Well, after much noise on the forums, I’ve decided to do a ‘real’ review of the Preview/Quickstart for White Wolf’s new game ‘Exalted’. Those of you who don’t like reviews of Quickstarts, feel free to stop reading now. And so, on with the review proper:
In the last few years, White Wolf has released several new game lines, from the Trinity/Aberrant series through the Vampire ‘Expansion Pack’ Kindred Of The East, to the ‘WoD from the other side of the field’ game, Hunter: The Reckoning. But none of these have really met with as enthusiastic a reception from fans as the original core games. The reason for this is a question for the company’s creative and marketing departments, and not for a reviewer such as myself. I’m sure we all have our little theories. But despite (or perhaps because of) this somewhat lacklustre performance, the company have persevered with their new line, Exalted, with a release scheduled for July. In advance of this comes the Quickstart guide and a gloriously illustrated Preview.
To start with, the Exalted Quickstart is free. Apart from your Net time, you will not be gouged. It’s in Adobe Acrobat format, one that is more and more widely accepted these days, in order to retain the layout and pictures. The Acrobat Reader is free from adobe.com, so it’s definitely worth getting. The Quickstart clocks in at 1140KB, the map is 682KB, and the Promo is 14043KB. The Promo being as large as it is, I’d only recommend it for those with good, stable Net connections, and your mileage may vary. It took me at least six or seven attempts to finally get it. Compared with other free-to-Net RPGs, the completeness of system and setting provided is definitely lacking. But this is not intended to be complete, merely a teaser, like the demo version of a computer game.
What you do get though is great stuff. While incomplete in this product, the setting does show all the signs of being immensely detailed. You have the whole decayed feudal society thing, but without the complete lapse into barbarism that is now a cliche. There’s a lot of scope for adventuring right out of the Quickstart, and I’m sure many an entertaining time could be had from even this relatively small amount of material. Epic fantasy is definitely the order of the day in Exalted. And there are ways to run a game in almost any environment within the Exalted world. Want your players to go hang out with Caribbean-style piratical types? Have them head west, out towards the Coral Archipelago. Looking for some Arabian Nights action? Go south to the cities of Paragon and Chiascuro, where you can no doubt find all the evil grand viziers, ancient temples and sweeping deserts you want. Two for a dollar.
Unfortunately, if you don’t want to make up these sort of background details you won’t be able to run an Exalted game with the Quickstart. There just aren’t enough hard facts in this guide to facilitate a game without some improvisation and creativity. Likewise for anyone considering a campaign, or even lengthy stories. Anyone considering trying out this game from the Quickstart will have to invent quite a bit, but it can be done. The Quickstart format is really designed to allow one-shot adventures to give players and GMs an idea of what the game is about, what the general feel of the world is, etc.
As to the game system, well, it’s Storyteller again for Exalted. Now, for me personally, unless the rules are unwieldy and overly complicated, the system matters little. And just to give you some context for that statement, I find D&D3e that complicated. Looking up things on charts every five minutes is not my thing. But the Storyteller system is nice and simple to learn and run: (Attribute plus Ability) x D10, rolled against target numbers 1-10. I’m happy to keep using it, rather than learn another system. The Quickstart system uses D6s instead of D10s, with an appropriate mod to the target range, but since it’s meant to be useable for new players without specialised gaming poly-hedrals, this is probably for the best. If you really want to, you can use D10s anyway.
The anime/amerime/comic book style of art that’s used in several places evoked memories of such wonderful anime fantasy epics as ‘Mysterious Cities Of Gold’, ‘Vision Of Escaflowne’, ‘Record of Lodoss War’ and more. Exalted’s art is almost reminiscent of the art in DP9’s games. I realise that the style doesn’t appeal to everyone, but for me, the rush of memories from those shows was great. The rest of the art is brilliant too, especially the colour pieces in the graphically resplendent Promo*. The design style is very much in the same vein as Kindred Of The East; watermarks, graphic borders and oriental-looking glyphs appear everywhere. Quite right for a game with a feudal Japan style empire.
It’s also well written, as I’ve come to expect from White Wolf. Even in this Quickstart guide, the authors manage to demonstrate that they have clear and definite vision for Exalted. Even if they’re not letting us in on all of it yet. The pre-WoD versions of familiar supernaturals are intriguing, and argument will rage for months about which race will prove to be the origin of the vampires (personally, I favour the Dragon-Blooded… or maybe the Solars…). Information is present in such a way as to give a wide-angle view of the world, covering history, geography and society in concise, illuminating overviews. True, as previously stated, there aren’t a lot of intricate details. But this is only a demo. There aren’t really meant to be any.
Overall I have to say that this Quickstart was definitely worth my time (though I can’t speak for my money, not having to pay for Net access), and I look forward to the full release. White Wolf seems to have a great new game on their hands, which, given sufficient support, could do wonderful things. From what I’ve seen, I predict another White Wolf rulebook being added to the exalted space of my bookshelf very soon.
Style: 5 out of 5. The art is great, the layout is good to look at, and it’s well written. I’d expect nothing less from a professional outfit like White Wolf.
Substance: 4 out of 5 as a Quickstart. 3 out of 5 compared to other free-to-Net offerings. It’s a great game, but a small sample story like the one for Werewolf might have been good. Other than that, no real complaints, it does what it was meant to do. Compared to other free-to-net products, this doesn’t stand out from the pack. I’ve seen both better and worse, and this just doesn’t distinguish itself when compared to them. I know it’s not really fair to compare it, but it is a similar product.
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(Due to spamming, old forum discussions are no linked.)