[Scion] Becoming a Storyteller

[Archpaladin Zousha]

I've recently fallen in love with White Wolf's game, Scion, and I'm pondering the idea of running a game online. I assume I'd need to buy the books first, but I have a basic idea of the world Scion sets up. I have no idea how to organize a campaign. What would be the theme? I get the feeling that, given the setup of the first three books, you start out as a Hero in the regular world, journey into the Underworld as a Demigod, and then journey to the Overworld when you become an actual god fighting against the Titans.

Anyone who knows more about Scion want to educate me a bit?

[Archpaladin Zousha]

So...no one knows anything about Scion?

[Draxar]

I'm no expert on the Demigod or God levels, as our group didn't reach that high. Theme... is up to you, in discussion with your players. The theme of the game is essentially growing into your power, and then working out what you do with it.

I don't think it's neccessarily Underworld as Demi, Overworld as God, I think it's more that you go near exclusively normal world as heros, mixture of normal world and supernatural worlds as demigod, and near exclusively supernatural worlds as god.

More specific questions I may be able to help more with.

[Jerthanis]

Your impression is pretty accurate in terms of the advancement process.

I have a bunch of untested advice about Scion, as I've never played it, but I'll volunteer some of it anyway.

I'd suggest running a game restricted to only one Pantheon and making that pantheon's mythology be the one that's active/accurate. The trouble with all myths being true is that sometimes they step on each other's toes, and factions and rivalries between intertheist groups feels tacked on, as the characters have no history together.

Also, mythological cosmologies tend to be fundamentally different. Styx is different from Tartarus is different from Helheim. The Bifrost bridge leading to Mount Olympus makes my head spin.

Read Anansi Boys, that's a really good one. I wasn't much a fan of American Gods, but Anansi Boys was really awesome and Scion was pretty heavily influenced by those books.

[Tinydwarfman]

So...no one knows anything about Scion?

I haven't actually played it, but I haven't heard very good things about it unfortunately. Wonky rules or something.
There, that should draw the scion fans out of their hide-holes!

[Archpaladin Zousha]

The rules, from what I can tell, seem to be based on Exalted. How is that wonky?

[The Rose Dragon]

The rules, from what I can tell, seem to be based on Exalted. How is that wonky?

Man, you're calling Exalted's rules non-wonky. I don't know what drugs you're on, but you need to stop using them.

And I like Exalted.

[Kylarra]

Scion pretty much only works on the Hero level. Once you hit Demigod or God, epic attributes are ridiculous and boons are either awesomely useful or awesomely useless depending on situation and boon. There is no middle ground.

As far as themes go, you're demi(lowercase d)gods in a modern world that doesn't really believe in gods. You can do all sorts of things. The Scion book gives a few ideas on how to adapt mythological creatures to more modern counterparts, ie there's a group of centaurs that are half man, half motorcycle. You'll end up making up most of the monsters yourself or finding other people's homebrew though, that is a downside of the more esoteric monsters. On the other hand, you can run more subtle campaigns where the majority of antagonists are just mortals, either "evil" or just manipulated into being obstacles. It's a pretty open-ended system in that regard.

One thing to note though, the boons are rather ... limited, so pay attention to what boons your players choose and try to write in potential ways they can use them.

One thing to look at if you want just a single campaign book, is the Ragnarok book. It assumes that only the Norse mythology is true and runs from there. So as suggested earlier, in order to avoid stretching yourself too thin, it might be best to focus on one pantheon, possibly two if you want variety, and assume that their myths are the ones that are true.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Man, you're calling Exalted's rules non-wonky. I don't know what drugs you're on, but you need to stop using them.

And I like Exalted.

I'm on paroxetine and melatonin. Though I'm starting to wonder if the paroxetine is enough to handle my depression.

But what do I know? I have no idea what makes a system balanced or not.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Scion pretty much only works on the Hero level. Once you hit Demigod or God, epic attributes are ridiculous and boons are either awesomely useful or awesomely useless depending on situation and boon. There is no middle ground.

Care to explain a bit?

As far as themes go, you're demi(lowercase d)gods in a modern world that doesn't really believe in gods. You can do all sorts of things. The Scion book gives a few ideas on how to adapt mythological creatures to more modern counterparts, ie there's a group of centaurs that are half man, half motorcycle. You'll end up making up most of the monsters yourself or finding other people's homebrew though, that is a downside of the more esoteric monsters. On the other hand, you can run more subtle campaigns where the majority of antagonists are just mortals, either "evil" or just manipulated into being obstacles. It's a pretty open-ended system in that regard.

So it can be episodic or it can have a cohesive story?

One thing to note though, the boons are rather ... limited, so pay attention to what boons your players choose and try to write in potential ways they can use them.

I can do that. What do you mean limited though?

One thing to look at if you want just a single campaign book, is the Ragnarok book. It assumes that only the Norse mythology is true and runs from there. So as suggested earlier, in order to avoid stretching yourself too thin, it might be best to focus on one pantheon, possibly two if you want variety, and assume that their myths are the ones that are true.

What do you mean stretching myself too thin? I know a great deal about most of the mythologies used in the game, except maybe the Loa, but I can probably learn their stories too, since I don't have the books just yet.

I'm not really familiar with the Storyteller System. I've only just joined my first Exalted game, have never really played any World of Darkness stuff, and am not sure what the position of Storyteller is like. How different is it from being a Dungeon Master in D&D?

[erikun]

Well, being a DM generally means designing a dungeon, designing plot hooks to get the characters into a dungeon, and designing stuff to fight inside the dungeon. At times, it will involve coming up with an overreaching storyline to connect everything.

Storyteller focuses less on the dungeon and more on the storyline. It is assumed that the other aspects of the character are just as important as combat, so combat plays a much lesser role in most games (if it appears at all). You're going to be spending more time talking to NPCs, so that characters with social skills can put them to work. There is more focus on other means of overcoming a challange, so a fight could be won through ambush, avoided with stealth, handled diplomatically, prevented by calling the police, and whatever else the characters might decide to do.

Scion is somewhere in the middle, working in the Storyteller system but in the heroic vein of D&D. You'll probably get a fair amount of combat, but don't be afraid to let the characters chat with villagers, deal with more mundane problems, or deal with dangerous situations that they could easily win if they felt like fighting. Hostage situations involving just mortals comes to mind.

As for a campaign? Whatever you'd like to use. I was personally considering running a Scion game with a Victorian/Pioneer setting.

[Kylarra]

Care to explain a bit?

Epic attributes give you an automatic number of successes to rolls involving that stat. At low levels the numbers are manageable in that someone with a decent dice pool still might compete with someone with a higher epic stat, but after you hit Demigod, it's pretty much impossible to compete against someone with epic stats unless yours are comparable.

So it can be episodic or it can have a cohesive story?

Yes

I can do that. What do you mean limited though?

Many of the boons are niche or situational.

What do you mean stretching myself too thin? I know a great deal about most of the mythologies used in the game, except maybe the Loa, but I can probably learn their stories too, since I don't have the books just yet.

It can be trying to keep multiple pantheons involved in order to keep each player's pantheon part of the story.

I'm not really familiar with the Storyteller System. I've only just joined my first Exalted game, have never really played any World of Darkness stuff, and am not sure what the position of Storyteller is like. How different is it from being a Dungeon Master in D&D?

It's essentially the same thing.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

What if I used a sort of "Monster-of-the-week-that-has-a-continuous-story-keeping-the-various-mythologies-involved-in-rotation-so-they-get-equal-screentime" setup?

[erikun]

That would work. I recommend making something unique for each monster, though. One could be roaming the sewers, while another is seen speeding down highways, and a third is disguised as a businessman. Make "hunting it down" occasionally require different skills and strategies.

[Zellic Solis]

Here is how I plan my scion (and exalted) games. One, pick your big bad. That's going to set the theme of your game. For my scion game, there was an atheistic CEO who was attempting to use technology to open a rift between dimensions. He was in contact with a titan that was inevitably merging with his essence. The project was spawning all kinds of dimensional instabilities... shards of the titan's essence and various corrupted spirits. They were drawn to things with divine essence and... voila! The characters are involved. They quickly realize that keeping together is the best way to survive as they unravel the plot. We never got to finish the game, but it was fun while it lasted.

The second idea is geographical, and this is really WoD's classic base. Pick a city, any city. Now populate it with all kinds of supernatural things. Set your players loose and watch what kind of troubles they get in.

Third idea is boarding the Fate choo choo. Fate says thou musteth work together... and life is going to suck till they do. It's railroading but if it's fun and your players are good sports then it should be fine.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

What IS Fate in this game anyway? I get the impression it's something negative since the whole reason the gods don't want people to worship them is to avoid being wrapped up in it, and they make scions precisely because they're beyond Fate's control.

[Arakune]

What IS Fate in this game anyway? I get the impression it's something negative since the whole reason the gods don't want people to worship them is to avoid being wrapped up in it, and they make scions precisely because they're beyond Fate's control.

Remember that thing about loki eventualy starting ragnarok and odim eventualy dying in the claws/jaw of fenhir? That's Fate: those things will happen, like it or not.

You need to do greate things (gain more legend) and make bounds with people/supernatural beings in order to become stronger (go from scion to god), but once you get those bounds Fate can either be nice (greatest warrior stuff/survive the ragnarok) or bad (the Ragnarok, Achilles like vulnerability, etc).

[Lapak]

I'm not so fond of the 'focus on one pantheon' idea myself - one of the real attractions of the setting for me is the way that the different mythologies interact. I've not run a game myself, but what I'm told is that the key to successfully using an array of pantheons is to keep the overall focus of each group in mind when plotting how to use them in play - the Atzlanti, for example, are all about keeping the top-level natural processes of the world in play: making sure that plants continue to grow and the sun continues to shine and so on. They don't necessarily concern themselves overmuch with societies or individuals except as they touch on this matter. The gods of the Dodekatheon, on the other hand, are very much concerned with individuals achieving their own personal greatness but wouldn't necessarily be the first on the scene when a plot revolves around natural disaster. A god from either group might be involved with, say, a plot to free a major Titanspawn by melting the polar ice cap, but they'd be involved for different reasons and concerned about different things.

[Draxar]

Epic attributes give you an automatic number of successes to rolls involving that stat. At low levels the numbers are manageable in that someone with a decent dice pool still might compete with someone with a higher epic stat, but after you hit Demigod, it's pretty much impossible to compete against someone with epic stats unless yours are comparable.

Indeed. The big issue is the rate at which they start to increase – the difference between Epic Dexterity 1 and 2 is a single success (approximately equivalent to two dice), so if I have epic dex 1, and Dex + Melee of 9, versus your epic dex 2 and Dex + Melee of 5, I'm still ahead of you, though you have an extra knack, and a more reliable number of successes.

The difference between epic dex 5 and 6 is five successes, equivalent to 10 dice. At that point, if you have more of that than me, you'll pretty much always be doing better. The difference between Epic Dex 4 and 6 is 9 successes. Which means that it'll be nearly impossible for anyone with 4 to beat someone with 6 at anthing dexterity related.

As well as the problems this creates in combat, it also makes it very hard to make other tasks challenging for the group – if you want someone the group might hear, but might not, and you have someone with Epic Perception in the demigod or above bracket, then either he (and anyone else with epic perception within a point of him) is the only one with any chance to hear the thing, or he definitely hears it, and other people might or might not.

While we never got to the point of properly trying it out, one possible solution the group I was in came up with was make it so that, rather than the 1-2-4-7-11-16-22-29-37-46 progression of successes that instead each point of an epic attribute gets you one success if you're a Hero, two if you're a demigod, and three if you're a god. It makes taking on the tier above you massively hard, which I think is one of the intended things of the base system, but it means you don't have to be within a point or so of your foe for it not to be a walkover either way, which is the end result of the current rules.

Many of the boons are niche or situational.

Indeed. Finding a use for them is partly the players responsibility (I have a vauge concept for a safecracking/demolitions based Scion who uses the benefits of the first boons in Fire and Earth so he can play happy go lucky with explosives), but certainly the ST should be putting in opportunities to make use of them.

It can be trying to keep multiple pantheons involved in order to keep each player's pantheon part of the story.

I think that varies from game to game, and depends on how important you want the patheon politicing to be in your game.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Remember that thing about loki eventualy starting ragnarok and odim eventualy dying in the claws/jaw of fenhir? That's Fate: those things will happen, like it or not.

You need to do greate things (gain more legend) and make bounds with people/supernatural beings in order to become stronger (go from scion to god), but once you get those bounds Fate can either be nice (greatest warrior stuff/survive the ragnarok) or bad (the Ragnarok, Achilles like vulnerability, etc).

So Fate only affects you when you become powerful? And what do you mean by bounds? Do you mean bonds? If so, what kind of bonds?

[Draxar]

So Fate only affects you when you become powerful?

Fate affects you vastly more when you become powerful. Pretty much whenever you spend legend points (the power points of the game), you have a chance to create a fatebond. You determine whether you do so by rolling your Legend (which is a measure of your overall power, generally). The difficulty varies, but more legend = more fatebonds. It's actually relatively difficult to form one at legend 2, whereas by 7 it's very easy.

A fatebond picks someone, a target of the action that caused the fatebond if possible, a bystander affected if not. The duration of the fatebond depends on how many successes beyond the difficulty you get.

Once a fatebond is formed, fate itself will ensure that the fated and the Scion keep on running into each other. If the fated dude is a mortal, they take on an archetypical role – the 'canary' who bad stuff happens to first, someone who wants to be your best friend, their nemesis, and so forth. They behave according to this role (which are broad enough for doing so to not be an utter straightjacket, while still quite possibly out of character for them), believing that it's their own choice and reasons to do so.

Then, whenever they're around, when the Scion does something that resonates with the bond, when they accept the help of their 'Best Friend' in fighting off the big bad, when they agree to a one on one duel with their Nemesis, they gain extra dice to the roll based on the strength of the bond. Going against the bond – abandoning your best friend, ignoring or behaving positively to your nemesis – they take penalties. If they let those positive role bonded to them die without trying to help, they lose legend points, if they fail to defeat negative role bonded to them, they lose willpower.

More Legend means more bonds, and stronger bonds. Which means fate is suddenly dictating which actions are harder and easier, and who you must save and who you must defeat.

But if you are a Scion, you will get drawn into great events. The nature of fate draws you into it – it's like being a TV show character. You can retreat from the world, but events will draw you back out. And to increase your Legend, you must perform greater and greater deeds, and become known, and respected (or feared).

The other part of fate is Prophecy, which is (I think) what Arakune is refering to. Prophecy is a Boon that lets you know what is coming, what events will occur, so you can prepare for them. But the act of seeing fixes those events into fate such that they will happen.

If you use Prophecy and see titanspawn killing your mother, you might be able to prepare for the attack, save your sister, kill those that killed your mother. But your mother will die, there is nothing you can do about that.

The problem that faces Odin is that he has used Prophecy again, and again, and again, and again, and again, to find out what comes at Ragnarok. He has gained useful information from doing so. But he now knows when he, Thor, Loki, and all the others will die, and where, and why, and by whom. He's nailed everything down so that there's no room to manuver, and when Ragnarok comes, effectively all he can do is watch as he and the others go through their now predetermined paths.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Spoiler

Show

Except Odin's found a way to weasel out of his apportioned fate by switching his mind with Vidar's at the last minute. Or so TV Tropes claims.

[Kylarra]

Spoiler

Show

Except Odin's found a way to weasel out of his apportioned fate by switching his mind with Vidar's at the last minute. Or so TV Tropes claims.

Yeah, that's in the Ragnarok storyline.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Well, a friend of mine got Hero...but we live in different states, so that doesn't help ME that much.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

One other thing that's been bugging me lately, so I'd like some clarification if that's possible. I assume playing a charater and acting as Storyteller at the same time is the same sort of faux pas it would be in a D&D game?

[Kylarra]

One other thing that's been bugging me lately, so I'd like some clarification if that's possible. I assume playing a charater and acting as Storyteller at the same time is the same sort of faux pas it would be in a D&D game?

For the most part, yes.

[grautry]

Scion has some cool ideas but it's mechanically.... problematic.

Generally speaking(at least on Hero level, Demigod+ gets a little better about it) Epic Attributes are vastly better than Boons.

Now, as mentioned - about Epic Attributes' ridiculous number of successes at Demigod and higher level. You've got two approaches that you can take here:
1) You accept that Epic Attributes work as mentioned and that someone with Epic Strength 7 is simply unable to compete with someone who has Epic Strength 9.

The advantage of this is fluff related. In this system if you are a god of combat then you are absolutely untouchable by any other being in the combat department(unless that other being is also a god of combat of some kind). If someone wants to beat you, then they're going to have to figure out a clever way around your strengths - they are not going to beat you in a direct fight because your advantages are simply mechanically unbeatable.

If this is the sort of fluff that you like, then you can run with Epic Attributes as they stand.
2) You can scale down Epic Attributes. This is the choice I'd make - making Epic Attributes go 1-2-4-6-8-10... - but secondary benefits would remain as they stand(so, someone with Epic Stamina would still get the ridiculously huge benefits in the department of "not eating" or "not sleeping" but their soak would match Epic Strength and someone with Epic Strength 10 could still lift the Empire State Building but their damage in combat would be lower).

Hero level plays the same but Demigod+ level becomes more reasonable.

Second, Firearms suck. There's no attribute to add to damage(like Epic Strength does for melee) so Firearms are going to fall behind as you level up. You can fix it by making Epic Perception work for Firearms like Epic Strength works for melee(but don't make Epic Dexterity add to damage - Dex is awesome enough already).

Third, social characters sort of inherit the same problems that Exalted has. That is, you don't want to listen to Aphrodite? Roll Join Battle, spend WP and knock her face in. And there's practically nothing she can do about it, social-wise.

Fourth, there are some individual problematic abilities. The most famous example is probably Untouchable Opponent(Knack) - it massively increases your DV for a scene making you, as the name implies, untouchable(it doubles the benefit from Epic Dexterity defensively but there's no corresponding Knack to increase your offence).

Next, there's very little support for the setting. White Wolf has screwed up in that a massive amount of space is spent on pre-generated characters and the pre-generated story. So, if you're not interested in that, about 1/4 of each book is a complete waste of space.

Generally speaking, Scion is an okay(after some fixes) but there are systems that are better. If you really want to play gods, I'd recommend Nobilis. If you want to play Heroes&Demigods, I'd recommend Mutants and Masterminds(just change the fluff).

[Kylarra]

Actually, depending on how you look at it, some of the social knacks are just flat out broken. Of course, they can be used against you as a player after you use them that way, but still...

[grautry]

Actually, depending on how you look at it, some of the social knacks are just flat out broken. Of course, they can be used against you as a player after you use them that way, but still...

Hmmm... Maybe. It's been a while since I've read the books.

Oh, another complaint I could leverage against the game. Sure, your characters(with Epic Attributes) can get to 20 or 30 or 50 automatic successes to every roll in the relevant attribute.

The problem with that is that you don't really know what that actually means. This is especially apparent in the Social/Mental attributes(physical ones get better support).

Say, one of your players wants to use Epic Perception to see the surface of Jupiter with the precision of the best telescopes. Or to see things at microscopic level - or even better, he wants to see freaking electrons. Or maybe he wants to judge if someone is lying by listening to their heartbeats. Or maybe he wants to enhance his Sherlock Scan by determining what kind of bacteria are there on someone.

You have no idea, absolutely whatsoever, how many successes should such an action take. So, let's say that your players wants to do that Sherlock Scan. You're reliant only on your own judgement by how many successes would that take. 10? 20? 50? Outright impossible? Who knows?

Maybe one of the supplements addressed some of those concerns(to be exact: I've heard that there are some pretty good rules for inventing stuff) but as far as I remember, there wasn't much in that area in the original books.

EDIT: Adding to that: frankly, Scion really works best at Hero level. If you want to go to Demigod or God then you'll have to really jump through hoops to make it work.

At Hero, it can certainly work.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Hmm...judging by what you say, it doesn't sound THAT hard to work with Demigod and God. I mean, I've read Gilgamesh, and in there they're swinging around 200 pound axes like children's toys (it even says so in the poem!) I'd assume I just use that sort of idea that things are officially Beyond The Impossible and plan accordingly. They've beaten the weaker little monsters, and now it's time to move on to the Humbabas and the Bulls of Heaven in the world.