What if, instead of playing the Exalted, you played the Exaltation?

[CapitanTypo]

But... why? Even assuming an attack with a radius of miles, why is the reincarnation so close? If one ascribes actual agency and personality to the Essence, what does it expect to accomplish?

That was primarily a joke

[BlueWinds]

To take the idea a little more seriously, it might look something like the series of connected one-shots my friend is currently running. It's not Exalted, but it's how I'd run an exaltation-based game.

There's a real world, in which the characters are all townsfolk whose children have been kidnapped. We're not sure how or why, just that their faces are appearing on the covers of books in the local library, and that they're somehow trapped inside.

This is the 'connecting glue' that binds together a series of one-shots from various systems. Open one of the books, and we play a short adventure in that system - we've been not-innuts, fairies, etc. - all native to the setting we're playing, remembering nothing of the outer world. But some of the PCs have a strong enough sense of identity that their 'reflections' are related. My character for example, Sasha, always casts soldier/hunter/warrior reflections - Sauglusha, the hunter, Seiyama, the guardian-sprite, etc. They're not her - they all remember their own pasts, have their own goals and desires and personalities - but they all also possess aspects of Sasha.

So that's how I'd run a more serious Exaltation-based game, with all the PCs controlled by a player written around a theme. There might be The Betrayed Dawn, whose recurring theme is that those they trust betray them, The Glorious Twilight, who is always a sorcerer, always seeking after hidden lore from her past lives, and The Wandering Eclipse, who is always a free spirit, leaving behind broken hearts and peaceful resolutions to intractable conflicts. They're destined to meet, life after live, generation after generation. Sometimes as enemies, sometimes as friends, sometimes as strangers thrown together by circumstance... always they repeat the same themes, though the details vary.

Each adventure would be 1-3 sessions with given characters, before breaking off from their stories and picking up the tale again a hundred or a thousand years later (and sometimes one or two players would be elder versions of their past characters while the others are newly reincarnated).

[Totentanz]

Yeah, the only way I see this working out is in a high-lethality game. Even then, it could be pretty frustrating, because you're 'starting over' a great deal. You basically have a new PC at Essence 1, etc.

Actually, I can also see it working in another way. If the 'game' was a series of semi-connected events, each transpiring in different incarnations over thousands of years, then you would have something. That might be a cool way to background some long-running event that now draws in the current Circle.

For example, maybe the PC Circle opposed the machinations of a wily and powerful Fae lord for thousands of years. The players play through one-shots of the past incarnations as a way to prepare them for their 'modern' PCs dealing with the Fae's latest depredation.

Even in this, though, you are asking for a lot of bookkeeping.

[Exthalion]

Yeah, the only way I see this working out is in a high-lethality game. Even then, it could be pretty frustrating, because you're 'starting over' a great deal. You basically have a new PC at Essence 1, etc.

Actually, I can also see it working in another way. If the 'game' was a series of semi-connected events, each transpiring in different incarnations over thousands of years, then you would have something. That might be a cool way to background some long-running event that now draws in the current Circle.

For example, maybe the PC Circle opposed the machinations of a wily and powerful Fae lord for thousands of years. The players play through one-shots of the past incarnations as a way to prepare them for their 'modern' PCs dealing with the Fae's latest depredation.

Even in this, though, you are asking for a lot of bookkeeping.

I that situation I would have the PCs make quick characters at two or three power levels and just reuse those stats when doing flashbacks.

[raaabr]

And now I can't help but think of somebody switching the active and "passive" roles of the Upper soul and the Exalted soul, which might have effects sorta like if you switched someones subconscious and conscious minds. I doubt the individual would be able to get ANYTHING done.

[Elkovash]

Or! We could go the whole nine yards and have each player play a mortal and the player to their left plays their exaltation with access to all their charms as a way to more perfectly simulate the disparity between Hero and Essence Fever AND give a nice line into the results of Limit Break!

That totally wouldn't end with the entire player group ripping each other apart in frustration.

*wistful sigh*

I always did want to play Wraith at some point.

[CapitanTypo]

The main problem with playing the Exaltation instead of the Exalted is that the Exaltation is not a character.

"Character" is defined by the function that an entity plays in a narrative. If I wrote a story about a happy little rock, the rock would be the main character of that story. They may not have a lot of agency or even autonomy and depend on a lot of creative story telling via free and indirect discursive narrative, but it would still be a character.

[CapitanTypo]

Or! We could go the whole nine yards and have each player play a mortal and the player to their left plays their exaltation with access to all their charms as a way to more perfectly simulate the disparity between Hero and Essence Fever AND give a nice line into the results of Limit Break!

That totally wouldn't end with the entire player group ripping each other apart in frustration.

*wistful sigh*

I always did want to play Wraith at some point.

I love Wraith. One of the best games (or at least game settings, the mechanics of 2nd edition WoD are eternally horrid) that just never really got the credit it deserved.

[TheCountAlucard]

"Character" is defined by the function that an entity plays in a narrative.

That's a definition, yes. But more importantly, an Exaltation - as presented in the books - is not an entity.

If I wrote a story about a happy little rock, the rock would be the main character of that story.

Only because by making the rock "happy," you're engaging in a writing technique known as "personification." Rocks in our world are not, by any measure we humans use, happy.* We can anthropomorphize a rock, give it a name and emotions and desires, but these character-attributes are not native to rocks, and unless you're prepared to change a whole lot, they're not native to Exaltations either.

*I predict either a Dwayne Johnson or Steven Universe joke to follow.

[CapitanTypo]

That's a definition, yes. But more importantly, an Exaltation - as presented in the books - is not an entity.

Only because by making the rock "happy," you're engaging in a writing technique known as "personification." Rocks in our world are not, by any measure we humans use, happy.* We can anthropomorphize a rock, give it a name and emotions and desires, but these character-attributes are not native to rocks, and unless you're prepared to change a whole lot, they're not native to Exaltations either..

All valid points. Hence why the opening questions was a speculative query about what such a game might look like.

Can I infer from your objections then that you feel auch a game, in order to be viable, would require some significant revision of the concept of exaltation to imbue it with an element of sentience?

[TheCountAlucard]

.Can I infer from your objections then that you feel auch a game, in order to be viable, would require some significant revision of the concept of exaltation to imbue it with an element of sentience?

You may infer that, sure, but I wasn't objecting. You're welcome to have this exercise and play this game - I just felt obligated to point out the roadblock that seemed obvious to me, the same way you might let a neighbor bound on going to the grocery store know that his back tire has a flat.

[Krata Lightblade]

Alucard, I think it's pretty clear that the very premise of the thread implies "What if the Exaltation was in fact a character" along with the "and you're playing that character" part. I understand you have a tendency to be pedantic, but jeez, man, jeez. Arguing for the sake of arguing, y'know?


Anyway, Typo, I'd say that while I'm sure there are players who could do a great deal with the idea, I admit that I'm not one of them. I don't think, at least for me, it'd differ enough from the actual game itself to be distinct and interesting. But I admit that's probably just my style talking. I think it's an interesting thought exercise, but I don't think I'd ever try to work it into a game. I'm a big fan of the idea of human agency, after all, and the Exalted are, at the end of the day, pretty darn human. I think it'd run pretty contrary to my enjoyment of the game to play the literal power possessing their every thought and driving them to greatness, rather than playing a guy who is driven to greatness naturally but has the advantage of said power.

[Drascin]

So kind of Exalted: Paranoia, with new reincarnations as your sixpack of clones?

I mean, the lethality was already there, so...

[Isator Levi]

So kind of Exalted: Paranoia, with new reincarnations as your sixpack of clones?

Eh, I'm not seeing it.

[BjornTheFellhanded]

Eh, I'm not seeing it.

I agree. Paranoia isn't defined by the cloning. The cloning is just part of the grotesque distortion of our contemporary value system (life isn't precious in Alpha Complex) that plays into the uber-dystopian nightmare world played for laughs.

The base setting of Exalted doesn't have that, is in fact very far from it. Lives matter, everyone has motives, everything happens for a reason.

You could try to run Paranioa: Exalted, but it'd have to be a sidereal game where Kejak turned into a deranged control freak who sees anathema in every shadow...but played for laughs.