How to turn DnD players into Exaltamaniacs

A gaming group has invited me to run Exalted 2ed for them and only a couple of them had any clue about the game and what it was about.  The others are strictly D20 players.  They've played other White Wolf games namely the Old World of Darkness games, but nothing like Exalted. And like many other D20 players, they only understand the numbers.

Any ideas on how to help these guys understand Exalted without turning them off from they know and love and get them in on some epic adventuring?

What do the players enjoy? What has kept those that just play D&D, just playing D&D.

In general, you are going to be better crafting something for specific players, rather than just - "guys who are used to D&D"

I would say that one of the things to emphasise is how much stunting means they can take control.

Describe a scenario where the players are getting annoyed at the foe they fight, so they describe a stunt of knocking them so hard into the ground that they break through into a long-forgotten abandoned mineshaft beneath them. Or some other game changing effect which they are in control of...

Friendly jabs helped me out.

With my military friends, all it took was tossing the book at them and telling them to have a look.  Just the main rulebook.  The only reservation the guys and gals had after that was "Gold weapons and armor is kinda cheesy"... or "I don't want to be a good guy"... to which I responded by throwing other books at them.

If they have played high-level D&D before, an interesting way to do a "starting run" might be having them convert their high-level D&D characters to Exalted and then check out all the new nifty stuff they can do. My old d20 group were up in flames about that idea since it meant they could make their high-level dudes even more awesome; we never got around to it, but it seems like a good way to smooth them into it.

Riklurt:

If they have played high-level D&D before, an interesting way to do a "starting run" might be having them convert their high-level D&D characters to Exalted and then check out all the new nifty stuff they can do. My old d20 group were up in flames about that idea since it meant they could make their high-level dudes even more awesome; we never got around to it, but it seems like a good way to smooth them into it.

I would generally suggest the opposite, if they have gone as far as to request an intro into Exalted, playing up the similarities to D&D probaly isn't a good plan. Exalted does D&D badly, the same way that if you tried to convert starting Exalted characters into Epic level D&D characters and then play in an Exalted mindset, D&D wouldn't work...

Play to the strengths of a system, don't get them thinking in the mindset of another game while introducing them to Exalted.

Friend of mine ran an Exalted Demo in one of our open meets. I was with him helping him with the set up.

What worked best with one group of five was coaxing them to take more control. Getting them into a more interactive mood worked well. Introducing the stunt system actually draws the players in not just thinking of what they will do but how they will do it.

These guys were facing mooks. One guy skewered his opponent on a daiklaive and the Night Caste archer was going to shoot past him to get at the guy aiming for the Dawn. So he said, "I move up to Dawn here and shoot over his shoulder at the other archer." and I went, "Dude, you are Exalted. You don't hide behind this guy and shoot over his shoulder. You hop on his shoulder, jump and flip in mid-air, grin like a maniac as that poor, doomed mortal gapes at you and shoot an arrow down his throat splitting his uvula. You are awesome. Act more like it."

The group went wild with stunts. Moreso when my friend (the ST for that session) told them they can invent stuff in the scenery to add to awesomeness. That's when they started passing around the core book to understand their charms more as well.

I once tried to get my brother and his friends to give the Exalted Demo a shot and even let them look at the core rule book to try and get them interested.  Needless to say they were so entrenched in their D20 D&D that they basicly looked at all the pros and cons of the two games to make heir decision (namely all the pros of D&D and all the cons of Exalted).

Needless to say, after looking at everything, they have no interest in ever giving Exalted a chance.  They even told me that the unbalanced power-gaming nature of Exalted was more prevelent than Rifts.  My brother flatly told me that no starting character should be able to bitchslap an army in any game (if you aren't threatened by the weakest of creatures when you're starting out, the game is unbalanced in his opinion).

Long story short; I've given up in trying to convince my brother or his friends from trying anything new and different.  Hopefully one day they will mature enough to think outside their cozzy little box, but I'm not going to wait for them.

What sold my significant other:

Her former D&D group told her she couldn't be a vampire any more.  I explained to her how Abyssals work.  It didn't take much after that.  Now she has a mean little Dusk Caste with a Grand Grimscythe and severe homicidal tendencies.

I agree with Riklurt but...

SoulsteelSeverance:

What sold my significant other:

Her former D&D group told her she couldn't be a vampire any more.  I explained to her how Abyssals work.  It didn't take much after that.  Now she has a mean little Dusk Caste with a Grand Grimscythe and severe homicidal tendencies.

Exactly.




Look at the archetypes they like to play.  My friend who ended favoring Abyssals had played a Shadowknight in Everquest, Lasombra in Vampire the Masquerade, and often played jaded or nihilistic characters who were adept social manipulators (manipulating PCs and players, not merely NPCs).  I was all Bard (for masquerading, spying and giving off false info to rival guilds), Tzimisce/Setite/Gangrel/Malkavian/Tremere (cerebral transhumanist bastards who can often change appearances) and other often "support/Vizier" roles. 

Mechanics aren't a bad thing - get a gist of what they want to play and show them some charms.  Seriously.  Survival for immunity to a blazing fire?  Abyssal Melee for slaughtering soldiers?  You get their archetype, point them out and rock on.  Also throw in Martial Arts and Sorcery.  The fact that everyone gets magic to their "class" is a big change; the fact that everyone can learn some Sorcery is also a big change; and if you pick a single-Exalt type campaign, Martial Arts lets you flavor more.




And I recommend Excellencies.  When I first began, I ignored them.  Then I bought Athletics (the one to buy successes) and I was doing all sorts of crazy stunts.  You might even run an NPC companion who depicts some excellencies for stunting, who then gets killed in action.

get girls to make fun of thier small dice pools

Brettman42:

Any ideas on how to help these guys understand Exalted without turning them off from they know and love and get them in on some epic adventuring?

Well, your first mistake is assuming that Exalted is better than D&D.

The second mistake is your players are going to assume D&D is better than Exalted.


D&D and Exalted are both good games, but Exalted is also the munchkin game, which many gamers, especially experienced ones, do not like. In order to get them acclimated to Exalted, I suggest starting them out as Heroic Mortals or God-Blooded. This allows them to start off at a power level similar to their already-familiar starting point for D&D character. From there run I would run them through one to two sessions as regular mortals, being sure to include a combat and a (simple) social encounter in each session. For your third session run another combat, kick their asses completely until about halfway through, then have them Exalt. Tell them that gaining an Exaltation is like gaining a template (in this case Half-Celestial if you're going to be running a Solar game) and allow them to revel in their newfound power.

Oh, another point: if they have problems grasping the power of Exalts, tell them it is a lot like a superhero game based in a fantasy setting (which it basically is). That should help them understand the power level of Exalted in comparison to D&D.

Whenever someone calls exalted "superhero", I cringe. First time someone told me about exalted they said that and I thought I would hate it. Its not superhero in running around in tights and spandex. Its epic, legendary, and heroic. Vast difference.

If you think that the crunch is going to be a hard sell, try the fluff. I was pretty hesitant to pick up Exalted because of the complexity of the system, but after a camp-fire style retelling of the history of Creation by the ST ("In the beginning, there was primal Chaos...") I was dying to play.

Krellian:

Its epic, legendary, and heroic. Vast difference.

Which is exactly what superheroes are. Superheroes are the ancient gods of old reinvented and new ones created. The adventures of Superman, Batman, Spiderman, the X-Men, ect are legendary, heroic, and epic on a scale that Exalted does not even begin to match. Exalted does not have inter-cosmic wars (Rann vs. Thanagar, Kree vs. Skrull), trans-temporal invasions, the ability to raise the dead, the death and rebirth of magic, ect. Name a single Exalt whose death can match the emotional impact and empathy evoked by the deaths of such characters as Gwen Stacy or Barry Allen.

Superhero comics have evolved from their simplistic Golden Age roots to into the more complex social (societal and inter-team) interactions of the Silver Age, to the tarnished and flawed heroes of the Modern Age, each struggling the ethical and moral dilemma brought on by the power they wield*. The parallels and similarities between Exalts, superheroes, and epic myths of old is far greater than you seem to think.  Implying a superhero (and the genre) is some kind of shallow comedic relief running around in exotic costuming (hmm...don't Exalt's do the same thing?) does a disservice to both the Superheroic genre and Exalted's genre as well.



* As I an aside this is something that doesn't appear to receive much focus in Exalted, and in my opinion makes Exalts harder to sympathize with in general that your average superhero.

i gotta say, mercucio is on the money here for a starter game... start them as god-blooded or heroic mortals, put them through some basic paces to get their mechanics down, then kill them w/ a starting level dragon blood... and then exalt them.

but you have to include a couple losers, so the dragon blood can show off a tad before they die.  they have to get tantalized a little w/ how power works in exalted vs d&d... and once they find out they're even cooler than that... MOST d&d'ers will be hooked.

but of course, there's game play to consider.  i think focusing a bit on the story and roleplay elements might help, as my greatest beef w/ D&D is the incessant dice roling.  every time a player stops to roll a dice, they're pulled out of the story for something mechanical.  exalted's "automatic success" system should be showcased early.  i think for most D20 players, that'll be enough to score a hook right there.  being smart and capable enough to negotiate basic feats of living w/o a chance of failure at play should be refreshing.   why should i have to dice roll starting a fire to cook my food?  at some point, if my hero can't pretty reliably start a fire, isn't he a dead man?

lastly, see what kind of games they're used to... my troupe and i played D&D (prior to D20) at a much more epic level than joe average, so for us, when i started getting into exalted, it was great, and fun, but not a huge change in scale or scope.  that made it easy to try "the new game."  but i'm well aware that most D&D players don't play role-playing intensive, epic scale games and we used a ton of house rules to provide for epic level characters.  most guys are still using mini-maps and relying on random encounter tables.  see what kinds of games they've played and enjoyed, and keep that in mind.  not every tale in exalted has to range all over creation and introduce the character to EVERY prominent lunar and fair folk. 

just playing out a god blooded youth on a farm can offer plenty of adventure hooks.  especially when the dragon blooded magistrate comes to town and first notices how pretty that youth has gotten over the years...