Sell me on Exalted!

[cignus_pfaccari]

So, I've seen Exalted be out for a while now. One of the last articles I read on Pyramid (before leaving) was sort of an introductory adventure. I've flipped through it in the FNSLGS, but couldn't make heads nor tails of what's going on. I plan on finding a Borders with the main book and sitting down to read it...but until then...

What's up with it? Why's the guy at the FNSLGS think it's so cool? Why do people here think it's so cool?

Brad

 

[Big Bad Bob]

COSMIC FRIKKIN' POWER!

I was a hardcore D&D player, but recently I played my first White Wolf games. I started out playing a short Mage: The Ascension game and then moved into an Exalted game.

Something about the White Wolf system encourages good role-playing for me. The books are far less focused on rules, and are more focused on story, character, and ideas. The system, I feel, can be quite transparent. D&D on the other hand, focuses very heavily on rules, possibly trying to represent role-playing mechanically.

Exalted, being a White Wolf system, has the great role-playing potential of having a relatively transparent system. Add to that the fact that the setting is fantastic, the feel and flavor are wonderful, and the PCs can feel like uber-powerful gods... that is until they realize that they're not. Exalted does an amazing job of making the PCs feel incredibly powerful, and incredibly weak and vulnerable at the same time.

One last thing that I love about Exalted. So many of the skills and magical charms are non-combat related. Combat is important, but non-combat abilities are just as - if not more - important than normal combat skills.

Some examples of Solar Exalted power:
My character used his Majestic Radiant Presence and commanded some mortal enemies to release his friend and submit their lives to him. My display put the fear of the Unconquered Sun into them and they wept and pleaded for death.

A friend of mine used his Craftsman Needs No Tools to keep an army supplied for a week. They'd bring in their damaged weapons, and he would simply stroke the weapon and speak to it, mending it and making it better than when it was first crafted.


This same friend spent an enormous amount of energy to fry a demon who was standing on a plate designed to ward off evil. The amount of energy was so great, that the sun rose in the middle of the night and blasted a ray of energy that fried the demon. The expenditure of energy was so great that the sand path around the character's tower turned to glass, and the pillar of light that shot up into the sky could be seen thousands of miles away (a flat earth, you know).

 

[Nightchilde-2]

Have you ever seen an anime or martial arts flick and said "wow. I wish my character could do that!!"

Have you ever played a game like Final Fantasy and said "Wow. I wish my character could do that!!" or "Wow. I wish I could have one of those in the game!!"

Chances are, you can do that in Exalted.

It's such a truly beautiful and sublime game that words cannot express...

Try it, you'll like it!

 

[Dogbrain]

Uh, it's what goth chicks play when they're not playing World of Dorkness?

 

[Henry]

Let's not have the thread going south this soon please, Dogbrain.

I've been curious to see the descriptions so far, myself. It doesn't sound like my cup of tea, but it does sound like people are having a lot of fun with it.

 

[Ferret]

The rules are complicated rather then complex. Once you get the hang of things it very simple to follow what to do.

My favourite part is stunts: You describe things well and you might gety a bonus(I think double or full?) and you essence glows a lot. A very cool thing.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

Have you ever seen an anime or martial arts flick and said "wow. I wish my character could do that!!"

Have you ever played a game like Final Fantasy and said "Wow. I wish my character could do that!!" or "Wow. I wish I could have one of those in the game!!"

Interesting...very interesting. I've got a certain fondness for wuxia acrobatics in my characters.

Keep it coming!

Brad

 

[Tokiwong]

if you like wuxia madness then get Exalted it so over top yet so beautiful the game truly is a wonder, one of the best settings on the market

 

[Abisashi]

d20 > d10, but still an excellent game

The system, I feel, can be quite transparent. D&D on the other hand, focuses very heavily on rules, possibly trying to represent role-playing mechanically.

This is kind of funny, since my comparison to one of my friends went the other way. It is simply more time consuming to roll multiple d10s and count the relevant ones than it is to roll 1 d20. D&D combat is sometimes too slow for my taste, and Exalted more often so. And there are multiple rolls like this per attack, as well: Attack, damage, soak, etc.

As for cool powers, I agree, though I would also propose that you can do these with some work in D&D. Really, you can represent almost anything in either system. The only difference is the probability spread and the processing time for any given action. I find rolling lots of d10s to be more fun, but I prefer the speed of d20.

That said, If you don't want to spend a bunch of time creating this stuff in d20, Exalted is still lots of fun, and I am happy with my purchase, for both the game in itself and for the stuff I can steal.

Edit: I like the setting as well.

 

[bondetamp]

This is kind of funny, since my comparison to one of my friends went the other way. It is simply more time consuming to roll multiple d10s and count the relevant ones than it is to roll 1 d20. D&D combat is sometimes too slow for my taste, and Exalted more often so. And there are multiple rolls like this per attack, as well: Attack, damage, soak, etc.

You don't roll soak in Exalted, silly.

(You just subtract the soak dice from the damage dice and then roll damage with what remains.)