Customer Reviews

*OP Exalted Storyteller Companion

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

As a storyteller wishes to improve himself, he finds that, most often than not, companions are pretty useful. This particular companion, however, instead of optional rules or player characteristics, it gives a more complete background, absolutely necessary when running a chronicle for a game as Exalted. This sort of history and backgrounds is what will separate your chronicle from a common AD&D RPG and a more complete, more human world.
This book avoids the storyteller from inventing everything on the city and gives hundreds of guidelines for possible chronicles, besides, exalted is extremely hard to run precisely because of historical background, so, this book is quite useful.

This book wasn't great even when it came out, but back then we had no idea what Lunars, Dragon-Blooded, Sidereals, spirits, etc, could do, so we bought it anyway. Now, the vast majority of the information in this book has been retconned, and what hasn't been retconned has been published elsewhere, except for the spirit Charms, which were supposed to be published in "Games of Divinity" but were left out due to typical White Wolf publishing confusion. However, even those are available free to download on the White Wolf website (under "Games of Divinity Appendix"), so you have absolutely no reason to spend money on this book. Don't.

This book details more information on the factions in the Exalted game. Solars, Lunars, Dragon-Blooded, and Abyssals, there is probably a little bit of everything for everyone. There are several paragraphs covering each of the factions and a small section of additional charms to try out. But would you even want to bother with the snippets here merely to whet your appetite until the full supplements for the factions are released?

Also, since this is supposed to be a Storytellers Companion, I was pretty surprised not to find a hefty section on running games and campaigns. Dock 1 star there. The nifty storyteller's screen packaged with the book is useful and seems to work well for the few game sessions I ran. In the introduction, the book also mentions a full-color map that was supposed to be included in the book, but don't bother looking for it.

In summary: Nice but not essential, and left out a lot of the cooler stuff for the supplements. I would recommend buying the full supplement for your favourite faction(s) instead.

Well, I was glad to pick this book up. I feel that it's a good idea for a Storyteller(ST) to have a better grounding in the bad guys for the game. This book does an excellent job of giving yuo backgrounds for the Lunar Exalted and the Dragon-Blooded. I am thoroughly pleased that all the antagonists have an excellent back story that can provide motivations for pretty much anything.


The only qualm that I had was a lack of charms for any of the bad guys. Granted, in doing so the ST has much more leeway to create pretty much any effect that he desires. I would have prefered that there be a few more examples for the lower level charms and then the ST could take things from there.

The art was great, much like most of the other White Wolf books. I especially liked the bestial depections of the Lunar Exalted in Chapter 2. Any WW gamer starts to think of Werewolf at the look of these beasts.

Hmm.. perchance Exalted did evolve into the World of Darkness creatures. I like the subtle suggestions in the book. As well as the humerous one on page 6, the introduction. "Q: Is Exalted the ancient past of the World of Darkness? A: As much as yuo want it to be, yes." WW always give the freedom to the ST. Well written adn enjoyable to read. 4 stars. I can wait for more supplements.

I was highly skeptical of Exalted when I first heard about it, but I jumped on the bandwagon and bought it for kicks. The roleplaying community has been needing this game for a long time. An exciting, intruiging fantasy world, cool, chic powers, and a tried-and-true White Wolf emphasis on ROLEplaying, not dice. Instead of the cliched "Dungeons and Dragons"/"Lord of the Rings" fantasy RPG style, this game draws a lot of themes, moods, and powers from anime and Greek epics. If you're a fan of White Wolf's games, this is definitely for you. If you like fantasy RPGs, this is definitely for you. If you are looking for something fun and different, this is for you. Peace.