- Location
- Nova Scotia
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- She/Her
I think the intention was clear.
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General Exalted Thread
I think the intention was clear.
HalfTangible
Only half sane (it's less cringe)
- Location
- Valkyrie, Primus
Could you clarify what you mean here? Most charms in this game have prereqs.
I'd have to double check on Lunars in particular, but a lot of charms in Abyssals and the Solar charmset also require a lot of prereqs?
Like initially I was going to say that it's a balancing thing since individually speaking attributes cover a wider range of scenarios than abilities, but then I thought about it a bit and remembered my Apocalyptic Awareness Daybreak had to spend most of his charm budget to get Piercing Gaze of the Unmaker.
Sorry, I should've clarified that I meant in Essence, since the Lunars chapter of the Player's Guide dropped today.
Honestly they seem like something the Dream Souled should get, since they even already have Ideal as a mechanic?
HalfTangible
Only half sane (it's less cringe)
- Location
- Valkyrie, Primus
Ah. Right, I forgot that was a thing.
- Location
- my house
Watching the recent super bunny hop video, and I've decided that the Real m plays a wargame similar to Das Kriegsspiel instead of gateway, a game requiring so much math and calculations that you need either a dynastic education and retinue of assistants or dragonblooded excellence to be able to play it on any reasonable timeframe.
When barbarians inevitably mess up due to hurrying the calculations along, or fail because they ran out of time, well that is simple proof of the Realm's superiority.
Some variants have a specialist referee do the calculations, if only so the player can catch the dynast cheating
When barbarians inevitably mess up due to hurrying the calculations along, or fail because they ran out of time, well that is simple proof of the Realm's superiority.
Some variants have a specialist referee do the calculations, if only so the player can catch the dynast cheating
mothematics
How wide is the concept of "you"?
- Location
- the bottom of a coffee cup
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I feel like half the fun of Gateway is that it is, like, exactly that kind of wargame without ever being explicitly described as the thing it blatantly is, because that's half the joke. It's already the thing.
- Location
- Nova Scotia
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- She/Her
Yeah, like, I think that's very clear from its actual description.
Article: The game of Gateway is the favorite pastime of the Scarlet Dynasty. It's a complex, strategy-based board game played on a tiered board with a variety of distinct pieces — animals carved from gemstones or ivory in most Dynastic households, or abstractions of wood and metal for lesser sets. Gateway has between two and five players; depending on the number of players, their level of skill, and the depth of their tactics, a single game can last hours, days, or even weeks. Students in secondary school, especially the House of Bells and Pasiap's Stair, will play prolonged games a few moves at a time, honing their strategic thinking, while it's a mainstay of Dynastic social events.
Legionnaires, children, and foreigners often use Gateway sets to play other, less intricate games. These include quick, aggressive Hunting Cat; Guardian Gate, geared for alliance-building and treachery; and the allegorical solitaire game Spirit-Frog.
A thing that really stands out to me is like, that second paragraph? People who are part of Dynastic society but who aren't like, benefiting from a Dynastic education tend to literally play other games with Gateway sets rather than Gateway itself, because they're simpler and easier. There's not really a reason to make it be about complex math or make it something that mortal Dynasts can't play.
The favorite pasttime of the Scarlet Dynasty is a Grog Wargame, terrifying.
I bet Gateway also requires large dice buckets.
- Location
- Nova Scotia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
It seems to 3D chess, but much more complicated, and all the pieces are animals.
Gateway:
View: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1349230/5D_Chess_With_Multiverse_Time_Travel/
I don't think there's any indication either way if there's a random chance component to Gateway resolution though.
I think I'd base it on something similar to Napoleon's wargame, if it was actually important to a campaign.
- Pronouns
- she/her
I once planned a Gateway-focused Dragon-Blooded game.
I was intending to run the actual Gateway matches like early-season Yu-Gi-Oh duels—where the card game served as more of a loose framework for a competitive battle of wits (or if you prefer more akin to those freeform playground games where someone always insisted they had a forcefield).
I was intending to run the actual Gateway matches like early-season Yu-Gi-Oh duels—where the card game served as more of a loose framework for a competitive battle of wits (or if you prefer more akin to those freeform playground games where someone always insisted they had a forcefield).
So regarding the two ages in Exalted, why isn't the current age considered the 3rd age? The era after the war of the gods and before the usurpation would be the first age, the Shogunate is the second? I think the usurpation and great contagion are both massive enough changes to the world's politics that they should start new ages.
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- Nova Scotia
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- She/Her
As far as 3e is concerned, based on what the books actually say, the First Age was the long period of history ruled over by a relatively (over the long term) unified Exalted Host, dominated by the Solar Exalted as first among equals. It lasted for thousands of years, and contained many dramatic events and tribulations.
The Second Age, also called the Age of Sorrows, is what came after the Solar Purge. It's a world dominated by Dragon-Blooded, with the Exalted Host shattered and bitterly at odds with each other, with the absence of the Solars leaving a void both in the ties that held the host together and also like... just the wondrous magic and infrastructure that First Age society was built on. The Contagion was an apocalyptic, calamitous event, but like, it's not really changing that fundamental dynamic, just exacerbating it. The Shogunate only lasted like five hundred years or something, it would be a little bit much to call it an age on the level of the First Age.
2e had a different framework where it considered the First Age to be the High First Age, and the Shogunate to be the Low First Age, and the contagion to be the dividing line between the latter and the Second Age
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
The Shogunate is generally considered part of the First Age. It was a massive political upheaval, but historiographically speaking, the Shogunate was an attempt to revive the Old Realm by ridding it of what they imagined to be the greatest disease that plagued it; its very heart. For this reason, the architects of the Shogunate attached themselves to legitimizing instruments such as the calendar of the Old Realm. It is worth noting that the decision to consider the current world of Creation a "Second Age" is a political decision; the Empress chose to start the new calendar of her Realm from the date of her accession, essentially distancing herself from the Shogunate and placing herself as a new "axis of history", from which the age should be traced. It is worth noting that Lookshy, which maintains the unbroken continuity of the Shogunate—though in interregnum—as its political position, likewise also maintains its calendar rather than the Realm's, and thus, to a Lookshyan, the current year is not Realm year 768, but the Year of the Mouse in the Bronze Era of the 11th Epoch of the Dragon-Blooded Shogunate.
Very good question though, and I hope my answer is helpful and directs you in the direction of how these seemingly innocuous decisions, as basic as dating or periodical categorization, themselves are political weapons that can be used by the various states of Creation to legitimize and cement their power. And of course, how you, as an Exalt, can do the same when your glorious conquering restoration of the Old Realm succeeds.
EDIT: I have been informed by the @Gazetteer that this is actually me sneakily importing previous assumptions, and that the Shogunate is generally considered Second Age in 3e. However, I think my answer is cooler and makes more sense, and also it doesn't change the fundamental point regarding the fundamentally political nature of the subject, so in a sense are we not all winners?
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- Pronouns
- she/her
Learning about the Shogunate calendar* made the whole question of when the Second Age started more confusing to me.
I'd previously assumed that the Shogunate had drawn some sense of shaky legitimacy from the old Solar Delibertive and continued many of its traditions while Realm Year 1 in the aftermath of the Great Contagion was more of an everything going back to zero.
*if you don't have a copy of Exalted: the Outcastes, it's very easy to not know that the thing exists.
I'd previously assumed that the Shogunate had drawn some sense of shaky legitimacy from the old Solar Delibertive and continued many of its traditions while Realm Year 1 in the aftermath of the Great Contagion was more of an everything going back to zero.
*if you don't have a copy of Exalted: the Outcastes, it's very easy to not know that the thing exists.
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HalfTangible
Only half sane (it's less cringe)
- Location
- Valkyrie, Primus
I was under the impression the third age begins shortly after game start and it is up to the players to shape it?
- Location
- Nova Scotia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
That is a thing some players like to talk about, but I don't think that's ever how it's presented in the actual books beyond a vague "maybe you'll create a third age" in some places. The game takes place in the Age of Sorrows, the Second Age, and talks about that kind of extensively.
The potential exists but it's entirely possible for the game to be 'and then the Sidereals/Lunars/Dragonblooded beat up the evil Solars and the world continued as it was' especially if you play, well, those splats, in which case it would be rather awkward to declare a Third Age Where Nothing Really Changed From The Second.
- Location
- my house
huh, I'd always been under the impression it was a shogi/chess equivalent, maybe a go
Kadmus
Dragon's teeth are surprisingly hard to sow
- Location
- Devon
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I always thought the joke was that Gateway was Star Trek's 3D chess game, with the additional 'commoners play a simpler version' joke being that the 3D chess game doesn't - or didn't, I know how fandoms work, I'm 100% certain someone's figured out how to work Star Trek's version of chess - have any rules in our reality and was mostly nonsense.
mothematics
How wide is the concept of "you"?
- Location
- the bottom of a coffee cup
- Pronouns
- She/Her
It is kind of like those things but the text Gaz quoted above seems, to me, like the evocation of those things is relatively superficial and it's more like a war game.
- Location
- my house
hmm, I wonder if that's something changed in 3e. Its not a change I oppose, but different editions depict things differently