ExaltedNobilis/NotePad
Notes
New Miracle (Word?) Chart here. Thoughts on that:
- Different types of actions can be made as parametric add-ons to "basic" actions.
- Some effects fall under Domain and some under Aspect. Examine a Charm tree.
Analysis of Charms/WillowsInfernalMelee (because I wrote it and I know it well:
- Thrashing Dragon Strike: Do an action well.
- Labyrinth of Disharmony: Continuous improvement of action.
- Crystal Razor Edge: An attack hurts more.
- Unwinding Soul Blow: Spiritual attack.
- Uncounted Years Shriek / Fury of the Name: Extra actions.
- Iron Pillar Block / Defense Against the Moon / Constellation of Safety: Reflexive defense.
- Cage of Wings: Persistent defense.
- Emerald Soul Defense: Perfect physical defense.
- Fundamental Deflection: Doublethinking, generalized defense.
- Scorpion's Tail Strike: Counterattack.
- Crab Has Two Pincers: Defense and counter.
- Universal Centipede Dance: Persistent counter.
- Vermillion Iron Harmony: Multiple counter.
- Writhing Discontented Blade: Transforming a tool.
- Bronze Treachery Block: Transforming the tool of another.
- Dozen-Fingered Harpist Grip: Doing something really weird.
Need to be able to systematically represent all of these as miracles of Melee.
Comments
Looks interesting, willows. I was actually thinking of trying to do something like this myself, but I've never actually had a chance to play Nobilis, and I figured that the lack of a central concept (Treachery, Strife, etc...) for each Exalt would impede the translation of the miracle system.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that you're probably going to have to muck around w/ the Nobilis system a bit to get it to work without Estates, and that I wish you luck.
Thanks, Alec. - willows
I'm with Alec. You're sticking to the Nobilis formula too much and breaking Exalted's aesthetic to fit it. What does an Exalted's Caste mean? It's not the same as Domain. In my mind, it should cover Caste abilities, Caste-related Anima effects, Caste associations, Caste-related Charms (or those based on Caste-related abilities), and other things that are related to one's Caste. If it doesn't do that then why call it "Caste" at all? You need new Miracle Charts. They might work for Sorcery and other magical abilities/martial arts, but not for things like Caste and Anima. And the system shouldn't be based around "Miracles." The Exalted don't perform Miracles. What do they do? Well, I'd say "Charms" except that already has a different meaning. "Feats" sounds too D&Dish. The system measures them in "Actions," which is functional, but not poetic.
All in all, if your stated goal is to play Exalted with the Nobilis system, it's the system that has to bend to fit the setting. If you're trying to play Nobilis with Exalted flavor, then bend the aesthetic all you want to fit what the system was created for. But Nobilis wasn't made to run Exalted, so you're going to have to change one or the other. Just my advice.
You're right, and after getting some sleep I figured out how I could accomplish something more elegant here. It's still breaking the Exalted aesthetic a bit, and that's not entirely undesirable to me; I'm targeting a hybrid result. I'm tossing some new miracle charts up at the top of theExaltedNobilis/NotePad. - willows
This's a cool idea. I like it. I just wonder, why is everything equivalent to Aspect? I mean, Caste has little to do with Aspect when you already have an Aspect-equivalent.\\ Like the idea, though.\\ ~*~Braydz~*~
Everything is equivalent to Aspect because Exats don't do Domain, or Realm, in any sensical way, and they're differentiated by the depth and color of their powers, not the metaphysical nature of them. Arguably, Mien is a different kind of thing, because it is capable of covering mortal interaction; I am considering whether to give Mien stunts built-in areas of effect. - willows
See, I think Exalted DO do Domain equivalents in their Charms and Sorcery. Not everything is based on a physical idiom like Aspect. When an Exalted's shadow gains a will of its own and extra limbs (or whatever) that's not an Aspect-equivalent. It's a Lesser Change of Shadow. Your problem is going to be trying to merge the tables for Aspect and Domain/Realm together, though. My solution: ditch the Nobilis charts completely. Use them as guidelines, but Exalted doesn't work that way. Attribute charts? Hah! ExaltedNobilis should have Attribute TREES. Just consider the possibilities... :)
I don't think you need to throw out all of the great crunchy material that Exalted has to offer, either. What if each character started out with a blank Stunt Tree, with various branches and things possible. Then, they could each fill in their Tree with certain Charms, Abilities, Anima Effects, Sorcery Spells, etc. So certain characters would have a Stunt at Level 1 (trunk) and some would have it at Level 3 (a second-tier branch), based on how good they were in it. And, with experience, you could shuffle things around on your Tree, if you liked. So then, to decide how much Essence you needed to spend on a given Stunt, you'd find it's place on the Tree and count how many steps it was from the base. Charm trees could then be grafted onto personal charts, with certain abilities required before others.
In any case, this is just one direction you could go in. If you'd rather do something else, I may develop a varient that goes more in this direction.
Ah, you make a good point. Anyway, I don't totally like the idea of trees as such, since I'm aiming at something lighter, but you're right about the need for new miracles. - willows
Okay, ditch Miracle Trees. What about a general effect chart like this...
- 0 - Normal
- 1 - Expert
- 2 - Legendary
- 3 - Improbable
- 4 - Astounding
- 5 - Impossible
- 6 - Awesome
- 7 - Anything
Maybe expand it out so it goes up to 9 or 10, I don't know. So it ends up serving just as a general measure of Difficulty, just like in the Storyteller System. You tell the Storyteller that you're using Emerald Soul Defense to do X, and the Storyteller gives you a Difficulty from 1-9, say 5. Now, you have Melee 3, so you spend two points of Essence to pull off the Stunt.
Maybe you need a list of Associations to go with each Attribute or Ability, which will allow for individual styles as well as limitations on what can be done. So, if you wanted your character to be able to pull of Brawl Stunts that involved giving his shadow a personality and causing it to grow extra arms, you would need to have the Association "Shadow" attached to Brawl, just like Specialties. So you might take Brawl (Shadow, Black Roses, Smoke) and any supernatural effects (Charms, basically) that you pulled off with Brawl, thing that weren't just "I punch him with the strength of 10 elephants," had to be based on one of the Associations. This might be a way of combining Aspect and Domain driven effects.
So the player declares, "Black roses sprout from between my fingers and wrap around my fists. The thorns dig into the flesh and bring my dark, corrosive blood to the surface. I charge forward to batter my enemies with spines and black crimson, turning aside their weapons and boring straight through their armor." In other words, they're doing a Brawl Stunt that allows them to ignore/destroy armor and allows them to block weapons with their hands. The Storyteller then assigns them a difficulty and the opponents react as they will. Over time, the player could give a name to this effect, "Blood Rose Battering," and wouldn't have to describe it each time. They could just say, "I'm going to use Blood Rose Battering Technique" and the Storyteller would already have an established Difficulty (though they could alter it based on situation, if the enemy was wearing Soulsteel armor, for example).
I like that idea a good deal. What you seem to be aiming at is a structured way that you can create difficulty levels in such a way that one's investment in an Ability roughly predicts the effects he has access to, as though he has bought an entire Charm tree but his Ability caps what Charms he can actually use, if I'm not mistaken.
So you can make some predictions from this:
Sidereals use the Constellations as their main Associations; they can develop new, [i]global[/i] associations, analogous to the World-Shaping Artistic Vision. The Scriptures are a secondary association. I suspect you would want to make it unusually easy for Sidereals to work within association or unusualy difficult for them to work outside it, to replicate the arcane flavor of their Charms.
Dragon-Blooded have the Elements as a default association, and then each Ability has a more specfic instance of the Element. Wood Archery has "insects", for instance, while Fire Athletics has "incense", and Water Brawl has "drowning."
Etc. Stuff.
- willows
Sure. I was going to leave the specifics up to you ;)
I just think it would be a good engine and would provide a ton of leeway for specific Storytellers to tweak it. For instance, I was imaging a game where Charms were more freeform, just invented off the top of one's head like Miracles are. However, if you wanted a game that mimicked the existing Charm system more closely, you could add a penalty to freeform charms like the one I described above. Maybe players have to pay an extra 2 Essence when performing a Charm from scratch, but if they practice it and spend XP to add the Charm "Blood Rose Battering Technique" then they're assigned a default Difficulty and the penalty goes away. This would encourage clever thought beforehand, creating a set of Charms for each player based on their Attributes/Abilities (some based on Charms in the books, some invented), but would make for much less cleverness in play, since players' options would be more limited. They could still push Aspect and do craziness, but their supernatural effects would be less.
Looking at your breakdown of Infernal Melee, above, you summerize it based on WHAT the Charm does not HOW it accomplishes it. Personally, I'm all about color and I think it'd be more interesting to view Charms as simply more- or less-powerful evocations of a particular Association. So "Shun the Smiling Lady" would be a high-Difficulty stunt based on a "romance" or "love" Association. "Harmony of Blows" would be a low-Difficulty stunt based on "patterns" or "harmony." Difficulty wouldn't be about how effective a certain stunt was, it would be about how much the character was enacting their will upon Creation to make something happen. To strike someone's name from the register of those destined for love is pretty difficult. Seeing the patterns of blows in battle? Not so much.
