All your special actions are on small cards, usually in two forms depending on the Conservative or Agressive stance. You use the action, and it goes on cooldown for 3-4 combat turns. This would enforce Exalted not busting out their most powerful attacks every turn, and not using perfect defenses all the time.

Of course, you need to re-think the cooldown system for non-combat actions. Even in WFRP having something like "Staring Contest" have a three round cooldown makes no sense when you are out of combat.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sun May 31, 2015 4:07 pm

A system with as wide of a power level divergence as Exalted should not use a point-buy system. Point-buy works for systems with a small scale of divergence, standardized suggestions of what you need to buy, and for discrete game effects you can use to accomplish a wide range of effects.

It's idiotic that I can't have an archetype of master craftsman or ace seducer or war leader right out of CharGen because I'd be permanently gimping myself on 'don't get killed at the first conflict' charm. It's also idiotic that if I build, say, a themed martial artist I'm incentivized to cherry-pick generic charms from other trees before building on my specific style.

To that end, Exalted should use a class-and-level system with selectable suboptions. The game should supply at least 30 on-the-rails classes right at the outset with holes that a player can fill in. We can even do things Basic D&D style and have your class be an actual race. For example, you have three basic ways to build a Dawn Caste Solar, each with their own class: as a magical martial artist, as a mounted warrior, and as a squadron general. You have the option to as one of these race-classes select tactical feats that allow you to generalize, but if you want to specialize in, say, fist-based martial arts as a Solar you go Dawn Caste Martial Artist.

Orion · Post by **Orion** » Sun May 31, 2015 10:14 pm

Exalted Design: Combos.

What should limit how many of your powers you can use in a round. Clearly the right answer is not "spend a willpower to be able to both attack and defend" and clearly it's not "pay a huge pile of points to put everything you know into a super combo." But what is it? I'm thinking that on the attack you could use a delivery vector and a payloud, probably called "strike" and "boost." So you can mix 1 of (whirlwind, precise, multi-hit) with one of (stonebreaking, poisonous, holy). Can we limit people to one defense charm per round as well? What are the benefits of making people actually work out their combos in advance?

DrPraetor · Post by **DrPraetor** » Sun May 31, 2015 10:29 pm

Orion wrote:Exalted Design: Combos.

What should limit how many of your powers you can use in a round. Can we limit people to one defense charm per round as well? What are the benefits of making people actually work out their combos in advance?

Exalted mechanics being fractally terribad, the question is directed towards the exalted premise.

Given a game with the Exalted premise, I think Winds of Fate is actually the best resource management scheme for most things. So defenses would work really well, but if you stuff your deck with them you'll get hand jams with no offensive maneuvers? Or maybe you have an offense and a defense deck and you choose an offensive or defensive stance which tells you how many you draw from each.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Sun May 31, 2015 10:45 pm

Orion wrote:Exalted Design: Combos.

What should limit how many of your powers you can use in a round. Clearly the right answer is not "spend a willpower to be able to both attack and defend" and clearly it's not "pay a huge pile of points to put everything you know into a super combo." But what is it? I'm thinking that on the attack you could use a delivery vector and a payloud, probably called "strike" and "boost." So you can mix 1 of (whirlwind, precise, multi-hit) with one of (stonebreaking, poisonous, holy). Can we limit people to one defense charm per round as well? What are the benefits of making people actually work out their combos in advance?

1) Pre-defined combos encourage spamming the same combo over and over. You don't want that. It kills variety. Combos should something you do on the fly. Like you suddenly decide that you want to stab this person and set him on fire, you should be able to do that. Nor should it cost willpower.

2)Ideally, the Mote economy should balance huge combos. And, ideally, the person designing charms should be rather smart and stingy with the combo tag and think things through. If you don't want players to build kill everyone in the room combos, then don't let them build kill everyone in the room combos.

And, honestly, if your mote economy doesn't encourage a variety of combo sizes depending on the situation, you're doing it wrong.

But players should never have to chose between attack and defense. If they do, then defense is useless. It just means losing more slowly. You need attacks to win.

Omegonthesane · Post by **Omegonthesane** » Mon Jun 01, 2015 6:12 am

Under the most recent errata, Combos got removed as a "Big Thing" - you can just spend whatever Frankenstein pile of "Combo-OK" charms you like so long as you have the motes/will for the set of abilities you're using, with no extra Will expenditure the only limit being that it has to be something you could have bought as a Combo before that change was published. (And, of course, motes.)

They also added Overdrive pools in an attempt to let players not have to choose attack or defence, which can be spent only on an arbitrary subset of charms deemed to be attacks, and which are filled by conditions emerging after battle music has already started depending on the exact Overdrive pool charm you got at a rate potentially comparable to "stunt the fuck out of everything". Which would have worked better if they started full, rather than empty.

Similarly they fucked around with Soak numbers, damage, and the costs of PDs so that you are no longer expected to instadie to every attack nor does it cost only half again as much to Perfect Dodge as to slightly enhance one of your attacks.

Even if we are ditching the current finished product as a bad idea that is less effort to replace than to fix, it seems worth addressing those concepts as concepts to point at the premise.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Mon Jun 01, 2015 9:50 am

Orion wrote:Exalted Design: Combos.

What should limit how many of your powers you can use in a round. Clearly the right answer is not "spend a willpower to be able to both attack and defend" and clearly it's not "pay a huge pile of points to put everything you know into a super combo." But what is it? I'm thinking that on the attack you could use a delivery vector and a payloud, probably called "strike" and "boost." So you can mix 1 of (whirlwind, precise, multi-hit) with one of (stonebreaking, poisonous, holy). Can we limit people to one defense charm per round as well? What are the benefits of making people actually work out their combos in advance?

Something like Yomi's combo system seems sensible to me in a WoF system. You draw X cards a turn and can spend your action to just draw more cards so the longer a fight goes the more likely you have your Sure-Kill fight ending combo/your party has their super sentai laser attack ready to be deployed.