Not Everything Is A Clue – Ch 209-212

One Comment

1. 

   FeepingCreature

   May 13, 2022 at 10:03 am

   I’ve never played Exalted, but with regard to balancing the encounter difficulty and player power, my impression is that it’s big on not taking tools away from the player, but rather balancing by forcing them to live in the world that their victory creates. The idea, I think, is something like “okay, you can win against situation X. Let’s say you can always win in situation X. Where does that put you? What new avenues does it give you access to?” I think part of the problem is that WtC is balanced around combat and combat encounters, so if you can combat really well, you don’t just trivialize that encounter but a significant fraction of all possible encounters. But the game doesn’t *have* to be set up that way.

   But what actually irks me about the exclusion nerfing is that Joon is under an explicit main quest to “Become God.” What form exactly is the DM expecting for this to take, if not breaking the system to attain extreme power? What sort of story is he asking for, if not that? If he wanted Joon to take it easy, he didn’t have to create billions of suffering sentients. The DM made extreme stakes, commanded Joon to become divinely powerful, and then keeps stopping him when he takes steps on the path. It’s a bit schizophrenic.

   For instance, I could imagine something like the DM giving Joon “god points” whenever he forces an exclusion, with a preset limit to win. That would make exclusions fun instead of frustrating.

   Make up your mind what story you want, DM.

   Reply

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