My Life As A Gamer: Making A Better Exalted Ruleset (For Braunstein)

Following on from yesterday's post, here's what you need out of a ruleset for Exalted:

• A core set of gameplay procedures that scale up from the individual to the institutional, and from the mortal to the cosmic. This is not optional. The characters of Exalted are those that wield power--literal and metaphorical--directly and indirectly through subordinates to get things done. A ruleset that cannot accomodate this wide and deep range of capability and challenge is unfit for purpose.
• A design that is built upon a framework of ordinary men doing ordinary things. In Exalted terms, this means the mortal men that populate Creation as well as Autocthonia and do well over 90% of the work in both peace and war. This is consistent with the setting lore; "Exalts" are just that, exemplary mortal men exalted into demigods by greater powers in some manner or another (yes, including Alchemicals, but man is that the most round-about manner in the game).
• The concept of Exaltation, therefore, is an overlay upon a framework of mortal competency. Yes, even for those who Exalt as youths (typically Terrestrials). Half-bloods, God-bloods, etc. all follow this pattern. The powers of Exalts, Gods, etc. are going to be augments on that same capacity, if not what most players would call "magic" or "spell-casting" (i.e. wielding obvious supernatural power).
• The game, therefore, must be able to seemlessly go from a handful of people exploring a nearby mystery location or dealing with a local threat all the way up to recreating the Primordial War. This means that certain paradigms of design need to be reconsidered, if not dismissed outright. It has to handle the low end, the middle, and the high end with equal aplomb- something that some engines (e.g. GURPS, HERO) are notorious for flubbing.

I suggest that the typical Class and Level design paradigm may not prove adequate for the task. In this respect, I give due credit for White Wolf's editions to attempt to stay away from it. That said, there is merit in such a design and it is the norm across all RPG media for a good reason- not just due to Cargo Cult mentality.

That reason is it fucking works.

Therefore I say that, while Class/Level may be necessary, it is also necessary that it not be done in the typical manner.

What do I mean?

Consider that the type of Exaltation is the class, and the level is what is usually marked as the Essence rating. ("I play the Bull of the North. He's a 5th level Solar Exalt.")

Consider that this is an overlay on top of a more typical class/level design. If you are familar with how D&D3.X's Deities & Demigods (and its' Forgotten Realms counterpart) worked, this will not be an alien idea to you. Gods and demigods are given classes and levels, on top of which are their abilities as (demi)gods; earlier D&D editions had similar schemes in place when they bothered to stat up such characters at all.

I foresee that there will be a significant issue in squaring the difference between the Process orientation of White Wolf's design and the Outcome orientation of many RPGs on the market. (What's that? You need that explained? Jon Mollison has your back, Anon.)

A lot of what makes Exalted interesting is in the use of Process design to make individual action beats compelling to the player, at the cost of dragging out resolution of things- and Process is terrible when you're dealing with institutional action like mass battles or anything similar.

It would be interesting to see people attempt to do this. I already have an idea of how this could work with AD&D 1st Edition, but that's for another post.