Question: How do you guys deal with Legend in-game? I mean, can the characters tell their Legend rating or measure how much Legend points they're spending when activating a boon, for example?
We prefer to keep the bare bones of the system under wraps in the actual roleplaying world of the game; seldom will anyone refer to their Legend pool, and when they do they don't talk about it in the same terms that players do out of character.
Legend is basically the measure of how legendary and amazing you are; it's not a "thing" that Scions have and are aware of, but rather the mechanical illustration of the fact that they are destined for and capable of great things beyond normal human abilities. No one ever measures their Legend rating or compares it to someone else's, except to acknowledge that someone else is clearly more or less powerful than they are; no one thinks, "Gee, I have one point of Legend left," when Legend points aren't really a thing they have or would be able to measure if they did. Legend points don't really exist; they're just there to tell the player, out of character, what they can and can't do. In character, your Scions know that they can do amazing things but that sometimes, when they've given their all, they're just too exhausted to keep going.
There are a few powers in the game that directly interact with Legend rating or pools, and those likewise don't treat them like game stats but rather as the ephemeral legendary energy that they really are. People with The Unlidded Eye, for example, can see that others are more or less powerful than themselves, or realize that they are way out of their league or totally outclassing their opponents, but they don't get a number or think, "Ah, my Legend rating is higher than theirs." People with powers that directly deal with Legend points, such as users of Itztli or the Legendary Surge boon, likewise aren't measuring "points"; they're proceeding on the knowledge that blood grants them power, and feeling themselves become more powerful as they use their PSP, or they're hurling some of their own power to an ally who really needs it, leaving themselves feeling weak and drained. In fact, it helps a lot if you think of Legend as simple "divine power" within the context of the gameworld; some people have more of it, and it can run out if you do too much crazy stuff in a row, but no one is trying to measure it in "points" or anything. (Well, except maybe some crazy crafter-Scions who might be trying to rig up Legend geiger counters or something. Shine on, you crazy diamonds.)
Or, to use a real-life example, it's metabolic energy, measured in calories, that sustains us as humans and lets us do things. But when we're running low on energy, we don't say, "Gee, I'm down to only 320 kcal, better go refill my kcal pool." We say, "Hey, I'm hungry," and act accordingly on that. We know the resources exist, in terms of things we need to do to get energy and what the effects are when we run out (exhaustion, headaches, eventually starvation), but we don't directly measure or interact with them on a daily basis.
So, Legend is like that. PCs don't say, "I'm out of Legend," they say, "I'm really tired," or "Guys, I don't think I'm up to it," or "I'm trying, I just don't have the energy!" In very rare cases in our games, an NPC has mentioned "Legend" as a term in reference to divine energy, but it's usually Odin, and nobody has any idea what he's ever talking about.
Just to play devil's advocate, when you are portraying a character who is exponentially more intelligent than yourself, in a world full of gods who are exponentially more intelligent than your character, with powers such as mystery which can answer any question given enough successes...
ReplyDeleteIt would take the powers of Fate itself (storyteller fiat) to prevent these beings from noticing that most of their powers work on a very consistent and measurable system.
They don't, though, or at least not in the terms you're describing. The only reason these work on a "consistent and measurable" system of points is because, out of character, players need to know what they can and cannot do. It's a framework for the player, not a constant of the game world. Power costs are designed to try to give you a general idea of how much energy a given boon or knack needs in a general way, as in "a whole lot" or "only a medium amount" or "barely any", but they are not there for people to say, "Oh, this costs 30, that 7, that 2."
DeleteAs an incredibly intelligent person, you can of course become better at understanding and describing your own limits - you should be able to tell about when you're going to run out of juice, how many times you could do a given thing or extrapolate those things to others around you. But you'll never measure in points, which are a framework of the game, not the universe it portrays.
Does that make sense? It's not about not being smart enough to count points, it's about points not actually existing inside the gameworld.
Also, and appropriately, it's never a consistent system anyway, because stunting adds resources basically at random depending on what a Scion or god is doing. Their power comes from how awesome they are, so it is prone to increasing without warning or measurable effects if they happen to be more awesome. :)
DeletePCs/NPCs knowing about "Legend" are like midi-chlorians in Star Wars. No thank you.
DeleteIt makes sense, but there is no way short of Fate that the brilliant and perceptive people of the universe would fail to notice. We may understand that those limitations should not exist in the game world, but then they objectively do. And that can be demonstrated with scientific consistency.
ReplyDeleteEven if it is only the PCs who have that limitation, and not the NPCs, then super perceptive or super genius beings are going to notice that. And many of them have plenty of reason to catalog that information.
It creates a situation where the game rules directly impact the universe in an observable and measurable way. Even keeping track of potential stunt gain is observable within the game world, either by noticing that they gain a boost of power whenever someone is being awesome thanks to boons or just amazing perception... or just assuming most people have a higher amount in general.
You're coming in backwards. Let's reverse-engineer that train of thought.
DeleteIn the gameworld, Scions, Titanspawn, gods and other legendary creatures all have power. They express it by doing legendary things, like summoning fire, flying, jumping forty yards, receiving visions, punching one another with bone-cracking force, et cetera. It is easy to see that some creatures are disparate in their power, with some hardly able to do basic tricks and others able to wield ultimate power over nature or living things. And it's easy to see that some creatures are similar in their power. None are ever exactly the same, however, and circumstances can often affect whether or not a given Scion or god has enough power to do whatever it is he wants to. This is the truth of the game world.
However, for the players out in the real world, the game has to model that in some way so that they can interact with it. It can't be modeled perfectly, just as it can never be modeled perfectly in any RPG; there are too many variables and possibilities. Instead, the game creates a basic approximation of what a character should be able to do by instituting a system of Legend points, which allow the player to see at a glance about how much power they have and what they might be able to do with it. It is not an exact summation of their powers or abilities; in fact, the fact that they can stunt to do things that they otherwise couldn't "afford" helpfully reminds the players that it is just a guideline. The system is an out-of-game construct that is there to guide players, but it is not the truth of the game world.
Players can, and do, stunt to regain resources, allowing them to do things that their Legend economy would say is impossible. Storytellers can, and do, cheat enemies' Legend economies to help a struggling band or ensure that they're appropriately challenged. The Legend system is a guideline to give people in the real world an idea how to use powers inside the game, but it is not static or fixed. This is the truth of the real-world mechanics.
But those real-world mechanics are totally invented for the real world. They're not in the game, and the game doesn't know about them, the same way the game doesn't know about XP or dice rolls. Those are ways the game models what's happening for the players, not what's actually happening to the characters in the game. So characters do not know about or use the Legend system, because it legitimately does not exist as far as they know. Being the most ultimately intelligent being in the universe won't give you knowledge of something that literally doesn't exist and never has or will.
However, that doesn't mean that people in the game can't interact with or understand their power reserves; as you point out, many of them are mega-smart, and even for those who aren't there's a simple causal correlation between "I did X thing" and "now I'm too tired to do Y thing" that most will figure out after a little trial and error. The only difference is that they do not live in a world where Legend points exist; there is no fixed number of how much "power" an individual has. They can absolutely measure about how much power a given creature ought to have, based on where it came from, what it can do and so on; they can totally say, "I estimate that crazy thing X enemy just did probably cost about a quarter of his resources, he probably can't keep that up all day." But they can never say, "Everyone at X level has X Legend points." Not only does that not exist, it's also actually completely incorrect - people who stunt gain new Legend out of the blue at unpredictable moments, people who lose Legend to various powers that affect it may come up "under spec", and so on and so forth.
Oops, went over the comment limit.
DeleteSo yes, Thoth and Ptah and Odin can totally say, "Hey, I am incredibly smart; I know about how powerful that Scion is, I know about what they should be able to do, and I'm capable of calculating an insane amount of variables in order to take into account most, if not all, of the possible variations they might come up with." But they're still always looking at a ballpark amount and they know that; barring prophetic knowledge of the future (or possible Magic Avatar?), there is no way to know exactly how much power an individual has or will have in the crunch. A Legend 2 Scion who stunts every action in a scene can end up spending so much Legend that they would need to be Legend 4 normally to do so, and that's not something that can be planned for either in the game or out of it (since players and ST won't even know how many stunt dice are going to happen until they actually do). And stunts aren't observably measured or projected - because sometimes people don't do them, or the ST says, "Eh, that doesn't really qualify," and certainly they don't happen for the same actions (in fact, usually they don't repeat actions much).
What I'm trying to say is that incredibly smart and/or magically gifted people in Scion are totally aware of and capable of making very accurate guesses about the power levels and capabilities of those around them. But they can never be totally exact, and they will never be using the Legend system when they do that, because that's an out-of-game construct rather than an in-game convention. If your game wants to have gods talk about Legend as shorthand to make sure players know what they mean, that's totally cool, but, as in all RPGs, there's a major difference between what actually happens in the game world and the mechanics that are designed only to give players the ability to interact with that world.
Being totally exact sounds like the kind of thing Ultimate Intelligence was designed for. Even a couple of mystery questions could get an exact number if the right questions were asked.
DeleteIt does not matter if it is an out-of-game construct because someone in the game could decide it and make their own construct. It is literally a case where gods possess the tools to notice the existence of the game rules, unless you either throw out the game rules, or make Fate prevent them from discovering it.
decide it = deduce it
DeleteLegend is an Art, not a Science. You cannot 'measure' the beauty of a painting, nor objectively compare Beethoven's fifth with the Sandhya Raga. Similarly, one cannot measure Legend gains because it depends on things like stunting that are entirely dependant on Fate's subjective whims. You cannot even attempt to repeat the experiment because the level of the stunt awarded to a particular action, and even whether it is a stunt or not, is entirely subjective and therefore cannot be objectively tested.
DeleteAs for the spending of Legend, Legend is not spent in a way that can be objectively measured by an outside entity. It is purely internal, and can no more be accurately counted than how much imagination a writer has left till he hits writer's block.
Therefore, the calculation of Legend falls to the individual. Here, we must look at the conventions of storytelling, not the measurements of Science. It doesn't matter if a Fireball spell always costs the exact same amount of mana, by the conventions of storytelling, a wizard casting at a full pool, and one casting at the end of his tether are subjectively feeling different things, even if objectively they are still spending the same amount. Hence, a personal assessment also comes down to 'I feel like I have enough juice for this'.
As for Mystery, no amount of mystery can tell you what doesn't exist. It might help if you stop considering Legend to be a measurable force like heat or sound, and start thinking of it as something like courage or inspiration...or, hell, Willpower.
Samudra actually makes a really good point - Legend is the fuel that allows you to write a heroic story, which is why you gain it at random when you're doing things that make for particularly good storytelling. You're in essence trying to measure a literary device against a mathematical pool, and they don't match up.
DeleteHowever, you're right, gods can totally come up with probability models for how much they think various people can do. But they're certainly not going to come up with Legend; as I said above, Legend is a very approximate system that is neither exact nor able to take into account things like stunting. Gods are way smarter than we are; their probability models will be WAY better than our skeleton, and probably look nothing like the Legend system we poor mortals use.
But even so, probability models are what they are: there is always margin for error. The heroic story is being written beyond the ken of the gods by Fate itself, and while they can understand and harness parts of it, they can never know the entire thing (except, perhaps, for the moments that they blow the Prophecy Avatar).
I'm not sure why you guys keep saying that stunting is not something you can account for. I account for it every time I sit down as a player and figure out a battle strategy. I know when my friends and myself are going to pull out the good descriptions, and I know what my storyteller likes, and when my storyteller is starting to get bored.
DeleteAnd I don't even have epic intelligence.
This is something everyone within the game world can observe and figure into their probability models. You have a large number of tools at your disposal to figure out this kind of information, and even an entire virtue that could inspire people to sit down and conduct rigorous tests with anything you could get your hands on.
No, your character in the game world is just doing the things the character in the game world was going to do anyway. Stunting = legend is just a system out side the world of the game that rewards descriptions and roleplaying. There is zero in world effect. Getting that legend back(in the world) was going to happen to you either way.
DeleteStunting is very different from game to game, so possibly yours doesn't go down like ours. It's based on different players' different flairs, and the judgment of different Storytellers, so it has an almost infinite variability across games.
DeleteYou can "account" for stunting in that you know it'll happen and you'll gain a certain amount of Legend/Willpower, but you can't account for the exact amount. You don't know what will happen in the scene, how many times you'll have stunting opportunities, or whether or not your Storyteller will deem something worth one or two or three points necessarily. You may have a great feel for that because you're used to playing with the same group and ST, but you still don't actually know for sure. It's all in the future of a scene not written yet, and bound to more than one person's judgment to boot.
But, more importantly, that's what I'm saying anyway: as the players, who can make the very best possible guesses thanks to our familiarity with a given set of players and Storyteller, we still can't know how much stunted Legend/Willpower will come in in a given scene ahead of time. And since those in the gameworld are operating in a universe where there are no people making those decisions, they happen literally at random. Or, more appropriately, when Fate wants them to happen in the service of the story, which is something that can only be vaguely predicted at best.
Again, they can totally come up with probability models and estimations, better ones than we can. But they can't actually know for certain, and in the case of stunting they're actually dealing with a totally random unknown quantity, so there is always a margin for error.
Again, the Legend system is an imperfect model to try to approximate what's happening in the game for the players. It's not an actual thing existing in the gameworld itself, and even when you can exactly pinpoint its mechanics in an out-of-character mathing, the same doesn't follow in the gameworld itself.
You know as a player when you're stunting is successful because the storyteller tells you so. It doesn't matter how much planning you do, all it takes is the ST not agreeing to award you the stunt and it all goes for a six. And all it takes is a bad day for him to become more stringent with his gifts.
DeleteAnd, most importantly, no one in the game world is observing anything. There is no magic voice in the sky announcing 'That was a 3 point stunt!'. Legend gains are invisible and personal. All your comrades are seeing is that you do something awesome and continue to fight on through sheer bloody mindedness. All you feel is the desperation of a crucial moment and how your own awe inspiring performance at that moment gives you the guts to go on.
How do you measure the bravery of Cu Chullain's final stand? How do you measure the clarity of Arjuna's mind as he shot the eye of the fish? How do you measure Gandalf's 'You shall not pass!'? Legend is ultimately a literary convention. Attempting to measure it is pointless, and if there's anything Gods with Epic Intelligence know, it's not to waste time on pointless pursuits.
If you agree that intelligent gods can make extensive probability charts, and you agree that an intelligent god can generally (but not exactly) keep track of how much power you are regaining through continued legendary behavior, and you agree with me that an intelligent god can choose to quantify this effect into a point system (or any system), and you agree that they can share this information with anyone and everyone they desire...
DeleteWhat are you disagreeing with me about?
@Samudra But all of that can be measured simply with a mystery question. Any god can sit down and make you perform a bunch of exhausting actions, and keep track of how frequently you can and cannot perform certain actions after you have made valiant attempts.
DeleteEven as a literary convention, it can still me tracked because it has a very real and tangible benefit that perceptive and intelligent gods can notice and determine the impact. They may not call it legend, and they may have their own unique system for describing it, but it amounts to the same thing.
If an OOC rule has IC consequences (restricting actions) then it can be measured by a god unless Fate says it cannot be measured.
"god can generally (but not exactly) keep track of how much power you are regaining through continued legendary behavior"
DeleteLegendary behavior is a meaningless statement here that no one in the game world could quantify. They're all doing legendary behavior all the time.
No....none of that could be answered with a mystery question. What are you talking about?
DeleteYou are missing a valuable point here that we keep making that you keep choosing to ignore. There is no visible, perceptible thing to be noticed.
Youre again breaking things down into ways that the pcs in the game world never see things. They dont think of their powers as actions they can take.
The problem with your scenario is simple: Sitting down and performing 'exhausting actions' in a lab will generate NO Legend because its not Legendary. Stunts don't happen when you want them to. They happen at crucial moments in a STORY. Sarasvati is not going to regain Legend from cardio. A God cannot prepare a list of 'valiant actions' and then tick them off one by one, because no such lists exist.
DeleteThe action is not Legendary. The context in which it is performed is. That is why mythology does not record every time a God masturbates, but does record Ra's masturbation at the dawn of creation. Ares and Aphrodite have had uncountable dalliances, but the only one recorded is the one where they're caught. Tlaloc makes it rain every year, but the only one worthy of being called a stunt and being recalled in myth is the one where he rained fire.
@John Of course there is a visible thing that can be noticed. Someone performed an action that they could not perform a moment ago. This can be observed acros countless scenarios, and then accumulated into meaningful statistics.
DeleteWhat do you mean they don't think of their powers as actions they can take? Certainly many of them may not, but that's something I do for fun in real life. An intelligent or perceptive god certainly could do for real anything I could do for fun.
I'm not choosing to ignore any of your points, I just think you are seriously underestimating both the scientific process and how incredibly intelligent gods can be.
@Samudra You're making some very specific assumptions that do not need to apply. The theoretical tester does not need to put you into a lab, they can stage experiments that directly threaten you in a very real and very legendary way. All of that is not even necessary when some gods can literally observe you from hundreds of miles away while you go about your normal legendary business.
Dude, we are the people who are writing what Ultimate Intelligence does. I seriously hope you don't think we're underestimating what intelligent gods can do.
DeleteWe're disagreeing with you that there is any kind of tangible Legend economy in the game. There is not. It literally does not exist. It is merely an out-of-game device to tell players, who do not actually have magical powers, about how much they can do. Inside the game itself, everyone takes actions until they become too exhausted to do so, or until a moment of extreme crisis grants them hidden reservoirs of strength. Those things are modeled (imperfectly, I might add) by the out-of-game systems, not created by them.
There is nothing for the intelligence god to know about. Unless your thesis is that Ultimate Intelligence gods can see out of the game and onto your character sheet. (Which I actually think might be a neat game, but it isn't the one we're playing here.)
Intelligence gods can:
1) Make predictions (probably accurate to the .00000001 margin of error or way, way better) about how much a given person or legendary being can do with their powers.
2) Adjust those predictions on the fly if they are also awesome at Wits, making them most likely correct 99.9999999% of the time.
3) Know their own capabilities extremely intimately, therefore knowing the exact extent of their abilities in any given number of a zillion scenarios.
Intelligence gods cannot:
1) Predict anything in terms of "Legend points" or "Legend rating", which are outside game constructs. If anything, they'll have way better ways of thinking about the concept than we could ever hope to comprehend.
2) Know exactly how much juice a given person will have to the perfect, no-error-whatsoever exact number, because every person does not have either an identical amount of power nor a static value of power. (Caveat: if they have activated Ultimate Intelligence this scene, maybe. Depends what they're doing.)
3) Predict even when their own reserves might get a boost of Legendary power. They are still subordinate to Fate, who writes the story; they cannot know when Fate will grant them a little extra juice for a given feat, or if it will be enough. They can, again, posit this to a very close degree of accuracy, but they can never have absolute knowledge.
The difference here is that it's Fate - personified by the ST most of the time - who gives out things like stunt dice and unlooked-for story bonuses. The god in the game knows Fate exists, may even be very knowledgable (unfathomably knowledgable!) about how it works, but he cannot fully understand or predict its workings. That's the central conceit of Scion: Fate is always the master, and even gods can't truly control or understand it except in brief bursts.
What we're disagreeing about is the difference between an out-of-game mechanical system, which is just something invented to help players, and the actual use and understanding of divine power within the game world. The one models the other, but they are neither identical nor perfect mirrors of each other.
A staged experiment is still just that: a staged experiment. It does not serve the needs of the story, no more than the actual act of forging a Relic or rigorous training. It's why such things always get handled by montages in movies: they are irrelevant to the greater tale, only there results are, and thus cannot count as stunts, because they are nothing more than window dressing in the eyes of Fate.
DeleteAnd again you are talking of observation when there is nothing to observe. You state that a God observes that someone else can now perform an action that he could not a moment ago...how does he KNOW that said action could not be performed before?
@Anon – A few questions first, does your gaming group have a set specific means of determining the value of a stunt? (such as the guidelines presented in the Scion Hero book?)
DeleteDo you bank your methods of stunting and how much legend you can gain back on the known interests perceptions of your ST and the fellow players in your group?
Am I correct in understanding that you have you have based your findings on the results of a limited target test group (your fellow players and ST)?
In a nutshell: Odin doesn't have a character sheet in front of him that says, "I have Epic Intelligence 10, all the purviews of Mystery (complete with nifty names), and 120 Legend points", any more than you say "I'll make my Drive roll to get to work, and my Computer skill to prepare my thesis; and I took two bashing when I tripped this morning - better be careful!" Stats and numbers are game mechanics, and characters in the game don't see them, any more than you would if you were a character in a game.
DeletePS, you always come say what I mean but with way fewer unnecessary words. I admire that.
DeleteWhere's the 'Like' button when you need one? :)
DeleteWell said PS
DeleteI've had similar discussions with players before, over "reality vs. Game". Happy to contribute! :-)
Delete@Anne Legend has a tangible impact upon the game, ergo it can be measured regardless if it does not exist in the game world. Gods will simply call it whatever they want to call it.
DeleteUnder 'Intelligence gods cannot"
1) I don't understand why you are hung up on the words Legend Points, when right afterwards you admit that they can have way better ways of thinking about the concept. The latter is the important thing.
2) Most likely correct 99.9999999% is more than sufficient to codify capabilities and share that information with whoever is listening. The fact that it is not 100% is not the important thing.
3) I outright disagree with you on this issue, because characters should certainly be able to notice that they gain a boost whenever they perform certain actions, in certain quantities, with diminishing returns. That's just me speaking as a person. A god can take these observations to entirely new dimensions.
And once again, you do not need to be 100% certain about when Fate will take an interest in your actions. Being 99.9999999% is more than sufficient, and since the storyteller is literally the personification of Fate... the characters within that story can get a very good feel for Fate. A god can take these observations to entirely new dimensions.
With all due respect, your defense seems to hinge upon a fraction of a percentile, while admitting all the rest of the percentile are more than possible.
@Samudra Storytellers often reward staged experiments, especially if the threats are very real to the (possibly unwitting) participants of the experiment. How does he KNOW that said action could not be performed before? The result of countless intellect rolls that ensure Anne's 99.9999999% accuracy, or mystery after the fact, or prophecy before the fact.
@Shawn No, it is based entirely on what my storyteller feels is awesome, with rapidly diminishing returns. Yes, we tend to plan our methods of stunting to entertain or impress based upon the known interests of our storyteller. Yes, I am basing my findings on experiences with about twenty players and four storytellers.
@PurpleSnit If Odin wanted to sit down and make a character sheet (or generally quantify the data of the people he has dealt with and studied from his All-Seeing throne) then I am entirely confident that he could do so with startling accuracy unless Fate stepped in and decided such a thing was impossible for him to do. The names he uses for his categorizations are not particularly important.
Next set of things-
DeleteDo you operate under the belief that everything works on a very consistent and measurable system?
And naturally, this would presume you take into account the variety of methods used to make those things work.
Twenty Players and Four ST's? Not bad for a test group. Would produce more results based on certain variables than a single group or two, but still rather limited.
How easy is it for you to quantify your levels of skill in different areas?
Most people believe that they can accomplish x task in y time with a z% level of accuracy.
Setting Mystery aside (there may be more discussions on that later).
Are you of the opinion that a god with high epic intelligence can easily calculate the necessary amount of energy for any endeavor. Would this also apply if unknown factors were involved?
Such as an epic scale combat (could be considered a minor endeavor)
(Also, not getting into the War purview).
Or would this be more the domain of someone with high levels of epic wits?
or both?
It's a pleasure to speak with you, Shawn!
DeleteYes, I believe everything works on a very consistent and measurable system, even if I am currently unable to perceive all the variables involves. Yes, to the extent of my ability I do try to take into account as many methods as I can. Being of mortal intellect, I often fail.
Yeah, even with a decent number of people to draw hypothesis from, ultimately it is only anecdotal and not a statistically significant test pool. On the other hand, I do not think any of us have a statistically significant test pool. =P
Barring a healthy dose of the Dunning-Kruger effect, I find it easy to quantify my levels of a skill involving tasks I am familiar with, and difficult to quantify my levels of a skill involving tasks I am unfamiliar with.
Yes, given sufficient time (which immortals have quite a bit of) I believe that a god with high epic intelligence and high epic perception can gather and calculate the necessary amount of data for almost any endeavor. Unknown factors always exist which can disrupt those statistics, but outliers can be tested out, and unknown factors can be more vigorously explored with mystery/prophecy/data sharing/etc.
Someone with high epic intelligence could calculate the outcome of an epic battle to a staggeringly high degree provided that he has sufficient data about the participating individuals / forces and sufficient forewarning to prepare those calculations ahead. Epic Wits can contribute heavily towards performing those calculations on the fly, and is always welcome in compressing days of research during downtimes into mere moments.
There is one thing I cannot understand in all this Anon. You said, and I quote "[Legend] can be measured regardless if it does not exist in the game world". How is anyone supposed to measure what does not exist?
DeleteP.S. I will be going to bed shortly, so I apologize in advance for not replying at the moment.
Thank you. Please understand, my goal in any debate, disagreement, or discussion is to first ascertain any relevant data about the other(s) involved and try to understand their perspectives (or where they are coming from).
DeleteWell, mostly... there are times when I do not.
I believe one part of the issue here lies in term usage.
I can understand it being a pain, and just grates on one's nerves to hear people in character using referencing game mechanics.
(such as DV's, Legend, and Soaks).
I usually urge my players to develop other references.
Part of it is psychological, as references tend to break that suspension of disbelief.
For instance, in a Traveller game we were playing, rather than say “I have my skill level at x!” Or asking someone what their skill level is, we used terms like “What's your Naval Rating in Astrogation?” It's not too different, but it helps to a small degree and is by no means meant as a universal method.
Then again, everyone runs and plays their games differently.
Another question before moving on to another set – Why do you play Scion?
@Samudra Even if Legend as a concept does not exist in the game world, the supernatural actions of the characters function upon something similar to fuel, whose expenditure and conservation can indeed be observed and measured. It does not need to be called Legend, and can be whatever incredible and complex thing / system a god of immense intellect might want to call it.
DeleteAlso, have a great night Samudra!
@Shawn No problem! I can completely understand the importance of not breaking suspension of disbelief. In fact, the desire not to break it can even lead to characters not doing things they might have done if they were real people (for the greater good of everyone at the table). Having extremely intelligent gods avoid quantifying characters in a measurable manner might very well be one of those cases.
DeleteI play Scion for three reasons. I enjoy spending time with my friends. I enjoy using the game mechanics in new and interesting ways. I enjoy participating in fascinating and clever stories about incredible heroes accomplishing things that I could never accomplish in real life.
I do not belief one would have to avoid quantifying characters, but rather the terms or mechanics involved might best have another title attached to it (in game).
DeleteLike computers, people develop heuristics as a means of a mental shortcut to a reference.
Like in programming, if we define a variable as x = y,
we know that x = y.
Now enter certain parameters, where we need to access y, but cannot use x, we need to define a new variable to represent y. But if we say x, the computer may misinterpret what we are trying to accomplish with our statement.
(forgive my rambling)
*believe not belief.
DeleteI do not think you are rambling. I used to do programming many years ago and still remember the fundamentals.
DeleteBut yes, it can be entirely necessary to use a different name for X in order to preserve suspension of disbelief.
Well, it was a pleasure talking with you, and everyone here.
DeleteI must get ready to head home.
Though my inclinations syncs up with the others, I believe I can understand your angle of approach, and recognize it as not being too terribly different.
Thank you! I certainly see my approach as a fairly inevitable conclusion for any highly intelligent god capable of gathering the relevant data, and an interest in quantifying the results of that data.
DeleteBut I am perfectly happy with the notion that they do not do so, not because they are incapable, but because it is not good for the story for them to do so. Hence all the Fate (storyteller fiat) references above.
Have a great night! I'll check back for any further replies after work later today.
Clearly you are willing to accept game stats as "reality" in your game, and more power to you. Personally, I don't see any reason why any God would waste time trying to stat themselves as an RPG character, or think of themselves in that way, any more than I would rate my own abilities and skills, and use that to calculate my running speed and carrying capacity for real life. But you are obviously sold on the idea, and it's your game, so this isn't really a useful exchange of ideas anymore anyway. Have fun!
Delete@Purple Snit It's not so much that I accept game stats as "reality" as any OOC rule that has a tangible impact on IC can be observed by gods and quantified, unless an all powerful force like Fate dictates that these observations are not possible.
DeleteWhile I think that most gods would not waste time trying to stat themselves, it is far more likely that they would spent time trying to stat others. Gathering military intelligence is a big deal during war, and there is plenty of historic precedent for opposing armies trying to collate statistics on the capabilities of their enemies.
I'm sorry you no longer consider this to be a useful exchange of ideas. I was genuinely perplexed that there was so much overwhelming resistance to the idea that a god could stat up other gods. But it does look like the majority have accepted the possibility, if not something their gods would do in their own games.
Good luck, and have fun!
you're guys description sounds like something out of an Anime more than western super heroes or mythology, where the hero has some super power or energy that they use to do crazy shit, but then ends up bruised battered and panting from the effort(cough...cough...Dragon Ball Z....cough). I like that were the hero doesn't know exactly how much power they have to burn until they're running on empty and the hordes are still coming for them (you're graveyard is probably full of young scions and a few gods who suffered that fate). Anons explanation sort of sours that.
ReplyDeleteThat is basically what we're trying to model - Scions who have powers and energy but sometimes get too tired out by their exertions to go on, or have to make one last desperate stand. Scion's about telling the same kinds of heroic stories you might see in a superhero comic or an anime or an ancient saga, so if they sound similar to you, it means we're hopefully doing our job. :)
DeleteSome Scions probably have a better idea how much power they have than others, but you're right, some of them don't know until they hit their limit. Sangria's a good example - she's always utterly surprised and confused when she can't do something, because she thinks of herself as having these powers and abilities and doesn't know why they suddenly don't work. On the flip side, though, a more intelligent Scion might have a much better awareness of everyones' capabilities; James Howard, for example, has in the past been able to say, "Leona's shot five of those sun lasers, she's got to be on her last legs," in order to shoot her some more juice with Legendary Surge in time for her to keep going.
I have a really science-y friend who refers to coconut milk as "endosperm" - if he had Ultimate Intelligence, he would say "I have 300 kcals left guys, I need to recharge" instead of "I am hungry." Just saying.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, it is really obnoxious.