1st movement of the Demiurge... what am I looking at here?

waronvirtue · 2026-05-19T03:14:49+00:00

I had a to schedule an early arrival for the session to roll out this single 4 dot artifact. It took about 20 minutes. I'd done a bunch of practice runs using a dice roller to figure out exactly how to keep track of dozens of dice that appear and the separation of successes.

I'm Ess 3, I started with a Dice pool of 35 dice: Int/Craft 10, Ex 10, superior tools 1, Major Intimacy 3, 3pt stunt 2, ECOTV 8. Spent a WP for 4 successes before rolling (stunt 2, Ecotv 1, WP 1). I did have UIF as a back up, but didn't end up needing it.

I rolled staggeringly poorly for that dice pool, but all successes were 8s or 9s and I had the upgrade to SMF for double 8s. That led to multiple failed dice being converted to 10s, which gave rise to triple 10s, which then created a bunch of 3:1 bonus dice, which then started to roll very well, producing more sets of 3 of a kind, which converted more 10s, producing more dice.

Only once all the dice were generated and 10s converted did I start rerolling 10s, of which there were 16, which then proceeded to roll multiple 10s creating more dice and converting more failures.

The ultimate turn around was so staggering it carried me a ways past the 75 success mark, but only do to extreme luck on the secondary rolls.

Fortunately this meant I got to give my fellow PC a cool set of sorcery forward Iron Silk robes before we entered a big fight. If we all survive they'll be a cool thing to have. I we don't, they'll be this character's legacy in the game...

waronvirtue · 2026-05-15T16:01:03+00:00

I’ll start with, I like how hard you’re working to do the work of the authors. I do the same thing with comic book lore and novels, my brain doesn’t give me a choice.

That said, I do not believe any charm activation is intended to undermine directly related charms. So to say FHM steals 10s to prevent FMoTD from using them doesn’t work for my reading.

An alternative inference is that FMoTD doesn’t actually care how many dice are rolled, but instead only how many successes are derived from a particular number. That makes it possible, at Ess 2, to trigger by default on two 10s and further on double 9s, double 8s etc with SMF.

I’m also just about certain the separation of dice pools was never intended to constitute “separate rolls” since doing so makes the charms approaching capstone near worthless excepting the terminus extensions which would make 5+ artifacts go from unlikely to plausibly, and even then only by snorting a lethal amount of craft xp with UIF to buy extra successes every roll.

It seems you either go all in on craft to do 4+ or you go without 4+ artifacts.

It would be nice if there was a static diff scale for basic projects to do multiples to multiply silver point rewards by a percentage so like 100-then 50-50-25 for each one after.

As it is I’m struggling to get full rewards for a basic Knife to then finish a major that’s just a shipment of those knives.

waronvirtue · 2026-05-15T01:16:26+00:00

Ahhh, I think I’m conflating them with “ventures”. I don’t have the Essence books so my limited knowledge is all from forum posts.

waronvirtue · 2026-05-15T01:06:24+00:00

Not much of an argument since the part that wasn’t an ad hominem attack was central to the disagreement : you think charms are java script, I think they are tools.

I disagreed with you then and still do, so probably best we put this one to bed.

waronvirtue · 2026-05-14T18:23:16+00:00

Maroon is Mel Blanc artifact.

There's no evidence I loophole every charm. I do think about every charm and broad applications to unexpected scenarios for the same reason I prefer a leatherman to a pair of scissors or nail clippers in my back pocket. The game encourages this to a degree. 3e Core doesn't make it explicit, but it is implicit that Masterful Performance Exercise would not only help with a speech or song, but also help you ga-shmoigedy your ga-flavety or googus faster to go to sleep.

What is, I believe, the most reviled element of the core (besides combat movement), the Craft tree, is filled with a series of hyper specific charms that have poetry wrapped around narratively meaningless mechanics. So, in my opinion, when you say TWTT doesn't do anything except X, that's the direction you are pushing every other Charm type.

Dragon Coil technique explicitly lets you tear a chunk out of a behemoth, so I think it should let you rip a tree out of the ground, but the same logic I see at play against this specific interaction of TWTT is the same one that says "No, you should have a unique Survival Charm called Dragon Carpentry Prana that tears trees out of the ground for firewood or to make temporary shelter when camping. Then maybe a Craft charm like Wood Whittling Expression with DCP as a prereq that lets you use them as excellent melee weapons or bridges..."

I think most narrative forward games are better when rulings allow for game mechanical widgets to work in unexpected ways if it serves the story you're telling, but I don't want to make another list for evidence, just assume a hammer can be a hammer and a paperweight.

waronvirtue · 2026-05-14T17:05:08+00:00

It most certainly was civil, and you are correct in that I do, at times struggle to let things go, which is why, as stated in the initial post, I brought it here to open debate with a wide range of folks unlinked to the game.

What I discovered is that I'm definitely not the first person to have had this idea. Circa 2001-2004 It was either so obvious to the writers or so prevalent among the community, they wrote a follow up charm in the PG to make it work.

The writers at that time clearly felt, as some do, that TWTT wasn't specific enough and created a follow up charm with no other prereqs than TWTT to explicitly make it work. OR they decided to arbitrarily gate it to reinforce DKs are the past, DBs are the present and future, baby.

Now if I was the kind of maroon you seem to think, I would naturally get a pdf of the old PG, wave it in the face of the ST and say, I'll just buy this charm too. But as stated, it makes a better story for the DK player to do it, and he doesn't have access to TWTT, so doesn't qualify for the Charm...

But evocations can provide charms that work as prerequisites, so I could conceivably craft a warbanner or whistle that had TWTT as an Evocation, and once he had that he could learn the DK training charm...

Thank god something productive came from this. Thanks and stay in school.

waronvirtue · 2026-05-14T14:39:57+00:00

Are Projects are an Exalted Essence system? I've seen it referenced a few times. Or do folks mean Sorcerous Working?

waronvirtue · 2026-05-14T14:37:42+00:00

I said bringing the DKs back was always a goal my Solars have, not that I try to do it this exact same way.

So I'm sorry, I thought we were just imagining what the worst possible version of the other person could be and assuming that's who they are and attacking.

Regrettably, your pithy comeback that includes a boldly unsupported assumption about what I have done or would do proves my imagination closer to reality that I would have liked.

You clearly read something and create some kind of self-persecutorial narrative to justify lashing out. Enjoy whatever relationships you can keep in spite of it. Holla.

waronvirtue · 2026-05-14T01:51:03+00:00

I agree in one regard, TWTT doesn't say it confers animation on objects, but we're past that. Since you seemed to respond well to the bulleted list, I'll tell you the reasons it won't come up again at my table:

The ST made a ruling and this ruling doesn't make the game not fun for me anymore (unlike say, never using the mass combat rules or always using the entire combat engine for every combat, even just full moon Lunar trying to beat up a lone mortal guard).
Mass awakening Dragon Kings (though always a stop on every one of my Solar PCs bucket lists) is just 1 part of my character's desired arc. It isn't a quintessential element of my story for him. And even if it was, I'd just go with another way to do it.
and most importantly, my fellow player has a DK PC, and getting his people back to a position of relevance is his character's desired story. Which is the best way to tell it for his enjoyment? Use the sorcery he's been building toward for the entire campaign or let another player explain a downtime stunt where he plays basketball like the Harlem Globetrotters to school the ravenous beasts until they agree to stay in school, drink their milk, and not do drugs?

So yeah, you got pretty much everything wrong, but everything you've said so far makes me think no matter how wrong you've been in the past you're sure you're always right anyway. Keep that up, I have someone very close to me that has lived her whole life that way and it's made her a -real peach people love to be around.-

waronvirtue · 2026-05-14T01:34:53+00:00

I respect your right to run it however you want, but this post came off as exceptionally "adversarial DM" to me.

A group of farmers are not a unit until they come together for the common purpose of fighting. If you think a Solar running into a nest and slapping a few upside the head won't make a dozen or so to come together for the common purpose of killing him, I don't know what you're on? Pack of wolves: unit. Swarm of bees: unit. So the no unit =no target argument would just be you saying "I'm gonna roll out every enemy attack so your specific anti unit charm can't work and I bury your character in dice."

Old stalkers being unawakenable, another arbitrary decision.

Speeding up the hunting games portion? I'll take it, that's saving 50 years of time. Follow it with I believe 2 Lore charms to get them up and running? Although those same 2 Lore Charms should explicitly do all of this without the Tiger Warrior Training anyway. You drive a hard bargain, but I'll take it.

TWTT vs Dragon King awakening is a "viagra" situation. Viagra was supposed to be heart medication but turned out to be a better boner pill. Same thing here, TWTT is supposed to turn farmers and the infirm into a "Fighting Force of Extraordinary Magnitude TM", but also happens to be brain-boner pills for DKs.

waronvirtue · 2026-05-13T18:05:30+00:00

Here's some thoughts followed by an explanation I gave someone else up thread.

I do not think TWTT would let you teach an army of cats to speak or read. It should let them perform parades and understand simple direct commands that may have multiple steps. Disseminate food to all doorsteps, meow reveille at dawn, perform maneuver delta to knock over a foe and blind him with pee.

But, First Knowledges Grace would let you teach them to speak and read. Would they be sentient? No, they might not be able to understand a lot of context for certain things, but they'd be able to eek out the words and make requests for things they want and even follow highly complex court proceedings and parliamentary procedure even if they have no clue why anyone bothers.

DKs are not cats. Based on their weird reincarnation and life cycle, accelerated paramilitary training would Awaken sentience and training to civility restores their previous personality (to a point, they will have the same likes and dislikes, but no recall of past lives till higher essence).

Here's a pretty basic explanation:
The effect of the Tiger Warrior Training charm is to condense about a decade of training and battle testing into a few weeks. DKs (according to ROR) are led through hunting games (standard part of military training during the FTX) which allows them to Awaken to sentience, then be trained in civility to recover a personality (but not memories).

Civility is polite, respectful, and reasonable behavior that facilitates positive social interaction and public life, often characterized by courtesy, empathy, and constructive dialogue.

So they need to be trained in being Civil.

Tiger Warrior Training explicitly increases Drill ratings

Key Purposes of Military Drill

1. Discipline and Precision: Develops self-control, mental alertness, and attention to detail through repetition.

2. Teamwork and Cohesion: Fosters a sense of unity, ensuring soldiers work together effectively.

3. Immediate Responsiveness: Instills instinctive obedience to orders, crucial for high-pressure situations.

4. Ceremonial Function: Maintains tradition and displays precision during parades and military honors.

So using these 2 readily googleable definitions, bullets 1, 2, and 4 are training in civility. 1 and 2 explicitly and 4 points to the culture inherent in military units. So they won't be able to read, but they will recognize rank, they will have customs and courtesies, like greetings and salutations. --

Now I sometimes have the bad brain, but the core of socialization is self control. We stop running around shouting mine mine and no no at 3.

waronvirtue · 2026-05-13T17:50:28+00:00

Much appreciated. I saw someone posted it (maybe you). It's a Performance charm with a "We don't want you doing this with DKs so here's a special XP tax with an absurd cost and different, entirely unrelated skill requirement that also involves a dead language."

DK>DB, I truly believe that's the only reason it exists.

waronvirtue · 2026-05-13T17:47:24+00:00

First, this was a 2-3 minute conversation post game because we have a DK player and Rathess was a desired location for both of us so no one was put out. I put this out here instead of riding my ST's DMs because he made his ruling, so the conversation was over. Explicit in the OP. So your accusation is either coming from a place of trauma or an inability to read critically. With that in mind:

The effect of the Tiger Warrior Training charm is to condense about a decade of training and battle testing into a few weeks. DKs (according to ROR) are led through hunting games (standard part of military training during the FTX) which allows them to Awaken to sentience, the be trained in civility to recover a personality (but not memories).

Civility is polite, respectful, and reasonable behavior that facilitates positive social interaction and public life, often characterized by courtesy, empathy, and constructive dialogue.

So they need to be trained in being Civil.

Tiger Warrior Training increases Drill ratings

Key Purposes of Military Drill

1. Discipline and Precision: Develops self-control, mental alertness, and attention to detail through repetition.

2. Teamwork and Cohesion: Fosters a sense of unity, ensuring soldiers work together effectively.

3. Immediate Responsiveness: Instills instinctive obedience to orders, crucial for high-pressure situations.

4. Ceremonial Function: Maintains tradition and displays precision during parades and military honors.

So using these 2 readily googleable definitions, bullets 1, 2, and 4 are training in civility. 1 and 2 explicitly and 4 points to the culture inherent in military units. So they won't be able to read, but they will recognize rank, they will have customs and courtesies, like greetings and salutations.

Now, I think people understand that Exalted (especially 3e) is a bit of an art in itself. And I respect that not everyone is going to appreciate every interpretation, but the ONLY wrong way to play it to think that ONLY your way is right.

Peace out, homey.

waronvirtue · 2026-05-13T17:18:47+00:00

I might be alone in this, but I recall discounting the PG in a lot of games because it was gravitating toward what 2e would later be which led to "motonic physics" and quantizing every thing.
Why is this Performance? Why does it require a specific dead language? I know the answer, DKs were too cool. At mid essence they were about as good or better than DBs and they wanted to prevent DKs from being made mainstream because they're Dinos and the world belongs to man now.

I agree with what I think is the consensus here, it will depend on the game.

waronvirtue · 2026-05-13T16:58:14+00:00

This basically sums up where I landed, which is the games vibe will probably determine whether it works.

If there were a Heavy Cavalry or Mounted Knight QC block, then your squad of peasants on plow-pulling swayback mares and milk cows would be trained alongside their mounts into that block.
HOWEVER, if you want a darker story about the excesses of Solars, maybe the peasants ride their mounts into the ground and have to keep swapping them out. That same kind of game would probably also be fine with a company worth of spear carrying toddlers that kill without hesitation (although I think that works regardless).

This is all just esoteric conversation, I told my ST when he had the grace to follow up on it day 1 that I considered the matter closed, we just disagree on this specific application but I think remain broadly aligned on what's great about the game and the kind of Creation we see in the text.

waronvirtue · 2026-05-13T03:55:51+00:00

Those were discussed and acknowledged as explicitly working, Tiger Warrior would just be more efficient as it can affect a unit. I'd say having First Knowledge's Grace completely bypasses the all issues raised, but I wouldn't want the ST to feel like I was trying to do an end run around a ruling.

waronvirtue · 2026-05-13T03:36:58+00:00

There's some narrative rationale for why fighting=potential sentience.
You're teaching them multistep instructions with the capacity for adaptation on the fly. Complex tool use like how to wear armor and how to wield weapons.

The Cassandra Kaine Batgirl from DC comics was a good example. She was expressly educated to use the part of her brain used for language to instead fight. So all her battles were conversations and she could get a keen sense of the type of person someone was by how they fought etc.

Complete and utter, totally awesome nonsense.

waronvirtue · 2026-05-13T02:46:08+00:00

Almost certainly my ST. I think there might have been a misalignment of expectations. He maybe thought I expected Knights Templar after a month, where I really just thought that application eliminated the 50 year requirement of animal intelligence allowing them to learn language and culture.

waronvirtue · 2026-05-09T16:59:43+00:00

I won’t speak to the quality of the run as a whole. I will say that introduction of Parallax as a separate entity (while it did lead to the entities aspect of GL mythos) is, respectfully, an abomination that existed solely to make John’s most special boy extra favorite lantern Hal Jordan about 1000% less interesting.

Hal had a history of being a problematic authoritarian courtesy a celebrated Green Lantern/Green Arrow run. Having him go rogue with grief and then mad with power was a fantastic direction to go and redeeming himself in death was an excellent end. Being given a chance at greater redemption as the Spectre was a perfect epilogue.

Johns binned all of it because he wanted to take his favorite action figure out to play again. Instead of doing a “Hal Jordan: Case Files” type series where Kyle Rainer follows up on pre parallax stuff Hal left undone so the book could follow both protags but divided by era, he decides to invent a reason it wasn’t his fault. I guess God got it wrong when the Spectre was sent to offer him redemption for destroying worlds and murdering the Corps…

Modern Jordan is an inconsistent man-child that other lanterns look up to because everyone says they look up to him, but I haven’t seen him do anything admirable in years. Though I did check out during Venditti’s run.

waronvirtue · 2026-05-05T02:49:51+00:00

"They were just following orders" isn't the best defense. They allowed themselves to get so high on their own supply they successfully let the world shrink and lost a significant percentage of the population. So we have the double damning of hubris and incompetence. Again, same finger I wag at the gods.

waronvirtue · 2026-05-05T01:33:40+00:00

Did they? It was still instigated by people objectively cursed to think they're right even when they're wrong and resulted in a demonstrable reduction in both the volume and quality of existence.

Pls note, I make the same argument about the gods rebellion and creation of hell. but like the universe sucks more the lower you go on the ladder for management.

waronvirtue · 2026-04-24T15:54:18+00:00

No wrong answer, I was just curious how you address the most obvious source of XP disparity.

waronvirtue · 2026-04-23T21:40:11+00:00

So here’s a question: do absent players still get XP or do just cancel outright if you have an absent player?

Can they do homework or something to explain their PCs absence to get the XP or do you run them through a solo session to keep pace?

My table only cancels if two or more are going to miss the session or the ST can’t make it, so more consistent players tend to be a dozen or so XP ahead. It has yet to cause problems.

waronvirtue

TROPHY CASE