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Exalted

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Exalted

Unread postby icycalm » 17 Jun 2021 15:31

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Exalted is one of danjiro's favorite RPGs. Like Pathfinder, it's not just a system, it's a system + setting, as opposed to D&D, which is just a system and requires a setting to run (e.g. Forgotten Realms, Ravenloft, etc.)

It's published by White Wolf (of Vampire: The Masquerade fame), and it's up to three editions.

I've tried to look into it a couple of times, on dan's recommendation, but I get repulsed immediately by the childish theme and mediocre art. Finally, I just googled "Exalted sucks", and this is what I found:

Exalted sucks ass
https://www.therpgsite.com/pen-paper-ro ... sucks-ass/

RPGPundit wrote:What a worthless stupid game, complicated as shit system, and absurd pretentious and ridiculously inane setting.

That is all.

RPGPundit


The thread is started by the site's owner, RPGPundit. He reviews RPGs and even publishes his own apparently. He's strongly anti-SJW, and from a quick skim of some of his reviews he seems like a solid critic.

I'll post some quotes from the thread below. The naysayers are basically saying in more elaborate form the thoughts I have immediately on contact with the material. Obviously since I haven't read it I can't elaborate, but they can, and their analyses sound very plausible to me. The only reason I haven't forgotten about this game is because dan recommends it: that's the only reason. So I plan to sit down and read some of it—and especially the adventures, of which there are a few—at some point. Until then, we have this thread and these comments as a starting point.

This seems like the most controversial RPG ever, so I will form my own opinion, and there will be a review at the end.

https://www.therpgsite.com/pen-paper-ro ... #msg284428

J Arcane wrote:Exalted is a game much like Violence or Elfs that is more about insulting a certain segment of the fan base than actually making a fun game.

I imagine the authors think they're really clever and snicker to each other often in the offices, and eve at each other when it comes to some of the "true believers" they've recruited over the years, but for the rest of us who actually want a game to play and not a joke, it's of limited utility.


https://www.therpgsite.com/pen-paper-ro ... #msg284504

Zachary The First wrote:I can't say that I care for the setting, or the system.

My FLGS owner put Return to the Tomb of Five Corners in his store bathroom. Reading material for the pot, I asked? No, for wiping, he said.

He liked it somewhat less than I did.


https://www.therpgsite.com/pen-paper-ro ... #msg284508

RPGPundit wrote:The whole idea of "everything scientists told you is wrong!"
The idea that barbarism is noble while city-living is decadent and oppressive.
The idea that civilization itself is evil, and even moreso if its western-civilization.
The misappropriation of other culture's elements in the most shallow sense for the sake of appearing "hip".
Stupid really awful writing.
The whole notion of only Special Snowflakes that are more than human being worth anything in the world; and essential hatred of humanity.
The ridiculous setup of an incoherent setting filled with so many uber-powerful beings that if you seriously ran with it would explode almost immediately from all the various unstoppable menaces.
The bad Gaming-concept (so common to WW) of your characters being uber-cool badasses who are nevertheless basically powerless to do anything meaningful because: A) everyone hates them and B) there are much MORE powerful even more uber badasses stopping them.
Moral decadence for the sake of appearing "hip".
Shitloads more.


https://www.therpgsite.com/pen-paper-ro ... #msg284511

J Arcane wrote:It has to do with the WoD userbase split between the "powergamers" and the "storytellers". I elucidated the two types in the other WoD thread, but basically there was always conflict between Rein-Hagen's utopian dream of a "storytelling game", and the way most players actually played it, which was more of a darker supers game.

Exalted was the designers' attempt to pander as insultingly as possible to what they saw as the desires of these so-called "powergamers", by giving them the most over the top example of a powergamer's wet dream they could come up with. The whole thing is ludicrous on it's face, and it staggers me that people can read some of the shit they wrote in those books and not realize it's anything but pure parody.

In a way, it's almost a Swiftian bait and switch. It's impressive, but also sort of pathetic, seeing as its motivations stem largely from the creators' ego and contempt for their players.


https://www.therpgsite.com/pen-paper-ro ... #msg284579

JamesV wrote:Jeff Rients' Threefold Model defines Exalted as Pretentious-Stupid, and as someone who ran the game for three years, that's about right.

The rules are a real pain in the neck. As usual I managed to run the game from the books with little modification, but it was a bad idea. Exalted stretches the dice pool system to a level it should not be played at with late-game combats taking hours and consuming well over 30 dice in a toss (most dice was 78ish). What made that 70+ dice roll the most entertaining moment of the campaign was because it was for a player damage roll after he had been thrown over a mile at the enemy by another player. Which bring me to the setting.

The Exalted setting really defines Pretentious-Stupid for me. It's this unwieldy pastiche of anime and supposed bonze-age epic smashed with a wrecking ball of superhero powers and incongruent grittiness. Mildly humorous puns and smiling supers would get mixed in with tales of human trafficking and other miseries. It wasn't until I bought a great deal of the books and read them, that I truly understood what sort of game in my hands that ultimately allowed me to trancend the problems I did have and run what was ultimately another satisfying game for my group:

Exalted, whether it was intended to be or not, is RIFTS Fantasy. The moment I ran the game like I did RIFTS, everything fell into place. If you want to actually have a good time with the game, don't play the way they intended. Run the game as a free-wheeling arms race between the players and their increasingly ridiculous foes, and see who gets viciously disintegrated first.


https://www.therpgsite.com/pen-paper-ro ... #msg284598

RPGPundit wrote:I do. They have this whole utterly fake "asian" vibe, "its sort of like wuxia", "its sort of like chinese epics", "its sort of like the Mahabharata". NO, you stupid fucks, its not like any of those things. Those are just words you're using to sound multicultural and hip.

[...]

WW has hated humanity since forever. ALL of their games are about how you are secretly not human, instead you're something special and wonderful and beautiful and powerful, but everyone hates you because you're a goth and they don't understand how awesome you are. But in the fantasy world instead of writing bad poetry in your room and cutting yourself, you get to be all beautiful and wonderful in a world where you can get revenge on all the powerless little humans who wedgied you in school and told you that your poetry sucks.

In Exalted, humans are basically just ants. The exalteds crush them without so much as an afterthought. And no human would ever be capable of doing anything to stand up to an Exalted.

White Wolf's writers hate themselves, and by extension hate all of mankind. They are therefore filth, and dangerous filth, that should be stopped with extreme prejudice.

[...]

Yes, you can depict it factually, as a neutral context of the setting; or you can depict it in a condemnatory way rather than a "its so cool and edgy" kind of way, you can suggest that in fact strong and healthy civilization and having real values is a GOOD thing and not the evil act of the patriarchy, you can not pretend that somehow we'd all be better off if we didn't have science and penicillin and water purification, and that barbarians who regularly murder their neighbour to eat his gooey insides are somehow "better" and more noble than city-dwellers, especially those EEEEVIL european city-dwellers who invented all that oppresive shit like the rule of law, mathematics, human rights, and democracy.


https://www.therpgsite.com/pen-paper-ro ... #msg284693

Cranewings wrote:Are you talking about Exalted or Robert Howard's Conan?


https://www.therpgsite.com/pen-paper-ro ... #msg284696

oktoberguard wrote:i was thinking the same thing. i remember reading about the glorification of barbarism and the depiction of civilization as weak and decadent from writers like howard and leiber long before i picked up the exalted core book. those themes seem to come standard with "swords & sorcery" fantasy settings.


https://www.therpgsite.com/pen-paper-ro ... #msg284697

Cranewings wrote:A lot of sword and sorcery is one big revenge fantasy against the evil and weakness of daily life.


The thread keeps going for 14 pages, the quotes above are from the first four. It's a great thread. Good forum. I ought to make an account and tell them about Battlegrounds. I wonder what RPGPundit will think of it.
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icycalm
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Unread postby icycalm » 17 Jun 2021 16:16

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Third Edition is quite a hefty book. 659 pages compared to PF1's 500-something.

I like the cover art in this one. The EX1's was crap, the EX2's was better, and the EX3's pretty great. I wonder if the content improved similarly. At the time of the "sucks ass" thread circa 2009 they were up to EX2 (2006). EX3 came out in 2016.
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icycalm
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Re: Exalted

Unread postby icycalm » 21 Jun 2021 21:56

I just realized something.

How do you roll “well over 30 dice in a toss” on a tabletop?

We didn’t even have 30 dice when we were playing in the ‘90s.

But even worse... how do you add up the result? You’d need a calculator and at the very least a full extra minute per toss. I don’t see how this is playable.

On a VTT it’s no problem of course.
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