It's time for some AMA questions again, this time from the most infamous group of all: Michael Chambers, a.k.a. The Great Terrorist, and his band of cronies. New York has never been the same. This set is mostly dudes since most of the ladies are still working on their questions, but never fear, there will be more borderline internationally illegal incidents to come later.
Monday, March 31, 2014
Saturday, March 29, 2014
Lightning Crashes
As promised, we tried not to make you wait too long - here's the new Thunder purview!
Where the old Sky purview combined weather, storms, air and a ton of other ideas, it wasn't quite able to handle all of the above in a way that was coherent and useful to Scions, and ended up as a sort of messy grab bag of vaguely related powers. When we split it into Sky and Thunder, we were thinking of the difference between gods of the firmament and the air within it and the lords of storm and destruction, and this new purview is definitely for the latter. Thunder is the purview of lightning, thunder, storms, rain, and the instinctive fear that such awesome natural events inspire in even the hardest of hearts. Sky was the purview for gods who want to make the heavens their sole, powerful domain, but Thunder is for those gods who want to run rampant across the countryside as the terrible forces of nature they are.
Most of the information on the split, including which gods have what and how to handle transitioning your games, can be found in the Sky release post from a couple of weeks ago. (Incidentally, for the gods among us, Tempest Blast over in Sky now has some concrete effects in conjunction with Thunder boons, so that's now got some usability.)
If you have questions about Thunder, hit us up in the comments, and game on!
Edit: Yes, the question box is down right now. Please ask questions about Thunder in the comments here instead of there, so you don't end up going without answers!
Where the old Sky purview combined weather, storms, air and a ton of other ideas, it wasn't quite able to handle all of the above in a way that was coherent and useful to Scions, and ended up as a sort of messy grab bag of vaguely related powers. When we split it into Sky and Thunder, we were thinking of the difference between gods of the firmament and the air within it and the lords of storm and destruction, and this new purview is definitely for the latter. Thunder is the purview of lightning, thunder, storms, rain, and the instinctive fear that such awesome natural events inspire in even the hardest of hearts. Sky was the purview for gods who want to make the heavens their sole, powerful domain, but Thunder is for those gods who want to run rampant across the countryside as the terrible forces of nature they are.
Most of the information on the split, including which gods have what and how to handle transitioning your games, can be found in the Sky release post from a couple of weeks ago. (Incidentally, for the gods among us, Tempest Blast over in Sky now has some concrete effects in conjunction with Thunder boons, so that's now got some usability.)
If you have questions about Thunder, hit us up in the comments, and game on!
Edit: Yes, the question box is down right now. Please ask questions about Thunder in the comments here instead of there, so you don't end up going without answers!
Friday, March 28, 2014
Scion AMA: Mitchell Gozer
All right, folks, you asked some awesome AMA questions and the players delivered. We'll be doing posts like this over the next few weeks with various characters' answers, and some bonus playlists for their hilarious hijinks and soulful tragedies as well.
First up today is Mitchell Gozer, Scion of Hermes, now known as Terminus, the god of luck and last chances. Or, "that guy who dies all the time and swears at the Moirai a lot".
First up today is Mitchell Gozer, Scion of Hermes, now known as Terminus, the god of luck and last chances. Or, "that guy who dies all the time and swears at the Moirai a lot".
Thursday, March 27, 2014
Monkey of Mayhem
Hey, did you guys need a frankly terrifying dystopian cyberpunk animated version of the story of Sun Wukong? I have one for you!
The movie's title translates as The God Hunter, and it is supposed to see release in China next year. Exciting!
The movie's title translates as The God Hunter, and it is supposed to see release in China next year. Exciting!
Like Every Goddamn Question, Our Inbox Is So Full You Guys
It's time for another big fat post full of quickly-answered questions! Just know we love each and every one of you, question-askers, honest, and you can always ask for clarification in the comments if you didn't get what you were looking for.
Question: is there any mythological basis for Thor's greatest fear being a warm bed? (Just something I read in a novel).
Not that we know of, but we would hazard a guess that your book might be referring to the idea that Norse warriors aspired to die gloriously in battle, and would therefore be very unhappy with the idea of dying in bed.
Question: Sorry if this has already been covered, but doesn't Aengus have Artistry associated with him?
Nope, sure doesn't. While Aengus is theorized to be possibly associated with music and the arts, we don't have any real evidence of this and no stories of him being particularly artistic, so we did not give him the Avatar of Artistry. However, if your game likes a more artsy interpretation of Aengus, you can always assume he has some Artistry boons at his disposal.
Question: Months ago I asked why Cernunnos was so powerful because he had nine purviews. Rather than allude to his purviews this time, I'm just asking, why is he so powerful in general? Like, I know that he's the Horned God of Wicca, and I know he's a heavily occultic fertility deity, but based on his description in the Nemetondevos description, he seems like he should have intelligence and/or maybe wits as Associated as his attributes.
Cernunnos is undeniably the most recognizable (and therefore Legendary) of the Gaulish gods whose legends survive into the modern day, but unfortunately we don't really know all that much about him, nor do we have anything but piecemeal information about his associations and exploits. Cernunnos on our site is presented as an Odin-like patriarch because that's how he's written in the Scion Storyteller Screen, but honestly most of that is conjecture. You might want to check out this post about the problems of reconstructing Gaulish mythology.
Question: I want a sentient, witty, wise-cracking animal sidekick. Which would be better: creating a Follower or using Create Nemean/Typhonian? Thanks guys, love you guys and all your work!
Nemean and Typhonian creatures are generally not very bright or socially graceful, so you would probably want something smarter than that if you wanted a wise-cracking sidekick who you could actually have conversations with and hurl witty insults at enemies alongside. Birthright Creatures give you more opportunity to tailor your animal's stats to what you want it to do, and you can also use Epic Enhancement on them if you want to bolster any of their stats, so that's probably more what you're looking for.
Question: Was Anshar really evil? He kinda looks like a really senile sky god to me.
Anshar's clearly a Titan, so that really depends on whether or not you think all Titans are evil (we don't think so, although they are all pretty dangerous even if they aren't actively malicious). Like other ancient sky-father Titans, you could certainly play him as simply distant from and uninvolved in his pantheon.
Question: Are Dwarves and Svartalfar the same creature? Norse mythology is confusing.
No, but they do both live in Svartalfheim and some named svartalfar are occasionally also referred to or alluded to as dwarves, so the confusion is understandable. The Norse word for dwarves is dvergr, and is used to refer to creepy little short creatures that are crafty, morally questionable, and really awesome at making magical items like Mjolnir and Brisingamen. Svartalfar means "black elves" and is confusing because it's equated to both dverger and dokkalfar ("dark elves") in various places, which are fairly clearly attested as two different races, with the dark elves described as dwelling underground and being black of skin, and different in appearance from their light elf cousins.
Basically, some scholars think the svartalfar must be the same as the dvergr since they seem to live in the same or similar places and share some traits, but others point out that there are different terms and associations at work and that there's no reason to make that leap. So really, Storyteller's call on that one. We play them as different.
Question: Would it be possible for Artistry Gods to design relics that could enable Gods and Scions to better navigate the Titan Realms? Like relic goggles to give people temporary Epic Perception rankings to see around Keku? Or some kind of Fire-resistant suits to allow survival in Muspelheim?
Yep, sure is! Hephaestus actually made some flame-retardant armor for one of our groups to go to Muspelheim at one point. Artistry can make all kinds of neat stuff, although it's probably difficult and time-consuming to do so.
Question: When you have the Animal purview, you choose an animal to specialize in. We, in my game have been in minor fights about how specific you have to be. For example, the guy with Animal (Jackal) complaining over how he has less utility as the guy with Animal (Dog). Should one be penalized for being more general, or should I allow the more specialized guy to go outside the limits of his animal from time to time?
You might find this post helpful when trying to determine how specific an animal should be! Animals that are less commonly available do often have less utility than your Animal (Housefly) or Animal (Cow) people who can be fairly assured of their animals being around a lot, but Scions can always go seek out their animals at zoos, parks or in natural areas where they might occur, and of course at later levels they can summon or even create them at will. We do occasionally allow Scions with animals that are kind of close to try to use their boons on something that isn't technically their creature, but always at a disadvantage; for example, if your guy with Animal (Jackal) wanted to use his boons on a coyote, we would have him only understand some of what it was saying since the message would be garbled, or increase the difficulty of using other powers on it significantly to illustrate that he was trying to affect something that he isn't really aligned with.
Question: I know shape-shifting Appearance knacks makes this somewhat of a mote point, but for those Scion who don't invest in them, I was wondering what rolls would you make for disguise. And when say disguise, I'm taking about everything from putting on a wig and Groucho Marx glasses to applying Hollywood SFX prosthetics to change your race or sex.
It would depend on exactly what you were doing, but most of the time we would have you roll something along the lines of Appearance + Stealth or Manipulation + Stealth to actually sell the disguise itself, and probably a side order of Manipulation + Empathy and/or Wits + Empathy to not look suspicious while doing it. Tailor to individual Storyteller tastes.
Question: Can a scion with Animal Communication use social knacks on animals he can communicate with, or does he have to use Animal Obediance?
He has to use Animal Obedience, or else just be able to convince it to do what he wants through good old-fashioned charm. His refined powers of pulling a fast one on humanoids are lost on their animal brains.
Question: Have you ever considered a more free-form system for boons (e.g. Mage spheres or Dark Ages fae magic)? If you have, what worked? If you haven't, what would you imagine succeeding?
Nope, sorry. Spheres work pretty well in Mage, but we have no desire whatsoever to import them into Scion. You might want to check out the official forums, though, since we know there are a few games out there that do that sort of thing.
Question: What does the Darkness Virtue which Reverses Virtue due to the Inue? Nothing? Fire becoming Water? etc.
It reverses exactly; someone affected by Heart of Darkness with the Fire Virtue would abruptly have Anti-Fire. They would hate Fire in all its forms, attempt to stamp it out and campaign against its use and existence, and generally do everything that they could to destroy it with exactly as much fervor as they would normally want to protect and encourage it.
Question: What do you think the Godrealm and Underworld of the Orisha are?
You're looking for this post!
Question: How are Fatebonds handled with the Doppleganger boon from the Illusion tree? For example, say someone created a doppleganger of a fellow Scion and had the doppleganger interact with mortals--utilizing the boons it would have such as subtle knife and stolen face--would it be possible to incur a Fatebond in that way to the person being 'doppleganged'?
Question: Hello, John and Anne! Hope you guys are well. My group uses your resources and revisions on Scion (love 'em!) and I just recently started looking at the blog. You've answered a lot of questions that I've been curious about, and many that haven't even occurred to me. Now, I was wondering if you could answer another question, or if perhaps it's already been addressed. How exactly does a Fatebond work if you've stolen someone's face and then committed the acts that would Fatebond?
Fate is not fooled by your piddly doppelgaenger, nor your attempts to pretend you're someone else. It knows that the person being impersonated is not the one spending Legend, and therefore will not attach any Fatebonds to her; it also knows that you are the one spending Legend, so you're going to get the Fatebonds from doing so no matter what you look like. And before you ask, the same goes for any other way of impersonating someone or meddling with the free will of other people.
As always, jump into the comments if you're so moved.
Question: is there any mythological basis for Thor's greatest fear being a warm bed? (Just something I read in a novel).
Not that we know of, but we would hazard a guess that your book might be referring to the idea that Norse warriors aspired to die gloriously in battle, and would therefore be very unhappy with the idea of dying in bed.
Question: Sorry if this has already been covered, but doesn't Aengus have Artistry associated with him?
Nope, sure doesn't. While Aengus is theorized to be possibly associated with music and the arts, we don't have any real evidence of this and no stories of him being particularly artistic, so we did not give him the Avatar of Artistry. However, if your game likes a more artsy interpretation of Aengus, you can always assume he has some Artistry boons at his disposal.
Question: Months ago I asked why Cernunnos was so powerful because he had nine purviews. Rather than allude to his purviews this time, I'm just asking, why is he so powerful in general? Like, I know that he's the Horned God of Wicca, and I know he's a heavily occultic fertility deity, but based on his description in the Nemetondevos description, he seems like he should have intelligence and/or maybe wits as Associated as his attributes.
Cernunnos is undeniably the most recognizable (and therefore Legendary) of the Gaulish gods whose legends survive into the modern day, but unfortunately we don't really know all that much about him, nor do we have anything but piecemeal information about his associations and exploits. Cernunnos on our site is presented as an Odin-like patriarch because that's how he's written in the Scion Storyteller Screen, but honestly most of that is conjecture. You might want to check out this post about the problems of reconstructing Gaulish mythology.
Question: I want a sentient, witty, wise-cracking animal sidekick. Which would be better: creating a Follower or using Create Nemean/Typhonian? Thanks guys, love you guys and all your work!
Nemean and Typhonian creatures are generally not very bright or socially graceful, so you would probably want something smarter than that if you wanted a wise-cracking sidekick who you could actually have conversations with and hurl witty insults at enemies alongside. Birthright Creatures give you more opportunity to tailor your animal's stats to what you want it to do, and you can also use Epic Enhancement on them if you want to bolster any of their stats, so that's probably more what you're looking for.
Question: Was Anshar really evil? He kinda looks like a really senile sky god to me.
Anshar's clearly a Titan, so that really depends on whether or not you think all Titans are evil (we don't think so, although they are all pretty dangerous even if they aren't actively malicious). Like other ancient sky-father Titans, you could certainly play him as simply distant from and uninvolved in his pantheon.
Question: Are Dwarves and Svartalfar the same creature? Norse mythology is confusing.
No, but they do both live in Svartalfheim and some named svartalfar are occasionally also referred to or alluded to as dwarves, so the confusion is understandable. The Norse word for dwarves is dvergr, and is used to refer to creepy little short creatures that are crafty, morally questionable, and really awesome at making magical items like Mjolnir and Brisingamen. Svartalfar means "black elves" and is confusing because it's equated to both dverger and dokkalfar ("dark elves") in various places, which are fairly clearly attested as two different races, with the dark elves described as dwelling underground and being black of skin, and different in appearance from their light elf cousins.
Basically, some scholars think the svartalfar must be the same as the dvergr since they seem to live in the same or similar places and share some traits, but others point out that there are different terms and associations at work and that there's no reason to make that leap. So really, Storyteller's call on that one. We play them as different.
Question: Would it be possible for Artistry Gods to design relics that could enable Gods and Scions to better navigate the Titan Realms? Like relic goggles to give people temporary Epic Perception rankings to see around Keku? Or some kind of Fire-resistant suits to allow survival in Muspelheim?
Yep, sure is! Hephaestus actually made some flame-retardant armor for one of our groups to go to Muspelheim at one point. Artistry can make all kinds of neat stuff, although it's probably difficult and time-consuming to do so.
Question: When you have the Animal purview, you choose an animal to specialize in. We, in my game have been in minor fights about how specific you have to be. For example, the guy with Animal (Jackal) complaining over how he has less utility as the guy with Animal (Dog). Should one be penalized for being more general, or should I allow the more specialized guy to go outside the limits of his animal from time to time?
You might find this post helpful when trying to determine how specific an animal should be! Animals that are less commonly available do often have less utility than your Animal (Housefly) or Animal (Cow) people who can be fairly assured of their animals being around a lot, but Scions can always go seek out their animals at zoos, parks or in natural areas where they might occur, and of course at later levels they can summon or even create them at will. We do occasionally allow Scions with animals that are kind of close to try to use their boons on something that isn't technically their creature, but always at a disadvantage; for example, if your guy with Animal (Jackal) wanted to use his boons on a coyote, we would have him only understand some of what it was saying since the message would be garbled, or increase the difficulty of using other powers on it significantly to illustrate that he was trying to affect something that he isn't really aligned with.
Question: I know shape-shifting Appearance knacks makes this somewhat of a mote point, but for those Scion who don't invest in them, I was wondering what rolls would you make for disguise. And when say disguise, I'm taking about everything from putting on a wig and Groucho Marx glasses to applying Hollywood SFX prosthetics to change your race or sex.
It would depend on exactly what you were doing, but most of the time we would have you roll something along the lines of Appearance + Stealth or Manipulation + Stealth to actually sell the disguise itself, and probably a side order of Manipulation + Empathy and/or Wits + Empathy to not look suspicious while doing it. Tailor to individual Storyteller tastes.
Question: Can a scion with Animal Communication use social knacks on animals he can communicate with, or does he have to use Animal Obediance?
He has to use Animal Obedience, or else just be able to convince it to do what he wants through good old-fashioned charm. His refined powers of pulling a fast one on humanoids are lost on their animal brains.
Question: Have you ever considered a more free-form system for boons (e.g. Mage spheres or Dark Ages fae magic)? If you have, what worked? If you haven't, what would you imagine succeeding?
Nope, sorry. Spheres work pretty well in Mage, but we have no desire whatsoever to import them into Scion. You might want to check out the official forums, though, since we know there are a few games out there that do that sort of thing.
Question: What does the Darkness Virtue which Reverses Virtue due to the Inue? Nothing? Fire becoming Water? etc.
It reverses exactly; someone affected by Heart of Darkness with the Fire Virtue would abruptly have Anti-Fire. They would hate Fire in all its forms, attempt to stamp it out and campaign against its use and existence, and generally do everything that they could to destroy it with exactly as much fervor as they would normally want to protect and encourage it.
Question: What do you think the Godrealm and Underworld of the Orisha are?
You're looking for this post!
Question: How are Fatebonds handled with the Doppleganger boon from the Illusion tree? For example, say someone created a doppleganger of a fellow Scion and had the doppleganger interact with mortals--utilizing the boons it would have such as subtle knife and stolen face--would it be possible to incur a Fatebond in that way to the person being 'doppleganged'?
Question: Hello, John and Anne! Hope you guys are well. My group uses your resources and revisions on Scion (love 'em!) and I just recently started looking at the blog. You've answered a lot of questions that I've been curious about, and many that haven't even occurred to me. Now, I was wondering if you could answer another question, or if perhaps it's already been addressed. How exactly does a Fatebond work if you've stolen someone's face and then committed the acts that would Fatebond?
Fate is not fooled by your piddly doppelgaenger, nor your attempts to pretend you're someone else. It knows that the person being impersonated is not the one spending Legend, and therefore will not attach any Fatebonds to her; it also knows that you are the one spending Legend, so you're going to get the Fatebonds from doing so no matter what you look like. And before you ask, the same goes for any other way of impersonating someone or meddling with the free will of other people.
As always, jump into the comments if you're so moved.
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
So Emotional
Question: We, the players of our group, have banded together to make an Emotions purview. At current, we like the idea of it being specialised, like Animal (e.g., taking it in love, rage, fear etc.). Do you have any idea what gods might have it (and with what emotion?), or any tips for purview writing?
Sounds like you need to be pointed in the direction of Brent Not Broken's Emotion purview! His set of powers works pretty much exactly the same way you're proposing, with the purview specialized into a single emotion, and he includes a list of gods that he associates with it. While we don't use this, we know the guy and we can confidently say he is a baller when it comes to writing good stuff.
If you'd like some general purview-writing advice, we also have an old post of our own back here that might be helpful. Good luck!
Sounds like you need to be pointed in the direction of Brent Not Broken's Emotion purview! His set of powers works pretty much exactly the same way you're proposing, with the purview specialized into a single emotion, and he includes a list of gods that he associates with it. While we don't use this, we know the guy and we can confidently say he is a baller when it comes to writing good stuff.
If you'd like some general purview-writing advice, we also have an old post of our own back here that might be helpful. Good luck!
Wielding the Wyrd
Question: Why do Magic and Prophecy boons penalize the user so harshly? I understand the flavor of "dont mess with fate"! But it seems unfair that other Purviews get to do incredibly awesome things and Fate users get punished in the form of fatigue or magic shenanigans (auto-botching rolls, etc.) for no reason.
Ouch, man. Years of giant paragraphs explaining our thought processes and justifications, and y'all still think we do things for no reason? We barely do anything for no reason anymore. We have to write a grant application to one another just to go to a movie.
It sounds like you may not be quite aware of the difference between Magic and Prophecy and other purviews. While they are similar in that they follow the same kinds of structures, they are completely different beasts, and not just for flavor reasons. Fate is the highest authority and most powerful force in Scion's universe; it is the be-all and end-all, the force that affects gods as strongly as mortals, that cannot be truly escaped except for a few shining moments by only the most arcanely poweful. Fate is literally the most important and dangerous thing that exists in the game of Scion, and in some way it controls, informs or influences pretty much everything that any Scion or god or Titan ever does. Some of that is mechanized in the game's systems for Fatebonds, associated powers and Virtues; and even beyond those, its influence is felt unconsciously in the stories that Storytellers and players alike tell, because it's one of those fundamental story ideas that many people, at least in western cultures, automatically weave into their tales even when they don't mean to.
What all of this means is that Fate is serious fucking business, no two ways about it, and that therefore the powers that involve messing directly with its inner workings are way more hazardous and significant than other purviews in many ways. Other purviews can't compete; Fire or Thunder or Death are dangerous and scary primordial forces, but Fate still controls all of them and how they manifest in various myths and legends, dictating how they play their parts. Tapping into the power of the sun is one thing, but tapping into the power that decides how the entire game universe runs is a different thing altogether.
Simply put, Magic and Prophecy have major drawbacks because they are more powerful than other purviews. They need those negatives just to balance them out and prevent them from being so overpowered that they just win the game automatically. Other purviews have powers that attack enemies, transport allies, knit flesh back together, all of which are awesome and powerful; but Magic and Prophecy have the power to make or break all those other purviews. Magic users can dictate whose rolls succeed and whose botch abominably, allow them to get insane results on their own powers or avoid the effects of others', completely rewrite the inner drives and passions of others and ignore their own, and even literally pretend things didn't happen when they don't like them. Prophecy users can provide insane bonuses to anything and everything they and their allies want to do, ignore fated events they don't like by totally avoiding them, create and enforce certain roles in the story on their bandmates, and literally take the power of the Storyteller to write the tale that all the players are currently starring in away and make it their own.
That's not just flavor. These two purviews directly and concretely affect everything in the story and give Scions who use them incredible power to steer the story, not only for themselves but for everyone else around them. The War purview may allow you to smite others with mighty attacks, but Magic decides whether or not those attacks actually strike their targets; the Justice purview may allow you to lay evildoers low with a look and deny enemies of your pantheon their powers and freedom, but Prophecy decides whether or not you have the energy to do so and even believe it's the right thing to do anymore.
So the penalties in Magic and Prophecy are there to make sure that those purviews aren't so ridiculously powerful that they trump what everyone else who doesn't have them is doing. Magic needs a backlash from Fate every once in a while to prevent those who use it from just straight-up ensuring that they and their bandmates just succeed on every roll forever and never have to pay attention to things like Virtues; Prophecy needs fatigue penalties to make sure that its users don't literally hijack the entire story from the Storyteller forever and automatically win. Essentially, those things are there to let Scions know that they can use those powers as much as they want, but eventually they will hit the point of no return. They still have a choice, but that choice has consequences.
Honestly, we prefer that in most cases. We do have some powers in both purviews that are simply restricted by preventing them from being used more than a certain number of times per game session or story, but while that definitely prevents them from being used so much that they break the game, it also takes the option to use them in a moment of great crisis or need away from the Scions. So for other powers, we still give people the option to keep abusing Fate. There's just a price, which is something that powers that affect destiny itself can never escape. There's always a price, and it is very possible to get so far into debt that you never return.
So basically, other purviews get to do things without as many penalties because they're A) not screwing around with Fate, and B) therefore way less powerful and less in need of checks and balances to rein them in. We're not penalizing the Magic and Prophecy people for their purviews so much as making sure they don't run roughshod over everybody else at the table, including the Storyteller.
Ouch, man. Years of giant paragraphs explaining our thought processes and justifications, and y'all still think we do things for no reason? We barely do anything for no reason anymore. We have to write a grant application to one another just to go to a movie.
It sounds like you may not be quite aware of the difference between Magic and Prophecy and other purviews. While they are similar in that they follow the same kinds of structures, they are completely different beasts, and not just for flavor reasons. Fate is the highest authority and most powerful force in Scion's universe; it is the be-all and end-all, the force that affects gods as strongly as mortals, that cannot be truly escaped except for a few shining moments by only the most arcanely poweful. Fate is literally the most important and dangerous thing that exists in the game of Scion, and in some way it controls, informs or influences pretty much everything that any Scion or god or Titan ever does. Some of that is mechanized in the game's systems for Fatebonds, associated powers and Virtues; and even beyond those, its influence is felt unconsciously in the stories that Storytellers and players alike tell, because it's one of those fundamental story ideas that many people, at least in western cultures, automatically weave into their tales even when they don't mean to.
What all of this means is that Fate is serious fucking business, no two ways about it, and that therefore the powers that involve messing directly with its inner workings are way more hazardous and significant than other purviews in many ways. Other purviews can't compete; Fire or Thunder or Death are dangerous and scary primordial forces, but Fate still controls all of them and how they manifest in various myths and legends, dictating how they play their parts. Tapping into the power of the sun is one thing, but tapping into the power that decides how the entire game universe runs is a different thing altogether.
Simply put, Magic and Prophecy have major drawbacks because they are more powerful than other purviews. They need those negatives just to balance them out and prevent them from being so overpowered that they just win the game automatically. Other purviews have powers that attack enemies, transport allies, knit flesh back together, all of which are awesome and powerful; but Magic and Prophecy have the power to make or break all those other purviews. Magic users can dictate whose rolls succeed and whose botch abominably, allow them to get insane results on their own powers or avoid the effects of others', completely rewrite the inner drives and passions of others and ignore their own, and even literally pretend things didn't happen when they don't like them. Prophecy users can provide insane bonuses to anything and everything they and their allies want to do, ignore fated events they don't like by totally avoiding them, create and enforce certain roles in the story on their bandmates, and literally take the power of the Storyteller to write the tale that all the players are currently starring in away and make it their own.
That's not just flavor. These two purviews directly and concretely affect everything in the story and give Scions who use them incredible power to steer the story, not only for themselves but for everyone else around them. The War purview may allow you to smite others with mighty attacks, but Magic decides whether or not those attacks actually strike their targets; the Justice purview may allow you to lay evildoers low with a look and deny enemies of your pantheon their powers and freedom, but Prophecy decides whether or not you have the energy to do so and even believe it's the right thing to do anymore.
So the penalties in Magic and Prophecy are there to make sure that those purviews aren't so ridiculously powerful that they trump what everyone else who doesn't have them is doing. Magic needs a backlash from Fate every once in a while to prevent those who use it from just straight-up ensuring that they and their bandmates just succeed on every roll forever and never have to pay attention to things like Virtues; Prophecy needs fatigue penalties to make sure that its users don't literally hijack the entire story from the Storyteller forever and automatically win. Essentially, those things are there to let Scions know that they can use those powers as much as they want, but eventually they will hit the point of no return. They still have a choice, but that choice has consequences.
Honestly, we prefer that in most cases. We do have some powers in both purviews that are simply restricted by preventing them from being used more than a certain number of times per game session or story, but while that definitely prevents them from being used so much that they break the game, it also takes the option to use them in a moment of great crisis or need away from the Scions. So for other powers, we still give people the option to keep abusing Fate. There's just a price, which is something that powers that affect destiny itself can never escape. There's always a price, and it is very possible to get so far into debt that you never return.
So basically, other purviews get to do things without as many penalties because they're A) not screwing around with Fate, and B) therefore way less powerful and less in need of checks and balances to rein them in. We're not penalizing the Magic and Prophecy people for their purviews so much as making sure they don't run roughshod over everybody else at the table, including the Storyteller.
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
I AM HERCULES!
Hey, look, it's a thing! John is so excited about it he's basically vibrating around the room and doing a lot of push-ups at unexplained intervals.
Dat Nemean Lion, folks.
Dat Nemean Lion, folks.
Anne's Fiction Corner
I may still be pretty much useless on the computer, but with the help of dictation software and a whole lot of painkillers, I'm unconquerable nonetheless. Today's story is Qualities of Heat, starring Sophia Archimedes with appearances by Geoff Matheson, Mitchell Gozer, Marcus James, Sangria Tecuhtli and everybody's favorite mysterious Aztec Scion. It is a tale of expectations versus reality, reason versus passion, and what happens when violent temper collides with unexpected outcome.
Skeins of Fate won the voting this time (although it was pretty close), so they're up next! We're down to just two to vote on now, so let the rivalry begin!
And off we go!
Skeins of Fate won the voting this time (although it was pretty close), so they're up next! We're down to just two to vote on now, so let the rivalry begin!
- If you vote for Eastern Promises, you're voting for stories from the nineteenth-century band in a world of colonialism and industry - Leona Middleton, Samuel Vanderbilt and Paniwi Bayteru of the Netjer, Faruza Alinejad and Yadi of the Yazata, Mohini Misra and Padma Billingsworth of the Deva, James Howard and Alvin de Lafayette of the Anunna, and many more. They're currently fighting corruption among local authorities, learning what other cultures have to offer them and finding ways to survive no matter what the cost.
- If you vote for Strawberry Fields, you're voting for stories from the wild-eyed Celtic band - Dierdre O'Riordan, Seamus McMann, Jude Shriver and Auggie MacDonough of the Tuatha de Danann and Alaina Bertrand and Ignatius Rex of the Nemetondevos. They're currently gearing up to challenge the combined might of the military and their shadowy puppeteers, while reaching out to their kinsmen around the world.
And off we go!
Monday, March 24, 2014
AMA: Last Chance!
Hey, everybody!
Today is the last day for the Scion AMA! If you have any questions you want to ask any of our characters (check out this post for the rules, if you missed them), now is the time! After tonight, we'll send the questions we have on to the players and start posting their answers.
I know there are a few people who told me they were working on it that I haven't heard from yet, so feel free to chime in. :) The players are excited and we'll soon have a window into these characters' minds!
Today is the last day for the Scion AMA! If you have any questions you want to ask any of our characters (check out this post for the rules, if you missed them), now is the time! After tonight, we'll send the questions we have on to the players and start posting their answers.
I know there are a few people who told me they were working on it that I haven't heard from yet, so feel free to chime in. :) The players are excited and we'll soon have a window into these characters' minds!
NPC Advice
As a Storyteller, how is playing an NPC different than playing you're own PC while running the game?
Hrm....they are ....similar-esque. But very different.
So for both, you're obviously playing a character and you're making character decisions, and you're roleplaying.
But when you're playing a pc, you are playing the main character in a story. The focus should be on them, but more importantly, the story should be "about" them. Actions/interesting bits/threads of the story should lead back to them. If I were reading it all as a book, I should be able to very easily tell that the book is about the PC.
NPCs however are adjunct to the story. They are important, and they have their own dreams and goals, but they arent the main character(the protagonist) of this particular story. They may have the spotlight once in a while, but in the grand writing of the story, they are a cog that makes the PCs story better/brighter/more fulfilled but they arent the protagonist. If I were reading the game as a book, it should be easy for me to see that this character is "alive" and "full" as a character but is obviously not the central focus of the story. And the story is not "about" them.
Another difference is in focus. A player gets to think about their character a lot more, and when they sit down for the game session, only has to worry about their character. However an ST has to split his/her focus on many rules, story elements, plot bits and many many other npcs. So attention able to be spent on one particular npc is very limited compared to how much attention a player can commit to their pc.
Last evening, Mat had to worry about what Geoff would do in a king's moot and how Geoff would react to each thing and how Geoff would vote on each item.
I had to worry about how 11 different NPCs would all react and vote on those things, and often I had to be thinking about what one NPC was thinking while another was talking.
Also....pcs dont have to interupt themselves so other pcs they're playing can talk....
But, if you're just focusing on playing the one npc at the time for whatever reason, and you've already planned everything out so that all you have to worry about is playing that npc(such as in a very intense short scene with only pcs and that npc), then playing an NPC, for that short period of time, can be very VERY similar to playing a PC.
I hope that answered your question. If not please drop a note about more specifics you'd like me to get into. I didnt think the question was unclear....but it was difficult to formulate an answer that seemed satisfying.
Hrm....they are ....similar-esque. But very different.
So for both, you're obviously playing a character and you're making character decisions, and you're roleplaying.
But when you're playing a pc, you are playing the main character in a story. The focus should be on them, but more importantly, the story should be "about" them. Actions/interesting bits/threads of the story should lead back to them. If I were reading it all as a book, I should be able to very easily tell that the book is about the PC.
NPCs however are adjunct to the story. They are important, and they have their own dreams and goals, but they arent the main character(the protagonist) of this particular story. They may have the spotlight once in a while, but in the grand writing of the story, they are a cog that makes the PCs story better/brighter/more fulfilled but they arent the protagonist. If I were reading the game as a book, it should be easy for me to see that this character is "alive" and "full" as a character but is obviously not the central focus of the story. And the story is not "about" them.
Another difference is in focus. A player gets to think about their character a lot more, and when they sit down for the game session, only has to worry about their character. However an ST has to split his/her focus on many rules, story elements, plot bits and many many other npcs. So attention able to be spent on one particular npc is very limited compared to how much attention a player can commit to their pc.
Last evening, Mat had to worry about what Geoff would do in a king's moot and how Geoff would react to each thing and how Geoff would vote on each item.
I had to worry about how 11 different NPCs would all react and vote on those things, and often I had to be thinking about what one NPC was thinking while another was talking.
Also....pcs dont have to interupt themselves so other pcs they're playing can talk....
But, if you're just focusing on playing the one npc at the time for whatever reason, and you've already planned everything out so that all you have to worry about is playing that npc(such as in a very intense short scene with only pcs and that npc), then playing an NPC, for that short period of time, can be very VERY similar to playing a PC.
I hope that answered your question. If not please drop a note about more specifics you'd like me to get into. I didnt think the question was unclear....but it was difficult to formulate an answer that seemed satisfying.
Sunday, March 23, 2014
Divine NCAA part 2
That was really exciting! Im having a blast.
But I fucked up and cant read a calender. I thought the next round was next week. But its saturday and sunday?!
http://betterbracketmaker.com/#!/57ad51f11b235
So get your guesses for the next round in any time today. I should have figured it out when mat submitted his answers super early. Im sorry I lied samudra! As long as you get your guess in before each game starts you can get credit for that game. There are 16 games this round, 8 per day. All games this round are worth two points!
Also, since we have time now, go ahead and fill out the entire bracket. So thats gonna involve a little predicting on your part, guessing who will win each round. But that lets further rounds be worth more points while still being fair. Once you submit ill add it to a document so dont bother trying to edit ;)
You can get your early guesses in asap if games are close though, but update it with the rest of your picks as soon as possible. Its a little confusing, but I'll post mine below so you can get an example. I hope you all are having fun. Its like we get to care about sports without having to gamble on them!
Round 2 is worth 2 points per correct guess.
Round 3 is worth 5 points per correct guess.
Round 4 is worth 10 points per correct guess.
Round 5 is worth 15 points per correct guess.
Correct guessing the champion is worth 20 points.
So even if you missed the first 2 days. You can still be in the race if you start now.
Also of course remember its all in good fun and not to stress or worry too much about it :)
Also check your score. Its a lot of shit to keep track of, so i did my best, and I think I got it, but could be mistakes.
Points:
Thomas 46
John 40
Mathias 38
Other Tom 37
Miraal 36
Dave 35
Alex 34
Samudra 33
Mat 32
Anne 32
Griffin 24
Purple Snit 24
Jacob 22
Rasmus 18
First day was intense! So many upsets!
Thomas and I guessed 7 out of 8 though!
Final scores for this week are up!
Really intense. I was taken out of the top spot handedly. I want to make sure everyone stays interested and keeps having fun. So tomorrow I'll have some rules up for the next week, and how people who've been beaten already can win back some points.
Thanks everyone for a great time. And grats to those who came from behind with some awesome points today.
But I fucked up and cant read a calender. I thought the next round was next week. But its saturday and sunday?!
http://betterbracketmaker.com/#!/57ad51f11b235
So get your guesses for the next round in any time today. I should have figured it out when mat submitted his answers super early. Im sorry I lied samudra! As long as you get your guess in before each game starts you can get credit for that game. There are 16 games this round, 8 per day. All games this round are worth two points!
Also, since we have time now, go ahead and fill out the entire bracket. So thats gonna involve a little predicting on your part, guessing who will win each round. But that lets further rounds be worth more points while still being fair. Once you submit ill add it to a document so dont bother trying to edit ;)
You can get your early guesses in asap if games are close though, but update it with the rest of your picks as soon as possible. Its a little confusing, but I'll post mine below so you can get an example. I hope you all are having fun. Its like we get to care about sports without having to gamble on them!
Round 2 is worth 2 points per correct guess.
Round 3 is worth 5 points per correct guess.
Round 4 is worth 10 points per correct guess.
Round 5 is worth 15 points per correct guess.
Correct guessing the champion is worth 20 points.
So even if you missed the first 2 days. You can still be in the race if you start now.
Also of course remember its all in good fun and not to stress or worry too much about it :)
Also check your score. Its a lot of shit to keep track of, so i did my best, and I think I got it, but could be mistakes.
Points:
Thomas 46
John 40
Mathias 38
Other Tom 37
Miraal 36
Dave 35
Alex 34
Samudra 33
Mat 32
Anne 32
Griffin 24
Purple Snit 24
Jacob 22
Rasmus 18
First day was intense! So many upsets!
Thomas and I guessed 7 out of 8 though!
Final scores for this week are up!
Really intense. I was taken out of the top spot handedly. I want to make sure everyone stays interested and keeps having fun. So tomorrow I'll have some rules up for the next week, and how people who've been beaten already can win back some points.
Thanks everyone for a great time. And grats to those who came from behind with some awesome points today.
Ask and Ye Shall Receive
Question: Your write-up of Mystery says that players can ask yes/no or short answer questions of Fate. Can you give me a basic framework of what you would consider appropriate questions for a Scion to ask Fate? What do you consider an unacceptable question/series of questions? Examples would be appreciated.
This is a pretty neat question, and examples are definitely helpful! Let's do a few.
Our goal with keeping Mystery questions simple is mostly for the players, not the characters themselves. PCs who use Mystery are not actually "asking questions", per se; rather, they are tapping into the mysteries and secrets of the universe and of Fate itself, learning things that they otherwise could not have known. How they stunt that is up to them - maybe they read secrets in runes, discover truths in the depths of drunkenness, hear the ancient wisdom of the stars or whatever else they might come up with - but they're never actually talking to or asking questions of Fate as if it were a person. The act of asking the Storyteller questions is a proxy system, not what's actually happening in the game.
So the exact wording of a Mystery question doesn't necessarily matter. The player isn't going to hoodwink extra information out of Fate with clever wordplay to make a question "count" more or anything like that, since an actual question isn't being asked of anyone, so instead the Storyteller's job is to figure out what information the player is actually trying to learn and how difficult it should be to discover. The simpler the question, the easier it is to tell what they're looking for and the more likely it is that it can be answered simply as well.
That doesn't mean every simple question is easily answered or only one "Mystery question"'s worth of answer, though, or that every complicated one can't be. These are the kinds of questions we usually encourage from players:
1) "Where is the closest Terra Incognita's entrance?"
2) "Can this puzzle be unraveled with non-magical means?"
3) "Who is the leader of the secret cabal of magicians?"
4) "What is the greatest weakness of the evil zombie leader?"
5) "What incentive could I give to Hera to convince her to act as my patron?"
6) "Is Set in the Underworld right now?"
These are all pretty simple and easy to go about answering. Most of them are short answers; #1 would be along the lines of "In a cave forty miles north of here," or "On the rocks where the Colossus once stood," while #3 should probably just be "Bob, the sinister TV salesman," #4 should be something along the lines of "He's vulnerable to the powers of healing and light," or "He has a soft spot on the back of his neck where he's less armored," and #5 might say, "She's looking for someone to go on a dangerous quest for her," or "She would accept a relic of five dots or higher in return," or whatever else the lady might want. The yes/no questions have a simple yes/no answer, although you might want to keep an eye out for whether or not that's actually what the player is trying to learn; for example, the answer to #5 up there is an easy yes or no, but the player asking #2 is probably actually asking how that puzzle can be unraveled non-magically and may need follow-up information that costs more questions. Remember that just like the player can't cheat with wordplay to get more questions out of this situation, the Storyteller likewise can't cheat to try to make a player waste questions uselessly; you're both working together to make sure the Scion's ability to dip into the mysteries of Fate yields useful information. If a player accidentally words a question poorly - like, for example, "Oh! Can I defeat the emperor with some kind of special strategy?" - it's your job to give her useful information about a strategy, not to glibly say, "Yes!" and then pat yourself on the back while she looks depressed over losing a question to poor wording.
With questions that are actually multiple questions - either because a player isn't great at wording them on the fly or is trying to shenanigans their way around the system by using a lot of semicolons and conjunctions - the Storyteller's job becomes to figure out what information they're looking for and how many "questions" that costs. Generally, the rule of thumb is that one piece of information = one question cost, so that in essence you're pretending the player did ask these questions in the correct phrasing and order to get maximum use out of them. For example, for #2 above, if you know that the puzzle can be solved via mortal means, that it requires a particular set of tools, that a particular mortal has the technical expertise to do it, and that it will take approximately a month longer to do it that way than it would to do it with magic, that's three pieces of information. We would say to the asker of #2, "Okay, to get the full lowdown on that will take three of your questions," and let them decide if they want to commit to that or decide to abandon that route of inquiry and ask about something else.
Unfortunately, a question being simple and direct doesn't always mean it's easy to answer, or that it should be answered. Some questions are clearly great mysteries of the universe and wouldn't be so if anyone with a single level of Mystery could just unravel them, and others may regard things, events or people who are part of Fate's grand design or possessed of great talents of subtlety themselves that shouldn't be immediately uncovered by any yutz who can roll a single success. In those cases, the Storyteller has to figure out how "expensive" a particular question should be, which really means how secret it is, how powerful the forces trying to hide it are, and how difficult it should be for this Scion at their current level to access.
Some examples of information that needs multiple questions to answer:
1) Where is the Tablet of Destinies hidden?
2) Who is that mysterious one-eyed old man who keeps appearing and watching me?
3) What secret plot is Tezcatlipoca up to right now?
4) What is Loki's motive for engineering Baldur's death?
5) What is the secret formula and process for creating Zeus' thunderbolts?
In the case of the first question, this is something that we know is secret even from most of the gods, and that would be enormously powerful and dangerous knowledge for anyone to have, so it clearly isn't easily accessible information even with Mystery. #2, 3 and 4 are cases of gods who are excellent at hiding their intentions and actions from everyone, some of whom are also masters of Fate as well, so again it would be overpowered for any Hero-level Scion to be able to uncover their grandiose Ultimate Manipulation plots with a single Mystery question, and therefore it probably costs a hefty amount to uncover their secrets. The final one is something that probably took Hephaestus and the cyclopes a huge amount of successes on their planning rolls to figure out, so it would be pretty broken if any kid with Mystery could duplicate it in a few seconds.
How much each of those might cost depends on how difficult it should be for the Scion you're dealing with to figure out that information; if you want it to be barely within his grasp if he really commits, set it at a level that he could achieve but only if he tries hard (e.g., if his average successes are 30, set it at 35 or 40 questions so that it's technically doable but difficult). If it's something that he really shouldn't be able to figure out right now, or that should be hard for anyone including gods to figure out, base it on that instead; for example, a god with maximum Occult and Mystery will average around 50 successes and could easily use resources to get even higher, so something that is a massive secret that even the gods don't know should probably be at least 100 or more questions.
One thing we do allow people to do, when shooting to find out giant state secrets that cost a lot of questions, is to blow a few successive uses of Mystery at the same time. For example, if a player rolls 25 Mystery questions and then asks about something that costs 100, they could either say, "Okay, that's out of my league, I'll ask about something else," or if it's really important to them decide to spend three more of their Mystery channels in one huge dump to get enough questions (or maybe only two more if they want to add Deeds or Channels). Often, players will want to save their Mystery uses for future story needs, but if they feel like it's worth it to invest everything, we'll let them pay for a few uses of Mystery in the same scene to get enough total questions to go for it.
Since you asked for a few questions that are not okay, we can provide some examples of those, too.
1) If I get caught sneaking into the imperial palace, will I be put in the dungeon?
2) Who is the mysterious Blue Demon, how do we find him, what is he planning and where is his hideout, and what's the best strategy for dealing with him when we confront him?
3) What's the best course of action for us now?
4) Where is my arch-enemy going to be on the fourteenth of July?
5) What does Manannan mac Lir think about the Morrigan?
These questions have a variety of different problems. #1 and #4 deal with events that are yet to come, which Mystery cannot answer; only Prophecy can provide glimpses of the future, so you simply have to remind players who ask these kinds of questions that they're outside Mystery's scope. #4, along with #2, also has the problem of trying to combine several questions into one, which we talked about above, so we would tell a player who asked either one that those were not single questions, and that it would cost at least four questions for #2, and possibly two for #4 (assuming the player was trying to sneak in knowledge of who their arch-enemy is if they didn't already know). #3 is basically unanswerable; there are too many options for a given group of Scions that could be the best choice, and while Fate certainly has plans for any given Scion, it doesn't know (or care) all the details at every juncture or what the Scions themselves might consider "best". Finally, #5 has many of the same problems of trying to ask about secrets belonging to other gods - its answer would give you the ability to literally eavesdrop on the minds of gods massively more powerful than yourself with very little difficulty, which is simply overpowered, and it's not really answerable anyway, since it's a very vague question and what any given person "thinks about" another is likely to change often and in subtle ways.
Again, don't penalize players for asking a bad question - it's easy for even quick-on-the-uptake players to misstep once in a while, and you never want to make them waste a question. Instead, let them know that that question doesn't work and suggest an alternative, or explain that while that's askable, it costs X amount of questions so they can consider if that's really what they want.
The most important thing to remember is that it's not player vs. Storyteller as antagonistic personalities interacting, but rather that both are working together to get the Scion using Mystery the best and most information for their divine powers.
This is a pretty neat question, and examples are definitely helpful! Let's do a few.
Our goal with keeping Mystery questions simple is mostly for the players, not the characters themselves. PCs who use Mystery are not actually "asking questions", per se; rather, they are tapping into the mysteries and secrets of the universe and of Fate itself, learning things that they otherwise could not have known. How they stunt that is up to them - maybe they read secrets in runes, discover truths in the depths of drunkenness, hear the ancient wisdom of the stars or whatever else they might come up with - but they're never actually talking to or asking questions of Fate as if it were a person. The act of asking the Storyteller questions is a proxy system, not what's actually happening in the game.
So the exact wording of a Mystery question doesn't necessarily matter. The player isn't going to hoodwink extra information out of Fate with clever wordplay to make a question "count" more or anything like that, since an actual question isn't being asked of anyone, so instead the Storyteller's job is to figure out what information the player is actually trying to learn and how difficult it should be to discover. The simpler the question, the easier it is to tell what they're looking for and the more likely it is that it can be answered simply as well.
That doesn't mean every simple question is easily answered or only one "Mystery question"'s worth of answer, though, or that every complicated one can't be. These are the kinds of questions we usually encourage from players:
1) "Where is the closest Terra Incognita's entrance?"
2) "Can this puzzle be unraveled with non-magical means?"
3) "Who is the leader of the secret cabal of magicians?"
4) "What is the greatest weakness of the evil zombie leader?"
5) "What incentive could I give to Hera to convince her to act as my patron?"
6) "Is Set in the Underworld right now?"
These are all pretty simple and easy to go about answering. Most of them are short answers; #1 would be along the lines of "In a cave forty miles north of here," or "On the rocks where the Colossus once stood," while #3 should probably just be "Bob, the sinister TV salesman," #4 should be something along the lines of "He's vulnerable to the powers of healing and light," or "He has a soft spot on the back of his neck where he's less armored," and #5 might say, "She's looking for someone to go on a dangerous quest for her," or "She would accept a relic of five dots or higher in return," or whatever else the lady might want. The yes/no questions have a simple yes/no answer, although you might want to keep an eye out for whether or not that's actually what the player is trying to learn; for example, the answer to #5 up there is an easy yes or no, but the player asking #2 is probably actually asking how that puzzle can be unraveled non-magically and may need follow-up information that costs more questions. Remember that just like the player can't cheat with wordplay to get more questions out of this situation, the Storyteller likewise can't cheat to try to make a player waste questions uselessly; you're both working together to make sure the Scion's ability to dip into the mysteries of Fate yields useful information. If a player accidentally words a question poorly - like, for example, "Oh! Can I defeat the emperor with some kind of special strategy?" - it's your job to give her useful information about a strategy, not to glibly say, "Yes!" and then pat yourself on the back while she looks depressed over losing a question to poor wording.
With questions that are actually multiple questions - either because a player isn't great at wording them on the fly or is trying to shenanigans their way around the system by using a lot of semicolons and conjunctions - the Storyteller's job becomes to figure out what information they're looking for and how many "questions" that costs. Generally, the rule of thumb is that one piece of information = one question cost, so that in essence you're pretending the player did ask these questions in the correct phrasing and order to get maximum use out of them. For example, for #2 above, if you know that the puzzle can be solved via mortal means, that it requires a particular set of tools, that a particular mortal has the technical expertise to do it, and that it will take approximately a month longer to do it that way than it would to do it with magic, that's three pieces of information. We would say to the asker of #2, "Okay, to get the full lowdown on that will take three of your questions," and let them decide if they want to commit to that or decide to abandon that route of inquiry and ask about something else.
Unfortunately, a question being simple and direct doesn't always mean it's easy to answer, or that it should be answered. Some questions are clearly great mysteries of the universe and wouldn't be so if anyone with a single level of Mystery could just unravel them, and others may regard things, events or people who are part of Fate's grand design or possessed of great talents of subtlety themselves that shouldn't be immediately uncovered by any yutz who can roll a single success. In those cases, the Storyteller has to figure out how "expensive" a particular question should be, which really means how secret it is, how powerful the forces trying to hide it are, and how difficult it should be for this Scion at their current level to access.
Some examples of information that needs multiple questions to answer:
1) Where is the Tablet of Destinies hidden?
2) Who is that mysterious one-eyed old man who keeps appearing and watching me?
3) What secret plot is Tezcatlipoca up to right now?
4) What is Loki's motive for engineering Baldur's death?
5) What is the secret formula and process for creating Zeus' thunderbolts?
In the case of the first question, this is something that we know is secret even from most of the gods, and that would be enormously powerful and dangerous knowledge for anyone to have, so it clearly isn't easily accessible information even with Mystery. #2, 3 and 4 are cases of gods who are excellent at hiding their intentions and actions from everyone, some of whom are also masters of Fate as well, so again it would be overpowered for any Hero-level Scion to be able to uncover their grandiose Ultimate Manipulation plots with a single Mystery question, and therefore it probably costs a hefty amount to uncover their secrets. The final one is something that probably took Hephaestus and the cyclopes a huge amount of successes on their planning rolls to figure out, so it would be pretty broken if any kid with Mystery could duplicate it in a few seconds.
How much each of those might cost depends on how difficult it should be for the Scion you're dealing with to figure out that information; if you want it to be barely within his grasp if he really commits, set it at a level that he could achieve but only if he tries hard (e.g., if his average successes are 30, set it at 35 or 40 questions so that it's technically doable but difficult). If it's something that he really shouldn't be able to figure out right now, or that should be hard for anyone including gods to figure out, base it on that instead; for example, a god with maximum Occult and Mystery will average around 50 successes and could easily use resources to get even higher, so something that is a massive secret that even the gods don't know should probably be at least 100 or more questions.
One thing we do allow people to do, when shooting to find out giant state secrets that cost a lot of questions, is to blow a few successive uses of Mystery at the same time. For example, if a player rolls 25 Mystery questions and then asks about something that costs 100, they could either say, "Okay, that's out of my league, I'll ask about something else," or if it's really important to them decide to spend three more of their Mystery channels in one huge dump to get enough questions (or maybe only two more if they want to add Deeds or Channels). Often, players will want to save their Mystery uses for future story needs, but if they feel like it's worth it to invest everything, we'll let them pay for a few uses of Mystery in the same scene to get enough total questions to go for it.
Since you asked for a few questions that are not okay, we can provide some examples of those, too.
1) If I get caught sneaking into the imperial palace, will I be put in the dungeon?
2) Who is the mysterious Blue Demon, how do we find him, what is he planning and where is his hideout, and what's the best strategy for dealing with him when we confront him?
3) What's the best course of action for us now?
4) Where is my arch-enemy going to be on the fourteenth of July?
5) What does Manannan mac Lir think about the Morrigan?
These questions have a variety of different problems. #1 and #4 deal with events that are yet to come, which Mystery cannot answer; only Prophecy can provide glimpses of the future, so you simply have to remind players who ask these kinds of questions that they're outside Mystery's scope. #4, along with #2, also has the problem of trying to combine several questions into one, which we talked about above, so we would tell a player who asked either one that those were not single questions, and that it would cost at least four questions for #2, and possibly two for #4 (assuming the player was trying to sneak in knowledge of who their arch-enemy is if they didn't already know). #3 is basically unanswerable; there are too many options for a given group of Scions that could be the best choice, and while Fate certainly has plans for any given Scion, it doesn't know (or care) all the details at every juncture or what the Scions themselves might consider "best". Finally, #5 has many of the same problems of trying to ask about secrets belonging to other gods - its answer would give you the ability to literally eavesdrop on the minds of gods massively more powerful than yourself with very little difficulty, which is simply overpowered, and it's not really answerable anyway, since it's a very vague question and what any given person "thinks about" another is likely to change often and in subtle ways.
Again, don't penalize players for asking a bad question - it's easy for even quick-on-the-uptake players to misstep once in a while, and you never want to make them waste a question. Instead, let them know that that question doesn't work and suggest an alternative, or explain that while that's askable, it costs X amount of questions so they can consider if that's really what they want.
The most important thing to remember is that it's not player vs. Storyteller as antagonistic personalities interacting, but rather that both are working together to get the Scion using Mystery the best and most information for their divine powers.
Saturday, March 22, 2014
Greek Week
Hey, everybody! It's vlog time, and this week is Greek Week! The kind where we talk about a bunch of Greek mythology stuff, not the kind with beer and toilet paper togas. (Although we could potentially do both. That would be a fun Saturday.)
Question: I read your blog about how the Theoi don't like anything that deviates from normal human physical perfection. So, then why do the Theoi have Gods with Animal associations? Wouldn't that mean that any Greek God with Animal would pretty much never use Animal Feature and/or Animal Form? Okay, maybe Aphrodite could get away with giving herself a pair of swan wings (since you mentioned that the Theoi don't mind wings) but if Ares gave himself ANY wolf feature, wouldn't that be kinda wrong to him?
Question: How do you guy treat Charon, as he is son of two Titans - a god, titanspawn, or even a Titan?
Question: When I was reading your post on how other pantheons laugh about the Greek/Romans small "swords", I realized that since different pantheons may have different standards of beauty, then how does having a high Apperance in one pantheon affect another who may have a different version of an ideal apperance?
Question: How might the Virtues of a Roman Scion differ from those of his or her Greek counterpart?
Question: Hera's Vengeance demands that she continue to punish Zeus' bastards forever. However, in some versions of the Heracles myth, Hera ritually adopts Heracles as her own son when he achieves apotheosis. Would that satisfy Hera's Vengeance toward him? Technically he isn't a bastard anymore. Hera has formally claimed him as her own son. Would she still need to fight her Vengeance around him? Would this option apply to other Scions of Zeus who manage to become gods?
Question: I know this will sound stupid, but what exactly is Tartarus?
Question: Valor is the Virtue of acting honorably, right? Does that mean Scions with Valor can't lie? Can't steal? Can't work undercover?
Please pardon the lack of question text in the video - the editor crashed on me so I had to rush it to make sure it go out on time.
Next week, more themes, plus the exact same faces and clothes you saw this week.
Question: I read your blog about how the Theoi don't like anything that deviates from normal human physical perfection. So, then why do the Theoi have Gods with Animal associations? Wouldn't that mean that any Greek God with Animal would pretty much never use Animal Feature and/or Animal Form? Okay, maybe Aphrodite could get away with giving herself a pair of swan wings (since you mentioned that the Theoi don't mind wings) but if Ares gave himself ANY wolf feature, wouldn't that be kinda wrong to him?
Question: How do you guy treat Charon, as he is son of two Titans - a god, titanspawn, or even a Titan?
Question: When I was reading your post on how other pantheons laugh about the Greek/Romans small "swords", I realized that since different pantheons may have different standards of beauty, then how does having a high Apperance in one pantheon affect another who may have a different version of an ideal apperance?
Question: How might the Virtues of a Roman Scion differ from those of his or her Greek counterpart?
Question: Hera's Vengeance demands that she continue to punish Zeus' bastards forever. However, in some versions of the Heracles myth, Hera ritually adopts Heracles as her own son when he achieves apotheosis. Would that satisfy Hera's Vengeance toward him? Technically he isn't a bastard anymore. Hera has formally claimed him as her own son. Would she still need to fight her Vengeance around him? Would this option apply to other Scions of Zeus who manage to become gods?
Question: I know this will sound stupid, but what exactly is Tartarus?
Question: Valor is the Virtue of acting honorably, right? Does that mean Scions with Valor can't lie? Can't steal? Can't work undercover?
Please pardon the lack of question text in the video - the editor crashed on me so I had to rush it to make sure it go out on time.
Next week, more themes, plus the exact same faces and clothes you saw this week.
Friday, March 21, 2014
Bringing it to the Battlefield
Question: A few boon combination questions, all with Army of One. What happens when you use Army of One in conjunction... with Natural Army? with Colossus Armour? with Unseen Shield? with Shadow Bodies?
Well, first let's quantify the idea of "in conjunction with". As I'm sure you know, you cannot use any knacks or boons once Army of One is activated, so any of these powers you wanted to have active would need to be used before Army of One. In addition, it technically doesn't work to use any of them in a double action with Army of One; because Army of One only includes powers you already have active when you activate it, and the power you used on the same action would not yet be active, technically that boon or knack would just fizzle, since it wouldn't be active when Army of One was spent for but couldn't be activated after it was already in use.
But you can absolutely use a bunch of boons, and then use Army of One and have them all carry over, so we assume that's what you're talking about and we'll go from there.
Colossus Armor is easy; all ten of you (or whatever) running around from Army of One have Colossus Armor, as long as you used it first. Hooray! Indestructible army!
In contrast, Unseen Shield and Shadow Bodies don't change. Shadow Bodies simply creates shadow copies of yourself that can run around, but they're already created and rocking themselves out by the time of Army of One, and they aren't an ongoing effect on you that would be duplicated. You'll end up with ten of yourself from Army of One and the same five shadow copies of yourself you already had. Similarly, the Unseen Shield has already been created and is now a free-standing construction that is not attached to you, so you won't sprout a bunch of new Unseen Shields around all your new selves. The one shield is still there, protecting whomever you told it to protect, and will remain so until it's broken or the scene ends. All of the Army of One bodies are you, however, so they're all automatically included in the Unseen Shield as long as you haven't gotten yourself kicked out of it for violence yet.
And finally, you can't use Natural Army with Army of One at all. The only powers you can use while in your animal army form are your mental Epics and knacks; you can't activate boons while transformed into either a single or multiple animal form. You'd need to turn back into your humanoid form before you'd be able to use Army of One anyway, and wouldn't be able to use another boon afterward.
Army of One is honestly kind of a mess of a boon, so we sympathize with the difficulties inherent in using it.
Well, first let's quantify the idea of "in conjunction with". As I'm sure you know, you cannot use any knacks or boons once Army of One is activated, so any of these powers you wanted to have active would need to be used before Army of One. In addition, it technically doesn't work to use any of them in a double action with Army of One; because Army of One only includes powers you already have active when you activate it, and the power you used on the same action would not yet be active, technically that boon or knack would just fizzle, since it wouldn't be active when Army of One was spent for but couldn't be activated after it was already in use.
But you can absolutely use a bunch of boons, and then use Army of One and have them all carry over, so we assume that's what you're talking about and we'll go from there.
Colossus Armor is easy; all ten of you (or whatever) running around from Army of One have Colossus Armor, as long as you used it first. Hooray! Indestructible army!
In contrast, Unseen Shield and Shadow Bodies don't change. Shadow Bodies simply creates shadow copies of yourself that can run around, but they're already created and rocking themselves out by the time of Army of One, and they aren't an ongoing effect on you that would be duplicated. You'll end up with ten of yourself from Army of One and the same five shadow copies of yourself you already had. Similarly, the Unseen Shield has already been created and is now a free-standing construction that is not attached to you, so you won't sprout a bunch of new Unseen Shields around all your new selves. The one shield is still there, protecting whomever you told it to protect, and will remain so until it's broken or the scene ends. All of the Army of One bodies are you, however, so they're all automatically included in the Unseen Shield as long as you haven't gotten yourself kicked out of it for violence yet.
And finally, you can't use Natural Army with Army of One at all. The only powers you can use while in your animal army form are your mental Epics and knacks; you can't activate boons while transformed into either a single or multiple animal form. You'd need to turn back into your humanoid form before you'd be able to use Army of One anyway, and wouldn't be able to use another boon afterward.
Army of One is honestly kind of a mess of a boon, so we sympathize with the difficulties inherent in using it.
Thursday, March 20, 2014
God bracket!
Its a little late, but I had this idea this morning and wanted to run with it!!!
March Madness: Divine Mandate!
Comment below with who you think would win each contest.
As an example, in the top left we have odin vs dionysus. They each become patron of the basketball team...and those teams fight it out. Maybe odin gives his team berzerking...and dionysus gives his team drunken playing skills.
Pick your favorite, or pick who would win, or whichever you like.
(for those who arent familiar, there will be college basketball teams playing this weekend, and its a pretty big thing for a lot of people).
This first round each correct guess is worth 1 point. Points will go up each round. Im gonna ignore the actual "teams" for my bracket....but i guess if you wanted to win you could figure out who plays basketball the best in the real world....if you're a lame-o :P
So I hope this is a fun thing. Some games will be over by tonight....just try not to cheat. And you cant get points if the game is over before you post. There will be more points in later rounds, so missing one or two early wont matter too much. Cut off will be 8pm tonight for this round. I'll post an updated list and a running score tally a little after. Vote quickly! Manannan vs Hecate has already started!
Also, there might be some VERY small prize for 1st through 3rd depending on how many people play. We'll figure something out.
Points:
John 20
Thomas 20
Other Tom 19
Alex 18
Griffin 18
Samudra 19
Mat 18
Dave 15
Anne 14
Miraal 14
Mathias 14
Purple Snit 12
Jacob 4
First day is all done :) Tomorrow will be an adventure. Thanks to everyone for playing
March Madness: Divine Mandate!
Comment below with who you think would win each contest.
As an example, in the top left we have odin vs dionysus. They each become patron of the basketball team...and those teams fight it out. Maybe odin gives his team berzerking...and dionysus gives his team drunken playing skills.
Pick your favorite, or pick who would win, or whichever you like.
(for those who arent familiar, there will be college basketball teams playing this weekend, and its a pretty big thing for a lot of people).
This first round each correct guess is worth 1 point. Points will go up each round. Im gonna ignore the actual "teams" for my bracket....but i guess if you wanted to win you could figure out who plays basketball the best in the real world....if you're a lame-o :P
So I hope this is a fun thing. Some games will be over by tonight....just try not to cheat. And you cant get points if the game is over before you post. There will be more points in later rounds, so missing one or two early wont matter too much. Cut off will be 8pm tonight for this round. I'll post an updated list and a running score tally a little after. Vote quickly! Manannan vs Hecate has already started!
Also, there might be some VERY small prize for 1st through 3rd depending on how many people play. We'll figure something out.
Points:
John 20
Thomas 20
Other Tom 19
Alex 18
Griffin 18
Samudra 19
Mat 18
Dave 15
Anne 14
Miraal 14
Mathias 14
Purple Snit 12
Jacob 4
First day is all done :) Tomorrow will be an adventure. Thanks to everyone for playing
Do What You Do
Since we've gotten a bunch of these lately, here's a quick big-bang-style post with several questions about associations. Let's go at it!
Question: Why does Hera have Health associated?
Hera is strongly associated with childbirth and the health of children and pregnant women alike, which is covered by the Health purview. Not only is she one of the few gods to create children completely parthenogenically with no males involved (both Hephaestus and Typhon are said to be her children alone, although both also have alternative genealogies), but she was called upon to protect mothers and infants during pregnancy and birth and to prevent complications and diseases that might harm them, especially in her Roman guise as Juno. This is one of those places where an association comes more from cult associations than from a specific myth in which the association is demonstrated.
John would like to note that we're considering lately whether issues of childbirth and human fertility should contribute toward a Health association and how strongly, so if you have opinions, lay them on us.
Question: Does Epic Appearance really suit Tlaloc?
Have you seen him?
And many more. Some scholars think that these might be supposed to be geese instead of swans, in which case you could alternatively give her Animal (Goose), but we figured Swan fit with her aesthetic more. While we don't always give everyone an Animal association just because they appear with an animal in art a lot - sometimes the animal is just symbolic, or they have a myth that suggests it's not a good idea - Aphrodite is slim on associations like most Greek deities, and we figured she could use the help.
As for Fertility vs. Health, we're totally with you on the weirdness of that, but after doing as thorough a run through ancient Greek stories and descriptions of Aphrodite, that's where we ended up. Aphrodite is indeed associated with sex, but while Health does affect baby-making, it doesn't have a lot to do with the sex act itself beyond that, and so Aphrodite's strong connections to bangin' didn't really give her much of a connection there (although her Roman persona, Venus, is a little bit more linkable to Health as a concept). But the ancient Greeks connected human fertility and the fertility of the earth symbolically and even literally in many of their writings, so that Aphrodite is often praised as a bringer of earthly fertility despite not being a more classical plant-shaper. From Stasinus describing Aphrodite as eternally clothed in "crocus and hyacinth and flourishing violet and the rose's lovely bloom, so sweet and delicious, and heavenly buds, the flowers of the narcissus and lily; in such perfumed garments is Aphrodite clothed at all seasons," to the Homeric hymns stating that flowers spring up beneath her feet wherever she walks, plants turn up surprisingly frequently with Aphrodite. The reason is probably best summed up in Aeschylus' Danaides, in which Aphrodite herself describes the births of all the plants and trees and flowers of the world, and then claims, "Of all these things I am the cause," suggesting that because she is the motivator for sex which causes procreation, she is the root cause of all procreation of all life, even though she does not participate in the actual childbearing or mothering process.
Question: Shouldn't Hermes have Epic Dexterity and Illusion? Apologies if this has been answered already.
While Hermes certainly has decent amounts of both, neither was strong enough for us to want to give him the Ultimate expression of it. He does use Illusion occasionally, most notably in the tale where he makes himself a doppelgaenger of a man in order to drive him insane, but he doesn't do it all that often or all that impressively, so for the most part his trickery is probably the result of awesome Manipulation and Wits, and some low- to mid-level Illusion boons now and then. Dexterity doesn't really fit him, either; he does have the epithet "quick-footed", which helps, but for the most part the modern idea of him as super-fast comes from his role as messenger of the gods rather than any actual mythological association with speed of travel.
Question: Why does Njord have Fire associated?
Because of this passage in the Prose Edda:
The third among the Aesir is he that is called Njörd: he dwells in heaven, in the abode called Nóatún. He rules the course of the wind, and stills sea and fire; on him shall men call for voyages and for hunting.
Even more than Hel above, Njord suffers from the dearth of mythological information on the Aesir and Vanir. While his Water association as the god of the ocean is pretty solid, everything else tends to be like that - single statements that are clear, but don't have any other examples to back them up. Njord is supposed to be one of the most important and powerful of the Vanir, which is why he was traded to the Aesir in the first place, so we decided to give him Sky and Fire in spite of the lack of extra stories attached to them... but we feel like it's likely he may get demoted to a lot fewer associations in the future workup of lower-Legend gods. The Edda's very clear that he does those things, so we like them, but we also usually want more than one example, so thus is our quandary.
That's all our association questions for today - phew!
Question: Why does Hera have Health associated?
Hera is strongly associated with childbirth and the health of children and pregnant women alike, which is covered by the Health purview. Not only is she one of the few gods to create children completely parthenogenically with no males involved (both Hephaestus and Typhon are said to be her children alone, although both also have alternative genealogies), but she was called upon to protect mothers and infants during pregnancy and birth and to prevent complications and diseases that might harm them, especially in her Roman guise as Juno. This is one of those places where an association comes more from cult associations than from a specific myth in which the association is demonstrated.
John would like to note that we're considering lately whether issues of childbirth and human fertility should contribute toward a Health association and how strongly, so if you have opinions, lay them on us.
Question: Does Epic Appearance really suit Tlaloc?
Have you seen him?
Tlaloc is famously crazy-looking, even among the Mexican gods, where curlicue-faces and bizarre giant clothing styles are a way of life. He combines parts of a bunch of animals related to his elements, especially the crocodile teeth and giant frog eyes, and is so visually striking that he's one of the few gods we can pick out across various different levels of Mesoamerican myth in different cultures and time periods. The Googly-Eyed Rain Monster - that's a real term, I didn't make it up! - is a mainstay of wacky Mesoamerican religious art, and Tlaloc, representative of both the devouring earth that must be fed blood to be appeased and the terrible storm that devastates the landscape and brings disease and damage, is pretty clearly intended to be terrifying in a way that many others among the Teotl are not.
Question: why does Hel have Epic Stamina associated?
We'll admit to this one being more of a stretch. Hel lives in an area that is famously inhospitable, so much so that even the gods avoid it - freezing cold and filled with debilitating disease - seemingly without any problems, and also survived being "cast" or "thrown" from Yggdrasil into Helheim by Odin (it went better for her than the similar fall did for Hephaestus, at least!). We were at the time trying to make sure all Legend 12 deities had at least four associations, which we later relaxed to three, so this one is by far her least solid.
Question: Why does Hermes have Magic associated?
Because, as Hermes Trismegistus ("thrice-great Hermes" or "thrice-wise Hermes"), he is the inventer of sorcery and patron of the Hermetic order of magaicians, who of course named their organization after him. Hilariously, Hermes T is probably a combination of Hermes and Thoth, but at this point they're almost inseparable in that role, so we found that it made more sense to extend the association to both of them than to try to split them into separate parts. It's likely that Hermes/Mercury's association with magic originally comes from his association with luck, a necessary part of his function as god of shenanigans, thievery and other things you need good fortune to pull off, but it eventually evolved into a full-blown magic association that survives to this day. Not every branch of Greek or Roman religion accepted Hermes T as being the same as Hermes, so you could set him up as a completely different god if you wanted to, but we figured in this case simplicity was better.
Question: Where do you guys get Animal (Swan) and Fertility for Aphrodite? I mean, I know it's hard to figure out powers that she might have other than "being really hot" but I can't recall a single myth of her doing anything with swans or plant life. I could see the Health Purview, since it has powers that affect sex and HUMAN fertility, not to mention Human Clay would be a useful power for the Goddess of Beauty (she can give you beauty or take it away) but Fertility and Animal don't make much sense.
Aphrodite is actually associated with the swan all the time! The bird represented light and beauty to the ancient Greeks, which made it an easy one to associate with her. Take a gander (ha!) at all these ancient images of Aphrodite hanging out with swans:
And many more. Some scholars think that these might be supposed to be geese instead of swans, in which case you could alternatively give her Animal (Goose), but we figured Swan fit with her aesthetic more. While we don't always give everyone an Animal association just because they appear with an animal in art a lot - sometimes the animal is just symbolic, or they have a myth that suggests it's not a good idea - Aphrodite is slim on associations like most Greek deities, and we figured she could use the help.
As for Fertility vs. Health, we're totally with you on the weirdness of that, but after doing as thorough a run through ancient Greek stories and descriptions of Aphrodite, that's where we ended up. Aphrodite is indeed associated with sex, but while Health does affect baby-making, it doesn't have a lot to do with the sex act itself beyond that, and so Aphrodite's strong connections to bangin' didn't really give her much of a connection there (although her Roman persona, Venus, is a little bit more linkable to Health as a concept). But the ancient Greeks connected human fertility and the fertility of the earth symbolically and even literally in many of their writings, so that Aphrodite is often praised as a bringer of earthly fertility despite not being a more classical plant-shaper. From Stasinus describing Aphrodite as eternally clothed in "crocus and hyacinth and flourishing violet and the rose's lovely bloom, so sweet and delicious, and heavenly buds, the flowers of the narcissus and lily; in such perfumed garments is Aphrodite clothed at all seasons," to the Homeric hymns stating that flowers spring up beneath her feet wherever she walks, plants turn up surprisingly frequently with Aphrodite. The reason is probably best summed up in Aeschylus' Danaides, in which Aphrodite herself describes the births of all the plants and trees and flowers of the world, and then claims, "Of all these things I am the cause," suggesting that because she is the motivator for sex which causes procreation, she is the root cause of all procreation of all life, even though she does not participate in the actual childbearing or mothering process.
Question: Shouldn't Hermes have Epic Dexterity and Illusion? Apologies if this has been answered already.
While Hermes certainly has decent amounts of both, neither was strong enough for us to want to give him the Ultimate expression of it. He does use Illusion occasionally, most notably in the tale where he makes himself a doppelgaenger of a man in order to drive him insane, but he doesn't do it all that often or all that impressively, so for the most part his trickery is probably the result of awesome Manipulation and Wits, and some low- to mid-level Illusion boons now and then. Dexterity doesn't really fit him, either; he does have the epithet "quick-footed", which helps, but for the most part the modern idea of him as super-fast comes from his role as messenger of the gods rather than any actual mythological association with speed of travel.
Question: Why does Njord have Fire associated?
Because of this passage in the Prose Edda:
The third among the Aesir is he that is called Njörd: he dwells in heaven, in the abode called Nóatún. He rules the course of the wind, and stills sea and fire; on him shall men call for voyages and for hunting.
Even more than Hel above, Njord suffers from the dearth of mythological information on the Aesir and Vanir. While his Water association as the god of the ocean is pretty solid, everything else tends to be like that - single statements that are clear, but don't have any other examples to back them up. Njord is supposed to be one of the most important and powerful of the Vanir, which is why he was traded to the Aesir in the first place, so we decided to give him Sky and Fire in spite of the lack of extra stories attached to them... but we feel like it's likely he may get demoted to a lot fewer associations in the future workup of lower-Legend gods. The Edda's very clear that he does those things, so we like them, but we also usually want more than one example, so thus is our quandary.
That's all our association questions for today - phew!
Wednesday, March 19, 2014
Sky vs. Storm
Question: I'm curious as to why you and Anne decided to eliminate the electricity based boons from the Sky purview. Given the number of sky gods that rely on such powers as a mode of attack, electricity/lightning based boons seem pretty fundamental. Just curious, thanks!
Sounds like you might not have been following the blog much and missed out on a lot of what we're doing.
We haven't erased lightning powers from Sky; rather, we've split the old Sky purview into two new ones, Sky and Thunder, with the former containing all the wind and air and cloud boons and the latter all the storm and thunder and lightning boons. While there are some gods who do both things (although very few who have the Avatar of both purviews), for the most part they are very separate creatures; sky gods are normally in charge of the vault of the skies, the shapers of the clouds and rulers of the winds, as opposed to thunder gods who are the ones in charge of destructive storms and life-giving rains. Since the old Sky purview lumped them together, we've all gotten pretty used to referring to both as powers of a "sky god", but we're really looking at two different kinds of deities, which is why we decided on the split. It's the difference between Quetzalcoatl and Tlaloc, or Vayu and Indra.
So if you want to be primarily a Sky god, your offensive powers will be Sky powers: knocking your enemies far afield with blasts of wind, denying them breath with your suffocation powers, and so on. If you want to use thunder and lightning instead, you're going to want the forthcoming Thunder purview, which we hope will be released fairly soon. (Or maybe you want to buy both! Chase your dreams!)
You may want to check out this recent post from the release of Sky for more details and suggestions about how to convert to the two split purviews.
Sounds like you might not have been following the blog much and missed out on a lot of what we're doing.
We haven't erased lightning powers from Sky; rather, we've split the old Sky purview into two new ones, Sky and Thunder, with the former containing all the wind and air and cloud boons and the latter all the storm and thunder and lightning boons. While there are some gods who do both things (although very few who have the Avatar of both purviews), for the most part they are very separate creatures; sky gods are normally in charge of the vault of the skies, the shapers of the clouds and rulers of the winds, as opposed to thunder gods who are the ones in charge of destructive storms and life-giving rains. Since the old Sky purview lumped them together, we've all gotten pretty used to referring to both as powers of a "sky god", but we're really looking at two different kinds of deities, which is why we decided on the split. It's the difference between Quetzalcoatl and Tlaloc, or Vayu and Indra.
So if you want to be primarily a Sky god, your offensive powers will be Sky powers: knocking your enemies far afield with blasts of wind, denying them breath with your suffocation powers, and so on. If you want to use thunder and lightning instead, you're going to want the forthcoming Thunder purview, which we hope will be released fairly soon. (Or maybe you want to buy both! Chase your dreams!)
You may want to check out this recent post from the release of Sky for more details and suggestions about how to convert to the two split purviews.
Let Me Hear Some Soul
Question: Do you think that Heku practitioners could extend their influence over soul anatomy to messing with other pantheons' ideas of the soul? Say, for example, manipulating a Teotl Scion's nahualli?
You're getting here into some very dangerous waters, where the deep, deep seas of Comparative Mythology and Game Mechanics meet and become choppy.
The answer to this is no, for a few different reasons. The major problem with this, from a game-balance perspective, is that that would automatically make Heku very, very overpowered. Many different pantheons and cultures have different ideas of what the soul is and ways that that could be expressed in Scion, from things that happen in their PSPs to custom Birthrights to interactions with their pantheons or lesser immortals, and since they're not all the same, it would require a pretty hoss set of powers with carefully-delineated effects to find good ways to interact with all of them. Heku is way not equipped to do all of that, and furthermore it would severely penalize people in other pantheons just for getting in touch with those things - if they have to voluntarily put a lot of time/effort/Birthright points into even getting that thing, and then the Heku guy can just fuck with it, why would they both doing that instead of getting some other relic that nobody would get to unfairly screw around with? What about cultures where the soul and its disposition is being handled primarily by APPs - is the guy with Heku just royally cheating people with the Death purview, too? Where are you drawing the line on what a "soul" is and what powers can and can't affect it?
So game balance is obviously an issue here. But, more importantly (at least in my opinion!), Heku is specifically designed to work with the Egyptian idea of the soul. Egyptian deities and religion believe in that idea of the soul, and interact with the soul that way; as we say every time we talk about comparative religion, it's their mythological truth. But it's not the mythological truth of other pantheons that have entirely different conceptions of soul, which vary widely and are often totally incompatible, and it doesn't make sense for the Egyptian "truth" to intrude on, for example, the Aztec "truth" and invalidate it. From the Aztec perspective, the twin-soul nahualli is the truth of how souls are put together, and it's the Netjer who have some weird exotic theory, so why do the Netjer get to impose their truth on other pantheons, when the same is not true in reverse? It's true that the Netjer have powers over the manifold soul of Egyptian mythology, but that doesn't necessarily translate to having power over everyone's soul ever across the universe, just as an Orisha Scion's control over her own destiny doesn't necessarily mean that she gets to invalidate every other culture's notions of Fate that don't match up to hers.
This is a place where, because All Myths Are True in Scion, you need to decide how it can be true that the Egyptians believe that everyone has an eight-part multi-soul but the Aztecs believe that everyone has a dual-animal soul but the Inuit believe that everyone has a triple soul of which one is the quality of breath that keeps them alive, and so on and so forth. All of them are true, but they cannot intrude on and make one another untrue without breaking the game. One answer might be that because the Egyptians have the power of Heku, they can interact with their own souls (and to a limited extent the souls of others) in the context of the eight-part Egyptian soul, but that that's a characteristic of their PSP, not a universal truth of how souls work. Another might be to say that everyone within the Egyptian religion's range has the multi-soul - after all, they all want to be mummified so their various soul parts head off to the afterlife correctly, right? - but that this only applies to Egyptian people and not to anyone else. Yet another option might be to say that all people everywhere have all the different cultural conceptions of souls, at once, and it doesn't matter because it only comes into question when someone has a set of powers that specifically affect one of those setups. Or maybe you have yet another idea for reconciling all these things that works better for you. I don't know, because I don't run your game.
But I do know that every culture's religious ideas of souls must be equally valid for Scion's universe to function without one pantheon being "better" or "more important" than the others, so while you can have powers like Heku interact with other people in some senses, you can never have them override another culture's conception of how things work. Heku and nahualli are both concepts that work with the soul, but they're not the same and it would be very difficult to find a way to make sure that not only those two interact in a balanced way, but that every kind of soul expression in the entire game does, too.
At any rate, Heku does not affect either other peoples' Birthrights or their PSPs, so no matter what way you run nahualli, the powers of Heku shouldn't be applying to them. Both are cultural expressions of a pantheon's religious idea of the soul, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're the same or compatible, or that trying to make them so would be good for the game.
You're getting here into some very dangerous waters, where the deep, deep seas of Comparative Mythology and Game Mechanics meet and become choppy.
The answer to this is no, for a few different reasons. The major problem with this, from a game-balance perspective, is that that would automatically make Heku very, very overpowered. Many different pantheons and cultures have different ideas of what the soul is and ways that that could be expressed in Scion, from things that happen in their PSPs to custom Birthrights to interactions with their pantheons or lesser immortals, and since they're not all the same, it would require a pretty hoss set of powers with carefully-delineated effects to find good ways to interact with all of them. Heku is way not equipped to do all of that, and furthermore it would severely penalize people in other pantheons just for getting in touch with those things - if they have to voluntarily put a lot of time/effort/Birthright points into even getting that thing, and then the Heku guy can just fuck with it, why would they both doing that instead of getting some other relic that nobody would get to unfairly screw around with? What about cultures where the soul and its disposition is being handled primarily by APPs - is the guy with Heku just royally cheating people with the Death purview, too? Where are you drawing the line on what a "soul" is and what powers can and can't affect it?
So game balance is obviously an issue here. But, more importantly (at least in my opinion!), Heku is specifically designed to work with the Egyptian idea of the soul. Egyptian deities and religion believe in that idea of the soul, and interact with the soul that way; as we say every time we talk about comparative religion, it's their mythological truth. But it's not the mythological truth of other pantheons that have entirely different conceptions of soul, which vary widely and are often totally incompatible, and it doesn't make sense for the Egyptian "truth" to intrude on, for example, the Aztec "truth" and invalidate it. From the Aztec perspective, the twin-soul nahualli is the truth of how souls are put together, and it's the Netjer who have some weird exotic theory, so why do the Netjer get to impose their truth on other pantheons, when the same is not true in reverse? It's true that the Netjer have powers over the manifold soul of Egyptian mythology, but that doesn't necessarily translate to having power over everyone's soul ever across the universe, just as an Orisha Scion's control over her own destiny doesn't necessarily mean that she gets to invalidate every other culture's notions of Fate that don't match up to hers.
This is a place where, because All Myths Are True in Scion, you need to decide how it can be true that the Egyptians believe that everyone has an eight-part multi-soul but the Aztecs believe that everyone has a dual-animal soul but the Inuit believe that everyone has a triple soul of which one is the quality of breath that keeps them alive, and so on and so forth. All of them are true, but they cannot intrude on and make one another untrue without breaking the game. One answer might be that because the Egyptians have the power of Heku, they can interact with their own souls (and to a limited extent the souls of others) in the context of the eight-part Egyptian soul, but that that's a characteristic of their PSP, not a universal truth of how souls work. Another might be to say that everyone within the Egyptian religion's range has the multi-soul - after all, they all want to be mummified so their various soul parts head off to the afterlife correctly, right? - but that this only applies to Egyptian people and not to anyone else. Yet another option might be to say that all people everywhere have all the different cultural conceptions of souls, at once, and it doesn't matter because it only comes into question when someone has a set of powers that specifically affect one of those setups. Or maybe you have yet another idea for reconciling all these things that works better for you. I don't know, because I don't run your game.
But I do know that every culture's religious ideas of souls must be equally valid for Scion's universe to function without one pantheon being "better" or "more important" than the others, so while you can have powers like Heku interact with other people in some senses, you can never have them override another culture's conception of how things work. Heku and nahualli are both concepts that work with the soul, but they're not the same and it would be very difficult to find a way to make sure that not only those two interact in a balanced way, but that every kind of soul expression in the entire game does, too.
At any rate, Heku does not affect either other peoples' Birthrights or their PSPs, so no matter what way you run nahualli, the powers of Heku shouldn't be applying to them. Both are cultural expressions of a pantheon's religious idea of the soul, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're the same or compatible, or that trying to make them so would be good for the game.
Tuesday, March 18, 2014
The Model Look
Question: If a Scion with no dots in Epic Appearance is horribly disfigured/scarred, can they buy positive Epic Appearance, or are they restricted to negative for being so ugly already? If they can get positive, does it reduce the ugliness of their scars/disfigurements until eventually the scars vanish, or would positive appearance simply make them extremely beautiful in spite of their scar/disfigurement without actually reducing the visual impact of the scars/disfigurements?
Any character can buy any kind of Epic Appearance they want! Go nuts! Do whatever you feel like, young heroes!
Appearance is a little bit of a tricky stat when it comes to the mortal realm; it really just measures how striking and noticeable you are, but whether people like that or don't is entirely dependent on the standards of beauty and physical averages of the culture you're hanging out with. As we know already from living in a world with a lot of different people with different tastes, wherever you go you'll encounter different standards; some cultures like large breasts while some like small, some cultures love ear- and lip-disks and others think they're disfiguring, some cultures prize certain colors in skin or hair or eyes that might be totally different from other cultures, and so on and so forth. There's no universal standard of beauty that everyone on earth recognizes, so it's likely that no matter what you look like, somebody out there thinks you're attractive, and likewise somebody is totally grossed out by you. Normal dots of Appearance make sure people visually (and aurally/scent-wise) notice you, but whether they think you look good or not is totally up to their personal preferences.
But Epic Appearance is a divine quality that transcends normal human preferences. People with positive Epic Appearance are attractive to everyone, not just people who would normally think they have a good look, and people with negative Epic Appearance freak everyone out, even if they would normally not have a problem with your specific physical attributes. If you have negative Epic Appearance and a bunch of traits that people around you would normally find very attractive - super clear skin, well-defined muscles, long eyelashes, whatever - they still don't want you anywhere near them, because you have a divine quality of scariness or ugliness that overrides their normal preferences. In essence, Epic Appearance takes the power to decide whether or not you're ugly or beautiful away from the viewer and gives it back to the Scion. You buy Epics, and you're whichever flavor of Epic Appearance you bought, end of story.
So yes, even if your character was horribly scarred as a mortal and most people considered her unsightly or disturbing or ugly, if she buys positive Epic Appearance, she is beautiful. How she is beautiful is up to you and your stunting prowess; the scars won't disappear unless you buy knacks that actually allow you to shapeshift and remove them, but maybe they now enhance the rest of her skin's flawlessness, or they form exotic and exciting patterns on her skin, or their texture makes people want to run their fingers across them, or they make her look mysterious and badass instead of injured or pitiful. Whatever way you think someone with scars might be attractive, that's what your character is now. And conversely, a Scion who looks like his culture's pinnacle of physical perfection who then purchases negative Epic Appearance is now horrifying regardless of his previous attractiveness, and his bulging muscles look grotesque or his full lips make onlookers think of scary things that want to eat them or the entire package of him now says violence and danger to people instead of power and sexiness.
You'll never lose any actual parts of your current anatomy or physical features when you buy Epic Appearance (unless you use a knack that actually changes those things); you still look like yourself and people who know you still recognize you. You're just now a divinely beautiful or horrible version of yourself, no matter who's interacting with you or what their normal standards might be.
Any character can buy any kind of Epic Appearance they want! Go nuts! Do whatever you feel like, young heroes!
Appearance is a little bit of a tricky stat when it comes to the mortal realm; it really just measures how striking and noticeable you are, but whether people like that or don't is entirely dependent on the standards of beauty and physical averages of the culture you're hanging out with. As we know already from living in a world with a lot of different people with different tastes, wherever you go you'll encounter different standards; some cultures like large breasts while some like small, some cultures love ear- and lip-disks and others think they're disfiguring, some cultures prize certain colors in skin or hair or eyes that might be totally different from other cultures, and so on and so forth. There's no universal standard of beauty that everyone on earth recognizes, so it's likely that no matter what you look like, somebody out there thinks you're attractive, and likewise somebody is totally grossed out by you. Normal dots of Appearance make sure people visually (and aurally/scent-wise) notice you, but whether they think you look good or not is totally up to their personal preferences.
But Epic Appearance is a divine quality that transcends normal human preferences. People with positive Epic Appearance are attractive to everyone, not just people who would normally think they have a good look, and people with negative Epic Appearance freak everyone out, even if they would normally not have a problem with your specific physical attributes. If you have negative Epic Appearance and a bunch of traits that people around you would normally find very attractive - super clear skin, well-defined muscles, long eyelashes, whatever - they still don't want you anywhere near them, because you have a divine quality of scariness or ugliness that overrides their normal preferences. In essence, Epic Appearance takes the power to decide whether or not you're ugly or beautiful away from the viewer and gives it back to the Scion. You buy Epics, and you're whichever flavor of Epic Appearance you bought, end of story.
So yes, even if your character was horribly scarred as a mortal and most people considered her unsightly or disturbing or ugly, if she buys positive Epic Appearance, she is beautiful. How she is beautiful is up to you and your stunting prowess; the scars won't disappear unless you buy knacks that actually allow you to shapeshift and remove them, but maybe they now enhance the rest of her skin's flawlessness, or they form exotic and exciting patterns on her skin, or their texture makes people want to run their fingers across them, or they make her look mysterious and badass instead of injured or pitiful. Whatever way you think someone with scars might be attractive, that's what your character is now. And conversely, a Scion who looks like his culture's pinnacle of physical perfection who then purchases negative Epic Appearance is now horrifying regardless of his previous attractiveness, and his bulging muscles look grotesque or his full lips make onlookers think of scary things that want to eat them or the entire package of him now says violence and danger to people instead of power and sexiness.
You'll never lose any actual parts of your current anatomy or physical features when you buy Epic Appearance (unless you use a knack that actually changes those things); you still look like yourself and people who know you still recognize you. You're just now a divinely beautiful or horrible version of yourself, no matter who's interacting with you or what their normal standards might be.
Monday, March 17, 2014
Celestial Skullduggery
Question: Is my GM's interpretation of Tsuki-yomi as a Machiavellian schemer a la Game of Thrones valid? He recently killed Amaterasu (OOC Knowledge) for reasons never really explained.
Well, it's honestly pretty hard to guess what Tsukuyomi's mythological personality is like, because he doesn't have very many myths with speaking parts. We know how he was born and that he is in charge of the moon and the night sky, and we know that he was so offended by Uke Mochi's method of creating food that he killed her and was summarily exiled for his crime, but we don't know much about what he's like when you're having a conversation with him. Japanese mythology doesn't detail what his sense of humor might be like, what kinds of things he enjoys, what his pet peeves are, how he views the world and his place in it, whether he's homesick, whether he's glad to be exiled or bearing a grudge... none of that is touched on. In our games, we played him as stern and severely dedicated to decorum, but not above getting his hands dirty (or more often, punting a Scion out there to get their hands dirty) when the need arose.
But, that was our game and this is yours, so here's an important rule of thumb: the ST's interpretation of a god's personality should always be trusted. For one thing, this is not an area where you can look up a god's personality in a book and say, "Aha! You're doing it wrong, they should be way more loving/chatty/willing to do X thing I want!" While some gods have clearly demonstrated personalities in their myths and have a sort of generally universally accepted personality type - i.e., Ishtar is likely to pout or throw a tantrum if she doesn't get her way, Zeus is likely to hit on people he finds attractive, Tezcatlipoca is probably doing something terrible to you right now and you don't even know it - many, many more don't. And even if they do, remember that your Storyteller is roleplaying that god, just like they play a zillion other NPCs for you over the course of the game, and their interpretation of a god's personality is as valid as yours might be. If they play Sedna as terrible and cruel to male Scions but warm and welcoming to female ones because they want to play up that her treatment by her husbands and father has made her dislike men, then it's irrelevant that you would have made her uniformly hate everyone regardless of gender and don't agree with that portrayal. Even when everyone has all the facts about a given character's personality, different people will end up playing it differently and highlighting different parts of it. The Storyteller is literally in charge of what that NPC thinks, does and says when interacting with you, and by definition, they are never wrong. If you would have done something different than they did with their portrayal, that's cool, but it's still the truth in the game they are running.
That doesn't mean you can't point something out to your Storyteller if you think they're missing a key piece of information - for example, if the ST has Agni say offhandedly, "Oh, Indra and I get along awesomely, we've never argued about anything," you might mention to them that there was that one time that Indra almost got Agni killed because he refused to let him use a forest for fuel source and it actually turned into a pretty big deal and got a bunch of gods and Scions involved in a turf war. But don't do it in the middle of the action and hold the game up or make your fellow players uncomfortable, and don't do it in a confrontational or accusatory way. We recommend after game or during a break saying, "Hey, I recall reading X myth, did you know that one?" rather than leaping in during game to shout, "Nuh-uh, that's just not true, you don't know what you're talking about!" Storytellers are humans, and they can't know every piece of every mythology ever all the time. Don't punish them if they miss something once in a while.
But that brings us to the other major reason that you don't get to argue with an ST's portrayal of a god's actions or personality, and that's that they're in charge of the game and they know more than you do. There might be a ton of reasons for the way a god is acting that you have no idea about; they could have been mind-whammied by another god, accidentally drunk a potion of forgetfulness, made new friends or enemies over the course of the story, been blackmailed by an enemy into doing things they don't want to, or you might even be talking to someone completely different who is just impersonating the god you think you're talking to. You have no idea, and the ST is not only not going to stop every five minutes to tell you that yes, there's a good reason for this, it would actually be bad for the game if they did, since some secrets are supposed to remain secret unless you figure them out inside the game itself. You need to trust that your ST is portraying any character, not just gods, the way they want them portrayed, and go from there. And really, if you don't trust them to do that, how are you trusting them to run the rest of the game?
Personally, we didn't run Tsukuyomi the way you're describing, but that doesn't necessarily mean that approach is wrong. Considering that Amaterasu banished (and/or possibly divorced) him a very long time ago for something he probably feels justified in doing, it's not outside the realm of possibility that he might be carrying a grudge against her or that he would want to find a way to once again be an important force in the court of the kami that has been denied to him for all these years.
Well, it's honestly pretty hard to guess what Tsukuyomi's mythological personality is like, because he doesn't have very many myths with speaking parts. We know how he was born and that he is in charge of the moon and the night sky, and we know that he was so offended by Uke Mochi's method of creating food that he killed her and was summarily exiled for his crime, but we don't know much about what he's like when you're having a conversation with him. Japanese mythology doesn't detail what his sense of humor might be like, what kinds of things he enjoys, what his pet peeves are, how he views the world and his place in it, whether he's homesick, whether he's glad to be exiled or bearing a grudge... none of that is touched on. In our games, we played him as stern and severely dedicated to decorum, but not above getting his hands dirty (or more often, punting a Scion out there to get their hands dirty) when the need arose.
But, that was our game and this is yours, so here's an important rule of thumb: the ST's interpretation of a god's personality should always be trusted. For one thing, this is not an area where you can look up a god's personality in a book and say, "Aha! You're doing it wrong, they should be way more loving/chatty/willing to do X thing I want!" While some gods have clearly demonstrated personalities in their myths and have a sort of generally universally accepted personality type - i.e., Ishtar is likely to pout or throw a tantrum if she doesn't get her way, Zeus is likely to hit on people he finds attractive, Tezcatlipoca is probably doing something terrible to you right now and you don't even know it - many, many more don't. And even if they do, remember that your Storyteller is roleplaying that god, just like they play a zillion other NPCs for you over the course of the game, and their interpretation of a god's personality is as valid as yours might be. If they play Sedna as terrible and cruel to male Scions but warm and welcoming to female ones because they want to play up that her treatment by her husbands and father has made her dislike men, then it's irrelevant that you would have made her uniformly hate everyone regardless of gender and don't agree with that portrayal. Even when everyone has all the facts about a given character's personality, different people will end up playing it differently and highlighting different parts of it. The Storyteller is literally in charge of what that NPC thinks, does and says when interacting with you, and by definition, they are never wrong. If you would have done something different than they did with their portrayal, that's cool, but it's still the truth in the game they are running.
That doesn't mean you can't point something out to your Storyteller if you think they're missing a key piece of information - for example, if the ST has Agni say offhandedly, "Oh, Indra and I get along awesomely, we've never argued about anything," you might mention to them that there was that one time that Indra almost got Agni killed because he refused to let him use a forest for fuel source and it actually turned into a pretty big deal and got a bunch of gods and Scions involved in a turf war. But don't do it in the middle of the action and hold the game up or make your fellow players uncomfortable, and don't do it in a confrontational or accusatory way. We recommend after game or during a break saying, "Hey, I recall reading X myth, did you know that one?" rather than leaping in during game to shout, "Nuh-uh, that's just not true, you don't know what you're talking about!" Storytellers are humans, and they can't know every piece of every mythology ever all the time. Don't punish them if they miss something once in a while.
But that brings us to the other major reason that you don't get to argue with an ST's portrayal of a god's actions or personality, and that's that they're in charge of the game and they know more than you do. There might be a ton of reasons for the way a god is acting that you have no idea about; they could have been mind-whammied by another god, accidentally drunk a potion of forgetfulness, made new friends or enemies over the course of the story, been blackmailed by an enemy into doing things they don't want to, or you might even be talking to someone completely different who is just impersonating the god you think you're talking to. You have no idea, and the ST is not only not going to stop every five minutes to tell you that yes, there's a good reason for this, it would actually be bad for the game if they did, since some secrets are supposed to remain secret unless you figure them out inside the game itself. You need to trust that your ST is portraying any character, not just gods, the way they want them portrayed, and go from there. And really, if you don't trust them to do that, how are you trusting them to run the rest of the game?
Personally, we didn't run Tsukuyomi the way you're describing, but that doesn't necessarily mean that approach is wrong. Considering that Amaterasu banished (and/or possibly divorced) him a very long time ago for something he probably feels justified in doing, it's not outside the realm of possibility that he might be carrying a grudge against her or that he would want to find a way to once again be an important force in the court of the kami that has been denied to him for all these years.
The Scion AMA!
We're keeping this post pinned to the top of the blog for a week so folks can find it easily - if you're looking for new blog posts, scroll down!
Okay, everybody! After this post last week garnered a good amount of interest, we're going for it. We're going to do an in-character Scion AMA (Ask Me Anything), and you're all invited to participate!
While we considered several platforms to do this, in the end we decided that we would probably keep it on our blog for the safety and comfort of players and question-askers alike, and that while we do love the "here's three hours, go nuts" form of Reddit AMAs, we have too many folks around the globe in different time zones to make that as feasible. So here's what we'll do: starting today, please email us any questions you want to ask a character at ampstorytellers@gmail.com. We'll keep them in a running file for one week, and then send them on to the players. And finally, we'll post all the answers, and you guys can go nuts in the comments. :)
There are a few ground rules, as there always are with AMAs:
1) Be respectful. Most of you guys normally are so we don't anticipate any problems, but it still needs to be said. The players are real people, even if their characters aren't.
2) The players reserve the right to refuse to answer. Hopefully they won't - after all, answering questions is the whole point! - but if your question's answer would reveal something that is still a secret in-game or they just aren't comforable with it, they may have to say no. (They might be able to provide teasers, though!)
3) You can ask questions of any Scion that has been a PC in our games, living or dead, in any universe. In the very rare case that the player is not available to answer (there are only a few that would fit this criteria), John or I will do our best to answer instead. NPCs are out of bounds.
4) Remember that you're asking the character a question, and you will receive an in-character answer. Don't ask personal questions of the players themselves.
5) Questions are unlimited - you can send in as many as you want and email as many times as you want! That said, try to make questions unique and interesting. We probably won't follow through on any "Ask this exact same question to every single character!" requests.
6) If you can, please send questions in to our email rather than commenting with them here. It'll be easier for us to coordinate. If you can't email for some reason, you can drop it in a comment on this post instead, but please give email a shot if you can!
And that's all we've got. :) We've spoken to several players already who are totally excited about doing this, so now's your shot, everybody. If there's something you've always wondered about a character, a question you have about their thoughts and motivations or just some situation you'd like to hear them explain in their own words, they are at your disposal.
Okay, everybody! After this post last week garnered a good amount of interest, we're going for it. We're going to do an in-character Scion AMA (Ask Me Anything), and you're all invited to participate!
While we considered several platforms to do this, in the end we decided that we would probably keep it on our blog for the safety and comfort of players and question-askers alike, and that while we do love the "here's three hours, go nuts" form of Reddit AMAs, we have too many folks around the globe in different time zones to make that as feasible. So here's what we'll do: starting today, please email us any questions you want to ask a character at ampstorytellers@gmail.com. We'll keep them in a running file for one week, and then send them on to the players. And finally, we'll post all the answers, and you guys can go nuts in the comments. :)
There are a few ground rules, as there always are with AMAs:
1) Be respectful. Most of you guys normally are so we don't anticipate any problems, but it still needs to be said. The players are real people, even if their characters aren't.
2) The players reserve the right to refuse to answer. Hopefully they won't - after all, answering questions is the whole point! - but if your question's answer would reveal something that is still a secret in-game or they just aren't comforable with it, they may have to say no. (They might be able to provide teasers, though!)
3) You can ask questions of any Scion that has been a PC in our games, living or dead, in any universe. In the very rare case that the player is not available to answer (there are only a few that would fit this criteria), John or I will do our best to answer instead. NPCs are out of bounds.
4) Remember that you're asking the character a question, and you will receive an in-character answer. Don't ask personal questions of the players themselves.
5) Questions are unlimited - you can send in as many as you want and email as many times as you want! That said, try to make questions unique and interesting. We probably won't follow through on any "Ask this exact same question to every single character!" requests.
6) If you can, please send questions in to our email rather than commenting with them here. It'll be easier for us to coordinate. If you can't email for some reason, you can drop it in a comment on this post instead, but please give email a shot if you can!
And that's all we've got. :) We've spoken to several players already who are totally excited about doing this, so now's your shot, everybody. If there's something you've always wondered about a character, a question you have about their thoughts and motivations or just some situation you'd like to hear them explain in their own words, they are at your disposal.
Sunday, March 16, 2014
Workin all the time
As I realized the VAST amount of time we were gonna spend on scion, I decided to start keeping a log of our time spent working on scion each day.
Monday: 1 hour brainstorming next fiction (both)
3 hours blog posting (anne)
1 hour answering emails (john)
2 hours working on water (both)
3 hours hittite planning (anne)
Tuesday: 3 hours fiction writing (anne)
3 hours water work "stopped for game"(both)
5 hours gangs of new york (both)
Wednesday: 5 hours fiction writing (anne)
3 hours water work (both)
5.5 hours Eastern promises (both)
Thursday: 2 hours planning game (john)
3 hours fiction (anne)
3 hours writing up sky (anne)
1 hour sky consulting (john)
3 hours hittite planning (anne)
1 hour hittite consulting (john)
Friday: 5 hours fiction writing (anne)
4 hours sky writing (anne)
1 hour sky consulting (john)
2 hours game planning (john)
5 hours water work (both)
Saturday: 5 hours gangs of new york (both)
1 hour answering emails (john)
2 hours blog posting (anne)
1 hour consulting (john)
2 hour core systems talk (both)
Sunday: 2 hours game planning (john)
4 hours water work (both)
1 hour blog post writing (anne)
1 hour consulting (anne)
Scion hours Anne: 71.5
Scion hours John: 47.5
Total hours: 119 hours
Thats...bananas. Im not sure how long i'll keep track of this. But its really cool to see it layed out. Cool and scary. We arent enough people to get as much done as we want. We need to develop cloning technology. All this and we still didnt get to the vlogs we planned to film this week. Plus my extra project hasnt gotten the time it needs. Damnt time!!!
Monday: 1 hour brainstorming next fiction (both)
3 hours blog posting (anne)
1 hour answering emails (john)
2 hours working on water (both)
3 hours hittite planning (anne)
Tuesday: 3 hours fiction writing (anne)
3 hours water work "stopped for game"(both)
5 hours gangs of new york (both)
Wednesday: 5 hours fiction writing (anne)
3 hours water work (both)
5.5 hours Eastern promises (both)
Thursday: 2 hours planning game (john)
3 hours fiction (anne)
3 hours writing up sky (anne)
1 hour sky consulting (john)
3 hours hittite planning (anne)
1 hour hittite consulting (john)
Friday: 5 hours fiction writing (anne)
4 hours sky writing (anne)
1 hour sky consulting (john)
2 hours game planning (john)
5 hours water work (both)
Saturday: 5 hours gangs of new york (both)
1 hour answering emails (john)
2 hours blog posting (anne)
1 hour consulting (john)
2 hour core systems talk (both)
Sunday: 2 hours game planning (john)
4 hours water work (both)
1 hour blog post writing (anne)
1 hour consulting (anne)
Scion hours Anne: 71.5
Scion hours John: 47.5
Total hours: 119 hours
Thats...bananas. Im not sure how long i'll keep track of this. But its really cool to see it layed out. Cool and scary. We arent enough people to get as much done as we want. We need to develop cloning technology. All this and we still didnt get to the vlogs we planned to film this week. Plus my extra project hasnt gotten the time it needs. Damnt time!!!
Behold!
Question: Why isn't Visage Great and Terrible under the shapeshifting-based knack tree? Is it because Eye of the Beholder works better with it on the tree it's on?
Not really - Eye of the Beholder is where it is because it needs to follow Visage Great and Terrible, not the other way around.
Actually, Visage Great and Terrible isn't in the tree with the shapeshifting knacks - Detail Variation, Undeniable Resemblance and Unusual Alteration - because it isn't shapeshifting. The knack represents turning your positive Epic Appearance to negative or vice versa, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything actually changed shape - in fact, other than small cosmetic stunts, we would say it never involves shapechanging, because that's what those other knacks do. You could stunt small changes, like maybe your scars become prominent or you gain sores on your skin when you turn ugly, maybe your hair becomes perfect or your scent divine when you turn beautiful, but you won't actually change shape. And often, use of the knack wouldn't involve any shapeshifting at all, and the character has the exact same physical features but they are now supernaturally lovely or epically disturbing.
So Visage Great and Terrible doesn't actually shapeshift you into anything different outside the boundaries of small stunts, and therefore it and Eye of the Beholder don't need to be in the shapeshifting tree with things that do. We don't think it would fit badly there, but we think it works just as well in the tree that is about using the impact of your Appearance itself to affect those around you.
Not really - Eye of the Beholder is where it is because it needs to follow Visage Great and Terrible, not the other way around.
Actually, Visage Great and Terrible isn't in the tree with the shapeshifting knacks - Detail Variation, Undeniable Resemblance and Unusual Alteration - because it isn't shapeshifting. The knack represents turning your positive Epic Appearance to negative or vice versa, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything actually changed shape - in fact, other than small cosmetic stunts, we would say it never involves shapechanging, because that's what those other knacks do. You could stunt small changes, like maybe your scars become prominent or you gain sores on your skin when you turn ugly, maybe your hair becomes perfect or your scent divine when you turn beautiful, but you won't actually change shape. And often, use of the knack wouldn't involve any shapeshifting at all, and the character has the exact same physical features but they are now supernaturally lovely or epically disturbing.
So Visage Great and Terrible doesn't actually shapeshift you into anything different outside the boundaries of small stunts, and therefore it and Eye of the Beholder don't need to be in the shapeshifting tree with things that do. We don't think it would fit badly there, but we think it works just as well in the tree that is about using the impact of your Appearance itself to affect those around you.
Fair and Just
Question: Is there a place for a Justice god in the Inue, or are they too far away from humanity?
It depends on how far you're willing to stretch your definition of "justice god", really. For our part, we would definitely say yes.
The Inuit religion is primarily based on the idea of the Inue as the embodiments - in fact, the very souls - of natural phenomena. They represent things like the wind, the water, the plants that grow from the earth or the animals that are hunted by humanity, and they generally do not represent abstract humanity-based concepts like Justice or Guardian, as those are not the same kind of nature-based elements. The function of the gods in most Inuit myths is to govern and empower the natural world, so most of the time there's little reason for them to have powers that aren't associated with nature in some way. In that particular religion, gods are about nature, and humanity interacts with them but is not championed by them, at least not primarily.
However, many among the Inue do occasionally interact with humanity in ways that might qualify as being justice-related, so you may still be able to peg a few of them as having some powers in that area. The most major is actually the Titan Sila; traditional Inuit practices include a wide range of important rituals, ceremonies and taboos that must be observed in order to make sure they don't offend the Inue, and when weather-related disaster strikes it is often assumed that Sila is punishing the community as a result of someone failing to correctly observe those practices. This makes him a sort of enforcer of law, or at least religious custom, which is one thing that Justice traditionally does. The other option is probably Tornarssuk, the bear god; he doesn't do too much with human laws or customs in a broad sense, but he's the special patron and tester of Inuit shaman, and decides whether or not they're worthy for the post or deserve to be eaten by bears. (Literally, eaten by bears, that's what you get if you're bad. Also if you're good. Bears are hungry creatures.)
So there are a couple of examples, but they don't look a whole lot like the Sraoshas and Proves of other pantheons. Different cultures, different conceptions of what gods do and how society interacts with them.
However, that doesn't mean that if you're an Inue Scion, you can't be all about Justice. Areas that are not already being covered by the old gods are perfect for new Scions to pick up as their own specialties - no matter how you think of the general idea of Justice, if it's not being handled already, you can make it your own without having to compete with anyone else. Maybe you think the Inue should get more involved with helping humanity out and you want to be the first to start doing so, or maybe you think the gods themselves need policing that you might be able to provide. Maybe you want to be a god associated with some other interpretation of Justice! Go wild! They might be a little resistant to it since it's not something they're used to, but every new Scion has to struggle to find their new place in the world. Choose what you want and go for it, my friend.
It depends on how far you're willing to stretch your definition of "justice god", really. For our part, we would definitely say yes.
The Inuit religion is primarily based on the idea of the Inue as the embodiments - in fact, the very souls - of natural phenomena. They represent things like the wind, the water, the plants that grow from the earth or the animals that are hunted by humanity, and they generally do not represent abstract humanity-based concepts like Justice or Guardian, as those are not the same kind of nature-based elements. The function of the gods in most Inuit myths is to govern and empower the natural world, so most of the time there's little reason for them to have powers that aren't associated with nature in some way. In that particular religion, gods are about nature, and humanity interacts with them but is not championed by them, at least not primarily.
However, many among the Inue do occasionally interact with humanity in ways that might qualify as being justice-related, so you may still be able to peg a few of them as having some powers in that area. The most major is actually the Titan Sila; traditional Inuit practices include a wide range of important rituals, ceremonies and taboos that must be observed in order to make sure they don't offend the Inue, and when weather-related disaster strikes it is often assumed that Sila is punishing the community as a result of someone failing to correctly observe those practices. This makes him a sort of enforcer of law, or at least religious custom, which is one thing that Justice traditionally does. The other option is probably Tornarssuk, the bear god; he doesn't do too much with human laws or customs in a broad sense, but he's the special patron and tester of Inuit shaman, and decides whether or not they're worthy for the post or deserve to be eaten by bears. (Literally, eaten by bears, that's what you get if you're bad. Also if you're good. Bears are hungry creatures.)
So there are a couple of examples, but they don't look a whole lot like the Sraoshas and Proves of other pantheons. Different cultures, different conceptions of what gods do and how society interacts with them.
However, that doesn't mean that if you're an Inue Scion, you can't be all about Justice. Areas that are not already being covered by the old gods are perfect for new Scions to pick up as their own specialties - no matter how you think of the general idea of Justice, if it's not being handled already, you can make it your own without having to compete with anyone else. Maybe you think the Inue should get more involved with helping humanity out and you want to be the first to start doing so, or maybe you think the gods themselves need policing that you might be able to provide. Maybe you want to be a god associated with some other interpretation of Justice! Go wild! They might be a little resistant to it since it's not something they're used to, but every new Scion has to struggle to find their new place in the world. Choose what you want and go for it, my friend.
Saturday, March 15, 2014
Scions About Town
You guys want to see something adorable? Good, because we have it for you!
In the Eastern Promises game, Padma Billingsworth, Scion of Lakshmi, was raised as a proper British young lady, who in spite of her slightly unladylike preference for books and disinterest in getting married would never have dreamed of doing anything surprising or socially questionable. When a bunch of Scions turned up in London and told her she needed to go with them to go perform heroic deeds and do magical stuff, she was polite and sorry to turn them down, but explained that she simply couldn't go traipsing off to god knew where unchaperoned, and that her father would probably have a heart attack if she even suggested it.
So Shadan, secret prince of Persia, gambler, rapscallion and all-around rascal, put on his best Epic Manipulation face, went over to her house, and managed to not only convince her father that he was secretly a Duke of England and a very important person, but also that he should hand over Padma's hand in marriage because it was an awesome match, and furthermore, when her father started making noises about planning the wedding, that they were already married because they were totes in love and had eloped because they couldn't bear to be apart.
Her father totally bought it, and Padma found herself being swept off her feet and carried away by her new "husband" with very little input in the matter and a Shadan who was much too pleased with himself. And now you can look at a picture of that hilarious triumph of social knacks.
In the ensuing two years, Padma and Shadan have developed a weird but kind of sweet relationship... at least, when they aren't driving one another insane with their incompatible approaches to things like laws and the importance of learning.
In the Eastern Promises game, Padma Billingsworth, Scion of Lakshmi, was raised as a proper British young lady, who in spite of her slightly unladylike preference for books and disinterest in getting married would never have dreamed of doing anything surprising or socially questionable. When a bunch of Scions turned up in London and told her she needed to go with them to go perform heroic deeds and do magical stuff, she was polite and sorry to turn them down, but explained that she simply couldn't go traipsing off to god knew where unchaperoned, and that her father would probably have a heart attack if she even suggested it.
So Shadan, secret prince of Persia, gambler, rapscallion and all-around rascal, put on his best Epic Manipulation face, went over to her house, and managed to not only convince her father that he was secretly a Duke of England and a very important person, but also that he should hand over Padma's hand in marriage because it was an awesome match, and furthermore, when her father started making noises about planning the wedding, that they were already married because they were totes in love and had eloped because they couldn't bear to be apart.
Her father totally bought it, and Padma found herself being swept off her feet and carried away by her new "husband" with very little input in the matter and a Shadan who was much too pleased with himself. And now you can look at a picture of that hilarious triumph of social knacks.
By Steph!
In the ensuing two years, Padma and Shadan have developed a weird but kind of sweet relationship... at least, when they aren't driving one another insane with their incompatible approaches to things like laws and the importance of learning.
To Clarify...
A little housekeeping - a couple of questions about the new Sky boons!
Question: I want to make sure I understand the Flight boon. You spend the moment of truth or willpower dot. Its gone forever, but you can fly now. No further activation's or costs, you wanna fly, you can fly, at will. UNLESS your grappled, in which case you can't fly anymore until your not grappled, at which point you can fly again right? Sorry if this seems like an obvious question, I just am a little confused on the wording of the boon.
No worries, we want to make sure it's not confusing. :)
Flight lets you fly, period, once you have spent that cost. Any time you want, anywhere you want, as long as you're not underwater. You are no longer constrained by gravity and all three dimensions are your playground.
The grappling clause is just trying to say that if you are grappled by someone who can't fly, you're under their control. You can't fly out of the grapple, nor can you take your grappler into the sky unless you gain control of the grapple yourself. And if you're already in the sky when you get grappled, you'll start falling, because your attacker has control of the grapple and he can't fly. Just like with groundbound grapples, whomever has control is in charge of whether or not you guys are moving and where, so if your grappler has hold of you, you're stuck with him on the ground. If you're the one winning the grapple, you can totally haul your helpless victim into the air with you, though (provided you can lift him, of course).
Question: Sky doesn't seem to have any way of creating weather, is that going to fall under Thunders purview?
As we said in the last post, Thunder is the purview in charge of storms, rain, thunder and lightning, so any boons that involve creating rain or storms will be in there. The Sky purview can create some kinds of weather - for example, with the Whirlwind or Obscuring Mists boons - but not all. In essence, "weather" is too big a category for one purview, and there will be weather-like effects among all the different elemental purviews.
Question: Does Cloud Travel stack with the lightning Dex knacks? Cause if not, it seems like you could travel faster for the same price with those knacks.
If you have Lightning Flyer, yep, sure does! It and the knacks after it (Fast as Thought and Peregrine Fleetness) can stack with Cloud Travel. If you don't, you may indeed find that you run faster on land with your land-based speed knacks, if that's how you've specialized yourself.
Question: "When he spends this boon's cost, he immediately and permanently gains the power of flight, able to soar through the skies completely regardless of gravity at a top speed of double his top level of Sky as if it were an Epic Attribute in yards per second" Does this mean (assuming someone has the avatar) your speed is determined as if you had 22 epic attribute levels, or you treat it as a maxed out epic attribute, then double the number on auto successes it would give you and use that for speed?
The second one. You're doing Sky rating x 2, not some weird crazy math stretch that tries to make the epic scale worth more somehow for only this power in the entire game. The maximum base flying speed for a Legend 11 god with all 10 levels of boons and no other modifiers is 92. Avatars are separate powers and don't count as a level, the same way Ultimate Attributes don't count toward successes from Epics.
Question: Does Arrow Storm work with magic attacks like Levin Fury or throwing a fireball? Cause if it DOES, you guys just made Zeus legit scary. ER. Scarier. Especially if his Thunderbolts are a relic he can give Rainbow Mantle to.
It does not - the same as in Heavenly Domain, it applies only to normal projectiles, not magical powers (although it should say so, so thanks for pointing it out!). However, Zeus' thunderbolts are in fact a relic, so he might very well be able to use them with Rainbow Mantle and Arrow Storm to devastating effect. There's a reason that after losing to Typhon in a battle of strength, he curbstomped him with thunderbolts on the rematch.
Question: Skys Grace - how much does each individual boon in Sky add to your move speed? 1 boon = 1 yard?
Yep, that's it.
Shoot in more questions if you got 'em, folks!
Question: I want to make sure I understand the Flight boon. You spend the moment of truth or willpower dot. Its gone forever, but you can fly now. No further activation's or costs, you wanna fly, you can fly, at will. UNLESS your grappled, in which case you can't fly anymore until your not grappled, at which point you can fly again right? Sorry if this seems like an obvious question, I just am a little confused on the wording of the boon.
No worries, we want to make sure it's not confusing. :)
Flight lets you fly, period, once you have spent that cost. Any time you want, anywhere you want, as long as you're not underwater. You are no longer constrained by gravity and all three dimensions are your playground.
The grappling clause is just trying to say that if you are grappled by someone who can't fly, you're under their control. You can't fly out of the grapple, nor can you take your grappler into the sky unless you gain control of the grapple yourself. And if you're already in the sky when you get grappled, you'll start falling, because your attacker has control of the grapple and he can't fly. Just like with groundbound grapples, whomever has control is in charge of whether or not you guys are moving and where, so if your grappler has hold of you, you're stuck with him on the ground. If you're the one winning the grapple, you can totally haul your helpless victim into the air with you, though (provided you can lift him, of course).
Question: Sky doesn't seem to have any way of creating weather, is that going to fall under Thunders purview?
As we said in the last post, Thunder is the purview in charge of storms, rain, thunder and lightning, so any boons that involve creating rain or storms will be in there. The Sky purview can create some kinds of weather - for example, with the Whirlwind or Obscuring Mists boons - but not all. In essence, "weather" is too big a category for one purview, and there will be weather-like effects among all the different elemental purviews.
Question: Does Cloud Travel stack with the lightning Dex knacks? Cause if not, it seems like you could travel faster for the same price with those knacks.
If you have Lightning Flyer, yep, sure does! It and the knacks after it (Fast as Thought and Peregrine Fleetness) can stack with Cloud Travel. If you don't, you may indeed find that you run faster on land with your land-based speed knacks, if that's how you've specialized yourself.
Question: "When he spends this boon's cost, he immediately and permanently gains the power of flight, able to soar through the skies completely regardless of gravity at a top speed of double his top level of Sky as if it were an Epic Attribute in yards per second" Does this mean (assuming someone has the avatar) your speed is determined as if you had 22 epic attribute levels, or you treat it as a maxed out epic attribute, then double the number on auto successes it would give you and use that for speed?
The second one. You're doing Sky rating x 2, not some weird crazy math stretch that tries to make the epic scale worth more somehow for only this power in the entire game. The maximum base flying speed for a Legend 11 god with all 10 levels of boons and no other modifiers is 92. Avatars are separate powers and don't count as a level, the same way Ultimate Attributes don't count toward successes from Epics.
Question: Does Arrow Storm work with magic attacks like Levin Fury or throwing a fireball? Cause if it DOES, you guys just made Zeus legit scary. ER. Scarier. Especially if his Thunderbolts are a relic he can give Rainbow Mantle to.
It does not - the same as in Heavenly Domain, it applies only to normal projectiles, not magical powers (although it should say so, so thanks for pointing it out!). However, Zeus' thunderbolts are in fact a relic, so he might very well be able to use them with Rainbow Mantle and Arrow Storm to devastating effect. There's a reason that after losing to Typhon in a battle of strength, he curbstomped him with thunderbolts on the rematch.
Question: Skys Grace - how much does each individual boon in Sky add to your move speed? 1 boon = 1 yard?
Yep, that's it.
Shoot in more questions if you got 'em, folks!
Breath of Heaven
Okay, guys, you know what day it is? It's purview day! Hooray!
This one's going to be a little more complicated and a little less clean than the last one, so please be patient as we make our first public plunge into the wonderful world of elemental purviews. Today, we're going to release the new Sky purview, but we have a few caveats for you guys to be aware of first.
First of all, this is the long-awaited moment when we split Sky and Thunder off into two distinct purviews! Sky, which we're releasing today, is the purview of air, wind, breath and clouds, while the forthcoming Thunder will be about lightning, thunder, rain and storms. We're still brushing up some of the final touches on the Thunder purview, and it's not quite ready for you guys, so it'll probably still be a week or two; we could have held onto it until we were ready to release both at once, but we didn't want to go so long without putting out something new for everyone to play with. For those who are planning to be Thunder users instead of Sky, we're leaving the old Sky purview with its lightning boons up under the Thunder button for now. When new Thunder is released, it'll be replaced, but it gives you a stop-gap for now. (We promise, we'll get that one out as quickly as possible, because we know what a pain it is to have one and not the other.)
If your game would like to covert from the old hybrid Sky to the new Sky and Thunder, here's how we're handling the split for our characters: each player who has old Sky can choose whether they want to convert their boons to Sky or Thunder, and then get whichever boons they want that are the same level as the old ones they had (so if they had a level 1, 2 and 3 Sky boon in the old purview, they can choose a 1, 2 and 3 in Sky or a 1, 2 and 3 in Thunder). If they decide that they want both purviews, it might be easier to just give them an equivalent amount of XP to their old Sky boons, and tell them they can only spend it on Sky or Thunder boons. Either way, we want Scions who have the old Sky purview to get the opportunity to keep the kinds of powers they love using, but without giving them a bunch of extra powers for free that other people in the group don't get.
For Storytellers, if your Scions have positive or negative Fatebonds associated with old Sky, you'll need to convert those, too. If you happen to know what they got that Fatebond for - that is, they gained a Fatebond to it because people saw them lightning bolting a bunch of people, or they were given a penalty because they tried and failed to fly away from danger - then you can assign it appropriately to whichever purview governs the event that the Fatebond is referencing. If you aren't sure or there are too many Fatebonds involved, we suggest splitting them evenly - so if someone has four positive Fatebonds to Sky and there's a mix of reasons, just give them two Fatebonds to each of Sky and Thunder and call it a day.
Since the purviews are splitting, this is now the moment that various gods' associations change, as well! They have been changed on their individual pages and the quick-reference, but here's the quick list (including gods from the downloadable pantheons):
Gods with Sky: Amm, Enlil, Horus, Itzamna, Ix Chel, Izanagi, Marduk, Nezha, Njord, Nuwa, Pauahtun, Quetzalcoatl, Stribog, Svarozhich, Tane, Vayu, Zeus
Gods with Thunder: Baal, Chaac, Dushara, Hubal, Illapa, Indra, Ishtar, Marduk, Ninurta, Oya, Qos, Raiden, Rongo, Perun, Set, Shango, Shiva, Susanoo, Taranis, Thor, Tishtrya, Tlaloc, Tulungersak, Zeus
You'll notice that a couple of gods are on both lists, but most of them aren't. If a Scion's parent no longer has the purview they invested in associated, the Scion gets to keep the associated XP discount anyway, since we don't want to punish anyone because of our fiddling.
The second major issue is that you'll see a couple of boons (both very high-level) that are "under construction" still at the moment, which is because they affect other purviews that we haven't finished rewriting yet. We apologize for the fact that they're hard to use until then, but we'll update them as soon as possible. Both have an alternate boon at the same level, so you won't be prevented from getting a useful power as you go along, and of course Storytellers are always free to give you whatever mechanics they deem appropriate for the under-construction boons if they want to let you use them before we finish them.
Finally, as we've mentioned before, in our odyssey through all these purviews we are not only updating purviews but also discovering that there are a lot of general game mechanics that need brushing up. Today, we're hitting the first of these, which is movement speed. Instead of the old system with Move and Dash and that random +6 in the middle there, here's what we're doing instead: you have one top speed, which is equal to double your (Dexterity dots + Epic Dexterity successes) in yards per second. You can go slower than that speed at will, but it's your top speed at a flat-out sprint. If you want your DV while runnning, you can go no faster than half that speed. Contests of speed such as races are not comparisons of this calculation, but rather contests where the runners roll off their Dexterity + Athletics.
So, to use an example, Eztli's base speed is 112 yards per second (or about 230 mph/369 kph) at a dead run (10 Dex + 46 Dex successes, doubled). If she wants her DV, she can only run up to 56 yards per second (115 mph/184 kph). If she wants to race against Goze, they'll both roll their Dexterity + Athletics, and even though she has more Dexterity, he'll probably give her a run for her money against his buckets of Arete: Athletics.
And that helps simplify speed calculations and more easily apply speed-boosting powers, so hopefully everyone feels as good about it as we do. And lastly, you'll notice that there are now technically two boons in the game called Rainbow Bridge, which is silly. We recognize that, and will be changing the name of the Psychopomp power when we get there.
Enjoy new Sky, and as always, feel free to ask questions, call for clarification or bring up any issues you have in the comments below!
This one's going to be a little more complicated and a little less clean than the last one, so please be patient as we make our first public plunge into the wonderful world of elemental purviews. Today, we're going to release the new Sky purview, but we have a few caveats for you guys to be aware of first.
First of all, this is the long-awaited moment when we split Sky and Thunder off into two distinct purviews! Sky, which we're releasing today, is the purview of air, wind, breath and clouds, while the forthcoming Thunder will be about lightning, thunder, rain and storms. We're still brushing up some of the final touches on the Thunder purview, and it's not quite ready for you guys, so it'll probably still be a week or two; we could have held onto it until we were ready to release both at once, but we didn't want to go so long without putting out something new for everyone to play with. For those who are planning to be Thunder users instead of Sky, we're leaving the old Sky purview with its lightning boons up under the Thunder button for now. When new Thunder is released, it'll be replaced, but it gives you a stop-gap for now. (We promise, we'll get that one out as quickly as possible, because we know what a pain it is to have one and not the other.)
If your game would like to covert from the old hybrid Sky to the new Sky and Thunder, here's how we're handling the split for our characters: each player who has old Sky can choose whether they want to convert their boons to Sky or Thunder, and then get whichever boons they want that are the same level as the old ones they had (so if they had a level 1, 2 and 3 Sky boon in the old purview, they can choose a 1, 2 and 3 in Sky or a 1, 2 and 3 in Thunder). If they decide that they want both purviews, it might be easier to just give them an equivalent amount of XP to their old Sky boons, and tell them they can only spend it on Sky or Thunder boons. Either way, we want Scions who have the old Sky purview to get the opportunity to keep the kinds of powers they love using, but without giving them a bunch of extra powers for free that other people in the group don't get.
For Storytellers, if your Scions have positive or negative Fatebonds associated with old Sky, you'll need to convert those, too. If you happen to know what they got that Fatebond for - that is, they gained a Fatebond to it because people saw them lightning bolting a bunch of people, or they were given a penalty because they tried and failed to fly away from danger - then you can assign it appropriately to whichever purview governs the event that the Fatebond is referencing. If you aren't sure or there are too many Fatebonds involved, we suggest splitting them evenly - so if someone has four positive Fatebonds to Sky and there's a mix of reasons, just give them two Fatebonds to each of Sky and Thunder and call it a day.
Since the purviews are splitting, this is now the moment that various gods' associations change, as well! They have been changed on their individual pages and the quick-reference, but here's the quick list (including gods from the downloadable pantheons):
Gods with Sky: Amm, Enlil, Horus, Itzamna, Ix Chel, Izanagi, Marduk, Nezha, Njord, Nuwa, Pauahtun, Quetzalcoatl, Stribog, Svarozhich, Tane, Vayu, Zeus
Gods with Thunder: Baal, Chaac, Dushara, Hubal, Illapa, Indra, Ishtar, Marduk, Ninurta, Oya, Qos, Raiden, Rongo, Perun, Set, Shango, Shiva, Susanoo, Taranis, Thor, Tishtrya, Tlaloc, Tulungersak, Zeus
You'll notice that a couple of gods are on both lists, but most of them aren't. If a Scion's parent no longer has the purview they invested in associated, the Scion gets to keep the associated XP discount anyway, since we don't want to punish anyone because of our fiddling.
The second major issue is that you'll see a couple of boons (both very high-level) that are "under construction" still at the moment, which is because they affect other purviews that we haven't finished rewriting yet. We apologize for the fact that they're hard to use until then, but we'll update them as soon as possible. Both have an alternate boon at the same level, so you won't be prevented from getting a useful power as you go along, and of course Storytellers are always free to give you whatever mechanics they deem appropriate for the under-construction boons if they want to let you use them before we finish them.
Finally, as we've mentioned before, in our odyssey through all these purviews we are not only updating purviews but also discovering that there are a lot of general game mechanics that need brushing up. Today, we're hitting the first of these, which is movement speed. Instead of the old system with Move and Dash and that random +6 in the middle there, here's what we're doing instead: you have one top speed, which is equal to double your (Dexterity dots + Epic Dexterity successes) in yards per second. You can go slower than that speed at will, but it's your top speed at a flat-out sprint. If you want your DV while runnning, you can go no faster than half that speed. Contests of speed such as races are not comparisons of this calculation, but rather contests where the runners roll off their Dexterity + Athletics.
So, to use an example, Eztli's base speed is 112 yards per second (or about 230 mph/369 kph) at a dead run (10 Dex + 46 Dex successes, doubled). If she wants her DV, she can only run up to 56 yards per second (115 mph/184 kph). If she wants to race against Goze, they'll both roll their Dexterity + Athletics, and even though she has more Dexterity, he'll probably give her a run for her money against his buckets of Arete: Athletics.
And that helps simplify speed calculations and more easily apply speed-boosting powers, so hopefully everyone feels as good about it as we do. And lastly, you'll notice that there are now technically two boons in the game called Rainbow Bridge, which is silly. We recognize that, and will be changing the name of the Psychopomp power when we get there.
Enjoy new Sky, and as always, feel free to ask questions, call for clarification or bring up any issues you have in the comments below!
Friday, March 14, 2014
To the God-Phone!
Question: Could we someday do a Q/A bit with some of your players answering "in character" ? Either in text or video format would be really cool! Geoff, what is your favorite color?!
Hey, there, folks!
We got this question in a little while ago, and while we think it sounds pretty fun, we weren't sure exactly who the questioner had in mind or whether there were very many of you out there who would like to do this.
So, we're asking you! Would you have fun asking questions (and getting answers!) to some of our characters? If so, which characters or games did you want to talk to? What kinds of formats would you like to get answers in? Is there anybody out there going, "Ugh, that's the worst, I hate the very idea"?
Please note, this is not an invitation to start pouring in questions to the characters right now. We're just doing a quick barometer test to see if it's something that people would have fun doing. If there's enough interest, it'll be up to the players themselves if they want to participate.
But it sounds pretty awesome to us. Let us know how it sounds to you!
Hey, there, folks!
We got this question in a little while ago, and while we think it sounds pretty fun, we weren't sure exactly who the questioner had in mind or whether there were very many of you out there who would like to do this.
So, we're asking you! Would you have fun asking questions (and getting answers!) to some of our characters? If so, which characters or games did you want to talk to? What kinds of formats would you like to get answers in? Is there anybody out there going, "Ugh, that's the worst, I hate the very idea"?
Please note, this is not an invitation to start pouring in questions to the characters right now. We're just doing a quick barometer test to see if it's something that people would have fun doing. If there's enough interest, it'll be up to the players themselves if they want to participate.
But it sounds pretty awesome to us. Let us know how it sounds to you!
Living Words, Dead Religions
Question: I have heard that pre-Snorri oral tradition said that it was Utgard-Loki bound to the rock with venom dripping on him, and that Hod killed Baldur out of jealousy, and Loki was not even involved. Any thoughts on this?
Well, not really. The problem with pre-Snorri oral tradition is that it was oral, meaning it was never written down, which in turn means we have almost no idea what it could possibly have been about. We have literally no way of knowing what oral tradition was like in, say, first-century Iceland; we weren't there, and nobody wrote it down for us to learn about later, so it is an utter and total blank. They could have passed around oral tales of how Loki turned into an elephant and sucked the entire ocean into his trunk and then blew it back out in a shower of glittering rainbow sneezes and that's where the stars come from, for all we know.
Snorri's preservations of Icelandic mythology are from the thirteenth century and the Icelandic sagas are from the tenth, and along with the twelfth-century historical records of Saxo Grammaticus these are the earliest and most complete sources we still have. There are a few fragmentary poems from mainland German sources that are a little earlier (ninth or tenth century at best), but they're highly piecemeal and usually only mention mythological figures rather than recording any stories about them. But that's pretty much the entire extent of our sources for Norse mythology, which means that we know precious little about what happened before Christianity started coloring Norse religious ideas, and almost nothing about what oral stories might have been told in the many centuries before people started writing them down.
Like Greek mythology, the Norse legends of their gods and heroes enjoyed a sudden resurgence in popularity and study during teh nineteenth century, when mythology as a study discipline was firmly in vogue and the idea of the ancient yet noble religions and ideas of the ancestors of Europeans became a subject of much popular interest (and later, the Nazi party in twentieth-century Germany embraced some parts of Norse mythology as the indigenous religion of their "perfect race" and rewrote much of it in order to support their own agendas, which also helped keep the pantheon in the public eye). Unlike Greek mythology, however, Norse mythology didn't have a wealth of well-preserved epics and myths, just the few Icelandic and Danish sources that we already noted, and so scholars, as scholars always do, started making things up and trying to guess whether or not they were right.
Scholars love to theorize about Norse mythology and have been doing it for centuries, so I'm not surprised you've heard some theories about what pre-Snorri myths might have been like. Questions of whether or not some myths might be referencing Utgard-Loki instead of Loki are frequently popular, as well as the theory that the two figures are actually one and the same and their separation an accident of translation or the result of stories being confused over time. The idea of Hod killing Baldur out of jealousy actually probably comes from the Danish stories of Saxo Grammaticus, which we wrote about recently, in which Hod and Baldur are in direct conflict over Nanna and fight many battles for her love; because Hod wins Nanna in that story but she is married to Baldur in the Edda, scholars frequently theorize over what might have happened that changed that relationship and whether or not Hod might have "lost" her to him, resulting in a jealous motive for killing Baldur. Other theories of what pre-literate Norse myth might have been include the idea of Loki as a fire god (mostly based on extremely tenuous linguistic evidence, and a little bit of archaeology), the idea that Tyr was originally the All-Father and later superceded in importance by Odin's cult, the idea that Frigg and Freyja (as well as several other etymologically-similarly-named goddesses) were originally the same figure but were only separated in later myth, and a giant bucketful more on top of that.
So really, while Norse mythology certainly existed before Snorri, we can't know what it looked like. Early oral tradition hasn't been preserved, so all we know about it are guesses - very scholarly, very educated guesses, and that's definitely worth something, but guesses nonetheless! - and we therefore don't really know one way or the other whether either of the theories you mention are true. Unless new evidence about ancient Norse myths comes to light, we won't ever know one way or the other, which is one of those sad truths about mythology: we've probably forgotten at least as much as we remember, so learning about those old, old religions is a journey without an end. When it comes to Scion, each Storyteller has to basically choose which, if any, of the scholarly theories about Norse mythology they want to run with, because everyone's guess is pretty much as good as the next one's.
(It is important to note that orally-preserved mythology is no less real and importan, and that stories that have never been written down are not any less legitimate sources for studying a religion, but the different ways that oral mythologies have to be approached and the problems that academia has with accepting them in spite of their lack of citation are continuing issues in mythological studies, but that's a whole giant post on its own and I need to go to bed!)
Well, not really. The problem with pre-Snorri oral tradition is that it was oral, meaning it was never written down, which in turn means we have almost no idea what it could possibly have been about. We have literally no way of knowing what oral tradition was like in, say, first-century Iceland; we weren't there, and nobody wrote it down for us to learn about later, so it is an utter and total blank. They could have passed around oral tales of how Loki turned into an elephant and sucked the entire ocean into his trunk and then blew it back out in a shower of glittering rainbow sneezes and that's where the stars come from, for all we know.
Snorri's preservations of Icelandic mythology are from the thirteenth century and the Icelandic sagas are from the tenth, and along with the twelfth-century historical records of Saxo Grammaticus these are the earliest and most complete sources we still have. There are a few fragmentary poems from mainland German sources that are a little earlier (ninth or tenth century at best), but they're highly piecemeal and usually only mention mythological figures rather than recording any stories about them. But that's pretty much the entire extent of our sources for Norse mythology, which means that we know precious little about what happened before Christianity started coloring Norse religious ideas, and almost nothing about what oral stories might have been told in the many centuries before people started writing them down.
Like Greek mythology, the Norse legends of their gods and heroes enjoyed a sudden resurgence in popularity and study during teh nineteenth century, when mythology as a study discipline was firmly in vogue and the idea of the ancient yet noble religions and ideas of the ancestors of Europeans became a subject of much popular interest (and later, the Nazi party in twentieth-century Germany embraced some parts of Norse mythology as the indigenous religion of their "perfect race" and rewrote much of it in order to support their own agendas, which also helped keep the pantheon in the public eye). Unlike Greek mythology, however, Norse mythology didn't have a wealth of well-preserved epics and myths, just the few Icelandic and Danish sources that we already noted, and so scholars, as scholars always do, started making things up and trying to guess whether or not they were right.
Scholars love to theorize about Norse mythology and have been doing it for centuries, so I'm not surprised you've heard some theories about what pre-Snorri myths might have been like. Questions of whether or not some myths might be referencing Utgard-Loki instead of Loki are frequently popular, as well as the theory that the two figures are actually one and the same and their separation an accident of translation or the result of stories being confused over time. The idea of Hod killing Baldur out of jealousy actually probably comes from the Danish stories of Saxo Grammaticus, which we wrote about recently, in which Hod and Baldur are in direct conflict over Nanna and fight many battles for her love; because Hod wins Nanna in that story but she is married to Baldur in the Edda, scholars frequently theorize over what might have happened that changed that relationship and whether or not Hod might have "lost" her to him, resulting in a jealous motive for killing Baldur. Other theories of what pre-literate Norse myth might have been include the idea of Loki as a fire god (mostly based on extremely tenuous linguistic evidence, and a little bit of archaeology), the idea that Tyr was originally the All-Father and later superceded in importance by Odin's cult, the idea that Frigg and Freyja (as well as several other etymologically-similarly-named goddesses) were originally the same figure but were only separated in later myth, and a giant bucketful more on top of that.
So really, while Norse mythology certainly existed before Snorri, we can't know what it looked like. Early oral tradition hasn't been preserved, so all we know about it are guesses - very scholarly, very educated guesses, and that's definitely worth something, but guesses nonetheless! - and we therefore don't really know one way or the other whether either of the theories you mention are true. Unless new evidence about ancient Norse myths comes to light, we won't ever know one way or the other, which is one of those sad truths about mythology: we've probably forgotten at least as much as we remember, so learning about those old, old religions is a journey without an end. When it comes to Scion, each Storyteller has to basically choose which, if any, of the scholarly theories about Norse mythology they want to run with, because everyone's guess is pretty much as good as the next one's.
(It is important to note that orally-preserved mythology is no less real and importan, and that stories that have never been written down are not any less legitimate sources for studying a religion, but the different ways that oral mythologies have to be approached and the problems that academia has with accepting them in spite of their lack of citation are continuing issues in mythological studies, but that's a whole giant post on its own and I need to go to bed!)
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