So I followed the development and discussion of Kevin Crawford's Godbound RPG and purchased it (I had already snagged Exemplars & Eidolons), but I'm still not sold on the system. Earlier this morning, I was trolling through yon cesspool when my net snagged this small gem of discussion (https://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?791261-Using-FASERIP-for-Fantasy!). All the talk about how to do fantasy with FASERIP got me to thinking about how some individuals had (perhaps erroneously or derogatorily) described Exalted as a fantasy superhero RPG.
With the wheels turning, I began to think about as many of the tropes and rules behind Exalted and FASERIP:
- Rules for inventing and tinkering with tech - check.
- Rules for both mortals and super-powered individuals - check.
- Rules for cosmic-level powers - check.
- Rules for magic - check (sort of).
Okay, so maybe the magic part needs work (based on concerns voiced by the OP in the other thread), but I could see the other parts working, maybe with some tinkering. Has anyone tried using the old MSH/FASERIP system or its descendant, G-Core, for Exalted-style games? If so, did it work well or crash and burn miserably? What were the highlights and pitfalls of the system?
Later,
Harl
For the record, I too claim that Exalted is Fantasy Superheroes, but I do so because it has all the tropes and frankly, we need one for the market, in my opinion.
The problem with Exalted sorcery is that it's not really battle worthy, and best left to hand-waving for major effects, in my opinion.
I imagine Exalted FASERIP would work great.
BTW, if you are simply seeking a rules-light Exalted, I highly suggest the Exalted 1e Quickstart.
kschnee.xepher.net/rpg/exalted/Exalted%20Starter%20Kit.pdf
I would say you'd need to do a couple of things to get it to work.
1) You need to define new powers for each Exalt-type and Caste. Why? Power Advancement is super goddamned slow in FASERIP, Power Stunts are where you get breadth of power. So you need a power set or sets that are flexible enough to allow a number of Power Stunts, but not so broad that you step on toes. You might want to also gate Power Stunts. So if you have a Power Stunt that's supposed to emulate Iron Skin Concentration as Body Armor it might give you -3CS to your Essence Power score or something, whereas a 'higher level charm' might give you less column shifts. Just something to think about. You're not tied to the exception base of charms, but you might want the power ramp up to show the difference between Elder and New Exalts.
2) Comics, and so most superhero games, are not really big fans of smashing the status quo. Hence the difficulty of getting new powers or raising the level of your powers mechanically in many of them. Or invention rules that either go with Rube Goldberg devices that only work for the guy that made them or items that are one off things. You don't make things like the Creation Stabilizing Trade Routes (or whatever they are called) with FASERIP inventing. You make a laser gun, and then another laser gun etc. etc. You never really invent "Laser Gun Factory" or "Process to do a thing". Now a creative GM can work around that, BUT maybe rules to help out would be good. That got off on an invention tangent really quickly, but you need something like the Dominion rules in Godbound that let you mess with the status quo. Maybe it costs Karma or something. I dunno.
3) You need to re-jigger the Karma rules. What works for superheroes might not work for their more stabby Bronze Age/Wuxia/Anime inspired equivalents. There's a lot more stabbing going on than is normal for Marvel comics. you need to take that into account.
I think you could definitely make something work with some forethought.
I don't know a lot about Exalted. But I've been running FASERIP *forever* and I'd be happy to offer any advice about coverting things.
It's INSANELY easy to model nearly any scale of power in FASERIP. Michael Gray nailed some of the immediate concerns about advancement. Luckily there are some fairly straightforward means to deal with those whether it's simply lowering the costs, or removing the Karma-as-XP resource mechanic entirely and just make it separate from the Karma-system entirely. There benefit there is you can make advancement as fast/slow as you want with small numbers.
Most of the crazy combat of Exalted will be abstracted a bit heavier in FASERIP - but that shouldn't be a problem unless you just love rolling tons of dice for no particular reason. The key thing to remember about FASERIP is it's just effects and Power-Ranks. There's not a whole lot to the mechanics, so it's very elegant (and years ahead of its time given how well it scales relative to most games).
Edit: I'll read that thread today and offer some thoughts.
Fantasy Superheroes is all Exalted has ever been, only with different culture's comic books as source material.
Something as open-ended as FASERIP should allow you to play heroes, demi-gods or even gods, after all, that's what it was made for. :D
Okay read that thread. It didn't offer me anything I couldn't just talk about without having read it, heh.
Magic...
Option 1) Exalted's Charms as specific powersets. You'd have to codify each Charm as a Stunt around a Powerset and that Powerset would have a Power-rank. You could require some Charms (stunts) require sufficient rank in a given Powerset.
Option 2) You break down each "type" of Exalted's charms into established Powers within FASERIP. And list each powerset with limitations/bonuses based on the type of Exalted they are. This makes the most sense and by FAR is the easiest approach. You could make some powers universal or ban some powers from some types of Exalted altogether.
Option 3) You break down Each individual Charm down as a Power. This would give players very fine granular control of each ability. The problem here is it will require that you translate all these Charms into specific Powers and how they'll work. I'm not familiar enough with Exalted to know if each Charm even warrants it - but I don't see why not since a lot of powers in FASERIP can be totally benign unless used cleverly (hello Coloration!). You may have to find the right balance in terms of power-progression to get the right advancement pace.
Let us not forget power levels too. Terrestrials are street level super heroes that can easily take on mortals. Celestials are the powerful heroes with solars being Superman and abyssals being evil Superman.
Just to clarify things, I'm not actually looking to convert Exalted over to FASERIP with the castes and other trappings of the setting, but instead I'm just wanting to discuss how best to use FASERIP to run a game in that style. I've read a lot of the complaints about Exalted's setting and the complexity creep that's infiltrated the system at each subsequent edition, so really Creation is off the table as a setting. At this point, everything is just hypothetical.
The reason I grabbed on to FASERIP as a system is because you can have two different heroes with the same powers as the same time, but at different power levels. Additionally, the descriptor system flows quite nicely in rating things. While I'm not a fan of the color table, I can live with it. To me it's at least a bit better than Masterbook's effect value table :P
I know of at least one other company - Dreamscarred - trying to jump on the fantasy supers train with their Dawnborn project, but I haven't seen anything really advance there...
You folks have given me some things to think about when and if I decide to run with this in the future, and I thank you. :)
EDIT: Just took a look here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?496595-Dreamscarred-Press-Announces-Dawnborn-RPG-Open-Alpha) on Giants in the Playground and here (http://dreamscarred.com/topic/announcing-dawnborn/) on DSP's forums and it looks like the response from their narrow test audience was cool at best. I'm thinking it's DOA - not that I'm shedding any tears over it, as the setting pitch and choice of (allegedly "temporary") mechanics didn't help to make the game standout.
Later!
Harl
Ahhh I see.
Well then here's the rub. Balance between powerlevels in FASERIP will have to focus on itemization as well as powersets being part of some character background/school/race etc.
FASERIP does have *some* issues in dealing with "street level" characters (Daredevil) vs. Superhuman levels(Spiderman, Cap etc) and Cosmic level (like Thor) - but there are means to bridge those gaps within the system and/or with a few Rules Tweaks.
1) Itemization - As long as you're willing to put items in the game that are effectively "Powers" (and you can always decide the availability of such items accordingly) can easily give a Street-level character more than enough juice to play with the big boys. So Gauntlet of Giant Strength (Monstrous 75) will catapult your normal Hero into castle-smashing demi-god in a snap. The issue here is how powered up do you want to make the characters. In-born etc? Either way the effects are the same. You can do it naturally - like Asgardians on Earth. Or you can do it via gear (Ironman). You'll have to set your standards of economy as you see fit.
2) Karma tweaks. There are fun things that a lot of people have added to their FASERIP homebrews that I feel fill in some gaps. One of them is allowing players spend Karma to increase their effective Power or Stat for one round by +1CS (the amount varies but it should be a lot). This will allow a lot of mid-range and low-range characters effect characters of much higher scale. That breaking point is USUALLY around Incredible (40) rank. Anything higher than that is getting into big-boy territory. This is not Universal across all stats/powers mind you. The rubber hits the road specifically with Body Armor vs. Damage. People with Amazing (50) Body Armor are resistant to most terrestrial firepower short of artillery rounds or weapons made of special material. You'll have to decide on how fast/loose you want to use the Karma economy as well.
3) There is very little in terms of robustness of medieval style weaponry. They cover the basics. But I say just use power-ranks to make special stuff above and beyond. Also you should stipulate the damage values of melee weapons are standardized until your strength overtakes that damage up to the material value of a weapon. The reason why is simple - Armor piercing vs. +CS damage.
This is comicbook physics but it goes like this - an item used as a weapon will do it's material strength in damage OR the strength of the character +1 CS whichever is lower. This is why the Thing doesn't use a Louisville slugger. It would be like you swinging a Q-tip at me. The forces of his raw strength would cause the bat to destroy itself. But if you gave him a bat made of True Adamantium (Class 1000) then you're talking! Because the Thing would be hitting for Unearthly (100) (that's his Str +1 CS). With bladed weapons it's a straight damage value (which doesn't make sense by the rest of the system). What most people do is follow the lead of the FASERIP NPC's and allow those characters to do Str in Edged Damage (which can 1-shot people). But they allow the material strength of the weapon bypass the Armor value of the target up to the Strength of the wielder unless it's a red result which bypasses up to the full material strength of the blade. This is how Wolverine can do his Excellent Damage to nearly anything regardless of their crazy armor. Do *not* underestimate this rule. Edged Damage is dangerous shit in FASERIP.