Question: All of your balance changes are based around the playstyle of your storyteller, right? Which of your rules do you think are universally balanced for all storytellers?
A better way to phrase it would be that a lot of our changes to the game in general are based on the playstyle of our group. Balance changes - as in, directly making sure the mechanics of the game work - are usually pretty universal (though of course not always).
For example, the practice of using the total number of boons in a purview instead of a Scion's Legend rating for effects is better all around; it makes the system more cohesive and rewards players for investing, no matter how you play. It's an excellent mechanical change and one of those I can unreservedly say I think everyone should use. Similarly, basic changes like allowing Mystery and Prophecy to be used more than once per story is a very important change for making sure that anyone anywhere ever wants those purviews, which in the original rules not only can only be used once but also always do exactly the same thing even though you keep spending more and more XP on them to get higher levels.
Then there are the basic system changes that everyone can love. Don't use Hardness; it's a ridiculous relic of other older systems, and the game is much better served by just giving items soak as normal. Give people more dying boxes; why make it so easy for them to die when it's so easy to make it more balanced and give them a fighting chance? And for god's sake, don't let people buy Legend with XP, unless you like having a tragically unbalanced game.
Nerf Untouchable Opponent so it's not the instant-win button it was in the original rules. Make Virtue Channels scale when your Scions go up in Legend so they don't become useless. Let Dodekatheon Scions have discounted Arete for their favored abilities. Give gun-users something to do other than throw their weapons away at Legend 4. Make Followers and Creatures scale up with a Scion so they don't become useless at higher Legend as well, and increase Birthright dot caps as a whole to allow for more flexibility while you're at it. Make all purviews balanced and have a variety of powers, instead of leaving some vastly overpowered and others unfairly overlooked.
Honestly, we do a lot that is universally useful and that are very good ideas for Scion no matter who you are or how you play. A lot of the questions we answer on the blog here have to do with fiddly little details and matters of flavor, so it may often seem like we operate in a nebulous jelly-like world where we make decisions based only on our feelings at the moment, but in truth there's a lot of very solid, very necessary system-revamping going on in the JSR world.
We're a division-of-labor team. You hear more from me because I'm the writing/flavor/research side, but you don't hear as much from John on the mechanics/math/system side - and that's good, because it generally means the system is working and we can all be free to argue about things like how many Morrigans there are instead.
"we can all be free to argue about things like how many Morrigans there are instead."
ReplyDeleteI approve of this debate.
It's obviously the best use of all our time!
DeleteAll of them. We are superior(except all the horrible things we havnt gotten to change yet).
ReplyDeleteTell us how you really feel,
DeleteWhy give gun-users a generic stat buff? The force behind an attack with a gun is the gunpowder, not the scion's epic strength. Their ability to hit their opponent's weak areas is already governed by dexterity and perception is just as useful for a melee warrior as a soldier with a rifle. If a character really wants an epic stat to add to their gun's damage they should work with their st on that and have an artifact created (or already in existence) for their specific character.
ReplyDeleteMy biggest problem with guns in scion is really that the bullets are not propelled by the scions themselves. They may aim divinely, but unless they are shooting an artifact, the force behind the bullets is mundane.
I,m generally with you. Having an artifact that does that is a poor substitute though. Theoretically any scion with a sword could get the same relic and be doubly powerful. If they are shooting. Relic how does that change anything for you? As long S the weapon is magical you feel adding perception becomes ok even though it makes no more sense?
DeleteIt's also never a good practice to say, "All character archetypes are equally valid... except this one, this one you have to get a special relic to be effective even though nobody else in the game does."
DeleteI feel you, because I agree; guns are limited in what they can do by their architecture in a way that other weapons are not. But Scion is a modern game in which characters should be able to combine ancient ideas with modern ones, and telling them they can't use guns because of something so comparatively small is unfairly limiting. Guns need to be just as competitive a weapon choice as anything else - and as John says, just saying they need a relic isn't particularly fair, since that's a stricture nobody else in the game suffers under, and everybody else could also get a relic and just be even better again.
Think of it this way: Scion obviates the laws of physics and reality all the time. Normal weapons should shatter under the force of Epic Strength, but Titanium Tools prevents that. Adding Perception to gun damage works on the same fundamental principle: sure, for everyone else in the world guns work a certain way, but the children of the gods get to cheat. Doing things that are normally prohibited for mortals by the rules of the universe is a Scion's stock in trade. If you can believe that a Scion can ingest sulphuric acid without dying, break the sound barrier on foot or use a computer from across the room without touching it, what's so much harder about believing that they can break the rules about guns, too?
I will agree that Perception is a little sticky to try to justify as the Attribute attached to gun damage, but it was the best available option. We found it easier to swallow a Scion's dead-eye aim being so perfect they could aim between pores and molecules for the most perfect devastation than any of the other options we've seen suggested (using Wits because the Scion is such a quick draw that the target is never prepared, or using Strength because "it just feels like the strong character's bullets should hit harder").