If you were ever to revamp the Itztli how would you do that? It seems like many of the boons do the same thing, just better than the previous boon, and some of the boons don't seem to fit with the culture.
Yeah, Im not a big fan of how itztli is really. I tried to do some major changes early on, but got some pressback from anne about it. She was very happy with how it was. But I think shes come around to realizing that its a little too much of the same(especially in comparison with some of the other psps we've redone recently). I could also be totally wrong about that and she could think Itztli is fine.
I like the main theme of itztli. Sacrifice is huge for the aztecs people and their gods. Blood is the fuel the gods use to make their powers work and continue living. In game terms very literally blood is legend, so it makes a good fit. And its very nice to have a psp that is a very specific idea to its core. But at the same time, I dont think I can make 10 levels of "something to do with blood = something to do with legend". My first step in working on the psp would be to try though.
If I failed, which Im pretty sure we would. I would next try to incorporate nahualli. They are also an important part of the culture that isnt really covered by anything else. We've been doing it with relics before, but I think it can be expanded to be made both more fun and more interesting by incorporating it into the psp. Different levels, maybe rotating with levels of scarifice that see your connection to your nahualli slowly growing until at god you, maybe become two seperate entities that can work in tandem? Maybe that happens before god? Maybe it doesnt. Itd be a long process(one Im excited about doing), but thats probably where Id start.
So I hope that helps, any more then that, and Id be well on my way to spending hundreds of hours working on Itztli.
Thanks for the question, maybe itll bring the numbers up on a future poll to see what we do next.
Heh, John plays the "Try to Guess What Anne Thinks Without Asking Her" game.
ReplyDeleteI think Itztli is conceptually awesome right now, but agree with John that it could use more differentiation and interest in its levels. There's too much duplication - the levels make sense, but aren't very exciting. I'd like to see that change.
And let us not forget Familial Sacrifice, which has probably done more than the Conquistadors in giving the Aztecs a bad name.
DeleteFor certain
DeleteMaguey Sting is underwhelming, and I think it can safely be folded into Obsidian Mutilation. Maybe have it so that you treat the number of HLs you can shed a day is equal to Epic Autosuccesses?
ReplyDeleteCombat Sacrifice and Sacrifice of Will do very well, but CS is biased towards Stamina-based characters, and SoW has ill-defined constraints that can be, depending on your ST, either incredibly lax or prohibitively strict.
Obsidian Excruciation and Reception of Sacrifice are both well done, at the proper dot levels. I’ve heard some rumblings that Obsidian Excruciation needs work, and if you agree, I’d personally suggest that you add a limiting factor on number of people you can sacrifice in a certain time period (scene, story, 13-day trecenas…)
As awesome as Poco a Poco and especially The Burning Heart are, neither of them are particularly resonant with Aztec myth. I think they can safely be axed.
Communal Divinity is also cool and has the typical vaguely-socialist flavor found permeating Aztec culture, but part of me wonders if this shouldn’t be a Demigod Boon.
Familial Sacrifice needs to fall in a well and die.
Yeah, Poco a Poco is really a boon based on popular misunderstanding of Aztec sacrifices (eh, let's just put different ways of butchering people, I'm sure they did all of them, right?), and Burning Heart has the same problems. A lot of the purview makes good sense, but it has the same bad-background issues as the entire Aztlanti writeup in the RAW.
DeleteFamilial Sacrifice does indeed need to fall into a well and die. More than once, if possible.
More than rumblings, Obsidian Excruciation definitely needs a limit on how many people you can sacrifice. Once you become strong enough to wipe out small towns, it becomes very abusive.
DeleteWe're considering it, although that kind of large-scale abuse should have in-game consequences from the Storyteller. Sangria got her ass Justice-banished from Europe at one point, I believe, because she killed too many people in Tyr's territory and he was tired of her shit.
DeleteIt's hard to justify those kinds of storyteller consequences every single time without it seeming like the storyteller is picking on you.
DeleteIt can sometimes be hard to justify the gods caring about every single town or group of potential sacrifices, though this varies from region to region.
And then there are things like psychopomp Aztecs who can just teleport to somewhere the behavior is accepted, full up the tank, then teleport back.
You dont have to punish it every time. Although for somethings you should. I promise you, no where is killing an entire town (or lets say 10 people) acceptable. There is no town where murder is legal. Even in aztec areas of the world, thats still not ok.
DeleteYou're a demigod by the time you get obsidian excrutiation, so mortal authorities are not going to matter very much to you unless they bring out a whole army to try and stop you.
DeleteIn fact, you might have to roll conviction not to kill them unless doing so would seriously inconvenience you. Their lives are nothing compared to the risk of not having enough legend to defeat the next life threatening challenge.
Isn't Itztli supposed to be highly ritualistic? The idea of filling up in the middle of battle sounds rather impractical given that the battle might be over in the hours it would/should take to properly sacrifice a whole town.
DeleteI was talking about other gods/demigods. Breaking laws isnt a mortal problem. Gods, gaurdian, perception, order, they arent cool with random slaughter of innocents by aztecs that want legend. You think an egyptian god/scion gives a fuck that you need legend?
DeleteSamudra's right, also - you can never use Itztli in a fight (unless you're sacrificing someone who isn't in the fight and not participating). Dealing damage to someone in the normal course of combat never counts for Itztli, because it's just having a fight, not performing a ritual sacrifice.
DeleteI didn't mean that the ST should kick your ass every time you use your boons - obviously, that would be picking on you. But when you use them on a large scale that is dangerous, illegal or noticeable to those who don't agree with the Itztli moral scale (i.e., almost everyone who isn't Aztec/your friends), you're asking for it.