Orichalcum Chefs Assemble

[Isator Levi]

a charm solely dedicated to cooking seems too overspecialized for a Solar charm.

I'd question whether Exalted of any kind have any sort of universal standard for how applicable their Charms are.

How often would it really be of use in actual play

There are things I'd think could and should happen in play that don't really have weighty mechanical or story consequence to them, but that the players want to do, and want to actually engage with using the system to do, so it's worth having Charms to do them.

I'd think that Charms to help with cooking would be on a similar level to Charms to help with constructing any building where its form does not directly relate to its function.

and not be considered a speedbump charm?

I'm trying to imagine how a Charm tree would branch off into cookery in a manner where deeper Charms are desirable but entry Charms are not, but I'm just not seeing it.

Unless this is means speedbump in terms of later Charms in a branch rendering earlier purchases redundant, but even then I'd say you deal with that they way one always does (namely by not making later Charms just the same with better effects).

[Gayo]

I would buy charms that let me be a genius chef, if -- and this is a big if -- they were designed with the understanding that I was likely to be in a more-or-less ordinary Exalted game. In other words, they would need to be charms that answer the question "what does being a genius chef bring to a heroic adventure game?" in a way that was exciting but didn't feel overly forced or disruptive.

I think that the less likely a charm's focus is to come up in a normal game, the more important that kind of framing is. "The adventurer who is also a genius chef" is a cool gimmick and I think it'd be fun and unusual, but I don't really want to try to shoehorn the default cheffing lifestyle into an Exalted game, because it's not interesting for anyone else and involves a lot of things that are basically just "stay in one place all the time and make extended rolls all day".

I would tend to put it in Craft, personally. A chef is a cross between an engineer, a chemist, and an artist, and Craft seems like the best location for the confluence of those skills.

[Talam]

*Seriously, you need to read Shokugeki no Soma.

Already do! I have no clue if their meal ideas would actually work out, but it's certainly entertaining.

[Chejop Kejak]

In honestly, I probably would not. I have played master Wuxia chefs before, but in Exalted (especially as a Solar), I would go for something with broader societal implications.

That said, I would ABSOLUTELY support having such Charms in the book - they tend to be a blast to read, and I love to see more support for the archetype they promote. I would certainly play with or run a game for an Orichalcum Chef.

(As for the tree, Craft seems obvious, but Craft tends to get huge trees anyway. What about Survival?)

[Gayo]

No. I wouldn't mind it if it were a charm that boosted Craft skills, including cooking, but I would be somewhat annoyed at limited space in the book being dedicated to such a very narrow charm.

Note that "would you want such charms to appear in the book" is actually not at all the question he's asking, though.

[Bryan Chavez]

I'm not sure about the 'genius chef' part. Now, if there were charms that let someone clean a house like a whirlwind. Ones that let you keep a ledger, manage a budget. Ones that let you tend the hearth and take care of the clan. And yes, ones that let you provide a filling and serene meal for everyone who gathers around the fire. I'd be good with that. If one of the biggest communal activities throughout all of human experience was represented and given the characteristics of excellence, so that someone who fed ten tribes an outrageously good meal and threw a good enough feast that they all agreed then and there to resist the advancing hordes of the Bull of the North, is equal to someone who raises a sword and directly marches their armies at the Bull, that would be great.

I'm not sure if that calls for cooking charms, but I want charms that let me do that all the same. The abilities used, who knows? Performance, Crafts, Socialize, maybe something else. There's the artistry of making a perfect meal, there's the performance of what happens during the meal itself, there's the social aspect of forging communal bonds through a shared experience. There are lots of options here.

[harlokin]

Note that "would you want such charms to appear in the book" is actually not at all the question he's asking, though.

I answered the question being posed, and elaborated on how I felt about it in general. Is that ok?

[Side Item]

That being said, I would be extremely interested in seeing three or four charms that enhance more niche applications of craft, like one cooking charm, one jewelry charm, one blacksmithing charm, one thatching charm, etc., just to show how it can be done and help players come up with custom charms for their weird crafting niche.

I too think something like this would be cool. If there were three or four or whatever "just cooking" charms I might think that was a bit niche-y (or perhaps even as a weird "Hey, cooking is important?" nudge), but as the tinder for homebrew with some other stuff it could be cool. As long as there's a deep/broad selection of charms for stuff people want to do anyways (e.g., Artifacts), showing the entry level cooking charm would function as a way to go "We can't devote a lot of words to expounding it, but you can totally use this as a springboard for cooking abilities just as deep as making daiklaves!"

I also think Craft would be best. Mostly because molecular gastronomy is basically "Twilight cookery".

[JayTee]

I'd question whether Exalted of any kind have any sort of universal standard for how applicable their Charms are. There are things I'd think could and should happen in play that don't really have weighty mechanical or story consequence to them, but that the players want to do, and want to actually engage with using the system to do, so it's worth having Charms to do them. I'd think that Charms to help with cooking would be on a similar level to Charms to help with constructing any building where its form does not directly relate to its function. I'm trying to imagine how a Charm tree would branch off into cookery in a manner where deeper Charms are desirable but entry Charms are not, but I'm just not seeing it. Unless this is means speedbump in terms of later Charms in a branch rendering earlier purchases redundant, but even then I'd say you deal with that they way one always does (namely by not making later Charms just the same with better effects).

I'm on my phone so I can't write up a full reply, but the general gist of my argument consists of "what cool stories can I tell about my solar that mandate cooking charms specifically as opposed to broadly applicable super crafting charms?"

[Yishten]

I would buy charms that let me be a genius chef, if -- and this is a big if -- they were designed with the understanding that I was likely to be in a more-or-less ordinary Exalted game. In other words, they would need to be charms that answer the question "what does being a genius chef bring to a heroic adventure game?" in a way that was exciting but didn't feel overly forced or disruptive. I think that the less likely a charm's focus is to come up in a normal game, the more important that kind of framing is. "The adventurer who is also a genius chef" is a cool gimmick and I think it'd be fun and unusual, but I don't really want to try to shoehorn the default cheffing lifestyle into an Exalted game, because it's not interesting for anyone else and involves a lot of things that are basically just "stay in one place all the time and make extended rolls all day". I would tend to put it in Craft, personally. A chef is a cross between an engineer, a chemist, and an artist, and Craft seems like the best location for the confluence of those skills.

This, basically. As a core concept, to me, it's relatively esoteric. But, yeah, if it were there, Crafts (though if you find a way to fit it in Melee, I may be swayed to a different opinion).

[Odd_Canuck]

Yes I would dearly like such a charm.

I agree with others that Craft is the logical place to put it... in 2e.

However, based on something said a long time ago that's not where I would put it in Ex3. Specifically there was a passing mention of charms that were not tied to an ability for ability based exalts... body charms I think. *assuming* something like that still exists in the system, I would likely make it a more generic charm of famed excellence and make it such a general charm (meaning not tied to any one specific ability, and then as a requirement, have people have a "fame" or face requirement as a background. And then make the effects of that charm keyed off of the extent of that background.

So the same charm with Face 1 (Chef) could grant you some set of bonuses (and difficulties preferably) and Face 5 (Chef) makes you the most famous Chef in Creation and beyond. I can easily picture it drawing challengers the higher your rating, and this would also allow other skills/backgrounds to work. Being the most famous thief, being the most famous swordsman etc.

That way it covers everything from the Ultimate Chef to The Stainless Steel Rat, from the best baker in Nighthammer to someone the god of pastry acknowledges as a superior.

[Saur Ops Specialist]

It's a facet of a character that I would strongly consider, possibly as a method of social influence. As for what Abilities it might fall under, several come to mind above Craft.

Awareness: important because cooking is meant to appeal to the senses.
Socialize: Other people have different tastes, and of course, there's also the question of dining etiquette.
Survival: It's used to gather raw ingredients for everything, and presumably, might also suggest how to make some of the rough edibles a bit more palatable.

Investigation is a bit too concentrated on deduction and mysteries, but you could try and look for clues about the composition of a dish for some purpose. Linguistics is primarily about other forms of communication, but if food is a method of getting a message across... well, it would still feel a bit forced without changing the Ability concept. I want to avoid putting it under Craft because it's already a big enough jump between being an architect that can forge steel and engage in carpentry in order to make a seaworthy sailing ship, as well as weave the sails. The ship's cook is also usually not its designer, though I may just be biased from many, many re-watchings of Nadesico.

[The Dark Wizard]

*looks left*
*looks right*
*looks left*

Really? Nobody else will say it? Alright.

Please consider Orichalcum Chef Style for 3rd edition!

http://www.rpdom.com/threads/orichal...odified.47218/

Nice find digging through our archives.

In-regards to the topic at hand. Yes all of my want. I've been trying to work on convince my ST to let me be a Chef for the last two years. (I just want to be able to make someone like Sanji from One Piece for example )

[Fata-Ku]

For me, no. I'd take charms in melee, craft and performance that can be applied to cooking, without being specifically cooking-related.
I'd use iron-whirlwind to cut vegetables, iron raptor to make my knives fly out and put ingredients into different bowls, craftsmen need no tools to cook salmon with my bare hands, performance to make it all look extremely cool (with e.g. phantom conjuring performance for SFX and music) and maybe thrown to skewer a million shish kebabs in mid-air.

I find it'd be (in this instance) more fun to try to apply non-cooking charms to cooking, rather than have charms that explicitly spell out that they are for cooking.

It's an instance of "are you really using your extreme mastery of martial arts to make breakfast?" over-the-top-ness that I find is very Exalted. (and the answer to said question would be a hilariously oblivious "what else would I use it for?")

[Mockery]

As someone who likes to cook, I think it would be cool. And I would certainly gun for them. I'm not as sure, however, that I would invest deeply in them unless there was function to it.

Then again, in the D&D game where I met my future wife, I did kinda make a Paladin with more ranks in Profession(Cook) than any other skill.

Cooking is as much a sort of Craft as any other, and I never thought for a moment that it belonged anywhere else, or at least that it belonged in another skill more. Given its raw materials, I can see an argument for Survival, but thus far I've gotten the idea that the 3e charmsets point in the vague direction of certain archetypes, and I don't see fine-tuned facility in the preparation of things for the pleasure of others to be something belonging to Solar survival.

I am wondering, however, whether or not there would be generic "craft" charms that would do the job as well. Given the desire to make charms more interesting, flavorful, and unique, I imagine that this might not be the case.