Exalted

Just as the Japanese meld influences from Europe, the Americas and Africa into media (and Scotch!) that is uniquely Japanese, White Wolf has crafted a uniquely American RPG with vast influences from both Asian myth and pop-culture as well as Classical European mythology. The synthesis is nothing short of an amazing collaborative work of fiction. The Fluff, as it were, is entirely engaging and as a fantasy series, and even bereft of the RPG mechanics, all the books are pretty fine reads. In Second Edition, not only have the mechanics gelled, but the backstory has matured as well. What White Wolf has laid out in this core book is a giant buffet of Fantasy and HiFi-sciFi that Storytellers can pick and choose what type of campaign they wish to play--whether it's taking down errant gods, swords and sorcery, or post-apocalyptic survival very similar to Gamma World, or a straight, in-canon campaign of Solar Exalted against the hated Scarlet Empire. Suffice to say there is an incredible amount to explore in the backstory and swaths will probably never be touched in the published materials. Fluff aside, the mechanics of the game as presented in the core book show a long, hard road of playtesting and years of refining game rules. Somewhere in the early 90's there was a reason that White Wolf published the Street Fighter RPG: Exalted is that reason. The combat system is simply amazing, incorporating stunting (much like the Daedelus RPG, Feng Shui) which opens combat to the highest level of narrative, as well as an incredibly deep skill and charm system. The additions of Mass and Social combat round out what is one of the best combat systems for an RPG to date. Good stunts and on the fly imaginative play will always win out over the Min/Max (which in Exalted is mostly MAX), but there is plenty of depth for the Min/Max player to excruciatingly choose the best charms for the job of giving fatal beatings, tongue lashings or driving the armies of the Jade Dogs before them. The book itself has held up very well over the last couple years and is very solidly produced. The physical size of it is simply intimidating. The art has taken a major step up over first edition, obviously due to the inclusion of color, but also moving away from the cartoonish anime style to a more hybridization of say Frazetta and Katsuya Terada. The writing, while a bit dry in certain areas as is typical of RPG books, is extremely clear in it's presentation of both the rules and the backstory. The index is surprisingly useful and the inclusion of sidebars where White Wolf felt certain aspects of the rules needed clarification outside the narrative are all exceedingly helpful figuring out what can, at times, be quite complicated. The Storyteller section is not only essential reading for running a game, but a solid discourse on running a high-powered, pulpy RPG. As for things that could have been done better, there are some typos as well as some flat out confusing mistakes here

Before the "World of Darkness", mortals walked the earth with heroes of extroidinary powers and abilities. That's the world of the Exalts. You get to be something, someone that mere mortals look upon as a god. The core of Exalted is to play a Solar, chosen heroes of the Unconquered Sun, in a very Anime like setting. Of course, there's more to the history than that, this is a White Wolf product after all. And everything comes out over time, in supplement after supplement. I was a little disppointed with the timing of the release. White Wolf had only released the last large supplement for First Edition: the Autochthonians Exalted months before. However, with Second Edition, White Wolf took the opportunity to stream-line many of the rules and charm systems, that the rushed release of the First Edition hadn't given them time to do. If you plan on running or playing in a setting involving any of the other types of Exalts, other than Solars, you'll have to wait. There's plenty of material around that you can try to give it a shot, but the systems vary enough it'll probably be worth the wait. The same goes if you're trying to recreate a Exalt with sorcery, there's shockingly small amounts of spells in the First Edition, and the Second doesn't fix that. However, most of the old spells will still work well in the spirit of continuing on an old campaign. The Second Edition book is lovely, the actual gaming aside, there are beautifully drawn and colored comic panels at the beginning of every chapter. And there are colored drawings throughout the entire book, a rarity for most any gaming system. The book is well-bound, hopefully outlasting it's predecessor which fell apart after a few thorough readings. The biggest changes in the actual rules system is the way battle works. It's no longer just an intiative based round like most White Wolf systems. Instead battle is based on 'ticks' (like seconds) and specific actions take a set amount of 'ticks' to complete. If you've every played a console or PC RPG like Final Fantasy, you're already well accustomed to the "battle meter" feel of this. Many of the Anima abilities specific to each caste have changed, as well as many Charm trees. Several charms no longer do what they did in the first edition, and many disappeared altogether. Also, with Second Edition and in reference almost to the changed battle system, the Brawl ability disappeared. In it's place is War, an ability that directly changes your effectiveness in a large battle. If you've never played Exalted, starting out with the Second Edition, will give the game a more polished and complete feel that the first didn't have. However, if you've played Exalted since the beginning, you may have some difficulty shifting your play to the new system. That's not to say its not worth it, but it'll take some time, mostly until the supplements are re-released.

Exalted takes a completely innovative approach to the RPG. Instead of beginning life as a meek, low-level character who could meet his untimely death at the hands of a fearsome kobold, in Exalted you start with great, heroic, near God-like power in a world as colorful and large as the Manga settings that influences it. The opening chapter tells the story of the world and creation. We learn of the Primordials (think elder Gods), the first beings of shape who created, then battled the Gods. The Gods have in turned granted great powers to mortals to use as their tool in ultimately defeating the Primordials. These are the Exalted! The Exalted are nearly ageless and live for hundreds of years. They have great vitality, resistance to injury, and heal rapidly. There are five types of Exalted: the Solar, Lunar, Sidereals, Dragon-Blooded, and Abyssmal, and there are several different castes within each of these Exalted types. The opening chapter also goes on to describe the world and lands of Exalted in great detail. These different castes help essentially define the characters class in the next chapter on character creation where you will devise and define your character in far greater depth than simply rolling a series of six-sided dice. You'll pick their abilities and attributes and decide on an appearance. As mentioned there are several different castes your character can choose to be part of which are basically like classes. For example the Dawn Castes are warriors, The Twilight Caste are the sorcerers and wizards, the Night Castes are thieves and assassins, and the Zenith Caste are the priests. Chapter 5 is one of the longest in the book and covers charms/spells. These charms function as spell-like abilities but can also function as personal abilities such as the "Thunder Clap Rush Attack" which is a martial arts charm. In all there are some 250 charms & spells in the book...far more than you'd normally think to find in a new game system (even if it is a 2nd edition). Chapter seven introduces a small, but lively section of monsters and antagonists and includes rival exalted, demons, undead, and even Gods. The section detailing the weapons, armor, equipment, and magic items is extremely well done with a picture of every weapon and piece of armor. Other chapters provide the GM, referred to here as the Storyteller, the systems and rules for combat, movement, morale, large scale battles, environment and terrain, etc. This is all backed up by an extremely thorough and cross-referenced index at the back of the book. Complementing the text is outstanding artwork throughout the book. Each chapter begins with a short, generally 3 to 4 page comic story told in Manga-style artwork which leads into each chapter's subject matter. While the game is heavily influence by Manga/Anime, it's equally influenced by popular heroic and epic fantasy fiction. The designers of Exalted have certainly set their standards and goals high. This is a

I reviewed the 1st edition and told readers to hold off on buying it and wait for the new edition to come out. Now I've got it, and I've read it, and I was right--this is a big improvement on an already-fine RPG. The original Exalted was rushed into production, and showed it. Even so, it was a good game, one that I enjoyed playing quite recently--it really renewed my feelings for the high-fantasy genre. And while many of the first-edition supplements were quite good, they all had to follow on from the problems of the core book, so the whole thing suffered from a slapdash effect. This time around, it looks like the supplements are very well-plotted. And the core book actually includes enough rules and information so that a GM can include all the major character types as NPCs without having to guess how their powers work. In fact, if you don't plan on running Abyssals and Dragon-Bloods and so on as player-characters, you can easily get by with just this core book and nothing else--although the Storyteller's Companion helps a lot with that. This is a big improvement over the 1st edition. The art is, almost without exception, excellent, and a fundamental part of the book, as each section starts off with a multi-page manga story that shows you how the Exalted world works. There are a few minor margin-art pieces that don't seem to fit well, looking more like amateur fan-manga than the highly professional look of the majority of the art, but these are rare and easy to ignore. Oh, and the whole thing is full-color, printed on glossy, high-quality paper. Players of the first edition will be amazed at the power boost to the Solar Charms and Anima powers--boosts that make sense, as well. Here and in many other rules I felt it was much more unified and rational than before. One slight disappointment: No new Sorcery spells! The 1st edition had shockingly few, and the 2nd edition doesn't fix that at all. You'll have to wait for a supplement if you want to have a Sorcery-weilding character with a reasonable range of magic. But that's a minor nitpick in the face of all the wealth in these pages. White Wolf, you've readdicted me to your games!

Before I purchased Exalted 2nd Edition I played the 1st edition and many other supplements. One of the noticeable differences between the 1st ed. core book compared to a later supplement the Dragon-Blooded was that the corebook felt unpolished and had many inconstitencies or the wording was awkward. With this new edition, many of the mistakes have been resolved and quite a few new rules have been added. Such as an updated combat system, mass combat rules, and social combat (speechcraft basically). The comics included throughout the book are also wonderfully done, except for some over the top lines that are spouted. One of the best improvements I see is the absence of alot of watermarks on each page so it is easier to read for longer periods of time. If you've played the original or just getting started, I recommend this book.