Exalted Beginner

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>>54659489
>Is there anything any veterans can share about the game?

Sure. First off, go for 3rd edition, it is the best mechanics the game has had. Keep things simple to start off with, and just use the foes in the book itself since there isn't much material for 3E out yet.

>>54659489

To be characters from a game called exalted they seem so... uninterested

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>>54661264

Second, don't be too worried about the power of PC's. They're supposed to be strong, as Exalted is less about overcoming obstacles, as what you're going to do when they're overcome. Say you liberate a small city state. What now? Who's gonna govern it? You probably decimated part of their standing forces and possibly killed off their leadership. Are you just going to leave it to collapse, or are you in charge now?

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>>54661290

The art in 3E is honestly pretty shit all around. It was clearly the last thing they did, and paid the least amount of money for.

Just swipe art from these threads or the internet, it usually captures the feel much better anyway. Especially since 3E for whatever reason, took a much more "western fantasy" approach to a lot of the art which both doesn't fit the setting, and looks painfully generic.

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>>54661300

The traditional overpowered skill (for Solars at least) is usually Melee. Melee's always been the best for Solars in every edition, because it does a lot, and does it well. That doesn't mean other fighting skills are bad, just Melee tends to edge them out.

This differs greatly for other Exalt types. Sidereals basically never touch anything but Martial Arts, for example, due to how they function.

In any case, things in 3E tend to be much more focused overall, due to Supernal's now being a thing. It basically allows a character damn near unlimited access to one skill's Charms, bypassing the usual big restriction on taking Charms: Essence. Whatever is the character's Supernal, they ignore the Essence requirement for determining if they can take any given charm from that ability. So you can have fresh Solars running around with top tier Charms in a single thing. Which is fine, this intended. You're supposed to be movers and shakers.

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>>54661319
Although, there are a couple good pieces inside the Ex3 corebook. Pic related, as it is, in my opinion, the best piece in the entire book.

>>54661319
>It was clearly the last thing they did, and paid the least amount of money for.

And a lot of it was plagiarized

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>>54661401

That said, theres some things that are kind of weak points in the system. A lot of people hate the Craft's system and Charm trees. A lot of people find issues with Martial Arts due to requiring a surcharge and being something of a point sink now. But neither of these are worth bothering to try and modify for newcomers to the system, so just play it as is.

>>54661413
It's not a bad piece, but man, beyond the fact Volfer is standing there in his underoo's, it's otherwise pretty damn generic looking. Thats my biggest problem, personally, with a lot of 3E art. That pic wouldn't look out of place at all in a D&D book or similar. They completely disregarded the games heavily asian/anime art roots in most of the art.

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>>54661445

That too. Oh man, that was a shitshow from start to finish wasn't it? Still, it's a lot easier to find good art than it is to find good rules. So I'm "happy" the art was shit and not the rules.

>>54661401
What about sorcery? That stuck out to me when I was reading through because I'm usually a huge fan of magic in whatever fantasy thing I'm in at the moment. How does it compare to melee or other skills in general?

Also thank you
>>54661401
>>54661300
>>54661264
I believe you're all the same anon but just in case thank all of you

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>>54661472

Sorcery's in a good place in 3E, so you should have some fun with it. In older editions, it was a lot more volatile and basically a complete joke if you tried to use it for anything combat related (outside of a few spells, anyway).

And yeah those are all me. I usually hang around Exalted threads to dump art when I post.

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Anyway, lets see, what else...

Oh, yeah. If your experience so far is nothing but D&D, well...Exalted doesn't really work like that. Theres no daily powers, usually not much dungeon delving, no CR's or levels or whatever. You have to eyeball if things are gonna be too hard/too easy for your players. There can definitely be power disparity's in the game because you're pretty free to choose what you want to do, and not everything is gonna be created equal.

One thing to mention is action economy in 3E is pretty low. Characters usually get 1 attack, and thats it, most of the time. There are Charms that let you get multiple attacks, but those tend to be more costly than most other Charms. Multiple dudes on one guy can turn out very ugly, depending on how they're built. Or it can just be one dude mowing through a bunch easily, again, all depending how they're built.

>>54659489
If you've only got DnD in mind, some things are going to seem real weird to you.

PCs might seem OP. This is normal. Exalted is about big fucking heroes, so they're expected to be way above most "usual" problems they'll encounter, and you're gonna have to pull out the big guns when you want to actually challenge them. Which brings me to the next point.

Scale is gonna seem weird to you. A typical game of Exalted won't be as narratively confined as what you're gonna be used to from DnD. First of all, "Dungeon crawl as plot for a couple sessions, then back to the city to find more adventure" does not tend to work, mostly because that Dungeon's not gonna last long unless you're being a deliberate prick of a DM. Most likely, the Night player will get through it alone in 30 minutes, nab anything of importance, assassinate the boss, and be back for supper. Conversely, the big guns I mentioned above might involve dropping an actual army, god, or cathedral on them, or blowing up the city they're in because the necromancer-spy who's been tailing them finally found the remains of the giant behemoth underneath. In other words, things can get wild quick, and quickly involve many more people than you'd first expected.

Not having to write your entire adventure might seem weird to you. Exalted's setting is extremely detailed, especially if you start mining previous editions for good material. Coupled with that, PCs will have very obvious drives and goals from the onset. Thus, you don't write an adventure so much as set the scene, place the actors, give the first push and let it all fall into place as your PCs drive the entire plot themselves.

Having a PC with no fighting abilities whatsoever might seem weird to you.

GMing rules for Exalted that might go directly opposite to popular GMing wisdom :

- The Players sometimes have more narrative agency than the GM.
- Don't hesitate to split the party.
- It will go just as planned, because you didn't plan anything.

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>>54661651
>Theres no daily powers

Well, almost no daily powers. That was a bit of a mistake for me to phrase it like that. I should've said "most things in the game do not have a use restriction on them. As long as you can pay the listed costs, you can use it. Some things do have other restrictions, but those are usually the exception, not the rule".

>>54661445
>a lot of it was plagiarized

Incorrect. Two pieces were plagiarized, one of which (Ketchup Carjack looking into the Loom) managed the supreme tour-de-force of plagiarizing many pieces at once.

One (the dinos fighting in a river one) was said to have been plagiarized by some, but I remain unconvinced.

I'm not aware of any other ones. Two to three out of everything in the book rings a lot like "too much", as one would be enough for that, but doesn't sound like "a lot".

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>>54661717

>>54659489
Why are most of them white?

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>>54661717
>>54662107

Clearly some inspiration going on here, but I wouldn't say it's similar enough to count as plagiarism.

>>54662143

Because creation has more light skinned folk than dark skinned folk and on top of that one of the major dark skinned characters is drawn white in this picture because the artist got triggered by the idea of a black person with red hair.

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>>54661401
>>54661472

To expound on combat abilities quite a bit.

Melee is the "do everything" ability. No matter what kind of fight you're in, you'll have something that you can use to come out on top. It's also very good at overcoming high defence enemies, thanks to clash based charms. It's mix of defence and offence allows you to take it with no supplementary defensive abilities such as Dodge or Resistance.

Archery wants to stay far away from enemies. It's slow to start up, but a single decisive attack can be all it needs to take down an enemy. It also has a number of area control tricks.

Thrown wants to end the fight immediately, and has a number of tricks for going first and dealing damage on your first turn. For this reason it goes well with Stealth, a little too well, some might argue.

Brawl is great for dueling and 1-on-1 fights. It can deal insane amounts of damage focusing on one guy, which is great if you end up wrestling a Kaiju. It has little in the way of defensive tricks, and hates to be outnumbered.

Martial Arts is an umbrella term, there are currently 11 publish, and they are all quite specialized. White Reaper eats up armies, but struggles against small groups and in duels, Ebon Shadow synergizes with Stealth, Black Claw turns every onlooker against your opponent by making you appear weak and helpless, and so on.

Dodge and Resistance are fighting styles unto themselves, but have no way to end a fight, which necessitates the need for one of the above abilities.

>>54662186
The actual issue is the artist is asian and, surprisingly, people from more homogeneous regions tend to make art that's more homogeneous.

>>54662148
>>54662107
Yup, that's pretty much the conclusion I arrived at at the time too.

I'm feeling like we're focussing a lot on Combat Abilities in these answers. C'mon Anons, those are only 6 out of 26 abilities. Exalted's cool because you can do so much more than fight, and with style.

I mean look at something like Lore and the amount of shenanigans you can get up to with just that and a bit of social backing. Hell, have one of the other PCs ensure your protection, ain't nothing happening to you with your Dawn Bodyguard around!

>>54663034

Combat is quickly and easily quantifiable in any game. "I can spend X Essence over Y Turns to kill Z enemies before I lose any health."

Most other abilities, save Craft and Sorcerous Workings tend to have more narrative based outcomes. But since you want to talk about them, what do you have to say?

>>54663108
Well, considering OP comes from DnD, I'd start by saying that even though what you just said about combat is true, Exalted does support the kind of playstyle where combat can simply not be a thing that happens for a number of sessions.

Combat can be a big part of the game, but encounter design in Exalted doesn't have to involve physical combat. The wealth of non-combat abilities available, and the fact they're all supported to the same degree as combat abilities are, allows the GM a lot of creativity when it comes to challenging players and populating their world.

I think that divide you talk about is worth mentioning in itself. Combat Abilities give you different ways to kick arse, while non combat abilities will make you Moses or a master of trade or the sneakiest sneak to ever sneak, and those things are ofter way more important than fighting prowess.

Moreover, they can make combat characters feel more rounded, while providing very attractive options. A dip in Presence or Athletics is a very good idea for any combat-oriented character, for example.

So I guess what I have to say is that I encourage OP not to focus too much on combat abilities at first if they want to understand the variety that makes Exalted so interesting, and exactly how powerful Solar charms can get. Combat might be easily quantifyable, but God-King's Shrike is definitely easier to apprehend as an example.

what is a campaign of exalted about? does it starts with you are solars and you all meet in a tavern

>>54665959
This is a hard question to answer. An Exalted campaign is really about whatever the PCs want it to be about. As for me, I like to keep in mind that the Realm (the largest government in the world who want to crush the returning Solars because they think they're demons) is currently without a head. That means not only that the Realm's influence on the rest of the world is slipping for the first time in hundreds of years, but also that every major player in the Realm has a stake in the succession war. No matter what the PCs are doing, the Realm almost always figures into the goings-on of an Exalted campaign, if only because there's no better way to win yourself the favor of the Great Houses than to take down a powerful group of Anathema.

Besides that, Exalted campaigns could be about founding a new Solar empire, taking down the Realm, saving the Realm, plundering the vaults of Heaven, plundering the riches of Hell, plundering the secrets of the Underworld, destroying the Guild, or stopping any of the half-dozen potential apocalypses that could be on the verge of destroying Creation. Really, it's up to the players. Solars, as a rule, have big dreams and not a lot can meaningfully impede them from chasing those dreams. If the Dawn wants to be the greatest swordsman in the cosmos, then his part of the game is about perfecting his skills to whatever their limits are and seeking out ever stronger opponents. If the Twilight wants to rebuild the greatest wonders of the First Age, then her part of the game is going to be about raiding ancient libraries that haven't been unearthed in thousands of years and searching the world over for Sorcery's greatest secrets.

>>54665959

The default assumption, IIRC, is that all of the players have been Solar Exalts for a year or less, and all already know each other. So from that you could go, "You all stand before the king, who has heard of your deeds" or "You all arrive at the gates of [City Name] only to find that [plot hook has happened]" or "You open the door to the ancient temple and step inside, the first people to do so in over 1,000 years."

Another recommendation is to start a game of Mortals and have them Exalt by the end of the first session. This lets them come to grips with the system without needing to worry about Essence or charms. It's also not a bad idea to do the latter as a one shot with very player, and then time skip to where they're all together.

>>54659489
When did Demetheus become a proud atheist?

Anyone got giant animals made of human bones with human skulls for a face? Mantis preferably, but others are welcome.

OP here,

Thank you to everyone who took the time to respond to this. I still have some questions, but this has helped exponentially

>>54666994
Also, sorry but I don't know who that is, along with anyone else in the actual picture. I just needed something to put for the file.

If you can tell me where I can find out more about individuals from Creation, then I'd be happy to do more research, but as it stands I really just know the Scarlet Empress, a bit of that one Bronze faction Sidereal, and some random exigent who saved her farming village from a horde of Fair Folk

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>>54667220
>>54667269

Keep asking questions, that'll let people answer'em. Also the guy above is joking, it's because one of the Exalt's looks like he's wearing a fedora.

Is there any goodcomprehensive writeup of the lore? I mean especially the details. After skimming the books i have a good idea of the general tone but no about the people of the setting, their languages, manners habits etc. The stuff you need to fill in for some colour

>>54661717
Did OP post official art? That's Weiss from RWBY standing in for the Twillight chick.

>>54667417

Page 12 of the Ex3 core book. And again on pages 38 and 39.

What's your favourite bit of art from the book What's you least favourite?

Is there a good premade starter available?

>>54667513
>What's your favourite bit of art from the book What's you least favourite?

I wouldn't need to ask if it was official if I had looked through that book.

>>54667681
There's the Tomb of Five Corners quickstart on drivethru

>>54659489
>He's moving to Exalted after 6 months of 5e as his only gaming background
OP, I'm very, very proud of you. Expanding from your first system is a real challenge, and it's a very good thing that you're doing.

Honestly, the best thing you can do is stick to it. Stick to it, and learn other systems as well. Spend time with them until you're completely out of your run and you become comfortable with new systems easily.

>>54668594
>Tomb of Five Corners
It's shit.

>>54661300
>>54661401
>>54661662
>>54662669
>>54662669
>>54666236
Thanks guys. I am not op but I have been in two games of Exalted so far. One short first, then a long one. And let me tell you it took a lot of time to "sorta" get used to it. (Not completely mind you)

Even now, after four month of playing that longer campaign, there were many things I've been struggling to come into terms with, and asking /exg/ didn't help any. But these advices did. Thanks a lot again.

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Honestly I find the art from all Edition to be pretty shit. People keep saying it's a great anime game but every time I look at the art it feels like those Tokyopop American "Manga", especially with all the super diversity when I was expecting nothing but Asians and Indians.

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>>54670471
>especially with all the super diversity when I was expecting nothing but Asians and Indians

Fun fact: Exalted was originally going to be nothing but black people, because the original idea was that they'd be the people the Sun favored most and the only ones to survive the Primordial era.

>>54670562
I don't believe you.

>>54670471
>especially with all the super diversity when I was expecting nothing but Asians and Indians.

From an entire world?

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>>54670471

Art is most rpgs is shit because it has no cohesion or unity of theme. Good examples of art style unity are planescape books, one ring rpg and 5ed D&D.

>>54671033

Uran's art looks so fucking good as linework and watercolor. Whoever the colorist was for E3 should be fucking fired, they ruined that beautiful fucking linework.

And if it was Uran themselves that did it, they need to go back to doing only linework and watercolors.

>>54671401

I think they need to hire only Melissa for artwork. With the speed the books are published she has enough time create art for entire book.

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>>54671714

I certainly wouldn't say no to that.

I actually just ran my first session of this last weekend. Been wondering where the generals went. Lot of bookkeeping involved and the players weren't too clued up on the rules but the end report was they enjoyed it.

Hitting them with the Social Influence rules next session so interesting to see how that goes.

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>>54672045
>Been wondering where the generals went

Whoever usually makes them hasn't been making them. I'd make one, but...I'd do it poorly. I don't care to maintain a detailed OP, let alone one filled with old resources. If I did it it'd be little more than a picture and the words "Exalted General" at the top.

>>54670719
Not that anon, but I've heard this claim too. I'm not sure if it is actually true or not. Same with the "Dragon-Blooded were originally going to be the game's core splat" thing.

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>>54672045
We're newlt minted Essence 2 PCs in our Exalted game, and one of the biggest ways we've found to help with the bookkeeping is cheatsheets. Each one of us have written up cheatsheets and charm combos with costs, etc; as well as knowing how our own charms work (with page references as needed). The core mechanics are pretty simple: it's how the charms modify that system that really bogs it down.

The social rules are awesome IF you use them correctly. Just be aware it's very much a "long game" situation - the rules rewards scouting out and researching your opposition in a big way.

>>54672155
I'd run a quick combat test against myself to feel it out beforehand and I'd recommended to the players to develop a "fighting style" charms to use when and in tandem with which etc, but it still took the first fight for them to figure things out.

More for me just keeping track of Onslaught and other types of penalties etc. I'll probably make myself a quick checklist whenever someone's round comes up. I also had some fan made cheat sheet but I found it kinda variable in usefulness. I also noticed its missing the Command rules though that won't come up for a bit anyway.

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I think I figured out another boundry I have Exalted. Reading all these advices, I realized that I am trying to fix things. Fix the gorlillion amount of problems the setting is fighting with and what's making everyone's lives worse.

But the setting of Exalted, despite it's very deep layers, is ultimately a setting that is (aside from very rare stories) meant to be destroyed.

The chances are that every faction could be saved/satisfied, is incredibly slim. Not just because it would take a LOT, even by exalt standards, but also because the players are all playing people with the capacity to understand, and the desire to make things better is very unlikely. Not to mention the incredible lenght of the campaign it would take.

It is much simpler just focusing on one or two problems, and destroy the rest.
As another guy put earlier; we play shakers and movers. You don't fix things mostly by shaking and moving them.

Pic also related. I also tried to go by logic too many times.
Note to self; Next time just make a classic epic character where I don't have to worry about the mortals.

>>54672117
I only make one if something important happens or we were mid-discussion when the thread closed. Nothing important ever happens though. I am still wondering how hard it is to draw daiklaves.

>>54671714
>>54671786
Honestly I think they should just get some Korean or Japanese artists to do most of the art.

>>54661448
>That said, theres some things that are kind of weak points in the system. A lot of people hate the Craft's system and Charm trees. A lot of people find issues with Martial Arts due to requiring a surcharge and being something of a point sink now. But neither of these are worth bothering to try and modify for newcomers to the system, so just play it as is.

Well if you want to have a Crafter have fun then I would. Especially when you can cut the 50+ charm tree for Craft down to the average charm tree size by cutting any mention of the word Crafting slot or Craft XP gaining charms. Then just ditch the Craft slots and Crafting XP needed to finish mechanics.

>>54670881
I'm just saying it sort of takes away from the theme when you suddenly throw Africans or Europeans into your Anime inspired kung-fu game.

>>54672904

Nah. Although I love oriental art Japs, Koreans and Chinese all have broken understanding of English. And secondly Melissa Uran is a iconic artist for Exalted game line. She isn't on same high level of quality as many asians but her art isn't lifeless. Her artwork in previous editions wasn't always superb but when she nailed it she fucking NAILED it.

>>54672951

It's also sword and sandals based with a heavy inspiration of Greek Myth.

>>54672951

I understand what you are saying but it falls short when Japs themselves prefer medieval european fantasy (but they still include 1,000 times folded katana).

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>>54673011

>>54672916
The dude does not even know how the game works yet and you already want him to start fiddling around with homebrew?

Anon, be reasonable now.

>>54672977
>>54672951
As well as Bronze Age inspired, and Bronze Age Civilizations were mostly situated in northern africa and the middle east.

>>54673127
The crafter in me hurts anon. I think of the other crafters.

>>54672977
Yeah I have a slight feeling that come from the authors not actually understanding anything about actual asian religions and the fact that Ki (Essence) is just something that everyone has access to if you understand how to use it.

>>54673011
Certainly but man do they also love the ever loving shit out of there historical/mythological fiction. Plus there is the Chinese element in there as well.

>>54672971
I've seen enough Japanese and Koreans that understand English, at least in writing, that I don't think that hiring them would be to far fetched. Of course I'd be willing to shell out whatever money I need for translation in order to get someone like Akira Toriyama to do some art for it so take that as you will.

>>54672338
>But the setting of Exalted, despite it's very deep layers, is ultimately a setting that is (aside from very rare stories) meant to be destroyed.

Well its meant for the Solars to shitkick the status quo's ass and take names yes. If you are the storyteller there are quite a few Solar circles out there doing exactly what your group is doing. Let them take care of the other issues. They can become issues later if you want. But then again I've had games where the Realm survives.

>>54672128
>implying they shouldn't be

>>54674462
>not being the one Solar who realizes that the return of a solar Empire would also destroy the world, as it nearly did last time
>not finding some compromise with the Sidereals to fix creation

Honestly the only real way to pull it off seems to be to kick down Conkers door and tell him he's a fucking faggot and everything's on fire SO PUT THE XBOX DOWN

>>54659489
Be aware that the game is very difficult to run in an organized fashion because there are the most frustrating mechanics of all: charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, sidereal charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, edgelords, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, abyssals, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, infernals, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms and CHARMS.

>>54669369
That's a pretty unique opinion. How contrarian of you.

>>54672904
They did that once. Look up the cover for Savant and the Sorcerer.

>>54672886
A) Pick up your daiklave and sheath at the same time and cast away your sheath.
B) Don't have a full sheath. Have a sheath that is partly open with a clasp around the grip. Undo the clasp and pull your sword a little and it's free.
C) Wrap your daiklave in silk and carry it freely, discard the silk at the start of a fight.
D) Don't be shy, carry a godmetal surfboard on your shoulder like a badass.
E) Elsewhere.

>>54672916
Or let someone else deal with homebrewing. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Pgj4L-Rmv2BK3efYhq6JAJx63WTI4k2q0IrlTi3KDZk/edit#heading=h.eteroqopy1xc

>>54673201
>Yeah I have a slight feeling that come from the authors not actually understanding anything about actual asian religions and the fact that Ki (Essence) is just something that everyone has access to if you understand how to use it.
What? You'll have to elaborate on this, anon. Not on the nature of Ki, but on how it's relevant to Exalted.

>>54672128
>Same with the "Dragon-Blooded were originally going to be the game's core splat" thing.
That one is definitely true.

>>54659489
Play Godbound instead.

>>54675070
This.

I'm sorry but I'm onboard with trading shitty fake anime art for shitty genuine anime art. I most certainly don't want my book to look like it's some fucking Anima wannabe.

The great thing about the asian inspirations in Exated is that it doesn't draw from Anime so much as from the same sources as Anime does. Actual anime inspirations aren't actually that numerous.

>>54672886
>I only make one if something important happens

Ahh, ok, I see the problem then. Don't do that. Thats not really how Generals work. You just keep making them when the old one dies, otherwise people just sit there not making one. It's an RPG man, news ain't gonna come often, and some generals by default will have no news (ones for old games that aren't made anymore).

>>54673201
>Yeah I have a slight feeling that come from the authors not actually understanding anything about actual asian religions and the fact that Ki (Essence) is just something that everyone has access to if you understand how to use it.

In 2e this was slightly less true. Awakened Essence, however rare, was still something mortals could achieve. Also, all of the lore about Essence is derived just as much from aether and prana as from ki.

>>54672338
>The chances are that every faction could be saved/satisfied, is incredibly slim.

Dude, like, the reason a good 50% of the factions are complete and total dickwads is precisely so you don't want to save the fucks. Bronze faction? Realm? Nope, into the fucking blender they go. Deathlords? Right into Creation's shitter, to be flushed forever. Demons,Yozi? Fuck'em, they can't get out anyway. Perfect of Paragon? Shove the stick up his ass and then throw him into a volcano. Etc.

You're not supposed to want to save these 'tards, you're supposed to want to rip them asunder (possibly literally) and then remake something better in their place.

>>54675879
Yes, the problem with rpg art isn't where it's from, it's how much is paid for it. Most publishers want lots of art but don't want to pay very well for it, so even good artists tend not to do their best work because the amount of time a freelance artist can spend on a given commissioned piece is directly relative to how much they're getting paid for it.

>>54675070

HTK is a great artist though. Peoples problem with S&S was that they were fucking prudes. HTK's shit isn't even half as lewd as today's Japanese fucking card games meant for kid.

>>54675830

Both were true. Thankfully, both were also discarded, because a world of only black people is boring, and the DB's are the most boring, lifeless, generic part of the entire setting, being "guy with elemental powers".

>>54675873
Don't do this, Godbound is shit.

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>>54675873
>Using OSR to run Exalted

>>54675972
>You're not supposed to want to save these 'tards, you're supposed to want to rip them asunder (possibly literally) and then remake something better in their place.
Deathlords are the only outright black-and-white evil among the people you listed, though. Most Bronze Faction SIdereals just try to do their job of keeping the reality together. People in the Realm are people, some of them ruthless fucks, some actually pretty decent guys. The Perfect runs a city-state whose main distinction is that its laws are better enforced than those of other places - the laws themselves aren't particularly unreasonable or oppressive. I mean, there are plenty of in-setting reasons for wanting to tear any of the people you listed asunder, but that's hardly the only reasonable reaction to their actions, and not necessarily the best, most most morally sound or most pragmatic one.

>>54675879
>I'm sorry but I'm onboard with trading shitty fake anime art for shitty genuine anime art.

What I meant was :
- I'm sorry but I'm NOT onboard with trading shitty fake anime art for shitty genuine anime art.

Meaning I'd rather we have good art, wherever it's from.

Now I'm also fine with most of the pieces in the corebook. Some are corny as shit but still enjoyable (Trauma Bear). Some are actually good (Blue Twilight for some reason I really like). A lot of them are, as was said by some above, just unremarkable.

A few are shameful : OP's one for example, and Scarlet's Photoshopped Thigh chief among them for the general fucking disaster that picture is.

>>54676008
Nah, it was gratuitous weeb shit. Her outfit is retarded, the cameltoe is ridiculous and center view and the obsidian butterflies are gold phantoms. It's a pretty bad picture all-round.

>>54676105
>The Perfect runs a city-state whose main distinction is that its laws are better enforced than those of other places - the laws themselves aren't particularly unreasonable or oppressive.
Only if you're okay with a perfectly totalitarian state. You sign the oath at a young age and it costs money to ever leave.

>>54676105
>People in the Realm are people, some of them ruthless fucks, some actually pretty decent guys

Yeah, the problem is they're all indoctrinated into a completely, literally false religion, and their entire system is filled with sycophants and inundated with ages of corruption.

The only way that shit is getting fixed is to burn it all. They're basically North Korea in fantasy form, minus the starvation.

>>54676165
>false religion

Something like 95% of the Immaculate teachings are either objectively true, the written laws of how Heaven operates or are at least pretty good ideas for how gods should interact with mortals without exploiting them. Literally the only parts of the faith that are complete bullshit relate to either spiritual purity and the rights and privileges that come with it or revisionist history.

>>54676165
>>54676250
Yeah, the Immaculate Faith is based on an older vaguely Confucianist religion. It talks a lot about helping those lesser than you and gods doing their jobs instead of using their power to extort their believers. It's also spiritually fulfilling.

>>54676250
Basically most of it is true, and the problem with it is that what's not true is basically what it's founded upon : the primacy of the Five Dragons, their involvement in the fall of the First Age, the nature of Anathema and what it means to be Exalted. Everything else, true or false, rests on these notions.

>>54675873
Godbound is no less flawed than Exalted. It simply offloads more from mechanics to your GM so they want to kill themselves after adjudicating 100th poorly-worded ability or interaction within the rules.And Godbound also has 2E paranoia combat.

>>54676165
>They're basically North Korea in fantasy form, minus the starvation
Also they aren't actually North Korea in fantasy form. Believing in a literally, completely false religion is true of many real life cultures - I mean, without donning a fedora, even assuming that some religion is true, most of them must be false - and many of these cultures have plenty of positive aspects and admirable achievements. Immaculate Faith being false isn't as strong an argument against the Realm as you seem to think. Real life also offers plenty of examples of people and entire nations converting to a new religion or otherwise experiencing a gradula change in values and attitudes without anyone having to "burn it all".

>>54675972
Exactly. The revelation came a bit too late.

>>54674861
I always wanted to play a character who's purpose was to destroy the Games of Divinity, and rouse the Incarne back into action.

>>54665959
>you all meet in a tavern
In Exalted, you all meet in a teahouse. This is non-negotiable.

what is the best non-anime source of inspiration for Exalted

>>54677999
Given that the Immaculate philosophy presents a surprisingly complete and accurate rundown of the cosmos of Creation and overall not-terrible guidelines for how to live a virtuous life, the Realm's biggest problem is that the Scarlet Empress turned the upper echelons of her society into a Social Darwinist hellhole where everyone is encouraged to be as much of a paranoid, grasping, ladder-climbing dickbag as possible. The Realm needs a change a leadership and a few upgrades to their scripture, but it's still one of the few functional societies ruled by the Exalted where a mortal can expect a decent standard of living.

>>54681527
Journey to the West is pretty inspiring if your game includes Heaven or lots of spirits

>>54681527
The Mahabharata, if you have about a year of free time and like reading ancient Hindu poetry.

>>54681527
The Epic of Gilgamesh is pretty solid, as is Beowulf. Into the Badlands is surprisingly handy considering it's post apocalyptic. The Tales of the Flat Earth is one of the big inspirations for Exalted so that's good too, only read the first story though because it's a bitch to get hold of.

>>54676050
They're samurai with elemental powers. If you think about, it's actually easy to see how DB are far more up White Wolf's alley, what with the feuding clans vying for power leading to political intrigue and drama. As opposed to Solars being basically just weaboo D&D.

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>>54681527

Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

>>54676863
I'm sorry that your autism makes it hard for you to understand such a simple game, but please try to understand that not everyone has your problems. Many people prefer a game that simply allows a GM to make decisions using common sense as opposed to one that attempts, in vain, to cover all possibilities and only succeeds in making itself needlessly convoluted. Exalted began life as the epitome of terrible nineties game design and 3rd edition did nothing to fix that.
Whereas Godbound is simply a pretty good game, so yes, considerably less flawed.

>>54675325
By Greek I assume you mostly mean the fact that all exalted are children of Gods (Hercules, Bellerophon, etc.)

>>54683104
It's entirely possible to do D&D with Terriestrial Exalted as well.

>>54667513
my favorite is that one picture if the Righteous devil user and i hate ketchup karjack in the back

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>>54681527
Conan and other pulpy sources, hell one of my players indirectly made Elric as an Infernal, Not!Stormbringer and all.

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>>54667414
Besides the Lore-Primer on youtube, no.

The entertaining thing with Creation is that some places are mostly just a line or two of description. Go nuts, look around and take what you do like from books, movies, games whatever. Add in a couple landmarks and boom, the Jade Plum Citadel has a cool new tower of exotic dancers, or that blank space in the map now has a tomb in it.

As for the hard details about the setting, as above, wing it to the best of your ability. Go hyper into it, or lay back and say "Everyone in the South roughly speaks Flametongue and Low Imperial, it sounds like Arabic/Mongolian-ish"

>tl;dr
No good writeups, but look up specific mentions in the books and fill in the blanks with your own stuff.

>>54684685

That's pretty fucking cool, I must admit. What was the character like?

OP here again, sorry for disappearing all day, had some irl stuff to take care of

On the topic of lore, what exactly is Wu-Jian? I didn't feel like I got much out of the bit I skimmed through in the book (I haven't read the entirety of the lore sections of it, so for Wu-Jian it's literally just that part in the middle where it talks about some Solar (probably a Twilight) pinning a bunch of Giants to the ocean floor with spears of sunlight or whatever

>>54685437
Its a new city in 3e. Basically the last port until you are deep in the West. Think of it like Kowloon Walled City in Hong Kong. Its where most trade from the West and the rest of Creation goes through and resupplies. The city itself could have been founded any number of ways. Natural formation, some old First Age Manse, maybe like you said with giants. Nobody knows and its up to the Storyteller to provide that information as however they want it. Whatever they think works best for the story and is most exciting.

>>54683338
>I'm sorry that your autism makes it hard for you to understand such a simple game, but please try to understand that not everyone has your problems.
How about you try to understand that not everyone likes the things you like?

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>>54684942
Forsaken King of a small kingdom in the Hundred Kingdoms region, he Exalted because he could have won a grand and glorious battle but chickened out at the last moment and signed a peace treaty.
Post-Exaltation he rallied the rest of the characters, demons, and his (now fervent) people to join him in a murderous rampage across the region. A lot of scheming behind the scenes and having the group at each others throats most of the time.

Pretty fun all around. Ended in a glorious final battle between a host led by a Solar, the Assassin betrayed everyone to appease the Ebon Dragon, letting the Solar's circle straight to their doorstep. They lost handily to min-maxed combat Solars.

>>54661264
Is that...is that Gore Magala?

>>54685437
Exalteds 3e is kind of "Points of Light"-ish in that it throws down some places and their themes but doesn't go in depth about them. It's up to you to turn them into what you want for the campaign.

Whilst I do appreciate that part of it, the overall stand-offishness of the book annoys me a little. It's very light on the QCs. Telling someone to go with "what seems about right" is awful for someone who has no hands on experience with the system.

>>54681527
Do JRPGs count as anime?

>>54667513
The outro one is pretty neat.

Someone showed me the original Scarlet Empress picture contrasted with the censored version and now I can't unsee it, it's so fucking poorly done.

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>>54690023

Yes

>>54659489

If you're running 3e, I made a storyteller/GM guide for it.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sG52v0QCij7-vI0Y3Mb2s2gusu8dfkzdUOLkmMshw3Q/edit

Is there a way to make fights with mortals interesting? I'd rather not have to force everyone involved be exalted, sounds contrived and boring.

>>54690878
Lots of them with a good commander probably. Use the command to order them to "Engage" which lets them murder Exalts with 0 Defense.

But outside the rare, extremely talented Mortal their main contenders should be other Exalts and Spirits. Think Dynasty Warriors, where the Generals are Exalts. Make them recurring, Anime style. I don't see how it would be contrived to have Exalts main sources of contention be other Exalts given most will walk all over your average mortal and their success will draw the attention of other Exalts.

>>54690878
>I'd rather not have to force everyone involved be exalted
You realize there's tons of supernatural beings that aren't exalted, right? Ranging all the way from super-weak to challenge for an entire circle.

>>54690878
>>54692686

Either way, the assumption is that Solars will not only win, but win easily. It's really important to have consequences for the players actions.

>>54690878
The only way to make fights interesting is to make them take place against interesting characters and to properly hype them up in advance. Everything else is irrelevant.

>>54690878
>>54692845
This. Fights need to have real stakes and both sides need to have something they're fighting for. The best fights progress the plot.
For mechanical difficulty having elite troops commanded by someone competent with one or two badass mortals in there can be surprisingly useful. The other fallback is blood apes backing up a mortal sorcerer. Then there are nemessaries, zombies... there's a lot of options. Just make sure you play to their strengths.

>>54692845
>>54693223
Well the issue I have is that say there is a large criminal organization that is harassing the Scavenger Lands and causing a lot of problems for people I don't just want every confrontation between the members to resemble someone punching a baby and at the same time if there's a giant number of terrestrial Exalted I fell that flies in the face of the setting.

>>54690878

It's the stakes of the fight that matters, not the fight itself. See, think of it in action-movie terms: You know the hero is going to get through the horde of mooks with very little trouble. That's a given. But what's he trying to accomplish?

Are you trying to get to the Princess in time, before the assassin poisons her? Are you trying to stop the coronation? Or is the PC doing his level best to avoid killing or crippling anyone? Is he working under a handicap like "Gee, I better not let anyone know I'm a Solar, because they think I'm a demon from hell?"

That's what you have to think about, really.

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>>54696542
>if there's a giant number of terrestrial Exalted I fell that flies in the face of the setting.

Make the first few encounters with some regular humans. Then when the players cause enough trouble, have the boss (as in, guy who runs shit, not a videogame trope) recognize theres an issue, and take appropriate measures (DB mercs, spirits, whatever).

>>54696542
You can't solve a criminal organisation by killing people. You'd need to know who everyone is and where they're going to be and that's basically impossible to know. They bunker down, move in secret and look exactly like normal people.
Besides, if crime there has been successful enough that a large syndicate has form then they're going to be replaced with another organisation.You can't get rid of the supply and expect the demand to go away.

When they have to fight, they'll hire mercenaries and then slip away while the group is busy. They'll hire assassins to find the group while they sleep and kill them. They can pay demonologists and sorcerers if they can find them, hire demons and wyld mutants and Dragon-blooded sellswords. But fighting shouldn't be how the plot is resolved, it's just a means to an end.

>>54696542

When fighting mortals, the fights are mainly for the heroes to show off. They're not in any real danger, it's like Bruce Lee fighting goons or Tony Jaa fighting mooks. The real dangers are other Exalted, which should be really rare.

Hell, maybe the challenge in that fight is seducing the beautiful assassin girl away from her mission, so it's all about keeping her in the fight until you can convince her.

>>54696542
>at the same time if there's a giant number of terrestrial Exalted I fell that flies in the face of the setting.
You realize there's steps between regular mortals and DBs, right?

>>54696704
>But fighting shouldn't be how the plot is resolved

Straight up murdering everything is always supposed to be a viable solution in Exalted. It might not always be the BEST solution, but it should be on the table.

>>54696740
I'm new.

>>54697046
And in this case, straight up murdering everyone will solve this criminal syndicate. This particular instance of murdering everyone won't solve any criminal syndicate from cropping up in its wake.

>>54697046

To be fair, unless the entire party is composed entirely of Dawn Castes, you have a multitude of options to solve literally every problem. A Perfect Circle can conquer a city in a night, or take over a kingdom in a handful of years.

Hell, the Bull of the North canonically does this with his Circle. His sorceress helped defeat with the Realm's Tepet Legions with a single spell: Summon Demon of the Second Circle.

>>54697046
>Straight up murdering everything is always supposed to be a viable solution in Exalted
Says who? You might get rid of a bunch of members, you may even get rid of this specific organisation but you won't solve crime by killing people.
Once you've killed a few people, the organisation is probably just going to get more subtle. You're not entitled to a stand up fight with some guys out to make money, they're not interested in facing off with deadly Exalts.

>>54697152
Unless you murder literally everyone, which leads to other problems. Actually, given that ghosts are a thing, murdering everyone might not even actually prevent criminal syndicates from going on.

>>54697152
>This particular instance of murdering everyone won't solve any criminal syndicate from cropping up in its wake

I dunno, if you murder them all the right way, chances are it could.

"Did you see what the fuck happened to the last guys that did this?" was pretty much human practice for a good part of history when it comes to punishments as a deterrence from doing shit whoever is in charge doesn't like.

>>54697176
>Says who?

The people that made the game, several times, over several editions. It's also why murdering everything is a frequent solution in the game's history.

>>54697925
>"Did you see what the fuck happened to the last guys that did this?" was pretty much human practice for a good part of history when it comes to punishments as a deterrence from doing shit whoever is in charge doesn't like.
Have people ever been really deterred from doing shit the guy in charge doesn't like, though, for any longer period of time? People have always been stealing, murdering, cheating, rebelling, evading taxes and whatnot.

>>54698003
>Have people ever been really deterred from doing shit the guy in charge doesn't like, though, for any longer period of time?
Yes. Not all of them, but most of them.

>>54698118
That's not a 'yes', anon, that's a 'no'. Criminal syndicates generally don't consist of most people, they consist of a minority who are willing to engage in illegal activities despite the possible punishments. As long as that minority exists, the problem of the criminal syndicate remains unsolved.

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>>54681527
El Mercenario (translation Coming Soon™)

So how do you run games without basically jacking off the Players? So far all it seems is your just supposed to let them get what they want because nothing is able to challenge them.

>>54699226
Oh. You don't. The game is about Solars being badasses and you just keeping an even playing field for their actions. Usually they are their own worst enemies.

>>54699324
That farnkly sounds terrible. Whats the point of victory if there is no real chance at failure?

And as for them being their worst enemies that requires people to be more invested in a story than playing a game which just does not happen with people who play Table Top Rpgs

>>54699226
You might not know this, but challenge and difficulty has nothing to do with how enjoyable something is.

>>54699360
This is true but at the same time if I wanted a mastabatory fantasy that revolves around telling the players how great they are then why would I leave D&D?

Sure theres story but 98% of players do not give a flying fuck about story, they just want to do lolrandumb shit

>>54699387
Kill yourself.

>>54699359
Exalted is not for you.

>>54699431
Fair enough. What about the whole Dragon Blooded folks? They seem to be a bit more vulnerable compared to Solars. Could they better provided for a more ground campaign?

>>54699501
No.

>>54699501
They're messing with you, friend. You can totally have challenging combat in which Solars die and so on.

>>54699501

Kinda, but they're not even out yet.

They are much weaker than solars, so its easier to make challenging encounters for them.

>>54699512
May I ask why not? They seem much weaker and their super powers seeem much more lower key. Instead of an RPG endboss your more the quirky miniboss squad. Failure seems muvh more likely because sucess is not a garuntee compared to solars

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>Exalted's main selling point is how ridiculously powerful its player characters are
>"wow these characters are too strong! this is boring! how do i make it hard for them?"

>>54699613
Not him, but those things aren't mutually exclusive. You can still have incredibly powerful characters while still making things difficult. I mean fuck your picture is even a perfect example!

>>54699226
How could you have gotten that from this thread? Plenty of ways to fail.

>>54699660
Mostly from the wording in how the only real threat to the Solars are themselves. Which players arent going to make dramatic or unplanned mistakes. Because players to their credit are genre savy. They will spot twists and plans you have from a mile away.

>>54699643
But those kinds of circumstances are extremely rare.

>>54699723
Solars aren't the only threat to themselves, thankfully. A circle of Dragonblooded immaculates backed up by an army led by an experienced dragonblooded will do some major damage if the experienced Dragonblooded sits back and gives orders. Lunars and Sidereals can put up a real fight if they're specced that way, and might make the characters' lives hell without fighting them. Octavian will wreck most characters that aren't built mainly for combat and a few that are and only the strongest Solar will be able to fight Ahlat one-on-one. Third circle demons like Ligier will fuck a Solar's shit up and that isn't even going into things like the Incarnae.

>>54699815
I suggest you read some mythology books (you know one of Exalteds biggest influences?) Because those fuckers move mountains by fucking blinking and they still cant get what they want. Take Gilgamesh looses his best friend and his quest for immortality

>>54699723
Basically, /tg/ has a bit of an echochamber about Solar games. It's certainly true that a Solar's worst enemy is problem themselves and a lot of games are going to be spent dealing with the consequences of their thoughtless actions there are things that will be able to challenge a Solar.

>>54699855
The failures in those stories are rare and a big deal when they happen precisely because of how unusual they are.

>>54699893
> Rare

>Happens in every story from Gilgamesh to King Aurther.

Hmmm.

>>54699930
Yes, Gilgamesh and King Arthur are well-known for their miserable lives full of failure.

Just fuck off.

>>54699226
These threads have a weird habit of doing it, despite there being plenty of ways to challenge Solars. The paradigm is different from something like DnD though. Its also asymmetric, which makes it a bit of a nightmare for the ST. A Dawn could carve through plenty of foes like butter, but a Spirit might just aim to slap them with a curse, or a single word from an Air Immaculate after discovering one of his Intimacies could make him hesitate.

Even in combat you can form up a kind of Wyld Hunt A Team. Dragonblooded work best in a team, so a well functioning, experienced Hunt - one spurred to action by a Circle of Solars - can still be a match for the players. Funny thing is their biggest weakness is just the Solars proving they aren't the bad guy.

Without Ox Body, your Solar is just as susceptible to a glass bottle in the throat as anyone else, or even an unlucky fall - but most will have ways to avoid the worst effects of those mundane dangers

>>54700000
I mean well that is Karna In a nutshell, never having a good time

>>54701240
>Ox Body meme

>>54690878
Yeah: make them sorcerers. Mortal sorcerers are actually really scary in 3e, since they can be (almost) as good at Sorcery as any Terestrial exalted.

>>54701716

If you get 3 HL's, it changes the average initiative needed to OHKO from 17-19 to like 26 or more.

Not an overly bad deal, unless you were that guy who said "good players never ever get hit" which in your case I'd like to know what fantasy world you live in.

>>54703727
Different anon, but I live in the very real world where all the players Enter Battle with full excellencies and Crash the other guys before they even have a chance to do anything.

>>54703770
Your ST just sucks at encounter design

There's no Exalted thread up, so I'll just ask my question here

How do Glory Sphere's work? Do they only let me learn 1 charm at Essence+1, or can I learn multiple? If the latter, can I learn an Essence+1 charm that has another Essence+1 charm as a prerequisite, if I learn the prerequisite first?

>>54699501

This is a bad idea for a more 'grounded' campaign. The Dragon-blooded are treated like gods (Generally) and are worshipped by the population. Also, all of them tend to be loaded down by artifacts.

I'd argue that Solars are more grounded, because they're more varied and they don't have the same support structure. A typical Solar is someone who has just come into his powers and is in over his head, and they hail from a multitude of backgrounds. In contrast, a large number of Dragon-blooded hail from a Realm where they were trained since childhood to hope for Exaltation.

>>54705318

Unsure myself. I'd go with a rule of thumb and only allow 3 or so additional charms at a higher essence myself.

It's nice to see hearthstones are no longer insanely OP but it feels like they got a real boot to the balls

Would identical twin dragonbloods share the same aspect?

>>54707947
No, but it would make them less identical.

>>54699815
>But those kinds of circumstances are extremely rare.
So? Stories generally are about these rare circumstances, not about people's everyday life. I mean, >>54699855 mentions Gilgamesh. The Epic of Gilgamesh doesn't spend a lot of time describing his life before he met Enkidu. Gilgamesh' failure is ultimately the point of the story. Similarly, most RPG campaigns aren't SoL games where PCs mostly live in peace. They're games about the dangerous and exciting parts of their lives, with the peaceful parts being largely handled off-screen, or at least with less time and focus spent on them than on the battles and adventures. The rarity of circumstances that can challenge Solars isn't a good argument for not having such circumstances in your games.

>>54708729
The other anons aren't entirely wrong though; Exalted does tend to lean heavily on "and then what do you do?" for its drama. In fact a lot of the rougher situations Solars can find themselves in often grow OUT of relatively easy accomplishments before. The Circle topples a small kingdom without too much trouble, but their attempts at establishing themselves draw down a large Wyld Hunt on their heads that they have to flee or otherwise find a way to overcome. That sort of shit.

>>54708981
That's true. I'm not trying to claim that other anons are wrong, it's just that, for the whole thing about the consequences of your actions mattering to work, at some point there has to be an actial challenge. Otherwise those consequences are not a big deal, just take care of with relative ease. This part
> In fact a lot of the rougher situations Solars can find themselves in often grow OUT of relatively easy accomplishments before
is pretty much how I think a good Exalted campaign should work. The ST shouldn't start off trying to challenge players, but in time PCs probably will, through their own actions, draw the attention of something that might cause them genuine trouble. In some other game GM might plan something to challenge his players to begin with, in Exalted he might let the players find or make their own challenges instead, but either way things capable of challenging PCs, even if they are Solars, have their place. That's all I'm saying.

>>54708981

It's perfectly normal for a Solar Circle's actions to cause all kinds of escalation. Like, you could go from 'wandering swordsman' to "Oh shit, now we have to defeat the Realm's armies" very easily. By doing anything at all, the PCs are going to attract a lot of attention from people who want to kill, convert or worship them.

>>54672916
>Well if you want to have a Crafter have fun then I would
The whole point of the Craft system is to incentivize someone who's playing a crafter to use Craft to solve their problems, rather than just being the guy who shits out daiklaves; you can still be the guy who just shits out swords if you want to, but you need to buy the Craft XP-generation charms to do so.

>>54710386
And instead it set up roadblocks and made an overcomplicated system compared to every other mechanic in the game. They don't reward crafters for doing things. They just punish them for not doing things.

>>54710411

That and it really makes crafting so damn much of a point sink that crafters more or less have to go for the exp-generation charms to try and get anything back. You can't be 'A guy who crafts a bit', your choices are 'Don't touch the craft system' or 'Superfocus the craft system and try to use it to solve every problem you can so you can make anything when the group actually NEEDS a thing crafted'

>>54710411
Yes, it does. It rewards you with the fun of solving your problems with Craft.

Need to foster good will for the village? Carve some toys for the village children.

Need the units in your army to be able signal each other? Craft some signal banners or signal fans.

Need to slow your enemies down? Craft some pit traps and punji sticks.

Need to get the treasure out of the dungeon? Craft a simple rope-and-pulley system, or a simple wheelbarrow/cart.

Need to get wounded soldiers to safety? Craft some simple stretchers, and braces for broken limbs. Tear up some cloaks to make bandages for wounds.

All of these are doable as Simple Projects with Craft (Weaponsmithing), at most at +1 Difficulty since you're branching out into a related Craft skill.

Like I said, it encourages you to solve your problems with Craft, not just be the guy who shits out swords. Whenever the party sees a problem, your first thought should be "How can I use Craft to solve this problem?"

>>54710442
>>54710442
>Superfocus the craft system and try to use it to solve every problem you can so you can make anything when the group actually NEEDS a thing crafted'
Yes, anon. That's the point. Like I said in >>54710902, that's what makes it fun.

>>54709166
>at some point there has to be an actial challenge

That point is when you draw the attention of other Exalt's either older than you, or who are also Solars of a similar age. Or some of the nastier demons, Gods, elementals, etc.

>>54710967
Or a dozen or so Dragonblooded leading a full-fledged Legion of soldiers, along with a bunch of Auxiliaries including things like elite mercenary cavalry (possibly led by mercenary Exalted), Dragonblooded in Warstriders, units of ninja assassins (possibly led by Dragonblooded ninjas), and so on and so forth.

Once Arms of the Chosen and The Realm come out, this sort of play would open up considerably because we'll actually have stats for things like siege weapons and warstriders.

>>54711039

Not to mention that the Exalted simply can't do EVERYTHING on their own. You still need to raise an army to take on the Dragon-blooded, and a clash like that doesn't favor you: Most of your forces will be mortal, unless you go out of your way to rally other Exalted to your banner.

The thing is that eventually, the PCs sort of HAVE to become God-Kings. Otherwise, they'll run headfirst into something they cannot handle on their own.

>>54665959
Peach Garden Oath.

>>54672951
Creation is, canonically, larger than the land area of Actual Real Life Earth.

>>54699359
The armies separated; and, it is said, Pyrrhus replied to one that gave him joy of his victory that one other such victory would utterly undo him. For he had lost a great part of the forces he brought with him, and almost all his particular friends and principal commanders; there were no others there to make recruits, and he found the confederates in Italy backward. On the other hand, as from a fountain continually flowing out of the city, the Roman camp was quickly and plentifully filled up with fresh men, not at all abating in courage for the loss they sustained, but even from their very anger gaining new force and resolution to go on with the war.

>>54713889
Issue with Pyrric victorys is players do not give a fuck about what they lost if its not loot. Most players dont care about other NPCs and for intimacies they will almost always keep them as self focused as possible.

>>54711755
The main thing I think gets missed in a bunch of EX discussion is that the original vision assumes a campaign is assumed to take place over decades, not months or years. EX2 fucked this up hard by putting multiple doomsday clocks into the setting. Like if you go back to Romance of the Three Kingdoms, that covers a period of a hundred years. The Trojan War was a decade by itself. Exalts are powerful and they live a long time—it’s not like you’re intended to or even capable of ruling the entire world right after becoming a Solar.

>>54714106
If your players don’t care about the world then they probably shouldn’t be playing the game where they’re the reincarnated princes and queens of the world. idk. Playing Exalted like a murderhobo game just feels like a wasted opportunity

>>54714202
I agree. Im just listing issue that can arise. Mainly because mirderhobo is just kind of the default state of mind for an increasing majority of players.

So basically Im wondering how one counters that. How do you make the retards care?

>>54668594
Thanks!

>>54714296
Hell if I know. Just got to find some people to game with that are at least partially susceptible to feels.

>>54714139

This is something a lot of people miss. Atop that, the distances in the world are supposed to reinforce that it takes time for shit to spread. Like, take the whole "hurr, DB's go get'em" thing that is usually the first reaction to Solars causing trouble. It's called a Wyld HUNT for a reason, because by the time they've been tipped off about something you did, it's a half a year out of date before they even realize theres a problem, unless you go knocking on the local Hunt's door in a Realm controlled territory. So first, they've gotta track you down. They have to get where you were, and that won't always be easy, especially if they try to bring mortals with them-Because DB's likely can't shuffle a whole army around very quickly, they're going to be vastly delayed by those 2 Dex mortals marching with them.

>>54714296
>How do you make the retards care?

As someone who loves playing murderhobo's because I just like playing wandering swordsmen, you generally don't. They play those things because they don't want to be tied down to things. I just want to wander around, hit things that draw my ire, and move on to the next area.

Shit, theres plenty of Exalt's like that in canon anyway. Nothing wrong with that style of play.

>>54714691
Then why not just play D&D? It allows the murderhobo style to be done alot easier.

Plus since your a Solar there really is no challenge. I imagine this gets old after 3-4 sessions of winning and winning

>>54714727
>Then why not just play D&D?

Because you can't do that in D&D. It's too rigidly structured of a game. Things are explicitely designed to be taken on by groups and nothing else, making a wandering anything rather implausible unless it was in a group beforehand. Atop that, theres really no such thing as skill in D&D-Everything is tied to level.

In Exalted you can start right the fuck out at the top of the stat food chain and with Supernals, the Charm food chain as well. You can actually play to the role very well in Exalted, whereas in D&D? Guess what, you're a level 1 Fighter who is going to be damn near the copy of every other level 1 Fighter. And the whole world is going to be much, much bigger than you.

>>54714727
Exalted doesn't make murderhobo style particularly difficult to pull off, though, and as was discussed earlier, there are things in the setting capable of challenging Solar. Any Solar who murderhobos enough is likely to eventually draw the attention of one or more of these things.

>>54714802
Thing is nonody has been really convincing that those are REALLY a challenge. Plus all the things that seem to go against you are "more dudes" its not like you dont have acess to that. So it feels like Solars have no weakness and the enemys put before them are utterly pathetic.

And thats kind of my rub with this all. It basically works around Solars being perfect and relying on them fucking up. Players rarely will fuck up to that level. Even new ones no not to poke the bear

>>54714793
Also why the hell are picking a wandering anyrhing in a group game? Do you just play solo or do you demand your GM just make two separate campagins for you?

>>54714864

Have you ever actually played the game. People talk it up, but trust me, not everything is always Solars whipping out their dicks and diddling everything in the world, man. I think you got too caught up in hyperbole.

>>54714893
Ill have admit I have not. Mainly because of still memorizing the rules, figuring out how to make monsters on the fly, and apprehensive about this turning into D&D except were just level 20 now.

>>54710902

As someone whose played 3e for a long time and knows the system? I don't consider the craft system "fun" at all.

First, you mention all these ideas, such as punji steaks, which is great! Hope you got the proper craft rating for it such as Woodworking! Ironically the beginning of 2e was far more merciful regarding this, having only 5 elements to craft with plus artifacts, but bloated into a huge mess of crafting areas later on. 3e just cut out the middleman and went for the huge mess.

Then there's the point system. The times I've used the RAW craft system I've often had over 120 silver XP by the end of the 7th or 8th session. These points only do something interesting in two locations in the entire craft tree (Using White XP for that Lore/Occult based charms, Dual Magnus Prana) but in every other time is a waste. Serving as an unecessary gate keeping device. For me it wasn't that I had too little, but enough of them that my craft XP might've well said "Craft XP: Yes". Not only that but you're litterally put on your toes all the time about it, the sheer amount of craft and the goals of the craft system often put a large amount of pressure on the players to constantly shoehorn it in every remote chance they get while an ST is pressured to keep coming up with circumstances lest he get an angry player that is angry that he's being gatekept.

[1/2]

>>54715087

[2/2]

The end result of the craft tree is that you basically become the Jeeves manse from 2.Xe. Instead of artifacts becoming this rare and wonderous thing you are pressured to shit them out constantly in order to maintain a higher craft XP value (Which even if you have Craft XP: Yes, the pressure and the ability is there). Holden admitted the craft system is not fully playtested and it shows. Even ripping the system straight from 2e is preferable at this point, as while you can go full blown retard with it 2e worked on a gentleman's agreement with it's craft. 3e craft can work the same bullshit and worse, only they tried to nerf the 2e crafter by using a subsystem that ultimately tries to skip some of the main purposes that 3e craft was designed for (Slots, Craft XP) but really don't work in the face of a persistent player. If anything I feel sorry for new players looking at that needlessly overblown and complicated system.

>>54714346

Note that Tomb Of Five Corners isn't for the current edition. For that, you'll want Tomb Of Dreams.

>>54715087
>First, you mention all these ideas, such as punji steaks, which is great! Hope you got the proper craft rating for it such as Woodworking!
Weaponcrafting covers that with a +1 Difficulty, since bows and spears are made of wood, so Woodworking is a related craft.

>3e just cut out the middleman and went for the huge mess.
Not really. It just makes things slightly more difficult outside of your area of specialty. +1 Difficulty on rolls isn't worth very much unless you're trying to make 4+ dot Artifacts or Manses.

Weaponmaking? Related to anything involving the crafting of metal, wood, leather, or cloth, since there are weapons composed of all of those things, or which include them in their manufacture. That's a very broad arena to do your crafting in.

>Then there's the point system. The times I've used the RAW craft system I've often had over 120 silver XP by the end of the 7th or 8th session.
Good! Then spend those 120 silver XP to craft some swords or armor for your dudes, and turn them into Gold XP instead.

>>54715108
>Instead of artifacts becoming this rare and wonderous thing you are pressured to shit them out constantly in order to maintain a higher craft XP value
If you want to make a daiklaive, you need to come up with something unique every time. You can't make one that's identical to another. Additionally, you need a supply of Magical Materials, which are usually pretty rare, and a supple of occult oddities, which can be harvested pretty readily if the PC is creative.

Basically, the primary limit to daiklave production is creativity. The primary limit to making them useful is having Exalted able to attune them.

One thing I've noticed from my group (and other Exalted player I know) is that GM tend to under-utilize Solars as antagonists. While the Deathlord and their Abyssal minions make some good clear-cut villain and same for Yozis and Infernals (most of the time, anyway) as do Fair Folks and the Realm itself the problem is that each of these exalt and creature types bring a certain amount of 'baggage' for motivation. Antagonist solar level the playing field without needing to be edgy grimdark death champions or heavy metal album cover.

Solars are not good guys under the same umbrella. They are not D&D Paladins. And, hell, a solar antagonist does not even need to be truly evil, merely have goals which are either opposite or in competition with the player characters. Hell, you can even them be RIVALS and not necessarily outright antagonist. Of course if you do want a solar villain, wannabe conquerors can be a good place to start. They can be the Raoh to a solar PC's Kenshiro.

>>54716374

I think you're missing my points entirely. Craft is bitched upon because it's a pointsink. 2e craft at the beginning was less of a point sink. You didn't have to worry about 'related crafts' because things were seperated into six categories (Craft: Artifact was somewhat of a be all end all, but the original 5 were fine).

For all of it's faults nWoD had a simpler craft system with the craft areas being specialties instead of full blown abilities. Even most other systems I've played such as Fate and/or Mutants and Masterminds are far more forgiving on the crafting areas in which it either costed peanuts or wasn't an area that didn't require sinking vastly more resources into in order to be effective at the niche you wanted to play in. Unlike other abilities, Craft either wants you to go balls in like no other ability or really know what the hell you're doing in order to game the system. Most players see crafting as a means to an end, not crafting as the end itself. I've never seen this with any other character concept in execution in 3e. It is one of the few abilities that demands a relatively high investment from the get go that no other abilities do.

>Good! Then spend those 120 silver XP to craft some swords or armor for your dudes, and turn them into Gold XP instead.

Counterpoint: If I have "Craft XP: Yes", what is the fucking point of having it in the first place? Why do I need a middleman like points to exist in the first place, to go through the effort of tracking them, if I could do without them in the first place? They're completely and utterly pointless outside of like two charms that do make good use out of them.

[1/2]

>>54716907


>Basically, the primary limit to daiklave production is creativity.

Which puts strain on the player to make concepts for these artifacts in order to avoid a sunk cost fallacy, Storyteller's who need to CONSTANTLY give out exotic items to make into artifacts (If you get a crafter up and running? It WILL be constant).

Making an epic crafting station in order to craft things that make the gods covet? That's cool shit, I like that. What I don't like is that 3e craft moves more towards the assembly line of artifacts *by choice of its charmset* rather than the broken shit we had in 2.Xe near the end (Google the Jeeves Manse if you want an example of that, only in 3e you don't need a manse doing that for you and can rather trivally do it for yourself). You mention uniqueness, but this destroys any sort of uniqueness when the system really wants you to churn out as many artifacts as possible for crafting XP gain as a cookie for a work well done. If you're one of those people who realize that you have "Crafting XP: Yes" and realize the XP reward is trival then good job, but for a lot of people I talked to it was the opposite, as players wanted to craft out shit as quickly as possible to get that crafting XP bonus.

>The primary limit to making them useful is having Exalted able to attune them.

Thousand Arms Prana says hi, a charm that can trivially be brought into 3e (And I'm saying will eventually be brought into the game). No, for end game artifacts the primary limit is the evocations the items have which are gated behind XP, which is a step in the right direction from 2.Xe in which magitech could do a billion things.

Granted there are also utility artifacts, but most players I know tend to only get one or two of those things at most and use them as character defining things.

>>54714106
>Issue with Pyrric victorys is players do not give a fuck about what they lost if its not loot.
Your players maybe. Players in my group form attachments to characters and places.

>>54714941
What it comes down to is that from a theorycrafting/whiteroom combat perspective, a Solar at the peak of their power is going to trounce anything in a straight duel. Don’t pursue Lu Bu and all that. So the point as a GM is to prevent things from becoming whiteroom combats. And even with Supernal abilities in play, starting Solars are far from the peak of their power.

Basically if your characters have any goals or motivations whatsoever, including “get rich and build a palace with gold toilets and stripper poles” they’re inevitably going to come into conflict with someone. If they don’t then you might as well just play Diablo instead of a TTRPG.

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Would it be viable to take the system and make the setting bronze age (Greek, Persian, etc.) gods and demigods?

>>54719327

A lot of Exalted's system is deeply tied with the mechanics. You could, but right now another System called "Scion" is on the the horizon which is expressly purpose built for the type of game you want.

If you don't want to wait, something like Godbound, Fate, or Mutants and Masterminds could work. DO NOT USE SCION 1E, IT DOES NOT WORK.

>>54719421
I'll check that out, thanks anon.

>>54719117

The biggest issue I find with Exalted is that you can tire them out pretty easily compared to most other RPG lines and/or settings. Rather than attack in one big wave, it's usually far better to make some semi-competent cannon fodder and send them at your target, soften them up, then attack.

A Dawn for example is a terror to behold, but after two battles with something like a 2CD or demon mobs/DB Wyld Hunt rookies before the big guns show up? Even competent Dawn's have trouble with that shit. You'll need specific builds for that, and it makes sieges more specialized towards the attacker if they're well organized.

>>54719421
Godbound really feels too much like a d20 do-over of Exalted 2E, with all its attendant problems.

>>54719540

I'm of the same boat, but I feel it's systems could be translated easier into what the guy was looking for.

I mean there's also Fantasycraft, make liberal use of mooks of whatever, but I don't know if such a thing would be ideal either.

>>54719461
This is, admittedly, less true now that Exalts restore 5 motes of essence a turn.

>>54721999
Honestly? I don't think so. It's not hard to overrun your mote regen, and since you don't regen motes OUT of combat at anything like the speed you do in combat, successive combats really grind you down.

>>54721999

Anon if you can regain motes let alone be mote neutral in combat with 5m per turn I'll be very impressed. As >>54722183 said the 5m per round thing is in combat only, and unless you're doing combats against insanely easy opponents, any supernal half-competent opponent is going to force you to spent motes. There are ways around this (Resistance builds, Lore builds) but for the majority of exalts and character's you're going to be spending more than 5m per turn on average.

>>54722808

>There are ways around this (Resistance builds, Lore builds)

What are these builds, for reference?

>>54722922
Not them but off the top of my head Lore has charms that let you nab motes from people you attack as well as charms that let you distribute motes around your circle.

On a similar note I never quite understood why Lore has Magnus Approach instead of Integrity.

Resistance has a little tree where you get ANGERY motes whenever someone hits you.

>>54722922

Essence Gathering Temper and Willpower Gathering Temper in Resistance lets you maintain a fairly decent supply of motes in battle if your stamina is good. If you have heavy armour or a lucky roll on Diamond Body Prana, you laugh off attacks while gaining motes.

Lore has the Essence Transference charms, which when combined with Immanent Solar Glory let's you recover motes in a variety of ways. Essence-Lending Method in particular allows you to give a nice boost to motepools once every battle.

>>54716576

To be fair, Solar antagonists tend more to just be on an opposite side. If I was a typical Solar, and another guy is up to some shit, I would leave him alone because he's likely to weaken the Realm more. Like, I generally wouldn't kill a brother unless he was going Akuma or something. After all, there's so few Solars around, and I KNOW this guy is going to be at least as tough as I am.

>>54725351
>If I was a typical Solar, and another guy is up to some shit, I would leave him alone because he's likely to weaken the Realm more.
His shit might be directly opposed to your shit, though. Maybe you'r trying to create an empire and he's from a place you're looking to conquer. Maybe he's trying to create an empire and you're from a place he's trying to conquer. Maybe he's lookign to crush the ancestral enemies of his tribe once and for all, and those enemies are your tribe. Maybe he's in charge of a criminal syndicate that gets up to unsavory shit in your home region. Maybe he's a zealous Zenith with his own ideas about how to serve and honor the Sun and little tolerance for people who don't agree with these ideas. Maybe he's a former slave who hates anyone who hates slaveowners, and someone in your Circle own slaves. Maybe someone in your Circle is a fomer slave who hates slaveowners, while this guy is a slaver who honestly believes that slavery is not only necessary but some people's natural and righteous lot in life. Most Solars aren't defined by being opposed to the Realm. They have varied goals and equally varied values, and sometimes these goals and values just drive Solars into conflict with each other.

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>>54659489
Play Classic World of Darkness instead.

>>54714864
>Thing is nonody has been really convincing that those are REALLY a challenge.
They're factually right though, are you trolling?

>>54714864
>Players rarely will fuck up to that level.
The more power you have, the bigger your fuck ups. Unless the ST is criminally forgiving in which case they shouldn't be running Exalted.

>>54727597
Why would he want to play with literal shit?

>>54725351
>kill a brother

But he's not your brother. He's some jackass you've never met before who just happens to have the same claim to power as you.

>>54727754
Not him but maybe hes just had GMs/STs that just kind of let anything go and unless you were super retarded they let you go with probably free loot

Basically he might be suffering from a monty haul DM

How much do ghosts benefit from worship?

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>>54732079

I believe the same as anything else. Cult was a fairly universally beneficial thing. Only things that didn't get much from it were those without essence pools.

>>54726252
>His shit might be directly opposed to your shit, though
This is exactly the story angle one should work when they pit Solars one against the other. Two beings of great power, passion, drive and vision...which are utterly and completely incompatible.

I think this might be a good thing to show people who want too know what Exalted combat can be like:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLxSRdnGucA

>when the loli Dragonblooded turns out to be a melee specialist

http://i.4cdn.org/wsg/1502037092820.webm

>>54734833
I like ones who both want the same thing but are forced to fight one another for various reasons. Especially if they were former allies.

Great, so, this is an exalted thread. I need help, anons, I fucked up.

>backed EX3 at the "we'll draw your character portrait" level
>hate writing character descriptions
>am furthermore bad at writing them
>am so autistic everyone's face looks basically the same to me besides skin, eye, and hair color
>have to describe my character for a portrait

What the FUCK do I do

Also what race are people on the blessed isle, because I can't think of a good way to ask that on a more reputable website

>>54742637
Asian mostly.

But they take in people from across Creation so whatever you want.

>>54742655
Okay, thank you. That leaves me with a few more questions.

How do I describe her? I assume "she looks korean" is a bad way to start and I still don't have the tools necessary to describe a face, which I assume is the important part of a portrait.

>>54742673
You can say she has Asian features. More towards the Korean end of the spectrum. Its a bit smoother in the wording. If she is high appearance you could even say something like a k-pop idol or something. I don't know man I don't know what she looks like. If you can find a real world reference use that as an example.

>>54742708
That's the fun part
>Please do not use any of the following as reference photos
>Video game character creators
>Cartoons or anime
>comic books
>real people
>other character art

Like, what the fuck is left?

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>>54742729
>what the fuck is left?
Using words to describe any of those things. Alternatively, don't back beyond your autism next time Anon.

>>54742758
Yeah, I've learned a lesson on this one.

>>54742795
You could try getting a friend who's better with descriptions to write up something for you to copy-paste at them.

>>54742795
You can probably cheese it by having a reference photo that you find and then writing a description of that.

Maybe post both the picture and the description you eventually work out here and have other anons help/make fun of you.

>>54742845
>make fun of you

Definitely doing that.

>>54742655
>Asian mostly

Since when? They've got asian-ey architecture, but none of their features were ever described as asian-ey that I remember.

>>54742861
I'm sure some anon will be helpful, or at the very lease some value could be derived from the mocking.

>>54742834
>>54742845
>[name] is a korean-looking (I can't say that, you know how anal Onyx Path are about correct terminology for sensitive issues, that needs to be replaced) girl with dark violet eyes and brown hair that reaches her neck and is unstyled and somewhat messy. She has a friendly, yet timid expression on a slightly oval-shaped face with cute features and a Twilight caste mark shining through a ragged red headband, which was apparently there in an attempt to hide it.
>She keeps her body in excellent shape, though that can't be seen very well from the shoulders up since she's wearing loose, functional red and violet traveling robes. On her back is an orichalcum sword with a crossguard shaped like the symbol for infinity, a spiraling grip made of purple leather, and a red jade pommel.

Is that good?

>>54742880
Since... forever? The only thing 3e changed was explicitly saying a lot of people have Epicanthic folds rather then just saying light skinned with black hair and dark eyes. And considering the rest of Creation did not have anything that could even remotely considered Asian either they existed on the Blessed Isle or not at all. Northerners where white skinned. Easterners were various forms of brown. South was brown. West was bronze.

>The native folk of the Blessed Isle at the world’s heart tend to be light-skinned with dark hair and eyes, strong features, and slim builds. Epicanthic folds are common enough in many prefectures to be considered unremarkable.

>>54742938
You can replace Korean with East Asian if you feel that bad. Using Korean is not bad but you need to just adjust how its worded. For example you could say

>[name] is a young woman who could pass for a Korean person in our World. She has dark violet eyes ect.

Mortal Kombat characters. Stat 'em!

>>54710902
>it encourages you to solve your problems with Craft
It forces you to solve your problems with Craft, if you want to be actually useful. This isn't good game design.

I shouldn't be forced to think 'Okay, the queen was kidnapped, how can I craft something to help'? Every single time something happens. This is an incredibly bad choice for mechanics. This should be obvious to anyone.

There is no way to create a somewhat decent crafter in 3E. Either you build your entire character around its crafting ability, or you can't craft. Playing monomaniacal crafters isn't fun after the first or second time.

>>54742938
>She keeps her body in excellent shape, though that can't be seen very well from the shoulders up since she's wearing loose, functional red and violet traveling robes
"Shoulders down". "Shoulders up" means the shoulders, neck and head.

>>54661401
Funny enough, I wouldn't really call Melee the best combat ability anymore. Brawl is a top contender too, but the main thing is their difference in focus.

Melee gives you a versatile toolset. It gives you defense for yourself and others, charms to hit, charms to do damage, and charms to negate penalties. It's the all-arounder, and it does a good job of it.

Brawl lives on the philosophy that you don't need defense against someone who's already dead. By far the most brutally lethal combat ability, brawl can absolutely destroy people right from the get-go at Essence 1. Brawl supernals and Essence 5 Brawl characters are absolute terrors; They'll kill ANYTHING. The drawback is that they don't get a whole lot to defense; They get some, but they very much favor offense over defense.

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Bleh, need a name for a sail supernal I'm going to play soon. The original name I was thinking was Seven Devil Waves (Wave for short), but the GM and o were talking and he said that sounded kinda eh. I want to use Devil in the name because of his iconic anima, but I'm not very good at threshold names so I've got no idea. Any ideas?

Pic not related, but it's good art.

This thread is a great reminder that people who don't understand real world cause-and-effect often times have a hard time invoking logical consequences in an RPG because that seems like cheating to similarly inexperienced players.;

That sounds like it's a layer of hell in the 9 hells of gaming but here we are.

>>54745815

And this is why I have hard time reading onyxpath forums.

We removed slavery. - Okay. Do you have a plan how to implement the changes and do you have contingency plans on political, social and economic level? - We removed slavery. Everything will work itself out.

What would Día de Muertos look like in a place with ancestor ghosts?

>>54746745
Really fucking cool. Objects that symbolically die end up in the Underworld. So if you pour one out for your dead grandpa, that brew could very well end up in his hand.

>>54746893
I did not know that, that's good stuff.

>>54743107

Heroic Mortals who learned a supernatural MA are like 9/10th's of the cast.

>>54745815

Given most RPG's run off a strict "Murder everything, receive loot" paradigm and/or have strict power structures in place to absolutely fuck you if you try to mess with a setting in any way whatsoever (see: resident Super NPC with 20 billion dollars who is 4,000 years old, has mastered all forms of combat, is a master of the social realm who everyone must obey, and has a solid 15 inch cock), or just straight up shit on you if you try anything different, it's no surprise people playing Exalted don't know how to actually play Exalted.

It's less like a traditional RPG and more like playing Civilization, if you do it right. You progress from fucking with things on a local level to dominating the world via your chosen path, and theres probably some nutter trying to bomb you to death for it with a hair trigger temper.

>>54675122
but what about drawing them for the arms book?

>>54747618
Haha, I'd completely misinterpreted what you said. Pretty hard apparently, since artists have turned in stolen video game art in the past.

>>54747447
My groups commonly joke that our games inevitably turn into Civ games no matter the starting conditions.

Most notably I ran a game that started off as straight up pirates in the West and ended up as running a spooky half-shadowland city in Mela's Fangs. Dealing with the ghost council of elders, opening up trade routes through the Underworld, and generally running a small city-state with considerable sway.

All I wanted was pirates.

Im surprised no one has tried making a video game of Exalted, the setting and artwork is perfect for todays videogame.

>>54749153

I wouldn't accept anything less than an MGR style action game by Platinum to be honest. Or a DW game from Koei.

Anything else just wouldn't be Exalted. God help us if a Western dev ever got ahold of it, it'd be a fucking disaster, probably end up some shitacular God of War clone that lacks all style and panache, just like GoW.

>>54749240

>foreign devils can never hold up to glorious nippon!

DMC remake proved this to be wrong, also fuck off.

>>54745571

Sounds fine to me. You don't need an overly flowerly name, so the name you got sounded fine.

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>>54750325
>Donte
>good
>compared to anything, let alone real Dante

I know it's bait but fuck you got me.

>>54750404
I dunno, man, the consensus these days seems more that the CHARACTER was shit, but the gameplay was more or less fine.

>>54750777
Is it really? Jesus, then the consensus is laughably wrong. The gating of enemies by colour was a huge impediment to keeping awesome combos going. The point of Devil May Cry was never just defeating enemies but styling on them as hard as possible.

so as a thing to chat about, have there ever been characters that you wanted to stat out in exalted? For example I have always wanted to stat Madera uchiha or karna

>>54754468

Characters, no, because I detest that kind of thing. Powers, though? Yes. Give me that sharingan bullshit, Kenshiro atatatataata's, kamehameha's and hadoken's, instant hell murder's, etc.

>>54754660
Wait yea, powers do sound way cooler

>>54754468
Characters have the issue of having a ton of abilities that rarely fall under a single splat which means you have to create weird setups involve tons of Sorcery, a brand new Martial Art or things like that. So you typically can only get an approximation of the character you're trying to adapt.

As >>54754660 said, powers are much simpler because you can then find which splat they'd fit into then build your character around that. Which prevents people from just making straight expys.

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>>54754468
>>54754660

I've been wondering how to stat out The One Ring for a while now, but I've come up with a question for artefacts in general. How much plot importance should an artefact that a player creates have?

The core says "Any character coming into possession of such an item will be defined as much by ownership of it as by any other element of his personality or legend, and as such, five-dot Artifacts may only be purchased with explicit Storyteller approval." Which seems appropriate for The One Ring, but a Twilight could make several such artefacts and keep them for himself. How do you give those things narrative weight?

>>54755361
I'm always a fan of sibling artifacts don't play nice with each other. like they dull each other when used by the same person or call to each other. having them apply an intimacy of greed towards them that gets stronger the more there are could also work, like the headbands in afro samurai

>>54749240

While that would be very good for combat focused games, what about narrative and character driven stories based around socializing?

>>54755649

Not gonna happen. An Exalted videogame would pretty much have to be some crazy actionfest with cutscenes for story.

>>54710937
If the combat system forced you to only ever be mono-focused combat monster who only solves every challenge he faces with murder just to be able to function, I'd consider that a shitty combat system.

>>54755768

In that case you'd have to be a Dawn, or a similar caste of another Exaltation type. I can imagine a Twilight NPC being the guy who upgrades your weapons and armor for you.

>>54755649
Unless you like David Cage-style games, I don't see this happening. Stories in Exalted are so predicated upon player agency (including subverting that agency being a mechanic) that a video game couldn't accommodate the kind of choice it would need to really make that agency matter. In any medium other than video games, I'd agree that giving stories of other Castes is great, but not video games.

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>>54755995

Now that I think about it, the heavily social games of the last decade don't seem to seem up to the fluff. Asura's Wrath doesn't have the same kind of charm in my head if you just talk everyone down.

Speaking of alternatives to Dawn castes, could you make a good game with a Night? What are some good examples? Assassin's Creed immediately springs to mind, but none of the characters immediately jump out as Solars. What about Dishonored? The Outsider could be a Bloody Hand, one of the gods who oversee, but not commit, murder.

>>54756119
>What are some good examples? Assassin's Creed immediately springs to mind

You said good examples, not fucking garbage Anon. Jesus Christ, those games are so bad they physically hurt.

Anyway, the Metal Gear Solid series should be the most obvious example of Night Castes running amok.

>>54756834
>Metal Gear Solid

When lambasting another person's opinions, anon, one should be careful not to reveal how pleb tier oneself is.

>>54731084
Sunlight is thicker than blood.

>>54757689
>pleb tier
>MGS

Stop having terrible taste. Next you'll tell me Splinter Cell is a good series.

>>54756119
Tenchu.

>>54662148
>Clearly some inspiration going on here, but I wouldn't say it's similar enough to count as plagiarism.
that is clearly copied
I'm too lazy to photoshop it (maybe another anon will), but the image is just flipped. With some minor MINOR edits.

>>54759216

Even if it wasn't traced it is clearly copied.

>>54758655
>Next you'll tell me Splinter Cell is a good series.
I unironically enjoyed Chaos Theory when it came out. A lot. There's nothing wrong with finding something fun, Anon.

>>54760017
y'all niggas need to learn the gospel of indie. play mark of the ninja

>>54760898
I have. It didn't lessen my enjoyment of previous games.

So speaking of Nightcastes, a lot of the Stealth tree seems to assume that you're going to be running around doling out the silent takedowns. As a Solar who doesn't want to cause unnecessary harm to anyone, more of a trickster styled character, what are some good supporting charms/ trees to look at?

How are artifacts made?