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The creator of 1e wrote a big post about it, actually. http://exalted.xi.co.nz/wiki/Thus_Spake_Zargrabowski/RealmTechnologicalLevels I don't think anything there is contradicted by 3e
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Nov 7, 2015 07:54
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Roadie posted:Also, for another one on "surprise rules", there's a sidebar in the middle of Athletics on p. 261 that explains when you do and don't need to take an Aim action... rather than, say, actually being in the combat section somewhere. It's supposed to be in Archery, but their layouts are very professional you see. In the entire charm list, maybe two sidebars are in the right places. Or somewhere that approximates the right places where you can at least see what they're relevant to.
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Nov 7, 2015 09:42
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One thing that really threw me is that Fivefold Bulwark Stance says it eliminates "certain penalties", and there's a sidebar on the adjacent page which tells you which penalties those actually are.
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Nov 7, 2015 09:48
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virgindick posted:The creator of 1e wrote a big post about it, actually. Some more recent creator words: SLS posted:It's the mythical version of the Classical or Hellenistic era, as portrayed in the Iliad and the Odyssey, which historically was set during the Bronze Age -- but Homer was writing during the Iron Age and he shamelessly stuck all sorts of Iron Age anachronisms into his Bronze Age epic historical romance poems. We, likewise, are sticking all sorts of anachronistic-seeming stuff into Creation, although since we define what the setting is it's not actual anachromism, is it? I'd call Creation a "post-apocalyptic Bronze Age world" because the "tech floor" in terms of what people are going to be able to create and maintain anywhere in Creation is going to be about Bronze Age. The closer you get to the center of the world or the more cosmopolitan the area, the more likely you are to find people that can actually forge iron or steel rather than having to trade for it.
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Nov 7, 2015 09:52
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virgindick posted:The creator of 1e wrote a big post about it, actually.  Actually, some of these complex setting details are my favorite things about Exalted, as a setting. Above and beyond the grand sweeps, it is oddly humanist in a way, and I feel it gives the "mortals" a certain degree of credit that they would do things like figure out how to wash their hands and set up heliograph networks. Similarly with the Dragon-blooded, noting specific common tactical uses of things like Sorcery spells gives a real feeling of life to the setting. If you're going to have this giant wad of setting fluff, at least follow out some of the implications, even if you're avoiding rules-as-physics horseshit. Dammit Who? posted:I'd call Creation a "post-apocalyptic Bronze Age world" because the "tech floor" in terms of what people are going to be able to create and maintain anywhere in Creation is going to be about Bronze Age. The closer you get to the center of the world or the more cosmopolitan the area, the more likely you are to find people that can actually forge iron or steel rather than having to trade for it. Nessus fucked around with this message at 10:11 on Nov 7, 2015 |
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Nov 7, 2015 10:07
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Yeah you should probably have "recovering" in there somewhere.
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Nov 7, 2015 10:18
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reignonyourparade posted:Yeah you should probably have "recovering" in there somewhere. Considering the Fair Folk, I'd think iron trading would actually be heavily prioritized by every single culture in Creation anywhere near the Wyld. Which is probably most of 'em since the least Wyldy places would be... the Realm!
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Nov 7, 2015 10:20
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Exrandu posted:So I'm starting an Ex3 game with a few people who are completely new to Creation. Our game is taking place (at least to start) in Wu-Jian, which is of course new and I'm making up a bunch of my own poo poo for it because who knows when a new guide to the West will happen (and I am 100% a-ok with that). But is there like, a good primer to the general setting info? My players are reluctant to read like 100 pages of setting stuff on a pdf, unfortunately. Wusses. The introduction? It's three pages.
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Nov 7, 2015 11:11
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Roadie posted:Another lolarious failure of natural language: Unbreakable Fascination Method. Remember: no dramatic pauses in your speeches, Solars Dammit Who? posted:I'd call Creation a "post-apocalyptic Bronze Age world" because the "tech floor" in terms of what people are going to be able to create and maintain anywhere in Creation is going to be about Bronze Age. The closer you get to the center of the world or the more cosmopolitan the area, the more likely you are to find people that can actually forge iron or steel rather than having to trade for it. It's honestly weird and not terribly consistent; there's a lot of technology floating around that pointedly isn't bronze age, like you have triremes and galleons sailing around the deep sea, or crossbows facing off against thrown spears. Not that I'm bugged about it, but Creation being "bronze age" doesn't really hold up to any sort of serious examination. Alien Rope Burn fucked around with this message at 13:41 on Nov 7, 2015 |
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Nov 7, 2015 13:38
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Alien Rope Burn posted:like you have triremes and galleons sailing around the deep sea The thing that annoys me about this most in particular is that the only reason you need really fancy ships is that they've never bothered to change the map so you can reach the West without having to traverse a loving gigantic open ocean first. Would it really be that hard to add some chains of dot-on-the-map islands instead of leaving everything completely empty between the West islands and everything else?
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Nov 7, 2015 20:24
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Roadie posted:The thing that annoys me about this most in particular is that the only reason you need really fancy ships is that they've never bothered to change the map so you can reach the West without having to traverse a loving gigantic open ocean first. Allegedly the map is only the greatest landmarks of creation and there are tons of minor towns, islands, rivers, etc it's too large-scale to show, although the text could do a lot more to emphasise that.
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Nov 7, 2015 20:30
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Roadie posted:The thing that annoys me about this most in particular is that the only reason you need really fancy ships is that they've never bothered to change the map so you can reach the West without having to traverse a loving gigantic open ocean first. That said, isn't the gap between the Western island/continents and the Realm, like, the size of the Pacific?
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Nov 7, 2015 20:41
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Roadie posted:The thing that annoys me about this most in particular is that the only reason you need really fancy ships is that they've never bothered to change the map so you can reach the West without having to traverse a loving gigantic open ocean first. Wouldn't it make more sense to use sensible ships rather that to radically redefine Creation's geography to make the entire world navigable by triremes?
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Nov 7, 2015 20:45
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Technology doesn't work like in Civilization where you have to invent crucible steel and the theory of gravity before building big ships with triangular and square rigging. Hell, rocketry is entirely possible with Bronze Age technology, though not especially accurate or powerful.
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Nov 7, 2015 21:00
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Nessus posted:That said, isn't the gap between the Western island/continents and the Realm, like, the size of the Pacific? Yes. Thug Lessons posted:Wouldn't it make more sense to use sensible ships rather that to radically redefine Creation's geography to make the entire world navigable by triremes? Not really "by triremes", more like "by any ship not copy-pasted out of the 1500s, or even later because the giant expanse of emptiness is worse than the actual Atlantic/Pacific". And I wouldn't really call adding a couple of stretched-out archipelagos of small islands as a "radical redefine". After all, the devs have insisted before there are islands out there like that, they've just never bothered actually showing or mentioning any of them.
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Nov 7, 2015 21:01
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Roadie posted:Yes. They barely had room to mention stuff that was on the map and the Setting chapter was still enormous. I don't think it's reasonable to ask that the corebook also fills in all the blank spaces. Though Exalted as a setting is big and kitchen-sinky enough that it's almost uniquely easy to fall into the "if a book doesn't say it's there, it must not exist" trap.
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Nov 7, 2015 21:08
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Carvel planking, the method of construction you need for galleons, carracks, and other multi-masted ship designs, only requires some kind of caulk or glue to hold the planks together. It's entirely within the abilities of Bronze Age civilizations to build.
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Nov 7, 2015 21:36
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There's probably a few isolated islands stretching between from the Realm to Wu Jian, and then again from Wu Jian to the West. That said, one of the defining features of the West is that it's remote and isolated because it's difficult to get there, and that's worth preserving. One thing to keep in mind is that prior to railroads sea travel was much faster and cheaper than land travel so if it was easy to access to the West it would actually be less isolated than, say, Gem.
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Nov 7, 2015 22:05
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Effectronica posted:Technology doesn't work like in Civilization where you have to invent crucible steel and the theory of gravity before building big ships with triangular and square rigging. I'm still mad I can't reach mathematics without reasearching the wheel. Doubly so when I'm playing the Mayas! 
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Nov 7, 2015 22:05
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Thug Lessons posted:There's probably a few isolated islands stretching between from the Realm to Wu Jian, and then again from Wu Jian to the West. That said, one of the defining features of the West is that it's remote and isolated because it's difficult to get there, and that's worth preserving. One thing to keep in mind is that prior to railroads sea travel was much faster and cheaper than land travel so if it was easy to access to the West it would actually be less isolated than, say, Gem. Yeah, but so were the East Indies to 15th-century Europe, and that region has archipelagos and island chains a-plenty. There's 'remote' and then there's 'might as well be on the loving moon'. Also triremes aren't navigational vessels in Creation; they're tethered to larger motherships for provisions and crew space and then set loose during naval engagements to scuttle enemy ships.
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Nov 7, 2015 23:21
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What about triremes (assuming some modifications and good building) makes them so weak to sailing over the ocean anyway? Is it the oars thing?
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Nov 7, 2015 23:50
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Nessus posted:What about triremes (assuming some modifications and good building) makes them so weak to sailing over the ocean anyway? Is it the oars thing? It's that they're super-stripped-down to fit a narrow, torpedo profile ideal for ramming other ships below the waterline, and that design doesn't leave a heck of a lot of room for storing food and water. e: nor for bunks and living space, which is kind of an issue when you need a bunch of dudes to travel together on a month+ long journey over uncharted seas into uncharted lands without killing each other. Thesaurasaurus fucked around with this message at 00:11 on Nov 8, 2015 |
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Nov 8, 2015 00:05
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Thesaurasaurus posted:It's that they're super-stripped-down to fit a narrow, torpedo profile ideal for ramming other ships below the waterline, and that design doesn't leave a heck of a lot of room for storing food and water. I did figure they used big ol galleons or those Zheng He treasure ship things for big oceanic crossings, though.
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Nov 8, 2015 00:19
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I always figure that exalted distances are covered with the help of thaumaturgy and negotiations with gods and elementals. Crossing the pacific would be a lot easier if you could just pay off the current directly.
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Nov 8, 2015 00:25
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Thesaurasaurus posted:Yeah, but so were the East Indies to 15th-century Europe, and that region has archipelagos and island chains a-plenty. There's 'remote' and then there's 'might as well be on the loving moon'. Exactly. Compare to actual maps of Earth, or at least ones with slightly exaggerated scales*, and you can see tons of little islands in the Pacific and the western Atlantic, while the Exalted map just has a huge blank space. [sup]* Which is the only thing that makes sense despite the dev protests of "things are too small to go on the map", unless we're saying all those mountains are 200 miles tall.[sup] Thesaurasaurus posted:It's that they're super-stripped-down to fit a narrow, torpedo profile ideal for ramming other ships below the waterline, and that design doesn't leave a heck of a lot of room for storing food and water. Yeah, the original Mediterranean trireme pretty much required setting on land every evening to at minimum get more water and let the crew spread out to get some sleep. Later galley designs (all the way into the 1600s) had better logistics, but mainly because they could be built bigger and deeper with hybrid sail designs and because other "mother ships" could carry supplies for them. Nessus posted:What about triremes (assuming some modifications and good building) makes them so weak to sailing over the ocean anyway? Is it the oars thing? Aside from the logistics, the basic design of the galley means you want something narrow, shallow, low to the water, and light so that all the guys with oars can push it along as fast as possible. None of these things are conducive to going out any real distance from shore. In particular, if a big storm picks up and you can't get to the cover of a cove or protected bay, you're totally hosed as soon as a wave tilts the galley enough for water to get on the deck or in through the oar ports. Roadie fucked around with this message at 00:32 on Nov 8, 2015 |
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Nov 8, 2015 00:28
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Nessus posted:What about triremes (assuming some modifications and good building) makes them so weak to sailing over the ocean anyway? Is it the oars thing? They were built for speed as mentioned by Thesaurasaurus, which involved using light woods that would become waterlogged if left in the sea too long. Furthermore, they had practically no bunk space for the 200+ sailors they'd have, because there was very little excess space that wasn't dedicated to rowers or sailors. What they'd do is find a beach and literally drag it out of the water to let it dry out, and the sailors would camp on shore. As such, they generally had to hug the shoreline whenever possible. They were kind of like the fighter jets of their era - highly maneuverable, using the top technology of the time (which was held to a high degree of secrecy), but also requiring a high degree of maintenance. City-states that used them had to constantly replace them, because aside from conflict, the light wood would rot or wear out and they'd lose speed and functionality. And that's without getting into the state of sea navigation at the time, of course, which is a whole other set of issues.
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Nov 8, 2015 00:30
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Thinking about it, with the map I also really wish I could see a fan edit of somebody just adding like a couple hundred more dots for city-states and stuff. Not names, that'd crowd it out too much, but locations and maybe little dotted-line outlines of border territories. It'd make it look so much less empty if it wasn't the 'okay, here's a single city in an area the size of France and the roads connecting it to two other cities that each have their own France-sized empty areas' look it's had since 1e.
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Nov 8, 2015 00:36
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Nessus posted:What about triremes (assuming some modifications and good building) makes them so weak to sailing over the ocean anyway? Is it the oars thing? It's the construction. Triremes were built with clinker planking, where the load on a ship is borne by the hull, and the hull is constructed of overlapping planks that have been riveted or screwed together. Even the best-built clinker ships, like Norse knarrs or Hanseatic cogs, will flex and bend in heavy seas, making them unsuitable for ocean travel at any great distance. Additionally, before the invention of the lateen rig and other sail rigs that allowed for tacking, the necessity of oars for traveling against the wind limited ship sizes. Another limiting factor is their lack of a stern rudder, though somewhat irrelevant historically as lateen rigs and stern rudders came into use at about the same time.
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Nov 8, 2015 00:53
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I understand if a GM doesn't want to map all out of creation himself. I mean, I mapped out most of The Neck myself, dotting it with settlements and leaving others implied which is, you know, good fun. But that isn't fun for everyone.
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Nov 8, 2015 01:08
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Nihnoz posted:I understand if a GM doesn't want to map all out of creation himself. I mean, I mapped out most of The Neck myself, dotting it with settlements and leaving others implied which is, you know, good fun. But that isn't fun for everyone. It's still a little much to expect that kind of granularity in the corebook, I think. Over the life of the line, yeah, I agree, I'd like to see material that occupies some of the empty space the game opens with. But the goal of the corebook is different. It's the same reason the corebook only ships with rules for Solars - it's what they're putting forward as the face of the game. Similarly, as a setting document it has to be the broadest possible survey you can get in a single book.
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Nov 8, 2015 01:50
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Attorney at Funk posted:It's still a little much to expect that kind of granularity in the corebook, I think. Over the life of the line, yeah, I agree, I'd like to see material that occupies some of the empty space the game opens with. But the goal of the corebook is different. It's the same reason the corebook only ships with rules for Solars - it's what they're putting forward as the face of the game. Similarly, as a setting document it has to be the broadest possible survey you can get in a single book. That's why I like the "lots of dots and borders and no details given for them" approach. It doesn't take anything more than another pass on the map, and it gives GMs way more of a jumping-off point than "here is a giant mostly-empty map, now fill in a landmass the size of Earth all by yourself".
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Nov 8, 2015 02:32
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The old Scavenger Sons map of the Scavenger Lands as about perfect, with a good number of named but undefined locations just begging to be filled in. It's also good that they made the "go ahead and fill this in!" aspect of the Hundred Kingdoms clear in earlier editions, because you sure as hell wouldn't know it from this one.
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Nov 8, 2015 02:46
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Thesaurasaurus posted:Yeah, but so were the East Indies to 15th-century Europe, and that region has archipelagos and island chains a-plenty. There's 'remote' and then there's 'might as well be on the loving moon'. You're massively underestimating the distances these routes entailed. The outbound portion of the Dutch and Portuguese route the East Indies included a 6,000 mile open-sea voyage from modern-day Brazil to Mozambique, significantly greater than the distance from the western Realm to Wu-Jian. Even sailing from Arjuf to Wu-Jian is only about 5,000 miles by my measure. Even if we assume the sea is completely empty with no opportunity for resupply it would definitely have been possible, though difficult, with 15th-century technology.
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Nov 8, 2015 06:47
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For those who haven't seen, a contest: The 2015 TG Original Exalted Art Contest, in fact.
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Nov 8, 2015 06:58
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Thug Lessons posted:You're massively underestimating the distances these routes entailed. The outbound portion of the Dutch and Portuguese route the East Indies included a 6,000 mile open-sea voyage from modern-day Brazil to Mozambique, significantly greater than the distance from the western Realm to Wu-Jian. Even sailing from Arjuf to Wu-Jian is only about 5,000 miles by my measure. Even if we assume the sea is completely empty with no opportunity for resupply it would definitely have been possible, though difficult, with 15th-century technology. ...looking at the map, all of Creation seems to be no more than 13,000 miles across, when the circumference of Earth is almost twice that. Given that Creation's surface area is meant to be larger than Earth's, then unless I've mismeasured I'm thinking the scale on the map is off.
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Nov 8, 2015 07:24
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Thesaurasaurus posted:...looking at the map, all of Creation seems to be no more than 13,000 miles across, when the circumference of Earth is almost twice that. Given that Creation's surface area is meant to be larger than Earth's, then unless I've mismeasured I'm thinking the scale on the map is off. It looks like about 17,000 miles to me. The number on the compass rose is 500, not 300, though it's basically unreadable and I had to look at older maps to determine the scale. I got the number for the distance from Arjuf to Wu-Jian by measuring along the trade routes mapped out, and by the same measure it's 4000 miles from Wu-Jian to Chanos. Easily doable with technology from the early Age of Sail, and you could even reduce the hardship by stopping off at a smaller port in the western Realm. The reason Creation is smaller than the earth despite the land masses being huge is because it's flat.
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Nov 8, 2015 07:31
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The metric I always heard to describe how huge Creation is was "the Blessed Isle is the size of Russia". Russia is about 3,800 miles from the Estonian border to the furthest tip on the Bering Sea, while the Blessed Isle measures... about 3,800 miles from its western tip to the Imperial city. It checks out, unless the Blessed Isle is actually suppose to be waaaaay bigger than Russia.
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Nov 8, 2015 07:38
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Thug Lessons posted:It looks like about 17,000 miles to me. The number on the compass rose is 500, not 300, though it's basically unreadable and I had to look at older maps to determine the scale. I got the number for the distance from Arjuf to Wu-Jian by measuring along the trade routes mapped out, and by the same measure it's 4000 miles from Wu-Jian to Chanos. Easily doable with technology from the early Age of Sail, and you could even reduce the hardship by stopping off at a smaller port in the western Realm.
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Nov 8, 2015 10:01
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Thug Lessons posted:The metric I always heard to describe how huge Creation is was "the Blessed Isle is the size of Russia". Russia is about 3,800 miles from the Estonian border to the furthest tip on the Bering Sea, while the Blessed Isle measures... about 3,800 miles from its western tip to the Imperial city. It checks out, unless the Blessed Isle is actually suppose to be waaaaay bigger than Russia. It might be the pre 1919 Russian borders
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Nov 8, 2015 16:32
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Even with Creation being flat, I think the size is a little off in terms of surface area. When I try to size the map for Exalted, I end up with something around 168 million square miles. Earth has almost 30 million more square miles. Lots more land, but not more surface than Earth, unless the Wyld proper doesn't start for some distance off the official map.
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