Question: It is common in White Wolf games for there to be powers that combine the effects of two or more power groups, like vampiric Disciplines. While my players are new to the Scion universe, I wanted to provide the option to do the same without having to spend too much on an effect. Off the top of my head, Magic and Prophecy could be used to trigger a spell affect contingent upon a specific foreseen event. If such a thing is something you would allow, how would you handle the cost of such a power?
Oh, trust me, my friend, we are longtime White Wolf gamers. We know all about combo disciplines.
In fact, we've talked about them on the blog before, back in the hoary mists of the elder ages. We go into more detail in that old post, but basically we don't allow combo powers in Scion for a couple of good reasons:
A) They're messy and inconsistent, unless you want to try to take on the massive undertaking of making sure you have the same number of them to cross over to all different APPs in a balanced manner, and
B) They're usually totally unnecessary in Scion, because of the stunting system, the Birthright system and the already existing flexibility of purviews.
Scion doesn't need combination powers, because Scion's powersets already encompass literally everything you could probably do with boons; they're based on huge universal power trees instead of small, specialized tracks like the World of Darkness powers. Even better, Scion's stunting system lets you do anything you want to with combining powers you have and making them look awesome together; nothing is stopping you from using your Frost boons with your Water boons to achieve whatever awesome effects you and the Storyteller can agree on. You have almost infinite options for powers in Scion, and definitely infinite options for how you stunt them, which means that combo powers are pretty much pointless. They'd just be doing something you can already do. World of Darkness didn't allow powers to be simultaneously activated or combined in any way, but Scion does so through the stunting system.
Truly customized powers that don't fall under any purview well are also covered by Birthrights, which are the perfect go-to place for giving a Scion a unique, customized power that nobody else gets (combination of elements or otherwise). While all Scions can tap into the awesome universal powers of the APPs, their Birthrights are unique and can do any variety of things to buttress or increase their abilities.
In the case of your proposed combo spell, I'd actually say that that looks like a perfectly legit Prophecy boon itself, rather than a combo power; I'd write it up as a high-level Prophecy boon (probably around level 9) that allowed you to spend for a power you currently have to activate when an event you had seen in a prophetic vision came to pass, making you part of that future by virtue of being the one who foresaw it. It'd be a hard boon to balance, since it requires going through all powers across all boons and knacks to make sure none of them break it, and I'm not the mechanical balance half of this operation so I'm not going to touch it today, but it sounds like a neat idea to me.
Most proposed combo boons I've seen fall under the same umbrella; those that aren't rendered pointless by just stunting two boons together usually turn out to fit just fine in a single purview rather than needing to be a combination of two. And that way you don't have to worry about some purviews having more combo powers than others, some combo powers being duplicatable via stunting or some players trying to game the system to get an XP break.
What about possession? Besides the Loa, what purview or knack does that fit under?
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't, really, which is actually on purpose. Possession isn't a power that occurs across most or even a lot of world mythology; there's plenty of tricking or ordering others to do what you want, but very little actually invading their bodies to drive yourself. Gods in Greece or Egypt or China or Mexico or any of the other pantheons' areas simply don't ever do that. It's not a concept that exists for them.
DeleteIt's strongly present in some African mythologies, in which worshipers beg gods to come possess them for religious reasons, which is why the Loa have it; but apart from that, it's almost nonexistent across the rest of world myth. It makes more sense as a PSP - a power that is only available to a certain pantheon thanks to their unique worship practices - than as an APP that everyone would have access to, because nobody but them uses it. Similarly, possession of objects is covered in PSPs for those few cultures that use it - Speak Hu for the Egyptians and the whole of Tsukumogami for the Japanese.
Outside of Africa and a few isolated cases in the Polynesian and Asian religions, the popular concept of possession by an outside force mostly comes from the Bible and Hebrew tradition, embellished to the current idea of demonic or spiritual possession by centuries of Christian revisionism. It makes a lot of sense in a game that revolves around monotheistic stories and themes, or one based on creatures that have been extensively demonized in those religions (a.k.a., the Ventrue), but not so much in a game that is based on pretty much every mythology except those.
In general terms, though, the upper reaches of the Overt Order tree in Manipulation can achieve possession-like effects; in particular, Instant Hypnosis can embed commands that activate later, taking the target's control of himself away in favor of your orders. The Telepathy tree over in Intelligence may also be useful for similar things, particularly if you use Mind Tether to make yourself able to constantly talk in a target's head. You might also be able to come up with some creative custom Birthright powers that did possession-like things, as long as your Storyteller is down with it.
We don't use it anymore because of all of the above, but there also used to be a level 6 Magic spell in Scion: Demigod (page 98) called Fate and Switch, which allows the caster to swap bodies with his or her target.
Oh, but possession of Animals is covered - under the Animal purview, as one would expect, with Ride Animal and Hive Mind.
DeleteOkay, so let's say your character wants to become a god known for possession. Kind of like the Navajo Monster Slayer. How would you design and balance an effect (boon/knack/relic/whatever) that accomplishes this?
DeleteJust an aside, and Navajo myth is definitely not one of my stronger areas, but I don't remember a myth in which the Monster Slayers do any possession-type stuff. Share?
DeleteI'm not the major statter of things so I don't know that I'll have anything useful in terms of exact dots and powers for you, but I'll give it a shot. It would definitely need to be a Birthright, since I can't think of any purview that would use possession as a boon. The challenge is in making it do something that has to do with possession but that doesn't step on Cheval's toes; you should never be giving a pantheon's PSP (or exactly duplicating its effect) to someone who isn't in that pantheon, so this has to be possession that doesn't happen the way the Loa do it. I'd probably suggest that it piggyback off something else that was possession-y - say, if you have previously used Instant Hypnosis on someone, you are able to give them commands from afar as if possessing them for X hours afterward or if X conditions are met - and make it a fairly high-level relic, one that the Scion didn't get until at least mid Demigod range.
I could maaaaaaybe see an Intelligence knack at the end of the Telepathy > Grant Visions > Mind Tether tree that let you inhabit someone else's mind temporarily - sort of like hanging out in there, though probably mostly passively. Not sure how I would feel about that mythically, but it does get across that "gods know exactly what your puny mortal heart is thinking" idea.
Honestly, aside from trying to come up with a neat specialty Birthright, I'd also suggest to a Scion who wanted to be a non-Loa possession beast that they get powers that seem related and stunt them. Manipulation isn't technically possession, but you could certainly stunt it that way; ditto other powers that give you control over someone's actions or knowledge of someone's secrets. You can still be known as a deity for possession without inventing dissonant extra powers.
Thanks for answering my question! It came about for two reasons, one I had initially thought it was a good idea, and second was an attempt to preempt my player’s tendency to try and get the most out of the game or their attempts to break it somehow. I know one of players will try to use Create Animal and Inferno to make titan-seeking fluffy bunny bombs. My biggest concern was balancing cost. However, the more I become familiar with the Boons the more I see that you are right. By themselves they provide enough power for players to have options. Boons are meant to for players to feel godly and there is no real reason to make that power less expensive, if my players want to break the planet than they can pay the cost.
ReplyDeleteNo problem - glad it was helpful! Yeah, Scions can already do so very much that it's more about figuring out what's an appropriate cost for them to do it than letting them skate by trying to get a discount for a single power.
DeleteIncidentally, I believe John has been known to allow players to stunt things that are at least cosmetically like your fire bunnies, but only for Create Nemean Animal and similar; Create Animal is just for normal, non-magical bunnies. :)