Thus Spake Zaraborgstrom/YesNoMaybe

(from her blog)

Part I: Is There an Underlying Metaphysics?

Does Exalted have a complex underlying metaphysics?

No.

Let's face it. This is an epic. It has some influence from wuxia and anime. That means that heroes brood or preach about reality, existence, death, oblivion, happiness, purpose, and what it all means. It means that the story is often about what it means to be alive. It means that people find their own answers to a world full of suffering.

But it's supposed to be incoherent.

I mean, it really is. That is one of the ultimate consequences of stunts and the "everything is possible" philosophy. Sometimes, you have to just say, "Okay, whatever, that shouldn't happen, but it's cool."

It is not supposed to be a marvelous thought-out machine. It's robots vs. dinosaurs in the dawn of the world.

Playing Exalted is about enjoying the ride.

That said---

Writing rules means thinking about the underlying metaphysics. It means taking the vague concepts and nailing them down.

I generally try to stop this as soon as I can. I take Geoff's vision and give it just enough shape to use in play. I stop early so that you don't have to use my full vision of the metaphysics. You can run with it in your own directions.

But I still have a picture in my head of how it all works---why there is Creation and the Wyld, where the Primordials and shinma and raksha came from, what Creation means, what Oblivion means, and all that. If I actually write the other parts of this series, I'll tell you about it.

It's consistent with Geoff's outlines as far as they go, and with Fair Folk as far as it goes, but it's a lot more detailed---which means that Geoff and later writers might have other ideas, and definitely that you don't have to use it in your game. But people wanted to know why I wrote things as I did, so!

Part II: Why is there Something Instead of Nothing?

The idea that has affected me most profoundly in my life is this.

In any infinite set, there is a subset that follows the rules of the natural numbers.

I don't know if this is worldshaking to you. I have encountered many ideas that have shaken my world. But this is the most worldshaking of them.

In the still well of the void, in raw nothingness, there is something that counts, going from one to n.

And because there is something that counts, there is something that computes sums. There is something that names the Fibonacci numbers. There is code for the performance of maximum matchings. There are people. There are worlds.

How do you find these people? Where do these worlds come from?

From mathematical assumptions. You say: I will look for numbers. Lo! Numbers appear. You say: but how do those numbers sum? And the thing that computes sums appears. If you ask the right questions, you'll find the subset that could be a model for physical data; and then you just start modeling.

For me, that's an awful lot like existence. Why is there something instead of nothing? Because there is math.

But!

Does it matter if something first exists to ask the questions? Michael Goodwin, my coauthor on this overall metaphysical theory, thinks so.

So let's say that there's something that determines whether something real has ever computed your existence. Something that separates being real or at least realish from just being a general theory that something like you probably could exist, you know, if only you actually did.

In Fair Folk, this is called the Heart.

(I didn't actually know this until well after the book was on the shelves. But I think it fits everything in the book quite well.)

Comments

But it's supposed to be incoherent.
I mean, it really is. That is one of the ultimate consequences of stunts and the "everything is possible" philosophy. Sometimes, you have to just say, "Okay, whatever, that shouldn't happen, but it's cool."

I think that many disagreements arise from the fact that this is a very grey line. Actually, it's more than one grey line:

• • First, people will disagree about how "cool" something was, or even what criteria to use to judge what's "cool".
  • Second, people will disagree about how "cool" something needs to be to overcome a particular degree of impossibility.

The stunt system does an admirable job in resolving this ambiguity; it gives considerable (though not total) guidance as to what qualifies as a stunt, and what is needed to gain a given benefit. The stunt rules are well-defined enough, and the effect of stunts minor enough, that I don't think that it begs the conclusion that Exalted is doomed to an incoherent metaphysic.

However, one can certainly render it incoherent if you take RSB's reasoning to its conclusion, which may be intentional on her part. Taken to its extreme, one would throw away the game mechanics entirely, and decide the success or failure of the PCs' actions solely based on the ST's subjective judgement of how "cool" it would be for them to succeed. In the opposite extreme, the mechanics decide such things, and the ST's role becomes one of creating the world and "just letting it run itself", guiding it only through the choices made by the NPCs.

Both extremes have their drawbacks:

• • In the former, the PCs become incapable of judging their own capabilities, since the real answer to the character wondering "Can I do this?" is "You can, if your player can make the Storyteller think it's cool". Of course, the PC can't (in most games) contemplate the OOC concepts of having a player or Storyteller. The dependence of IC events on OOC factors forces a logical blind spot which renders the game world ultimately incomprehensible to the PC. It also encourages the players both to play their characters to suit the whims of the ST (rather than their own character concept), and to use OOC social tactics to try to influence the ST's judgement.

• • In the latter, the ST is constrained by the mechanics, even if the mechanics result in events that are not "cool", or even fun. PCs will die in ignoble ways, or tedious events may drag on, causing boredom. There is also a great onus on the ST to carefully balance the challenges they create, since there is little or no safety net if they miscalculate.

I know people who prefer both of the above extremes; MetalFatigue tells me that they correspond to the "Dramatist" and "Gamist" styles of the rgfa Threefold Model. Myself, I prefer a hybrid approach, in which most events are resolved through objective mechanics, but where the occasional tweak or handwave is used to move things in a more entertaining direction if they cease to be enjoyable. --Toram