What do you love about Exalted? [Positive Responses Only]

[Dex Davican]

As one of the freelance writers these days, I don't get too directly involved with the fan community, but Exalted has given me a lot of enjoyment and inspiration. I've seen "positive responses only" threads on other forums, and I think it'd be an interesting experiment for this one. Please join me in this experiment. I doubt we'll do it perfectly, but a good-faith effort would be appreciated. If it's been done already, well, the search function didn't reveal that to me, and also, who cares.

For me: I still love writing Charms (and I hope people enjoy what I recently wrote for Exigents). I love the mythic weight of the Exalted. As someone who started with D&D, I loved Exalted's willingness to address sex and sexuality, and love that we've been moving toward healthier ways to discuss those topics in the current edition.

[Katana1515]

The incredibly broad range of potential characters. A starting circle can happily include a merchant prince, a destitute waif, a famous poet and a grizzled warlord without any problems.

[The Wizard of Oz]

1) It's not eurofantasy.
2) You can have a concept like bureaucrat, blacksmith, socialite, preacher, sailor, etc, and the game actually supports making it a major part of your character, rather than an add-on to your combat focus.
3) Pulp sorcery
4) Big, dramatic stories that reshape countries or even the world
5) I quite enjoy the base combat system (in 3rd ed)
6) The authors actually thought through the societies they created.

[Lioness]

The incredibly broad range of potential characters. A starting circle can happily include a merchant prince, a destitute waif, a famous poet and a grizzled warlord without any problems.

I enjoy the flexibility but also the challenge of running for such a group and trying to keep everyone engaged.

[Epitome]

I love that homebrew is given a prominent place in the game.

I love that you're allowed to break the game.

I love that the game lets you try crazy plans or ideas which would be far too punishing to try in a different game.

[Dex Davican]

I love that the game lets you try crazy plans or ideas which would be far too punishing to try in a different game.

It's a challlenge to run for this but it's also so satisfying when a player knocks down all my careful dominoes.

[Beans]

I like how the setting was built to readily accommodate a spread of various flavors of pulp adventure---vikingesque or sword-and-snowshoe (yes that is now a genre) in the North, jungles and lost temples out East, a whole mess of places for diplomacy or conquest or kingdom-building in the Scavenger Lands, sword-and-sandal in the treasure-hiding deserts down South, all sorts of nautical nonsense West, and courtly intrigue on the Blessed Isle. It's a lot more flexible than that, of course, but it lays out those various welcome mats and lets the players and ST come at them.

Speaking of the world, I like how it outright reflects various real-world cultures and regions. This flings open the door for people to draw on real-life places, cultures, and myths they want to involve and lets players foster representation not just in physical features and dress but in culture, environment, etc.

I agree with the Wizard up there particularly on point #2. The fact that Exalted lets you take concepts well beyond variations of warrior and crank them up to mythic levels is one of its biggest draws for me. The fact that I could very feasibly make a character who's a master of crochet and have that be a viable way to contribute to the story is something you don't see in a lot of games. Having a party where GLORIOUS SLIP-STITCH PRINCESS and METICULOUS ACCOUNTANT PRINCESS stand equal to INVINCIBLE SWORD PRINCESS and INESCAPABLE NINJA PRINCESS is cool as hell, and it's thanks to the game giving a lot of different things space and weight.

[Reminiscent Oasis]

2) You can have a concept like bureaucrat, blacksmith, socialite, preacher, sailor, etc, and the game actually supports making it a major part of your character, rather than an add-on to your combat focus.

This is a big one for me. I love the diversity of powers in the game supports a wide variety of functional and impactful characters, and helps avoid everything devolving into a "when all you have is a hammer, all your problems are nails" scenario with combat too often. That still happens a bit, but at least there's good mechanic support to attempt alternate resolutions.

[Ekorren]

For me: I still love writing Charms (and I hope people enjoy what I recently wrote for Exigents).

I like what you wrote for Exigents.

The thing I love the most about Exalted is that it changed my life.

[The Wizard of Oz]

This is a big one for me. I love the diversity of powers in the game supports a wide variety of functional and impactful characters, and helps avoid everything devolving into a "when all you have is a hammer, all your problems are nails" scenario with combat too often. That still happens a bit, but at least there's good mechanic support to attempt alternate resolutions.

Yeah, I should have put this at no.1, as it's the biggest one for me, and ultimately why I'm running Exalted rather than a different game.

[vwllss trnt prncss]

The social system passes all but one of my "Does this social system actually function?" tests, which no other game I've seen can do without being an ultralight.

[Isator Levi]

Won't post until I'm 100%.

But thank you for this.

Had been gearing myself up to stating that I needed a break for finding the direction of the forum the last few days very disillusioning. Every time I did, prayed for a thread like this.

Not surprised it's from you.

Back to bed...

[YeOfLittleFaith]

Even if they don't get the same attention mechanically as combat, because that's always a bugbear, Exalted allows for characters to focus on a variety of archetypes and roles that have nothing to do with it, and supports doing legendary, memorable, magical stuff with those. The social system in 3e is fairly fleshed out and very evocative of how people actually act, which makes it feel both comprehensible and robust. It's a game that approaches its setting with an eye not for "realism" but authenticity in writing geopolitics, economy and cultural variety, and how mythic heroes and magic affect a world that bears these concerns, and asks you to explore the consequences of your actions. It draws from aesthetics and inspirations more numerous and expansive than a pastiche of "medieval" and pre-modern European fantasy. And charms can be quite a lot of fun.

[Dex Davican]

But thank you for this.

Had been gearing myself up to stating that I needed a break for finding the direction of the forum the last few days very disillusioning. Every time I did, prayed for a thread like this.

Not surprised it's from you.

What high praise.

The social system passes all but one of my "Does this social system actually function?" tests, which no other game I've seen can do without being an ultralight.

What are these tests, if I may ask?

[Gonzo]

I like that my character is not constrained by a class as in other games. You can have a religious bandit who uses a musical martial art, without having to worry if he/she is majorly a bard, a rogue, a monk or a cleric, and/or in what order you are gonna grow those sets of skills from level x to x+n.

I love all the non-european fantasy elements. Also, the idea of esoteric martial arts is one of my favorite aspects of the setting/game.