General Exalted Thread
- Location
- Nova Scotia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Maybe you could be more specific about what you're asking!
If you're asking for mechanical details, we haven't gotten those chapters yet. I think we get the next chunk tomorrow? It'll be character creation and traits, so I'd expect it to be there.
- Location
- Ottawa
We're going back to basic-physics-is-magic, huh?
I thought 3e was moving away from the whole motonic thingmajig.
2e doesn't get enough credit for its art.
Or for a lot of things, truth be told. 2e also wrote up gods as people and did the whole political - personal - pragmatic fusion thing, but people never really appreciated it much back then. I suppose it was hard to like anything attached to 2e's wretched spirit mechanics.
3e has, unironically, improved things a lot on that front just by not having much in the way of spirit mechanics. Turns out that you don't really need anything splat-shaped for NPCs.
I thought 3e was moving away from the whole motonic thingmajig.
2e doesn't get enough credit for its art.
Or for a lot of things, truth be told. 2e also wrote up gods as people and did the whole political - personal - pragmatic fusion thing, but people never really appreciated it much back then. I suppose it was hard to like anything attached to 2e's wretched spirit mechanics.
3e has, unironically, improved things a lot on that front just by not having much in the way of spirit mechanics. Turns out that you don't really need anything splat-shaped for NPCs.
I mean, it's not really motonic physics? But the setting was made, not just, like, happened. Creation is an artificial construct from Chaos, and always has been. Fate is the term used to describe the rules imposed upon it by the structures and mechanisms made to make reality a thing. "Why does the apple fall down instead of up"
literally because it's Fated to do so.
I get you don't like Sidereals, but you don't need to lie about an excerpt literally everyone can see and read.
- Location
- Ottawa
What, you think I don't like motonic stuff?
That wasn't a complaint.
And I don't see why you think that's a lie; "things fall down because of fate" is absolutely an example of basic physics being a form of magic. I don't know how else you could interpret it!
EDIT: One of my better posts in this thread is about motonic physics and the relationship between magic and science, actually. As I said way back n 2018, I'd be happy to see Exalted indulge in "reductionism for the mystical and mystification for the mundane". But that hasn't really been the trend, so far in 3e.
That wasn't a complaint.
And I don't see why you think that's a lie; "things fall down because of fate" is absolutely an example of basic physics being a form of magic. I don't know how else you could interpret it!
EDIT: One of my better posts in this thread is about motonic physics and the relationship between magic and science, actually. As I said way back n 2018, I'd be happy to see Exalted indulge in "reductionism for the mystical and mystification for the mundane". But that hasn't really been the trend, so far in 3e.
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It's still not, basically, yeah. They just didn't change Fate other than to clarify it, is all.
- Location
- Ottawa
Hm, okay.
Well, maybe the Charms will deliver some exploration of what it means for fate and physics to be interchangeable. There's a lot of fertile ground there, Charm-concept-wise.
Not that the Charms need to go that way; I could imagine an excellent Sidereal Charmset with no motonic stuff at all. But I have my fingers crossed.
Might surprise folks in this thread, but I have high hopes for Charms and for Astrology. Current team hasn't flubbed a Charmset yet, and Sidereal mechanics have a lot of room for improvement.
Well, maybe the Charms will deliver some exploration of what it means for fate and physics to be interchangeable. There's a lot of fertile ground there, Charm-concept-wise.
Not that the Charms need to go that way; I could imagine an excellent Sidereal Charmset with no motonic stuff at all. But I have my fingers crossed.
Might surprise folks in this thread, but I have high hopes for Charms and for Astrology. Current team hasn't flubbed a Charmset yet, and Sidereal mechanics have a lot of room for improvement.
mothematics
How wide is the concept of "you"?
- Location
- the bottom of a coffee cup
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I don't think I'd draw much of a line from 2e motonic physics to the Loom keeping physics on, yeah.
The division between Fate and Destiny is one of my favorite things so far. I'd have to really sit down and have a think in order to articulate exactly why, but the short version is that it sort of finally scratches an itch I've always had about Fate and Heaven's involvement in it.
As long as Astrology actually requires a Sidereal be involved at any step in the process, then perhaps I can finally let go of my loathing for Pattern Spiders.
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
pattern spiders are cute and i want one to sit on my head like an animated hat
- Location
- Ottawa
It seems more or less identical to me, apart from vocabulary...
but you know, maybe I'm not giving vocabulary enough credit. Which words you use to refer to something can be a big big deal, after all. On an aesthetic point like this one, style is substance.
That statement is more controversial than you might realize. Historically this has been a bit of a pain point in the community.
And I'm not just saying that because I got a bizarre accusation of dishonesty a few posts back; if you follow the link I posted before, you can see it get ugly. Though maybe it'd be better to leave that scab unpicked.
That bit's not new, incidentally. From the Lexicon in the 2e Sidereal manual:
destiny: The sequences of events that have befallen a person, place, or thing and are expected to befall it in the future. The way things work, on a broad scale.
fate: The way things work, on a narrow scale; the properties of any person, place, or thing. The fate of wood is to split when struck by an axe; a tree might have a destiny to fall on the man who chops it down.
I do think the 3e explanation is an upgrade prose-wise, though.
Sucal
The Devil’s Cut
- Location
- Bottom of the barrel
I do hope we can get away with having one as a Familar, even if it's kinda nonsense.
If a Solar can have a mouse of the sun, A Sidereal or Getimann should be able to have their illegally recruited little helper. But then I kinda want more divine allies for those splats in general. Give me my cheerful little tea lady and coffee boy, cheerfully reemployed from the divine gutter.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
My understanding is that those unpleasantries were due to an approach that sought to dress up the setting's physics and magic in scifi trappings; I instead refer to the way Exalted has always explicitly been a setting where the magic was baked in instead of being an appendage on an otherwise 'recognisable' world that works as we would expect from our world, but with magic on top (like some fantasy settings). Of course the Loom of Fate controls shit like gravity, what else would?
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You can, yeah. The traits preview mentions Pattern Spiders are a 3-dot familiar.
Shane has the right of it, basically. The conflict was very much that motonic physics in general tried hard to drive a very STEM/hard sci fi vibe that a lot of people felt fundamentally detracted from the fantasy roots of the setting. Everything was given extremely clinical science-ey sounding words and much comparisons were drawn with everything being computery, and if you're standing over there with your sword and sandals hoping for a vibe about going out to scavenge the ruins of the Old World and treating with mysterious spirits and wielding strange magics, it could get really really disorienting and feel like you were mislead about the genre of the setting.
Sucal
The Devil’s Cut
- Location
- Bottom of the barrel
Awesome!
- Location
- Pittsburgh, PA
Since we're talking about Yu Shan, I might as well dig up one of my and @QafianSage's old brainstorming sessions.
(Image is from Obliskura, an artbook by Alex Konstad.)
(Image is from Obliskura, an artbook by Alex Konstad.)
QafianSage said:
Briareus the Gardener said:
QafianSage said:
Briareus the Gardener said:
Huh, didn't realize that. I suppose that's what you get when you always skip the lexicon.
That said, the difference between 2e and 3e is a lot more than just prose; in 2e, fate and destiny are just two different flavors of "how/why things happen" imo, whereas in 3e Fate is the only flavor of "how/why things happen" with the addition of "can," while Destiny is things happening due to the deliberate and premeditated intervention/interference of Heaven.
Creation would continue working without Heaven: the seasons would change, the tides would rise and fall, weather would still happen, etc., etc. However, Heaven still has a reason to exist and it implementing Destiny has value, because doing so reinforces the fabric of reality. I like this separation, that Fate and Creation are things ultimately independent from the Gods and Heavens, and become something that they must work with, and occasionally around. I feel like it gives the Gods license to be fully characters, people you can interact with, now that they aren't narratively trying to juggle also being the faces painted on top of fundamental cogs of reality that need to work in order for Creation to be at all recognizable and relatable to a player. It allows Creation and Heaven to move in mysterious and inscrutable ways like you'd expect from mythology and folklore, while also allowing the Bureaucracy to still be full of all-too human pettiness, incompetence, and selfish desires.
Character Creation and Traits manuscript is up.
This was already brought up in the previews, but I fully expect Getimian Interference to be hilarious whenever it kicks in.
This was already brought up in the previews, but I fully expect Getimian Interference to be hilarious whenever it kicks in.