Power Plays

Our vlogging spree continues! This is only the second of the many vlogs we filmed at the same tinme, so we barely look fatigued at all yet! This week's theme is boons, knacks and powers, because you guys never run out of questions about those things. Never.

Question: If a player wants to dip into a new general purview, how should accessing these new powers be handled? Do they always need a new relic, or can divine forces add access to new purviews to old Birthrights? If the latter, is there any mechanics involved or is it a strictly storytelling decision when that happens?

Question: So, Scion of Hermes/Mercury. Super speedster, concept of "Flash wannabe". Assuming maximized Dexterity, Epic Dexterity, and Psychopomp to facilitate dash speed, what are your thoughts on the Justice League "around the world punch"? Ultimate Dexterity? Use of The Way? What about speed-based bonus damage? When you punch a person at Mach 17 in Scion, what happens?

Question: What kind of penalty/bonus should exist for sexual orientation? If Zeus tries to sleep with a straight guy or gay girl, do they get some moderate +X bonus to resist?

Question: The writeup of Emamu mentions "attacks made by Death or Health boons". Obviously negative Health boons can be used offensively, but what Death boon can hurt something that isn't a ghost?

Question: How many Avatars do you have to pop to make a planet? How do you accomplish anything meaningful in space without constantly using Avatars and Ultimates?

Question: Is it possible for a craft god like Hephaestus to use the Creator to "forge" a full grown adult Scion with human blood along his own ichor? The idea came to me when I read about Hephaestus' sentient robo-maids in the Iliad and thought it would be a neat concept. So, would this actually create a Scion, or would it be some kind of Lesser Immortal or construct?

Question: I have been immensely curious about something lately as I am going back through and reading the core rules, specifically about Animal. I've noticed that as the Scion Seth Farrow goes through his ascension, he begins to naturally look much more like a snake, which to me it seemed was implying an evolution in his natural state over time. How would this be done, handled or represented from both a player perspective and a ST perspective?

Question: Is it possible that Machu Pichu could be a massive Huaca (possibly to Inti)?

Question: In Scion, would you have storms without storm gods? That is, are ALL storms caused by storm gods, or are some (most?) storms natural unless the local storm god chooses to intervene? In Scandinavia, would ALL lightning be directly caused by Thor, or just some? As a corollary, if all storms are directly created by the storm gods more or less at their whim, how come meteorology often works? (This obviously goes for other phenomena as well, like sunrise or love, but storms make a nice example.)

Wandering from cosmology to sexuality to space travel. We are like frontier vlog pioneers.

Man in the Woods

Today, John goes out into the woods and vlogs alone, like the man of nature he obviously is, to answer a bunch of questions like some kind of crochety forest troll. I hope you're ready for his manly beard and masculine robe and hat combo.

Question: In Follower Upgrade, you mention having a list of adjusted templates for Creatures and Followers. Would you please post it? It doesn't need to be a beautiful PDF, I would gladly take a Google Doc or .txt!

Question: Just how is marriage structured in the Orisha pantheon, and by extension the Yoruba? It seems that everyone is married to everyone else, both male and female, and that the women are pretty much equal to the men unless Shango is wailing on them.

Question: Did you ever see the History Channel's "Clash of the Gods"? And if so, what did you think?

Question: Do all dogs go to heaven? Do animals have souls? And most of all, how do I get spectral wolves to do my bidding?

Question: Have you ever considered scaling the Legend point gains from Raise Your Glass, making it usable more than once per day or in the presence of people who have seen you use it already? I understand why the limits are what they are, but I think the knack would still be balanced (maybe even a little fairer, since one Legend doesn't seem like much of a reward at late Demigod or God) if any of those were removed.

Question: Mictlantecuhtli is presented in the Scion RAW as a completely evil misanthrope, that apparently only exists to torture his own Scions and everyone else for that matter. Since you guys deal with a lot of Aztec politics in games, I just wanted to ask how you characterize him?

Question: Any players thinking of creating a new Orisha PC for your next game?

Question: We know a lot about your god game, but what can you tell us about your other two games? Still hush-hush?

Question: Is stunting pretty much limited by your own imagination (in conjunction with the rules)?

Question: In your game, what did Odin do to make Amaterasu his enemy? Was it because of the Aesir assault on Japan, and what's up with that?

Question: Does your PSP count as a Birthright that takes up one of your five Birthright points?

Question: In a game that's all about smashing monsters, what good way is there to play a character with the Pacifist Nature?

Question: Could a character use high levels of Epic Manipulation to convince mortals that he is really great at a purview and gain Fatebonds from those mortals (assuming he spent Legend around them)? Like, if he tells great tales (lies) of destroying entire cities and civilizations with Fire when he has actually never used the Fire purview? If this does not work, how is it different from mortals misconstruing an event they see a PC perform from one purview to another and Fatebinding based on that?

Question: What kind of asks do you reject or refuse to answer?

That was delightful. I don't have much extra to add except that if you're the question-asker who wanted to know about Epic Manipulation and Fatebonds, there are also a couple of old posts here and here that might also help.

Sneakers

Question: I'm not sure if this has been asked, or if you've already answered this somewhere else, but how do you deal with in-story Legend gain for stealthy or purposefully secretive characters who try to stay out of the spotlight?

You might find these three posts helpful, friend! It comes up pretty frequently, since figuring out how to reconcile Legend gain with flying under the radar can be difficult to wrap your head around.

The short answer is that you can be as stealthy, secretive and unnoticed as you want, but you still have to do important things. If you're doing awesome stuff, spending Legend and being part of important, mythic events, you'll go up in Legend; if you're hiding in the corner refusing to be involved, you won't. Stealthy characters are fully capable of going up in Legend all the time. They just have to do it with awesome feats that are sneaky.

Stay Stunting

Okay, so we had a terrible storm last night that knocked out all internet in our area and made it impossible to get anything done. I've spent the last four hours at a coffeeshop across town, because not being able to get anything done online for more than a few hours started giving me the uncontrollable shakes. But in spite of all that, here we are, back and hopefully a little better at vlogging than we were last time!

Today, John and Anne talk about stunting, lighting and our cool t-shirts.

Question: While I am familiar with the concept, I have never played in a game in which stunting was a rule. Could you please lay out for us what your guidelines are regarding stunting and the use thereof?

Question: I am a great stunter. My latest storyteller started out awarding me 2 die stunts or better, but lowered this to 1 Die, or even no reward at all, even though I am still doing great stunts. I realize he is trying to establish an average reward for me, but it just discourages me from trying to be awesome with my stunts. Those things are hard work! What should I do?

It's an ongoing learning process. Things we learned this week: Anne is too pale, our walls are too white, John can't be allowed to hold change while he's talking because he'll jangle it annoyingly for like two straight minutes, and we need a better movie editing program that will let us make subtitles more readable. That or wear more uniformly colored clothing.

As always, in addition to any conversation you want to have about today's topic, let us know if you have suggestions for improvements.