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.