Stay Stunting

Question: So I've been wondering after asking my ST why are there so few ways to recover Legend unless you are an Aztec. We were talking and I still don't completely get it. Moreover, if you accomplish a suitably hard task that your Legend is tied to, why wouldn't Legend be regained? My example was my character and his compulsive need to do dangerous stunts and fight incredibly powerful monsters.

Normally I try to answer questions in the order they come in, but this one just dropped into my box and I'm jumping out of line for it, because it's a common issue for a lot of players, especially when they're just starting to play Scion. In a lot of RPGs, resources come back slowly over time when you have spent them. Scion does not do this, which can be a surprising shift for someone used to playing other games (even other White Wolf games). The only time everything automatically comes back is at the end of a story, so when you're just starting out, it can feel confusingly like you never get any resources back at all.

The answer to your question is that doing difficult tasks and dangerous stunts does regain you Legend, all the time: it does it through stunting. When you do awesome things, the Storyteller awards you dice and Legend for stunting them; that's one of the core, awesome things about Scion and one of the reasons the game is so cool, because you can be regaining Legend literally almost every time you do something. Do those badass and impressive things! Live up to what your character wants to do! Stunt your heart out and you will see Legend as a result.

Now, this isn't free Legend just for showing up; you have to work for it. Just punching a monster repeatedly is not an exciting story; ho-hum, so you're good at punching, we get it. But if you describe your punches in an exciting way and make it a great story - I leap onto the monster's back, delivering a mighty blow to the base of its skull! I ball my fists together and smash them into the back of its knee, throwing its unwieldy bulk off-balance! I let out a piercing battle cry and box its motherfucking ears! - then that is a stunt, and that is worthy of some sweet extra dice and even sweeter Legend points. Being a Scion is about building legends, myths and stories about yourself; in every scene, write that story! Make it the kind of exciting story you'd want to read or hear someone tell! That's what stunting is, and it's the primary way all Scions get back their mojo.

Stunting is, of course, a two-way street; if you're stunting like the most badass mofo that ever lived and your Storyteller isn't paying attention, that can be very frustrating, as you give your all to be inventive and cool and he or she doesn't remember to reward you for it. If you feel like that's the case, don't be afraid to sit down with the ST (and the rest of the group, if you want) and ask what their standards are for stunting and what you can be doing to meet them. Every ST has a different idea of how cool something has to be to count as a stunt and what kinds of things get their notice, so finding out what your ST considers rewardable is the best first step to getting there. If you think they're being too stringent - we aren't all spontaneous beat-poets, after all - you or the other players can make suggestions or provide examples (though you don't want to make him or her feel like you're not respecting how they run the game, so don't be demanding). Sometimes all an ST needs is a reminder that the players need stunt dice and Legend and they remember to start doing it more regularly again; some STs get caught up in the story and forget to hand them out, so it doesn't hurt, if you feel like that's what's happening, to occasionally say, "Hey, could I have a die for doing X cool thing?" (Don't overdo it, though - if you start whining for dice every time you do anything, you're going to very quickly end up being That Player. Don't be That Player.)

If there are any STs out there struggling with this system, I'd also say that there's no rule that says you can't award a retroactive die or two for a stunt when you need to, though of course it's better to do it when the deed occurs. If you hear a player say, "Oh, man, I'd do X but I'm out of Legend," and they did something awesome earlier, it's perfectly acceptable to say, "You know what, I should have given you a stunt Legend for doing Y a second ago, go ahead and take that," so they can pull off the next cool thing they were planning. It can also be harder to remember to give out stunts for social and mental characters who don't get to describe things in terms of pulse-pounding high-octane beatdowns, so we often hand them a dollop of stunts at the end of the scene - "Great job with that tricky fairy negotiation, take three dice!" - so that they still get rewarded for being cool in non-physical ways and the scene isn't broken up by a lot of erasing and talking during their big moments.

Stunting is the lifeblood of Scion. If you can do it, do it bigger and do it cooler. Legend will follow you like candy raining from the sky.