The Inside Scoop on Gaming

Background

The world of Exalted is, effectively, the pre-history of the World of Darkness, rather like Earthdawn was to Shadowrun. Very few elements exist in both settings, though there are numerous resonances. For example, while there are no Werewolves or Changelings, there are the Wyld and The Fair Folk, who are much more mythological in their nature, and better suited to a high fantasy game (as villains, I must add).

In the past, there was a golden age where the Exalted (those blessed with the ability to shape "essence", the power of the cosmos) ran everything and all was well. Naturally, it fell, and the Celestial Exalted pretty much vanished, while the Terrestrial Exalted (Who got their power from Dragon's blood) assumed the reins of power. The Dragon Blooded made sure no other Exalted grew to power, and have pretty much run things until, about 5 years ago, the Empress of the Dragon Blooded's empire died or vanished or something, and Celestial Exalted have had the opportunity to emerge. On type of Celestial Exalted are the Lunar Exalted, shapeshifters touched by the Wyld presented as NPCS.

PCs are of another type of Celestial Exalted, Solar Exalted, and are given a caste (class) within the solar exalted, named for solar phenomena, such as Dawn, Eclipse or Zenith. Naturally, each caste has its own strengths and specialities. They are far more powerful than normal mortals, but they still are on the receiving end of the empire and lots of other bad things on the loose in the world. Even the small amount of the game presented is rife with possibilities.

System

It's early to judge the system, based solely on quickstart rules. However, as presented it is a very appealling one. While bearing some similarities to the core WW system (roll X dice, count the successes) it is tremendously streamlined. Almost all actions are defined by 5 stats, which cover Combat, Willpower/Presence, Scholarship, Sneakiness and Social Skills. When performing an action, roll that many d6 (generally betwen 1 and 4 for normal folks) and count successes (4 & 5 are successes, 6's are 2 successes). Very simple (and faintly reminiscent of d6 prime). There are no skills, though some elements of WW combat, like soak, are still in place - enough that most WW GMs could derive more combat rules if they really wanted to.

The complicating element is Essence, which every character starts with a pool of, and points of which can be spent for certain effects, depending on the character's class. One of the nicer aspects of the system is that Essence can be recovered by performing flashy "stunts" thus encouraging more dramatic play.

Magic is given soem small coverage, enough to make it interesting, but enough to also make it the part that I most look forward to seeing fleshed out.

Now, While all of this may change drastically when the real game comes out, it is quite promising as it stands.

Flavor

This is the part of the game that caught my attention most strongly - this is unquestionably a dramatic, high fantasy game. The setting invites conflict on a grand (and flashy) scale and general head booting. The system is streamlined and seems to put a strong emphasis on speed and action. It seems almost anime-like in its style, which can be a good or bad things, depending on ones perspective (good to me).

Additionally, the setting has similar resonances to Earthdawn - A sense of rebuilding and primal forces, to say nothing of a shared history with another game of greatly different style.

Appearance

The 23 page pdf, available at white-wolf.com is very nicely put together - color cover, nice B&W art, and an attached character sheet. Solid production values for e-publishing.

Summary

Unquestionably, this succeeds as a quick-start guide. It has enough material that it woudl be easy to run a game with just the available material, and it gives a strong sense of what the game will be like which is hopefully accurate. The game itself looks very promising.

Unfortuneately, the last time I got this excited by the promises in a quickstart guide it was for Soverign Stone, which taught me to never bet too heavily until the book is on the table. There is always an element of crapshoot in lookign at quickstart rules, especially because there is a strong temptation to infer the shape of the game from what is presented.

However, Exalted crams a lot of material into this quickstart book, and does it well enough that it is well wortht he investment of time required to look over it oneself.

Personal Tilt

I really, really, really dislike most WW/WOD products. I am surprised at how much I enjoyed this, despite it having a few traditional WW weakness (specifically, that humans are sheep element). While it shares many of thr trappings with the WOD, this is a horse of an entirely different color. God help me, I plan to pick this up as soon as its out.