When is a Stunt a Stunt?

[Virjigorm]

So the questions are:


-What constitutes a stunt to most folks, and why?


-Why does it look like many players rely on stunts as a primary way of regenerating Essence in combat?


-Aren't stunts supposed to be rare "insurance" bonuses to help characters survive and succeed in heroically difficult and dramatically appropriate efforts?


I welcome input from everyone, but I'd especially like to hear from STs on this.

 

[skafte]

- I go by the definition from the core book about when a stunt is a stunt. Description 1 die, use of surroundings 2 dies, just WOW 3 dies.


- It's not something it looks like, it's how it is. In Exalted combat you need to regain essence and willpower during combat or you will die.


- Yes, but we are talking about Exalted, they to heroically difficult and dramatic appropriate stuff all the time. Remember mortals have it a lot hard, use of surroundings 1 die, just WOW 2 dies.

 

[Synapse]

As said...the premise is that anything better than "I attack" is a 1-die stunt. Anything creative enough to be more than a 1d stunt deserves a 2-die stunt and can do dramatic modifications on the environment, and 3-die stunts are from when the players stop to look at you with wide eyes.


Statistically, you should be able to rely on 1d stunts and get a 2d stunt every four or so actions of "doing awesome stuff". Only 3d stunts are truly rare.


And Exalted... They were created to defeat the creators of the world and succeeded. The least powerful of them is supposed to defeat solo a village-sized mob with torches and pitchforks with relative ease... Face it, they're too badass to NOT stunt almost every other action =P

 

[wordman]

anything better than "I attack" is a 1-die stunt. Anything creative enough to be more than a 1d stunt deserves a 2-die stunt and can do dramatic modifications on the environment, and 3-die stunts are from when the players stop to look at you with wide eyes.

I'd say this differently. Anything better than "I attack" is a 1-die stunt. Anything better than "I attack" that also interacts with the environment (the "set", other characters, prior stunts, etc.) gets 2 dice. Anything that wows the players, 3 dice.


The source of the original question may be reasoning like this: "if stunts are really supposed to be so common, doesn't that make stunting a lot more important than other stuff in the game, like abilities and attributes and Essence and stuff? Doesn't combat just turn more into cool descriptions instead of rolling dice?" And the answer is: yes... yes it does. That's the whole point: stunts mean more than number crunching.


At least, that was the idea. And it's about the only part of Exalted's design that actually enforces White Wolf's stated design goals (such as they are). Then they screwed it up with all this clunky charm crunch and bad editing.


(I'm being facetious here, but not by a whole lot.)

 

[Captain Hesperus]

One gripe I have with 3-dice stunts is that my ST rigidly sticks to the rule of 'If it doesn't make everyone at the table say 'Whoa', then it's a 2-dicer.". The problem with that is that inter-group tensions can have an adverse effect on stunting. One example:


Player One was all huffy because Player Two social-fu'd him out of punching a Realm ambassador's face out the back of his head during a wine-and-cheese meet and greet event. Player Two later in the session pulled what I would have said was a great three dice stunt, but Player One simply shrugged and said, "Well it's okay, I guess.", and by the ST's strict definitions it ended up as a two-dice stunt. Now astute people might think that Player One might have been buttsore for having his character derailed from his favourite social techniques (i.e. if it's smarter than him, punch it til it's IQ is roughly equivalent to it's shoe size) and got his revenge by screwing over another plaer's carefully thought out and exciting stunt.


But that's one of the hazards for a game like Exalted I guess, the rules have a certain deliberate vagueness when it comes down to things like stunts (and even timelines for events) to enable the ST and players to have free-reign within the setting.


Captain Hesperus

 

[Synapse]

That's both good and bad. Sticking to absolutes tends to be bad on that because...well... 3d stunts are defined by what awes your players, not what the setting thinks of it.


Won't stop me from cratering desks in war meetings though.

 

[Yakumo]

And this comes as I've been playing with the idea of a (likely overly long) stunt guide in the back of my head.


- Pretty much what the books says. I figure every group will tweak somehow, or be notable for not tweaking it, especially where the three dicers are concerned. That's on one end. On the other end, I agree with the spirit of what one guide I read said- stunts are bribery. You get a slight mechanical benefit for putting in just a little bit of description, ie roleplay. Oh yeah, and environment can be expansive- it can include the emotional situation, relevant past memories, etc.


- Does it? If so, because that's pretty much the best way to recoup essence in combat. I mean, take damage to regen essence through resistance charms? Not one of the better ideas, IMHO. This becomes even more important for an "Anathema" who's trying to avoid outing himself and has to get by on excellencies and other subtle charms. They can't really tap peripheral essence. It can also apply to the fire aspect who doesn't want to burn down the orphanage while fighting the demon. Also, don't play down the WP recoup either. If a high virtue can be channeled, you can get those dice, up to five, and another two at essentially no cost if you succeed for working in some somethine from the environment.


-I don't know about rare, but yes it can be insurace, Again, it's part of the bribery. Go for that over the top feel, we'll keep it from being certain death if you fail.

 

[Virjigorm]

Thanks for all the replies!


So this is all quite a bit different than I have ever played Exalted with anyone I've ever met.


I'll admit, I've never roleplayed online in any way, so maybe that makes a difference.


I interpret the Stunt mechanic to be a bonus for something exceptional offered by the player which enhances the scene in a meaningful and/or clever way. I award stunt bonuses for well described unusual solutions or dramatically appropriate actions (1 die), impressive and resourceful uses of scenery or opponents' weaknesses when performing said actions (2 die), and doing these things in such an ingenious and impressive way that I am awed and cannot help falling over my self to award a hefty bonus (3 die).


Usually a player will earn a stunt bonus once or twice a session, unless they are not really trying. In combat-heavy scenes, I sometimes give out a grand total of about 5-8 stunt dice per character if they work for them.


This is, as best as I can tell, exactly what the book says stunts are, and it seems to have been this way since first edition. I have never heard a player complain that they don't get enough stunt bonuses, even though my group expects everyone to give decent descriptions of their actions all the time. Yes, there are plenty of "I attack" actions, but sometimes "cool description" can turn into a simple combat scene taking 4 hours to play through and everyone just wants it to end. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty if epic battles and dramatic scenes that demand excessively awesome description and over-the-top action, but no one minds if these take extra time.


I'm curious as to what the reasoning is that nearly every action that gets a description earns a stunt bonus. Aren't players supposed to describe their actions in a roleplaying game? Why does doing so get them extra dice, and how is the stunt mechanic interpreted to mean that they do?

 

[Synapse]

I'm curious as to what the reasoning is that nearly every action that gets a description earns a stunt bonus. Aren't players supposed to describe their actions in a roleplaying game? Why does doing so get them extra dice, and how is the stunt mechanic interpreted to mean that they do?

"I attack" is just declaring what you do. "I stab his throat and twist the blade before pulling out" is better described enough to be worth a 1d stunt.


That's how the core rules explain 1d stunts.


"'1d stunt is a good description of an action", and after the examples, "The first is the description of an attack that is more than 'I hit him'."


They're supposed to be easy. All they require is a little more effort than just interacting.


A 2d stunt could be something like flurrying a clinch this way: "I clinch by grabbing his face and shoving it against the window parapet while ...". There you go, using a stunt to clinch with only one limb without using charms and compensating for doing a -2 or -3 flurry.


I'm with you on the "cool descriptions may take too long", but doing short descriptions that are also worth small stunts are a practice everyone should have (and the book recommends xD ), exactly to keep it from dragging on.

 

[wordman]

You might want to read, say, this fight (part of the Trial by Schmendrick) between me and Hapushet or this one between me and Ian. I'd call the stunting there about average (not that it helped Five). This other fight, I remember the stunting being a bit better.


Also, I'm not sure I buy the "excessive stunting slows things down" argument as being a bad thing. Exalted combat is already glacially paced anyway, so stunting makes it way more interesting.

 

[Virjigorm]

As far as the "more than saying 'I attack'" concept, I suppose I took that passage to be a little sarcastic when I first read it in the 2e mainbook. Obviously you want the player to say more than "I attack". I suppose, taken more literally, every action my players take in every session would deserve a 1-2 die bonus.

You might want to read, say, this fight (part of the Trial by Schmendrick) between me and Hapushet or, this one between me and Ian. I'd call the stunting there about average (not that it helped Five).This other fight, I remember the stunting being a bit better.
Also, I'm not sure I buy the "excessive stunting slows things down" argument as being a bad thing. Exalted combat is already glacially paced anyway, so stunting makes it way more interesting.

I see your point in relation to a duel, and especially when one sits down to write a scene for internet play. I have almost never seen Exalted combat played this way, however.


I've certainly never thought of Exalted combat as necessarily slow. We have fast-paced battles that have gotten even faster since the tick system eliminated a lot of excess initiative rolling. I can see how giving out stunt awards for every attack might make the battle very slow, since no one needs really worry about getting it over with before their motes run out. My group only plays in person and usually consists of 4-7 players.


My whole interest in the topic comes from looking things over after seeing some newer stunt-enhancing charms and wondering if I'm doing things wrong by demanding more for a stunt bonus. Just to be clear, I VERY rarely give any NPC a stunt bonus, and I've never seen the fun in paranoia-style play. Am I going too easy on the players and, in return, asking more of them? Does anyone here play in person using the popular stunt rules? Has anyone used alternate stunt rules, and how has it affected the pace and mood of battle?


My biggest worry is that, as it stands, combat is fast and engaging for my players, and that might change if we shake up the stunting rules as we've used them so far. My hope is that I can enhance the stunt dynamic to help brighten the combat scene without all the impetus falling on me to provide even more description. The best of both is, obviously, what I'm shooting for.

 

[Lord Kamina]

I do think three-dice stunts should be RARE... I'm not sure if asking everyone at the table their opinion is the best way to approach it (though I've heard and seen of cases where the players request the ST rate someone else's stunt as three-dice, when he had deemed it only two-dice)


Still, I once read someone say "If you have to wonder whether that was a three dice stunt, then it wasn't" and he's probably right.


As for 1-die and 2-dice stunts, I think they should be relatively common. As they said before, 2-dice every few actions, 1-die should be something you can rely on if you're not lazy.


Now, this is in combat; in dramatic scenes, you could very well get more stingy with two-dice (and CERTAINLY three-dice stunts)


I absolutely loathe paranoia-combat, but still think frequent stunts (and their appropriate bonuses) keep combat interesting and fun; if your players are good enough to actually make two-dice stunts every other action, then all the better, I say!

 

[ThatBlueGuy]

- I go by the definition from the core book about when a stunt is a stunt. Description 1 die, use of surroundings 2 dies, just WOW 3 dies.

Never had it summed up quite so simply before. Very useful. Thanks!