Quote from: Mathias;612901That's a fair interpretation.  I just think that mechanics which dictate how your character ought to act, whether that's because of an objective standard of right and wrong (which Exalted doesn't have*) or because of genre expectations (which Exalted does have, as you point out above), can be fairly characterized as "morality mechanics" because they dictate what your character should do in any given situation.  Plenty of people in the real world act like what you call "giant a-holes" because they are acting in alignment with what they call morality.

*Other than, I suppose, the idea that the Solars as lawgivers have or had Divine backing on their actions, and the presence of things like Holy charms, but I'm not really interested in arguing that those are "morality mechanics" and I'm fairly certain they're not what Ladybird was referring to.

Regardless, I think you can agree that it's not equivalent to something like vampire's Humanity track, or nMage's Wisdom, which are what people generally mean when they talk about "white wolf morality mechanics." That is the equivalency I responded to.

Quote from: Mathias;612901That's a fair interpretation.  I just think that mechanics which dictate how your character ought to act, whether that's because of an objective standard of right and wrong (which Exalted doesn't have*) or because of genre expectations (which Exalted does have, as you point out above), can be fairly characterized as "morality mechanics" because they dictate what your character should do in any given situation.  Plenty of people in the real world act like what you call "giant a-holes" because they are acting in alignment with what they call morality.

*Other than, I suppose, the idea that the Solars as lawgivers have or had Divine backing on their actions, and the presence of things like Holy charms, but I'm not really interested in arguing that those are "morality mechanics" and I'm fairly certain they're not what Ladybird was referring to.

I wasn't, and you've pretty much nailed it here. "Morality mechanics" is a handy shorthand for it.

As far as I'm concerned, Pendragon has the best morality mechanics. Pendragon characters can talk back to the player and tell them "no, I'm going to do this instead, actually".

Quote from: Ladybird;612915Pendragon characters can talk back to the player and tell them "no, I'm going to do this instead, actually".

How does that work, exactly?

Quote from: Daddy Warpig;612917How does that work, exactly?

Quote from: wikipediaPersonal Traits

These are thirteen opposing values that represent a character's personality. The Traits are: Chaste / Lustful, Energetic / Lazy, Forgiving / Vengeful, Generous / Selfish, Honest / Deceitful, Just / Arbitrary, Merciful / Cruel, Modest / Proud, Pious / Worldly, Prudent / Reckless, Temperate / Indulgent, Trusting / Suspicious, and Valorous / Cowardly. The values on the left side are Virtues and the values on the right are Vices. The Traits are 1-20 points split between the opposing values (e.g., 10/10, 14/6, 5/15). For every point above 10 on a Virtue, a point must be placed below 10 on another Virtue.
 A d20 roll is made to use a Virtue (Merciful to show mercy towards a captive mortal enemy) or resist a Vice (Deceive a friend). If the roll is at or below the value, it Succeeds and the desired result occurs. If the roll exceeds the value, it is a Failure and the opposite result occurs. If a Virtue or Vice is rated at 20, the opposite is rated at 0; any roll on this trait is automatically successful (e.g., an Energetic character's attempt to persist in a difficult or arduous task) or automatically unsuccessful (e.g., an Indulgent character who must use Temperate to resist gluttony or intoxication). This is congruent with Arthurian legend, in which a hero's weaknesses are his downfall (like Lancelot's lust for Guenevere) or a villain has a moment of nobility (like King Uriens of Gore showing mercy to Prince Arthur rather than striking him down).
 The Chivalric Virtues are: Energetic, Forgiving, Generous, Just, Modest, and Valorous. Characters possessing point values in these six Virtues totaling above 80 are granted a bonus to Chivalry rolls. Christian Characters possessing one or more of these traits at a value of 16+ gain a Religious bonus.
 The Vices are: Vengeful, Selfish, Deceitful, Cruel, and Suspicious. Characters possessing point values in these five Vices totaling above 80 are granted a penalty to Chivalry rolls.
 The Romantic Virtues are: Forgiving, Generous, Sincere, Just, Merciful, and Trusting. Characters possessing point values in these six Virtues totaling above 65 are granted a bonus to Romance rolls.

Because characters are rewarded mechanically for having high values in appropriate traits, it influences their behaviour; so a knight with high ratings in the chivalric virtues will follow them, because they'll be more likely to make any relevant virtue checks (Or fail any relevant vice checks). If you try to act against what the character believes in, you'll be less likely to succeed, because of this character push-back.

Obviously, as a player, you could just do whatever you want anyway. But where's the fun in that?

You can also ask your character questions, and if you can phrase them in the form of a virtue / vice pair, your character can tell you what they want to do in any given situation.

Great system, great mechanic.

Quote from: Holden;612908Regardless, I think you can agree that it's not equivalent to something like vampire's Humanity track, or nMage's Wisdom, which are what people generally mean when they talk about "white wolf morality mechanics." That is the equivalency I responded to.

Ah, ok.  Yeah I can agree with that.

Quote from: Ladybird;612920Great system, great mechanic.

Thanks. That's definitely a unique mechanic.

Quote from: vytzka;612880I can't vouch for the others, but despite what Grabowski was or claimed to have been inspired by, Exalted does a rather shit job at emulating anything from Black Company.

I doubt it's actually trying to emulate it. Inspiration is not always so direct. As for what parts of that inspired some aspects of Exalted. You could always I suppose ask him. Also not my point. I was replying to a post that was skirting along the lines of, if not crossing it, into lying.

Quote from: Benoist;612136Not indy forgey enough, probably. 'Needs moar metagame edgy mechanics, dude.'

More the opposite: there were too many pointless and edgy mechanics.  It can turn into a giant diceroll fest, and none of the dice matter.  Or it you'd end up with ruleslawyery quibbling over what constitutes an Attack or Improvised Weapon, because this leads to things like knowing someone a hundred miles away said something mean about you and bitchslapping his argument with a breadroll.  And the splatbooks tended to aggravate the problem, especially since many of them were incompletely written (the Fae book repeatedly references rules that were dropped somewhere before printing) or had keyword problems requiring a mass of houseruling and/or errata.  Fan-made Battle Wheels are the only reasonable way to keep the game's time-consuming and confusing combat sequences in line, character sheets get ugly really fast, and there's always (too much) opportunity for a time-consuming character build to get ashed.

And a lot of the fandom tries to get people to play Dragonball Z or Tennen Toppen Gurren Lagann, despite that really not being a good place to start with the system.

Quote from: Ladybird;612141Not just "anime", originally, but also ancient greek, indian, etc. mythological heroes. Then it got all Dragonball Z later on. But also apparently has rules for handling lowest-of-the-low mortals?

Oddly enough, the mechanics work best on levels that involve only Heroic Mortals or God-blooded, despite or because of the authors doing such a terrible, terrible job on the 2E Heroic Mortal splatbook.  

Of course, you have to go into the game assuming your character will lose a limb and die of gangrene.

Quote from: Ladybird;612920Because characters are rewarded mechanically for having high values in appropriate traits, it influences their behaviour; so a knight with high ratings in the chivalric virtues will follow them, because they'll be more likely to make any relevant virtue checks (Or fail any relevant vice checks). If you try to act against what the character believes in, you'll be less likely to succeed, because of this character push-back.

Obviously, as a player, you could just do whatever you want anyway. But where's the fun in that?

You can also ask your character questions, and if you can phrase them in the form of a virtue / vice pair, your character can tell you what they want to do in any given situation.

Great system, great mechanic.

In 5e of Pendragon, if a character had an 18 in a Trait, he could not usually go against the pull of personality. Was this different in earlier editions?

Quote from: Crabbyapples;612961In 5e of Pendragon, if a character had an 18 in a Trait, he could not usually go against the pull of personality. Was this different in earlier editions?

I've only played 4 and 5, but it works in basically the same way in 4. High ratings really mean something.

(Some players don't like losing control of their character, and that's fine I guess, but... these characters have obviously been alive, in the game world, for however long before the players showed up. They don't need the players to move them around. And just because you know your character is, say, being honest, doesn't mean that you can't elaborate on that fact yourself, on how they are being honest; you're still able to play the character. It provides great roleplaying challenges, however you use the system.)

Quote from: Ladybird;612970I've only played 4 and 5, but it works in basically the same way in 4. High ratings really mean something.

(Some players don't like losing control of their character, and that's fine I guess, but... these characters have obviously been alive, in the game world, for however long before the players showed up. They don't need the players to move them around. And just because you know your character is, say, being honest, doesn't mean that you can't elaborate on that fact yourself, on how they are being honest; you're still able to play the character. It provides great roleplaying challenges, however you use the system.)

And you've got to work pretty damn hard to get an 18 in Trait post-character creation. Players don't have to take an 18 in a Trait, but it does help with Glory. And if they feel like it's taking away control, he can spend his Winter Phase action to raise the opposing trait by 1 point. A waste, yes, but at least the character keeps some behaviour agency.

Plus, I find forcing behaviour keeps high passions (20+) fair. You are forced to go along with your passion, no matter how much you would like to go against it.

Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;612827White Wolf's marketing talk was this:

"I don't want to say too much about Exalted's setting, except that it is
inspired far more by Homer than it is by Tolkien, looks more like
Katsuhiro Otomo than it does John William Waterhouse and feels more like
Final Fantasy than it does Dungeons & Dragons."

Tim Avers (White Wolf) in an issue of InQuest

Odysseus didnt have a Limit Break and Jason was an Argonaut, not an Invincible Sword Princess.

The game is layered thick with Orientalist pastiche, and has absolutely fuck all to do with anything that actually happens in the Greek epics, where the heroes were most often shit scared and getting eaten by the handful by creatures far older and more poweeful than themselves.

If WW thinks Exalted looks like Homer, I'd like to see what the hell translation theyve been reading.

It's never been anything but marketing bullshit. Exalted is anime and wuxia and fighting games and JRPGs, and trying to sell it to people on the basis of comparing it to other shit it is grossly unsuited for is dishonest at best, and potentially outright fraudulent.

Quote from: J Arcane;613045Odysseus didnt have a Limit Break and Jason was an Argonaut, not an Invincible Sword Princess.

The game is layered thick with Orientalist pastiche, and has absolutely fuck all to do with anything that actually happens in the Greek epics, where the heroes were most often shit scared and getting eaten by the handful by creatures far older and more poweeful than themselves.

If WW thinks Exalted looks like Homer, I'd like to see what the hell translation theyve been reading.

It's never been anything but marketing bullshit. Exalted is anime and wuxia and fighting games and JRPGs, and trying to sell it to people on the basis of comparing it to other shit it is grossly unsuited for is dishonest at best, and potentially outright fraudulent.

Homer no.  But if you squint real hard you can kind of make an argument for emulation of the Mahabharata.  It's not that far off that you couldn't actually make it work, if all the players and the GM were on the same page and had some familiarity with the source material.

Quote from: vytzka;612880I can't vouch for the others, but despite what Grabowski was or claimed to have been inspired by, Exalted does a rather shit job at emulating anything from Black Company.

Maybe if you ignore the Dominator, The Lady, Limper, Soulcatcher, etc. Exalted emulate them quite well.

Quote from: J Arcane;613045Odysseus didnt have a Limit Break and Jason was an Argonaut, not an Invincible Sword Princess.

Achilles is more the Invincible Sword Princess, both in terms of combat monstrosity and in terms of breaking into rage attack and depressed sob modes.   Odysseus and Jason are present in other capabilities.  Odysseus with his bowmanship and subterfuge, Jason with social-fu from hell.

Of course, the non-sword-fu skills don't get the sort of attention that combat does, since they're even less fun than the already messy normal combat mechanics.

I'd argue Odysseus did limit break: slaughtering people for having the audacity to court your wife when you've been thought dead for a decade isn't supposed to be a healthy reaction even by Roman or Greek standards, hence why Aphrodite needs to intervene to prevent Odysseus' wife's suitor's fathers from warring.  Some of the villains do limit break, too, such as Ajax's cow-murder spree and suicide, for example.