Question: What are your opinions on the upcoming Scion Second Edition?
Oh, man, you know we love having opinions about Scion, so we cannot wait to have opinions about the second edition. But, unfortunately, we can't have any yet! We don't know anything about it, other than it's being developed by Onyx Path and is supposedly going to make sweeping changes, so we have no way of knowing what it'll look like or what we'll love or love to hate about it.
In all honesty, we're also a little bit afraid of it. We love Scion, warts and all, so while we're totally pleased that it's finally going to get some of the love it deserves, we're also looking at a new system that will probably invalidate a ton of work we've done for the game over the years. It's a good thing that it will hopefully fix some of the original game's issues and make it better for a new wave of players, but it's inevitable that it'll make some changes we wouldn't have and that there's a possibility we won't like it. Many of the things we've seen asked for on forums as potential changes are stuff we'd never do in a million years, like making Epics a flat progression instead of a scaling one or moving to a Mage-like sphere-based purview system. Can you imagine if the new game were about a generalized archetypal pantheon or removed Virtues from the core mechanics or something? We'd cry ourselves to sleep.
But being afraid of change doesn't get us anywhere, and you guys all know we've never been afraid of changing Scion ourselves anyway, so we're hoping for the best and prepared to find every last thing about the new edition that we can love and cherish, even though we probably won't see it for a couple of years. This big fat website of ours will have to make a choice at that point - to either change drastically to adapt to the new system or remain a site for those who play Scion 1.0 instead - but that's too far in the future to predict, and we don't know what the new game'll look like or how we'll decide to go at that point.
All we know is that change is inevitable, progress is good, and no matter what happens this is going to end up being a lot of work for us.
Just out of curiosity, why are you guys against a Mage Sphere like Purview system?
ReplyDeleteMostly because it isn't as thematically appropriate for Scion as it is for Mage. Mage uses power based on the model of magicians, who constantly combine loose powers in a variety of overlapping ways, while Scion uses power based on mythology and the cosmic powers described therein. Mage's system needs the extra flexibility of Spheres, where that flexibility actually runs somewhat counter to Scion's setting, in which gods of various things are usually limited strictly to affecting those things over which they have dominion.
DeleteYour Scion rules aren't Scion 1.0 anymore ^^
ReplyDeleteSince roughly 80% of the book is chewed off and replaced, it would be hard for them to make something worse (at least in terms of mechanics).
But yeah, we'll just have to wait and see.
This is true. :) But it also keeps most of the original game's skeleton - epic successes, Legendary Deeds, most of the original powersets even if they've been added to - so some things will surely change!
DeleteI am hoping that change will be good. I like Scion, bumps and all, cause its original to me. Its technically the first White Wolf game I played close to the books. But I can't help but have this nagging sense of dread. I dread that Scion will go an easy way out, like Dungeons and Dragons did in 4.0. I nearly screamed my head off and burned the books after I pre-ordered and bought the core set. Then I gave it a try and completely hated it with all of my being. I just hope that Scion does not make something like that, which was pretty much World of Warcraft the RPG. I hope it stays close to some things in the books like the separate pantheons and virtues. But change is inevitable and we will never know for sure how good or bad it will be until the books are done.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of Mage, I would love to see ideas that could cross-over between NWOD and Scion 2e in the new edition. I'm not talking about vampires in scion of course (that's Apep's job), but the idea that the conflicts in NWOD might be working at opposite ends to the titan wars. Double forces working two different fronts basically.
ReplyDeleteThe trouble is that by a time a Scion reaches Demi-God level they are more than a match for anything that NWOD can throw at them.
DeleteOnce they reach God level it's beyond a joke.
Any system that tries to combine the two will just end up a pile of onfused failure
Don't worry, it's not going to be the NWOD, it's Onyx Path, not White-Wolf anymore.
Delete(Also NWOD is more focused around mortals and making creatures less powerful, which doesn't fit with Scion at all.)
but i'm talking about cross-over plot not combining systems. NWOD alongside side Scion not NWOD combined with Scion.
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