Exalted Retrospective
So I finally finished the skimming/editing through logs of the old Exalted game, sending copies to some of the players. I found a great many more - I had emailed them off my work computer at the time and never pulled them down off email. Still, my coverage isn't complete due to failed logging or absence or whatever, but most of the main points are there. About the only major event missing I noticed was the finish of the fight with the First and Forsaken Lion. I came up with some 114 primary session logs. Whee.
While most of my previous comments stand, I have to acknowledge another aspect of the pacing that made things difficult. Not only did I feel the drive to do things rather than socialize increase as goals piled up, but the feeling I got from others - both IC and OOC - was that sitting still was boring. A couple days of "downtime" for the characters, and people were going stir-crazy wanting to move. I'm not sure if that was the other players' reaction to the pile of objectives or a more general desire to "do something."
Whatever the case, I still find I sort of regret not getting to do more interaction within the circle. Especially with more than two or three (N)PCs.
In talking about some of this, I was (effectively) asked if I would want to play Alexandra again from the beginning (possibly when the third edition rules are available). I find the answer is "no, not really." While I've certainly spun out new incarnations of old characters, usually that's in a new setting. To start Alexi over... doesn't feel right. So much happened over the course of the campaign that I'm not sure I could put it all aside. And I don't feel any motivation to try.
I could, theoretically, pick up where we left off, but that holds all the perils of why we stopped in the first place. Getting everyone together was always a challenge. High-level combat was getting dense. And we were about to enter into a lot of combat with the next thing on the list being the freeing of Thorns. The IC group was still sort of fractured, missing a few beginning members and having recently picked up a death knight who had just built up so much resonance he'd gotten mind-controlled to fight the circle (which is terrible for party unity, by the way). Things were just getting overly complex, I think.
No, I favor the idea of starting anew, but if that were to happen (and its difficult enough to find time to commit these days), I think I'd have to play a different character entirely. Alexi had a good run. Plus, if the game were run under the upcoming 3E rules, there would be a lot of... complications in trying to adapt characters and concepts. With a new edition release, even once the main book is out, there's going to be a delay while waiting for detailed rules for any non-Solar character type, so it could be a year or more before one could even recreate half the old group.
That's a little disheartening to a new group, too. While the game is sort of focused on the Solars, it doesn't feel complete to me without the other exalts. Lunars especially stand out in their counterpart dynamic. Abyssals make good opposition (though they've been a little to mirrored-only-better-due-to-power-creep in the past). Heck, I'd like to see more of the Terrestrial exalts that we all but avoided in the last campaign. Even Sidereals have a place, though they could stand to be toned down a little perhaps in some ways. I feel there's a lot of dimension lost to play with, basically, one exalt type.
Of course, it's all highly theoretical now anyway. I don't foresee a game like this getting off the ground for a while yet, if ever.
While most of my previous comments stand, I have to acknowledge another aspect of the pacing that made things difficult. Not only did I feel the drive to do things rather than socialize increase as goals piled up, but the feeling I got from others - both IC and OOC - was that sitting still was boring. A couple days of "downtime" for the characters, and people were going stir-crazy wanting to move. I'm not sure if that was the other players' reaction to the pile of objectives or a more general desire to "do something."
Whatever the case, I still find I sort of regret not getting to do more interaction within the circle. Especially with more than two or three (N)PCs.
In talking about some of this, I was (effectively) asked if I would want to play Alexandra again from the beginning (possibly when the third edition rules are available). I find the answer is "no, not really." While I've certainly spun out new incarnations of old characters, usually that's in a new setting. To start Alexi over... doesn't feel right. So much happened over the course of the campaign that I'm not sure I could put it all aside. And I don't feel any motivation to try.
I could, theoretically, pick up where we left off, but that holds all the perils of why we stopped in the first place. Getting everyone together was always a challenge. High-level combat was getting dense. And we were about to enter into a lot of combat with the next thing on the list being the freeing of Thorns. The IC group was still sort of fractured, missing a few beginning members and having recently picked up a death knight who had just built up so much resonance he'd gotten mind-controlled to fight the circle (which is terrible for party unity, by the way). Things were just getting overly complex, I think.
No, I favor the idea of starting anew, but if that were to happen (and its difficult enough to find time to commit these days), I think I'd have to play a different character entirely. Alexi had a good run. Plus, if the game were run under the upcoming 3E rules, there would be a lot of... complications in trying to adapt characters and concepts. With a new edition release, even once the main book is out, there's going to be a delay while waiting for detailed rules for any non-Solar character type, so it could be a year or more before one could even recreate half the old group.
That's a little disheartening to a new group, too. While the game is sort of focused on the Solars, it doesn't feel complete to me without the other exalts. Lunars especially stand out in their counterpart dynamic. Abyssals make good opposition (though they've been a little to mirrored-only-better-due-to-power-creep in the past). Heck, I'd like to see more of the Terrestrial exalts that we all but avoided in the last campaign. Even Sidereals have a place, though they could stand to be toned down a little perhaps in some ways. I feel there's a lot of dimension lost to play with, basically, one exalt type.
Of course, it's all highly theoretical now anyway. I don't foresee a game like this getting off the ground for a while yet, if ever.
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