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bryantSure, sure, I could make opinionated noises, I can do that all day...
Point taken.
Anyhow, so I got my copy of Exalted in the mail today. Limited Edition, not so much because I expected it to be a mainstay of my gaming library but more because I like the idea of Limited Edition RPGs and I'm fond of fine objects. The concept of Exalted was interesting. My expectations were low.
So now I own the White Wolf version of Feng Shui.
This is not a bad thing. I would have liked the setting more if it had been less tied to the World of Darkness.
Digression: I think that tie is a bad idea, since it is now inevitable that we will see many products with arcane references to the minutiae of the World of Darkness backstory. White Wolf takes a very story-oriented approach to sales, with sourcebooks meant to be read as much as they're played; Exalted will make existing World of Darkness fans happy in this regard but might have trouble hooking new fans unless they're very careful to keep everything understandable to new readers.
And they must not compromise the world in order to make it jibe with the World of Darkness. Except one man's compromise is another man's clever backstory hooks, and as Geoff Grabowski says in the making of essay, he had a blast mining the World of Darkness for setting elements. Oh well. I don't think the World of Darkness is so good that it needs to be extended to a really fairly unrelated fantasy realm. Others may. Regardless, doing so creates an additional set of creative constraints. The questions in my mind: is there a reason to do this other than to write another piece of the World of Darkness backstory? Does Exalted need the World of Darkness backstory for some reason?
C.f. Shadowrun and Earthdawn, for the academic-minded among you.
The mood of the game is tip-top. Nicely hopeful. The powers charts remind me strongly of the Feng Shui Fu charts. Good; those were very nice.
The only significant departure from the Storyteller system I saw on a quick look was dividing skills into five categories. None of this Ability/Skill/Talent stuff. Good; that was weak. Otherwise it's straight Trinity/Vampire Revised style Storyteller. Could be better. Character creation looks good.
Haven't even remotely analyzed it for balance yet.
Point taken.
Anyhow, so I got my copy of Exalted in the mail today. Limited Edition, not so much because I expected it to be a mainstay of my gaming library but more because I like the idea of Limited Edition RPGs and I'm fond of fine objects. The concept of Exalted was interesting. My expectations were low.
So now I own the White Wolf version of Feng Shui.
This is not a bad thing. I would have liked the setting more if it had been less tied to the World of Darkness.
Digression: I think that tie is a bad idea, since it is now inevitable that we will see many products with arcane references to the minutiae of the World of Darkness backstory. White Wolf takes a very story-oriented approach to sales, with sourcebooks meant to be read as much as they're played; Exalted will make existing World of Darkness fans happy in this regard but might have trouble hooking new fans unless they're very careful to keep everything understandable to new readers.
And they must not compromise the world in order to make it jibe with the World of Darkness. Except one man's compromise is another man's clever backstory hooks, and as Geoff Grabowski says in the making of essay, he had a blast mining the World of Darkness for setting elements. Oh well. I don't think the World of Darkness is so good that it needs to be extended to a really fairly unrelated fantasy realm. Others may. Regardless, doing so creates an additional set of creative constraints. The questions in my mind: is there a reason to do this other than to write another piece of the World of Darkness backstory? Does Exalted need the World of Darkness backstory for some reason?
C.f. Shadowrun and Earthdawn, for the academic-minded among you.
The mood of the game is tip-top. Nicely hopeful. The powers charts remind me strongly of the Feng Shui Fu charts. Good; those were very nice.
The only significant departure from the Storyteller system I saw on a quick look was dividing skills into five categories. None of this Ability/Skill/Talent stuff. Good; that was weak. Otherwise it's straight Trinity/Vampire Revised style Storyteller. Could be better. Character creation looks good.
Haven't even remotely analyzed it for balance yet.
Exalted appears to rock
writing it, and seem to have learned most of the right lessons. Plus, where else can you find mile-long undead creeping fortresses? Bonus points for never actually referring to the Blessed Isle as Atlantis. (Points off for the anti-science polemic in the introduction, but what can you expect from White Wolf?)
Since I was never heavily indoctrinated into the World of Inadequate Illumination, I didn't find the tie-ins that I did notice particularly obnoxious, and I'm just as happy to leave the ones I didn't notice
in obscurity.
I could easily seen running or playing Exalted , and will probably pillage it heavily in any case.