General Exalted Discussion Thread XI: Great Job, You Broke the Scale.

[Devils_Advocate]

So, something that has occurred to me in the course of discussing Exalted.

Dawn, Changing Moon, Chosen of Secrets, etc. are Castes. With Terrestrials having Aspects. And presumably people in Creation call them Castes and Aspects.

Solar, Lunar, Dragon-Blooded, and Sidereal are... splats? That's not what they're called in-setting, is it? I kind of doubt that the inhabitants of Creation refer to their greatest heroes with weird RPG terminology.

"Hosts" maybe? As in "the Solar host", "the Lunar host", and so on?

But there's also higher-level difference between Exalted and gods and Fair Folk and so on. It seems like there would be terms for categories of supernatural beings, akin to how we use "species", "genus", "phylum", etc. to discuss categories of organism.

I'm kind of new to extended discussions about Exalted, and noticed this difference from D&D, where there are actual not-just-weird-RPG-jargon words for splats ("classes" and "races"). But I see the types of Exalt and also Fair Folk and so on repeatedly referred to as "splats", so does Exalted just lack such words?

Because Exalted is kinda... the only game I'm aware of whose splats are just called "splats" because... I guess they just never came up with a proper term for them? Even though it seems such a term should exist? (I'm sure there are probably other games, but I'm not familiar with them.)

You will note I do not hold that view and personally think it is untenable. This isn't GURPS. I was trying to parse what Rikandur Azebol was saying into a more coherent and grammatical way to facilitate discussion of his view without getting hung up on translation issues.

So noted.

Oh, also! I want to note that I actually do kinda dislike the whole "different splats have different XP costs and different numbers of favored Abilities and differently calculated Essence pools and their Excellencies work differently and..." thing that means that means that things that can theory be directly be compared across splats are hidden behind layers upon layers of mathematical obfuscation.

XP costs, for example, strike me as not varying so much that making them the same for everybody would radically change the game. And that way you don't need to write up a new table for each splat.

In fact, the differences in XP costs and number of favored Abilities seem almost to exist mainly to remind you how your non-Solar character is inferior to a Solar, which is what you really should be playing. This is most obvious in a mixed Circle in which the Solar progresses fastest and a Dragon-Blooded slowest, but even in an all Dragon-Blooded game it still serves as a little reminder of how you suck, relatively speaking.

Similarly, it's not clear how it's helpful for Sidereals to get a bunch more points than everyone else at character creation. It's honestly weird to have "starting character" not involve a fixed amount of backstory development.

I think that a lot of players would prefer for less in the way of direct quantifiable differences between splats and more in the way of different types of characters getting to do different types of things such that differences in power are a lot more abstract and even subjective.

I like the options.

Okay, but... Is it that you like having lots of options, or is it more that you dislike others having options you don't get?

Like... I can kind of even imagine that anima power coming about because at some point an Eclipse was like "Waaaah, why do they get stuff that I don't, it's not fair!" and the Unconquered Sun was like "You know what? Fine."

If you make a character who is a (very cliched) loner assassin with a trenchcoat, fluff dictates they're a solar or an abyssal.

WUT.

That's something that a mortal could be. Any type of Exalt could do that and might choose to do that.

If you want to have them assassinate using fate-tricks, people say 'But if she's not an advisor, and she's so self contained, why not a solar?'

How is "Because I liked a bunch of the Sidereal Charms better" not a valid reason for choosing to make this character a Sidereal?

Oh, I absolutely agree. But I've come across 'Shouldn't they be an X?' before.

It's for when you want to express splat Xs themes, but use splat Ys methods.

You could, y'know, just make a non-stereotypical Y.

Seriously, if the other players in your group think that a basic character archetype is limited to one type of Exalt, despite canonical examples to the contrary and despite the general idea that things don't work that way, the potential loss of charmsharing is not the real problem!

Yea…..there are some concepts you can't do with Exalted because the charms are so rigidly focused….when most characters in fiction mix things up a bit and include some DB with their Solar….y'know….mix things up….

Most characters in fiction don't have superpowers, much less combo platter powers!