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General Exalted Thread

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Like I talk about exalted constantly on like five servers. Either that or throwing my OC's at people so I can have that sugar rush of people liking them lmao.
 
*shrug* I like 3e. Honestly I have a hard time figuring out a consensus on it beyond 'Lunars are great and the corebook is bad'.

A group of former friends would never shut up about how the new lakes in the southeast made no sense (because apparently it's smack dab in the middle of a culture of plainsdwellers?). Crafting as a system utterly flabbergasts me with how nonsensical it is but others tell me they love it. The mechanics are obscure and obtuse but they're also the best Exalted has ever done?
 
notanautomaton said:
But how many can dance on the head of a pin?
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Descriptions of Mnemon's retinue of demon bodyguards and the sidereal charm Mirror-Shattering Method both clearly support the idea that there are multiple layers to immaterial reality, so multiple spirits can occupy what would appear to mortal eyes as the same physical space without tripping over each other - which was the core of the original "angels on the head of a pin" question.

Exthalion said:
In so much as the canonical Age structure is a result of in-setting historiography, that seems like a system that could organically arise. Though political considerations might produce some alterations, such as the Solars lopping off your proposed zeroth age to avoid legitimizing the Primordial rule even implicitly or the Shogunate considering the Usurpation the cataclysm that started their own age.
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Could say the incarnae insisted on acknowledging the previous Age so they'd be recognized as having seniority over the Exalted, and also for subtler occult reasons known only to the Maidens and Sessen Douji. Then the Solar propaganda efforts to delegitimize Primordial rule result in most people's numbering systems starting with one, while proper computer scientists start at zero - which introduced various subtle flaws, just as Shogunate efforts to delegitimize Solars and Lunars by replacing references to their charms in technical manuals with not-quite-equivalent DB charms introduced flaws.

Shogunate leaders who privately understood the larger arc of history might then have recognized the Great Uprising as a crisis emerging from cracks in the foundation of the Second Age, and acknowledged the inevitability of some upcoming cataclysm, but nonetheless held out hope for personally and/or institutionally surviving it, then going on to shape that oncoming Third Age in a positive way. Indeed, the Seventh Legion arguably succeeded.
 
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I am no longer willing to back Onyx Path Kickstarters. Doubt I'm the only one. That's probably part of the reason new material is so weakly discussed.

3e mechanics in general do get some talk, though. I mean, I was just arguing about the FAA rules.
 
In contrast I'm waiting to get the highest level backing on sidereals when it's coming out. Going to be a terrible person an inflict my OC's on canon itself.
 
SunnySprings said:
Yeah, I'm just surprised that like, not even the fluff gets talked about. We're having chats equivalent to medieval monks that argued with each other on whether angels are sexed or sexless.
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It's self-reinforcing. 3e is generally panned here, which takes away a lot of incentive for those of us who like it to come here to discuss it.

Sanctaphrax said:
I am no longer willing to back Onyx Path Kickstarters. Doubt I'm the only one. That's probably part of the reason new material is so weakly discussed.

3e mechanics in general do get some talk, though. I mean, I was just arguing about the FAA rules.
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Well, there hasn't been an Exalted kickstarter since Lunars anyway, so you're not missing out on a ton there. Near as I can tell, the writers are still cranking out stuff, because there's like 6 Ex3 projects in various phases of completion in their Monday Meeting Notes, but the rest of the process is fucking ridiculous. The nearest thing to a new release we've had is the raw text of Heirs to the Shogunate that they dropped a few months ago for the kickstarter backers. There was a lot of sweet stuff there, mind you.


MiracleGrow said:
In contrast I'm waiting to get the highest level backing on sidereals when it's coming out. Going to be a terrible person an inflict my OC's on canon itself.
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I don't have any OCs, but if there's a 'get yourself a martial art' tier, that would be awful tempting. :V
 
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SerGregness said:
Well, there hasn't been an Exalted kickstarter since Lunars anyway, so you're not missing out on a ton there. Near as I can tell, the writers are still cranking out stuff, because there's like 6 Ex3 projects in various phases of completion in their Monday Meeting Notes, but the rest of the process is fucking ridiculous. The nearest thing to a new release we've had is the raw text of Heirs to the Shogunate that they dropped a few months ago for the kickstarter backers. There was a lot of sweet stuff there, mind you.
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From what I can tell, there's apparently a bottleneck in the later parts of the process? It seems like things generally get through the first couple drafts, but then it all slows to a crawl when they reach Development and every step forward comes over the course of months.

Like, Exigents has been stuck in Development since May of last year for instance, and Across the Eight Directions was in Development somewhere between November 2019 and February 2020, and stayed in Development until somewhere between October 2020 and this January past. It shouldn't take a full year to sort out a second draft work and arrange it neatly, not for a setting book.

Notably, this hasn't been happening with Exalted: Essence. It first appeared on the Kickstarter info tracker on February 2020, and has steadily progressed, got past Development, and is just waiting for the post-development thumbs up before they start editing it all to look nice and arranging the art. And this is a major project at least on par with a splatbook!

EDIT: Yeah, Exalted: Essence cleared Second Draft in a month. Then between late October and late January they completed Development, got past the Manuscript approval, and then settled into post-approval development. Something is definitely fucky with their workflow.
 
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SerGregness said:
And I'm sure COVID has caused them a lot of problems, but it ain't like everything was butter smooth without it.
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Wasn't butter smooth, but they were generally making forward progress, but COVID seems to have disrupted the devs badly enough that their already wobbly workflow seems to have completely collapsed and they still haven't recovered.

It's odd because Onyx Path as a whole is still producing content, this breakdown seems to be primarily experienced by the main Exalted line.
 
Alectai said:
From what I can tell, there's apparently a bottleneck in the later parts of the process? It seems like things generally get through the first couple drafts, but then it all slows to a crawl when they reach Development and every step forward comes over the course of months.

Like, Exigents has been stuck in Development since May of last year for instance, and Across the Eight Directions was in Development somewhere between November 2019 and February 2020, and stayed in Development until somewhere between October 2020 and this January past. It shouldn't take a full year to sort out a second draft work and arrange it neatly, not for a setting book.

Notably, this hasn't been happening with Exalted: Essence. It first appeared on the Kickstarter info tracker on February 2020, and has steadily progressed, got past Development, and is just waiting for the post-development thumbs up before they start editing it all to look nice and arranging the art. And this is a major project at least on par with a splatbook!

EDIT: Yeah, Exalted: Essence cleared Second Draft in a month. Then between late October and late January they completed Development, got past the Manuscript approval, and then settled into post-approval development. Something is definitely fucky with their workflow.
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Going only by my memories of the Core, art and layout are significant bottlenecks. Artists are apparently fairly flaky or produce unacceptable work, and apparently there is only one person who does layout for Exalted books.

Sanctaphrax said:
Artifacts require a touch of Occult, it's true. But there's a big difference between requiring a few dots of an Ability and requiring you to do Sorcery.

Anyway. The whole point of Artifact ratings is to summarize all the multitudinous differences between greater and lesser artifacts. Small, large, simple, complex, whatever. Wrap it up in a number, make it game-able.

Letting Sorcery eat the niches of other Abilities is really not a good idea. It's even worse than letting, say, Linguistics eat niches. Sorcery is weird and somewhat character-defining; many characters won't want to be Sorcerers, and that shouldn't ban them from reaching the pinnacle of their non-sorcerous niches.

But even if the proposal was to require Bureaucracy Charms for the strongest Artifacts, which would be far more sensible than requiring Sorcery, I'd be against it. The Craft Charmset should give you all the Charms you need to use Craft.
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Be that as it may, as a brute setting fact Sorcery has been closely tied to artifice since mid 1E. The fact that the people responsible for it were called Sorcerer-Engineers or Sorcerer-Technicians suggests if not equal importance than at least a significant sorcerous component.

This makes a degree of in setting sense as well, when the "mortal tier" of magical goods involved taking a well made mundane good and then adding an enchantment to it. In 1E and 2E this would involve the Science/Art of Enchantment, which don't really have a 3E correlate, or the Ritual of Elemental Empowerment, which may or may not be a working in the 3E sense.

Perhaps it is incidental, ala Bureaucracy. You could use Sorcery to procure useful things such as assistants or in 3E to conjure a demesne to build your manse on. But it seems like there should at least be some interaction ala Combat involving Dodge/Resistance rather than each ability existing in splendid isolation.
 
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Alectai said:
From what I can tell, there's apparently a bottleneck in the later parts of the process? It seems like things generally get through the first couple drafts, but then it all slows to a crawl when they reach Development and every step forward comes over the course of months.

Like, Exigents has been stuck in Development since May of last year for instance, and Across the Eight Directions was in Development somewhere between November 2019 and February 2020, and stayed in Development until somewhere between October 2020 and this January past. It shouldn't take a full year to sort out a second draft work and arrange it neatly, not for a setting book.
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I imagine some of the Exigent's Development hell has to do with them being, I dunno, playtested somewhat? We know that there was some kind of lengthy playtest for Lunars also. Though this really doesn't explain the delay with Across the Eight Directions, or the incredible speed at which Essence seems to be moving along. I genuinely think Essence is moving at the clip it's got is because it's the only Exalted product any of the development team actually seems excited about, probably because it's letting them make the 3e core they've always wanted to make, unburdened by the decisions of a prior development team.

It must really suck to have to build your entire game within somebody else's structure.
 
If I had to speculate, I'd guess that the people who were probably hit by COVID the hardest were the lead devs, which makes any project bog down when it reaches the point where their direct input is necessary. The Essence team seems to be largely independent from what I've seen, so their book can progress a lot faster.
 
KymmeSeventh said:
. I genuinely think Essence is moving at the clip it's got is because it's the only Exalted product any of the development team actually seems excited about
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This is incorrect.
elfgames said:
If I had to speculate, I'd guess that the people who were probably hit by COVID the hardest were the lead devs, which makes any project bog down when it reaches the point where their direct input is necessary. The Essence team seems to be largely independent from what I've seen, so their book can progress a lot faster.
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This is correct.
 
I could understand some employees being less than enthused about certain products (if I worked on Exalted I know there's certain parts of the books I'd prefer to work on over others *cough*crafting*cough*) but I can't imagine that there's only ONE product that ANYONE is excited about. We haven't even touched on Alchemicals or Infernals yet and I know they have their fans. Exigents are immediately interesting. Getimians and Liminals are the brand new Exalt types, surely someone on the team wanted to work on them or they wouldn't have gotten past concept.
 
HalfTangible said:
I could understand some employees being less than enthused about certain products (if I worked on Exalted I know there's certain parts of the books I'd prefer to work on over others *cough*crafting*cough*) but I can't imagine that there's only ONE product that ANYONE is excited about. We haven't even touched on Alchemicals or Infernals yet and I know they have their fans. Exigents are immediately interesting. Getimians and Liminals are the brand new Exalt types, surely someone on the team wanted to work on them or they wouldn't have gotten past concept.
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Vance, at the very least, is notoriously thirsty to get to 3e Sidereals.
 
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I feel like some people just respond differently to the plague year. I certainly couldn't have made anything in 2020. I also feel like they're probably a bit mired in Exigents due to the unique nature of the book, in that it introduces us to an extremely varied Exalt type, has a chapter dedicated to charm design, and also has the three optional Exalts.
 
SunnySprings said:
I feel like some people just respond differently to the plague year. I certainly couldn't have made anything in 2020. I also feel like they're probably a bit mired in Exigents due to the unique nature of the book, in that it introduces us to an extremely varied Exalt type, has a chapter dedicated to charm design, and also has the three optional Exalts.
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From what I've heard here and there, Exigents are apparently going to be handled by some mad libs thing where you've got however many templates with charms based on the rough category of God who empowered you, and you adjust accordingly for desired power level and investment.

But take that with a grain of salt as a very unconfirmed rumor.
 
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Alectai said:
From what I've heard here and there, Exigents are apparently going to be handled by some mad libs thing where you've got however many templates with charms based on the rough category of God who empowered you, and you adjust accordingly for desired power level and investment.

But take that with a grain of salt as a very unconfirmed rumor.
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From the impression I get from Vance talking about it, it's basically one chapter discussing charm design, and then several chapters dedicated to specific Exigents (some of which may or may not be more categorical than others, such as Architects, who are the Exigents of various city gods).
 
I already know the first Exigent I'm making and have a rough idea of his backstory and circle role. Can't wait for the book to give me some better guidelines.
 
Essence also has the advantage of not needing to fit into the existing 3e system, so the mechanics were easier to build and test.
 
SunnySprings said:
From the impression I get from Vance talking about it, it's basically one chapter discussing charm design, and then several chapters dedicated to specific Exigents (some of which may or may not be more categorical than others, such as Architects, who are the Exigents of various city gods).
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I think the intention is also to have the three categories of Exigent serve as useful examples when it comes to Charm design - to feature lots of different types of Charms and demonstrate a variety of different models for Charms.

Suffice it to say, if Exigents has useful stuff in it I'm going to stat up like 3 or 4 different Exigents.
 
I've been working on an extended Realm Civil War scenario and decided to draw up a bunch of stylized Blessed Isle maps, loosely imitating some aesthetics from dynastic China. I thought folks here might be able to get some use out of them.


 
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greensun said:
3e is unpopular here - for a variety of reasons.

Which can be a shame, since 3e Lunars are the best they've ever been, even with their flaws and the core system's issues.
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Which is, honestly tragic considering that 3E is probably the only edition of Exalted out of three that you can call serviceable or even remotely functional. There are aspects of the game that are flawed, sure, but there are aspects of every game that are flawed. For all the complaints, 2E was released in a literally unfinished state would careen into flames as soon as perfect defenses were involved. It's a shame: 3E is much better received off of SV, and I'd sincerely call its core systems like combat and social systems innovative and genuinely good. Craft is bad, and Sail is flawed if you involve extended chases, but I don't have that many complaints otherwise.

It's not like the alternatives are all that appealing either? Godbound is basically done and over with, aside from one book and maybe a couple of supplements it's largely forgotten and to my understanding not terribly well received. Scion 2E was certainly better than Scion 1E, but I wouldn't consider it a viable alternative to Exalted and it retains its own various issues.
 
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