Question: Is there any reason you allow Industry as an APP, but not Civitas? Civitas seems like a fun thing.
Actually, we tried to use Civitas as an APP for a while, back in the misty younger days of JSR. After several months of trial runs, we found that the PCs didn't seem to want it and that most of its powers weren't stacking up to those found in other purviews, so we ended up canning it.
One of the major issues we had with it was just that it didn't make conceptual sense as an APP. Unlike Industry, which has tons of crafting and smithing gods to represent it and a long history of mythic and human innovation behind it, Civitas just had some vague notions of cooperation and nationalism. It was difficult to try to justify the purview having an Avatar - what would it be, The Cooperator? - thanks to its lack of a coherent mythic theme. The WWII pantheons it was created for leaned heavily on the theme of nationalism, but as the concept was one created in the nineteenth century, it doesn't have much of a leg to stand on when in company with such ancient ideas as Chaos, Guardian or Justice feed on. Then there was also the problem of it being an APP with no gods associated with it; who would you consider a god of Civitas? We had no good answer for that question and still don't.
And, of course, the players could not have cared less about it. They were excited when we announced that a new APP was available, but after the stampede to the website to see what it was about, the response was a collective "ho-hum" and only one of them ever purchased a single level of it. It's not hard to see why; when you stack it up against things like "wield the awesome power of the elements" and "dictate the terms of death", "be really good at teamwork" is not exactly exciting anyone too much.
As a side note, I think there may be a fundamental problem with Civitas in Scion in that Scion is all about the heroic deeds and exploits of the individual. In a game that's about making your own legend and becoming renowned for what you, personally, do, a set of powers that involves doing nothing impressive and buffing other people is somewhat counter to the spirit of the game's premise, which I think a lot of players picked up on subconsciously. Not that bands don't work together and that teamwork isn't often essential in the game, but an entire purview revolving around becoming a faceless part of an impressive whole instead of impressive in your own right is a little difficult to swallow for budding gods.
But anyway, Civitas was plagued with conceptual issues from the start, and when we took a hard look at it, it turned out that it wasn't doing anything mechanically that was all that great, either. Pool Ammo was completely lackluster, as the odds of more than one or two people in a band investing in the stats needed to make gunfighting viable were extremely low and most ranged fighters started with or acquired relic weapons that didn't run out of ammo anyway (not to mention the fact that War's Blessing of Ammunition would later make it even more pointless). Gift of Virtue was just duplicating a bunch of other powers that could grant new Virtues, Gift of Health was just Bolster except worse because it drained your own health, Gift of Ability was doing things that Charisma knacks can do except again worse because it drained the user of their own stats, and Gift of Defense was just I Say Thee Nay! wearing different clothes. Even the god-level powers, where the purview should have been freaking amazing and knocked our socks off, were basically just buffs or larger versions of the previous boring ones. So we ended up throwing the whole thing away with the exception of Distraction Maneuver, which was moved to War, and we called it a day.
In the end, we found that Civitas didn't have either the mythic background or the cool-power oomph to make it as an APP, though it gave it a noble effort. Scions already have so many incredible ways to buff one another, cooperate and make the entire band better for their presence that it was almost completely redundant, so it joined the rest of the rejected World at War material on our cutting-room floor.
Ohhhhh. I didn't even read it closely enough to realize that the Gift of (X) Boons are GIVING AWAY your stats. You aren't just buffing your teammates with your own traits, you're LENDING them your dots and you lose them yourself!
ReplyDeleteHoly crap that sucks. Well no wonder you ditched it.
I still think I might use Civitas as the basis for a Roman PSP, but I'd certainly have to get rid of that whole "you suck so someone else doesn't" thing.
I actually had the Romans floating around in my mind while I was writing this post - I agree, their emphasis on civic matters might make this work. I definitely think it works better as a PSP than as an APP - that way it's extra things to give Scions a leg up on others who only have the APPs, not struggling to keep up with them.
DeleteYeah, Civitas seems to have meant well, but it's just kind of a day-old fish of a purview. Most of the boons smell kind of funny and nobody wants them. If you're repurposing it for something else, you might be able to solve a lot of its problems by just removing that "and you lose them" clause to all the buffing boons, though I'd still be wary of too much overlap with things other people can already do with APPs/knacks.
Should I clear off the time to re-write Civitas for the Deii, I shall inform you and let you behold its wonder!
DeleteI will have to keep in mind that problem of overlapping with pre-existing Boons. The Charisma Knacks will have to be dealt with, too, since basically they blow Civitas out of the water.
Let us not forget the first couple of boons in Asha, which allow you to hand out bonus epic attributes to your allies without losing them yourself.
DeleteCivitas was created for the sole purpose of being used in a world war type conflict where you led massive amounts of troops from different nations. The purview looks like it is meant for soldiers not bandmates. I guess you guys hate the concept of the citizen.
ReplyDeleteYeah, but unfortunately that sole purpose isn't necessarily a common one for Scions (and definitely kind of overshadowed like whoa by the presence of the War purview). Civitas does what it's trying to do, it absolutely does, but what it's trying to do isn't really great for Scions, who can already do most of it with other things better anyway.
DeleteI actually think the Citizen is a great idea for a PC's god concept, but, like almost all of the World at War pantheons (which we discussed back in the beginning of our blogging career), he's rubbish as a playable god-parent. He's actually more rubbish than most of the World at War "gods"; where they're folkloric figures who really shouldn't be fancy enough to be gods, the Citizen is just a made-up ideal based on twentieth-century political nationalism (and he's more based in the western world's perception of Russia than in Russia's perception of itself, to boot).
The citizen (not to be confused with the scion) is the expression of humanity and national pride. the citizen can be anyone and do anything by drawing on the collective will of humanity and the nation he chooses as he activates the boon. He can build a national monument, raise up the entire nation as an army, or put all individual clashes to rest forever.
ReplyDeleteWhich.. would be fine except that Scion is about YOUR CHARACTERS being awesome as a group and as unique individuals. Not as one cog in a wheel of a big machine.
DeleteWhat are Soldiers doing as Heroes, Demigods and Gods? There might be a God OF Soldiers, but he's a General. Not a Grunt. Grunts don't get epics written about them. Civitas, as written currently, is great for grunts. No one wants to be a grunt.
I was confused for a minute - are you suggesting The Citizen as the avatar of Civitas? Probably as appropriate a name as any, but unfortunately he looks like a pretty lame purview avatar from where I'm standing. Raising armies? Cool. War and Epic Charisma already do that in massive quantities without breaking a sweat. Ending wars? Same answer, but add in Guardian and Justice as easy immediate fixes. Build a national monument? Dude, our PCs were doing that on their own with Strength, Industry and other purviews from about the time they were Legend 7.
DeleteIt's not that those things aren't awesome - they are! I fully support encouraging PCs to do them. But they aren't on the same sort of level with the awesome scope of powers of other purview avatars, at least not in those examples. If PCs can already do it eight thousand different ways, and the powers in the purview aren't even doing them in a newfangled manner, I'm not seeing much point in including the purview. (Frankly, were I crazy enough to play a Scion of the Allied pantheon in someone's game, I'd feel pretty gypped being stuck with Civitas as a purview when other people are getting badass things like Heku or Itztli or Samsara.)