The Artifact: Difference between revisions

* ''[[Exalted (Tabletop Game)|Exalted]]'' was originally written as a pre-history for the [[Old World of Darkness (Tabletop Game)|Old World of Darkness]]; strong hints of this remained all throughout 1st edition, until that train of thought was pretty much abandoned for 2nd edition. This is why the 1st edition Lunars [[Werewolf: The Apocalypse (Tabletop Game)|took more than a few elements from the Garou]] ([[Fanon Discontinuity|much to the displeasure of fans]]), Sidereals occasionally had to deal with [[Mage: The Ascension (Tabletop Game)|Paradox]], and the Underworld was ruled by [[Wraith: The Oblivion|Deathlords]] and the Neverborn, who were paradoxically called "Malfeans" as well when Malfeas was a [[Our Demons Are Different|Yozi]] instead.

** Then again, 2nd Ed keeps throwing in artifacts, or quite possibly the odd [[Shout Out]] - the new Infernal Exalted take their Caste names from [[Demon: The Fallen (Tabletop Game)|the Houses of the Fallen]].

** It's been [[The Artifact]] since the switch to Third. In Second, an ability check was made by rolling a D20 and trying to roll less than your ability score. In addition, there were mechanical differences which made all ability scores different rather than having breaks at every even number. In Third, the ability scores could have been replaced almost entirely with ability modifiers, transforming a stat line into something like: Str +2, Dx +1, etc. (''True20'' and ''[[Mutants and Masterminds (Tabletop Game)|Mutants and Masterminds]]'' 3rd edition, based on d20 Open Content, did just that.) Almost no mechanics would be changed, and most of those would be simplified, and modifying creatures or changing sizes would be a cinch. This sort of statline is quite common in other games.

** Alignment flirts with this. Many players have felt it was irrelevant for years before, especially during the days of Advanced D&D. At the time, other games were coming out which ignored alignment altogether or grossly redesigned it, and they weren't suffering for a lack of moral categories to put characters into. Alignment also was easily abused by some players, with some game masters putting paladins or other "must be good" characters into situations where one aspect of their vows ''must'' be broken and then punishing them. ("You helped the slaves escape; that's not lawful, so it's a chaotic violation of your paladinhood and...why are you leaving?") Players, too, would abuse the heck out of it, often by being blatant jerkasses to everyone at the table and saying it was just playing their alignment. Then Third went and added in a lot of mechanics which depended on alignment, many of them doing little more than giving min-maxers an excuse to write "true neutral" down and then do whatever they were going to do anyway.