General Exalted Discussion XVII: Edition of Cascading Years

[TheCountAlucard]

The Black and White Treatises (don't let the name fool you, they're one book) are good in that sorcery and necromancy aren't all that broken or anything, they're what they are meant to accomplish.

Not exactly; White and Black Treatises didn't pay all that much attention to Keywords, for instance, and lots of the spells - particularly necromancy - were pretty unbalanced (Shattering Void Mirror, whatever one that let you shape cubic miles of Labyrinth), arbitrarily-single-use (Birth of Sanity's Sorrow and Rune of Singular Hate), or trods over the feel of the game (such as the temporary-resurrection spells in necromancy, Imbue Amalgam, and of course, Black Faith).

Oadenol's Codex is widely considered non-horrible for its treatment of artifacts as well, artifacts.

Also less-great for having a sprawling section on using the miracles of Thaumaturgy to make glue and breed horses, as well as the Dragon's Nest manse power, which contributed to the largely-2e-centric mindset of "optimizing" by rounding up Dragon-Blooded in manses and breeding them.

Both Rolls of Glorious Divinity are good, they accomplish wheat they are meant to with spirits.

Disagreeing here; Games of Divinity at least was smart enough to put gods, elementals, and demons together in the same book, where with the RoGD's, you had to look up a demon in one, and then consult an entirely different book to learn how it worked.

Also Arcanoi weren't exactly great either. Has anyone run a heroic ghost game yet? As far as I recall, I haven't seen any.

Some of the Compass of Terrestrial Directions books, which were devoted to describing parts of the setting, were pretty good: I'm fond of the books devoted to West and South myself…

The CoTD series basically took Scavenger Sons and broke it into five books, seizing choice bits from Bastions of the North, Blood and Salt, and Houses of the Bull God to further fill space.

and a lot of people seem to think North was good too (I was lukewarm on that one).

It actually had the balls to add a couple of new things (we can thank Eric Minton and Stephen Lea Sheppard for that!), such as Karn, the Saltspire League, and the Deshan slave-states.

I'm not saying that every apple in 2e's basket is rotten, but even most of the good ones are pretty bruised.

[The_Snark]

Not exactly; White and Black Treatises didn't pay all that much attention to Keywords, for instance, and lots of the spells - particularly necromancy - were pretty unbalanced (Shattering Void Mirror, whatever one that let you shape cubic miles of Labyrinth), arbitrarily-single-use (Birth of Sanity's Sorrow and Rune of Singular Hate), or trods over the feel of the game (such as the temporary-resurrection spells in necromancy, Imbue Amalgam, and of course, Black Faith).

Imbue Amalgam was totally broken, along with several others (my favorite example is Bone Puppet Dance), but I'm kind of baffled at the assertion that the staving-off-death spells don't fit the feel of necromancy in Exalted. Isn't that... exactly how that should work in Exalted? Mustering immense power in an ultimately futile attempt to turn back time and recover someone from the dead? You can get a result, but it's not the one you really wanted.

I kind of liked Black Faith myself. I don't think anyone ever got much use out of it, but it was cool. I suppose we have different ideas about how the game is supposed to feel.

Also Arcanoi weren't exactly great either. Has anyone run a heroic ghost game yet? As far as I recall, I haven't seen any.

I briefly played the ghost of a Lunar elder in a Lunar game once; the Arcanoi rules are pretty miserable for PC purposes. Arbitrary and painful Virtue requirements, critical abilities (like having some ability to manifest/communicate with Creation) locked behind long chains of prerequisites, and generally uninspired mechanics. I don't think it'd be much fun to try building NPC ghosts with them, either.

[Guancyto]

I briefly played the ghost of a Lunar elder in a Lunar game once; the Arcanoi rules are pretty miserable for PC purposes. Arbitrary and painful Virtue requirements, critical abilities (like having some ability to manifest/communicate with Creation) locked behind long chains of prerequisites, and generally uninspired mechanics. I don't think it'd be much fun to try building NPC ghosts with them, either.

Tried to build a proper ghost king with the Arcanoi rules one time. Actual combat charms (not even the "don't evaporate into ectoplasmic bits at the sight of a starting Exalt," but "do things better than a God-Blood") are kind of a "you must be this tainted by Oblivion to ride," as the only really worthwhile ones are the Nephwrack tree.

Wound up throwing it out and making stuff up. 3e didn't really change the need to do this much at all, they just made it explicit.

Yes: Exalted 3rd Edition and Miracles of the Solar Exalted.

Oh man, remember that book they released last year?

If only we could recommend sourcebooks and use the plural (no, a silly charm pdf does not count).

[Lord Raziere]

Oh man, remember that book they released last year?

If only we could recommend sourcebooks and use the plural (no, a silly charm pdf does not count).

Yeah, they really did bite off more than they can chew. At this point, I think its pretty clear that whatever they're aiming for is a bit too high of a target for a fanbase that last time I checked, never really agreed on what that target was, how much mechanics that target involves, that even when they achieve that target they tick off a lot of people in doing so, after waiting really long for any of hitting that target to come to fruition.

not to mention the Exalted Heartbreakers that are beginning to pop up and upstaging the glacial pace of which these things come out. remember when the DB book was supposed to come out a few months or so after the Corebook? Yeah, where did that go?

I just came to check, and apparently its still not here. I'm giving up any hope of any of the new splats coming out by now. if its really taking them this long just to get out any content at all, forget it. narrative systems all the way, I'll just come up with whatever I want for the Getimians and Liminals....if I ever get to play an Exalted game at all.....I'm beginning to think pigs will fly before that happens.

[Milo v3]

Note: Dragon-Blooded and the Realm are still only in their second draft, which is step 3 of 10, and Arms of the Chosen is in development, which is step 4 of 10.

Unfortunately, I'm not even willing to GM a game of Exalted 3e until Dragon-Blooded and Arms of the Chosen are out....

[Lord Raziere]

Yeah, I'm pretty much waiting to play 3e until I can play a DB as well, don't get me wrong, I will get the DB book when it comes out, and I'm sure it will eventually, but until then its like....well lets just say they have so many problems getting anything done that I'm not holding my breath and waiting around y'know? I'm a fan of Exalted, but its clear to me that they got so many problems on their end that its like "you sure your a good position to keep this up with this community man?" I mean its admirable and nice of them to keep trying despite all that the community demands of them and still hold themselves to high standards, but its like watching guys fight a losing battle, whatever they do, they can't win, and the longer it takes to produce the basic content, the base stuff needed for the main world, the more its going to get worse for them.

I don't hate them, the dev team, I just think they're like one of those friends who say they're going to get something done, but really you know that your going to check back a month later and they barely made any progress and your just disappointed that they did not follow through on that and prove your expectations wrong y'know? So your just going to smile at them and say "keep at it!" then go away for another month without giving them another thought. Thats where I'm at.

[TheCountAlucard]

Hey, Raziere, I don't wanna be rude, but, y'know, life has ways of getting in the ways of things. I'd appreciate toning down the bitterness.

I just know I'd have a hard time writing anything if my sister died, and it wouldn't exactly make me feel better if the only responses I got online were, "My condolences, now, when's the book coming out?"

And it's not like they're doing this for a living, either - they have to write and edit these books around whatever full-time jobs they're working. Don't tell me you've never had a hard day at work and didn't feel particularly creative when you got home.

[Recaiden]

But...they are doing this for a living? They get paid, they sell the books. It doesn't matter if it's their second job or not.

[HalfTangible]

Hey, Raziere, I don't wanna be rude, but, y'know, life has ways of getting in the ways of things. I'd appreciate toning down the bitterness.

I just know I'd have a hard time writing anything if my sister died, and it wouldn't exactly make me feel better if the only responses I got online were, "My condolences, now, when's the book coming out?"

And it's not like they're doing this for a living, either - they have to write and edit these books around whatever full-time jobs they're working. Don't tell me you've never had a hard day at work and didn't feel particularly creative when you got home.

Count, Exalted 3e's corebook was years late. Years.

Frankly I don't think you or Raziere are mad enough about this crap because nothing they've put forward can excuse a delay of that magnitude.

And no, I don't care if you have a bad day. If you get paid to do a job in advance, you do it in as timely a fashion as you can. If your other job eats up enough of your time that you can't do your second, then get out.

I'm sorry if I'm coming across as hostile and/or harsh but frankly that's how jobs work. If I pay you money and you promise to get it done, I expect it to get done and will not trust you if it doesn't.

[Lord Raziere]

Yeeeeaaah, HalfTangible just bluntly stated what I was just trying to get across softly without hurting feelings.

at some point its like "your really cutting them this much slack?" I'm not bitter, alucard. I'm past hard feelings like that. Its just that I wish this gameline wasn't plagued by problems like this, and given that they clearly are, its just not practical to keep cutting them so much slack when they've made so many promises and had so many delays just from getting the corebook out, then promise to get other stuff out faster but still haven't, its like yes, I believe your trying, yes, I know you have lots of problems, but when you say you can do a thing but clearly its taking your far longer your supposed to, when other people in the same company are doing stuff and not taking nearly as long, at some point you just got to say "I don't think you guys can actually do this thing you say you can do in the amount of time you think you can do it". Its not supposed to be mean, just a statement of "um, guys? Maybe you should rethink this?"

I'll eat my words when their books actually come out. Ok? I'm not demanding it tomorrow, or next week, or next month. I'll allow them to take as much time as they want, I'll sit back and wait however long it takes, and I'll gladly purchase the stuff when it actually comes.

But until it actually comes.... 🤷¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Grod_The_Giant]

So, since 1e apparently has all the good sourcebooks... how are the actual mechanics, compared to 2e and 3e? Like, I've played the latter two, and I've heard a crapton more about the fundamental design problems in 2e, but how was 1e?

[SaurOps]

So, since 1e apparently has all the good sourcebooks... how are the actual mechanics, compared to 2e and 3e? Like, I've played the latter two, and I've heard a crapton more about the fundamental design problems in 2e, but how was 1e?

Admittedly somewhat clunky, but 1e didn't allow you to spam perfect defenses, even when power combat showed up in the player's guide, introduced a lot of 2e stuff, and basically upped the lethality to a ridiculous degree (Essence ping and inflated weapon damage both date from here, though the goremaul and grand goremaul did far less damage). There was a rule in power combat meant to prevent people from trying to race to initiative 0 for various mechanical benefits, but it ended up screwing over anyone who had to delay their action, which was how a lot of earlier defensive Charms worked.

Mail and Steel, the mass combat rules, were unfortunately similar to the ones in 2e, but since War wasn't an Ability, it leaned heavily on Performance; tactics and such were also crammed into Craft in the badly-named concentration Craft (War).

Right from the base, rolling a single d10 and adding it to your Dex + Wits is pretty odd for Initiative order, too. All in all, thinking about the matter makes me feel all the better at how EX3 uses Initiative.

You'll also hear people talk about how Lunars were terrible. They just aren't looking in the right place, but admittedly, it is quite perplexing that one would have to look for them in Exalted: the Autochthonians.

(Fake laugh hiding real pain)

[golentan]

I honestly don't get a lot of the 2e hate.

I mean, 3e is really good so far, but 2e wasn't... bad by any stretch to my mind. I'm currently running a 2e dragonblood game (errata in effect) in concert with my group's 3e solar game, and we're having fun with both.

The main problem with 2e dragonbloods was inartful drafting in the charms chapter, but in practice they play pretty well with only a little tweaking, and MoEP: Dragon-Blooded and Compass of Celestial Directions: The Blessed Isle are two of my favorite books to recommend for people to pick up (in part because terrestrials are a valuable addition to any game, as allies and enemies if not as PCs).

And yeah, the system was breakable, but so is pretty much every game system I've looked at which requires more than a 5 page rulebook (and tends to get way more breakable the more sourcebooks you add, which isn't a problem with the idea of sourcebooks, but rather just that more rules interactions equals more opportunity to find unintended combos), the fundamental agreement between players and gms should always been "you don't try to break my game, and I'll help make sure you have fun with your characters." An attitude I picked up with my first game (an old Star Wars system I played when I was about 6 years old) and which has not failed me in moves through DnD, Exalted, Shadowrun, Traveller, and others.

[Qwertystop]

And yeah, the system was breakable, but so is pretty much every game system I've looked at which requires more than a 5 page rulebook (and tends to get way more breakable the more sourcebooks you add, which isn't a problem with the idea of sourcebooks, but rather just that more rules interactions equals more opportunity to find unintended combos), the fundamental agreement between players and gms should always been "you don't try to break my game, and I'll help make sure you have fun with your characters." An attitude I picked up with my first game (an old Star Wars system I played when I was about 6 years old) and which has not failed me in moves through DnD, Exalted, Shadowrun, Traveller, and others.

Agreed there. However, some things break much more easily than others, and require much less in the way of unintuitive jumps. Disclaimer: I don't have any experience in actually playing Exalted in any edition (all the PbPs died, and the only in-person game I played degenerated to freeform extremely quickly since nobody else had actually read the rules and I was fuzzy on them). That said, I gather that the biggest problems with Exalted combat sort of emerge naturally from the combat mechanics without needing any particular effort invested in breaking things?

Health-levels and wound-penalties, plus the tuning of the specific numbers involved, make combat extremely dangerous and lethal.

I want to not die, so that means I need good defenses.

The best defenses are PDs. I should get some of those.

Most opponents powerful enough to be a threat know all of the above, and will have their own PDs.

How do I win, when both of us can refuse to be hurt by anything threatening enough to bother?

Either take advantage of their Flaws of Invulnerability, or run them out of motes before doing so myself. Or avoid looking like a threat and get a surprise attack.

Oh, wait, I also need surprise negators. They will have the same.

Okay, so Flaws or mote-tapping.

Flaws are situational. Motes are a constant. Look for a chance to use flaws, but plan around motes because there might not be any way to exploit a Flaw.

And so, combat naturally flows towards mote-tapping with very little intent to abuse the rules, or even to optimize particularly. All of that makes plenty of sense in-character for any Essence-user who's expecting to fight any other Essence-user.

Same goes for any initiative races - it's better to act before your opponent than after, and better to be able to do more things than them in the same amount of time. I don't even need to touch the rules there - any rules that make it possible to speed yourself up or slow your opponent down will lead to initiative races unless the cost of doing that is comparable to or greater than the benefit of going first.

If I misunderstand how the rules work, or what 2e's major problems are, please correct me.

[Failed Phantasm]

I honestly don't get a lot of the 2e hate.

I don't either. I mean, I've often heard/read the sentiment that one generally likes 2e in spite of its mechanics rather than because of them, and that's a criticism I understand. Personally, I've have little-to-no experience with anything but rules-heavy systems ([A]D&D from 2e on, Shadowrun from 3e on, GURPS 4e, oWoD's Big 3 splats from 2e on) so I realize my tolerance for incomprehensible mechanical snarls is maybe a bit atypical. But it seems most of the developer and fan commentary on their dislike of 2e revolves around everything but the mechanics, sometimes to the point of condescension, and that hasn't really motivated me to make the move to 3e. Dare I say that I liked a lot of the 2e material anyway? I can't say it ever failed to spark my imagination.

At this point, I'm just waiting to see Abyssals and Lunar Fluff v3.0.1, whenever their splatbooks get around to being made, before making up my mind.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Count, Exalted 3e's corebook was years late. Years.

Frankly I don't think you or Raziere are mad enough about this crap because nothing they've put forward can excuse a delay of that magnitude.

And no, I don't care if you have a bad day. If you get paid to do a job in advance, you do it in as timely a fashion as you can. If your other job eats up enough of your time that you can't do your second, then get out.

I'm sorry if I'm coming across as hostile and/or harsh but frankly that's how jobs work. If I pay you money and you promise to get it done, I expect it to get done and will not trust you if it doesn't.

Don't pre-order or buy something that relies on something unfinished, and be done with it.

There's a game called Exalted 2e that's right over there.

[golentan]

~snip for length~

Well, my experience has been that Combat is Lethal tends to apply for extras more than anyone else, and that the goal of "I should kill my major opponent by the end of this scene," wasn't usually applicable, which plays into why I love the dragonblooded book so much.

So, let's say you're playing a combat oriented campaign, which in itself is an assumption as to the breakability of the campaign. You probably don't need surprise negators unless you talk about it with the ST and agree that they're necessary, for the same reason that in DnD you don't need protection from scry and die tactics (if they're part of the assumption, roll with it, if not, don't, if you start escalating expect your surviving opponents to do so as well).

Hardness prevents you from having to worry about small fry to begin with, so it's mainly characters who are capable of Death or Glory attacks which matter in terms of actually taking damage, and Death or Glory tends to be well telegraphed by a combination of weapon, anima flare/stunts, and combat transparency questions. Initiative races tend to fall in one of three categories: Slow and Heavy Striking (every attack with a Grand Goremaul or the equivalent is death or glory, overcoming hardness and soak by default but lacking in terms of speed and flurry capability, locking you into long periods without DV refresh and forcing you to rely on charms), Fast and Light (using light weapons or double weapons often prevents you from overcoming hardness without charm use, but lets you control when and were you're attacking and sets you up to drag down a foe's DVs for a future Death or Glory), or nova (using a Grand Goremaul with a multiple action charm can very quickly tap your ability to spend motes, allowing you to quickly smash a deathknight into oblivion but leaving you vulnerable to get devoured by her ghost army/circlemates while your DV is waiting to refresh and you are low on motes, or her herself if she has the power to perfect).

So, in a typical combat scene, a battle will start, you'll munch some extras, show off your awesome powers by tossing a war machine at a target, if there are intermediate level foes present you'll have to strain a bit and dip into your motes to Perfect a few effects, but they can't really do the same so sooner or later you'll get lucky or use a perfect attack and slice them up. Any major antagonists (elder essence dragonblooded or any celestial for most campaigns) will show up, you'll cross blades a few times while exchanging banter/taunts, and as your characters begin to get tired one or both sides will be forced to fall back. Valor Primary characters will roll for limit on the retreating side(s), and if you feel confident about your ability to end this for good you'll give chase, keeping the pressure up and killing the opponent when they limit break and refuse to run any more, run out of motes/health levels, force them into a Virtue Flaw situation, or your characters grow exhausted and give up the pursuit. Otherwise, both sides retreat to lick their wounds and a recurring antagonist gets a little more characterization.

Think of it in terms of Keychain of Creation. Lots of combat happens with various antagonists, but it's not really aimed at permadeath, it's aimed at achieving a specific objective (secure this artifact, drive the undead from the town, etc.)

If you're treating every fight as a fight to the death, something's gone wrong somewhere. Death is for extras and mid level flunkies, and there should usually be plenty of both (depending on the campaign, you can use Dragonbloods, ghosts/demons/gods, raksha, or even behemoths as flunkies, and you can use mortals through gods et al as extras). Actually, it's one of the things I like about 3e that you can fight to the bitter end, then still retreat (the rules which allow a crippling injury in place of death are really good for an Antagonist Exit Stage Right). And when you DO finally put down the Recurring Antagonist, it makes it all the sweeter.

[HalfTangible]

Don't pre-order or buy something that relies on something unfinished, and be done with it.

There's a game called Exalted 2e that's right over there.

When Exalted 3e was first announced I had more money than good sense.

[TheCountAlucard]

But...they are doing this for a living?

No, when you "do [x] for a living," that means you "get enough money from doing [x] to live off of."

[Ronnoc]

Yeah I'm still gm-ing a second edition game and while the mechanics are clunky they're servicible if you have a decent group (everyone agrees not to cheese ahead of time) and you're willing to put a little homebrew in occasionally.

As a result despite 3e's combat working smoother my group and I aren't willing to touch it until it get's more splats. It's really hard to run exalted anywhere near the realm without having hard rules for dragonblooded. Personally I'd wait until they have at least DBs Lunars and Sidereals

[Ifni]

Yeah - also some of the people complaining about 2e seem to be complaining about original 2e, not 2e-post-errata. The errata did actually do quite a bit to fix the "combat is a matter of spamming cheap perfect defenses" paradigm, by reducing weapon damage, making damage-reducing Charms and effects better, and increasing the price of perfect defenses.

(That said, I played 2e pre-errata for a couple of years, and it was great! But combat was not where most of the story came from, in those games.)

I also liked most of the 2e splatbooks. Yes, maybe they took a lot of material from the 1e splatbooks, and so if you already had the 1e splatbooks they would be disappointing - but I started Exalted with 2e, so I was seeing the nifty setting ideas for the first time in those books, and they were cool. Honestly, the 2e splatbooks have inspired me to far more and far more interesting character ideas than the 3e core; partly this is probably just a matter of "more material", but there are also chunks of the new 3e setting stuff where I go, "Oh, that's neat", but it doesn't furnish any new character ideas.

[SaurOps]

Yeah - also some of the people complaining about 2e seem to be complaining about original 2e, not 2e-post-errata. The errata did actually do quite a bit to fix the "combat is a matter of spamming cheap perfect defenses" paradigm, by reducing weapon damage, making damage-reducing Charms and effects better, and increasing the price of perfect defenses.

Rolling back a lot of stuff was nice, as was making the cost of Artifact armor reasonable for the first time, but it didn't solve the race to Speed 3 or need to stunt to regain motes.

(That said, I played 2e pre-errata for a couple of years, and it was great! But combat was not where most of the story came from, in those games.)

I also liked most of the 2e splatbooks. Yes, maybe they took a lot of material from the 1e splatbooks, and so if you already had the 1e splatbooks they would be disappointing - but I started Exalted with 2e, so I was seeing the nifty setting ideas for the first time in those books, and they were cool. Honestly, the 2e splatbooks have inspired me to far more and far more interesting character ideas than the 3e core; partly this is probably just a matter of "more material", but there are also chunks of the new 3e setting stuff where I go, "Oh, that's neat", but it doesn't furnish any new character ideas.

The splatbooks didn't just reprint stuff, they added in a lot of twee overthinking, and shoved First Age and Time of Glory stuff in everyone's face. Sometimes, the two problems were even intertwined, such as the twee detail of Dragon-Blooded doing little else but screwing and training for years on end back when they were first created, or the Aspects being designated lackeys to a given type of Solar. The Lunar factions were also completely nonsensical, and increased focus on the Wyld seriously hurt the splat in every way possible, to say nothing of chimerae as they appeared in 2e and the push to make "real Lunars" into The Thing. And we aren't even getting into the rapiness of Abyssals and first chapter Infernals yet, because we also have to deal with the verbatim copying of Sidereal Charms with few changes in mechanics even where they would be absolutely needed, in addition to distorting their unique Charm structure because no one on staff appeared to care enough about it.

So I do feel perfectly reasonably in saying that you should give anything from that series other than the Alchemicals a miss. Even more so if you're going by the fixes in 2.5e, because Infernals were made to play in the pre-errata environment, and you'll have to do a fair bit of work making them function if you want a combat engine that doesn't fall over on itself when other characters are used.

[Ronnoc]

The splatbooks didn't just reprint stuff, they added in a lot of twee overthinking, and shoved First Age and Time of Glory stuff in everyone's face. Sometimes, the two problems were even intertwined, such as the twee detail of Dragon-Blooded doing little else but screwing and training for years on end back when they were first created, or the Aspects being designated lackeys to a given type of Solar. The Lunar factions were also completely nonsensical, and increased focus on the Wyld seriously hurt the splat in every way possible, to say nothing of chimerae as they appeared in 2e and the push to make "real Lunars" into The Thing. And we aren't even getting into the rapiness of Abyssals and first chapter Infernals yet, because we also have to deal with the verbatim copying of Sidereal Charms with few changes in mechanics even where they would be absolutely needed, in addition to distorting their unique Charm structure because no one on staff appeared to care enough about it.

Whereas I personally enjoy the time of glories stuff and a lot of (though not all of) the first age fluff. I like my infernals and alchemicals somewhat transhuman, my fairfolk slightly meta and my primordials as cosmic statements of I AM.

If I'm dealing with the heights of human glory and hubris writ large I expect it to be industrial, self interested, and posessed of a callous disregard for it's lowest classes because history and several myhs indicate that's what our species does when given time and power to play with.

I'm admittedly not a fan of 2e lunars but so what, there's nothing stopping you from grabbing His Divine Lunar Presence out of Shards establishing him as an elder that had been meditating for millenia and setting him up as the leader of the newly invigorated Lunars. Hell that's basically what third edition did.

I think a lot of the players and sadly most of the current writers forgot the advice of virtually every storyteller chapter in every splatbook. There's a lot of ways to play exalted and if you don't like something just don't use it.

Let's say for example that you don't like the reclamation. It's up to you as a storyteller whether it
a) exists
b) can possibly succeed
c) it can succeed in a reasonable timescale
d) the gods/sidereals are likely to find out about it.

As another example I'm not a fan of RotSE. In my campaign when the Ebon Dragon got his claws on her Sacheverell nearly woke up, the other Yozi's caught onto his plan, and have spent the last few years punting him from one end of Malfeas to the other.

[Guancyto]

Some of the best games I've ever had were 2e. (Meanwhile, have yet to get a 3e game past the first page. sadface...)

And you know what? Probably the best game (period) I've ever had was high-end Exalted, where an invincible dreadnought spear princess and a nascent titan, who have defeated the Mask of Winters and might wind up deciding the Realm Civil War... spend a whole bunch of time fussing over a mortal girl who is having really bad dreams.

2e fluff was ridiculous at times, offensive at others and charmingly naive still others, but I will say this: it wasn't boring, and it was easy to go wherever you wanted with it.

Edit: Actually. Gonna keep talking. Comparisons to Dungeons and Dragons and World of Warcraft will abound.

So, D&D. The Tarrasque is always a thing. Orcus is (generally) a fightable boss. The overwhelming majority of players will never fight Orcus, or encounter the Tarrasque. But there is the knowledge that they exist, and are way too big for your 1st level self, so eat your wheaties and slay your goblins and one day you'll grow big and strong enough to fight him.

It had aspirations. Something you could look up at from your place on the ground and say, "someday, I'm gonna ram a poker right in Orcus' one good eye."

World of Warcraft (in Vanilla also, but particularly in Burning Crusade) had endgame raids that less than 1% of players participated in (Naxxramas, Sunwell). Nonetheless, everyone knew they existed. Heard of people who delved into that mystic land, like people who have their stories of encountering the Tarrasque (I have! At 5th level. It was sleeping. We decided, in lieu of leaving immediately, to crawl across it. DM called us the ballsiest group he'd ever ha. Made my day.) Then the next go around, the developers got tired of making content that so few people were ever going to see, and decided raiding was for everyone. That was fine, really! I got to see Arthas die. But the notion that "there's a wild land just beyond that portal, and I'm nowhere near strong enough to go there... yet" sort of disappeared with the ease of access.

And yeah the Deathlords with gigantic mote pools and all Solar charms were stupid ridiculous and really bad for forum arguments (never really seemed to really make much impact on actual games, though? they were so ridiculous that everyone always wrote around them or made up their own), and the sun as a giant mecha battlestation puppy was stupid ridiculous and really bad for forum arguments (never really seemed to have much impact on actual games, though?)

But by contrast, what is there in the 3e core book that a starting Solar can't beat? (I actually tried Octavian in single combat against a Brawl Solar. Probably not actually the fairest trial...)
What lord or kingdom do the PCs fear or aspire to overthrow, possibly besides the Realm (which got beaten to death in the corebook until it became tiresome)?

Motivation might have been a bad mechanic, but it was something to aspire to. It was baked into the idea that even as a demigod, you had a long way to go to get to the top.

I dunno, maybe the shininess of 3e has worn off after a year and I'm just an old curmudgeon rah rah edition wars, but I can't help but feel it's... just not as inspiring? Is it the nostalgia goggles? It might be the nostalgia goggles.

Edit edit: Random thought, but I think Exalted would really benefit from a fan-made equivalent of D&D modules - a lot of them were/are terrible, but they provided a direction and an upward path where things might otherwise be lacking. Even just an Exalted equivalent of the Red Hand of Doom seems like it would do wonders for the line.

[The_Snark]

I don't either. I mean, I've often heard/read the sentiment that one generally likes 2e in spite of its mechanics rather than because of them, and that's a criticism I understand. Personally, I've have little-to-no experience with anything but rules-heavy systems ([A]D&D from 2e on, Shadowrun from 3e on, GURPS 4e, oWoD's Big 3 splats from 2e on) so I realize my tolerance for incomprehensible mechanical snarls is maybe a bit atypical. But it seems most of the developer and fan commentary on their dislike of 2e revolves around everything but the mechanics, sometimes to the point of condescension, and that hasn't really motivated me to make the move to 3e. Dare I say that I liked a lot of the 2e material anyway? I can't say it ever failed to spark my imagination.

This is a fairly common sentiment among my Exalted-playing acquaintances, actually. Most of us were introduced to the game during 2e's run, and that was the game that originally got us hooked us (warts and all). Some of us have gone and looked up 1e books since, but whether or not we liked them, they weren't our first look at the setting and they don't have the advantage of nostalgia.

Of course, the opposite is true for 1e veterans, which includes (almost?) everybody on the 3e writing team.

I feel like the developers kind of shot themselves in the foot by not realizing this; trying to drum up enthusiasm for your new game by talking about how terrible the old version is... a risky PR move, let's say. Works fine for 1e veterans, and for people who wanted to like 2e but couldn't stand it, but you risk alienating the people who like the game now. Combine that with a very lengthy production time, and some poor/questionable design decisions when it finally did come out, and you haven't got a recipe for overwhelming success - Exalted 3e got a pretty lukewarm reception compared to Mage 2e and comparable Onyx Path products.

[Lord Raziere]

This is a fairly common sentiment among my Exalted-playing acquaintances, actually. Most of us were introduced to the game during 2e's run, and that was the game that originally got us hooked us (warts and all). Some of us have gone and looked up 1e books since, but whether or not we liked them, they weren't our first look at the setting and they don't have the advantage of nostalgia.

Of course, the opposite is true for 1e veterans, which includes (almost?) everybody on the 3e writing team.

I feel like the developers kind of shot themselves in the foot by not realizing this; trying to drum up enthusiasm for your new game by talking about how terrible the old version is... a risky PR move, let's say. Works fine for 1e veterans, and for people who wanted to like 2e but couldn't stand it, but you risk alienating the people who like the game now. Combine that with a very lengthy production time, and some poor/questionable design decisions when it finally did come out, and you haven't got a recipe for overwhelming success - Exalted 3e got a pretty lukewarm reception compared to Mage 2e and comparable Onyx Path products.

.....I think your right, because I'm not a mechanics guy, I don't do any intentional optimization, I like RPG's for their fluff, and generally I only supported any change at all because people said that the mechanics don't work, never experienced any of these mechanics in play myself, and I'm like fine with anything as long the mechanics passably work and I can enjoy what I want to enjoy, I don't want any mechanical nonsense interfering with the fluff I want to play with y'know?

So when they were like talking how horrible 2e was and suddenly like axing all the magitech, and a lot of other stuff that I liked-even though there was a lot of things amongst that stuff that DO deserve to be axed, I will admit- I guess thats where I started disagreeing with them on stuff, because their mechanics don't support what I want to enjoy, so the mechanical stuff is interfering with the stuff I want to enjoy, the fluff I want to enjoy, and I never experienced 1e, was never my thing, only 2e. and while I admit, there is a lot of good stuff in the 3e corebook from a technical objective point of view, and there is a bunch of things in 3e that I want from Exigents to Liminals to Getimians, but personally I never got really play an Alchemical or a Infernal or a Sidereal or even a DB properly, never got to play any Gunstar Autochthonia and between people talking about how horrible the books are and focusing all the games on Solars because various reasons we've gone over dozens of times over, it makes me feel left out of what I wanted out of all this, and the feeling that no one cares and that I will get derided by some people for even wanting the things I want, and sure thats probably not true, but it still feels like its true, and feelings just don't die overnight, at least not always.

and sure maybe 1e is better in some artsy "originally intended" way that I don't understand, but that doesn't help with me playing what I want to play. It never will. I just supported mechanical change because others supported it, then it came with fluff changes that not everyone agrees with, and now I just wish I could play the Exalt types I want to play, even if its just Dragon-Blooded, thats as vanilla as I can get.

[golentan]

~snip~

I agree with a lot of this, but... The thing that my group has found so far with "what must you struggle to overcome" is the answer is always either a fellow Exalt, or a foe who hits you in the weakness you didn't know you had. A brawl focused Dawn caste can wade into physical combat almost without a sense of danger, but still feels the threat when a fellow solar focused in combat begins to push her, especially if the enemy is more experienced and more well rounded. Or when her friend, child, lover, etc. is held at knife point, or a sly spy worms their way into her company and begins manipulating her. Or when their ability to kill a dozen enemies with each breath turns out to be insufficient to save their city from an oncoming army.

I'm hoping as other splats come out, Dragonbloods and Lunars and Primordial Beings will be released who DO have the power to say "I am older than you, wiser than you, stronger than you, and you have much to learn before you can challenge me," because the core book antagonists are... lacking still, and I do like the element of "there's always a bigger fish" from 2e. But you can still do it. Right now, for our non-solar opponents... it requires some homebrew or some fudging, and that's disappointing. But even then, a well timed hit in the unexpected vulnerability has occasionally done wonders, our most satisfying opponent so far was what I can best describe as a Genre savvy mortal with contingency plans.

[Ifni]

I feel like the developers kind of shot themselves in the foot by not realizing this; trying to drum up enthusiasm for your new game by talking about how terrible the old version is... a risky PR move, let's say. Works fine for 1e veterans, and for people who wanted to like 2e but couldn't stand it, but you risk alienating the people who like the game now.

I was facepalming when I saw them start doing this, because I knew from experience with the 3.5->4e transition in D&D that this strategy is absolutely THE MOST efficient way to wreck my enthusiasm for a new version of a game I like. And sure, I'm just one customer, but I don't think I'm the only one who feels this way. I really don't understand why smart people continue to think it's a good marketing strategy.

<snark on>
"So, hey developers, I've bought all your books and I'm playing in multiple campaigns and I just love this game to pieces. So what've you got coming up for me with the new edition?"
"Hello, customer! First let us tell you about how terrible the game you liked was."
"... er. I'm not sure we're on the same page here."
"Don't worry, the new game will be totally different from the one you liked! Also, have I mentioned how terrible the game you liked was, and how only people with terrible taste in games liked it?"
"Since I liked the old game, 'totally different' isn't a strong selling point. Nor is insulting my taste. Also, you also worked on the old game, right?"
"Yeah, our past work was awful. But our new work will be way better! And will have no resemblance to the game you liked. Promise."
<snark off>

I might end up liking 3e in the end - I'm playing/running a couple of 3e games using heavily modified/homebrewed rules, which continue the stories of 2e characters (so using 2e fluff and modified 3e mechanics). And I'm really enthusiastic about those games, and some of that enthusiasm is even related to the mechanics (I am looking forward to playing with the 3e social system, since those games are heading toward major and heavily-foreshadowed social events). But if I end up liking 3e, it will be despite the developers' and fans' attempts to sell me on it by dissing 2e.

Also, re the lack of challenging opponents, I would love to have an Exalted equivalent of the Monster Manual (That is, a whole book full of antagonists, adjusted to different power levels, from "starting Dragon-Bloods" through to "Essence 5 Solars". With guidance on what makes an appropriate/challenging encounter for a Circle around a certain XP level. People complain about the Encounter Level system in 3.5, but for all its deficiencies it's much easier to pull encounters out of the box, over a huge range of power levels, than it is in Exalted.)

[Guancyto]

I would be sorta wary about fantasizing about more official books, on account of... well, release rate? ^^; That's why I said fan-modules. (for what it's worth, the Roll of fan-demons on the old forums was one of my favorite resources.)

One of the reasons I'm a huge fan of Dean Shomshak is because he tends to write his fictional cultures and settings with enough detail that you could just up and use it.

I don't hate them, the dev team, I just think they're like one of those friends who say they're going to get something done, but really you know that you're going to check back a month later and they barely made any progress and you're just disappointed that they did not follow through on that and prove your expectations wrong, y'know? So you're just going to smile at them and say "keep at it!" then go away for another month without giving them another thought. That's where I'm at.

....fffffffffuuu-dge. Didn't notice this before, but.

So I make jokes about the release schedule (a lot), but speaking as "that friend" in general in life, that's... I hadn't really put the pattern together yet. But... stop doing charm previews (writing snippets) when people criticize them. Stop doing splat previews (character bios) when people criticize them. Maintain absolute secrecy about work so no one will see it until it's done and absolute bravado about how good it will be (it will be perfect! PERFECT! Just as soon as no one else has any input into it! The vision in my head is SUBLIME so long as it never has to bear scrutiny!) while being completely absent of details, also so no one will see how little progress it's made. Make up excuses about continually starting over to justify hilariously lugubrious timetable, get in unproductive forum arguments to combat writer's block.

When forced by deadline/exposure/the light of day/phone calls from loved ones to crunch down and work, final product is thoroughly unpolished and overwrought but a solid B-.

My God.

It's like staring at my life from the outside.

...sorry, had a moment there. Anyway! Golen, I would be interested in hearing your tale of the genre savvy mortal, if you'd be interested in telling it.

[Ifni]

I would be sorta wary about fantasizing about more official books, on account of... well, release rate? ^^; That's why I said fan-modules. (for what it's worth, the Roll of fan-demons on the old forums was one of my favorite resources.)

Yeah yeah, it's a fantasy, but I can wish

... and ooh. Is that Roll still around somewhere? (I, um, may still be running a 2.5e game, with antagonists that include spirits...)

When forced by deadline/exposure/the light of day/phone calls from loved ones to crunch down and work, final product is thoroughly unpolished and overwrought but a solid B-.

My God.

It's like staring at my life from the outside.

At least as a player in your games, I think your work is way better than a solid B-. Would like to see what you consider C-grade work more often, as I suspect I would happily call it an A

...sorry, had a moment there. Anyway! Golen, I would be interested in hearing your tale of the genre savvy mortal, if you'd be interested in telling it.

Seconded!