Quote from: Warboss Squee;812904Well, Nexus, going by the playtest combat you posted in the other thread, it seems like this is going to be 2nd Edition Exalted with a few changes in the terminology.

Which I already have. Which is a giant pain in the ass to run.

But it's been "rebuilt from the ground up", so everything will be fine. Just trust them.

All of this is what prompted me to just get together and start creating my own "Exalted" inspired game. I've been gaming long enough now, and I've written a few things professionally, I've really gotten to "Well, why the hell not?" with my player base.

Exalted 1st ed is probably still the best version of the game, system and setting wise, even if there are massive land mines to stay away from.

I been working on my home made system and I found out that doing epic games in which the player characters can be chosen of the gods that far exceed the rest of humanity is easy.  It is all about scales which I use two.  Divinity is mortal (0), blessed (1), sanctified (2), exalted (3), divine (4), myth (5), and legendary (6).  The other scale is the size which is tiny (1), small (2), medium (3), huge (4), and massive (5).

There is a reason for numbers.  When your pc goes into conflict you add the scales.  Say your pc is average size (aka human) and was was chosen by one of the leading gods in the pantheon which makes you divine in scale.  That is total of 7.  Your npc opponent is giant that stands a good hundred feet and can throw down lightning bolts.  His size is massive and is only exalted for a total of 8.  The giant has a advantage over our player character.

Now against a group of mortals which would be huge size and no divinity the player character is going to plow that group of mortals.  Like it would be really easy fight.

Quote from: Nexus;812638From what I gather, at least from that thread they're giving the people what they want. And as a commercial enterprise I can't fault them that as disappointing at it is.

To be fair, "give the people what they want" works commercially only so far as "the people" represent a broad enough group to actually support your enterprise.

I would not be surprised to discover that the folk on TBP who are still big-time into Exalted represent only a particular wing of the fanbase. (After all, it's a terrible error to assume that any RPG forum represents the general opinions of gamers as a whole.)

I would be even less surprised to discover that pandering excessively to RPG.net Exalted fans of the type currently dominant in that thread results in a game which a few love but which many dislike. As the D&D 4E debacle taught us, going for "loved by a few" over "liked by many" might work if you are an indie publisher, but it's not going to cut the mustard if you want your game to be a major player in the industry.

Yeah, i m also still very sceptical about the "what the fans want" thing. The loud and vocal part on rpg.net and the Onyx Path forums are surely not few in number but i am not sure it's enough in the end (the little devil sitting on my left should says he hopes it will not be). I guess they are lucky they did the KS when they did it...because if we had that much "insight" into what EX3e would become, i doubt they would have gotten the big sum they got ...well, back then.

It will be interesting to see how the next EX KS will go.

And i am still laughing (although with one very very sad voice inside while doing so) about the BS of "Building it from the ground up" and "streamlining it".

Quote from: Anglachel;813053Yeah, i m also still very sceptical about the "what the fans want" thing. The loud and vocal part on rpg.net and the Onyx Path forums are surely not few in number but i am not sure it's enough in the end (the little devil sitting on my left should says he hopes it will not be). I guess they are lucky they did the KS when they did it...because if we had that much "insight" into what EX3e would become, i doubt they would have gotten the big sum they got ...well, back then.

It will be interesting to see how the next EX KS will go.

And i am still laughing (although with one very very sad voice inside while doing so) about the BS of "Building it from the ground up" and "streamlining it".

OP's often absurd prices (No free PDF when buying a $100 book? Really?) and the mess that was the V20 Companion Kickstarter haven't affected them negatively from what I've seen, so I doubt the issues with Exalted will carry any ramifications for them, either. Exalted/WoD has some of the most rabid fans out there.

Technically, "rebuilt from the ground up" is actually pretty accurate. See, they didn't build something new. They used the old parts and put them back together in a very similar shape with some tweaks and changes. The framework of the Storyteller system isn't even close to the best way to handle the sorts of stories that usually crop up in Exalted, so I was very disappointed when I heard they were keeping it.

Quote from: Kiero;812924But it's been "rebuilt from the ground up", so everything will be fine. Just trust them.

I sometimes wonder if the definition of 'rebuilt' shifted at some point.

Seeing what is happening w/ Exalted, and happened with Dark Heresy 2, and what might happen w/ LotFP's new referee book, are we sure that mass community involvement makes for good products?

I wonder if what happens is a form of rent-seeking, which is the idea (economics) that when you have focused benefits and diffuse costs, you get a lot of pressure/activity from the people who get the focused benefits, so you end up implementing a thing for just a subset of the people. However, I'm still old school and think that works that implement one or a handful of people's visions are often better than group consensus design.

Quote from: PencilBoy99;813079Seeing what is happening w/ Exalted, and happened with Dark Heresy 2, and what might happen w/ LotFP's new referee book, are we sure that mass community involvement makes for good products?

Of course it doesn't. The loudest, shrillest voices are the ones that get heard, because they're the most vocal. The people who are fine with the game as it is just don't speak up, or they speak up and get argued back into silence.

Projects need strong vision in order to stay coherent and get finished; and yeah, some of that can come from outside, but the voices worth listening to are few and far between. The mob can't provide clarity and focus.

Quote from: PencilBoy99;813079Seeing what is happening w/ Exalted, and happened with Dark Heresy 2, and what might happen w/ LotFP's new referee book, are we sure that mass community involvement makes for good products?

What's might happen with the LotFP book?

And while we're at it, what's the complaint with DH2?

I'm out of the loop on the disappointment parade for those.

Quote from: Simlasa;813102What's might happen with the LotFP book?

And while we're at it, what's the complaint with DH2?

I'm out of the loop on the disappointment parade for those.

iirc, DH2's open payta was quite a departure from the original mechanics-wise (But much less so than WFRP3), and people whined about it. So DH2 eventually became basically just DH1 with new art, rather than a new game.

And it is mostly very good art, don't get me wrong. The khornate guardsman on page 291 may be one of my favourite pieces of RPG art.

(I kinda regret not buying a copy of the beta when I had the chance, now. Oh well.)

I can speak for DH2 since I was part of it.  The original dark heresy 2 was trying new things.  Most of them good in my opinion.  I love character creation and the talent trees.  I love how elite advances are new trees that have exclusive talents.  My only complaint was the horrible combat system and the shitty rate of fire rules.

I should know because at first glance I knew that the new damage rules is going to slow down the fucking game all in the name of narration.  Fuck narration because wounds were good enough, simple, and quick.  Actions points were decent and lead to tactical game play.  The problem was that in the middle of combat my table had to waste a hour to figure out rate of fire.  We never had this issue in older Warhammer 40K rpgs.  Combat was clunky mess and the forums didn't like it.

So we where at first ignored and had the narration fanboyz tell us to shut the fuck up.  Fantasy Flight only change the game system because they brought it over to gencon and guess what happen?  People hated the new combat system in gencon.  It had to be the case because as soon as they got out of gencon Dark Heresy 2 went back to the drawing board.

What they came out is basicly a Only War clone only with better character creation, some additional rules that are kinda useless, and the excellent elite advances talent trees filled with exclusive talents.  While many of us hated the combat system of the old Dark Heresy 2 we really didn't want to see a Only War clone either.  This also piss off the narration fanboyz and they made some rage posts during the time of the new beta.

Quote from: PencilBoy99;813079Seeing what is happening w/ Exalted, and happened with Dark Heresy 2, and what might happen w/ LotFP's new referee book, are we sure that mass community involvement makes for good products?

I wonder if what happens is a form of rent-seeking, which is the idea (economics) that when you have focused benefits and diffuse costs, you get a lot of pressure/activity from the people who get the focused benefits, so you end up implementing a thing for just a subset of the people. However, I'm still old school and think that works that implement one or a handful of people's visions are often better than group consensus design.

I think 5E is a testament to what good community feedback can do.  Emphasis on "good".  And their surveys were only barely good.  But I think they successfully found the sweet spots for their fans.  5E could have been a fair amount better for *me*, but for the community as a whole, I think it turned out fantastic.  Many anti-5E asshats at TBP were/are big fans of Exalted 3 and its designers and claimed Mearls and Co were doing it wrong for 5E and that Ex3 was doing it the right way.  I'm curious to see if the OPP crew's approach makes a worthwhile product, because Mearls' approach certainly did.

The most important thing I think of Mearls' approach is to definitely not give much weight to forums and other such communities.  Forums gave us 4E and the myopic focus on builds, balance, and battle.  I'm glad someone woke the WotC group up, and give at least partial credit to the "consultants".

Quote from: Obeeron;813143The most important thing I think of Mearls' approach is to definitely not give much weight to forums and other such communities.  Forums gave us 4E and the myopic focus on builds, balance, and battle.  I'm glad someone woke the WotC group up, and give at least partial credit to the "consultants".

That is, the people who actually like and buy games.

JG

Quote from: Warboss Squee;813074I sometimes wonder if the definition of 'rebuilt' shifted at some point.

Or more likely, their idea of rebuilt doesn't match that of anyone outside the echo chamber.