I get the feeling there was some giant hubbub in the misty past on RPG.Net about Exalted but I know fuck-all about said hubbub.

I know what the game is like, but it seems to be something of a sore spot over there.

Can someone fill me in on the history of the forum drama there? I feel like asking on .Net itself will just start a fight somehow.

Also: no idea if this is in the right subforum for this question.

It seems to me that quite a lot of the mods and 'inner circle' posters have worked on it in some capacity or other.

Quote from: Zak S;612127I get the feeling there was some giant hubbub in the misty past on RPG.Net about Exalted but I know fuck-all about said hubbub.

I know what the game is like, but it seems to be something of a sore spot over there.

Can someone fill me in on the history of the forum drama there? I feel like asking on .Net itself will just start a fight somehow.

Also: no idea if this is in the right subforum for this question.

As far as I can tell there is a lot of "love the setting, hate the system" going on.

I get the feeling that the game REPRESENTED something something in some gamer culture war but I can't figure out what or why or who was on what side or anything....

Quote from: Zak S;612132I get the feeling that the game REPRESENTED something something in some gamer culture war but I can't figure out what or why or who was on what side or anything....

I do recall it being quite the obsession for a long while. Like everything should be run using Exalted.

And then at some point everyone started hating the system.

Quote from: Zak S;612132I get the feeling that the game REPRESENTED something something in some gamer culture war but I can't figure out what or why or who was on what side or anything....

The established philosophy of the game is that standard fantasy gaming tropes of starting at low level, not being more dangerous than sewer rats, having limited/no magic initially and being heavily based on Lieber, Tolkien, Carter, et al is anathema and fantasy that has characters starting at the demi- or minor god level (and going up from there) and being heavily based on Anime is best.

This is gonna rub some people the wrong way.

Quote from: Piestrio;612130As far as I can tell there is a lot of "love the setting, hate the system" going on.

Not indy forgey enough, probably. 'Needs moar metagame edgy mechanics, dude.'

Quote from: thedungeondelver;612134The established philosophy of the game is that standard fantasy gaming tropes of starting at low level, not being more dangerous than sewer rats, having limited/no magic initially and being heavily based on Lieber, Tolkien, Carter, et al is anathema and fantasy that has characters starting at the demi- or minor god level (and going up from there) and being heavily based on Anime is best.

1. And people fought about this on RPG.net?

2. And, if so: so it was basically a proto-4e Edition War with all the same lines drawn?

Quote from: Zak S;612132I get the feeling that the game REPRESENTED something something in some gamer culture war but I can't figure out what or why or who was on what side or anything....

Not really.  It was just a fun game.  It didn't serve any larger purpose in the war versus whomever and whomever, except for a lot of people who really wanted a RIFTS-like kitchen sink game but didn't want to play in Palladium's system anymore.  That, for most of the people I knew, was the real attraction -- it was unapologetically a game that allowed you to play a guy with badass martial arts and a giant sword fighting chthonic beasts and kung fu demigods, with the occasional giant robot, death ray satellite, and dwarf with a minigun thrown in.

When it first came out, it had a very strong, very positive fanbase at RPG.net, but sometime just before or just after 2ed came out, the whole thing soured (arguably because the people doing rules for the new edition were not tracking them with consistency anymore, or because of substantive changes in 2e, or what-have-you.)  The game seemingly got more popular, with more threadspace taken, but the vibes were far more critical and nasty, until a lot of people just checked out.  

When WW got bought by CCP, the game slowly began to strangle on the vine until some fans basically started working on it, at which point there's been a handful of releases with a lot of positive response.  They're now working on a 3rd edition, so people are doing the normal pre-release dance of either being hopeful or critical.  

As I said, the initial fanbase at RPG.net was one of the coolest ones on the web, for my money -- the only things I can compare it to are the old Fading Suns mailing list, and the Delta Green and Unknown Armies fanbases.  But nowadays, I don't even read RPG.net's Exalted threads, and if I want to get a read off of people, I check out the WW Exalted forums.

(In the interest of honesty, I've worked as a freelancer for both previous editions of Exalted, and wrote a portion of one of those recent releases, Shards of the Exalted Dream.  And if you're going to take the time to tell me the game sucks, honestly, I don't care.  I freely admit it's not for everybody, and that supplements have been hit or miss over the years.)

Quote from: Zak S;6121371. And people fought about this on RPG.net?

2. And, if so: so it was basically a proto-4e Edition War with all the same lines drawn?

1. Don't know; people over there will fight over anything until the mods pick a side, step in, and ban the people they don't agree with.

2. I don't think so.  I think it was more wrapped up in a lot of deep WW "game politics" that would require multiple searches and hours of research I in no way am going to conduct to disentangle.

Quote from: Future Villain Band;612138And if you're going to take the time to tell me the game sucks, honestly, I don't care.

Furthest thing from my mind.

Just curious about why it seems like such a sore spot rather than just another game some people like and some people don't.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;612134The established philosophy of the game is that standard fantasy gaming tropes of starting at low level, not being more dangerous than sewer rats, having limited/no magic initially and being heavily based on Lieber, Tolkien, Carter, et al is anathema and fantasy that has characters starting at the demi- or minor god level (and going up from there) and being heavily based on Anime is best.

This is gonna rub some people the wrong way.

Not just "anime", originally, but also ancient greek, indian, etc. mythological heroes. Then it got all Dragonball Z later on. But also apparently has rules for handling lowest-of-the-low mortals?

Anyway, it seems like less a fight, more a gradual disappointment.

I think it was pretty much how FVB laid out.

One thing i have noticed about the RPGnet Exalted fans (and i don't know if it is also representative of other online Exalted communities) is that what seemed to be a not insubstantial portion of threads and posters seemed more interested in the setting cannon and metaplot than the actual game.

I got back into gaming around the time that Exalted was transitioning from 1e to 2e, I guess.

The game didn't hold much interest for me, and at most I've glanced at some quick-start rules. Well, that and the infamous Savant & Sorcerer cover. I've gotten the impression that dislike of the game comes from a few things:

1. The rules sounded like a mess, with people complaining about combining Charms (whatever those are) and a bunch of other junk to roll gigantic dicepools and calculate combat results.

2. It's got a strong special snowflake vibe. In fact, some character types are defined as being one of the only X in the setting. (Which, actually, I think is fine, but if I could put my finger on it, I'd still say that special-snowflake-ism is a turn-off.)

3. There's the weeaboo angle, which at least for me is different from being averse to anime. I mean, I like a lot of anime. But the type of anime which features superspecial teenagers who emote a lot and who win out in the end because of a story logic that says "If you want it hard enough and just beeeelieeve, you can do anything include beat the bad guy's magic spells" turns me off. Maybe I'm off-base on this, since I'm really just going on surface impressions.

4. For a while, it was the game that got recommended in every single "what system should I use for X" thread. Every single one.

5. It was by White Wolf.

6. Rebecca Borgstrom did at least one of the supplements.

7. Overall publication structure was very splat-y. You buy a book, you can play a given (set of) character types. Ad infinitum.

Anecdotally and third or fourth hand, I seem to recall a conversation here or on Pundit's blog where someone said that "Exalted is an okay game, it's just played by the worst sort of people."

Whatever, I enjoyed this summary of the setting's history. I have no idea if it's accurate.

Quote from: Zak S;612140Furthest thing from my mind.

Oh, please don't take offense, that wasn't aimed at you.

QuoteJust curious about why it seems like such a sore spot rather than just another game some people like and some people don't.

There's a lot of history over a lot of threads, and a lot of people are very wedded to their view of the game, which causes a lot of the disconnect.  People will just argue past each other for page after page.  In addition, a lot of people really loved it, so when it let them down, they really took it personally.  And given the rules dysfunction that popped up, imagine the worst parts of a D&D3 or 4 rules debate with the angst that took place over Mage: The Ascension's Revised edition.  It's like a perfect storm created to generate flamewars.