New Storyteller Starting Out

[Aasharu]

So, I managed to find some people IRL who want to play an Exalted game, and now I'm about to embark on storytelling a game, more specifically, and Abyssal game.


Speaking of, David, Matt, Joe, and Shannon, if you've somehow managed to find this forum, stop reading. Especially you, David.


Anyways, after reading through the Abyssals book, they got really excited over the idea of serving the First and Forsaken Lion, and focusing on destroying Gem. The party consists of three Abyssals and a Lunar.


My players are;


a Moonshadow who basically focuses on blood and who's motivation is to drink the blood of the Unconquered Sun,


a Day who is the Joker crossed with Ragdoll, and who wants to destroy the concept of hope from Creation,


a Dusk who just wants to kill and fight forever,


and a Full Moon werewolf, basically, who wants to destroy the silver pact and bring all Lunars to the side of the First and Forsaken Lion.


They are being assisted by FaFL's top necrosurgeon, a custom Deathknight called the Quester After Unknown Truths, called Q for short. He supplies them with any fun toys they need.


And I'm going to unleash these nutcases on an unsuspecting Gem.


Now, I've never had a chance to actually play Exalted, and was only storyteller for a very short online campaign that fell apart quite quickly, so any advice I might be able to get would be enormously helpful. General storyteller advice, and any specific advice for staging a story in Gem, or advice for having a campaign that follows FaFL.

 

[wordman]

advice for having a campaign that follows FaFL.

Go buy and read a game called My Life With Master. Even if you never play it, the game you are talking about will probably be better for it.


Ok, so, there are a number of other threads giving advice to new Storytellers, such as this one. I'll stand by my advice in that thread.


The original (1st Edition) Autochthonians book contains a chapter about the Locust Crusade (the invasion of Creation by the Autochthonians). In it, a fairly large section talks about the conquest of Gem and reactions to it. Not directly applicable, but probably useful to your story anyway.


And, of course, the South book will probably be pretty useful as well.


Off the top of my head, I suspect that reaction of the various southern gods to a bunch of Abyssals in Gem will be a lot more fun to deal with than the reaction of the citizenry.

 

[Aasharu]

OK, so, one of my players is a proud and unrepentant power gamer, always looking for ways to make things more broken, and I encourage this, since he doesn't detract from story for power, and it's fun for Exalted. He's just come up with a crazy idea - he wants to make Wraithlords, using a combination of soulsteel, bone hardened to be similar to soulsteel, the ghost of a terrestrial, and using the terrestrial's preserved heart as a power source of sorts. Sounds crazy and bizarre, but I'm willing to let it run, since it would be awesome once completed. He's also making Wraithguard, and for those that don't know, both Wraithguard and Wraithlord's are from Warhammer 40000.


Anyways, I'm not much of a rules cruncher, so once again, I'm asking for any help that can be provided. Anyone have any ideas on how to stat these beasts out? I'm thinking using warstrider rules, but I'm not sure on how well that would work out.

 

[Captain Hesperus]

OK, so, one of my players is a proud and unrepentant power gamer, always looking for ways to make things more broken, and I encourage this, since he doesn't detract from story for power, and it's fun for Exalted. He's just come up with a crazy idea - he wants to make Wraithlords, using a combination of soulsteel, bone hardened to be similar to soulsteel, the ghost of a terrestrial, and using the terrestrial's preserved heart as a power source of sorts. Sounds crazy and bizarre, but I'm willing to let it run, since it would be awesome once completed. He's also making Wraithguard, and for those that don't know, both Wraithguard and Wraithlord's are from Warhammer 40000.
Anyways, I'm not much of a rules cruncher, so once again, I'm asking for any help that can be provided. Anyone have any ideas on how to stat these beasts out? I'm thinking using warstrider rules, but I'm not sure on how well that would work out.

Look at Hellstriders from the Infernals. Extract the demon, insert demotivated ghost. Wraithlords and Wraithguards are notoriously difficult to keep on task in battle, constantly going off into their own reveries....


....I remember when this was all fields.


Captain Hesperus

 

[Aasharu]

Can't believe I didn't think of Hellstriders... thanks, I appreciate it, I'll be able to work with that.


Now, next question. This evening, I ran a combat with two Terrestrials, an Abyssal, and a Lunar, versus an essence 4 Terrestrial and ten mortals. Took over an hour. Any advice on streamlining a combat? I think part of it was just general inexperience with the system, but still, ideas?

 

[Cryoseraph]

The ability to speed up combat is the hardest thing to do in any RPG with as much effort put into combat as Exalted has. First, either know the rules back and forth as best you can, and make people agree to the GM call of a dispute, as time spent flicking through books is a big-time eater. Next, make sure people are ready on their turn. If they need a couple minutes to decide, they are not ready, they take a guard action and you'll get back to them in 3 ticks.


The battle wheel released in the First Age boxed set is a good example of how to keep track of the tick system. It's a circel broken up into 6 sections, and in each section you place the characters that go on that tick. Since the longest action is normally 6 ticks long, that would circle around completely, and any quicker actions bump it out of the original spot however many ticks forward.


Make sure you can do short math easily (successes to hit plus raw damage minus soak equals the damage roll) and have an NPCs soak available. You will like also need their soak with half-armor (piercing weapons) as there are way too many piercing weapons out there, so be ready for them.


Also for piles of mortals, give thought to a small mass combat situation. [Warning: house rules territory] Don't extend the combat to long ticks, just think about maybe making one roll for the mortals at a small bonus (10 swords are more likely to hit something than just one after all) and apply to one PC, or maybe each one dealing with the mob. Maybe +1 dice per extra person, but split between targets. Each dead mortal lowers the pluses by 1. Also give thought to more supernatural baddies. In your example, I'd quickly get into enlightened mortal Immaculate monks. Yes those get more complicated, but just stick to the basic mass combat version as above, plus add in a neat power or two per squad to add flavor and they are just as easy.


Finally, on the other side, make sure you do spend time describing cool things. Books and movies spend most of their time on fight scenes as well, but make sure its a worthwhile fight scene. The players should also be spending time on this. After all, they get bonus dice for cool stunts, so why shouldn't they?


P.S. The Wraithlord and Wraithguards sound cool. Read up on Nemissaries, a kind of ghost specializing in possessing an object. A lot of Necrotech only works if so possessed, so the Wraith-machines aren't even that broken compared to the weirder stuff. Now building it is another matter, and I hope that PC likes crafting rolls.

 

[uteck]

The only problem I see with the Writhgurads is the fact that most Terrestrials don't become ghosts, but usually move straight to reincarnation. Some do show up in the underworld, but they have the choice of staying or reincarnating, and most move on. Even the Necromancy spell that forces a ghost to form in the underworld, still allows it one chance to reincarnate. So getting ghosts of terrestrials is not going to be easy.


Did you look at the Necromancy spell Bone Stirder? Lets you summon a warstrider made from bones and other such dead parts. Making a different version should not be difficult,and why build when you can summon.


Part of the theme that I see in the underworld is that they do not create anything new, they just repeat the designs they knew when they died. Abysslas are the exception since they are not quite dead, but getting help from the Underworld can be a problem since they know the old ways are the best(only) ways. I think this applies to the Deathlords as well, since they started off as insane ghosts, then made deals with the Neverborn, which helps to explain their lack of vision and inability to adapt to new situations.

 

[magnificentmomo]

The Wraithguard thing reminded me of something I was toying with to have waiting in the wings whenever I felt they could spice up a game.


Necro-tech abominations where a still living Dragon Blood is used as a component. I was thinking if a Dragon-Bloods will is broken and possibly in their Incapacitated Health Level they are fair game for surgery and being used to construct terrible wraithguard like things, only with more Necro-tech flare.

 

[QuasiMortuus]

Also for piles of mortals, give thought to a small mass combat situation. [Warning: house rules territory] Don't extend the combat to long ticks, just think about maybe making one roll for the mortals at a small bonus (10 swords are more likely to hit something than just one after all) and apply to one PC, or maybe each one dealing with the mob. Maybe +1 dice per extra person, but split between targets. Each dead mortal lowers the pluses by 1. Also give thought to more supernatural baddies. In your example, I'd quickly get into enlightened mortal Immaculate monks. Yes those get more complicated, but just stick to the basic mass combat version as above, plus add in a neat power or two per squad to add flavor and they are just as easy.

Nifty house rule, I'll probably have to steal this for my game.