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Christ, I know. And I intend to post again today, even. Like I said, I've had these thoughts floating around for a while and I haven't done anything with them, I'm not running a game, and Exalted is getting a new edition. So, you know, whatever, man.
Also, my last mechanics post was pretty unhinged. Like, LJ got an idea dump and it wasn't exactly coherent. This is still going to be really long. This is everything I have on Martial Arts in Exalted right now from what I want to do to exactly why I'm proposing it as a hack. It's under the cut.
This is Martial Arts Merits. (Does what it says on the tin.) They're more or less the result of a discussion Brent and I were having over a year ago about what shape martial arts should take in a nExalted game - that is, Exalted using nWoD rules, with most of the major splats getting mapped to a Supernal Realm and getting their powers in a Charm-like structure, mapped to Skills. Having seeing splats like Infernals and the 2nd Ed. Alchemicals since then, and since Lunars have been a thing basically forever, maybe we should revise how we allot Charms, but that's neither here nor there.
Martial Arts creates an odd design space for Exalted, because most people agree that martial arts are cool and if you have a game were wuxia is a heavy inspiration for the writers, then there need to be different schools, and that should be represented mechanically in a game as rules-complex as Exalted where Charms are already a thing. I think that it's totally understandable how martial arts came to be represented in Exalted, as Charm trees associated with Exalt splat types, but because of the system structure and how the Charms started in their representation, we ended up with a few different, fairly complicated problems.
What I'm trying to avoid is what we ended up with, which seemed like a good idea at the time. But, because MA is tied to securely to a single skill (which was even divergent from Brawl in 1E, thanks to using a hacked legacy system), MA became a super-skill. Now, realistically, custom Charms have always been available but they didn't receive the purchase and attention of MA. MA is also a skill that allowed access to non-punching people abilities by being themed as more esoteric. Furthermore, MA is the only ability outside of Occult which allows for Sorcery to allow access both outside the thematic of your Exalted splat and punching power outside of your Exalt tier. (Which was locked into the canon as early as Dragon-Blooded 1E. A really cool idea that I approve of - but also very difficult mechanically. Especially considering that DB's can get a tier up to Celestial, but Lunars and Alchemicals can't get Sidereal for reasons that are explained but frustrating.)
So, we get the Martial Arts World later on, where DBs and anathema are competing in a field, and some are using Celestial level Charms, but Sidereals can just show up with their Sidereal Styles and Solar-level combatants just show up with Solar Melee Charms and kind of screw the pooch, because no matter what you do and what kind of game you might be interested in, that's how the mechanics break down. The Martial Arts World assumes that people are all ostensibly playing on the same rough tier with a few super-moves in their back pockets and that's not part of the core theme of Exalted to begin with. I love the idea, but I guess I would have bought Weapon of the Gods or something if that's what I wanted to play (or I would have hacked Exalted to just have the one type of combat Charm, which really might not have been a bad idea from the start.)
When Brent and I sat down together to mess around with nExalted, then, we weren't even playing with the same core rules set. Mundane martial arts are already Merits, so there's our precedent. What making martial arts a merit does from the get go is allow Brawl, which is a more natural skill, to stand on its own. Martial Arts, mystical though they are, are a divergent practice. At this point, it also allows the Merit to require other skills in addition to or in lieu of Brawl. Archery, for example, Thrown, Stealth, Athletics, Occult, Lore, ect, et al. Some Exalted Martial Arts styles have already dabbled in this, but it seems that maybe more esoteric ones should have from the beginning.
Coming back to Exalted, we can have the same sort of arraignment. Martial Arts already mimics the dynamic of Sorcery; the latter is an ability tied to Occult at ranks 3, 4, and 5. It has three companion Charms that allow access and one spell. Sorcery is a broad application ability that allows access to abilities above your tier level for a few groups, and allows depth and breadth outside of your splat theme for others. Sorcery has other problems, but they're largely unrelated. Sorcery is also not available as a background or merit, but thaumaturgy is. There's our difference, but possibly our in to changing Martial Arts thematically.
It wouldn't be that difficult to change the origins of Martial Arts to something similar to the Salinian Working in the prehistory of the Exalted setting. My thoughts were that back in the day, the Incarna hardwired the Exalts with fundamental martial training they thought would jump start their ability to combat the Primordials. Just like a group of Solars and Lunars brought Necromancy back from the Neverborn, though, and a Solar learned backdoor access to Creation's principles from the demon Mara, some Sidereal or Solar learned to branch their natural martial abilities through custom Charms. In a working with the principles of Creation, Solars and Sidereals worked together to instill the ability to learn new martial techniques by observing Creation itself. The tiers are simply what's considered easy and appropriate for the Exalt tier, however, it would explain why there is a proliferation of animal and nature styles at the Celestial level.
So, I figured there'd be as many as three different Martial Arts initiation Charms based on Brawl ranking. Buying one doesn't immediately give you a school to initiate into, but probably offers a bonus to previous schools besides opening up the ability. Celestial levels might provide the same spirit-sensing abilities we're already accustomed to. Sidereal (or Supernal level?) initiation might allow one to add the Combo-OK keyword to Form-style Charms so that you can assume one in combat without being eaten alive. (Perhaps because you're so in tune with Creation that you can assume one naturally and intuitively). Terrestrial Charms, man, I dunno. Maybe it just lets you see into the spirit world. The Celestial one might let you reach out and touch 'em. Sure, that borders on Lore Charms, but hey, those Charms already existed and every single Dragon-Blooded Immaculate was already required to have them, so I'm not so sure I mind that much.
I was also thinking about just making the Form ability the initial Martial Arts ability from which other things flow. Just learning the Form allows you to say you're an initiate of the school, but without being able to take the Form, how can you grasp the mystical techniques of that school? Sure, the Form usually carries significant power that should require investment, but you've already bought at least one Charm, probably two, and all the Form will do is accentuate your existing combat abilities. The more active abilities require further investment.
Terrestrial MA would just accentuate your combat abilities. Celestial grants access to personal-level abilities that are a little outside the purview of actual combat, and Supernal would grant almost Sorcery-level changes that flow through the character themselves.
My concept for this is that, as a happy accident, Sorcery is fundamentally about changing yourself by changing the world. You can change Creation around yourself, and the ability to reach out and change alters your own perceptions. As without, so within. Martial arts changes you, and the essence comes from you, and so you gain the ability to change things outside of yourself. As within, so without. Perhaps it wasn't intentional, and it's just a happy accident. Or perhaps it's part of the design of Creation. Scholars are at odds with each other, and many deadly martial arts duels have been fought to argue one way or the other.
Also, my last mechanics post was pretty unhinged. Like, LJ got an idea dump and it wasn't exactly coherent. This is still going to be really long. This is everything I have on Martial Arts in Exalted right now from what I want to do to exactly why I'm proposing it as a hack. It's under the cut.
This is Martial Arts Merits. (Does what it says on the tin.) They're more or less the result of a discussion Brent and I were having over a year ago about what shape martial arts should take in a nExalted game - that is, Exalted using nWoD rules, with most of the major splats getting mapped to a Supernal Realm and getting their powers in a Charm-like structure, mapped to Skills. Having seeing splats like Infernals and the 2nd Ed. Alchemicals since then, and since Lunars have been a thing basically forever, maybe we should revise how we allot Charms, but that's neither here nor there.
Martial Arts creates an odd design space for Exalted, because most people agree that martial arts are cool and if you have a game were wuxia is a heavy inspiration for the writers, then there need to be different schools, and that should be represented mechanically in a game as rules-complex as Exalted where Charms are already a thing. I think that it's totally understandable how martial arts came to be represented in Exalted, as Charm trees associated with Exalt splat types, but because of the system structure and how the Charms started in their representation, we ended up with a few different, fairly complicated problems.
What I'm trying to avoid is what we ended up with, which seemed like a good idea at the time. But, because MA is tied to securely to a single skill (which was even divergent from Brawl in 1E, thanks to using a hacked legacy system), MA became a super-skill. Now, realistically, custom Charms have always been available but they didn't receive the purchase and attention of MA. MA is also a skill that allowed access to non-punching people abilities by being themed as more esoteric. Furthermore, MA is the only ability outside of Occult which allows for Sorcery to allow access both outside the thematic of your Exalted splat and punching power outside of your Exalt tier. (Which was locked into the canon as early as Dragon-Blooded 1E. A really cool idea that I approve of - but also very difficult mechanically. Especially considering that DB's can get a tier up to Celestial, but Lunars and Alchemicals can't get Sidereal for reasons that are explained but frustrating.)
So, we get the Martial Arts World later on, where DBs and anathema are competing in a field, and some are using Celestial level Charms, but Sidereals can just show up with their Sidereal Styles and Solar-level combatants just show up with Solar Melee Charms and kind of screw the pooch, because no matter what you do and what kind of game you might be interested in, that's how the mechanics break down. The Martial Arts World assumes that people are all ostensibly playing on the same rough tier with a few super-moves in their back pockets and that's not part of the core theme of Exalted to begin with. I love the idea, but I guess I would have bought Weapon of the Gods or something if that's what I wanted to play (or I would have hacked Exalted to just have the one type of combat Charm, which really might not have been a bad idea from the start.)
When Brent and I sat down together to mess around with nExalted, then, we weren't even playing with the same core rules set. Mundane martial arts are already Merits, so there's our precedent. What making martial arts a merit does from the get go is allow Brawl, which is a more natural skill, to stand on its own. Martial Arts, mystical though they are, are a divergent practice. At this point, it also allows the Merit to require other skills in addition to or in lieu of Brawl. Archery, for example, Thrown, Stealth, Athletics, Occult, Lore, ect, et al. Some Exalted Martial Arts styles have already dabbled in this, but it seems that maybe more esoteric ones should have from the beginning.
Coming back to Exalted, we can have the same sort of arraignment. Martial Arts already mimics the dynamic of Sorcery; the latter is an ability tied to Occult at ranks 3, 4, and 5. It has three companion Charms that allow access and one spell. Sorcery is a broad application ability that allows access to abilities above your tier level for a few groups, and allows depth and breadth outside of your splat theme for others. Sorcery has other problems, but they're largely unrelated. Sorcery is also not available as a background or merit, but thaumaturgy is. There's our difference, but possibly our in to changing Martial Arts thematically.
It wouldn't be that difficult to change the origins of Martial Arts to something similar to the Salinian Working in the prehistory of the Exalted setting. My thoughts were that back in the day, the Incarna hardwired the Exalts with fundamental martial training they thought would jump start their ability to combat the Primordials. Just like a group of Solars and Lunars brought Necromancy back from the Neverborn, though, and a Solar learned backdoor access to Creation's principles from the demon Mara, some Sidereal or Solar learned to branch their natural martial abilities through custom Charms. In a working with the principles of Creation, Solars and Sidereals worked together to instill the ability to learn new martial techniques by observing Creation itself. The tiers are simply what's considered easy and appropriate for the Exalt tier, however, it would explain why there is a proliferation of animal and nature styles at the Celestial level.
So, I figured there'd be as many as three different Martial Arts initiation Charms based on Brawl ranking. Buying one doesn't immediately give you a school to initiate into, but probably offers a bonus to previous schools besides opening up the ability. Celestial levels might provide the same spirit-sensing abilities we're already accustomed to. Sidereal (or Supernal level?) initiation might allow one to add the Combo-OK keyword to Form-style Charms so that you can assume one in combat without being eaten alive. (Perhaps because you're so in tune with Creation that you can assume one naturally and intuitively). Terrestrial Charms, man, I dunno. Maybe it just lets you see into the spirit world. The Celestial one might let you reach out and touch 'em. Sure, that borders on Lore Charms, but hey, those Charms already existed and every single Dragon-Blooded Immaculate was already required to have them, so I'm not so sure I mind that much.
I was also thinking about just making the Form ability the initial Martial Arts ability from which other things flow. Just learning the Form allows you to say you're an initiate of the school, but without being able to take the Form, how can you grasp the mystical techniques of that school? Sure, the Form usually carries significant power that should require investment, but you've already bought at least one Charm, probably two, and all the Form will do is accentuate your existing combat abilities. The more active abilities require further investment.
Terrestrial MA would just accentuate your combat abilities. Celestial grants access to personal-level abilities that are a little outside the purview of actual combat, and Supernal would grant almost Sorcery-level changes that flow through the character themselves.
My concept for this is that, as a happy accident, Sorcery is fundamentally about changing yourself by changing the world. You can change Creation around yourself, and the ability to reach out and change alters your own perceptions. As without, so within. Martial arts changes you, and the essence comes from you, and so you gain the ability to change things outside of yourself. As within, so without. Perhaps it wasn't intentional, and it's just a happy accident. Or perhaps it's part of the design of Creation. Scholars are at odds with each other, and many deadly martial arts duels have been fought to argue one way or the other.
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