Oh man. I am very excited to hear about the 3X controversies. I am a 2nd Ed veteran and I was ALL in on the 3X Kickstarter and was so let down by both the process and the product. Edit: ok I’ve watched the whole video. I largely agree with most of what you say! The world building and inclusivity is muuuuch better in 3X, especially with the exclusion of a lot of the…more gross versions of 2nd Ed lore. I just wish 3X had better rules. The entire Kickstarter REALLY soured me on the whole thing. The rewrites, stolen art, and blatant lies about what 3X was going to be left me very disenfranchised. We tried to play when the play test documents were leaked but had a ton of issues. We chalked it up to it being a beta and moved on. When my group finally got 3X in our hands, we quickly found out almost nothing had changed from the prerelease, except the stolen art was removed. Charm trees were somehow more bloated than they used to be, and even more unbalanced. Craft and brawl have 50+ charms but sail got 11-13 and all essence 3 or under? Crafting as a whole was broken. Combat was a NIGHTMARE. Somehow they looked and 2nd Ed combat and said “we can make this more complex and less fun.” In theory, the new combat system could set up cinematic and awesome fights. But it fell apart when there were more than two combatants. It wasn’t all doom and gloom though! Man the sorcery reworks are FANTASTIC, and I really like the martial arts and artifacts. Like you said, the world building has also been really good. I may not like the crazy number of new exalt types being introduced (it makes exalted feel less spectacular) but I am still excited for them. I know DB and Lunar books have been much better. I played in a 3X DB campaign and had a good time. But it is still shackled to the 3X ruleset, which is rough. If I played again, I’d be tempted to use 3X world and lore, with 2nd edition rules. Or even a completely different ruleset and just port the exalted world and lore over.
Exalted Essence could be an option for you, but it has plenty of issues as well. Unfortunately there isn't a perfect Exalted game yet. You win some and lose some with every edition.
@@ekorren that’s very true. I’ve only read some of Essence so far. I like some, but as you said, it has some issues. Weirdest thing I’ve seen so far is how “samey” the exalts all feel. Aside from a few charm permeations, they are largely the same? I may be missing stuff though
I'm running a Dragon Blooded 3E game currently. I much prefer how the Realm is portrayed and the Dynasts this editon compared to others. I very much appreciate that while yes Terrestrials are individually weaker on average the gap between Celestial and Terrestrial Exalts is a lot more thin. This to me is good because I actually enjoy running Terrestrial games a lot more than Celestial. DBs are cool and the Realm in 3E is by far my favorite take on a Matriarchical society (that it makes sense and is deliberately flawed)
As i said before i'm not a fan of the 3rd edition lore despite having discovered the setting with it, but i will say that dragon blooded is the strong point of this edition (and on pretty much every level, from lore to mechanics).
I definitely agree 3E overcompensated on the mystery of the First Age. Sure, Dreams had a bunch of nonsense, but there was some really cool stuff in there, too. Thaumaturgy suffered a similar fate, in my opinion. It was really fun reading Essence's notes on inspiration and seeing what references I got right.
Thank you so much for this video! It is much appreciated! :D I must admit that I never quite got, why people thought the over-explanation of how the world and lore works was a bad thing. I have been running the game for 10 years I loved the fact that I had the game developers' take on, how the world should work, so that I can gradually drip-feed that info to my players. Exalted 2nd ed. had a lot of layers to peel back for the players. I have had had great results with letting my players play heavily indoctrinated immaculate philisophy dragonblooded dynasts, only for that same group to get to play the solars, they so fervently hunted. It was great :D Personally I prefer an overexplanation rather than "Let the GM decide". They should at least give me some options to choose from in my oppinion. I bought the book to get the answers, not to make them up myself. Anyway thank you for your thoughts on the editions. It's nice with a different perspective. :)
Absolutely love these videos. I wasn't even aware of exalted essence until I found this channel and very happy to see there is a new take on the third edition rules.
Played a fair amount of 2nd Ed. Our group occasionally discussed 2nd Edition's "issues" like the problematic sexualization or abuse or some difficult/vague rules. Thankfully it didn't effect our campaigns much. 3rd Ed. is my favorite ttrpg, and it's efforts toward inclusion made my wife feel like she'd found a "world" she could be herself in for the first time (I'm white, she's black) as there was precious little representation in most games until the last few years. A lesson I myself had to learn. Plus the combat system in 3rd Ed., while not perfect, lends itself to very satisfying "cinematic" conflict, both social and physical. Great comprehensive breakdown, thank you!
Infernals first half (a.k.a the fucking lore) was egregiously ill fitting in the general game. The team there must have thought they were writing a Wyrm's guide for Werewolf or something. Seriously, the presentation was largely unacknowledged even in the same book
@@EduardoGBayod As I understand it 2e had a very loose hand on the rudder for most of its run, which in the case of Infernals meant you had the frankly neck-snapping whiplash of some of the most puerile Black Dog-grade content that the line ever produced--one of the writers was the same guy who wrote up the House of Succulent Tears for the 2nd Edition Underworld Book--and then the really fascinating, flavorful charms and mechanics which were deliberately written so as to be malevolently framed but fundamentally amoral, allowing for the possibility of very strange, but fundamentally *good* infernals.
I remember discussion of what you're talking on the prior devs with metaplot. I think the idea was that there would be instead of "Day 0" as the assumed efault, they would talk about what happens in the next decade or so when describing things. So Thorns would talk about Thorns now, but also where it will go, sans PC intervention. ANd this was the main thrust of books like War on Heaven and Different Skies. The current devs haven't really shown anything of this, so you are right on that. It will show up kind of lmitedly sitll, but in a toolbox way, like what we saw in Heirs to the Shogunate with the "Build a Realm Civil War toolbox" chapter, and an example of how it could go with the War in the West.
I really liked the setting of first edition. I didn't play much 2nd edition so I wasn't fully aware of the tonal shift, but now in 3rd and Essence I still try to use the first edition setting materials with the new exalt types integrated into it.
Second edition seems to severely lack oversight, and had a lot of contradicting stuff. A lot of online discourse seems to be from people that pick the worst of two options, and then were upset that it was bad. Also, the whole "meta-plot" part, where it was pretty much all in an optional adventure that came at the end of the production line. While I still bothered to argue about Exalted on forums, more than ones people were upset by things not even in the books but some kind of fanon imagination of what was in the books. Personally, I prefer a mix of 1e, 2e, and my own stuff over 3e. Pretty much the only things I've pilfered from 3e is the map, the social system with intimacies, and using the phrase "essence fever" instead of "great curse". Some stuff, like pretty much throwing out the Silver Pact (well, 20-30 Lunars in my setting has something similar) and "barbarians at the edge" Lunar stuff kind of matches up with 3e, but I had it long before 3e was released. The rest of 3e is a miss for me. I did buy the core book in both physical and digital format, and the first few supplements in digital form. However, I have completely given up on the 3e line.
I randomly started listening to the Systematic Understanding of Everything podcast (which has a few writers on it) despite never having looked at Exalted before, and wondered why they were overall so extremely preoccupied with inclusivity and kept referring to 2nd edition lore bits with short, condescending sentences (like, "she's just a f*ck ghost). After reading the Josefsen Master Thesis, I wonder no more. 2nd edition Exalted seems to have been overrun by the horny morbid (in this case weaboo) man-children that sadly populates parts of the geek community. And still do, they just move around. The common defense of this immature nonsense is "artistic licence" and "mature themes". Which shows a rather special understanding of what mature really means.
I run a campaign with 2nd edition rules simply because it is the most complete edition with most character options. We use 3e lore where 3e is more detailed, such as when it comes to the Dragon Blooded houses and ignore things we don't like about 2e (e.g. Lillum). 3rd Edition definitely needs a book about the First Age and an Infernal Book (hopefully without Lillum). As I see advantages of both second and third edition, I would recommend books from both editions, as long as you are a fan of the setting and can afford it.
You NEED a Metaplot for the whole world because it gives the world lore and spicey stories. Without that, the GM must fill it all out, and tada... there is the Metaplot again?! So what's the problem with the Plot? LOL
The irony of sayin that the old editions were made for white men when it was, as 3e now, made for liberals it was progressive and in the future I have no doubt the goal post will be moved and 3e will also be seen as morally bad in the future. But I do agree 2e lore is the worst, 1e is the best still.
I was thinking about to buy the 3rd editions but since that woke agenda took over, I will stick with my old first edition. Thanks a lot for this video. I think it is very well made! The content is perfect. i was searching for viedos like that that would highlight the differences between the differents editions. Keep up the good work!
I discovered Exalted with the 3rd edition, i was attracted by the cover of the book, bought it, decided that it was a beautiful mess and so so intriguing. Then i checked second edition, what a disaster of a system, but i was impressed by the overall quality of writing. Sure not everything is pretty, and you have some fucked up things happening. Well the game setting is a strange world roamed by bored god and mad demigods, so...kinda spot on. This is the kind of things i'd rather have and not use that having a sanitized and fairly boring lore. I own pretty much every 3rd edition product and i sometime cringe when i see infernal exalted described as emo rebels, or when lunars go from "yeah, if we can fuck with the realm we'll do it but we have bigger and stranger plans", to "yep, the only thing defining us is the hatred for the realm, no more blood debts, no more depth and shit". Better mechanics for sure (but let's be honest it's still a mess) but it' so shallow...
@@chronic6428 3e for the most part is pretty nice, though 2e was way too far with how everything was going, my friends agree that it's a bit too sanitized on the bad things happening. 2e has some interesting lore for interactions within the silver pact, and it's something we're taking with. I think, with as different the three editions are, you basically just have to pick and choose what parts of which you're bringing along, what you find most interesting.
