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View Full Version : [Exalted] So I'm finally running this...



Swooper
2010-09-14, 10:57 AM
First things first: My players stay out. You know who you are!

Rest of post spoilered in case they wander in here.
So. I've been wanting to play Exalted properly for a couple of years now, so despite lack of experience with the system (I've played a short oneshot as a Solar sorcerer-engineer, and a dragonblood PbP that died after a couple of scenes) I eventually decided: 'what the hell, I'm going to need to run this myself' since there don't seem to be any active Exalted groups in the area. So I gathered five friends that were interested and made them create a full circle of Solars. We're doing the first session next Saturday, and I'm kind of lost...

The cast:
Dawn - Barbarian warlord guy. Has good combat skills, a daiklave and the Command background at about two dots, probably plans to found his own empire and fight the Realm head on later (historybuff, plays Civilization games). Player has no experience with ST-systems, usually plays wimpy wizards or rogues in D&D so this is a nice turnaround.
Zenith - Wandering mystic. A (so far) undefined Familiar at two or three dots, and some dots in Archery, but otherwise not much combat ability. Player has much experience with WoD, but has never played Exalted.
Twilight - All I remember about this guy is that he took Terrestrial Circle Sorcery (we created the characters about two months ago, haven't been able to start until now for various reasons). Think he has a dot or two in Command. Player has little or no experience with ST-systems, only D&D, where he loves the combat aspect much more than the roleplaying.
Night - Street urchin turned master thief. Very min-maxy stats, five dots in Archery (with an artifact bow) and some in Melee I think, as well as the rogue skillset. I expect him to optimize, he does so pretty heavily when playing D&D. The player has about the same experience with Exalted as I do, but hasn't dug through the books as much.
Eclipse - I don't remember his concept, but I know he was looking at Martial Arts and had pretty beefy social skills. Player has a lot of experience with WoD.

I've told them they're starting in the Scavenger Lands (probably near Great Forks), but not much else. The characters all seem to lean towards fighting the Realm and/or restoring the Solar deliberative, which is sort of the obvious choice for motivations after skimming through the fluff in the core book, so I will run with that and use the dragonbloods as a major antagonist faction. I personally want to use the deathlords and their abyssal servants as well. There's of course a lot of plothooks around the Scavenger Lands that I can use to get things moving. The basic outline I have in mind right now is something like this:

-One (or more?) of the dynastic houses is trying to re-establish Realm authority in the area, possibly by trying to deal with Lookshy somehow, in a desperate gamble to win the imperial throne by having Lookshy's arsenal on their side and/or looting first age ruins for artifact caches. Once their spies hear of a Solar circle operating freely so close, a full Wyld Hunt will be dispatched lest they interfere with the dragonblood's plans...
-Meanwhile, Walker In Darkness is also digging in first age ruins - he has sent a team of deathknights to infiltrate Denandsor. Should they successfully lower the city's defenses, he will look for ways to turn it into a shadowland and then there will be TWO deathlords with a strong presence in the Scavenger Lands. If the players dig into Walker's past somehow, they might find out what happened between Walker and Mask before Walker does. If they're clever, they could try to use this information to turn the two Deathlords against each other, buying Creation precious time...
-Mask of Winters is growing bored of playing diplomacy with the city-states. He is considering moving Juggernaut towards Celeren with conquest in mind. Should Walker In Darkness attack him, this plan will have to wait while he fends off Walker's minions, and at least one of them will be severely weakened after such a struggle...

Beyond this I'm pretty stuck. How do I get the players into this whole mess? I probably need to go easy on them to begin with, let them fight something so we can get used to the system and so on. I'm kind of worried about them having a bunch of soldiers around, though. I don't want to make them useless, but I also don't want to need to use entire armies to challenge them right from the start... Any suggestions here?

I'm not used to running games in published settings, and there's so much fluff to read. Feeling kind of insecure about actually using it and making it my own because I think I'll contradict something I forgot about or something. Heck, there could be fluff contradictions in the plot outline above. :smallsigh:

So, to sum it up:
-I'm running Exalted for the first time for a group who has virtually no experience with the system. Any tips or tricks with running either the system and/or the setting you can share?
-Does the plot outline above sound plausible? How can I involve the players in it and expand it?
-How can I make their small army of followers relevant but not dominating?

TheAzrael
2010-09-14, 03:51 PM
Ok i am assuming 2nd edition. For the army there are mass combats rules which is where your characters with the dots in comand will want to go. So instead of fighting just the wildhunt dragonblooded they fight them and their small army both parties stand on the same placing and the victory will feel sweeter. the are rules there for dramtic duels and the like so study it and enjoy. Now if you dont want every battle to be a mass combat give them a base of operation (that pergaps they have to defend as well so they will have to leave the army) and go for recon missions and "dungeons" that an army cant join them. If they care about their army you could suggest a highly dangerous mission where the army would safer lots of losses so they better stay behind will you deal with this ( the digsite is surrounded by wild energy and mortals could get mutated or poisonus fumes or viruses that dont affect solars etc).

I would start them facing mortals and some low spirits just to get the rules and feel exalted then introduse them to the dragonblooded and then the abysals. perhaps you could sent a Day abysal when they are fighting the DB just so you can but a hook and let them know what comes next

The story is very good though i find it hard to thing of a way one house would win against the 7 legion or even want to take that risk. You need a solid reason (perhaps one of the week houses desparate attempt (tepet after their losses?))and a viable plan that would make the risk worttaking. &th legion is very strong and has stopped a couple of invations from the realm before (when it was united more or less). Now the rest are ok (well i cant imagine mask of winder doing openly war know that he has a stonghold in creation but hey its your mask of winder :P ).

As for plot hooks I suggest telling your players to make good backrounds and describe their characters character so you know what tics them... make it somewhat personal... one character receives a scar on his face from a deathknight that mocked him. one of the army sub comander betray them (because the deathlord took his family hostages or whatever so they derect their hatraded towards the pupeter and not the puppet).

Buy lots and lots of dice. realy with exalted you could end up rolling buckets... they could have a 50 dicepool with combos/ minmaxing. helps get the battle faster. every players should have at least an oxbody tecknique and some defence charms. in exalted there is no ressarection if you die thats it defence is good :D

i will check the post later or tommorow again feel free to ask anything more and i will try to help as much as i can with the limit of my knowledge

Xefas
2010-09-14, 09:36 PM
A few things about Exalted that I've found that might help...

You know that old D&D saying about how a 5th level Wizard can destroy an entire railroaded campaign/plot just by casting Fly on everyone? That's x1,000 for Exalted. Entirely basic and weak charms can and will destroy any preconceived plot you're trying to force them to follow. The good thing, though, is that since Exalted is such a well-defined setting already, you don't need a preconceived plot. They make Motivations, you throw them in the world, and they'll get stuff done and have fun doing it. Solars are all about conquering every obstacle in their way, and truly, the players are given the tools to overcome any possible obstacle within the setting given enough time and thought.

So, in short, don't DM like you would something like D&D. If there's a mountain range, a demon army, and the First and Forsaken Lion riding a Hellstrider crafted from the burning husk of Ligier himself between the players and what they want to do, and a peaceful meadow between them and your plot, it's just as easier for them to go either way.

Don't listen to the Core Rulebook when it says "Thou Shalt Always Choose Ox-Body Technique!" Ox-Body is a terrible charm. What it should really say is "Thou Shalt Always Choose Seven Shadow Evasion!"

What I like to do is just give one free Ox-Body to everyone per point of Stamina they have. Ox-Body is weak, and even if it weren't, it would just be a charm-tax, rather than an interesting choice.

On that subject, I also like to give out a few free First Excellencies, but that's not really as big a deal.

A major mistake I see/hear/read a lot of first-time Exalted GMs make is to use too many Exalts. There are about 10,000 Dragonbloods, 150 Solars, 100 Abyssals, 50 Green Sun Princes, 300 Lunars, 100 Sidereals, and a non-committal-yet-still-small amount of Alchemicals.

Creation is big. At least 1.5x as big as Earth. I'm not sure on the exact dimensions, but that's a guess from me (it *is* bigger than Earth though, no doubt). And then factor in Malfeas, the Underworld, Yu-Shan, and the Wyld (which are, if I'm not mistaken, in order, the size of the Realm, the size of Creation, the size of the Realm, and infinity).

The Game World is friggin' big. You should not run into Exalts all that often. Make them big deals. For other supernatural opponents, use minor gods, demons, godbloods, fairfolk, necrotech creations, etc. Having every challenge a matter of Abyssal 'this' or Abyssal *that* kind of cheapens how epic and rare Exaltation is supposed to be.

Don't worry if you're not 100% on the fluff. Or hell, even if you're not 100% on the mechanics. The #1 thing - Do Not Open a Book After Play Starts. Don't know? Make **** up on the fly and pretend you know. Look it up after the game, and if you were wrong about a mechanic, then just take note for the future, and if you were wrong about a bit of fluff, who gives a damn? It's your game world and it can be as different as you want.

Swooper
2010-09-14, 10:34 PM
Ok i am assuming 2nd edition.
Correct! Forgot to mention it in the OP.

For the army there are mass combats rules which is where your characters with the dots in comand will want to go. So instead of fighting just the wildhunt dragonblooded they fight them and their small army both parties stand on the same placing and the victory will feel sweeter. the are rules there for dramtic duels and the like so study it and enjoy.
Yeah... I suppose I will have to learn the mass combat rules. Would have preferred to save them for later, when I'm at least used to the regular combat rules, but oh well...

Now if you dont want every battle to be a mass combat give them a base of operation (that pergaps they have to defend as well so they will have to leave the army) and go for recon missions and "dungeons" that an army cant join them. If they care about their army you could suggest a highly dangerous mission where the army would safer lots of losses so they better stay behind will you deal with this ( the digsite is surrounded by wild energy and mortals could get mutated or poisonus fumes or viruses that dont affect solars etc).
Excellent, this is exactly the kind of advice I was hoping for. *takes notes*

You know that old D&D saying about how a 5th level Wizard can destroy an entire railroaded campaign/plot just by casting Fly on everyone? That's x1,000 for Exalted. Entirely basic and weak charms can and will destroy any preconceived plot you're trying to force them to follow. The good thing, though, is that since Exalted is such a well-defined setting already, you don't need a preconceived plot. They make Motivations, you throw them in the world, and they'll get stuff done and have fun doing it. Solars are all about conquering every obstacle in their way, and truly, the players are given the tools to overcome any possible obstacle within the setting given enough time and thought.

So, in short, don't DM like you would something like D&D. If there's a mountain range, a demon army, and the First and Forsaken Lion riding a Hellstrider crafted from the burning husk of Ligier himself between the players and what they want to do, and a peaceful meadow between them and your plot, it's just as easier for them to go either way.
Yeah, I kind of expect this to happen. You'll note that my "plot" takes the form of "this is what's happening in the general area, what are you going to do about it?". I'm not a railroady DM ST anyway, so I'm mostly just excited about what they're going to do to mess things up! :smallsmile:


Don't listen to the Core Rulebook when it says "Thou Shalt Always Choose Ox-Body Technique!" Ox-Body is a terrible charm. What it should really say is "Thou Shalt Always Choose Seven Shadow Evasion!"

What I like to do is just give one free Ox-Body to everyone per point of Stamina they have. Ox-Body is weak, and even if it weren't, it would just be a charm-tax, rather than an interesting choice.
The Dragonblooded game I played in had the houserule: "Everyone gets a number of -2 Health Levels equal to their permanent Essence dots." I kind of approve of it, because I'm with you on how giving everyone low health and then forcing them to take a charm to make up for it is bad game design.


A major mistake I see/hear/read a lot of first-time Exalted GMs make is to use too many Exalts. There are about 10,000 Dragonbloods, 150 Solars, 100 Abyssals, 50 Green Sun Princes, 300 Lunars, 100 Sidereals, and a non-committal-yet-still-small amount of Alchemicals.

Creation is big. At least 1.5x as big as Earth. I'm not sure on the exact dimensions, but that's a guess from me (it *is* bigger than Earth though, no doubt). And then factor in Malfeas, the Underworld, Yu-Shan, and the Wyld (which are, if I'm not mistaken, in order, the size of the Realm, the size of Creation, the size of the Realm, and infinity).

The Game World is friggin' big. You should not run into Exalts all that often. Make them big deals. For other supernatural opponents, use minor gods, demons, godbloods, fairfolk, necrotech creations, etc. Having every challenge a matter of Abyssal 'this' or Abyssal *that* kind of cheapens how epic and rare Exaltation is supposed to be.
Very valid point here. I'm rather concious of this fact, but a reminder was good. Are there any particular sourcebooks I should check for stats I can use, or will the ones given in the core book be enough? I'm thinking spirits/small gods/elementals mostly, the chapter the core book has on that looks like it could use expanding.

Don't worry if you're not 100% on the fluff. Or hell, even if you're not 100% on the mechanics. The #1 thing - Do Not Open a Book After Play Starts. Don't know? Make **** up on the fly and pretend you know. Look it up after the game, and if you were wrong about a mechanic, then just take note for the future, and if you were wrong about a bit of fluff, who gives a damn? It's your game world and it can be as different as you want.
Making stuff up is a lot harder for a world I didn't create personally in a system I'm not used to, but I'll do my best! :smallbiggrin:

One thing I forgot to mention in the OP. The Twilight player mentioned he might drop out of this before it starts. If he does, I have another plot point to stick in and make it more personal for them. The Twilight caste who used to be part of their circle in the First Age? Abyssal now. And they killed him. :smallamused: Should make for a nice recurring villain.

Xefas
2010-09-15, 12:12 AM
Very valid point here. I'm rather concious of this fact, but a reminder was good. Are there any particular sourcebooks I should check for stats I can use, or will the ones given in the core book be enough? I'm thinking spirits/small gods/elementals mostly, the chapter the core book has on that looks like it could use expanding.

The Core Rulebook is probably all you need, especially if you're good at brewing new stats for things by extrapolating from the premade creatures. That said, good books to have for creature stats are the Rolls of Glorious Divinity 1&2, which detail all the charms and things to make new Gods from scratch, as well as the Compass of Celestial Directions: Malfeas if you're into lots of Demons and such.

If you like the demonic route, and want the feel of an Exalt fight without bringing out a true Exalt, the Manual of Exalted Power: Infernals has rules for Akuma. Akuma can be Exalted who have been corrupted by the power of the Primordials (so, for instance, you can have a Lunar Akuma), or they can also be just normal/heroic mortals that have been invested with Primordial essence to the point of pseudo-Exaltation. They get some charms, some essence, and some mutations, and can make for powerful (although limited and specialized) enemies.

The Manual of Exalted Power: Abyssals has rules for Necrotech, which are basically super-undead manufactured by Abyssals or Deathlords to do their bidding. You can take a normal zombie, make it smart, make it big, make it a ninja, and give it the power to Voltron with other Giant Smart Ninja Zombies. Or you can take a zombie, make it smart, turn its arms into cannons that shoot other zombies, etc. The point is that the possibilities are endless for Undead Lieutenants and such.

Scroll of Heroes gives rules for badass mortals, including Half-Gods (Godblooded), Half-Demons, Half-Fey, Half-Ghosts, and Half-Exalts. Although, be warned, Scroll of Heroes has Exalted's "Flaw" system, whereby you can take flaws to get extra starting bonus points. I don't have a problem with the flaw system, but many people do, and you'll have to decide for yourself if it's good or bad if you get the book.


One thing I forgot to mention in the OP. The Twilight player mentioned he might drop out of this before it starts. If he does, I have another plot point to stick in and make it more personal for them. The Twilight caste who used to be part of their circle in the First Age? Abyssal now. And they killed him. :smallamused: Should make for a nice recurring villain.

I like this premise.

Kyeudo
2010-09-15, 01:40 AM
Some key points that I have found helpful in running my games of Exalted (some of which others have touched on):


Whatever you thought the plot was about, you are wrong. If you think you can set things up so that your players will perform action A, they won't. You can not corral, railroad, or bottleneck Exalts.
Instead of worrying that your players aren't going to do what you want them to do, focus on the villians. They are your chance to react to what the players do. Have them adapt their master plans to account for whatever meddling your PCs do.
Expect to need to fudge stats for stuff you never had to fudge stats for before.
Don't watch health levels, watch mote pools. One swing is all it takes to kill all but the toughest of characters, so people start dying when they run out of Charm powered defenses.
Exalted has some screwy rules. House rules are almost mandetory. Make them up as you go.
If you enforce training times (a good idea if you don't want players to suddenly get more capable in between scenes of an action sequence), expect time for training to be more precious than the XP to pay for training.
Sometimes, the fluff from the book is not as awesome as the idea in your head. Err on the side of Awesome.

Swooper
2010-09-17, 11:07 PM
So, this is getting closer to being ready. Which is good, because the session is tomorrow...

The Twilight player DID drop out, meaning I can torment them with their former circle-mate gone bad. She takes the form of an Essence 5 necromancer-ninja ("She Whose Eyes Have Seen the End" - cookie if you get the reference) with considerable skill in the Hungry Ghost MA style, and she is in the service of Mask of Winters. I made her Essence 5 because that gives her access to the very fun Occult charm called Spirit Chaining Doom, which enslaves a spirit. This gives me an excuse to throw dominated road gods and stuff at them occasionally. Also, it means that they can't take her on just yet so there's more time for exposition and stuff.

House Iselsi will be the one to make the bid to Lookshy, but on behalf of their allies, House Tepet. The idea is that Lookshy supports the Roseblack to the throne. What would they gain from it? A new empress means a new diplomatic relationship, so potentially a lot.

The session will start when the riverboat they were taking to Great Forks is capsized by a hungry river dragon. Should be an interesting first fight without being too lethal. They'll have to leg it from there, where they'll run into a dominated road god. He'll be hostile, but I'll give them a chance to parlay with him somehow if they want to take that route (which might be a good idea if the river dragon manages to injure them significantly).

I'm considering a group of bandits encounter too. The idea here is to get them used to what they are and what they are perceived as: Merely something like flaring their anima or showing off the daiklave one of them has will scare the bandits off, shouting "anathema!" in terror. If they realise this, they will get some bonus XP. Or they can mop the floor with them, in which case they get no bonus XP. Of course, letting the bandits know what they are and living to tell the tale is sure to bring repercussions as well... Rumours will spread and so on. If they can find a better solution, even better. Should be entertaining in any case.

So, yeah. Any last-minute comments?

Kyeudo
2010-09-18, 12:21 AM
Anything that doesn't have Charms and lacks a large soak and/or health levels (most mortals, both human and animal) dies at the first swing of a daiklave backed by an Excellency. Do not expect a single river dragon to last long. I suggest a swarm of pirahnas instead. More blood in the water just means more keep coming.

Swooper
2010-09-18, 10:28 AM
Yeah, well, the first couple of encounters are mainly intended to show them how combat works. Also, it turns out only two of them (Dawn and Night) are going to be present for the river dragon encounter; they'll run into the Eclipse on the road likely, and the Zenith will join them probably in Great Forks (one player will be late, and one player had a last minute change of plans so he can't make it tonight).

NeoRetribution
2010-09-28, 06:15 AM
I am interested in knowing how the event turned out.

Swooper
2010-09-28, 06:52 AM
I am interested in knowing how the event turned out.
Fair enough!

Only two of them showed up (the Dawn and the Night), but I went ahead and started the game anyway, figuring they could run into the rest of the circle later. The Dawn agreed to delay his aquisition of his personal army, since none of us were thrilled to learn the mass combat rules yet.

The river dragon encounter was a bit weird, because as I figured out after the session we were doing soak all wrong. We rolled the damage dice first and subtracted soak from the result, instead of subtracting soak first and then rolling the remaining dice. This ensured that pretty much the only damage they managed to do to it was due to essence ping (the 2 minimum damage they deal for having Essence 2) and neither the dragon nor the Dawn's simhata mount managed to do any damage at all... Oh well, live and learn!

The bandits went pretty much as planned - they scared them off. We didn't get much farther because we ran out of time.

TheAzrael
2010-09-28, 08:22 AM
hehe nicely done. The soak thing I imagine made the combat long but as long as nobody died thats ok :). hm the bandits runned away? hm i wonder how long it will take for the wildhunt to find that out and then truck them :smallwink:.

Swooper
2010-09-28, 08:34 AM
Oh yes, everything will have consequences... :smallamused: