Why don't WW write a proper edition of Exalted. By proper I mean with rules that aren't ridiculous and convoluted. There are lots of cool ideas in Exalted (when it's not trying to hard to be a soap opera). Perhaps they are the only cats who think it isn't anything other than math soup. :D
Offhand I suspect it's because that mismash of setting, drama, rules and such is what makes Exalted Exalted and sells. Kinda like with oh Palladium Fantasy and earlier D&D. The mess is part of the draw and for some (not me) the fun.
And I've tried helping convert Exalted to BESM. It's doable, but we did lose a lot of the flavor since the rules for x, y and z aren't there anymore. Later on the same GM ran a 2nd game of Exalted but that bogged down same as the 1e one did.
These days if I wanted to run D&D with dramatic hooks and purpose I'd likely use D&D 4E, Tekumel / Empire of the Petal Throne (it's game design goal from day one), or Runequest. Wonder if there'll be a 4E Al-Qadim or Oriental Adventures?
Hrm, is there a FATE 3.0 derived fantasy rpg yet? There's pulp, pulp sci-fi, hard sci-fi and upcoming urban fantasy / modern occult horror.
Quote from: Casey777;360864Offhand I suspect it's because that mismash of setting, drama, rules and such is what makes Exalted Exalted and sells. Kinda like with oh Palladium Fantasy and earlier D&D. The mess is part of the draw and for some (not me) the fun.
And I've tried helping convert Exalted to BESM. It's doable, but we did lose a lot of the flavor since the rules for x, y and z aren't there anymore. Later on the same GM ran a 2nd game of Exalted but that bogged down same as the 1e one did.
These days if I wanted to run D&D with dramatic hooks and purpose I'd likely use D&D 4E, Tekumel / Empire of the Petal Throne (it's game design goal from day one), or Runequest. Wonder if there'll be a 4E Al-Qadim or Oriental Adventures?
Hrm, is there a FATE 3.0 derived fantasy rpg yet? There's pulp, pulp sci-fi, hard sci-fi and upcoming urban fantasy / modern occult horror.
Not until Legends of Anglerre afaik. I did see Barbarians of Lemuria in print t'other day and it looked half decent. Small though, for £15.
Because they chose to use the ST system, managed to push a die-pool system beyond its limits, and only after it was popular and in its 2nd edition did they actually try to start "fixing" things. Which means if they actually try to release a thorough revision/reimagining, they're going to alienate all of the fans who've already invested shitloads of money into WW's supplement treadmill.
I have a love/hate relationship with Exalted, though. For every cool thing in the setting, there are a million more "That's fucking retarded" things floating around in the supplements, half of which are just there to be...I don't know...edgy? Whereas nWoD managed to tone down on a lot of the goth-punk edgy vibe of the oWoD that bothered some people, Exalted 2nd edition did the reverse and just grabbed all of the ridiculous shit about the setting and took off at 200mph.
If you have the time and can build on the quickstart rules using only the very base setting, it's not so bad. Once you start adding in more broken charmsets and ridiculous canon, it becomes almost as unbearable as the oWoD towards the end of its life.
Quote from: Peregrin;360876I have a love/hate relationship with Exalted, though. For every cool thing in the setting, there are a million more "That's fucking retarded" things floating around in the supplements, half of which are just there to be...I don't know...edgy? Whereas nWoD managed to tone down on a lot of the goth-punk edgy vibe of the oWoD that bothered some people, Exalted 2nd edition did the reverse and just grabbed all of the ridiculous shit about the setting and took off at 200mph.
Indeed. If you set aside the "mature themes" of Exalted? It always seems like it was written by the creator of Axe Cop! (//www.axecop.com), just with weeaboo trappings.
I've always thought it'd be interesting to see an nWod Version of it. I don't mind nWoD at it's core and for changeling it works really well. I think if you took it's rulebase and added on the power effects but kept pool sizes down Exalted could be playable. But at that point you pretty much would have Scion from my understanding of the game.
Quote from: Ghost Whistler;360785Exalted, for a laugh.
There's another way to play it? :idunno:
Quote from: Peregrin;360876Exalted 2nd edition did the reverse and just grabbed all of the ridiculous shit about the setting and took off at 200mph.
One of the "What I wanted, What the Game Promised, What I Actually Played" type meme graphics would fit here.
I wanted an updated Glorantha on 11, the game promised Bronze Age meets Wuxia, what I got instead was (fill in the blank from a bucketfull of d10s roll of wtf? moments).
Quote from: Casey777;360963I wanted an updated Glorantha on 11, the game promised Bronze Age meets Wuxia, what I got instead was (fill in the blank from a bucketfull of d10s roll of wtf? moments).
Har! It really was like the game world was generated from random tables, interspersed with bizarre slash/fic.
Quote from: kryyst;360907I've always thought it'd be interesting to see an nWod Version of it.
You mean using cleaned-up mechanics and a clearly rationalised game world? You bet. I'd start
nExalted all off by stating that the Unconquered Sun split into five -- and only five -- shards, which have now re-manifested into five individuals who form one new Circle. Egads! A game that's written for a maximum of six players, a GM and up to five player characters? That's right. None of this signature character, let's-pretend-it's-not-metaplot, fluff-fic horseshit.
Your campaign is the
only official campaign.
That'd kind of rock.
!i!
Our group basically used the corebook and ignored all of the official fluff aside from the basic factions and major locations. We had fun with an on-off campaign for about 3 years, until the mechanics started getting wonky at high XP levels.
It's a decent game...you've just got to break out some fiat and liberally apply the GM's paintbrush to the setting.
Anglerre should be awesome.
RPGPundit
Also, Jrients once suggested using FtA! for Exalted.
RPGPundit
I really like Exalted. It's flawed, sure, but what game isn't?
Seanchai
Quote from: Seanchai;361112I really like Exalted. It's flawed, sure, but what game isn't?
Seanchai
The problem is that the flaws in Exalted cause cascades of issues, because the system from day one was designed to emulate the world on a 1:1 basis, even if each subsystem had to be heavily abstracted. Everything is interrelated and there are literally no meta concepts (since even 'stunts' tie into essence and WP regen and are taken into account when a PC/NPC decides to build a new charmset). Since the crunch is so tied to the world, once you try to isolate or change one thing, or accidentally "break" something, it causes a ripple effect that is really hard to get rid of without completely ignoring significant portions of the rules, or ruling the game with an iron fist and limiting what the players can and can't take based on the ability to contain the mechanics (rather than picking and choosing based on flavor), two things which I hate doing as a GM.
For me, it's like the D&D 3.x of White-Wolf games. There are a lot of cool things, but mix the wrong things together and it'll blow up in your face, and it's not always immediately apparent which things don't play well together.
The new errata has helped somewhat, but they're also taking cues from Jon Chung, and I'm really not a fan of his work, since it puts paranoia-combos above all else and turns the game into a powergaming wankfest (not that it wasn't borderline there already).
Quote from: Peregrin;361140The problem is that the flaws in Exalted cause cascades of issues, because the system from day one was designed to emulate the world on a 1:1 basis, even if each subsystem had to be heavily abstracted. Everything is interrelated and there are literally no meta concepts (since even 'stunts' tie into essence and WP regen and are taken into account when a PC/NPC decides to build a new charmset). Since the crunch is so tied to the world, once you try to isolate or change one thing, or accidentally "break" something, it causes a ripple effect that is really hard to get rid of without completely ignoring significant portions of the rules, or ruling the game with an iron fist and limiting what the players can and can't take based on the ability to contain the mechanics, two things which I hate doing as a GM.
People say that about a host of games.
Seanchai
Quote from: Seanchai;361141People say that about a host of games.
Seanchai
There are degrees, though. Exalted is on the very cusp. RIFTS is salvageable but almost in the deep end. Stuff like 4e and Savage Worlds are a safe distance from the edge -- you have to actively
try to break those games, and even then the results aren't going to be nearly as devastating.
Quote from: Peregrin;361148There are degrees, though.
Yes, but, again, everyone think their prejudices and problems are more important, pervasive, etc., than those of the next guy.
Seanchai
Quote from: Seanchai;361208Yes, but, again, everyone think their prejudices and problems are more important, pervasive, etc., than those of the next guy.
Seanchai
But there are some things you can judge objectively, especially when it comes to intent of design vs. what the design actually causes to happen at the table. Otherwise there wouldn't be any reason for them to do complete revisions of entire charmsets, or release any errata at all. There are mechanics that are just poorly written or devised. A lot of the problems that exist with Exalted didn't become issues in my campaign, or not to the extent people make them out to be, but I understand the rules and I can see why those things are important issues to address and how they can affect even the most non-powergamey campaign.
A guy named FatR wrote six rants about Exalted here (http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=50260), all of which I agree with. If any design that goes into Exalted 3rd edition is influenced by what FatR says, Exalted 3E would be a better game because of it.
Quote from: Peregrin;361214But there are some things you can judge objectively, especially when it comes to intent of design vs. what the design actually causes to happen at the table.
Again, they all say that. "It's not my opinion - it's objective reality." I'm sure some of it is, but only some.
Seanchai
Quote from: Seanchai;361357Again, they all say that. "It's not my opinion - it's objective reality." I'm sure some of it is, but only some.
Seanchai
Yes. It's that "some" I'm talking about. If there wasn't that "some", you wouldn't need to playtest anything. Perfect example: D&D didn't do high-action heroic fantasy well since it was still deeply seated in its gritty pulp roots, so they changed that and made 4e better suit that style of play. That's not the style of play everyone wants, especially since it ends up being combat-focused, but I can say for a fact D&D 4e does that better than 3e.
The problem with Exalted is that it's so schizo in what it wants to be it doesn't do anything remarkably well. It's a Storyteller game, so it's supposed to be all about the story and the characters. But then along the way, someone decided it would be a good idea to make the game pursue an almost ludicrous amount of sim design. And social combat was added to facilitate non-combat encounters, but as long as there is a combat-focused character present the game will always default to might-makes-right because a character focused on combat will
always lose to a social focused character in a social encounter -- there's no reason not to declare that you're going to Join Battle if you know for a fact the guy across the room with the silver tongue is going to fuck with your mind. Not to mention that Social Combat also drains your essence, so doing it before a fight is risky since you'll be less effective -- you're not going to engage in an act of diplomacy if the guy you're talking to may assault you and you'll need that extra bit of power just to survive with your body intact.
It's not a horrible system by any means, especially if you pursue specific styles of play and are wary of what's broken. But the problem is it doesn't do what it says it does (epic character-focused fast-paced wuxia action stories), which is where a lot of the dissatisfaction from fans/ex-fans comes from.