Shoptalk: Animal Is Weird

The Animal Purview is one weird mess. It can be taken many different ways without even bothering to apply what could be called 'house rules'. Just different ways of reading the poorly-defined RAW version of Animal can give you radically different variations in how the Purview is handled in a game. It's so messy that I even have to break down the different ways it can be interpreted differently.

Association Interpretations!

1. Super Literal: If your parent is Associated with Hummingbirds, you gain an association only for Hummingbirds. You get no XP discount on any other manifestation of Animal. This method of reading also means that each type of Animal requires its own Relic to channel. You would need one Relic for Hummingbird and another for Eagle. Essentially, each type of Animal is a totally different Purview. The only thing that unites Animal (Hummingbird) and Animal (Eagle) is that they both have The Beast as their Avatar. Note: Protean Understanding causes some issues under this interpretation because it suddenly causes all the different Purviews to unite as one at Legend 11.
2. Semi-Literal: So long as your parent has any form of Animal as an Associated Power, you get an XP discount on any form of Animal. So even if Daddy has Animal (Hummingbird), you can still get a discount for learning Animal (Shrike). Under this interpretation it's a 50/50 call if you would need multiple Relics for Animal, or only one. 

How Divided Is Divided?

1. Really Damn Divided: If there is any reasonable difference between two types of animals, then they are considered two different types of Animal. This interpretation would say that Animal (Butterfly) is different from Animal (Moth) and that Animal (Cat) is different from Animal (Tiger). Obviously this is going to cause some issues when categories like Cat are much broader than others like Lynx, but the people who hold this view are almost always very specific about what types of Animals are allowed. Typically, broad categorizations such as Cat or Bird-of-Prey would not be acceptable. 
2. Divided Indeed: This is a little bit more lax, but still fairly strict. People who fall here tend to say that even if you pick something like Animal (Tiger), you're just doing that for fluffy fun. You actually have Animal (Cat) and can apply your Animal Boons to any creature that falls under a similar taxonomic category as your specific totem beast. 
3. What Divide?: Aten is mostly to thank for this category, since he is listed as having Animal (Flying Creatures). It opens the door for extremely broad categorizations of Animal such as Sea Creatures, Varmints and Bugs.

As I said, all that chaos is without any House Rules at all. That's just different takes on what's actually printed in the books, since the books don't provide clear, well-written guidelines for how to deal with Animal. If we added in all the ways people House Rule the Purview, we'd be here all night just going over the different possible solutions. We won't do that. Instead, I'm going to explain how I handle the Animal Purview and explain why I do it the way I do.

Griff's Aztec Alley: Quetzalcoatl

Once again, we're delving into the Aztec Pantheon and revamping the, to be honest, random and occasionally batshit insane associations given to the gods.  Last time, we looked at the mess that was Texcatlipoca, and now we turn to his twin and rival, Quetzalcoatl.

Just like his brother, Quetzalcoatl is given a metric assload of associated powers.  In the original book, he's given Epic Charisma, Epic Intelligence, Animal (Resplendent Quetzal), Fertility, Guardian, Earth, Health, Itztli, Justice, Psychopomp, Sky, and Water.  12 powers.  A number of which feel entirely random.

Much like Tezcatlipoca, though, I can understand why White Wolf went overboard.  Quetzalcoatl is an important deity, and one that has intrigued Western civilization upon discovering the Aztecs.  Furthermore, he is an old deity, with ties to the Olmec "mother" civilization of Mesoamerica and who seemingly has a hand in every culture in that region.  Feathered serpent motifs are present in most cultures' religious iconography.  Only Tlaloc is more ubiquitous.

Quetzalcoatl is also the only god who completely, unequivocally is also a Mayan deity as well as an Aztec deity.  While Tlaloc, Chac, and Cocijo make sense as one god for the purposes of Scion, if you were to tell most Mesoamerican scholars they were all the same god, they would smack you with the flat of a maquahuitl.  However, most agree that the Quetzalcoatl is Kukulcan is Gukumatz. 

Dave's Player Pavilion: Specialization v. Generalization

The idea of specializing your Character against generalizing is a difficult choice. Being a God means focusing yourself into a few specific areas, making generalization difficult. Although, we can see generalization as possible with Gods such as Lugh (Although it is likely he just has Ultimate Craft and Ultimate Art) and likely some other Gods who do not imminently jump into my mind currently.

The argument for creating a specialized character is obvious; you can be better than most other beings of your Legend or lower at two, or maybe three, specific things. Specializing in an Epic Attribute involves buying many Knacks from it's trees, and taking Relics to enhance the Attribute or augment the Knacks it has. Specializing in a Purview will involve buying as many Boons as you can from it, and, again, taking Relics to augment the Boons, buff rolls for the Purview, or reduce the legend cost of things.

Dave's Player Pavilion: Birthrights

This topic may end up being one of Telgar's Shop Talks one day, but I think looking at Birthrights from the point of view of the Players. In our games, we use some some houserules for dealing with Birthrights. Firstly, we use FrivYeti's Birthright Rules for Creatures and Followers (not Guides or Relics), located here. Relics can go up to 10 Dots. Lastly, both God Birthrights, Avatars, Wards and Sanctums, have their own houserules that Telgar wrote himself. Although we do not have any official rules regarding Wards, I will explain them below.

Dave's Player Pavilion: How to Play with Epic Socials

Again, going back to this post, I am going to go over the different kinds of Epic Socials, and how you should act around them. And furthermore, the different expressions of the three different Epic Attributes.

Now, I am going to reiterate, I understand that being on the receiving end of Epic Socials is not always fun for some people. But, what people have to keep in mind, especially with their other players, that they have made an investment in putting their experience into Manipulation rather than Strength. Someone not acting like the other person has Epic Manipulation 11 is the same as saying, "No. I don't die." when Thor hits you over the head with Mjölnir and uses Ultimate Strength.

Dave's Player Pavilion: Building Good Characters

Referencing back to this, one of the things I did not cover about being a good player was making good characters. I didn't delve into this because I felt like it needed to be a stand alone post.

In the Lost City of Atlanta, we have had a lot of characters come in and out. I have seen amazing characters, such as Griff's Alan and Dom's Amira, and I have seen a lot of rather bad characters. So, I am going to go over what I think makes a good character.

Shoptalk: All That Is Within My Purview

In the RAW (Rules As Written) system for Scion, a peculiar situation arises where Death Gods are required to be Charismatic if they want to be good at their jobs. Health Gods are useless unless they themselves are hardy like an ox. In short, the rolls for Boons are often tied to seemingly random or ill-suited Attributes. This isn't always something that can be fixed by changing the roll. Sometimes there is no Attribute that really fits. Take Rainbow Bridge for example. What's the Attribute most related to teleportation? Does it help to be smart? How? What about flexible or fast-footed? How does that help you warp space and travel without moving?

Originally, I simply tried being flexible with the rolls required by various Boons. If a player could come up with a good argument to use a different Attribute, I'd allow them to change the roll. This worked fine in most cases, but it still raised the issue of the Boons where there is no clear-cut Attribute that lends itself really well. Many Boons, in fact, can be seen as simply raw manifestations of the Purview's power. Why should one Earth God be better at making earthquakes than another, when both of them are equally powerful (Legend) and equally invested in the Earth Purview (number and rank of Boons)? That just didn't sit well with me.

What the Atlanta players are testing out now is a system called Epic Purviews. What happens is that each Purview you know has a Rank which is equal to the number of different ranks you know Boons for. If you know a rank 1, rank 3 and rank 8 Boon in Health, then your Health Rank is 3. You also have a Purview Rating which is equal to the number of Boons you know, regardless of their rank. Your Purview Rating replaces Attributes for Boon Activation rolls and is sometimes used in calculations. Your Purview Rank provides automatic successes as if it were an Epic Attribute, keeping Purviews from falling behind at higher Legend.

Example: Sak Balam has a total of 12 Animal Boons, with at least one in every Rank from 1 to 8. This means that his Animal Rank is 8 and his Animal Rating is 12. When he activates a Boon like Animal Aspect he rolls Rating + Animal Ken, for a total of 22 dice, 10 from his Animal Ken and 12 from his Animal Rating. His Rank of 8 grants him 29 automatic successes on that roll, just as if it was an Epic Attribute.

Dave's Player Pavilion: How to be a good Player

Hey folks, I'm Dave (Watcher on the forums), Johnny/Eoin's player. I've not used the blog a ton, due to not being an amazing ST like Telgar, or ungodly knowledgeable about one of the Pantheons like Griff is. But, I'm bored, so I'm writing this. Maybe I'll do more of these about other player based stuff.

Something that gets a lot of airtime on the net is how to be a good Storyteller, but something that I have seen far more often than I have seen bad Storytellers, Dungeon Masters, and so on, is bad players. So, what I am going to try to do here is explain how to be a good player. Or, at least, not a bad one.

The one thing that a good player does is this: they put in the effort. Put in as much effort to your character as the ST is putting into the game. If you are not doing this, you have to ask yourself why the ST should bother making the game fun for you if you are doing nothing to make it fun for them.

How can you do this? Well, there are many ways.

Telling Stories: Pray The Day Away

My PC's not-too-long-ago reached Legend 9 and underwent Apotheosis, becoming Gods in their own right. Since then, one of the bigger challenges I face as the Storyteller is keeping a balance between appropriately epic challenges that can seem to realistically stress even Gods and allowing the players to really feel like Gods. There should be this huge sense of accomplishment that your character has reached Godhood and is now not just some hero or super-mortal with awesome powers. They're actually a Figure of Legend with an entire religion (or religions) built around them. There are thousands of people who, every day, pray to these characters for guidance, help or pray to avoid their notice and displeasure.

You can't just let new Gods steamroller over everything, they've still got Legend 10, 11 and 12 to advance to, after all. They're not at the top of the foodchain by a long shot, and even Legend 12 Gods still have to face other Legend 12 Gods, Titan Avatars and Greater Titans. So, you do have to keep challenging your new Gods with ever-increasing levels of world-smashing calamity, Machiavellian scheming and politics, etc. There just needs to be times when they can say to themselves "Holy crap, I'm a God now! People are totally praying to me and expecting things! And I can do them!"

My solution to this was something called Prayer Sheets. They're open documents (we use GoogleDocs for just about everything) where anyone can post prayers to the God in question. The player sets up a brief list of 'typical' prayers that they expect to receive based on their God-role and various Fate Expectations, which serve as a guideline. I might add some extra prayer categories based on what I think, as the ST, they might have forgotten or not even considered.

Then, prayers! Generally, prayers are short little snippets and tagged with very basic information about who and where they're coming from. Here are some examples of prayers that our characters have received so far:

Telling Stories: I Don't Wanna Grow Up!

It's been two hundred years since your Scion was Visited. They've battled Titanspawn, weathered the challenges of Heroism and Demigodhood, and finally climbed to the Heavens and earned their place among the Gods. Whew! Not only that, but they've established themselves among their Pantheon and become a true God, a divine being venerated and worshipped by thousands on Earth. They've worked their way into History and become a true Legend.

They can't possibly be the same person they were all those years ago, can they? You'd be surprised.

Gods don't grow up. Not ever, really. They stay basically the same, their personality and little personal twitches remaining static through their entire existence, for the most part. Their personality tends to be pretty fixed because it's part of who they are, which is what their worshippers venerate them for. When changes do occur it will probably be small ones, or only in specific stories, or they might develop new divine aspects as new cults form and merge. We'll talk more about that later, but it's important.

Ares is never going to mature out of being a rash, violent, chaotic dick. Zeus will never see the error of his ways and stop sleeping around on Hera. Nergal won't ever decide to settle down and stop blowing shit up when he gets bored. Thor isn't going to decide that book learning is awesome and study up on his philosophy. Thoth won't ever get tired of learning and decide to start kicking asses and taking names. That would break their Legend and totally shatter their entire identity.