From the Heart of the Vortex!

Today, we're clearing out a bunch of quick and easy answers! Blog attack, go!

Question: Would you use Larceny or Art/Science: Computer/Hacking for hacking?

Art (Computer), or, if you happen to have the Polymath boon, it would fall under Art (Modern). It's too specialized a skill to be done with plain old Larceny.

Question: Do improvements to relics always have to come from a crafter god, or can certain relics gain power through mythical events like their Scion owners gaining legend? For example, if a Scion defeated a powerful monster and gained a Legend dot, would her magic axe gain new abilities?

Relic improvements always need to come from Artistry within the game itself; you won't spontaneously gain new relic points from things you do, because that would be overpowered and difficult for a Storyteller to adjudicate (not to mention making people with Artistry have a purview that was way less useful). However, you gain new Birthright points when you become a Demigod and when you become a God, so you could have relics spontaneously gain dots at those jumps if you wanted to.

Question: Why doesn't Ra have Animal (Scarab)?

Because it's really Khepri, the scarab god, who has that association. Ra was syncretized with Khepri sometimes, where the beetle god was seen as Ra's aspect as the rising sun, but if we gave Ra associations for everyone he was ever syncretized with, he'd be Voltron.

Question: According to your posts, Hecate is still a titan (or at least very, very titanic). Does this mean she can't sire scions, or is she goddess enough to do so? Do her hypothetical kids have any side effects (showing up when scenting the titanic, gaining dark virtues etc) or are they just normal scions who might have to put up with some prejudice due to their heritage?

Hecate is a goddess for purposes of our games, and creates Scions normally as part of the Theoi. She is of Titanic lineage and occasionally called such in Greek mythology, but she's the same generation as Zeus' children and had a strong cult worship that made her close enough to humanity to be considered a god.

Question: What do Pakiy, Emamu and Stvaranje mean?

Etymological roots for all the Titanrealms can be found in this old post.

Question: Aura of Dread doesn't specify that it's only for Scions with Negative Epic Appearance, yet it is clearly the starting point for the Negative Knacks. Since it doesn't say "Negative only" does that mean an attractive Scion can still take that Knack? If I wanted my good-looking warrior Scion to still project a terrifying image on the battlefield, would that work?

No. Aura of Dread, like all the other knacks in the terrorizing tree, us usable by negative Epic Appearance only. It should say that, so we'll fix it, but it should also be pretty obvious, y'all.

Question: Are the Avatars going to get worked over with the boon revamp? Or is that a separate project?

It's a separate project, but one that we hope to work on soon, and we're talking about basic ideas for it while we work on the APP project.

Question: I was looking for how Sanctums worked, and found that your post from April 1, 2012 that said you were working on definite rules. Is that something thats progressing without a bar? has the project been demolished? up for vote? finished but not released?

It isn't being worked on at this particular moment, but we could certainly add it to the voting block if it's something you guys would like to happen sooner rather than later!

Question: Creatures are always lower legend than the scion. Does this also apply to Nahualli? I mean, they're YOU?

No. Nahualli are not Creature Birthrights and are not bound by that rule. They are a unique kind of Birthright all their own.

Question: Hello! If a Scion has a child as a Hero or Demigod, I know that the ichor would still flow from the grandparent and the grandparent will be able to activate the child, but what happens if the Demigod becomes a god - could they THEN activate their own child?

Yep, sure can.

Question: I was looking at your Perceptive Capacity table. Does it mean that the furthest any mortal can see is 12 yards (5 on the table)? That seems a little harsh to me, am I misunderstanding the rules?

You are, but that's okay, we explain it in this old post back here.

Question: Do the Aztecs have a legendary smith like Vølund or Hephaestus?

They do not; most of their armor and weapons were made of non-metal materials like obsidian and stiffened paper or cloth. They had artisans that performed goldsmithing (mostly for jewelry and ritual objects) and occasionally traded with their neighbors for bronze, but it wasn't an important enough style of crafting to merit its own deity.

Question: Do Fatebonds get the XP discount if the player has the appropriate Me PSP associated with a purview?

Yes, both the player and their Fatebonds get to buy (or unbuy) that purview at the lower rate thanks to Me.

Question: Do Empath auto-successes apply to Manipulation + Empathy rolls for lying?

Yes, they apply to anything that you roll Empathy for.

And that'll be it for now! Don't worry, we won't be doing a lot of these (we prefer the big in-depth posts!), but since the questionado has grown to a current maelstrom of 203, we figured we'd get a few of the quick ones out of the way.

Back into the fray!

All Abilities, All the Time

Okay, so this is last week's vlog, finally freed from the prison of John's video processing software. Please ignore all the business about the Secret Scion gift exchange, because obviously that was meant to mostly remind people to send us pictures last week. Also please ignore all the empty space above our heads in this video - I don't know what's up lately with all our vlogs being just the tops of our heads, but we promise we'll fix it.

As promised, this vlog is about abilities in a bunch of dimensions - so here we go!

Question: So, Arete. Massive lifting, dodge DV...you'd figure a hellacious Arete: Athletics would help these derived stats, but as written, seems not?

Question: So we know you'd pick Epic Strength and MAYBE Mystery as associated for Herakles. What would you choose for his six associated abilities?

Question: Could you explain the uses of Politics and Integrity (aside from your resistance roll)? I've always had trouble defining those.

Question: Scion is the only WW system not to have Subterfuge. Does this bug y'all? Do you use Empathy for lying to people? I hate that so.

Question: Would art restoration fall under Art, Craft or Science?

Question: Why does Hel have Medicine?

Question: I'm making an NPC scion who as a mortal practiced the martial art capoeira. In this instance, is it justifiable to use either Art (Dancing) or Brawl when making an attack? Or even combining them?

The other post about the Politics ability can be found here!

Apparently, a weird video cut (John was in charge of editing this, I would like to note) accidentally cut off our discussion of how Hel is not actually one of the Aesir and there are a lot of questions about who she is and what she represents, since she's both classified with the monsters but also treated as a goddess or at least an equal to the gods of Asgard, as well as being Loki's daughter. We're sorry about that, but it can always be a topic for another day!

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.

A Bit of This and That

Question: So my band of Scion mates have converted our Hero game completely over to your rules and have all admitted we are having the time of our lives with it. But we are all on the same question. Giving us 10 dots in Abilities is wonderful and all, but is there a Legend level or could a Scion of Legend 4 who spends all his DP to get his Brawl up potentially have Brawl 10? And if so, how do you compensate for his awesomeness at that low of a Legend? We also had one last question - since you are giving out Virtue based on Legend level, we all assume it can't be bought. Is this true? Also, we found where you stated how you go from Hero to Demigod and Demigod to God but Demigod in the book still has bonus points - do you simply negate them and do you split the gained 10 points for Epic Attributes and Boons into 5 and 5 or is it 10 and 10 or just 10 across the board? Thank you for your help and for your site and rules - YALL ROCK!

It's a mechanics party!

The abilities dots one is easy, eat least! It's exactly the same as the rules for Attributes: when you're less than Legend 5, you can get up to 5 dots of something, and after that point you can get dots up to your Legend level. Your Legend 4 Scion can only get 5 dots of Brawl, but once he hits Legend 6 he'll be able to get the sixth, and so on as he grows in power.

Virtues can be bought with XP! It's true that you do sometimes get them automatically when you go up in Legend. Whenever you hit an odd level of Legend (so Legend 3, 5, 7, 9 and 11), you gain one free dot of a Virtue, which can be any Virtue and any level you like. However, you can also buy it if you want to; Virtue dots cost 3 XP per level, the same as in the books, so a third dot of Courage (or whatever) costs 9 XP. You'll always gain a few Virtues as you grow more powerful, but you can also buy more if you want to increase your Willpower or gain more channels. Virtues max out at five dots (unless you're Bogovi).

Finally, we never use bonus points for anything, ever. The rules for handling character creation without using bonus points are here, but we don't have a specific writeup on the advancement at Demigod and God yet, I'm afraid. John knows how the system works, but it would be a lot of time and effort to write it up, so it's in our file for future projects to put on the site. However, we'd suggest that you drop the bonus points and either award a pre-set number of boons and Epic Attributes, or if you want to let the player choose more freeform, just replace them with an equivalent amount of XP.

In the Game of Gods

Question: How useful is the Politics ability after Hero? Since it's only limited to city politics, laws and government, I'm guessing not so much.

Oh, man. Each of our god-level players probably just cried out in a wave of why-don't-I-have-more-Politics despair. Politics is actually one of the most crucial abilities in the game for Scions at high Demigod and God levels, and those who don't have it regularly bemoan their fates!

Politics is used for a lot of things at Hero-level, it's true; our PCs use it to interact with city, government or religious officials and understand how to behave and get things done, to navigate their way through unfamiliar urban territory and to try to ingratiate themselves with the powers that be. But humans are not the only ones who have politics. The politics of the gods make the machinations of humanity look like the child's play that it is.

Interacting with your pantheon - with its leaders, its movers and shakers, its peculiar specific laws and customs - almost always requires at least a little facility with Politics. All the same things you dealt with on a human level are present among the gods, including laws, governments, cities and political deals, but that much larger, more complicated and more potentially dangerous if you put a foot wrong. You need Politics to be able to try to have any influence whatsoever within your pantheon over what it does, to whom and how, you need Politics to tell you not to do things like accidentally challenging Amaterasu's authority, and you need Politics to give you the basic tools to try to make smart marriage alliances, good friends or avoid treachery in the midst of the divine. Politics still does all the things it used to do, only now when you fail at it you're more likely to get thunderbolted out of existence than you were before.

There are gods without Politics, of course, and you can be one of them, but they are usually at the mercy of the laws, manipulations and orders of other gods. Gods like Ares or Thor are good examples of this; they're powerful, awesome and badass, but they have no political power and they can't make rules, set up negotiations or deals or influence what their pantheon decides to do. They end up subject to the decisions of the real political powerhouses, and they probably don't even notice most of the time thanks to that lack of Politics making it hard for them to even know how or why they're being directed or played.

No pantheon is immune to the need for Politics; even the less legally strict pantheons like the Orisha still need the skill in order for the kings to go about kinging, for justice to be served when someone does something wrong, and for people to know better than to accidentally bring up that time Shango killed himself within his earshot. Some of the pantheons live and die on Politics, with the first two that always spring to mind being the Amatsukami and the Anunna, who have spent millennia perfecting insanely complex and symbolically important etiquette and politics that directly affect the status, standing and treatment of any individual by the rest of the gods. A pantheon is very much a political entity, especially in Scion where the pantheons interact, ally and uneasily coexist in their fight against the Titans, and Scions who want to be able to swim in those shark-infested waters had better be prepared for that.

A few examples of Politics rolls in our recent god-level games:

Sowiljr needed to roll Intelligence + Politics to figure out what kind of incentives he might need to offer to convince a wayward member of his pantheon to re-ally and support him in his bid for power. He succeeded, and was able to promise the goddess to swear a blood oath with her and reinstall her in a new political position within the Aesir.
Eztli needed to roll Wits + Politics to avoid trashing the court etiquette of the Anunna all over the landscape when she busted in to talk to Marduk. She failed, which led to the Anunna as a whole finding her incredibly offensive and peasantish and ceasing to pay any serious attention to her, and her mentor Marduk to be quietly embarrassed and cancel his plans to present her as a favorable ally to his people.
Jioni needed to roll Perception + Politics to gauge the tenor of a crowd of courtiers, passing rumors and making backdoor deals regarding her. Her roll was mediocre, so she realized that there was a lot going on she didn't know about and that she should be wary, but didn't pick up enough to know exactly who might be plotting against her.
Sowiljr needed to roll Charisma + Politics to encourage a group of resistant gods to listen to his new proposal for who should fight whom in the Titan war and how it would benefit various parties. He succeeded only partially, and while he was able to convince people to try his plan, those it backlashed on are now severely upset with him and will probably try to politically undercut anything else he tries to do.
Jioni needed to roll Manipulation + Politics in an attempt to teach Eztli, her fellow god-queen, how to behave properly in a divine royal court. She succeeded and was able to train the otherwise complete political dunce how to introduce herself and compliment a ruler's palace.

As you can see, Politics covers a lot of ground when it comes to interactions between gods (I didn't even touch the recent successful marriage arranged by Sowiljr between two members of the Aztlanti, because it was Politics rolls all the livelong day and there was just too much), and there are plenty of other situations that might call for different ways the stat is used. Those are just naked rolls, too; there are several powers that use the Politics stats as well, including entire trees of knacks in the Charisma, Manipulation and Wits and scattered boons in several different purviews.

If you're playing a character that is very non-political - a naturalist, for example, or a bruiser, something along those lines - it's likely that your everyday life as a Scion won't require much in the way of Politics. Those kinds of characters seldom use it much except to avoid getting lost in the city or try to figure out what fork to use when their swanky bandmates make them have dinner with the Dodekatheon. But the Politics rolls will still be there and will still be meaningful and important, often with major consequences; not having Politics means that you'll more often than not end up in trouble, out of the loop or simply bewildered about what the hell everyone is talking about or doing.

(I just realized Folkwardr wasn't in any of those roll examples... probably because he hates people and more often bends his intellect to other pursuits. So there's our example of the no-need-for-Politics guy.)

Is This Thing On?

Solo vlog flight! Today, clearing out a bunch of older questions that have just been waiting for their turn in the sun! Talkin' 'bout associated powers, Appearance knacks, character concepts and the checkered history of African civilization.

Question: What do you think about people using Unusual Alteration to turn themselves into trees or animals? How would that function differently from Animal Form or other shapeshifting boons?

Question: Brahma seems so powerful, yet he has so few associated purviews and Epics. What's up with that? How do you reconcile what the gods can do and how important they are with how they are mechanically represented in Scion?

Question: What would you think of a character - a Japanese Scion or other - trying to model themselves off an anime character?

Question: What does The Sentinel going rampant look like? If a god with the Avatar of the Guardian purview gets killed, I somehow can't imagine the consequences.

Question: Code of Heaven says the Orisha are against slavery, and yet Shango has slaves. Can you explain?

Question: Do the social sciences belong in the Science ability?

Question: May I use the name Ian Jupiter (not the character, just the name) for my story? He's going to be the name of a reincarnated Zeus.

Back into the Industry/boons/Atua/Seamus mines with me!

Sticky Fingers

Question: Can you have a high Larceny score without having any kind of criminal record?

Yes, absolutely!

Larceny can be used in a lot of different ways for a lot of different purposes. The skill represents your understanding and skill when trying to crack safes, get through security systems, pick locks and case buildings and so on. Criminals often have Larceny, it's true, but so do those who fight them; a specialist in security, for example, must have a lot of Larceny in order to design things that can stop opportunistic criminals from trying to get past them, and most law enforcement officers and intelligence gatherers need a good amount of Larceny in order to go about their jobs. Magicians and other street performers who make a career out of escaping handcuffs or locked chests also probably have high Larceny scores. These are all career options that might lead to high Larceny scores with no criminal behavior that would end up on your record whatsoever.

It's also possible to be a criminal with lots of Larceny and just never have been caught. If you're so awesome at your burglaries or other shenanigans that police never catch you, then naturally you'll have no pre-existing criminal record. Granted, that's very difficult to do with modern forensics and information on the job, but if anyone can do it, it's a Scion-in-waiting. Things only go on your record if you get caught - and even then, if you happen to have parents or friends in high places, you might even get away with no criminal record even if you did get caught, if you've got enough hush-money or crooked friends to help you out.

It'll depend on what your character has done in her backstory and what she is and represents as a person, but there are plenty of ways to have a high Larceny score without having done hard time. Be creative and don't be afraid to ask the Storyteller for help if you're stumped on how to express your skills in your backstory.

Dots to Doing

Question: I was pondering the issue as to Scions of all ages starting with the same pool of points, which, to me, didn't make much sense. I don't know if you have your own fix for this, but as while I do homebrew Scion quite a bit, this still irks me. A 16-year-old girl can manage to have as many years of training as an old man? Doesn't make sense to me. How would you go about addressing this? I'm worried about keeping it balanced while making it feel more realistic. Well, as realistic as Scion gets.

Actually, no homebrew needed! Dots of abilities can mean a lot of different things, and there's no need for a system to work with them. A sixteen-year-old girl could indeed have as many dots of an ability as a forty-year-old man, and that's not only okay, it makes perfect sense.

One of the easiest ways to address this is just to talk to your players at character creation and ask them to have a backstory reason for their dots. If someone has five dots of Marksmanship, he should probably have some idea where that came from - is he Buffalo Bill? A special forces cop? Son of a family that has owned and sold rifles for generations? Whatever it is, as long as he knows what the dots of that ability mean, he's golden. It's perfectly legitimate for a seventy-year-old ex-soldier who was a sniper to have five dots of Marksmanship, and also perfectly legitimate for a fourteen-year-old Olympic archery champion to have five dots of Marksmanship. It's totally reasonable for a sixty-five-year-old professor to have five dots of Academics, and also totally reasonable for a teenage chess prodigy to have five dots of Academics. Age doesn't necessarily have to mean anything when it comes to ability dots; all that matters is that the player knows where those dots came from and what they represent.

Keep in mind, also, that these are Scions, and that means they don't play by the same rules as humanity normally does. They're naturally inclined to be better, faster, stronger and more skilled; a Scion who is a scientist is most likely automatically more brilliant than a normal human of the same age and training, because Scions are just inherently better thanks to being the children of gods, even before they've been tapped by their parents. Scions are likely to be child prodigies, unusual geniuses, genetically-blessed badasses and easily dominating their chosen professions and fields, even if they haven't yet had their divine blood awakened. And that's all Scions, not just the ones that are old enough to drink.

If you're still feeling worried about comparative ability totals, it's also totally reasonable to assume that some of that badass ability prowess for a starting Scion happens when he receives his Visitation. Scions gain a bunch of stuff at their Visitation that they didn't already have, including boons, Virtues and Epic Attributes, so if you'd like to say that some of their ability dots happened at that time instead of in their mortal life before, that's a workable flavor reason for an eleven-year-old Scion to turn up with five dots of Brawl. If you go with that idea, you can just say that the awakening of his divine blood caused some of his skills to shoot up and become awesome due to the godliness he was invested with, just as his Strength might have shot up thanks to gaining an Epic. It doesn't require any extra system and should be an easy answer for anyone who wants to ask about it.

But honestly, we wouldn't even bother with that too often. Scion's character creation is very freeform, with no restrictions on who you were, what you did, what kinds of resources you had or anything else before you became a god's child. That's a really great thing, because it gives players huge amounts of creativity in creating their characters' backgrounds, and there's no reason to rein that in. Scions are the children of the gods, and across mythology, children like that are awesome and badass at their areas of influence from early childhood, from Hercules brawling snakes to death in his crib to Adonis being so beautiful at birth that goddesses started fighting over him long before he was old enough to talk to Jesus schooling all the temple elders at religious theory while he was still a gangly kid. You don't need to stop them from being child prodigies or naturals who can do things others might have to spend decades mastering; Scions are supposed to be special snowflakes with starring roles in their own lives. Being awesome at stuff, regardless of age, is just part of that.

If a player says, "I want my Scion to have five dots of Occult at character creation," the answer from the Storyteller should never be, "You can't have that because your Scion's only fifteen." Rather, it should be some variation on, "Okay, how did your fifteen-year-old Scion get so amazing at Occult?", and then both you and the player will have the opportunity to come up with an awesome reason for his magical brains.

And That is Why Lugh Does Not Have Ultimate Wits

Question: Jack of all Trades and Know it All both say "If she already possesses dots in that ability, this Knack does nothing." Why don't you just use the higher of the two instead? I know lots of useless trivia in real life I can apply to subjects I already know something about. Your version creates an incentive for characters to intentionally leave some abilities at 0.

We've thought about doing that in the past, but we've always decided not to, for two simple reasons: the first is that we're not worried about the phantom "incentivization" to leave Abilities at zero because as far as we can tell it doesn't cause any problems, and changing to a higher-of-the-two model runs counter to what the knacks are meant to represent.

The point of Jack of All Trades and Know-It-All is to allow those who don't have any expertise in those areas to fake it thanks to their incredible brainpower. Those with Know-It-All are so smart and so well-read in various other disciplines that they can piece together enough reasonable guesses or related theories to operate as if they did for a little while; those with Jack of All Trades are so quick on the uptake that they can pull the right lever on instinct in the heat of the moment, even if they couldn't later tell you why they did it that way or what the theory behind it was. You didn't mention Don't Read the Manual, but the principle's the same there, too; that Scion is so exceptionally good at driving, traveling and operating transportation that she can for a little while apply her knowledge of other driving stuff to have the correct reflexes to keep herself in one piece in this nuclear submarine she just stole.

The point is not, however, just "become better at abilities". It's the opposite of that, in fact; it's acknowledging that the Scion doesn't actually know anything about those abilities and has to wing it when crunch time comes around. I think there may be some confusion here over what even having dots of abilities means, because your example doesn't make any sense; if you know anything about a subject, no matter how trivial, fringe or theoretical, you probably actually have a dot in it in real life. If you actually had no dots in that thing, you would have exactly no knowledge of it whatsoever - not theories you heard from somewhere else, not trivia on the subject, not memories from high school, but nothing. There are in fact, few abilities that humans in real life actually have zero dots in; anyone who's been through high school or even primary school probably has at least one dot in most of the knowledge abilities (Academics, Investigation, Medicine, Occult, Politics and so on), while anyone who isn't completely physically bedridden has at least one dot of Athletics and anyone who ever got into wrestling matches with siblings, even if they lost, has a dot of Brawl. If you can successfully light and maintain a campfire with dry sticks and a lighter, you have a dot of Survival; if you can steal cookies when your mom's asleep, you have a dot of Larceny, and so on.

This actually poses a few problems when creating characters, because of course in a point-system like Scion's, players inevitably leave some skills they should probably have a dot in at zero in order to maximize others they think they'll use more (this is actually a problem in pretty much every RPG, not just Scion; there's no rule that forces people to stat their characters realistically). We encourage players to think about what they want their characters to not only be good at but also be able to do at all in any way, because when they don't, they end up with characters who can't read, fall down trying to walk from one place to another or constantly fart in the middle of trying to impress people. Which is all pretty hilarious when it happens, but not exactly convenient. Our Hero characters usually start with at least one dot in most abilities they don't want to be completely incapable of; it's when they get to high Demigod and God that you start seeing a lot of abilities at zero, and that's not because the players neglected to buy any but rather because Fatebonds have decided they're bad at those things and permanently taken them away from them. You can see that in action by just looking at our character sheets; Hero-level Scions average about four to five abilities at zero dots, while gods average nine to ten.

Which leads to why we've never had a problem with players feeling like it was smarter to take no dots in abilities - because it almost never is. Having no dots in an ability means you're completely clownshoes at it, which is funny once in a while but more often annoying or even dangerous or lethal. Having Jack of All Trades or Know It All can help, but it's only a bandaid fix - what about that day you can't pay for one of those knacks, which is all too possible, especially at Hero levels or in the middle of heated battles? You're up the creek with no paddle, and the creek is full of hungry Titanspawn piranha. You can definitely skate by on the ability to fake it for a while, but the day will come when you can't fake it, and that moment will suck big time.

Another reason that buying abilities is important is that they are part of what you will be and define as a god; just as you have purviews and Epic Attributes associated with you, so do you also have the most iconic and awesome of your Abilities as part of your divine legend. That requires you to actually have those abilities, however, not just be good at half-assing your way through them when the need arises; if you don't actually have any dots of Politics, you will never be a god of Politics, even if you shenanigans your way through half the courts of the Overworlds. Your Scions won't get it associated (and neither will you), and it's unlikely that any stories will ever be told about your awesome political prowess; mortals will say that you were so quick on your feet or smart that you managed to fool everyone, but they won't respect you for the political powerhouse you're pretending to be. And they shouldn't, because you aren't a political powerhouse. You just play one on TV.

Our Fatebond system actually takes care of that problem in the game itself, more often than not; the more you do something, the more likely it is that you'll be Fatebound to it, at which point mortals will simply buy you the dots of Politics on the strength of their beliefs and then you really will be a politician among gods. As I said before, by the time they're high-level Demigods or gods, most Scions have abilities at zero because Fatebonds have bought them off, and abilities maximized because Fatebonds have latched onto them; they've written their own Fates with what they do well and what they fail at most often, and have the bonuses and dots (or lack thereof) to show for it. Those using different Fatebond systems may have different dynamics there, but the core idea, that you need to actually be good at something to be famous for it, is pretty universal. Ra is not famous for driving the solar barque through the sky every day and night because he fakes it with Don't Read the Manual; that motherfucker has maximum dots of Control (Barque), because he's literally god of driving the sun-barque around.

There's also the small mechanical matter of not wanting to make knacks useless. If Know-It-All and Jack of All Trades (and to a lesser extent Don't Read the Manual, although since it's technically infinite this would be a problem less often) allowed you to use the higher of the two, they would make themselves useless any time you actually became good at an ability, and we're not fans of knacks that render themselves pointless, even if only in part. That incentivizes leaving the abilities low just as much as the current system, since you still have no dice advantage to gain by buying them up. You could solve this by allowing the knack's phantom dots to stack with the normal dots... but nobody should ever be able to have more of an ability than someone who actually maxed it out, so that solution is no solution at all. Jimmy Legend Seven shouldn't be able to add his six Intelligence dots from Know-It-All on top of his six normal Occult dice and have more Occult than Odin. That's redonkulous.

So, no matter how you slice it, we're happy with either the buying-dots or the using-knacks approaches to abilities, and we don't see any reason to change the way the knacks work to save some poor powergamer from him- or herself. The knacks are meant to represent your ability to fake your way through abilities you don't really have with success for short periods of time; they're not meant to represent you having more knowledge all of a sudden, and they shouldn't supersede knowledge you actually have. It can be frustrating to think that you have five dots in this ability and would be getting seven dice to roll instead if you could use Jack of All Trades for it, but you're trading those two dice for dependability and legendary awesomeness, both awesome things to have in their own right. We encourage Scions to purchase dots of abilities that reflect what they do and want to be, and if they drag their feet, Fatebonds will often make that choice for them. And if they choose to always use knacks in lieu of buying dots, that's okay with us, too, because it illustrates the intent of the knacks perfectly; they're awesome at winging it on the strength of their legendary brains and reflexes, but sometimes they won't be able to rely on that and will fail, which is exactly what they're signing up for.

Buying dots of abilities grants you the ability to never have to spend Legend on them and to be able to build them as part of your identity as a fledgling god. Using knacks instead allows you to potentially get higher rolls than you might otherwise, but denies you the ability to make those abilities part of your Legend and forces you to risk sometimes being unable to take advantage of them if you don't have the Legend. Either one is a valid approach, and we see no reason that the knacks need to be changed as a result.

As with many things in Scion, just having a few more dice on a roll actually doesn't really mean that it's a better option. Just that it's one of many ways of accomplishing something, and that the player will have the opportunity to choose between them.

Hey, Man, Nice Shot

Question: This is probably dumb - Is there a reason you can think of that Marksmanship shouldn't require you to build up your ability in the way that Art, Science and Control do? I'm not sure I think you should need to, but it seems that different ranged weapons react in very different ways. For example, a pistol vs an AK-47 vs a bow vs the Aztec fling a big arrow stick (atlatl)? On a side thought, javelins should require Marksmanship and spears Melee, right? Thanks!

It's not dumb! This is something that every player and Storyteller runs into eventually, and it's an issue with the Storyteller System that Scion, like most of White Wolf's games, is based on. (Incidentally, new Scion under Onyx Path probably won't be on this system, but we have no idea what that will look like yet, so conjecture away.)

Yes, you certainly could diversify Marksmanship into Marksmanship (Handguns) and Marksmanship (Longbow) and Marksmanship (Gun Turrets) and anything else you want to; in the real world, those are all specializations that are basically the same idea - that is, shoot something that is far away with a ranged weapon - but that realistically require different skills. The problem with doing so is that you're looking at doing that for all the abilities, and that just isn't feasible from a gameplay perspective.

Because you can make that point about every ability. Academics could be Academics (European History) or Academics (Dead Languages) or Academics (French Poetry), right? Brawl could be Brawl (Boxing) or Brawl (Crane Style) or Brawl (Bar Scuffles). Why not Investigation (Crime Scenes) or Investigation (Internet Research) or Investigation (Paper Filing Systems)? Larceny (Security Systems) or Larceny (Lockpicking) or Larceny (Identity Theft)? Melee (Swords) or Melee (Spears) or Melee (Clubs)? Stealth (Camouflage) or Stealth (Disguise) or Stealth (Sneaking)?

And so on and so forth. And while there is a foolish part of me that loves that idea - because who doesn't love skills that are perfectly tailored to your character, right? - the more rational half of my brain knows that it's not a good idea. The reason the game doesn't specialize all skills is that it's unwieldy and inconvenient; it's a lot of extra bookkeeping that really only boils down to flavor, and it results in characters not having a useful ability far more often than they do. People whine enough about the skills we think need to be specialized, like Craft or Science - can you imagine the pathos if everyone needed to buy seven different kinds of Melee to really be sure they weren't going to be caught flatfooted in a fight? It wouldn't be good for the game; it'd actually detract from the playing experience, not enhance it.

Scion attempts to compensate for this some by applying a -2 dice penalty any time you use a weapon or item that's unfamiliar to you - that is, to use your example, if you have Marksmanship and are familiar with handguns but you have to suddenly try to use an AK-47, you'll have -2 to the roll as you try to figure out how this stupid thing works and still apply your knowledge of shooting. It's really only much of a hindrance for Heroes, but then again by the time you're a Demigod the bother of figuring out shortbow vs. longbow probably isn't a big deal anyway, all things considered. I've seen some Storytellers dispense with the dice penalty in the name of letting those skills shine no matter what the Scion is doing, and I've seen others up it to -4 dice or even more in order to make sure that they have a realistic handicap when learning a new weapon.

In the end, it's really not a good idea to add more specialized abilities to the game, fun though those specializations might be. It makes more sense for gameplay to let players stunt and decide where their dots come from in their backstories, and for the Storyteller to apply spot penalties where necessary for new or difficult situations.

As for spears, they would use Melee if you're using them to stab people, but they'd use Thrown if you were throwing them. Ditto javelins, and we also use Thrown for atlatl use, which is really a lot more like javelin-throwing than shooting. Don't forget about Thrown - it's an important combat skill, too!

Knowing and Doing

Question: Wouldn't Craft make more sense than Command in Know-It-All? Knowing how things were built would definitely help you craft something; there's nothing wrong with having Craft in two knacks since they do not stack; intelligent characters would have more support for certain common archetypes; many types of craft are more about knowledge than talent.

You raise good points, but no, we're pretty solid on Command and Craft where they are, the first in Know-It-All and the second in Jack of All Trades. The important distinction for us is that Know-It-All is only about things you know, while Jack of All Trades is only about things you do. Jack of All Trades involves being so quick on the uptake that you can fake your way through active abilities on the fly without having to know anything about them or have any experience beforehand; in that regard, it's actually the opposite of Know-It-All. Knowing things about what you're doing isn't what Jack of All Trades is for at all - you're doing everything by the seat of your pants, on instinct, rather than having any idea why at the outset. But it is what Know-It-all is for - Know-It-All can't actually do much of anything, but the Scion with it is so intelligent and so well-read that they know a lot of things that they can call up on the spur of the moment. This is why active abilities like Brawl, Craft or Stealth need Jack of All Trades, while passive knowledges like Academics, Occult or Science need Know-It-all.

Craft is almost always a very active ability; it's your skill in actually making or building things, and it's a must for Jack of All Trades (in itself it covers a lot of trades!). Crafting is literally working with your hands to make something.

On the other hand, Craft is not really a knowledge; the knowledge of how to do things with Craft is covered by things like Academics or Science, which Know-It-all excels at. Craft doesn't fit into Know-It-All any more than Brawl does; sure, knowing the principles of motions and human anatomical constraints would help you brawl, but that doesn't mean someone grabbing a dot of Brawl on the fly is learning force physics and anatomy at the same time, because those fall under Academics and Science. It's important to remember that while many crafts in the real world do require knowledge, they are not themselves necessarily knowledges; learning a whole lot about glassblowing technique will certainly help you if you want to be a good glassblower, but it doesn't matter for anything if you don't have a steady enough hand or the artistic talent to do it well. Knowledge is represented in Scion as Academics/Science/Occult and other related fields; it's distinct from the abilities that actually involve doing things.

On the other other hand, Command doesn't really fit into Jack of All Trades because it's not an active ability but more a knowledge of how to get people to respond and obey. Since it's an Attribute (Charisma) that actually puts the punch behind your commands, not an ability like Brawl, it falls more into the knowledge category than the action one.

Those who want to be a brainy crafter archetype are probably better served by picking up actual dots of Craft, and possibly Smith Among Gods, than they would be by fudging Craft into a knack where it doesn't belong. (Or even just getting Jack of All Trades, which only requires a single point of Epic Wits to get access to, after all.)

If we did allow Craft to be on Know-It-All, it would only be to know how to build a table - you still wouldn't actually be able to create the plans for the table or build the table, because Know-It-All is for knowledge, not doing;. You'd still need dots of Craft or Jack of All Trades to actually cause a table to come into being. So it wouldn't be a lot of help for the way you seem to be wanting to use it.

Honestly, I'm surprised that Craft was the focus of this question, considering that the two knacks have other abilities that seem to blur the lines to me more. Craft is definitely not one of the more ambiguous ones.