Cosmere RPG

[vital bolt]

It is left as an exercise to the reader to insert their own air quotes.

[clever egret]

what do you mean by that?

[solid breach]

did shallan mother figure out how to age?

[tidal knot]

It kinda feels like he's artificially inflating the amount of mystery

[solid breach]

well yeah

[tight pier]

why do you say that?

[mental canyon]

I've decided to upgrade my campaign from Knights of Odium to Pirates of Odium. I just need to find a good place to put my PoO's. Maybe the Steamwater, or the little islands near New Natanan.

[clever egret]

sailors on the infinite sea lets gooooooo

begin the campaign with puuli's grandfathers speech

[void dune]

I'm a high prince! I'm a high prince!

[pine storm]

Do it Brando!!!!

This is how sa6 should start tbh

[hollow sphinx]

have you considered it's cool 😤
but also, he probably in part just doesn't want to set things in stone until he fleshes out stories involving them
e.g. he had previously said there was only one draconic Vessel, but now we have Medelantorius and maybe Euridrius, who presumably would've had different name(s) as different species, so avoiding canonizing them as long as he did had an actual material benefit for the writing of the books

[clever egret]

it is cool! and i do like it! its just like stepping back and comparing it to other fantasy media, its just so funny how restricted it is and how hype we get. and im fully on board with that hype

[vital bolt]

Some commentary and hints on the Mistborn handbook in the second Chasmfiend magazine. This part caught my eye:

In Mistborn, we present five playable Metalborn paths, seventeen Allomantic powers, and seventeen Feruchemical powers that all have talent trees.

[stray sand]

So the five metalborn paths are obviously Mistborn, Misting, Twinborn, Ferring, and (full) Feruchemist, but what could the 17th powers be?

[ornate meadow]

Atium presumably?

[vital bolt]

They mention that's the case later on.

[ornate meadow]

Rip malatium

[vital bolt]

Beyond these general goals for how Allomancy works, we needed each of the sixteen basic metals and atium to feel as well-rounded as possible and true to canon.

We're also basically not getting Hemalurgy rules, but might get ethical Hemalurgy in a future expansion. Some rules for finding spikes and what downsides they might have will be in the Handbook though.

[hollow sphinx]

Probably not including it because we don't know the Feruchemical ability, I'd guess

[hollow sphinx]

(in the future) including advanced Hemalurgy but not normal Hemalurgy feels like an odd choice 🤔

[ornate meadow]

Also the whole atium is contaminated thing we should gloss over

[tight pier]

I guess you can pretty easily just say "I have a single spike that makes me a misting" and there wouldn't really need to be much mechanical stuff that is new

[vital bolt]

-# Would have been a perfect chance to tell us...

[ornate meadow]

Idk maybe pushing and pulling rules, plus weakness to emotionally allomancy stuff

[vital bolt]

Although we dedicated a lot of design space to Allomancy and Feruchemy, Hemalurgy prompted conflicting feelings. We asked ourselves if providing support for PCs to create new spikes was in alignment with the nature of our system and our product goals for this rulebook. The kind of stories the Cosmere RPG is designed to best support promote introspection and character growth. Some characters may hide their misdeeds, justify bad behavior, or pursue pernicious goals out of desperation or misplaced loyalty. However, it’s not a game where you’re incentivized to murder innocent people for loot and wash your hands of it. It is likely we’ll design rules for creating Hemalurgic spikes if more ethical practices are revealed in upcoming Mistborn novels. As for this rulebook, we settled on offering existing spikes as rewards characters can get as they advance. Considerations for spirit web disruption, influence from Shards, and guidelines for fighting hemalurgic creatures are also included.

[hollow sphinx]

That feels needlessly prescriptive

[ornate meadow]

Oh well that answers most of my peripheral questions s

[tight pier]

weird that they let you side with Odium but don't let you make spikes

[ornate meadow]

Odium isn’t explicit murder

[tight pier]

well in TLM it's shown you don't have to murder people to make spikes

It also doesn't even seem to provide mechanics that villain npcs could use

[hollow sphinx]

Presumably the TLM revelation is what the caveat is about

[ornate meadow]

Well that may be somewhat specific to nicrosil but who knows

[tight pier]

this caveat?

It is likely we’ll design rules for creating Hemalurgic spikes if more ethical practices are revealed in upcoming Mistborn novels

hasn't this already happened in the novels?

[vital bolt]

That was my assumption.

[hollow sphinx]

TLM doesn't entirely explain how to actually do it or what the restrictions are

[ornate meadow]

Also you are still ripping off chunks of someone’s soul

Investiture probably being the least bad thing to rip off

[hollow sphinx]

It also doesn't like... work

Presumably they're waiting for Ghostbloods to explain more

[midnight bramble]

Weird that they seemingly wont even have rules for like...reusing already existing spikes

Like let me rip some spikes out of an Inquisitor and use them

[tight pier]

maybe they have something for playing a Koloss blooded character who becomes a Koloss

[vital bolt]

That feels like it might be covered by:

As for this rulebook, we settled on offering existing spikes as rewards characters can get as they advance.

[midnight bramble]

Ah, missed that

[hollow sphinx]

have you seen Odium

[vital bolt]

Hidden away at the end.

[tight pier]

they also gameify murder in otherways like being able to have the Ghostbloods kill people as a reward (iirc)

[hollow sphinx]

and you know
combat

that small part of the game

[elfin wren]

Yeah, but those guys are evil. Totally different. /j

[hollow sphinx]

Hey, you could make a spike from an opponent you'd already be killing anyway!

[clever egret]

huh. i dont really like that. like... i get if they dont want to do it because it grosses them out or something but this kinda phrasing, where they choosing it for us feels... blegh. like the way theyre phrasing it makes it sound like if they added hemalurgy rules, theres only gonna be one outcome of that and they personally dont think that outcome is fun so no one gets to do anything with it

[hollow sphinx]

It introduces moral questions, but that's the sort of thing you can have a character grapple with to add texture to things

Similar situation with Spook's "what if we do it as an assisted dying thing"

[fervent reef]

Ehh, killing someone to suck their soul/magic/powers etc is way more immoral than just killing them (see dragon prince)

Also I think the ability to Spike foes is way overpowered

[hollow sphinx]

Well, that's a moral opinion, not a universally-agreed truth
Which is the sort of question your characters can argue about, or can serve to flesh out their perspective on the world

[clever egret]

a big part of mistborn era 1's charm is that it is dark and brutal. honestly hemalurgy was one of the least brutal parts about it all things considered. its just murder

[hollow sphinx]

It's not an unambiguously spotless act, but neither are a lot of things the RPG does allow fine

[fervent reef]

Very messy murder, but yeah, lots of death

[clever egret]

However, it’s not a game where you’re incentivized to murder innocent people for loot and wash your hands of it.
okay well number 1: its not like theres a shortage of non-innocent people and even then this kinda "loot" is circumstantial and specialised. and 2: who washes their hands of hemalurgy??? like its so notable for the detriments and consequences it has and that even the benefits are of an inferior level to genetic allomantic/feruchemical equivalents

is this something theyre gonna take feedback on or have they already set the lack of hemalurgy in stone?

[vital bolt]

They're a year out from release, so maybe?

[midnight bramble]

You could do something so fun in Era 1 games where the more spikes you have, the harder it becomes to resist the murderous impulses Ruin sends out

[clever egret]

ya like theres just so much potential. like spook for example, got greater power but oh my god he was not having a good time

[solid breach]

the more?

not the less?

[clever egret]

yes as you get more spikes, ruin gets more control

[midnight bramble]

Yes? More spikes, more influence

[solid breach]

i feel lik you edited something

😕

[midnight bramble]

All i edited was a "put" into "out"

[solid breach]

then i horribly misread

[elfin wren]

Mistborn Adventure Game ||had something like that. Spikes lowered some of your stats and if they dropped to 0, your forfeited your character to the GMs control and had to make another one.||

[clever egret]

also them being happy with the "ethical" hemalurgy which we see in era 2 incentivises kidnapping humans and "breeding programs" is better just because it doesnt kill people or you dont see the people suffering is like, bruh come on

[flat spoke]

And Era 2 has the spike cap, iirc, so like...only so many you can get

[hollow sphinx]

It's a lot harder to do the "ethical" Hemalurgy on non-innocent people too, if we're putting focus on that part

Basically the only way it works currently is grabbing someone off the street and strapping them down

[finite epoch]

Considerations for spirit web disruption, influence from Shards, and guidelines for fighting hemalurgic creatures are also included.
it does sound like they'll do the Ruin influence thing, though
so they're not ignoring Hemalurgy entirely, just the exciting part spike creation by PCs

[fervent reef]

Mag had such wonderful mechanisms

[clever egret]

yeahhh but honestly i dont have much faith for that considering their stance on hemalurgy. like what are they gonna say ruin cant make you murderous and evil now because thats bad?

[prisma wharf]

huh, that is a bit odd they aren't giving hemalurgy rules because it's an evil act

Like, it would be useful for npcs at the very least

Or for givin players more choices

[clever egret]

it doesnt seem like theyre gonna take the commonly expected neutral stance of providing the tools and letting the players and GM use them, theyre deciding what the GM's and players need to do to play their game properly and they wont trust us to do that if we have all the tools

[prisma wharf]

some people like running evil campaigns (I'm not one of them, but not having rules for something is still problematic imo)

[hollow sphinx]

Ruin forcefully makes one meditate on the nature of impermanence

[prisma wharf]

Yeah, which I greatly disagree with

Like, I enjoy the rules of the system they gave

[midnight bramble]

...That's so weird cause spike creation is like...mechanically the simplest part?

[clever egret]

evil character to good character, good character to evil character, complex scenes, mechanical rewards but roleplay detriments like its literally endless possibilities cuz its just part of the setting and part of the game

[prisma wharf]

But it's not their place to decide how the game is played

[midnight bramble]

Just need a list of the types of spikes your character knows how to make, and then a check against a DC to stab the spike correctly

[clever egret]

well now it is

[hollow sphinx]

At least that means it'll be the simplest part for people who want to use it to homebrew

[clever egret]

honestly you could even do spike creation like pokemon where you defeat the enemies and weaken them but instead of killing them with a coin through the head you throw a spike through their body to nab the power

[prisma wharf]

I really hope there's pushback from the beta group tbh

[hollow sphinx]

It's not even a super complicated placement like it is for inserting a spike, it's stabbing (or shooting!) through the heart Intentionally

[frosty matrix]

This, btw, is why I don't believe Brandon when he tries to claim that all the Shards have positives and negatives.
Look at all the furore over Hemalurgy, in-universe and out. He says that Ruin isn't totally evil, and Preservation isn't totally good, but then he says "Ooh, no, we can't put Hemalurgy in the game, it's too evil!", implicitly marking Ruin as too evil for the game.
Or the events of Mistborn Era 2, where various characters very blatantly place the blame for Harmony's indecision on the existence (and quote-unquote "gReAtEr StReNgTh") of Ruin, rather than the fact that Sazed is very deliberately, very consciously, leaning into being as Preservationy as possible.

[clever egret]

i hope thats a possibility... the way theyre wording it sounds like theyre already extremely firm on this. and i imagine theyve done a lot of work under the assumption hemalurgy wont be included

[hollow sphinx]

Do we know that Brandon made that decision? The quote above sounds more like a Brotherwise choice to me, but it's not terribly specific in that regard

[frosty matrix]

Brandon must have some oversight, it's his universe.

[midnight bramble]

Yeah i dont feel comfortable making the leap to assuming it's a directive from Brandon

Brandon doesnt design the game

[clever egret]

no way its brandon making this decision. hes the dude that made the ethical hemalurgy even worse than the normal hemalurgy!

[hollow sphinx]

I think the W&W thing is a characters being characters moment, Ars Arcanum specifically calls out "Ruin's subservience to Preservation" as something going on

[slow elbow]

To be fair I think if I were in a game and a player chose a regal form in an era where Odium and other voidspren were still fighting I'd have to implement a mechanism to either take control of the character temporarily or if it persisted make the character a PC until rescued or something, similar to how hemalergy worked in MAG maybe i'd use inspiration from cyberpunk system for cyber psychosis, since brandon has mentioned Mistborn era and hemalergy is going in that direction.

[umbral heath]

I don’t think Brandon has as much oversight as some people may assume.

[flat spoke]

I mean...to be fair, mistborn ||Preservation was on the side of TLR lol||

[frosty matrix]

Khriss is intelligent.

[pastel bison]

ngl, the entire Hemalurgy thing feels like they're basically saying, "look, we don't wanna put out a murder manual, even if it's supposed to be fictional. That's shaky territory in terms of a company launching product"

[finite epoch]

IIRC there are rules for resisting Odium's influence as a Regal

[hollow sphinx]

that's what combat is

[clever egret]

no way thats suuuuuch a leap to frame it like that

[slow elbow]

there are but the consequences are being stunned once a day

[finite epoch]

yeah, just found it

[midnight bramble]

You don't need a manual for muder

[finite epoch]

...boring

[frosty matrix]

[Mistborn] || Exactly my point! Preservation sided with a genocidal tyrant! But all the characters treat him as the archetypal good guy! (Then again, they do the same with said tyrant...😒) ||

[midnight bramble]

A kitchen knife and an unprotected stomach
Boom
Murder

[flat spoke]

True! I didn't need one wait what---

[clever egret]

like i genuinely wouldnt mind if the developers themselves were too grossed out by hemalurgy to do work on it, they can just say that and id respect it. its just all this patronising about players that is really ugh

[finite epoch]

but also, not a lot you can do mechanically, I think

maybe you can hand your character over to the GM until you succeed at the check

[mental canyon]

I'm glad they're leaving ways to horrendously murder NPCs out of the game. It's shocking we have to have this discussion.

Now, where's my magic sword that burns out eyes and causes crippling disabilities with greyed out limbs wherever it touches?

[frosty matrix]

All this patronising and falling into the false dichotomy that destruction = bad and stasis = good

[vital bolt]

To be clear, the quote is from an article by Lydia Suen - one of the lead designers.

[fervent reef]

Glad to see you're back

[frosty matrix]

True, but combat is an integral part of tabletop games
Ripping off someone's soul and stapling it to your own? Not so much
So you can see their point, from that angle

[clever egret]

i really hope this hemalurgy thing is like a one off case and doesnt reflect their overall design philosophy...

[umbral heath]

I think it’s not so much the murder as it is bloody murder with the express intent of gaining something from the person you’re killing.

[finite epoch]

True, but combat is an integral part of tabletop games
not quite sure I agree
you can totally design a TTRPG without combat
this isn't one of them, but still

[clever egret]

cuz like oh my god its not an exaggeration that hemalurgy isnt the most brutal part of era 1. if thats how theyre treating this, why are they even doing era 1 at all?

[frosty matrix]

"Yeah, we decided to omit Dakhor, it's nasty and evil and stuff. Also, Midnight Aethers and Crimson Aethers will not be present."

[tight pier]

inb4 this is just their way of not having to canonize how medallions are made

[vital bolt]

-# I own at least one.

[midnight bramble]

Like, to make a comparison with another game
Draw Steel flatout doesnt have any rules or guidelines for PC vs PC combat, cause the explicit design goal of the game is cooperative heroic adventure

Plotweaver and the Stormlight RPG does not have similar inbuilt restrictions on the types of people player characters can be or how they can behave, and even offers options to the contrary.
So claiming that Hemalurgy specifically goes against the design goals of the game is so weird.

[hollow sphinx]

I'm unironically expecting the former

[frosty matrix]

Fair point
It's usually integral, I should have said

[fervent reef]

Right, but I doubt they'll have rules for buying and raping and killing sex slaves

[clever egret]

i was not implying that

[tight pier]

those do not involve magical mechanics

[clever egret]

hemalurgy is literally just murder. do you know how much murder happens in era 1?

[tight pier]

presumably their system does allow you to, for instance, use emotional to manipulate people in negative ways

[umbral heath]

Theoretically, they could be included as resources/rewards.

[prisma wharf]

Wait a minute guys... vin and tensoon had spikes! They're not valid for player characters because of that!

[frosty matrix]

I also want to say
As much as I disagree (vehemently) with how he's handling the powers of Preservation and Ruin
Sazed does have a point when he says that it's brutal

[tight pier]

spikes are possible rewards yes

[finite epoch]

oh no no no
making spikes is the no-no
you can still use spikes

[tight pier]

the specific thing they are excising (pun intended) is a mechanic for creating spikes

[prisma wharf]

Yeah, I was just being facetious

[frosty matrix]

It's tampering with souls as well, ripping apart people's very essences
That is pretty bad, and it does have consequences after death, in contrast to most things that Skaa can suffer in Era 1

[prisma wharf]

I mean, it definitely is worse than normal murder, and is an evil act for sure

but I think the point is that that doesn't necessarily mean there shouldn't be rules when it's a central part of the setting

[hollow sphinx]

It does make me worried in combination with the gripes I've already talked about with the World Guide's one-sidedness whenever there are nuanced historical events (e.g. the humans leaving Shinovar)

[umbral heath]

In hindsight, I do think Brotherwise has put a lot of focus on how combat isn’t the only thing the game can be about. It does seem like they want to build a game where players are encouraged against being murder hobos.

[clever egret]

sure they can encourage that. theyre acting like if they gave us hemalurgy we'd be nothing but murder hobos

[midnight bramble]

It's so goofy that Stormlight lets me join the Voidbringers but they wont allow Mistborn players do a stabby to make a magic item xD

[tight pier]

Living soulcasting is a specific mechanic

[flat spoke]

Well it's important to note that the Mistborn rules are only in alpha testing right now - things may change in the future

[hollow sphinx]

Feels like they are very concerned with writing these Right™ in (imo) sometimes surface-level ways

[mental canyon]

Proof that Odium isn't evil. Hold on, these game designers are on to something...

[frosty matrix]

Oh yes, describing the singers' anger as "justified"
When they gave refugees a strip of barren, infertile land to live off
And were like "You can leave that area and live with us...if you agree to become second-class citizens"
I'd say, if anything, humanity were the ones who were justified in their anger!

[flat spoke]

I wouldn't say anything is set in stone at this point

[pastel bison]

ngl, I absolutely have friends who would look at that and be like, "alright so how far can we go though? let's make sure if we're killing anyone from now on, we get something out of them!"

[clever egret]

its a year until launch

[finite epoch]

we should probably bring this discussion to the Brotherwise server so they see it
-# he says, knowing full well he will not take initiative

[flat spoke]

Minimum*

[pastel bison]

and it'd make for a hilarious campaign

[midnight bramble]

I do get the impression they come from like, that culture of players with how many specific caveats and callouts there are for resolving GM/player conflicts and declaring the GM ultimate arbirter over the narrative

[hollow sphinx]

as a mod over there, please don't /j

[clever egret]

i did not have a good experience last time i did that so am not doing that again 🫡

[frosty matrix]

But, you know...bouncing off Punny's point
They can't portray the natives of the land as being in the wrong, that would be offensive! Never mind the context-specific nuances!

[vital bolt]

narrows eyes at a mod of this server...

[fervent reef]

Oh?

[frosty matrix]

For instance, over there, they're smelly and annoying

[prisma wharf]

Now I'm just imagining them going like "Ok, got my 5th spike now!" And then the gm just telling them to roll a new character as Ruin takes over

[fervent reef]

So we're going to crap on the asylum seekers instead! Oh god

[clever egret]

nuh uh! that player character can still take over, it just only happens during a brutal murder

[midnight bramble]

There's a kind of...like the nuance+ambiguity balance is off in the wrong places

[pastel bison]

I think that's fine

[pastel bison]

so long as they're aware of it, and it doesn't become a growing problem, I think the tone here is absolutely fine for an rpg book

[umbral heath]

I kinda get this as a tricky situation. When the end result is the mass enslavement and mind breaking of an entire species, I can see why people might not want to suggest that they started that conflict unjustly in the first place.

[slow elbow]

I don't think they should give specific rules for how players should MAKE spikes, this obviously isn't in keeping with what the system is evil campaigns aren't supported at least in any current material, but they should provide enough guidance for DMs to know how spikes work and are made so that they can provide the villains and or possible consequence for failure, I hate to say it but it is narratively very interesting and would get players motivated if they had to go after an organization experimenting with hemalergy like they did in era 2 especially if it happened to a NPC the characters knew.

[prisma wharf]

I mean, they do have rules for having Odium's forces or the Diagram, or the ghostbloods as patrons

[frosty matrix]

Yeah, definitely

[prisma wharf]

you could 100% do an evil campaign

[hollow sphinx]

From the sound of it, they do plan to include rules about the other aspects besides the making

[slow elbow]

You could do anything but the GM would be doing a lot of extra mechanical work

[frosty matrix]

They might even allow you to ally with NPC groups who make the spikes for you, you never know

[umbral heath]

Tbf, if the only mechanics they don’t include are the making, that’s the easiest possible part to homebrew.

[clever egret]

paying all this money for a system that makes you do more work to fully embrace the canon its representing is gross

[umbral heath]

Debatably, it wouldn’t even need mechanics.

[mental canyon]

The deliveroo spike economy will be amazing.

[midnight bramble]

(It's almost as if the focus should be on how the cycle of injustice and violence amplified by two amoral gods using these people in a proxy war is the real villain, not the people themselves)

[pastel bison]

I see you feel strongly about this

[frosty matrix]

"More work" in the sense of roll initiative to kidnap someone --> then just describe the spiking

[clever egret]

i do! i hate being patronised to gets me all riled up

[hollow sphinx]

I mean if you're signing up to write a summary of thousands of years of history revealed across nearly two million words of book then there is inherently going to be nuance required if you want to accurately convey things

[fervent reef]

Yeah fabrials don't give a crap about getting the right metals so just do the same here

[hollow sphinx]

You can explain the original situation several millennia back being complicated while not justifying the mass enslavement of a species later on

[midnight bramble]

Does anyone else sometimes get the impression parts of the HB and WG were written with RoW knowledge, and then just didnt get updates when they got WaT knowledge?

[pastel bison]

no no, I don't mean to say you shouldn't - apologies if it came across that way

[clever egret]

nah its all good

[frosty matrix]

(Or not justifying the fact that an entire
species was given a choice between starvation and slavery)

[tight pier]

Based on what we have seen from the books, I am comfortable saying that the humans were the aggressors in aggregate given that they continued their conquest to the literal opposite side of the continent

[slow elbow]

I do kinda feel they dropped the ball on power interactions, like I don't think the individual surges are bad at all, but the powerful interactions of the surges interacting are very limited they need to do way better in misborn since that is most of the coolist mechanics.

I am very annoyed they bassically just ducked the bondsmith powers

[frosty matrix]

And humanity eventually forced Singers into the same position - be denied access to the fertile regions, or become second-class citizens

[hollow sphinx]

I do wonder about this yeah
Which to an extent is probably just an unfortunate consequence of the timelines they were working under, I don't necessarily blame any individuals for that
But I suspect in some ways it does make things awkward

[umbral heath]

In hindsight, it is kinda weird that after such a big deal was made about “humans invading Roshar”, Dalinar and Navani don’t react very strongly to seeing what it was really like.

[pastel bison]

in their defense, this would entirely be based on what Brandon wants to reveal about things to them, since there's not a lot of existing references out there

[midnight bramble]

-# cough cycles of injustice and violence

[tight pier]

there are hundreds of interactions between powers just within Stormlight, I think it's fine to relegate that kind of stuff to the table (especially because the number of combinations will increase exponentially as more powers become available)

[pastel bison]

and like, this is a tabletop rpg, the gm can rule of cool whatever they want

[flat spoke]

I mean in the end, I feel like part of this comes down to how much time and resources they had/have

There are SO MANY powers and interactions

[hollow sphinx]

I mean, this is what I'm talking about—that itself is something which took place across decades or perhaps even centuries after the initial desperation-and-evil-god-driven conflicts, and handling that nuance well is something you volunteer yourself for doing when you take on a project like this

[flat spoke]

They just...can't get to all of them

[slow elbow]

Sure but i think it was understood in MAG that some things were just beta or subject to retcon, instead they leave it to us as GMs to make up stuff which is even less likely to be on the right track

[flat spoke]

Especially when some of it Brandon/Dragonsteel wanna keep close to the chest for the time being

[clever egret]

i guess for me the biggest complaint isnt the lack of minor mechanical functions about hemalurgy that theyre excluding, its just that they have this attitude and are content with conveying that attitude in this way. this hemalurgy thing absolutely could just be a one off and they did the rest of mistborn fine. or... it could show that theyre content being the arbiters and purity police on mistborn era 1 and gutting it to ensure their system cant be used for what they deem to be "bad". that could be making a mountain out of a molehill, or this hemalurgy thing could just be the peak of a mountain. whichever it turns out to be, right now my excitement for the release has lowered a bunch which sucks

[tight pier]

I think it would be interesting to see the transition from "we are starving on these mud flats" to "we have a manifest destiny to occupy all of Roshar" but I don't think it's something we need to see

[pastel bison]

I prefer this approach to the MAG any day, personally

[midnight bramble]

It's entirely possible that at some point humans stopped their conquest...and then the Fused/Odium+Honor forced the conflict to reignite over and over and over

Like what Odium planned to do after the contest

Just harass the humans into restarting the war

[flat spoke]

Fair. Tbh I feel like it's a wait and see, at this point

[pastel bison]

we really don't know anything about the first desolation

[clever egret]

ya theres nothing else i can do. just unpleasant waiting

[pastel bison]

including the actions taken by all the actors involved

[hollow sphinx]

I don't think we need to see every step onscreen in the books
I do think the World Guide should try to convey that the change happened over time instead of using phrases such as "A group of malcontent rebels sought to claim land beyond their allotted borders. When singers resisted those invaders, humans accused them of murder." for even those initial situations

[flat spoke]

start homebrewing rules for your own spike making

[clever egret]

i might have to homebrew a lot more than that!!!

[fervent reef]

Wait what, they said this?

[hollow sphinx]

That is a quote from the World Guide, yes

[pastel bison]

I was okay when I read this because it explicitly mentions that the people who sought to claim land beyond their allotted borders were malcontent rebels - aka, not the entirety of humankind, a splinter part of it

and we have no idea what they did and how that unfolded

[midnight bramble]

It still portrays them in a negative way that strips the nuance of why

[vital bolt]

A Splinter, you say?

[finite epoch]

page 107 of the world guide

[frosty matrix]

Yeah
But they were rebelling against the choice of either starving in barren lands or becoming slaves
IE, they were justified, but that nuance gets stripped away and it's just "They were evil"

[hollow sphinx]

also says this a page later:

The First Desolation wasn’t a continent-spanning war, but a series of bloody skirmishes as humans sought to steal land from the Dawnsingers. Wearing furs and wielding weapons of stone or carapace, the humans aggressively attacked the singers. It was then that Odium saw an opportunity: Manipulating certain singers, he turned their justified anger toward thoughts of vengeance and reprisal.

[mental canyon]

Lmao

[tight pier]

were the first humans actually starving? I thought it was at least a decade after their arrival that the first desolation began

like, obviously it wasn't a nice place

[frosty matrix]

I'm personally of the opinion that Odium manipulated the singers into placing such restrictive boundaries and conditions specifically to antagonise humanity into fighting back and making the singers angry

[frosty matrix]

Certainly weren't doing great, and had a choice between that and enslavement.

[tight pier]

sure, I think there is quite a difference between not doing great and starving

I agree that the book could have done with less godvoice and more ambiguity but I think that portraying the humans as the agressors is accurate enough

[clever egret]

logistically, what would their food sources be? at bare minimum itd take months to grow food if the land was fertile. they could eat animals but they also need to have young and those also need to grow and also require food. they could have brought food but... clearly didnt look like theyd have much time load up entire grain stores, at most what they could cram onto a wagon

[hollow sphinx]

I also don't need the book to definitively side with the humans, it's very possible we'll learn context that makes the other side sound at least more sympathetic (the racism part is pretty unambiguously bad, but I could for example see an explanation that the hunting grounds that got encroached on were already running thin so they couldn't support more people, and it'd be good to phrase the line in a way that allows for future elaboration)
I just wish it didn't definitively side with the singers as the poor innocent morally pure refugee-takers getting murdered by malicious invaders either

[tight pier]

idk, they evidently had the capacity to grow enough food to survive

[clever egret]

eventually yeah but you can only last so many weeks without food

[tight pier]

they lasted more than a few weeks is my point

[frosty matrix]

-# The alternative was, again, slavery.
-# I'm ducking out of this conversation lest I lose my cool and start calling people slavery apologists or something

[tight pier]

it's more nuanced than "the humans attacked the singers unprovoked" but it's also more nuanced than "the humans were going to starve if they didn't take land from the singers"

[hollow sphinx]

When Jezrien says "barely anything can grow", rather than arguing Elodi says "Your people are welcome in the east."
When someone says they're treated as servants or slaves if they do, rather than arguing Elodi justifies it by saying "How else will you learn our ways? Wise children sit at the feet of their fathers."

[midnight bramble]

They do explicitly mention people are dying

[clever egret]

oh god i shouldnt say it

[tight pier]

I think it's notable that there is no evidence of Singers practicing any form of slavery (afaik) while there is evidence of humans doing so

[frosty matrix]

"Either starve or be second-class citizens, because we're so much better and wiser than you" still ain't great, just saying.

[hollow sphinx]

"As servants," Dalinar said. "Practically slaves."

"How else will you learn our ways? Wise children sit at the feet of their fathers."

there's the evidence

[clever egret]

-# cannibalism 😭

[umbral heath]

It’s not like the singers had no concept of slavery.

[tight pier]

the evidence is humans claim that they would have to be slaves, my point is idk if that's actually true

[midnight bramble]

Elodi confirms it?

[umbral heath]

Elodi didn’t refute or deny it.

[clever egret]

i feel like thatd be a pretty important thing to refute

if it was refutable

[frosty matrix]

The fact that humans compared the way singers treat their servants to slavery suggests that there is little practical difference

[hollow sphinx]

again, ^
I'm not saying the book should say "those poor innocent boo-boos were locked in jail and accidentally hurt some people getting out", I'm just saying I wish it didn't say "those poor innocent boo-boos did their best to help and the evil bastards brutally backstabbed them" either

[flat spoke]

I feel like we're goin in circles here, people....

[frosty matrix]

https://tenor.com/view/frodo-sam-samwise-gamgee-lord-of-the-rings-circles-gif-17520001

[fervent reef]

Well show us the way out lol

[frosty matrix]

Good Smeagol will show hobbits the way...

[hollow sphinx]

How about a non-controversial topic like whether the system should use d20s 👍

[tight pier]

I personally have more of a problem with the implications that Odium is responsible for the entire conflict than the implication that the Singers were faultless but it's the same core issue of a lack of nuance

[flat spoke]

Blow up Roshar. No more fantasy racism if everyone is dead thonk

[midnight bramble]

If only we weren't trapped in this muddy mire...

[tight pier]

you don't have to blow up Roshar to end racism, you just have to write OB

[vital bolt]

shuffles his plans to convert the entire system out of sight

[flat spoke]

Yes, D20s are iconic and cool

[clever egret]

ngl i have been playing a system that only uses d10's for everything and its pretty funny how well that works

[finite epoch]

is this the part where I bring in the improvised weapons argument

[frosty matrix]

What's the issue with that?
We have confirmation of Odium triggering wars to get his way at least twice, it doesn't seem unreasonable to blame him for this one, imo

[flat spoke]

I like my d20s

[fervent reef]

Kill a crystal monster

[frosty matrix]

Crystal monsters are the embodiment of racism and castes, don't you know

[midnight bramble]

I was watching Derek from Knights of Last Call go over the game the other day, and he had this great description that the d20 and other elements are a trap to draw in 5e people and trick them into playing a narrative game xD

[tight pier]

removing agency from the humans and singers makes the story less interesting

[clever egret]

theres no one in the tower n all that

[frosty matrix]

But
The reference to Pres + Ruin being "partially" combined certainly is an interesting nugget
Makes me think that there is a way to fully combine them and solve the Intent-alignment

[clever egret]

sazed should hand them over to taravangian, he could do it

[frosty matrix]

Uh
No

[clever egret]

cmoooon dalinar gave him his shard its a great idea

[frosty matrix]

Taravangian is the worst person to hold any Shard

Dalinar only gave him Honor to cause him to paint a target on his back

[finite epoch]

It is yours.
- Sazed, passing control of Ruin to Taravangian

[frosty matrix]

Honor, Odium, and Ruin?
Yeesh

[midnight bramble]

(Perhaps getting off-topic, but I find the Honor+Odium element works well as a metaphor for how institutional forces and powers manipulate the greater population into staying in conflict with each other cause it supports their goals)

[clever egret]

the military-shardic-complex

[midnight bramble]

War Pigs starts playing

[frosty matrix]

Throw in Cultivation, considering Taravangian's accusations that she allows the fighting to continue to encourage growth

[clever egret]

no shards no adonalsiums

[frosty matrix]

All Shards Are Bastards?

[tidal knot]

Woke stormlight be like... actually that's kinda just stormlight

Bisexual kaladin, ACAB dalinar, they/themli

[fervent reef]

Woke Mistborn be like ... You're not allowed to make spikes

[solid breach]

isnt this timeline wrong?

[frosty matrix]

Bisexual Shallan as well

[tidal knot]

They are all real and true

[frosty matrix]

Don't start that again...

[clever egret]

the stormlight books names if they were WOKE ‼️
way of kings
words of radiance
oathbringer
rhythm of war
knights of wind and truth

[frosty matrix]

I think it is
Szeth notes that Nale only reclaimed his Blade within Szeth's lifetime

[solid breach]

wait what

[hollow sphinx]

It disappeared centuries ago iirc

[frosty matrix]

Did it?

Surely WaT mentioned Szeth training using Nale's Blade?

[tidal knot]

The way of QUEENS
Words of GAYdiance
WOKEbringer
Rhythm of WOKE
Knights of Wind and Truth

[midnight bramble]

Yes, because we know Nale had his highspren during previous Desolations

[clever egret]

centuries as in brandon centuries? cuz then that definitely means 2500 years ago

[tidal knot]

Wait no I got one better

[midnight bramble]

It had to go to Braize with him

[tidal knot]

Knights of wind/truth

[hollow sphinx]

It's noted that 121 always went to Braize with Nale, though, so I think that part is wrong

[frosty matrix]

They-Thems of Wind and Truth

[finite epoch]

that timeline is either wrong or weirdly described

[undone hull]

Rhy-them of WOKE

[tidal knot]

Szeth uses they/them pronouns bc of all the voices

Nightblood is literally just genderless

[clever egret]

me when im done fighting and i she/they my sword

[tidal knot]

Adolin when he takes a she/it in his shardplate

Oop idk if I can say thay here

[frosty matrix]

I said Bastard earlier, that's probably fine

[flat spoke]

I feel like the context gives it a pass

[tidal knot]

I think it's allowed if it's used in a cosmere book and also its not bullying

[clever egret]

if mods ban pronouns theyre unwoke 😡

[fervent reef]

Yeah but you can't say the s-word that means poop

[frosty matrix]

Political correctness gone mad...

[tidal knot]

Woke 17th shard mods be like: pride month shardcast episode

...which was really good btw

[frosty matrix]

Woke 17th shard mods be like: change the server picture to a pride-rainbow theme

[tidal knot]

No that's just uhhh, biochroma

Localised entirely within the server icon

Speaking of, it's funny how the tension surge skill tree is basically awakening

I feel like you could easily use that to homebrew an awakener

[fervent reef]

The membership drop graph is so funny

[tidal knot]

...plus Zahel's statblock if it exists in the adversaries book

[clever egret]

omg wheres that?

[tidal knot]

I need to see this, but also that's really sad

I love how welcoming this community is

[hollow sphinx]

nb nb 😔

[undone hull]

I think we should kick out all Mraize/Yeden shippers specifically but other than that, it's good

[tidal knot]

Oh my god

[frosty matrix]

Mraize/Yeden shippers
That is, uh
One heck of a crackship

[tidal knot]

IM NOT GIVING UP MY MIDDLE AGED MAN YAOI

[clever egret]

nightblood if they were woke: destroy GENDER ‼️

[frosty matrix]

...wouldn't that be conservative Nightblood, considering how much conservatives hate pronoun stuff?

[tidal knot]

Worlds first non binary conservative

[midnight bramble]

It makes stuff move, but also is very clear it doesnt make stuff alive
Which yeah, i think you could homebrew Awakening where that gap is
Though the official Awakening rules will probably have a lot more depth xD

[clever egret]

nightbloods alignment comes from the wielder

[finite epoch]

it's a little more like sand mastery

[frosty matrix]

Woke Nightblood would be more like "Destroy Capitalism and seize the means of the production"

[tidal knot]

Yeah, that's a fair point

[frosty matrix]

(Mind you, Woke Nightblood would just be normal Nightblood)

[fervent reef]

I love that The Sibling is conservative cause they view he/she as nonsense neopronouns that shouldn't be used lmao

[hollow sphinx]

I don't think it's been as big a difference since the first time, though it's not completely negligible either
But the first time we made the change June had something like twice as many leaves as the previous month

[fervent reef]

And then it was fixed cause of the Sanderson interview boost iirc

[finite epoch]

keep contact and maintain infusion, then make whatever it is you're infusing move around and do things for you

[tidal knot]

None of you are ready for my burning desire to see the bloodsealer skill tree in about 6 years

Awakening is cool and all but I wanna see the weird stuff from elantris

Shoutout to ChayShan

[finite epoch]

was about to say that lol

[clever egret]

inb4 "sorry no bloodsealer tree using blood magic is bad"

[finite epoch]

magical tai chi rules when

[midnight bramble]

Sand mastery lets you move ribbons through the air, which is at least one important distinction

[tidal knot]

If that happens I will be SO mildly peeved

[midnight bramble]

The Elantris rules just includes a copy of Avatar Legends

[clever egret]

give me your peevedness. i will bear it for all of us 😤

[finite epoch]

you can do more than ribbons
but yeah, it's not quite the same

[tidal knot]

Branderson wrote a random background character with the perfect personality and magic set to appeal to me at 16 and he never gets seen again

[hollow sphinx]

Hopefully the Elantris RPG doesn't come out until after the sequels so it doesn't have to be as restrained 🤞

[flat spoke]

Fingers crossed lol

[frosty matrix]

...and that's how I realised the connection between Ishar offering to bear the Heralds' pain and Odium taking peoples' pain
Hmm, curious

[clever egret]

doing my part for the theorycrafters out here 🫡

[flat spoke]

WAIT OH MY GOD YOURE RIGHT---

[tidal knot]

If yall dont remember weedfingers, he was a hopeless romantic twink with an army of skeletons and he's so sad because he's away from his girlfriend

[hollow sphinx]

Though I wouldn't be surprised if it starts with AonDor and has expansions for the other magics, depending on how in depth it gets

[tidal knot]

OH WOW OKAY WASNT READY FOR THAT

[midnight bramble]

...yall

[tidal knot]

It's DEFO gonna have some dhakor. Just a little

[finite epoch]

funny, this makes me realize I had been thinking about exactly that parallel like two days ago
but I have no idea what exactly I was thinking or why

[frosty matrix]

I'm magic

[finite epoch]

there's a whole theory that vanished from my brain and will never be retrieved again

[clever egret]

you were thinking it because you would think it

[midnight bramble]

I feel like a tired English teacher right now

[frosty matrix]

Destiny shenanigans

Destiny and Fortune

[tidal knot]

There's no surge that controls density

There's gravitation though, which is close enough

Hope this helps :)

[frosty matrix]

But Hemalurgy can influence destiny

[clever egret]

funniest phrasing ever i love it

[finite epoch]

there's Transformation

[tidal knot]

Yeah so can ferruchemy

[tidal knot]

Iron

[clever egret]

yeah it might. it might not. what are you gonna do about it

[tidal knot]

Makes u denser

[frosty matrix]

And Feruchemy can control density as well

[tidal knot]

Density

[hollow sphinx]

the real reason they're excluding Hemalurgy rules, they hate gamers

[frosty matrix]

...do people think I made a typo of "Density"??

[tidal knot]

No I was saying that the whole time :3

[hollow sphinx]

also I restarted Discord and now

block quotes
are grey
interesting

[frosty matrix]

Implying that density is a Spiritual attribute 🤔

[tidal knot]

Gonna power up an inquisitor with the spike of instant BBL

[clever egret]

ya it pisses me off 😡 okay am over it 😊

[finite epoch]

I had noticed that but could not remember if it had changed or I was just having jamais vu

[flat spoke]

block quote?

I don't see a difference, but im also on mobile + dark mode

[hollow sphinx]

come clean, who drained it for their Awakening

[flat spoke]

Ew

[finite epoch]

-# resists urge to ruin joke

[clever egret]

embrace Ruin

the mistborn RPG wont let you but you can do it here 😤

[solid breach]

so dumb question
would tension allow someone to basically have
a metal spring lance?

the same way a focued one fight

[finite epoch]

I don't see why not

it seems you can both harden and reshape to some extent using Tension

[umbral heath]

If there’s one thing I’m grateful for the RPG, it’s that it showed me Tension isn’t lame actually.

[tight pier]

anyone who has seen certain videos on the internet involving shock absorbers know that tension has to be respected

[finite epoch]

so you could have like a coiled up spike that shoots out when you want to attack with it

[umbral heath]

Not that I’m into any of the orders that use it, but Stoneward fans must be thrilled.

[tight pier]

the hair spear thing is fun world building for the focused ones

[solid breach]

but the ttrpg dont have mechanics for this applicaiton right?

[tight pier]

overall there are definitely in the top tier of interesting Fused designs, unfortunately the devastating ones are not too interesting

[finite epoch]

now to find an excuse to have a Bloodborne-inspired Stoneward with the cane sword thingy

[solid breach]

yeah, for being so lame i dont understand why brandon didnt use them already

[clever egret]

i forget, do the focused ones use their hair as clothes similar to the husked ones? would be really funny if the last thing you see before a focused one hair spike decapitates you is the nude fused

[finite epoch]

let me have a look at the Tension rules again

[tight pier]

seems like this works

[tight pier]

no, they have normal hair on their heads and then long peices of hair that are bound by aluminum rings which they can use as a weapon

[clever egret]

sad

[solid breach]

In addition to clothing that accommodates both of
their sizes, Focused Ones generally wear a long necklace
folded several times over their torso. This necklace is
made of their own hair bound with aluminum links,
and it culminates in a blade. When in close combat,
this necklace can serve as both weapon and restraint;
the Focused One uses it as a whip that can be wrapped
around a target and stiffened with Tension to trap
them, or straightened and made rigid for use as a
powerful spear.

[quaint cliff]

I've just got the book, been looking at the art... Veil... singer nibleform

[finite epoch]

ah, that's just Tension

[solid breach]

i mean the fat ones whip seem connected to it head here

[tight pier]

it seems to be wrapped around their neck

[finite epoch]

To use this surge, spend 1 or more Investiture to infuse a soft object within your reach; you must have a hand free and touch the target. The infusion uses 1 Investiture each round, and for the duration, the object becomes completely rigid.

wrapped around a target and stiffened with Tension to trap them, or straightened and made rigid for use as a powerful spear.

[solid breach]

that dont seem like it is what i am thinking of

[finite epoch]

literally just the basic Tension rules will let you do this

[tight pier]

it's a way to quantify how tension can increase the reach of a weapon which is what trielt was talking about

the flavor text isn't totally prescriptive of how you can apply the rule

[finite epoch]

coil the metal wire around them then harden it with Tension, or use Tension directly to turn the metal wire into a solid bar

[solid breach]

I was more thinking about replication the potential for compresssing a sspring and then decompressing

[finite epoch]

yeah

[finite epoch]

hmm, I'm not seeing rules specifically for that, but the GM can rule on it

actually, found rules for it now

the Clothsmith talent

Additionally, when you temporarily create a weapon with Tension (see “Creating Objects and Weapons”), it gains an extra d4 damage die (for example, an axe created this way deals 1d6 + 1d4 keen damage). The size of this die increases with your ranks in Tension; at 2 ranks, the extra die becomes a d6 (instead of a d4), and so on.

this plus Rigged Weaponry (which is a requirement anyway) should let you do the compression spring spear thing

[solid breach]

Fair enough

And then you can use one of those warrior talents as flavor right ?

[finite epoch]

as flavor?

I don't think there's anything stopping you from combining this with, say, Devastating Blow, if that's what you mean

[pastel bison]

this channel's been on a ride huh

[quaint cliff]

I've finally gotten to all the ideals

[quaint cliff]

I read all the orders and lost track of time

[hollow sphinx]

In the stream they just talked about how "I will stand when others fall." became "I will step forward when others fall back." because you can't swear to a result, only a goal, which I thought was neat

[clever egret]

god stonewards really do have like badass anime protagonist energy. real "spits out blood and stands up" vibes. like theyre just inherently cinematic. its also so thematic that they earn their plate, greatly enhancing their ability to protect themselves only when they step back from being the suicidally selfless hero. taln would not make it to the 4th ideal

[tight pier]

stonewards you mean

[clever egret]

oh ya i do

[quaint cliff]

In the modern day, a small but growing number of Stonewards fight in the war against Odium. Ever the supporting players, none have yet gained fame or taken a prominent role, but they assist in the goals of the modern Radiants at Urithiru.

How could they say this about the Stormwall

[clever egret]

the dami fanclub will not tolerate this

[quaint cliff]

Also...... I thought they were the Stonewardens not the Stonewards?

[clever egret]

but also ya that is great evidence of them writing this worldguide before WaT came out and then coming back and adding stuff

no its always been stonewards

[hollow sphinx]

you're probably conflating it with stormwarden

[quaint cliff]

Did I Bernstein myself?

[clever egret]

watch out for men in black suits asking you to look at pens

[quaint cliff]

Stonewarden sounds so much cooler

Stoneward sounds like an object or a verb.

[clever egret]

what did you do with the original apepi who used stonewards 😡

[quaint cliff]

https://tenor.com/view/guilty-gif-5332537

[clever egret]

wait actually you have historically used stonewardens way more

omg dating back to 2022....

[quaint cliff]

See it's better! 😂

[clever egret]

i mean you might have a point considering no one corrected you all this time. it must have just looked right enough to everyone else too

[quaint cliff]

Don't even get me started on the Skybreakers name....

[trim sand]

Yeah we should call them the Skywards--

[quaint cliff]

The probem with the Skybreakers name is...why is it that even? It has nothing to do with what they do or act. I actually reminds me more of back in Ashyn where people burned down the sky. Yet Dustbringers are the ones who get the bad rap because f their name.

The name Skybearer would have been a lot better name. Like they are 'up'holding the law, they are bearing the sky....yet idk, go have fun breaking the sky? Maybe it is foresightful how they are going to do that again. 🙄

Also, the rpg book fails to mention the stupid special bond thing that the highspren/Skybreakers have.

[gilded maple]

...huh. That would really explain the World Guide bit where the Singers Never Did Anything Wrong vis-a-vis letting humans settle on Roshar

[hollow sphinx]

that section does mention specific details from W&T

[gilded maple]

Oh, it does, doesn't it. I guess there's no excusing it, lol

[hollow sphinx]

it just does so in a way that unilaterally blames humans for them

[prime cloak]

I feel like the vast majority of order names refer to the surges they have rather than like the ideals they represent. So skybreakers is referring to the combination of gravitation (sky) and division (breaking).

[clever egret]

ya i think skybreaker more refers to the fact that that surge combination can let you be a fireball flying through the sky. or like just generally leaving trails of fire in the sky, "breaking" it

[tidal knot]

I would 100% let a player use the molecule buggery from division call lightning

So that fits with sky breaker pretty well

[wild swan]

I think the problem with the Hemalurgy thing is that it’s too overpowered

you can be evil, but adding rules for creating spikes makes not being evil a gigantic loss

now this is also just true about the actual canon cosmere so I don’t know how this will go in the books

[tight pier]

There is a mechanical cost (spiritual damage) and a roleplaying cost (killing people)

Having a benefit for those costs allows for interesting choices to be presented

[wild swan]

well I don’t think it’s the right decision, I’m just saying it’s not only about forcing you to be a good person

[tight pier]

You can just choose to start the game as a full mistborn or full feruchemist

[wild swan]

a game where you can rapidly gain power by murdering people is very different from one where you can’t do that

[tight pier]

If you want to play a character who has no problem with that then that should be your prerogative

I imagine it might get tiresome for people in your party unless they are also focused on collecting power by any means

[wild swan]

I kind of suspect that they’ll end up adding Hemalurgy after Ghostbloods anyway

so far creating spikes is not a thing that main characters do, but I don’t think that will stay true

[tight pier]

They said as much

[tight pier]

Being a Stoneward isnt a thing main characters do either and yet its something you can do in game

[wild swan]

no I mean normal murder Hemalurgy

[violet lark]

I just read the hemalurgy thing like if they don’t want to do hemalurgy rules for creating them whatever not a big deal but their given reason seems really weird and limiting

[quaint cliff]

Where is the hemalurgy stuff at?

[wanton void]

I think he is saying “read” as in ‘read the situation’. Not actually that there is rules

Yet

[fervent reef]

#1391790178435207290 message

[violet lark]

Thank you I was struggling trying to scroll to find that on my phone lol

[fervent reef]

The conversation went on for a while

[wanton void]

You see, hemalurgy, would be a thing in the Monster Manual equivalent. As a thing for beefing up enemies.

PCs would not be the people making them

As shown by the Wax and Wayne model of hemalurgic acquisition

[fervent reef]

PCs can use them, just not make them yeah

[wanton void]

Pulling them out of dead bad guys

[quaint cliff]

Ah. Wait, there are Mistborn and feurchemy rules?

[fervent reef]

Not yet, though maybe some drafts have been revealed?

[quaint cliff]

Ah, I saw yall talk about it, and it made me think it was here, and I was like... In a stormlight book? O.o

[wanton void]

They have talked about it but they have not revealed anything yet

[quaint cliff]

I've considered if I run a game, letting one of my players secretly play a Kandra.

[clever egret]

if they said they were unable to balance it fairly thats one thing, but the way they phrased it, it sounded like they didnt even wanna try because of patronising "its evil" stuff

[wild swan]

they say they don't want to incentivize you to murder people for loot

which ofc is a bit goofy to say about Mistborn

[mental canyon]

Deep down we all just want rules for a high powered metal or crystal spike launcher, a number of skills and talents to model an elite sniper, and then let out players mow down hordes of mooks with their Hemalurgic knowledge as they recycle their deaths into even more strength.

[clever egret]

ya thats really poorly veiled reasoning lol like what? its so nonsensical to take that stance all of a sudden

[fervent reef]

Basically what this would do is give every tom dick and harry a resource you can scrape from their corpse, which changes the incentives of the game

[clever egret]

ya thats literally how it is in mistborn era 1, if you learn about hemalurgy, you can do hemalurgy

[fervent reef]

You push a coin through someone's heart with intent, but it drops out of your control once it's through because you can't push spikes

[wild swan]

it seems silly to me anyway because yeah it takes 0 effort to create the rule for it

[wild swan]

if the rules for the spikes exist, then the rule for creating them is "if you stab this person you get a spike"

[mental canyon]

Out of Retribution for this stance, my players will all now start with spikes.

[tight pier]

Well you need proper intent and knowledge

Or a divine guidance

There should be some mechanic to reflect that

[wanton void]

I cast guidance as a cleric, divine guidance

[clever egret]

like i say here, its not just them leaving out hemalurgy mechanics, its that we dont know if theyve applied that "its evil so were not making it" reasoning to other areas of the rpg too

[mental canyon]

A railway spike sniper on a mission from god. This heroic character writes themselves.

[fervent reef]

What else would they apply it to?

[wanton void]

Hmmm, firing hemalurgic spikes out of railguns…

[clever egret]

i dunno! i never expected them to apply it to one of the three main magic systems of mistborn era 1, notable for its consistent presence and connection to the books

[mental canyon]

Space combat just got even better.

[wanton void]

The main thing I want to see is using speed bubble shaping to turn around without actually losing momentum. Layering a lot of effects so one side of a ship is moving faster than the other side. And the ship turns around without actually using thrusters

[fervent reef]

Oh, maybe some other end-negative systems like Dhakor or the other blood magic (also from Sel)

[wanton void]

MAG also left the making of spikes to be vague

Iirc

[clever egret]

ya like, my assumption was that the rpg people would just faithfully adapt the magic systems and settings that weve all read as they are and leave that sandbox for gm's and players to mess around it. but are they now setting a standard where they "purify" the morally questionable aspects to try and prevent players doing "evil" things?

[wild swan]

I wonder what they'll do with trellium in these books, given that it's Allomantic effects are unknown and it has like 6 Hemalurgic effects

presumably it's too important to era 2 to ignore it completley but idk

[wanton void]

Godmetals might be left to expansions, except for a few exceptions

Because, we don’t know what 90% of them do

[clever egret]

and the fact they think era 2 hemalurgy is more ethical really doesnt speak well to their moral position on this stuff

[wanton void]

You see, hemalurgy is just super complicated in a way that the other systems are not really. You can literally do anything with it if you know enough of how it works

[wild swan]

well the actual books also avoid letting people think too hard about creating spikes

[clever egret]

thats not what theyre preventing. theyre allowing hemalurgy mechanics. they just say its too evil to make them so they wont let their players do it

[wanton void]

And yes,the morals of it are questionable, that should not be an issue. Evil campaigns are a thing here.

I agree

[clever egret]

ya thats the main issue here. if they said it was a balance problem, thats fine. they left out playing a bondsmith in stormlight rpg for that reason and sure am okay with that

[wanton void]

Homerules will circulate, Homebrew will be made. If they don’t it will be made

[clever egret]

i know, its just concerning that theyre establishing this standard this early on in the cosmererpg process

[fervent reef]

Evil campaigns are not a thing here

[wanton void]

There is Evil, and there is evil

Evil, no. evil, sure.

[clever egret]

and dont forget Evil (threnody)

[fervent reef]

And stealing a fallen Pewterarm's power is Evil or evil?

[clever egret]

what are they gonna make a threnody rpg with no Evil? smh

[fervent reef]

Destroy Evil!

[wooden narwhal]

I haven't started with my group yet but I am pretty thrilled with both the foundry system and the Stonewalkers module.

I will want to make a few more maps and things but they did a good job of it being plug and play. The character creation having some automations and guidance also is great. I was worried about my group managing their character sheets but what they have made is very nice.

[stray sand]

Gravitation = Sky
Division = Break

[finite epoch]

Light... weavers?

[stray sand]

Lightweavers are just named after illumination

same for Elsecallers and Transportation

No Order of Soulcasters unfortunately

[delicate moth]

Orders are named after what sounds cool 😛

[trim sand]

Microkinesers

Mm

I can see why he didn't go with that

[round compass]

Hello friends, I am working on designing a one shot for three friends of mine for next Saturday and wondering if folks had ideas? My first thought was a mystery in Urithiru, but I think that might be biting off more than I can chew as we're all still learning the system in my group, so if y'all have some other idea that would be great let me know!

[solid breach]

What does division have to do with lightning ?

[tidal knot]

It's just physics. Division is control over molecular bonds, and works a lot like soulcasting (you "talk to" the thing and tell it its something different) and lightning is pretty much just positively charged electrons moving to the negatively charged ground

So why CANT you tell the electrons in say, a statue, to start moving towards that conveniently negative fused?

Granted I'm not an expert on physics so feel free to tell me I'm full of crap, but that at least sounds reasonable

[gilded maple]

The ability to use hemalurgy effectively is gated behind a half-dozen narrative permissions

[clever egret]

oh i wonder how theyre gonna handle breaths on nalthis... its also a part of the story there that you can torture and manipulate and coerce people into giving up breaths "willingly". are they gonna say you cant do that now because thatd be evil?

cuz honestly that is far easier and has the potential to be far more brutal than mistborn era 1 hemalurgy. theres far less barriers to that approach, and waaaaay less detriments than accumulating hemalurgic power

[pastel bison]

could the mystery in Urithiru be feasibly ported to a mystery in the War Camps?

[gilded maple]

I don't play this card super often, but I wrote for and designed TTRPGs for more than a decade, and one of the chief things I learned is that while you should design against abuse cases you can't design around bad faith interpretations. If the principle objection to mass-murdering people to acquire their magic powers or brutally torturing people into giving you their literal god-given endowment is that it gets you power too fast and is unbalancing, that's not really unbalancing because you're a psychopath

And it's really up to the GM and the group to sort that out

[clever egret]

thats my view too. the developers should make the sandbox

[gilded maple]

tl;dr if the group is a bunch of murderhobos that's a group problem and not a system topic

[clever egret]

if that group enjoys playing that way then its not even a problem anyway. people like to play games different ways

like brandon has even spoken about returned practically being vampires if theyre not worshipped, and thats such a cool concept

[gilded maple]

:F

Returned: The Masquerade

[dark escarp]

Yeah I hear a lot of the issues people have with Hemalurgy rules. I think the concerns are all really valid and even moreso extrapolating about if there’s precedents here, etc.

That said just to give a different perspective…I don’t really mind? I think as long as we get rules for how to use spikes and their effects and influences etc (which it sounds like we definitely are), I’m ok with the game not highlighting a particularly brutal form of play. I definitely agree it’s a moral choice from the designers, it’s just one I’m mostly ok with. In the same way I wouldn’t want a table for how long it takes an Awakener to give up their Breaths under duress, or the price of slaves on Roshar to be out next to the rest of the goods and services. To put an example on the flip side it’s also arguably a moral choice that I am mostly ok with to say that the freechair fabrial is freely available to any character with a relevant disability. I think all of these choices are slightly impacting ‘realism’ while nudging players to thinking about things and viewing things in a certain way. I totally understand why some view it as moralizing or arbitrary, and even agree with some of your points, but to me personally it is an acceptable expression of a moral stance, that I don’t see as affecting the game in a major way (as of yet).

I feel especially so about this because almost all of the things mentioned above I think would not be difficult for an individual group to include/exclude in their story if they wanted to explore it, hopefully mindfully and thoughtfully.

[round compass]

Oooh this is a great idea! Yea I think that would be doable. Could place it in Sebarial’s camp and he’s just sweating all over the place not knowing how to solve this 😂

[clever egret]

i appreciate hearing ur perspective, that does make it sound a lot more balanced. i think (for me atleast) it wasnt just the the moral stance, but they phrased that moral stance in like that patronising "we dont think you can control yourselves so we have to decide for you" tone that set me off. and i think its also like, the, their attitude to the adaptation of the setting. like yeah they dont let you buy slaves in stormlight rpg, but they do still have slaves exist. its this approach to the mistborn rpg where theyre trying to like obscure this magic system that brandon designed and is a core part of the books (marsh, vin, spook are all notably spiked, which is horrible and does have horrible consequences but is a part of the story) and deciding they dont want players to involve that stuff in their stories is meh. like its not like im desperate for spiking mechanics and wouldnt be able to homebrew it, its just, i feel like its a basic expectation for them to adapt whats in the books to the rpg

but then its also like, theyre not removing hemalurgy, theyre still gonna make mechanics for it, and they think era 2 hemalurgy is more ethical and they want to include it. so like... do they not know what era 2 hemalurgy is like? when they learn it incentivises the level of exploitation we see, will they go "oops wait yeah thats also super evil, okay we arent including that either then!". like i dunno i cant speak for them, but idk how theyre gonna keep a consistent standard if theyre setting this bar right now this early on. either era 1 hemalurgy is an absurd outlier, or anything on par with it or beyond it will never get adapted to subsequent rpg's

[gilded maple]

The mechanics for hemalurgy are:

1. stab dude with a power
2. stab yourself
3. buy power Talent

[clever egret]

and also "+1 ruin influence" 😈

[prisma wharf]

Honestly, it's interesting they consider era 2 hemalurgy as ethical. I don't think it's even framed that way in the books. Just a way for the Set to get access to more spikes without killing the people in their breeding program. Which is worse imo, and it seems to be framed as such

Like, you steal parts of their soul, then force them to keep having more allomantic babies, and yeah..

[clever egret]

ya like it def gives the impression they havent properly learned about it yet its concerning if they have and still came to that conclusion

[hollow sphinx]

Tbc the line was

It is likely we’ll design rules for creating Hemalurgic spikes if more ethical practices are revealed in upcoming Mistborn novels.

[midnight bramble]

They didnt say Era 2 Hemalurgy is ethical, they said if we get ethical Hemalurgy in later books

[prisma wharf]

ah, gotcha. That makes more sense

[midnight bramble]

I physically scrolled all the way back to double check what theu said xD

[clever egret]

oh fair. i dont think its likely itll get more ethical

[prisma wharf]

But still, the only way I could think of hemalurgy beign ethical is if you directly invest the spikes with Dor or stormlight or something somehow

[clever egret]

i really hope brandon doesnt feel pressure to make hemalurgy more ethical. i think its cool that its horrible

[midnight bramble]

It is pretty weird, cause the impression I get is it wont get ethical until they're making spikes mechanically from raw Investiture

[prisma wharf]

Yeah, I mean the point of Hemalurgy is an awful act to gain power. Having ethical means would just turn it into free power boosts for scadrians

[midnight bramble]

So I guess we'll get players being able to make spikes in the Era 4 supplement in 40 years!

[clever egret]

i mean yeah that is another kinda weird thing. if they personally find stuff from brandons books unethical currently, will they justify not adapting it in the hopes brandon will write it ethically eventually? ugh idk it just feels like a problem that doesnt need to exist. i dont wanna catastrophise but all this does is just make me worried for the current and any further adaptations when i didnt know i had to worry about that before

[gilded maple]

The suggestion of taking it from someone dying as a willing sacrifice is ethical enough

[clever egret]

i know theres hemalurgy for common attributes like strength n stuff that you can get from anyone, and sure that could incentivise targeting innocent folk. but the real benefits of hemalurgy come from stealing allomantic and feruchemical abilities. in era 1, we got a disproportionate view of the current balance of allomancy. it seems like a bunch of skaa have it, but thats really just the protagonists needing to have powers to do stuff. and even then its usually cuz they have noble blood or are just straight up a noble. the vast majority of allomancers would be nobles, and subsequently likely to be slave owners or abusive to skaa. spiking one of them has a cool moral ambiguity thats unique to era 1.

its a horrible setting, theres horrible people, the powerful exploit the weak, and you need power to defend the weak. the nobles by and large are horribly abusing their power, so why shouldnt the "heroes" steal that power from them, literally? but the act of doing so isnt done easily, its a horrible process and it stains your soul, but ultimately thats one less abusive noble allomancer in the world, and now you have that power to do good. was it worth the cost? does it tempt you to go further? is there another way? when the world is so evil, where does the balance of morality lie? was a better way ever possible?

[sturdy shale]

yup you're so correct

[clever egret]

hell even vin who got the luck of being a mistborn still exploited the advantage hemalurgy had given her to great effect. you can get this cool divide between the genetically allomantic skaa/half-nobles who get to have the power and do good without the baggage, versus people who did hemalurgy to get that power to fight. ur both fighting an oppressive system, but one was born with an advantage and the other had to stain their soul to get that advantage

[wooden narwhal]

Also in Era 1 you have the influence of Ruin which means that the more spikes you take the more that should play in I think.

In Era 2 this might be an opportunity to add in a little Discord flair.

[clever egret]

yessss omg its such a cool way for the GM to influence things because well.. the GM is arguably a god to the player characters, and if theyre screwing around with hemalurgy too much, you can literally become that god instead of narrating a scene in a meta way to the players, you can just at will speak directly into player characters minds

[wooden narwhal]

Yep I think it affords an opportunity to be like "choices have consequences" and in this case one of the consequences is being haunted by an evil god posing as your dead relative/love.

Hemalurgy also allows for a horror campaign without really needing the drastic setting changes you often see for those.

[dark escarp]

Yeah I totally see where you're coming from. I don't feel exactly the same way, but I appreciate the dialogue!

[dark escarp]

I mean to be fair, I think you can achieve almost all of the same things by just using spikes and not making them. I see the objections on moralizing grounds, but on gameplay grounds I really think the impacts will be minimal. I mean we don't even get to see a character go into the process of making a spike at any point in the books. That's something that like...maybe 20 people on the whole planet know how to do?

I think consequences around getting spiked and Ruin's influence are going to be a lot of fun, and I don't think not having an explainer on the step by step of how to make new spikes is going to hinder the ability to tell those stories. You can even have NPCs make their own spikes if you really want it to be a part of your story. Do you need to know more than certain metals of spikes are used to steal certain attributes/powers? Even in the fabrial crafting rules for Stormlight, you're allowed to invent new fabrials but it handwaves what specific spren you're using and the metals you're incorporating into it. I would have expected Hemalurgy to be similar, even before this announcement, just due to how plot central the magic is going to be in upcoming Eras.

I don't mean to say this combatively, and tone is hard to convey over text. I just am excited about telling the exact stories you're describing, and don't think this will limit that meaningfully.

TL;DR I think there's lots a legitimate concern around the moral reasons for limiting Hemalurgy, but I personally feel gameplay will be minimally impacted

[clever egret]

oh ya i do wanna clarify im very confident in my ability to homebrew and my ability to make up for anything lacking in the rpg, i def dont need it all spelled out to me, i know it can sound like thats my issue. its more the overall attitude that im concerned about. they could have centered the points you have made in their statement, things like "due to its unethical nature we dont feel comfortable providing explicit details on how hemalurgy in era 1 is performed, but we will provide details around it so that players can fill in the gaps if they wish to include hemalurgy in their campaigns" but thats not what theyre saying. theyre saying :

However, it’s not a game where you’re incentivized to murder innocent people for loot and wash your hands of it.
they explicitly dont want people to interact with practicing hemalurgy at all. they think it would inevitably lead to murder of innocent people for loot with no consequences. they must feel strongly that hemalurgy is uniquely problematic in that regard, or else they wouldnt trust players to have combat tools in general. like they genuinely dont believe practicing hemalurgy could factor into this ethos:
The kind of stories the Cosmere RPG is designed to best support promote introspection and character growth.
and that those things would only be possible with theoretical "ethical hemalurgy". but then theres dissonance in their position because they also say this
Considerations for spirit web disruption, influence from Shards, and guidelines for fighting hemalurgic creatures are also included.
so like, what is their position truly? why are they wording it the way they are? (heres the message link so no one has to scroll up to see their wording in context #1391790178435207290 message )

[dark escarp]

Oooooh ok gotcha. Yeah, I totally get the concerns and issues with the statement made (and I agree with some of your points here and disagree with others haha). It does seem like there will be plenty of Hemalurgy rules in the game for using spikes, so that's enough for me to be happy and look forward to, even if their statement definitely put me off-kilter when first reading it

[clever egret]

ya best situation for me is that the actual end result will reflect what ur saying and they wont have meaningfully neglected hemalurgy and it is very easy to "fill in the blanks" like you say, and this was just a poorly worded statement that doesnt actually reflect what they believe, and its more aligned to what you say. worst case is that they meant what they said firmly and that has been guiding their ethos and theyve shied away from hemalurgy as much as possible wrt to balance/campaign possibilities to make it as difficult as possible for gm's/players to "fill in the blanks"

[dark escarp]

Yeah I read it as the former, but I understand the worries for the latter. It's just so short, it's hard to draw conclusions from. I admittedly am at least in part basing this on the fact that I am very happy with how they adapted Stormlight and have pretty high belief in their ability to continue high quality adaptations (with Dragonsteel's continued input)

Thanks for a lively conversation! It was really good to hear your perspective on this, you explained your position really well

[prisma wharf]

I am overall very happy with stormlight as well. Though, the one thing that does make me a bit concerned for hemalurgy is how regal forms for pcs are handled, where there aren't really as many consequences as experienced in the books. Which may mean that hemalurgy is watered down in mistborn

[clever egret]

ya thank you for sharing yours, it did help me see a potentially better situation than the one id been fearing which i appreciate. as more stuff comes out ill try to see it from a balanced position and catch myself if im assuming the worst

[dark escarp]

Yeah I've been toying with this some. I think they made a good call restricting it mechanically to what they did, but I'm brainstorming ways to make it a more central part of the roleplay if any of my singer PCs go for it

[delicate moth]

You can add consequences for your table! But baking them mechanically into the system is a recipe for no fun for a lot of people

[mental canyon]

Consequences are for the strong, and RPGers, we are weak.

[clever egret]

i have noticed that i do tend to enjoy my characters suffering a lot more than other players at my tables

[flat spoke]

Not sure if that makes you sadistic or masochistic...perhaps both?

[clever egret]

listen i just like causing problems on purpose. and the "found out" part of FAFO. and critical failures more than critical successes. and the reaping of what ive sowed. and laying in beds after ive made them. i dont know why im that way with my characters, im not like that in real life
-# unless if i am

sometimes i get too into the roleplay and ooc i try to defend my characters actions (because my characters try to justify their actions) but then a minute later im like "wait no hang on, i dont have to defend the character, they suck"

[mental canyon]

Conflict is the spice of life. You need it otherwise we're all just roleplaying like S1 and 2 of TNG.

I wouldn't wish that on Odiums worst enemy.

[clever egret]

who is odiums worst enemy 🤔

[mental canyon]

Brandon Sanderson.

[flat spoke]

Itself

[prisma wharf]

Yeah, that definitely makes sense. If i were to homegrown it, it would oribably be just a round under his control instead of stunned if they fail their save. Still with protection by being radiant. Just to make it dangerous for the forms

[wooden narwhal]

The contradictions of humanity.

No person is pure anger and so the alignment of the shard with its bearer is always in jeopardy.

Rayse wanted to be the full spectrum of Passion.

Taravagian is cold and calculating but also sees himself as a savior. His actions as a shard already foreshadow his downfall I think.

Which I think in the context of the RPG is interesting as the system grows beyond roshar there is more opportunity to involve the shards and they be that kind of flawed God.

[clever egret]

i dream of an eventual cosmere RTS where you can play as different shards 😍

[fervent reef]

That idiot Rayse

[clever egret]

true that is the only person the power has canonically had beef with

[quaint cliff]

If Aethers could hear you, they would be really mad right now.

[stray sand]

Re: Hemalurgy discussion, I'm curious what this means for the playability of Dakhor monks

It's looking like it probably won't happen

[umbral heath]

I think they mentioned the possibility of playing as Fused, which would be interesting because their powers are just as bad as Hemalurgy or Dakhor none magic.

[tight pier]

~~You can be a fused but can't occupy a body ~~

[wooden narwhal]

I think they will be but the best powers will likely not be achievable by PCs just because you won't be able to find randos to sacrifice mid battle.

I think they'd be more like a blood hunter with magical buffs through the body modification.

[quaint cliff]

I guess imma have to make my own evil party mechanics, with blackjack and hookers. 😔

Was only Truthwatchers given enlightened mechanics?

[stray sand]

Yes

I think Brandon doesn't want to be written into a corner with the other 9 (Voidbinding?) powers

I was surprised that Enlightened Truthwatchers don't get special Ideals though

[clever egret]

they tell you to go into a gambling den but they dont give us the mechanics to gamble 😔

[fervent reef]

Oh that's the True Desolation?

[clever egret]

i forget, do we know any of renarin or rlains ideals?

[stray sand]

no

[clever egret]

hmmm.... considering theyre both gay... maybe an ideal could be "i will come out of the closet"? 🤔

[quaint cliff]

They don't know us rpers at all 😭

[umbral heath]

Stonewalkers ||We see Ylt’s third ideal in the campaign and it’s just the normal third ideal.||

[quaint cliff]

The only ones that I found that he actually really gave us were the edgedancers and the Stonewardens.

[clever egret]

normal truthwatcher third ideal

The Third Ideal
“I will reveal truth to all who seek it."
enlightened truthwatcher third ideal
The Third Ideal
“I will reveal my truth to all who seek it. I'm gay"

[tight pier]

As in through wobs?

We have the ideals for all the orders up through 4th now

[clever egret]

ur back to stonewardens already

[stray sand]

I actually kinda expected Truthwatchers to be like Lightweavers in their Ideals, just with other peoples' truths

[quaint cliff]

I mean that we mostly haven't gotten, so many were just boring "Well it depends on the radiant/spren" 🙄

[tight pier]

We have all the ones through the 4th ideal now

[stray sand]

Maybe that doesn't make sense though because it doesn't involve personal growth

[umbral heath]

They kinda are, each ideal requires you to find a more significant truth.

[quaint cliff]

I am gonna convince yall that is better and the community will all think that it is actually Stonewardens and even then we will gaslight Sanderson that it is correct and he'll change it. 🙂

[clever egret]

expanse tv/books ||holden would speedrun truthwatcher||

[umbral heath]

It might’ve been Stonewarden in Prime, but I could be misremembering.

[clever egret]

i respect this and wish you luck 🫡

[tight pier]

||dont the ideals require that you recognize the costs and effects of sharing the truth?||

[clever egret]

nope!

[quaint cliff]

I will say, Elsecaller is easily the most evil order though.

[umbral heath]

Evil how?

[clever egret]

oh i guess the 4th one does

Regardless of the specific words, this oath
requires you to acknowledge the likely consequences of
sharing well-kept secrets and knowledge forbidden by
the powerful, and then to share those truths despite the
risks—no matter who might try to ignore or silence you,
and no matter what price you might pay
wait no it straight up says to share the truth anyway

[quaint cliff]

Like the rest of them is somewhat being restrictive or not doing bad things/doing good things, while Elsecaller is about doing what you want to be and getting it.

[tight pier]

You misunderstood what I said. I wasnt saying that any ideal makes you not share the truth

[stray sand]

The real question is, is Spider-Man a fourth-ideal Dustbringer

[tight pier]

I thought the willshaper ideals were very well designed. Specifically the one that funcfionally requires you to recognize that freeing individual people is not enough

[weary sky]

I didn't notice the Roshar/Stormlight vs Scadrial/Mistborn write up on the demiplane page before https://app.demiplane.com/nexus/cosmererpg/stormlight-and-mistborn-settings

[tight pier]

Lends itself quite well to an interesting character arc

[quaint cliff]

Burn the system down!

[tight pier]

Willshaper ideals: read theory

[umbral heath]

It’s been fun thinking about what Venli’s next ideals could be. I might end up writing a post for that on the forums.

[quaint cliff]

A rare forum post?

[tight pier]

Scadrial offers players a gritty, resource-driven gameplay experience where you'll need to make the most of your limited powers to topple empires.
But not too gritty pwease, we don't want people to be hurt with spikes :^(

[umbral heath]

I think the Truthwatchers are my least favorite though. The ideals don’t feel all that interesting. Might be a personal thing though.

[tight pier]

I'd be interested in reading that when/if you get around to it

[quaint cliff]

I'll be honest, it would be a lot easier for me in introduce to new people Scadrial than Roshar.

[tight pier]

On a serious note this is interesting, the social aspect they hunt at for Era 2 stuff could be neat

[clever egret]

ethically gritty

[umbral heath]

Scadrial is definitely an easier world to pitch than Roshar.

[quaint cliff]

Having to introduce Roshar, the kind of weirdness of radiants and how to get characters to become radiants, all the different kinds of people in Roshar.... It is a mess.

[weary sky]

Just capturing the feel of normal Spren at all...

[hollow sphinx]

They feel oddly... external

[stray sand]

On the other hand, Roshar is more ideal for epic fantasy adventures than Scadrial in either era is

[hollow sphinx]

I don't get a sense from them of what the personal arc is supposed to be the way I do the other orders

[umbral heath]

I really think it’s meant to be like an inverse Lightweaver, you find more and more significant truths to share. But that doesn’t have the same personal intrigue the other oaths do.

I do wonder how the greater community will feel about that, since so many identify with that order.

[midnight bramble]

I like the Truthwatcher oaths...but also I'm a big detective/mystery fan xD

There's a lot of danger and reevaluation of personal ethics that comes with uncovering truth

[umbral heath]

That’s fair, I’m sure they’d be more interesting attached to a story/character.

[midnight bramble]

It makes you ask yourself what kind of person are you, what do you really care about, what has value?

[stray sand]

I felt like the Dustbringer oaths read more along the lines of the Sith code where you accept it all at once rather than each oath progressing the last

[tight pier]

Seems it is to disabuse truthwatchers of the notion that there are no negative consequences for their actions, while still recognizing that the consequences can be worth it

It does certainly run counter to the popular depiction of turthwatchers in the past as being unwilling to talk

[stray sand]

Well, Truthwatchers aren't expected to share truths until their third ideal

[clever egret]

true if they dont care for the sword then they never gotta progress

[pastel bison]

I think this is the part that I struggle with the most, with regards to their oaths

the first two seem fine

the fourth is weird though

"think about the consequences of revealing truth, but then do it in a way where it can't be denied anyway"

it's like, you're supposed to think about the impact of revealing truth

but then because you're forced to do it anyway, it's like... why

the windrunner fourth makes sense to me because it's not about protecting

[pastel bison]

something similar holds true for edgedancers too

dustbringers - edgedancers - truthwatchers are very similar

arguably so are skybreakers

[hollow sphinx]

The framing of the Windrunner Fourth in the handbook is about accepting failure for the express purpose of being able to protect more in the future

One of their suggested steps for it:

• Identify what steps you could’ve taken (if any) to prevent your failures, then consider how that knowledge can be applied in the future. Begin training yourself or seeking the help you need to bridge those gaps.

[pastel bison]

right, there is that element, but it's not like you succeed at it in a moment of protection, right? the guidance fits what we see with Kaladin, but the oath is about acceptance of limitation

[wanton void]

I cannot decide if there is a pun in that

I think there is

[pastel bison]

whereas the truthwatcher one is like, "think about the consequences real hard, but then reveal the truth in an undeniable way"

which like, isn't just saying, "understand that revealing truth can have consequences"

it feels like its saying, "screw the consequences, reveal truth"

which is opposite in intent to the Windrunner fourth

[hollow sphinx]

That's fair, I don't know if I'd agree with opposite but I can understand that maybe it feels more like a Third?

[pastel bison]

where the consequences are important - you're not supposed to stop protecting, but you are supposed to address the consequences of trying to

like a lot of the fourth oaths are like, "so... take a step back, consider the consequences of the life you've chosen, and address those"

[hollow sphinx]

The connection I see is that the Windrunner Fourth as presented here is "accept that you might fail, but it's still important to keep trying to protect" while the Truthwatcher Fourth as presented here is "accept that sharing knowledge doesn't automatically fix the issue, but it's still important to keep trying to spread it"

[pastel bison]

and the truthwatcher (and arguably the dustbringer ones) are just, "f it, we ball"

[pastel bison]

that's the framing that's making sense to me
like maybe you tried to publish your truth at the third and then realized that those in power hid it or countered its benefits in some way, so understand that this can happen and this time, make that impossible

[hollow sphinx]

It feels similar to why the Edgedancer Fourth also fits, for me

[pastel bison]

I'm not seeing the connection, help?

[hollow sphinx]

That step of "okay, maybe this naive view hasn't solved everything, but that doesn't mean I should give up on the core intent, I need to find out how to evolve it"
It's a progression, one might say

[dark escarp]

(side note but I love the advice in the Edgedancer Ideals have you take notes on specific incidents and bring them back for future Ideals. Great storytelling priming there)

[pastel bison]

so, I get that the Windrunners fourth isn't saying, "okay sometimes maybe I shouldn't protect"

[hollow sphinx]

Yeah idk I'm confused by the Dustbringer oaths lmao

[pastel bison]

but rather saying that, "okay, you'll fail now and then, but figure it out and keep going"

and to a certain extent that's what the truthwatcher one is saying too?

but their third kind of gets in the way

[hollow sphinx]

I'm thinking like... you do some digging, you discover a high-ranking politician is corrupt, you collect the evidence and bring it to a journalist and swear your Third... and then the government shutters the newspaper

[pastel bison]

yeah, that's what I was getting at, here

[hollow sphinx]

So you ask yourself, you've totally failed, you've hurt people's livelihoods, is it really worth it?

[pastel bison]

but the third kind of already is like, "no no, find the ones who will most benefit from this truth and make sure they have access to it"

like, it's not just, "publish your works" its "publish your works and then ensure your written works are available to those who need them"

and maybe the fourth is an extension of this?

but it feels... hmm

[hollow sphinx]

The Fourth requires you to go "maybe this isn't as easy as I thought, and I will need to be prepared to take losses as consequence, but I need to put myself back together and continue hammering this home"

Which definitely does feel a little less distinct from the Third in a vacuum

[pastel bison]

(ngl, ever since I've read the truthwatcher truths I'm like... "that Ardent in Kholinar really got done dirty")

[hollow sphinx]

But I can see character arcs that could contextualize it

It feels to me like there's a loose idea here but it's kind of a vague head thought since that book hasn't been written yet, so they had a hard time putting it super specifically in words

[dark escarp]

I generally view the Fourth Ideals as something along the lines of "I accept that the exception doesn't disprove the rule" kind of thing. Just because bad things happen sometimes in spite of you following your earlier Ideals doesn't mean your Ideals don't apply or are meaningless. You need to accept that there are flaws and that knowing there are flaws and failures involved and still pursuing your Ideals is valuable.

[pastel bison]

yeah the truthwatcher one just feels backwards, in the way its framed

[dark escarp]

I agree it's hard to wrap your head around some of them though

[pastel bison]

oh you know I found a framing that works for me, but also is a little more restricting

the second and third oaths are relatively risk-free

the fourth basically becomes, "I will not let my fear get in the way of me seeking and speaking true"

adapt as needed

[dark escarp]

Yeah I get that. I think the message there is something along the lines of, Truth has an intrinsic value in and of itself, and the fact that it can hurt people sometimes doesn't mean that you should stop sharing it (in accordance with your earlier Ideals). 'Sharing truth in a way it is nearly impossible to keep secret again' is kind of along those lines; you are letting go of your own reservations and boundaries you are putting on the truth, consciously or no, and acknowledging that there is value to truth being shared absolutely, unconditionally, and freely

[pastel bison]

yeah, okay, I see that now

it is different from the third like that

it has a charge attached to it that the third doesn't

in fact, you might discover the charge that is attached to it in the process of fulfilling the second and the third, and so you might finally get to a point where you need to address it at the fourth, and that makes it fit with the other fourths

[dark escarp]

Yeah or even like, you are sharing it on your own terms, because you think there is good to come from it. The Third is starting to move away from "I value truth" to "Everyone should value truth", and the Fourth is something like "Truth is valuable, regardless of whether I or anyone else choose to value it"

And you can kind of tie that back to Kaladin right? In the Third he finally accepted he needed to protect everybody, but it was still a little bit about him right? He was too attached to the agenda and his sense of self was getting tied up with the Ideal of protection. His Fourth was about accepting that even if he felt terrible about it, losing people didn't devalue his act of protecting people. Journey Before Destination and all that haha

[pastel bison]

that's an interesting framing, because I've been thinking about them the exact opposite way

but you're right, that absolutely works

in my head, I was thinking like, "the second is about a goal, the third is about expanding that goal to others, and the fourth is about seeing how it applies to you"

[dark escarp]

In my head it's kind of like:

Second is about you valuing and applying the Ideal
Third is about taking yourself and your biases out of the equation and letting everyone benefit equally from your application of the Ideal
Fourth is almost like recognizing that the Ideal you've sworn yourself is an 'Ideal', that it is inherently not achievable or 'finish-able', and that failure and pain will come as a result of striving for it. But that doesn't mean that striving for it doesn't have value; just the opposite. It is about the Journey, not the Destination.

~

Damn you Sando, I haven't gotten this philosophical in ages

[pastel bison]

yeap, hard agree with all those

[stray sand]

And the fifth is ??????

[dark escarp]

Lol no clue, I need more than one data point

[tight pier]

well this dissonance has existed for a while, Brandon seems to like the characterization of Truthwatchers as "investigative journalists" but within the books he's said that the Truthwatchers were known as the order who didn't talk about anything

[pastel bison]

achievement, and future goals

[stray sand]

Two data points

but they don't form a line

[dark escarp]

Oh true huh

Lemme think on it

[stray sand]

therefore, the fifth ideal is ?????

[pastel bison]

makes me think that in the gem archive, the one truthwatcher that was like, "I foresaw this but I'm scared to say it" was in the same place as that windrunner who was like, "but aren't we supposed to protect though?"

[pastel bison]

my general understanding of it is, "well, now what?"

[umbral heath]

Is the fem archive rule 34 Radiants? /j

[pastel bison]

also, kudos to whoever was like, "maybe the edgedancer fourth is about speaking"

I distinctly remember someone guessing that

[umbral heath]

So do I, it’s a good one.

[dark escarp]

I guess, continuing on the theme that each Ideal is a partial correction/building on of the previous one, the Fifth Ideal could be about realizing that, if I accept the that there is an Ideal that is worth striving for objectively and without bias, and I accept that my striving towards it has furthered this Ideal, then I need to accept that I am an important part of that Ideal now. The Fourth frames the Ideal as an abstract concept with value extrinsic to yourself, but the Fifth grounds it once again by saying even in swearing the Fourth, I need to accept that I am an important part of seeing that Ideal strived towards. If all my previous Ideals were about how great this value is (be it truth, protection, the law, what have you), then I have to acknowledge that my growth in understanding all of those pieces means I can contribute meaningfully to that Ideal (and indeed already have been).

And so my self-care matters, my opinion matters, my self matters in the pursuit of the ultimate Ideal

[midnight bramble]

I, disagree
It's "You must be prepared for the consequences"

[dark escarp]

What I love about how the books present it though is that it isn't a straight line. Kaladin struggled pretty mightily with his Third and of course his Fourth Ideals, but his Fifth came naturally from the growth he attained there. Szeth grew enormously from his Second and Third, but his Fourth wasn't as meaningful, and his Fifth was defining to him. Lift came to each fairly naturally (at least comparatively).

Every person's experiences means they will interact with the different demands of the different Ideals uniquely. Yay, storytelling!

[pastel bison]

yeah, and then reveal the truth anyway, in ways where it absolutely cannot be ignored

[flat spoke]

Imo you could interpret the Truthwatcher Ideals as:

2. Seek the truth
3. reveal the truth
4. defend the truth

[pastel bison]

i like that too

[flat spoke]

While revealing the truth is important, if you don't back it up, or protect those who spread it from the consequences of sharing it, then you could be doing more harm than good, not just to the people, but to the truth that you are revealing

[flat spoke]

(And that leaves room for 5: understand the truth)

[pastel bison]

no no it's gotta be

handle the truth

(reference aside, I think it'll be more like "become the truth" kinda)

[stray sand]

fifth ideal: acknowledge your own truth and become a Lightweaver

[umbral heath]

I ended up writing it. https://www.17thshard.com/forums/topic/200619-speculating-on-venlis-next-ideals-based-on-the-rpg/

[tight pier]

Really like the interpretations here

[pastel bison]

I like
these are cool!

[mortal forge]

Wait isnt this math wrong?

Should be 16-20 if it’s 2 each, right?

[clever egret]

yes ur right

[mortal forge]

Okay cool

[mortal forge]

Can we just take a moment to acknowledge how good this art is?

[primal wyvern]

hey yall :D

my dad got all the backer rewards for the RPG... without knowing what it is

is it like dnd?

im starting printing the minis but we don't actually know what we are in for! XD

[umbral heath]

Yeah, it’s a ttrpg like D&D.

[quaint cliff]

Some of it made me

[weary sky]

Chat I'm trying to wrap my head around the Edgedancer's ideals. The example provided based on Lift's own ideals kind of corner the very basic/core of the idea and I feel like any sort of other wording of the ideal sworn feels derivative of that one. Does anyone have and ideas/examples of their own?

[quaint cliff]

I mean, arguably Kal with Windrunner oaths are basically like that as well.

[weary sky]

Yeah, though Brandon did a good job of varying it with the other examples we get from the other Windrunners

Teft for example

[quaint cliff]

It is simply the thing that we haven't got enough time to show all orders thing, but I can create a character idea that could fit Edgedancer and their ideals.

[weary sky]

Yeah, I have some rough ideas for it but I am dissatisfied with it as it feels super derivative of Lifts just with a different... motif/words

2nd - I will remember those who have been cast into shadow.
3rd - I will listen to the cries that echo unheard in the dark.
4th - I will bring those in darkness into the light.

[umbral heath]

I mean you can always just use the ideals as they're written in the book.

[pastel bison]

my mnemonic for them atm is basically, "see, hear, speak"

maybe that helps?

[weary sky]

Yeah, I landed on that as well, and was basically just scouring WordHippo for synonyms for like the last hour LMAO

I originally landed on "I will bear witness to those dragged into the shadows." for the second. Specifically targetting those that were f-ed over by the system, not just the ones that fall through the cracks

[mortal forge]

Anyone else finding that just reading the handbook is giving them ideas for characters?

Like going chapter 2, the mention of purposes and obstacles had me thinking about a merchant who has dedicated himself to becoming a warrior so he can get revenge on the regal who killed his chull. His obstacle being that he can’t stand violence and is known to often faint at the sight of blood.

[umbral heath]

I already have a ton of ideas for Stormlight OCs, it's basically my preferred type of fan creation.

[mortal forge]

Really excited to jump into this system as someone with no TTRPG experience other than a bridge nine one-shot during the campaign

[quaint cliff]

Mr. Edge.

Lores! Some time in Mr. Edge's life he got into a fight... Or something? Whatever it was it caused him to get amnesia.

Ideals

1. Same for everyone
2. "I will try to remember those who I have forgotten(including myself)." here he tries to remember those who was in his past life.
3. "I will try to learn about who I was in my past life." Here he stops ignoring who he used to be.
4. "I will try to be the person that I was to people in my past life." Here Mr. Edge tries to fill the hole that he left in his past life.
5. "I don't need to be the person in my past life anymore but that doesn't mean that I have to ignore who I was." mostly a guess on my part on this one, but I see it.

[mortal forge]

Lol yeah I do also have another stormlight character and a mistborn character that came to mind during the campaign

[wild violet]

Uh question for people about the Gray Remnat, what exactly is it? Like it feels underexplained and while I understand some things about it, I want to see if I can glean any info from others.

[weary sky]

This is probably better asked in #1391792347020267643

[umbral heath]

This should probably go in the Stonewalkers forum.
https://discord.com/channels/304777819936784385/1391792347020267643

[pastel bison]

would these work?
2. "I will watch for those who seem to go unseen"/"I will keep watch for the invisible"
3. "I will seek to listen to the voices of the quiet"
4. "I will find ears for those who seem to find none"

[dark escarp]

(And maybe spoiler that here)

[wild violet]

I think this is a genuinely unique and fun interpretation of the order and their oaths, with how they can clearly vary per person and keeps to the core ideals I think this works!

[pastel bison]

not really tied to a specific concept for any edgedancer, just a rewording of the default ideals

[wild violet]

Sos did not know there was a stonewalkers

[weary sky]

I like this, straightforward and simple.

[pastel bison]

I think that is generally the way to go for oaths, or at least the aesthetic I prefer for them

I don't think there's that much room to play with the second, unless you're going for an edgedancer who is as much of an outlier as lopen is among the windrunners

the third and fourth you can really customize though

[weary sky]

See, normally, I would too. But the character I have am writing(Nightcrawler from the X-Men) tends to be... dramatic with his words(I'm writing a fanfic and using the official adventures and RPG as a structure to follow)

[pastel bison]

ahh, gotcha

[weary sky]

but I also am going to be GMing this game in the future so knowing what I can provide to players helps as well

[pastel bison]

an interesting take on the edgedancer ideals might be to take the Garith/windrunner route

with Lift, this isn't really an element that comes into play until Nale, because she just gels so well with all the weirdos from the get-go

[midnight bramble]

(So good it's in the handbook)

[quaint cliff]

It is making the oaths more personal? That is kind of the problem with Kala's/Lift's oaths, they are like John/Jane Stormlight of their order, having the most generic oaths to fit their order. But like Huio(I think it was him?) made the oaths a lot more personal.

There is no reason that they can't be very personal. Here's another one.

Ms. Dancer
She used to live in the Rift then it was destroyed:
2. While my city was destroyed, the people will live on with me.
3. I will go to the city to figure out what happened.
4. I will seek vengeance on the Blackthorn for destroying my city.
5. I will rebuild my city?

[pastel bison]

but, ya know, maybe a different edgedancer would be like, playing an edgedancer for whom empathy is an active and difficult choice

[midnight bramble]

With Windrunners they start getting personalized around 3rd, but the 3rd fits a strict theme

[weary sky]

Re 4th: Good news!

[quaint cliff]

Hear, feel, think...

[weary sky]

insert 129105123 cutscenes and crystals

[pastel bison]

so maybe, like... for example, a nobleman who feels scorn or disgust towards a beggar, or like with Kaladin, have a darkeyes having to listen to lighteyes despite their carried trauma of being wronged by lighteyes

[quaint cliff]

I wasn't sure if anyone was gonna get that

[weary sky]

Ooooh.

[pastel bison]

so the ideals kind of adapt to that and add a, "I will listen to those who have been ignored, even if they scare me" element

[quaint cliff]

Brandon did say Wayne could have been an Edgedancer.

[weary sky]

My original idea for Nightcrawler being Edgedancer was pairing him off with Venli and trying to help the Listeners out feeling a kinship with them and parallels with mutants

[dark escarp]

Yeah this is a great example. The Third Ideal especially is riple for personalization, since it's all about taking yourself out of the equation

[quaint cliff]

The one thing that I like about the oaths, is that they can easily just be made goals.

[pastel bison]

or even, another variant of this is Elend - someone who had ideals that make them want to help those who need it, but practically zero real world experience in actually doing so

[dark escarp]

I mean even Lift's intention behind her Third was something more along the lines of "I will listen to those who have been ignored, even if they're serial-killing demigods who try to kill me and my friends"

[quaint cliff]

Like you can easily take the oaths and just make them questions for you to answer:
2. Who is being ignored?
3. Who are you listening to?
4. What you doing about it?

[dark escarp]

And indeed, in the system they are Goals 😜

[quaint cliff]

And my Burning Wheel wired brain loves that.

Speaking of Ideals... I do find it funny, I consider Windrunners and Stonewardens very similar oath wise, and the same for... Oddly Skybreakers/Edgedancers.

Wind/Stone are about protecting people, then on the 4th protecting yourself.

Sky/Edge is about following/listening to something then the 4th is about solving some issue.

[solid breach]

But they need consent ?

[solid breach]

TLM || oh, it is okay when you loot it off the people you kill but making spikes yourself is bad ||

https://tenor.com/view/the-office-lets-get-ethical-exercise-gif-12069871

[tidal knot]

Yeah it's designed to make sense to dnd players. The big difference is it has the plot dice, different mechanics for social encounters (like convincing a guard to let you in somewhere) and instead of dnd classes, it has skill trees

[solid breach]

So lore wise

What the hell is a destructive one unique ability about

[pastel bison]

Division

[solid breach]

Alteration unique ability seems to be internal soulcasting

[prisma wharf]

For them it seems it doesnt really take as much investiture for division, so they're just able to destroy everything as they go around

[solid breach]

I guess

[tidal knot]

Maybe they can just explode themselves?

[solid breach]

Just wish

More of them was as unique as husker, focused, magnified and deep one

[tidal knot]

To be honest, we haven't seen them on-page yet except for a drawing

There's a good chance we'll find out what they do once they show up

Or hell, brando might come up with a cooler idea

[prisma wharf]

I mean, I'm personally fine with them as is. There abilities aren't unique, but their personality makes them interesting. I can imagine the fused are hesitant to deploy them with how much collateral damage they'd cause for example

[umbral heath]

Focused one too, which is 5 out of 9, so not too bad.

[pastel bison]

ultimately they have the same surges as the radiants

not all of them can have interesting applications

I find it more interesting like this, because it kind of shows a little bit of personality from Odium, imo

[solid breach]

….

blink blink

[solid breach]

The self obsession ?

[pastel bison]

no just, competition between him and Honor, right

Honor is like, "take these surges, they work like these"

and then Odium is like, "no no, I'm making my creatures, and I'm going to build them like this, and so I can think of these applications for xyz surges"

it's like they're engineering weapons, right? touch the same principles but have their own quirks based on their own personalities and process

[stray sand]

Consent can be coerced

[clever egret]

the breath needs to be willingly given. thats all. theres no morality tied to it. if you get told by someone "give me your breath or i am going to put you in immense pain without killing you until you give me your breath", would you give that person your breath right away? if not, would you give them it after a week of torture? a month? a year?

this is a plot point in two books, where someone is getting tortured to pressure them to give up their breath, so its not something thats unknown as a possibility

[prime cloak]

Re previous conversation about no rules for crafting hemalergic spikes: I do wonder if the statement of the ethics being the reason is really just an excuse and the real reason is much more mundane? Like Hemalurgy has the potential to be game breakingly powerful, but making it so you can only use Hemalurgy if you find spikes puts the balance of giving items as rewards into the GMs hands. Like from a running the game perspective, if my players could craft spikes, that puts a lot of extra pressure on me to pay attention to what sort of powers I throw at them that they could potentially steal, and that just makes building encounters a lot more difficult. Much easier if I can plan an encounter and under my control have a spike that the players can loot.

The ethics argument then could be a way of saying if in the future there was a way for spikes to be made without killing a person, then the GM can maybe have an easier time of knowing when to throw out situations you can craft spikes in?

That's pure assumption of course, but my main point is having spikes be an item only I think is more helpful from a GM perspective even if no crafting rules is disappointing from a player perspective

[clever egret]

i dont get why they couldnt have just said that. thats literally what they did wrt to bondsmiths

[prime cloak]

Hmm, good point. Maybe it's just a bit of game design philosophy then. To the designers they are building a heroic fantasy game and thus weren't interested in making Hemalurgy crafting rules?

[pastel bison]

it is coming across as too preachy

[prime cloak]

That's a fair critique

[clever egret]

maybe theyve only applied that philosophy here, maybe its been applied to other stuff in mistborn rpg, maybe itll be applied to future stuff

[prime cloak]

I don't personally mind the lack of crafting rules for the reasons I mentioned above, but I can agree with the weird feeling of how they framed their reasoning and worry over how it will apply in the future

[vital bolt]

The thing is, it also prevents the GM from creating canonically accurate spikes for the NPCs even if the PCs never get hold of them. It goes beyond preaching about what the PCs can do (which it does very well on the surface) and into also saying "We think that even the person running the game should avoid this magic system".

[prime cloak]

I'm not sure I understand your argument?

[wooden narwhal]

I feel like there might be a bit of "this is highly relevant in era 3 so we can't codify things properly at this time"

[pastel bison]

maybe, but then there's the whole, "so then we'll give the more ethical version"

[prime cloak]

Why would the GM need to craft spikes if they just have the stats for them as an item? Throw an enemy at the players and have that spike be something they can loot

[wooden narwhal]

The other thing I've considered is there is an issue that it might push the book content to a higher age range. There is no real system for this for books but certain content might make it hard to get in more general bookstores and things.

It's silly and contradictory, given what players do, but I can see a worry that folks would be extra outraged with the kind of details that would add.

Currently they can sort of pretend RPG players don't have a murderhobo problem. This would sort of codify that into a "do murder get strong" thing.

[tidal knot]

I absolutely LOVE their personalities. They're going for style. Aura farming, if you'll permit me showing my age

[delicate moth]

I've been keeping an eye on the discussion, and I can't say I understand what practical purpose Hemalurgy rules would serve, outside of niche "well, I want to throw a maybe-Destiny enemy at my players, but I don't know what that does." Which I think lives in the same space as 5th Ideal Radiants, or the Unmade - Brandon is not ready to show it in the books, so the RPG sure isn't going to be the place for it

[clever egret]

again, to clarify, the discontent isnt about the mechanics being unbalanced or hidden or easy to homebrew or spoilery. they absolutely could have explained why they werent doing that for any of those reasons, and that would have been satisfactory. they did that for bondsmithing and i dont think anyone is upset or critical of that, it makes sense. they didnt choose to make that reasoning. they chose the reasoning that it doesnt align to their morals. these are the words they chose #1391790178435207290 message and if they meant what they said, that carries implications. there are other justifications for not choosing hemalurgy, but they didnt use those justifications

[tidal knot]

Agreed.

[tidal knot]

The books aren't out yet though? They have barely done any press content

I'm sure they'll address is later in the development process

[clever egret]

sure it sounds absolutely reasonable to not include hemalurgy for other reasons, thats why they are reasonable, because they arent what they said

[hollow sphinx]

I mean the quote in discussion is them addressing it

[quaint cliff]

Tbh playing a squire for a Bondsmith sounds fun.

[delicate moth]

I don't think the stated justification - practicing Hemalurgy, as we know it, is objectively evil - is unreasonable

[wooden narwhal]

Yeah but reading between the lines (perhaps too deeply) is "we understand there will be better options for this and deeper explanations in era 3 but obviously can't discuss that. These will be better both in alignment with the TTRPG's cooperative goals and with our Brand."

[clever egret]

sure? should things that are decided to be objectively evil not be included in rpg's?

[hollow sphinx]

You're already allowed and even required to kill people

[wooden narwhal]

The books are very careful of directing players towards a cooperative experience where everyone at the table is comfortable. I can see why they would feel Era 1 hemalurgy would cause more problems at the table than it would improve gameplay options.

[delicate moth]

When it comes to how your character functions? Sure, yeah, I think that's a fair line to draw

[clever egret]

again, thats not their reasoning. they could have said it would cause safety issues and uncomfortablenesss at tables. but they didnt say that

[prime cloak]

My point in bringing up the topic again was just to point out that for me, there were reasonable points in not having those rules, not I that the reasoning given was necessary a good one.

[clever egret]

The kind of stories the Cosmere RPG is designed to best support promote introspection and character growth. Some characters may hide their misdeeds, justify bad behavior, or pursue pernicious goals out of desperation or misplaced loyalty. However, it’s not a game where you’re incentivized to murder innocent people for loot and wash your hands of it.

[quaint cliff]

I think hemalurgy should be like...mechanics given to the gm for them to use, but if the gm is okay with the players using it, then it is fine.

[prime cloak]

I think they made the right call, even if their explanation for it feels weird

[delicate moth]

Why are you so hung up on what they say in this magazine? Their reasoning can be complex enough to fill out an essay, they don't need to list every single reason

[clever egret]

i 100% agree with you, i do think there are reasonable points, people have made a bunch of reasonable points

[wooden narwhal]

The way I read that statement is it's about player experience and the ethics are a part of that because giving people the option is an ethics decision too.

[quaint cliff]

Idk, atleast maybe I can make some homebrew for it for people to use. I wonder how their licensing stuff works.

[clever egret]

i mean, people here have provided pretty reasonable explanations in a small amount of words. i dont get why it should be inferred they also think that when they didnt say that? ive not really seen anyone justify it in the same way they did, presumably because people dont find it a reasonable argument to say it the way they did, they need to say it another way. im gonna read what they say as what they intended to say, because thats what they chose to say

like if every time people have to justify the decision by saying things they didnt say, it just raises the question of why are you not justifying it the same way they did? why is their justification not adequate enough?

[delicate moth]

"we don't want our game to be about murderhoboing" is not good enough?

[hollow sphinx]

We're focusing on the only reason they've given for the decision because they devoted a bunch of words to describing it as the only reason for the decision

[clever egret]

why include combat at all?

[delicate moth]

combat doesn't have to be lethal or evil

[tight pier]

I would find it weird if they go through with the playable Fused characters but don't include making spikes

[delicate moth]

the books are full of combat

the books are not full of heroes choosing to murder innocents for power

[clever egret]

is vins use of her own hemalurgy evil? spook gets spiked, but helps people, is that evil? marsh got spiked and did evil things, but also saved the day

[tight pier]

And there are other mechanical things that are morally icky that, afaik, will be present like emotional allomancy

[vital bolt]

Wax and Wayne also both have Hemalurgy.

[delicate moth]

Neither Vin nor Spook performs Hemalurgy. Both of their cases are akin to them being given spikes are rewards or backstory

[tight pier]

Just to clarify, having spikes and giving yourself spikes are mechanically supported

[quaint cliff]

But the books do have people murdering innocents for power. Some times I do choose to play the bad guy.

[tidal knot]

Hemalurgy isn't the power you get from the spikes, it's making the spikes and also the chimera things

[tight pier]

The thing that isnt supported is creating spikes by killing people

[hollow sphinx]

Vin murders three hundred people during a ceasefire

[tidal knot]

Spikes are made by torturing people to death in pretty much every instance except for when Ruin deliberately intervenes with spooks one

[hollow sphinx]

Kaladin builds shields from the dead bones of victims of an ethnic cleansing

[clever egret]

see like this what problems arise when you bring this morality into this. why cant players and gm's let their own morality dictate their play with the tools theyre provided?

[hollow sphinx]

Dalinar burns a city to the ground

[quaint cliff]

I do not like it when people put their own morals in something that I am buying.

[clever egret]

brandon sold books with mass murder in them, is he incentivising it?

[hollow sphinx]

The books are full of protagonists who at some point or another take actions ranging from grey to outright evil

[tidal knot]

I'm just saying there are many reasons why the average player isn't gonna use hemalurgy

[clever egret]

the stormlight rpg describes how i can use a sword to cut someones spirit, permanently maiming them

sure, the average player doesnt have to make full use of everything in an rpg book

thatd be pretty overwhelming