Exalted: Essence

[DrLoveMonkey]

Exalted Essence. Sounds really useful. Is this a real brochure of releases?

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.n...5DACE1359DF7C/

So that seems pretty real. What do we all think of it?

[Stupid Loserman]

Around the release of the Third Edition corebook I jumped out Exalted's window in a rain of glass shards and ran away into the night with no intent to return. So big, so bulky, such a lack of addressing my personal problems with the system.

If this is real, it is the smartest thing the developers could do, particularly given the slow development of playable character types for the longform edition. If it's good, I might come back out of the night.

[Janissary87]

Meh.

(Obligatory ten character limit)

[marin]

Courtesy of the devs over on the Exalted Discord: Being developed by Neall Raemonn Price, Dixie Cochran and Monica Valentinelli. Will have every Exalt type playable, including the ones that aren't currently out yet.

Mechanically, essentially self-contained - you won't need WFHW to play Dragon-Blooded in EE. Setting details can be imported into your games.


EDIT: Simplified 3e ruleset, but won't require 3e core.

[NevenkaNieroda]

Courtesy of the devs over on the Exalted Discord: Being developed by Neall Raemonn Price, Dixie Cochran and Monica Valentinelli. Will have every Exalt type playable, including the ones that aren't currently out yet.

Mechanically, essentially self-contained - you won't need WFHW to play Dragon-Blooded in EE. Setting details can be imported into your games.


EDIT: Simplified 3e ruleset, but won't require 3e core.

That seems...really dicey, so to speak. Creating a basic mechanical framework, even a simplified one for a splat requires knowing at least some of how those splats work, and doing it ahead of the extensive reasoning and design that comes with building a splat book seems like you could end up with one of two problems in the case of unreleased exalt types: either the EE version bears little to no resemblance to the actual splat, or the EE version causes later design to have to work within a design space created by EE.

Admittedly, this is assuming the mechanics aren't so incredibly simplified that it simply doesn't matter how they're presented in EE, but this would still leave the same problems with fluff.

Man, I hope this doesn't delay Exigents.

[Ghosthead]

I think it is probably a worthwhile thing to do. Wouldn't have made any sense in prior editions because "The setting *is* defined by the mechanics!" (which Ex3 abandons) and because the turnover of splat books is quick enough that you're basically just eating into your potential audience, but with 3e's long turnarounds and mechanical elaboration it makes sense.

Seems pretty likely to me in ways to be close to "Exalted 3e rules, but without as many Charms" (though I won't be surprised if the authors have other ideas!) but there's probably going to be a fair sized market out there that finds the levels of systems mastery implied by the 3e core's huge Charms section a turn off (even if the core systems beyond Charms are often argued to be perhaps not really *that* complicated), and yet doesn't want to play rules light homebrew and conversions downloaded off the internet. A book like that seems to be a good way to sell such people 3e setting books.

[marin]

Neall and Monica at least are developing the ST Guide, which'll be giving ST-friendly previews of post-Exigents splats, so they've got an idea of what current thinking for said splats is.

As for it impacting Exigents... that's still under Vance and Minton, iirc.

[Ekorren]

Man, I hope this doesn't delay Exigents.

The impact on Exigents should be 0% as far as I understand. Multiple developers come with the nice perk that more books can be worked on at the same time.

[Lioness]

This is real, I've known about it for a while now.

[Isator Levi]

There's clearly already a market for something like this, the number of people that have done things like try to develop FATE hacks, and as I said elsewhere I know so many people who find complexity a barrier to entry. This could open the game up considerably, with a nice professional job of it.

[IanWatson]

Brochure's linked on the OPP front page if anyone wants to check for themselves.

[SamuraiMujuru]

Huh. I'm honestly kinda conflicted on this one. On one hand, it could finally be the stepping stone required to make Exalted accessible to a wider audience. On the other, I can't help but echo concerns about what effect it'll have on the main gameline.

[DrLoveMonkey]

Huh. I'm honestly kinda conflicted on this one. On one hand, it could finally be the stepping stone required to make Exalted accessible to a wider audience. On the other, I can't help but echo concerns about what effect it'll have on the main gameline.

I’m also conflicted. I’ve taken a long time to master the complex ex3 system and I actually do like it. You can do fun stuff with it mechanically and DBs and Lunars both have a good number of charms, I feel, to be really big and diverse without going crazy.

On the other hand easier to run scenes, particularly combat ones, would make the game move along a lot faster and make bigger more epic stories easier, and it will maybe make setting and mechanics arguments die a bit more.

[Robert Vance]

That seems...really dicey, so to speak. Creating a basic mechanical framework, even a simplified one for a splat requires knowing at least some of how those splats work, and doing it ahead of the extensive reasoning and design that comes with building a splat book seems like you could end up with one of two problems in the case of unreleased exalt types: either the EE version bears little to no resemblance to the actual splat, or the EE version causes later design to have to work within a design space created by EE.

Admittedly, this is assuming the mechanics aren't so incredibly simplified that it simply doesn't matter how they're presented in EE, but this would still leave the same problems with fluff.

Neall, Monica, and Dixie have been involved in the discussions about how these Exalt types work for a long, long time, and we've crystallized our visions of them to a point that I can't foresee any vast divergence.

Man, I hope this doesn't delay Exigents.

It won't! Exigents is still on track.

[Epitome]

Well that explains why there's no plans for a Ex3.5, it would be foolhardy to split Ex3 in 2 when they're already planning to make an alternate edition.

I'm very happy and excited about this news, I play in 2 groups, 1 hardcore and 1 more casual, so a streamlined edition would be a perfect fit for the casual group.