White Wolf is the Gaming Group Killer!

Question: Hm... Sorry, but I just got into Scion a couple weeks ago and while bouncing around for info, ideas and so on, I have a question. Well, I have a couple. I notice with White Wolf games that there is a lot of in-party fighting when it comes to things, at least with my group. It is impossible to do much of anything without one player trying to dick the other over, either because their Abyssal is setting up their own Shadowland, or this tibdit of knowledge is "too powerful" for weaker mages, etc. Would this happen in Scion?

Scion, like all White Wolf games, is part of the Storytelling system; it's a game that allows players to do anything and everything they want to when roleplaying a character and writing a story, and that encourages fully-fleshed personalities that may sometimes clash with others in the group. But - and I hate to tell you this, question-asker, but it's true - I don't think you're having a problem with White Wolf games; I think you're having a problem with your players.

White Wolf games don't cause intra-party conflict; sure, they make it possible, but so does almost every other game in existence. It's always the player's choice whether or not they decide to cooperate gainfully with each other or instead plot to stab one another in the back. Your players always trying to screw one another isn't a symptom of the game; it's a symptom of the players. You have players that like to screw with each other. That's not going to happen less in Scion than it does in any other game.

You sound frustrated, and I don't blame you; player conflict is always hard. Is this a situation in which the players seem happy to roleplay against one another and it's just you, as the Storyteller, who are frustrated that they aren't more on-task and discovering the plots you've written for them? If so, I sympathize, because it's always hard to feel like players aren't paying attention to the campaign you so lovingly crafted, but this may be something you shouldn't try to police too hard. If the players are enjoying their roleplaying and having a fun time at the game, it's not fair to tell them that that's not okay and they have to stop. Instead, look for ways to try to use their roleplaying yourself; see what they're doing and weave it into your story so that they'll be more involved, or watch for good moments where you can have the plot you have planned intrude on what they're doing so that they become involved despite doing their own thing. Work with them instead of against them; party harmony isn't always necessary for a game to succeed, and you might be surprised how well some characters pull together when push comes to shove.

We've often found that characters sparking off one another can create good development and motivations for them, so you may end up with more interesting characters than you would have if they had all been cooperating from the beginning. Character conflict is also difficult to sustain, especially if everyone has common goals, so you may just need to wait a few sessions for them to settle down and figure out how to cooperate (even if it's grudgingly). Keep in mind that conflict between characters in the same party isn't always a bad thing; it's part of the story, too, and it can create new situations and possibilities that wouldn't have existed otherwise. If it's a constant thing, it's going to make it hard to play, but don't panic if there's strong dissent now and then.

If, on the other hand, your game is suffering because the players are fighting in-character and that's not fun for them - as in, they wish it weren't happening or are getting frustrated at the table instead of having fun - then you have a more difficult problem to solve. Unhappy player fighting happens for a variety of reasons. Sometimes there're just one or two players who are contentious and always push back against the rest of the group, and there's not much you can do about that. Sometimes some players have radically different playstyles from the others - if one is heavily into roleplaying with the NPCs they cherish and the other likes to cause trouble and blows up the first one's carefully-crafted plots, that can often piss the characters off at one another (and the players, too). Sometimes nobody in the group is trying to be difficult at all, but they all have such strong ideas of the personalities and goals of their characters that they inevitably clash and then don't know what to do about it.

As the Storyteller, you have a few tools to deal with this sort of thing. While you never want to take creative control away from your players, you can still give them a few goals in common - things they want to do or achieve that coincide with the things the other characters want to do or achieve - so that they have a good reason to work together beyond "welp, we're in an RPG". You can use NPCs they like and trust to encourage them to work together; a Scion's divine parent saying, "Oh, and I know you don't like him, but try to keep X Other Character in one piece because he has skills you'll need" goes a long way toward fostering cooperation. And while you don't want to horn in on the game too much when roleplaying is going on, once in a while a gentle reminder - "Remember, you all need to do X thing, so you're going to have to find a way to resolve this" - can help the players get out of their heads a little bit and reach a consensus.

If you're just starting out with a new chronicle, now is actually the perfect time to work toward group harmony; when your players sit down to make characters, take a minute to mention that you've noticed a lot of in-fighting in previous games and you want to see what this chronicle would be like with a more cooperative theme, so that they can build their characters to suit. Players making characters in a vacuum often don't plan for the possible shenanigans of others and therefore end up with characters who may not get along with everyone; players who know they're making characters to get along with others can work together to figure out how they want their group dynamics to shake out and how everybody will fit together. From a purely mechanical standpoint, I'd also suggest limiting them to creating characters from pantheons with similar Virtues; nothing torpedoes group harmony faster than the guy with Vengeance murdering a lot of people in front of the guy with Valor, or the girl with Courage taking out half the police force in front of the lady with Order.

But, in the end, I can't promise all that will work. You can work with your players until kingdom come, but if they enjoy in-fighting amongs themselves or just have personalities that refuse to unclash, you may have to accept that they're going to keep secrets and sell others down the river and snarl at one another when they disagree, and start trying to make that something that your game is designed to handle instead of something that disrupts it.