Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger

Question: I understand the Knack “Concept to Execution“ in Scion Raw, as it was about the only ability with which you could build things. But why take an Industry purview if you can just Concept to Execution anything for 5 Legend without any roll? The problem just come up with a player of mine who is aiming to become a smith goddess and I was hoping you could clarify on that knack. Thanks a lot. Love your work.

This is an area where you'll have to pardon our dust a bit; the Industry purview (and the crafting system in general) has been under construction (heh) for a little while now, and as a result we've left Concept to Execution intentionally vague until we figure out workable parameters for it. Our building/smithing/tinkering characters have been very patient about this - sorry, guys.

First of all, a vague skeleton of how crafting works in our games, which a few people have asked about and a more in-depth post I believe John is working on: there are two phases to crafting, planning and executing.

Planning involves creating blueprints, schematics, or just mental images of exactly how this thing will be put together and work; it's usually an Intelligence + Science roll depending on what's being done, and the difficulty needed to succeed is set by the Storyteller depending on the complexity, magical attributes and size of the project. This is often an extended roll (to give you some frame of reference, Sophia has frequently created objects that required a total roll of anywhere from 100 to 400 depending on what she was trying to do), and each time you make the roll you spend a certain number of hours working on it and a certain amount of Legend to represent your super-magical awesome brainpowers at work. (If you're building normal, mundane things like chairs, the Legend cost is usually waived, because if mortals can figure it out without a lot of trouble, your ichor's not going to bother getting involved.)

Once you have the plan firmly set (and most crafters without Perfect Memory generally write that shit down and store it, because they do not want to go through the planning phase again later if they want to make this thing again), you arrive at the actual execution phase, which uses basically the same mechanics; it's usually an extended roll of Dexterity + Craft with a Legend cost and a difficulty set by the Storyteller based on what you're trying to do, and requires you to have the right materials and tools to succeed. You may also have to take breaks depending on your Stamina, as every roll represents a certain number of hours spent on the project.

But hey, at the end of all this, you're a lot of Legend poorer and a lot of time later, but you probably now have a sweet badass relic to play with! So, with all that in mind, on to the differences between Industry and Concept to Execution, and how they are both great but in different ways.

Concept to Execution exists primarily because not every character that wants to be able to build things is necessarily a character who wants to have Industry, and the idea of inventing and creating things isn't limited only to those gods that specialize in it across mythology. Sure, the Hephaestuses and Kothars of the world are going to town on their Industry boons, masters of every way that making things happens, but there are also people like Sobek out there, who isn't what you'd call super crafty and isn't generally a creator god but who still managed to invent, design and build the first fishing net in order to get things done. While normally we prefer to keep powers of a particular kind together as a purview, in the case of building things it's very clear that not only Industry gods are able to do so, and furthermore that it's a power that could reasonably be considered to fall under Attributes sometimes as well as a purview. So Industry exists for the serious crafting god, and Concept to Execution exists for the dabbler. They're better together as they help each other significantly, but you can roll with only one or the other and have a reasonable amount of success.

The thing about the Industry purview is that it does things that Concept to Execution simply can't; Concept to Execution allows its user to create things, but it's extremely limited when compared to what Industry can do around that idea. Someone with Concept to Execution can design and build a relic, provided the right materials; it might take forever or it might be relatively quick depending on their rolls, but in the end they'll be all set with it. But someone trying to make the same relic with Industry will not only be automatically faster and more dextrous doing so thanks to Fundamentals, they'll also be able to do so by spending fewer resources, requiring smaller amounts of rare materials, always having the right tools on hand even if they're in a cave in the middle of nowhere, and they usually end up with items that are not only better-designed and harder to break, but they may have been able to make themselves multiple copies of the same thing. Given the same amount of time to build the same item, a Scion with comparable stats and Industry will always succeed faster, more cheaply and more thoroughly than a Scion with only Concept to Execution. And that's as it should be, we think, because while we do think inventing and building things shouldn't be limited only to crafter gods, we don't think that non-crafter gods should be able to beat the serious smiths and builders at their own game.

Concept to Execution does have a small additional benefit; prior to The Self-Made Machine at level four in Industry, the Industry purview can only build normal, non-magical items (albeit totally awesome and complicated ones, depending on what the Scion using it wants); it does not come with the built-in ability to create relics. Concept to Execution, however, can create relics from the get-go, and allows for much more flexibility in designing them than you would get trying to make relics with only the limited magical effects that Industry includes.

So there you have it: Concept to Execution and Industry work from similar ideas, but neither one really replaces the other. Scions who only want to build relics in their spare time and don't want crafting to be the major focus of their character can pick up Concept to Execution. Scions who want to build things efficiently and usefully all the time can pick up Industry, and Scions who want to be true masters of crafting are best advised to pick up both, enabling them to do anything their ambitious little hearts desire.