I'm not sure I entirely agree with that. "Sidereals as presented in their book" was fairly different from "Sidereals as presented in every previous book";
This was halfway necessary given how conceptually weird the Sidereals are, it would be impossible to get them right without the entire Sidereals book.
Besides, the Core and Storyteller's Guide very much agree with the Sidereals book.
there's a fair amount of shift in Abyssals, as well
Dragon-Blooded as well actually. Dragon-Blooded were supposed to have hundreds of pacts with elemental courts and be expert diplomats when it comes to spirits, according to their introductory section in 1e.
and now we're up to three of the five playable splats where the core was pretty misrepresentative.
Incorrect, we're up to
one of the five playable splats.
Abyssals, Sidereals and Dragon-Blooded all stayed the same with only skin-deep changes while Lunars had a complete conceptual change due to them not being meant for players in the beginning.
And honestly, if we look at the Lunar NPC section in the core, it's not that big of a conceptual change.
This is before we come to things like "the Malfeans" (who are not the guys who live in Malfeas)
A stupid name does not make it less coherent, it's just a stupid name. Furthermore, Exalted was originally designed to be a precursor to the cWoD, in which they are called Malfeans, and thus First Edition has plenty of a design vision.
It just happens that this design vision is "everything goes to shit because it's too late to save Creation".
(Admittedly, the Storyteller's Handbook backtracks on this a bit, and states that it was the
original intention, but that they have separated enough that it is up to you to decide.)
the widely varying power/genre expectations in a number of early books (Hi there, Invisible Fortress, and how are the half-dozen Solars trapped by a demon-blooded army doing?), the bizarre hiding-of-statblocks
Eleven non-combat wombat Solars against 5000
demons and demon-blooded led by a Second Circle.
To be honest I am entirely okay with the fact that a bunch of Solars who are not perfectly rational actors (I mean, if they were perfectly rational actors, they wouldn't go into combat either, because the battle would never end
) being trapped by a force almost fifty times as numerical as them.
(Naturally, we would expect the most complete Deathlord writeup to appear in Alchemicals), etc.
Yes, naturally we would expect that a Deathlord be in the adventure that he is relevant for.
(Admittedly, it was a pretty shitty one.)
I'm not saying First Ed was bad, or even worse than Second, but I think Second has a lot to recommend it for being packaged in a way that makes conceptual sense, with all the pieces in some kind of sane order, and some idea of what the various splats are out of the corebook. Mechanics aside, if I wanted to recommend a source to understand the setting, I'd suggest Second Core, probably followed by Third, followed by First.
I disagree completely.
The 1e chapter fictions were masterful, and especially the introductory story of Aesha in Chiaroscuro captures the setting perfectly. The setting chapter is wonderful and explains what you can use different organizations and characters for, as well as have excellent introductions to the various fiefdoms and empires throughout Creation, such as the Realm or the Scavenger Lands.
But then, I had my introduction to Exalted in First Edition, so it may look different to me.
However, if you say anything bad about Scavenger Sons or Games of Divinity (especially Games of Divinity), I will
strangle you.
Eh. Honestly, 3e it's pretty coherent setting-wise. It just have gone full Tales of the Flat Earth/Pulp and reduced the influences of the other base sources.
Totally.
I just don't like it and therefore I naturally won't recommend it.
