Quote from: Nexus;874930It uses levels? How about classes?

Yes to levels, no to classes (although the final product is supposed to offer both Godbound and mortal play, so in that sense it might be said to have classes).

Unlike normal D&D and its many offspring, gaining a level in Godbound requires a character to both gain experience through accomplishing their goals and spend Dominion points. Dominion is gained from doing particularly mighty deeds or the worship of mortals, and it's then spent to create permanent changes in the world (or fashion a personal paradise out of Uncreated Night, but I'm still hazy on that part of it yet). So a Godbound character can't go up in level just by punching some enemies in the face; he's gotta actually go out and do something significant to see an elevation in power.

I highly advise downloading the free beta from Kevin's Google+ site, it's completely worth it.

Powers are derived from "Words of creation" such as "Fire", "Sea", "Command", "Passion", "Endurance", "Might"

just to name a few. A Starting character gets 3 words to choose from as sort of their godish "portfolio"...

Words all have powers associated with them called "Gifts" which come in lesser and greater... Gifts are like charms, but much more powerful. The words themselves have always on constant power.. Taking the Might Word raises your Strength to 18 automatically, and gives you the ability to break or lift anything humanely possible.

Endurance raises your Con to 16 (or 18 if it's already 16) and removes your need to eat, drink, sleep, or breathe.

Some gifts have constant effects, and then better ones when you commit "Effort" to them.

Everytime you level up, you gain more Hitpoints, a few more points for Gifts or new words...your attack bonus gets better and your 3 saving throws get better.

Godbound do "Hit Dice" of damage when they attack, not hit points... Any left over Damage flows over to the next opponents..

The example given is a Godbound inflicting 4 hit dice of damage on a 1 hit dice guard, if there were 4 guards, the 3 other hit dice flow over and kill the other 3..

"Worthy opponents" those with more Hit dice than levels of the Godbound get saving throws against some of the more debilitating powers or attacks.

It's worth checking out, and as I said, it has the best tools I've seen for coming up with plots which god like characters can get involved with, as well as factions, organizations and enemies to influence, fight, or control.

At the risk of sounding like a fanboy, I will follow the previous posters and reiterate that Godbound is simply Exalted made right.

I started using the original nucleus of the system with my Exemplars and Eidolons campaign (E&E is a free booklet provided by Crawford to serve as an example for aspiring publishers of how to produce an OSR-looking product; you can still find it at DriveThruRPG). The group has since fallen apart but it was hands down one of the best GM experiences I've had... and it started before Godbound was even born. The subsequent iterations of the system just made everything better.

It's telling that a free booklet from Crawford, intended to be just a layout example, actually manages to do Exalted better than the official system. It's embarassing for the teams which developed the previous two editions, and while I've not read the pdf of the third one, from what I've read I'm 100% sure it applies even more sharply to the current ones.

Yeah when I make a comparison of Exalted to Godbound people say it is unfair.  Well yes it is unfair.  Kevin is only one man.  You shouldn't expect one man to out do a entire team that has the full backing of a company.  A self publisher who lacks 600K+ in funding should produce a lesser book than a full dedicated team that has 600K+ funding.  Yet the opposite had happen.

Quote from: Stephen Lea Sheppard;19747670Exalted, or so it has always seemed to me, has always had a solid percentage of content that's in there because fuck you. Even back in 1e, one got the feeling that a big motivator for writing it was that your Tolkien-derivative industry-dominating D&D is bad and you should feel bad.

It honestly, genuinely would not feel like Exalted to me if it weren't being sort of aggressively confrontational and defiant in a way that feels at least a tiny smidge insulting. I know whenever I include that tone in material I produce, I do it more as an affectation necessary to keep the game true to itself than out of any desire to insult the audience.

Okay, wow. Just...wow.

Are you still surprised by the attitude of those people?

It just proves that the douchebag-ery is and was there in the Devs since 1st Edition.

Look at the thread you quoted that from and take Holden's as ever super short answers...and he wonders why people read into it what they do...it's experience with your shit, idiot.
And if you, for once, seem to mean your post with no malice and/or condescension, well big surprise, no one gets it...you are the boy that has cried "Wolf!" too many times...

It is as if they don't want to sell the book.  Man if I was Rick Thomas I would fire these assholes.  They are hurting my business.  Hell if I was Paradox I would bring Exalted in house for this shit.  Do these devs even want to have a future in the RPG industry at all?

Honestly, Rich T. is as much a douchebag as the rest of them. So if that team gets fired, fire him alongside them (but then i think he is the big boss of OPP, isn't he?! So i guess we are stuck with him).

And yes, if i were Paradox, i'd pull the Exalted licence as well. Or, if not pull it outright, make it possible for other companies to show what they can do with it. That'd be an interesting experiment. For precedence look at what Fasa is doing with Earthdawn.

Quote from: Stephen Lea SheppardExalted, or so it has always seemed to me, has always had a solid percentage of content that's in there because fuck you. Even back in 1e, one got the feeling that a big motivator for writing it was that your Tolkien-derivative industry-dominating D&D is bad and you should feel bad.

It honestly, genuinely would not feel like Exalted to me if it weren't being sort of aggressively confrontational and defiant in a way that feels at least a tiny smidge insulting. I know whenever I include that tone in material I produce, I do it more as an affectation necessary to keep the game true to itself than out of any desire to insult the audience.

Quote from: Nexus;875133Okay, wow. Just...wow.

If nothing else, Stephenls is self-aware, in a way that a lot of the Pale Puppies are not.

It's just a question of whether that affected snobbery is the selling point that it used to be.

I mean, I'm a big fan of Seinfeld, but I don't think it would work now, and I know several people who loathed that show even when it was on.

JG

Quote from: Luca;874954At the risk of sounding like a fanboy, I will follow the previous posters and reiterate that Godbound is simply Exalted made right.

I started using the original nucleus of the system with my Exemplars and Eidolons campaign (E&E is a free booklet provided by Crawford to serve as an example for aspiring publishers of how to produce an OSR-looking product; you can still find it at DriveThruRPG). The group has since fallen apart but it was hands down one of the best GM experiences I've had... and it started before Godbound was even born. The subsequent iterations of the system just made everything better.

It's telling that a free booklet from Crawford, intended to be just a layout example, actually manages to do Exalted better than the official system. It's embarassing for the teams which developed the previous two editions, and while I've not read the pdf of the third one, from what I've read I'm 100% sure it applies even more sharply to the current ones.

Wow - I'll have to give godbound a look then. i'm curious to see if it lives up to the hype or not. :D

Quote from: Anglachel;875147Are you still surprised by the attitude of those people?

It just proves that the douchebag-ery is and was there in the Devs since 1st Edition.

Look at the thread you quoted that from and take Holden's as ever super short answers...and he wonders why people read into it what they do...it's experience with your shit, idiot.
And if you, for once, seem to mean your post with no malice and/or condescension, well big surprise, no one gets it...you are the boy that has cried "Wolf!" too many times...

Not surprised, more baffled I guess. By the ongoing attitude and the degree of charity and goodwill that's still extended to them.

For all the terribad rules of 3e, I do like the way it bundled motivations and virtues into intimacies. I should burrow that when running Qwixalted.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;875929For all the terribad rules of 3e, I do like the way it bundled motivations and virtues into intimacies. I should burrow that when running Qwixalted.

Yeah, the clarification and expansion of the social influence rules are a bright spot. The Sorcerous Working rules are interesting way of codifying "A wizard did it" style effects so players can attempt them too.

Quote from: James Gillen;875448If nothing else, Stephenls is self-aware, in a way that a lot of the Pale Puppies are not.

It's just a question of whether that affected snobbery is the selling point that it used to be.

I mean, I'm a big fan of Seinfeld, but I don't think it would work now, and I know several people who loathed that show even when it was on.

JG

I would be careful attributing Stephen's take on 1e's development with what 1e's development was actually like. Stephen came on in 2e's development, under John Chambers.  He developed a couple of the books I worked on, and he did it very well.  But I wrote for 1e, and I never saw or felt any kind of "fuck you" toward Tolkien-esque fantasy.  

Geoff Grabowski was very specific about how he wanted to evoke the feel of the setting -- I remember using the phrase "wizard" in text, and in my redlines he said we should rely on phrases like "savant" to do the heavy lifting, but he was also adamant you were never going to see the word "katana" in Exalted, too, and I didn't chalk that up to a hatred of Japanese fantasy.  But I went to two SimCons in a row with a bunch of the writers, and there was no secret cabal of Tolkien haters.  In fact, all the folks I wrote with were old school gamers who would gladly talk to you about D&D or RIFTS or whatever.  

In practice, after hanging out with a lot of gaming professionals, I have found that a lot of what fans think is going on inside freelancer or developers' heads exists solely in the heads of the fans.

The game had some good ideas.  Sorcery is improved, martial arts is used by everyone with exalted unlocking more features, and they got rid of the dreaded tick system.

That still doesn't fix all the horrible ideas that was left alone, or worst added in.  Most important it doesn't redeem the shit attitude of the dev team nor fix how they treated their customers.  I honestly the refunds convince Paradox to resolve these issues.