Social Butterflies

Question: Reading your description of Ishtar made me think. Do you find social characters to be drastically more powerful than physical or mental? It often seems like social characters can do more than physical or mental characters, and whatever they cannot do, they can charm or manipulate a physical or mental character to do for them.

I posed this question to one of our groups yesterday, and Sowiljr's player said, "There's a reason barbarians no longer rule the world." There's some truth to that.

I'm not sure I'd say that social characters are drastically more powerful than all other characters, but social stats are very powerful indeed, and very effective when used against someone who doesn't have the wherewithal to resist. When you talk about "social characters" versus "mental or physical characters", are you talking characters that have those stats most prominently, or characters that have nothing but those stats? Because there's a very big difference, and characters with only one dimension of stats are always crippled in a big way. (Which doesn't mean you can't play them, of course - they're valid archetypes and can be a lot of fun, but they have fatal flaws that always lead to serious problems and/or tragedy.)

Primarily social characters are the movers and shakers of Scion. They make the deals, set in place the foundation for future events, decide who's the band's friend and who's their enemy, and are generally in charge of what the PCs' outlook and relations are if there is no comparably social person to compete with them. They get other people to do what they want, either by guiding them subtly with Manipulation, asking them nicely with Charisma, or just being so impressive with Appearance that people automatically hop to taking care of them. They don't necessarily have to be able to do much on their own, but that's okay, because there's always someone else to do those things for them.

Furthermore, social characters don't actually have to do anything to be effective in getting people to do what they want. Someone with a bunch of dots of Epic Charisma is so commanding and likable that those around them want to do what they want and make them happy, even if no powers were used on them; they're just that awesome and can't be ignored when they're in the room. Someone with a bucket of Epic Manipulation is nearly impossible to argue with; everything they says sounds reasonable, every suggestion they make sounds like a good idea, and those who talk to them find themselves rethinking their positions and realizing they never thought of certain subjects in that way before. They're effortlessly convincing without ever having to use a knack or boon. And, of course, those with a lot of Epic Appearance don't really have to ask others to make them happy; either they'll do it because they can't help wanting that unbelievably gorgeous creature to smile at them, or they'll do it because the idea of risking that horrifying monstrosity's displeasure shakes them to their bones. It's often hard to remember that social characters are always super convincing, likable or amazing to be around, just like physical characters are always strong or mental characters are always smart; using social powers is something they only have to resort to when they're actively working against someone's convictions or better judgment, really, or when dealing with someone of legendary integrity.

But the thing about socials is that you are just as crippled having only socials as you would be having only the other stats. A social character with no mentals is an idiot with poor reaction time and no ability to understand what's going on; sure, they can get everyone to do whatever they want, but they're probably doing things that aren't particularly good even for themselves due to their own short-sightedness and lack of grasp of the situation. And while a social character can drive a physical one around for days on end doing their errands while they eat grapes and lounge around, it only takes a single time that a physical character manages to resist them, and suddenly they've been turned into so many chunks of unidentifiable chop suey. The same is true of purely mental characters (i.e., fragile and easily ignorable no matter how valuable their information) and purely physical ones (i.e., stupid and immediately hated or ignored by everyone around them). Successful Scions don't have to have all attributes in every category - in fact, they're often much more interesting if they have a couple of blind spots that they're just hopelessly bad at - but they do need to have a spread of different attributes if they want to be masters of their own destiny.

Socials may be the hardest set of attributes to do completely without; I've seen characters go purely mental/social or purely physical/social, but it's incredibly difficult for a character with no socials at all to get much done. Either you're completely ignored, which makes cult-building and godly-reputation-spawning very difficult (for a long time, Sophia could only get mortals to notice her by setting them on fire, which was somewhat impractical for getting them to worship her), or you're so lacking in social graces that other immortals and gods are actually offended by you, which never makes your life easier. I could see a really dedicated character going for it, but none of ours, so far, have made it to god without jumping on the social train for at least one attribute.

So yes, fear the social characters; if you're not good at resisting them, they can quite literally run your life and everyone else around you to boot. But they're not the be-all and end-all of powers in Scion, and those who neglect mentals and physicals are not doing themselves any favors. Ishtar is so powerful not because she has all the socials, but because she has all the socials AND some potent physicals and mentals; finding the right combination of skills for your character is much more key than just choosing a category of attributes.