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General Exalted Thread

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EternityWarrior said:
What do you guys think of the concept?
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Please don't take this as an attack, but I think your story idea is, like... emblematic of Exalted at its worst and least self-reflective?

Sometimes, when I feel unkind, I summarize Exalted as "a game line that dares to ask the incredibly deep philosophical question of 'what if people had anime superpowers, but were, like... bad? wouldn't that be, like, super fucked up?'". By which I mean that even when it isn't being deliberately edgy, there is often an unpleasant undercurrent of what I can only characterize as a cross between the deeply voyeuristic and the off-puttingly self-congratulatory.

"Behold!", the game shouts, "how demigodly miracles could be used to inflict unimaginable cruelties! Look upon how subversive I am for pointing out how power can actually be used for bad ends!"
"Witness!", it yells, "how the people who thought they were good... were actually... bad! But they earnestly thought that they were good! Isn't this nuanced?"
"Observe!", it bellows, "how even the most well-intentioned person will inevitably become a mad tyrant if given enough power!"
"Am I not offering a penetrating insight into human nature itself?"

Like, this is not all there is to Exalted, but there definitely is an unpleasant thoroughline across the history of the game line that seems to think that depicting magically-superpowered people doing bad things with their magic superpowers suffices as a critique of... what exactly? Traditional heroic narratives? The use of power? Human nature? The answer is often unclear, because this strain of writing is often content with just vaguely gesturing in the direction of something fucked up and throwing up its arms saying "look! I did a deconstruction! my work here is done!".

Beyond your proposed main character being a deeply unlikeable, villainous asshole and the whole idea being rooted in just profoundly uninteresting DotFA lore, I think the biggest problem with your concept is that it just oozes the same energy as this one weirdly specific strain of Exalted writing that somehow seems to think depicting people doing fucked up and wrong things with demigodly power is in and of itself a cogent critique of... pretty much anything, really.
 
So, I'm currently roleplaying a character who's big into the perfected hierarchy. I know that somewhere in the books there's info on the set of Immaculates you're meant to emulate and the attitudes you're meant to scorn (something like the Humble Traveller vs the Uncaring Rider?) but I can't find it anywhere. Where could I find it?
 
HalfTangible said:
So, I'm currently roleplaying a character who's big into the perfected hierarchy. I know that somewhere in the books there's info on the set of Immaculates you're meant to emulate and the attitudes you're meant to scorn (something like the Humble Traveller vs the Uncaring Rider?) but I can't find it anywhere. Where could I find it?
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Pages 71-73 of the Exalted Third Edition corebook is probably what you're thinking of.
 
@EternityWarrior
Your "legendary sorcerous working" directly violates two of the three rules of sorcerous workings. Namely, Immortality Has A Catch and No Resurrection. Also undermines the unwritten fourth rule of You Cannot Control An Exaltation. In a setting with so few hard rules, breaking them isn't interesting or thought-provoking, it's masturbatory.

In addition, this story would get you banned from SV. If you got lucky and had a good Advocate, you might just get the story locked and a firm warning to never do that again. Defense of slavery is a Rule 2 violation, and Staff has historically taken a… skeptical eye towards "it's not me, it's my character" defenses.

As for it's literary merit, I'm going to echo the consensus that it sounds like the worst parts of High 2E; the same tier as the first two chapters of MoEP: Infernals and the DotFA pages that describe the year-long Dragon-Blooded orgy. Like, fudge the backstory so he's not a violation of foundational rules of the setting, and he'd be a neat antagonist. But not someone I want to read anything from the perspective of.
 
Thank ye both.

Playing a Dispossessed Zenith on the Isle has been quite a fun time so far. He's also one of the only characters I've ever made that I didn't give some Stealth dots to and yet he still got saddled with the Stealth mission with one of his circlemates. Naturally this went swimmingly for everyone involved.
 
This little lore piece came up after a back and forth of introduce facts at my table. Decided to make it canon for all my games cause it's useful to me as a ST.

Edietic Memory is granted for free to sidereals. Since lifespan isn't a thing for sidereals in the creation I run. Some of the elder sidereals tend to start cataloguing their own memories with memory crystals and what not. There is a point where you start needing to meditate to reeeeeaallllly reach back for specific insignificant details. Cataloguing such things with physical devices makes the process much quicker.

Always fun when you and your players shape the setting like this.
 
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Gazetteer said:
Yeah, that protagonist sounds kind of insufferable, particularly when you seem like you agree with his viewpoint on the current setting being worse than when he was in charge and creating slave races and shit.
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Yes, that's the red flag for me. I'm sure there's ways the story could be more interesting than the premise but some of the responses to the initial critique don't exactly fill me with hope.
 
.... hoo boy

So... our Night Caste decided that it would be a really good idea to brag to local street urchins about how she and I stole scrolls from an Immaculate temple.

This backfired a bit. The kids freaked out, because the Immaculates have generally tried to help the poor, including them.

Night caste then decided to say that oh no, we didn't steal them from the monks, we stole them from the dragons. Then when this caused several of them to RUN AWAY IN TERROR, she decided to tell them that if they ever got tired of being street rats and wanted to do something bigger than stealing food from stalls, to go find Fierce Onyx in the Hammer.

The Hammer is the Dispossessed slum and Fierce Onyx is A) a sobriquet of my Zenith, and B) the name of my dispossessed village.

My defining principle is about keeping this village and its people safe.

THIS FUCKER (I'm not actually angry I'm laughing) JUST SENT THE COPS AND/OR MONKS WE STOLE FROM AND/OR THE CRIME SYNDICATE WE'RE LOOKING FOR DIRECTLY TO EITHER MY DISPOSSESSED VILLAGE OR THE DOOR OF THE PERSON WHO CURRENTLY HOLDS THE SCROLLS
 
@EternityWarrior
I don't know if you're still reading this at this point but I thought I'd direct some character critique your way.

With the information presented, he doesn't seem like he'd be interested in ruling a principality (many Solars weren't) let alone concerned by the standards of living. I get that it's a counterpoint to the rest of his characterisation but right now there's no indication why he'd care about this when his default is apathy and contempt, so I'm envisioning his utopia consisting of either taking away everyone's free will or a "Mussolini made the trains run on time" situation where he needs other people to run the show but refuses to acknowledge them.
 
With the war against the nephwrack Eternal Stigmata ramping up, Gavel finds herself called into a duel with a potent foe: a zombie with really esoteric martial arts. This was going to be a very intense fight, and then the dice went for comedy instead, because as high concept and action oriented a game as this is sometimes dice just do weird shit.

Also, Atom talks to his own weapon! Lythander gets more dramatic flashbacks! The Golden Hawk restaurant chain opens a new franchise in a surprising new location! SSD finally finishes tuning himself up! Also wasn't there a warstrider to worry about?

Watch it here on Youtube and here on Podbean!
 
elfgames said:
Please don't take this as an attack, but I think your story idea is, like... emblematic of Exalted at its worst and least self-reflective?
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Least self-reflective is quite right. But I'm not so sure about worst. Not everything has to be a cogent critique. There is a place for self-indulgent stories with little to say.

That being said, the DotFA First Age is desperately boring and a story like the proposed one should probably come up with something more interesting to replace it.
 
Is it weird that I'm using the concept of the po soul in Exalted as a tool of genuine critical self-reflection on my own flaws.
 
I know some folks don't like fair folk 2e in this thread. But I have been throwing an idea around I want folks thoughts on. It also is an 2e idea but I want some thoughts on it if folks are willing to deal with it. I have been playing around with the idea of raksha invading an [] setting. In this case, it is Code Geass and I have a few ideas on how to do it. But having others thoughts tend to help.
 
gale said:
I know some folks don't like fair folk 2e in this thread. But I have been throwing an idea around I want folks thoughts on. It also is an 2e idea but I want some thoughts on it if folks are willing to deal with it. I have been playing around with the idea of raksha invading an [] setting. In this case, it is Code Geass and I have a few ideas on how to do it. But having others thoughts tend to help.
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My personal preferred take on Wyldlife is radically different from 2e canon, buuuuuuuuuuuuuuut.

Back in the old days, when I got sucked into Exalted by helping someone brainstorm for a quest (which was also Exalted/Code Geass, oddly enough), I did do a little bit of work on a much more conventionally 2eish conception of raksha. My main focus was on the idea of raksha being somewhat brutally sorted into hierarchies of those who propose a framework/narrative and those who conform to one, resulting in a lot of creative "debris" as the latter category struggle to express themselves however they can within the role they're currently obligated to perform.

I did try to get to grips with the dedicated raksha splatbook for 2e, but unfortunately I really can't help you with anything from that... particular source. Could you list out a few of your internal guidelines for raksha behavior, maybe a plot element or two? Just to give a little more of a scaffolding to work from.
 
GardenerBriareus said:
I did try to get to grips with the dedicated raksha splatbook for 2e, but unfortunately I really can't help you with anything from that... particular source. Could you list out a few of your internal guidelines for raksha behavior, maybe a plot element or two? Just to give a little more of a scaffolding to work from.
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In my case then, I think of Raksha as living narratives, the shaped are a person in a narrativ the unshaped are a setting, and Isvana are whole genres. As for this, the key idea is something fell out of the Beyond. Into the mess that is the code geass collective unconscious of humanity in the setting. The raksha that did that, kinda is gone. But opened the chance for new raksha to be shaped/born. But they generally have to stay around geass users, be it as allies, enemies, or other relevant narratives. Geass users also have become a bit more then what they were, as the wyld mixes with them. Same with code bareers. But that goes into the fact, I run 2.5e. So I have a understanding enough to make assumptions. Which is going to somthing that effects them.
 
My view of the Raksha is heavily informed by Changeling The Lost True Fae, and recently some of the Fae in Wildbow's Pact/Pale are seeping in, mostly by osmosis and the neatness of how they degrade.
 
My issue is that wyld marshes are interesting to work with. But Rakasha are very much not for me. I mostly used them to spice up some early game fights. But that is about it.
 
That is perfectly fine, everyone has there own personal take on it. I don't use Changeling The Lost True Fae, because well. That isn't what Raksha are like. Raksha in exalted are a threat yes, shaping is one of the deadliest thing for those without shaping defense. I am mainly fine with working with them thanks to the fact, I have run them before. And I am able to make charms for them.
 
gale said:
That is perfectly fine, everyone has there own personal take on it. I don't use Changeling The Lost True Fae, because well. That isn't what Raksha are like. Raksha in exalted are a threat yes, shaping is one of the deadliest thing for those without shaping defense. I am mainly fine with working with them thanks to the fact, I have run them before. And I am able to make charms for them.
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Oh I don't mean power-wise, I mean metaphysics-wise. Changeling The Lost True Fae aren't so much living stories as beings assuming the stories per way of defining themselves. Most versions of the Raksha treat the stories they take on as limiting them, something they only do because they are trapped in Creation. I prefer to think of it as stepping into a Title, something that grants them power; and theoretically, a mighty mortal (not Exalted because they have their own Title technically) can defeat a Raksha and take the Title and it's shaping powers for themselves...
 
Shane_357 said:
Oh I don't mean power-wise, I mean metaphysics-wise. Changeling The Lost True Fae aren't so much living stories as beings assuming the stories per way of defining themselves. Most versions of the Raksha treat the stories they take on as limiting them, something they only do because they are trapped in Creation. I prefer to think of it as stepping into a Title, something that grants them power; and theoretically, a mighty mortal (not Exalted because they have their own Title technically) can defeat a Raksha and take the Title and it's shaping powers for themselves...
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I can see some of that, while other parts of it have me going that really doesn't fit. I don't even mean 2.5e/2e Raksha. I mean what we know about the Raksha in general with there themes. I wouldn't say your right about them limiting them, as they need it to exist. As without it they are pure wyld. And the mortal bit makes 0 sense given not even fey blooded can't ascend. There stuck in this state of half and half. Now that doesn't mean I mind it. But I would say there is a lot more to it, and the mortal would have to become a type of fey blooded before even trying that. But that is all based of my view of the setting.
 
For my own take on Fair Folk I've brought into the idea that there's different species of them.

I've humanised the Raksha somewhat as the potential player facing option and given them some more alien neighbours including a group that's more like the True Fae in presentation (though much easier to beat up).
 
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