Exalted: What's it like?

[Man_Over_Game]

I've heard a lot of good things about Exalted, read up on some reviews, but I'm interested to know what you guys have to say about it.

Where does it shine? Where does it fail? And how does it compare to other TTRPG systems (WoD, DnD 3.5/5e, etc)? And what are the differences between each edition?

[Max_Killjoy]

I've heard a lot of good things about Exalted, read up on some reviews, but I'm interested to know what you guys have to say about it.

Where does it shine? Where does it fail? And how does it compare to other TTRPG systems (WoD, DnD 3.5/5e, etc)? And what are the differences between each edition?


Imagine superhero / demigod power levels for all PCs, total gonzo powers and combat, and White Wolf's complete lack of understanding of any the concept of balance.

[Morty]

I'm only really familiar with the third edition, so I'll focus on this one. It's a crunch-heavy cinematic game focusing on portraying demigods of varying power (but also mortal heroes) in a fantasy world emulating myth and sword & sorcery fiction. It uses a variant of the Storyteller system White Wolf's systems did, but with its own spin.

Its strength is a variety of detailed rules and related superpowers. Combat is based on an "initiative" model where you build up momentum to deliver a decisive strike. But unlike D&D or other systems it actually gives superpowers to people who aren't warriors or sorcerers. You can play an impossibly skilled thief, diplomat, craftsman, sailor... or any combination of the above. Also unlike D&D, the game acknowledges the power level involved and expects players to make waves with their actions. But they're not the only movers and shakers, which the setting also reflects.

The game's weakness is arguably the same as its strength, namely that it's very crunchy. There's a tremendous amount of powers available even for a starting character, more if you decide to use sorcery of artifacts, or especially crafting. It can be daunting. Particularly in combat, where you let loose with all of that.

Previous editions were more or less the same thing, only with a different focus and major rules and setting issues that the third one aimed to rectify. Thus the infamous reputation of lack of concept of balance, which doesn't really apply anymore if you ask me.

[Friv]

I've heard a lot of good things about Exalted, read up on some reviews, but I'm interested to know what you guys have to say about it.

Where does it shine? Where does it fail? And how does it compare to other TTRPG systems (WoD, DnD 3.5/5e, etc)? And what are the differences between each edition?

So, this is one of those things where the differences between editions are fairly huge, especially in terms of where it shines and fails. As someone who played the game basically non-stop through all of 1e and 2e, here are my opinions.

Conceptually, Exalted has traditionally been one part World of Darkness-style tragedy, one part gonzo action-adventure, one part epic myth, and one part anime/Hong Kong wujia exploits.

The first edition of the game was closest to the WoD White Wolf roots, unsurprisingly, as the company's first foray into epic fantasy. The system was rocky, but essentially functional, especially if you were playing as either the Solar Exalted or the Terrestrial Exalted, which were the most common sorts. There was a lot of really interesting setting material, combat rarely broke entirely, and a lot of other systems were pretty much abstracted to "The ST decides". There was an absolute ton of material released for the line over the course of several years. It was great for giving you high-action fun with a side of dramatic seriousness, but you needed to fudge the rules from time to time to make things work, and the "elder problem" (where old, powerful characters should be able to instantly destroy the players and accomplish their goals, but don't because the plot says they don't) was pretty severe.

The second edition of Exalted runs like a sports car in a minefield. It is sleek, it is shiny, it is absolutely goddamn beautiful and then your whole group is tooling along at 150 mph and you drive over a mine in the rules and the whole bloody campaign explodes, and after that it doesn't matter how fast the car can go because everyone knows there are mines everywhere so they're just creeping along poking the ground every five feet. Some groups hit the mines within six months of release, others didn't hit them for years and so denied that they existed, and how much people love the game is generally based on how long it took one of their games to explode.

An attempt to fix the game with wholesale rules errata makes the problems much better at the cost of making everything infinitely more complicated and sort of shattering the mechanical functionality of a few of the Exalt types, especially Sidereals and Infernals. Also the "elder problem" was not as bad in terms of PCs surviving encounters with elders, but much worse in terms of elder invulnerability.

Third Edition fixed most of the balance problems and delivered an even more beautiful and shiny rules system, with the primary cost being dialing the complexity of the system into the stratosphere. The combat engine runs differently enough from any other RPG that it is not easy to learn, and just about every player needs to know the rules in-depth to be able to take part in the more complex parts of the game, which include combat and social interaction. This edition has also traditionally published at a glacial pace - the core came out four years ago, and only two of the core Exalt types are currently playable, with a third available for playtesters. At that rate, it'll be another ten years until the game is actually complete.

[lightningcat]

The second edition of Exalted runs like a sports car in a minefield. It is sleek, it is shiny, it is absolutely goddamn beautiful and then your whole group is tooling along at 150 mph and you drive over a mine in the rules and the whole bloody campaign explodes, and after that it doesn't matter how fast the car can go because everyone knows there are mines everywhere so they're just creeping along poking the ground every five feet. Some groups hit the mines within six months of release, others didn't hit them for years and so denied that they existed, and how much people love the game is generally based on how long it took one of their games to explode.

Oh the truth in this. My own group was used to games detonating long before we ever saw Exalted, so we knew how to ride the explosions. But the game could seriously degrade to rocket tag if you didn't have at least a discussion about it early on. Longest running game had no perfect defenses.

[SaurOps]

Imagine superhero / demigod power levels for all PCs, total gonzo powers and combat, and White Wolf's complete lack of understanding of any the concept of balance.

Exalted was leaps and bounds ahead of some other games, even some non-WW offerings, in balance. Unfortunately, it also had a few contributors here and there that seemed to believe that mechanics were inherently in the way no matter how they were designed, leading to a conscious refusal to write rules that worked or engaged with existing systems meant for the purpose. This is the source of a few of, though by no means all, the mines from 2e that Friv mentioned.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Third Edition fixed most of the balance problems and delivered an even more beautiful and shiny rules system, with the primary cost being dialing the complexity of the system into the stratosphere. The combat engine runs differently enough from any other RPG that it is not easy to learn, and just about every player needs to know the rules in-depth to be able to take part in the more complex parts of the game, which include combat and social interaction. This edition has also traditionally published at a glacial pace - the core came out four years ago, and only two of the core Exalt types are currently playable, with a third available for playtesters. At that rate, it'll be another ten years until the game is actually complete.
This is a pretty apt description of Exalted 3e. The mythology is, as always, very cool; pretty much every part of the world overview made me say "oh my god, I want to explore that;" and the core system engine is one of the single coolest rulesets I've gotten to play with... but characters start with 15 Charms. Charms chosen from enormous, enormous lists-- there are 20+ per skill, and 16 skills, and their effects range from "roll better" to the utterly baroque, and they build on each other and make skilltrees, and that's not even touching on Sorcery and Martial Arts and crafting and...

It's a lot, is what I'm saying. It's a game for rules-sluts. For nerds who enjoy putting hours into building and advancing their character, and who relish the chance to deploy complicated combos. But if you do, it's awesome. I only had the chance to play half a campaign, and despite a lot of... let's say stylistic differences with the GM, it was one of the coolest gaming experiences I've had.

[Lord Raziere]

okay so.

imagine the greatest fluff ever. and it promises everything, the most epic fantasy you can imagine, screw any dnd comedy nonsense, screw backsies this is supposed to tell a truly epic fantasy story and such, with all these mythical archetypes and whatnot and big emotions and larger than life people trying to solve real issues while having over the top combat and such.

but like, then you get to any of the three systems and its crunchier than a granola bar wrapped in peanuts, but not in a way thats well-built, but made in that white wolf way where they are like, expecting you to use these mechanics and somehow figure out their artsy, auteur intentions from them even when they work and when they don't it just....crashes and burns.

and your just left wondering when you are actually going to play a game and even when you do, you end up with some GM that has such different viewpoints about what the game is that you mis-communicate what you want at first, and it just doesn't work out, even though what limited time you had with your character you valued. and you feel this burning desire to play it at times even though the mechanics are...not really ideal to do so.

at least thats my experience with it. 3rd edition is best mechanically if you want to stick to the original thing, in my opinion. love to play more, especially if using a lighter system but....*shrug* I'm pretty sure its not gonna happen at this point.

[Morty]

This is a pretty apt description of Exalted 3e. The mythology is, as always, very cool; pretty much every part of the world overview made me say "oh my god, I want to explore that;" and the core system engine is one of the single coolest rulesets I've gotten to play with... but characters start with 15 Charms. Charms chosen from enormous, enormous lists-- there are 20+ per skill, and 16 skills, and their effects range from "roll better" to the utterly baroque, and they build on each other and make skilltrees, and that's not even touching on Sorcery and Martial Arts and crafting and...

It's a lot, is what I'm saying. It's a game for rules-sluts. For nerds who enjoy putting hours into building and advancing their character, and who relish the chance to deploy complicated combos. But if you do, it's awesome. I only had the chance to play half a campaign, and despite a lot of... let's say stylistic differences with the GM, it was one of the coolest gaming experiences I've had.

If I ever do run Exalted, I'll probably start with a mortal game to dip everyone's feet in. It's a lot easier without the giant pile of Charms looming above.

That being said, in my limited experience it's difficult to create a bad character in Exalted 3E, so if you just pick the Charms that sound right out of the trees you're interested in, you should do mostly fine. It's what I did in the Dragon-Blooded campaign I had.

[Particle_Man]

Another point, at least for the first two editions since I don’t know the third, is that your character is designed to have bouts of insanity now and then. This may not be everyone’s cup of tea, particularly if you hate losing control of your pc.

[Grod_The_Giant]

If I ever do run Exalted, I'll probably start with a mortal game to dip everyone's feet in. It's a lot easier without the giant pile of Charms looming above.

That being said, in my limited experience it's difficult to create a bad character in Exalted 3E, so if you just pick the Charms that sound right out of the trees you're interested in, you should do mostly fine. It's what I did in the Dragon-Blooded campaign I had.
Agreed. A session or two as pure mortals, another session or two with only Excellencies, and then start adding, like, a Charm a session. In my experience of that one 3e game, it wasn't so much that a newbie would make a bad character, but more like they'd forget their character--lose track of what Charms they have and when they can be used. Heck, I had to make a flowchart (https://www.dropbox.com/s/nokwh5v99njkyi7/Endless%20Road%20combat%20flowchart.docx?dl=0) to keep track of what my Dawn could do when, and I'm as big a rules-slut as I've ever met.

[Morty]

Agreed. A session or two as pure mortals, another session or two with only Excellencies, and then start adding, like, a Charm a session. In my experience of that one 3e game, it wasn't so much that a newbie would make a bad character, but more like they'd forget their character--lose track of what Charms they have and when they can be used. Heck, I had to make a flowchart (https://www.dropbox.com/s/nokwh5v99njkyi7/Endless%20Road%20combat%20flowchart.docx?dl=0) to keep track of what my Dawn could do when, and I'm as big a rules-slut as I've ever met.

I didn't really have that problem when I played, but then I didn't spend this many Charms on combat or any other area. I was playing an outcaste Dragon-Blooded monster-hunter specializing in Golden Janissary, Occult, Survival and some Medicine and miscellaneous skills on the side.

[Lord Raziere]

ugh, count me out of any "start as mortals" game. I'm not here for grittiness. I'm here for awesome martial arts and Exalts with weird powers. also? I don't do vanilla. so, I doubt any start as mortals game will work with me.

[Morty]

The purpose of a mortal game isn't grittiness. It's to let players get a proper handle on the system before dropping a mountain-sized charmset on them.

[Lord Raziere]

The purpose of a mortal game isn't grittiness. It's to let players get a proper handle on the system before dropping a mountain-sized charmset on them.

sorry I mistook. your right.

I just don't see how I'd enjoy it, I don't do vanilla concepts so I'd be trying to be as weird as a mortal can possibly be, and I'm not sure how'd I'd make that work. well possible "YET" added onto that because knowing how my mind it works, I somehow come up with a concept for something a few minutes after I admit I'm not sure how I'd do it.

[lightningcat]

The purpose of a mortal game isn't grittiness. It's to let players get a proper handle on the system before dropping a mountain-sized charmset on them.

Lorewise, the easiest way to start mortal and exalt later is doing a dragonblood game. The Dynasts have several schools for their kids, which also lets you dump exposition on players unfamiliar with the setting in a manner that makes sense.
You can do it with the other exalts, but it strains believability a bit more. Although, fate does get wrapped in knots around any exalt.

[Morty]

Lorewise, the easiest way to start mortal and exalt later is doing a dragonblood game. The Dynasts have several schools for their kids, which also lets you dump exposition on players unfamiliar with the setting in a manner that makes sense.
You can do it with the other exalts, but it strains believability a bit more. Although, fate does get wrapped in knots around any exalt.

If we wanted to seamlessly transition from a mortal game to the Exalted one, yeah. But I could also just have people create throwaway mortal characters or make some for them. Or have them create un-Exalted versions of their eventual Exalts and run a "non-canon" game with them. The game I would run would probably be a Lunar one, since some people I know have expressed interest.

[Beleriphon]

I've heard a lot of good things about Exalted, read up on some reviews, but I'm interested to know what you guys have to say about it.

Where does it shine? Where does it fail? And how does it compare to other TTRPG systems (WoD, DnD 3.5/5e, etc)? And what are the differences between each edition?

Its basically Hercules & Gilgamesh: Buddy Cop the RPG.

As for rules, more or less borrows White Wolf/Obsidian Path/Whatever the Hell/Storyteller system's of handful of d10s.

Each edition kind of sort of tries to fix the unbalance/not-really-functional things from the previous one, while at the same time introducing new things that don't work they way the designers seem to have intended.

[Mechalich]

imagine the greatest fluff ever. and it promises everything, the most epic fantasy you can imagine, screw any dnd comedy nonsense, screw backsies this is supposed to tell a truly epic fantasy story and such, with all these mythical archetypes and whatnot and big emotions and larger than life people trying to solve real issues while having over the top combat and such.

Exalted's fluff is actually terribad, while sounding awesome. It draws heavily from sources that are pretty much antithetical to cooperative gaming - most notably Tanith Lee's Tales from the Flat Earth anthologies (great, if rather creepy, fantasy, terrible idea for a gameplay structure) and the result was, in 1e and 2e generally pretty horrifying. 3e's fluff - insofar as any of it actually exists which is a highly limited thing - fixed some of those problems at the consequence at detonating over a decades worth of publication accretion and leaving every GM to rebuild the setting for themselves (on the 3e map, the average labeled location of several hundred miles from its nearest neighbor).

Exalted can work in the same way a long-running shounen anime can work - by constantly charging ahead into new fights and endlessly upping the ante, but minute you actually stop to try and think about the world it falls to pieces and turns out to be infested with aggressively cancerous grimderp.

[Lord Raziere]

Exalted's fluff is actually terribad, while sounding awesome. It draws heavily from sources that are pretty much antithetical to cooperative gaming - most notably Tanith Lee's Tales from the Flat Earth anthologies (great, if rather creepy, fantasy, terrible idea for a gameplay structure) and the result was, in 1e and 2e generally pretty horrifying. 3e's fluff - insofar as any of it actually exists which is a highly limited thing - fixed some of those problems at the consequence at detonating over a decades worth of publication accretion and leaving every GM to rebuild the setting for themselves (on the 3e map, the average labeled location of several hundred miles from its nearest neighbor).

Exalted can work in the same way a long-running shounen anime can work - by constantly charging ahead into new fights and endlessly upping the ante, but minute you actually stop to try and think about the world it falls to pieces and turns out to be infested with aggressively cancerous grimderp.

Haweh?

I don't know what to think of this post, because on one hand, I'm a big fan of shonen anime and my GMing style is to basically to keep charging into battle while satirizing or parodying anything that doesn't make sense then taking it seriously when I need to, because things are only funny until they are not.

on the other hand, I'm not sure if thats entirely accurate given what I read, but then again I'm someone who like, pre-purchases these books far in advance through the kickstarters and have at least book that most people aren't able to get, so I might be biased to how much information I have compared to someone who might still only have the corebook.

could like explain to me better how it doesn't make sense? I think I need deprogramming to get rid of years of White Wolf and rpg.net exalted views being argued at me. or at least material to better make something in Exalted funny or over the top awesome.

[Mechalich]

Haweh?

I don't know what to think of this post, because on one hand, I'm a big fan of shonen anime and my GMing style is to basically to keep charging into battle while satirizing or parodying anything that doesn't make sense then taking it seriously when I need to, because things are only funny until they are not.

on the other hand, I'm not sure if thats entirely accurate given what I read, but then again I'm someone who like, pre-purchases these books far in advance through the kickstarters and have at least book that most people aren't able to get, so I might be biased to how much information I have compared to someone who might still only have the corebook.

could like explain to me better how it doesn't make sense? I think I need deprogramming to get rid of years of White Wolf and rpg.net exalted views being argued at me. or at least material to better make something in Exalted funny or over the top awesome.

Well, I can certainly see how Exalted could work if you treat it like a joke, that's how a lot of shounen anime manage to work, so far as they actually do - One Piece, possibly the jokiest of all, is also the one best able to maintain quality, so that's probably demonstrative, but Exalted was never intended to play as a joke. Like most White-Wolf games it is relentlessly serious. In the original 1e and 2e runs of Exalted the PCs were powerless (it would take hundreds of XP for a new Solar to reliably defeat even reasonably elder Lunars, never mind the high end Sidereals or any of the Deathlords), the world was about to end in about thirty-five different ways, and literally everyone of importance was horrible (the Lunars were particularly bad - like that one elder who would roast and serve human babies at banquets but remained a respected member of the community). Even the Solars, as the nominal saviors were both supernaturally corrupt and also not possessed of any reason to actually be decent people - the Unconquered Sun just wanted you to be awesome, he didn't care anything about ethics. The 'good' ending for Exalted was that the Solars somehow defeat the unbeatable enemies they can't defeat without thousands of XP (and over a century to increase their essence to suitably high values) only to re-impose the horrors of the later First Age. This is all very much in tune with Tales from the Flat Earth, which is horror fantasy about a small group of invincible overgods messing with people because they get bored and they can.

Now, maybe, maybe, 3e is very different. I recall reading the fluff chapters of the 3e Corebook and being stunned mostly by how little fluff there actually was. The core book has less than 100 named locations and does not devote more than 500 words to describing any of them when each is the only location in an area roughly the size of France if not larger (I actually mentioned this issue during the development process and the devs responded by brushing off the gaping emptiness of their map with 'fill it in'). The base fluff is covered in mere handful of pages - which is really quite laughable compared to the literally hundreds of pages in the book devoted to endless charms. As presented, the setting simply isn't playable, and you either have to generate things yourself or port material over from earlier editions - which doesn't work because they changed the underlying metaphysics.

Perhaps someday 3e will be a complete game with a functional setting, but it isn't yet and give the glacial pace of publication (which isn't surprising from Onyx Path considering their business model) it may very well never be.

[CharonsHelper]

I've never played Exalted (I very much dislike other Storyteller systems - so I have no real desire to) but I've heard someone say that they now use Godbound to get their Exalted style gameplay fix without all of the broken/messy/opaque mechanics.

From people who actually know Exalted - does that work?

[Lord Raziere]

dude, no. I hate one piece. don't compare anything I do with it. One Piece is horrible. aside from that...

......thats all?

well the revelation that tales of the flat Earth is nothing but invincible god/demigods messing with people because they are bored kind of shines an incredibly disappointing light upon Exalted. the way other talked about it, it was supposed to be something special or whatever, but just....that? wow. just....really? nothing more? you sure? okay.

but the rest is just an opposing view to what I've heard from other Exalted fans:
that they prefer the fluff being cut down drastically, like the entire big thing aside from mechanical fixes, was to cut down what they consider too much information and to add more mystery to the world. like their big thing on both rpg.net and onyx path forums is their desire for less information while getting what they consider a more realistic, more accurate to history Creation, they did not want magitech, they didn't want the more horrible parts of the fluff that honestly no person in their right mind would want like the first two chapters of Infernals, that sort of stuff.

and that basically their view of Exalted is more game of thrones and anthropology major about it, I guess? I like getting another viewpoint that isn't their uh....sociological wanking I guess? but I'm just kind of disappointed thats all you had to say and I wish you could've done to tear down assumptions more, but that your view point, and its valid.

but still, thank you clearing the Tanith lee thing up, now I can safely not care about Tales of the Flat Earth, because it sounds incredibly disappointing and not worth reading.

though to be honest, when I read the books aside from the corebook, it doesn't feel like I'm getting less information than I did from 2e. this stuff is PACKED with information, and it seems more varied stuff than the 2e books, which often revisited the same places over and over again. also I'm comparing 3e's The Realm and the 2e Blessed Isle Compass books in page count:
Compass of Celestial Directions: Blessed Isle: 164 pages
The Realm: 192 pages.

the 2e version is shorter. and Compass Bless Isle? has a chapter dedicated, to statting out various creatures of the blessed isle. The Realm, does not. so if anything, we seem to be getting MORE fluff total, even though its not about places people have been to. so while your technically right about the corebook doing that (and even then the corebooks don't really seem all that different in the amount of information they give)....that kind of just what happens with a new edition. and the people who like the fluff cut down.....well bad news for them....from what I've read, there is actually more fluff than there was in 2e by certain measures. like, the fluff sections are still pretty big in any book.

so yeah, not sure how long the whole "cut down the fluff kudzu" thing the fandom was on about is going to last until the fluff kudzu starts growing back.

Edit: my experience with godbound is that I've yet to find a single active group to play Exalted with it. well technically one, but the game never happened, so I'm not counting that. people here just seem to play the actual setting and I'm not interested in that.

[Cluedrew]

Most of my knowledge of Exalted comes from reading Keychain of Creation. So I'm not exactly an expert because I don't know how much that was adapted from the original. But I generally got the impression that the exalted were definitely "people-ish". They were good or bad and a surprising number of them have no grand plan but just sort of wanted to get through life. I liked that version of it.

Also I think most role-playing game settings should be slightly dystopian. The bigger the problems in the setting the bigger things PCs can do in it. The, what was it called, elder problem aside that really feels like the idea of Exalted. Make the biggest waves you can. Whether it does that very well... I'll leave that to the experts.

[Lord Raziere]

Most of my knowledge of Exalted comes from reading Keychain of Creation. So I'm not exactly an expert because I don't know how much that was adapted from the original. But I generally got the impression that the exalted were definitely "people-ish". They were good or bad and a surprising number of them have no grand plan but just sort of wanted to get through life. I liked that version of it.

Also I think most role-playing game settings should be slightly dystopian. The bigger the problems in the setting the bigger things PCs can do in it. The, what was it called, elder problem aside that really feels like the idea of Exalted. Make the biggest waves you can. Whether it does that very well... I'll leave that to the experts.

as someone who is a keychain fan and got into the books through it....

while being people-ish is accurate, Keychain definitely has a lighter, more humorous portrayal of things than Exalted proper. so...you want to know more...prepare for some dissonance...

[Mechalich]

well the revelation that tales of the flat Earth is nothing but invincible god/demigods messing with people because they are bored kind of shines an incredibly disappointing light upon Exalted. the way other talked about it, it was supposed to be something special or whatever, but just....that? wow. just....really? nothing more? you sure? okay.

Tales from the Flat Earth is not intended to be a game. It's a horror series that examines a world in which there are active, interventionist deities, but they all happen to be evil - to the point of being specifically referred to as the Lords of Darkness. It's an extremely gothic tone for dark, twisted, fantasy that is genuinely both of those things (as opposed to many of the more modern productions that claim to be those things). The books are excellent literature and won awards for a reason, but they are not fun, they aren't meant to be fun, and using them as the basis for an over-the-top epic setting meant missing the point in an epic way.


that they prefer the fluff being cut down drastically, like the entire big thing aside from mechanical fixes, was to cut down what they consider too much information and to add more mystery to the world. like their big thing on both rpg.net and onyx path forums is their desire for less information while getting what they consider a more realistic, more accurate to history Creation, they did not want magitech, they didn't want the more horrible parts of the fluff that honestly no person in their right mind would want like the first two chapters of Infernals, that sort of stuff.

There was definitely a lot of stuff in 1e and 2e Exalted that did not need to be there and had a bunch of overly complicated mechanics attached to it, and getting rid of that stuff was a good idea. However, it was a matter of very selective editing, and 3e adds multiple new exalt types to the system, none of which have, in the core book, any concrete information attached to them at all.


and that basically their view of Exalted is more game of thrones and anthropology major about it, I guess? I like getting another viewpoint that isn't their uh....sociological wanking I guess? but I'm just kind of disappointed thats all you had to say and I wish you could've done to tear down assumptions more, but that your view point, and its valid.

The problem with trying to make the game more about the social systems and cultures is that the world is insufficiently detailed to allow you to produce that while at the same time being far too big to every successfully detail. 3e Creation is twice the size of Earth. There are huge portions of the 3e map - and by huge I mean areas roughly the size of Argentina - where there are no named locations. Filling them represents an endless amount of effort. I mean, I wrote 58,000 words (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1j0RQNTrhSQVIjBJw3555qA1S9Hih1SRwychiPhEwm9k/pub) attempting to functionally detail one such chunk. This is not something you can expect average GMs to do. It's not possible to talk about Creation as a whole, at least using the core book, because everything is hundreds of miles from everything else. For example - that giant southern desert 'The Burning Sands' that has four points in it, that's the size of Africa.

Additionally there's a central problem with Exalted is the power level of the characters. You can make these detailed chunks of Creation full of mystical places, weird peoples, demon cults, and everything else, and then a party of Solars can tear through and upend everything in an afternoon while moving at literally 100 mph. Intricate and complex world-building is mostly wasted effort when the party is a bunch of superheroes who can override it all on a whim.


though to be honest, when I read the books aside from the corebook, it doesn't feel like I'm getting less information than I did from 2e. this stuff is PACKED with information, and it seems more varied stuff than the 2e books, which often revisited the same places over and over again. also I'm comparing 3e's The Realm and the 2e Blessed Isle Compass books in page count:
Compass of Celestial Directions: Blessed Isle: 164 pages
The Realm: 192 pages.

the 2e version is shorter. and Compass Bless Isle? has a chapter dedicated, to statting out various creatures of the blessed isle. The Realm, does not. so if anything, we seem to be getting MORE fluff total, even though its not about places people have been to. so while your technically right about the corebook doing that (and even then the corebooks don't really seem all that different in the amount of information they give)....that kind of just what happens with a new edition. and the people who like the fluff cut down.....well bad news for them....from what I've read, there is actually more fluff than there was in 2e by certain measures. like, the fluff sections are still pretty big in any book.

There are only four actual books for 3e. The corebook, Dragon-blooded what fire hath wrought, arms of the chosen, and now the Realm. Eventually there may be more fluff, eventually, but 3e has a glacial publishing pace and needs to actually publish more books than 2e both because Creation is physically larger than it was before and because there are more Exalt types now. At the pace that Onyx Path is going it will take literally decades to detail to the world and the exalted to anything close to the level 2e was at, and that level of detail was woefully insufficient in and of itself.

I'm not saying that 3e isn't better than 1e or 2e, it certainly seems to be, but it represents taking a system that was being published by the world's second-largest tabletop company at the height of its publishing powers and swapping it out for a bunch of freelancers who are barely being paid and not reducing the setting to something more manageable instead.

[Lord Raziere]

oh, don't worry, I'm 100% with you on the whole glacial publishing pace thing. I said it on the rpg.net forums when 3e was still coming out, and I'll here, again: they should've gone rules lite, and made all five core Exalted splats playable in the core book.

like this is all high quality, but its simply not manageable. you just shed light on what the full problem is when I've been having it with onyx path for years: they're trying to make a game more with less people to do it with, they got good mechanics but its clearly too much work and takes too long to get out when they could've simplified this all but lightening the load by focusing on something lighter and less page count heavy. but nooooooo, the fandom just had to have its big clunky smorgasboard of charms defining every possible power that an Exalt can do. everything has to be in depth and intricate.

when if we simply had a corebook with all five core exalt types playable, then a second book detailing the new and noncore ones like Alchemicals and Infernals and were more efficient about what describing and and getting across what Exalts do and what they are supposed to be, have some very general setting books to get the feel and atmosphere down, we wouldn't have this problem. just....this all can be communicated and done more efficiently, Godbound is proof that it can be done, they just refuse to do it.

[Mechalich]

oh, don't worry, I'm 100% with you on the whole glacial publishing pace thing. I said it on the rpg.net forums when 3e was still coming out, and I'll here, again: they should've gone rules lite, and made all five core Exalted splats playable in the core book.

like this is all high quality, but its simply not manageable. you just shed light on what the full problem is when I've been having it with onyx path for years: they're trying to make a game more with less people to do it with, they got good mechanics but its clearly too much work and takes too long to get out when they could've simplified this all but lightening the load by focusing on something lighter and less page count heavy. but nooooooo, the fandom just had to have its big clunky smorgasboard of charms defining every possible power that an Exalt can do. everything has to be in depth and intricate.

when if we simply had a corebook with all five core exalt types playable, then a second book detailing the new and noncore ones like Alchemicals and Infernals and were more efficient about what describing and and getting across what Exalts do and what they are supposed to be, have some very general setting books to get the feel and atmosphere down, we wouldn't have this problem. just....this all can be communicated and done more efficiently, Godbound is proof that it can be done, they just refuse to do it.

I don't actually think they needed to go rules lite, necessarily, I just think that every splat should have been able to utilize the same core charm set and that should have covered all the charms everyone got (with each splat getting a handful of special flavorful powers on top of that, like Lunar shapeshifting), and just adjusted the costs and number of charms each splat got from then on. That way they'd only need to do all the really hard work once and could churn out fluff thereafter.

I also think they should have made a command decision to ignore most of Creation and concentrate on producing game materials for a much smaller region that would actually be manageable to detail. Just the Scavenger Lands (plus the eastern coast of the Realm) would have been more than large enough and would have encompassed a wide variety of variable environments.

[Lord Raziere]

I don't actually think they needed to go rules lite, necessarily, I just think that every splat should have been able to utilize the same core charm set and that should have covered all the charms everyone got (with each splat getting a handful of special flavorful powers on top of that, like Lunar shapeshifting), and just adjusted the costs and number of charms each splat got from then on. That way they'd only need to do all the really hard work once and could churn out fluff thereafter.

I also think they should have made a command decision to ignore most of Creation and concentrate on producing game materials for a much smaller region that would actually be manageable to detail. Just the Scavenger Lands (plus the eastern coast of the Realm) would have been more than large enough and would have encompassed a wide variety of variable environments.

I can see that on the mechanics front, and I once had the idea of a universal charm set as well. I agree with it. I don't think everything Exalts do is enough to warrant these truly separate charm sets, considering the subtleties are nothing worth detailing considering the hairsplitting involved. if both charms are just punching really hard, whats really the point of making them different charms after all?

as for concentrating on the Scavenger lands....I can see that working environment and such wise, your right, and perhaps most people probably focus on the scavenger lands anyways, but even considering that I'm not sure if the fandom would like that. they like their big Creationz and culture wankery, and their detailing of all these different environments. that and I'm sure there would be backlash from some in the fandom who would be stupid and go "your europeanizing our Exalted" because Scavenger lands is the most european-like place in Exalted and Onyx path fandoms are very woke, they do not like things that make it look like your ignoring creation's cultural diversity and complexity, you do that, and there will be people going "ehmahgerd, your ignoring everything else you cultural provincialist" or whatever in their polite way of saying it. they'd want their other areas of Creation back, I am sure of that.

[Morty]

Most of my knowledge of Exalted comes from reading Keychain of Creation. So I'm not exactly an expert because I don't know how much that was adapted from the original. But I generally got the impression that the exalted were definitely "people-ish". They were good or bad and a surprising number of them have no grand plan but just sort of wanted to get through life. I liked that version of it.


Keychain isn't as good a representation of Exalted as it looks, not even its second edition. But the general idea of Exalted being fundamentally people, just with power and ambition writ large, is accurate. Ironically enough, the general premise of the comic - two Solars, a Lunar, a Dragon-Blooded and an Abyssal on an adventure - would work better in 3E, due to the less absolute power tiers. Or it will, once we actually get rules for Abyssals. But then, Secret's entire character arc kind of wouldn't work in 3E...

[Lord Raziere]

Keychain isn't as good a representation of Exalted as it looks, not even its second edition. But the general idea of Exalted being fundamentally people, just with power and ambition writ large, is accurate. Ironically enough, the general premise of the comic - two Solars, a Lunar, a Dragon-Blooded and an Abyssal on an adventure - would work better in 3E, due to the less absolute power tiers. Or it will, once we actually get rules for Abyssals. But then, Secret's entire character arc kind of wouldn't work in 3E...

I find that the more you learn about Exalted, the more you figure out that various assumptions about the setting are things are incompatible with each other and need ignoring or cutting out for things to work for the stories you want.

like the world where you play Dragon-Blooded defending the Realm against them darn Lunars is not the same world as the one where you play Lunars fighting to take it down, which isn't the same world as a Solar circle doing whatever, which isn't the same world as the one where a DB, a Lunar and solar and some weird Exalt randomly joins up to be heroes.

to make a DB game work, you've got to tailor the Lunars and solars to be something fightable, to make a Lunars game work, you have to tailor the Realm to be something you can undermine with Lunar tactics, to make solars work you have to tailor it so that Solars coming back is The Biggest Deal, for an abyssals game Abyssals showing up has to be The Biggest Deal, same for Infernals and such, and to make crossover games work you have to tailor it so that everyone can contribute and all factions they don't like are fightable, and the crossover group is the Biggest Deal.

basically? it requires a bit of "in THIS game, X is the biggest deal because its a game about X". because 3e canon is currently trying to twist itself into knots trying to justify how the Dragon-Blooded are TOTALLY the most powerful Exalted right now, while at the same time the Lunars are TOTALLY winning their long guerrilla war with their money-wasting tactics while the Solars are TOTALLY the Biggest Deal that no one sees coming, while not making the Dragon-blooded seem irrelevant or toothless, but kind of failing because I've seen some people, a minority of them, see the Dragon-Blooded as toothless when Lunar charms and tactics were revealed, so it makes me think establishing a consistent setting where no Exalt's awesome is trodden upon is slightly impossible.

[Morty]

Considering how unbelievably prone the Exalted fandom is to doomsaying, exaggeration and claiming that the devs totally have it out for their favourite splat, some people thinking that Dragon-Blooded are toothless means pretty little. And is very ironic, considering the majority opinion about Lunars before the Kickstarter dropped.

[Razade]

I loved the first Edition. So much that I hunted and scrapped to get every book published. Then Second Edition hit and with the change over from OWoD to NWoD and my utter disdain for the latter I feared the same treatment would hit Exalted. As others have pointed out, it was a mess even if it was pretty. I figured...I had all the books and a knowledge on how to write and homebrew rules, there was no reason to leap to another edition that was inferior.


I haven't regretted that decision.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Additionally there's a central problem with Exalted is the power level of the characters. You can make these detailed chunks of Creation full of mystical places, weird peoples, demon cults, and everything else, and then a party of Solars can tear through and upend everything in an afternoon while moving at literally 100 mph. Intricate and complex world-building is mostly wasted effort when the party is a bunch of superheroes who can override it all on a whim.
Isn't that, like... the reason the map is so empty? Why bother filling hundreds of pages with information on minor parts of the gameworld when, as you point out, parties will "tear through at 100mph?" Outside the big points of interest, Creation seems very much like mortals-- it's there, it's varied and full of personality and could potentially fit a thousand campaigns, but for this game it's ultimately scenery for Exalts to play with.

Speaking as someone who generally doesn't run games in big pre-written campaign settings, I adored the 3e setting chapter. Instead of endlessly harping on smaller and smaller details, it showed me a handful of awesome places (and the Scavenger Lands) and said "explore." Loads of places I wanted to go, with enough evocative detail to cover a quick visit and plenty of room to build your own adventures.

(Also, I'd nominate Kill Six Billion Demons as the most Exalted thing out there (https://killsixbilliondemons.com/comic/wielder-of-names-4-67/), even if it's not using the Exalted setting).

[Cluedrew]

while being people-ish is accurate, Keychain definitely has a lighter, more humorous portrayal of things than Exalted proper. so...you want to know more...prepare for some dissonance...
Keychain isn't as good a representation of Exalted as it looks, not even its second edition.
like the world where you play Dragon-Blooded defending the Realm against them darn Lunars is not the same world as the one where you play Lunars fighting to take it down, which isn't the same world as a Solar circle doing whatever, which isn't the same world as the one where a DB, a Lunar and solar and some weird Exalt randomly joins up to be heroes.I'd probably adapt it a little bit then if I ever play it (I probably won't in the end) because the think I like about it is not how awesome the Solars are how the Dragon-Blooded have established and maintained the Realm or any of that. It is how incredibly diverse everything is.

Mechanically speaking my favourite thing I have heard about the system is that almost everything is almost as bloated as the combat system. I just the word bloated somewhat in jest, but the point is you can be a master diplomat, sailor, cook or writer and that means something. In D&D everything boils down to what you can do in combat more often than not and that is kind of boring.

Also thinking of Exalted proper as somewhere between Kill 6 Billion Demons and Keychain of Creation... that's also interesting.

[Morty]

Isn't that, like... the reason the map is so empty? Why bother filling hundreds of pages with information on minor parts of the gameworld when, as you point out, parties will "tear through at 100mph?" Outside the big points of interest, Creation seems very much like mortals-- it's there, it's varied and full of personality and could potentially fit a thousand campaigns, but for this game it's ultimately scenery for Exalts to play with.

Speaking as someone who generally doesn't run games in big pre-written campaign settings, I adored the 3e setting chapter. Instead of endlessly harping on smaller and smaller details, it showed me a handful of awesome places (and the Scavenger Lands) and said "explore." Loads of places I wanted to go, with enough evocative detail to cover a quick visit and plenty of room to build your own adventures.

I wouldn't even treat Exalted upending societies as a foregone conclusion. Yes, it can and will happen, but the Intimacy system makes sure it takes some work and not just wiping the slate clean, then doing whatever you feel like. If you want to change a society, you still need to engage with it.

Besides, plenty of societies and places in Creation are already a direct or indirect result of the actions of Exalted... so yeah, working as intended.


(Also, I'd nominate Kill Six Billion Demons as the most Exalted thing out there (https://killsixbilliondemons.com/comic/wielder-of-names-4-67/), even if it's not using the Exalted setting).

Very much agreed.


I'd probably adapt it a little bit then if I ever play it (I probably won't in the end) because the think I like about it is not how awesome the Solars are how the Dragon-Blooded have established and maintained the Realm or any of that. It is how incredibly diverse everything is.

Those aren't really mutually exclusive, though.


Mechanically speaking my favourite thing I have heard about the system is that almost everything is almost as bloated as the combat system. I just the word bloated somewhat in jest, but the point is you can be a master diplomat, sailor, cook or writer and that means something. In D&D everything boils down to what you can do in combat more often than not and that is kind of boring.

Yeah, it's refreshing to see superpowers belonging to people who aren't warriors, sorcerers or (sometimes) assassins.

[Max_Killjoy]

I find that the more you learn about Exalted, the more you figure out that various assumptions about the setting are things are incompatible with each other and need ignoring or cutting out for things to work for the stories you want.

like the world where you play Dragon-Blooded defending the Realm against them darn Lunars is not the same world as the one where you play Lunars fighting to take it down, which isn't the same world as a Solar circle doing whatever, which isn't the same world as the one where a DB, a Lunar and solar and some weird Exalt randomly joins up to be heroes.

to make a DB game work, you've got to tailor the Lunars and solars to be something fightable, to make a Lunars game work, you have to tailor the Realm to be something you can undermine with Lunar tactics, to make solars work you have to tailor it so that Solars coming back is The Biggest Deal, for an abyssals game Abyssals showing up has to be The Biggest Deal, same for Infernals and such, and to make crossover games work you have to tailor it so that everyone can contribute and all factions they don't like are fightable, and the crossover group is the Biggest Deal.

basically? it requires a bit of "in THIS game, X is the biggest deal because its a game about X". because 3e canon is currently trying to twist itself into knots trying to justify how the Dragon-Blooded are TOTALLY the most powerful Exalted right now, while at the same time the Lunars are TOTALLY winning their long guerrilla war with their money-wasting tactics while the Solars are TOTALLY the Biggest Deal that no one sees coming, while not making the Dragon-blooded seem irrelevant or toothless, but kind of failing because I've seen some people, a minority of them, see the Dragon-Blooded as toothless when Lunar charms and tactics were revealed, so it makes me think establishing a consistent setting where no Exalt's awesome is trodden upon is slightly impossible.

At least that total disconnect between the various things is in keeping with White Wolf tradition (see, the incompatible fluff and mechanics between Vampires, Werewolves, Mages, etc, despite all supposedly existing in the same setting).

[Morty]

At least that total disconnect between the various things is in keeping with White Wolf tradition (see, the incompatible fluff and mechanics between Vampires, Werewolves, Mages, etc, despite all supposedly existing in the same setting).

This disconnect doesn't actually exist in Exalted, though. The post you're quoting is mostly a collection of exaggerated forum arguments. Also, last time I checked CofD released a book entirely dedicated to crossover, so... doesn't seem to be in evidence there either. Though of course it's still different; in WoD or CofD the existence of any given supernatural is entirely up to the ST, but all kinds of Exalted exist in the same setting even if they don't appear in a game.

[Max_Killjoy]

This disconnect doesn't actually exist in Exalted, though. The post you're quoting is mostly a collection of exaggerated forum arguments. Also, last time I checked CofD released a book entirely dedicated to crossover, so... doesn't seem to be in evidence there either. Though of course it's still different; in WoD or CofD the existence of any given supernatural is entirely up to the ST, but all kinds of Exalted exist in the same setting even if they don't appear in a game.


CofD?

I'm from the oWoD days, I haven't touched new material since the horrid nWoD retcon/reboot.

[Morty]

CofD?

I'm from the oWoD days, I haven't touched new material since the horrid nWoD retcon/reboot.

CofD, Chronicles of Darkness, is what nWoD was rebranded as. I hopped on this train nine years ago and found it distinctly better for me than oWoD. Mostly thanks to Hunter: the Vigil, at first. The two lines eventually managed to coexist by providing different themes, so that's fine. If you haven't touched any related material since 2004, that would explain it, I guess.

[Man_Over_Game]

So a lot of people are describing Exalted from the perspective of...well, people who know Exalted.

Especially regarding the setting. There's almost 30 posts on the setting itself and...I'm more confused than when I started the thread.

Could someone please explain what's so interesting about the Exalted setting to a noobie?

[Morty]

So a lot of people are describing Exalted from the perspective of...well, people who know Exalted.

Especially regarding the setting. There's almost 30 posts on the setting itself and...I'm more confused than when I started the thread.

Could someone please explain what's so interesting about the Exalted setting to a noobie?

That happens a lot with Exalted threads, sadly. The same old arguments all over again.

The Exalted setting evokes sword and sorcery stories, myth and legend. It's a flat world surrounded on all sides by churning chaos, filled with old magic, gods, demigods (that is, the Exalted that you play), nations, cultures, spirits and demons. It avoids the Eurocentrism that plagues fantasy in general, instead focusing a lot on Asian influences, but not only that. It's also not afraid to realistically examine the effects of said gods and demigods on the landscape, which includes letting players run roughshod over it. Hope that helps for a start.

[Mechalich]

That happens a lot with Exalted threads, sadly. The same old arguments all over again.

The Exalted setting evokes sword and sorcery stories, myth and legend. It's a flat world surrounded on all sides by churning chaos, filled with old magic, gods, demigods (that is, the Exalted that you play), nations, cultures, spirits and demons. It avoids the Eurocentrism that plagues fantasy in general, instead focusing a lot on Asian influences, but not only that. It's also not afraid to realistically examine the effects of said gods and demigods on the landscape, which includes letting players run roughshod over it. Hope that helps for a start.

It avoids eurocentrism at the expense of building any cultures decently, {Scrubbed} the supposed 'realistic' effects of the gods and demigods on the landscape result in a giant pile of grimderp that nothing in-universe can stop from happening, and the setting is filled with mathematical absurdities, bad demographics, and allows the overpowered major PCs and NPCs to avoid interacting with it in save when they want to or when the GM pulls out one of the ten orders of magnitude more powerful than you NPCs.

Not that any of this is unique to Exalted {scrubbed} it pretty much all applies to ever major D&D setting too - in fact Exalted bears a great similarity to running a high-op version of FR but just starting at level 10 - but Exalted billed itself as a major departure from and major upgrade to D&D, and...wasn't.


Isn't that, like... the reason the map is so empty? Why bother filling hundreds of pages with information on minor parts of the gameworld when, as you point out, parties will "tear through at 100mph?" Outside the big points of interest, Creation seems very much like mortals-- it's there, it's varied and full of personality and could potentially fit a thousand campaigns, but for this game it's ultimately scenery for Exalts to play with.

The central problem of Exalted's world-building is that the elements that are out there, the peoples, the cultures, the gods and demons, the monstrous animals, the weird terrain, these are all things that form a grand and glorious world to adventure in for...moderate XP dragon-blooded. And of course that's by design, because moderate XP DBs have been the powers in charge for hundreds of years. Solars show up and they up-end the world-building, they are, by the nature of their design, operating in a world that was not built for them. It's roughly analogous to if you dropped Captain Marvel into The Defenders TV show, it wastes everything that came before.

Exalted's Creation can be interesting, but only if you don't play it the was the game is designed - which is pretty much par for the course with WW.

[Ignimortis]

The central problem of Exalted's world-building is that the elements that are out there, the peoples, the cultures, the gods and demons, the monstrous animals, the weird terrain, these are all things that form a grand and glorious world to adventure in for...moderate XP dragon-blooded. And of course that's by design, because moderate XP DBs have been the powers in charge for hundreds of years. Solars show up and they up-end the world-building, they are, by the nature of their design, operating in a world that was not built for them. It's roughly analogous to if you dropped Captain Marvel into The Defenders TV show, it wastes everything that came before.

Exalted's Creation can be interesting, but only if you don't play it the was the game is designed - which is pretty much par for the course with WW.

Isn't that the purpose of playing Solars? I got the impression from the 3e corebook that you're supposed to be those heroes that are just too powerful to contain if you actually survive the starting point where you're weak enough to be taken down by a coordinated team of Dragonblooded who got wind of your return. DBs might be great warriors - but a Solar is a one-man army, and that's not hyperbole. DBs might have great administrators, but Solars have gods of commerce and imposition of order among them. DBs are impossible spies, but Solars are like Solid Snake to their James Bonds. Solars come back and they up-end the world, reshape it as they desire, before they have to face the actual threats like Infernals and Abyssals. Am I wrong?

[Lord Raziere]

So a lot of people are describing Exalted from the perspective of...well, people who know Exalted.

Especially regarding the setting. There's almost 30 posts on the setting itself and...I'm more confused than when I started the thread.

Could someone please explain what's so interesting about the Exalted setting to a noobie?

Yeah, your gonna have to get used to that, Exalted isn't exactly the easiest game to get into, especially with a fandom that is more woke than an insomniac with a caffeine addiction, and is prone being just as over the top as the Exalts they play. I have been confused when I was starting out as well.

basically? you chosen of god. world not fair. you has the kung fu/sorcery/political acumen. what do? how you badass? go be awesome, no backsies. Exalted in nutshell.




(Also, I'd nominate Kill Six Billion Demons as the most Exalted thing out there (https://killsixbilliondemons.com/comic/wielder-of-names-4-67/), even if it's not using the Exalted setting).

Excuse me, I think you all don't know about Thunderbolt Fantasy (https://www.crunchyroll.com/thunderbolt-fantasy)

has Best Dawn caste in it, as protagonist, and best Sidereal, and no small amount of abyssals.

@Ignimortis: :smalleek: Do NOT call abyssals and Infernals "the actual threats" to a DB fans face. thats not okay.

[Max_Killjoy]

Excuse me, I think you all don't know about Thunderbolt Fantasy (https://www.crunchyroll.com/thunderbolt-fantasy)

has Best Dawn caste in it, as protagonist, and best Sidereal, and no small amount of abyssals.


Looks like it takes place in the Uncanny Valley.

[Lord Raziere]

Looks like it takes place in the Uncanny Valley.

you stop seeing the puppets after a couple episodes. its really awesome, much better action than most anime, and I say this as an anime {scrub} who loves action.

its written by Gen urobuchi if thats helps, the same guy who wrote Puella Magi Madoka Magica.

heck, I like it so much, I'd honestly reccommend it over Kill Six Billion Demons, because I honestly don't see what THAT has to do with any part of Exalted aside from Malfeas, but Thunderbolt Fantasy captures what Creation itself is like pretty well.

[Morty]

Isn't that the purpose of playing Solars? I got the impression from the 3e corebook that you're supposed to be those heroes that are just too powerful to contain if you actually survive the starting point where you're weak enough to be taken down by a coordinated team of Dragonblooded who got wind of your return. DBs might be great warriors - but a Solar is a one-man army, and that's not hyperbole. DBs might have great administrators, but Solars have gods of commerce and imposition of order among them. DBs are impossible spies, but Solars are like Solid Snake to their James Bonds. Solars come back and they up-end the world, reshape it as they desire, before they have to face the actual threats like Infernals and Abyssals. Am I wrong?

Yes and no. That Solars wield great and largely unbound power has always been a central idea; the degree to which they overshadow everyone else has been a problem and source of controversy. 3E scales it back considerably, though I guess if it's your first contact with the game you might not notice. For instance, part of the setting's backstory is a Solar warlord defeating legions led by Dragon-Blooded. In past editions, he smashed and routed them. In 3E, it's a bloody Pyrrhic victory that cost the lives of some of his Exalted allies. It's a subtle but crucial distinction between "Solars are the mightiest among the mighty" and "Solars are the best, everyone else go home".

[Mechalich]

Excuse me, I think you all don't know about Thunderbolt Fantasy (https://www.crunchyroll.com/thunderbolt-fantasy)

Thunderbolt Fantasy is great, but it's mostly just a fairly standard over-the-top wuxia adventure story that happens to take advantage of the fairly unique medium choices they made (the action looks great in large part because by using puppets they have real lighting in the way a 2d anime can't). There's nothing particular in it that matches it to Exalted, and in fact plenty that doesn't - there's no equivalent to DBs or the Realm for one, and Thunderbolt Fantasy is relentlessly positive, while Exalted is drowning in brutality.

Now I do think you're getting at something here. There is a demographic within the tabletop gaming player base, that wants a system to tell explicitly wuxia adventure stories or shounen anime hero stories (which have different tones but are mechanically very similar), and back when Exalted was originally released there really wasn't a game, in the English market, produced by a significant company, that did that. The closest thing was L5R. The problem is that Exalted was flatly, not a very good game mechanically and the fluff was all over the place and ended up buried in grimderp which is pretty much the opposite of what everyone wanted.

[Lord Raziere]

Thunderbolt Fantasy is great, but it's mostly just a fairly standard over-the-top wuxia adventure story that happens to take advantage of the fairly unique medium choices they made (the action looks great in large part because by using puppets they have real lighting in the way a 2d anime can't). There's nothing particular in it that matches it to Exalted, and in fact plenty that doesn't - there's no equivalent to DBs or the Realm for one, and Thunderbolt Fantasy is relentlessly positive, while Exalted is drowning in brutality.

Now I do think you're getting at something here. There is a demographic within the tabletop gaming player base, that wants a system to tell explicitly wuxia adventure stories or shounen anime hero stories (which have different tones but are mechanically very similar), and back when Exalted was originally released there really wasn't a game, in the English market, produced by a significant company, that did that. The closest thing was L5R. The problem is that Exalted was flatly, not a very good game mechanically and the fluff was all over the place and ended up buried in grimderp which is pretty much the opposite of what everyone wanted.

Thunderbolt Fantasy is relentlessly positive? what?

.....did we watch the same show? :smallconfused: I mean,there is small bit of light at the end, but there is a lot of corruption, betrayal, cynicism, and so on, its a pretty gritty, dark world all things considered. I think we have a vastly different definition of terms here....

and who would use L5R for that? its so restrictive and overly focused on that stupid honor claptrap.

[Max_Killjoy]

Yes and no. That Solars wield great and largely unbound power has always been a central idea; the degree to which they overshadow everyone else has been a problem and source of controversy. 3E scales it back considerably, though I guess if it's your first contact with the game you might not notice. For instance, part of the setting's backstory is a Solar warlord defeating legions led by Dragon-Blooded. In past editions, he smashed and routed them. In 3E, it's a bloody Pyrrhic victory that cost the lives of some of his Exalted allies. It's a subtle but crucial distinction between "Solars are the mightiest among the mighty" and "Solars are the best, everyone else go home".

It's possible to look at it as a deliberate statement that active godlings with outrageous power and very human foibles will result in a grimderp world... but I don't give the writers near that much credit.



Thunderbolt Fantasy is relentlessly positive? what?

.....did we watch the same show? :smallconfused: I mean,there is small bit of light at the end, but there is a lot of corruption, betrayal, cynicism, and so on, its a pretty gritty, dark world all things considered. I think we have a vastly different definition of terms here....

and who would use L5R for that? its so restrictive and overly focused on that stupid honor claptrap.

Yez, all the honor stuff, and drama drama, and also honor, and drama.

[Mechalich]

Thunderbolt Fantasy is relentlessly positive? what?

.....did we watch the same show? :smallconfused: I mean,there is small bit of light at the end, but there is a lot of corruption, betrayal, cynicism, and so on, its a pretty gritty, dark world all things considered. I think we have a vastly different definition of terms here....

Thunderbolt Fantasy has, as one of its central characters, a massively overpowered guy who spends his time wandering around trolling villains and thwarting them, for personal amusement, this is literally a chaotic good paragon. In Exalted, that character would murder small children and turn villages into flesh sculptures. The world has an entire order of heroic guardians who work tirelessly to preserve sacred treasures and aren't particularly corrupt at all. At the end of season one, the heroes triumph and the villains get served it pretty much all possible ways.

Additionally, the series is positive in tone and visual - and definitely in music - in a way that is extremely clear.


and who would use L5R for that? its so restrictive and overly focused on that stupid honor claptrap.

That was, um, the point, Exalted moved into a space in the market that was, at the time, open.

[Morty]

It's possible to look at it as a deliberate statement that active godlings with outrageous power and very human foibles will result in a grimderp world... but I don't give the writers near that much credit.

I do, because I have read the books, played the game, saw the developers explain their design process and found all of them compelling and not "grimderp" in the least. Not sure what else there is to be said. If you want to condemn a game based on hearsay, go ahead, I guess. I was trying to explain something to someone actually interested in it.

[Lord Raziere]

Thunderbolt Fantasy has, as one of its central characters, a massively overpowered guy who spends his time wandering around trolling villains and thwarting them, for personal amusement, this is literally a chaotic good paragon. In Exalted, that character would murder small children and turn villages into flesh sculptures. The world has an entire order of heroic guardians who work tirelessly to preserve sacred treasures and aren't particularly corrupt at all. At the end of season one, the heroes triumph and the villains get served it pretty much all possible ways.

Additionally, the series is positive in tone and visual - and definitely in music - in a way that is extremely clear.



That was, um, the point, Exalted moved into a space in the market that was, at the time, open.

....thats a chaotic good paragon? I dunno Lin setsua always struck me as chaotic neutral, a chaotic good person would be killing the villains quicker rather than playing around and being an untrustworthy traitorous guy who by the way, screwed over Screaming Phoenix Killer for no good reason

its Syou Fu Kan and Rou fu You that are chaotic good.

I have not read anything about anyone in Exalted that said they would murder small children or turn villages into flesh sculptures aside from the Fair Folk, and they're soulless abominations from beyond reality so they hardly count, but then I never read 1e and never plan to.

and yes there is corruption! Syou Kyou Ken? that guy is corrupt as hell!

[Max_Killjoy]

I do, because I have read the books, played the game, saw the developers explain their design process and found all of them compelling and not "grimderp" in the least. Not sure what else there is to be said. If you want to condemn a game based on hearsay, go ahead, I guess. I was trying to explain something to someone actually interested in it.

I've read the books (mainly first edition), and played other games by the same writers.

If anything, the game is a reflection of its creators, a bunch of beings with the power to write "reality"... and not nearly so much smarter than everyone else as they think they are*. See also, Aberrant, Mage, and a lot of "but you're not playing it the right way" hubris regarding Vampire.


(* That is a hard segment to phrase...)


PS: Not a shot at anyone who enjoys the game, just the guys who wrote it.

[Lord Raziere]

I've read the books (mainly first edition), and played other games by the same writers.

If anything, the game is a reflection of its creators, a bunch of beings with the power to write "reality"... and not nearly so much smarter than everyone else as they think they are*. See also, Aberrant, Mage, and a lot of "but you're not playing it the right way" hubris regarding Vampire.


(* That is a hard segment to phrase...)


PS: Not a shot at anyone who enjoys the game, just the guys who wrote it.

.....well....your not wrong.....I can't exactly say otherwise, considering I'm the people who've argued against the devs themselves over the 3e crafting system and the general clunkiness of 3e three or four years ago? kind of hypocritical of me if I didn't acknowledge they aren't the be-all, end-all of Exalted. but the people who are writing it now...aren't the people who wrote it when 3e came out, or the people who wrote 1e. there has been changes.

anyways, while I acknowledge that Exalted isn't the anime game I wanted, I do still want an Exalted-like anime game y'know? just one where all the good insanity of 2e without the bad insanity, with evocations, and the new 3e Exalts mixed in there, just all in there, being awesome and not caring as much about consistency or seriousness. there still can be some seriousness but y'know...when needed. just something awesome.

[Max_Killjoy]

.....well....your not wrong.....I can't exactly say otherwise, considering I'm the people who've argued against the devs themselves over the 3e crafting system and the general clunkiness of 3e three or four years ago? kind of hypocritical of me if I didn't acknowledge they aren't the be-all, end-all of Exalted. but the people who are writing it now...aren't the people who wrote it when 3e came out, or the people who wrote 1e. there has been changes.

anyways, while I acknowledge that Exalted isn't the anime game I wanted, I do still want an Exalted-like anime game y'know? just one where all the good insanity of 2e without the bad insanity, with evocations, and the new 3e Exalts mixed in there, just all in there, being awesome and not caring as much about consistency or seriousness. there still can be some seriousness but y'know...when needed. just something awesome.

I hope you get that system and a campaign in it.

[Mechalich]

.....well....your not wrong.....I can't exactly say otherwise, considering I'm the people who've argued against the devs themselves over the 3e crafting system and the general clunkiness of 3e three or four years ago? kind of hypocritical of me if I didn't acknowledge they aren't the be-all, end-all of Exalted. but the people who are writing it now...aren't the people who wrote it when 3e came out, or the people who wrote 1e. there has been changes.

anyways, while I acknowledge that Exalted isn't the anime game I wanted, I do still want an Exalted-like anime game y'know? just one where all the good insanity of 2e without the bad insanity, with evocations, and the new 3e Exalts mixed in there, just all in there, being awesome and not caring as much about consistency or seriousness. there still can be some seriousness but y'know...when needed. just something awesome.

Shounen anime styles, and high-powered wuxia are functionally superhero settings and need to be built from a framework appropriate to superheroes - settings like My Hero Academia, which are literally superhero shounen worlds are the most obvious about this. The core storyteller system was never really capable of handling power levels above the street level (in the most basic argument, dice pools become problematic when you're regularly rolling more than 10 dice), something that is evidenced by storyteller-system based games being fantastic mechanical failures each time they were tried - with Aberrant and Scion in addition to Exalted. To make a world like Exalted work properly you need a properly built superhero system that can be adapted to a wuxia or shounen style framework.

You also need some kind of controls to avoid the 'bad insanity,' because superhero settings are vulnerable to what I feel should probably be called the Brightburn Effect - the ability of any player to use their great powers for horror and the result that the world would descend into a grim DC-as-interpreted-by-Zack-Synder world at best and might likely be much worse. White Wolf always not only leaned into the inherent honor of having small groups of demigods running around with their full corruption potential, but stacked on various worse things just because they could. Exalted, for example, would be a plenty harsh world if it was just a world under the yoke of The Realm - an empire run by a caste of empowered superhumans - without the deathlords, demons, fey, crazy lunars, massively corrupt deities, and all the rest.

In wuxia, the control is often something like 'the armies of the empire,' as in if the martial artists make too much of a mess someone will show up with 10,000 troops and eliminate all the participants on both sides. In shounen anime it's usually that all the characters are part of some sort of organization run by wise old elders of mighty power who will prevent them from unleashing their powers on the unwitting populace (this tends to eventually break down, but it can be worked around).

[Max_Killjoy]

Shounen anime styles, and high-powered wuxia are functionally superhero settings and need to be built from a framework appropriate to superheroes - settings like My Hero Academia, which are literally superhero shounen worlds are the most obvious about this. The core storyteller system was never really capable of handling power levels above the street level (in the most basic argument, dice pools become problematic when you're regularly rolling more than 10 dice), something that is evidenced by storyteller-system based games being fantastic mechanical failures each time they were tried - with Aberrant and Scion in addition to Exalted. To make a world like Exalted work properly you need a properly built superhero system that can be adapted to a wuxia or shounen style framework.

You also need some kind of controls to avoid the 'bad insanity,' because superhero settings are vulnerable to what I feel should probably be called the Brightburn Effect - the ability of any player to use their great powers for horror and the result that the world would descend into a grim DC-as-interpreted-by-Zack-Synder world at best and might likely be much worse. White Wolf always not only leaned into the inherent honor of having small groups of demigods running around with their full corruption potential, but stacked on various worse things just because they could. Exalted, for example, would be a plenty harsh world if it was just a world under the yoke of The Realm - an empire run by a caste of empowered superhumans - without the deathlords, demons, fey, crazy lunars, massively corrupt deities, and all the rest.

In wuxia, the control is often something like 'the armies of the empire,' as in if the martial artists make too much of a mess someone will show up with 10,000 troops and eliminate all the participants on both sides. In shounen anime it's usually that all the characters are part of some sort of organization run by wise old elders of mighty power who will prevent them from unleashing their powers on the unwitting populace (this tends to eventually break down, but it can be worked around).


Hell, if you could replace HERO's clockwork segment-phase turn system of actions with some sort of action points per turn pool system, it might work for something over-the-top rule-of awesome shounen-gonzo. At least there the only giant fistfulls of dice for for damage.

Or some of the more narrative superhero-level systems that have come out in recent years if that's more the style one is looking for.

(Funny that L5R was mentioned earlier, it had the same giant heaps of dice in resolution rolls problem, to the point where dice beyond a certain number stopped adding to the raw pool and did something else.)

[Morty]

Not a shot at anyone who enjoys the game, just the guys who wrote it.

A pretty hollow disclaimer, now that you've helped turn a thread about enjoying the game into a discussion of how much it sucks and you should play something else.

That's without getting into the rather obvious matter of how people who write it now have nothing to do with people who wrote 1E. Much less oWoD more than a decade ago.

[Mechalich]

Hell, if you could replace HERO's clockwork segment-phase turn system of actions with some sort of action points per turn pool system, it might work for something over-the-top rule-of awesome shounen-gonzo. At least there the only giant fistfulls of dice for for damage.

Or some of the more narrative superhero-level systems that have come out in recent years if that's more the style one is looking for.


There are definitely games in similar operational space now, ranging from more serious productions like Legends of the Wulin, to over-the-top creations like Tenra Bansho Zero, to various FATE-hacks like Tianxia. Typing 'wuxia' into the Drivethrurpg search bar returns nearly 1400 results (I don't know if any of this stuff is any good, but there's got to be a diamond in the rough somewhere). Exalted, however, was first published in 2001 when niche RPG publication was barely a thing. The OGL came out in 2000, around the same time that pdf publication became a thing, Exalted got in right before it digital tabletop publication geared up to the big time. Exalted has a lot of legacy appeal still because of that - especially because it was published by White-Wolf with extremely high production values (I have seen, and am highly sympathetic too, the point that a great deal of WW's success was due to production values), while everything else is niche games by niche publishers.

The thing is, Exalted 3e is also a niche game by a niche publisher, that's what Onyx Path actually is. However much better the mechanics, fluff, and setting may be in 3e, and I'm strongly sympathetic to the idea that they are significantly improved, it is simply impossible for a tiny niche company to functionally produce a game who's publication demands strained the resources of one the most powerful tabletop publishers that has ever existed and the developers of 3e somehow chose to set themselves on a path for an even more ambitious production by making the world larger and adding new exalt types.

[deuterio12]

Excuse me, I think you all don't know about Thunderbolt Fantasy (https://www.crunchyroll.com/thunderbolt-fantasy)

+1 to watching Thunderbolt fantasy, regardless of the actual topic.




The thing is, Exalted 3e is also a niche game by a niche publisher, that's what Onyx Path actually is. However much better the mechanics, fluff, and setting may be in 3e, and I'm strongly sympathetic to the idea that they are significantly improved, it is simply impossible for a tiny niche company to functionally produce a game who's publication demands strained the resources of one the most powerful tabletop publishers that has ever existed and the developers of 3e somehow chose to set themselves on a path for an even more ambitious production by making the world larger and adding new exalt types.

Technology has improved a lot since the days of White Wolf being a top dog. From a greater internet for much easier research to digital word proccessors, making new books is easier than ever.

Also White Wolf in particular really sucked at management and that's why they collapsed. There's a reason why their systems just became more and more bloated (plus how each new faction book assumed slightly different base rules so good luck if you wanted to play with multiple ones at the same time). Being better at organizing things than them isn't exactly a tall bar.

[Morty]

After the previous lead devs have been let go, the new ones have pulled off a really Exalted feat of getting the fandom excited again, though the damage had been done. They've released Arms of the Chosen and Dragon-Blooded and delivered Lunars and the Realm to backers. For that, they've got my trust and my respect. Onyx Path's policy of releasing manuscripts to Kickstarter backers have certainly helped things along, not just in Exalted.

For what it's worth, OP, if you want to talk about playing Exalted elsewhere, there's a Discord server (https://discord.gg/9ZDwrs).

[Devils_Advocate]

So a lot of people are describing Exalted from the perspective of...well, people who know Exalted.

Especially regarding the setting. There's almost 30 posts on the setting itself and...I'm more confused than when I started the thread.

Could someone please explain what's so interesting about the Exalted setting to a noobie?
If one wishes to understand a region, it is helpful to know its past. Perhaps you will have a better sense of the setting if you read a brief history of Creation (https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Exalted#Backstory).

[Beleriphon]

So a lot of people are describing Exalted from the perspective of...well, people who know Exalted.

Especially regarding the setting. There's almost 30 posts on the setting itself and...I'm more confused than when I started the thread.

Could someone please explain what's so interesting about the Exalted setting to a noobie?

Its Hercules & The Morrigan: Buddy Cops the RPG, set in a post apocalyptic Los Angeles, that's run by President for Life Quezacoatl, and his secret service are actually dragons that used to be people.

Your character is a super powered being that can among other things redirect a river in an afternoon, punch a mountain god in the nose because it got uppity with the locals, jump to the moon to get some moon cheese, or cure the diseases of a village just because you can. Your character is a walking mythical disaster/miracle depending on how you want to play.

As a whole, your character also isn't the most powerful being Creation, but they can definitely get there.

[Lord Raziere]

Its Hercules & The Morrigan: Buddy Cops the RPG, set in a post apocalyptic Los Angeles, that's run by President for Life Quezacoatl, and his secret service are actually dragons that used to be people.

Your character is a super powered being that can among other things redirect a river in an afternoon, punch a mountain god in the nose because it got uppity with the locals, jump to the moon to get some moon cheese, and generally wreck havoc on mortals if you want. Your character is a walking mythical disaster.

*Disclaimer: Exalts cannot actually jump to the moon. Moon having moon cheese on it may vary with ST. Redirecting river may involve initiation into Terrestrial Circle Sorcery. Experience of being walking mythical disaster may vary depending on Exalted type, Caste, and ST. Description of setting may depend on seriousness of ST. Description void where prohibited on certain forums. Please see your local gaming group to see what restrictions and kinds of awesome may apply.

[Man_Over_Game]

Its Hercules & The Morrigan: Buddy Cops the RPG, set in a post apocalyptic Los Angeles, that's run by President for Life Quezacoatl, and his secret service are actually dragons that used to be people.

Your character is a super powered being that can among other things redirect a river in an afternoon, punch a mountain god in the nose because it got uppity with the locals, jump to the moon to get some moon cheese, or cure the diseases of a village just because you can. Your character is a walking mythical disaster/miracle depending on how you want to play.

As a whole, your character also isn't the most powerful being Creation, but they can definitely get there.

It sounds like you described Shadowrun, but with all of the players as Demigods.

[Morty]

Well, it's certainly got the buckets of dice in common with Shadowrun. I'm not sure if I'd compare it beyond that, though. Depends on what exactly reminds you of Shadowrun here.

[Lord Raziere]

It sounds like you described Shadowrun, but with all of the players as Demigods.

which is the problem with many Exalted pitches: they don't actually tell what the hell your going to play. see me disclaimer there for some reason why.

I'm not going to bother with my own pitch, because it never helps, instead lets see some past pitches and descriptions of Exalted that.....probably don't hit the mark and to disclaim them:


Exalted is a game where one of your main antagonists is Death, Creator of the Underworld. Except there's several of him, probably six or seven. Oh, and he's got 13 dread henchmen, one of whom was probably you at some point in time. Also, Hell has a personal grudge against you this time. Did I mention Magical America regularly trains and sends ninjas out for you personally? Ninjas specially trained in ass-kicking? Which, if they won't work, they keep giant robotic suits of armor on reserve for. Oh, and the Transformers have united under Omicron, and are invading. The Jedi have corrupted Heaven and usurped your rightful place as the Masters of Everything. Your ex-wife just dropped by, and she's a two thousand year old shape-changing man-eating monster now, interested in maybe going on a date next Thursday. Your best friend from your last life and while growing up now seeks to cover all the lands of Middle Earth in darkness, if he can just find this damn ring. And your God has the world's biggest crack habit, and needs some serious rehab.

*Disclaimer: "Magical America" is actually closer to "Magical Ancient Rome/China Hybrid." "ninjas" aren't actually that but closer to confucian/buddhist chinese monks but badass. Alchemicals cannot transform like transformers and are closer to XJ-9. Autochthon is not Omicron. Alchemical Invasion may vary. Sidereals are not Jedi and do not have lightsabers, while technically usurped, do not have anything to do with Heavens corruption and is trying to fight it at every turn to make sure Creation works right. Abyssals not actually seeking one ring, and actually intend to kill everything eventually.


In most RPG's chairs and bottles serve as improvised weapons. In Exalted, the nearby mountains qualify as well.
- BPFox88

*Disclaimer: mountains may not actually be improvised weapons unless your highly optimized Athletics Supernal Zenith Caste Solar Exalted


The game where you can punch people into being so sick their organs fall out.
The game where you can turn yourself into a city.
The game where dinosaurs pee heroin.
The game where you can sign on with the fallen supergod that erased nine-tenths of Creation because it lost the war.
The game where you can kill five things with one knife throw, jump over a mountain, and still make it to teatime with a dragon.
The game where you can build a giant robot out of ghosts.
And then kill it with a giant sword made of dead gods.
The game where you can insult someone so badly they die.
The game where the sun is like a giant Death Star piloted by the king of gods and capable of blowing up anything he doesn’t like.
The game where you can be so sexy it hurts.
The game where you can be so sneaky you turn into someone else.
The game with magic lesbian stripper ninjas.
The game with fairies that are more like Cthulhu.
But it’s okay because the zombie gods (not gods of zombies, gods that are zombies) accidentally drove them back with a horrible plague.
The game where starting martial artists have to punch a river in half.
The game where, if all goes well, you really should overthrow the gods before you’re halfway done.
- asrius

*Disclaimer: turning yourself into a city limited to one type of Exalted. not making up the dinosaurs that pee heroin part. signing on with said fallen supergod may involve demonic mind control and forcing mindwashing conformity upon all of existence. jumping over mountain only possible with Athletics Supernal Solar. building giant robot of ghosts may need Craft Supernal. insulting someone so badly they die limited to one Exalted. whether Sun is a Death Star may vary depending on edition and ST. no recorded charm makes so sexy you hurt people. magic lesbian stripper ninjas may not be limited to Exalted and Exalted's MLSN's totally don't exist. actually the cthulhu-fairies accidentally cured the horrible plague. starting martial artists may or may not pucnh rivers in half, it is not yet certain. whether you overthrow gods may vary depending on your sociopolitical opinions of divine power structures and prayer economics as well ST intentions.


Go punch important people in the gut, raise an army, raise a city-eating tyrant lizard, raise a cult of orphans who shoot fire from their eyes. Preach about the glories of the Sun and topple the Immaculate Order's grasp on the common man. Topple a Great Dynastic House, get yourself a Sidereal maid. What's a Sidereal? Figure that out, that'll help you a lot. See things nobody has seen in millenia, build things nobody has heard of in two. Fall in love so hard you sink a subcontinent. Marry that brown silver-tattoo'd girl at dawn and hold hands on top of the roofs of the steaming workshops of Nexus. Get ****ed. Get ****ed by a Deathlord and swear revenge in words so potent your eyes turn white from power. Scream "**** YOU!" so hard it makes demons around you explode. Try to bring her back, fail atrociously and curse the forefathers of Creation at the laws they set. Suplex a celestial lion at the gates of Heaven when they don't let you in, make a trip to the Underworld on a boat that sails faster than despair to search for her ghost. Learn to stitch spirit to flesh and turn the armies of your nemesis against him. Ride a mother****ing elemental dragon to battle and dive bomb into the Deathlord's corpse fortress so hard every pious man in the Direction falls over from fear. Go berserk. Lose your **** completely. Find yourself clutching a broken skull, drenched in blood and gore and impotent rage bleeding out of you. Sit on that same roof in Nexus and miss her so much your soul might fall into lethe. Watch the sun rise again and know that it's never going to be over for you.
- Anonymous

*Disclaimer: Sidereals are not maids and its a bad idea to make them one.


A Sidereal was hiding in my cereal bowl waiting to ambush me but I gave it to this guy I didn't like and the Sidereal jumped out and punched him and he turned into ducks. Seriously, it was like poof and he was three ducks.

*Disclaimer: Only sidereals knowing a certain specific martial arts style cna punch you into a duck. poster still unsure how Sidereals hide in a cereal bowl. not actually typical encounter with Sidereal.


In Exalted, if it can't be solved with murder, you aren't murdering it hard enough.
- commonly held principle

*Disclaimer: Principle does not apply to Neverborn, Yozis, vast societal problems of social and cultural inertia, economic problems of empires and people surrounding them, wonders of ages lost being broken, poorly constructed bureaucracies, running out of supplies for the winter/running out of souls because of the Makers stupidity, your loved one dying in your arms and nothing you do capable of bringing her back, or the Great Curse.

[Man_Over_Game]

So, in a nutshell, everything is over the top and fantastical. Ninjas, and Wizards, and Pirates, Oh My!

Is there anything that...ties it all together? Keeps everything from exploding upon itself?

Because it sounds like playing in a classic Greek or Norse mythos story, with some of the specifics jumbled up. Where the idea of a giant snake being the border of the world, and then have it be polymorphed into a cat you can't lift as part of an elaborate prank, would be totally normal.

[Lord Raziere]

So, in a nutshell, everything is over the top and fantastical. Ninjas, and Wizards, and Pirates, Oh My!

Is there anything that...ties it all together? Keeps everything from exploding upon itself?

Because it sounds like playing in a classic Greek or Norse mythos story, with some of the specifics jumbled up. Where the idea of a giant snake being the border of the world, and then have it be polymorphed into a cat you can't lift as part of an elaborate prank, would be totally normal.

and yeah, thats the problem with this. Exalted, as a fanbase, is incredibly bad at describing Exalted to newcomers.

like to strip out all the glitz and glamour: no, that is not correct. while it is over the top to some degree, its not to the point your thinking.

lets try and be as honest and low key as possible:
Creation is the world. the world is flat. outside the world is nothing but chaos, ignore it, its not important. at the center of the world is ancient china-rome, ruled by nobles with element powers, they are jerks. there is lot of ancient-like cultures. those cultures can be kind of jerks to. mostly chinese gods exist. but the rulers of said chinese gods are in chinese heaven, who are greek gods. said greek gods made sun heroes, fate heroes, moon heroes and said element nobles. long ago sun heroes had a bigger, better empire than china-rome, its gone because fate heroes stopped sun heroes from being crazy. Creation got smaller after that because apocalypses. first ruler of china-rome gone, and sun heroes are back. sun heroes are default heroes. actually all heroes are are crazy because ancient curse. no one knows about ancient curse. stage is set, go play hero you like, don't let element noble squads kill you.

Thats it.

[Man_Over_Game]

and yeah, thats the problem with this. Exalted, as a fanbase, is incredibly bad at describing Exalted to newcomers.

like to strip out all the glitz and glamour: no, that is not correct. while it is over the top to some degree, its not to the point your thinking.

lets try and be as honest and low key as possible:
Creation is the world. the world is flat. outside the chaos is nothing but chaos, ignore it, its not important. at the center of the world is ancient china-rome, ruled by nobles with element powers, they are jerks. there is lot of ancient-like cultures. those cultures can be kind of jerks to. mostly chinese gods exist. but the rulers of said chinese gods are in chinese heaven, who are greek gods. said greek gods made sun heroes, fate heroes, moon heroes and said element nobles. long ago sun heroes had a bigger, better empire than china-rome, its gone because fate heroes stopped sun heroes from being crazy. Creation got smaller after that because apocalypses. first ruler of china-rome gone, and sun heroes are back. sun heroes are default heroes. actually all heroes are are crazy because ancient curse. no one knows about ancient curse. stage is set, go play hero you like, don't let element noble squads kill you.

Thats it.

Ah! That makes sense! Well, kinda.

Thank you! So players are like Demi-Demi-Gods, and there are at least two things that are out to get you right off the bat (Super Ninjas and some weird divine curse thing), and the world becomes smaller and smaller. With how big things are inside of the world, and the fact that it's getting smaller, does it seem like things feel...cramped? Like, is there not enough diversity between environments and cultures?

Or are several cultures just kinda mashed together, where you take one wrong turn and suddenly Chinatown?

[Lord Raziere]

Ah! That makes sense! Well, kinda.

Thank you! So players are like Demi-Demi-Gods, and there are at least two things that are out to get you right off the bat (Super Ninjas and some weird divine curse thing), and the world becomes smaller and smaller. With how big things are inside of the world, and the fact that it's getting smaller, does it seem like things feel...cramped? Like, is there not enough diversity between environments and cultures?

Or are several cultures just kinda mashed together, where you take one wrong turn and suddenly Chinatown?

no your just demigods. chosen by gods. the world is not actively getting smaller. its just less than what is was, like all fantasy with golden ages. it is really diverse. and actually twice the size of earth in current canon.

[Morty]

Ah! That makes sense! Well, kinda.

Thank you! So players are like Demi-Demi-Gods, and there are at least two things that are out to get you right off the bat (Super Ninjas and some weird divine curse thing), and the world becomes smaller and smaller. With how big things are inside of the world, and the fact that it's getting smaller, does it seem like things feel...cramped? Like, is there not enough diversity between environments and cultures?

Or are several cultures just kinda mashed together, where you take one wrong turn and suddenly Chinatown?

There's enormous diversity of cultures in Exalted. That's one of the game's strengths. The world is huge and full of all kinds of differently weird people.

[tyckspoon]

Because it sounds like playing in a classic Greek or Norse mythos story, with some of the specifics jumbled up. Where the idea of a giant snake being the border of the world, and then have it be polymorphed into a cat you can't lift as part of an elaborate prank, would be totally normal.

That's not a bad mindset to have for it, actually. Exalts (especially Solars, which are the default player-class variety) are heroes. Not in the modern sense of 'people who go around doing good things for the greater good' (although that is certainly something you can do if it suits your character's personality and goals), but the heroes of Greek stories: people who have a will to do great things and have both greater-than-human successes and talents, and greater-than-human flaws and excesses.

[CharonsHelper]

anyways, while I acknowledge that Exalted isn't the anime game I wanted, I do still want an Exalted-like anime game y'know? just one where all the good insanity of 2e without the bad insanity, with evocations, and the new 3e Exalts mixed in there, just all in there, being awesome and not caring as much about consistency or seriousness. there still can be some seriousness but y'know...when needed. just something awesome.

Curious - did you ever check out Naruto d20?

d20 Modern isn't the best chassis for such a game, the technique balance is meh, and it really only works for a single world (Naruto's obviously) but it actually runs surprisingly smoothly, and it was definitely a labor of love. The majority of the techniques do a good job of hitting that shounen vibe, and it probably has the best downtime system I've ever seen - though requires a bit of GM work to balance. (You get more powerful from EXP, but you only learn techniques by spending days/weeks/months training to learn them - with bonuses for a teacher.)

And while technique balance isn't perfect, bloodlines should be reworked,and Evasion is OP for how easy it is to get (my easy fix is still taking 1/4 damage), the general character types between physical, technique focuses, and well-rounded characters is surprisingly balanced.

[Anymage]

A basic table pitch for the game is that there are a few different kinds of demigods in the setting, each with their own theme. The most individually powerful are the solars, who basically take human strengths and dial them up to crazy mythic levels. There are only a few hundred of these in the setting at any given time. (Earlier edition lore put it at 300 exact, and half of those had been corrupted by various reasons, but I don't think the current edition wants to nail down exact numbers.) There are other types, with differing numbers and power levels. For instance, the most common type (who are individually weakest, but make up for it by having tons more of them) are in charge of the magical America/China/Rome/whatever hegemonic power in the setting.

Without going into too much detail, the solars used to be in charge, got drunk on power, and for the good of the world had to be put down. The magic forces that allowed people to exalt as solars were almost entirely quashed, solars were seen as monsters by the world at large, and the few people who did exalt as solars were quickly and ruthlessly hunted and killed. Various things happened to create a world with lots of adventure opportunity. And then most recently, two big things happened. The global hegemon had a massive shakeup, and the solars have come back in notable numbers again. People still remember vague tales of them being monstrous, so you probably don't want to advertise what you are. But you're back.

So the basics of the setting are taking a place built for adventuring (fans might call it "mythic", detractors might call it "anime", but whichever way the setting fluff does have a lot to inspire you), and suddenly superheroes happen. Maybe you're curious how you change the world with your power. (Early aughts WW played with this theme a few times.) Maybe you just want to have over the top anime adventures. But that's the basic pitch for the default game.

The talk about other demigod types is because some people like the flavor those types bring, and rules for those types were published because that sells sourcebooks. But if you just want a quick idea what you'll probably play if your group just got the main book, "you're a superhero, now what do you do with that?" is the basic idea.

[Cluedrew]

*Disclaimer: [...] insulting someone so badly they die limited to one Exalted.That's one more character archetype than most systems.

And that kind of stuff is the main reason I like the idea of Exalted. Both in how crazy it is but also in how it is showing a bit of the diversity. Still in the end I might be more likely that I take those ideas and make my own system out of it then I play Exalted the way things are going. By the way has anyone else hear tried to make their own system? It's really hard.

[CharonsHelper]

By the way has anyone else hear tried to make their own system? It's really hard.

I'll agree with that sentiment.

Mine is basically done, but it took nearly 4 years (albeit off and on due to personal stuff like new jobs & marriage) and I'm still working on fleshing out the Threat Guide (book of foes etc.), which I figure will take another year or so. If you're interested in a space western - check my signature! :smallbiggrin:

[Friv]

By the way has anyone else hear tried to make their own system? It's really hard.

I've built my own system a few times, but generally only when I'm designing simple one-shot games, not for full campaign play. For full campaign stuff I prefer to hack games out of other games.

[strange7person]

There are a lot of things Exalted can be. This is just one of them, but probably close to the default.

To start with, you're a peasant in that movie The Seven Samurai, only, this time, none of the samurai are interested. They're busy with various other crises, and, seriously, all you have to pay them with is rice? No jade, no deal, sorry.

And those bandits? They aren't just a bunch of scruffy dudes with knives, they've got a sorcerer backing them up. He can shoot lightning, and swarms of razor-sharp glass butterflies, summon demons, turn his own skin into invulnerable bronze without it slowing him down at all, and probably a lot of other even crazier stuff too, and you're just a normal kid, armed with a bit of bamboo, one end cut off at an angle such that it could optimistically be called a spear. The scariest thing you've ever fought before was a wild boar, and even that involved a lot of running away.

But this time you're not gonna run. This is your home, dammit, where else could you even retreat to? All you've got is rags and hand tools and the fire in your belly but you swear by all the gods you won't go down quietly.

The next five days are a bit of a blur.

You're calm. Red haze is gone from your eyes. It's nighttime, but everything around you is lit up bright as day. After taking a deep breath you realize the light is coming from you - you're glowing like you're on fire. It doesn't hurt, in fact, it feels great. A wheezy cough you had since childhood is gone, and for the first time in months your muscles and joints aren't sore at all, even though it feels like you've had a really thorough workout recently.

There are pieces of dead bandits everywhere. Smoldering crater next to the blacksmith's shop? Oh, that's just where you punched a demon so hard it exploded. That sorcerer's still alive, tied up in the pig sty because a village this size doesn't normally need a jail, but you broke his jaw so he can't say the magic words, and he stepped in a spike trap, so now his foot's all messed up and infected. A normal person might die from that. He blubbers and weeps in terror just at the sight of you, and swears to serve for the rest of his unnaturally-prolonged life if you'll have mercy on him.

The village elders, twice or three times your age, are cautiously trying to get your attention, bowing a lot and speaking very formally and circumspectly, the same way they usually do to the rice-gods or the salt-gods or the king's tax collectors. They want to know what your plans are. You kinda wish you knew what your plans were, too, this is still coming as a bit of a shock. But you also know perfectly well telling them that so frankly won't help much.

You're going to talk it over in the village's tiny little church. It's eggshell-like walls and surprisingly comfortable pews are far sturdier than inch thick steel plate, but the mud brick bell tower is comparatively fragile, because it's built around the burned-out wreck of a thousand-year-old armored personnel carrier. Inner sanctum is the former cockpit.

See that one really big mountain on the horizon? It's eight hundred miles tall, and defines the exact center of the world. There's a gate to Heaven at the top. The "foothills" around it add up to an island the size of Russia, populated mostly by peasants like you - or rather, like you used to be - but with access to much better medical care and an overall higher standard of living. Those people are supposedly ruled by ten thousand dragons, whose religion says they should fly here, to your village, quickly as they can, and kill you just for being what you now are - because if you survive long enough to figure out your full powers, you'll be an existential threat to them. Maybe you should be careful not to attract their attention... at least until you're better prepared, and have someone to watch your back.

Speaking of behind your back, in the opposite direction, off the edge of all maps, the world frays into chaos. You dimly remember, lifetimes ago, conquering mile after mile of that chaos, reshaping it into wondrous landscapes, vast wealth, even living people, all by your will alone, then stabilizing those new realms with hundred-ton jade obelisks like a quilter pinning together patches of cloth, and... other methods, you felt very clever for inventing them at the time but the functional details are like grasping at smoke. Have to work a lot of things out from scratch, but at least you know it's possible. The basics shouldn't take more than a week or two - weaving dreams into places was the easy part, and while new "pins" might be trickier, the old batch is probably still out there somewhere, waiting to be found.

Shape-shifting, soul-eating abominations live in the deeper chaos, and might not appreciate you paving over their homes, but then again you're pretty sure it's possible to negotiate with them. They treat almost everything like a joke, but take promises very seriously, even those made under duress. In a fair fight, most of them are weaker than that demon, and even the greatest tend to have exploitable weaknesses - so of course they almost never fight fair.

First, though, there are still pieces of dead bandits everywhere, and the smell is going to get worse before it gets better. If they're not given respectful burial, the restless spirits will seek revenge - and if those hungry ghosts can't hurt you directly (which seems likely, given what happened to that poor demon), they'll target your family, livestock, or whatever else they can reach. Or just lose their minds, wander the night ravaging at random like rabid animals.

Even if you really don't want to pay respects to a bunch of ruthless brigands, and are confident you can banish their ghosts back into the cycle of reincarnation before they'd be able to do serious damage, poor sanitation might offend the petty spirits of local waterways, then all your friends catch dysentery and start ****ting themselves to death. You might be able to fix that in time, too, by purification rituals and mineral salts and either appeasement or brutal subjugation of the spirits responsible, but, like with a lot of things, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

There's a sword in your hand, broad as a surfboard and light as a feather. When you let go, it vanishes like a blown-out candle, and then when you clench your fist just the right way it's back again. That sword is as much a part of you as your own eyes or groin or heart, now, and will be for the rest of your life. It's edge is sharp enough to cut absolutely anything that can BE cut, and further, most things that shouldn't be. What are you going to do?

[deuterio12]

That's not a bad mindset to have for it, actually. Exalts (especially Solars, which are the default player-class variety) are heroes. Not in the modern sense of 'people who go around doing good things for the greater good' (although that is certainly something you can do if it suits your character's personality and goals), but the heroes of Greek stories: people who have a will to do great things and have both greater-than-human successes and talents, and greater-than-human flaws and excesses.

Ulysses whole character arc is "I don't want to do great things, I just want to go back home and live (relatively) peacefully with my wife and son."

Hercules twelve jobs are all Hera's orders because she was pissed off at him, and he too just wanted to be a family man.

Acquilles is the one who actively seeks glory-and ends up dying from an arrow to the knee ankle in his very first war.

If anything, exalted is pretty much the opposite of greek stories since in one you are kneeling before the god's whims begging them for mercy/help and in the other you are punching the gods in the face while they beg for your mercy/help.

[Beleriphon]

<stuff> There's a sword in your hand, broad as a surfboard and light as a feather. When you let go, it vanishes like a blown-out candle, and then when you clench your fist just the right way it's back again. That sword is as much a part of you as your own eyes or groin or heart, now, and will be for the rest of your life. It's edge is sharp enough to cut absolutely anything that can BE cut, and further, most things that shouldn't be. What are you going to do?

That about sums it up right there.

At the top bottom tier your character is Achilles as seen through the lens of Hunter S Thompson on his best acid trip, at the top tier you're Hercules and the Silver Surfer in one person, who gets into fights with Time, or Gravity.

I keep mentioning Hercules for reason, and its because he was person, he wasn't even necessarily a good person, but he did have very human foibles and needs.

[Lord Raziere]

I think we're getting into overly descriptive nonsense about how over the top Exalted is again.

look, Man Over Game, there are only two questions you need to ask for starting Exalted

1. Whats your goal? because the games a sandbox. you know the drill from there.

and 2. how do you achieve your goal? because corebook and starting splat is Solar Exalted. so if you want to jump in your choices are: Fighter (Dawn Caste), Messiah (Zenith Caste), Nerd (Twilight Caste), Rogue (Night Caste) or Bureaucrat (Eclipse Caste).

all that descriptive awesome is more like something you....experience. a feel you get from reading the charms and setting. the five roles above keep in mind can be very broad and cover a lot of different archetypes with only a few specific skills, and your not even fully bound to the archetype if you don't want to.

all the other Exalts are far more specific in concept than Solars, who are literally "this is the Exalt for starting out, you can make whatever you want that is within the settings constraints, go wild." and Solars have capability to surpass any other Exalt at anything so you'll know if you'll like the game if you can have fun playing solars or not, because all the other Exalts have more limitations or specialized- but they can still kill Solars if they play their cards right.

[strange7person]

Solars have capability to surpass any other Exalt at anything
Any normal human thing, superlative extensions of mundane skill. Anybody could search the wyld and maybe someday find the palace of their dreams; a solar's Wyld-Shaping Technique just makes the whole process faster and safer by a few orders of magnitude, then Wyld Cauldron Technology takes it a step further by making the results truly real (for a price). Anybody could throw a knife; a solar's Call The Blade just makes it come back afterwards, Iron Raptor Technique extends it to throwing heavier stuff, and Blazing Solar Bolt takes it a step further by letting you fire a golden laser at someone up to a mile away by swinging your weapon in their general direction. Anyone can shoot a bow; a solar's Accuracy Without Distance ensures that the arrow will always hit, even if there's a hurricane in the way. Anyone could put a splint on a broken leg; a solar's Wholeness-Restoring Meditation makes severed limbs and gouged-out eyes grow back good as new.

If you want to do fundamentally weird stuff, like precisely manipulating prophecies and curses, or squirting poison from your eyes, or turning into a giant robot, other exalt types are usually going to have an easier time. One of the basic sidereal archery charms, for example, makes it possible to substitute any appropriately-sized item for an arrow, such as a fish, a handful of sand, or a whispered sentence. Completing the charm tree lets you flip that effect turn-ways and thus convert arrows into arbitrary things as you let fly, such as boulders, patches of ripe wheat, fire, a snowstorm (only slightly more expensive in hot sandy deserts), healing, or love.

[Lord Raziere]

yeah.

basically, Man Over Game: Solars more powerful but all awesome is human, if you want any cool power that isn't sun or human themed, your out of luck or need artifacts/sorcery or one of the weirder martial arts. you need other splats for a fully non-sun exalt.

this kind of why new books taking forever to come out is a big deal, sure most people play solars anyways, but STs need ways to stat other Exalts up and weirdos like me revel in being esoteric hipsters who make special snowflakes and expect other people to care.

[emeraldstreak]

Solars are more powerful

An unfortunate misconception that burned out a lot of players.

Vampires are more powerful. Bullets are just bashing damage to them, and death only a torpor inconvenience.

Solars can be more powerful. But they aren't, inherently. They are just humans with golden lottery tickets.

[GrayDeath]

Imagine superhero / demigod power levels for all PCs, total gonzo powers and combat, and White Wolf's complete lack of understanding of any the concept of balance.

Pretty close one, yeah.

As someone who started at the earliest phase of first edition and really really kept playing until about late 2nd regarding publishing (then ran out of players completely^^), let me, without actively diving into the arguments, detail my experience with Exalted.

Preface: The fluff is between great and amazing. Some of the BOoks (Gracefulk wicked Masques ins econd, and the Caste Books/DB Book in 1st specifically) are among the best in that regard that I have ever bought.

Now on to experience:


Early first Edition: Fantastic Fluff, lovely designed and fluffed books, deep adherence to fluff in new publishings.
Overall aside from one MASSIV problem (see below) in my experience the best time for exalted, as it was new, it was shiny, it was cool, and it (mostly) worked.

Now the caveat to that is that White Wolfs "Oh Woe Is Me" Attitude in EVERYTHING and the sheer stupidity of keeping the original WoD EXP Increases for a freaking Superhoero Fantasy setting the same as for a gritty Vampire Game should be obvious to just about anyone. Ergo we very early on switched to giving between 1 and 3 Bonus Points instead of XP per Session. Felt smoother, worked better, didnt actually ruin the intended balance (merely served to reduce the gap between it and the fluff).

Now early 1st Editions massive problem was this: The Dragonblooded were much MUCH too powerful. The fluff makes it "Normal" for a relatively newly exalted Solar to beat -3 of the regular DB`s alone, and for a new Circle of Solars to be more than superior to a single Wyld Hunt Unit of Dragonblooded (they rule a huge Empire, and compared to around 150 max Solars there are around 10000 of them ^^).
Mechanically however they were only marginally weaker and had a lot of "Lets Teambuf" Charms. In shrort, if you palyed early 1st ed exalted RAW your Solars would suck hard.

late First Edition 8with Errata): The main problem of the Dragonblooded was mitigated somewhat, the Lunars still had the short stick overall, but given that Shapeshifting remains their shtick, thats not TOO bad, Balance was probably at its overall High Point here.

Played the most different Games in this time (though no Alchemicals or Fair Folk).

Early Second Edition: Oh Hello, Power Creep. Aside from the finally closer to fluff Dragonblooded EVERYONE got better.
It started to lose all remnants of good balance and slither deep into "barely palyable" without a lot of Houserules and/or the later Errata in this time. Most of our Exalted Groups left it around here. After all, if the holes are as large as DND TO, but the basic System is not as solid, thats saying a lot ^^

Late 2nd Edition: The least clear section for me. On one hand, I loved the Infernals mechanics and some of their fluff, on the other hand for improved" Celestials they were far too weak peakwise, and some of their fluff was truly horrible. Most of us lost interest, only one group remained with errataed and strongly house ruled games. Still fun though.

3rd Edition: It was inevetable to change the system up quite a bit, and yes, mechancially its the by far best working Version. it is however no longer truly mad, gonzo, fun". And they castrated the fluff so horribly that I stopped being interested in it when I read how the new underworld works. No thanks. There are lots of Systems with much better mechanics, I mostly palyed exalted for the fluff and the be everything" feeling.



To sum it up: if you have a GM who knows the system well, has the necessary house rules, and a clear plan for the Game (and clear yes/noes for various Exalted and so on) AND a group that wants a similar level of Power ad has similar levels of Knowledge regarding Exalted, you can have amazing fun with the Games, no matter what edition of 1st and second.

If you miss one of these, its getting rocky but likely will still be msotly fun.

If you miss more than one, dont play. Trust me.


Edit: And inc ase it helps: my Power/Difficulty to achieve that power rating for the Exalted in nd with Errata:


Solars: CAN be the utterly amazing best, IF they concentrate strongly on the aspect they want to rock (and if that isnt one of the protected areas, like Shapeshifting or Sidereal martial Arts). Suck at being alround powerful, but excel at "best at 1 or areas" and Sorcery. Usual problem: relatively inefficient Charms, so low Essence Solars run out of steam rather quickly. Also unless using charms almost "only" excellent Humans.

Lunars: The Antithesis of Solars. You ahve a pretty hard time being really good at anything but SHapeshifting, but Attribute dependant charms and Shapeshifting allow you to have a very high floor/Base competence anywhere.

Dragonblooded: Great in Teams built for each other or in purely Social Games. Very efficient powers. Mediocre to bad otherwise.

Abyssals: Need something destroyed? need the Wyld kicked out? Search no more. Worst of the Solar Deviratives otherwise (you could say they are solars who ahve their specialization chosen for them. They cans till rock outside, but only with a lot of effort and side effects).

Infernals: Pick a Style, do everything fitting to that style, be really powerful and stylish!. Leave that style, and be the worst of the Celestials. (I love them for theme Characters, but if you just want to play someone powerful, look elsewhere).

Sidereals: Incredible in their niches...as soon as they have essence 4-5 or more. Mediocre otherwise.

Alchemicals: Very high Floor, low ceiling, low flexibility, unplayable outside some very specific areas. (As much as I love their fluff, sadly...)

Raksha: Weird. Fantastic Fluff, totally insane mechanics, and I am still looking for a good game with them as main Focus, sigh....

[Devils_Advocate]

turning yourself into a city limited to one type of Exalted.
NUH UH! Turning into a city happens not only to Alchemical Exalted who raise their Essence high enough, but also to high-Essence Infernals who get deep enough into Malfeas's Charmset. Plus I think there's a Primordial-imitation Charm for Solars tucked away somewhere in one of the First Age books, because some First Age Solar decided that turning herself into a many-tentacled monstrosity was a great idea.


at the center of the world is ancient china-rome, ruled by nobles with element powers, they are jerks. there is lot of ancient-like cultures. those cultures can be kind of jerks to.
That's a bit overly specific. People tend to be jerks. People in power tend to do more bad stuff because people in power tend to get more stuff done in general. The Solar Exalted may have presided over a golden (heh) age, but that's not because they were the ones to truly care about their subjects. Rulers in general want prosperity. Solars are just inordinately good at getting the things that they want. And that means that their jerkitude often gets the greatest chance to shine (heh again). At the height of their power, the Solars could kill millions of mortals in an appropriately Solar-level military training exercise and regard the whole affair as a successful endeavor. That's not a hypothetical example. (http://riseupfromdarkness.wikidot.com/operationwyldhand)


So players are like Demi-Demi-Gods
Exalted beat up gods and take their lunch money.

Starting Exalted aren't as impressive as the top gods who their power is derived from, but that's not a fair comparison at all. The Celestial Incarna and the 5 Elemental Dragons have way more experience! The proper comparison is between them and Essence 10 Exalted.

Essence 5 Exalted overthrew, killed, and imprisoned the architects of Creation. Not that the Unconquered Sun couldn't have if he hadn't been bound not to. I'm just saying, the Exalted are pretty capable.


it sounds like playing in a classic Greek or Norse mythos story, with some of the specifics jumbled up. Where the idea of a giant snake being the border of the world, and then have it be polymorphed into a cat you can't lift as part of an elaborate prank, would be totally normal.
That reminds me of a little story. (The following is based mostly on 2nd Edition material. I don't know how much of it has changed.)

Once upon a time, the entirety of Creation was encircled by a vast river that held the Wyld at bay. This was the Primordial Adrian. When Adrian's fetich soul was cut down in the Primordial War, causing her to dry up, that soul let out a shriek that would scar her forever, leaving her ever hateful of all noise. Thus was the River of All Torments transformed into Adorjan, the Silent Wind.

See, Primordials have multiple souls and often multiple bodies, and their souls have multiple souls and often multiple bodies of their own. We're talking about entities whose competing interests have minds of their own, and the interactions between them are how they develop over time. So a Primordial's internal conflicts are still conflicts between individuals... save that the disputants may not quite be individuals themselves either!

At the end of the Primordial War, the victorious Exalted surgically executed and/or otherwise messed with some of the Primodials' souls in order to facilitate the transformation of these world-shaping entities into more tractable beings capable of being bound by surrender oaths: the Yozi. Once Primordial, now... lesser. Because, see, a lot of their long-term potential lay in... lied in? Laid in? Dammit. Ahem! A lot of their long-term potential came from their ability to change over time, slowly reshaping themselves to eventually become radically different. And, well, obviously the Exalted didn't want their defeated enemies to change into something capable of escape, so their potential for personal growth had to be drastically curtailed. So to the extent that this whole process left some of them insane, deranged, and obsessed with revenge, they're pretty much incapable of getting better. Great job, Team Exalted!

The Yozi are confined to Malfeas, the Demon City, their once and future king if he gets his way. See, a few of the Yozi are plotting to escape their prison and reclaim the world that is rightfully theirs. Adorjan has signed on with the Reclamation conspiracy. You might infer that she covets Creation and the Games of Divinity that were once Adrian's passion. One might guess that Adorjan is eager to exact retribution for everything that her enemies have done to her; that she's bitter and hateful. Certainly her peers are largely driven by such motivations.

But not Adorjan. Oh, no. Not at all. See, Adorjan has come to understand the profound and fundamental truth that desire inevitably leads to suffering. Grateful to have been granted this understanding, Adorjan now seeks to pay it forward, enlightening others as she herself has been enlightened. And as such, she quite naturally seeks to destroy everything that anyone cares about. For only once they have been broken will they see. A compassionate bodhisattva who seeks to free mortal and Yozi alike from their attachments, Adorjan is the most loving of her kind.

I'd still rather deal with her than with the Ebon Dragon.

Anyway, now that Adrian is gone and the Celestial Incarna are too busy playing the Games of Divinity to guard Creation's nebulous borders, the Wyld creeps in and the Fair Folk come in and mess around with Creation, leading to the Loom of Fate getting all tangled up to the consternation of the Bureau of Destiny. See, this is the problem with killing the jerks in charge and taking their stuff. Sometimes those jerks were fulfilling important functions, and getting rid of them just means that a new bunch of jerks will replace them. (Oh, you and your peers plan to seize power for yourselves through large-scale violence? Of course! Jerks totally won't be in charge then! A wonder that no one thought of doing that before.)

[Lord Raziere]

NUH UH! Turning into a city happens not only to Alchemical Exalted who raise their Essence high enough, but also to high-Essence Infernals who get deep enough into Malfeas's Charmset. Plus I think there's a Primordial-imitation Charm for Solars tucked away somewhere in one of the First Age books, because some First Age Solar decided that turning herself into a many-tentacled monstrosity was a great idea.

*Disclaimer: Turning into a city is WW codespeak for becoming an NPC. Solars outright accessing other charmsets no longer canon.


That's a bit overly specific. People tend to be jerks. People in power tend to do more bad stuff because people in power tend to get more stuff done in general. The Solar Exalted may have presided over a golden (heh) age, but that's not because they were the ones to truly care about their subjects. Rulers in general want prosperity. Solars are just inordinately good at getting the things that they want. And that means that their jerkitude often gets the greatest chance to shine (heh again). At the height of their power, the Solars could kill millions of mortals in an appropriately Solar-level military training exercise and regard the whole affair as a successful endeavor. That's not a hypothetical example. (http://riseupfromdarkness.wikidot.com/operationwyldhand)

*Disclaimer: 2e First Age Lore no longer canon.


Exalted beat up gods and take their lunch money.

Starting Exalted aren't as impressive as the top gods who their power is derived from, but that's not a fair comparison at all. The Celestial Incarna and the 5 Elemental Dragons have way more experience! The proper comparison is between them and Essence 10 Exalted.

Essence 5 Exalted overthrew, killed, and imprisoned the architects of Creation. Not that the Unconquered Sun couldn't have if he hadn't been bound not to. I'm just saying, the Exalted are pretty capable.

*Disclaimer: Essence 10 Exalted no longer canon. Beating up and taking their lunch money not the only way to interact with divinities, but it is the Immaculate Orders method of doing so and Solars and Lunars have more options than that.


That reminds me of a little story. (The following is based mostly on 2nd Edition material. I don't know how much of it has changed.)

It probably has.


Once upon a time, the entirety of Creation was encircled by a vast river that held the Wyld at bay. This was the Primordial Adrian. When Adrian's fetich soul was cut down in the Primordial War, causing her to dry up, that soul let out a shriek that would scar her forever, leaving her ever hateful of all noise. Thus was the River of All Torments transformed into Adorjan, the Silent Wind.

See, Primordials have multiple souls and often multiple bodies, and their souls have multiple souls and often multiple bodies of their own. We're talking about entities whose competing interests have minds of their own, and the interactions between them are how they develop over time. So a Primordial's internal conflicts are still conflicts between individuals... save that the disputants may not quite be individuals themselves either!

At the end of the Primordial War, the victorious Exalted surgically executed and/or otherwise messed with some of the Primodials' souls in order to facilitate the transformation of these world-shaping entities into more tractable beings capable of being bound by surrender oaths: the Yozi. Once Primordial, now... lesser. Because, see, a lot of their long-term potential lay in... lied in? Laid in? Dammit. Ahem! A lot of their long-term potential came from their ability to change over time, slowly reshaping themselves to eventually become radically different. And, well, obviously the Exalted didn't want their defeated enemies to change into something capable of escape, so their potential for personal growth had to be drastically curtailed. So to the extent that this whole process left some of them insane, deranged, and obsessed with revenge, they're pretty much incapable of getting better. Great job, Team Exalted!

The Yozi are confined to Malfeas, the Demon City, their once and future king if he gets his way. See, a few of the Yozi are plotting to escape their prison and reclaim the world that is rightfully theirs. Adorjan has signed on with the Reclamation conspiracy. You might infer that she covets Creation and the Games of Divinity that were once Adrian's passion. One might guess that Adorjan is eager to exact retribution for everything that her enemies have done to her; that she's bitter and hateful. Certainly her peers are largely driven by such motivations.

But not Adorjan. Oh, no. Not at all. See, Adorjan has come to understand the profound and fundamental truth that desire inevitably leads to suffering. Grateful to have been granted this understanding, Adorjan now seeks to pay it forward, enlightening others as she herself has been enlightened. And as such, she quite naturally seeks to destroy everything that anyone cares about. For only once they have been broken will they see. A compassionate bodhisattva who seeks to free mortal and Yozi alike from their attachments, Adorjan is the most loving of her kind.

I'd still rather deal with her than with the Ebon Dragon.

Anyway, now that Adrian is gone and the Celestial Incarna are too busy playing the Games of Divinity to guard Creation's nebulous borders, the Wyld creeps in and the Fair Folk come in and mess around with Creation, leading to the Loom of Fate getting all tangled up to the consternation of the Bureau of Destiny. See, this is the problem with killing the jerks in charge and taking their stuff. Sometimes those jerks were fulfilling important functions, and getting rid of them just means that a new bunch of jerks will replace them. (Oh, you and your peers plan to seize power for yourselves through large-scale violence? Of course! Jerks totally won't be in charge then! A wonder that no one thought of doing that before.)

*Disclaimer: Adorjani compassion involves killing you so that in non existence you aren't attached to anything to suffer from and thus "compassionate" in the worst possible way. Ebon Dragon no longer snidely whiplash. Main conflict is Realm Vs. Threshold. Not all Exalts are Dawn Castes, yet somehow they never stopped their combat Exalts from killing the last dude and taking power before or causing wars even though the Eclipses are right there.

[Devils_Advocate]

The use of fine print seems a little redundant with prefacing everything with "Disclaimer:". Text of that size might be hard for some people to read. Maybe it's not the best idea.

This thread isn't about the 3rd Edition of Exalted specifically. Is the official 2nd Edition (and 1st Edition) material retroactively no longer official? Can they even do that, or do previous editions have perfect defenses against being decanonized?


*Disclaimer: Turning into a city is WW codespeak for becoming an NPC.
Well, it's probably pretty hard to roleplay a city. Some players might be interested in that, but I reckon that it's pretty legitimate to say that it's outside of what the game is intended to be about.


*Disclaimer: 2e First Age Lore no longer canon.
I imagine that 3E First Age Solars still sometimes did very bad things on a very large scale. "For the greater good", of course.


Beating up and taking their lunch money not the only way to interact with divinities, but it is the Immaculate Orders method of doing so and Solars and Lunars have more options than that.
That's largely because the gods largely still don't really recognize the Terrestrial Exalted as having legitimate authority. The Usurpation is still pretty recent by most of their standards, and they know that the Immaculate Philosophy is a fabrication by the Sidereals who really orchestrate things. Meanwhile, the Terrestrials don't even know that the Sidereal Exalted exist. The Dragon-Blooded don't even know what's going on, man! They're pawns! I know that I'd find them hard to respect if I were in the gods' place. Solars, conversely, are easy to respect, not only because they're still the legitimate chosen rulers of the King of Heaven, but because said King has endowed them with respect-commanding Charms in order to facilitate that role.

One might go so far as to say that Solars are dangerously easy to respect. The Immaculate religion isn't really wrong on that point. This is a major part of why the Bronze Faction has their supporters, and a major part of why the Bronze Faction exists. To those in the know, it's at least obvious that the Sidereals are manipulating everything. Solars can be way less subtle with almost no one catching on, because their social magic is just that effective.


Adorjani compassion involves killing you so that in non existence you aren't attached to anything to suffer from and thus "compassionate" in the worst possible way.
As I once saw it put: Adorjan is the most compassionate of the Yozi. Her love, however, is ever so much worse than her hate.


Ebon Dragon no longer snidely whiplash.
Wait, what? Do you mean to tell me that the Shadow of All Things is no longer entirely deliberately The Ur-Villain? But that was his defining thing, wasn't it? Saying that his self-interest was at all enlightened was the part that didn't fit with his overall characterization.


Main conflict is Realm Vs. Threshold.
Makes sense, in a way. It's been going on for so long that it's unsurprising that, in the minds of the leaders involved, the disappearance of the Scarlet Empress and the sudden appearance of large numbers of Anathema mostly raises the question of how all of this stuff is going to affect the Realm's ongoing bid for global hegemony. One gathers that certain implications perhaps have yet to be truly grasped.


Not all Exalts are Dawn Castes, yet somehow they never stopped their combat Exalts from killing the last dude and taking power before or causing wars even though the Eclipses are right there.
That reminds me of something else. An observation by some Exalted fan or other.

In the beginning -- which is to say, after the Exalted were first created -- the Dawn Caste, appropriately enough, was the most prominent as the generals and warriors charged with leading the rebel forces to victory in the war to overthrow the Primordials. After that victory was achieved and a new order established, the Zenith Caste rose to prominence as spiritual and political leaders. (E.g. Queen Merela had to cede some of her power to the Deliberative, where the Hierophant became a very influential figure.) The height of the First Age saw -- nay, was brought about by! -- the rise of the Twilight Caste, as they unraveled the mysteries of the universe and used the knowledge thus gained to craft wonders such as never had before been seen. Before they could literally disassemble the world that they might reassemble its component pieces into one more to their liking, the Bronze Faction Sidereals mostly got rid of the Solars, but we can speculate that most of those who survived undetected between then and the game's default starting time were of the Night Caste. (One rarely hears of them, but that's exactly what one would expect.)

And finally, Creation has experienced a metaphorical new dawn with the returned of the deposed Lawgivers; one heralded not by a literal dawn but by a rare conjunction of the sun and the moon. It now falls to the Eclipse Caste to reestablish peace and cooperation in the place of conflict. For in this new era, those who cannot hang together are liable to hang separately.

[Lord Raziere]

[QUOTE]The use of fine print seems a little redundant with prefacing everything with "Disclaimer:". Text of that size might be hard for some people to read. Maybe it's not the best idea.

Now your just not being fun.


This thread isn't about the 3rd Edition of Exalted specifically. Is the official 2nd Edition (and 1st Edition) material retroactively no longer official? Can they even do that, or do previous editions have perfect defenses against being decanonized?

The developers have specifically gone out of their way to say parts of 2e are no longer canon when people asks questions about it in their thread on the onyx path forums. and while 1e is more well-regarded, there are still things from 1e that aren't considered canon, like Lunars being called "barbarians" from an out of universe perspective. you have to understand: Onyx Path is VERY woke/pro-diversity in its writing these days. like any explicit references to anything involving rape are outright not considered canon by anyone with sense. Lilun for example is no longer canon hard stop, because its a disgusting nightmare thing that should never have been written. Lillun pretty much the poster child for all of the things that everyone agrees should never have been canon to begin with.


Well, it's probably pretty hard to roleplay a city. Some players might be interested in that, but I reckon that it's pretty legitimate to say that it's outside of what the game is intended to be about.

I imagine that 3E First Age Solars still sometimes did very bad things on a very large scale. "For the greater good", of course.

True, I'm just making that clear for the former, and saying they don't like going into specifics on the latter.


That's largely because the gods largely still don't really recognize the Terrestrial Exalted as having legitimate authority. The Usurpation is still pretty recent by most of their standards, and they know that the Immaculate Philosophy is a fabrication by the Sidereals who really orchestrate things. Meanwhile, the Terrestrials don't even know that the Sidereal Exalted exist. The Dragon-Blooded don't even know what's going on, man! They're pawns! I know that I'd find them hard to respect if I were in the gods' place. Solars, conversely, are easy to respect, not only because they're still the legitimate chosen rulers of the King of Heaven, but because said King has endowed them with respect-commanding Charms in order to facilitate that role.

One might go so far as to say that Solars are dangerously easy to respect. The Immaculate religion isn't really wrong on that point. This is a major part of why the Bronze Faction has their supporters, and a major part of why the Bronze Faction exists. To those in the know, it's at least obvious that the Sidereals are manipulating everything. Solars can be way less subtle with almost no one catching on, because their social magic is just that effective.

Oooooh, your not really not up to date. the Immaculate Order in current canon knows that the Solar and Lunars are Exalts, they just don't tell anyone else they're not demons because its a convenient fiction that simplifies things, and the deeper theology of the Immaculate doctrine is basically being told the truth from a pro-terrestrial spin, that the Immaculate Dragons are more allegories and heroes and its the principles that matter over them actually existing, and that some Sidereals are even editing things so that the Immaculates accept the bronze faction Sidereals as open allies. an Immaculate Monk is as clued in about the real situation as a Solar Exalted is, they just see this all as a good thing.

While the rest of the Dragon Blooded are not being manipulated by the Sidereals at all and are doing their own thing for their own reasons, except for some parts of the scattered broken All-Seeing Eye. and think the Anathema are demons so they can kill them for the glories, monies and power. they are not pawns, and I would ask you to please stop calling them that. the DBs were never meant to be chumps who get pawned or tossed aside for a more important threat.


Wait, what? Do you mean to tell me that the Shadow of All Things is no longer entirely deliberately The Ur-Villain? But that was his defining thing, wasn't it? Saying that his self-interest was at all enlightened was the part that didn't fit with his overall characterization.

Not in 1e, and they are going to back to that. in 1e, the Ebon dragon is someone who is in love with your doom and has some weird zen thing going on, its not particularly clear but the current consensus with the Devs and the people that most ardently follow them on the onyx path forums is that 2e Ebon dragon isn't a good depiction of him, shouldn't have been written, because they don't want the Yozis in general to be massive cartoon characters on par with fishmalks and 2e made them that way apparently.


Makes sense, in a way. It's been going on for so long that it's unsurprising that, in the minds of the leaders involved, the disappearance of the Scarlet Empress and the sudden appearance of large numbers of Anathema mostly raises the question of how all of this stuff is going to affect the Realm's ongoing bid for global hegemony. One gathers that certain implications perhaps have yet to be truly grasped.

yeah, basically the books have been emphasizing the money aspect to all this. the houses are less good at managing their money than you might think, the Lunars are waging war to make the Realm spend more money to deplete their resources over time, almost all the houses are in debt to the Ragaras, a big part of the 3e Realm book goes into how the realms taxes are currently screwed up, basically massive economic problems are brewing.

[SaurOps]

2e Ebon Dragon's characterization was made up of a number of different Yozis from 1e, stealing their thunder and keeping them from being significant, as Malfeas was actually the quiet plotter who ruined things out of spite in the original writeup from Games of Divinity. 2e Ebon Dragon even stole thunder from the edition's new Yozi, Szoreny, and for some reason had that one's nemesis concentration. After you re-route Charms back to where they should have come from, you have some concentration in necromancy and eldritch (as opposed to poison-powered) life-blighting, and you alter how Witness to Darkness works so that it makes you gothic in sensibilities rather than a lying liar who tells lies. Not much else written about the Ebon Dragon in 2e can reasonably apply.

[Max_Killjoy]

2e Ebon Dragon, etc, sounds like all the stuff that didn't make the cut for the Wyrm book for Werewolf or the Tzimesce book for Vampire...

[Morty]

I never did quite get what this whole "Yozis are their Charms" business was about, but I'm glad that in 3E I don't need to. Yozis aren't served well by focusing too much on them in general.

[Lord Raziere]

2e Ebon Dragon's characterization was made up of a number of different Yozis from 1e, stealing their thunder and keeping them from being significant, as Malfeas was actually the quiet plotter who ruined things out of spite in the original writeup from Games of Divinity. 2e Ebon Dragon even stole thunder from the edition's new Yozi, Szoreny, and for some reason had that one's nemesis concentration. After you re-route Charms back to where they should have come from, you have some concentration in necromancy and eldritch (as opposed to poison-powered) life-blighting, and you alter how Witness to Darkness works so that it makes you gothic in sensibilities rather than a lying liar who tells lies. Not much else written about the Ebon Dragon in 2e can reasonably apply.

Yeah, referring to Ebon Dragon while thinking he is the 2e incarnation is pretty much referring to some character by their old memetic version of them when that was just like a phase man and they're like doing other stuff now, and to a lesser degree that holds true for rest of the Yozis as well. from the impression I'm getting, the devs basically want the Yozis to be like the Daedric Princes from Elder Scrolls but without any demon invasions:
alien, immortal powerful spirit beings each with their own rules and logic who are largely doing anything they do for their own amusement or desires, are not exactly good but not always evil and while they are crazy by mortal standards, they aren't stupid and can screw you over if you don't know what your doing, and exist NOT to be main antagonists most of the time but to be these recurring powerful beings for this or that plot to occur that you need to be careful dealing with, and that while they may can have some funny moments not understanding mortals, they should have an aura of power, danger and intelligence no matter which one your talking to.

[meschlum]

NUH UH! Turning into a city happens not only to Alchemical Exalted who raise their Essence high enough, but also to high-Essence Infernals who get deep enough into Malfeas's Charmset. Plus I think there's a Primordial-imitation Charm for Solars tucked away somewhere in one of the First Age books, because some First Age Solar decided that turning herself into a many-tentacled monstrosity was a great idea.

Why be so restrictive?

Fragment of the Glorious City

Once upon a time, there was a perfect city in the far reaches of the Wyld. A place of wonder and joy, where no sorrows came and Death itself grew kind.

Then Creation happened.

Perhaps it was the Primordials who shattered the dream. Possibly it survived until the Solar Deliberative sought to strip mine Chaos for all it held of value. Maybe the Great Contagion and Balor's war brought an end to what could have been. In this age, the cause is irrelevant - the City is gone. But dreams are not so easily unmade, and Fragments of it have made their way into reality, to try to build it anew.

A Fragment manifests as a marvelous sculpture, a piece of a larger whole, which is infused with a feeling of peace and serenity - though careful study reveals it is not quite so staid and humdrum as it may seem. Each one has an affinity for a different aspect of the lost City, resonating best with those who care for the same matters. Dragonblooded, Anathema, Spirit, Sorcerer - or even mundane mortals ! - anyone can be chosen by, and bond to, a Fragment.

Upon bonding, the physical manifestation of the Fragment vanishes, for what matters is the dream of the City, not the shell of reality accumulated around it. The one it has chosen continues to live as before, with a lighter step and brighter eye, buoyed by the deep certainty that somewhere, somewhen, there will be a place - a City - where what matters to them will be honored. If they find a city in Creation which comes close to their dream, or found one with that hope, the final power of the Fragment can manifest, turning the being it has bonded to into the land itself, to bring forth that aspect of the City which mattered most to them.

Because to be Exalted is to ignore the rules and ways of things, the Chosen of Luna and of the Stars have found ways to fully manifest the power of the Fragments, teaching arcane arts by which specific aspects are favored. And so, instead of a City of joy and wonder, they seek to shape the dreams of Creation into a City whose values reflect their desires more closely...

Mechanics

1-dot Behemoth
Assumption of the Person's Heart - the Fragment can merge with whatever it bonds to, allowing it to share its abilities with the bonded being. This lasts until either of them dies.
Assumption of Dreams and Passion - the Fragment is the epitome of an emotion or ideal and makes it easier for itself (and the being it is bonded to) to manifest said feeling.
Assumption of the City's Heart - the Fragment can infuse itself into an entire city (or an area of similar size) and pervade it with its essence. The location near its bonded being is of particular note, and it can interact there normally as well.

Which lets you turn anyone into an already existing city. Since the Behemoth doesn't actually rely on you for anything, it could be sustained by a Raksha beastkeeper somewhere off in the Wyld, so you don't even need to commit any motes to it. If you want to create the city you're manifesting into, get a Worker to build it for you, or cheat with more Grace magic. The goal was to become a city, not create one!

3-dot Adjuration
Assumption of the City's Heart - Essence users who have learned the esoteric arts taught by some Lunars and Sidereals can take up the mantle of the City, becoming a part of it and seeking to impose their will upon the way it should be.

Which lets anyone with a Grace and some Essence turn into a city. Only requires a single Adjuration (rather than one per Fragment), and could actually grant the same abilities as the Behemoth as a 4-dot Adjuration, but Exalts are all about taking other people's stuff and altering it to their own devices. Also note that technically being a city should interact in fun ways with some Sidereal (and Alchemical) charms.


This is all in 2.5e, of course. 1e or 2e Raksha could do the same, but the mechanics would be slightly different.