Exalted Storyteller's Companion

"Storyteller's Companion"... When I think of the words, I imagine a "how-to" guide, a guide for the person running a story set in that game universe. In this case, when I heard that a "Storyteller's Companion" was coming out for Exalted, I was expecting at least a chapter or two of topics or discussions like, "How to run exalted games", "How to express the themes involved in Exalted in your stories", "Do's and Don'ts for Exalted Games", that sort of thing.

When I got this supplement, opened it up (it's wrapped in plastic, as it comes with a gamemaster screen), and skimmed through it, I was quickly let down by my own expectations. There were only 6 and a half pages of text in the Core Exalted book on running games, and all of the advice in those pages was more along the lines of General RPG advice, with nothing really specific to the Exalted setting. Since I was having some problems writing adventures in the Exalted world (I couldn't get into the mood, and was looking for pointers), I expected the book with the heading "A Storyteller's Resource for Exalted" to be a big help.

It turns out to be a problem in my interpretation. I was looking at the word "Storyteller" in the literal sense; A "Teller of Stories", the person who lays down and runs an adventure for a gaming session. In actuality, however, the word "Storyteller" was fingering the term as used in the vocabulary of the game: Not "A GM" in the broad sense, but rather "A GM Who Runs and Knows the Core Rules, Pace, General Setting, Tone and Mood of Exalted". I thought this title was a little misleading.

Note: I received this game as a playtest copy. If I had the opportunity to read the back of the book, the description is not misleading in the least- it only says that it details the other antagonists in the game. However, I couldn't help but to think that there must have been a lot of people who pre-ordered or ordered this supplement without having a chance to read the back, and thus may have expected something else.

But hey, that was my miss, I guess. For what the Storyteller's Companion is, though, it's very clever, interesting, and does what it intended to; to detail the antagonists of the Exalted universe... at least, until their respective "Fatsplats" (hardcover splats) are released. Until the time that said Fatsplats are released, this book is the definitive "something that works for now" of the Exalted game line.

The Screen

Who really bought this $16 supplement (more if you live in our large, northern, 51st state) for the screen alone? Seriously.

OK, we'll take a peek at it: It's 4 panels wide with the colorful "sorta anime" style art that's the core of the style of the Exalted line. It's the same picture that wraps around the cover of the core book, but brighter so that you can pick out the details.

On the reverse side, It's made up of comprehensive armor and weapon tables, the sequence of events in combat, a chart that details the feats of strength that the Exalted can achieve, and smaller charts involving healing, essence gain, and object strength. The two features that surprised me were the "Extras" section- It gives you the basic abilities of weak/competent/elite "mooks" that the Exalted go through like a knife through hot isolated oxygen molecules. This ended up proving to be the most useful of all the charts, for me. At unexpected times, I felt the need to bring on Another Rain of Mooks, and because of this quick-chart, it was easy.

The other chart that I was surprised with was the "Anima Display" chart, only because it didn't seem to fit. Out of all the "must either memorize or have available for easy reference" rules of the Exalted universe, this seemed to be out of place. Still, though, I couldn't think of anything else that would fit will here.

Overall, I'd give the screen a score of "average ". It does the job it was intended to.

The Companion

The rest of the book follows the same pattern from chapter to chapter (or, I should say, section to section), and thus was easy to digest.

The introduction was an exhaustive FAQ of six Exalted-related questions, half (that is, three) of which actually involve Exalted gameplay (well, it's actually more like "two and a half"). I've got a love-hate relationship with FAQs, and here I could have easily seen this section moved to, say, the Exalted Website without any loss to the theme, content or flow of the book. In fact, this section of three pages was the closest this book came to meeting my initial, but flawed, expectations.

Moving on from there is the heart of the supplement, and the reason that people should consider buying it: The descriptions of the antagonist which will later fill their own fatsplats.

Chapter One is all about the Scarlet Empire; that is, the Dragon-Blooded of Exalted. To be honest, when I went through the Exalted core book, the setting wasn't very interesting to me. Where the background mythology of the game (what the Exalted are and what do they do) ended and the geography/description of the lands began was, to me, like an on/off switch. I was really interested in the various Exalted, but the setting/culture not directly tied to them just seemed a little basic and bland. Certainly not throwaway, but not gripping either.

The section on Dragon-Blooded society, while small, was gripping to me. The designers really set well the foundation of the DB culture, and made it not only interesting as a possible encounter, but simply interesting to read about as well. I think it was in bits and places of this section that I found the "real storyteller companion" material, that is descriptions of the tone of the game, that I was initially looking for.

And then the charms. Charms, for me, are like spells in D&D in this regard: They're interesting to read if you're going to use them, but otherwise they're boring and get in the way. Here, we find lots of sample crunchy bits for the DB antagonists that the PCs may encounter. But knowing that these abilities are for the NPCs made me only interested in getting a sense of the "overall feel" of the powers rather than learning any of them. The DB powers are all elemental-based, and weaker than the Solar Exalted powers. Check.

The following sections detailed the Lunar, Sidereal, and Abyssal Exalted. Again, each of these sections were as detailed and interesting as the DB section. Actually, that depends a little on your sensibilities: I'm not very much into shapeshifters or barbarian/Viking like culture, so I naturally didn't find this section as interesting as the Sidereal section, which portrays them as prophets without a sense of identity, with tension between groups of folks with different beliefs (like most WW games, we see this faction <of Exalted> further divided cleanly into factions based on beliefs. Simplistic, but interesting, and very easy to incorporate into a game).

The last section is a four-page chapter that details six Exalted artifacts of differing point ranges, including their background and rule effects. Interesting to some, I guess, but not me (save as examples on how I can bring my own artifacts into a game). Not to be smug, this type of section just is not my bag... the previous chapters were 100% my bag, though, so it evens itself out well.

I skipped a chapter in there just because it deserves some attention: It's a little out of place, considering that this book is otherwise a teaser, or more appropriately, a quick idea guide to keep a GM going until the related fatsplat is eventually released. It is the third chapter, entitled Spirits and Spirit Courts.

Spirits and their courts are, like many areas of this game, divided into elemental realms: Forest and Water Courts were those most focused on in this section. The spirit charms, surprisingly numerous in this book, are charms that the PCs will never wield because it's assumed that, while the players may play Dragon-Blooded or Lunar Exalted, only the GM plays Spirits. All of the Spirit charms are interesting in that they are mostly used to aid or hinder adventurers and their adversaries: hallucinations, boons, divinations, curses, that sort of thing. It was surprising to see a Plot Device, such as the spirits and their courts are, receive so much attention. For me, this section was a 60/40 on my interest scale. On one hand, I liked the description of the main spirit court, and dug most of the charms. On the other hand, I thought that they could have done so much more with the spirits than make them manifestations of the elements, as elements are tied to almost every other aspect of the game anyway (I guess I started feeling a little cornered by the Elemental theme). I would have loved to see a dream-based or even more alien Spirit Court instead of elementals and demons. The elementals and spirit folk of the elements as presented really didn't feel unique, or any different than the standard "Monster Manual" fare.

That's the gist of the contents of the book. Layout-wise, this book is "RPG Standard": 2 columns of text, larger font for section and subsection headers, and enough art (decent art, too) to keep the mind from wandering when reading. There are, however, a series of full-sized pictures, one per each of the chapters of the book, that deserve special attention. They are drawn by someone named "R C", but the art credits don't list anyone by that name (and all the other artists are accounted for by their other works in this book).

They are GORGEOUS and EVOCATIVE. I don't know if they are evocative in the anime/power/combat direction that many of the other pictures evoke, but they are nonetheless worthy of entertaining the thought of trying to relate the situations/environments/characters in the pics, through play, to the players during similar encounters. Just as a sample, as you'd never see the pic normally (as the game book is sealed because of the GM Screen), here's an example of one of the pieces. This one heads the chapter regarding Spirits and Spirit Courts, and man if it doesn't just scream that in your face:

Click the above thumbnail for a larger view

This Book in My Game

This is, after all, a playtest review.

But to be honest, I didn't find much use for it in my game. That's ONLY because our gaming group runs mini-campaigns of 1-3 adventures before switching GMs and games. In the mini-campaign of three adventures that I ran, the enemy, while appearing all along to be a Dragon-Blooded and his House Minions, turned out to be a team of three Exalted. In the last adventure, though, I had the characters travel to the Court of Seasons as portrayed in the guide and gain boons so that they could fight their enemies (ala the magic potions from Big Trouble in Little China) in the final few battles. I used a few of the spirit charms presented (notably Hand of Destiny and Largess), but mostly what was used was the actual descriptions of the courts.

If I run another Exalted game when it becomes my turn to GM, I'm planning on involving the PCs in a campaign that wraps them up in mysterious Sidereal plots. Maybe then I'll actually throw out a few charm-having Sidereal adversaries as well.

Conclusion

Sure, I was disappointed in this product at first for a minute or two, but what this Companion turned out to actually be was also very interesting. On it's own terms, it for the most part accomplished what it set out to, and on top of that is a very compelling sourcebook to pick up until the last of the Exalted-themed fatsplats become available.