Hello to all my fellow Exalted fans!
Have you ever said to yourself, “Man I love Exalted so much I wish I could play it more, and read and write more about it, but I can’t commit any more regular time periods of my weekend”? If you have NEVER said that to yourself, you may not want to bother with the rest of this message.
As it so happens, I have said that exact phrase to myself many times. After some careful research, brainstorming and technical finagling, I am pleased to officially announce Online Exalted!
How does this work? I shall explain!
Anyone interested will create an account at the main website: http://exalted.prionspace.net/online/ and let me know what campaign and role you are interested in playing in.
- Storytellers are essentially the collective DM of the campaign. They decide the story, the general direction of actions, and major events in the campaign. They cannot have a character, though they may introduce NPCs. They are ideal for experiencing the joy of creation.
- Editors are assistants to the Storytellers in terms of writing. They do not know the direction of the plot but they are familiar with the scenarios the characters are in. They may have characters, though it is somewhat frowned upon for these characters to be strategic thinkers since Editors have some clues as to what is going on. They enjoy both creation and discovery in parts.
- Players are unable to see the posts with the Storyteller notes, and are thus completely unaware of what is happening outside of the descriptions of the Storytellers and Editors. They primarily dictate their character’s actions, though they are also encouraged to add details of their own and can participate fully in any writeup. They are ideal for experiencing the joy of discovery.
The party consists of a number of Characters. Each Character has their own Page on the website and an actual character sheet in the possession of that Character’s player. The Page will include a number of Default Actions for different situations (in case someone can’t regularly be at the computer). This raises an important point: unlike in IRL Exalted, when a player has Sole Authorship over their character, in Online Exalted a player instead has Primary Authorship over their character. They may have the final say on what their character says and does but it is expected that other people will write words for your character as well. This makes it very important to develop a distinctive “voice” for your character from the outset, so other people can play them for you.
Additionally, the Storyteller has Primary Authorship over scenery, skill check types, and difficulties, but anyone else may freely insert what they feel is appropriate to the story. The Storyteller retains final say and may edit as they wish, but should not feel disempowered by other people deciding what difficulty a standard locked door may be for a Dex+Larceny check, say. (Of course, if the story actually surprises you with a hidden artifact lock, the Storyteller must jump in and say “ACTUALLY, you’re very surprised that you DIDN’T actually unlock that door like you were expecting!”)
The procession of play goes like this:
- An Unpublished post is created, and the Storytellors and Editors (collectively referred to hereafter as the Writers) set the scene.
- Players put their intentions for their characters in square brackets, and as they or the Writers set difficulties, someone rolls dice and someone sets difficulties for the actions. Stunts are, as always, encouraged and accounted for. Players may also signal their intention to “stunt” the final writeup further, earning extra stunt dice.
- Once the Unpublished post is complete (as determined by agreement of the Writers) it is retained for posterity while someone creates a Published post that is in novelization form. It is expected to be a collaborative effort.
- Characters belonging to any Editor or Player who contributed at any point receive 1xp.
Note: the Unpublished and Published categories are WordPress categories that dictate where on the website the posts show up! It’s magic!
Confused? Hit me up! I would be more than happy to energetically describe the whole process in more detail.
Now that you’ve read through this whole thing, please let me know what your interest level is!!! Thank you!
