At a FLGS north of LA with a large stock of used stuff and also of new stuff, everything White Wolf was on sale (50% off, IIRC), except Exalted. To me, that says that Exalted is way, way better selling than Mage or Vampire or Scion. That was ~2 years ago.

The "trick" with Borgstromancy is that she always means exactly what she says. It may be weird, but it's really straightforward. When, for example, you are apparently being instructed to make a melee attack with an army against someone's love of their father, that's what you do.

That works great for duels of pure ego in a fluid reality.

IIRC, she also did a lot of the charm work for Exalted, and then someone went back through and removed half the keywords. That's vaguely like someone went through a DnD spell list and deleted half of the stat block lines at random.

Savant and Sorcerer is actually my favorite Exalted splat (I WISH it had a different cover). It has a great system for dealing with demons (which is worth stealing for other games, unlike many mechanics), one of the best efforts at a writing a crafting system that I've seen, and a write-up for sorcery that has costs you might care about. Also, it has the rules for building Manses (an important game element - houses which are so spiffy that they give you magic jewelry. But, if your players are building dungeons, you're doing something right).

Quote from: Kaiu Keiichi;616088Part of the issue is that WW sells exclusively online or via POD, and doesn't use the hobby store channel anymore.

That's also part of the issue why large segments of the gaming population think WW went out of business (and still is).

Quote from: fectin;616195At a FLGS north of LA with a large stock of used stuff . . .

The Last Grenadier?

Quote from: fectin;616195Also, it has the rules for building Manses (an important game element - houses which are so spiffy that they give you magic jewelry. But, if your players are building dungeons, you're doing something right).

Oh shit, that's one of the things that intrigues me about Exalted. Vancian.

Quote from: Kaiu Keiichi;616022I'm a long time veteran of the Exalted wars over at rpgnet.  No, the main reason that Exalted gets so much play there is because a large number of RPGNet dwellers and mods are White Wolf fans and devs, is all.

And the whole storygame thing has never come up.  Generally, WW sucks ass in terms of developing mechanics, and it costs money to pay writers to actually develop and playtest rules systems.  So, Exalted has this grotesquely cool S&S meets manga setting that is not emulated at all by the exception based mechanics.

Exalted is one of those games people desperately want to play but can't because the crap systems won't let them.

Palladium: The Kitchensinking

Quote from: Novastar;616197That's also part of the issue why large segments of the gaming population think WW went out of business (and still is).

This.  For all we talk about e-commerce, what happens in TRPGs is akin to what goes on elsewhere in the economy: we use retail stores as showrooms, then go buy it from Amazon (or whatever) and trade some lag time for a cheaper cost (which doesn't mean much since we're rarely playing TPRGs more than once a week).  If it's not in the showroom, most people won't even think to look anywhere else, online or not.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;616204The Last Grenadier?

The Last Grenadier rocks, but they have a lot less room since they moved out of downtown Burbank.

Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;616281This.  For all we talk about e-commerce, what happens in TRPGs is akin to what goes on elsewhere in the economy: we use retail stores as showrooms, then go buy it from Amazon (or whatever) and trade some lag time for a cheaper cost (which doesn't mean much since we're rarely playing TPRGs more than once a week).  If it's not in the showroom, most people won't even think to look anywhere else, online or not.

Well, to be fair the "showroom" isn't just brick and mortar game shops, it's also online discussions and what's on your buddies' bookshelves and what people in your wider gaming community (if you are part of one) are playing.

But then again in my experience a lot of those folks are still perfectly happy with their oWoD/early nWoD/1E Exalted stuff, so my overall impression of White Wolf is of a company who haven't put out a game which caused any significant ripples for years.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;616204The Last Grenadier?

That sounds right, but it was a while ago.

Storefront part of a row of shops; counter and sales on the right; gaming area on the left; back left had boxes of used RPGs and minis.

Quote from: Warthur;616287Well, to be fair the "showroom" isn't just brick and mortar game shops, it's also online discussions and what's on your buddies' bookshelves and what people in your wider gaming community (if you are part of one) are playing.

But then again in my experience a lot of those folks are still perfectly happy with their oWoD/early nWoD/1E Exalted stuff, so my overall impression of White Wolf is of a company who haven't put out a game which caused any significant ripples for years.

Not true.  They've been coming out with a steady stream of stuff ever since they ramped up their whole online/POD thing. Also, W20, M20, Mummy and Exalted 3 are all in the pipeline.

Quote from: kaiu keiichi;616353not true.  They've been coming out with a steady stream of stuff ever since they ramped up their whole online/pod thing. Also, w20, m20, mummy and exalted 3 are all in the pipeline.

w20? M20?

I'm assuming 20-year Anniversary sets for Mage and Wraith, similar to what's been done with Vampire and Werewolf.

Quote from: fectin;616195The "trick" with Borgstromancy is that she always means exactly what she says. It may be weird, but it's really straightforward.

Well, most of the time.  She doesn't keep to it constantly, and it doesn't help that many of the other writers for the splat don't write like that.  So a Sidereal can shoot you with an arrow made of your own forgotten name, but killing a river spirit just makes the river less predictable, and Malfeas' rage is more a green nuclear fire than anything Borgstromantic.

((And even where there isn't author-editor squabbles, it doesn't always work.  She's consistent about it in Nobilis, but it still ends up trite when it doesn't have mechanical or GM-mandated impact.  And "betraying betrayal" sounds like a cartoon villain thing.))

QuoteIIRC, she also did a lot of the charm work for Exalted, and then someone went back through and removed half the keywords.  That's vaguely like someone went through a DnD spell list and deleted half of the stat block lines at random.

She has writing credits for the 1E Sidereal book, 1E Fae book, and the 2E corebook, as well as some of the background 1E books (Savant and Sorcerer, Outcastes, I think one or two others).  So she's responsible for the original incarnation of a lot of charms, but the game's changed so much since then that they've had some... issues.  It's not that someone edited out Dr. Moran's keywords.  It's that they didn't have or need keywords when she wrote them, and then someone copied Shun The Smiling Lady into the 2E splatbook without groking keywords or Duck Fate without looking at the mote economy.

So it's more like someone a splat from AD&D2 to D&D3 without realizing thac0 was depreciated, and at times forgetting that higher AC was a good thing now.

That's a consistent issue from book to book for Exalted, though.  There's authors that do a lot of communication with co-writers and either grok or avoid the nastier mechanics bits, and then there's whoever came up with Zeal or the first half of Infernals.

(Not that the 1E Fae book was exactly perfect, either.  One of the errata guys had a hilarious story where apparently itwas slapped together overnight at the last minute to get rid of a lot of Grim-style faerie junk out of it.))

Quote(But, if your players are building dungeons, you're doing something right).

It is nice to actually have a reason for the random trap-laden demon-filled dungeons out in the middle of nowhere, yes.

Re:  The Last Grenadier FLGS...

What a small world.  I grew up in Glendale and that store was mecca for me back in the day.  The last time it moved I think it was on to Hollywood Way.  Is it still there, or has it moved again?

Quote from: Drohem;616409Re:  The Last Grenadier FLGS...

What a small world.  I grew up in Glendale and that store was mecca for me back in the day.  The last time it moved I think it was on to Hollywood Way.  Is it still there, or has it moved again?

Yep, it's still there.

Sorry, had to do it.