Editing Solar Exalted (section)

==Playing The Unconquered Sun==
''or Advice for Storytellers''

===General advice on running Solar games===
''and problems that may arise'' 
''Think big''! Solars don't do small plots. If the fate of an entire kingdom (if not the whole world) isn't at stake, you're selling the Solars short. A moderately competent solar can create a fantastically efficient kingdom, fight an army single handed, create world shaking magic or start a cult that overtakes an entire nation in a few months. Solars can be scarily good at what they do, and it can be intimidating to create challenges for them. So think big. Array the entire Seventh Legion against your upstart nation builders, have the Deathlords take a personal interest in the fate of your characters. Make it world shaking and you are on the right track. There's nothing quite as satisfying in a Solar game as watching your players take your epic plot by the reigns and pull it in a completely unexpected direction, because dammit, they can, they're Solars.

===The PCs are the Stars===
Make sure you write your plot with the PC's as the stars. This is the most important rule for Exalted storytellers: The PC's are the most important people in the world, but not necessarily the most powerful. Be prepared for your players to wander off and do their own thing, like the aforementioned nation building. In my experience, as the Solars become more experienced, the game begins to write itself, with the characters making their own stories and forging their own epic destinies. A useful tool for preparing Solar epic stories is to prepare a write-up of what would happen if the players did nothing, then modify it according to their actions. For example, lets say the Deathlord Mask Of Winters wants to invade Nexus, and you want your players to stop him. Write what would happen to Nexus if the players weren?t involved, planning out the Masks offensive that way, and then change his actions according to PC action. This leaves a flexible structure, which allows for PC freedom while still retaining a strong narrative feel.

===Running Godlike antagonists===
The world of Exalted is a dangerous place, with numerous individuals who outstrip starting Solar Exalted in power, any of whom would gladly see them dead in the dirt. One of the possible problems you can run into with this is; why doesn't their enemy simply erase them from existence with his mighty power? The answer, in my mind, is threefold: 

*Genre: Exalted is a game of epic action and anime Kung Fu. As such, its completely out of genre for the villain to crush his enemies without thought, he has to have them at his mercy, then gloat, or destroy everything they strive to do before he kills them, or do something that gives our heroes a chance. Sure its cliché, but clichés exist for a reason? 
*The PC's are the most important people in the world. It does them a disservice to simply crush them and makes for a non-fun game. 
*No one with any power moves in Exalted without someone watching. No one acts without someone reacting. Lets take our previous example of Mask of Winters invading Nexus. We assume our players are proactive, and at least attempt to do something to stop him. Now, the Mask is unable to affect the PCs himself, because he is trapped in the Underworld, so he has to act through proxies. Let's assume Mask sends his armies to march on Nexus (a fairly simplified scenario, but it serves our purposes). Now, he has limited powerful servants (evil geniuses have limited lieutenants after all...) and these servants have to be divided amongst leading his army and directly affecting the Solar PCs. Lets say he sends a strong enough force to assassinate the PCs without any trouble (a substantial force considering the PCs are Solars). This would leave his army weakened, without its best generals, and another power could take advantage of this. In this scenario, Lookshy would probably be able to destroy the poorly led army of the Mask, when combined with the defenders of Nexus. Sure, he has taken out the PCs, but his army is routed and he's shown himself to be weak. In the same blow, Lookshy has proved itself to be mighty and earned the debt of Nexus. This is clearly a simplified scenario, but the point is, the PCs and the villain are not the only movers and shakers in creation, there is always someone out to make the equivalent of a fast buck from a weakened enemy. Remember, however, this sword cuts both ways? 


The other problem with such a high-powered game is: what if the players mow down my carefully crafted antagonist? There are a few ways to deal with this:
*Fudge the dice: the villain turns aside the blow of the mighty solar at the last second, then, seeing himself as clearly outclassed, he flees. This is appropriate for important but minor villains, such as enemy lieutenants. However, repeatedly doing this is a sure way to annoy your players, so weigh up the importance of the antagonist with how much it would annoy the players if he got away. Removing a minor villain who has eluded them several times is immensely satisfying to the PCs, but a minor villain who always gets away is just annoying. 
*Let them win. In the world of Exalted there is almost always a bigger puppet master pulling the strings. Again, if overused this quickly becomes very annoying, but used well, it provides a nice sense of escalating villains. 
*The Villain is better than them. This is appropriate for extremely powerful villains such as elder Exalts, Deathlords, Demon Princes and Akuma. The players are not yet powerful enough to deal with the enemy. They'd better make good their escape while he gloats at their expense, then come back when they are good enough to deal with him/her/it. Again, overused, this is annoying, but used well; it provides an excellent incentive to build up a strong power base, as well as a recurring villain to pit the characters against.