Imrix
Periodically Malevolent QM
The most effectively horrifying piece of this is that you seem to think it was a good idea.
General Exalted Thread
TenfoldShields
Lounging on a Hoard of Words
- Pronouns
- He/Him
So -to be clear- your problem with him being portrayed as a serial rapist in 2e is that there wasn't enough sexual violence to really make the concept pop? It could've been more comprehensive and violating? Like- this is exactly halfway between earnestly ridiculous and just kind of repellent.
Cause like bro, how are you typing this out and nodding along saying "yeah this is compelling stuff, much better than that limit dogshit in 3e"? Like, have some perspective lord.
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Queshire
Wants a pink flamingo for their lawn.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Since Lunars are supposed to be the Enkidus to the Solar's Gilgamesh I'd like to try making one that's basically the version of Enkidu from Fate/Stay Night. Just this cool, calm nonbinary peep amongst all the other Lunars. Do Lunars get anything that allows them to use their shapeshifting to make weapons out of their own body? Something like the ability to create bone spears would work close enough to mimic Fate/Stay Night's Enkidu.
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
the most terrifying antagonist of the first age - that guy who won't stop hitting on you at a party even though you told him you're a lesbian
- Location
- Ottawa
I'm pretty sure that the First Age MHS was strictly consensual in his deeply creepy quest to have sex with everyone. If not, well, he should've been.
If you'd rather just avoid sexually horrible antagonists in general, fair. Most tables would rather not deal with that end of things. But if you're gonna have them, the First Age MHS is a good one. And Ex2 was determined to have them.
Now imagine he's persuasive to a point that verges on mind control, generally superhuman even beyond that, immortal, a shapeshifter, and persistent enough to stalk you for a thousand years.
If you'd rather just avoid sexually horrible antagonists in general, fair. Most tables would rather not deal with that end of things. But if you're gonna have them, the First Age MHS is a good one. And Ex2 was determined to have them.
Now imagine he's persuasive to a point that verges on mind control, generally superhuman even beyond that, immortal, a shapeshifter, and persistent enough to stalk you for a thousand years.
mothematics
How wide is the concept of "you"?
- Location
- the bottom of a coffee cup
- Pronouns
- She/Her
That isn't cool, just rapey and creepy.
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Some of us here are women and have had to deal with that guy. This is not a hole you want to be in, my guy.
- Location
- United States
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I feel like the thing is that, while I personally am not averse to having the bad shit that Exalted can get up to with their social charms (including the removal of sexual consent) depicted, as Exalted does not shy away from depicting other brutal things such as slavery or war, it feels like repeatedly depicting sexual assault/rape in 2e attracted the weirdest motherfuckers alive who see these powerful world-changing characters doing this as an endorsement of their own deranged views. These things being absent in 3e seems to be made to prevent this kind of person from potentially wandering into the LFG chat, and I'm fine with that.
- Location
- Ottawa
Hey, if you don't want to play with that sort of thing by all means don't. I generally keep my games pretty PG, and I've never regretted that.
Sex stuff, especially the bad kind, is not for every table. Not for most tables, in fact.
But you know, two posts ago Tenfold was making fun of the idea that there was anything scary about the guy. Two minutes of thinking through the implications and they're saying he's too horrible to even let exist in the fiction. Because MHS, to the authors' credit, was written in a way that let you play it as dark or as light as you liked. The awful implications could be left as implications and ignored, if that suited you.
Now look at the other attempts Ex2 made at dark themes. Remember the Infinite Prison? Or Lillun?
Exalted wanted (and maybe still does) to deal with that dark shit in its setting. To have players deal with it and confront it. Compared to most of the attempts it made at that, the First Age Ma-Ha-Suchi was an abolute model of restraint and good taste.
EDIT: I was thinking of the House of Succulent Tears when I said the Infinite Prison; the Infinite Prison was not nearly as gross. Though I wouldn't call it a model of good writing either.
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- Pronouns
- she/her
I'd say it's a symptom of the greater issue with DotFA where it didn't know what it wanted to be or where the player characters fit into things. I mean the primary reason for Ma-Ha-Suchi's presence as an NPC is because he's a familiar face whose ironically in a very different situation.
Imrix
Periodically Malevolent QM
No uh, mostly we're saying it's just gross and repellent in a very banal way. Like, 'that creep from the bar' is maybe not fertile ground to grow an epic figure from an age of decadent myth in. This isn't some Dark Mature Content for players to tell an important story about Confronting. It's just gross and creepy and small.
The horribleness folks are reacting to is that you are continuing to post about how this is actually a valuable and dramatically rich way of framing the character, and what it says about you as a real-life person, that you not only came up with this but are continuing to defend it.
Just... Please, for your own sake, stop digging this hole, dude.
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- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
actually i'm pretty sure DOTFA MHS and the underworld rape brothel of rape are both by alan alexander so really it's two of a kind
UrsaTempest
Don't Panic!
I think the fact it's banal is a point in favour - first age is so peaceful, so wealthy, that sort of banal and creepy goal is what serve as motivation for 'epic' hero.
Until everything tumbling down, anyway.
Until everything tumbling down, anyway.
- Location
- Nova Scotia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
And some of them are still in this very thread 😔
So, softball change of topic to something that's not appallingly creepy, aimed at the thread in general:
What is a specific city on Creation that you've wanted to set a story in? I ran a game set entirely in and around the Imperial City earlier this year, and like... The scale of it and the incredibly blunt and metaphorically resonant contrast between its rich and poor neighbourhoods and how tied in it is to the machinery of Empire makes it a super evocative location.
At one point, I was running a scene set in a working class neighbourhood. Separating it from a wealthy neighbourhood was this like, section from the walls of the old Greater Zhao capital of Red Fan, stolen and reassembled brick by brick as a triumph after its conquest. So, this turned into a chase scene, with one person the PCs were after running further into the neighbourhood, and the other just straight up climbed the wall to escape on the other side. Stupid me, I expected the PCs to pick one or the other, but instead they split up to chase both.
So suddenly I'm jumping back and forth with like, this one chase scene of two Dragon-Blooded chasing another over the rooftops of this high end shopping district flush with wealth extracted from the entire world, and another with the third PC trying to track this thief through a maze of alleyways and tenaments where ordinary people make their lives. Like, just separated from one another by this wall that's a literal monument of conquest.
There are lots of places all over the newer setting material in particular that are just ripe for really drilling down into their specific local flavour like that.
Port Calin, or anywhere in Calin really. It has been criminally underdeveloped as a setting for two editions imo.
Just from this description, I don't know why but my mind immediately went turned towards Alladin (the animated version) and the difference between the Sultan's palace and the slums that Alladin grew up in. Yeah it doesn't have the same connotations you were describing but the contrast of the setting is just as stark.
Imrix
Periodically Malevolent QM
I've always been really fond of Whitewall, actually. Never mind the magic road and holy walls or such, but like - the notion of a major developed city with such constraints on space and privacy, the atmosphere and tone of what it'd be like to live and adventure there intrigues me.
Critian Caceorte
Currently Suffering from Space-Time Narcolepsy
- Location
- Washington State
Don't have my book on me at the moment to verify, but they certainly do, creating, like you said, bone spears and quills and the like. Not so sure about Melee weapons though since that's generally just claws and stuff. Hope that helps.
UrsaTempest
Don't Panic!
If I'm running game I probably will set it on Nexus; close enough to DB polities to give some teeth to their power/threat, yet with separate power structure and idiosyncrasies it'll be interesting to navigate around. And the default norm there means PCs can do PCs stuff relatively easily, too.
- Location
- Nova Scotia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Oh, yeah, like... A thing I like in particular is the idea of everyone being shut up in this place during like, the killing chill of a winter storm. And how for most people, whether you live or die going through that isn't about how strong you are, it's about the infrastructure you have access to and the level of preparedness you have been able to reach. And how thin a margin that is in a pre industrial setting.
Obviously, this is a game where PCs can actually just survive extreme conditions like that, but it's a whole vibe.
Imrix
Periodically Malevolent QM
Yeah! And like- not just the requirements for food and warmth to get through the winter, but the mental and social consequences of cramming all these people into such a tightly confined space and demanding that they Have To Get Along with each other, no ifs, ands, or buts. Big city life even in our world has a whole bunch of poorly-understood etiquette codes about how people live so close to each other while preserving some sense of privacy and personal space, now pile on the extra layers of pre-modern food insecurity and the sense of confinement that comes from literally not being able to set foot outside the walls or you'll be eaten by genuine monsters, and there's a lot of fertile atmospheric material there. 2e's writeup for it devoted some space to the importance Whitewaller's place on politeness and etiquette, but that's really just scratching the surface.
- Location
- an unseen void
- Pronouns
- Any
One of the ways I was originally sold on Exalted was it being described as a game where there were rules and setting for people dying of disease but the protagonists were immune to disease - and that this was not some weird design malfunction but kind of the point. I think survival inside Whitewall plays into that same kind of deliberate contrast and pathetic (ie literally pity inducing and emotional and motivating) setting material.
MiracleGrow
Miracles for only $19.99 [They/Them]
- Location
- DOOR STUCK DOOR STUCK PLEASE I BEG U
I really like Whitewall cause it's just a solid place to have a game take place. Like their is two kinds of styles in exalted. Either your adventuring around the world. Or your in a set location that lets you build up a big power base.
Whitewall became a favorite for the community on the later option. I'm not really sure how to explain it. But it feels fun doing kingdom building in that place. Has just the right tone and setup to work well for it.
Whitewall became a favorite for the community on the later option. I'm not really sure how to explain it. But it feels fun doing kingdom building in that place. Has just the right tone and setup to work well for it.
Blaque
Resident Catblob
- Location
- SLC UT
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
There's to me a pretty big difference of "I spent 1200 years on this, have no freinds, nothing to show, and am generally depressed/old/tired" and "I feel bad because I was fucking my friend's wife."
I dunno, like, one can see them as both mopey, but hte way they go about it, why they go at it (MHS being much more about disillusionment versus guilt) are pretty different stories.