Exalted Starter Kit as Fully Playable Game?

#1

I have always liked the concept behind Exalted. The idea of a group of people in a pseudo but not traditional fantasy land being granted super powerful abilities. The 1E stuff was very evocative (although maybe culturally insensitive? I am not the best judge of that).

I was always turned off by how much crunch to the point I thought it was unplayable. Certaintly in my current headspace, anything that long with that much crap to remember as a GM I wouldn’t touch.

So I was working on potentially my own version in a lighter format called “Children of the Stars” that will be powered by Coffee! When doing some research I came across the Exalted Starter Kit (Free). It was 28 pages and a stripped down system. Funny that seeing the starter kit, it almost looks playable as is with the right group and GM.

Anyone try that before? It almost look like a stripped down basic Exalted system.

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#2

I’ve played Exalted for 16 years (one of my first RPGs, actually) and my favorite part of the game is everything except the crunch. The third edition feels easier to digest, but that may be because I was trained on two horrendous editions. With that said…

To me, the appeal of Exalted is that I can show how cool my character is by pointing out hard evidences. The crunchy parts of the game act as short-hands, sort of. Saying my character would give their life to overthrow false hierarchies is one thing; having that goal slotted as a Defining Principle is another. The system says “yes, this character would literally take chances at their own life to pursue this goal” on top of me, the player, saying that. So my character is double-cool, right?

The setting premise is attractive as well, but I’d say Exalted feels fun to play not in spite of the crunchy system but because of the crunchy system. :open_mouth:

Despite thinking that, I’ve honestly tried to strip down Exalted many times before. I feel that what I said above could be expressed in a simpler form. I’ve looked at 1e Starter Kit for this purpose and, honestly, I didn’t like that approach much! If I’m not misinformed, that material was formed when Exalted developer and designers did not yet have a clear idea on what the game was going to be like, so it may have failed to capture what made Exalted cool to some folks.

Of course, I’m not saying you couldn’t do it. I think I’m saying there is that odd thing about Exalted to keep in mind. I actually have no idea what Coffee is. :weary: I would be very interested in seeing your take at a similar concept.

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#3

I recall the Second Edition quickstart being used as a standalone game fairly successfully.

Over ten years ago, I put together a survey of alternative systems for Exalted. I haven’t updated it in a while, but fewer attempts have been made to create alternatives for it.

Personally, I moved my game at the time to a hacked version of Anima Prime.

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#4

I played this version for a while: http://aakin.net/wiki/doku.php?id=qwixalted
Specifically the Daiklaive version. I liked it a lot, as the charms were simplified dramatically and sorcery utilizes a tag system, which I found very pleasing and intuitive.
Especially combat is nice and smooth in this version. I was used to hour-long fights, and suddenly combat was resolved with a couple if dice rolls. And it still felt like Exalted.

#5

This is so interesting, because I feel like it also encapsulates what makes ars magica great (too me), despite being a very different game (I’ve been thinking a lot about the role that crunch plays in games). I tried to get my group into exalted back in the day and everyone loved the flavor but noped out immediately. One day!!