Question: Gods can do anything. The purviews are a list of linearly progressive single-purpose abilities. How do you reconcile the idea of gods being able to have absolute power over their purviews with a list of boons that are only so flexible?
In two ways: firstly, we try to provide boons for whatever reasonable applications of the purview we can think of, and secondly, gods have purview Avatars.
The purviews, despite their suite of different powers, are of course by nature limited; we can only provide so many powers and effects for PCs to use, and that means that it's always possible (or probable, even) that something has been left out. The original purviews, with only one or two options at each level, were very restrictive in their possibilities for representing the entirety of a purview's possible capabilities. We've done our best - and are still doing our best, over time! - to try to write more boons to fill in those gaps, giving Scions more and more options so they aren't left wondering why they can't do X, Y or Z, and for the most part of day-to-day gameplay, that works pretty well. (But we are always trying to make sure we add more, so if you happen to have extra boon ideas, feel free to lob them at us!)
The second and more important method of making sure gods (and only gods, not lower-Legend Scions who are not yet able to fully embody their powers) have literally complete power over their purviews are the Avatars. A god who uses an Avatar - the Devourer for a fire god, for example, or the Crown for a star god - is able to do literally anything they can think of that falls within the scope of that purview, even if it wouldn't be possible with the lesser boons in the purview. They can create new things, cause permanent effects that have never existed, marshal all the powers of that purview beneath their wings and direct them to do things that humans can barely imagine. By definition, purview Avatars (and Ultimate Attributes) can do anything associated with their purview. As you say: absolute power over the purview.
We work hard to try to provide boons for everything we think lower-Legend Scions should be able to do with their purviews, but once it comes to things that only gods can do and that are massive, world-changing effects, that's what the purview Avatars are for. If you have in mind some giant, show-stopping craziness - thunderstorms that cover the entire globe! creation of brand new species of animal! invisible forcefields that encompass entire countries! - that you couldn't do with a boon, that's the place you'd be able to do it. Those Avatars are how a god finally asserts her final mastery over a purview, and gains the ability to do anything she wants to do, breaking all rules and crossing all boundaries.
So there you have it, really. The original creators of the game realized that purviews needed to have both specific mechanical effects to help Storytellers and players be able to meaningfully measure their results while playing, but also that gods needed to be able to assert their power over their areas of influence in every way, so they invented the Avatar and it was a good invention. There are a lot of things we think need fixing when it comes to Avatars and Ultimates, but their base existence, as the ability for a full-fledged god of a concept to take on whatever aspect or perform whatever deed related to his area of power, is an awesome and necessary part of the game.
I was going to comment that Darkness needs more fear type Boons, when a related question occurred to me: Darkness is the Purview of Fear, right, so would Phobos and Deimos have Darkness associated, even if they have nothing else to do with that Purview?
ReplyDeleteI mean, I was trying to make a parallel to Set having Earth even though he's only ever associated with desert sands, but that doesn't stick because all Earth Boons can be used on sand anyway. By contrast, how do you handle Gods like the fear brothers who only ever use a small subset of a Purview's powers? (I'm not bringing up the Sky Gods who only do wind cuz I know you've wanted to split that Purview since forever).
I totally agree about Darkness - in fact, I think there's a blog post about it coming up in the queue soon. That purview needs more to do in general.
DeleteI would say that, while Darkness has the fear boons, it doesn't have all the fear effects, so there's some room for wiggle. Phobos and Deimos have no darkness connotations, so I'd probably rather represent their associations with panic and rout with War boons that involve fear (Battle Cry, Warrior Ideal, Morale Failure) and maybe some Epic Charisma aimed at intimidation on the battlefield.
Someday, Sky purview!
Maybe a distinction between fear as a primordial force - which is what darkness mostly covers - and fear as a result of something else, in their case intimidation and panic in battle.
DeleteHmm, that last part is interesting. On a parallel note, what is the difference between madness as caused by the Moon Purview and madness as caused by the Chaos Purview?
DeleteI think that for those two, Chaos is the odd one out. Madness is generally the area of Moon's control - it is in charge of inflicting, twisting, benefiting from and altering insanity. Chaos can cause insanity on a different scale thanks to its control over the idea of breakdown and disorder - basically, in the case of insanity, riot of the mind. It's an extension of the mental breakdown boons earlier with Paralyzing Confusion and Crawling Chaos; they're not really creating insanity as a concept, just causing a breakdown of order.
DeleteSo Chaos can cause some insanity-like effects, but it doesn't have the real capability to control and manipulate them the way Moon does. If that makes sense.
when you say an avatar has absolute mastery of its purview, is the same true of ultimates and their attributes? and how exactly does one demonstrate perfect mastery of wits or charisma? it seems less clear cut than "I the devourer am the lord of all fire" due to the less magical nature of attributes. sorry if this is off topic but it just occurred to me while reading this.
ReplyDeleteNo problem, sounds on-topic to me. :)
DeleteAttributes aren't quite the same as purviews; where purviews represent a single concept, Attributes represent facets of an individual's personality and self, so "ultimate mastery" means something different in that context. Where a purview Avatar represents the god having absolute power over that idea, an Ultimate Attribute represents a god becoming the ultimate embodiment of that particular stat.
Attributes manifest differently for different gods - for example, different people with Charisma might be incredibly beloved, or incredibly good at leadership, or incredibly intimidating, with each of those would have the Ultimate. We often represent Ultimate Attributes as more like single show-stopper powers, so an Ultimate Attribute will only do one or two things (like a super high-powered knack), whereas Avatars can technically do anything.
thank you, that answers a lot of questions. Does the one off nature of ultimates mean that theyre weaker than avatars in general though? I'm not sure how closely you guys stick to the corebook idea that avatars are all of equal power so you can nullify them with your own avatars. But if you do, are ultimates comparable? can you use ultimate perception to figure out the tricksters illusions or ultimate charisma to change the arbiters mind or so on?
DeleteAlso, in the above examples the powers being used against each other make sense but in some other matchups it wouldn't seem to fit as well. Say a god tries to use ultimate intelligence to somehow defeat say the abyss or even a less favourable avatar vs avatar combat like say using the green to prevent the way moving? How does that work? is it just a matter of trying to imagine outlandish ways super smarts or cosmic plant mastery might thwart these effects?
We dont really do "nullifying" per se. Each use does its own thing. They can all work together(spending a use of your ultimate and that much legend only to get it nullifyed sucks). Think of uses that would "nullify" like using dragons breath underwater. It still works, its just kinda surrounded by water still. Or if your the water, even though you were surronding everything, now there is fire inside you.
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