...Or: A complete Game in One Post?

I've been a fan of Exalted for some time, but my efforts to get into a game, or even to run a game, have been stymied time and again by the absolute ass the system, at least in regards to what Exalted purports to be.  Having tooled around with various game systems in experiments to 'recreate the Exalted style', even before I knew such a thing was possible (you know: Thousand point GURPS characters, 100th level D&D pre-epic rules... crazy fucked up shit) I have come to decide that the deviation between mortal and demigod is too wide to be Easily Handled by most conventional systems.  The games that can handled 'mortal' get bogged down by the Demigod cruft, and the Demigod games (Champions is a standout, though too math intensive for some) utterly marginalize the mortal levels.

Not that this is bad. Exalted, however, failed to recognize this and attempted to use a Mortal level game to convey it's game of Demigodery Badassitudinousness.  And I have to say that all things being equal the system is among the worst I have ever seen. I suspect you could argue that Exalted is popular in spite of itself.  

Thus: Using Spikes Patented Rethunk Technology, I have decided to pare Exalted down to the very basics... for people who own the books, like the game, but hate the system. I will not particularly attempt to salvage anything but the very format of the game.

I will retain the basic Character Sheet so I don't have to waste my time typing up boring lists of attributes and skills. We'll simply retain the ones we have.

However, as I am removing Charms from the game, we will need to adapt one basic premise of the game. Exalted seems to be fairly unique for high powered gaming (certainly from White Wolf...) in that the core attributes of the Exalts are still primarily human. Exalts are not superhumanly strong or smart or what have you, they have powers that let them do things  that let them ACT like they are stronger or smarter.  We'll toss that aside for the moment.

Now: First things first: toss aside all that you know about White Wolf rules. THis is a new game, baby! Decouple attributes from skills, get rid of dice pools, get rid of the old D10! We're tossing all that shit! HUZZAH!

Ok: First, the attributes remain rated from 1-5. Instead of how many dice that lets you roll, thats a straight modifier to a single d6 roll.  This is Demigodery, dude!

In attributes (as skills...) A 1 represents the baseline Mortal ability.  0 exists, and represents notably deficient sorts but we won't handle that, since if you really need to beat up a bed ridden cripple, why are you rolling dice anyway?

A 2 represents exceptional mortals. Bodybuilders and pro-atheletes and the like, scientists.

A 3 represents the very best of mortal ability or low demigodhood. Einstein was a 3, buddy.

A 4 is purely superhuman demigod badassery. A 4 strength picks up apple carts one handed and holds them overhead.  

A 5 Strength represents the guy that, every so often, you ask to lift up a mountain. And he does it.

Skills work pretty much the same and are rolled in place of attributes (with two exceptions...).  Someone without a skills (say: melee) can roll the linked attribute at -1, meaning most untrained mortals don't really rate at all in a fight.  Conversely, a Skill can sub for an attribute in a test where applicable at -1 as well. That is a guy with a strength of 1 but a melee of 3 can use his melee -1 in place of strength to hurt you.  A super dodgemonkey god of dodging (dodge 5) may only have a stamina of 1, but he stiill 'soaks' like he's got a four... he's just that dodgy.

Charms: Don't exist. Sorry. However: With an Attribute of 3+ or a skill of 3+ the player may attempt 'Stunts' that mimic charms that do not relate directly to dice rolls.

Virtues: Discarded as unnecessary. However: Players should create an 'epic flaw' for their character. These do not have to be related to the old virtues. Mythological examples include Hercules blinding rages, Cuchulain's taboos about hospitality and eating dog, Gilgamesh's fear of death...   Flaws can either be roleplayed (voluntary behavior from the player) or imposed but represent a major weakness.  Exploited flaws remove the ability of the player to stunt or tap Essense, greatly weakening them. (for Hercules, that would be after he suffered a rage...)

Willpower: reduced to a 1-5 scale.  Willpower is determined exclusively by freebie points (starting at 1 at character creation).

Backgrounds: Essentially unchanged except that they can now use their rating as a roll against. More forthcoming.

Essence: As we are Keeping the Exalted setting, starting Essence is determined by type of Exalt.

Mortals get a 0
Dragonbloods get a 1 (Also, Godbloods and Enlightened Mortals)
Sidereals get a 2      
Lunars, Solars and Abyssals get a 3.  

Note: the Lunar call is controversial, a more traditional view puts Lunars at a 2 with the Sidereals.  Its your table, do what you like.

Essence is used to pull off truly epic shit that even superduper skills and attributes can't do.   We'll leave Essence on a 1-5 rating, though we could go higher.

At rating 0 you are powerless to affect the world around you other than by brute force.  Stunts are essentially impossible for you, as is magic of any sort.

At E1: you have a tie to the fundamentals of Creation and may tap that, probably instinctively, to alter the world around you. Consider yourself supernormal, your blade my leave lambent trails of fire behind it, your fists may strike with the power of the crashing tides.  Stunts are limited in that you must keep a set theme for them.

At E2: You are aware of the mechanics behind creation and may use them to accomplish impossible things. You can still affect creation directly (as E1 stunts), but now you may also perform more complex stunts by turning the Laws of Creation to your needs.

At E3 you are no longer bound by Creation. You are a Prince of the Earth, Creation is your bitch. While you may still Stunt as the lower two levels, at this point you don't have too (note that by default, Solars Stunts are assumed to have a solar schtick/theme).  E3 Exalts may turn the Wyld into Creation, may create or destroy Deadlands or reassign minor gods. Stunts, at this level, become essentially limitless.

At E4: Aside from a power jump, the Exalt no longer needs tools to perform their greatest deeds.  The Exalt can turn Creation into Wyld and back again at whim, making reality fluid.

At E5: again, a power jump, but Creation becomes entirely malleable at this point.  This level of power is Primordial, the ability to scour creation of entire concepts, or to create entire new laws for Reality.

Using Essence: it is not merely a decription of HOW MUCH you can do, but also provides a mechanical benefit. Provided the Exalt is willing to tap their Essence (which will reveal their Exalted nature to everyone, making them easy to find via various means), they may add their Essence rating to their dice bonus on a comparative bonus for opposed tests.  Note that many things in creation will have 'effective essence levels', which can be used as well.  Consider anything unique enough to have its own minor God to have an essence rating equivilent to its house God. Artifacts will always have an E rating, usually fairly high, to represent their 'reality' within Creation.

Thus, if a Solar and a Dragonblood are opposing one another, and each choses to tap their essence, the Solar gets a +2 to all dice rolls against that Dragonblood (or +3 against any mortal soldiers that chose to join in). If the Dragonblood choses to play it cool, the Solar gets the +3 against him. If the Solar plays it cool, then the Dragonblood gets the bonus of +1...). Note that stunting generally means tapping your essence, and it is possible to keep your essence tap to a lower level (a Solar can chose to match the Dragonblood instead).  Note that your Essence becomes a bonus for all attempts to FIND the Exalt by magical or mundane means.

Artifacts: The rating of the device provides a pool of bonus points that can be applied to various tests. These points must be applied at the time of creation and normally can not be changed (though high essence characters could reforge devices on the fly...). Note that Wyld artifacts may be more fluid.  

Example: A Rating 5 'Hammer of the Gods' may provide a +5 strength bonus for damage tests. Even in Mortal Hands such a hammer can be used to crack  mountains apart. Of course, its comparatively unweildy. (note: stats for weapons include damage, attack and defence and may include others) And/or may include 'Stunt' powers that are predefined (no test to accomplish, no essence based limit from the character using).  

Stunts: These are the Charms of the game, more or less.  Stunts must be described and must fall within the limits of the character's essence rating. Stunts also provide bonuses to tests (as tapping Essence does) but do not suffer in comparison.  In our example above, if teh Solar does not Stunt, he still gets his +2 bonus, if he stunts he can get up to a +5. The Dragonblood can still stunt for a +1 of his own.

If we assume that 'lifting a mountain' is a difficulty 12 task, evan a +5 strength exalt can not lift a mountain (max dice total is 11), and a Mountain can be assumed to have an E3 rating (unless the GM is kind), meaning that tapping one's Exalted nature is unlikely to help unless one is a very powerful god/primordial.  However, a +3 Stunt (described as smashing the base of the mountain until its foundations/anchors to the earth were cracked and shattered....) might make it a fairly reasonable task for said solar (finding and killing the God of the Mountain to reduce it's essence to 0 makes it trivial or relieves the need for a Stunt. Depending upon the GM, that may BE the stunt....)

Stunts are the only way to accomplish 'impossible things' that can not be easily handled by simply rolling dice. Turning a written scroll into an origami bird that flys to the intended recpient? That's a stunt.   Those Stunts must be tested for, using Essence as the dice rating and the 'impossibility' of the Stunt as the difficulty.  Keeping in Theme/Schtick provides a +1 bonus, but only applies under the most rigorous definitions of the theme. Using a 'golden solar flames' descriptor does not provide a theme bonus if one is attempting to do something fire related... though it certainly sounds cool.

As a basic rule of thumb: Stunts have a difficulty of 6, modified up or down based on the GM's interpretation of how far out it is. Note: Doing a stunt for a skill or attribute you have a 4+ in provides a +1 bonus to the Stunt test.


This is rough and raw, and entirely unplaytested. Its loosely based off of a wild idea I had while sleep deprived at at the tail end of a long plane ride. Okay, a middling length plane ride.  Obviously, it could use some filling out in places. Note that I have largely left character creation alone. This is a dangerous sticking point (note too that spending freebie points on essence is verboten!), but hey! I'll never be able to make a dime off of it.

Its not entirely complete either, but I think its complete enough to get anyone interested started...

Quote from: SpikeOk: First, the attributes remain rated from 1-5. Instead of how many dice that lets you roll, thats a straight modifier to a single d6 roll.  This is Demigodery, dude!

In attributes (as skills...) A 1 represents the baseline Mortal ability.  0 exists, and represents notably deficient sorts but we won't handle that, since if you really need to beat up a bed ridden cripple, why are you rolling dice anyway?

A 2 represents exceptional mortals. Bodybuilders and pro-atheletes and the like, scientists.

A 3 represents the very best of mortal ability or low demigodhood. Einstein was a 3, buddy.

A 4 is purely superhuman demigod badassery. A 4 strength picks up apple carts one handed and holds them overhead.  

A 5 Strength represents the guy that, every so often, you ask to lift up a mountain. And he does it.

This describes the relative power scale of HeroQuest very closely: Up to 1 Mastery is the general range of your "average" person, up to 2 Masteries is the range of the highly proficient and skilled individual, up to 3 Masteries is the supernal hero, 4 Masteries for the clearly superheroic, and 5 Masteries (or more) for the godlike.

I realise that you set out to make a free-standing game for Exalted, but you might consider just making a scaled template that boils down the essence of the setting and could be applied to other games.

!i!

(P.S. Oh, hey, and I found Bruce Ferrie's HeroQuest Exalted converison notes.)

Well, I was sort of slapdash applying ideas that occured to me regarding 'exalted' levels of play to actual exalted more or less on the fly.  

I'm not sure, I had the Heroquest rules when they first came out (that 5x8 format book... where mastery was denoted by a weird fishhook symbol?) and I hated it utterly.  Partly, mostly, crap presentation more than anything else I think. Did not grok.

Unlike the Heroquest (I think?) game, the idea presented above implies a set list of attributes and skills, which I seem to recall were mostly self defined in Heroquest.

Before noticing your post I had some vague embarrassment about the OP and was thinking it would quietly die.... Ah well...

Well, carry on being embarrassed.

As for HQ, its original presentation in Hero Wars was crap.  And, admittedly, the "freeform" abilities and attributes are not to everyone's taste.  It does, however, play Exalted a treat -- totally frees you up to go batshit in a way the intended rules don't.  And by happy coincidence, its system of masteries fits to the 1-to-5 scale of Exalted very neatly.

Now I'm a little embarrassed that I've derailed your thread, when you were headed in a rather different direction.  However, it's worth noting that I've encountered many people who've found the general concept and background of Exalted intriguing and inspiring, but found the system held them back from realising it in play.  Your instincts are plainly on the right track in stripping out the excruciatingly fiddly bits and paring it down to its essential ideas.

!i!