Question: Can you run a story where a group of PCs stumbled on a cache of relics that awakens their ichor in lieu of a visitation, and they only really learn about their divine heritage when they hit Demigod and the gods finally recognize they are worth endorsing?
I think it's a game setup that could work. I'm generally not much of a fan of the "don't get godly stuff involved" approach past Legend 2 or so, simply because it seems counter to the spirit of the game to me; godly stuff is what the whole shebang's about. Then again, I know of a certain ST who's running almost exactly that setup at the moment (though I believe there were visions of god-parents, even though they didn't show up in person), and it seems to be going pretty well.
I wouldn't go into it assuming that you'll be able to keep the PCs in the dark all the way to Legend 5; any characters who invest in Epic Intelligence and/or Occult are going to have a decent chance of figuring out what's going on long before then, or at least getting a handle on what kinds of divine figures are involved. You could try to run a scenario wherein there are no clues whatsoever about their divine parents, but that might be frustrating, depending on your players.
If you mean can we personally run that game right now: alas, no. We'd have to start yet another new game from scratch with new PCs, and our load is pretty substantial as it is at the moment. It's something we might keep elements of in mind in case of future game genesis, but to be honest we generally tailor character stories and visitations to each individual PC and their players' ideas, so it's unlikely that more than a few of them will choose to come into the divine world with no idea what's happening. Gods are cool, and we've found that our players generally enjoy god involvement, even when it's just introductory.
I meant the generic "you". One of my favorite Ideas is a group of children 12-15, finding a bunch of relics that awaken them early, and only attract there parents attention when they become powerful enough, even if they figure out what they are the parents don't show up until legend 4-5. I wouldn't bring the parents in then except for the fact that you need the parents to promote to demigod.
ReplyDeleteWe understood what you meant. But what we like most about the game is the parts that involve the gods. Thats why we play scion and not "generic super hero game." Obviously that is up to you, but if you are looking to remove the parent gods for as long as possible, I really suggest you play a different game. There are lots of great systems out there that will give you more of what you're looking for.
DeleteI'd think you could get away with it if you went with the superhero angle..... but it's gunna get messy once their parents try to use em....
ReplyDeleteTom, you need some awesome icon.
DeleteBut you bring up a great point. Why would the parents do this? They invest a great deal of power and energy into making a scion, why would they let them run free not knowing what they were? That makes them a lot less useful, and a group of gods all doing that together at once just seems both impractical and unreasonable(from the gods point of view at least).
Technically, I think s/he meant that they wouldn't have invested any effort at all, since the nascent Scions would have awoken due to finding magical items and not because of any action on the part of their parents. I could see a god hanging out (some gods - there are some who are not very hands-on, but a lot aren't) to see what happened in that situation, though a whole group of different gods making the same decision seems more far-fetched.
DeleteOf course, baby Scions picking up relics that weren't Birthrighted to them is going to blow their poor hands off half the time, so if you want to avoid that, parents (or at least some god) has to get involved in some way to make sure those items are safe for them to use.
Yeah, I assume the parent has to get the items birthrighted or those children are just going to die.
Deletethat could be part of the fun of the game. The non involvement of the gods is not form indeferance but from the fact that there attention is pulled in other directions and they don't usually keep an eye on even there awakened children unless something big happens like hitting demigod. It is fate that brings the scions together with the relics and birthrights, and part of the story can be the children struggling to find there parents while they avoid titanspawn and there parents rivals as well as dealing with the emotions of being shoved into a war without any training or info while they are still children.
ReplyDeleteThere is no amount of attention pulled else where the eliminates a parents ability to show up and say hello. If they can show up for their children hitting demigod then they can show up at any other time.
DeleteEven if fate brings the children together their birthrights wouldnt be there and birthrighted to them unless their parents took a hand in it.
And if so, why are they struggling to find their parents? Why do they care? If they just found magic items and then were attacked by things what impetus do they have to do anything in the world.
All the stuff you say towards the end, the "struggle" stuff is something most scions deal with even when they have met their parents. Not meeting their parents doesnt change any of this.
They still deal with emotions of a war, they still have no training, they still fight titanspawn. The only difference is that in your situation the parents ignore them for some unknown reason. And not just one parent ignoring them, which could be very reasonable, but all the parents ignoring them at the same time, for the same length of time. It seems like a lot of work against improbability in order to get a story hook that doesnt seem worth it from the get go.
It was just an idea.
ReplyDeleteHey, if it works for your group, nobody here can tell you you can't do it. Just because it isn't our cup of tea doesn't mean it can't be yours. We have our points against it, but as long as you know how to deal with those, or don't care about them, don't get discouraged just because we wouldn't fly with it here.
DeleteIf you're STing and your group's loving it, you're doing it right even if we'd never do the same. Despite our frequent pretensions, we aren't the be-all and end-all of Scion. :)
I am totally tell you that you cant do it
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