Quote from: chaosvoyagerI was JUST talking about this very issue regarding metaplots in a thread at another forum, and I mentioned that this is ESPECIALLY annoying because everyone at the table has to ditch the SAME accompanying baggage, or else there will be problems.

Is it perhaps that Exalted, with all its signature characters and metaplot, does not GIVE the power to create a story to the players, but keeps it in the hands of the designers/writers?

Nah, you can still do whatever you want in Exalted, with or without the metaplot. Creation is huge (over 100,000 miles across and 80,000 miles North to South). Huge swaths of the map have been and will be left blank for the GM to fill in however he wants.

If you have a player that insists he knows everything about the setting and anything you make slightly different is wrong you'll have troubles. But that kind of player is probably going to be trouble with or without a well defined campaign setting.

Quote from: chaosvoyagerIs it perhaps that Exalted, with all its signature characters and metaplot, does not GIVE the power to create a story to the players, but keeps it in the hands of the designers/writers?

Technically, Exalted doesn't really have a metaplot as such, except perhaps in an odd reverse fashion: instead, the background of the setting and the timeline up to the present moment become increasingly detailed with each further supplement.

Quote from: RPGPunditAnd as for Exalted, I not only do not know ANYONE who has actually played Exalted in the real world, I don't even know anyone who knows anyone in the real world who has played Exalted. In my entire history as a gamer, I have met only one person in the real world who actually owned the Exalted book, and he regretted buying it. Its a nonentity, popular only in the sick minds of the RPG.net fashionistas.

While I won't argue that Exalted is bigger than D&D, Exalted players exist. I'm aware of several games in my area, and when I cast out a net for players for my Exalted game I got more than I could possibly use. When I used to go to game stores, they would often sell out of the core book and the supplements.

As for FATE - I think it will become a cult classic that will probably reach the ranks that many games systems that are not d20, Storyteller or GURPS reach. It's a fantastic game, but I have no illusions of it knocking any other game off of any perches any more than I think SilCore would do it. They're niche games and nothing else.

Well... as to the people who play, my friends in high school all played more or less strictly DnD. After moving away and doing our own thing for a bit, I found out more or less all of us picked up a new system. A friend of mine picked up exalted. Another had been eyeing GURPS to begin with. I picked up Tristat and (on a suggestion from someone here... can't remember who, but thanks) F20.

DnD is the only game all of us will both run and play, but I don't see it as necessarily an exclusive relationship. A couple friends of mine have agreed to a tristat PbP I'll be running, and if I get a chance when I'm back in town this summer, I'd be happy to try Exalted or even GURPS (I am innately prejudiced, but the guy who picked it up is a good GM) on for size.

Quote from: Pierce InverarityFascinating. As of right now, Exalted has dropped a further 7,000 down to 82,000. Has Pundy cast some kind of spell or something?

Try telling my publisher amazon sales ranks are pointless. The little tome on which I worked has been oscillating between 20k and 100k for several years now. Checking the ranks regularly tells us where we stand, both absolutely and relative to others.

Yeah but as of this morning Exalted: The Lunars was ranked #19,867. To me that indicates that the corebook sales for Exalted 2e have probably slipped (mostly because most people who want to play the game have it). Given that the difference between the best selling D&D books anb any other RPG supplement is at least 12,000 tells us that most non-D&D games are swimming in roughly the same pond and it's just a matter of who bubbles up to the top at any one point. I might be wrong, but with good numbers and a solid background in economic theory someone might be able to figure out how that works. Like that would happen.

Quote from: RPGPunditExalted is utter crap written by pretentious shitheads who have an anti-human stance because they're so utterly unable to aspire to qualify as worthwhile human beings.

Its garbage, like everything else White Wolf has ever done or ever will do.

RPGPundit

 No, tell us what you really think.

 Want to hear a lame game store joke about Exalted ?

White Wolf created Exalted so they would finally meet fans and gamers that had clothing in other colors beside black.

Quote from: WilYeah but as of this morning Exalted: The Lunars was ranked #19,867. To me that indicates that the corebook sales for Exalted 2e have probably slipped (mostly because most people who want to play the game have it). Given that the difference between the best selling D&D books anb any other RPG supplement is at least 12,000 tells us that most non-D&D games are swimming in roughly the same pond and it's just a matter of who bubbles up to the top at any one point. I might be wrong, but with good numbers and a solid background in economic theory someone might be able to figure out how that works. Like that would happen.

Well, what this fluctuation seems to mean is that if you sell 9 copies today and just 2 tomorrow, that's enough to drop several thousand ranks. When I posted that E 2E corebook figure two days ago, it was at 19K-something. This *may* mean that from a certain point on sales figures are very low for a very large number of books. The question is: from which point on, precisely? 1K? 5K? 10K?

EDIT: Holy shit! I just checked, and my own book jumped from 120K last night to 29K today. So... yeah.

Quote from: Pierce InverarityWell, what this fluctuation seems to mean is that if you sell 9 copies today and just 2 tomorrow, that's enough to drop several thousand ranks. When I posted that E 2E corebook figure two days ago, it was at 19K-something. This *may* mean that from a certain point on sales figures are very low for a very large number of books. The question is: from which point on, precisely? 1K? 5K? 10K?

EDIT: Holy shit! I just checked, and my own book jumped from 120K last night to 29K today. So... yeah.

Yeah, that's the "bubbling up" thing. At any point in time, fluctuations seem to be a function of the last book sold, as you can see here - the ranking jumps when particular title sells, and drifts as the amount of time between sales increases. So books at the top are consistently selling books, others below 100,000 not so much.

EDIT: Here's another interesting way to look at it. The Exalted 2e core has 21 reviews with a rating of 4.5 stars. The D&D 3.5 Player's Handbook has 118 reviews with a rating of 3.5 stars. Either a small group of die hard Exalted fans are reviewing the book and giving it high marks, or a majority of D&D buyers don't care enough to review the PHB. I suspect it's more complicated than that.

Quote from: WilWhile I won't argue that Exalted is bigger than D&D, Exalted players exist.

Stuart, one of my D&D buds has played in a couple local Exalted campaigns.  We keep gently pushing him to run it for us, but he has so far declined.

Quote from: RPGPunditExalted is utter crap written by pretentious shitheads who have an anti-human stance because they're so utterly unable to aspire to qualify as worthwhile human beings.

Its garbage, like everything else White Wolf has ever done or ever will do.

RPGPundit

Bullshit.

Quote from: James McMurrayNah, you can still do whatever you want in Exalted, with or without the metaplot. Creation is huge (over 100,000 miles across and 80,000 miles North to South). Huge swaths of the map have been and will be left blank for the GM to fill in however he wants.

If you have a player that insists he knows everything about the setting and anything you make slightly different is wrong you'll have troubles. But that kind of player is probably going to be trouble with or without a well defined campaign setting.

It's really no worse then any setting with a canon. Forgotten Realms, for example, is bloated with it; it's probably worse then Exalted. Exalted, as bad as it could be, is a lot better then its forerunners like Vampire.

The Realms arn't really my cuppa (though I don't have any amazing issues with the setting), but the issue with canon comes up a lot with them too. People can either deal with it, enjoy it, or leave it be. In the end, at least canon doesn't fuck with mechanics.

Quote from: jrientsStuart, one of my D&D buds has played in a couple local Exalted campaigns.  We keep gently pushing him to run it for us, but he has so far declined.

This area is thick with Exalted players. There's a dedicated group of at least 13 players, off and on, in a small local area. Koltar doesn't see the books moving, which indicates, to me, that most play groups pick up a few games and tend to stick with those for an extended period of time.

There are a lot of jokes about gamers who have to pick up every book they see. No doubt they exist, but there are many, many others who limit themselves to games they expect to play soon.

Quote from: WilYeah, that's the "bubbling up" thing. At any point in time, fluctuations seem to be a function of the last book sold, as you can see here - the ranking jumps when particular title sells, and drifts as the amount of time between sales increases. So books at the top are consistently selling books, others below 100,000 not so much.

That's an interesting link! So, if I understand this right, amazon's ranking is almost real-time. If so, WTF? Can't they tell their computers to post a weekly average for each book every Monday or so instead? A la NY Times bestseller list?

Quote from: Thanatos02Koltar doesn't see the books moving, which indicates, to me, that most play groups pick up a few games and tend to stick with those for an extended period of time.

Or that, like me, they buy Exalted books at BUY.COM for almost half off the cover price (or Amazon.com for slightly more).

-Andy

Quote from: Thanatos02It's really no worse then any setting with a canon. Forgotten Realms, for example, is bloated with it; it's probably worse then Exalted. Exalted, as bad as it could be, is a lot better then its forerunners like Vampire.

I'd say the Realms are definitely a lot worse than Exalted as far as setting density goes. They have less ground to cover and a lot more materials available. I'd put Greyhawk as fairly close to Exalted, mainly because while it doesn't have anywhere near the amount of stuff Faerun has, it probably has about as much as Exalted, but also has nowhere near as much space.

One thing the D&D games have above Exalted in that regard is the myriad planar settings. If you include them your real estate is effectively infinite. Of course, unless you're creating planes hole cloth you run into issues of planar predispositions. While there are at least 666 and perhaps infinite abyssal layers, each and every one is a world of near to total evil. Likewise with Celestia, which has several layers, but all are vehemently good.

Quote from: James McMurrayOne thing the D&D games have above Exalted in that regard is the myriad planar settings. If you include them your real estate is effectively infinite. Of course, unless you're creating planes hole cloth you run into issues of planar predispositions. While there are at least 666 and perhaps infinite abyssal layers, each and every one is a world of near to total evil. Likewise with Celestia, which has several layers, but all are vehemently good.

That's pretty much what I've called "the Planescape Issue". To me, it was almost the golden mean of canonicity, where you've got finite structure but nearly infinite variety in a world with no metaplot (besides how the whole 2nd Ed./Advanced D&D ruleset canonically 'switched').

However, while the Planes in D&D (usually 3.x) are mainstream in my area, Planescape isn't. Something I consider to be the effect of 3.x mainstreaming gaming in the area in conjunction with White Wolf.