Exalted, Second Edition. It’s my favorite game at the moment, so naturally, lot of my ideas have something to do with it. Most of them are simple, like new artifacts or Charms. Some are more complex, but I won’t go into that now. Instead, I talk about the last type of my ideas in that respect (Which I still know, isn’t too original either): Statting up characters of other fiction in any game system. As for Exalted… Well, some guys just call for being trasformed tho Chosen of the [pick one of Unconquered Sun, Elemental Dragons, Luna, Five Maidens, or Abyss].
Like Gatsu. Of Berserk manga and anime. Clearly a Dusk Caste. Renegade one, for that. Wielding a giant sword anyone else can hardly lift, having an artificial hand with a cannon in it, wearing a black magical armor, hunting and being hunted by demons, having unnatural strength and stamina… Oh, and of course his complete lack of respect for other people. Yeah, a renegade Abyssal.
What’re his stats, then? Well, obviously, extremely high Strength and Stamina, high Dexterity, very high Wits, high Perception, moderate Intelligence. Socially… Um, some Appearance, normal Charisma. Hardly any Manipulation.
Of course, as you may already see, there’s one thing that you shouldn’t let get in your way when statting out characters not actually designed for a certain game: the rules. Of course, they somewhat define what you’re doing, but they shouldn’t stop you from doing it. Especially the rules for starting characters. Now, Gatsu has quite unnatural levels of Strength and Stamina, which are plainly impossible for even a starting Exalt, let alone for someone of mortal stature. The levels of Attributes I’m talking about here require, even with a bit of tinkering (namely, grabbing the 1st Edition’s Player’s Guide and picking a certain Merit), an Exalt several hundred years old. But the character’s back story puts him as no older than any normal human, though gone through a lot. Don’t care, I’m not creating an actual PC here. Or even an NPC, I’m just having fun.
Well, then. The Abilities. Hmm… Being a Dusk, he has no problems with martial skills. Of those, he seems to possess, umm, all, lowest being Martial Arts and War and highest (of course) Melee. From Zenith’s abilities, he possesses at least high Integrity and Resistance. At least the latter of which would be also a favored Ability. From the Twilight side, maybe a little Craft, apparently some Lore and a lot of Occult. With a specialty in demons and such. Oh, yeah, Medicine too. Out of the Night Abilities… Well, Dodge and especially Athletics are a matter of fact. Awareness is a must, if only for its combat application. Probably some Stealth, too. And finally, Eclipse… I see only Ride here. As for the favored Abilities… Martial skills come with he caste. I already mentioned Resistance. Athletics is another, so there’s three more. pobably Integrity, Occult and Athletics. No, hold that. trade Occult for Ride. Gatsu doesn’t study the demons, he slays them.
Charms I’ll leave mostly alone, since I don’t remember them so well, but there’s a lot of Ox-Body Technique, a few other Resistance Charms, and a lot of Melee ones. As for Backgrounds, Artifact is a must. Also he’s gained some notorierity already, so something appropriate for that. And seemingly, he has some little Resources. I’m not quite certain if Puck would count as a low-level Ally or a high-level Familiar, though. Probably depends on how much one respects and likes him. Finally, Virtues and Willpower (Essence is six or more by necessity, as mentioned earlier). Willpower goes high, as goes Valor and Conviction. The Flawed Virtue would probably be Compassion (which is already quite low) or Conviction, as Gatsu’s devotion for his quest and its nature tends to alienate him from other people. Oh, yeah. The Brand would probably be a version of the Taint’s Warning and Permanent Caste Mark Merits. With the addition of Hunted, of course.
Sometimes, there comes another problem with statting out characters, that is quite unique to Exalted. you see, I, as a fan of the Final Fantasy series, have thought of statting out FFVII’s characters. A lot. When I finally got to it, I noticed that Cloud knows hardly anything aside from how to fight. Well, that’s not usually a problem in Exalted. But as he’s slightly more down-to-earth character than Gatsu (or many others, for that matter), that seemed to put him in a worse starting position than a normal starting Solar. Attributes can still be brought up normally, but Abilities. Well, lots of Melee. Athletics, Awareness, Dodge. A little Lore and Occult. Resistance, probably. War. Well, that’s about it. Eight Abilities, two of which come from his Caste. So there’s six more, two of which don’t qualify even close to Favored. And with points, about twenty come in there if you count the limit-of-three. That leaves eight more to be dispersed into thin air. How funny.
Somehow, I still prefer point-buy -systems for this kind of character building.
Of course, Exalted isn’t the only game great for putting known characters in. Earlier today, I had an idea of Batman in CP 2020. High-tier Corp/Solo, he’d be. Hmm, Kinda like Iron Man, though Tony’d have also Techie thrown in. What about Spidey, then? Media/Solo? And Wolvie… Okay, okay, maybe I’ll leave this “Super-punk” to another time.
