(in response to someone saying demon summoning was never safe or easy in Exalted) Actually yes it was, both from a Doylist and a Watsonian perspective. Demon summoning was supposed to be safe and easy because the game designers wanted to encourage players to have hordes of alien gribblies at their commands so they could …
The Primordials are Bigger Than You, but Not Beyond You
Any alteration to the basics of Primordialhood that makes the tale of Marus impossible is not one I’m going to embrace, because if that’s impossible then… I don’t care to include Primordials at all. Part of the point of the Yozis was that no matter how huge and all-powerful and vastly beyond your reach they appear to …
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Not All Yozis Should Have Charmsets
Honestly? Oramus shouldn’t have a Charmset. Neither should Cytherea or Sachaverell. Sometimes some ideas that make cool setting fluff are not things PCs should have access to, not just because they lack mechanical balance but because the very idea of mechanizing them would lessen them. Oramus is the dragon beyond the world. He is the part of the …
Why the Invincible Sword Princess Should be Invincible
One of the reason I liked Exalted with a default mode of “PCs bolostomp 99% of the setting” is that it removes the incentive to kill problems a lot of the time. After the fifth or sixth time the PCs butchered their way through a small army, their handful of Dragonblooded or spiritual leaders and …
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Why Having a Canonical Fix for Autochthon is a Bad Idea
This is all great and stuff, but the problem is that by explicitly pointing out that there is a cure and it exists in a certain direction, that means that all this grandiose film noir struggle against entropy stuff is the biggest idiot ball in the entire setting. There is a solution to Autochthon’s illness. It’s …
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Why Exalted Should Have Had Rules for Ruling Realms to Begin With
I’m just always amazed by how people say empire building and trade system-focused games are impossible when Settlers of Catan is one of the most popular board games I know of.
Why Ligier Won’t Just Kill Your PC If You Exalt In Front of Him
Ligier has no incentive to murder an Exalt who Exalts in front of him. I mean, what does that accomplish? The Exaltation literally will Exalt somebody else – most likely somebody out of his reach and influence – basically immediately. The best he gets out of it is a momentary and passing satisfaction, but even …
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On Why Gods Should Matter
Gods, even high level gods, should be capable of affecting their domains. Otherwise what is the point of them? I’m not talking about in-setting, I’m talking about from a game perspective. If Yu-shan and all its inhabitants are nothing more than distant bureaucrats who can do nothing more than move around paper and be corrupt, then …
On Pitfalls of Porting Elements into Exalted
If you’re straight up porting over elements from other fiction (Dark Souls or whatever) into Exalted, you are doing it wrong. Exalted is Exalted, its not Dark Souls or Nasuverse or Nier or Tales From the Flat Earth. You can certainly take inspiration from Dark Souls or Kill Six Billion Demons into Exalted but should be …
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What Sorcery Should and Shouldn’t Be
Look, I understand where you are coming from. Wanting to reduce combinatorial hell is why I came up with my Martial Arts = Innate Artifacts idea. But for me, Sorcery is not meant to be a combat power. It was never meant to be a combat power. You don’t get to play a ‘combat mage’ in Exalted. …