[Solar System] New Secrets Question
Eero Tuovinen:
But that doesn't tie directly into the pre-existing symbology. Compare with the notion of giving one Pool to each caste-proficiency. There are plenty of things that could be done with that, the simplest one being that you could just say that a character's caste is determined by his highest Pool at chargen.
Also, are there really separate Abilities that relate to Virtue and Essence? It's a pretty big thing in Exalted that a character using Essence also uses some natural skill - I think you have to make an ability check even with Sorcery, right? You could have Pools that do not relate to Abilities, I guess, but that'd be pretty experimental - there would have to be some explicit way of actually spending the Pool in an useful way.
I suppose that doing the caste thing makes mortals a bit tricky. Considering the genre, I could imagine just saying that mortals only have one generic Pool point, ever, no need to name the Pool. But then there are Gods, I've no idea what their Pools would be like in this scheme, them not having castes... tricky. Physical/Mental/Social has many benefits in comparison, I have to say - and I guess I can see Essence as a sort of additional Pool as well, if those are going in. Maybe it's not a problem that Essence doesn't have specific associated Abilities if the idea is that all Secrets explicitly have Essence costs. Then you'd use the natural Pools for the normal Pool stuff and the Essence Pool for paying for almost everything else.
I still don't see what I'd do with a Virtue Pool, though. Wouldn't virtues be just a bunch of Keys and Secrets, while Willpower would be an Ability... but under what Pool? Tricky, assuming you'd want to feature Willpower at all.
dindenver:
Eero,
I thought of making the Pools related to Castes.
The issues is: One of the things I am trying to "solve" by using SS is not having completely different rules for every Exalted type. Which breaks when you have Solar Exalted Pools, Lunar Exalted Pools, etc.
So, my idea for Exalted Secrets was something like this:
Secret of the Solar Exalted
Character may spend Essence or Social Pools on Social Abilities or Secrets that require Social Pool
Character Automatically gains Secret of the Great Curse at No Cost
Cost: Variable
Of course, Lunar will be Physical and Sidereal will be Mental. DBs will be able to spend one pool to aid another, even if they are not in the scene. Oh, and the idea I had for the Solar Great Curse was, they can't refresh Social Pool. Unless they have a scene where they act like a jerk.
The idea being that we can make each Exalted type "special" without having to write separate rules/pools for each one.
The Secrets Crunch HAS to be different between Solars and Lunars, etc. but maybe if we start with broad reaching pools, we can at least keep that part uniform.
Yeah, the last time we had a high-flying Exalted campaign (instead of the usual run and gun version) we had at least one of each Exalted type I think and it was fun. But it was a nightmare to GM.
As far as abilities go. I was planning on putting Sorcery/Thaumaturgy/Necromancy under Essence and putting Shaping stuff under Virtues (which fits well with the Fay).
I haven't written anything down, these are just ideas floating in my head So, if you have a better approach, let me know. It sounds like you have been thinking about it too, so maybe you have looked at it from a different perspective...
Eero Tuovinen:
I love that implementation of the Great Curse, very good. I'm not so sure of the Exalted types and their correlation with the Physical/Mental/Social trinity, seems somewhat arbitrary to me. Also, doesn't that distance the concept of Essence from the original pretty heavily, if we define Essence as the magical Pool that Solars can use to boost their social Abilities, Lunars can use to boost their physical Abilities and so on... Essence is pretty central to the setting itself, and within the setting it's a generic magical force, so it seems somewhat quirky if Solar physical Abilities can't be enchanted with it, for instance.
I'm taking this to another thread, actually, this Exalted thing deserves a topic of its own. More soon.
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