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Da King
2009-01-19, 09:17 PM
Having read the fluff for the game Exalted, I decided that it would be fun to run/play a game with this system.

I took a look at the quick start rules, which seem pretty cool, but I'd like to hear what your personal experiences are with the system.

Avor
2009-01-19, 09:58 PM
I just have it for the feats like nimbus of light and the vow of poverty.

wadledo
2009-01-19, 10:01 PM
I just have it for the feats like nimbus of light and the vow of poverty.

Not Book of exalted Deeds, exalted the game setting from White wolf.
I've never had a chance to play it, but I love the system.
The character creation is a huge breath of fresh air for someone who has played nothing but DnD 3.5, and while the combat confuses me a little, I wait in eager anticipation for the day when I can actualy play it.

emeraldstreak
2009-01-19, 10:32 PM
Fundamentally, the Exalted system is alright. Some of the newer splatbooks however create problems, so does the lacking/low quality errata.


Try this link (http://wiki.white-wolf.com/exalted/index.php?title=Exalted_201_Second_Edition_Combat) for a cool intro to the combat system.

Jerthanis
2009-01-20, 02:09 AM
Exalted has an amazing, amazing setting. It's diverse in content, allowing an extreme variety of games and styles to all fit. It's wide in scope, with thousands of pages of setting information, but with the constant underlying principle that published material covers only about 15% of the events and locations within the setting. Every time I thumb through other RPG books thinking of game ideas, it always echoes in the back of my head, "This would work even better in Exalted."

I'm usually right.

However, I can't recommend the system with any enthusiasm. I've gotten to the point where it works pretty well for me... but I've been playing it for a while now and the idea of teaching someone from the beginning how its mechanics work is not appealing. It's reasonably complicated, and the numbers of dice you're throwing on each action, and figuring pools for complex actions can be time consuming in the middle of a game session (there are some tricks to speed this up though*). With the tactical depth of attack and defense, timing and so on, along with the lethality of combat, players who aren't solid about the mechanics can also take a long time making decisions on their turns.

That said, there's something elegant about the game's mechanics. I really can't see Exalted with any other system. The game is sound, both in combat/tactical instances and in noncombat, opposed and unopposed skill based rolls. It's just... unfriendly to new players and complex.

*: Just to give some examples of time-saving shortcuts, you can prepare a "Battle wheel", a piece of cardboard or paper with a circle divided into seven segments, when battle or social combat comes up, one segment is "tick 0" and each clockwise segment is the next tick and so on. When battle starts, each player places a token for their character on the wheel at the initiative he or she rolled and when a player takes an action, they move their token their speed in ticks clockwise. It's basically a more visual representation that helps players and the ST keep track of the participants in a battle.

Also, a trick to speed up dicecounting, instead of having a pile of assorted d10s, instead have a set of 10 d10s of one uniform color, and another set of 10 d10s of a different color. (Say, one set of Red and one set of Blue) then, when you have a dice pool of 14 to roll, you don't have to count out from your mixed bag one by one, you just grab all dice of one color, and 4 dice of the other color. Also, on flurries and multiple actions it helps to have a scratch piece of paper to write down the dice totals for each action in the flurry.

Kyeudo
2009-01-20, 02:22 AM
I love Exalted for playing online. In real life, you'd have tons of things to track in real time - inititive, attacks speed, dice pools, etc - but online, you have plenty of time and can stunt like mad. Combat flows cinematically, unlike D&D where it bogs the game down into mindless "move and hit stuff" sequences.

Seriously, when you can tell people that your heroic mortal rode a rampaging, twenty-five foot tall, fire-breathing pig god into town, hamstrung him, crashed him through the nearest building, and then gutted him on the way to the ground and that was how your campaign started, you know you are in for pure awesome.

Kurald Galain
2009-01-20, 05:01 AM
Exalted is ten gallons of pure awesome in a five gallon jug. That is all.

banjo1985
2009-01-20, 05:23 AM
The setting is very nice and fresh, but I must admit I enjoy reading the fluff more than actually running the game. The core book is a headache to find anything except Charms in, and the mechanics are very complicated to begin with.

Having run a decently lengthy campaign using the system I've gotten fairly experienced with it, but the charm combos still cause plenty of difficulty. I think I'd have a blast playing it, but as for running it again, no thanks.

Evil DM Mark3
2009-01-20, 05:26 AM
Combat is a little difficult. However the tick system be used well. The overall game is quite good and the feel, WOW.

SERIOUSLY.

IT R AWESOME!

BobVosh
2009-01-20, 06:38 AM
I have played and ran Exalted several times. I love most of the fluff, the emoness that abyssal and lack of any support for infernal drives me nuts. The infernals are much neater than abyssals, at least IMO.

That said "power inventory" is highly recommended. Not sure if it was a ST invention or not, but basically anything nonmagical and could be expected to have, your character has.

Combat is poorly done, as per all WW. However 2nd ed made it much fast. I like the tick system.

That said contested rolls in 1st ed just made it feel that much more epic.

If you have any questions I can usually anwser anything about the setting.

Drascin
2009-01-20, 08:00 AM
The setting is very nice and fresh, but I must admit I enjoy reading the fluff more than actually running the game. The core book is a headache to find anything except Charms in, and the mechanics are very complicated to begin with.

Yeah, this is my opinion as well. I have read a few sourcebooks, on recommendation from people in this forum (hi Tengu :smalltongue:), and they're a great read, but the mechanics themselves, combat especially, feel very weird.

So I have to keep it, together with Anima, in the "cool fluff but I'd better translate the setting to other system" bag.

Kyeudo
2009-01-20, 01:40 PM
I have played and ran Exalted several times. I love most of the fluff, the emoness that abyssal and lack of any support for infernal drives me nuts. The infernals are much neater than abyssals, at least IMO.


Then you're in luck. They have the Infernals book in the works right now.



Combat is poorly done, as per all WW. However 2nd ed made it much fast. I like the tick system.


Perhaps that's true at a real game table, but my experience has been much different. In play-by-post, Exalted's combat system keeps people doing more than just performing the same string of attacks over and over again, making the battles interesting rather than a grind.

Artanis
2009-01-20, 01:42 PM
Imagine you are one of the greatest heroes in the world.

Now imagine that the God of Awesome, whose Awesome literally lights up the world, personally handpicks you to be empowered with part of that Awesome.

Now imagine that that Awesome allows you to use a sword that makes the Buster Sword look like a toothpick as you beat the crap out of an outright God who is piloting a house-sized mecha.

Now realize that this is the low end of the power spectrum.

That is Exalted.

AmberVael
2009-01-20, 01:54 PM
Exalted. (http://stevencreech.com/images/posters/exalted.jpg)

I haven't played Exalted long, but I really am in love with the fluff and concepts of the setting. When you make a character for it, it is so much easier to link them into the world and to really make them live and breathe. (At least, it's easier for me)
The mechanics help with that too- even the mechanics make you focus more on the roleplay aspect of your character, with Virtues and backgrounds, flaws and merits.

Da King
2009-01-20, 05:02 PM
This sounds like a really fun system, thanks for all the responses as well!

Are any of the supplements worth picking up? And do you have any advice on convincing my regular gaming group to try a game?

Kyeudo
2009-01-21, 01:10 AM
This sounds like a really fun system, thanks for all the responses as well!

Are any of the supplements worth picking up? And do you have any advice on convincing my regular gaming group to try a game?

I enjoyed the Manuals of Exalted Power, Oadenol's Codex, and the Black and White Treatises. Scroll of the Monk is also looking like it's made of Win.

As for getting your regular gaming group to try it, buy them a truckload of d10s. When they ask what they'll ever use 20d10s for, tell them you know a game system that will make them ask for more dice than that.

potatocubed
2009-01-21, 02:19 AM
So I have to keep it, together with Anima, in the "cool fluff but I'd better translate the setting to other system" bag.

Wait wait wait.

Somebody else bought Anima? Wow.

Anyway, returning to topic: Exalted is fantastic, but you will need to houserule it to make it work the way you want. As for recommended sourcebooks... if you can get your hands on the original, 1st edition version of Games of Divinity, DO IT. That book is probably the best sourcebook I've read for any roleplaying game, ever.

Jerthanis
2009-01-21, 04:44 AM
This sounds like a really fun system, thanks for all the responses as well!

Are any of the supplements worth picking up? And do you have any advice on convincing my regular gaming group to try a game?

For planning a campaign as a storyteller, I cannot recommend highly enough deciding on a location to run the game in, and picking up the associated Compass of Direction book. If you're interested in the South, the South book comes out in early February, and I don't think the North book even has a release date yet, but West, East, and Scavenger Lands are all available.

The reason I recommend them so highly is that they read like open ended campaign length modules. I'm coming close to the finale of a Western themed Exalted game, and 90% of my sessions were directly inspired by hanging plot threads detailed in the Compass of Terestrial Directions: West. I've had very good luck with them.

Trick convince your players to pick up Black and White Treatise if they want to play a sorcerer, and Scroll of the Monk if they want to play a Martial Artist.

To convince players to give it a shot, I'd just hand them the Core book and tell them to read it from start to finish like it was a novel. Any discussion of the power-levels of the game can inspire the response, "So it's for munchkins then". Any discussion of how awesome you can be falls on deaf ears if they have no context. Alternatively, look at the list of inspirations on page 19 and page 262 find something they like already and draw comparisons to it. Did they like Spirited Away? Talk about how Exalted's Yu-Shan is like that movie's spirit world. Did they like Kung Fu Hustle? Talk about how that movie's climax is like a midlevel Exalted game. Did they like Avatar: The Last Airbender? Talk about how it's as close to Exalted: The Animated Series that it could possibly be without being accidental copyright infringement. In my opinion, to know Exalted's setting is to love Exalted's setting, so it's just important to trick people into learning about the setting.