General Exalted Discussion XVI: Chej Kejak, Pokegod Trainer!

[TheCountAlucard]

I do consider Samurai Jack to be a perfect example of a Dawn Caste Solar.

Dawn fits best, but he could also be a good Zenith (his ability to persuade and lead, plus his outdoorsiness and an obviously high Integrity and Resistance), Eclipse (he does an awful lot of traveling and taking in other cultures), or even Night (an obviously high Athletics and Dodge, plus occasional sneakiness) could be made workable.

But yeah, Dawn fits best.

[HalfTangible]

Edition of Cascading Years gets my vote as well.

[Morty]

Dawn fits best, but he could also be a good Zenith (his ability to persuade and lead, plus his outdoorsiness and an obviously high Integrity and Resistance), Eclipse (he does an awful lot of traveling and taking in other cultures), or even Night (an obviously high Athletics and Dodge, plus occasional sneakiness) could be made workable.

But yeah, Dawn fits best.

Most inspirations for Exalted will fit more than one caste. Or more than one Exalt type, even (some could be mortals or semi-mortals too). I treat Jack as a Dawn because at the end of the day, his most distinctive and defining skill are his supreme combat abilities. He has others, but he's a warrior first and foremost.

[Rater202]

Or more than one Exalt type, even

Sun Wukong gets used as Lunar inspiration a lot, just because he's an animal man with shape shifting powers, though if you actually read Journey to the West, he's clearly a Solar of some kind(with Martial Arts and Sorcery, since his transformations were spells taught to him)

His Staff if clearly an artifact weapon with Evocations related to it's changing of size and shape, and Wukong's immortality is a result of several Exalted type events that together contribute to an accidental sorcerous working...

Or you could just make a Monkey Totem Lunar martial Artist with a high starting heart's blood pool, if you don't want to be that close to the original inspiration.

[Weimann]

If there's only one place where 'Death of the Author' applies, it's tabletop roleplaying games.

I don't care what the devs think.

Really? I'd say it's the other way around. RPG books straddle a very interesting line between fiction and non-fiction: on the one hand, it's clearly about made-up stories and worlds, but the books themselves don't convey the stories. Instead, they convey instructions for telling the stories, and those instructions are intended to be followed according to the author's idea when they wrote them. We do expect and are prepared for the author to tell us how our characters function, and at least in a game such as Exalted, that also translates into what they are like to some extent. That makes it harder, not easier, to disregard questions about the intent of the author.

Of course, there is some slippage in terms here. "Death of the author" is not a term developed for the type of interactive fiction that RPGs produce. It's a term used with regards to the effect a text has on a reader, in terms of perception and interpretation, rather than the effect a text has on the world as outwritten.

Note, I'm not saying you shouldn't ignore stuff you don't like in RPGs. But I think there must be some distinction made between the books as text and the way they're translated into played out sessions, and also between the impact the text has on a reader when read in a traditional sense and the impact the text has on a played out session. So I'm sceptical of proposition that "death of the author" is specifically applicable to RPGs.

[HalfTangible]

Really? I'd say it's the other way around. RPG books straddle a very interesting line between fiction and non-fiction: on the one hand, it's clearly about made-up stories and worlds, but the books themselves don't convey the stories. Instead, they convey instructions for telling the stories, and those instructions are intended to be followed according to the author's idea when they wrote them. We do expect and are prepared for the author to tell us how our characters function, and at least in a game such as Exalted, that also translates into what they are like to some extent. That makes it harder, not easier, to disregard questions about the intent of the author.

Of course, there is some slippage in terms here. "Death of the author" is not a term developed for the type of interactive fiction that RPGs produce. It's a term used with regards to the effect a text has on a reader, in terms of perception and interpretation, rather than the effect a text has on the world as outwritten.

Note, I'm not saying you shouldn't ignore stuff you don't like in RPGs. But I think there must be some distinction made between the books as text and the way they're translated into played out sessions, and also between the impact the text has on a reader when read in a traditional sense and the impact the text has on a played out session. So I'm sceptical of proposition that "death of the author" is specifically applicable to RPGs.

"Death of the author" as I understand it means 'the author's interpretation of the story is no more or less valid than any readers'. Most rpgs include some variant of 'The DM is the final arbiter' and are designed such that ultimately the players can play how they choose.

So... Yes, really.

[ChaosArchon]

"Death of the author" as I understand it means 'the author's interpretation of the story is no more or less valid than any readers'. Most rpgs include some variant of 'The DM is the final arbiter' and are designed such that ultimately the players can play how they choose.

So... Yes, really.

Yeah in fact aren't most of the secrets in Exalted up to the ST? I think that's why they leave out a majority of the yozi's fetch souls, the names of some of the deathlords & neverborn, etc.

[TimeWizard]

It's also why each faction's book is deliberately written with a strong pro-faction bias: they are telling their own story, cherry picking the bits that serve their narrative, and framing events the way they want them to be understood in universe. It makes it easier to say "X didn't really happen like that" when there's 2 or 3 competing claims spead out through lore.

[HalfTangible]

It's also why each faction's book is deliberately written with a strong pro-faction bias: they are telling their own story, cherry picking the bits that serve their narrative, and framing events the way they want them to be understood in universe. It makes it easier to say "X didn't really happen like that" when there's 2 or 3 competing claims spead out through lore.

Unless you're 2e Lunars.

YES I'M STILL TICKED ABOUT THAT

[TimeWizard]

Unless you're 2e Lunars.

YES I'M STILL TICKED ABOUT THAT

As well you should be.

New thread is up here: General Exalted Discussion XVII: Edition of Cascading Years.

I'm probably going to swap out the 2e picture with something 3e.