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When I got home from work, it was already cool, humid, and cloudy. I got the front yard mowed and trimmed just in time for another bout of rain, which I guess I'm a little concerned is drenching the tomatoes, since there's been a lot of water and not a lot of direct heat lately. It looks like the back yard is going to have to wait.
Since I have some time, then, I figured I'd crack the GMC addendum open (figuratively) and refresh myself on what's changing in the core rule set. While Aspirations, the new V&V system, Breaking Points, and Conditions/Tilts add a different kind of play experience, and the combat subsystems change, GMC Core doesn't take anything away from the old core, but does give me some new mechanical widgets to play with.
We were doing the bulk of our design work with Arcadian Exalts, which were direct parallels to Changelings in the nWoD. Initially, they were laid out like most Charm sets, which is to say they were laid out by Skills. This is absolutely the simplest conceptual way to go, and it does have some things going for it. For example, you could be sure that each ability got something and if you wanted a specific kind of combat, for ex, you could be assured that there was at least some coverage for archery and melee, and you could have Punch Guy, Sword Princess, and Bow Jerk without everyone pulling from the same pool.
It's also exhausting to write up and do well, and one of the specific virtues of the initial nWoD system was that it was streamlined in comparison to Exalted 1 or 2, which has the side effect of pulling a lot of mechanical switches out of the works, meaning that it's easy to imagine most ability sets with, like, only 4 Charms. And that's an optimistic scenario. Initially, I chalked that problem up to How It Was Gonna Be, while wondering if that wasn't something of a virtue in its own right.
So, Brent brought up using the Seasonal Courts to divide basic abilities that the Charms would cover, and buying from a Court's Charms would probably slowly change you ala Infernal Exalts. I think that's really the direction to head in, and tying that to Mantles seems to me to be an evocative idea. So now that I've got GMC and Core in my pocket, it's time for me to look at Changeling (and the rest of the core splats) and see where we're going to want to define our conceptual spaces for the nWoD Exalts.
Since I have some time, then, I figured I'd crack the GMC addendum open (figuratively) and refresh myself on what's changing in the core rule set. While Aspirations, the new V&V system, Breaking Points, and Conditions/Tilts add a different kind of play experience, and the combat subsystems change, GMC Core doesn't take anything away from the old core, but does give me some new mechanical widgets to play with.
We were doing the bulk of our design work with Arcadian Exalts, which were direct parallels to Changelings in the nWoD. Initially, they were laid out like most Charm sets, which is to say they were laid out by Skills. This is absolutely the simplest conceptual way to go, and it does have some things going for it. For example, you could be sure that each ability got something and if you wanted a specific kind of combat, for ex, you could be assured that there was at least some coverage for archery and melee, and you could have Punch Guy, Sword Princess, and Bow Jerk without everyone pulling from the same pool.
It's also exhausting to write up and do well, and one of the specific virtues of the initial nWoD system was that it was streamlined in comparison to Exalted 1 or 2, which has the side effect of pulling a lot of mechanical switches out of the works, meaning that it's easy to imagine most ability sets with, like, only 4 Charms. And that's an optimistic scenario. Initially, I chalked that problem up to How It Was Gonna Be, while wondering if that wasn't something of a virtue in its own right.
So, Brent brought up using the Seasonal Courts to divide basic abilities that the Charms would cover, and buying from a Court's Charms would probably slowly change you ala Infernal Exalts. I think that's really the direction to head in, and tying that to Mantles seems to me to be an evocative idea. So now that I've got GMC and Core in my pocket, it's time for me to look at Changeling (and the rest of the core splats) and see where we're going to want to define our conceptual spaces for the nWoD Exalts.