AWE:ViestiFoorumille

Hello!

I'm a part of a Finnish 4 person group that is also trying to create an Exalted AW hack. It was nice to read about your hack.

My group has played 14 sessions of AW so far, and we've very much enjoyed it. We've been playing Exalted for over five years. Our motivation for hacking Exalted is pretty much the same as yours: Exalted's setting is great, but most of the system sucks. We're also trying to create a hack for Solars only, and first and foremost a hack that our group will enjoy.

Since we're playing in Finnish, we decided to write the hack fully in Finnish, to fluently use mechanics in our speech. If reading Finnish is no problem to you, here's the link: http://xcalibur.cc.tut.fi/wiki/AWE:Liikkeet

We're still quite early in the hacking though. We aim to hold our first gameplay session within a month, and most likely many of the mechanics listed below will be changed after that. We've hacked for 3 months now. Our aim is to actively play sessions and change mechanics and iterate this as long as we're having fun.

I liked your points and mechanics in the post above, and would like to hear how things have progressed.

Inspire Awe has nice options for hits, and we'll probably integrate some of them. The miss could be better though. "No-one pays much attention to you" sounds frankly quite boring, and doesn't move the story in interesting direction. Something better might be that you pull unnecessary attention to you (thus getting a powerful enemy) or cause some side effect, like creating a possibly missguided cult.

I've written below some moves or partial moves we've come up with. They will most likely change quite a lot in playtesting and most of them will not end up in the final hack. They might not be of use for your hack, but I hope they at least offer some food for thought.

Hold a Speech

When you hold a speech for a crowd, roll +Social. On a 10+, you implant the desired feeling and/or idea. On a 7-9,

• GM could offer you a hard bargain or an ugly choice
• you might get an enemy or draw unnecessary attention to yourself
• someone might ask you to promise something.
• the effect might work, but not last very long.

On a miss you make a powerful enemy, without realizing it.

I think Exalted should have different moves for violence than AW. So far my best idea is to simply use mechanic similar to Act Under Fire.

Power-up

When you power-up, describe the source of your new(-found) power. This can be for example a memory from your past or a description of the reasons for the powerful feeling. Roll ??. On success, a challenge that was earlier owerwhelming (even for you!) is now possible. 10+, all your Harm heals. 6-9, up to 3 Harm heals. On a miss, the foe responds with even bigger power-up of his own.

Reveal an Existing Preparation

Basically declare retroactively you've set something up (p. 276). This move might help playing characters with great foresight and/or wisdom.

Recall from Your Past Life

When you recall from your past live, roll +Sharp. On a 10+, you resolve a problem with your earlier incarnation's skill or knowledge. On a 7-9, you also cause problems for yourself. Miss is like Throwback, meaning you actively cause problems to yourself or your Circle and/or cause problems in your own projects. In each case, you must bring up your past lives character in action and demeanor.

Build

When you build artefacts, social networks, military unit, organizations, friendships or other relations, you might first have to get something or make sacrifices (like in workshop). GM might ask you to describe something, possibly briefly a character in this social unit. After this, roll ??. 10+ hold 2. 7-9 hold 1. On a miss the act of creating carries you away (think Great Curse). Your construction might get ready or not, and it also might have some new interesting features.

Both your and GM can use the hold for:

• When using the construct for something, the effect is especially effective or durable
• Some part in the organization shows deep respect, love, affection or devotion towards the Lawgiver or tries to emulate her

Move the Scene

When you move the scene, roll ??. On a 10+, the changed circumstances are beneficial to you. On a 7-9, it's challenging for both parties. On a miss, it's beneficial to your foe.

This is mostly here to act as reminder that this should happen (like most moves are). If you and your players already do this enough, then this move is useless.

Partial ideas: move to Raise the Stakes (for both parties).

Pray

When you pray, you chant your message. Roll ??. On a 10+, the right god appears and is gracious to you or your cause. On a 7-9, god might manifest irritated, send a representative or demand a significant promise before cooperation. On a miss nothing might appear, or the god might manifest angry, treacherous or useless.

Make an Impression works like Skinner's Hypnotic, except that the feeling from them to you is love, deep respect or deeply impressed and from you to them (on a miss) need to help, protect or save.

We'd also like to include Combos as they are described in the fluff. I'm thinking along the lines of special attacks by Servants in the Fate Zero. One mechanics might be a track that fills up when you stunt well, and when filled gives you permission to use the Combo.

We haven't also decided if we want Harm as something that PCs have in the game.

Character creation should also be different than in AW. People should choose at least Motivation and a cool fighting style, possibly backed by a move. It might also be good to list "things that I protect in Creation" and "something I aim to be very best at".

Go Aggro and Seize by Force don't work that well in Exalted. Our current version is like Act Under Fire, except with +Hard.

Also, we're giving characters Abilities. They're exactly that, passive things that enable the character to do something unnatural. For example, one Ability might be being able to use Build extremely fast or for extremely large things for one specific subset from the list.