[Interest/Discussion] Exalted in the World of Darkness (Also, Las Vegas)

[meikle]

&

"Do not believe what the scientists tell you. The natural history we know is a lie, a falsehood sold to us by wicked old men who would make the world a dull gray prison and protect us from the dangers inherent to freedom. They would have you believe our planet to be a lonely starship, hurtling through the void of space, barren of magic and in need of a stern hand upon the rudder."

They are mostly correct: the world is a lonely place, making its slow orbits around the sun, and desperately in need of direction.  It is not, however, a wholely natural world, and it is not devoid of magic.  Even to these nights, the undead have clawed their way into the upper echelons of society, shapeshifters prowl the countryside, and worse horrors still cling to the underbelly of society.

It is a World of Darkness; or it was, but that seems poised to change.  This very evening, a hikikomori keys the final character in his complete, unabridged translation of the Voynich Manuscript, while a punk in a hole-in-the-wall club inspires a riot that will leave a city shambles.  In the deserts of the Middle East, a field medic draws her pistol and fires a shot instinctively into the sky -- and knocks a sniper's bullet from the air.  In Chicago, a firefighters arrive on the scene of an inferno in time to find a young woman stumbling from the fire, wreathed in flame -- but she does not burn.

For millennia, they slumbered -- but tonight, the dragons wake.

...

What This Is:

What's Going On Here

This an Exalted: the Dragonblooded campaign set in modern Las Vegas for three players; players will not be first-come, first-served, but rather selected from submissions after a week or two.

Any in-game smut stuff will be done according to everyone's O/Os and will be totally optional.  I'll never force sex scenes or anything like that onto anyone unless they express to me that they want it to happen.  If people get too distracted with bedmaashing to focus on more important stuff, I reserve the right to oust them.

If You Are Interested:

Stuff You Should Tell Us

Answering these questions is important, and your answers to all of them will help me make player/character selections.

What Aspect your character concept is, as well as a brief summary of the sort of character you would like to play.

Why that character would be in or around Las Vegas, Nevada, or why they might want to return there or be drawn to the city.

How other characters might know your character (to help form a tight-knit circle without having to Meet In a Bar.)

How often you'll be able to post if you're accepted.

All Rights Reserved, etc.  Posting a character does not guarantee acceptance.  Posting a lazy concept or a concept that doesn't engage me at all will make it hard for you to get a spot.  If I find your character concept offensive (or offensively bad), I will say so. If you're curious if your concept falls under any of these umbrellas, feel free to post and ask!  My goal is not to be enigmatic about this kind of thing, just to make it clear that I have no intention of putting up with characters that won't be fun for to Storytell over.

Also appropriate: talking about the idea, and expressing what sounds fun (or what you think might be more fun) in a game like this. :D

[HairyHeretic]

Are you familiar with Scion? It might fit what you want to do quite nicely.

[meikle]

I know Scion, and I don't want to use it.

[HairyHeretic]

No worries, just thought I'd mention it to you :)

[meikle]

Sorry, just being firm about it!  I will probably looking to Scion for some mechanical inspiration (regarding things like firearms), since the system is very similar to Exalted.  Thematically, though, I feel like Exalted is closer to what I want than Scion (and I don't really like Scion, which is also a mark against it.)

[RSGAlex]

I'm interested. (I'd also suggest Aberrant for guns, but I don't quite recall how Scion did guns.)

Want I should make a character now, or wait?

[SidheLady]

Where would you like the character submission, here or over a PM?

[meikle]

I'd prefer to have your concepts posted here in the thread -- like I mentioned in the opening post, a few snippets (a basic concept, how/why the character came to be in Vegas, how they might be able to link with other characters) are preferable to a full character sheet at this point, mostly because I intend to include a few character creation house rules.  That's all under the 'stuff you should tell us' spoiler in the first post. :)

On that note, the character creation house rules, for anyone still looking, will end up looking like this (I'll add this to the OP, as well):

chargen stuff

Someone's Craft Revision

and sojiko's modified XP costs, from the official forums (a #/# designates unfavored/favored, and #~# designates costs after~during character creation.)  characters will start with 36 xp to spend on this chart instead of 18 bonus points.

* Attribute : 8/6 XPs
* Ability : 4/3 XPs
* Specialty : 2/1 XPs (1)
* Native-level Magics : 10/8 XPs (includes Charms and spells)
* Superior Magics : 12/10 XPs (CMAs, not that anyone should be starting with these)
* Essence : Rating × 8 XPs
* Virtue : 3~2 XPs
* Willpower : 3 XPs
* Backgrounds up to 3 dots : 3 XPs
* 4th and 5th dots of background : 3~4 XPs
* Combo : sum of minimums
* Other Stuff : anything missing is just the normal cost XP cost

(I'd also suggest Aberrant for guns, but I don't quite recall how Scion did guns.)

Scion's system is very similar to the Exalted system; I'd just have to add in Rates for the various types of weapons and it'd be done.

[RSGAlex]

Hopefully my perfect storm of stupid has passed (forgetting what you had in the first post, twice, and being bad with my own advice) and I can do this without messing up.

Work in Progress

Wood Aspect. Fairly nice, if not that outspoken fellow, though gaining True Power/The Blessing of the Dragons has changed that quite a bit. Really wishes that half of Fry and Laurie wasn't occupied with a med drama. And not just because he was a med student. He prides himself as something more of a prodigy now, perhaps not undeservedly.

Beta personality shifting (uncertainly) to alpha because of suddenly being superhuman.

He's back in Vegas because blood is thicker than water, or, perhaps, sap in his specific case. Some people worked over brother Rudolfo pretty bad, and he's going to make them pay. Sure, Rudolfo probably deserved at least a punch in the face (being two parts charisma and three parts party animal tends to mean you hit on the wrong people every so often) but leaving him in traction, hooked up to an IV? Way, way too fucking far.

After that... well, when you seem to trip over medical excellence, why not set up shop in some place that's got lots of people? (Being kinda close to home's a plus too)

People might know him either through family (possibly Rudolfo), because he grew up as part of a migrant worker family, or from whatever minor med school I end up using when I flesh this out more.

Aaaaand, I can post at least thrice weekly.

[meikle]

I like this!  Just like an Exalt to see they have a gift for helping people and use it to turn a profit (or maybe he's more altruistic than that?)

I will say that the concept you've posted up is one that I find interesting. :)


As an aside, I have been looking into rules for firearms.  I'm reluctant to include options which make melee or martial arts outright inferior options for the Exalted, but I also don't want firearms to be worthless.  If people have suggestions, I'd be happy to hear them.  Otherwise, I'll probably use something like this: http://exalted.xi.co.nz/wiki/ExMod/LiteDramaFirearmsSystems, possibly with the 'Perc+X' damage on the firearms reduced to just X damage.

[RSGAlex]

Well, for Terrestrials, the first thing that comes to mind is give charms used with guns a one mote surcharge, if you're concerned about firearms being too powerful.

Sadly, Dragon Blood Melee isn't something I'm too familiar with because I don't make too many DB Melee-ists. DB MA is a bit of a mixed bag of the good, the bad, and the horribly overpowered. Thrown's fun, especially for some of the Bolt related tricks you can pull with it.

[meikle]

Well, I don't want to disincentive using guns, either.  It's a tricky balance that I seek.  Basically, I want someone to be able to take any approach and not come out way behind and suffering for it, at least as far as individual weapons go.

I also seek more interest.  This is cool idea, people should be interested. :(

Alas!

[RSGAlex]

Well, at least bows have the advantage of being silent. Oh, and you might want to modify the link, as at least for me, it keeps on picking up the comma when I click on it.

And taking away the perception to damage, but I dunno, making it harder for pure mortals to dodge might be useful for guns.

Perhaps the interest problem is about infamiliarity with Terrestrials?

Or worse, people not wanting to deal with epic libidos.  :P