Exalted: Essence

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Because it feels artificial to me and a bit silly. Its easier to talk you into killing your wife than seducing cheat on her.
Not unless you already wanted to. There’s still such a thing as an unacceptable order. Exalted in its current state doesn’t have outright mind-control powers. Even extraordinary persuasiveness relies on existing Intimacies and can’t instantly bypass people’s core values.

There’s not going to be explicit allowance in the book to play without the Red Rule, since it’s a safety tool to prevent sexual harassment and non-consensual stuff at the table, and the writers are not going to spell out permission to do that. GMs forcing sexual encounters on players is the stuff scandals and creepy gamer stories are made of. It’s why Adam Koebel is persona non grata right now. It’s potentially harmful in a way that a character getting hurt in combat just isn’t.

If you want your character to be very resistant to being seduced there were ways to build that mechanically, just as there were ways to make them resistant to harming their beloved. Hopefully there are similar ways in Essence.
The way social influence works in 3e (and by extension Essence), you can build a character to be harder to influence, but that’s not the issue here. The real question is whether it’s ever a good idea to force a sexual encounter on a character whose player doesn’t consent to it and isn’t comfortable with it, and I’m having trouble seeing how there’s even a debate to be had there. It’s not about whether they had the foresight to spend points on anti-rape defenses.

If the player is okay with it, then there’s no problem. The Red Rule is explicitly for when they’re not okay with it, in which case what are you even trying to do? The Red Rule is basically “the GM does not get to unilaterally tell you that your character has sex.” Which, you know, should be obvious. But decades of creepy gamer stories suggest it’s not.
 
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As I said, that's already what I do.

But it helps if the optional nature of whatever it is is including as its keeps the complaints and bickering to low roar, IME. That's all I was wondering about since from the production notes I'd seen the presence of the so called Red Rule was emphasized as if it was critical with nothing mentioned so far about it being optional or working without it. I hope that it was included as it might make my life easier if I adopted this game.
I still don't see the problem, even if they do say it's critical. It's your game, and if you don't want to play with it... don't. And if I player insists otherwise, then they just don't play in your game.
 
I still don't see the problem, even if they do say it's critical. It's your game, and if you don't want to play with it... don't. And if I player insists otherwise, then they just don't play in your game.
I don't enjoy bickering and, as I said, IME having something like the 'Red Rule' noted as optional helps cut down on it.
 
Not unless you already wanted to. There’s still such a thing as an unacceptable order. Exalted in its current state doesn’t have outright mind-control powers. Even extraordinary persuasiveness relies on existing Intimacies and can’t instantly bypass people’s core values

There is Unnatural Mental influence and a character may not have made "love of spouse" a Defining Intimacy.
There’s not going to be explicit allowance in the book to play without the Red Rule, since it’s a safety tool to prevent sexual harassment and non-consensual stuff at the table, and the writers are not going to spell out permission to do that. GMs forcing sexual encounters on players is the stuff scandals and creepy gamer stories are made of. It’s why Adam Koebel is persona non grata right now. It’s potentially harmful in a way that a character getting hurt in combat just isn’t.
I have no idea who the Hell Adam Koebel is. I talk to the players and tell them what can possibly occur in the game, get their opinion on various aspects of so everyone knows what to expect before we begin. I don't feel that offering that a certain rule is optional is 'giving permission to be creepy' or whatever.

The almost seems like some kind of insinuation. :-/ Its unfortunate that the publisher seems to feel that only some kind creepy ass would be interested in playing without their 'Red Rule'.

Anything that happens in the game is consensual as anyone (Hell, including the GM) can stop playing, walk away or what have you whenever they want. For our group a character being seduced isn't any different than a character being stabbed, robbed, deceived or harmed in others due to mechanics.
The way social influence works in 3e (and by extension Essence), you can build a character to be harder to influence, but that’s not the issue here. The real question is whether it’s ever a good idea to force a sexual encounter on a character whose player doesn’t consent to it and isn’t comfortable with it, and I’m having trouble seeing how there’s even a debate to be had there. It’s not about whether they had the foresight to spend points on anti-rape defenses.
The player knows its a possibility in the game. If you don't want it to happen to your character you can construct it to make seduction exceptionally difficult, even practically impossible for most beings, just they might build up physical abilities if they don't want their character hurt very often. But that's not the case for most beings in the setting. I'm not entirely sure how things went from seduction to rape.
If the player is okay with it, then there’s no problem. The Red Rule is explicitly for when they’re not okay with it, in which case what are you even trying to do?
If they weren't 'okay with it' they shouldn't have gotten into the game once they were informed of our playstyle. It seems odd that anyone would be that caught up in whether or not an imaginary avatar has sex in a game/interactive fiction yet would be fine with them being killed, maimed, robbed, made into an unwilling killer or all the other potential horrific fates that can befall a character. I guess I may have done a poor job explaining things or the player didn't fully gasp it but is that case they don't have to continue playing in the game.

But it takes all kinds and clearly our playstyle isn't one such folks would care for. As was mentioned earlier, some games make death a matter of player permission not something i could really get into.

Anyway, it seems like we've both said our piece and its going pretty fair from Exalted Essence. So perhaps we should agree to disagree.
 
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Anyway, it seems like we've both said our piece and its going pretty fair from Exalted Essence. So perhaps we should agree to disagree.
Indeed:thumbsup:!
 
Because it feels artificial to me and a bit silly. Its easier to talk you into killing your wife than seducing cheat on her.
People in real life are a lot more likely to have had traumas associated with violations of their sexual agency than with murder. The Red Rule is about emphasizing certain boundaries that are more viscerally felt by a larger number of people.
 
Social conflict resolution aside, are there many changes to physical conflict, the manly, stylish arts of whacking others with sharpened surf boards and over stylized blows with longer names than their user's? :grin:

Are details still largely abstract and "theater of the mind"?
 
It’s much the same but with streamlining. The combat chapter gives you a pretty clear picture.
 
It’s much the same but with streamlining. The combat chapter gives you a pretty clear picture.
I'm fairly certain I know the answer for this one, but it can't hurt to ask. Are there any options given for more concrete measurements and methods for handling topics like movement and positioning?
 
People in real life are a lot more likely to have had traumas associated with violations of their sexual agency than with murder. The Red Rule is about emphasizing certain boundaries that are more viscerally felt by a larger number of people.

Who says that? I see this justification about "rape is worse than murder" all the time, but it's never backed up by data. It's more like an article of faith, at this point.

More importantly, it completely lacks any context. What can be true in a European country is most definitely not true in e.g. Syria. And even in the good old U.S. of A. (the place from where most certainly this originated), just the sheer number of war veterans makes it a dubious assumption.
 
Who says that? I see this justification about "rape is worse than murder" all the time, but it's never backed up by data. It's more like an article of faith, at this point.

More importantly, it completely lacks any context. What can be true in a European country is most definitely not true in e.g. Syria. And even in the good old U.S. of A. (the place from where most certainly this originated), just the sheer number of war veterans makes it a dubious assumption.
Yeah, I've had my doubts as well...:thumbsup:

But honestly? This ain't the forum for discussing that. That's the logic the developers were using. Unless you doubt that: Now that we're informed, we can choose whether to abide by it, or discard the Red Rule, Golden Rule, Oricalcum Rule, and all the other Colour-Coded For Our Inconvenience* Rules, and call it a Day (Caste:devil:)!
I suspect many people over here and over there (where Luca lives, that is:grin:) would do exactly that without even giving it a second thought. Can't judge about the US groups, and it doesn't impact me either way, anyway.

But another thread being destroyed by dragging US politics into it is exactly what we don't need:shade:!

*After they became too many, I lost count which one was which:tongue:!
 
Who says that? I see this justification about "rape is worse than murder" all the time, but it's never backed up by data. It's more like an article of faith, at this point.
I've never actually seen that. It's just that if you're murdered, you're not likely to be around carrying that weight, right?
 
I've never actually seen that. It's just that if you're murdered, you're not likely to be around carrying that weight, right?

No, but you can still witness someone else's murder.
Anyway, I don't want to turn this into any kind of (direct or tangential) US politics shitstorm, so let's forget about it. It's a pretty insignificant point anyway, even in a context limited to "let's talk about Exalted".
 
If you have traumas that you aren’t past or at least have some control over yet, then that needs to be covered beforehand. If your campaign is going to be Game of Thrones Level on the Rating scale, that needs to be covered beforehand too.

We have Rule Zero.
Rule One should be “Adults are expected to be able to handle their own shit.” If you can’t, people (or at the very least, the GM needs to know beforehand).

People with special needs need to discuss it so that they and the GM can decide whether this will be the proper group for them. If it’s not the proper group for them, ok, everyone goes their separate ways.

The idea that if you don’t accomodate everyone’s personal issues, or use the latest methods of “safety”, there’s something wrong with you and you’re condoning psycholological assault, is simply a way to push and enforce one particular social viewpoint, and scare everyone into submission.
 
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I reluctantly thumbed that post... that last bit throws a bit of 'meh' onto the truth of the other statements. Provide whatever tools people might need. Use or not use them for your campaign.

And if there's bickering over your ruling that this rule won't be in play- you've dodged a bullet early. Drop them like an anvil and move on.
 
I reluctantly thumbed that post... that last bit throws a bit of 'meh' onto the truth of the other statements. Provide whatever tools people might need. Use or not use them for your campaign.

And if there's bickering over your ruling that this rule won't be in play- you've dodged a bullet early. Drop them like an anvil and move on.
You’re right, the last line (although arguably true) is more of a throwaway, and does change the content of the post, pushing the discussion over the line.
 
Who says that?
Well since you brought up US war veterans (constitute about 10% of the country's adult population), an article from the actual US Department of Veterans Affairs citing research estimating that about 10% of all boys and 25% of all girls in the country have been victims of childhood sexual abuse might be a compelling place to start.

 
TBH I don't much like safety, trauma, and the rest as the primary language used to discuss preferences at the table. This isn't because those aren't things worth taking seriously, but because I think the relevant work can be done with just preferences, and because adopting safety/trauma language implicitly places things at a higher standard of justification than I'd like.

Like, I'd personally not have onscreen sex scenes at the gaming table. I just don't like the idea. I've never had a traumatic experience with sex in my life, there's not a question of safety, it's certainly not a matter of moral disapproval because sex is morally fine and also I'm dandy with all sorts of immoral violence in games, it just feels icky to describe imaginary people having sex in that particular context. (If that's your jam, of course, more power to you.)

So I think when we ask things like "is rape worse than murder?" or "how many people are victims of sexual violence?" at least the latter can be an important if unpleasant topic, but I wouldn't make it the grounds on which we justify the inclusion of stuff at the gaming table or not. Consensual sex is better than murder (duh) and most people's experiences with it are going to be pretty positive, but a preference against onscreen elfgames sex is widespread enough that you shouldn't just jump into it without a conversation where people agreed that was their jam, and that preference is its own justification.
 
The worst consequence of framing things in this way is that it forces the GM (and partly the other players) to treat what should be a gaming session as if it was a psychotherapy one. Except that it's one without any professionals around.

While the term "roleplaying" has a long history of being also used in a psychology context (arguably longer than the TTRPG one), mixing things this way is unacceptable and dangerous, IMHO. If you're subject to PTSD episodes, you should look for professional help. Forcing the rest of the group to cope with it is unfair to people who assumed they would meet to have fun, AND the potential for things to go badly is too damn obvious for anyone with even a minimum of common sense to not understand why it's an incredibly bad idea.
 
What are those?
"Sex moves" come from Apocalypse World. The game is highly class/archetype-based with the overall concept "there is not enough of anything any more, how do you deal with that"; "sex moves" show how each archetype reacts to intimacy and gives it some mechanical teeth.

What they are explicitly not in any way, shape, or form are "rules for having sex"; the game handles that in the same way as almost every other RPG ever has (eg. it doesn't).

Like, I'd personally not have onscreen sex scenes at the gaming table. I just don't like the idea. I've never had a traumatic experience with sex in my life, there's not a question of safety, it's certainly not a matter of moral disapproval because sex is morally fine and also I'm dandy with all sorts of immoral violence in games, it just feels icky to describe imaginary people having sex in that particular context. (If that's your jam, of course, more power to you.)
Indeed. It doesn't matter why someone doesn't want a particular element in their game; as noted, this is Roleplaying Night, not Psychotherapy Night. They're simply saying an element that they don't want to have at the table; they're not trying to take over the game or force you to help them work through their issues. Given that these people are presumably your friends, it feels rude to not take that into consideration.

Personally I and most people I play with have absolutely zero interest in sex scenes. It happens, our characters are adults, but we just make the implication and then pick things up the next morning (And then usually tease the player a bit about it). We're all people who like sex, but we have no interest in exploring that between ourselves. So we don't.
 
Even the most famous game for including sex, AW, is not about having sex scenes rp'ed out at the table. Is there a game that does that, besides FATAL?
 
"Sex moves" come from Apocalypse World. The game is highly class/archetype-based with the overall concept "there is not enough of anything any more, how do you deal with that"; "sex moves" show how each archetype reacts to intimacy and gives it some mechanical teeth.

What they are explicitly not in any way, shape, or form are "rules for having sex"; the game handles that in the same way as almost every other RPG ever has (eg. it doesn't).
So it's just how the characters react to romantic events?
 
So it's just how the characters react to romantic events?
What else did you even think they are:shock:? The Hardholder has a Sex Move that says he gives a present to the other party, and the Battlebabe has a Sex Move that says "no strings attached (including mechanical ones), ya can't use the night to puppet me, sucker", IIRC.
What actual moves were used is besides the point...:shade:

Even the most famous game for including sex, AW, is not about having sex scenes rp'ed out at the table. Is there a game that does that, besides FATAL?
Exalted:devil:?
Just kidding, though there are Charms that deal with sex (and probably many more have been homebrewed, including some by me:p). And if you want to use the social system for it, it would work.
But IME, whether the sex scenes are roleplayed is the group's decision. And this is firmly an area where you don't need mechanics:thumbsup:!
 
What else did you even think they are:shock:? The Hardholder has a Sex Move that says he gives a present to the other party, and the Battlebabe has a Sex Move that says "no strings attached (including mechanical ones), ya can't use the night to puppet me, sucker", IIRC.
What actual moves were used is besides the point...:shade:
Well, to be fair to me, I'm kinda a used to White Wolf's renaming of things to mean something else. So it could have implied something less romantic. I mean, violence is an intimate situation. Intimate doesn't always mean pleasant...
 
Well, to be fair to me, I'm kinda a used to White Wolf's renaming of things to mean something else. So it could have implied something less romantic. I mean, violence is an intimate situation. Intimate doesn't always mean pleasant...
Yup, and the game ackownledges that too, in a way: everytime someone hurts you (a punch, a shot, etc) you gain Hx with him (Hx = history together, used to influence the recipient back later).
 
Well, to be fair to me, I'm kinda a used to White Wolf's renaming of things to mean something else. So it could have implied something less romantic. I mean, violence is an intimate situation. Intimate doesn't always mean pleasant...
Yup, and the game ackownledges that too, in a way: everytime someone hurts you (a punch, a shot, etc) you gain Hx with him (Hx = history together, used to influence the recipient back later).
But, key difference, you only apply Sex Moves when you've had sex:thumbsup:.
 
Exalted:devil:?
Just kidding, though there are Charms that deal with sex (and probably many more have been homebrewed, including some by me:p). And if you want to use the social system for it, it would work.
You may be kidding, but you and White Wolf are on the same page. One year as an April Fools joke they released The Scroll of Swallowing Darkness - a supplement of (playable, rules-compatible) sex charms for Exalted.
 
You may be kidding, but you and White Wolf are on the same page. One year as an April Fools joke they released The Scroll of Swallowing Darkness - a supplement of (playable, rules-compatible) sex charms for Exalted.
I know, I've read it. I wasn't kidding at all, other than "I thought it's an obvious one". Also, in 3e the Performance Charms are broken down by activity - one of them being "sex":thumbsup:.

And long before 3e was more than a dream in the eye of a crunch-loving developper, the amount of sex charms I've had to houserule myself was almost staggering. As a matter of fact, my party once decided to outfuck The Lover Clad In Rainement of Tears, and they did:tongue:!
The reason I had to homebrew charms was that I had to handle the Lunar mate who'd suggested it as a joke. He was actually quite surprised after his Solar mate thought it's a great idea:shade:! (I mean, we all knew she kills those who've angered her as much as the Lover had...:evil:)
Given that he had a vested interest in the poison tree of stamina charms, it simply made way more sense to give him the ability to create some mind-altering substances, Poison Ivy-style, than to start working on the Presence charms, of which he had like none.
And thus the whole thing gave birth to the "sexual combat" subsystem...resulting in an offer that the Lover wasn't prepared for, but her pride didn't allow her to turn down:devil:!

Still, it's not because of Exalted. My group has been doing the same kind of stuff in systems where you don't have any mechanical back-up for such shenanigans.

And BTW, I would also recommend against playing that kind of stuff out with a group you aren't already extremely comfortable with:gunslinger:!
 
One more thing on the topic of sex in RPGing, personally and anecdotally, I know of several groups that handle it in game. They do so because they enjoy it just like some groups enjoy playing out gearing up or what many groups might call down time or dislike extensive combat, etc. I have noticed it tends to be more prevalent among online and PBEM groups or, surprisingly to me, all or most women regardless of medium. The level of detail ranges from PG-13 to NC-17, either as background fluff and detail, bluebook material, side 'fics' or fully developed and involved in the game, perhaps with mechanics though I haven't run to a totally satisfactory of those. Exalted 3rd could handle it, IMO, maybe with a little tinkering.

I don't think there's anything wrong taking things either way. Sex can be fun to handle or even just discuss (look at how its partially diverted this thread :grin:). I agree that everyone involved just be on the same page and willing but that goes for many elements that might come up in rpgs. But if everyone is having fun, go for it.
 
One more thing on the topic of sex [...] I have noticed it tends to be more prevalent among online and PBEM groups or, surprisingly to me, all or most women regardless of medium
Yup, that reflects my experience. One of my groups was majority women and it was the one that leaned most towards flirt and sex and intimacy aspects (we had some nice Monsterhearts sessions at the time).
 
One more thing on the topic of sex in RPGing, personally and anecdotally, I know of several groups that handle it in game. They do so because they enjoy it just like some groups enjoy playing out gearing up or what many groups might call down time or dislike extensive combat, etc.
Well, it is a kind of downtime:devil:!

I have noticed it tends to be more prevalent among online and PBEM groups or, surprisingly to me, all or most women regardless of medium.
My wife: "And this guy is surprised why?"

The level of detail ranges from PG-13 to NC-17, either as background fluff and detail, bluebook material, side 'fics' or fully developed and involved in the game, perhaps with mechanics though I haven't run to a totally satisfactory of those. Exalted 3rd could handle it, IMO, maybe with a little tinkering.
Any game (or no game) can handle it. Also, the detail ranges from PG-13 to R-rated. And I mean the R from the "Salo":shade:.



I don't think there's anything wrong taking things either way. Sex can be fun to handle or even just discuss (look at how its partially diverted this thread :grin:). I agree that everyone involved just be on the same page and willing but that goes for many elements that might come up in rpgs. But if everyone is having fun, go for it.
Chorus:"Yes, Yes, Let's Go For IT!":grin:
My players know that forcing me to flirt with them in character is an automatic 'rocks fall, everyone dies' situation.
You're JUST THAT GOOD at flirting, aren't you:tongue:?
Also, doesn't matter who's uncomfortable, if anyone is, don't go for it!
 
What were some changes and streamlining?
It’s much easier if you go read the combat chapter preview. It’s not particularly long. The addition of power rather than initiative is a good example of a change. Initiative is a good example of streamlining.
 
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