We were slow and plodding, because Industry and fiction are eating our brains and time, but here's our long-awaited anniversary post reward: our character creation system for new Hero-level characters!
While not all of our characters were created this way, particularly the ones from back in ye olden days when we were first starting to tinker around with Scion, it is the system we've been using for the Eastern Promises and Gangs of New York games (I just named the second one while I was writing this, but I'm totally going with it). Character creation is of course very personal for different games, but we feel after several years monkeying around with it that this gets us the best balance of character options, character balance and customization, along with a healthy helping of not being too complicated. Gone are the extra point-systems and equivalencies, replaced by simpler and clearer options.
Incidentally, because I know some people out there are going to flip out over it: seriously, guys, the Heroic Roles system is labeled "optional" for a reason. We think it has good, useful stuff in it and is a great tool for groups that have trouble balancing character effectiveness or need a little encouragement when it comes to figuring out who does what, but we're not going to kick down your door with our gestapo boots and demand you use it. Don't have a panic attack about how your creativity is being strangled.
Please, feel free to ask all the questions about the system here. We're going to sleep but we'll be back in a few hours, raring to go!
So you can start with Str 2+5, Dex 2, Sta 2?
ReplyDeleteNo, the maximum for anything you can start with is still 5 dots. You already have 2 Strength, so the most you can put into it is 3 more dots.
DeleteThe number of birthrights seem a little small. Unless you are investing a bunch into Magic, you're going to have at least 2 dots in purview channels and probably more than that because half the purviews only have a single level one boon.
ReplyDeleteSo it would be pretty common to only have 1-2 dots to spend on things that are not purview channels.
That's intentional; we don't want beginning Legend 2 Scions to start with giant crazy relics yet. We upgrade relics over a character's lifetime and allow them to use relics they can earn or find through gameplay, though, so STs who don't do those things may want to start with more points from the beginning.
DeleteI think 8-10 is going to be the comfort zone for me. Enough that you start with some flavorful relics that are not purview channels, but not the overwhelming 20 from RAW.
DeleteSounds like a plan.
DeleteRAW also gave you 5 birthright points. You assumed it gave you 20 because it idiotically let freebie points be spent towards it. We spread the freebie points back into the actual character, but stuck with the original amount of birthright points.
DeleteI know it was always silly in RAW to spend your Freebies on *anything* but Relics, but only allowing 5 Birthrights at all and then also forcing characters to buy 5 rank-1 Boons is going to end up with an overwhelming number of characters with no Birthrights other than Purview Keys since, as Anonymous mentioned, there are quite a lot of Purviews with only a single Rank 1 and very few with multiple Rank 1's that a character will want to have right off the bat.
DeleteIt's kinda lame not to be able to buy Followers, Guide or Creature just because you want to be able to *use* your Boons.
Ive had 48 characters made with this system across 2 games. Ive had guides, creatures and followers a-plenty. Ive had people with 5 purviews and people with 2.
DeleteHow do people afford to start off with other Birthrights unless they're starting play without Purview Keys to some of their Boons? If you must have 5 Rank 1's, you free up one BR by getting your PSP which doesn't need a Key. Someone with Magic has a few choices on what their Rank 1's can be, but 11 of the Purviews don't allow you to double up.
DeleteIt could be personal bias, since I normally find myself struggling to find more than 2 or 3 Purviews that I'm interested in at character creation and end up dumping most of my points into Epic Attributes.
They dont have 5 rank 1s. If they focus on only a few purviews they get the level 2 boons or they traded the boon points in for more ability points.
DeleteThat makes more sense. I got confused because I remembered Anne saying something about you guys debating that rule still being a thing. Or was that a hallucination?
DeleteI don't see how trading in a Boon for more Abilities would be a good idea. Abilities are mathematically the worst thing in Scion. But, I haven't run any math using your adjusted XP rules and I don't remember if you have a different rule for the interaction between Abilities and Epic Successes than RAW.
And if in-game events reward upgrades to Creatures and Followers and Guides pretty fast, that's cool. It just seems super lame that you can't start out with more flexibility in Birthrights. They're often my very favorite part of any character, especially Creatures and Relics.
You would take it because making your character make sense is more important then proper use of dots and xp. If your character is attempting to be, for example a trained military guy, I make sure he has the correct ability spread to actually be that person. He might have to trade in epics or boons for more abilities to be able to do that.
DeleteAlso, at legend 2, 1 dice is one 1 dice. When you cant max out most of your traits and get only get one epic in a couple things, 1 dot in an ability is half a success when you're normally getting 3-4 successes on some rolls, and 5-6 on a handful. Worst case scenario: your 5th dot in an ability that is your best roll, ups your average success by 1/12th. But on one of your average rolls, ups it by 1/6th.
Even when they had lots of points to put into birthrights, my players never really cared for them. They came up with some cool ideas for them, but generally just kinda threw points around.
Rather, they figure out thematic ideas for their relics, but never care much about the actual points of them, some players actually dread that part.
Delete"I make sure he has the correct ability spread to actually be that person. He might have to trade in epics or boons for more abilities to be able to do that."
Delete*heart attack*
Is the cost of buying a second level Boon 1 dot or two?
ReplyDeleteAnd, stupid question I know, but those ability costs are absolute, not cumulative right? As in, 15 is the cost for one ability at 5, not the 5th dot of an ability?
Also, I love the heroic roles option. I have a habit of making up Scion Bands when I'm bored, and now I have some method to the madness!
P.S., That is a very beautiful picture you used for the Banner! Could we have a link to the original?
Second-level boon is also one point; if you have five points to spend on boons, you could pick up four level-one boons and one level-two (assuming you have a prerequisite for it, of course).
DeleteYes, the Ability costs in the table are absolute. Although some of our players were confused about the same thing when John first gave it to them, so I'm totally with you. Five dots of a non-favored Ability costs 30 points at character creation, not 70.
I'm glad you like it! It's a fun system to mess around with, and has led to several characters consciously swapping around looking for the roles that fit best for them. We're enjoying it so far.
The full painting is entitled "Gods" and is by fantastical online artist Daldbaatar. Check out his gallery for more Asian mythology goodness, including some seriously badass images from Mongolian mythology.
Your ability point question was not stupid at all, many players had the same question when i set up the system.
DeleteTo be fully honest, there are some things in here that I'm iffy on, but I believe the saying is "If it works at your table..."
ReplyDeleteBut that ability system. Dear Baal that ability system. I am so in love with it, and have already convinced the people I play with to adopt it in a campaign we're starting soon. Some are a bit bothered to retweak, but after looking at it, it's winning more and more over.
Also our ST is a bit sad that his old Excel Sheet that did all the derived stat calculations for you, you just put in the values, will have to be modified. >.<
But otherwise, I've been looking forward to this! Wasn't blown away as much as I was maybe hoping for, but damn. Just, damn, I love how you do abilities.
Thank you both so much for your continued awesomeness with only very few exceptions! ;)
Glad you found something you like!
DeleteHuh. Fairly sure that I'm in the aforementioned campaign. *blink* anyway.
DeleteQuestion regarding the ability system and art/craft/control/science.
The halved cost after you reach 5 dots in one of them at creation. Do you also get halved experience costs with them afterwards? Or is it only at character creation.
Only character creation for the decreased points. This is so a scientist(or similiar) can have his appropriate amount of knowledge without crippling himself.
DeleteWhy will the derived stat excel sheet have to be changed? Things like DV and soak should be unchanged.
DeleteThe thing also kept track of how many points you've put into things, and there was a different system for how many points you could do. So changing that to align with your system ( so that the sheet knows that if you have 5 points of an associated ability you've spent 15 out of your 150 points, and such.
DeleteOr something like that.
I didn't think when you guys announced you were redoing the CC system that I was going to care too much...of the many, MANY things in Scion I thought were poorly done, I thought the character creation system was pretty straightforward and has never given me any problems in any game.
ReplyDeleteI'm pleasantly surprised to see that you guys really did come up with some cool stuff! I'm still not going to use it, but I liked your abolishing the mental, physical, social to give more customization, and I love the heroic roles. You've outdone yourselves again.
I like almost all of the things in their character creation, but I am definitely going to pass on the Heroic Roles. I take one look at the healer forcing you to take stamina, and intelligence, and I see everything that is wrong with the epic attribute to active purview system.
DeleteBut the rest is great. Especially the ability system.
Glad to hear you like it :) I never had a huge problem with character creation, til I really sat down and realized i hated a lot of it.
DeleteAnon: Having to be smart to be a doctor/healer? That just makes sense. It is a cross culture generalization that the doctor or healer is the wisest among the citizenry.
For me, its the need to be also tough and charismatic. You can't play someone like Dr. House or the ancient, wizened, crabby village elder. But, there's a whole 50+ entry about that already.
DeleteMy biggest issue with your chargen system is the punishment on PSP XP cost for swapping around Virtues. I like there being flexibility in Virtues, because for me there are just way, way too many Gods that don't follow the party line for it to be so heavily punished to diverge even slightly. I'm also not a fan of the extra-mathy Ability thing, but then everyone knows that I prefer far less bookkeeping and math than you do.
I think by the time gods hit god, they've switched around some virtues. But I dont think at hero, when you first get your ichor, you should have much of any control over your virtues. They should take you for a wild sudden ride.
DeleteYou also, imo, greatly overvalue xp costs of things. XP is only so much dust in the wind in my games.
DeleteYes. That's a big difference in our views on Scion. You and Anne say fairly often that XP isn't sacred. I'm right about the opposite on that. It's the player's reward for playing, and their currency to level up their character. As much as RPGs are about the story and the development of your characters on a narrative and personal level, they're also a game and every game as a currency. I do see it as being quite sacred.
DeleteYeah, but like.....3 games ago sowiljr lost 10 boons from one purvie, 1 perm willpower, and gained 10 different boons from a different purview and 1 dot of loyalty. It was his actions that led to it, but that was months of xp changed and rewritten without him knowing it would happen.
DeleteWhen that sort of stuff happens in game, or even the possibility of it happening, make xp quickly not actually matter. Its nice, but its fleeting and possibly never there.
The currency in scion is legend and willpower, xp is just a thing they get to march towards goals.
Also, at god now they're getting 6xp for an eight hour session each week. So its almost like it isnt there.
Fundamental viewpoint difference. I'd be twitching and foaming in a game like that. Legend and Willpower are in-character currencies that the character spends, XP is a currency for the player. It's their reward for playing and making the game happen and their tool to improve their character.
DeleteI think your games tend to involve gaining and losing things during the course of play without concrete (XP) costs, as part of the story. I do that for Birthrights, but very rarely for other traits. I think maybe... twice there have been permanent changes to character sheets that weren't regulated by XP. One PC has been reshaped and rebuilt twice as a result of in-game plot shenanigans, but it was a reshuffling of XP and dots, where everything stayed equivalent at the end.
I can understand your way of handling things, it would just drive me utterly insane in short order.
Just an opinion, but I don't think there's quite as much Virtue dissonance going on amongst the Gods as some of their personalities might imply Source J.
DeleteFirstly, not every God will have every Virtue rated at the full 5 dots. It's highly likely that a God like Set is capable of breaking the law and murdering his brother because he has low Order, and so could roll against it. He still has it, but compared to his Conviction (NOT ON MY WATCH YOU SNAKE!!!), Harmony (as keeper of storms and the desert sands) and Piety (Dude's Egyptian, his Piety HAS to be through the roof), he's probably not as law abiding as the rest of the Pesedjet. Plus, he could have just spent a point of willpower.
Also, IMHO, Gods who appear to embody alien Virtues probably just have that virtue (small v) naturally. The likes of Kali and Sekhmet don't need Courage to go into Berserker Rage; they're batshit insane anyway!
Finally, Gods have Natures too. Things like Thoth's obsession with knowledge or Sarasvati's Raga writing and playing sprees or Loki's occasional Loyalty defying shenanigans could just as well be because they're an Aspirant, an Artist and a Trickster respectively (though I admit I don't know if you even use a similar system in your games).
Honestly, I don't like the idea of Scions just choosing to start out with different Virtues. He doesn't get to pick the callings in his blood, no more than a character chose which Pantheon to belong to.
I know my points don't cover every case in mythology, but, honestly, no mortal system could ever properly represent the sheer insanity of the Gods. Either way, just my two cents.
First up, as a player in one of John's games I'm pretty biased, and admit that I haven't tried it Source J's way. I've only had experience with RAW and John's way. So take all this with a grain of salt and feel free to correct me where I'm wrong!
DeleteI can say, with utter certainty, that John's way is infinitely better than RAW, in terms of mechanical logic, meaningful mythological resonance, and a setting that challenges players from Day One. Without that challenge, I'm not sure it would be as interesting - for me, personally, I'll add.
For instance - who doesn't love more birthright points in principle? Who doesn't love more XP, in principle? Of course players want these things to be sacred - but it doesn't mean they should be, necessarily. Like any good survival game (and that's what our Hero game feels like while we blunder about trying not to get ourselves killed) resources must be restricted to create an atmosphere of tension and challenge.
I also like that our in-game actions and choices could very tangibly change the scope of an entire character beyond the ken of simple XP expenditure. I think some games have a holy agreement between ST and players that the ST shall do no (permanent) harm to, or mess with, the characters lest they infringe on some made-up "right" that the player has to that sanctified character concept. Frankly, I would just find it boring if I knew I was going to get my way all the time. I could plot out an XP-based character progression right now and know exactly what my character would (likely) look like at God. That gets boring (for me) really quickly. In fact, I've even had one of my characters (James Keenan) die in this game, less than a dozen sessions into the game, because of the choices I made. While character death is never fun per se, it's also pretty awesome that there are serious consequences - because it makes living through horrible situations the next time with your new character (and for all the other PCs) so much more rewarding, knowing how real the prospect of horrible failure is.
I think from all the discussion between Source J and John, it's apparent that there are simply differences in playstyle at work here. I can't speak for how you run your games, Source J. But I do know that John runs a much more regimented, challenging game than you might come to expect from the RAW rules. However, it's rewarding as fuck, and for players who like that sorta challenge-based risk/reward system, they'll be as happy as pigs in mud. Otherwise, if they're more interested in having powerful relics, and feeling powerful right out the gate at Hero - the kind of gameplay that RAW breeds - they're gonna hate it.
In the end though, I think RAW, John's, and Source J's systems are all gonna satisfy different players. So while I do enjoy the back and forth discussion between John and Source J here, I think it's worth recognizing those differences in gaming ideology upfront and accepting them as such - maybe focus more on discussing the kind of game you want to make for players in terms of power level and atmosphere, or the kind of players you want for your game - and you might arrive at your core differences. Might seem pretty simple, but I expect you're both actually looking to get different things out of Scion, and that that's what's leading to all the disagreement.
/endrant
:)
The XP "fine" on PSPs is actually one of my favorite things at character creation, because it's perfectly illustrative of the concept. If you want to break the mold of your pantheon and pull away from what they, as a large majority, are, represent and value, you'll have more difficulty tapping into their special powers that come from those values. It's trading your ability to easily gain power from your pantheon in order to have more freedom from their sometimes restrictive beliefs or be more your own, individual person. For me, at least, it strikes a perfect balance between allowing players to make changes for their personalities but also reminding them that said changes have real consequences in their divine lives. (Well, besides the intangible consequences of their pantheon later being frustrated with their lack of Loyalty/Order/whatever.)
DeleteEveryone above is right - we probably look for very different things in games, Source. While stuff like what happened to Sowiljr doesn't happen often, it can happen based on the players' choices and actions, and we love that. We never just do it to characters on a lark, but it's rather something that their choices cause to happen (or not). It puts the story in their hands, and allows them the possibility of seriously changing or rewriting themselves in a way that a simple XP system wouldn't. When Folkwardr throws himself into a well (he's up to four wells now, the crazy bastard), he knows it'll totally fuck up all the things he spent XP on, but also that it'll give him new opportunities and paths he could never have embarked on with the setup he started with.
(Incidentally, what happened to Sowiljr was that, while in the middle of the heart of Comprenion, the Faterealm, he decided to perform a sacred blood-oath ceremony with Hel, the same way Odin did with Loki way back in the day. He didn't know exactly what would happen, since he has no Occult and is kind of a magic clod, but his player knew something would and the results are giving him whole new vistas to explore.)
And yeah, y'all already know we don't think XP is a reward for the player; their reward and reason for showing up should be to enjoy playing the game, and if they're not doing that, we don't know why they'd want to be here. XP for us is the measure of the character's ability to learn and change, nothing more, and it can therefore be manipulated as much as any other game stat.
I just wanted to say, since this was started with my post, that I actually think John and Anne's system of character creation is actually the 'right' system. I think it does everything that's really needed for the 'average' roleplaying group. It pretty much eliminates min-maxing in the worst sense (and allows it for the 'You're a Scion let's be bad-ass' sense,) it allows your character to be awesome while still having a lot of room for growth, and it punishes where it should (you're basically picking 'hard mode') while encouraging in places that are just going to make you more awesome.
DeleteThe reason I'm still not going to use it is because it simply does not work with my roleplaying group. That's all. My roleplaying group meets once a -month- if at all, and we've never made it past five sessions in a game without work schedules or simple boredom in the current story due to loooong intervals inbetween ending it. We've made hundreds (if not thousands) of characters across countless games, and none of them have ever gone further than ten sessions max. In terms of Scion, our characters have ALWAYS been Hero level, and Legend 3 is the furthest they've ever gotten before the game collapsed.
So we NEED the 'you can get 5 dots in a Relic to make it as AWESOME AS POSSIBLE' and the 'you have 15 bonus points to make your character god damn amazing.' It's just necessary for us to enjoy the game. For everybody else, though, I think J&A's system is best.
(on a side note, still really jealous of Royce)
@Anne: What is the in-universe justification for starting characters swapping out Virtues? I get that, over the course of the game, stuff could happen to change em around, but a should a starting character get to reject the call of his ichor like that?
DeleteI don't know why, but wanting to change your Virtue set always felt like saying 'I wanna be a Pesedjet, but I want to swap out Heku for Jotunblut'.
I'd say it's not conscious - while the player is getting to say, "I want to swap out a Virtue", for the character, that's just the way they are. Even some of the gods in myth obviously have slightly different Virtues than their pantheon's setup, so clearly while they all have a strong cultural tendency, it isn't an absolute. It's a place where a player can say, "I'm in X pantheon so I have their values, but in this one area I'm my own individual self/influenced by this other culture I grew up in/slightly different because of the kind of hero I am."
DeleteWe do keep it to only one for the reasons you note, though - the books allow you to swap as many Virtues as you want if you don't care about your PSP much, but then it's easy fodder for powergamers who plan to not pay any XP for a PSP and give themselves whatever Virtues they think will be "easiest" to manage.
Related question: how do you handle the mechanical aspects of the transitions to Demigod and God in your games?
ReplyDeleteI believe Anne wrote a nice long post about this a while ago, buried somewhere in the blog...
DeleteAh, here it is:
http://johnsscionresources.blogspot.ca/search?q=god+upgrade
EDIT: http://johnsscionresources.blogspot.ca/2012/08/the-apotheosis-rhumba.html
DeleteYeah, and the apotheosis post from a few days ago, for less tangible stuff relating to gods. :)
Delete