Mind going into some detail about how Godbound works? Also is it possible to play an Infernal at all? They're the only splat I'm really interested in. (The others catch ku interest occasionally but I always go back to Infernals)
Godbound hype!

So, Godbound runs of a d20 system—describe an action you want to do, GM assigns a difficulty, roll a d20 with modifiers to determine results. If you've played D&D, the basics will be familiar to you.

Each Godbound (the PCs) also picks up some Words, and specific powers within those, at character creation. Buying into a Word gives a blanket power related to that Word, which tend to be big passives, functioning similar in some sense to excellencies (some Words, like Alacrity, give you a massive boost to Agility if you have anything less than the normal maximum, or boost your Agility a rank further above if you were previously maxed). Words range pretty highly in terms of what they represent: some are related to a physical attribute (Alacrity, Might), some a specific talent (Artifice, Command), and some more thematic (Death).

Once you've bought a Word, you can buy Gifts of that Word. These function more like Charms, but of a 1E or 2E style—they give big, flashy techniques you can use. They're grouped into Greater and Lesser Gifts. An example of a Lesser Alacrity Gift lets you run on vertical or overhanging surfaces as though they were flat ground, makes you immune to any attempts to trip or knock you down, and lets you ignore rough terrain. An example of a Greater Alacrity Gift lets you spend Effort for the entire encounter (more on Effort later) to interrupt someone's else's action, getting a free extra turn, and if you make their action impossible it fizzles with no effect.

The other big Godbound mechanic (for combat) is Effort. Effort is Motes and Willpower done right. You have a limited, fairly small pool of Effort (you start with ~3-4 I think, and can get up to ~9 at the equivalent of Essence 5-10). Some Gifts require you spend Effort for certain periods of time: the single action, the end of the round, the entire scene, the entire session, or "until effect ends"). When the duration ends, you get that Effort back, and can spend it again. Bigger powers require longer commitments. This mechanic works really, really well.

There are a bunch of other miscellaneous mechanics—Sorcery is a Word, but Martial Arts is its whole other subsystem, there's a mechanic for dealing with extras that's super cool, etc.—but those are the big core ones.

The author made some rules for running every Splat except Infernals. Basically, there are a few unique words (Fate, Shapeshifting) that (if you play the Exalted variant) only the given Splat can pick up, along with other bonuses or restrictions based on Splat selection (All Solars get the Sun Word and some fun modifiers, Dragonblooded can't pick up Greater Gifts from their non-Caste Word and have restrictions on their organization-management powers, etc.)

The way you would run Infernals is to write up relevant Yozi Words and Gifts, and otherwise threat them similar to Solars/Abyssals in their benefits and restrictions. You could easily re-fluff a number of existing Gifts to fit the general theme, so it wouldn't be too much work, but it would require at least a little bit of systems mastery.

Godbound is a d20 system, which makes me suspect it's not gonna be the best at capturing what made Infernals, Infernals. Their magic was pretty intricately designed to give the feel of a slow escalation and positive-feedback slide into inhuman ways of thought and action. Godbound could easily make something thematically Infernals, but I don't think you could really capture their whole thing without Charms.
I think it depends—there's no reason you couldn't directly port over a lot of that with Gifts. The fact that Gifts aren't obtained in any specific order could be problematic, but if you really wanted to you could have Gift-Trees for Infernals rather than the Lesser/Greater distinction.
 
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So, Godbound runs of a d20 system—describe an action you want to do, GM assigns a difficulty, roll a d20 with modifiers to determine results.
This isn't actually true. The difficulty for a given attribute check is 21 - your attribute score. The only thing the GM determines is any modifiers. Saves work similarly, with a PC making a save against, say, a mind-altering effect with their own personal saving throw DC that they need to meet, which is the same regardless of who is making them roll a save.

The difficulty for an attack is just 20, incidentally.
(you start with ~3-4 I think, and can get up to ~9 at the equivalent of Essence 5-10
A baseline, level 1 Godbound who doesn't spend points to buy the 'has more Effort' generic Gift has 2 points of Effort.
 
This isn't actually true. The difficulty for a given attribute check is 21 - your attribute score. The only thing the GM determines is any modifiers. Saves work similarly, with a PC making a save against, say, a mind-altering effect with their own personal saving throw DC that they need to meet, which is the same regardless of who is making them roll a save.

The difficulty for an attack is just 20, incidentally.
A baseline, level 1 Godbound who doesn't spend points to buy the 'has more Effort' generic Gift has 2 points of Effort.
I see that you are correct. It's been a while since I last played. Damn, I need to get a new Godbound game going at some point.
 
I see that you are correct. It's been a while since I last played. Damn, I need to get a new Godbound game going at some point.
Sounds interesting enough that I'd give it a go. Would be trying to play something as close to an infernal as I could though. Wouldn't care about the fluff side, would be using it to see how it emulated the mechanics, so I wouldn't have to literally play an infernal
 
So, I've been fiddling around with a Qafian charmset, and I was advised to run the Excellency by the forums in order to see what people thought of it. So, here it is:

FIRST QAFIAN EXCELLENCY - ESSENCE OVERWHELMING

Cost: 1m per dice; Mins: Essence 1; Type: Reflexive (Step 1 for attacker, Step 2 for defender)
Keywords: Combo-OK
Duration: Instant
Prerequisites: None
The Heaven-Violating Spear is observant and contemplative. Once a traveller of many realms, he seeks ever-more knowledge, contemplating the mysteries of the universe and striving for the ultimate answer. He asks penetrating questions and dispels superstitions and preconceptions - such dross is merely a barrier to the true work of enlightenment. He scorns morality in his endless search, for though he is not cruel he is rapacious in his hunger for understanding, and the lives and minds of the unenlightened are insignificant to him. The Peak Insurmountable conceals his yearning behind a facade of enlightenment, fooling others into believing he has already attained what he seeks, all the while comparing himself to others, hoping to assuage his insecurity by proving himself their better.

The existence of Qaf is an endless quest and he cares only for those who walk the path alongside him, ignoring the rest and attaining serenity in so doing. To those he finds worthy he teaches hard lessons by harsh trials and deep contemplation, but cannot articulate his enlightenment to others, forcing his disciples to find their own ascension by following his example. His standards are nigh-impossible to meet, leading the First and Foremost Sage to abandon all but the rarest of his proteges in disappointment.

This charm may always be used to enhance actions that forgo easy solutions in favour of true accomplishment, to learn without a teacher or to rise above one's bodily concerns to seek a higher purpose. It may never be used to enhance an action which prioritises material concerns over the gain of knowledge or understanding or which acknowledges another as a superior in enlightenment.
 
So, I've been fiddling around with a Qafian charmset, and I was advised to run the Excellency by the forums in order to see what people thought of it. So, here it is:

FIRST QAFIAN EXCELLENCY - ESSENCE OVERWHELMING

Cost: 1m per dice; Mins: Essence 1; Type: Reflexive (Step 1 for attacker, Step 2 for defender)
Keywords: Combo-OK
Duration: Instant
Prerequisites: None
The Heaven-Violating Spear is observant and contemplative. Once a traveller of many realms, he seeks ever-more knowledge, contemplating the mysteries of the universe and striving for the ultimate answer. He asks penetrating questions and dispels superstitions and preconceptions - such dross is merely a barrier to the true work of enlightenment. He scorns morality in his endless search, for though he is not cruel he is rapacious in his hunger for understanding, and the lives and minds of the unenlightened are insignificant to him. The Peak Insurmountable conceals his yearning behind a facade of enlightenment, fooling others into believing he has already attained what he seeks, all the while comparing himself to others, hoping to assuage his insecurity by proving himself their better.

The existence of Qaf is an endless quest and he cares only for those who walk the path alongside him, ignoring the rest and attaining serenity in so doing. To those he finds worthy he teaches hard lessons by harsh trials and deep contemplation, but cannot articulate his enlightenment to others, forcing his disciples to find their own ascension by following his example. His standards are nigh-impossible to meet, leading the First and Foremost Sage to abandon all but the rarest of his proteges in disappointment.

This charm may always be used to enhance actions that forgo easy solutions in favour of true accomplishment, to learn without a teacher or to rise above one's bodily concerns to seek a higher purpose. It may never be used to enhance an action which prioritises material concerns over the gain of knowledge or understanding or which acknowledges another as a superior in enlightenment.

I don't feel the villain archetype it's trying to be. It's not the ascension-seeking "I shall become a god" type, because it doesn't have the "drag everyone else along with me to serve me in my new world" or the embrace of superstition. It doesn't work for if you want to be SEELE, for example. It's got some of the straw atheist there, but that doesn't weave in with the existing aesthetic or the way he abandons people rather than harangue them as fools. The emphasis on not being cruel doesn't work with the progress seeking when those kinds of characters are usually all "can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs".

Basically, I don't get a villainous archetype from this. And that's a problem.
 
I don't feel the villain archetype it's trying to be. It's not the ascension-seeking "I shall become a god" type, because it doesn't have the "drag everyone else along with me to serve me in my new world" or the embrace of superstition. It doesn't work for if you want to be SEELE, for example. It's got some of the straw atheist there, but that doesn't weave in with the existing aesthetic or the way he abandons people rather than harangue them as fools. The emphasis on not being cruel doesn't work with the progress seeking when those kinds of characters are usually all "can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs".

Basically, I don't get a villainous archetype from this. And that's a problem.
It was meant to be most similar to Orochimaru or Darth Plagueis (the 'rapacious hunger for knowledge', the 'eternal quest'), but instead of power or eternal life he's searching for some kind of meaning in this pointless world (i.e. the Shining Answer), crossed with the most unreasonably demanding teacher you can imagine. The thing about not being cruel was meant to emphasize that he's not sadistic, so that's probably just bad wording there. The idea is that he is very "can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs", but he doesn't go out of his way to trample all over the eggbox.
 
I don't feel the villain archetype it's trying to be. It's not the ascension-seeking "I shall become a god" type, because it doesn't have the "drag everyone else along with me to serve me in my new world" or the embrace of superstition. It doesn't work for if you want to be SEELE, for example. It's got some of the straw atheist there, but that doesn't weave in with the existing aesthetic or the way he abandons people rather than harangue them as fools. The emphasis on not being cruel doesn't work with the progress seeking when those kinds of characters are usually all "can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs".

Basically, I don't get a villainous archetype from this. And that's a problem.
SWLiHN does take up a lot of the evil utilitarian real estate though, so maybe go with the more hardcore zealotry options?

Not doing it for reasons of worldly power like cycelene or as a means to an end like the pyrians, but because the ideas that burn in your brain are more important than anything that could possibly occur outside of your skull.

Think V for Vendetta with more Bhuddism and a splash of ISIS.
 
SWLiHN does take up a lot of the evil utilitarian real estate though, so maybe go with the more hardcore zealotry options?

Not doing it for reasons of worldly power like cycelene or as a means to an end like the pyrians, but because the ideas that burn in your brain are more important than anything that could possibly occur outside of your skull.

Think V for Vendetta with more Bhuddism and a splash of ISIS.
You have a point, and I like the idea of Qaf being the quester/zealot among the Primordials, but the thing about your ideas being more important than anything outside doesn't really fit with the way we've been looking at Qaf. In our view, if Qaf had any choice in the matter, he'd be doing anything but meditating on himself. He already knows himself (or thinks he does), and wants to seek beyond himself for an answer to why - the only question that actually matters (life, the universe and everything, put another way - he's basically a more active Primordial Deep Thought). His millennia-long meditation following his imprisonment is, to quote @GardenerBriareus, a masturbatory distraction, and the fact that his contemplations have been reduced to such galls him beyond all imagining. The idea of him treating anything not related to his search or engaged in its own as inconsequential is definitely fitting, though.
 
SWLiHN does take up a lot of the evil utilitarian real estate though, so maybe go with the more hardcore zealotry options?

Not doing it for reasons of worldly power like cycelene or as a means to an end like the pyrians, but because the ideas that burn in your brain are more important than anything that could possibly occur outside of your skull.

Think V for Vendetta with more Bhuddism and a splash of ISIS.
I went for the example of Wilbur Whateley, who finds out that summoning his "father" Yog-Sothoth to gain the wisdom of the Outer Gods will also skullfuck the Earth and wipe out humanity - and starts wondering about what sorts of things he might find underneath the Arctic ice once the poles are swept clean, with nary a fuck being given for the cost others will pay for his enlightenment*.

SWLIHN's angle is that she has a Plan, and the world must be altered to conform with that Plan no matter the cost. Everything has a purpose and a position it occupies, and any deviation from the Plan is ultradoublemegaheresy.

Qaf, on the other hand, is about having a rough destination (which usually involves gaining knowledge or pursuing an ideological goal) and then ripping the universe apart if that's what it takes to accomplish it. He's the guy who was there when the Primordials seared the concepts of Time and Space onto the Chaos-That-Was and shackled the shinma to forge a new reality... and saw that as just another step on the road to the Shining Answer.


* Speaking of Oramus, I fully believe that Qaf would throw himself bodily into the Beyond if he figured out a way to survive doing so, just to see what was in there.
 
It was meant to be most similar to Orochimaru or Darth Plagueis (the 'rapacious hunger for knowledge', the 'eternal quest'), but instead of power or eternal life he's searching for some kind of meaning in this pointless world (i.e. the Shining Answer), crossed with the most unreasonably demanding teacher you can imagine. The thing about not being cruel was meant to emphasize that he's not sadistic, so that's probably just bad wording there. The idea is that he is very "can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs", but he doesn't go out of his way to trample all over the eggbox.

I asked you what villain archetype he's trying to be, and you didn't really answer. And I think that's kind of the core of the problem here - you don't have the archetype or the characters you can point to and go "Yeah, you're acting like that". You're having to attach modifiers to everything - and you're trying to blend the "ascetic monk" to the "too-driven scientist" and capturing neither.

My Szoreny doesn't have the same problem. There are countless envy-driven characters in fiction to look at for inspiration, countless cheats who'll do anything to beat their rival. He's Gildroy Lockhart, taking credit for others's deeds and being charming and the centre of attention. He's Bane, wrecking his body with steroids all to beat the Bat. He's Trump, petty, vindictive and spiteful, giving mercury-befuddled speeches speeches that the listeners don't care about the contents of because it feels right. He's the Wicked Queen, looking in his mirror and seeing that Snow White is prettier than her and poisoning her because of it. And envy and jealousy are linked to mirrors and mercury is toxic so the metaphor that he's a toxic personality holds perfectly well. He's idol culture and Hollywood.

I can tell you straight off if something fits Szoreny. Because his aesthetics, his themes and his archetypes are all in accordance and there's a lot of characters to draw from.

Neither does Revlid's Metagaos. He's Gordon Gecko ("Greed is good!") meets the Thing, Perfect Cell ("Bitch I drink people.") and Alex Mercer. He's every sleazy corporate villain who cuts corners because it means he can buy another yacht. He's the literal wolf of Wall Street. He's capitalist greed mixed with physical greed, to produce a character who wants more, more, more. He's biohorror - gnashing teeth, tumours, fungus zombies - behind a pretty smell and pretty flowers. He's cannibal cults in the deep jungle.

I can look at the concept for a Metagaos Charm and go "Yeah, that belongs there". Because his aesthetics, his themes and his archetypes are all in accordance and there's a lot of characters to draw from.

(Meanwhile, both @Revlid and me agree that respectively Elloge and Oramus are weaker charmsets, precisely because there isn't the same strong vision behind them)
 
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I don't feel the villain archetype it's trying to be. It's not the ascension-seeking "I shall become a god" type, because it doesn't have the "drag everyone else along with me to serve me in my new world" or the embrace of superstition. It doesn't work for if you want to be SEELE, for example. It's got some of the straw atheist there, but that doesn't weave in with the existing aesthetic or the way he abandons people rather than harangue them as fools. The emphasis on not being cruel doesn't work with the progress seeking when those kinds of characters are usually all "can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs".

Basically, I don't get a villainous archetype from this. And that's a problem.

Give recent events and oMage here's what Qaf's villain archetype could be.

Twitter bully. A person who hides behind the idea of providing knowledge or enlightenment to others to defend their cruelties.

I'm saying that villainous Qafian Exalts should be new atheist techbro alt-right fuckers.
 
Give recent events and oMage here's what Qaf's villain archetype could be.

Twitter bully. A person who hides behind the idea of providing knowledge or enlightenment to others to defend their cruelties.

I'm saying that villainous Qafian Exalts should be new atheist techbro alt-right fuckers.

Ah yes, Frozen Peaches Witticism, a social perfect that perfectly stops any social attack intended to get you to shut up and stop making a fuss.
 
Give recent events and oMage here's what Qaf's villain archetype could be.

Twitter bully. A person who hides behind the idea of providing knowledge or enlightenment to others to defend their cruelties.

I'm saying that villainous Qafian Exalts should be new atheist techbro alt-right fuckers.
Well Qaf is literally the biggest cock (metaphor?) that has or ever will exist, so pretty accurate. Though it does mean Hegra loses her monopoly on sweet sweet hell-drugs. What would Qafian nootropics be like, do you reckon?
 
Give recent events and oMage here's what Qaf's villain archetype could be.

Twitter bully. A person who hides behind the idea of providing knowledge or enlightenment to others to defend their cruelties.

I'm saying that villainous Qafian Exalts should be new atheist techbro alt-right fuckers.
If anything, the current angle is more like Earthscorpion's version of nMage, where you're a deranged eldritch lore addict who'd shiv his own mother for another hit of sweet sweet insight, with a side of "false messiah"/cult leader. You go around starting revolutions in the name of your ideology, or breaking into the tombs of First Age Solars looking for tomes of forbidden lore, and then bail out once you've gotten yours and leave everyone else with the bill.

Qaf's the Yozi who covered his face and shed a single noble tear at the blasphemy of the Black Nadir Concordat - while peeking through his fingers to see whether there was anything worthwhile hidden among the putrefying Mythoi of his own murdered siblings.
 
Qaf's the Yozi who covered his face and shed a single noble tear at the blasphemy of the Black Nadir Concordat - while peeking through his fingers to see whether there was anything worthwhile hidden among the putrefying Mythoi of his own murdered siblings.
Is that not a bit intruding upon the Ebon Dragon's domain? While the motivations are rather different, he is the slippery snake that seeks out transgressive knowledge and commits taboo acts, is both afraid and enamored by the Neverborn and death/mortality in general and is well known with not dealing with the consequences of his actions unless cornered.
He is the Yozi that dares to sip "from hidden springs beneath the world where one should not drink" and dabbles in Necromancy, which the others abhor.

A selfish, amoral seeker of forbidden lore, who seeks it out specifically because it is forbidden/tainted and hidden in the shadows, for his own betterment or enjoyment at the cost of others, is, while not his primary aspect, very much a theme I would ascribe to him.
Admittedly I might be overinflating or stretching the interpretation of his themes a bit.
 
I think what made Godbound such a nonstarter for me is the fact that it repeats a lot of the things I disliked from Exalted 2E. Gifts like Nine Iron Walls or Defy the Iron are more or less functional equivalents to Perfect Defenses from Exalted 2E, where as long as you have Effort to spend you autoblock an attack without any additional drawback. Which, when combined with "Perfect Attack" style Gifts like Unerring Blade, basically means that unless you can fiat damage away with a Defense you're pretty much dead. If you can fiat it away though, then combat basically becomes a binary where the winner is the one who is able to run out of Effort last, coupled with intervening rounds where nothing more significant happens then "I automatically hit" and "I automatically block" which is just a boring waste of time for everyone.

It wasn't a good idea in 2E Exalted, it isn't a good idea now, and the most I can say about Godbound is that at least the lower Effort pools make the resource attrition process at least somewhat quicker than base 2E and is somewhat more comparable to 2.5E.

Take this sample combat here: Staff Pick [Sine Nomine] Godbound - Page 84

It's uncomfortably familiar, in the sense that two of the PCs end up eating shit because they lack applicable defenses to the Villain spamming unavoidable hits, with the third managing to grind down the Villain's effort first only to have the people who chose less Optimal abilities during char-gen used as hostages against him :V

At the very least, Exalted 3E gave abilities like these more of a drawback than just a flat cost, but Godbound seems to just repeat mistakes rather than solve them where combat is concerned.
 
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Man, @Stormwhite can tell you stories about the Godbound game I ran for her and other fellows (ignoring the part where I ignonimously killed it); Godbound combat balance is wack.

You mean the part where my character could no-save assassinate literally anyone else in the party?

Yeah it's. It's not very friendly to player-on-player conflict.
 
You mean the part where my character could no-save assassinate literally anyone else in the party?

Yeah it's. It's not very friendly to player-on-player conflict.

Like, you could argue that you're just not meant to fight other Godbound level opponents and you're just meant to trample over your enemies 24/7, but I never really bought that idea when apologists used it for Exalted 2E, either.

If you're playing Devil May Cry, Dante should always fight Vergil (or Nero or Nelo Angelo or whatever, just, a rival on the player character's level) and those need to be the best and most dramatic fights in the game.
 
You mean the part where my character could no-save assassinate literally anyone else in the party?

Yeah it's. It's not very friendly to player-on-player conflict.
Nah, I was more thinking of the part where we had to ban a specific kind of mortal-appropriate magic because a Godbound learning it for a single fact could be more worthwhile than Gifts for several levels.
 
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