In a way that's kind of the point. If ones power is enough to overthrow and murder half the titans and chain the other half, forcing their souls to serve at the whims of the victors it seems pretty damn unlikely that the arrogant, brilliant Exalted would be both desperate for power (they just won the war) and so genere blind that they'd willingly accept a clearly poisoned gift from a dying foe.
Why are you ignoring what I said? Read my argument.
The Exalted didn't need to overtly accept it. The murdered titans bestowed the cursed power on them - and the Exalted chose to use it, because they pushed beyond the limits of their Exalted nature and embraced the titanic power that now swelled within them. They accepted it when they started using Charmtech that gave them Limit and suchlike. The way to beat the curse of the Neverborn is to never push beyond your limits and take Limit.
For one, heh, I'd make the Celestial Exalted lifespan substantially shorter - and then let you take Perma-Limit to extend substantially. If you reject the poisoned fruit of Primordial immortality, you're going to stay sane. You're just going to die. But eat from the fruit of the titans and it will sustain you - at the cost of madness.
(this helps also make things more gameable for young Exalts, because it means the elders are warped in the head just by their unnaturally extended lives)
Also, uh, they didn't kill the Neverborn after the war. I completely and utterly reject any vision of the Primordial War that makes it anything less than a hair-close bitterly fought war where the Exalted were glad to accept the surrender and where if the Primordials had done things differently, they could have won. So even if it involved explicit acceptance (and I don't think it did), they had plenty of reason to do so.
For one, heh, I'd make the Celestial Exalted lifespan substantially shorter - and then let you take Perma-Limit to extend substantially. If you reject the poisoned fruit of Primordial immortality, you're going to stay sane. You're just going to die. But eat from the fruit of the titans and it will sustain you - at the cost of madness.
(this helps also make things more gameable for young Exalts, because it means the elders are warped in the head just by their unnaturally extended lives)
I don't like this particular idea because it instantly suggests responses like "well, we could just solve a lot of problems by having a maximum age limit for Exalts, and a kill-squad that executes anyone who lives past it". Never mind that these would have complications - it leads many people down a path that, IMO, is anti-interesting in the same way as "sit in a cave and poop daiklaves".
This actually brings to mind a question, can anybody explain to me how Dragon-Blooded Limit has worked previously? For some reason I'm just have a difficult time grokking it from their 2e book.
I don't like this particular idea because it instantly suggests responses like "well, we could just solve a lot of problems by having a maximum age limit for Exalts, and a kill-squad that executes anyone who lives past it". Never mind that these would have complications - it leads many people down a path that, IMO, is anti-interesting in the same way as "sit in a cave and poop daiklaves".
If your response is, yes, a kill squad which enforces an actual maximum age (which is rather dystopian in and of itself) @EarthScorpion's setting change has succeeded in demonstrating that the Curse is as much excuse as actual flaw.
I don't like this particular idea because it instantly suggests responses like "well, we could just solve a lot of problems by having a maximum age limit for Exalts, and a kill-squad that executes anyone who lives past it".
Err. Hmmm. Honestly, that kind of thing isn't really workable. The amount of power you would need to execute any Exalt in the world that disobeys your age laws (or wharever other arbitrary law you care to enact, for that matter) is basically unachieviable.
It's like saying that you can solve the fundamental unequality between the master race (IE, the dragonblooded) and everybody else by commiting genocide. It's technically true, but it isn't a practical solution and therefore not a solution at all.
I don't like this particular idea because it instantly suggests responses like "well, we could just solve a lot of problems by having a maximum age limit for Exalts, and a kill-squad that executes anyone who lives past it".
What are you talking about? We already know that the setting works better if you set a maximum age limit for Celestial Exalts and send kill-squads to execute anyone who lives past it. The age limit is just "One second" and the kill-squads are called the Wyld Hunt.
What are you talking about? We already know that the setting works better if you set a maximum age limit for Celestial Exalts and send kill-squads to execute anyone who lives past it. The age limit is just "One second" and the kill-squads are called the Wyld Hunt.
If your response is, yes, a kill squad which enforces an actual maximum age (which is rather dystopian in and of itself) @EarthScorpion's setting change has succeeded in demonstrating that the Curse is as much excuse as actual flaw.
Err. Hmmm. Honestly, that kind of thing isn't really workable. The amount of power you would need to execute any Exalt in the world that disobeys your age laws (or wharever other arbitrary law you care to enact, for that matter) is basically unachieviable.
It's like saying that you can solve the fundamental unequality between the master race (IE, the dynasts) and everybody else by commiting genocide. It's technically true, but it isn't a practical solution and therefore not a solution at all.
I'm not sure how much more explicit I have to be about this.
My claim: this idea invites people to respond with X
Not my claim: X is the "correct" response to this idea
I think the debate itself over whether X is "correct" would be as tedious as it is inevitable. It's not an interesting moral or practical conundrum, but it is one that would be debated over and over.
Sometimes it is good for a problem to have a naive "solution" that, upon further examination, has deep flaws. That can be interesting! But it's not always interesting; sometimes it's just gross or boring.
I suspect ES and many in this thread would feel the same way, about that particular suggestion.
I'd just prefer to avoid a meaningful age limit for the Exalted because it invites "acquire eternal life" to become a default character motivation for any Exalted character. I don't really care where the age limit of the Exalted is specifically, but I have always appreciated that the game essentially pegs it at "longer than you, the player, will ever have to worry about, with some extra slack to make that plain."
Why are you ignoring what I said? Read my argument.
The Exalted didn't need to overtly accept it. The murdered titans bestowed the cursed power on them - and the Exalted chose to use it, because they pushed beyond the limits of their Exalted nature and embraced the titanic power that now swelled within them. They accepted it when they started using Charmtech that gave them Limit and suchlike. The way to beat the curse of the Neverborn is to never push beyond your limits and take Limit.
For one, heh, I'd make the Celestial Exalted lifespan substantially shorter - and then let you take Perma-Limit to extend substantially. If you reject the poisoned fruit of Primordial immortality, you're going to stay sane. You're just going to die. But eat from the fruit of the titans and it will sustain you - at the cost of madness.
(this helps also make things more gameable for young Exalts, because it means the elders are warped in the head just by their unnaturally extended lives)
Also, uh, they didn't kill the Neverborn after the war. I completely and utterly reject any vision of the Primordial War that makes it anything less than a hair-close bitterly fought war where the Exalted were glad to accept the surrender and where if the Primordials had done things differently, they could have won. So even if it involved explicit acceptance (and I don't think it did), they had plenty of reason to do so.
I don't even see the purpose of the Great Curse existing here then? You might as well just say it's the freedom to rule the world as they want that let them unleash their endless appetites and end up causing so much ruin. There's no real narrative space for a literal curse as opposed to just a basic power corrupts thematic.
You could keep Limit as a stress mechanic (and toss in Darkest Dungeon quotes as it builds), but the Great Curse actually existing instead of just being told to choke on your own ambitions bothers me.
I'd leave it ambiguous; maybe a Curse exists, maybe it doesn't. Nobody knows and nobody still alive cares about it with the exception of scholars and historians.
I'd leave it ambiguous; maybe a Curse exists, maybe it doesn't. Nobody knows and nobody still alive cares about it with the exception of scholars and historians.
That's how I prefer it as well. In my experiences PC's do just fine acting badly on their own, and doing stupid shit. I just make sure that all the npc exalts act like pcs. My players are generally horrified.
I don't even see the purpose of the Great Curse existing here then? You might as well just say it's the freedom to rule the world as they want that let them unleash their endless appetites and end up causing so much ruin. There's no real narrative space for a literal curse as opposed to just a basic power corrupts thematic.
You could keep Limit as a stress mechanic (and toss in Darkest Dungeon quotes as it builds), but the Great Curse actually existing instead of just being told to choke on your own ambitions bothers me.
Bluntly, I don't really care about its in-character existence or not. What matters to me is the mechanical bribes to screw over your own character by acting like a mythic character. It's just a way to in-character justify it.
nWoD is wonderful for that incentive thing, because the game means you want more willpower all the time, and you can always get 1WP back from indulging in your vice. Which produces glorious incentives to indulge in your Vice as much as you can get away with when you're pressed hard.
(Oh, but I'd also quite like to make sure that Exalts have a choice between accepting their death from old age gracefully, and becoming obsessed old bastards who are hanging onto life and refusing to pass on even as they grow madder and sicker. In much the same way that Mage: the Ascension means that elders wind up laden down with Permadox for passing their natural span of years and so have to retreat from the world.)
(Oh, but I'd also quite like to make sure that Exalts have a choice between accepting their death from old age gracefully, and becoming obsessed old bastards who are hanging onto life and refusing to pass on even as they grow madder and sicker. In much the same way that Mage: the Ascension means that elders wind up laden down with Permadox for passing their natural span of years and so have to retreat from the world.)
Given that oMage is also a game about Great Men and their hubristic folly, this analogy is... interesting.
Although the thing about Elder/Archmage Permadox in mage is that it also restricts them from interacting with the world, while Limit is somewhat more problematic in Exalted because, well, it doesn't.
Mage is a game where Yui Ikari who uploaded herself to a biomechanical incarna-body made out of the blasphemous spawn of a dead god has only 300 seconds of operational time on this Earth due to the cost of negating all the paradox she's accumulated and therefore needs her son Shinji to unfuck the world for her. Or you know, fall in love with a clone of his mom and make everything worse.
There's no such prohibition that exists in Exalted, which is where you get the Elder Problem.
Bluntly, I don't really care about its in-character existence or not. What matters to me is the mechanical bribes to screw over your own character by acting like a mythic character. It's just a way to in-character justify it.
nWoD is wonderful for that incentive thing, because the game means you want more willpower all the time, and you can always get 1WP back from indulging in your vice. Which produces glorious incentives to indulge in your Vice as much as you can get away with when you're pressed hard.
(Oh, but I'd also quite like to make sure that Exalts have a choice between accepting their death from old age gracefully, and becoming obsessed old bastards who are hanging onto life and refusing to pass on even as they grow madder and sicker. In much the same way that Mage: the Ascension means that elders wind up laden down with Permadox for passing their natural span of years and so have to retreat from the world.)
Then frankly I'd invert it from canon. The Great Curse is the Bronze Faction excuse; yes they were great and all but the Solars were doomed to eventually spiral out of control and kill us all. In reality there's no such thing, it's just the normal corruption of power. In game you still have Limit, but it functions as a stress track which everyone has and has no relation to exaltation other than the eventual break being worse for those with more power. You can still work in permalimit because you're doing things that are basically hacking your own exaltation and soul and that just ain't healthy.
Given that oMage is also a game about Great Men and their hubristic folly, this analogy is... interesting.
Although the thing about Elder/Archmage Permadox in mage is that it also restricts them from interacting with the world, while Limit is somewhat more problematic in Exalted because, well, it doesn't.
Mage is a game where Yui Ikari who uploaded herself to a biomechanical incarna-body made out of the blasphemous spawn of a dead god has only 300 seconds of operational time on this Earth due to the cost of negating all the paradox she's accumulated and therefore needs her son Shinji to unfuck the world for her. Or you know, fall in love with a clone of his mom and make everything worse.
There's no such prohibition that exists in Exalted, which is where you get the Elder Problem.
The Great Men instead become corrupt sorcerer-kings ruling the world, until the next generation of Great Men Take A Stand for This Cannot Be Tolerated and Cast Down The Old Corrupt Ways and ascend their thrones solidly vowing to Rule Justly And Fairly.
As far as I'm concerned, something which ensures there's a constant supply of wicked tyrants and sinister sorcerer-lords for the next generation of Exalts to murder is only a good thing. It keeps things dynamic, and also provides useful backstory for aforementioned PC murder-targets.
I'm not sure how much more explicit I have to be about this.
My claim: this idea invites people to respond with X
Not my claim: X is the "correct" response to this idea
I think the debate itself over whether X is "correct" would be as tedious as it is inevitable. It's not an interesting moral or practical conundrum, but it is one that would be debated over and over.
Sometimes it is good for a problem to have a naive "solution" that, upon further examination, has deep flaws. That can be interesting! But it's not always interesting; sometimes it's just gross or boring.
I suspect ES and many in this thread would feel the same way, about that particular suggestion.
But the debate already exists? It's being put more plainly here, but Usurpation and various arguements around it are centered partially on this question.
Even in the setting there is the idea that limit somehow gets things worse the longer you live.
And your analogy doesn't quite work: the cave issue is because many characters would want to gain power, thus if it was possible to gain power by sitting in a cave and poop out artifacts that is what would happen. Most characters don't want to kill themselves, and so the incentives regarding the kill squad don't line up.
One of the things that I am sad was lost between editions someplace was that the Great Curse was never directed at the Exalted in the first place. The death curse was cast at the Incarna who evoked perfect defenses and went "lolnope" and didn't see that the effect got reflected onto their servants instead.
Thematically the great curse is pretty much the central theme of the game given in universe form. It's the cycle of violence and betrayal. "Your servants will rise to overthrow you just as ours did." and for much the same reason, because you were a dick to them.
I always imagined the curse effecting the Exalts happened between incarnations. Thus Chejop Kejak was the first Sidereal to be born into the Great Curse because he was the first to born after the Primordial War which is why of course he is the one who proposed the Usurpation. It is also why the High First Age took until the end to really start to go horribly wrong, because as Primordial War veterans were reincarnated they ended up with more and more cursed Exalts taking their place. Something in the connection between God and Exalt was tainted by the curse.
One of the things that I am sad was lost between editions someplace was that the Great Curse was never directed at the Exalted in the first place. The death curse was cast at the Incarna who evoked perfect defenses and went "lolnope" and didn't see that the effect got reflected onto their servants instead.
My personnel opinion is that the Great Curse is entirely unnecessary. Do we really need to blame the Neverborn / Primordials for why humans granted tremendous power ultimately proved unable to control that power and avoid abusing it?
I think that giving outside factors credit for the corruption, moral decay, and hubris that continually plagues the Exalted is a poor decision as it makes it easy for the Exalted to avoid blame for their misdeeds and allows for the transformation of a complex philosophical problem over the dangerous nature of power into merely another obstacle that can be overcome given the application of sufficient "AWESOME" from the PCs.
I think that the setting of Exalted allows for a much better story if the fatal flaws that led to the end of the First Age and that currently cripple attempts to save Creation in the current age come from within rather than being imposed by outside forces.
My personnel opinion is that the Great Curse is entirely unnecessary. Do we really need to blame the Neverborn / Primordials for why humans granted tremendous power ultimately proved unable to control that power and avoid abusing it?
I think that giving outside factors credit for the corruption, moral decay, and hubris that continually plagues the Exalted is a poor decision as it makes it easy for the Exalted to avoid blame for their misdeeds and allows for the transformation of a complex philosophical problem over the dangerous nature of power into merely another obstacle that can be overcome given the application of sufficient "AWESOME" from the PCs.
I think that it is a much better story if the fatal flaws that led to the end of the First Age and currently cripple attempts to save Creation in the current age come from within rather than being imposed by outside forces.
I enjoy it firstly as a means of playing around with a character's basic traits and picking out a Limit Break that gives little insights into the Exalt's personality, using @EarthScorpion's old advice about Limit Break being mistakable for the character's own nature getting the best of them. When the holier-than-thou Zenith obsessed with moral and intellectual transcendentalism has the Deliberate Cruelty flaw, that gives a nice warning that for all her claims of being a pure mind with no goals other than the harmonious ascension of humanity, there's still a not-insignficant part of her that loathes all the drooling sheeple and wants to punish them for their many perceived failings. It's an organic bit of mechanical work that lets you emphasize that Exalts are just as likely to have childish emotional sore points or uncorrected biases as any mortal.
Secondly, while Exalted can be rather grim, it's just needlessly dark for the setbook to openly state "Great Curse? Doesn't exist. Everything is shit, and will always be shit, because people are shit. You can try to not be shit, but you'll either end up being shit anyway or have all your accomplishments swept away by some shitty asshole within a decade of your death. Hope is a lie, and even death provides no release."
It might be realistic to have the setting be made up of ruthless psychopaths crushing everyone else under a fist of malignance and shit, but to be blunt, fuck the real world. I don't need the fact that entropy is the only God to poison my escapism, too.
For a long time I've been thinking of how to make a unified Limit system that also serves as a system that the players want to interact with and someone in universe could argue should be kept even if it turns out to be removable.
I based some of it off of the Abyssal doom's mechanics, one of my players absolutely loved how that changed his game, but never got around to making conditions or example breaks for non-Solars. Most of the focus was on adding additional carrots and interaction points with other aspects of the game.
It was designed for 2e, but shouldn't be too hard to covert to 3e if someone wants to use it.
Limit:
Every being has a limited capacity for mental trauma and stress. This capacity is represented as a combination of their temporary Willpower, for short term changes, and their Limit track, for more persistent effects. When they are exposed to something mind-breaking, they gain points of limit. But that isn't all. Denial or betrayal of one's true self will also cause this stress to build up.
Once it builds up too far, five points for mortals and ten for supernatural characters, they suffer from various penalties until they're able to recover from the mental strain.
Gaining Limit:
All characters gain a point of limit during the following conditions.
- The first time in a scene that they resist unnatural mental influence by spending willpower.
- When they spend a willpower to suppress their highest/primary Virtue.
- If they are betrayed by the subject of a positive intimacy. If it was the target of their Motivation that betrayed them, they instead gain three points.
- If the object or subject of a positive intimacy is destroyed/killed. If it was their Motivation, they instead gain three points.
- Lastly, they may choose to gain a point of limit, at any time, in order to recover a point of temporary willpower.
Specific other events, such as being tortured or dropped into dying health levels, can also cause a point of limit to be gained if the character does not succeed on an appropriate resistance check(typically a Resistance or Integrity roll). These events occur at the Storyteller's discretion, but should always be either innately harrowing or previously unexperienced horrors. Both mortal and supernatural minds will become resistance to lesser sorrows as they grow in experience.
Effects of Limit:
As limit accumulated, a character will become more and more visibly stressed. These begin with physical effects: low energy, aches and pains, shakes, excessive sweating, etc. The signs are subtle at first, but become more noticeable as the character's limit increases.
When the character's limit is between one and five, other character can identify that the character is stressed with a Perception + Investigation roll at a difficulty of (5 - the number of points of limit). If the character being investigated has five or more points of limit, this means that the only way someone would not be able to tell that they were stressed is if that character botches the roll.
A character who wishes to conceal their stress level may do so by contesting the action and rolling Manipulation + Integrity.
At six or more points of limit, a level unattainable for mortals, the stress on the character bleeds out into the environment around them. These effects are based on the type of Essence that the character channels: Dragonblooded and elementals may find themselves exhaling a cloud of fire or mist, the light in the surroundings may flare up around Solars or spirits with light aspects, a Chosen of Battles or a war god may cause all weapons to glint and seem more easily available for use, so on and so forth.
These effects will be noticed fairly easily by all nearby, but their source can be identified by another Perception+Investigation roll at difficulty (10 - the number of points of limit). These effects are impossible to conceal without the use of charms and impose a -2 external penalty to any disguises that would require a different type of Essence.
Fortunately for the Celestial Exalted, there are enough god-blooded and spirits with Sun or Moon aspects that they won't immediately have a Wyld Hunt called on them if they're found in such a state.
Recovering Limit:
There is one general method of recovering limit that functions for all characters, working towards a character's Motivation.
During a chapter where a character makes an important step towards achieving their Motivation, they may recover one point of limit. This may be done only once per story.
If they accomplished their Motivation, they instead recover three points.
Mortals:
The limit track for mortals is five boxes, rendering supernatural stress effects impossible to produce.
Once all five are filled, their limit track is reset to zero. They then lose one of their Willpower dots and gain a deficiency if they fail a, now lower, Willpower check.
If they spend a month without gaining a point of limit, then they can make a Perception+Integrity check to recover the Willpower dot and heal the deficiency. If they have their full Willpower, then this check will remove a point of limit instead.
So long as a dot of Willpower remains lost, they read as if they had two points of limit to anyone interacting with them unless their current limit is higher.
Anyone reduced to Willpower 0 in this manner is rendered near catatonic and completely susceptible to any social influence. Nothing is considered an unacceptable order to someone in this state, unless specific effects render it such.
Fortunately for them, Mortals can also recover limit through support from those that they have positive intimacies towards.
If they spend a week in the presence of and interacting with the subject of a positive intimacy, then they may recover one limit by passing the Perception+Integrity check. This is true even for non-intelligent intimacies such as a love of wine or battle, though drinking an incredible amount of wine for a week will likely cause other problems.
Long in the past, there existed medical specialists who could also provide care even without the intimacy, but such treatments of the soul are a lost art. Someone can attempt such a feat through a Perception+Medicine roll at difficulty 4. Though if they succeed frequently enough, an intimacy will likely be formed and they will no longer need to roll.
When a Mortal's prayers are answered, they also recover one limit. This can be caused by either a spirit speaking to them directly or the results of the successful prayer becoming obvious to the mortal.
The Supernatural:
Non-mortal beings have more resistance to such events, but it's also harder for them to recover from accumulated stresses.
Their limit track is ten boxes and they do not need to make checks to regain lost Willpower dots or heal deficiencies.
Otherwise the effects of gaining limit and losing Willpower are identical.
However, supernatural beings may only recover limit through spending a month without gaining another point of limit or working towards their motivation. Interacting with those they care about is not enough.
There is one major exception to this. Consuming a Salary 4 purchase of Ambrosia will remove 2 points of Limit for Spirits of Essence 1-3, a Salary 5 purchase for those of Essence 4-6, and a Salary 6 purchase for those of Essence 7-10.
The Exalted:
As supernatural beings, the Exalted also have a limit track of ten.
Unlike the rest, they have been blessed with a double-edged sword. Many argue about whether this trait was caused by the fallen primordials or was always a part of the design. Regardless of the truth, the Exaltation stores any stress as power which can be tapped into at times of great need and must be slowly dissipated if the character doesn't want it to explode all at once.
When their limit hits ten, Exalts do not suffer from any loss of Willpower; instead they receive a surge of power called a Limit Break.
When a break occurs, the character's limit is reset to zero and their behavior changes based on their Limit Break. Any social influence that would cause them to act contrary to their Limit Break is considered an unacceptable order. Specific charms may grant additional benefits.
While Limit Breaking, the character gains a number of points of temporary willpower equal to their highest Virtue. They also increase their personal mote pool's size by ten and immediately gain that many motes.
Lesser versions of these boons may be called forth by the Exalt when they choose them. This is known as a Partial Break and it only lasts for a single scene. Though they should be careful. If one draws power from madness too often, they may find themselves relying on it in their day to day lives or pushing themselves too far
When an Exalt is under the effects of either a Partial Break, any order that would cause them to act contrary to their break is still considered an unacceptable order. However, they only gain a number of points of temporary willpower equal to half of their primary virtue. The mote pool gain is also decreased to their current limit minus five. At the end of a scene in which a character invokes a Partial Break, they gain one point of limit.
While an Exalt is under the effects of any Limit Break they can still gain limit normally. If they gain enough to break again, the duration of the second is added to the first. The behavior of a Full Break overrides that of a Partial in all cases.
Unfortunately, this great power comes at a price. The Exalted are not able to recover from limit as easily as other supernatural beings. In order to recover any they must act in some manner and these actions should be on screen. Any off screens actions can be assumed to be counterbalanced by off screen limit gains.
They may recover limit by working towards their Motivation and a special condition based on the nature of their Exaltation.
However, all Exalts also have one other option available to them, releasing the energy slowly and purposefully.
The character can voluntarily enter a Partial Break for the full duration of their normal Limit Break. During this episode they do not receive any temporary willpower or motes, but any influence that would cause them to act in a manner contrary to the break is still an unacceptable order. At the end of this Partial Break, they recover one point of limit.
Limit Breaks, both Full and Partial, should be exaggerations of a character's normal actions. The little voice in the back of their mind that ignores potential consequences for their behavior will come to the fore.
However, Limit Breaks for PC characters should always encourage the character to take action and remain on camera. It's no fun to be Achilles sitting in his tent while the rest of your friends are playing out an exciting combat scene. Similarly, going into a murderous berserk frenzy may be appropriate for a legend, but might not be fun to play out at an actual table and should be avoided.
Solars:
Solar Limit Breaks are defined by the Primary Virtue of the character and last for a day per point of Permanent Essence.
During a break, a specific aspect of their Primary Virtue will drive their behavior.
The Partial Break should be an exaggeration of the character's normal behavior, as if the Solar could not fail a Virtue check. The choices that they are forced to make may not be the best, but they wouldn't surprise anyone who's known the character for a long time or has heard of their legend.
The Full Break is more over the top and will directly cause a large number of problems. It forces the types of actions that leave a reasonable person asking, "How could you possibly have thought that was a good idea?". However, the actions should still be understandable from the perspective of the character's personality. To themselves, they lost control for a while after a prolonged period of stress.
Each Limit Break also has a special condition that causes the character to gain limit. When this condition comes up, they roll 3 dice and gain limit equal to the number of successes.
A Solar may recover limit under the following conditions:
Spreading their Motivation or Intimacies to a number of people equal to their Essence in Magnitude. This can be done once per story for each Intimacy and once per chapter for their Motivation.
Compassion:
Righteous Rage
Condition: The Solar perceives someone suffering for no fault of their own.
Partial Break: The Solar cannot stand by and watch the suffering in the world. If he notices anyone suffering or in pain, he must act to prevent this pain from continuing. These actions do not always need to be destructive, though they often are. For instance, if he sees a harsh task master whipping his slaves, then the Solar will be satisfied with removing the whip or the slaves from the area. Of course, if the task master continues once disarmed, then more drastic intervention is necessary.
Full Break: The suffering of others fills the character with an unquenchable rage. He must attack, either physically or socially, the nearest cause of suffering and will not stop until it's no longer capable of harming people. He will resort to destroying oppressive objects or killing people if necessary. If there is no injustice for him to right, then the Solar must seek out more in the most expedient manner he can, eating and drinking as he searches.
Impractical Charity
Condition: The Solar perceives a heartfelt request for help ignored.
Partial Break: The Solar is overcome with the spirit of charity and must give aid if asked. She will give away any of her physical possessions if a person is in great need of them. As a Solar, she can walk several miles barefoot while a peasant with a foot wound may not and can easily earn more money than the beggars asking for hers. However, she is no fool and won't act if she would reasonably make the problem worse, such as giving directions to a place she doesn't know of. She can also refuse any requests that are not sincere requests of aid, such as a bandit kindly asking for her daiklaive.
Full Break: So many people are in need of help and the character will help them. If she sees a problem she will fix it, even if the person denies there is a problem or doesn't want her assistance. Skill and knowledge are no obstacle! She will attempt to stitch a wound closed even if she lacks any medical training and only has straw to work with. Circumstances and deceit cannot factor into her decisions, someone wouldn't look like they needed help if they didn't actually need her assistance.
Conviction:
Relentless Dedication
Condition: The Solar must delay or change her plans because of events outside of her control.
Partial Break: The Solar focuses solely on her immediate goal, ignoring anyone else's considerations until it is accomplished and then moving onto the next. If a target must be captured, then she will desert her allies to give chase. A prince who must be blackmailed for a trade treaty to go through, will find a carefully worded letter in his lap at the nearest opportunity. However, the character is not completely careless. If a particular action would directly harm one of her other goals, then she may pick an alternative path. The goals of allies do not matter.
Full Break: Accomplishing her tasks is the only thing that matters. The Solar becomes heedless of collateral damage or the long term consequences of her actions while she pursues her immediate goals. If a particular action might help her achieve them, then she will do it. The fleeing enemy general cannot run over a fallen bridge, even if the bridge was an important part of the Solar's lands. If the prince cannot be blackmailed, then she will manufacture some herself. Or simply remove him through assassination, if it would resolve the issue more quickly.
Fanatical Zeal
Condition: The Solar perceives someone succeeding without putting in significant effort.
Partial Break: The Solar must prove his dedication by taking the hardest path to his goal. He must take the more difficult or strenuous option when a choice presents itself. To do any less would make his ideals worthless. He will forsake any helpful tools that he can, but will use them if his task would be impossible without mechanical aid. However, the Solar is the one who must be dedicated, if others wish to take the easy path, then that is their choice.
Full Break: To take the easy path is to prove your own weakness. The Solar must not only take the most difficult option before him, he must make these choices for others so that they may grow as well. If he comes across a tool which would tempt someone into weakness, then he will break it. One who backs down from the Solar's challenge will be dragged kicking and screaming into their true strength, or they will die in the process.
Temperance:
The Brutal Truth
Condition: The Solar is hindered by deceit or misinformation.
Partial Break: The Solar will show dedication to the truth, no matter how painful. She responds to questions with the truth and may not sugar coat her words. The truth can be brutal and to disguise it with niceties would be as bad as lying. However, "I will not answer that question." is also a truth that she may use if need be.
Full Break: Too many people spend their lives running from the truth. The Solar will not only interact with others completely truthfully, she must also make sure that they fully understand what she's saying. Partial truths and half truths are the basis of the lies that ruin the world. In this state, she must also correct any lie or misinformation that she hears of to the best of her ability.
Irrational Abstinence
Condition: The Solar sees someone give in to a temptation that hurts them.
Partial Break: The Solar abstains from anything that is not strictly necessary for life. If a wound would not kill him, then it does not need medical attention. He can survive without food for weeks, so he shall not eat. It goes without saying that all forms of drugs, sex, or entertainment must be ignored as well.
Full Break: The world may only be at peace when temptations of the flesh are removed. In addition to abstaining from all that is not strictly necessary, the Solar must prevent others from indulging themselves as well. He will slap food from the hands of those who are not starving and destroy any pleasurable object so that it will cease being a temptation.
Valor:
Wrathful Retribution
Condition: The Solar receives an insult or wound that he cannot immediately respond to.
Partial Break: The Solar must repay any slight in kind. Insults will be traded, blows exchanged, and lives lost until he feels that he has bested any challenger who approaches him. Proper respect must be paid and any lesser who fails to do so must be made an example of so the other rabble understand their place in the world.
Full Break: It is not merely enough to respond to an adversary; there must be disproportionate retribution. A man who insults the Solar will find his tongue cut out for his impertinence. The merchant who cheats him will be dragged behind his horse until she falls unconscious. And a rival king so foolish as to kill one of his people will soon find their kingdom burned to the ground.
Foolhardy Narcissism
Condition: The Solar's accomplishments are overshadowed or misattributed to another.
Partial Break: The Solar is amazing and the entire world needs to know. She will make sure her actions are known of and that they're associated with her name. She could leave a calling card at the scene of the crime, stop to pose for the Wyld Hunt pursuing her, or simply carve her sigil into her every enemy's clothing. However, she can wait until after she's accomplished her goals before revealing herself.
Full Break: The only thing better than letting your greatest foe know that you beat them is telling them how you'll do it, and then winning anyway. The Solar must loudly and obviously warn people about her plans, and then stick to them even in the face of greater opposition. Her calling cards will also become more grandiose and harder to remove. If she would normally leave a simple wooden idol at the scene, she must now replace the castle's statues with her own.
For good or ill, the main purpose of Limit as of 1e-2e Exalted was two-pronged.
1. White Wolf loved their morality mechanics and making statements about player/character behavior with them. (They wanted to make a game where people could be angsty or tortured).
2. It exists as a means to keep players from acting optimally at all times.
The latter point is imo the more important one. I don't necessarily think it should be kept going forward, but it demands acknowledgement. Players have inertia, and not everyone is an Aleph or whathave you that is good at causing problems for themselves in a game-healthy manner. This inertia is essentially summarized as 'When a player is in an optimal state, they will seek to return to this optimal state as often and as quickly as possible.'
Mechanics in general and limit in particular should be designed with an eye towards making it easier for both players and storytellers to use it in their games.
Unnecessary? Maybe. But a lot of things in the game line are unnecessary.
It's profoundly useful and perhaps the most thematically central element of the game. And frankly, it is extremely useful to explain how the setting ends up the way it is because, let's follow along here, Exalts aren't human anymore.
I know we make a great deal of hash about how Exalts are humans with human foibles writ large but then it remains for us to ask why is this the case? Exalts can develop Charms which make them superhumanly good at fighting people with swords, it allows them to effortlessly purge corruption from organizations, it creates markets so efficient Adam Smith would weep and Keynes and Marx would find their models useless, it develops wonders of science, technology and magic that leap ahead of any level of progress human beings are capable of.
So why has no Exalted Ghandi ever created The Change You Want To See In The World Method? Why has no Exalted Dr King created The Content Of Their Characters Examination? These are transcendent demigods capable of floating continents and forging reality from chaos and developing a civilization that puts anything we know to shame and yet there were never Exalts who were as dedicated to peace, justice and morality as the wisest and greatest of our own history?
The long sad history of Creation has been a succession of despots and empires and tyrants, imposing their wills on the weak and butchering their enemies. Or own world is bad, but not nearly so bad as Creation has gotten at its worst. Yet there has never been genuinely good and benevolent Exalts? Especially since Exaltation does not seek out desire for personal power, only the desire to change the world in some meaningful way. Are the Exalts of Creation really so horrible that none of them can accomplish a lasting good on the level of plain old vanilla humans in real life Earth are capable of? Are Exalts weaker in this area than us?
Or are we the readers so arrogant as to presume that our understanding of morality is better than that of beings with literally superhuman intellects and perceptions? Do we presume that the 21st century understanding of moral and ethical philosophy has reached the plateau and that no further progress can be made and we can look sneering at anyone who presumes that an Exalted Kant or Jesus or Buddha could have made a revolution in their moral systems that surpasses our own?
It's almost like there is some element of the setting that prevents the Exalted from being better. Perhaps its an active curse. Maybe its just a weakness that prevents them from developing Charms which elevate their moral reasoning beyond a certain limit. It's certainly not a thing we can just presume, and having an explanation for why there is a Charm which allows you to make an effective decision but not a wise decision is much more handy than just throwing up our hands and saying that advancing moral philosophy beyond what we currently understand is impossible. After all, Exalts are all about the impossible becoming possible.
