Ever miss 'classic' fantasy elements when you play Exalted?

[fmneto]

That's quite true.


However, what would you do then? Heroic Mortals can do only so much with what little power they are given; they have no access to magic (except for mortal thaumaturgy); all the good treasure is warded beyond traps and challenges that only Exalted would survive; and you would be no match for the regular spirit/monster/whatever you found out there.


I'm not saying that heroic mortals are not worth playing; they surely are good entertainment. It really depends on how creative your group is.

 

[Flagg]

all the good treasure is warded beyond traps and challenges that only Exalted would survive

There are supposed to be a good number of mortals who turn a profitable (if dangerous) living seeking lost treasures in Creation. I think there's plenty left over from the First Age for everyone.


-S

 

[fmneto]

all the good treasure is warded beyond traps and challenges that only Exalted would survive

There are supposed to be a good number of mortals who turn a profitable (if dangerous) living seeking lost treasures in Creation. I think there's plenty left over from the First Age for everyone.


-S

Good point.


But then again, heroic humans would be just that - humans. No elves, dwarves, or anything like that. Anything not human would be way out of their league. Even the god-blooded.

 

[Flagg]

But then again, heroic humans would be just that - humans. No elves, dwarves, or anything like that.

You mean as player characters? I suppose not.

Anything not human would be way out of their league. Even the god-blooded.

One-on-one perhaps, but a group of skilled mortals could easily best a minor god or fae commoner.


Granted, Exalted isn't necessarily the best setting for playing a mundane character, but it's not impossible.


-S

 

[memesis]

all the good treasure is warded beyond traps and challenges that only Exalted would survive

There are supposed to be a good number of mortals who turn a profitable (if dangerous) living seeking lost treasures in Creation. I think there's plenty left over from the First Age for everyone.


-S

Good point.


But then again, heroic humans would be just that - humans. No elves, dwarves, or anything like that. Anything not human would be way out of their league. Even the god-blooded.

This is not true, and it's one of the things that a lot of people miss about the setting.


"Mortal" does not mean "has 4-5 dice in everything".  You can have mortal characters who roll 10-12 dice on the actions they favor, who can gain stunt dice, who can learn (slowly and painfully) to manipulate Essence in some fashion.  Mortals can master low-level supernatural Martial Arts.  Mortals can equip artifact armors such as the ashigaru and gunzosha suits.


A skilled and dangerous mortal hunter, well-equipped, can make short work of a group of non-combat, unskilled god-bloods.  A veteran mortal, however, cannot engage a veteran god-blood without a high chance of getting whipped.

 

[fmneto]

I'm not saying mortals are "unplayable" or that they cannot do cool stuff.


What I'm saying is, even if you play a mortals-only game in Exalted, it's still not going to be the same as if you played Forgotten Realms, for example, which is what I consider a "regular" fantasy setting.

 

[Flagg]

I definitely concede that point. However, what really gets in my way of enjoying the older "classic" games is how unbeleivably shitty their game mechanics are.


I've also found few games as richly and tightly thematically focused as Exalted. That aspect is more important to me than having elves and paladins.


-S

 

[fmneto]

I definitely concede that point. However, what really gets in my way of enjoying the older "classic" games is how unbeleivably shitty their game mechanics are.
I've also found few games as richly and tightly thematically focused as Exalted. That aspect is more important to me than having elves and paladins.


-S

Indeed! I mentioned that a few posts ago, I think. I can't stand systems which are too complicated. They have a tendency to get in the way of role-playing. 8)


As for the setting, well, there's not much to say: I agree with you. It's at the same time very well knit around its own elements and amazingly versatile. With few adaptations you could even emulate a "classic" setting...  

 

[Jakk Bey]

One of the things that I like about the WW system is that it is amazingly versatile.  With a few tweaks, you run the gamut from Vampires and Werewolves, to games about philosophical Magi, Streetfighters, space travelling psi-ops, steel-jawed pulp heroes, to superheroes or supervillians, and back to ghosts and supernatural Yakuza and ninjas.


With a little experinece, you can tweak your games a lot. Even your Exalted games.  The power creep can be a factor--but that can be controlled by how you approach your play.


You can do pulp-style heroes, even in a world dedicated to super powered Novas, by being careful with how you approach things.  You can run great games with Heroic Mortals in Exalted.  You can run great Kinfolk and Ghoul games for the WoD.  I built a whole system for cybernetic operatives for Aeon, that worked really well, without running afoul of any psi.  It's just how you want to approach the material, and how you craft your stories.


The thing is, I don't really want the classic fantasy setting--I've done worlds with elves, dwarves and orcs before.  That shouldn't keep folks from doing their own thing with the rules though.  I like the setting as it is, without getting into the huge number of many races across the Creation in specific fashion.


You want elves?  What about whole tribes of Fae-born?  Not Fae, just their relatives.  You want orcs, there are plenty of odd Fae-born that aren't all that pretty, and there's still plenty of room for Beastmen and Demon blooded too.  I tend to deal with tribes and people in a region as specific to that region, but if you want a broad category of races, that are homogenous, then roll with it.  Worked pretty good for the Planescape setting with Tieflings.

 

[wordman]

One of the things that I like about the WW system is that it is amazingly versatile.  With a few tweaks' date=' you run the gamut from Vampires and Werewolves, to games about philosophical Magi, Streetfighters, space travelling psi-ops, steel-jawed pulp heroes, to superheroes or supervillians, and back to ghosts and supernatural Yakuza and ninjas.[/quote']
The TriStat dX system isn't bad in this regard, either. It's free, as well.


Of course, no system beats Capes. Ever. Except maybe octaNe.

 

[memesis]

I'm not saying mortals are "unplayable" or that they cannot do cool stuff.
What I'm saying is, even if you play a mortals-only game in Exalted, it's still not going to be the same as if you played Forgotten Realms, for example, which is what I consider a "regular" fantasy setting.

This is probably because pansy-ass D&D sticks all the 'high level magical entities' (read: Exalts, demons, Fair Folk, and whoever else) off in the Planes, while the Prime Material Plane gets the leftovers.


Imagine a D&D game where most planar entities were present in the actual campaign world.

 

[fmneto]

Imagine a D&D game where most planar entities were present in the actual campaign world.

Ooohh.. spooky.

 

[Kajata]

It depends on what you actually feel you're missing.  If you're missing classic D+D elements, then you're not going to find that in Exalted really, unless you mod it heavily... it IS Exalted after all.  However, if you're missing fantasy style adventuring, that's very possible.  I mean, LotR itself features characters who change the fate of the world.  Okay, there's no mad kung fu, but if you had 3 or 4 Solars who weren't totally combat pumped, they could quite easily re-live a LotR style adventure where they end up changing the world but not every footstep they take is earthshaking.


However, if your idea of fantasy is having your Dwarf Cleric go and raid Red-Rock Dungeon to kill the goblin hoard within and save the princess, while you CAN modify the exalted setting to these ends, it doesn't really fit well.  Maybe try playing D+D with the exalted system?

 

[Spook]

So' date=' it boils down to Eastern mythos versus Western mythos.  Considering that Exalted is based on Eastern mythos for the most part,[/quote']
This is where your wrong.  Exalted is based just as much on the Illiad and Tales of a Flat Earth as it is Romance of the 3 Kingdoms and Final Fantasy 7.

 

[Jakk Bey]

There are some elements of classical Greek and Roman myth, and traces of Norse and Polynesian, but by and large, you're looking at a Celestial Bureacracy.  Elemental Dragons.  Large structures of Jade. An entire city sitting in the Lap of a great Buddha shaped mountain. I prefer to inject a bit more Meso-American influences--in part for the naming structure which is similar to Chinese naming--as much for how they approached both their sciences and religion.


They give a nod to the strucure of stories and creation of classical Heroes, much more along the lines of the Greeks, but the Gods are hardly in that classical style.  It's a nice blending, but it retains a decidedly Eastern feel to it.  And when you're talking Fantasy...most folks consider Elves, dwarves, and men in chain mail, broadswords, and medieval style romances tied to magical creatures as the essence of Western style Fantasy.  Not the Age of Heroes that the Eastern tales focus on.  When you get into classic Greek style tales, those are thought of much less often when you're refering to "Western" style fantasy.


I perhaps should have been more specific, but trying to divorce Exalted from a clear bias towards the Asian myth inspiration, including the Asian take on Greek and Western myth and folklore, isn't going to work.  That they did so much to preserve the Meso-American traditions tangled up with the Asian themes does my greasy little heart good--because there is so much rich fodder there, but part and parcel of the idea behind Exalted was NOT to do a "classic" Western fantasy--they wanted to so something different, and Exalted is a fusion of tale telling styles.