Running an Exalted game - how do you do antagonists?

[CactusAir]

One thing I like about D&D is the monster manual. All these nice potential antagonists gathered in one easily perusable place.


Exalted is not so helpful. Gods and spirits are scattered all over the various books (and are a pain to track down, given the lack of a functional online searchable index that i have been able to find), and they few sample Exalts you get are almost all terribly built and/or stated as chargen characters, even when that makes zero sense.


So guys, if you don't want to spend hours and hours custom building each antagonist (tried that with D&D, realized it was too much work for too little utility, fast), what do you do?

 

[Shining Lotus Sage]

I ignore the crunch almost entirely and focus my efforts on the personalities, intimacies, motivations, virtues, and backgrounds they should have. I select a few domains of competence, plus an Everything Else domain, and assign dice pools and autosux to those, rather than to specific attributes and abilities. If they're likely to get into combat AND an Exalt, I'll pick a handful of characteristic charms, then assume whatever fiat powers the encounter needs, chalking those up to gear and favors-owed. If they're something fundamentally non-human, I won't even refer to the listed charms.


This approach only really works because I encourage my players to create tons of custom material, though. So there's precedent, and they don't go in expecting to know everything that might be thrown at them. As an additional bonus, this also makes the 2.5 Twilightoid anima power much more useful.

 

[The Dark Wizard]

I found making antagonists the most annoying part of Exalted 2.5.


I can't offer any real recommendations or suggestions, it got to the point where I just started fluffing them.

 

[Seeker of the End]

For me personally, I ignore the crunch entirely. I essentially set up an antagonist, think up of what he can do that is actually possible in-game, and wing it.


You build an antagonist personality and motivations first. Fluffing their stats (I give usually them approximately a 10-17 dice pool for most actions with extra effects) and removing reliance upon the book allows stuff to flow much more easily. Think of them as NPCs, as in autonomous beings, rather than a PC which is basically a puppet.

 

[Skari-dono]

I think Shining Lotus Sage got a pretty good idea. Unfortunately, I enjoy doing the crunchy bit so much that I tend to spend hours setting them up. I think White Wolf in general is pretty bad at providing antagonists and tends to just scatter them all over the place or provide horrible stats. Characters who are supposed to be physically challenging tend to lack in the ability to hit anything and are ridiculously easy to hit, as opposed to PCs who focus on dealing noteworthy damage tend to hit everything and are notoriously difficult to hit (my players' characters are anyway). You can't really rely on the antagonists as they are written in the book if you intend to challenge them.


But yeah, SLS's idea sounds pretty solid and simple, so I'll suggest the same.

 

[ghoti115]

I usually spend some time trying to develop a few major NPCs who should provide some opposition or assistance to the PCs. I don't get into solid numbers for Attributes and Abilities as they shouldn't need to make a roll if I do my job as a Storyteller correctly (tell the story for what the NPCs when unopposed). I spend about an hour or so writing up two to three with very minimal stats as follows.


Social and physical combat stats (Speed, Accuracy, Damage, Rate, DDV, PDV, Hardness and Soak so they are easy to reference)


Personality (motivation and intimacies at the least, short background story up to two pages)


Charms (from the books or ones I make up)


Health levels (at least 10)


With minor NPCs, I make up their stats on the fly simply because they are usually extras and would die if an Exalted looked at them with a piercing stare. With a reoccurring NPC or one that is part of the overarching plot, I will spend the time to write up a full character sheet.

 

[Shining Lotus Sage]

Well, piercing was toned down in 2.5,so you probably want an overwhelming stare, now.

 

[The Dark Wizard]

Most games have a difference between Villians/Monsters and or Creatures.


For example in D&D, you might have a Villian or two per story arc and you don't have to constantly have to keep spending time making major NPCs because you have throw away creatures/monsters. In exalted however, you don't have any throwaway list of ceatures/monsters. Anyone who is bad is and poses a thread is most likely another humanoid/exalt. So you have to make NPCs/Villians on the level that you would make a throwaway bestiary for any other game.

 

[ghoti115]

I forgot that piercing rules were changed because I only use portions of the 2.5 rule set. I am a big fan of the text from page 261 of the core book, "You are in complete control of your game and can change any rule you want, at any time, for any reason." I don't use this to take advantage of the players, but rather to keep the story moving along and make sure that everyone is having fun.


Back to the original subject, there are a couple of books that can help which have NPCs already written up. The Scroll of Exalts is a good one that is full of a good number of Exalted NPCs including Solars, Lunars, Sidereals, Terrestrials, Abyssals, Infernals, and Alchemicals. The stats for gods, spirits, and the fair folk are scattered throughout several different books. The Glories of the Most High books and the Compass of Celestial Directions books have some example characters and useful information. If you're looking for something in particular I can dig through some of the books for information, maybe even help put it together.