Some people here don't like Exalted's setting, either the entire thing or just some elements. To those people, how would you fix Exalted's setting to fit your liking? Explain your choices in detail.

For me, Exalted's setting is perfect- but it doesn't match my personal taste 100%. I wouldn't change anything, though, it's good enough.

Quote from: MeganovaStella on November 06, 2022, 05:19:51 PMFor me, Exalted's setting is perfect- but it doesn't match my personal taste 100%. I wouldn't change anything, though, it's good enough.

Do you want to hear other people's opinions or just kinda setup a situation to be adverserial?

Id say part of the issue about discussing Exalted is that the fine details are basically all over the place and retconned in or out. Depending on who writes it at what edition its a very different setting.

Personally, I feel it generally suffers from internal tonal dissonance.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on November 06, 2022, 06:47:48 PM

Quote from: MeganovaStella on November 06, 2022, 05:19:51 PMFor me, Exalted's setting is perfect- but it doesn't match my personal taste 100%. I wouldn't change anything, though, it's good enough.

Do you want to hear other people's opinions or just kinda setup a situation to be adverserial?

Id say part of the issue about discussing Exalted is that the fine details are basically all over the place and retconned in or out. Depending on who writes it at what edition its a very different setting.

Personally, I feel it generally suffers from internal tonal dissonance.

I want to hear other people's opinions. My opinions are set, and so are other people's. None can be changed in this scenario.

One thing I won't do (and I expect others to also not do) is to attack other people's opinions.

It could stand to be smaller. You've got way too much happening across way too much space for the PCs to interact with all of it.

Now maybe that's by design -- you set your campaign in the north, south, west, east, or the Realm -- but to me it smacks of 'look at all this territory and it's hard as fuck to get there even for a Solar Exalt'.

Quote from: MeganovaStella on November 06, 2022, 05:19:51 PM
Some people here don't like Exalted's setting, either the entire thing or just some elements. To those people, how would you fix Exalted's setting to fit your liking? Explain your choices in detail.

Why?

Since it is not to my taste, why invest the time and effort to fix it? Especially since there are other games with different settings which are much more appealing to my style of play.

The key here is that there is plenty of room for different TTRPGs and different settings, some of which will be to my liking and some of which will not be to my liking, and that is OK. It is not important to have everyone like what I like nor is it important for everyone to dislike what I dislike. There is enough room for all of it.

If somebody doesn't believe that and tries to exclude your games, like a lot of Organized Play groups have done, go find those with similar tastes and have fun with them instead.

Quote from: jeff37923 on November 06, 2022, 09:13:02 PM

Quote from: MeganovaStella on November 06, 2022, 05:19:51 PM
Some people here don't like Exalted's setting, either the entire thing or just some elements. To those people, how would you fix Exalted's setting to fit your liking? Explain your choices in detail.

Why?

Since it is not to my taste, why invest the time and effort to fix it? Especially since there are other games with different settings which are much more appealing to my style of play.

The key here is that there is plenty of room for different TTRPGs and different settings, some of which will be to my liking and some of which will not be to my liking, and that is OK. It is not important to have everyone like what I like nor is it important for everyone to dislike what I dislike. There is enough room for all of it.

If somebody doesn't believe that and tries to exclude your games, like a lot of Organized Play groups have done, go find those with similar tastes and have fun with them instead.

You would just make a version of Exalted that you like, not edit the existing version.

And also because it's fun. To me at least, that is making versions of settings in your style.

Quote from: MeganovaStella on November 06, 2022, 11:12:07 PM

Quote from: jeff37923 on November 06, 2022, 09:13:02 PM

Quote from: MeganovaStella on November 06, 2022, 05:19:51 PM
Some people here don't like Exalted's setting, either the entire thing or just some elements. To those people, how would you fix Exalted's setting to fit your liking? Explain your choices in detail.

Why?

Since it is not to my taste, why invest the time and effort to fix it? Especially since there are other games with different settings which are much more appealing to my style of play.

The key here is that there is plenty of room for different TTRPGs and different settings, some of which will be to my liking and some of which will not be to my liking, and that is OK. It is not important to have everyone like what I like nor is it important for everyone to dislike what I dislike. There is enough room for all of it.

If somebody doesn't believe that and tries to exclude your games, like a lot of Organized Play groups have done, go find those with similar tastes and have fun with them instead.

You would just make a version of Exalted that you like, not edit the existing version.

And also because it's fun. To me at least, that is making versions of settings in your style.

Then I would add Furries.

Every player who sat down to play Exalted would have to wear a fursuit and adopt a totally perverted fursona to play the game. For every hour of playing Furry Exalted, the player must wear their fursuit/fursona for two hours afterwards in order to be able to play the game again.

It's a difficult question to answer because the thing I'd want most to change about the setting is to some extent its absolute core principle: namely, the Exalted setting is at its base the Tragedy of Power -- the entire point of Exaltation, of any kind, is that the thing that gives you the power to fulfill your dearest desires, darkest ambitions, or noblest aspirations is in and of itself also the thing that combines with your own deepest flaw to screw up that attempt at the worst possible moment.

In principle this is supposed to make the limited triumphs that you can achieve all the more meaningful, for the difficulties you had to overcome to achieve what you were able to. In practice I think I would ultimately find this too frustrating to go on with, so I'd be more interested if the setting made it a little more feasible to achieve grand and permanent successes that improved the world for the better ... but you could quite reasonably point out that that's just not what Exalted is, and if that's what's wanted one should play a different game.

Quote from: Ghostmaker on November 06, 2022, 08:19:54 PM
It could stand to be smaller. You've got way too much happening across way too much space for the PCs to interact with all of it.

Im kinda of the reverse. Its big, but super EMPTY. You Start off as Demigods, and most of the world feels like its structured around level 5 adventurers. Its all mostly samey as well, with a big focus on political clans most Solar exalted will be able to wipe off the map/subvert with a backhanded swipe.

Which I guess is part of the fun, but leaves so much of the lorebuilding utterly pointless.

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on November 06, 2022, 11:39:26 PMTragedy of Power -- the entire point of Exaltation, of any kind, is that the thing that gives you the power to fulfill your dearest desires, darkest ambitions, or noblest aspirations is in and of itself also the thing that combines with your own deepest flaw to screw up that attempt at the worst possible moment.

Yeah this I just hate. It doesn't feel like a greek tragedy, it feels allot like artificial 'Woa-eth is me' sources. On one hand I like the idea as a source of some grounding, but in practice it just feels self-indulgent.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on November 07, 2022, 12:26:02 AM

Quote from: Ghostmaker on November 06, 2022, 08:19:54 PM
It could stand to be smaller. You've got way too much happening across way too much space for the PCs to interact with all of it.

Im kinda of the reverse. Its big, but super EMPTY. You Start off as Demigods, and most of the world feels like its structured around level 5 adventurers. Its all mostly samey as well, with a big focus on political clans most Solar exalted will be able to wipe off the map/subvert with a backhanded swipe.

Which I guess is part of the fun, but leaves so much of the lorebuilding utterly pointless.

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on November 06, 2022, 11:39:26 PMTragedy of Power -- the entire point of Exaltation, of any kind, is that the thing that gives you the power to fulfill your dearest desires, darkest ambitions, or noblest aspirations is in and of itself also the thing that combines with your own deepest flaw to screw up that attempt at the worst possible moment.

Yeah this I just hate. It doesn't feel like a greek tragedy, it feels allot like artificial 'Woa-eth is me' sources. On one hand I like the idea as a source of some grounding, but in practice it just feels self-indulgent.

Thus why it needs to add Furries.....

Play Godbound. It's much better designed mechanics

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on November 07, 2022, 08:43:14 AM
Play Godbound. It's much better designed mechanics

Quick precis for those of us too lazy to search?

It's basically OSR Exalted from the guy who did Stars/Worlds Without Number and Scarlet Heroes.  Free version found at https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/185959/Godbound-A-Game-of-Divine-Heroes-Free-Edition

It uses a syntactic mechanic for superpowers that neatly avoids the bloat that ruins other systems. Rather than simply giving you a list of predefined powers, it gives you guidelines for making powers. The rules are flexible enough that you can switch out the default setting for other settings like modern demigods and so on.

There's also the Hero's Journey rpg https://www.hjrpg.com/ that has been in development since at least 2014 trying to do modern demigods

Quote from: jeff37923 on November 07, 2022, 05:31:10 AMThus why it needs to add Furries.....

By the process of 4D chess, it has pre-empted your suggestion by already having furries.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on November 07, 2022, 10:52:36 AMIt uses a syntactic mechanic for superpowers that neatly avoids the bloat that ruins other systems.

Its pretty good, and I do prefer the Godbound setting and principles more (its unapolagetically 'Are you a bad enough dude to rescue the universe?'), but its combat system is floaty and it can be a bit loosy goosy and devolve into 'your only limit is how much you can make up on the spot and how much the GM agrees'.