Exalted: what's the big friggin' deal?

[DanMcS]

So instead of starting the campaign at 1st lvl you start at 10th. The more folk talk about Exalted the more it sounds exactly like a high level-Epic level D&D game. Whatever floats your boat oi, but I'm intrigued to at least take a look now, cool.

That soudns right. I'd call starting Exalted roughly 10th-15th level D&D with gestalt characters (from Unearthed Arcana).

I like the setting and the campaign background; the mechanics irk me a little.

 

[Apok]

That soudns right. I'd call starting Exalted roughly 10th-15th level D&D with gestalt characters (from Unearthed Arcana).

I like the setting and the campaign background; the mechanics irk me a little.

Yeah, the mechanics are a bit sloppy. They work ok for the most part, but given the fact that you will eventually be dealing with very large dicepools (25+ dice) things tend to slow down very quickly.

 

[Acid_crash]

Ya know, all of you are comparing D&D and Exalted, and it's like comparing Apples to Oranges...they are too different and opposite to compare in such a way.

Exalted is very much in a league of it's own. Yeah, you make a character who might be anywhere from 12 to 60, and get the powers of a demi-god right off the bat...but yet you are Anathema and 98% of the people in Creation will distrust you just because of that power. Not only that, but you gotta remember that Exalted are fueled by Essence, and once an Exalted uses up all his Essence points, then he's just a high powered mortal and can be taken down by just about anybody. The Exalted has to be careful of how he uses his powers, and with this great power comes great responsibility. The Exalted has the power to truly change the world, even from moment one when the Unconquered Sun blesses (curses) the person with his essence.

Not only do most mortals distrust you, but there are four other kind of Exalted in the world, probably the most dangerous being Abyssals as polar opposites of the Solars, and the Dragon-Blooded having massive numbers of the young Solar that you would play.

And let's not forget that each Solar Exalted has a curse within his soul, and every so often this curse takes over and the Solar acts in ways that make our hated criminals feel like angels...when playing a Solar Exalted, you learn to be a very careful individual, and you don't go around showing off your powers whenever you feel like it because that will end in a very quick and painful death.

In D&D you roll your dice, pick your class, race, equipment, feat, skills, and good to go in 30 minutes, go hack your way into a few dungeons, maybe roleplay a bit in a city, kill some monsters, and gain XP. AND I don't really get many opportunities to really see my character change the world the way I do in Exalted.

And if people want to compare players and fans of games all I can say is the number of times I have spoken to D&D/d20 gamers who feel that anything not D&D is a waste of time, not worth playing, and the number of times I have heard the excuse "I don't have the time to learn another game system," is just pathetic...and the majority of gamers who use this lame excuse are D&D/d20 players who feel that the game is beneath them.

I mean, if a person doesn't have time to take an hour to learn another game system, then how in the world did they have the time to learn the one they are playing in the first place?

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

By comparison, from what I have read, an Exalted character would start at the perfect level for a "lesser" Amber character. They would have power and ability, would be able to make changes but there are others out there more powerful that they can't piss off.

Well, there are a couple of beings a smart starting Solar shouldn't piss off - Yozis (Demon Lords), Deathlords, and a some of the more powerful gods. But this being Exalted, they will piss them off anyway, fight off hordes of their minions, and finally find something these beings might be vulnerable to and vanquish them in an epic battle...

One of the frequent suggestions for a campaign is "overthrowing Heaven" (there is an awful lot of corruption Up There - and the main gods are all addicted to a game). And the standard reply to this isn't: "You can't - these beings are too powerful", but "Hey, this is cool!"

There is no such thing as "over-the-top" in Exalted...

 

[Victim]

In D&D you roll your dice, pick your class, race, equipment, feat, skills, and good to go in 30 minutes, go hack your way into a few dungeons, maybe roleplay a bit in a city, kill some monsters, and gain XP. AND I don't really get many opportunities to really see my character change the world the way I do in Exalted.

Then maybe you're doing it wrong. In Exalted, someone could run a dungeon crawl game based around exploring 5 tombs in Nexus - a hack through monsters in dungeons then roleplay in the city game. Or you can have a DnD wizard specializing in anti-army magic on the run from other kingdoms.

 

[reutbing0]

Then maybe you're doing it wrong. In Exalted, someone could run a dungeon crawl game based around exploring 5 tombs in Nexus - a hack through monsters in dungeons then roleplay in the city game. Or you can have a DnD wizard specializing in anti-army magic on the run from other kingdoms.

Of course, you could do all of those things in Exalted and you could do alll of those things in D&D as well. The thing is, as they are designed, they are meant to deliver significantly different gameplay eperiences. Now, I love both of these games, but I do feel they are trying to do very different things. The 3rd edition tag-line was "Back to the Dungeon", and this assumption that people will spend the largest part of their adventuring career in a dungeon is quite clear in the dungeon. Sure, other gameplay possibillities are pointed out but the emphasis is on killing things and taking their stuff (and I do mean this in a good way). I love a nice and gritty dungeon crawl and D&D does this the best. Furthermore, the D&D ruleset is broad and flexible enough to have a realm of other possibillities (and of course you don't need rules to have a good plot and good roleplaying in your game).

Exalted on the other hand has as its core design ethos something like "Stylish Epic Melodrama". It's not about what is better (like I said I love both of these games), but I do think they lead to different kinds of games. In Exalted you won't find tactical combat with battlemaps. Rather, you'll find over the top martial artists, huge daiklaves, stunts and things that go boom, all in a very stylized cinematic fashion.

Of course a GM could (and probably should) bend these 'rules' to tailor the gameplay experience to what he/she and the group want. Still if I set out to do an Epic Wuxia-campaign I'll reach for my exalted books, and if I want to run "To save the kingdom you will have to regain this ancient artifact from the dragons' lair" I'll grab my D&D books.

 

[Staffan]

Exalted is very much in a league of it's own. Yeah, you make a character who might be anywhere from 12 to 60, and get the powers of a demi-god right off the bat...but yet you are Anathema and 98% of the people in Creation will distrust you just because of that power.

98% is a bit harsh. Most of the Threshold (reasonably civilized part of the world, but outside the most powerful nation) is not following the Immaculate Philosophy, so they don't have that religious baggage. This is especially true in the Scavenger Lands, which is the part that's somewhat pushed as the best place to play (about as much as the Dalelands are pushed in the FRCS). Sure, people are wary about the Exalted, but that's mostly because they're frickin' powerful, not because they're demonic.

 

[NCSUCodeMonkey]

Exalted is similiar to D&D, just with the power and flashiness level cranked up to about 11.

Exalted. It goes to 11

 

[MerakSpielman]

The reason some people like Exalted is because different people dig different things.

 

[Atom Again]

I mean, if a person doesn't have time to take an hour to learn another game system, then how in the world did they have the time to learn the one they are playing in the first place?

Well, if it only took an hour to learn a new RPG, I might agree with you, but we're not talking about RISK here. I didn't learn D&D in an hour, and I certainly wouldn't be able to master Exalted in that time either.