There is something that does confuse me in regard to Exalted fan discussion that I'm having a bit of trouble actually articulating, which is that there is a section of it that seems to genuinely believe that Exalted exists as a cohesive story and isn't just a background + some rules. A lot of arguments seem to stem from this idea, and I'm not sure how people come to this conclusion in the first place. For instance, I've seen arguments that Exigents are bad because they overlap in the narrative with other pre-existing Exalted types, or that the narrative import of Exaltation in general is cheapened by having too many new Exalt types, or so on. I'm not actually super into Exigents, all things considered, I felt that it's the book that draws me in the least and I've never been a fan of playing pre-made characters (which is half the book), but the argument is never about how their mechanics enable (or don't enable) fun gameplay at the table, it's almost always always narrative; "This Exigent should just be a Dawn because there's really no thematic point to them being a unique entity", or, "Really, the Exigency introduces logical problems to the setting because [insert stupid ass 2e-style plan to make a bunch of gods kill themselves to generate Exigencies that only an idiot would think of in the first place]."
I dunno, I just see this kind of thinking as inherently futile. I cannot imagine any of this improving how I do things as a ST, and it always feels like the poster in question is trying to affect how others and myself do things at our tables when we run this game. I'm not sure if I'm making sense explaining this, but its something I've encountered often and I'm really not sure how I'm supposed to react to it or what the point of it is.
So, there's a lot to unpack here and I don't really have the right language for this so forgive me if this is a little rambly.
So first of all, and I can't stress this enough, as a game Exalted is kinda shit. I can't speak too 3rd edition (beyond saying I bounced off of it) but the actual base mechanics of exalted have always been crap. If exalted existed purely as a
game nobody would talk about it.
But Exalted was never been sold on the strength of its
mechanics. It was sold on the strength of its setting. And its setting is amazing. But a setting is more than peoples, places and things. Its a narrative*. Its a story in and of itself. And that means it can be critiqued the same as any other story.
In the same way that I can say "Shadow the Hedgehog is a valuable addition to the canon of Sonic Stories because he is a stronger thematic rival to Sonic and allows Knuckles to pivot to a tertiary role which better utilizes his thematic strength (idk, I'm not a sonic nerd but I wanted something non-controversial" I can also say "The addition of the Hearteaters as the 'Evil Mind Control Splat' is emblematic of 3e's efforts to pivot away from their previous critical examinations of Great Man themes in fantasy literature." (Please don't respond to this if you disagree, I know lots of people do, its an example and I don't want to derail the conversation).
When people make these critiques they are not trying to tell others how to play the game, they are examining the game with a critical eye towards theming and messaging because the game
is the story (note, the critiques don't have to be bad. I'm sure there are many people here who could talk about the many positive changes 3e has made and I myself do on the whole prefer hearteaters even if I do have some complaints).
Secondly, it is worth pointing out that these critiques often come about because "what is the setting" informs what sorts of stories you can tell. In many ways RPing in an established setting is very much like writing fanfiction. The constraints of "canon" define what the story can be about. Even if you choose to ignore a part of canon, its conspicuous absence is going to color your story.
As an example, lets say I run a campaign and in my world there are no DBs. This is a choice I have made. But the choice "Remove DBs" is very different from "the devs never added DBs in the first place". The first is making a conscious choice to alter the setting and thus is making a comment on the themes and makeup of the setting. The second is the choice to run things as written.
*More pointedly, it is a meta-narrative, like comics. The sheer breadth of material, the poor oversight and the plethora of authors means that the setting of Exalted is not one single story but a collection of different stories which mix together to form a only semi-coherent whole. Any effort to form a coherent view of the setting involves some amount of picking and choosing sources.
