Editing Tips for Storytelling Exalted (section)

=="Just say Yes"==

Exalted tends to be a lot of fun if you run it with a positive and permissive attitude to what the characters are capable of. Players who are confident of their characters' abilities are more likely to be proactive and heroic - so think carefully before shooting them down when they want to do something. Do they want to take over a kingdom? Do they want to capture airships and fly about creation? Do they want to crash Mnemon's coronation party and steal the Scarlet Crown from her head? What's it really going to cost you to let them do it?

This isn't to say you should let them do whatever they want with no effort or chance of failure - they shouldn't necessarily be able to do such things automatically (though that's not a bad technique - if they want to conquer a kingdom, and you have no objections to it other than not particularly wanting to devote gametime to it, why not let it happen in downtime and have the players narrate a few quick scenes of their victory?). It's more to say that in this game, it's reasonable for the protagonists to try epic, legendary feats, so you should be very careful about discouraging them from doing so.

This applies explicitly to more immeadiate actions too - in fact, there's even a special rule for it - stunting. Stunting mechanically rewards players for having their characters do proactive and cool things, which should give you an idea of the mentality the game encourages by default. A common technique is to treat any actions or effects that have no real benefit other than coolness as purely stunt - so if someone wants to skip across pieces of flying debris as he moves through the crumbling fortress to strike at his enemy, there's no real reason to say he can't, or force him to make athletics rolls, since he could have achieved the same benefit (reaching the enemy) with his normal movement. Of course, stunting is not just limited to physical actions - generally, any time a player makes an effort to have his character's action be more interesting and fun for everyone through description, it's a stunt.

In general, if your players are trying to do something with real impact, at least give them a shot at it. They're playing heroes, so unless they're just being silly, they can *try* just about anything in spectacular fashion. If what they're doing has not much more impact than being fun and making the player feel good about their character, just let them do it.

If you are going to prevent players from doing something, give them a good reason why (after all, you have a good reason for doing it, right?) - you don't have to spill your secrets, but make it clear to them you're not just shafting their characters for the hell of it or disenfranchising them. Alternately, ask them what they're actually going for, and negotiate with them so everyone gets what they want: "Sorry, guys, I really need Varang as-is for something later - but do you want to take over a neighbouring kingdom instead? Harbourhead's pretty good - big army, Jade deposits - you'd have to cut a deal with Ahlat, but you'd get to do the same amount of damage to the Realm as you were going after with Varang."