Dragon-blooded population

There's also the random variable in there when it comes to intelligence.


A pair of stupid, inbred hicks can still have an extremely intelligent child (so the other two were mentally handicapped, the middle child is a genius, even though his mother didn't have to change her last name when his parents got married).


And the way you are raised influences your mindset, but isn't the only thing that matters.  Each person reacts differently to the way they are treated by every individual.  As well, each school in the realm has a seperate method for teaching the children of dynasts, besides the fact that they treat them as individuals, not slaves to the system.


The realm isn't an army expecting perfect behavior out of every person and actually succeeding at their endeavors, otherwise the Roseblack and Mnemon would act in the same way and prefer the same things.  But that pesky individuality went and ruined it all. :roll:
 
Flagg - Examples of the person? I don't think I can give that, since people from WW probably read these forums, or people who know them.


Examples of the things they tossed in? Another night, when I'm not so tired, I'll be glad to give an essay on that ;)
 
wordman said:
Safim said:
You assume that bright people have bright babies, wordman. That is not neccessarily the case.
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No, but that's how you bet.
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In this case your point about "gimping the gene pool" is void.


@Zaramis: Yeah sure, Mark Rein Hagen told you over breakfast, we know. Did he arrive together with napoleon again?  :roll:
 
No, this isn't a main writer or anything. Just someone who worked on a few books as a freelance writer but knew many of the others in the staff who worked on Exalted 1st Ed ( especially late in the game, around the Aspect-books for the DB's - brilliant books all of them, in my opinion - and onwards )
 
To be frank, I do not believe you. And furtermore I, and as far as I know many others, think that the second edition is way superior to the first edition. The delicate parts have so far only been brushed, so you can't really say anything about it. I withold my judgement until we have seen the new Games of Divinity or its equivalent and Sidereals/Abyssals.


But just name those "odd things" and explain us how they show that the new authors have "no clue about the more delicate parts of the setting".
 
I'll pm you his identity and the story behind how I know him. It's a bit odd, heh, but has been very helpful.


The parts where I think they messed up the game in 2nd ed ( Which I, too, find a much better game than First Edition, the mechanics are a lot better, it runs much smoother and has had a lot more balancing done to it ), is mainly how the Dynasty works. Especially the Dragon Blooded book makes a mess of it combined with the very rough and inaccurate description of the Houses and their goals in the 2nd Ed corebook. I find that the 1st ed DB book is infinitely better. This is somewhat helped in the Blessed Isle book, but that details little about the actual relations among the Dragon Blooded.


I think the world has gone more into mechanical solutions and listing of powers, damage, how to create your own this or that, when I think they should have done a better job expanding the setting.


The comment about what he ( the writer ) thinks White Wolf did was, I suppose, not really warranted. He's mainly disappointed in how the main developer abandoned a lot of the stories and world material built up in the aspect books and the DB book, at least that's what I've discussed with him. No reason to bring it up here, I was just tired of people thinking that just because it's a new edition, everything the company does or puts into print automatically makes sense and must be the new absolute truth, when sometimes previously printed material is a lot more thought through and makes more sense. So, I brought up that at least one of the writers agree with me.
 
The thing is... not everything in the first edition makes really sense and honestly they developed some weird and rulecentered shit around and after the aspect books (savant and sorceror comes to mind).


Generally I disagree, I think the fluff in the second edition is infintely better and has a common vision behind it, but you have picked the one and only example in which I have to agree. Dragon blooded culture was done a lot better in the first edition. I have no idea why they ditched all the descriptions about marriages and who goes into whose house. But then... the dragon blooded book does not meet the standard of the other second edition books in any way, neither fluff nur crunch.


The blessed isle book on the other hand I really do adore. It is well written and expands the setting beautifully.
 
I think one of the biggest things missed by most is that this game was created by creatives, not engineers =)


Creation is way too for the nations they support [halta is bigger than any modern [and argubally past ] country/empire, population distributions dont line up [DB's], rivers flow the wrong way [river of tears], economics make little sense [ever figure out the price of a perfect glass sword, using the standard rules?]....just to name a few majors!


But that being said, I dont mind, if we dont like, we "adjust" till we find it makes sense.


My group came from Rolemaster background so we tend to get a LITTLE detailed at times....
 
Malekith said:
I think one of the biggest things missed by most is that this game was created by creatives, not engineers =)
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More "free form" creative games are a beautiful thing. Rules-light systems like Fudge? Great! A rich setting with intentionally fluid rules, like Unknown Armies? Awesome! A game I played in weekly for about two years where I rolled dice a grand total of twice? Outstanding!


A system centered around a crunchy rules set, featuring hundreds and hundreds of special hacks to the rules? Not so awesome for creative types to tackle. Exalted's basic problem is that not that it was designed "by creatives, not engineers", but that it was designed by creatives who (evidently) thought they were engineers. Or vice versa. It's hard to tell.


Only the (substantial) strength of its setting and stunting allow it to transcend its so-so mechanics. (In this way, it's like Shadowrun or Earthdawn.) And the coolness of the setting is one of the reasons it's so irritating when it has "brain fart" type problems, such as the ones Malekith mentions.
 
Agreed, there. Exalted does have a lot of really bad examples of brain farts, just like you stated. The prices are off the wacko and different examples have wildly varying standards. Right now, I'm working off medieval pricing lists and the ones used in better and more realistic roleplaying settings ( Eon comes to mind ), and converting them to Exalted.


I'm also making a spreadsheet that adjusts the prices depending on where in the world you are, so the things that are commonly available in the north are cheaper there while much more expensive in the south. Those sort of things. It's a huge job, but it's slowly coming along..


The kingdoms in the North, the ones that are way too big ( I think it must be because someone at White Wolf completely misunderstood the idea of scale and just blobbed them down up there for fun, or something ), have been split up into hundreds of areas in my campaign, and a lot of bordermarch wyld too. The big kingdoms are still there, but the vast unrealistic scope of it isn't. And, it leaves more room for interesting ST-created areas and kingdoms, something that is a lot more interesting than a north-america sized kingdom of tree-jumpers. ;)
 
Zaramis said:
The kingdoms in the North, the ones that are way too big ( I think it must be because someone at White Wolf completely misunderstood the idea of scale and just blobbed them down up there for fun, or something ), have been split up into hundreds of areas in my campaign, and a lot of bordermarch wyld too. The big kingdoms are still there, but the vast unrealistic scope of it isn't. And, it leaves more room for interesting ST-created areas and kingdoms, something that is a lot more interesting than a north-america sized kingdom of tree-jumpers. ;)
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Not sure what you're talking about.  "Kingdoms"?  As I understand it, the North is basically a handful of city state like Whitewall whose territory extend only as far as they can send an armed patrol.  Then there are petty kingdoms left to the ST's imagination, barbarian tribes and of course the Haslanti League.  By far the largest territorial entity since it comprise 9 city states and has ice ships and Air boats to project its power farther than  any other states in the area.  But then it's a Lunar experiment which is kinda cool.


Oh, yeah, and there's the Bull of the North pulling a Genghis Khan.  Almost forgot him!
 
Kingdoms = areas united under one ruler/body of rulers/king etc. A kingdom can consist of several city states, for example. And I count Kingdom of Halta and such to the north as well, even if it's theoretically in the north east.


Still, the territories are way too vast for it to be even nominally united with the current situation, even under the lunar experiment. I prefer to have it more politically diverse. Especially since the books also talk about hundreds of Dragon Blooded satrapies out around the world, but very few are mentioned. So, a fair share ought to be along the northern coastline. Not in the inland, probably, but I like the idea of a world as large as Exalted with a lot more political entities than what's described.
 
Zaramis said:
So, a fair share ought to be along the northern coastline. Not in the inland, probably, but I like the idea of a world as large as Exalted with a lot more political entities than what's described.
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When the fluff text talks about the North being riddled by petty kingdoms and city states, that's what they mean.


I don't remember reading anything suggesting that the whole North is covered by the combined territory of Whitewall, Gethamane and Haslanti league.  Heck, the territory of Whitewall and Gethamane is basically just the dots with their name on the map.  


I just don't get what are these kingdoms with vast territories that you are talking about and that you are dismantling for your campaign to make rooms for smaller kingdom.  The largest thing in the North (beside the Hordes of the Bull) is the Haslanti League and since it's only 9 city states it probably spans less than a half inch on the map around Icehome.  


So just out of curiosity, what vast territory in the North have you dismantled into hundred of smaller ones?
 
I'm pretty sure Zaramis was referring to places like Halta, which is really WAAAY to big, canonically.
 
Flagg actually wants to read what I mean, unlike Charon.


Thanks Flagg.


Also, the Haslanti League according to the maps is -huge- too, even if it consists of several city states.
 
The Halsanti league has the technology to govern an area as big as that though, unlike the tree huggers.
 
Flagg said:
I'm pretty sure Zaramis was referring to places like Halta, which is really WAAAY to big, canonically.
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Well, Halta isn't part of the North.


What maps are you referring to that shows the territory, anyway?  I never saw one.
 
Halta is in the northern part of the map. Thus, the north. It was involved in the war, a war that's always said to be in the north. The Bull of the North defeated the Tepet armies near Greyfalls, yet they still say that they were  lost in the north. Thus, Halta is in the north.


Now, the map I refer to is Stephenls, I think. One of the maps with political boundaries etc, it might be the other huge one that existed for a while. Search for exalted map in google and I'm sure you'll find it.
 
"The Kingdom of Halta" (1E) has a map of... you guessed it: Halta.


I have two big problems with the size that WW uses for these canonical kingdoms (Halta, Linowan, Harborhead, Varang, Marukan, etc). Not only do they seem too large to be credible, but they also hog up HUGE parts of the map. I need some space to put my own shit. They don't leave much.
 
I can buy Harborhead's size, mainly because it is large enough to harbor ( haha ) like a dozen smaller kingdoms without anyone knowing it. There's no pretense of unity or a single political entity in it's case. But yeah, even so, it's too big as well.
 
I've always preferred the size of Afri-er, Harborhead over Halta anyway. mainly because I love colonial Africa. Which it is. Halta, eh, the tree humpers don't get much show time in my games anyway. I find that part of the north to be a boring area and I've read the Halta book several times. It's just not that fun for me.


The Northern Kingdoms I just carve up anyway, I've been sitting on a Montague and Capulet-esque (minus the Romeo and Juliet) city-state fued I've been wanting to throw in for a while. Rival DB families ftw!
 
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