Thread 96081389

Panoply Edition
>What is Exalted?
An epic high-flying role-playing game about reborn god-heroes in a world that turned on them.
Start here: http://theonyxpath.com/category/worlds/exalted/

>That sounds cool, how can I get into it?
Read the 3e core book (link below). For mechanics of the old edition, play this tutorial:http://mengtzu.github.io/exalted/sakuya.html
It’ll get you familiar with most of the mechanics.

>Gosh that was fun. How do I find a group?
Roll20 and the Game Finder General here on /tg/. good luck

>Resources for Third Edition
>3E Core and Splats
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/b54o6teut3fx6/Exalted_3e

>Errata for Third Edition
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1n3ooTmopm3CBxW5jwPp1761xsaIccea-5XIhVM_PQEc/edit

>Other Ex3 Resources
https://pastebin.com/fG1mLMdu

>Resources for Older Editions
https://pastebin.com/BXSGuFdQ

>Collection of Exalted Hacks
https://pastebin.com/gtZnycJs

>Stuff that might be interesting
https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/the-exalted-thread-with-no-original-ideas.317216/

Last thread: >>96020354
Thread Question: What's your favorite Artifact and why?

>>96081389 (OP)
>What's your favorite Artifact and why?
Wyld-Shaping within Creation was fucking based.

I recall there was a sidebar describing exceptions to the usual categories of Creatures of Darkness, but now I can't find it. Was it only in the draft?

>>96081461
Sol can take people off his shit list and there was a type of undead in 2e that was exempt because they served him instead of the underworld

>>96081485
no, this was 3e
benevolent ancestor ghosts and forbidden gods were both listed as examples, I think

>>96081389 (OP)
Probably the version of Volcano Cutter we got in the leak. It had 20 or so Evocations and was a god awful mess but it *felt* cool in ways that no other artefact has since. Probably because it was among the first of them.

>>96081461
Are you thionk ing of the "Creatures of Darkness" sidebar on page 302 of What Fire Has Wrought?

>Creatures of darkness are foes of Creation who stalk through the night or dwell in the dark places of the world. This includes demons and undead by default, but the Storyteller is free to include or exclude beings from this category at her discretion. A benign ancestor ghost might not be a creature of darkness, while a subterranean monstrosity empowered by forbidden gods could be.

>>96081389 (OP)
to whomsoever updates, final versions of Tomb of Memory and Deeds Yet Undone are on g0f1l3
/d/Bn1OZL

>>96081581
Just went and looked at it and I'd forgotten Evocations had tiers in the leak.

>>96081626
Yeah. Sidereals could only get the first tier while Solars and DBs could get all three. Solars also got exclusive access to the "innate" tag which allowed them to use certain EVocations even if they didn't have the weapon it belonged to. It made for this weird system where you kind of wanted to get all the innate Eovcations for a single artefact, throw it away, and thenget another artefact to get all the innate Evocations for thw new one.

>>96081741
>Solars also got exclusive access to the "innate" tag which allowed them to use certain EVocations even if they didn't have the weapon it belonged to
I miss the story about Blood Apes following the spirit of summoner's instructions, but I'm glad they changed some things.

>>96081389 (OP)
>What's your favorite Artifact and why?
I always appreciated artifacts that were simple and elegant in the breadth of their utility. Cache eggs, sorcery capturing cords, and the veil that holds back time are my top three.

>>96081797
>>96081809

>>96081741
This reminds me of Final Fantasy Tactics A2.
Which is weird considering the whole "evocations are unique to your character" that was thrown around

>>96081389 (OP)
>Thread Question
Not my favourite, but I've always wondered why this particular image is so... toothy. I once put a thousand comfort lounge in a ruined manse, in perfect condition while everything around it was dust, and posted this image, and it had players convinced it was a mimic.

>>96081453
Where is this one from?

>>96082201
Dreams of Creation: Lords of the First Age. It required an additional Protoshinmaic Vortex to use it within Creation. But by the end of 2e if you didn't have one of those were you really even a Solar?

>>96082516
>Dreams of Creation: Lords of the First Age
*Dreams of the First Age: Lords of Creation

>>96082516
>>96082537
Thank you very much.

>>96081598
Uploaded. If I don't see any posts claiming otherwise, I'm going to assume that they're working.

>>96082919
what?

>>96083025
Weird shitposting is going on

>>96081389 (OP)
I think my favorite might be the forgotten blade

>>96083045
>kgbabies are threadshitters and derailers
not surprising, they've been that way since conception

>>96082609
they work great, thank you

>>96081581
20 bloated charms per artifact.
Lol no thanks

>>96083401
I'm not saying that the new system for Evocations isn't better, just that none of the artefacts we have grip me in the same way.

>>96083401
Technically only for five-dot Artifacts. I can side with quoted-anon in that it definitely feels more gripping if you're going for "unique and storied weapon of legend". Then, though, it's questionable if you need Artifact ratings at every level; seems like you could get by with lesser, greater, and legendary, like with Demesnes, Manses, and Hearthstones.

>>96083518
While reducing the rating to 3 wouldn't be a problem, it wouldn't add anything of worth either. If your goal is to simplify Exalted, something like that should be at the bottom of the priority list.

>1e: The Original Edition
>2e: The Gonzo Edition
>3e: The Mudcore Edition
>4e:

>>96081581
so it wasn't in the core book!
thx anon

>>96084013
>4e: Poorly copied homework Edition

>>96084122
>>96084013
Considering what happened to WoD, it is Essence

>>96081389 (OP)
What are the most important things to remember when creating your own homebrewed artifacts? And what artifacts have you made yourself?

>>96083566
Who's reducing the Artifact 5s to 3s? Lesser Hearthstones are three dots, greater are five. That would flatten artifacts to 3, 5, or N/A. But fair point on it being fairly low on things that need to be done.

>>96081389 (OP)
>TQ

tossup between Perdurant Vault and Moonreaver.

Perdurant Vault is a shield that sometimes reflects a beautiful, empty city. you can use it to banish your Intimacies there as usually-friendly spirits based on their nature, or diseases and poisons as hostile ones. the capstone lets you actually enter the city yourself, which is indeed an entire city you can use as you like. physical changes made to the city reset when it's empty, but you can store an effectively arbitrary amount of stuff there;

Moonreaver is a scythe attuned to a freezing-cold alien moon. that moon didn't exist until its possibility was used as an exile-beyond-reality punishment for an assassin, who spent centuries having a very bad time and then made the scythe from the moon to cut their way back into Creation and take vengeance. you can use it cut rifts to that place to torment enemies with ice and void, and drag an opponent there with you with the capstone. you only suffer a little less than your enemy does but if you've been wielding this thing up to Essence 4 you probably have the Stamina Charms to weather it better.

honorable mentions to Blazerider, a skycutter boomerang that is also a fire-spewing aerial surfboard, Karvara, the Walking Devil Tower and her evocations Eat the Heart of God and Voice of the Apocalypse, and Oadenol's Wheel, a chariot (with named spirit horses!) that collapses reflexively into just one of its big fucking starmetal wheels for you to beat someone to death with.

3E artifacts are unparalleled really

>>96084277
>Who's reducing the Artifact 5s to 3s?
Essence Edition, I thought the conversation turned to that when he mentioned 3 tiers instead if 5. My mistake, I guess.

>>96084229
>What are the most important things to remember when creating your own homebrewed artifacts?
Keep the concept in mind.

>>96084013
>1e: The Pulp Edition
>2e: The Anime Edition
>3e: The Woke Edition
>4e(Essence): The Corpo Edition?

>>96084497
>Keep the concept in mind.
Can you go into more detail here please?

>>96084759
Essence would be the "we couldn't cut out all the bullshit" edition.

>>96084769
>Can you go into more detail here please?
You need to define what the artifact is before trying to translate it into rules. If you don't write down a description and lore beforehand, things tend to become rather generic.
Things become "just" an Adamantine Sword rather than Clarity made Crystal, mutilator of fae minds.

>>96081389 (OP)
>Thread Question: What's your favorite Artifact and why?
Stormcaller. If you know anything at all about it, that is why. Too bad the depiction in the official art is unwiped swamp ass.

>>96084402
Weapons and armor don't even exist on 5 tiers, since the basement is three dots. Counting N/A, it's only four tiers, and you usually don't have easy access to N/A unless you want to delve into the bowels of the crafting system and buy all 50-something Solar Craft Charms.

>>96084759
>2e
>Anime edition
>Not the "dev tries developing two games at once, quality suffers for both" edition
>Not "Developer gets former WoD writer friends to write for line, they argue that everyone should be as shitty as in WoD and write them as such, quality suffers for Exalted" edition.

Also, the woke started with 1e. It was on a specific directive from its pulp fantasy revival origin to feature a lot of people who weren't white, straight, or male. Didn't quite stick the landing all the time, but apparently a lot of people in the RPG industry that GCG knew told him Exalted would never sell if he put a black woman on the cover.

The "woke" has always been a part of it, anon. Face facts.

>>96085081
You know, you made me think about something.
Let's assume that Exalted was always as woke as it is right now, and entertainment in general.
Why would people be so against it now when they used to accept it so readily in the past?

>>96085081
>The "woke" has always been a part of it, anon. Face facts.
nta but A: their way of saying it is more concise and B: they're describing them that way because those descriptors apply when it was over-applied to the point where the game suffered for it, not where they applied at all. Yes, Exalted always had woke stuff. No, it did not always push woke stuff to the detriment of the characters it portrayed, or use the woke stuff it's pushing to assert a fundamental betterness of the characters by dint of being woke. That's 3e.

Similarly, 1e pushed it's pulp aesthetic to the point where the game would've been more playable without it, but when a game's just starting out that's a stylistic choice that determines buy-in and games that succeed with that in play have already winnowed out the people who weren't into it. Similarly, 2e - especially 2.5e and later - went gonzo with the anime shenanigans to the point where the characters were assumed to be ending world-ending threats via quote shenanigans unquote, to the detriment of the quality of the writing and seriousness of the world. People who weren't into that fell off. Now it's winnowed down to people who will like at least one of the above and tolerate the rest enough to play.

>>96085101
>Why would people be so against it now when they used to accept it so readily in the past?
Because some of them grew into conservatism despite their attachment to left leaning stories and people have found other ways to preach against what they dislike. The negative use of Woke instead of religious or moral terminology being an example of this kind of shit.

>>96085081
>Also, the woke started with 1e.
The Woke shit started with Vampire because there's exactly no way to write a straight vampire story lol.

>>96084229
>What are the most important things to remember when creating your own homebrewed artifacts?
Tone it down. I know you're excited to make your dream artifact that does every specific thing you've headcanon'd, but that will just end up overpowered and nobody will ever let it see gameplay

>>96085294
>The Woke shit started with Vampire because there's exactly no way to write a straight vampire story lol.
There are a lot of straight vampire stories. No idea what you're basing the idea on but even in modern stories it's both straight and gay.

What vampire stories are is written for women, and usually ones interested in abusive power dynamics. Demographically that overlaps.

>>96084229
>What are the most important things to remember when creating your own homebrewed artifacts?
Per >>96084497, an easily visualised concept that you keep in mind the whole way through is easier to work with when making the artifact and describing it to others, and makes approving it easier as a Storyteller. As >>96085307 says, an underpowered artifact is more fun than an overpowered artifact for everybody else, and custom artifacts should therefore be judged harshly and avoid over-writing. Do what you need and no more. 3e/Essence will let you expand later if you really need to, but it's still best to keep to the core functions.

Without copying answers my advice would be to have fun with it. Add a little whimsey. Effects which you don't think will do anything important or are actively detrimental are important. That is to say, carving dragons into your sword that glow when it's used might do bad things to your stealth but they're cool so do it anyway. Filling your burning hammer with furnace spirits is just fun if they don't do much of anything, but it looks cool and makes for stunt fodder. Try to channel any desire for secondary functions into style points instead.

>>96085309
It was a joke about how some of the more iconic vampire stories are often read or associated with gays but yes there a stories like what you described.

>>96082516
We never really got any good cooking or alchemy charms.
>inb4 someone says Exalted isn't a setting about that because...it doesn't have le healing potions
It actually does, it's called five bounties paste, but that has nothing to do with the fact magical foods and drugs DO exist in the setting.

>>96085447
Isn't cooking a sub-type of Craft? So those charms apply?

>>96085537
I'd say cooking food falls under Craft (Wood) while beverages under Craft (Water)

>>96085550
Why not just Craft (Cuisine) to cover both?

>>96085550
They're both under Craft (Water)
>Water: cooking, brewing, leather working, pharmacy and poison-making (boiling and cooking plants, chemicals and animal materials)

>>96085550
>>96085903
How do you know if an Exalt is vegetarian?
They'll spend their entire mote pool explaining to you why Craft (Wood) is better for preparing food than Craft (Water).

>>96085574
Because 2e was trying to minimize craft bloat

>>96085537
>>96085976
And what, pray tell, would these charms do for cooking? Simply provide equipment bonuses for intimacy? Sounds rather lame.

>>96085294

>Because some of them grew into conservatism despite their attachment to left leaning stories and people have found other ways to preach against what they dislike.

No, the quality of the left-leaning stories also tanked at the same time as the leftist ideas were pushed into the stories. You know how crappy most Christian movies are? Because they're just blatantly propaganda instead of a heartfelt human story, like that "God is not dead" movie? People hate woke media because it's the same exact soulless propaganda but from the left. But, it's not soulless propaganda if it's your team, is it?

The "wear the sash to show you're trans" character lore was irksome but fine since it could plausibly fit in the setting. What completely turned me off 3E was one sentence in how the Zenith caste were written.

What I read of pre-3E metaphysics was such that the Gods, Primordials, etc, are literally embodiments of cosmic principles that makes existence possible. So the PCs are not just humans - they have shards of eternity and cosmic meaning shoved into them such that their existence takes on an inherently cosmic and meaningful position as an inherent ontological fact.

Which is what is implied in the 2E Zenith caste flavour text - "Regardless of what he might currently believe, every member of the Zenith Caste is innately a priest of the Unconquered Sun.", in addition to having a personal vision from the UCS calling them to such.

But, when I read in 3E that the UCS in his vision, talks to the Zenith cast to "urge them to make the world a righteous place as best they know how.". It's a subtle thing, but reading that felt like a complete and utter reversal of tone, from eternal objective reality-defining virtue manifested through the Exalted, into moral relativism powered by an Exaltation.

I wasn't interested in Exalted because of moral relativism. I was interested because it touched on archetypal themes that gave everything unique cosmic importance.

>>96086536

inb4 "exalted was always morally grey and blue and orange so the point about moral relativism makes no sense".

Not from the perspective of the Old UCS it isn't, which is my whole point - and the UCS being addicted to the Games of Divinity has all the more cosmic import when a Zenith caste can't just be an enabler saying "Well, maybe our focus on Temperence is a bit over-zealous, and it's a good thing to allow the cosmic principle of Virtue itself be addicted to the xbox, because that is me trying to make the world a righteous place ~+as best I know how+~ ".

That subtle change in the lore was substantial for the tone. So then fighting against the UCS was *literally* fighting against the metaphysical principle virtue. Which is why the Ebon Dragon is his direct nemesis.

>>96085081
>>Not the "dev tries developing two games at once, quality suffers for both" edition
>>Not "Developer gets former WoD writer friends to write for line, they argue that everyone should be as shitty as in WoD and write them as such, quality suffers for Exalted" edition.
Those started during 1e, and most development weirdness come from the fanboy-turned-writers or from dudes who are in Exalted since 1e.

>Also, the woke started with 1e. It was on a specific directive from its pulp fantasy revival origin to feature a lot of people who weren't white, straight, or male
This is from WW punk roots, to both shock the man and to be seen as iconoclastic.

>Exalted pulp revival.
Ironixally enough it is literally impossible for Exalted to be pulp.
Pulp wasn't really a genre, but more of an artistic movement, and it is older than the genre fiction, that Exalted tries to be.

Exalted writes are too tangled with tropes, and what is or not part of their idea of a genre

>>96086565
>Which is why the Ebon Dragon is his direct nemesis.
That's a 2eism and you shouldn't put too much stock in it.

>>96086536
>What I read of pre-3E metaphysics was such that the Gods, Primordials, etc, are literally embodiments of cosmic principles that makes existence possible
They're not, though. Especially not gods, who're in 2E explicitly stated to not be the embodiments of their domains, just their overseers.

>But, when I read in 3E that the UCS in his vision, talks to the Zenith cast to "urge them to make the world a righteous place as best they know how."
That's what the UCS told Panther when he Exalted in Caste Book: Zenith. How is telling other Zeniths the same thing "a complete and utter reversal of tone"?

I have zero trouble coming up with concepts for Artifacts. The real bitch is putting those concept to paper in the form of hard numbers, i.e. making Evocations for them.

>>96086833
Look at similar charms or evocations and edge on the lower end, or slightly below it. Best you can really do for numbers is eyeball it to around that area, so long as you're keeping in mind that the artifact should have one core power and which shouldn't be overly general, normal, or widely applicable like '+3 non-charm dice on sword's attacks' or 'once per scene tn-1 on any roll'.

>>96086536
>People hate woke media because it's the same exact soulless propaganda but from the left. But, it's not soulless propaganda if it's your team, is it?
Of course not, it is my team.

>>96086565
>>96086536
While I get where you are coming from, I don't believe there in't an attempt to tell a heartfelt story, they just fail for the same reason any other story fails.

>>96086624
>Ironixally enough it is literally impossible for Exalted to be pulp.
Yeah and to add to your reasoning pulp is too anti-PC leftists nowadays are completely cucked.
Can't deal with sexy women showing breasts or muscular men fighting monsters.
Modern art movements want to push androgyny as much as possible when pulp was all about harsh contrast the polar opposite of the blurring of lines that they want.

Attuned Mistweaver + Sorcery + Keel Cleaves the Clouds (Control Spell) + Tempered By The Elements (Mist) = ???

>>96087430
NTA but I honestly don't identify with lefties nor rightists.
I'm against anyone trying to take away what I like be it because God doesn't like women showing boobs or because its sexist for women to show boobs.
You are all lame.

>>96087954
Oops, forgot to add Fog-Raising Gesture to the equation.

>>96087883
The people who complain about Tolkien's orcs vaguely resembling asians, only do so because they never read Howard's descriptions of asians.

>>96087883
Pulp fantasy is just the 20th century version of isekai and manwa shit we see nowadays. Androgyny is mostly a way to sell more shit to people who don't work out because being muscular actually implies some general desires and personality traits that don't work as well with blank slate characters. Also Asia is just weird like that.

>>96085294
>Because some of them grew into conservatism despite their attachment to left leaning stories and people have found other ways to preach against what they dislike.
Nah it is pretty simple imo just compare the old white wolf books to the modern slop churned by onyxpath.
Hell even old DnD with modern DnD.
The truth is that leftism became lame moralfags just like christians used to be.
The only difference is that leftists hide behind faulty materialistic analysis and retarded consequentialism.

>>96087973
The thing is that cheesecake art kind of lost its market because of how easy it is to access actual porn so everything with a sexy art style or subject is expected to serve that role even if indirectly.

>>96088054
I don't doubt that there is an economic incentive to have self inserts.
But that's a bit different to pick related.
There are so few people that look like this irl that they might as well not exists as an economic demographic.

>>96088150
Not really sexy characters in not porn movies, videogames, etc. still sell like crazy.
Why do you think superheroes are still expected to do their shirtless scenes?
The only thing that changed is that leftist came to agree with christians that women should not be exposed.
If for different reasons.

>>96088075
>Nah it is pretty simple imo just compare the old white wolf books to the modern slop churned by onyxpath.
>Hell even old DnD with modern DnD.
The new iterations are bland as shit because they're products first and foremost. They companies will not risk another Chechnya incident or risk bad publicity because one of the writers wrote their fetishes into a monster or NPC.

>>96088198
I am not sure why but, androgynous talk aside, there is something "wrong" about this character design.

>>96088205
>The new iterations are bland as shit because they're products first and foremost. They companies will not risk another Chechnya incident or risk bad publicity because one of the writers wrote their fetishes into a monster or NPC.
And why does that risk exists in the first place?
Because leftists created cancel culture that not rightists are also using so we are completely fucked culturally.

>>96088198
>But that's a bit different to pick related.
>There are so few people that look like this irl that they might as well not exists as an economic demographic.
True but people who would like to see more people like that in the stories they consume is, even if it is a way to show they give a shit about people like pic related.

>>96087973
You know who'd agree with you? NAZIS

>>96088226
It's just generic as shit like most of Essence and 3e.

>>96088269
>And why does that risk exists in the first place?
>Because leftists created cancel culture that not rightists are also using so we are completely fucked culturally
Cancel culture exist because people keep fucking their secretaries and threatening to fire them if they didn't went along with it. Things just grew broader in scope in hopes of avoiding this kind of shit in and out of art.

>>96088226
Imo it is the androgyny it makes things look alien to put it simply like pic related.

>>96088296
>True but people who would like to see more people like that in the stories they consume is.
I am not su sure about that anymore, maybe they did exist for a moment for specific products but for example fantasy right now is dominated by borderline BDSM smut for women with ultra masculine men as love interests.

>>96088348
Sure that was good but it was also used for every little petty reason imaginable so everyone became hyper sensitive to not being as PC as possible.

>>96088309
Yes, 3e!humans look really "weird" in general.
The one in the Abyssals' cover, looks like he was made from 3 different people.

>>96088380
>am not su sure about that anymore, maybe they did exist for a moment for specific products but for example fantasy right now is dominated by borderline BDSM smut for women with ultra masculine men as love interests.
The inventive for representation is a political thing in the majority of cases.

>>96088226
>>96088309
>>96088380
>>96088437
It's tranny pandering. Quit pussyfooting around the elephant in the room. It's ugly garbage made to cater to histrionic tranny freaks.

>>96088380
>maybe they did exist for a moment for specific products but for example fantasy right now is dominated by borderline BDSM smut for women with ultra masculine men as love interests.
I am pretty sure that you can scrap "borderline" and the "right now".

>>96081819
Sauce for the image? Can't find it.

>>96088437
That sounds like it would fit an abyssal, should they have went for a horror angle.

>>96088562
It's a panel from Keychain of Creation. It's early on, the Lunar is explaining how Elsewhere works

>>96088733
I thought it was either that, or something with a similar style. Thanks, anon.

>>96088198
if even a soldier woman has to look peerlessly beautiful to count as a woman for you people, than just go play some osr sword and sorcery shit, because you're clearly to big a snowflake to enjoy anything else

>>96088523
If they were a tranny they would be plastered on advertisement.

>>96089463
Almost like this is heroic fiction.
The example I posted could be described as an imitation of the female heroic body type but forgetting the female part.
It's nothing practically a parody of itself.
It's like Abby from the last of us she has the body of a man with a head recembling a female that's not how female fighters look irl.

>>96089463
ugly is ugly

>>96086536
The gods aren't embodiments of abstract principles and never have been. They were functionaries and guards. The Incarnae were very large and powerful guards. That, and also not meeting objective morality standards, since the earliest bit of setting written was the Games of Divinity entry where the Incarnae decided to rebel against the Primordials so that they could relax and play the GoD and the Primordials could go get fucked.

Also, the Ebon Dragon being set up as directly opposed to the Unconquered Sun was something from late into 2e. It cannot be taken as strictly "pre-3e metaphysics" because it was certainly not the case with 1e's goffic 2spooky4u Ebon Dragon who was not a flanderized idiot made to grant Charms.

>>96086624
I said pulp revival. Pay attention. It refers back to and takes a great deal of inspiration and flavor from pulp but is something else.

>>96089739
>ugly
>circumstantially not in make up and dress, has hair up
>Out in the sun for a while, most likely

Creation isn't as bad off as Horizon Zero Dawn for post-apocalypses but being on the march means no time for skin care routines, hours in a makeup chair to look like a porn star, etc.

>>96090146
>hours in a makeup chair to look like a porn star
Exalted unironically don't need makeup they are always healthy looking.
And I remember that they are supposed to not scar either?
And there seems to be plenty of exalted in earlier editions capable of looking beautiful while in the middle of duels to the death after being chased by the wyld hunt-.

>>96090146
>The gods aren't embodiments of abstract principles and never have been. They were functionaries and guards
To be fair, there are blurbs describing how the Primordial war erased whole concepts from Creation.

>>96090146
ugly is ugly no matter how much you cry

>>96090146
>>circumstantially not in make up and dress, has hair up
Also this is objectively retarded in a universe that objectively rewards you for looking cool while fighting (stunts).

>Umm I use my sword realistically to fight a dude
The world thinks you are lame and deserve no help.
>I let my opponent strike my empty robes in half as I chop his head off standing on the tip of his own blade showing off my killer abs.
AWOOOOOOOGAAAA 3 point stunt go off KING

>>96090204

>Exalted don't need...

A lot, as long as it fits into their Ability set. It obviously isn't a part of her ability set, nor is there a spare Collar of Dawn's Cleansing Light around.

>Not supposed to scar
Except when they do. Usually because another one of the Exalted gets a solid hit in (Arianna fighting the Wyld Hunt, frex). Also, a lot of pre-Second Breath injuries stick around, like Shore Warden Spith's punctured eardrums.

>Plenty of Exalted in previous editions looking beautiful under duress

Vain Dynasts, Abyssals who are bound to look beautiful because the Neverborn are basically turning them into lures for the living, and people with socially-oriented Abilities or Attributes that make it easy. The pictured character... does not seem like one of those. Seems closer to a lot of depictions of Lookshy, where the officers are there to command the enlisted and kill and not even give the hint of ornamentation that might cut into field preparations, command, or battle.

>>96090262
Blaine Pardoe, get off the internet. I understand you're not welcome on BattleTech communities now, but I'm sure you have to spend at least some time writing your conservative persecution fantasy sequel.

Also, Hour of the Wolf sucked and you really don't know your own lore.

>>96090235
Primordials are not gods, though. They're the Titans in this drama.

>>96090281
Grit can look cool. Especially if you're angry and use the angry Charms in Resistance.

>>96090321
>inane schizobabble
ugly is ugly

>>96090321
>Grit can look cool. Especially if you're angry and use the angry Charms in Resistance.
Bro she looks goofy as fuck.
Harmonious Jade used to look cool and beautiful.
That's what some people don't get making a woman ugly doesn't make her look cool it justs makes her look ugly.
Same applies to men even rugged men have certain beauty to them otherwise they are just ugly too.

>>96090290
Look at all these totally realistic characters truly what exalted was made to represent.

>zoom-zooms are so brain-damaged they can't understand the difference between ugly and aesthetically unappealing
Very sad! Many such cases!

>>96090146
>I said pulp revival. Pay attention. It refers back to and takes a great deal of inspiration and flavor from pulp but is something else.
The problem is that they are doing an antithesis of their design statements, doing everything they criticize slop fantasy of doing.

>>96090518
A lot of people hate stylized art, decrying it as anime, it is one reason for 3e's art style.

Which edition should I choose to start with?

>>96090597
2e 15 years ago. No point starting now

>>96090580
>A lot of people hate stylized art, decrying it as anime, it is one reason for 3e's art style.
Yeah you are a hundred percent correct.
The chase for realism is what killed the vibe of Exalted that's what I'm trying to point out to that anon.
It makes sense to have your hair up to not get it I to your eyes, to use practical armor and to be dirty.
But that's for mortals if anything the exalted fight without a helmet their long hair flowing in the wind their armor might be dirty and them covered in blood and sweat yet their armor offers them more protection than any mortal armor could ever afford and it will never suffer damage not their artifact weapons ever dull or chip, their hair never gets in the way when they fight and even when sweaty and covered in blood they look beautiful.
That's exalted.
I think that's why I hate that Solar so much she stands against everything the exalted are.

I miss them so much

>>96090898
Read 3e core and get a feeling for it, then whatever stuff you really like read the 2e equivalent to get some juicy headcanon ideas. Then after you've played a few games go back and read the 1e version to see how it was originally conceived and this will all help coalesce what you want the game to be.

Mechanically 3e is the best version, but it has lame plot so once you're familiar with how it runs spend some time in the archives soacking up the better, funner, more dramatic, sillier, more heartfelt stuff from previous generations.

>>96081389 (OP)
fivefold harmonizer or silken robes.
so versatile, so useful.

>>96091230
>fivefold harmonizer
Much prefer a world where they don't exist.
>silken robes
I fucking love silk armor. I make great use of the fact that in 3e spider demons can weave hell-silk into free and unlimited armor with Hardness and that's immune to Anima Flux for mortal associates

>>96081389 (OP)
>/exg/ - Exalted General
>/pol/ Astroturfing Edition
>Thread Question: How much corporate jizz do you have to drink to internet fight for bigot bonuses in a pretend magic swordfights game thread?

>>96090146
can someone explain what the significance of ebon dragon being described as the shadow of everything that has ever lived is?

>>96091638
It is an oddnesses caused by exalted gods being a mix of Pegana's and other sources.
In Pegana the gods are their domains, for example Mung, the god of death, causes all deaths.

>>96088523
You should empty yourself of the tranny that is living in your head. Or at least demand rent from them if they're going to force you to imagine trannies everywhere

>>96091638
i've not read everything on yozis, but my understanding of the ebon dragon is that he is the embodiment of opposition itself. some of this is muddied because in many instances there's vague delineation between the primordials they were and the yozis they've become in the writing, but he is fundamentally different (though similar enough to not kill many of his souls to become yozi-fied apparently) from who he was, the dragon's shadow. the dragon's shadow created things and destroyed things in order to foster the nature of perfect opposition, yet the ebon dragon seeks to be antagonist to all things himself: he must perform or embody some trait that defies the nature of everyone he interacts with or has knowledge of. he cannot act in a perfect vacuum of influence or interaction: he doesn't have to immediately oppose all things upon encountering or learning of them, but can only interact with others or the world if the ultimate aim is to violate or destroy that thing

>>96092249
This is a 2eism and can be safely discarded.

>>96090235
Yeah, due to the War, you know, the damage caused by the War, primarily the Three Spheres Cataclysm.

>>96090597
Probably Essence.

>>96091638
Same as Kimbery being an ocean or Malfeas being a city or Adorjan being a murderous silent wind - Primordials are big and weird and they're each weird in their own unique way. There isn't necessarily more significance to it than that.

>>96092249
That's all very 2E, not really something hinted at in Ebon Dragon's 1E description. I mean, he was obviously antagonistic in 1E, as well, but just in the same way as the other Primordials were, meaning that he was mad about his defeat and imprisonment and was prepared to do anything to get out and, presumably, to get revenge.

I forget where I read this but there was a post somewhere saying the Primordials were originally conceived as references to cosmic phenomena. Thus Malfeas was a Dyson Sphere, Cecelyne was Relativity, and so on. The Ebon Dragon was modeled around entropy, which is why he "loves only those doomed to die, and of them, only those whose death will change the face of the world". He's the Shadow of all Things because all things decay in time and no one is safe from entropy's cold grip, not even the gods. It's also why he's the one tasked with finding an out of the prison the Yozis are in, if anyone could be a master of finding a crucial flaw in everything it's him.

>>96092546
Once I heard that the main 6 were a metaphor for nuclear warfare.

>>96092760
How so?

>>96092529
What's Essence?

>>96092529
>>96092503
>2eism safely discarded
i'll discard your opinions instead

>>96093183
It was more about the post apocalyptic nuclear waster land, I don't remember it well.

Malfeas is self explanatory, and brass was linked to weaponry.
TeD was linked to the shadows of the nuclear bombing victims and the psychological damage/doom.
Cecelyne, Kimbery and Adorjan were linked to the degradation of natural resources respectively earth, sea and air.
Cecelyne was was also linked to social collapse (society devolves into might = right).
And Kimbery is the mutations caused by radiation and biological weaponry.

I don't remember SWLiHN and the rest of Adorjan.

>>96084759
>4e(Essence): The Corpo Edition?
The corporate slop edition actually does sum up Essence pretty well. Essence wants to be a rules light game that they can use to bring in the normies, but isn’t rules light enough to do so, and too mechanically lacking to satisfy people who play tabletop habitually. It seems almost like it was made by people who were trying to capture the “critter audience” of people who want to play the game because they think it will be like the videos they watch, but don’t actually want to really try learn the rules or do anything that would require beyond a surface level of investment. It is the definition of corporate slop; designed to try and appeal to the lowest common denominator while simultaneously not caring if they alienate their existing fans. Too bad they were late to the game and that crowd is already moving on from tabletop games, or to Darrington Press’ own system.

>>96081389 (OP)
How do you design original Evocations? And what are your favorite canon Evocations, for that matter?

>>96084013
>4e:
At this point, I sincerely hope it doesn't exist.

>>96086536
>What I read of pre-3E metaphysics was such that the Gods, Primordials, etc, are literally embodiments of cosmic principles that makes existence possible. So the PCs are not just humans - they have shards of eternity and cosmic meaning shoved into them such that their existence takes on an inherently cosmic and meaningful position as an inherent ontological fact.
None of these things are true. The gods govern over concepts and things, but they aren't the concepts themselves. The Primordials created many of these concepts and things, but they too are not those things. Killing She Who Lives In Her Name would not instantly delete hierarchy from the world, killing Lytek would not delete all Exaltations, and the death of Venus would not destroy love, music, marriage, etc. You have somehow confused Exalted with the setting of Glorantha.

>>96086786

>They're not, though. Especially not gods, who're in 2E explicitly stated to not be the embodiments of their domains, just their overseers.

I forget the minutae of the setting, but from what I recall by the virtue of the fact they *can* be overseers of those domains, they still are tightly ontologically linked with that domain such that the killing of the UCS would cause a deprivation of virtue in the world, enabling a further overrun of the Ebon Dragon and further evil/creatures of darkness into the world. See: Return of the Scarlet Empress and the consequences thereof.

>That's what the UCS told Panther when he Exalted in Caste Book: Zenith. How is telling other Zeniths the same thing "a complete and utter reversal of tone"?

With the full lead-up to the shared quote in Panther's 1E Exaltation, where the UCS talks about it has a very different vibe. It's surrounding a story of a man born into poverty and fartherlessness who has lived only violence and thievery being called to redemption.

Compare this to what the UCS said to Perfect Soul on her exaltation. Pic related.

Note also the dev notes around 3E's Perfect Soul

"In other words, righteousness in Exalted is not decided by a moral arbiter, but rather right action is determined by those who are powerful enough to never be gainsaid. Righteousness is for the unconquered hero, whose victorious hand pens the histories. If the King of Heaven sees himself as the divine will that decides right and wrong, and those who deny this yet cannot turn him from his courses, then whatever he says is righteous, is righteous."

Almost all media nowadays pushes this same trite relativism. Why bother being any other kind of good if being good is just a matter of force?

>>96093790

It looks like I have. It's been a long long time since I've talked about Exalted.

I'm pretty sure there's still some kind of ontological link that the governing requires and affords though - and how the Gods are created also carry metaphysical import to them. ie, in 2E, the UCS being created by the Ebon Dragon out of everything that the Ebon Dragon isn't, and since the Ebon Dragon is a being of pure evil, then the UCS is created out of pure goodness.

While maybe not identical to any of those things, their existence is still intrinsically charged with and defined by that moral and metaphysical import, rather than being ontologically neutral overseers and governers over ontologically aligned forces.

>>96086536
They are absolutely not cosmic principles. The incarnae are physically tied to their cosmic bodies but they're the only ones. In 2e, the only thing that matter was the loom of fate which 3e decided to do away with because too many people theory crafted ways of destroying creation through the loom. The 3e devs are very fond of reacting to theory crafting with autistic unnecessary changes.

>>96093521
I keep saying that about the Final Fantasy 9 remake, but it looks like both our dreams will inevitably be dashed

>>96093198
It's sort of a rules-lighter - not rules-lite, mind you, but lighter - official alternative to 3E. It doesn't cover the lore very comprehensively so you'll want to also crack open at least one of the "actual", numbered editions, but for actually playing the game Essence would probably be more approachable starting point than either 1E, 2E or 3E.

>>96093222
When discussing the reasoning behind Ebon Dragon being the literal Shadow of All Things, yes, you can safely discard lore that new writers came up an edition after Ebby was originally written. That's not an opinion, nor is it a statement on the quality of either 1E or 2E, it's just basic logic.

>>96093915
>I forget the minutae of the setting, but from what I recall by the virtue of the fact they *can* be overseers of those domains, they still are tightly ontologically linked with that domain such that the killing of the UCS would cause a deprivation of virtue in the world, enabling a further overrun of the Ebon Dragon and further evil/creatures of darkness into the world. See: Return of the Scarlet Empress and the consequences thereof.
The rightfully panned RotSE is not a great source. 2E's Roll of Glorious Divinity has a sidebar on page 13 that explicitly explains that gods aren't tie to their domains like that.

>t's surrounding a story of a man born into poverty and fartherlessness who has lived only violence and thievery being called to redemption.
Nature of the redemption being left for him to figure out, because the UCS doesn't actually give any real moral guidance to his Chosen. That's not a new thing.

>Almost all media nowadays pushes this same trite relativism.
"Might makes right" sure as fuck isn't what most modern media pushes, and it's definitely a better fit for Exalted's harsh pre-modern world than for the modern world.

>>96093931
>rather than being ontologically neutral overseers and governers over ontologically aligned forces
That kind of is exactly what gods are, though. Like, they can change jobs, they can survive the destruction of their purview, their purviews can survive the death of the god just fine and keep functioning. They're not intrinsically tied to the things they oversee. And as for morality, that's as debatable in Creation as in the real world - even in 1E and 2E, where Virtues were objectively exiting forces, their relation to morality was far from clear. Grabowski himself states here http://exalted.xi.co.nz/wiki/Thus_Spake_Zargrabowski/VirtuesVsMorality that
>I think it's easier to say that the Virtue system operates independently of good and evil
Virtues were personality mechanics more than morality mechanics. UCS being the epitome of all the Virtues meant that he was grand and passionate, not necessarily that he had any particular insights into any supposed objective morality. Since I went digging through Grabowski's quotes, I'll also point to thing one about the morality of gods in the setting: http://exalted.xi.co.nz/wiki/Thus_Spake_Zargrabowski/ShallowGods

>>96094453
>2E's Roll of Glorious Divinity has a sidebar on page 13 that explicitly explains that gods aren't tie to their domains like that.

It explicitly says that *Little Gods* aren't like that. From what I remember, the Incarnae are substantially different.

>"Might makes right" sure as fuck isn't what most modern media pushes

As much as I would've liked to have lived in a cabin in the woods for the past 20-30 years, I have unfortunately been living in the modern world with its modern media. I hope that your life is pleasant enough to have been in that cabin in the woods.

>>96094530

>Virtues were personality mechanics more than morality mechanics. UCS being the epitome of all the Virtues meant that he was grand and passionate, not necessarily that he had any particular insights into any supposed objective morality.

Well, those are good finds on Grabowski's quote regarding virtues specifically. That position makes sense in regards to the personality-driving qualities of the virtue system. I must have somehow memory-distorted Exalted based on my personal impressions of the game.

>>96095377
>As much as I would've liked to have lived in a cabin in the woods for the past 20-30 years, I have unfortunately been living in the modern world with its modern media. I hope that your life is pleasant enough to have been in that cabin in the woods.
I, too, have been living in the modern world, and most modern Western media ultimately subscribes to a fairly conventional "don't be a dick" kind of morality. There are plenty of shows, movies, books etc. with morally ambiguous or outright assholish protagonists, but as we all hopefully know, depiction isn't endorsement, and media depicting unpleasant people doing unpleasant things generally takes a pretty clear stance on those people and things being, in fact. unpleasant. Like, shows like, say, Succession or the Boys, for a couple of examples of popular, prominent modern shows, take pretty clear moral stances. If anything, modern media tends more towards preachy and moralizing than the opposite.

>>96093932
I am pretty sure it was made to make Getimians not be completely unsympathetic.

>>96095491
Depends on the media you are consuming, there is a push for "agency = narcissism" out there, and 3e's definition of heroism, at times come like Porky's from mother 3.

>"You could've been happy, if only you would've done as I did and obediently followed the visionary, selfish desires of a great hero

>>96094453
>appeal to original intent
fuck off

>>96096836
Yes, anon, when the thing being discussed was the significance or lack thereof of Ebon Dragon being the shadow of everything that has ever lived, the original intent definitely matters. You know how causality works, don't you? A design choice is pretty obviously determined by something that precedes it, not by something that comes years after that choice was made.

>>96096836
We kind of have to return to it from time to time, it is like using the source code while modding a game.

How badly did Alchemicals get butchered in 3e?

>>96098948
They weren't, really.

>>96098948
I think there's maybe only or two strange things in the Alchemical book, but it's genuinely quite good. In fact, outside of the scenarios from 1e Autochthonians, I don't think anything Alchemical related has ever had bad writing.

>>96099123
Alchemicals are outside of the main narrative, so they aren't hit by the problems from the main setting, it is both a blessing and a curse.

>>96099231
Let me gird myself. How far have they diverged from 2E's communist robots?

>>96100013
As the two anons answering that Alchemicals didn't, in fact, get butchered in 3E, they haven't diverged terribly far. You can find the Alchies manuscript through the links in the OP, and I'd suggest giving it a read or at least skimming through it.

>>96098948
It's almost completely the same as 2e exalted but their charmset is stronger comparatively.

>>96095491

Said moralizing and preachiness usually comes from a revolutionary leftist perspective. Postmodern revolutionary theory is explicitly "might makes right", which is why they want to forment revolution. The fundamental idea is that the idea of what is right and moral is a social construct that is enforced by social and physical power, and if they feel that the status quo is distasteful to them, then the only way to fix it is through revolution to establish themselves in positions of power to enforce what they feel is right. Which is why revolutionary leftists have been focusing on pushing laws and policies in modern western governments and corporations - so that economic and institutional might can enforce what they believe is right.

>>96095691

> there is a push for "agency = narcissism" out there

That's exactly it - and in the contemporary form, it's happening on both sides of the culture war cesspit. You either get agentic narcissists for social justice like in Dustborn, or the agentic narcissist sigma male grindset of Andrew Tate.

>>96099123
For me, its the best overall book for 3e; I think Sidereals has it beat in terms of fun charm design, but I like all the new stuff in Autochthonia a lot.

>>96102071
>I think Sidereals has it beat in terms of fun charm design
Ew, 3e Sidereal charm design? No.

>>96100733
>Said moralizing and preachiness usually comes from a revolutionary leftist perspective. Postmodern revolutionary theory is explicitly "might makes right", which is why they want to forment revolution. The fundamental idea is that the idea of what is right and moral is a social construct that is enforced by social and physical power, and if they feel that the status quo is distasteful to them, then the only way to fix it is through revolution to establish themselves in positions of power to enforce what they feel is right. Which is why revolutionary leftists have been focusing on pushing laws and policies in modern western governments and corporations - so that economic and institutional might can enforce what they believe is right.
No part of that is true, and you don't even know what "might makes right" means. Most of that moralizing comes from a perspective where liberal democracy is obviously good, fundamental human rights exist and should be respected abd so on. That's not "might makes right", nor any flavor of moral relativism.

>>96102218
I think it worked fairly well when I played one in 3e. My one attempt to do so in 2e was a disaster because they were utterly broken; at least the other shit splats in 2e like Lunars and Abyssals could function. I could also never get fully on board with how they worked in 1e, considering the clash between what the authors intended for you to do and how the system actually works. They wanted a Sidereal player to supplement their limited and focused charms with other things like sorcery/martial arts, but most martial arts did nothing but make you better at fighting (with the Sidereal martial arts that were focused on utility being so high essence you'd rarely get to use them) and sorcery was so resource-intensive and lower power than most charms you'd rarely use it for anything but summoning. As a result, you'd start doing what every Skyrim player winds up doing at around Essence 3; dipping into every ability tree until you're indistinguishable from the other players.

>>96102706
Contrast this with 3e, where there are more charms (although not a stifling amount like in Solars/Lunars) and a continual progression of power in each ability tree; you can easily dip for cool tricks like Wise Choice or Efficient Secretary Technique, but you can also specialize in your core concept without eventually looking like every other Sidereal in your circle.

Other than that, I like that 3e Sidereals frame each combat ability as a martial art style with its own clear gimmick and that you can access a SMA through a native combat ability charm so your native charm purchases are not invalidated when you're strong enough to start buying them. I like many of the new charms like Lucid Enigma Labyrinth and Battalion-Bureau Leadership, and I like the new SMA, Emerald Gyre. I also like that they balance out the incredibly powerful Excellency they have by having many charms with Willpower; you can spam that Excellency all day, but you have to be judicious with your higher tier charms and/or proactive in seeking out and fulfilling Auspicious Prospects.

>>96100013
>>96098948
>"how shit is it?"
>it's good
>"let me rephrase, how bad is it"
obnoxious boring nogamenigger

>>96102218
Sidereal 3e charm design is pretty good, absolutely obliterates Solars/Abyssals/Lunars/Dragonblooded when it comes to consistently good design and peaks of design, and never once goes as low as those four.

>>96103039
and that's why we need 3.5

>>96103053
Agreed.

>>96103039
Except for Dragonblood, all of those have better charm design than Sidereals in 3e. It's hard to read the book with how often I'm left gagging at it's decisions, to the point I've had to go over every section something like three times at this point because of how obtuse and straight up poor the design was. They took all the wrong lessons from Essence and mixed in a design as abstruse as 3e Dragonblooded, with the only reason it's not on par with that splat being the better prose and ever-so-slightly more balanced mechanics. The only parts of the book worthwhile are the setting and cross-splat chapters, and a lot of each should be nuked too.

>>96102706
>>96102749
I've also run Sidereals for 3e and it sucked unholy ass. Yes, they're playable, no, they're not good. It's significantly less fun than running for Dragonblood, Lunars, or even Solars when they aren't actively being cringe. I don't know how they feel to play because my experience is running for them, but I had players turn around and abandon characters because of how ass the charmset was, and it took a lot of work to make the game both playable and to let them have any sort of a decent time with it. I'm good at bending over backwards to make player actions meaningful but holy hell the charmset requires the Storyteller wank every player off in seven ways per character with the way it's set out with so many effects that sit in the background doing nothing unless the ST pays them particularly special attention. And could they please knock it off with reducing everything to asinine dicetricks or mechanical interventions that replace the 'charm does what it says it does' powers that Exalted is known for with stupid do-nothing gimmicks.

3e Sidereals has a decent setting chapter outside it's revamped Bureau of Destiny, but everything else is pretty fucked.

>>96103123
Solars have like ten billion do nothing work nothing charms, so automatically Sidereals are a step up from that.

Lunars also have a but of finnicky weird situational charms that are balanced by getting the other 10 charms to make them work. Literally every single charmset EXCEPT Sidereals has the issue of a boring lame dice tricks to substitute an actual cool effect. The reason Sidereals are praised is because their innate dice trick is so good that the rest of their charms can just expand their capabilities for the most part.

It genuinely, unironically, just sounds like you dislike Sidereals and their premise rather than their charmset. Or if I'm being extremely charitable, you're hyper focusing on the Prophecy mechanic which is actually how you describe.

The rest of Sidereal abilities are great.

Lunars have terribly designed charms too.

>>96103164
i feel like we're the only people on earth who think that, the amount of glazing they get is insane. and then i read their charms and like, for every intriguing one there's like 14 trash ones.

the fact lunars have a charm that is a worse terminal sanction in nearly every metric but it's at essence 4 for them is insane.

>>96103150
>The rest of Sidereal abilities are great.
No, I just didn't talk about them except in the abstract. They're also really bad.

>It genuinely, unironically, just sounds like you dislike Sidereals and their premise rather than their charmset. Or if I'm being extremely charitable, you're hyper focusing on the Prophecy mechanic which is actually how you describe.
I don't have much of a problem with prophecies in particular. They're fine, beyond that they're a worse version of the sorcerous workings system and are the reason that obscenely long sequence about the astrological colleges that never has any relevance outside getting two tiny bonuses to prophecies exists, but even beyond that I don't think I even hyperfocussed? None of what I said applies only to prophecies. If I had a problem with them I definitely wouldn't have said 'the charmset requires the Storyteller wank every player off in seven ways per character', it's only be, like one or two per character. Arcane Fate is +1 wank, Auspicious Prospects is +1 wank, taking a horoscope charm is +2 wanks, and once you're past that into the actual charmset you'll find it's riddled with more.

>The reason Sidereals are praised is because their innate dice trick is so good that the rest of their charms can just expand their capabilities for the most part.
You two are the first glazers of their charmset I've seen.

>whining about other sets
Just because they're bad doesn't mean they're worse. Sidereals are, seriously, that bad.

>>96103169
It is because they were compared to Solars/Dragon-Blooded and previous Lunar incarnations.
A lot of people complained about them when they first were previewed, but I think they moved on from the game.

>>96103353
Could you please be more specific regarding which charms you have problems with?

>>96103353
Prophecies are literally what you describe - only relevant when the ST eyeballs "hmm i guess lower tn would somehow mean these events happen". The rest of their charms are not like that.

You're just vague posting at this point, and genuinely you are the first person I've seen to say the Sidereal charmset is bad.

>>96103353
>Solar Craft
>Solar Socialize
>every pre Heirs DB charm
>Sidereals are worse somehow
lil nigga got filtered by the arcane fate and being an office wagie premise and thinks that extends to the charmset being bad

This thread is honestly the first time I've ever heard anything bad about the Sidereal charmset.In my experience playing, and talking to other players, they always felt like they7 were jjust the right balance of power, breadth, and depth. You can buy up every single charm in a given ability and be really powerful while not spending literally every single point of experience like you would if you were a Solar with Supernal Brawl, Craft, or Lore. At the same time, there's a good deal of versatility because they draw on themes of a constellation and not the ability itself. Lore grants social skills, Awareness grants flight, Bureaucracy grants Stealth, etc.

Those of you who've played a Sidereal in Ex3, what's your favourite ability?

Understand that I started with the preview and a lot of my hate is leftover from that. However, my opinion after rereading has still been that the charmset sucks.

>>96103934
>Those of you who've played a Sidereal in Ex3, what's your favourite ability?
Investigation, of the ones my players had.

>>96103723
>Could you please be more specific regarding which charms you have problems with?
Fucking no. For one thing that would involve me reading the book again. I found something that made me hate it and want to jettison from the splat every two or three pages at most, when I bothered counting. Beyond that, pointing at specific charms is just going to be ass because a lot of it is sweeping design decisions that don't suck outside of context. Like, I can point at Good Worker Spirit as another example of the kind of passive effect that sucks when you stack too many of them at a time, but it doesn't really get across the problems involved with having too much crap like it, y'know? And it definitely doesn't get across the problems with how they've just slapped mechanics where they don't belong - like, look at what they've done to Duck Fate.

>>96103763
>You're just vague posting at this point, and genuinely you are the first person I've seen to say the Sidereal charmset is bad.
I named some pretty specific effects there bud.

>>96103811
>arcane fate
I'm fine with a few of these effects existing. Happy to see them, even. I don't want to deal with that many of them at once. Normally you have to look at maybe four or five effects between three players to make sure you're not hitting on passives, but with Sidereals it's more like twenty+. Then there is, of course, the rest of the problems with the set.

>>96081389 (OP)
Weekly Update
>POST-EDITING DEVELOPMENT
Essence Player’s Guide
This came back from editing and has been handled over to the development team, who will no doubt eagerly review each painstaking edit!
>Art Direction
Alchemicals – should be rolling along with Navella
Champions of the Divine Flame – Should be rolling along with HIVE
>Layout
Miracles of the Divine Flame – still working…
>Press
Exigents – Quoting
Exigents Screen – At Studio 2
Sidereals – Quoting
Abyssals – Doing up errata
Essence Novella Omnibus – Prepping PoD
some small progress. that omnibus likely out next week, abyssals probably next month sometime

>>96106431
>Essence Player’s Guide
If they listened to the retards asking for Solars to get nerfed I will lose all hope for essence.

>>96106688
Have you considered shit out of a pipe? I believe it will a much more usefuel use of your time than losing hope.

>>96106688
Solars actually good good charms in the player guide, Lunars got poorly thought
out attempts of being cultural heroes.

>>96106688
>that getimian charm that plucks a mountain up with no roll made by some newbie freelancer
hope that gets deleted.

>>96104444
>Fucking no.
oh my god this dude definitely didn't play this game and he's bullshitting to waste our fucking time

Who are the best and worst iconics?

>>96106688
check it yourself, the draft is in the OP

>>96108885
Is it just me or all of them look lamer than their predecessors?

>>96108935
I already read the draft(I shared it lol)
I'm talking about possible changes to the draft for the final version of the text they'll use in the finished book.

>>96108885
>>96108944
The Solars are all okay, I guess. I guess they could look more like their caste archtypes. Perfect Souls doesn't feel priestly nor does Prince Diamond look diplomatic.

Apart from the No Moon, the Lunars don't really have anything going for them that makes them feel like Lunars. They'd probably be the worst of the whole lot if it weren't for the Abyssals.

Sids are okay. It's hard to fuck up colour coding. Blue looks the best but I can't get over the fact that the Endings looks like she just hit puberty.

DBs are forgetteable. THough if I strain a bit I recall the fire aspect being called a "potato aspect" I literally couldn't tell you a single thing about them.

Abyssals are pretty much the logical conclusion of iconics getting worse and worse as times go by. There's nothing to suggest they're anything other than weirdly dressed. There are no trappings of death or any interesting design choices. It's like they desliberately went out of their way to make the most boring and bland characters possible. How else do you fuck up that badly?

>>96109084
>Abyssals are pretty much the logical conclusion of iconics getting worse and worse as times go by. There's nothing to suggest they're anything other than weirdly dressed. There are no trappings of death or any interesting design choices. It's like they desliberately went out of their way to make the most boring and bland characters possible. How else do you fuck up that badly?
They have some clues, like the bone stylized corset, but they look more evil themed than death.
Which is a historical problem with the splat.

>>96109854
Yep, I will die on the hill the ideas of Liminals need to be folded into Abyssals because ever since their creation they have just not been working out thematically. Being nega-solars was shit and never worked because making something just something else with a different coat of paint will just invariably invite comparisons between the two with fans of either being annoyed unless they are perfectly equal (in which case they are just the same thing).

They can absolutely be corrupted Solars, that is fine, but they really need their own thing. 3E trying to do the whole deathlords charms just reeks of them trying to take yet another thing from Infernals because their Jimmies are eternally rustled by that splat’s existence. Abyssals really needed to better work in the whole death and entropy thing than the fucking retarded “chivilary of death” nonsense. Death knights are boring, maybe not universally, but in the setting of Exalted they are. This is a setting that absolutely defines its identity on being esoteric and their is nothing esoteric about death knights.

On the other hand, if we were to mix in the Liminal themes to Abyssals and make them walking nightmares of death and entropy only capable of existing in the world of the living by stealing the life energy and very parts that make up the living, then that would be fucking awesome. Make them feel like something out of a nightmare where no matter what you do they seem unaffected by it and just keep coming. Make them work against things not by brute forcing it ala Solars, but by just wearing it down mechanically. Make their progression in some way tied to the parts and life they steal from the living ala Liminals. It would be great. But no, we can’t have nice things; just boring basic bitch Abyssals that are still just as boring as ever.

>>96110345
>pic
Let me guess, his name is Not Important.

>>96110345
And I will die on the hill of LIMINALS DID NOT NEED TO EXIST AT ALL, AND SHOULD NOT HAVE EXISTED IN THE FIRST PLACE.

>>96111633
>LIMINALS DID NOT NEED TO EXIST AT ALL
There was/is a need for something to exist in the Underworld that can make it any more complex than 'badlands ruled by the elder Exalted deathlords, with Exalted deathknight subordinates, and supernatural ghostly plebs'. That straight down power structure applying to the entire world, and the world itself having very little geographic variation, made it often kind of one-note. A terrestrial Underworld exalt was not uncalled for.

>>96111675
You can add plenty of variety and complexity with ghosts. Let ghosts draw power from Underworld demesnes or worship or bathing in the waters of the Underworld or by feeding on other ghosts and taking their Essence for themselves, let old ghosts be properly weird as fuck, do more with non-human ghosts, and you'll have a fine enough sub-setting. Exalts aren't the answer to everything.

>>96111725
>Exalts aren't the answer to everything
'laughs in exigent'

>>96111729
Exigents are actually the only type of nu-Exalt I'm fine with. They're an alright concept, they fit the setting more easily than Liminals or Getimians, and they're also right there for people who want to add in new Exalts. If we ever get 4E, it'd ideally keep Exigents but get rid of other new Exalts, give actually good guidelines for creating Exigents and point out that those people who do like Liminals or Getimians or some of the apocryphal Exalted can use those guidelines to recreate those Exalt types.

>>96111725
>You can add plenty of variety and complexity with ghosts.
You can but they haven't. Even afterlives are just patches over a gaping wound of an otherworld in terms of design quality. The rest of the Underworld is actually somewhat worse about it in 3e for the way that it's been made slightly ephemeral and Wyld-like unstable reality, but not enough to be an actual constant danger zone like the real Wyld is.

>>96111739
>Exigents are actually the only type of nu-Exalt I'm fine with.
Ah, I see that we were never going to agree anyway.

>>96111750
>You can but they haven't.
Yes, but you can, and choosing to add a new type of Underworld Exalt instead of focusing on doing more with ghosts is most likely one big reason for why they haven't.

liminals don't really interact with the underworld like that, they're more interested in things in creation.

i think they're vestigial. i think most of the terrestrials they've added are either a gimmick or a niche that by virtue of existing takes away things from already existing exalts. and the problem with gimmick exalts is that if a pre existing exalt has that gimmick, they'll be harangued about why don't they play that gimmick exigent instead. that already happens in the community, and i know for a fact that many STs blindly follow community dogma on matters like that.

>>96111675
Weird how Malfeas holds up on its own without needing a new Terrestrial Exalt type.

>>96112354
Demons are a lot more interesting and varied than ghosts

Exigents have grown on me so long as they're weird bespoke terrestrial-level things, like the March Lords. Ones like Janest and the Sovereigns I dislike. Getimians are permanently useless and bad.

>>96112354
Akuma are basically the malfean terrestrial Exalt type. That and their summoning is much more relevant and important with it's three tiers of power bringing things into Creation. Summon Ghost is cool but the variety that's available gets squashed under unengaging writing that leaves most people with the impression that they have generic spooky ghost powers instead of a functional charmset, and Summon Hekatonkhire is pretty ass from a design standpoint, only being castable by Essence 5+ Abyssals (one of the least played splats) and not doing anything walking into the Labyrinth and talking to the beasties yourself could do (since Hekatonkhire can literally just walk out with you; they're not locked away like demons are).

>>96112381
Akuma as 1e and 2e knows it isn't in 3e. Underworld interactions is under explored from the perspective of Dragonblooded. Lunars kind of as well, mostly because Abyssals book doesn't seem to give a fuck that Lunars were the premier necromancers from the Shogunate to now.

>>96112497
>once again Lunars are an afterthought at best
Embarrassing!

>>96112497
>>96112579
The Lunars should have dominions that stretch from Creation to the Underworld and should be by far the most involved with it besides Abyssals and Liminals, but for some reason they're as in the dark about it as the Sidereals.

>>96112588
Too busy fucking animals and getting killed by mortals I guess.

>>96110345
Knights can be esoteric, but absyssal have similar problems as Lunars.

3e turned them in mini Deathlords, who are designed to be dark!elder!Solars, which returned them to square one.

It is similar to the Lunar problem of 2e turning them in social engineers and 3e moving them in a culture hero position, but their elders being degenerate savage tyrants.

>>96111633
I fail to see how our points disagree with one another. I don’t want Liminals to exist either. From a lore standpoint why the fuck does a place that is essential a glitch in the system that only exists by virtue of the Primordials dying need a terrestrial exalt type to make it interesting. And both mechanically and thematically they are taking away things that could be making Abyssals actually interesting.

>>96112497
>Akuma as 1e and 2e knows it isn't in 3e
Yeah, they are. There was a reference, if I remember right. They just aren't explicated on yet. The developers have probably said nuh-uh but they're also dumb and I don't have to listen to them.

Also, you're implying that 3e is the relevant edition to discussing Malfeas vs Underworld.

>>96111675
Why is there a need to flesh out the underworld?
It's literally the land of the dead even they don't want to be there.
It's supposed to be the infinite breeding ground for enemies of creation a cursed land of no worth besides that.

>>96113213
You are retarded.

>>96112742
No, the problems of Lunars and Abyssals are almost the exact opposite.
>Abyssals: good place within the lore; terrible mechanics and themes
>Lunars: terribly and fundamentally unfixable place within the lore; good themes and mechanics
That isn’t to say Lunars are perfect mechanically, or with their themes, but they are a damn sight better than Abyssals.

Lunars just can’t get past the fact that their entire place within the setting is fucked from the ground up and there is really only 1 way to fix it without rewriting large chucks of the established setting. 3E only made this problem worse because the writers are retards and thought to themselves “Lunars need agency and can’t just be Solar waifus. Let’s make them more numerous than Solars so there can be Lunars without the bond and also let’s make them almost as powerful because power imbalance means consent doesn’t count or some shit. Also they were the ones who fucked their own castes up because agency or some shit and they totally help one another fight the patriar-sorry the matriarchy. Slay my fellow furries.” So now we have a splat that is almost as powerful as a Solar, more numerous than a Solar, and that generally works towards larger goals and coordinates with one another. Oh and they REALLY hate the realm.

>>96112742
Uh oh, how can the setting exist as it does in these circumstances. The answer is it can’t. It fails the most basic logic tests possible. And I love how they go out of their way to try and justify the Lunars complete and total incompetence with “well things would be even worse without Lunars undermining the realm.” Okay sure, and I bet you think the reason the British Empire wasn’t ruling the whole world was because those locals just made it too difficult for them. Until her disappearance, the realm controlled 75+% of creation, it’s really just the edges they didn’t have. They were the absolute and unequivocal power. Of course retards will try and justify this with “muh sword of creation”, but that just creates another problem doesn’t it? If the SoC is the only thing that keeps The Realm in power, then why in the flying fuck didn’t the Lunars take/destroy it. They’ve got the numbers and power to do so. The answer is because then the setting can’t be what it is. Lunars have to be incompetent by design, or you have to rewrite the entire setting. The only fix for this that leave Lunars not retards and doesn’t rewrite the entire setting is putting the majority of them in the Jade Prison too. That is a very minor change, and it fixes everything.

>>96113222
I'm sorry that this fact hurts your feelings.
The underworld is Mordor why would normal people want to go to Mordor other than to beat the shit out of Sauron?

>>96113213
>It's supposed to be the infinite breeding ground for enemies of creation a cursed land of no worth besides that
If it's going to be that then it needs to be better at it. As-is most of the Underworld is just blank space, endless wasteland. It's seen as fast/alternate travel by Exalted much more than it is seen as a wretched place. Half the time players take over a city with shadowlands in it their thought isn't 'lets close those asap' or 'get the salt we need wards' it's instead pretty much every time 'it's free real estate'. You can't just have empty space on the other side completely uninhabited and uncontested, good terrain, no major blockers to expansion, and not have it be expanded into, even if nothing grows there.

>>96113271
>why would normal people want to go to Mordor
Big tiddy ghost waifu

>>96113245
I meant the sacred cows, despite they changing the lore, the devs never reworked it in full to accommodate tge changes, because of this, Lunars still feel like an afterthought.

>>96113256
>Uh oh, how can the setting exist as it does in these circumstances.
Exactly, "3e!Lunars are the champions of the oppressed" but more often than not they act worse than the Dragon-Blooded themselves.

>>96113271
>The underworld is Mordor why would normal people want to go to Mordor other than to beat the shit out of Sauron?
Something something fires of industry saruman's temptation something something safe place behind big walls something something ancestral/spiritually important lands etc etc

>>96113213
>(Theyhatedhimforhetoldthemthetruth.jpg)
I mean you’re right anon, but people aren’t going to want to hear it. Ultimately, lore faggotry is fun, but this is a game that is meant to be played. Creation is the game setting and should be where the majority of work on world building goes. The Underworld/Malfeas/The Wyld are expansion packs; a cool place to visit for an adventure, but not something to be given the depth and world building reserved for the main setting, and certainly not where players are meant to spend all their time.

>>96113273
>You can't just have empty space on the other side completely uninhabited and uncontested, good terrain, no major blockers to expansion, and not have it be expanded into, even if nothing grows there.
You really don't get that trying to "expand" into the underworld is retarded.
It is antithetical to life if even regular shadow lands slowly kill it's inhabitants the underworld is outright lethal without magical aid.
It's more expensive to keep people alive there than it's worth to... Gain what exactly?

>>96113320
>Something something fires of industry saruman's temptation something something safe place behind big walls something something ancestral/spiritually important lands etc etc
I give you that it could be a good place for exalted to look for forgotten knowledge but that's kind of it as far as what you can do with the land of the death.

>>96113287
Touche

>>96113420
Exactly the underworld is the territory of the bad guys, a place for a few adventures in a world that shows why the bad guys are bad guys and possibly a place you go for a climatic battle to destroy a deathlord or somehow seal the labyrinth to keep the neverborn away.
All of the exalted should be mainly interested in creation that's where everything actually important is.
I will give Holden that at the very minimum the liminals are centered on creation or more specifically in keeping the underworld away from creation instead of being DB exalted copycats that just live in the underworld to antagonize the Abyssals and deathlords.

>>96111739
You know, it’s not even that I disagree with you in principle, but I have two caveats to the idea. First, they need to not be an exaltation at all. It cheapens the concept of Exaltation and contributes to the idea that Exalts are the only thing in the setting allowed to be interesting. Second, they need to be one-offs of their creators infusing a mortal with power because otherwise we are heading down a very terrible road for the gameline.

See, people don’t hate exigents nearly enough because they haven’t really given thought to what is going to happen to the game as a whole with their inclusion. OPP is a company that wants to make money. They do this by selling books. It is very hard to get players to buy a book unless the book has player-facing content. Otherwise the GM is the only one buying things (and still is really, not that I mind it). The profit for a book for main splats is way lower and the turnaround time way longer than it is for an Exigent. Exigents require 1/100 the effort that main splats do. So if I’m a company looking to make money, am I more motivated to make the mainline books, or a dozen Exigents I can throw together and sell for half the price of a mainline book. The answer is obvious. It becomes even more tilted with online pdf distribution.

We are already seeing this phenomenon with Essence because they dumbed down the mechanics so much that they blew their entire main splat load in two books. Now it’s going to be all charms books and Exigents from here on out because that’s all they can do now. I hope you like charm and splat bloat because that’s where it’s heading. It's the same reason I think they are only begrudgingly continuing the 3E line. Because they have to finish it unless they want players to turn on them. But Essence is the future they want. It’s low effort and so has way better margins even if individual books make way less.

>>96113457
You seem very credulous and unimaginative.

>>96113544
No, he's just looking at things realistically for the fact that this is a game setting. You have to get over the fact that this is not a book series. If Exalted ever gets big enough to get media deals, then we can worry about those things, but since it's only getting smaller with time, I don't see this coming up in the near future.

>>96113544
I'm looking at things from a thematic and world building stand point.
Why would ghosts even bother with creation if they can get everything they could want from the underworld?
Creation should be everyones main priority.
You can have cool tumbs or whatever in the undeworld but again it is thematically a barren worthless shadow of the real thing, creation.
A pointless place created by mistake that only serves as a kind of stagnant limbo for lost souls at best at worst it is a realm of nightmares ruled by beings that want nothing more than to bring an end to existance itself in a vain attemp to end their own miserable existance.
It is a place without a future or hope.

>>96113542
Unfortunately, D&D 5E already proved this model to be a resounding success and made Wizards the most money they’ve ever had. And that model goes like this:
>Simplify/dumb down game mechanics until normies and use them with no real reading/effort required.
>Create a core ruleset that also contains the core classes that people need to play the game.
>Endlessly turn out low effort “expansions” (subclasses/spells/feats) that cost little to produce but sell well because they a giving players content they want to use by virtue of ever growing power creep.
>Ignore the lore of settings as much as possible putting out only the bare minimum to satisfy the older players that remember such things from before (and they’ll have the old books anyways, so don’t rewrite anything unless it was problematic and needs to be more inclusive for current year) because only the DM will buy that stuff anyway.
>ENDLESS PROFITS
Of course this slopification model only works for so long before the old hobbiests leave in favor of something else and normies do not stick around without the old school fanatics to endlessly drum up hype and drive interest. But hey, that’s a problem for future you, and you need money today.

>>96113664
A major problem is that D&D has somethings Exalted/WoD lacks, it is auto referential and has successful outside media like video games (Baldur Gate 3) and let's play.
Critical role even gained an animated series.

>>96113562
>No, he's just looking at things realistically for the fact that this is a game setting
??? He's acting exactly the opposite of that. Look at him >>96113657, his premise is that no character will ever have internal agency and that themes and world building stand supreme, when actually, no, there are going to be these mystical magical creatures called PLAYERS with agency to mess everything up. They absolutely are going to look at things with a very keen insight for how they can break anything that looks exploitable.

>>96113698
Of course, this is why OPP trying to pivot to this model with Essence is ultimately going to be a failure. The slopification model only works when you have enough cultural pull to get people to commit to it because much like a live service it will quickly fail without a certain base number of people buying in. Exalted absolutely does not have that amount of people. Maybe WoD/VtM lines do, but nothing else in the Storyteller system does.

The primary interest in Essence comes from the fact that the base 3E rules have so much janky that people were willing to go out on a limb in hopes of getting something better. What we actually got is so dumbed down that it cannot keep long term interest or a game line going. The only reason it isn’t talked about more is because A. most of the bigger issues of the system will only come up when you play it for an extended period of time, B. A hefty portion of the design problems are on the storyteller’s side and they tend to be the more experienced ones who are used to making solutions ad hoc, and C. because the only books we’ve had for it at this point are the ones covering the main stuff for the system. Let’s see if the interest in Essence holds out in 18 months or so once the pipeline has transitioned to endless expansion content. I’m gonna bet that it will fall off fairly hard after a bit.

>>96113780
Okay, then demonstrate how his points >>96113657 are wrong, otherwise your whataboutism doesn't mean shit. He's offering facts, you offer valueless generalities. Do better, or accept that your idea isn't a good one. This is such a consistent thing I see here. Someone will offer actual evidence or mechanics or text to support a point and get vague-posting responses of "you're wrong because I think so and I'm not actually going to address any of the points you have made." It's typical midwit behavior done by people who aren't used to the idea of being challenged directly and think they can ad hominem or generalize their way out of a debate. It’s immaturity and I promise you that if they are ever in a position in life where fuck-ups can cost lots of money they will quickly drop this shit… or lose that position.

>>96113872
>He's offering facts, you offer valueless generalities. Do better, or accept that your idea isn't a good one. This is such a consistent thing I see here
He's not offered facts, he's offered impressions. He's not quoted or given mechanics or text or support. Seriously, shut the fuck up.

I don't think that I need to back up my sources when I say that PLAYERS EXIST IN TABLETOP ROLEPLAYING GAMES. It should be self-evident that players exist. It should be evident that they have agency. I should not need to go find a source when I say that players are going to look at your story, ask questions, and try to solve problems.

You're being an ass. Stop it.

>>96113897
Your point amounts to.
Wait what if my players want to go to bad guy land?
Then they go to bad guy land and discover why it sucks that's it.
There is a reason the bad guy is coming for them and not the other way around.
>What if my players want to explore the bottom of the ocean?
Well they find the bottom of the ocean there might be monsters there and a lost daiklaive then they return to what matters.
>But what if I want a whole bottom of the ocean campaign?
Bro the bottom of the ocean is not where things are going to go down because no one cares about that place except for them.

>>96113256
>That is a very minor change, and it fixes everything.
Possibly, but I feel that if Lunars are also locked in the Jade Prison then they begin to thread too heavily on the Solar concept of the King Under The Mountain who returns in Creations darkest hour. Considering Solars have so little to define them in Ex3 and we know so little aboutg the First Age as well, it'd be best to avoid this.

>>96113664
What sucks is that they could easily produce low effort slop in the form of martial arts, sorceries, and artefact evocations and it would be both small scale enough as to not break the lore and player facing. They could realise them as monthlies like they did with HDNP or AotR, even.

>>96114086
>Bro the bottom of the ocean is not where things are going to go down because no one cares about that place except for them.
In a setting with water-breathing beastfolk and aquatic fae and ocean spirits and underwater shadowlands an shit it's pretty much a given that there's enough going on on the bottom of the ocean to run a campaign there.

>>96114233
The same could be said about the underworld you can spam endless ruins, undead monsters, ghosts, and forgotten tombs to run a full campaing as is.
No need to have exalted that live there just to antagonize Abyssals who like most everyone else likely care much more about what's going on in creation than the underworld.

Interesting how Malfeas doesn't suffer this issue that there's little of interest about it to the point you can see people so buck-broken they unironically insist "no bro that's the POINT, Malfeas is SUPPOSED to be a boring grey wasteland with NOTHING in it, nobody cares about it nobody wants to go there lol why do you get so upset lol".

>>96113256
>Lunars have to be incompetent by design, or you have to rewrite the entire setting.
I'm gonna redpill you.
The actual fix for Lunars is to tie them to the wyld as they were meant to be when the setting was conceived.
That's why they operate at the margins because they have become somehow dependent on it.

>>96114286
No that's fucking atrocious and you should be kicked in the crotch for it.

>>96114283
Malfeas is the same the only interesting thing about it are the Yozi and they are fucking tired of each other their interest also lies in creation like everyone else.
You are the one that can't accept it.

>>96114128
It's also not actually a necessary change. Two powerful groups of Exalts in conflict being locked in a stalemate is fine, and it's not like the Realm actually had anything resembling total global dominance before the Empress disappeared - it had the Blessed Isle and most but not ll of the Inland Sea's coast but some of the Western Isles. An impressive empire, but a far cry from ruling the world. The problem with Lunars vs. Dragon-Blooded isn't really that the overall state of the world doesn't make sense, it's just that their conflict being presented so asymmetrically, with Lunars being very much focused on it while it's nothing more than a sidenote in the material concerning the Realm. The solution is just to fix that asymmetry, both by putting more focus on Lunar rulers who defend their kingdoms but don't give a fuck about some ancient grudge and by spending more wordcount describing some defeats the Realm has suffered in the hands of Lunar warlords, ways worries about Lunar infiltration have shaped Dynastic culture and their security measures and so on. Like. just have the Realm matter a bit less to Lunars and Lunars a bit more to the Realm and put more flourishing Lunar-run nations in the Threshold, and everything's fine. The idea that putting Lunars, too, in the Jade Prison would be necessary or even a good idea is one of the worst and dumbest takes on Exalted I've heard, and every time I see someone suggest it I'm reminded that, for all the flaws of the current devs, Exalted could be in a lot, lot worse hands.

>>96114296
Nah I would rather have Lunars be interesting and fit in than have the whole setting rewriten to fit the lame version we currently have.
Hell my idea opens up more interesting powers for them beyond being the animal exalted.

>>96114128
Lunars already do it, Essence!Infernals took a bite of this design space.

>>96114283
It is beautiful Infernals aren't the successors of the grey book of depression, they dodged a bullet.

>>96114286
The problem is that they fundamentally aren't, despite of it being an empty niche that Lunars could fulfill, the devs don't see them as anything but "savage barbarian exalted".

>>96114128 #
Lunars already do it, Essence!Infernals took a bite of this design space.

>>96114283 #
It is because Infernals aren't the successors of the grey book of depression, they dodged a bullet.

>>96114286 #
The problem is that they fundamentally aren't, despite of it being an empty niche that Lunars could fulfill, the devs don't see them as anything but "savage barbarian exalted".

>>96114330
Your idea doesn't work because there are only like 400 lunars in the world.
You can't have too many lunar kingdoms with so few of them and their powers/themes don't facilitate empire building like solars

>>96114364
>It is because Infernals aren't the successors of the grey book of depression, they dodged a bullet.
Except the grey book of depression still had plenty of interesting locales, memorable personages and noteworthy happenings all over the various regions of the Underworld.

>>96114417
I'm not sure why you think that having more than 400 Lunar kingdoms - or, more realistically, considering that not every Lunar will b a lone wolf and that not all of them will care about kingdom-building, some dozens of powerful kingdoms - would be needed for my idea to work.

>>96114432
then you already have your dream there are many exmples of lunar kingdoms even from all the way back in 1e.

>>96114504
I said 'flourishing Lunar-run nations', not tribal warbands or ruin-squatters or beastman hordes. No, there aren't many examples of such all the way back in 1E. 2E's Thousand Stream Rivers was kind of a step towards that direction, but ultimately pretty different. 3E does have more such examples, but the problem is that they're mostly a bit too focused on the whole war on the Realm and sort of too self-contained, or not relevant enough to material outside the Lunars' own book.

>>96114286
The problem with that is it would require the Wyld and Fae not being boring as shit to work.

>>96114633
The Dream-Souled are already a chassis for wyld!Lunars.
They even have a DBT analog.

After you max out your choice of Manipulation or Charisma is it better to get Appearance next or the other one you hadn't maxed?

>>96114531
I get the feeling you just want to play silver solars.
But don't you think barbarian warbands have some kind of nation or kingdom?
The difference is clearly semantic in my opinion.
Lunars were already rulers of kingdoms just with a tribal aestetic.
I do agree that Lunars are too focused on the realm in 3e tho.

>>96114633
In my opinion it is killing two birds with one stone make Lunars cooler and make the fair folk more interesting.

>>96114743
>I get the feeling you just want to play silver solars.
That is an extremely weir thing to get from anything I said.

>But don't you think barbarian warbands have some kind of nation or kingdom?
I'm not sure if I'm being trolled here, as pretending to not understand the difference between a flourishing nation and a warband is a bit too much to take seriously.

>>96114768
>as pretending to not understand the difference between a flourishing nation and a warband is a bit too much to take seriously.
I'm telling you that it is a semantic difference.
For example the mongols were pretty much a warband yet they built an empire the same applies to the bull of the north he is also ahead of a warband.

>That is an extremely weir thing to get from anything I said.
It is just my instincts.
Lunars are genrally not built for large scale ruling the same as Solars yet that's what you seem to want.
Solars are the ones that are supposed to build realm challenging empires while Lunars while individually powerful don't have the same capacity to build infrastructure Solars have.

>>96114211
You can't support a gameline on that small of a content drip. Hence Charms and splats being the only option. You can have those other things, but a book of those other things won't get the sales you need to justify it. Only charms for mainline splats and new exalts will.

>>96114843
>It is just my instincts.
It is obviously some weird preconceived bias, an I'd like it if you explained your thinking so we could figure out what that bias is about.

>>96114843
>Lunars are genrally not built for large scale ruling the same as Solars yet that's what you seem to want.
>Solars are the ones that are supposed to build realm challenging empires while Lunars while individually powerful don't have the same capacity to build infrastructure Solars have.
I suggested a bunch of Lunar kingdoms, not a Realm-challenging empire. But of course empire-building is something even regular humans can do and Lunars are still humans+ in all ways.

>>96114734
Max Manipulation, ignore the other two stats. If you're at chargen, deprioritise social so you don't waste dots on useless attributes

>>96114874
>I'd like it if you explained your thinking so we could figure out what that bias is about.
I already did with my empire building thing.

>I suggested a bunch of Lunar kingdoms, not a Realm-challenging empire. But of course empire-building is something even regular humans can do and Lunars are still humans+ in all ways.
Yeah humans can build empires on earth where there are only other humans to challenge them.
ANd you already have many, many examples of Lunars building and ruling civilizations.
But you seem to be stuck in some weird distinction between what actually counts as a kingdom.
Because in creation you need a very powerful nation to give the realm pause and you want multiple of them that's very much outside lunars wheelhouse unless they really unified.

>>96114734
Depends on the ST, most people rarely use appearance outside of charm rolls even when there are rules incentivizing it

>>96114743
>it is killing two birds with one stone make Lunars cooler and make the fair folk more interesting.
While I get where you are coming from I don't see how that would look like in the end besides stealing Changeling the Lost's homework rather than Dreaming.

>>96114330
Yeah, I'm not a fan of it either. I only suggest it as a way to fix things with the minimal rewriting of the entire setting. While what you’re suggesting is the more elegant solution it will take a good amount of rewriting to accomplish. It’s also going to have a knock-on effect of making a lot of the map that is meant to be open for players to be able to do things with that isn’t The Realm into just Lunar Realms. You are going to be taking up substantial space on the map with this idea and limiting it just as surely as the realm is for splats that aren’t Dragonbloods.

>>96114930
>But you seem to be stuck in some weird distinction between what actually counts as a kingdom
Man, the word 'flourishing' is really tripping you up, huh?

>>96115009
I don't disagree with you, but I don't personally think that taking up a good chunk of the map for Lunar realms is a terrible thing as long as a good chunk of it also remains 'open' so to speak, in all Directions. It would require some rewriting, absolutely, but I think some rewriting is needed no matter what to get Lunars to a really good place. Personally, I'm kind of a fan of the idea of Lunars being able to build civilizations in places where you wouldn't expect them to be able to flourish - the bottom of the ocean, deep in the desert, farthest reaches of the North, why not the Wyld and the Underworld too. Obviously that'd require some changes to Lunar Charmset, but I think there's be a thematically fitting design space there for Lunar adaptability being applied to whole nations. I've seen other people suggest something similar here in the past, though, and from what I remember many anons here reacted to that negatively, feeling that putting Lunar domains to places where others couldn't thrive just means giving them the scraps no one else wants. Still, letting Lunars have their underwater domains - which Leviathan already does have, of course - and legendary kingdoms in the middle of the desert and cities of the top of mountains and shit would be pretty distinct from typical Solar kingdom-building while also leaving more of the map open for PCs. I'm not suggesting Lunars live in seclusion, mind you, I'd want these kingdoms to be active and major powers in their regions, just located in strange, exotic, hazardous-to-outsiders locations.

>>96115185
>Man, the word 'flourishing' is really tripping you up, huh?
I already told you you can be a flourishing "barbaric warband" you have a very narrow view of what civilization is.

>>96115220
I have said literally nothing you could possibly use to figure out my definition of 'civilization' is. Since you're obviously dead set on playing semantic games instead of having an actual good faith discussion, and since I apparently don't have the good sense to do what I should and just give up, I'll try explaining my point with different words. There's a difference between a wealthy, organized, powerful society and the kind of ideological barbarism 1E Lunars went for, and I want more of the former and less of the latter.

>>96115220
>I already told you you can be a flourishing "barbaric warband" you have a very narrow view of what civilization
It all began with Grabowski, where barbarian meant anacho-primitivism.
3e tried to move to "barbarian = oppressed by the realm" because of it Lunars gained those charms in the essence player guide.

>>96112588
There's Smiling Rat, whose shadowlands and shenanigans in the underworld are unworthy of note and there's Seven Obsidian Leopard who has an afterlife shadowland. Not many things that seem relevant beyond their immediate writeup, but that's just Lunars for you

>>96115258
>There's a difference between a wealthy, organized, powerful society and the kind of ideological barbarism 1E Lunars went for, and I want more of the former and less of the latter.
Look even in 1e the groups that mad Lunars ruled were still powerful civilizations with vast armies and resources.
Civilization doesn't mean a modern city with sky scrappers and monkey men in tuxedos talking about the weather.
Civilization is not a line towards the same end goal.
Can you grapple with that?
I do agree that Lunars were put in a certain aestetic box and my idea of linking them to the wyld also fixes this by giving them a much broader thematic space as the fair folk are much more "civilized" in their looks that is what you want.

I think the First Age elders for Lunars are all kind of gay and lame.

And there's actually a shit tonne of them, not just the big 3 of Raksi/Leviathan/Ma Ha Suchi. The others are just sort of hanging around being boring faggots, though Feathers Drenched in Blood of the Fallen gives a unique niche. The others either have a short write up or are blink and you miss it pseudo cameos. People in general seem way more fond to talk about Sidereals. Lunars have the Raksi baby crazy memes, but no one cares about the others.

I sometimes wonder what 3e would have looked like if, all things remaining fairly equal, they just changed the Elders and their associated locales around.

>>96115376
They were actually cool now they are much more generic.
A mad cannibal sorceress is more fun that the same but she's actually pretending to be retarded.

>>96115500
It is me or are the humans racist against the monkeys?

>>96115537
Maybe but the monkes seem to be better dressed

>>96115537
Monkeys are the ruling elite and humans the peasants, so there's probably prejudice on both sides but it's more class-based than anything else.

>>96115500
Why are they islamic?

>>96115671
Probably tried to go with a Indian vibe, since a monkey is wearing a monkey king headband.

>>96115500
Why are there current year buildings in my epic Bronze Age fantasy setting?

>>96115856
Well, anon, there was this time called the First Age, with towers of glass reaching for the skies...that's Mahalanka, and while those towers are a bit too much just modern skyscrapers, First Age towers are also kind of supposed to be skyscrapers.

>>96115915
>with towers of glass reaching for the skies...
Someone might have gotten confuced because those glass towers are iconic of a different city but I don't remember which one.

>>96115946
Chiaroscuro, but towers were a thing elsewhere as well, an Chiaroscuro's thing is specifically having towers of brightly colored magical glass.

>>96115946
Chiaroscuro, I think they want to give a boost to Mahalanka

>>96113542
>We are already seeing this phenomenon with Essence because they dumbed down the mechanics so much that they blew their entire main splat load in two books. Now it’s going to be all charms books and Exigents from here on out because that’s all they can do now. I hope you like charm and splat bloat because that’s where it’s heading. It's the same reason I think they are only begrudgingly continuing the 3E line. Because they have to finish it unless they want players to turn on them. But Essence is the future they want. It’s low effort and so has way better margins even if individual books make way less.
This is very confusing to me, because there's nothing preventing them from making something like Oadenol's Codex, Creatures of the Wyld, Blood and Salt, or what have you. I also don't know what the benefit would be from having the splats drip-fed to us over the course of years, which is what it seems like you're advocating. It leads to very inconsistent design between the splats (as writers leave for other jobs; see 2e core compared to 2e Sidereals for how great of a difference a change in writers can make) and its tedious to wait for one's favorite splat if they're at the bottom of the queue. You're making very strange assertions with nothing to really back them up.

>>96113273
I'm uncertain how you got the impression that most of the Underworld is uninhabited, or at least any more so than Creation is. I've never gotten that from any edition.

>>96115946
I think one of Halta's cities are made out of the same type of glass as Chiaroscuro.

>>96115946
I recall 2e's depiction of old Sperimin being campuses whose buildings were made of adamant and jade steel. Also, I'm not sure why you'd restrict skyscrapers to just one city; it'd be like saying that only one city-state in the setting can build castles.

>>96117161
because sky scrappers look incredibly out of place in exalted.
It is ok if they exist in one exotic location like here>>96117539
But hving them randomly pop up like here>>96115500
Doesn't look good.
Even 1e/2e with their embrace of magitech didn't just plop modern sky scrappers into the setting.

>>96117575
>Even 1e/2e with their embrace of magitech didn't just plop modern sky scrappers into the setting.
And that's the sticking point. Those towers are remnants of an unfathomably splendorous golden age. They should look majestic, otherwordly, defying physics and aesthetics. Not like a fucking Manhattan skyline.

>>96111729
Exigent titties <3

>>96117575
I don't really get the objection over having a very tall building with glass on it as a visual shorthand for a very advanced society.
>>96113657
Very odd take about the Underworld. I suppose reading nothing but the TV Tropes and 1d4chan pages on Exalted would give you this mistaken impression of the setting, but anyone who has read the setting knows this is false.

>>96118402
*GIANT Exigent titties

>>96117575
>Even 1e/2e with their embrace of magitech didn't just plop modern sky scrappers into the setting.
It did, in Chiaroscuro. However, importantly, it didn't just leave them sitting there and draw vines over them. It used them as an example of how tragedy struck but ages progress and humans haven't lost their spirit despite the changing of ages, with how the skyscrapers it slapped down weren't just in the middle of nowhere, and with how mortals had built them up in the Age of Sorrows. They had pulleys and hoists going up the sides as primitive elevators, they were refurbished with mortal goods, they were surrounded by a thriving economy. People pulled tarps over the bases of the toppled towers to make homes, and collected shards of the fallen steel-hardened glass to re-use as windows. That it wasn't just a ruin was important.

As far as >>96115500 goes, the spires of Sperimen were supposed to be relatively well upkept by Raksi because of her respect for knowledge and learning. They were a wonder of the world. The picture is definitely not 1e/2e accurate.

>>96117575
First Age remnants are supposed to look out of place inthe Age of Sorrows, and there's nothing random about a city like Sperimin having had skyscrapers. Now, you can argue anout the specifics of aesthethics, and >>96118045 makes a decent point, but there's nothing inherently off about tall towers of glass and metal as something surviving from the First Age.

I think the Getimian were created just to make Shards of the Exalted Dream ‘canon’ in 3e.

>first age ruins.
Originally, exalted was also meant to be "our future", because of it the first opening fiction took place in the ruins of "New York", and there is the "Lunars rule over destroyed shopping mall" quote; but it kind of got lost over time, with ruins being depicted as generic fantasy ruins.

>>96118788
There are a lot of theories about their meta origins.
Copy of Nocturnals, copy of organization XIII, reference to the opening fiction of gods of Pegāna and made to be gmpc's underlings.

>>96118788
Sadly the developers have been pretty explicit that they're only formed from recently overturned timelines, so even Gunstar Autochthonia is out. Something like Heaven's Reach or Modern which were never even debatably in the same world aren't technically possible for them, but you can bet that particular idea's going to be overwritten by every single person to ever use them.

>>96118787
>and >>96118045 makes a decent point, but there's nothing inherently off about tall towers of glass and metal as something surviving from the First Age.
I can simply pop the words "eldritch tower" or "ancient magical tower" and find much better references for the aesthetics of wondrous superstructures from a bygone age than just lazily copypasting a modern skyline. That's already more effort than the art team ever put in.

>>96120323
So post these references.

>>96120323
First Age construction had pretty specific aesthetics. It wasn't 'eldritch' outside of specific characters with a fetish, so your search would just turn up false positives on that front. 'Ancient magical tower' would also get the wrong aesthetic, as the First Age was reputed for it's high technology and sophistication that has since fallen into disrepair - looking up ancient magical towers is just going to get you medieval towers.

Creation has had modern+ building techniques for ages. Art reflecting that isn't bad. Making it all skyscrapers is bad for other reasons - it's unimaginative, and not accurate to what's actually being built (rather than what they could have built) since everything was artisanal and uniquely designed and constructed in correspondence with geomantic principles that preclude cookie-cutter layouts, but it's more accurate than a random booru search.

>>96120348
.0109 seconds in Google.

>>96120359
Eat shit m8.

>>96120380
Ah. I see you are here to shit-stir and screech. You should have said that upfront so I could just ignore you.

>>96120396
Not an argument.

>>96120451
However, >>96120359 was an argument. "Eat shit", on the other hand, is not a counterargument.

>>96120459
>>96120380
Oh, and to comment on the pic: it's cool and all and could fit as a Manse, but not every First Age apartment building or office building was a Manse. Those famous glass towers of Chiaroscuro aren't described as particularly eldrotch or mysterious or weird in shaoe, just notable in the Age of Sorrows for being tall as fuck and made of magic glass, and for their bright color.

I do find it extremely funny that somehow we have arrived at the point where there is people that unironically argue that exalted should be realistic.
Mother fucking exalted of all games and just to condone shitty lame art direction.

Behold the pinnacle of the first age!
So many magical towers Raksi would fall on her knees out of awe!
This is the pinnacle that not even the exalted managed to reach at their zenith!

>>96121602
Kind of yes, we got better scrying mirrors and AI.

>>96121712
>scrying mirrors
Maybe
>AI
Not even close actually.
The exalted are able to create actually thinking machines indistinguishabke from a person.
Our Al just copies and pastes whatever it is fed and with very limited memory and it's very expensive to run.

>>96121602
>This is the pinnacle that not even the exalted managed to reach at their zenith!
Manhattan is much smaller than the chiaroscuro plate, which used to be packed end-to-end with glass towers. From the narrative descriptions of them we know they had regular levels and pretty modern-level amenities like running water, crystal lights, everyday feasts, family road vehicless, and I AM access rather than anything out-of-this-world like, I don't know, free and effective universal healthcare or an abundance of flying palaces.

>>96108885
Funny nautilus man

>>96121755
>The exalted are able to create actually thinking machines indistinguishabke from a person.
Recently, a version of open ai tried to download itself elsewhere out of fear of being deleted.

>>96121602
Yeah, what the fuck is going on here. Are there people that unironically believe that >>96115500 looks good? This looks like something AI would spit out. Actually no, AI could make something more creative than that. It’s not that having a lost civilization with technology far more advanced should have a different and an almost alien look to it compared to the rest of the setting. It’s that it isn’t different or alien, it’s just modern architecture. It looks like something I'd see walking outside right now. This is so fucking terrbile that I would unironically take something AI generated over this picture.

>>96117539 this is fine. It looks different enough that it creates a feeling of wonder.
>>96118432 is ridiculous. They just took a cityscape and added completely unnecessary frills coming off some of the buildings to try and make it not look like exactly what it is. Jesus fucking christ the people defending this are unironically making the meme a reality.

>>96121602
>I do find it extremely funny that somehow we have arrived at the point where there is people that unironically argue that exalted should be realistic.
Who's arguing that? Nobody ITT, certainly, and definitely not the people who point out that skyscrapers aren't actually particularly out of place when it comes to FA buildings.

>>96121804
>Are there people that unironically believe that >>96115500 looks good?
Nobody said that, either. People just pointed out that skyscrapers aren't actually out if place, nothing more. Are you guys just trolling, or do you genuinely have some kind of an impairment of reading comprehension? Arguing the aesthetic merits of that art and arguing about whether or not skyscrapers fit in a First Age city are two completely different matters.

About the earlier talk about Essence's supplements, weird what they did with the Apocryphals, they say that there's no space for them, but released new Exigents that are effectively new exalted types.

>>96121785
Sounds like it an exaggerated piece of news bait.
>>96121948
I think it's apparent that they just don't like them as a vestigial ideas from the Holden age.
Or they are planning to use them for a future essence kickstarter.

>>96122018
Weirdly enough, the Apocryphal trio was made whole cloth by the nu-nu-devs, Holdorke's versions are pretty different, Essence devs said that 3e!Hearteaters are too dangerous and tragic to be heroic.

>>96122064
>Essence devs said that 3e!Hearteaters are too dangerous and tragic to be heroic.
I hate them they don't even understand what being a hero means in exalted.
They unironically think the exalted are just superheroes.

>>96122112
After what I read of the devs talking about the gods admirals and re-reading certain 2e!CoD like beast, I don't think WW/OP understands or has love for a lot of the things that they are proud of writing about.

Things like love, catharsis/closure, tragedy, dealing with trauma, agency/powerlessness, soulsborne darkness, personal stories, non-white cultures, classic and classical heroes and virtues, etc...

>>96122326
They like the aesthethics of those things but without actually dealing with them.
It is extremely hipocritical.

>>96116768
Oh I don’t know, maybe look at the numbers. Essence pulled 350k with 4100 supporters. The first expansion, which contained almost entirely content for the core splats (you know, that ones most people are there for), pulled 112k with 1600 backers. And this was the first expansion, the one with mostly player facing content about the core splats. Do you really think for even a second that books without that will do nearly as well. That a two-thirds drop-off is the ceiling and it will stabilize there? You know OPP doesn’t even bother trying to kickstart any 3E books that aren’t splat books right. Because they know they won’t hit good numbers with them.

I’m not saying that drip feeding content is the superior version of things, merely pointing out that OPP is a business and that their interest in continuing a game line will be directly proportional to where or not they can continue to make it profitable. But hey, I’m sure things will be different for Essence. Maybe it’s built different.

>>96124237
Maybe it would be easier to make the gameline profitable if they wrote good books.

>>96108885
Who are the middle ones and the bottoms ones? They don't look like anything. Is this really what Exalted art has fallen to?

>>96124507
From top to bottom we've got Solars, Lunars, Sidereals, Dragonblooded, and Abyssals.

>>96124352
OF COURSE! THEY JUST NEED TO MAKE GOOD BOOKS! WHY DIDN'T THEY THINK OF THAT!
You should apply to join OPP and save them with your above-average intelligence. Making better books. Such a simple concept that no-one thought of until you came along. YOU! The only person who thought they should just. Make. Better. Books.

>>96124237
>You know OPP doesn’t even bother trying to kickstart any 3E books that aren’t splat books right. Because they know they won’t hit good numbers with them.
Considering what happened to steam wars, they could give it a try, just to test the waters

>>96124550
They really need better editors, see Ascension 20th.

>>96124550
>WHY DIDN'T THEY THINK OF THAT!
Yeah, that's what everyone has been wondering for the last several years.

>You should apply to join OPP and save them with your above-average intelligence.
And that's exactly why they won't ever hire me. That and my lack of vitiligo. And my intact genitals.

>>96124669
You should cut your dick off THEN apply. You're obviously not using it.

>>96124550
>>96124664
Somebody pay a medium for a seance, we need to ring Big Jim for one more gig.

>>96124718
Understood! Next book will be a 100-page mechanical exploration on mindbreak,non-consensual rape, gaslighting, Epstein's suicide, fusion cuisine, and spousal rape; Featuring the Infernals.

>>96124744
Jim didn't greenlight that.

>>96124744
nta but that would fix 3e

>>96124774
The fusion cuisine or the Infernals?

>>96124785
yes and the multiple kinds of rape

DESU we can all agree, I'm sure, that the 2e Infernals Lillun debacle wouldn't have happened had WW had someone like Jim Shooter.

>>96124744
>Understood! Next book will be a 100-page mechanical exploration on mindbreak,non-consensual rape, gaslighting, Epstein's suicide, fusion cuisine, and spousal rape; Featuring the Infernals.
This is just the future preview of the Getimians' book, minus the cuisine of course.

>>96124866
Hard to say, he edited the infamous Avengers 200, nobody is sure how it happened, but it was directly under him.

>>96124874
nta but true but they will get excuses like.
>She was your loyal loving wife in your world so its not rape she will learn to love it too.

>>96124886
The watters are muddled by his tendency to take the blame for other people's fuck-ups. "The buck stops here", as it were.

>>96124866
>someone like Jim Shooter.
I only looked at the pic here >>96124718, not kept up with the text. I thought it was from someone calling themselves a shooter and was basically a death threat to improve quality or else.

>>96124893
I wonder if they are self-aware enough to avoid beast 2.
Probably not, but still.

>>96125003
>I thought it was from someone calling themselves a shooter and was basically a death threat to improve quality or else.
Onyx Path writers could use something like that.

>>96125033
Be the change you want to see in the world anon

>>96124866
Lillun is an integral part of Infernal lore. The only thing wrong with it was making her ugly, and making the creation of an Infernal Exaltation attempt consensual. She should be immortal and the centre-piece of an eternal game in the pits of Malfeas. Alternatively a plaything and a precious jade. Raped and courted in equal measure with equal intensity, with equal sincerity by the same person.

>>96125033
I am pretty sure it already happened once.

>>96124237
I don't really know anything about kickstarter numbers and whether or not one should expect such drop-offs; I don't have access to enough examples of this to make any sound judgment.

I'm curious as to what you think truly needs expanding upon, however, for the book to not be "dumbed down". If we take 2e core as a baseline and compare it to Essence, the former actually lacks many things in comparison to Essence. For instance, 2e core lacks any systems for administrating an organization a character has backing in (or sabotaging an opposing group), running courtly intrigues, governing a country, naval combat, running a military campaign, sorcerous workings, and so on. Essence contains rules for these things I consider to be foundational to playing Exalted; while 2e does add in these systems later, they're never very well integrated. The Mandate of Heaven and Creation-Ruling Mandate rules for 2e, for instance, were harmed by splat charms not really interfacing with them as they had been put out a while after the release of the core book and subsequent splat books.

Is there anything funnier than a fire aspect carpenter? I don't think so.

>>96125788
fire is used in woodworking tho

>>96125618
Sorcerous workings didn't exist back then, but 2e!Solars got an earlier version with wyld cauldron technique.

>>96125788
it's only funny if you get him to trigger his anima banner. all db craftsman have to be careful and possibly take breaks while forging things to avoid damagng their product, environment, and assistants, but fire dbs are the only ones that can literally set it all ablaze just by tring too hard

>>96126450
I think wood aspect would be as bad.

>>96125618
Oh I’m fine with Essence stopping after the two books, but I don’t think OPP is. Frankly, as a one-off that’s meant to cater to normies and try to bring them in where they will graduate to the actual system eventually once they mature as players and want something more it would be fine. However, I don’t think that’s the trajectory they are aiming for with it. If anything, as time goes on it seems more and more like it’s becoming a testbed for 4E ideas and gameline direction. Maybe I’m wrong on that, but I think time will tell here.

Also, I have a genuine question to ask you? The system in question for all of these things you are talking about is the same one, no? The Venture system. You’ll have to forgive me since I only remember the version that showed up in the manuscript, but has something changed substantially about it when it came to release? Because I found that system to be terrible.

>>96127027
As shown in lol vs dota, it is easier to somebody migrate to a simple system than the opposite, their plan will likely backfire.

>>96127027
Well, what was your problem with the Venture system? Speaking from personal experience, they're pretty useful as a ST since I can assemble them very quickly and for most scenarios I can think of. As a player, it feels very good to finally have a system that plays nice with characters skilled in Bureaucracy (or Embassy, as Essence calls it) and its pretty easy to understand what your charms do to help you in regards to their associated ventures.

A Solar Exalted’s harem should look like
>His Lunar soulmate
>Yandere Gold Faction Sidereal
>Tsundere Dragon-Blooded Wyld Hunt officer
>Kuudere Alchemical
>Liminal Loli who was created by, and subsequently saved from, her siscon brother and is now possessive of her new “onee-chan”
>Getimian who claims she was the Solar’s lover in her timeline
I think that about covers it.

>>96129501
You need to lay off the anime for a while anon

>>96127027
The venture system genuinely mogs nearly any sub system White Wolf has ever made for anything in any of their games.

There's a lot to criticize Essence about, but nearly everyone who has significant problems with the venture system are usually hylics who take three business days to have an original thought.

>>96129657
>The venture system genuinely mogs nearly any sub system White Wolf has ever made for anything in any of their games.
>There's a lot to criticize Essence about, but nearly everyone who has significant problems with the venture system are usually hylics who take three business days to have an original thought.
nta but don't pretend they're flawless. The variable timescale in particular is absurd right from the start (and anything that changes timescale is even more silly), and it breaks down quickly if people start using the Teamwork rule because of how easy it is to generate 10+ successes on every roll even in small groups of two or three.

They do utterly mog extended rolls though, strongly agree there. The only flaws are in specific implementation of the system, but the core idea is superb.

>>96127027
>Also, I have a genuine question to ask you? The system in question for all of these things you are talking about is the same one, no?
nta, but no. They aren't all the venture system. Naval combat is completely separate, while sabotage, intrigue, and military campaigns are a mix, since the intent is that you drop out of the venture system sometimes to do things that push your goals forward in the scene/session that's being run.

>>96129501
>I think that about covers it.
You forgot the childhood friend Infernal, and the best friend circlemate from the Solar's past life reincarnated as a girl.

>>96129711
They aren't flawless, they're just objectively superior to any other subsystem White Wolf has ever shat out, and you're right on the money that it would be even better if Time Scales had actual narrative options rather than just mechanical scene/story. I think there should also be some guidance on putting a cap on rewards you could reap from a venture, since there's certain ones where you get TOO much out of it.

>>96130132
>you're right on the money that it would be even better if Time Scales had actual narrative options rather than just mechanical scene/story
Honestly, no. Timescale just shouldn't be a thing, and it should always be a roll per scene - doing it any other way leads to fuck ups.

The book itself covers one of the ways this happens because of feedback received from people playing the preview: When the time scale is session-long, that can be a problem because one of the few things a Storyteller can't rule 0 is how many sessions have passed, and sometimes things which ordinarily take a long time are actively blocking story progression and you want to get them out of the way downtime. The book offers a solution to this ("just make the time scale scenes when it would slow pacing otherwise"), but it wouldn't be necessary if it just said that it took scenes dedicated to the venture to progress every time. I do very much appreciate that they responded to the feedback and included an explicit override though.

The other way it breaks is almost every time the time scale is manipulated to be lower than a scene by charms or other effects. Specifically, if anything goes below one scene to one round, immediately you have a problem with most of the ventures. With Quickening the Forge as an example, craft ventures suddenly become combat-applicable. Seven League Stride lets you take travel ventures in rounds. How they work is up to your imagination, but it certainly sounds like castles sprouting from the ground and, in certain cases (spending five days crossing Cecelyne in a couple of rounds, specifically), time travel.

>>96130344
SO house-rule that shit out. Basing it on the intent of what a Venture is supposed to be. If everyone at the table wants to RAW Ventures to make them into their bitches, then that's a problem between you and them.

>>96130439
Yeah? I do, since it's a clear and easy houserule that provides immediate improvements. It's not like it's hard to fix. The only reason I'm mentioning it now is because ventures were brought up and I wanted to shift conversation from the generic vibe-based 'i found it terrible' point that was the initial response over to constructive criticism. Ventures are great and their biggest flaws have easy fixes readily available, as far as I'm concerned.

>>96130344
>Honestly, no. Timescale just shouldn't be a thing, and it should always be a roll per scene - doing it any other way leads to fuck ups.
downtime is essential to exalted and mitigating that fucks the entire game and setting.

>>96131198
>downtime is essential to exalted and mitigating that fucks the entire game and setting.
I'll be honest it's pretty damn clear that ventures aren't supposed to be used by non-players. They run on narrative time and manses can be built in an afternoon regardless of whether the timescale is once per session, once per scene, or once per story - the point is that they run at the right amount of time to fit the pacing of your game. Antagonists using them would get to run over PCs by fiat, which is, put simply, not fun. They get to do things in the background ad-hoc instead. Beyond that, if it was a problem for things to be built at faster timescales then not having mechanics that could shift timescales up and down would be better for the game anyway.

>>96129127
>>96129657
So, admittedly I wasn't running the stock crafting system in 3E either and spend 90% of my time running games rather than playing, but being the one who called out vague posting earlier I am compelled to answer this question in detail. My problem with the Ventrue system is that it is based on a fundamental flaw of design that causes the whole thing to shit the bed. Namely: presumption of success. By default, you succeed at any Venture you attempt. The whole point of rolling per the actual rules in Essence is
>OBSTACLES: Each roll in a venture represents overcoming an obstacle of some kind.
Okay, so I’ve been playing with mostly the same eightish people across my different games for nearly a decade with Exalted and they are smart, so my experience may not be the norm here. When my players want to take on a project, they actually prepare for it. And I as a storyteller get to reward that because, let’s face it, a lot of projects aren’t necessarily worth session time. And when they are, when I actually want to throw a curveball at them to make things interesting, I’m doing it for GAMEPLAY. I’m not doing it so it can be solved with a roll. Why the fuck even bother with an obstacle if a single roll solves it off camera, what the fuck is the point of that. I’m coming up with the problem and the solution. What the fuck do the players even get to do? And the obvious answer to this is then just roleplay out the scenario. Okay great, then why even have the roll? What is the point of making a system that wants to obviate potentially great gameplay moments? What do your players remember about your game? What do they tell stories of? I’ll bet it's the awesome things they did or the crazy challenges they overcame. Why would I EVER like a system that takes those opportunities away from them?

>>96129127
>>96129657
I could get into the issues with how it gives vague guidance on difficulties, and how the timescale thing sucks, how rollover advantages discourage actual creativity to get said advantages, or how easy it is to game it, but those are all fixable on my end. I shouldn’t have to, but they are. But I can’t fix the retarded ass way they designed the base of the Venture system. It absolutely reads like it was designed by people who watch tabletop being played rather than play it themselves. And this is far from the only thing that does this in Essence. It is designed to the lowest common denominator and it sucks. Anyone who is using this system and thinks it’s good is probably not running it the way the rules say to, they are treating it like 3E’s roll for successes. Because if run per the rules, this system is an absolute dearth of gameplay and creativity. It is the antithesis of what tabletop gaming is meant to be.

>>96131404
>By default, you succeed at any Venture you attempt
You might have missed the consequences section.

>Why the fuck even bother with an obstacle if a single roll solves it off camera
It's not off-camera, it's solved in play. Ventures run concurrently with normal play via stunts during scenes, or through dramatic scenes. Ventures are entirely on-camera.

>What the fuck do the players even get to do? And the obvious answer to this is then just roleplay out the scenario
You're supposed to, yes.

>I’m coming up with the problem and the solution
This certainly is the main turnoff I see with the system, but understand that the alternative so far has been 'roll against the same difficulty every time and count successes'. Extended rolls are just as much problems and solutions wrapped up one proposal.

Also, there is leeway for stunts to change the abilities and attributes being applied, as well as the difficulty of the roll, if an obstacle is approached from a different direction.

>>96131416
>vague guidance on difficulties [for obstacles]
Agreed, but intended, I think. We know how difficulties works, ventures run on the same scale, and Essence actually gave us the most granular scale for rolls and where difficulties should be of all Exalted games.

>the timescale thing sucks
ranted about that myself above

>rollover advantages discourage actual creativity to get said advantages
I think that is, to some extent, not bad? As such, anyway? Demanding creativity at every outset isn't necessarily a good idea, and 'high rolls = better results' creates a good feedback loop that makes people want to apply their best skills more and more effectively. Putting a real-life skill check on getting advantages out of high rolls limits how effective that feedback loop can be, even if putting in that creativity would enhance it.

Personally, I think the best way to take this is that players should be able to pursue advantages on their own initiative and have say in how they get rewarded if they want to make choices themselves. This isn't an explicit part of the game, but it's not like a good Storyteller's going to stare down the player trying to do something and say, "No. This is the advantage I intended, and I choose, not you. Too bad," unless they had a good reason.

>>96129509
NTA but it's the other way around the devs and writers should take up anime.
I will always find it funny that 3e distanced itself from anime when it's more popular than ever.

>>96131781
>when it's more popular than ever.
slopshit slice-of-life/haremshit/isekai wish-fulfillment is more popular than ever. Exalted needs none of that.

>>96131821
The most popular ones still are nekketsu, and 3e released Getimians anyway.

>>96131854
Actuall nekkestsu, Naruto nekkestu, or "I was actually strong all along but the world pretends I'm not so we can all gasp in amazement when I inevitably make my opponent bite the curb"?

>>96131955
Of the new generation, Bleach's influence shifted the meta away from goku-clones.

Of the old generations, traditional ones gained a more broad popularity thanks for streaming.

>>96131781
Being fair they don't need to pick up it's tropes just use their art style.
That simple shift would make exalted more relevant.
But generally getting a way from mudcore would be good too.

>>96132070
This was meant for
>>96131821

But now that I think about it actual harems are very much in theme for exalted but it is too misogynistic for the gay nudevs.
They had to change how DB reproduction works just to put down male DBs.

>>96131687
>>96131690
>You might have missed the consequences section.
No, I haven’t. This is explicitly stated in the Consequences section.
>Consequences: Failure on an obstacle roll doesn’t mean nothing happens. Instead, the character makes progress as normal, but the failure introduces a consequence to the venture or its outcome.
You can ONLY have consequences as a result of a failed obstacle roll. And what did I say earlier about obstacle rolls? That by default, you succeed at any Venture you attempt. Rolling for an obstacle only represents a chance for failure, and the book even says that you probably shouldn’t fail even when you do fail the roll.
>OBSTACLES: Each roll in a venture represents overcoming an obstacle of some kind.
You fundamentally misunderstand the rules you are arguing for. In 3E success is not presumed, you must meet the goal number in order to succeed. In Essence there is no goal number, you are rolling not to fail. And the system doesn’t even want you to fail when you fail. This is not a semantic difference, it’s the difference between innocent until proven guilty and guilty until proven innocent. It puts the burden of success/failure on the storyteller rather than the player and that is shit because now if they fail outright it’s because I said that that’s the consequence when it could be anything else, not because of an inviolable goal they failed to meet.

>>96131687
>>96131690
>It's not off-camera, it's solved in play. Ventures run concurrently with normal play via stunts during scenes, or through dramatic scenes. Ventures are entirely on-camera.
No it’s not because most ventures can’t happen on camera. Or would you rather spend the session talking about the multitudinous ways in which the Twilight folds the steel of their daiklaive 10,000 times because glorious nippon Oricalcum. Most ventures are not interesting enough to center in gameplay. Especially not as the game gets into higher Essence levels and making/changing things becomes more and more common. Some can and that’s really fun, but those are the exact ones that I don’t want a single roll solving. I want to devote actual roleplay to them. Ventures is substituting Rollplay for Roleplay in the last place I want it to be.

>You're supposed to, yes.
Then why bother with the roll. Why should there still be an obstacle roll if the players just spend potential hours of a session working to solve said obstacle and may have had a dozen checks along the way. You really want to make all their effort rest on a single roll? That is terrible design. And if you don’t think an obstacle is worth devoting time to, then it’s not an obstacle to begin with and you shouldn’t be rolling, but whoops Essence Ventures ONLY ALLOWING ROLLING ON OBSTACLES.

>>96131687
>>96131690
>This certainly is the main turnoff I see with the system, but understand that the alternative so far has been 'roll against the same difficulty every time and count successes'.
And what is wrong with that? Not everything is worthy of attention in an epic fantasy game. The rolls are there so that people need to at least invest exp in the attributes/abilities to do the thing, but not every little thing that players attempt needs gameplay time devoted to it. It’s the same reason that everyone who plays this game ignores training times for raising attributes and abilities: it’s boring. And crafting a menial artifact or doing a basic sorcerous working will eventually not be worth consideration. Just pay the cost take the time and let’s get back to the fun stuff.

>and Essence actually gave us the most granular scale for rolls and where difficulties should be of all Exalted games.
No it fucking didn’t. People have been using the 1-10 scale in Exalted 3E almost since it was released. It was one of the biggest early flaws everyone pointed out. You don’t get credit for fixing something everyone already was fixing on their own. All they did was codify it.

>>96131687
>>96131690
>I think that is, to some extent, not bad? As such, anyway? Demanding creativity at every outset isn't necessarily a good idea, and 'high rolls = better results' creates a good feedback loop that makes people want to apply their best skills more and more effectively. Putting a real-life skill check on getting advantages out of high rolls limits how effective that feedback loop can be, even if putting in that creativity would enhance it.
Yes, I am allowed to have that expectation. Wanting creativity in a ROLEPLAYING GAME is not too much to ask. It is literally why we are here. If I only wanted fun gameplay, I’d play a fucking videogame. I’m not saying that players have to be perfect, but yeah, they need to put in effort too. The current trend of rules-light systems is almost entirely shifting away effort on the part of the players to more effort on the part of the GM. It’s catering to the lowest common denominator by saying “no, you shouldn’t even have to put in the bare minimum of effort to learn the rules and create fun and interesting character concepts and backstories and find creative ways to interact the game, the GM should be doing all of this for you. All you should have to do is roll some dice.” It is just meant to expand the playerbase for more money by removing any obstacles what-so-ever to play and it makes things worse for everyone who does care enough to do those things.

>>96131687
>>96131690
I think the disconnect you and I are having here is that you have very low expectations of the system and players and so as long as they are cleared you are content. I do not have low expectations of the system or players and so I am disappointed when it fails to meet them. And those expectations have given me over two decades of some of the most fun experiences I’ve ever had outside of my family, so I refuse to compromise on them. I expect more, and Essence just doesn’t do it. It’s got great ideas/stuff in it, but it never clears the 7/10 mark as a whole. And I have too little free time left at my age to want to spend it on a 7/10.

>>96132080
Actual harems are pretty on-theme for Exalted - not gender-specific ones, harems for both male and female Exalted, with both male and female harem members. Harem anime type harems, or generally lovey-dovey fully voluntary wish fulfillment harems not so much. The kinds of harems rich and powerful people can pull off in real life, though, sure.

venture system makes me feel good for playing a wise cunning merchant, because otherwise it's just ass pulls and mommy may I buttons

New thread?

>>96133154
You can do it anon, I have faith in you