Star Power

Question: What does Presence do? It's incredibly nebulous and confusing; I only tell people to roll Presence when it is obviously not Empathy, Politics, or Command. AKA, when I can't think of anything else that fits better.

Presence can be confusing, but it's also an important core stat. We include it in the group of "innate" abilities - that is, things that are not so much skills as innate qualities of the Scion, a group that also includes Empathy, Fortitude and Integrity. Scion's system counts these as abilities for purposes of dice pools, but they're not really things you learn as much as things you are, so they also share a little conceptual ground with the Attributes.

Presence is exactly what it sounds like; it's the quality of being present, noticeable, important or arresting. It's Presence that makes people notice you and hear what you have to say, or that gives you the ability to command a stage or be the center of attention. It's nebulous in that some of these things are also affected strongly by your Attributes, particularly Charisma, but it works hand in hand with them the same way Perception works with Awareness or Dexterity works with Athletics. Having a lot of Charisma doesn't necessarily give you a lot of Presence; if you have maximum Charisma but no Presence, you'll be a great time to talk to or super interesting or friendly in person, but you won't necessarily be noticed in a crowd and people won't always think to come talk to you without prodding. If you have a ton of Appearance but no Presence, people won't quite realize how lovely you are until they've spent some time around you or you've directly used a power on them; you're no less beautiful, but that je ne sais quoi that makes it pop isn't there. That's illustrated by your Epic Attributes not coming into play if you lack Presence, just like it would be with any other ability.

We have players roll Presence most often when we're measuring how much of a splash the simple fact of them being there makes on the world around them. When the band enters somewhere with people, they roll Appearance + Presence to see which of them gets noticed first or by the most people; if they try to work a crowd in a general way, they roll Charisma + Presence to see how much people notice and are interested in them. Manipulation + Presence would apply to situations where they're trying to give off a particular impression without specifically targeting or talking to anyone (acting a role, for example). We also use Presence when the person's aura or presentness is a major issue, such as when we're testing whether or not they can shout loud enough to be heard or perform a distraction big enough to get someone's attention.

Actually, "when Command, Empathy or Politics isn't appropriate" isn't a bad yardstick for deciding when to use Presence. Those three are more specialized forms of social interaction, and Presence usually makes a great ability not only for moments when it's the best choice on its own but also when the other three don't fit.