John's Scion Resources: Blog

If you could completely rework the Epic Attribute system what would you do?

Ive actually been talking about this topic a lot lately.

WINK

But its actually a really tough question to answer. I can start dreaming(and i certainly have) about many different systems that might work better then the epic attribute system. I think the person that figures it out will have the building blocks of an excellent game. I think the epic system works well enough, but Ive fallen out of love with it. But my complaints seem to be different from other people I talk to who dont like it.

Most people dont like how crazy the scale gets, but I love the scale. At times I think the scale should be bigger(my god fatebond rules make it bigger, kinda). But at the same time, I think there has to be a way to make it scale, but be more fluid, more....intuitive maybe? Im not even sure on the right word, but I feel like there can be some better way, but because most of the people looking for solutions are looking to get around the things about the epic system that I actually like, i often dont agree with new systems and work arounds.

I think the 9 attributes need to be in the game. Maybe they dont need to be "attributes" but they need to be super important parts of the game. With mythology in mind, I think dex, manip, intel could MAYBE get molded into a war/chaos/mystery boon path kinda thing. Where wits is normal intelligence or something but mystery/intelligence is godly intelligence....Im just spitballing here, but I know the rest are mandatory for gods, intelligence and manipulation are very important, but maybe could be bound up in boons in some way. And dexterity....is actually super rare amongst god stories and probably the attribute Id be ok with not existing.
With that said, game-wise dexterity, the ability to dodge and move fast and be flexible is very important, and i use it in a ton of rolls, mythologically, its not necessary.

That was a long, poorly thought out ramble, I apologize. Basically, I know, somewhere there is a better system then epics, however Ive spent tons of time on it....and I keep coming up without success. I think any system should keep most of the attributes though, and the scaling should be similar, if not larger.