I've been meaning to ask this:

How did you guys find exalted?

I esd into hunter the reckoning which foreshadowed it alot. Fell out of favor when it seemed WW pretentiousness meets anime fandom, something that had undermined there bits before for me. Cameback after the many MANY threads on rpg.net and how it seemed to handle depth and width better and enshrine let you inlfuence and do things. most notably assuring success with social activitys, even through organizations and making crafting awesome.

Unless you're a Solar/Infernal*, in which case Fate's schema crumble before the force of your Exalt Bullshit, and the "wiser protagonist" is probably going to end up either smeared across the landscape or doing your laundry.

More seriously, I see the wuxia thing, but it always felt like an influence on the combat system's flavor rather than something affecting the plot. However, I'm 100% behind playing as expies of Baron Mordo or that blonde kid from Cobra Kai*.


* Or Jagi from Fist of the North Star as a Mardukth-favored Scourge. I'd possibly respec him as the failed student of an Immaculate Order elder who zealously guards the secrets to the Hokuto Shinken CMA, determined to erase his former teacher's legacy and replace it with his own.
Not really as the nobler/wiser is set up to be an Immaculate Master OR a Sidereal who by pursing the arts so methodically (read custom MA benefits that harmonize with their abilities so well they are borderline hax) they will be taking out all but the most combat ready and intuitive and smart Gold tier Exalts.
 
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I've been meaning to ask this:

How did you guys find exalted?

Some dude I knew told me that White Wolf released a game where the entire point was to play out the actual meaning of the Mandate of Heaven, meaning, the dude who killed the previous emperor was now the rightful emperor and all is right in the world*, with anime battle auras and sun-god nuclear fusion beams overlaid on top of soldiers dying of dysentery, complete with sci-fantasy post-apocalypse shit like ruined steel-glass arcologies full of hungry ghosts.

I thought this was funny as hell, it tickled my inherent cynicism, Grabowski's stuff hit my interest in ancient cultures and realpolitik in a satisfying way and I went for it even though I dislike oWoD and that was all they made at the time. This was, in hindsight, a poor decision.

*until you get shanked too, kek
 
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Meanwhile I have created a character in the Kerisgame system!

Logla
The Sevenfold Muse of The Dragon

Quote: "To doubt what he sees, is the right of man. But to understand is a right that must be earned."

Description: [A woman in ragged robes, composed of a multitude of colors. She has not shaved her hair for many years, and her wide-brimmed hat conceals her eyes. Her back is bent, as if she is cowering from something, yet she wears a knowing smile on her lips. She holds a flute in one hand, and an ancient and mouldy book in the other.]

The woman named Logla has long been the kind of person that society tends not to like. An inhabitant of Coral by birth, she was never able to fit into the role assigned to her gender, and often challenged the words of her father and other people who put restrictions on her behavior. From an early age, she found herself an initiate of a demon cult, dedicated to a mere Gilmyne who desired to be worshipped. Here, her musical talents got her far, and she soon found herself the high priestess of the cult. However, when the cult was discovered and she was simply offered a large sum of money she could use to move away from Coral in exchange for giving up the cult, she immediately said yes, not realizing the obvious scam. Later that week, she was put in irons, and sat in her cell waiting for the inevitable execution.

Instead she was given an offer that she would have never dreamed of.

When Logla entered the Demon City first, she says that she could instantly hear the mad music of the Dragon Beyond The World. She instantly acted on this, as if drawn towards the Dragon, she danced ecstatic around it seven times while she played her flute, attracting hundreds of hapless First Circles who wanted to see what the spectacle was. She found a new obsession within the haunting melodies of the Entelechial Chorister and dedicated herself to searching for scraps of knowledge and understanding between the seven wings.

She travels the Northwest now, looking for understanding in the depths of the cold ocean, where her haunting melodies at night have turned many a sailor to the drunken grave, in an effort to be closer to her. She considers it her duty to spread the Dragon's melodies in the chance that they will somehow resonate with the people of her chosen area, and spur them to search for hidden truths themselves. She has had limited success, as one of her songs caused a man, to be gripped by a strange inspiration and drove him towards painting, causing him to butcher his wife and use her for his Magnum Opus. This act is beginning to awaken the blood within him, for he is one of the Kin of Urtalmic, and even though his essence is not of the dragon, the twisted inspiration drove him to awaken that blood of his own accord.

Her actual mission is to disrupt the Realm's access to these areas to limit their capacity to gain resources from them, but that is a duty that she only actually fulfills as an accident. She, doesn't attempt to do it, but her songs have resulted in more than one Realm-captained ship crashing into the dark and craggy rocks that sometimes jut from beneath the water. Currently she has not attempted to garner any favor amongst the souls of any Yozi, but the possibility for access to the arcane libraries of Oramus' higher souls is a tempting prospect to her, and one she is strongly considering.

Anima Banner: An infinitely huge being floats around her, sometimes allowing glimpses of it's many eyes, limbs or other extremities to shine through, it undulates and pulsates as Logla uses her Charms.

Urge: Hinder the Realm navy in the Northwest
Caste: Fiend
Favoured Yozis: Oramus, Ebon Dragon

Attributes:
Physique 2 Endurance 2 Cognition 5 Reaction 4 Persuasion 4
Abilities:
Command 1 Expression 5 (Favored) Investigation Athletics 2 Bureaucracy 3 (Caste)
Melee Presence 2 Lore Awareness 3 Politics 1 (Caste)
Ranged Survival 3 Occult 3 (Favored) Subterfuge 2 Travel 5 (Caste)
Virtues:
Compassion 2 Conviction 3 Temperance 1 Valour 3
Styles:
Azure Justice Form 3 Malfean Scholar 3
Spirit-Charming Supplicant 3 Craven Absconder 1
Mad Musician 3* Leader of The Downtrodden 2
*Pending writeup

Backgrounds:
Cult 2 Influence 3 Unwoven Coadjutor 3
Health Track:
-0 -1 -1 -2 -2 -4 Incapacitated
Willpower:
5/5

Enlightenment 7

Mote Pool:
75/75, assuming that Motes are ([Enlightenment*10]+Willpower)

Principles:

5-dot Survive
4-dot Music is my life's work.
3-dot
What gender am I?
The Dragon Beyond The World is beautiful.
I will tear down Coral and tell it's leaders how easy they made it.
2-dot
Spending time on prettying myself up is a waste.
No gods, no kings, only humankind.
I desire knowledge, no matter the cost.
I am an artist.
1-dot
Even though it's a waste, I kinda like prettying myself up some times.
Traditional female clothing is restrictive and pointless.

Charms:

Kimbery
-Intolerable Burning Truths
-Instruction From Mother
-Hidden Family Secrets
-Spiteful Sea Tincture

Oramus
-First Oramus Excellency
-Maddening Astral Piping
-Madman's Insight
-Glorious Cosmic Melodies (x2)
-That Horrific Wisdom
-Sanity-Shattering Instruction
-Endlessly Wailing Flutist
-Faceless Prophet Shintai

The Ebon Dragon
-Witness To Darkness
 
I've been meaning to ask this:

How did you guys find exalted?

Friend: "Havoc, I found this game we [us and high school friends] should play!"

Me: "Oh, cool, I'll get a copy of the book-"

Friend: "NO."

Me: "Uuuuuh"

Friend: "I've got this handy-dandy set of word documents that you should read instead of buying the book. Never, ever, buy the book. Especially Infernals."

Me: "OK?"

It went OK, then we all died to mortals, then I got an actual copy of Core and Infernals then I stopped playing pretty much until Sky Seizing Methodology.
 
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I found it via TVTropes, which lead me to the WW forums of the time (just after Return of the Scarlet Empress came out). I lurked there for a while, eventually joined a PbP that went for a few years, and joined that forum and pretty much rolled from there.
 
I found Keychain of Creation on TVtropes, and that was it for me.

I never had a chance.
 
I was about 13/14 at the time and saw the 2nd Ed Core in my local game shop. I had a fair bit of extra cash in my pocket, got suckered in by the blurb on the back and bought it. Then I read the setting chapter and promptly fell in love (metaphorically speaking, but given what Solars can do...). After that I started hanging around the old WW forums, then later started lurking on SB and SV for other reasons.

And despite all this, I've never actually played in an Exalted game.
I feel you, buddy. I've got something like 15 DnD 3.5e books and have played maybe as many hours total. Same with 4e.
 
...I have a lot more RPG books than hours I've spent playing RPG's. Mostly though that's because I rather like reading about settings and the fact that my time doesn't really line up well with most of my friends for playing.
 
The usual so many want to play so few want to run problem. heh.

I think Exalted was first mentioned to me as: in D&D the DM will tell you "that's impossible, you can't do that." In exalted, the ST will say "That's impossible. So you need to roll at least 5 successes..."

I think the first book I read was 1e Sids.
 
I've been meaning to ask this:

How did you guys find exalted?
The first time I heard of Exalted was when I was a wee tyke talking to one of my older brother's nerdy friends about D&D. She told me that D&D was basically the gateway drug for casuals, that beyond awaited wondrous things with names like "Exalted" and "World of Darkness." Before that I had no idea that there were things like D&D that were not D&D.
 
T'be honest, the setting's deliberately made so you can make your own countries to port in- there's a reason so much of the map is empty space.

Yeah, and I did make it work, it just feels hinky to me, and I probably would've designed the regions we're in very differently if I had liked Exalted's setting when we first sat down with it.
 
Jetstream Sam is the best Dawn Caste ever and nothing you say will change this objective fact. :V
Counterargument: he is the mortal I mentioned, because his entire character exists around taking his sword on a decades-long murder-bender across the globe, playing mind-games and being Just That Good, Pretty Boy to the point that
in his DLC he beats a Metal Gear Ray to death and both Blade Wolf and Maximum-Power Armstrong to respective standstills totally unenhanced by any cyborg abilities barring whatever he's got in his suit, the latter of whom took Raiden (who has stopped battleships with a shouldercheck and physically thrown several dozen ton war machines) three rounds to finally make a scratch on.

Also he is totally unimpressed by cinematic explosions:

Saying he needed any kind of magical powers backing him up other than simply being that smarmy of a fuck, carrying a radical weapon and having cultivated an absolutely unreal murderboner with skill alone only serves to demean the man known as Minuano.
 
Jetstream Sam is the best Dawn Caste ever and nothing you say will change this objective fact. :V

Objection.

Satsuki from Kill la Kill, a girl so Solar she produces random sun-flares whenever she makes dramatic pronouncements, whose heel-clicks can be heard from a kilometre away, and whose eyebrows are a wonder of the world [1].

(Oh yeah, and is a blender with a sword, saw a suit of armour that no baseline human could ever wear and went and wore it anyway, and who once escaped from jail using only her sharpened right toenail as a weapon)

[1] Her mother is also excellent Solar inspiration, for what happens when a Twilight goes off the deep end and decides that fashion and aesthetics is the reason for existence.
 
Counterargument: he is the mortal I mentioned, because his entire character exists around taking his sword on a decades-long murder-bender across the globe, playing mind-games and being Just That Good, Pretty Boy to the point that
in his DLC he beats a Metal Gear Ray to death and both Blade Wolf and Maximum-Power Armstrong to respective standstills totally unenhanced by any cyborg abilities barring whatever he's got in his suit, the latter of whom took Raiden (who has stopped battleships with a shouldercheck and physically thrown several dozen ton war machines) three rounds to finally make a scratch on.

Also he is totally unimpressed by cinematic explosions:

Saying he needed any kind of magical powers backing him up other than simply being that smarmy of a fuck, carrying a radical weapon and having cultivated an absolutely unreal murderboner with skill alone only serves to demean the man known as Minuano.
But... That's what Solars are. That's the archetype they're designed to represent. "How can a guy with a sword stand up to my Brass Legion and my Elemental Dragon general?" is basically their entire thing.
 
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Objection.

Satsuki from Kill la Kill, a girl so Solar she produces random sun-flares whenever she makes dramatic pronouncements, whose heel-clicks can be heard from a kilometre away, and whose eyebrows are a wonder of the world [1].

(Oh yeah, and is a blender with a sword, saw a suit of armour that no baseline human could ever wear and went and wore it anyway, and who once escaped from jail using only her sharpened right toenail as a weapon)

[1] Her mother is also excellent Solar inspiration, for what happens when a Twilight goes off the deep end and decides that fashion and aesthetics is the reason for existence.
Satsuki-sama is a Zenith.
 
But... That's what Solars are. That's the archetype their designed to represent. "How can a guy with a sword stand up to my Brass Legion and my Elemental Dragon general?" is basically their entire thing.

It's a guy with a sword and a nuclear fusion reactor though. It's really not just a guy with a sword at that point. After all, the Anathema has eaten his soul and now wears him like a human-suit, leaking stolen divine fire through every pore.
 
Damn you Chung, you just had to go and discover the P-Combo. You know, if you hadn't been born, Exalted wouldn't have been such a screwed up system.

i hat u
But if you are wearing Jon Chung as an hat then it is your fault that the P-Combo as been discovered.

Hats aren't know to be able to write things, so you clearly have written it. Or have been brainwashed to write it, which is the same thing.
 
[1] Her mother is also excellent Solar inspiration, for what happens when a Twilight goes off the deep end and decides that fashion and aesthetics is the reason for existence.
Objection!

Ragyo is clearly an Infernal of the Diva Caste, favoring the charms of V.O.C.E.R. the Fabulous Seed with a dual minor in Cece and SWLIHN. Her heretical apotheosis was truly a thing of beauty and wonder (as in, I wonder how she fit into that contraption).
 
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It's a guy with a sword and a nuclear fusion reactor though. It's really not just a guy with a sword at that point. After all, the Anathema has eaten his soul and now wears him like a human-suit, leaking stolen divine fire through every pore.

Yes, but Sam does have a high end Grey Fox-esque exoskeleton and probably the best sword in the world.

It's not like he's actually just a wandering swordsman in a t-shirt wielding an off-the-shelf combat knife.
 
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