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.