Ok, so apparently everyone on the planet either loves Exalted or hates it. But other than that, I don't know much about it. Those are the kinds of games I love.

Can someone give me a brief tutorial on the mechanics, the premise (super powered godlings?), etc.?

Is there an online quick start or tutorial available?

Are there premade adventures or at least well defined settings in it to make it easier for those of us with little prep time available?

Finally, if you have an opinion on it, please feel free to state it, but I'd like this to be an informative thread, not a flame war. So if, for example, you hate charm combos, please explain why, preferably with an example.

Not my best review ever, but maybe it will help: my review of Exalted 2nd.

White Wolf should have previews and, IIRC, an online quick start, intro adventure, or something of that nature over on their site - //www.white-wolf.com

I love the setting, Creation.  It's fantastical, something of an amalgamation of Eastern concepts and Final Fantasy sporting everything from airships, godlings, giant swords, funky guns, reality ripping martial arts, and all manner of other cool things.  The mechanics, unfortunately, are very heavy.  Building adversaries as a Storyteller is very time consuming.

It's He-Man using the World of Darkness system.

...okay, not really.  It's got this amazing mish-mash kitchen sink of a setting, and the default player character types are demi-gods with super anime powers.

The basic mechanics are the same as White Wolf's AEon/Trinity line.  It's a D10 dice pool system, with a target number of 7.  You count the number of dice that hit the target number as successes, and the requirement of the number of successes is the Difficulty.

Exalted (the PCs) have a power pool called Essence that's basically magic points.  You spend them to activate charms (magic powers, which range from super-power schticks to flashy kung fu techniques home in an over-the-top wuxia movie) or sorcery (epic magic spells).  The more you use your power points, the more your character glows with a nimbus of energy.

The Charms come in a wide variety, all tied to certain skills your character possesses.  Like Feats in D20, they all have pre-requisites.  Unlike Feats in D20, MOST of them have other Charms as pre-requisites, forming vast "trees" of powers.  The rules for combining Charms and how you use them are very specific.  Each Charm entry is about as complicated as a spell entry in D&D, if not moreso.  Did I mention that every character has upwards of ten of these suckers?  Because they do.  That means that the game has the complexity feel of a game composed entirely of D&D wizards.  If you know the Charm (spell) lists backwards and forwards, inside and out, then it can play very fast.  If not...  well, ouch.

Oh, there's also magical items of various sorts, but no sort of economy to deal with them.  And by economy, I mean game economy, not setting economy.  The GM is given no real guidelines as to what sorts of items to throw at the players at any given stage of the game, or any hints as to what items might do to impact your game.

Quote from: C.W.RichesonWhite Wolf should have previews and, IIRC, an online quick start, intro adventure, or something of that nature over on their site - //www.white-wolf.com

This should do the trick, James.

http://download.white-wolf.com/download/download.php?file_id=509

- Q

Thanks!

Quote from: James McMurrayOk, so apparently everyone on the planet either loves Exalted or hates it.

I've had a very funny reaction to the game.  At first I liked the mechanics, but hated the setting.  Then I grew to enjoy the setting, but loathed the mechanics.  Now I just don't think about it much.  I did write a review for it once, but it was for the first edition.  Funny, I thought rather highly of it at first.

!i!

I loved the setting and bought a few splats, but never could find anyone to play it with, so now I've got all these hig-production-value books gathering dust. Ah well, I got 'em on e-Bay so it wasn't ALL bad.

I prefer brains-over-brawn RPing usually, but Exalted got my inner power gamer's full attention.

It's worth pointing out that the anime influence becomes larger and larger as the games goes on, from the 1st ed. corebook onwards. If you're not a fan of anime, it's probably best to check out 1st ed. material first, and if you are, to look straight to 2nd.

Quote from: James McMurrayCan someone give me a brief tutorial on the mechanics, the premise (super powered godlings?), etc.?

I'm sorry, but I think you're lost and have wandered into the wrong forum.  I think you should be posting here.

Quote from: Tyberious FunkI'm sorry, but I think you're lost and have wandered into the wrong forum.  I think you should be posting here.

He asked for a brief tutorial, not to be drowned under a tsunami of spooge.

As I said to a friend of mine last night, I don't care how my Adamantium Wang Technique interacts with his Five Butt-Fucked Monkeys Prana, I just want to roll some dice and have some fun

Great setting - for BESM or Risus

Okay, time to come out of the woodwork and de-lurk...

Quote from: Tyberious FunkI'm sorry, but I think you're lost and have wandered into the wrong forum.  I think you should be posting here.

Well, RPG.net has a lot of love for Exalted, but the threads tend to go overboard in their overpowered-ness. I've found that the system works in my case, but that is without tacking 250 of the coolest charms and cybernetic dragon-armor on my characters. At that level you're pretty much doing advanced statistics more than RPing. On the other hand, if it wasn't for some threads over there, I wouldn't have had half of the plot ideas I used in my campaign.

So, my take on it:
Setting: It is definately a big kitchen-sink of a setting. It has ancient empires, new empires, Empires inspired by China, by Rome, by Japan, by the old Scandinavian empires... you name it. It also has city-states and regions with flat-out anarchy.
The technology base is very diverse. Most of it os early bronze age, but the bigger empires have the technology to create super-alloys for their armors, robo-suits of gigantic proportions and even skyships with enough firepower to level cities. For what it's worth, most of the supertech can be left out, should you desire. (In second edition there's a single book dedicated to its biggest outgrowths, but that one book is entirely optional).
Furthermore there are pirates, ninjas, vikings, mongol hordes, Arabian nights, tree-hugging-hippies, forest witches...
The best thing is that the setting has an excuse for everything of these, so nothing feels extremely tacked-on.

Characters: Basically in the beginning the Primordials created the world, and created the gods as their slaves, to do their dirty work. After untold eons of time, the gods becae tired of this, but they were hard-coded not to rise up against their masters (like the three laws of robotics). However, they found a loophole: they could fragment their essences and use these to exalt humans to near-godlike status. These humans then proceeded to kick the primordials' ass. The gods became the new masters, and the exalted humans were left to do the tasks the gods did previously.
However, their unlimited power (and the curse uttered by the dying primordials) drove them insane, and a massive civil war ensued. The weakest (but more numerous) terrestrial exalted drove away the celestial exalted, and ruled the world, which was vastly diminished without the power of the celestial exalted to guide it.

But now, the celestials are returning... You pick your choice of any Exalted and play your part in the events that ensue. There are 6 types of exalted: Solars, the greatest of the celestials, great generals and leaders. The Lunars, the shapeshifter assassins and aides to the Solars, who now hate the terrestrials with a passion. The Sidereals, the masters of fate (and kung-fu) who are believed to be routed out by the terrestrials but are really the secret masters of the world. The Abyssals, the Exalted of death itself, who tirelessly work to undo the world And the Terrestrial Exalted, or Dragon-Blooded, who are only just super-human in their power, but outnumber all of the other Exalted 100 to one and can combine their powers to greater effect.

System: The standard dicepool mechanic WW uses. You roll a d10 pool of Attribute+Ability and all dice that come up 7 or more are successes (10 is double). This successes get compared to a difficulty, or another players roll. (e.g. roll strength+athletics against a targets weght to see if you can lift it).

Exalted can spend Essence (magic points) to use charms, spell-like effects that can boost dicepools, add special effects to dicepools (like allowing you to ignore a targets armour, or catapulting him away, or allowing you to steal an object through a solid wall).
If you explain your characters actions in a particularly cool way, you get extra dice, and gain motes of essence (not: I said "in a cool way" not "giving twenty pages of exposition"!!!)
The relative power and effects of charms depend on the type of Exalt. Terrestrials can spit fire, but they can't change shape, and the inverse is true for Lunars. Solar charms are generally more powerful than other charms, but are more generalist, while another Exalt is usually better at its personal niche.

The combat moves in ticks, with each participant taking an action when his/her tick comes up, and this action costs a set amount of ticks. When this amount has passed, the character can act again. Non-combat actions are generally more free-flow.

Personal opinion: I personally had a blast using it. It was a bit awkward at first, especially the tick system, but once you get the hang of it, it makes for some great over-the-top action. The kitchen-sink setting makes almost any plot possible, and the system encourages risk-taking and cool stuntwork. I wouldn't want to play it all of the time, but I'll definately consider using it again in a year or so.

However: dicepool systems are not everybodies cup of tea. If you don't like to roll fistfulls of dice, Exalted is not for you. And if you aren't coming up with stunts and heroic stuff, Exalted can get extremely bland, even.
Also, the system wholehartedly embraces powerful characters. So if you are going to do low-powered stuff, you're at the wrong adress.

We played Vampire like it was city-based D&D for a while. Dice pools and powergaming can be fun.

Thanks!

Quote from: James McMurrayWe played Vampire like it was city-based D&D for a while.

Not the trenchcoat, katana and desert eagle variety!!?? Vade retro, Satanis!!!

Quote from: James McMurrayDice pools and powergaming can be fun.

Well, then Exalted might be for you! The dicepools and the powergaming are two of the most common problems people seem to have with the setting. Well, that and the initial complexity of combat. Before you know the effects of the most common charms, it is much like playing DnD and Magic: the Gathering at the same time, and needing to win in both. But on the other hand, so is playing a DnD wizard, in my experience. The main difference is that in DnD the complexity ramps up quickly, while in Exalted the complexity is present from the start (but doesn't ramp up so fast).

Quote from: James McMurrayThanks!

No problem! If you have any remaining questions feel free to ask anytime.

Kasumi on tBP did a fairly comprehensive example of how Exalted 2nd works.  The thread is here.  It hits almost every point of the Exalted system, minus the Social & Mass Combat subsystems.