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View Full Version : Exhalted...a little help for a GM?



Exarch
2007-03-28, 04:20 PM
Greetings all.

I was recently talked into GMing a game of Exalted for two of my friends because it is a cool system, and they like it. That's fine, I've been wanting to GM a game or D&D or something fantasy for awhile, and this works fine.

However, I have a question on a few aspects of the game, and I'd like a few opinions. (a) How should I employ encounters and (b) how should I give experience?

For the encounters, should I pick up source books, or is the main rulebook enough to get by with? And for experience, I've played some VtM games where the characters leveled up far too quickly and I don't want that to happen here, but at the sametime I like my players to be strong and I don't want to gimp them.

Jade_Tarem
2007-03-28, 04:26 PM
You've managed to stumble on the age-old DMing questions. Honestly, as the master of the game you *can* generate encounters and award experience however you want. The best way to do so is something that varies from game to game and even player to player.

This is an "exalted" game. Meaning... the players are playing with the rules from the BoED, or does your spelling "exhalted" mean something else? If it's what I think it is, then your players are doing this because they want to be more than the protagonists, they want to be the good guys. You should proabably create encounters where they have to make the "right" choice out of a number of options, and award xp equivalent to an encouter at thier CR if they do so. There should also be the standard "whack the baddie" encounters once in a while, and so you could use the standard stuff for that. Roleplaying xp always gives players a warm fuzzy feeling, so be on the look out for in-depth character decisions. After that, it's really up to you. Have fun.

Edit: You may or may not want to pick up the Book of Exalted Deeds. On the one hand, it makes gaming more difficult (and many don't agree on some of the stuff that's in there), but on the other, it seems to be exactly what you need.

martyboy74
2007-03-28, 04:30 PM
It's a different system from D&D entirely. He's likely to pick up quite a few responses, however, as there seem to be quite a few fans of it on these boards.

Inyssius Tor
2007-03-28, 04:31 PM
Not the Book of Exalted Deeds. (http://www.white-wolf.com/exalted/index.php?line=intro)

EDIT: I'm not sure how applicable it is, but Jade Tarem has some good advice there.

Fax Celestis
2007-03-28, 04:32 PM
He's talking White Wolf's Exalted game, not BoED.

The best way I've found for WW games to give experience is to hand it out at the end of each session, usually about three points, five for exceptional events. I also have a personal method I use: each player has a "that's awesome" tag they can use every night. At any point during the game, they can say, "that's awesome" and hand the tag to the person who did the awesome thing. They can't hand it to themselves (or to the ST, which has been attempted before). Each tag is worth an additional XP.

Zincorium
2007-03-28, 04:37 PM
Exalted is a super-heroic system that uses white wolf's own set of d10 based rules. Personally, I think they fit better in exalted than in the other games, but that's just me.

As far as encounters go, unlike in D&D there's no need to decide which things are encounters and which aren't, just have a good set of NPCs, both hostile and friendly, available and when combat happens, it happens. There aren't a lot of just straight up monsters in exalted, pretty much every foe is going to be sentient and intelligent and they need to treat them as such or they're going to get killed despite their powers.

You are running as Solar (the default) Exalted, right? Lunar and Dragon exalted if I remember correctly are both going to be Kill On Sight if the players don't attempt to hide what they are.

As far as experience, award it by the book: one per session default, with an additional one or maybe two if they do something that you thought was really, really cool and played their characters well. Unless you play really small sessions, this should keep things reasonably balanced, because at exalted levels, increasing things costs a lot.

Exarch
2007-03-28, 04:40 PM
THanks guys.

Yeah, I realize I mispelled it...oh well. It is the White Wolf game, not the D&D one. D&D is easy, imo, compared to WW. D&D has so many nice charts and actual monster books. I havent been able to find any for WW's Exalted so far though, or WW in general.

Ravyn
2007-03-28, 09:11 PM
3 or 4 xp per session seems to be about the average. For "encounters"... it isn't near so much a "Go there and fight monsters" thing. If you're running 1E, I recommend dipping heavily on the Antagonists section in the Corebook; Games of Divinity and Creatures of the Wyld also make useful references, for spirits/demons and random creatures/omgwtf overpowered constructs respectively (Yes, I use the netspeak for a reason. You'll understand when you see the Five-Metal Shrike). It is, however, assumed that the players will spend at least as much time fighting and/or interacting with mortals and fellow Exalts--the Core will give you a pretty good idea how to fake most of this, but you'll need the fatsplats for more definite detail on anything but more Solars.

I actually find Exalted a lot easier to throw together opponents in--you can just take your individual, toss a few dots around, add a couple Charms if you need 'em, and you're good to go. Also, if at some point you need someone to design random spirits, demons, interesting NPCs, artifacts--particularly artifacts, I have a lot of inspiration with those--PM me with a basic concept and what they're meant to do (or in the case of the shinies, weilded by). I promise, you won't regret it.

Jannex
2007-03-29, 01:07 AM
In Exalted (I'm more familiar with 1E, though I doubt this has changed much if you're using 2nd), XP per session ranges from 1-5, with 3-4 being a typical award. The general rule of thumb is something like: 1 for showing up/participating, 1 for great roleplaying, 1 for succeeding in a goal, 1 for facing danger, 1 for learning something. After a couple of sessions, adjust this as you see fit, but most really worthwhile XP expenditures (Charms, Essence, Attributes) are pretty costly, so you shouldn't have to worry too much.

As far as encounters, there's no "four encounters, then sleep" formula for Exalted, the way there is for D&D, and you don't get XP based off of how many monsters you kill. If you're wondering about calibration, I'm not much help to you there because the part of GMing that I'm worst at is calibrating combat. But as far as thinking up encounters, let the storyline and the PCs' actions dictate what they run into. What sort of game will this be? If you only have the core book, I'm assuming they're going to be Solars (which is fine, but I'm of the opinion that Dragon-Blooded are made of awesome), so they might be up against spirits, demons, Abyssals, Dragon-Bloods, other Solars, etc... If you're going to send them up against other types of Exalt, you'll probably want to get the appropriate book for that type of Exalt. If you know what castes your players are going to be, or what your plotline is, that'll help us give you more detailed advice.

Dreamweaver
2007-03-29, 05:58 AM
And for experience, I've played some VtM games where the characters leveled up far too quickly and I don't want that to happen here, but at the sametime I like my players to be strong and I don't want to gimp them.

Out of curiousity, how was the experience awarded?