The Storyteller's Role in Character Creation

The Storyteller's Role in Character Creation

As the Storyteller, you should guide your players through character creation. When your players arrive for the first session, discuss the themes you wish to explore and the basic premise of the game. Try writing down a short description of the sort of series you want to run. You don't want players expecting swashbuckling adventures on the high seas when you want to run court intrigue. If you have a large number of potential players, you can circulate the sheet ahead of the first session, so the people who show up will already know what to expect from the game.

If any players are unfamiliar with Exalted, take the beginning of the session to fill them in on the basics. You don't need to explain everything—for most people, playing is the best way to learn the details of character and setting. Make sure they learn enough to get started, though, and keep the first session as simple as possible.

Before you start, give each of the players a character sheet and let them look it over and ask questions. Then, explain the character-creation process systematically. Be sure to describe the traits and how they define a character's abilities. After that, discuss where the game will be set. Creation is a world larger than and as complex as our own. It's also a pre-modern world, where long journeys take weeks or months and most people live and die within a few hundred miles of their birthplace. Even though they now have the power of demigods, the characters grew up as ordinary mortals in this world.

A series set around the metropolises of the South, focused on politics and the region's interactions with the Realm, completely differs from a series set in the Haslanti League, where the primary opponents are Wyld barbarians, the Fair Folk and the dead. Most characters should come from somewhere relatively near the location of the series, and those from elsewhere will need good reasons to be in this part of the world. In addition, the characters should be appropriate to the themes and types of adventures common in the series. A silver-tongued courtier who plays the lyre with inhuman skill, makes jewelry that mortals will kill to own, and is stealthy as a breeze might not fit a series where the characters regularly fight barbarian hordes and explore the wilderness. Similarly, a barbarian queen dressed in furs who duels anyone who defies her doesn't fit a court intrigue theme.

Deciding the setting and theme is the first step in character creation. As the Storyteller, you can decide what sort of Exalted series you want to run and announce this to your prospective players, or you can ask the prospective players what sorts of characters they want to play and use that as the basis for your decision. In either case, you need to discuss the focus with the players before anyone finalizes her character ideas.

Remember that, in running a game of Exalted, you are running one set in a particular location, focused on specific themes and types of adventures. There are no generic games of Exalted. The characters start as epic heroes with the power to change the world. Where you start determines the course of these adventures. Exalted is not a single epic where you must visit every interesting location. It contains the making for 100 different epics filled with conquering heroes and sorcerers who can level cities with a gesture. Being "in the East" is like being "in North and South America." Being in the West is like having the entirety of the Pacific Ocean to explore. The areas detailed here and in various Exalted supplements are a small fraction of the entirety of Creation. Some areas the size of India or Western Europe still fall between the cracks of the material. Setting an Exalted series in the area bounded by Thorns, Lookshy, Great Forks and Sijan gives the characters access to a region that is half as large as the United States and more than twice as large as India. Creation is huge, and without access to powerful spells or artifacts, travel is exceedingly slow.

Use an entire session to create characters and discuss the series. Give players time to make complete, flesh-and-blood characters with personalities, goals, hopes and dreams. You don't want people playing undeveloped caricatures or characters incompatible with each other or your setting. After character creation, run preludes for the characters. A prelude is a short session that details pivotal events in the character's life and gives the player an idea of what her character's Exaltation was like. Once you've run individual preludes, run a prelude for the group as a whole—the occasion that brought the characters together and forged a lasting bond between them.

The Prelude

The moment of Exaltation, the character's transformation into one of the Unconquered Sun's personal champions, is the defining instant in her life. However, it’s difficult to understand what that transformation means without experiencing her previous mortal life.

The prelude depicts the character's mortal life, her Exaltation and her reaction to this momentous event. The player and Storyteller establish important moments of the character's history during this one-on-one storytelling session, compressing many years of life into a sequence of short vignettes highlighting pivotal events in the character's life.

Storytelling the Prelude

Keep the player focused during the prelude. Players might want a shared prelude if their characters are siblings or longtime friends, but otherwise, run preludes one person at a time. Try to run the prelude between the character-creation session and the first session of play. If it must take place during a session, make sure to focus solely on the player whose prelude you are running.

You can run one or two detailed vignettes, spending as much as an hour on each one, or you can run half a dozen short scenes lasting 15-20 minutes. You and the player should work out which option sounds better before the prelude begins. You needn't run each prelude the same way. Some players prefer a few in-depth scenes, while others want a broad overview.

In either case, your goal is to make the player respond to a variety of situations typical of the character's existence, giving the player a concentrated sense of what the character's life was like and a feel for roleplaying her. The prelude also allows the player to explore the rules and setting. Give her room to do so, but try to avoid combat. If combat does occur, simply describe the outcome. Don't accidentally kill the character before the game starts!

The player might wish for different traits due to decisions made and actions taken during the prelude. If so, let her change some things to better fit her concept, but don't allow players to simply shift traits around to make invincible characters. Explore the character's traits in the prelude. (How did she acquire her artifact or manse?) If she has allies or followers, run a vignette showing how they met.

Allow the player to interrupt and offer input. This is her character, and she should not have to deal with elements she finds intolerable. Finally, give the character's Exaltation all the detail it needs. Evoke the intensity of the moment as the character's newfound power wells up within her and she harnesses it for the first time. Give the character a chance in the prelude to use her fantastic new powers. Make it clear that the character has irrevocably crossed a line and that her life will never be the same.