Love, Lies and Looks

Question: How do you stop players from getting everything they want when they can throw around 100-200 successes on their social rolls?

Easy. Their enemies can also throw around 100-200 successes on their resistance rolls.

Once Scions get to their crazy godly levels of madness, they can pull off some insane feats of social mojo, turning the tides of the world's politics and the emotions of the divine just as their more physically- or mentally-minded compatriots can heft mountains, predict the end of the world or circle the universe in an hour. With positive Fatebonds and average rolls, Scions who aren't even trying can get an average of 56-66 on their social powers' rolls as gods; if they want to also Legendary Deed, channel Virtues, use Animal Aspect, apply relic bonuses or do one of a zillion other things Scions can opt for to buff themselves, they can easily head into the 100+ stratosphere. This makes them fucking crazy, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. When Sowiljr flips a jaunty grin and the finger guns, entire nations get up and dance.

When it comes to creatures of lesser power and hapless mortals, that's okay. If a god rolls 100 successes on a social roll, everybody who isn't close to as powerful as he is should probably do whatever he wants. That's what his powers do and that's certainly what happens when socially badass gods turn up around less-important figures in mythology.

But people not being able to resist a social character doesn't always mean that character gets exactly what she wants, so don't be afraid as a Storyteller to make sure you roleplay an NPC's reaction to various social stats and powers. Not every character's response to social powers is the same and they're certainly not all positive; something like Engender Love might get you lovey-dovey and complete devotion, but it also might get you psychotic obsession and violent consequences, depending on the personality of the creature who now blindly loves you. Lies that an NPC totally believes may still lead to them taking actions you might not have anticipated, and characters who are bowled over by your beauty (or terrorized by your hideousness) might react with uncontrollable lust or dangerous violence depending on what's going on.

Which is not to say that your PCs' awesome social badassery shouldn't often result in sweet prizes and effortless cooperation; those are their powers, and they should work a decent amount of the time or you're not being fair to them. But even though they can provoke strong emotional responses, they can't always control exactly how those manifest unless they micromanage their targets, which makes a major difference when it comes to how a scene plays out.

As for gods who are of similar power level, the good news for them is that those who are good at resisting have just as great a chance of saying no as the social Scions have of making them say yes. Resistance knacks - Crazy Like a Fox, Disorienting Countenance and Parapet of the Mind - allow divine figures to resist with their Epic Attributes just as much as their enemies are trying to finagle with them, putting everyone on an equal playing field. A Scion may be able to roll in with 100+ successes on their Overt Order, but if their target can pay Legend and potentially have just as many successes on their resistance roll, that's far from an easy instant win.

Now, how your game runs resistances makes a very big difference here. If you're playing with a system of static resistances, the defender is always going to end up at a disadvantage thanks to their inability to add a lot of the boosters that the social characters can use; most static mental resistance systems wouldn't allow you to buff yourself with Animal Feature or Bona Fortuna or Become the Herald or all that other stuff that affects rolls instead of derived values. This is one of the reasons we vastly prefer a system where resistances are actually rolled, because it gives defenders the ability to make their defenses juiced up and epic as much as attackers, and because where a static DV for physical attacks makes sense because you take varying levels of damage, a static resist is not as helpful for social powers where there are no varying levels of "I do the thing". If, by some insane chance, you are playing at the god level and still using the terrifyingly bad resistance system in the Scion books - Willpower + Integrity + Legend with no other bonuses or Epic possibilities, and the ability to just spend a Willpower to ignore social powers - nothing is going to work right and we can't help you. It is an awful system and we can't quite imagine making it all the way through Demigod with it.

And, of course, remember that these rules are all in effect for NPCs, too. If your PCs can steamroll enemies with their social knacks, odds are they can be in turn steamrolled, so make sure your resistance system and powers aren't too punishing in either direction (Overt Ordering Titans into volcanoes is totally fun, but the same thing happening in reverse is total balls). It's fine for PCs and NPCs who don't invest in any resistance ability to be pushovers - they spent their XP on being good at things other than resisting, so they're going to have to take their lumps - but if people who are really awesome at resistance are still getting destroyed on a more than regular basis, you may want to examine your system balance.

Now, all that above pretty much applies to actually using social powers, which means knacks or boons that roll your social stats and have specific effects. If you're asking about the passive effects of just having a lot of socials, that one's less mechanics-bound but also easier; don't make it complicated but do make it reasonable. The same guidelines are in place, just sans rolls; if your Scion has badass socials, things that are not close to his power level will fall all over themselves to love/believe/desire/fear him, while things closer to his power level will require actual work to take down.

For the most part, our rule of thumb for creatures near the same level is that if it's something that strongly influences or forces another being to do something they wouldn't have done of their own volition or would be opposed to, you can't do it without actually using a power, meaning that your badass Charisma will make that fellow young god really like you and want to make you happy, but it won't make him stab his brother for you unless you push the issue. He'll be unhappy that you asked, he'll feel sad and conflicted because he can't do both things he wants to do (safeguard his brother and make you happy), but you're not going to be able to order him around like you could a much less powerful creature. He's a god, too, and a Legendary power in his own right; social characters in mythology are very powerful, but even they have to actually put effort into making people do things. There're no opposing rolls and no specific mechanics because these are all passive effects, so your job as a Storyteller is not to make social rolls insanely overpowered instant-win buttons. It's fine for social characters to be able to get Thor to automatically like them and want to feast with them and take them with him into glorious battle; it's not fine for them to be able to get Thor to divorce his wife or turn on Odin or give them Mjolnir unless they can actually use appropriate powers and overcome his resists.

It's a fine balancing act - Storytelling for gods is hard, yo, and we feel you on the difficulty of making sure things are both power-level balanced and fun and epic. It takes practice to be able to find the sweet spot that works for your games, and you'll need to make some decisions about what's too overpowered for automatic passive social powers and what restrictions will make sure your game stays fun for all your players. Just don't panic, be as fair as you can be, and hopefully over time and with input from your players you'll be able to make it to the balancing point.