Question: Do you guys think Scion has any kind of dumb stat or worthless ability/boon/knack that has no real purpose in-game or is very, very situational?
Not any more.
One of the major points of JSR is to clean those things out of the mess of the original Scion books and make sure they either become useful or get kicked out of the game. There are certainly some powers in the original book that we thought were, if not worthless, so close to it that they weren't worth keeping around (Heart of Mine, Civitas, this stupid Cheval purview we're still working on replacing and so on). Those powers are gone now, or tweaked so that they're no longer useless. Everything you'll find on the site now is (hopefully) useful and awesome, ready to roll into a Scion game and make characters glad it exists.
As for the straight stats - the Attributes and Abilities - no, none of them are useless. It all depends on what's happening in your game which ones are being rolled and are getting their moment in the sun (which is the good kind of situational!), and players should always try to use their specializations and make them shine.
If you guys ever see something that you think appears to be useless, please, feel free to ask us about it. If it's actually useless, we'll want to fix it! And if it isn't, we'll explain the awesome ways it's useful right now.
This comes with the straight up disclaimer that I've never played in a proper Scion game, but I've never really got Tantra. It seems kinda only useful for people who have higher Intelligence than Perception, and in all kind of seems narrowly focussed and lackluster for a 6th dot PSP boon. Could you explain your thinking behind the boon?
ReplyDeleteIt's based on the idea of enlightenment being able to see through illusion - that is, you can use your knowledge of the world's unreal nature to see through things that are similarly unreal. It's very powerful in that it allows Scions to in a small way get the benefits of buying up two Epic Attributes while only paying for one, and it fits into the idea of Deva enlightenment well.
DeleteIt is narrowly focused, however, so for those character concepts that don't use either Intelligence or Perception much, it's not the best boon in the set. But sometimes characters don't really align with their PSP too much, and it's definitely something we felt was a core concept of the Samsara purview.
Still not saying I like it much, but I admit a boon representing the enlightened mind piercing Illusions is very appropriate for the Hindu Gods. Thanks for the explanation.
DeleteOn a similar note, have you ever considered adding a 'Grant Akh' like power to Samsara? Giving boons to worshippers is a pretty big part of Hindu myth (hell, it seems half the pantheon's problems are self made via Gods never learning not to go around giving boons without a thorough background check first).
As an aside. We also felt its a little unfair to have a specific enemy of an entire pantheon that can only be dealt with via one attribute.
Deleteso is it possible (if not easy) to change things on the fly as needed as the game progresses.
ReplyDeleteI... am not sure. What things are you talking about changing?
DeleteRaise Your Glass always felt underwhelming. I'll try to go over some of the points of why I feel that way.
ReplyDelete1) Once Per Day. The duration of a story is extremely flexible depending on the storyteller running the game. I've had many storytellers go at break neck speeds where entire story arcs occur in less than a single day. I've also had several storytellers go at a rather calm pace where many days happened between important events.
In the case of the former, you hardly ever get to use Raise Your Glass. In the case of the latter, I have never met a storyteller who said "Sure, it's been 20 days so you can regain 20 legend for your off screen awesome drinking prowess".
A possible fix might involve changing the frequency of use to Once Per Game, or Three Times Per Story. This way there is a measurable benefit regardless of the storyteller style of time management.
2) Drinking Liquor. You guys will probably disagree with me on this one, but I wish the knack allowed for more awe inspiring actions than merely drinking liquor. Being dramatic about drinking fits a fairly small number of character concepts.
It would be really great if the knack let you perform tireless sword lessons, or awe inspiring sex, or standing in a raging bonfire in front of a crowd. Essentially any act of that is related to demonstrating amazing stamina.
I kinda hate raise your glass. If we rework stamina knacks, its probably just gone.
DeleteAnd you've listed the reasons for me. Pretty much your 2, all those things. Those are stunts that should be getting you dice in game. You shouldnt need a knack to get legend from all the things you listed. The knack itself just doesnt make much sense.
Yeah, at its heart Raise Your Glass is a knack that basically says "Do this one type of stunt, and that stunt is better than regular stunts". Because anybody who uses Raise Your Glass is probably combining it with a stunt in the first place.
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