Question: How useful is the Politics ability after Hero? Since it's only limited to city politics, laws and government, I'm guessing not so much.
Oh, man. Each of our god-level players probably just cried out in a wave of why-don't-I-have-more-Politics despair. Politics is actually one of the most crucial abilities in the game for Scions at high Demigod and God levels, and those who don't have it regularly bemoan their fates!
Politics is used for a lot of things at Hero-level, it's true; our PCs use it to interact with city, government or religious officials and understand how to behave and get things done, to navigate their way through unfamiliar urban territory and to try to ingratiate themselves with the powers that be. But humans are not the only ones who have politics. The politics of the gods make the machinations of humanity look like the child's play that it is.
Interacting with your pantheon - with its leaders, its movers and shakers, its peculiar specific laws and customs - almost always requires at least a little facility with Politics. All the same things you dealt with on a human level are present among the gods, including laws, governments, cities and political deals, but that much larger, more complicated and more potentially dangerous if you put a foot wrong. You need Politics to be able to try to have any influence whatsoever within your pantheon over what it does, to whom and how, you need Politics to tell you not to do things like accidentally challenging Amaterasu's authority, and you need Politics to give you the basic tools to try to make smart marriage alliances, good friends or avoid treachery in the midst of the divine. Politics still does all the things it used to do, only now when you fail at it you're more likely to get thunderbolted out of existence than you were before.
There are gods without Politics, of course, and you can be one of them, but they are usually at the mercy of the laws, manipulations and orders of other gods. Gods like Ares or Thor are good examples of this; they're powerful, awesome and badass, but they have no political power and they can't make rules, set up negotiations or deals or influence what their pantheon decides to do. They end up subject to the decisions of the real political powerhouses, and they probably don't even notice most of the time thanks to that lack of Politics making it hard for them to even know how or why they're being directed or played.
No pantheon is immune to the need for Politics; even the less legally strict pantheons like the Orisha still need the skill in order for the kings to go about kinging, for justice to be served when someone does something wrong, and for people to know better than to accidentally bring up that time Shango killed himself within his earshot. Some of the pantheons live and die on Politics, with the first two that always spring to mind being the Amatsukami and the Anunna, who have spent millennia perfecting insanely complex and symbolically important etiquette and politics that directly affect the status, standing and treatment of any individual by the rest of the gods. A pantheon is very much a political entity, especially in Scion where the pantheons interact, ally and uneasily coexist in their fight against the Titans, and Scions who want to be able to swim in those shark-infested waters had better be prepared for that.
A few examples of Politics rolls in our recent god-level games:
Sowiljr needed to roll Intelligence + Politics to figure out what kind of incentives he might need to offer to convince a wayward member of his pantheon to re-ally and support him in his bid for power. He succeeded, and was able to promise the goddess to swear a blood oath with her and reinstall her in a new political position within the Aesir.
Eztli needed to roll Wits + Politics to avoid trashing the court etiquette of the Anunna all over the landscape when she busted in to talk to Marduk. She failed, which led to the Anunna as a whole finding her incredibly offensive and peasantish and ceasing to pay any serious attention to her, and her mentor Marduk to be quietly embarrassed and cancel his plans to present her as a favorable ally to his people.
Jioni needed to roll Perception + Politics to gauge the tenor of a crowd of courtiers, passing rumors and making backdoor deals regarding her. Her roll was mediocre, so she realized that there was a lot going on she didn't know about and that she should be wary, but didn't pick up enough to know exactly who might be plotting against her.
Sowiljr needed to roll Charisma + Politics to encourage a group of resistant gods to listen to his new proposal for who should fight whom in the Titan war and how it would benefit various parties. He succeeded only partially, and while he was able to convince people to try his plan, those it backlashed on are now severely upset with him and will probably try to politically undercut anything else he tries to do.
Jioni needed to roll Manipulation + Politics in an attempt to teach Eztli, her fellow god-queen, how to behave properly in a divine royal court. She succeeded and was able to train the otherwise complete political dunce how to introduce herself and compliment a ruler's palace.
As you can see, Politics covers a lot of ground when it comes to interactions between gods (I didn't even touch the recent successful marriage arranged by Sowiljr between two members of the Aztlanti, because it was Politics rolls all the livelong day and there was just too much), and there are plenty of other situations that might call for different ways the stat is used. Those are just naked rolls, too; there are several powers that use the Politics stats as well, including entire trees of knacks in the Charisma, Manipulation and Wits and scattered boons in several different purviews.
If you're playing a character that is very non-political - a naturalist, for example, or a bruiser, something along those lines - it's likely that your everyday life as a Scion won't require much in the way of Politics. Those kinds of characters seldom use it much except to avoid getting lost in the city or try to figure out what fork to use when their swanky bandmates make them have dinner with the Dodekatheon. But the Politics rolls will still be there and will still be meaningful and important, often with major consequences; not having Politics means that you'll more often than not end up in trouble, out of the loop or simply bewildered about what the hell everyone is talking about or doing.
(I just realized Folkwardr wasn't in any of those roll examples... probably because he hates people and more often bends his intellect to other pursuits. So there's our example of the no-need-for-Politics guy.)
This is your house. You have many tables.
ReplyDeleteA+, ready for the Queen's Stitch'n'Bitch.
DeleteThe problem with politics is that there is almost always something else you could be rolling. Just hitting each of your examples one at a time:
ReplyDeleteSowiljir could have rolled Intelligence + Empathy to know how a member of his pantheon would react to each incentive he could think of, until he arrives at the best one.
Eztli could have rolled Charisma + Presence and activated Benefit of the Doubt and Hapless Cool, and then the Anunna would have a hard time finding her offensive and peasantish.
Jioni could have rolled Perception + Investigation to listen to everything the courtiers said and Perception + Empathy to know what they were going to do next.
Sowiljr could have rolled Charisma + Command to make the resistant gods step into line and follow his command willingly.
Jioni could have used Kill The Messenger to make Eztli a manipulative powerhouse in a divine royal court, who could herself then use Manipulative + Presence to make a good impression.
I'm not saying those characters personally would be good at those particular rolls, just that there is almost always something else you could roll beside politics. :(
That's a specific symptom of a general problem: Scion's social Abilities being poorly defined. There's not any Ability that really covers LYING, for example. Yes yes, Empathy and Larceny, but neither of those is a really intuitive fit like the Subterfuge Ability that exists in all the other WW gaming systems.
DeleteWhat's the real difference between Presence and Command? It's hard to draw a good line, and each ST is going to draw that line differently, or let you shift it around with stunts.
It's a similar issue with Charisma vs Manipulation. Are you charming someone into following your orders? Lying them into it? Bamboozling? Browbeating? Terrifying? Which falls under which Attribute?
Because most RPGs place a far heavy emphasis on systems that resolve physical combat and leave social interaction up to the roleplaying ability of the players, there's not much guidance for rolling social stuff. It's just a big, sad flaw.
No, anon, your examples are ways you would like it to work, but probably not ways it should work. Because politics exists, you dont need/want to make those substiution.
Delete1: sowiljr could use empathy to know how they'd feel, but not to know the political repurcussions or to find out what he'd need to offer politically. Empathy doesnt do that politics.
2: Your charisma presence needs to be heads and shoulders above others in the room to go beyond requiring ettitquete. When your surrounded by people with ultimate charisma, they dont care as much that you are super charismatic. They like you a lot, but breaking etiquete is always bad.
Also benefit of the doubt is per person, thats a lot of legend, not to mention, it wouldnt work in this situation.
3: No. Perception empathy tells you what courtiers are gonna do next, yes....but that doesnt help you, cuase they're just courtiers. They're probably going to lunch. Perception investigation doesnt seem to make any sense here, that isnt what investigation does.
4: If you have actual command over those people, yes, command works. If you dont, you are trying to command people who arent actually under your command which is always much harder. If they're actual gods....there is just no way that is happening. With politics you can make it work, with only command, no way in hell. Trying to command them is more likely to get them to ignore you or become angry with you.
5: Manipulation anything is rarely used to make a good impression. And even if that would work a big(or if she instead used charisma) the politics part is important. You cant just run into a kings house and be charismatic, if you arent following ettiqute you'll be frowned upon, or worse, justice'd.
Source,
DeleteIll admit that perhaps it is confusing to some STs, or can be shifted around based on stunts for some STs, but all your examples seem pretty cut and dry.
Empathy is human emotions, the manipulating, reading, and knowledge of them. Seems pretty easy to figure that lying would fall under that. It doesnt make any sense to need a seperate "lying" stat in addition. Does it? Maybe if you subsitituted it for empathy, but empathy does so much more and also has lying.
1) He can roll empathy to know how they will react to what he can offer, and then he can pick something suitable. He can use investigation to piece together the repercussions of his offer.
Delete2) I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure having lots of charisma does not protect you from the power of someone else's charisma. It has nothing to do with your resistance stats.
3) Intelligence + empathy can let you figure out what a person is going to do in any given situation, you just need the perception to get the details for your intelligence to work with.
4) Why would a god not respond to a high charisma or manipulation + command roll? I don't think all gods have maxed out resistance stats.
5) I don't understand how manipulation could rarely be used to make a good impression. I'm pretty sure it's all about emotional manipulation, which includes pleasing people. Also, you can find out the necessary etiquette with investigation.
Im not going to go through and answer all of these again. They answers all boil down to, "you're worrying too much about resistance rolls" and "thats just not how things work".
DeleteYour 5 versions of "how to game the system" just dont pan out.
It's not about gaming the system, it's about there being more than one way to approach any given problem.
DeleteIt's also what Source J mentioned, where social stats are really vague and have a mountain of overlap.
I also really, really don't understand the whole thing about being able to ignore the social stats of other people just because you're a god. That's not me being snarky, I just don't get it. :(
Here's the big thing I get from your post, anon: Politics is an Ability in the game. It should therefore be the ability you use for politics. This is pretty simple and obviously its purpose, so why do you want to use other abilities instead? If someone wants to track a beast through the jungle, we wouldn't have them roll Perception + Investigation - not because Investigation couldn't make some sense, but because Survival is a skill in the game and is clearly intended for this kind of situation.
DeleteEmpathy, Command, Presence and other social skills are certainly in play in political situations, but if the game intended them to be the be-all and end-all, only ways of dealing with the situation, Politics wouldn't exist. But Politics does exist, and that's a good thing, because it covers a specific milieu more cleanly and well than mish-mashing a bunch of other abilities would.
I'm not sure if you're the original question-asker, but if you are: what's the difference between divine politics and mortal, that you know you can use Politics as a Hero but for some reason thing you wouldn't as a god? What do you use Politics for, and why don't you extrapolate that up the scale?
I don't think it's a terrible thing to be creative about wanting to swap Abilities, but your examples wouldn't work for us in our games - not because they're bad, necessarily, but because they aren't as good as Politics itself would be. If Sowiljr had given us a great justification for wanting to use Empathy instead of Politics for his roll, we might have allowed it - but it would have changed the nature of the roll and the results. In some cases, we'd allow a substitution but levy a dice penalty or increased difficulty on the roll to reflect that the Scion is coming at this problem from a less than optimal direction. To use the tracking example above, we might let someone try to find tracks using Investigation instead of Survival, but at a -6 dice penalty (or whatever was appropriate for the situation/power level of the characters); he's very good at investigating, but he's not really cut out for the jungle and the unfamiliar environment makes this a lot harder for him than it would be for someone who had a lot of woodlore.
In others, such as Sowiljr's example, it would change the outcome of the roll - while he certainly might have been able to understand and empathize with the goddesses moods, feelings and even motivations with an Empathy roll, he wouldn't necessarily be able to put them in the right context without Politics to help him understand what that meant in terms of what to do and offer in the situation. Instead of telling him, "There's a political precedent for blood-siblingship solving disputes in your pantheon, and thanks to this particular person's background, they are likely to view that as an acceptable peace offering," we'd probably have said something more like, "She doesn't trust you and has been burned by members of your pantheon letting her down before, so you can sense that you'll need to make a pretty huge gesture if you want her to take you seriously." Both rolls would have gotten him useful information, but since he was analyzing and trying to find the proper response to a political situation, Politics would be the more directly useful result. He might have arrived at the same conclusion with an Empathy roll, but he would have had a lot less to go on and been just as likely to choose an option that didn't get him the best results.
Source J is right, though - every game and every Storyteller treats socials slightly differently when it comes to what they do and represent. If your Storyteller never calls for Politics, or you play a more smash-n-grab style that doesn't have a lot of use for it, then yeah, it's probably non-essential and you can ignore it.
DeleteIf you honestly and truly believe that all rolls that use Politics could use other stats instead... then man, you just need to delete Politics completely from your game and be done with it. We think that would be super sad, because Politics does its job so beautifully and is such a vital concept when dealing with politics on a godly and cosmic scale, but that's just our opinion. If, on the other hand, you can think of times you would want Politics rolled, you might want to revisit what exactly the stat does and what other rolls might be more appropriate for it that are being fudged into other abilities right now.
"Sowiljr needed to roll Intelligence + Politics to figure out what kind of incentives he might need to offer to convince a wayward member of his pantheon to re-ally and support him in his bid for power. He succeeded, and was able to promise the goddess to swear a blood oath with her and reinstall her in a new political position within the Aesir."
ReplyDeleteHeh...
Don't suppose we could get a name?
I have my money down on Hel.
DeleteIm pretty sure it was a hypothetical.
DeleteIt said "A few examples of Politics rolls in our recent god-level games:", though.
ReplyDeleteSamudra, yeah, I'm betting on Hel as well.
I don't remember any of the others in Sowiljr's group (who could fit the Aesir, at least) who'd have Death, and there's been talk about how every pantheon needs someone to watch their underworld.
Plus, I don't think Hel was mentioned as dying in Ragnarok.
And more importantly, Anne specifically mentioned that Sowiljr and Hel had gotten bound by blood oath the way Odin and Loki had eons ago, right smack dab in the middle of Comprenion no less, in an earlier comments section not too long ago, though I don't remember what post. I think it was a conversation on the sacredness of XP and how Sowiljr's oath in the middle of a Titanrealm had completely screwed up some of his Purviews.
DeleteSo yeah, unless the new Allfather's been making blood oaths with every Tyr, Donar and Heimdall, its probably Hel.