Archived from groups: alt.games.whitewolf (
More info?)
On Fri, 25 Mar 2005 21:32:08 +1100, Hong Ooi <hong@zipworld.com.au> wrote:
>So, after a bit more than a year of talking about it, I've finally
>committed to running the Tomb of 5 Corners module on Monday.
>
>Some background: for the last 5 years, I've been playing D&D exclusively.
>The last campaign I was a player in got to 21st level, and my current game
>is at 18th. The free-wheeling, larger-than-life feel at those levels is
>what I like, and I'm figuring Exalted will give me that feel but hopefully
>with less cumbersome gameplay.
>
>Some of the other players have played Vampire previously, several years
>back. This will be my first experience of a Storyteller game though.
>
>Any hints or tips for a new Exalted GM, in particular one coming from D&D?
>I'm aware that Exalted's power level is pretty wild. That's OK; at least
>they can't buff-scry-teleport or raise dead....
Anyway, we finished an 8-hour session yesterday, going from 1 pm to 9 pm. I
took Stephenls' suggestion of expanding out the Tomb of 5 Corners module
into separate locations, one for each caste. I think this made it a lot
more interesting, and also gave more opportunities for people to bounce
around the place, off tree branches, walls, mammoth skeletons, etc.
All in all, I think everyone had a great time, even those who don't usually
like the White Wolf style. For me, it was exactly the sort of feel I've
been looking for in an RPG. We were running out of time towards the end,
but I did manage to throw in fights with some hapless bandits, flaming
zombies, ice zombies, a shapechanging demon and his (her?) blood ape
cronies, a mammoth zombie, Barrow Black (twice), and Evil Traitor Girl With
The Monstrously Long Name. I also managed to compare Nexus to Greyhawk,
mention meteor swarm, fireball, disintegrate and wall of force, and throw
in a bunch of other D&D references besides. Who says we're not all playing
the same game?
Here's what we did:
I started the game in media res, with the PCs facing off against Barrow
Black after having killed/driven off his followers. They dealt with him
easily enough, although the first couple of rounds was more like everyone
fumbling around with the system. Then Morning Fresh^W Breeze used his caste
power to burn the dead body, which I kinda forgot about (more about this
below).
The Sun chamber led off to five teleport portals, as per your suggestion.
The Dawn portal took them to a volcano in the fiery south, where they
fought the zombie ex-Kade and his seven fiery zombie followers. The Zenith
portal took them to the bigass mountain on the Blessed Isle. No fights
here, just a stone circle holding a shrine to the Unconquered Sun. The
Twilight portal took them to a mountain far in the wooded east, covered
with the biggest trees they'd ever seen. Here they fought a demon that
materialised shadowy blades from its arms Wolverine-style (I was using the
Ambitious Young Officer stats for it like SLS suggested, and he has a
daiklave), and two blood apes. The Night portal took them to a mountainous
isle in the west, and the Eclipse portal took them to a mountain far in the
frigid north.
Basically somebody made an offhand comment early on about visiting lots of
mountains, and I just ran with it. It also fit in well with the five sacred
Daoist mountains of China.
On the Eclipse leg, they met Evil Traitor Girl With The Monstrously Long
Name, riding a zombie mammoth, and her buddy, the ghost Barrow Black. The
players were a bit miffed (heh) that I forgot they'd cleansed his body the
first time round. Oh well, it put them in the right frame of mind to
thoroughly kick his ass a second time.
ETGWTMLN called for them to join her in service to the Mask of Winters. The
player running Kade decided to be a clever dick, and said "yeah, I'll do
it!" So I took him at his word.... I was basically pulling all this out of
my ass, so I just called for opposed Cha+Presence rolls, and he flubbed it
badly. Then one of the other players alerted me to the fact that her caste
power is, in fact, basically forcing people to keep their word. I think I
had an epiphany. Is that the right word? Maybe "orgasm" is a better word.
Somehow they still managed to win the day, even with their main firepower
taken out of the fight for the first few rounds. Quite amazing, but I'm not
going to question it....
A random bunch of impressions:
- Armour looks to be absolutely essential, if you want to be getting into
fights regularly. Soak 10 vs soak 1 is a huge difference, when you only
have 7-10 dots of health to play with. Given my liking for wuxia, where
only mooks wear armour, I'm not sure this is entirely a Good Thing. But I
won't worry about it for now.
- Hungry Tiger Technique is wild, especially against someone who can't
dodge. Dazzling Flare Attack is pretty crazy too.
- In terms of badassitude, I'd say that Kade and Naria (tank boy and ninja
girl) came out on top, but Morning Fresh^W Breeze wasn't far behind. With
said Hungry Tiger Technique, against well-chosen opponents, he was dishing
out almost as much damage with his longsword as Kade was with the daiklave.
Hell, he offed Barrow Black twice, and ETGWTMLN as well, so he must have
been doing something right.
- Rinan the wizard^W witch was lagging behind, due to having only one
combat spell, that takes two turns to cast, and eats up Essence like
nothing else. I think GCG said that he wanted spellcasters to be relatively
weak in combat since they have advantages elsewhere, so maybe this is by
design. Again, not entirely sure this is a Good Thing, but I won't worry
about it for now. He did manage to obliterate the bandits in the Sun
chamber by casting it down the tunnel as they charged out to engage the
party, so clearly a smart player can compensate to some extent.
- Keeping dice in reserve for dodging/parrying is really important. A
couple of times the PCs blew their entire dice pool on attacks, and left
themselves wide open for the return shot. Doing 9 damage dice to Naria with
a Crypt Bolt (finger of death, whee!) leaving her one point off dying was
great for making the players sit up and pay attention.
- The most common noncombat rolls were Str+Athletics or Dex+Athletics (for
sundry acrobatic stunts), and Perception+Awareness (spotting things). Some
way behind were Int+Lore (figure out First Age stuff), Stamina+Endurance
(withstand environmental effects) and Dex+Stealth (sneaking around). I
guess that would be a reflection on this particular adventure though,
rather than how your typical Exalted campaign might pan out.
- The generally verbose nature of charm names caused some comment, along
the lines of "that's White Wolf for you". More colourful language was also
used, which I won't repeat here.
One player also took exception to the
word "charm" itself, preferring to call them "techniques".
- Lack of any healing seemed to make a difference to how people handled the
fights, although I can't be sure. Not having a party medic is a new
experience for most of us, as is not having the safety net of resurrection.
Some questions:
- I was running the game very loosely, with not that many rolls for
acrobatic things like jumping on to tree branches, climbing up ledges, etc.
In general, when should you call for these sorts of rolls? Asking for rolls
every time seems to be penalising people for being imaginative, plus it
also gets rather tedious; but not asking for rolls also means that spending
dots on Athletics becomes wasted.
- Similarly, would jumping/climbing/tumbling/etc be considered as part of
normal movement (like in D&D), or is it a separate action that you have to
split your dice pool for? Eg if I want to jump to the next tree branch and
attack the demon standing there, would I have to make a Str+Athletics roll,
and if so, would that plus the attack count as two actions or one?
- Which charms are activated as part of an attack, and which require an
action separately? Eg we were allowing people to activate Hungry Tiger
Technique and attack in the same round. Similarly for using Golden Essence
Block to allow parrying and attacking in the same turn, without having to
split your dice pool.
- The book mentions that you can jump (Str+Athletics) yards vertically, and
twice that horizontally. Is that automatic, ie without needing a roll? Or
do you still need to make a roll, with that limit being an absolute cap on
how far you can jump regardless?
- How do you handle situations where a player describes something really
cool, but it's in a noncombat situation or there's no dice involved? Eg
when the guy running Morning Fresh^W Breeze found the ashes of his previous
body at the shrine to the Unconquered Sun, he made a prayer to the gods,
and then picked up the ashes, took them to the side of the mountain, and
scattered them to the winds. I thought this was sufficiently cool that I
awarded him two "floating" stunt dice. What would be the standard way of
handling this?
--
Hong Ooi | "COUNTERSRTIKE IS AN REAL-TIME
hong@zipworld.com.au | STRATEGY GAME!!!"
http://www.zipworld.com.au/~hong/dnd/ | -- RR
Sydney, Australia |
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