How to learn about the curse?

[Persell]

not to the degree?
um...


red rage: your love of peace and life and puppies turns you into a ravening killer.


contempt of the virtuous: your infinite patience and fairness turns you into an impatient, intolerant, preachy, self-righteous bastard.

Again where do you get all this?


Where do you get from that a temperance 5 character does have to be a peace loving hippy? Look at the cast of "shogun", there are quite a few temperance five characters in it (toranaga comes to mind). Anyone of them a flower picking, peace loving hippy?


And still, you have not answered where in the corebook it says that you get new vices through your exaltation, because you kinda built the whole arguement around that one fact... and it simply is not true. Exaltation does not lead to drinking.

 

[The zombie cat]

not to the degree?
um...


red rage: your love of peace and life and puppies turns you into a ravening killer.


contempt of the virtuous: your infinite patience and fairness turns you into an impatient, intolerant, preachy, self-righteous bastard.

Again where do you get all this?


Where do you get from that a temperance 5 character does have to be a peace loving hippy? Look at the cast of "shogun", there are quite a few temperance five characters in it (toranaga comes to mind). Anyone of them a flower picking, peace loving hippy?


And still, you have not answered where in the corebook it says that you get new vices through your exaltation, because you kinda built the whole arguement around that one fact... and it simply is not true. Exaltation does not lead to drinking.

Um, red rage is compassion based, if any virtue is going to turn you into a love everything pacifist its compassion.


Kremlin. Its worth noting that the over indulgence flaw references your favored vice.


When somebody exalts and is afflicted by this flaw whatever there favored vice is will be the limit condition. In order for it to be alcohol they must at lest have enjoyed a glass of wine with diner on special occasions, the exaltation didn’t make them want alcohol, it leveraged something they already wanted, something they had as a guilty pleasure.

 

[FluffySquirrel]

Um, red rage is compassion based, if any virtue is going to turn you into a love everything pacifist its compassion.

So take Compassionate Martyrdom, or Heart of Tears... and stop deliberately picking extreme examples and listen to what many people have said... if you pick a virtue flaw that's completely different from your character idea.. of -course- you're going to seem conflicting


This is why we have several virtue flaws.. that are often wildly different, depending which flavour of virtue you want to use

 

[Kremlin KOA]

because the book explicitly points out (admittedly 1st ed did a better job of this that 2nd ed) that a virtue flaw either takes your virtue to an extreme level or INVERTS IT AND MAKES YOU ACT COUNTER TO WHO YOU NORMALLY ARE!


remember these flaws are the thngs that made the solars so crazy they were put down like rabid dogs.


The examples i have chosen are no more extreme than the others, those just happened to be the ones where instead of exascerbating the virtue, it inverted it.


All the limit beaks are extreme, remember 'if the player flinches from acting out the character's loss of control, the storyteller may take control of the character'


lets look at all the canonical examples


Compassion


Compassionate martyrdom: you don;t do anything that truly aids the victims lot, it is essentially a bizarre form of self flagellation....if you use partial control you are allowed to do something with decent afterveffects


Heart of tears: you curl into a ball and cry for a day... you might go off to find enough drinks to drown the pain: if you use partial control you are merely a constantly weeping emo


Red rage: nuff said


Conviction:


Deliberate cruelty: you use cruelty to solve every interpersonal problem... regardless of effectiveness. this damages interpersonal relations during and afterwards (look at lilith and swan) partial control merely means you are temporarily incapable of any form of kindness as a tool.... even faked. may not sound so bad but if your compassion is 3+ it jars more... in addition for the virtue which means 'get the jovb done regardless of cost' losing an entire set of tools is strange


Heart of flint: You lose your emotions completely, think of the Vulcan ideal. you also lose your empathy (you don't HAVE a compassion stat for the duration) and can only think of efficiency... this is noticable enough that you get a 2 dice penalty on social chhecks even under partial control.


also thisone roll when the party have in part ysquables for no good reason.


Temperance.


Ascetic drive: you nuke ya manse and break your artifacts, then go off to meditate... and you called my earlier choices extreme... you need to use the parital control option not to permanently nerf yaself


Contempt of the virtuous: 1 become all preachy. 2 Christ and the moneylenders for those who know the story. you try to physically restrain people from doing intemperatee stuff, you also let your temper go... something you normally have to fail a temperance check to do.


Overindulgence: binge of EPIC proportions... nuff said


Valor


Beserk anger: you need to use partial control to not whack your allies and your infant child... but this in no way is incongrous with noble bravery, is it? ooh there's thought someone who knew your weakness (deathknight or similar) sets you up to limit break in a creche... oh wait deliberately frustrated, just make the kids about age 6


Foolhardy contempt: probably the least etreme, you merely lose yoru sense of self preservation... and need partial control to have a sense of preserving other people


buit none ogf there are extreme behaviours, except for the two i used before

 

[Charon]

I don't get this : "The Great Curse is always an extension of your natural personality." position.


You need to fail a temperance roll to overindulge in food.  If you had temperance 4 as a mortal, you probably didn't do it much and you surely never binged.  NO MATTER WHO YOU WERE.  Monk, frugal merchant, sanctimonious mother, disciplined pit fighter.  You just don't overindulge.  You get the Overindulgence flaw and now from time to time you will act contrary to your nature.


So you don't like the Ascetic monk example.  Ok.


What about a disciplined pitfighter.  He likes good food and loves fine wine.  He's a connaisseur.


But he has temperance 4 and he never drinks more than a cup of wine a day and watches closely how much he eats because he wants to stay fit.  And the week before a big fight (or now that he's a Solar, an important challenge) doesn't want to touch alcohol at all.  The folowing week end he permits himself to drink three or four glasses and eats larger portions; he doesn't go wild because he has enemies that might take advantage of advanced drunkenness and callous fight promoters that might not respect their engaments and force him to fight on a moment's notice.  After that weekend of "excess" he goes back on a training regiment for the next fight.


Now that he's an exalted, he's unable to maintain that discipline.  If I were that guy, I would wonder why, since the exaltation, he is now weaker than he was as a mortal in that one aspect.  Especially after getting drunk off his ass in Nexus while his circle was hunting a dangerous Abyssal.  Especially since his otherwise less disiciplined buddies where all able to maintain soberness for the duration of the hunt, including the temperance 2 party animal Night Caste.  Weird, huh?


---


Similarly, there is nothing wrong with having a flaw that runs counter to your second highest virtue (like my high Valor and Compassion with berserker flaw example inspired from Hercules or for that matter 50% of movie hero cops) and that too would feel very wrong to the Solar and get him to wonder what's up with him.


I think it's interesting and a good way to introduce some level of quest for the curse in the campaign if the PCs wants to do it.  Quests for enlightenement and inner peace are common in the genres that inspired Exalted.

 

[Jukashi]

What about a disciplined pitfighter.  He likes good food and loves fine wine.  He's a connaisseur.

This kind of character wouldn't have the overindulgance flaw. He would probably have Contempt of the Virtuous; manifesting, in this case, in attempting to cajole people into living a similarly healthy, strong, warrior lifestyle, because it's good to be healthy and strong, and to be able to fight! I like it, so why shouldn't you? Live a proper life! You'd like it if only you tried it! Come on, jog with me! It's only a few dozen miles, ya pansy!

 

[Charon]

What about a disciplined pitfighter.  He likes good food and loves fine wine.  He's a connaisseur.

This kind of character wouldn't have the overindulgance flaw. He would probably have Contempt of the Virtuous; manifesting, in this case, in attempting to cajole people into living a similarly healthy, strong, warrior lifestyle, because it's good to be healthy and strong, and to be able to fight! I like it, so why shouldn't you? Live a proper life! You'd like it if only you tried it! Come on, jog with me! It's only a few dozen miles, ya pansy!

Bull.


If that guy can't have Overindulgence, scratch the Overindulgence flaw from the book because nobody can have it.


I specifically stated he loved good food and wine.  And as pitfighter, he's quite happy that everybody else isn't living a strong healthy warrior lifestyle.  His gain, their loss, fewer tough opponents on the circuit.


Remember : You need to fail a temperance roll to overindulge.  The Overindulgence flaw will by its very nature be contrary to the normal actions of ANY high temperance character you can come up with so unless you want to argue that Overindulgence should be struck down from the book, you have to admit that I made a valid template for an Overindulgence character.  And if you admit that, you need to admit that he's gonna be conflicted after his bout of overindulging and wonder what's wrong with him.

 

[Vanman]

And if you admit that, you need to admit that he's gonna be conflicted after his bout of overindulging and wonder what's wrong with him.

Fine. He can wonder what's wrong with him. But, to use your example, this guy is a pit fighter. Why would he automatically assume that what's wrong with him is a curse put on him by a Primordial/Yozi/Neverborn/Whatever? That there might be something wrong with them, fine. But why would they immediately jump to the Curse? Sorry, just doesn't sit right.

 

[Charon]

Fine. He can wonder what's wrong with him. But, to use your example, this guy is a pit fighter. Why would he automatically assume that what's wrong with him is a curse put on him by a Primordial/Yozi/Neverborn/Whatever? That there might be something wrong with them, fine. But why would they immediately jump to the Curse? Sorry, just doesn't sit right.

When did I ever imply a character should guess right then and there that he's cursed by the primordials?


But you can easily guess something is wrong with you, you can feel that it's external to you (if only because you don't want to have to hang yourself, you need to believe it's external and can be fixed) and because of the timing you can guess it has to do with exaltation.


Once you're there, you need to keep digging and you'll get to the truth eventually.  Hell, that's the original topics ; Once you suspect something is wrong, what would you do to uncover the truth?

 

[Jukashi]

If that guy can't have Overindulgence, scratch the Overindulgence flaw from the book because nobody can have it.
I specifically stated he loved good food and wine.

More bull.


Overindulgance as a Flaw is designed for characters who completely abstain from any indulgence at all. It represents the intense buildup of desire and tension that comes from such complete refusal to contemplate anything but their own pursuit of perfection, until they snap. It would also work as it did for Sam Vimes; you try so hard to make the world a better place, you stay cool and impartial and lawful, but the world's so messed up and its so full of scumbags and crooks and cheats and sometimes you just want to smack some heads but you can't, because that would make you just as bad, and sometimes you just have to hide away and wash it all gone with sweet, sweet liquor...


(This is also how Red Rage of Compassion can work, only rampaging instead of hiding and with blood instead of beer.)


Additionally, the Flaw triggers when they "must pass a favourite pleasure or vice in order to act in a moral fashion". It doesn't say what those morals are. If your character doesn't think there's anything wrong with a snifter of wine now and then - and he clearly doesn't - then he can have that snifter of wine as he likes.


If your character doesn't think there's anything wrong with their actions- that is, if they suffer no internal conflict over what they're doing, then they do not gain Limit. Simple as that.

 

[Flyck]

I don't mean to backtrack a few posts here... but:

um...
red rage: your love of peace and life and puppies turns you into a ravening killer.  

Actually, Red Rage of Compassion (obviously a compassion curse), is built around the idea of seeing others suffering (usually by a direct cause, e.g. some members of the guild mistreating their slaves), and loosing it in a fit of rage to be taken out on the people/creatures inflicting such suffering to others.  Red Rage of Compassion has nothing to do with peace of life and puppies, but rather standing up for the suffering of others, against better judgement (not an all-too uncommon hero-flaw in real mythology or stories).  


Further on the point of the curse, I remember a class in high school that had us study the 10 qualities of a 'hero' in the true sense (not the anti-hero).  For the life of me, I can't remember all of the traits, but some examples were: 'The hero has a mentor or guide' (although this one isn't always used), 'The hero is favored by higher powers' (whether divine, or of govnerment, etc.),  'The hero has help' (i.e. friends, companions, allies, lovers, etc.).   But a few others I remember were 'The hero suffers a wound' (you'll be hard pressed to find a story where a 'hero' DOESN'T get injured in some way shape or form, or even dies from it), and the last one that is in direct interest to this thread, is 'The Hero is flawed'.  Nearly all heroes in mythology, stories, movies, or otherwise, have some underlining flaw to them.  Whether it's a hedonism, apparent stupidity, arrogance, anger, or unchecked rage, etc.  Examples being easy to find...  Gilgamesh (the myth), had his pride which got his best friend, Enkidou, killed.   Vash the Stampede is a damn good example, especially when it came down to girls and donuts.  Wolverine has his rage and feral streak.  


The list goes on, and if you look hard enough you can find such flaws in almost any character from almost any story...  Comic Books, Anime, Movies, and mythology are all VERY good examples of such.  Indeed the absence of such flaws de-humanizes the character, as the viewer/reader has less to relate to.  In Exalted, I view the Curse as an almost integral aspect to the game, as it brings about the very fundamental ideas of a hero.  If it werent for such flaws (even if your character doesn't limit break within an entire series), Exalted just wouldn't be as cool, IMHO.  Hell, one of the biggest things I like about the new World of Darkness, is that your choose a virtue and a vice.  The vice, is one of the 7 deadly sins.   That's character.

 

[Dracogryff]

*applauds* Well said indeed. I personally don't necessarily see the need to keep the mechanic in order to have flawed characters (I'd build 'em that way even without it, as it's no fun to be perfect. Staring into a mirror all day gets boring fast. ), so wouldn't have an issue about a chronicle built around trying to remove the curse (I'm actually in one such, to be honest, where the chars are getting their info from Lytek), but I also understand the necessity of having flaws to a person to make them a true individual and more heroic for all that. *shrugs* To each their own of course.


Then again, if I had a gamer in the group who needed the mechanics to force their characters to have any flaws, then I'd be against being able to remove it in the game...so, it all depends, aye? *chuckles*

 

[The zombie cat]

If that guy can't have Overindulgence, scratch the Overindulgence flaw from the book because nobody can have it.
I specifically stated he loved good food and wine.

More bull.


Overindulgance as a Flaw is designed for characters who completely abstain from any indulgence at all. It represents the intense buildup of desire and tension that comes from such complete refusal to contemplate anything but their own pursuit of perfection, until they snap. It would also work as it did for Sam Vimes; you try so hard to make the world a better place, you stay cool and impartial and lawful, but the world's so messed up and its so full of scumbags and crooks and cheats and sometimes you just want to smack some heads but you can't, because that would make you just as bad, and sometimes you just have to hide away and wash it all gone with sweet, sweet liquor...


(This is also how Red Rage of Compassion can work, only rampaging instead of hiding and with blood instead of beer.)


Additionally, the Flaw triggers when they "must pass a favourite pleasure or vice in order to act in a moral fashion". It doesn't say what those morals are. If your character doesn't think there's anything wrong with a snifter of wine now and then - and he clearly doesn't - then he can have that snifter of wine as he likes.


If your character doesn't think there's anything wrong with their actions- that is, if they suffer no internal conflict over what they're doing, then they do not gain Limit. Simple as that.

When we where talking about the ascetic monk that never drank alcohol (I say he must at least know it was good for it to be his favored vice), he hasn’t had any in 10 years in spite of every time he orders a bar meal they ask “would you like an ale with thatâ€

 

[Charon]

Overindulgance as a Flaw is designed for characters who completely abstain from any indulgence at all. It represents the intense buildup of desire and tension that comes from such complete refusal to contemplate anything but their own pursuit of perfection, until they snap.

First of all, I was proposing that template for a character suffering from overindulgence specifically because some people argued that the ascetic monk taking overindulgence made no sense.


Secondly, the Overindulgence was designed for player who like the idea of their disciplined character snapping from time to time in bing of uncontrolled hedonism.  Nothing more, nothing less.


The pitfighter I just proposed is perfectly valid.  And it leads to a character likely to suspect there's somthing wrong with him.

 

[memesis]

Ps what’s superman’s flaw.

Superman's flaws (plural) are that he fears the overuse of his own power, fears taking an innocent life, etc.  All of these things have been played on.


Start here:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_Come_(comic_book)

 

[FluffySquirrel]

And as superdickery.com shows us, he conquers his fears by facing them.. .. REPEATEDLY... on purpose!

 

[Persell]

I think the positions are pretty entrenched right now. I for myself think, that kremlin and zombie cat are interpreting the rules wrong, as shown in the fact, that kremlin's whole aregumentation was based on the very false assumption, that you gain new vices which you never had before upon exaltation. Taken that away from his example it crumbles and is easily seen as unlogical attempt to break the system.


Still, if we want to have a solution at the end, we need to organize the discussion again. So I propose that zombie cat (who has shown a greater rules understanding than kremlin and less of a tendency to completely arbitrary houserules) proposes a character concept, with a virtue flaw and the virtue spread, afterwards we all, discuss the concept, its viablity and adherence to the rules and what it means for the game when we abstract away from the concept towards canon "fluff" and rules.

 

[The zombie cat]

I don’t have time to write a character background in the next 12 hours. For now, what was wrong with the pit fighter with overindulgence.


Edward

 

[Ned]

Since Exalting your character has witnessed, learned of and peformed acts no person ever should. You know some people drink to relieve stress, you never wanted to even touch the stuff before. After having to flee the people you love as they called you inhuman, hide from the wyld hunt and battling the most unholy evil creatures ever to exist has left you at your wits end. Maybe you should give drinking it all away a try...


A perfectly reasonable arguement for a character to gain a new vice without thinking it has something to do with an ancient curse.

 

[Kremlin KOA]

I think the positions are pretty entrenched right now. I for myself think, that kremlin and zombie cat are interpreting the rules wrong, as shown in the fact, that kremlin's whole aregumentation was based on the very false assumption, that you gain new vices which you never had before upon exaltation. Taken that away from his example it crumbles and is easily seen as unlogical attempt to break the system.
Still, if we want to have a solution at the end, we need to organize the discussion again. So I propose that zombie cat (who has shown a greater rules understanding than kremlin and less of a tendency to completely arbitrary houserules) proposes a character concept, with a virtue flaw and the virtue spread, afterwards we all, discuss the concept, its viablity and adherence to the rules and what it means for the game when we abstract away from the concept towards canon "fluff" and rules.

you mean i house ruled that you did not have the flaw in any way before exaltation


so that means your copy does not have a page 81? with a sidebar about the things you add to a mortal character sheet at exaltation? the bit which explicitly states that a mortal does not have the traits in or associated with a virtue flaw


whoops my copy must have extra pages

 

[Kremlin KOA]

Since Exalting your character has witnessed, learned of and peformed acts no person ever should. You know some people drink to relieve stress, you never wanted to even touch the stuff before. After having to flee the people you love as they called you inhuman, hide from the wyld hunt and battling the most unholy evil creatures ever to exist has left you at your wits end. Maybe you should give drinking it all away a try...
A perfectly reasonable arguement for a character to gain a new vice without thinking it has something to do with an ancient curse.

I reiterate, I am of the opinion that a solar might realize that his exaltation changed him, and that he might associate any new loss of control to the exaltation....


he might decide it is based on related circumstances


he might just decide that power corrupts


he may think he has not fully mastered his exaltation yet


With something like red rage, he might jsut think that now with his new power he can fight where before he could not... besides they deserved it


but deep down each one will somehow know that they completely lost control.


and that can be used as a stepping stone for them to find out about the curse


or it could merely be a source for inner conflict

 

[Persell]

I think the positions are pretty entrenched right now. I for myself think, that kremlin and zombie cat are interpreting the rules wrong, as shown in the fact, that kremlin's whole aregumentation was based on the very false assumption, that you gain new vices which you never had before upon exaltation. Taken that away from his example it crumbles and is easily seen as unlogical attempt to break the system.
Still, if we want to have a solution at the end, we need to organize the discussion again. So I propose that zombie cat (who has shown a greater rules understanding than kremlin and less of a tendency to completely arbitrary houserules) proposes a character concept, with a virtue flaw and the virtue spread, afterwards we all, discuss the concept, its viablity and adherence to the rules and what it means for the game when we abstract away from the concept towards canon "fluff" and rules.

you mean i house ruled that you did not have the flaw in any way before exaltation


so that means your copy does not have a page 81? with a sidebar about the things you add to a mortal character sheet at exaltation? the bit which explicitly states that a mortal does not have the traits in or associated with a virtue flaw


whoops my copy must have extra pages

It states that you choose a virtue flaw upon exaltation, NOT that you randomly gain vices you did not have before.

 

[Ledaal Kajiri]

Perhaps your vice that drives you to wits end when you cannot get it is simply...Lecturing others on their intemperate behavior to excess. You'd be suprised how often you'd have to not due so to act in a virtuous manner.

 

[Flyck]

Ps what’s superman’s flaw.

It was stated already where to find Superman's flaws  But I thought I should chime in that his were never 'readily' apparent.  They were there, but the focus of the superman character was post-WW2 and the idea of a 'perfect' hero to defend the people helped relieve their minds of the stress of the cold-war.  In any case, I was only a fan of Superman when someone whipped out Krytonite and kicked his ass.   :twisted:

 

[Vanman]

That was Supes' flaw, in my mind. Kryptonite was pretty much the only thing that affected him. It got old after a while. Superman is an imminently boring character precise because he is so perfect. There's nothing interesting about him. That's why Batman is so much more interesting - he has human frailties that make him a bit more accessible.