In the past, I've tried to run a few different stories that either ended up failing due to player attrition, my own busy schedule, or deficient planning on my part. Several of these concepts, however, have stuck and I'm interesting in potentially reviving one once the holidays have run their course. I wanted to look for some feedback, however, from the community, to make sure there was interest and to see if it gave me any insight into what would be more popular.

1) Exalted - My love affair with the setting of exalted is long, torrid, and well-documented. That said, the system has inevitably rubbed me the wrong way. When I was a younger lass, I loved pouring over the books and building characters with wacky charm combos, but now, I find the mechanics more tedious than not, especially when paired with the way the system often cracks under pressure. As a result, I'd be looking to run Exalted in the Godbound rules system or, perhaps, with the Exalted Essence ruleset. I'd be looking to run the game in either the Dreaming Sea location introduced in 3e or the 100 kingdoms with an emphasis on the classic exalted, mythic adventures, and kingdom building.

• The visions press against the edges of your mind, even as you wake. Phantoms play across your gaze, and vistas of the world cast in gold haunt you like a mirage. It is worse when you sleep. You dream of a world long gone, a life when you were someone else. When you were a hero . . to some. Now, these memories of a lost life lead you to distant lands and strange companions, altogether strange yet somehow familiar. Together, you have a chance to push back at the encroaching night that seeks to swallow creation whole. You have a chance to return glory to this world. Be wary, though, that you do not repeat the mistakes of the past and fall to the same hubris and betrayal that cut you down the last time . . .

Establishing yourselves amongst the many powers that be, defending your people from those same forces, all the while reshaping the world with your mythic might . . . that would be the point. We'd start with an adventure as the group is drawn together by visions, whether of their shared past or a potential, calamitous future before setting you all loose in the larger sandbox of the region. As a result, individual character motivation would be key.

2) Godbound: Godfall - This was a game I attempted to start during my last semester, but life got busy right as I was going to begin and I realized I didn't have a strong enough premise to unite the pantheon the way I wanted. I've done more brainstorming on it, however, and I believe that I finally do.

• Fifty years ago, the voices of the gods went silent. Their temples echoed with the desperate prayers of the faithful. Their priests found their miracles guttered like so many torches in the night. Darkness fell across the lands as the wilds between civilization grew more perilous than ever. The answer seemed obvious; The gods had abandoned them. What the people did not know, however, was that their divinities had been betrayed. The halls of heaven were littered with their corpses, their divine ichor painting the walls, all while their murderer claimed the throne for themselves. Now, the traitor god mantles the throne of heaven, and slowly, their power builds. A new faith is burgeoning within the world, swelling in response to the miracles now delivered in the name of this "new" god. All is not lost, however. Fragments of divinity have fallen to earth like shooting stars and found homes within fortunate souls. Why you were chosen is a mystery, but you have inherited the godspark, and with it, the power and duty to set the world right . . . or preside over the pyre as it falls.

* * * *

So, what thoughts do people have? I'm interested in either one. I've always been drawn to the setting of exalted. Its particular pastiche of near and far-East cultures and avoidance of the traditional hallmarks of Western fantasy was always intoxicating for me. It isn't as "wide-open" as the more generic fantasy world that I'm pitching for the second, which would be your basic d&d land of gods, monsters, and adventurers.
This message was last updated by a moderator, as it was the wrong forum, at 06:19, Fri 23 Dec 2022.

Godbound tickles my fancy more though both would be of interest.

I'm interested in the Godbound game. (Perhaps "still interested" would be a better way to put it?)

Godbound

Honestly, if Exalted's mechanics hurt you that much, then just run Godbound, it's a setting I'd like to play around in myself, but nobody really seems to care for it.

In reply to Alectai (msg # 5):

While I definitely understand that perspective (I was off of exalted for a long time), I love the setting. I don't hate the mechanics, but they've required too much buy-in for any in person group I've had in the last few years, and especially for a game I'm running over rpol, I want something more lightweight. And I do love the setting . . .

Also noteworthy, I wouldn't be running Godbound's default setting anyway. While I would be taking some things from it (and I'm still dreaming of running a Killsixbilliondemons game in the system), this would be closer to a d&d setting experiencing a divine catastrophe. Basically doing what the deities and demigods/epic level books for that game never managed to do without collapsing in on themselves.

Mmm, fair enough.  Honestly, my only real dislike of Essence is having to have the backer PDF and the "Oops we goofed" sheet open at once, I do like Exalted's setting quite a lot myself!

In reply to Alectai (msg # 7):

Yeah, that's my hesitation as well. The godbound deluxe book has fairly good guidance for creating of brand exalted. I've seen other attempts to convert it in the past, including an rpg.net thread that converted most of the signature exalted into godbound stats. It seemed to work well.

Honestly, the setting is what's the biggest pull because, while something homebrewed for my godfall concept has great flexibility, I find that the lack of setting "consensus" can be a big stumbling block for online games. While the audience for an edited game of exalted like this might be smaller, people generally know what they're signing up for when it comes to setting assumptions.

In reply to Norwood (msg # 8):

I'm a...former Exalted fan, both setting and mechanics-wise. Paradoxically, some of the most awesome writing (Dreams of the First Age and Infernals) is what made the setting as a whole lose much of its thematic coherence for me, and I never really got back into it.

So yeah, do rather favor the Godfall setting personally.

In reply to Ramidel (msg # 9):

That puts it rather well, actually. I loved both of those products when they came out (Dreams less so from a mechanical perspective, and Infernals had awful fluff in places), but as time wore on, they definitely began to represent the drift in exalted's 2e that really lost me. I fell in love with the setting for its mythic heroes with a touch of anime, but it had become all magitech and transforming daystars.

For what it's worth, if I did go the exalted direction, I'd be taking the 3rd ed fluff that strips out a lot of the aspects that "demystified" the setting. I'd want the game to be more Elric, Odysseus, Conan, and Okami and less kamen rider vs. Cthulhu.