Atonement
We (Shreyas, Ashvin, and I) have been brainstorming about how to make the Exalted Hack more about its core principles, which I feel is like a standard indie game concern. If we want to make the game tightly focused, so it does a few things really well, how do we make the mechanics focus on those concerns? In this case, we have some amazingly cool answers. We're not there yet, but getting closer all the time.
- every scene is a Memory, either of the present age or the First
- these are collected into chains that show progress on these paths
- completed chains advance various traits
- showing either your development or an awakening to your past
- present age development is controlled by individual players
- First Age awakening is controlled by the other players
- the Great Curse tied the Solars' power to their horrible deeds
- you don't learn Charms, you remember them from the First Age
- a Solar's Charms embody the crimes they committed long ago
- Charms are inherantly VERY BAD, EVIL things
- Charms can be refined to be less evil and, eventually, neutral
- unrefined Solars cannot help but create evil everywhere they go
- evil created by refined Solars is of their own doing, not inescapable
- Solars are pressured to use Charms by a semi-"Say Yes Or Roll"
- free narration, but if they don't like it, they can use Charms
- each Charm has a number of dice associated: "Bloody Wake" 2
- Charm use is a declaration, supported by the dice rolled
- for example: "My Ship Will Endure This Tempest" 3, 7
- declarations have a strength equal to the highest number rolled
- declarations stand unless a higher number is rolled in opposition
- at the end of a scene, all dice rolled create negative consequences
- refined Charms create consequences that are not necessarily negative
- before a scene begins, players declare appropriate traits
- each involved trait adds a die to a communal pool
- this represents the potential inherant in the scene
- all dice used in the scene are drawn from this pool
- when there are no more dice, no more Charms can be used
- the dice don't have to be used at all, but they are there
Chronicle Creation goes like this:
1) Brainstorm the unthinkable glories of the First Age.
2) Ask why they are no longer.
3) Describe the flaws of the 4 Virtues that led to the Fall.
4) Extrapolate specific crimes.
5) Assign these crimes to each other, up to a certain number.
6) From your crimes, distill your Charms.
- every scene is a chance at atonement for a particular Virtue Flaw
- a step in the right direction can be made
- but also steps backwards or wasted opportunities
- Solar crimes are of hubris and pride
- Lunar crimes are of failure, debts of honor
- Terrestrial crimes are the betrayals of their ancestors
- Sideral crimes are?
- Abyssal crimes are of subserviance or something similar
- Robot crimes are?
- Fair Folk crimes are BEING ALIEN CTHULOID MONSTERS
- Demons don't have crimes, they ARE warcrimes
- every scene is a Memory, either of the present age or the First
- these are collected into chains that show progress on these paths
- completed chains advance various traits
- showing either your development or an awakening to your past
- present age development is controlled by individual players
- First Age awakening is controlled by the other players
- the Great Curse tied the Solars' power to their horrible deeds
- you don't learn Charms, you remember them from the First Age
- a Solar's Charms embody the crimes they committed long ago
- Charms are inherantly VERY BAD, EVIL things
- Charms can be refined to be less evil and, eventually, neutral
- unrefined Solars cannot help but create evil everywhere they go
- evil created by refined Solars is of their own doing, not inescapable
- Solars are pressured to use Charms by a semi-"Say Yes Or Roll"
- free narration, but if they don't like it, they can use Charms
- each Charm has a number of dice associated: "Bloody Wake" 2
- Charm use is a declaration, supported by the dice rolled
- for example: "My Ship Will Endure This Tempest" 3, 7
- declarations have a strength equal to the highest number rolled
- declarations stand unless a higher number is rolled in opposition
- at the end of a scene, all dice rolled create negative consequences
- refined Charms create consequences that are not necessarily negative
- before a scene begins, players declare appropriate traits
- each involved trait adds a die to a communal pool
- this represents the potential inherant in the scene
- all dice used in the scene are drawn from this pool
- when there are no more dice, no more Charms can be used
- the dice don't have to be used at all, but they are there
Chronicle Creation goes like this:
1) Brainstorm the unthinkable glories of the First Age.
2) Ask why they are no longer.
3) Describe the flaws of the 4 Virtues that led to the Fall.
4) Extrapolate specific crimes.
5) Assign these crimes to each other, up to a certain number.
6) From your crimes, distill your Charms.
- every scene is a chance at atonement for a particular Virtue Flaw
- a step in the right direction can be made
- but also steps backwards or wasted opportunities
- Solar crimes are of hubris and pride
- Lunar crimes are of failure, debts of honor
- Terrestrial crimes are the betrayals of their ancestors
- Sideral crimes are?
- Abyssal crimes are of subserviance or something similar
- Robot crimes are?
- Fair Folk crimes are BEING ALIEN CTHULOID MONSTERS
- Demons don't have crimes, they ARE warcrimes
posted by Jonathan Walton at 9:38 PM
4 Comments:
Sidereal crimes arise from treating people as means and not ends, or valuing abstractions more than the concrete.
They can't make an omelette without killing a lot of people.
My suggestions:
- Solar crimes are of pride & magalomania
- Sideral crimes are of hubris & complacency
I know too little about the AutoBots to help there.
I should add that this lets you keep the "superpowers == crimes" equation for Sidereals, because the key Sidereal power is their astrology, which they use to weave the fate of entire nations and peoples.
All a Sidereal has to do to shatter a city is to forget the horrors its sack will have on the inhabitants.
If it helps, Alchemical Exalted's Limit-analogue mechanic is called Clarity. It represents how detached and alien the Alchemical is becoming. As they gain Clarity they find it harder to identify with humans and see things in a more and more 'purely logical' way.
Exceptionally, they can also have Dissonance, which is similar to Clarity but manifests greater brutality, and comes from 'Void taint'. Alchemicals with Dissonance want to kill and smash stuff. (Void being the great nothingness that surrounds Autochthon and that is slowly killing him.)
Finally, just as a primer on Alchemicals: they're made in vats, and are given the distilled souls of Autochthonia's greatest heroes. As they grow in power, though, they grow in size, and at the highest levels of power they become cities.
Not sure if this will help!
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