I mean, requiem does give you multiple settings in the form of other cities who are pretty well designed, dark eras in particular also gives a lot settings, I guess what you are looking for is a whole books about specific settings which would definitely be nice but apparently out of Onyx Path's reach, hell, they can't even afford to do actual erratas for their games.

Quote from: Abbo1993 on January 26, 2023, 02:26:56 PM
I mean, requiem does give you multiple settings in the form of other cities who are pretty well designed, dark eras in particular also gives a lot settings, I guess what you are looking for is a whole books about specific settings which would definitely be nice but apparently out of Onyx Path's reach, hell, they can't even afford to do actual erratas for their games.

What I mean is that Requiem still has an implicit default setting or universe with assumptions that everything is written to be compatible with, aside from deliberate (and isolated) outliers like Danse Macabre or Requiem Chronicler's Guide. Every book assumes that the conceits of this setting hold true regardless of what the book introduces. Sure, it may not have a metaplot where god-like NPCs influence the course of world events, but it does have a history and world loosely scattered across the books which it never tries to challenge. This has benefits and drawbacks. It's less restrictive than Masquerade, certainly, but it can't really do things like reference a concept across multiple books and develop it further or in new directions. Apparently this is because they don't want to force groups to buy multiple books to understand a concept, which only makes sense for physical books and not thing like PDF monographs.

For example, the Khaibit and Cult of Seth are referenced in a handful of books but aren't used to their full potential. I thought the idea was interesting, so I recycled it for my own brainstorming and expanded on it. My Sethians are pretty similar, given what I can use without infringing on copyright: associated with the Egyptian deity Seth, powers of darkness and sorcery to fight demons, tricksters who create chaos to prevent stagnation, and they're not limited to vampires but I'm not really sure what species to assign them. I further introduced an opposing cult of Apophis, who are basically weresnakes that engage in organized crime with the goal of subverting civilization from within. That sort of thing.

Another example is that all the vampires follow the same basic template. Ricean-style vampirism, then you add clan/bloodline/character class on top to provide minor tweaks. You aren't given the option to change how vampirism works or to have multiple wildly different strains of vampirism coexisting. Instead, you get two non-committal answers. First, the Night Horrors books try to introduce other kinds of vampirism as minor oddities at most. Second, the rules try to shoehorn various vampire myths into the existing template through the mechanic of banes, which is just tacking them onto the standard template.

It's not a toolkit, not like Feed, Night's Black Agents, Undying, or Vampire City is. Of course, this hasn't stopped writers and fans alike from boasting that it's a "toolkit." Look, I get that a genuine toolkit like those other games I mentioned would be more difficult to write further supplements for, but that's not my problem to figure out. AFMBE managed it just fine, for comparison.

Il say this, I have a strong liking for their Exalted setting, as messed up and messy as it is. It retains a lot of OWoD pretentiousness that slowly bleeds away over time. Reading the artbook, it was really made with love, even if they thought about player interaction only half the time.

To this day, I really can't understand what's so great about exalted, I mean if you are into anime and such then sure but frankly, it's nothing to write home about, the system is also ridiculously shitty, like seriously I can't understand why people would torture themselves with such a horrid system, makes oWoD look tame by comparison.

Quote from: Abbo1993 on January 27, 2023, 06:51:08 AM
To this day, I really can't understand what's so great about exalted,

Because its a superhero game where you can also build stuff, and make your own kingdoms and such.
It's also a setting made with a eye towards real world history and mythology which gives it more bite and pep.
Its mechanics are bad, but emulate a specific feel very well.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on January 27, 2023, 09:26:14 AM

Quote from: Abbo1993 on January 27, 2023, 06:51:08 AM
To this day, I really can't understand what's so great about exalted,

Because its a superhero game where you can also build stuff, and make your own kingdoms and such.
It's also a setting made with a eye towards real world history and mythology which gives it more bite and pep.
Its mechanics are bad, but emulate a specific feel very well.

Except it doesn't actually support PCs making anything or ruling anything.  At least not any more than any other game out there does (and a lot less than some). 

The setting -is- what appeals to the people who like Exalted to be sure, but a lot of folk get turned off by the gonzo "everything and the kitchen sink" aspect of it.  Granted, I think that's a selling feature, but it is a matter of taste.

Mechanically it doesn't matter what the system tries to emulate if it doesn't work well, and Exalted doesn't work well.  Ultimately, it wants to be a supers system, but it lacks a way for players to make their own powers (even though they're expected/encouraged to make such).  It uses a variant of the original Storyteller System, without fixing any of the flaws of the original.  And it all revolves around minigames of multiple resource management, which doesn't feel heroic as much as an exercise in bean counting.  It's a mess, but worse than that is that it's too cumbersome to be a mess you can easily handwave around.

Quote from: Habitual Gamer on February 03, 2023, 10:57:56 AMExcept it doesn't actually support PCs making anything or ruling anything.  At least not any more than any other game out there does (and a lot less than some). 

It doesn't have ACKS-style kingdom sims, but I would argue that's not a break-or-die feature for rulership, any less then having death-by-constipation rules are a requirement for PCs to ever build/ go to a toilet.

QuoteThe setting -is- what appeals to the people who like Exalted to be sure, but a lot of folk get turned off by the gonzo "everything and the kitchen sink" aspect of it.

I wouldn't call it "everything and the kitchen sink" moreso than regular D&D, and Exalted is way more cohesive then D&D. It also very much depends on the edition lorewise. 2e is much more anime and gozno then 3e. I still have a love/hate relationship with the setting.

QuoteMechanically it doesn't matter what the system tries to emulate if it doesn't work well, and Exalted doesn't work well.

I feel like I'm in crazy town, because I think of myself as somebody DEEPLY critical of its systems and its broken and crap mechanics in so many ways, but I basically disagree with almost all your assessments.

QuoteUltimately, it wants to be a supers system

It doesn't. Exalted wants to be Exalted, and I have never found a good system to perfectly substitute the core of its experience like I have for say Shadowrun, or even Vampire the Masquerade.

Anime shonen crap is superficially similar to Superhero things, but the emphasis it places on similar beats creates a very different-ish result.

Honestly, I feel like the only reason for liking Exalted is the setting, other than that I can't see other positives about it, hell, even people who like it say that the setting is pretty much the only reason to play it, the system is objectively atrocious and unlike CofD, you can't even say that is functional since the amount of stuff that breaks once you start hitting certain power levels (which can happen relatively quickly) is through the roof, the Onyx Path forum is full of people complaining about this.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on February 03, 2023, 01:19:07 PM
I have never found a good system to perfectly substitute the core of its experience like I have for say Shadowrun, or even Vampire the Masquerade.

Not surprising.

Shadowrun uses fairly generic rules design that can be swapped out for another system without disrupting the game. In fact, a lot of those older 80s games work this way. I've seen this style of design called "simulationist" before, but others claim that's incorrect so I don't know what to call it.

VtM can't agree on what it's core experience is supposed to be and its rules aren't good at the things it tries to do. There are other games with better support for politics, humanity loss, or playing unrepentant monsters.