Make Me a Magic

Question: I'd like to ask about your creation process when it comes to new boons. Do you have any general guidelines for what's an acceptable Hero/Demigod/God boon? How do you balance them out?

Well, when you call it a process it all sounds very scientific, but in practice it's more a constant round of trial and error, checking and rechecking until everything comes out right. John and I do separate parts of the gruntwork when it comes to designing new boons, but it usually looks something like this:

1) One of us comes up with an awesome idea for a new boon. Usually it's based on something someone or some creature does in myth - "Hey! You know, sun-gods tend to do that whole making-the-sun-rise thing, we should have a boon that does that." - but occasionally it might also be something that it feels like a god or Scion with that particular purview should be able to do (and that isn't weirdly dissonant with mythology).

2) I write it up as a full boon, complete with mechanics, costs and flavor text. It looks like it's done now, but it really, really isn't.

3) John looks at my mechanics and costs and tells me they're all terrible. (This is probably true; I'm the art side of this operation, not the engineering side.) He reworks them to rebalance the boon and make sure it's not making any critical mistakes, such as being more or less powerful than other boons its level, reproducing something other powers are already doing, or accidentally becoming an unbeatable superpower when combined with something else.

4) I rewrite it based on his input, and we do a final round of edits to make sure it still balances on paper.

5) Player volunteer time! The boon gets field-tested by both John and me rolling scenarios and then players in the game itself. This is usually where any glaring flaws it might have left surface, such as when a player says, "So, according to this boon I can have infinite dice?" We're thorough, but if there's a way to totally take advantage of a loophole, players will always find it if we don't.

6) Final round of edits, and success! The boon is probably play-worthy and gets added to the website and official character sheets for anyone who buys it.

Of course, at any point during this process we might end up throwing the boon away; usually this happens near the beginning, if we can't come up with a mechanical system that matches what we want the boon to do spiritually, but it can occasionally happen later, if we suddenly realize that we've strayed too far from our intent or that it turns out not to be adding anything to the game after all.

In general, when trying to decide the level of a new boon we look first at the boon's flavor - is this something it feels like only gods should do? Is it something everybody with a little divine blood might be able to pull off? - and then try to build the mechanics to suit the level that makes most sense to us. If it doesn't work there, it might end up getting bumped up or down a few levels to make sure it balances with the rest of its purview.

As far as balancing boons and deciding where they fall, that's a tricky science all in itself that I'm sure John will be happy to discuss specifics of in the comments. You have to take into account not only what other boons in the purview are doing at that level, but what all boons from all purviews are doing at that level, to make sure the new boon isn't appreciably way more or less powerful than they are. You have to also make sure it isn't outshining anything above it in the purview, or underperforming anything below it. You have to make sure it isn't duplicating other powers too much and that it can be useful without being boring (no more dice adders, please!). You have to consider all the ways it could be combined with other boons, knacks or spells to become more powerful and whether any of those cross the line from clever application to broken hack.

It's different for every one, so I'm not sure how to proceed without specific examples. We ought to go write up one of the to-be-written boons in our file and document the process, and then post the play-by-play; that'd probably be more enlightening.