The Slippery Slope

Question: Hello, John and Anne. This is a question spawned by your answer to The Golden Age. What would happen in a game if Scions began to side with the ideals of Titans? What would then happen story-wise? Would the game end? Would it then be a battle against the gods at that point? What if they were split amongst the party? I'm sure this is just at a Storyteller's whim to allow or disallow. But out of curiousity, what could be the ramifications of that happening?

There are a lot of ways it could go - literally almost as many ways as a game in which the players weren't being sympathetic to the Titans could go. John wrote an old post here that talks about a few of the options, but we're happy to revisit it as well.

Siding with "the ideals of the Titans" is a really big umbrella, to start with. Each Titanrealm wants different things, and even within each realm the individual Titan Avatars all have their own drives and goals that may or may not agree. Cronus, who wants to reexert his ultimate authority over humanity and the natural world, wants very different things from Kagutsuchi, who wants to cover the world in lava-spewing volcanoes, or even from fellow Ourea Avatar Aranyani, who wants all civilization overwhelmed by impenetrable primordial forests. Titans, like gods, all want different things.

Also, a Scion's level of sympathy with a given Titan, and how they choose to act on it, can vary widely and have extremely different impact on the game. Some Scions might agree with a particular thing a Titan is doing and help him succeed at it, but not work for them any further; this isn't any different in effect from Scions accidentally helping a Titan by being manipulated into it or not knowing what they were doing. Some might sympathize with a particular Titan without actually working for her, and attempt to convince other gods to look at her in a more positive light and perhaps forge alliances with her, spreading that sympathy throughout their allies. Others might become allies of the Titan in a firm way, running errands for him or providing him information, for any number of reasons - they're loyal family, they've been helped by the Titan before and feel like they owe him, the Titan's cause seems just to them or anything else - which means they're subject to all the dangers and problems of working for the enemy team.

Most of the time, when a Scion works with a Titan or her minions too much, we have that color and affect them mechanically. This usually takes the form of Dark Virtues, gained by the Scion after he spends a certain amount of time with the Titan's people or interacts with them significantly in some way. To use an example, Kettila at one point spent several months hanging out with a specific Titan, who "adopted" her and taught her several skills as well as convincing her to be her ally; by the time Kettila received her relic gifts from the Titan, one of her usual Virtues had been replaced by a few dots of Zealotry toward her new patron's cause, making her more likely to make Titan-aligned decisions. Other Scions, including Woody and Will, agreed to do a single job for a Titan and gained a Dark Virtue as a result, but didn't lose most of their normal Virtues, leaving them more aligned toward the gods despite the slight spark of Titanic sympathy in them. In a few cases, a Scion doesn't face a mechanical change for helping a Titan, but suffers from a major in-game one - as in the case of Sangria, who supported her grandmother Coatlicue thanks to ties of famiyl loyalty but as a result was subjected to a lot of political conflicts and problems thanks to her pantheons' severe displeasure.

However, when a Scion completely crosses over into working exclusively for a Titan, they usually leave our games. It's not because they're being a pain in the ass, necessarily, although they usually are, but because they become largely unplayable for a player at the table. Scions with Dark Virtues are incredibly hard to play in a band with normal Scions, because they are inclined to do terrible things - their Malice wants them to be cruel and capricious to their bandmates and those who need their help, their Zealotry wants them to act against the interests of the gods, their Rapacity wants them to take what they want no matter who it hurts, and their Ambition wants them to climb to the top over the bodies of their friends if they have to. Sure, they can try to control that by fighting those Virtues, but anyone who has Virtues knows that sometimes you can't control them, sometimes they will force you to act the way they want no matter how much you might otherwise want to avoid it, and those times will see you doing unspeakable things. And even if you don't have Dark Virtues, you're working for a being that wants to do terrible things, and if you're not careful, you'll be part of those terrible things.

Because that's what Titans are about. It's not that they're all inherently evil, but they're Titans because something about them - their powers, their goals, their behavior - is dangerous and destructive to others. A Scion who supports one of them is supporting that negative aspect of them, even if they also believe in the positive, and they're going to have to accept that that means they'll both be part of something they may not be able to morally justify and that their comrades among the gods may treat them accordingly.

Story-wise, things will develop depending on the PCs' action. If they support Titans, those Titans might become more powerful, even start winning against the gods, and that'll change the story. Some Storytellers may decide that if the whole group goes to the Titans, the game has to end; after all, they're probably all going to become very hard to work with thanks to Dark Virtues, and they may be cast out of their pantheons or doomed to be hunted down and killed for their traitorous actions when they become known. On the other hand, the Storyteller might let them continue for a while, to see if they embark on a redemption story (either the Scions redeeming themselves back to the side of the gods, or finding a way to redeem the Titan, even) or find a way to actually pull off balancing working both sides at the same time. In a split party, the PCs who realize that their fellows are tending toward the enemy may kill, imprison or turn them in, and it's entirely possible that they'd be right to do so.

It really depends on the characters, the Titans, and why the one is deciding to ally with the others. Sometimes it might be the smart thing to do; sometimes it might even be the right thing to do. But it will never be the easy thing to do, and it will probably always be bad for the PCs in the long run in some way.