Scire, Schmire

Question: You've previously (and often) made your opinions on the Atlantean "pantheon" from Demigod very clear. However, I wanted to know your thoughts on their PSP, Scire, purely from a mechanical and game-balance viewpoint. I'm playing with the idea of using it for a modern-day "techno-pantheon". Considering how many people worship their smartphones...

We have yelled about Atlantis a little bit, haven't we? Don't worry, this post is not about that today.

Scire is a problematic purview because it doesn't really stand on its own. Too many of its powers probably belong elsewhere in the game, particularly in mental knacks, and it's underpowered and underwhelming in the extreme when compared with other pantheon-specific purviews like Itztli or Samsara that actually, you know, do things. We think it was a valiant effort to come up with a technology purview, but it falls short so many ways that we can't recommend using it that way without a vast rewrite.

The level one boon is fine, but level two - auto-download information from discs - is seriously unimpressive for a PSP boon (or a boon at all, really) and probably ought to be an Intelligence knack that follows Speed Reader. Level three is just level one again but extended to other skills - oh, good, another three dice as long as I'm using a computer! - which is both underwhelming and boring, while level four is either massively useless or superpowered depending totally on what the Storyteller feels like that day (not to mention being easily undercut by Mystery). Level five's power - extending your personal immunities to things you carry - is chump change by Legend 6 and later rendered obsolete by Guardian, Magic or just having relic items, and level six is neat but in no way puts Scions who own it in the same league as those reaping buckets of Legend with Poco a Poco or dropping potent freaking geasa on others. Vector is nice but desperately underpowered compared to other PSPs or even APPs, the level nine superpower is castrated completely by Mystery, and level ten tries to be impressive but actually turns out to just be a worse version of Moksha.

Basically, it's not good as written. It's underpowered, uninspiring and has no clear mission statement about what it's supposed to be doing that Scions of other pantheons can't already do. You would have a lot of work ahead of you to shape it into something that would be enticing enough for a player to have an interest in it instead of other more impressive powers, or for antagonists or NPCs to actually be as effective as they need to be.

We don't hate everything about Scire, actually; in fact, it's been cannibalized into our games here and there, usually in the form of Industry boons or Intelligence knacks. But if you're going to commit to using it as a distinct set of powers, you'll have a lot of work in front of you before players don't just look at it and say, "Why would I get this when I could be [insert pantheon] and just get good Epic Intelligence?"