Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Mad Beats

Question: Why does Odin not have Art as one of his Associated Abilities? He is known also as the god of poetry.

He certainly is! Alas, the answer is just that Odin is good at too many things, and he only gets six associated abilities, so after much pondering Art didn't make the cut. I sometimes wonder about that only-six-abilities thing and want to remove it (Odin is not the only god with this problem), but I'm never sure if it's a good idea mechanically. Mechanical math is what I have John for.

I would assume for game purposes that Odin has boatloads of Art - he probably has it maxed out for Poetry, at least, thanks to Kvasir's mead, and I imagine a few other dots here and there. His associated abilities represent what he's most likely to pass down to his children, so we thought his connections to things like Occult, Awareness and Melee were more pressing, but Odin himself is right up there with the greatest divine poets of all time (in artistic ability, if not in raw Charismatic emotion).

If you wanted to swap Art in, I'd suggest replacing Integrity or Presence, since they seem like the least thoroughly attached to him in his current setup.

EDIT: After ponderment, we agree! Odin now has Art associated instead of Integrity, because he is way better at poetic juju than he is at being impeccably moral and unswayable.

5 comments:

  1. Doesn't Presence cover actually performing poetry or am I miss remembering?

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    1. Presence would cover people noticing you in general, but for actual performance we almost always have them roll Charisma + Art.

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    2. Tough call? We use presence for a LOT of things, so Im always happy for a chance to tone it down?

      Because the poets of the game world get face time so infrequently I'd probably make it several rolls with many parts.

      This would also allow people with different skill sets to work together if one person didnt have all the bits.

      Intelligence + Art(poetry) to craft the poem ahead of time.
      Charisma + Presence to get the crowds attention
      Charisma + Art(spoken word, poetry, theater? Any of those would do) for the performance itself.

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  2. Wait. I thought we just had this talk and I said he should have art and we needed to change it? Whoever came up with this question thank you for pointing it out, and we'll be changing it soon.

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    Replies
    1. Done and done. Odin's an artist now, y'all!

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