First, some ground rules.

Please read every post in this thread. I expect people to understand and use these rules. The templates required for every combat post are now available below (Sept 21, 2010).

This game is a fast paced game. Some people post more than once a day. However, the minimum I require is 5 posts a week (less, if I am informed of RL obligations or other reasons for delayed posts via PM).

I expect people to respect one another. If you have personal disputes, resolve them privately. If you feel you're being harassed/mistreated/etc. and the behavior continues after you've told said person to stop, then report privately to a GM.

If you're going to PvP, consult with one another OOC first. I don't want to see any PvP leading to sore feelings, but I do understand if there's IC disputes that occur between characters. Just keep it IC, and agree beforehand just how much you're wanting to hurt each other in game. (i.e. is it ok if your character dies, is crippled or struck with a magical disease?)

Please note that this is a Mature, not Adult game. No explicit sex or gratuitous depictions of violence are allowed. If you think something you're writing might exceed Mature level, you probably should fade-out instead. Check the FAQs if you're not sure what is appropriate. There may very well be relationships between characters in this game. So sex can happen, potentially, but it ought to be implied, and it should only involve consenting adults (characters of ages 18+).

I really dislike twinks. I expect people to rise to pretty high levels of power in this game. But I do NOT like it when showing how 'clever' and 'ingenious' you are in trying to break the game (while remaining within the rules as written) becomes some sort of badge of honor you strive to earn. I also dislike rules-mongers who insist on 'literal reading of the rules' and use them as justification for all they do.

Show some creativity. Sure, this is not a freeform game, but roleplay is still preferred over rollplay. The rules will be used to help arbitrate when an outcome is uncertain, that is all.

However, I prefer to have broad claims of one's power, deeds and reputation approved by me first rather than just dropped into the game. Any such claims not discussed with me first via PM, I will just assume is a delusion on the character's part.

Most importantly, have fun. If you feel you're not having fun, then take a step back and do something else for a while - but let me know if you're taking a break!
This message was last edited by the GM at 09:01, Tue 21 Sept 2010.

Required
Exalted 2nd Edition
Manual of Exalted Power: The Lunars (if playing a Lunar)
Manual of Exalted Power: The Sidereals (if playing a Sidereal)

Recommended
Dreams of the First Age boxed set, particularly
- Lands of Creation (provides First Age setting info)
- Lords of Creation (for creating Advanced Students / Professors)
Books of Sorcery
- Wonders of the Lost Age (lots of fun artifacts and vehicles!)
- White and Black Treatises (sorcery spells!)
- Oadenol's Codex (artifact and manse creation, more sample arties/hearthstones)
- Roll of Glorious Divinity I (spirit charms, elementals)
- Roll of Glorious Divinity II (demons)
Scroll of the Monk + The Imperfect Lotus (martial arts!)

Glories of the Most High - Contains Incarna backgrounds, Charm fixes, new rules and other goodies. All fixes will be used, particularly the Sidereal ones, so obtaining this is highly recommended. However, if you want any of the new Charms or Artifacts listed in the Glories supplements, make sure to approve it with me first.

Others
Compass of Celestial Directions: The Wyld (More mutations, Wyld creatures and locales)
Compass of Celestial Directions: Yu-Shan (Heaven's pre-history, layout, etc.)
Manual of Exalted Power: The Abyssals (for Solar Mirror charms)
Manual of Exalted Power: The Dragon-blooded (charms for your Dragon-blooded ally or henchman)
Scroll of Fallen Races (for Mountain Folk and Dragon King info)
Graceful Wicked Masques (for Raksha info)
Scroll of Heroes (Merits/Flaws)

Some of the above books may have info that doesn't apply to the First Age, but detail races, artifacts and other wonders that did exist in that Age.

Also, there may be other Compass books that detail First Age locales (though from an Age of Sorrows perspective). I've not listed them all, so you can ask if you're unsure.

DO NOT ask if you can use anything in the Infernal sourcebook. Until otherwise noted, the answer is NO.
This message was last edited by the GM at 21:48, Sat 07 Nov 2009.

We are using this calendar (the leftmost side) for First Age calendar-keeping.

Therefore...
1 week is 8 days.
1 day is 25 hours. (This is true in canon Exalted as well.)

The year is divided into 5 seasons named after the constellation houses. From there, seasons are divided into periods of two weeks each, named after each individual constellation. In between each of these periods is a festival day which will always be considered a rest day.

For considering training time, a 'month' is actually four weeks, not two weeks (so, two constellation periods, such as the Mast+Gull).

The school year always begins on Day 1 of the Gull.
This message was last edited by the GM at 17:06, Thu 24 Dec 2009.

Experience will generally be rewarded per game week. As long as you've been posting and involving yourself accordingly (depending on if you are student or professor), you'll get XP. Please note that it may take some time for me to figure out what a good rate of XP gain is for this particular game concept, so XP rewards may fluctuate until then.

Additional XP could be rewarded depending on how well you do during an exam period or important event.

Training times are as listed in Exalted core and supplements. There's a reason I didn't remove training times, it's mostly because it would reduce the need for having an Academy that's year long in the first place!

I've house ruled things so that if you have a tutor (and, attending class every week / keeping up with studies counts for this) you can reduce training times in half. So for example someone learning a NEW skill (normally 3 weeks) could spend 1 and a half weeks training time to get that one dot instead, should they be regularly attending class or spending personal time with a tutor.

Out of class tutor time doesn't even necessarily have to be played out, as long as you DO play out having your tutor agree to help you regularly!

If you use a Training charm, you still subtract the duration of the Charm from your total training time.

Since this has been asked before: you may instant train Caste/Favored even if it's your first dot, otherwise, it's still 3 weeks without tutor, 1.5 weeks with tutor.

As of current, training time does not overlap. (Even if I did allow an overlap, the most I'd normally allow you to overlap is twice: that is, two 8-hour training sessions, and the rest of the day for rest. I would allow thrice IF you had charms to function normally without sleep. However... since there is no overlap anyway this doesn't matter.)

When you spend XP, please PM to the GMs that you are spending it. Also put in your Character Sheet (which you should have edit access for in Character Details) your total experience, how much you've spent and what you've spent it on.
This message was last edited by the GM at 22:47, Fri 02 Oct 2009.

I am only one person and there are 20+ people in this game. I'm not suicidal -- I asked for this many people because I wanted the players to be at least somewhat autonomous in their interaction with one another (which is why I have allowed players to play professors, for example.) This inevitably means that players will at times have to arbitrate rules and stunts with one another.

So, here are the rules for this game concerning dice rolls and stunts.

- Generally, what is appropriate to roll should be determined by the Exalted 2nd rulebooks. However there are times where there are multiple Attribute+Ability combinations that could be appropriate. In that case it should be the player(s) involved in the roll in question who decide. This is at least two people, the player rolling the dice (the 'attacker', though keep in mind this is just terminology; the action may not actually be an attack) and the player/GM controlling the character or situation that the dice are being rolled against (the 'defender').

- Once the roll is made, there are some judgments to be made: namely, difficulty of the roll, and stunt dice. The person that makes these judgments ought to be the defender. If it's a contested roll, then the players involved in that can judge one another's stunts. If it's just a static difficulty the defender states the difficulty.

- If the defender is a group, then the group does the stunt judgment, and each individual in the group states the difficulty for their character (rolled or not, depending on if it's a contested roll, DV or other static value.) A consensus of at least two people should be enough to determine the stunt dice.

- Stunt dice can be rolled either with, or after the Attribute+Ability roll (add the successes together in the latter case).

- For all such judgments and arbitrations one can use PMs or OOC chat, whichever feels less awkward to you. The more important thing is that the game flow continues smoothly, even if the ST cannot be there 24/7 to watch everything. If you PREFER the ST do the arbitration, of course, I will be glad to do so. I try to check at least once a day; I will try to explain whenever I will be absent.

- If there is ever a disagreement between players on rules, then the ST is the final judge. So bring such disputes to me privately if this is the case (use a group PM). Also, if I disagree with a player judgment then my word is also final.
This message was last edited by the GM at 08:33, Sun 03 May 2009.

My experience with Exalted 2nd Edition Social Combat is that it is awkward to run, especially in PbP. So I do not run it exactly as stated in the corebook. Here are the guidelines you should follow:

- I actually am a firm believer in good RP over good dice rolls in terms of determining the results of social interaction. Therefore, Social Combat should ONLY be used if at least ONE person in the social interaction specifically states they want to roll a social attack, use a Social Charm, use a MDV, and/or expend Willpower to resist whatever suggestion or compulsion is being made. This includes NPCs played by GMs. So yes, a NPC can potentially initiate Social Combat if the controlling GM believes it necessary. (Clarification Dec 17 2009)

- In the case you do use Social Combat rules, do not roll Join Debate. The reason is because when I run Exalted Combat on PbP, I usually allow people to post out of order, then resolve and summarize all the actions in order. This does not work well with social posts. It is hard to have a logical flow in this case because social reactions depend heavily on using the wording and interaction from the post(s) before. (I will take an exception to rolling Join Debate if the order of who speaks is actually important, for example in a debate exercise. However usually it will just depend on who posts first.)

- If applying your MDV, use the full MDV, unless your last post was a rolled social attack. In that case subtract from your MDV the defense penalty for that roll (see the Social Combat rules in Exalted 2nd corebook). Motivations, Intimacies and Appearance bonuses or penalties may apply, so you may have to ask OOC about relative Appearance, etc.

- Use the 'jaded' rule. That is, once the same social attack has been resisted twice with Willpower, it will automatically fail unless you stunt or use a Charm.

- Let everyone involved in a social interaction post once before posting again, ESPECIALLY if there are rolls involved. If you're in a conversation with three people, don't post again right after the second person. Give a chance for the third player to post too, unless that person says he or she will be absent, or lapses in posting for a couple days.
This message was last edited by the GM at 23:13, Thu 17 Dec 2009.

The following are Academy houserules for Combos.

As long as you have already learned all the Charms you want in the Combo, and have the experience points necessary learn it, you can spend a flat 1 week training time to learn the Combo.

For people who love to stunt, I will also allow a second houserule that waives training time for RP effort. If you spend as many scenes practicing the Combo as there are Charms in the Combo, you can learn it. A "scene" in this case may even include you writing a lengthy stunt post during a solo practice session (so the single post counts as a scene.)

However this should not be abused. Generally one practice session per day should count, as well as scenes in class time you spend learning the combo. The stunt must at least be a +2, and preferably a +3, for it to count towards learning the Combo. PM the GMs for a 'stunt check' to see if it counts.

Note: For now I will not be allowing stunt learning of this sort for anything else but Combos. This may change in the future, we will see!

From now on, I require that all players paste the following block in a PM in every combat post, with all the information filled out. The PM should be visible to GM and the person(s) running the scene (e.g. the professor, if a class scene). Don't forget to use the <tt> .. </tt> tags around the block to retain the spacing.

---

JOIN BATTLE: --                     MOVE: --   DASH: --   JUMP: --
ATTACK (weapon1): Speed -, Accuracy --, Damage --, Parry DV --, Rate -
ATTACK (weapon2): Speed -, Accuracy --, Damage --, Parry DV --, Rate -
DODGE DV: --    SOAK: --L/--B/--A   HEALTH LEVELS: -0/-1/-1/-2/-2/-4/Incap
DODGE MDV: --   PARRY MDV: --       WILLPOWER: Current/Max
VIRTUES: Compassion -/-, Conviction -/-, Temperance -/-, Valor -/-
PERSONAL ESSENCE: Current/Max       PERIPHERAL ESSENCE: Current/Max
CHARMS IN EFFECT: (list charms)

NEXT ACTION: (briefly describe action - OOC)
(paste relevant rolls in order)

---

I recommend you fill in every value you can in the template pre-battle and store it in your scratch pad or character sheet. Here are some helpful formulas.

Join Battle = (Wits + Awareness)
Move = (Dexterity) yards/tick
Dash = (Dexterity + 6) yards/tick
Jump = (Strength + Athletics) yards vertical, double this for horizontal
Attack Accuracy = (Dexterity + Ability used with weapon + Specialty if applicable + Weapon Accuracy)
Attack Damage = (Strength + Weapon Damage)
Dodge DV = (Dexterity + Dodge + Specialty if applicable + Permanent Essence) / 2, rounded up
Parry DV = (Dexterity + Ability used with weapon + Specialty if applicable + Weapon Defense) / 2, rounded up
Dodge MDV = (Willpower + Integrity + Specialty if applicable + Essence) / 2, rounded down
Parry MDV = (Charisma or Manipulation + Social Ability + Specialty if applicable) / 2, rounded up

Please note that your post should match the social ability you use for Parry MDV when you are describing an active social defense. For example if you use Performance as social defense, your post should be describing that defense in the context of a performance art.

As for specific Attack (weapon) and Soak values, these depend on the stats of your weapon(s) and armor, as well as charms in effect. Look up those stats in your Exalted book(s).

Don't forget to add natural soak into your soak value. Natural soak is (Stamina) Bashing and (Stamina/2, rounded down) for Lethal.
This message was last edited by the GM at 09:07, Tue 21 Sept 2010.

Here is the version you can just cut and paste and add to your posts. It's pretty much the same as above, just has the tt tags explicitly shown as well.

<tt>
JOIN BATTLE: --                     MOVE: --   DASH: --   JUMP: --
ATTACK (weapon1): Speed -, Accuracy --, Damage --, Parry DV --, Rate -
ATTACK (weapon2): Speed -, Accuracy --, Damage --, Parry DV --, Rate -
DODGE DV: --    SOAK: --L/--B/--A   HEALTH LEVELS: -0/-1/-1/-2/-2/-4/Incap
DODGE MDV: --   PARRY MDV: --       WILLPOWER: Current/Max
VIRTUES: Compassion -/-, Conviction -/-, Temperance -/-, Valor -/-
PERSONAL ESSENCE: Current/Max       PERIPHERAL ESSENCE: Current/Max
CHARMS IN EFFECT: (list charms)

NEXT ACTION: (briefly describe action - OOC)
(paste relevant rolls in order)
</tt>

This message was last edited by the GM at 13:44, Sun 24 Oct 2010.