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Exalted for Beginners
Exalted for Beginners
#1
So between a combination of GreggHL's Glorious Shotgun Princess and the demo of Asura's Wrath I was inspired to dig out the copy of Exalted 2e I picked up a few years ago. Despite the inherant awesomness of the game, I never got around to doing anything with it, in part because my group was slightly intimidated by the complexity of the combat system as compared to d20 stuff. However, due to my PnP gaming group being on hiatus due to Baby, we were discussing the possiblity of doing some play by post gaming to get our fix in. I volunteered to look into it, and thought that the slower pace of online gaming might be a great time to give Exalted a shot.
I was wondering if anyone who had played Exalted before had any advice to give about what books other than the Core rules would be worth picking up. Is there anything like a Monstrous Manual to be had, or am I stuck stating out each encounter by hand? Alternatly, a premade adventure would also work.
Also, any suggestions for a good place to run a small Play by post group? I'm currently of using Yahoo! Groups.
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If you become a monster to put down a monster you've still got a monster running around at the end of the day and have as such not really solved the whole monster problem at all. 
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#2
I'm actually running a game of Exalted right now, so I can give some advice.

1) Download the Errata. There is quite a bit, and it is available for free here.
1b)  Also, if you have pdfs of the books, take a look at this.  It is a set of pdf comment files, which directly integrates the errata into the books, vastly reducing the cross-referencing involved.
2) Read, then play through this.  It is a semi-interactive tutorial that explains the basics of the setting, and walks you through how combat works.
3)  Use this program to generate characters, and to keep track of xp, equipment, and the like.  Once you've finished generating a character, it can print out a pdf of a filled out character sheet.  I once used it to create a character with 500 xp, in about a half hour, from concept to completion.  It would have taken hours without this.  I can't do NPCs without this program.

Ok, now that that is out of the way, on to stuff to read.
First off, I recommend getting a copy of the 1e book Scavenger Sons.  Its a setting book, and does a much better job communicating the desired feel of Creation than nearly every 2e book.  You can buy the pdf here for just under $10.
Second, buy Masters of Jade. (Available here)  It is the newest Exalted book (until Shards of the Exalted Dream comes out later this month.), and is another excellent setting book, describing Creation in extremely evocative ways, through the lens of the Guild, a mercantile organization which can be summed up as fusing Wal-Mart with the Dutch East India Company, and removing all thought and possibility of government oversight.  It also contains a system for running and interacting with large organizations, which comes in very handy once the PCs have managed to acquire a city or kingdom somehow.  (This will almost certainly happen (assuming the PCs are Solars), as Exalted is explicitly a game of consequences, which continues on once the day has been saved.  The hero gets the princess, and in a few short years (for a being whose natural lifespan is measured in millennia), he's in charge, and it is time to see how good a dragonslayer is as a king.  Or not, if that's not what the players are interested in.)  MoJ
Another good thing do look at when getting started is Return to the Tomb of Five Corners, which was written as an intro adventure module, and is available for free here.  I believe it has per-generated characters, which, while not up to date with the current errata, can do a decent job of getting players something of a fell for the game.  (I'd also recommend reading through this thread, for advice on running dungeons in Exalted.)
Once you've decided what the setting for the game you want to run is, get the relevant Directional Compass.  The 2e Core and Scavenger Sons should give you a decent feel for each Direction, but in short, if you want mayfly kingdoms amidst forests and grasslands, dotted with (more than normal amounts) of ruins of a previous Age, you want the East.  If you want (stereotypical) barbarians, hard lives, bitterly cold winters, airships, and floating rock-islands, you likely want the North.  If you want pirates, adventure on the high seas, and all that comes with it, odds are you should look at the West.  If you want deserts, nomads, astrologer cities, and volcanoes, the South is where you should look.  The Center, the Blessed Isle, is somewhat hostile if you are any Exalt save a Dragon-Blooded, but if you are interested in playing out dynastic battles in a fusion of Rome and Imperial Japan, look here.  There is also the Heavenly City, Yu-Shan, which  can be used for noir type games without much difficulty, as well as espionage type stuff.  There's the Underworld, which is Creation's dark mirror, and is the realm of the dead (only a few of the inhabitants actually want to destroy the world of the living.  The ghosts with ancestor-cults worshiping them want that to continue, for example.)  There is also the Hell that is Malfeas, the prison containing, and most powerful of, the demons.  Then there's the Wyld, which is a realm of gradually increasing chaos that serves as Creation's outer border.  Each of the Compass books has a section at the end that briefly describes the animals native to that region.  (And the Directions are BIG.  You could jam Medieval France into the middle of the East, and no one would notice.)

A bit of advice.  Don't use the canon Sorcery system, it doesn't live up to the fluff, and is not worth the xp it costs as is.  Errata is in the works, but that will come when it comes.  In the meantime, I suggest using this fan-rewrite, and the companion Necromancy rewrite.  Also, the books titled Scroll of the Monk and Scroll of Heroes are mechanically broken to the point of ridiculousness.  Pretend they don't exist.  Scroll of the Monk: The Imperfect Lotus is ok, and a replacement book for the first SotM is coming out this fall, so...
Also, the setting portion of the Lunars book got co-opted to tell the history of Creation, so you'll want to read through that, even if you don't use Lunars.  I also suggest getting the Manual of Exalted Power for any type of Exalt you intent to use, NPC or PC, as the brief stuff  in the Core's Antagonist chapter doesn't really cut it. 
The closest thing Exalted has to a Monster Manual is the 1e book Creatures of the Wyld.  It has all the animals listed in the various Compass books, except with far greater detail (two pages vs. two paragraphs in most cases).  You can get it here.
That should... probably be enough to get you started. 
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Stand between the Silver Crystal and the Golden Sea.
"Youngsters these days just have no appreciation for the magnificence of the legendary cucumber."  --Krityan Elder, Tales of Vesperia.
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#3
I recommend myth-weavers for running the game, the forums are optimised for it with an integrated die-roller, even a die roller that can function of the exalted sheets.

That said if you accept random internet people into your game I would be interested as I have not played exalted since early 1'st ed, though I have run several exalted campaigns including one second ed game.
E: "Did they... did they just endorse the combination of the JSDF and US Army by showing them as two lesbian lolicons moving in together and holding hands and talking about how 'intimate' they were?"
B: "Have you forgotten so soon? They're phasing out Don't Ask, Don't Tell."
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#4
If you are willing to run a game, I'd love to have a chance to play. (I hope I didn't scare you off or anything like that.)
-----
Stand between the Silver Crystal and the Golden Sea.
"Youngsters these days just have no appreciation for the magnificence of the legendary cucumber."  --Krityan Elder, Tales of Vesperia.
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#5
The number of books you suggest was a little scary yes Smile

A couple of my regular gaming group are a little anti-social and probably wouldn't be willing to play with random internet people's sadly, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't. Though as fair warning, I'm not exactaly the world's greatest DM. Also, it'll probably be quite some time before I'd be ready to run an Exalted game. I'll let you know if I do go ahead with it.

Thanks for the recommendations!
--
If you become a monster to put down a monster you've still got a monster running around at the end of the day and have as such not really solved the whole monster problem at all. 
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#6
Sorry about that. The most important things to get ahold of are the errata, and the setting book (the Compass) for the Direction you want to run your game in, as you already have the Core. Second is the other splatbooks (the books for the non-Solar types of Exalts), for use as NPCs. There are some sample powers given in the Core so you can use them, but you get a bigger choice of powers with the dedicated book. Third tier is the MoJ type setting books (MoJ, and some 1e stuff, mostly), and after that, the other Compasses. The Compasses give a good breakdown of the locations, history and other stuff, but you'll want to take a look at these books to get a feel for what Creation looks like from the ground.

Is that less scary? I hope so, I don't want to scare you away.

You can play a good game with just the Core and the errata, but there are so many little details scattered around the other books, which just add to the richness of the setting, I felt it would be wrong of me not to mention them. After all, the Core doesn't even mention the Infernal Exalts, or the Alchemicals.
-----
Stand between the Silver Crystal and the Golden Sea.
"Youngsters these days just have no appreciation for the magnificence of the legendary cucumber."  --Krityan Elder, Tales of Vesperia.
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#7
The character generation and (I suspect) actual play are fairly grim until you've done them a dozen times or more, but I've found that the books themselves are easy reads. Whatever else you say about Exalted, and whether you take the 'Muahahah, deconstruct, DECONSTRUCT AND SUFFER' or the 'Whee, epic hero!' approach to its themes, it's got a fascinating setting, and I'd at least like to hear more about any serious attempt to set up a game.
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"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."
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#8
I will say that Anathema, the program I linked to under #3 in my big scary post, really does take a lot of the pain out of character generation. It doesn't really directly aid in running the game, sadly, but it speeds up and eases the difficulty of generating a character tremendously.
-----
Stand between the Silver Crystal and the Golden Sea.
"Youngsters these days just have no appreciation for the magnificence of the legendary cucumber."  --Krityan Elder, Tales of Vesperia.
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