Help me to not hate Scion

[wotmaniac]

my roommate has a huge hard-on for Scion, and is insisting on running a game.
Except, I don't have the heart to tell him how much I hate it. It's not the system (that's tolerable enough) -- this issue for me is that the clash of genres is just way too jarring.

Is there something that I'm missing? Is there some way of looking at this thing that doesn't make me hate it quite so bad?

thanks.

[Archmage]

Is there something that I'm missing? Is there some way of looking at this thing that doesn't make me hate it quite so bad

No. And no.

Mechanically, anyway. The fluff may or may not be to your taste, but the mechanics are standard nonsensical White Wolf drivel.

[Prak]

What genres are clashing to your distaste? I almost played a PBP game, and have heard plenty of stories from a friend, it sounds like fun. Basically you run around and kill monsters. It's somewhere between Kevin Sorbo Hercules and God of War, just set in the modern world.

[Silent Wayfarer]

Is there something that I'm missing? Is there some way of looking at this thing that doesn't make me hate it quite so bad

No. And no.

Mechanically, anyway. The fluff may or may not be to your taste, but the mechanics are standard nonsensical White Wolf drivel.

It's more like they took the already flawed Exalted 2e iteration and FUCKED IT UP SOME MORE.

[Archmage]

It's more like they took the already flawed Exalted 2e iteration and FUCKED IT UP SOME MORE.

It's Exalted without the perfect defenses and the combo system. If somebody wants a really detailed review I can probably be convinced to put one up later.

[CapnTthePirateG]

Please?

[angelfromanotherpin]

The largest problem with Scion is balance between player characters - stuff that costs the same in terms of resources to acquire is nowhere near guaranteed to be roughly similar in level of function.

The most extreme example is someone who starts with Legend 4, Epic Strength 3, Epic Dexterity 3, Epic Stamina 3, Epic Appearance 1, who can simply grab 32 XP and hit Legend 5, which gives him the Demigod template and another 10 dots of free Epic Attributes. Someone who started at Legend 2 or 3 and spent his bonus points buying up Abilities and Backgrounds would need to spend about an order of magnitude more experience points to hit the same level of competence, and by the time he does that, the other guy is a full-blown God with another 10 free points of Epic Attributes.

On the individual powers level, the higher up the Legend scale you go, the bigger the difference between each level of Epic Attribute. If an enemy has one more point of Epic Dexterity than you, or one more point of Epic Stamina than you have Epic Strength, it's almost impossible to beat them... which makes the first issue above even more annoying.

Unless you have a group full of min-maxers, these things will almost assuredly crop up and cause player capability issues. If you DO have a group full of min-maxers, everyone will run exactly the same build, because there is only one path to REAL ULTIMATE POWER in Scion.

[Archmage]

So here're the basics of Scion.

Setting:

Woefully undescribed in the core book, if you care about that sort of thing. The premise is that some people ("Scions") are infused with the power of deities from various mythologies. They are engaged in an eternal war with beings known as the Titans. The World is their battleground. That's pretty much all you get. But we're not on TGD to review fluff for the most part, we're here to mercilessly dissect poor game design. So...

Core Mechanics:

Standard WoD dicepools--with a twist, namely "epic attributes."

Like Essence in Exalted, Scion characters essentially have a "level" stat (Legend). The game is actually broken up into three tiers: Hero, Demi-god, and God. There's been a lot of discussion around here about tiering advancement, so this sounds like a great idea on its face. However, Scion uses standard White Wolf linear costs at chargen to triangular costs at advancement, for the most part, and Legend isn't level, it's just another attribute. Yes, it's expensive, but the fact remains that a PC can essentially buy his way into Demi-god when the rest of the party is still at Hero, depending on how XP gets spent, and advancement to Demi-god comes with...a bunch of free stat boosts. It isn't even really a choice between power now and power later--Legend gives you a pool of points that are spent both to power certain abilities and to reroll failures, so it's better to just buy Legend both short-term and long-term.

For reference, Legend starts at 2.

In addition to the standard attribute dots, Scion characters have "epic attribute" dots, which contribute automatic successes. Your cap for epic attributes is one less than your Legend score. Epic attributes quickly go to crazytown, because it's not one success per point--it's one success if you have Epic 1, two successes for Epic 2, four successes for Epic 3...in a dicepool system where one die is worth about 1/3rd of a success. As the review angelfromanotherpin quoted indicates, at some point this means that anyone who has one more point worth of epic attribute than you do totally blows you off the RNG; an adversary with Epic Stat 4 gets 7 autosuccesses, so if you have Epic Stat 3 and are only getting 4, you'd need to have a "regular" dicepool with nine more dice to have a real chance. That's not happening.

Each point of epic attribute you purchase also comes with a free bonus ability called a Knack. Knacks range from stupidly awesome (you can convince literally anyone of anything with no roll required, as long as they aren't a Scion with a specific counter-ability) to fluffy and pointless (you can do any mathematical calculation imaginable in your head in seconds). You-save-or-lose (or just "you lose") abilities are right next to "go without food for twice as long."

The splats are broken up by pantheon (Greek, Norse, Egyptian, Japanese, etc.) and then subdivided into which god is actually your character's patron, but this is mostly a flavor choice because you can buy abilities from other pantheons, they just cost slightly more. If you are really trying to squeeze out maximum efficiency you'll pick a god associated with the powers you want your character to have.

Boons are essentially magical abilities that are totally separate from Knacks--they're the game's equivalent of Disciplines or Spheres or whatever and are purchased by the dot. In standard White Wolf fashion, you may have to buy a bunch of dots in some Boon to get the ability you actually want, and abilities that you get 3 dots in are not necessarily better than abilities you get for 1 dot. Boons cost more if they aren't associated with your patron deity, but you can actually buy whatever you want without restriction unless it's one of the Boons that is specifically restricted to a particular pantheon. Because this is a White Wolf game, the power to make people sterile or restore fertility to the barren costs the same number of points as the ability to fly for a scene. Birthrights are miscellaneous bonuses: Magical relics that are either mandatory for you to use your Boons or just plain badass magical items, followers, contacts, et cetera.

Most Boons are pretty weak. Epic Attributes are almost always better, especially since each point of Epic Attribute comes with a FREE Knack. Knacks are frequently better than Boons, for better or for worse, because you can pick and choose Knacks and have to buy Boons in order...and they're just generally better abilities. They just are. You can also use Knacks even if you don't possess a relic/birthright that allows you to channel the power in question, so no one can take them away from you. A lot of Knacks are just plain good (auto-win initiative! Ignore enemy armor bonuses! Double your Epic Dexterity's contribution to your defense value! Render a target unable to act as long as you maintain eye contact and don't do anything else!), and you only have to buy the ones you want (for the most part).

Combat time works on the wheel/tick system from Exalted, where every action has a speed that defines how many ticks will pass before you can act again. It's trivial to buy a magic weapon at character creation that has Speed 1, allowing you to act every tick and getting four or five times more actions than anyone who hasn't done the same. Also, there's both a damage roll and a soak roll for some reason, just like Exalted. The game operates on a Stunt system...just like Exalted, complete with "stunts recover Willpower." But, again, unlike Exalted, Perfect Defenses don't exist. So if someone's epic attributes exceed yours, you probably go splat when somebody takes a swing at you, and if your epic attributes exceed theirs, you're basically untouchable. Save-or-dies are generally effective, but some of them automatically fail if the target's Legend exceeds the user's. This is in a White Wolf system where most characters are going to be min-maxed for either combat or social skills and therefore will be completely useless outside of their specialization, because you just don't get enough points to be competitive at everything otherwise since even tiny differences in Legend or epic attributes make a huge difference in effectiveness.

Random Flavor/Mechanics Mismatch Stuff:

The iconic characters are all carrying firearms, and I have no idea why. Technically, they halve benefits from armor that doesn't have the "bulletproof" tag, but that's not exactly rare--the stock "bulletproof vest" armor qualifies, and you can bet any magic armor worth its salt is going to have the same ability. Also, there are weapons with the "piercing" quality that halve armor bonuses period. Guns don't add bonus damage from Epic Strength. Epic Strength scales up really, really fast. If you think the fact that you have to close to melee or whatever is a problem--it really isn't, because a Scion built to do something like throw knives is a much better ranged combatant than a Scion built to be a sharpshooter, even before we take into account the fact that armor-piercing, Speed 1 magical returning throwing knives are totally a possibility. Also, most good melee weapons give you a DV boost for wielding them, so...yeah. Wield a khopesh with one hand, use it to parry enemy blows, and with your other hand quick-draw knives or throwing spears or something. with Epic Strength you can achieve ridiculous throwing ranges, so why not?

Of course, past a certain point character lift and carry capacity with Epic Strength becomes absurd, so rather than fighting with hand weapons the best thing to do is probably to rip up the biggest piece of scenery and use it as an improvised weapon. This is epic and kind of neat, but unfortunately the game rules don't provide great guidelines for how much damage a telephone pole deals.

There is a bunch of stuff in the book about the Threads of Fate and Telling Epic Stories and whatnot that does not in any way improve the game mechanically. Characters can become "fatebound" to other PCs and NPCs and that causes stuff to happen.

So the game is, like Exalted, hypothetically supposed to be about doing epic shit and punching epic monsters in the face, but the combat system generally sucks and the social system is predictably non-functional (you have supernatural manipulation powers and you just flat-out win, or you don't and you probably lose). Balance is largely non-existent and there are very few objective benchmarks as to how many successes tasks are supposed to require, which is a huge problem in a game where characters are going to routinely get 3+ successes thanks to epic attributes, even at Hero level (okay, so you get 8 successes, what the fuck does that actually allow you to do?).

What else do you want to know?

Addendum:

If you want the game to be playable at all, "Legend is not buyable with XP" is a mandatory fix. Legend needs to be "Level," and it needs to be "plot advancement only," with all the PCs fixed at the same Legend score and only getting increases through MC fiat at dramatically-appropriate junctures.

[CapnTthePirateG]

So how do the monsters/enemies work? Can a guy with no idea how the system works build someone competent to fight dudes, or no?

(I've never played any WW games because I read this board.)

[Archmage]

Scion combat works like so:

Attacker rolls dicepool (Dexterity + Skill). Add auto-successes from Epic Dex.
Defender's Dodge DV is fixed at (Dex + Athletics skill + Legend)/2. Epix Dex adds to this value.
Alternately, Parry DV is (Dex + Weapon skill + Weapon's DV modifier)/2. Epic Dex adds to this value.

Ultimately, whether you want to Dodge or Parry depends on your build and the attack; some stuff is tagged as "undodgeable" or "unblockable" and so you're forced to use whichever defense will actually work.

Realistically, you are going to describe your attack/defense and get a stunt bonus. The bare minimum description beyond "I do X" is worth one die, and you should probably take the time to describe your character doing something cool and interacting with the setting/scenery because that's worth two. Three die stunts require you to stun everyone at the table with the awesomeness of your extemporaneous description of how cool your character is and are not reliably going to happen, so two-die stunts are pretty much the benchmark. Stunting doesn't increase DV unless you spend an action doing nothing but defending yourself and stunt it (which you probably don't want to do), but you can't use Parry when you're unarmed against a lethal weapon unless you stunt, so if you need to stunt that, you do.

If you hit, your damage dice pool is (Strength dots + Weapon damage modifier + net successes + 1). You roll that many dice. That many wound levels are inflicted, but are then directly reduced by soak. Characters have 7 wound levels and suffer penalties to basically everything except soak if they are already wounded.

I am assuming that when you say "no system mastery" that the player at the bare minimum understands that they should max out or nearly max out the size of their dicepools for things they want to be good at. A starting character who wants to be good at combat probably has Dex 4 or 5 and Epic Dex as high as they can get, which is 1 or 2 depending on the game's rules for starting Legend. Then they probably have Skill 4-5. Many melee weapons get a +1 accuracy bonus for whatever reason. Tack on an expected two-die stunt and the attacker dicepool is probably something like 10-12 dice, plus 1-2 automatic successes, for an average of about 5 successes. That same character has probably got Athletics 4 or so and consequently the Dodge DV for them to hit themself would be something like (Dex 5 + Athletics 4 + Legend 2)/2 = 6, because Scions round up, +2 for the Epic Dex, so that's 8.

So as you can see, a well-built combat character spends a lot of time flailing and not hitting his mirror image. You can, however, spend a point of Legend to reroll, which helps. Also, you can spend Willpower to add anywhere from 1-5 dice, and anyone who does basically anything loses at least one point of DV until their next action, so if you actually want to clobber someone it's more like 6-7 successes versus DV 7. However, you can see how this can get out of hand with higher values for Epic Dex (people who don't have it can't hit people who do, but they always hit people who don't, and when both characters have it defense still wins out because there's a Knack that doubles Epic Dex's contribution to DV). Also, DV is penalized for each attack directed at you (and each attacker beyond the first), so eventually in a gangbang somebody is going to get through and land a blow. It's pretty easy to get situational modifiers that are worth +1 or -1 DV, which is seriously the equivalent of three dice, so you want to do those things (like have high ground--or be flying, which penalizes the DV of anyone who isn't flying that you attack by 2).

I don't actually have a "monster manual" for Scion, although I'm sure stats for antagonists are given somewhere (there are a few in the core book). The sample "combat" characters have 4s and 5s in their physical attributes and epic attributes to back those up that are appropriate for their Legend score, though (but I still can't figure out why so many of them are running around with guns when they have Epic Strength).

Keep in mind that there's no "CR" or other guidelines as to what is "level-appropriate" for characters to fight, it's all eyeballed. But in general anything that isn't face-punching (i.e. social/mind control tricks) will either flat-out fail against anyone with a higher Legend score or fail because they can spend a Willpower to negate it. So the only way to fight "superior opposition" is face-punching, which works if their face-punching skills are inferior to yours and probably doesn't otherwise.

[Silent Wayfarer]

So how do the monsters/enemies work? Can a guy with no idea how the system works build someone competent to fight dudes, or no?

(I've never played any WW games because I read this board.)

If by some great stroke of luck he decides to max out Strength and go all Kratos on people... maybe.

Main thing is that unlike Exalted, soak is considered autosuccesses here and damage is rolled. So actual combat is not very conclusive since against any reasonable opposition, you do minimal to no damage.

[Prak]

If I recall correctly, Kratos is basically a beginning character in Scion rules.

[Koumei]

At least it's really simply to optimise for I guess. "Take maximum Legend, this isn't even optional. Then maximum Epic Attributes in your favourite ones. As an afterthought, have those Attributes (and the Skills you want to use with them) be good. Backgrounds are really cheap, so grab yourself some kind of awesome relic item that hits at Speed 1, and some decent armour. Have a nice nap for the remaining 55 minutes of the hour allocated for character creation."

[Username17]

Also remember that if you are the child of a major god, you get a discount on more things than if you are the child of a lesser god.

Favored Abilities of Xipe Totec are Craft, Fortitude, Integrity, Larceny, Medicine and Survival.
Xipe Totec's associated powers are Epic Stamina, Death, Fertility, Guardian, Health and Itztli.

Favored Abilities of Huitzilopochtli are Athletics, Awareness, Brawl, Marksmanship, Melee and Thrown.
Huitzilopochtli's associated powers are Epic Strength, Epic Stamina, Epic Charisma, Animal (Hummingbird, Eagle), Death, Guardian, Sun, War, Magic and Itztli.

The game doesn't even try to be balanced. It's like Percy Jackson - being the scion of greater god just makes you better and being the scion of a lesser god makes you objectively not as good.

-Username17

[Silent Wayfarer]

If I recall correctly, Kratos is basically a beginning character in Scion rules.

He's very Epic Attribute-focused. But yes, essentially he is just a scaled up Scion. Everything else is just parts ripped off of various monsters. In fact, my first Scion was a Kratos clone, the Undergrad of War.

Boons in Hero are shitty for the most part, but Boons in Demigod and God can be amazing. Of course, you have to take EVERY SINGLE BOON IN ORDER to get to the higher echelons of Boon power.

IIRC Tsukumo-gami for the Jap pantheon was a pretty good one, if only for the L3 Boon Power that let you awaken items' spirits (repeatedly) to get ricockulous amounts of bonus dice from them.

[wotmaniac]

What genres are clashing to your distaste? [...] It's somewhere between Kevin Sorbo Hercules and God of War, just set in the modern world.

Just that -- in my mind's eye, I just cannot wrap my head around the idea of Hercules running around modern-day Chicago. It kinda reminds me of the complete abortion that was Masters of the Universe.


As far as mechanics go, we've done a little tinkering:
- increased the CharGen cost of Legend by 1 (thus eliminating the possibility of Legend-4 characters at CharGen) ;
- eliminated the free knacks that you get every single time you add a dot to an Epic Attribute (good god -- what were they thinking?)
- continuously play whack-a-mole with problematic knacks (I'm looking at you, Untouchable Opponent)

When you play the game, it really does feel like you're playtesting a beta (fuck -- sometimes an alpha, for that matter). On the surface, it seems like simply a re-skin of Aberrant ... but the deeper you dig, the more you realize that this game is significantly devolved from its predecessor.

[Silent Wayfarer]

As far as mechanics go, we've done a little tinkering:
- increased the CharGen cost of Legend by 1 (thus eliminating the possibility of Legend-4 characters at CharGen) ;
- eliminated the free knacks that you get every single time you add a dot to an Epic Attribute (good god -- what were they thinking?)
- continuously play whack-a-mole with problematic knacks (I'm looking at you, Untouchable Opponent)

Don't forget to address the Legend 5 Powerup issue. Boons need to be better too, IMO.

[Prak]

What genres are clashing to your distaste? [...] It's somewhere between Kevin Sorbo Hercules and God of War, just set in the modern world.

Just that -- in my mind's eye, I just cannot wrap my head around the idea of Hercules running around modern-day Chicago. It kinda reminds me of the complete abortion that was Masters of the Universe.

Really? Ok, think of it like Supernatural, you're just playing on the angel level. You run around backroads America and kill monsters. It's just that you've got wings or super strength. Or hell, you're Wonder Woman/Thor/Hellboy/Raven. Seriously. Fuck, I'll bet more than a few modern action heroes could be built as simply low power scions.

That's what I get from it, anyway. It's all about running around killing monsters, and you're a superhero, just minus the spandex.

[Username17]

Scion is conceptually almost exactly Percy Jackson: the RPG. You play Percy Jackson, or one of his cousins/friends. It is a White Wolf game, so they try to make it "more mature" in the way that comics of the late nineties were made "more mature" - people are drawn by Rob Liefeld and bleed a lot. Also: there are swear words.

That is pretty much the beginning and end of Scion's conceptual pitch. You're doing Percy Jackson as envisioned by the "hard edge" writers and artists of 1998. So: Wonder Woman from the New 52 run.

That being said, whether that concept gels with you at all, the mechanics of Scion are absolutely horrible and the world fluff is essentially non-existant. Scion is an abortion, but I believe that the conceptual pitch probably would have had legs if it had been written by other people.

-Username17

[Ancient History]

Yeah, the whole "you play a demi-god" angle definitely has appeal and some story potential - look at Hercules: The Legendary Journeys or American Gods. Or, better yet, look at Jack Kirby's 4th World stuff.

[Prak]

wotcmaniac, I'm basically going to boil it down to the same advice I gave... whoever it was asking about a system for Hellboy: if you've got a game you can play, unless the people are utter cockbags, or the system makes you shit blood, give it a shot. Game with crap system/fluff is better than no game. At least, it is around here, where there's fuck all to do and few games to play in.

[Roog]

What genres are clashing to your distaste? [...] It's somewhere between Kevin Sorbo Hercules and God of War, just set in the modern world.

Just that -- in my mind's eye, I just cannot wrap my head around the idea of Hercules running around modern-day Chicago. It kinda reminds me of the complete abortion that was Masters of the Universe.

Try Hercules in New York

[Josh_Kablack]

It kinda reminds me of the complete abortion that was Masters of the Universe.

look at Jack Kirby's 4th World stuff.

+1 to AH for the subtlest dig yet posted on the Den.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masters_of ... urth_World

[Koumei]

wotcmaniac, I'm basically going to boil it down to the same advice I gave... whoever it was asking about a system for Hellboy: if you've got a game you can play, unless the people are utter cockbags, or the system makes you shit blood, give it a shot. Game with crap system/fluff is better than no game. At least, it is around here, where there's fuck all to do and few games to play in.

This is generally true. Now, I hate "people" in the general sense, so any "Hey want to go meet these new people and play (game you don't like)?" is going to be met with "hahaha no". But "Greetings, your eminence Lady Koumei von Lezzington the third*, would you like to join us for tea, coffee and (game you don't like)?" I'd say yes. And I'd have fun with my friends. It's a big part of how I enjoyed Mage, despite not liking the system, setting or designers. Most people will enjoy bad games (that aren't offensively bad) with friends. I mean, look at the Wii.

And well, it's an okay premise (nothing special unless you love the genre I guess), so if you're with friends you can probably ignore the awful rules. Or at least look past them. Just make an awesomely competent character and go to town. Remember that it's a WW game so you're supposed to be covered in piercings and tattoos and fucking absolutely everyone who you aren't murdering - and even then, that's no guarantee.

*Should I add an "incorporated" to the end of that?

[fectin]

I'd go with 'DDG.' it looks like an obscure doctorate; it's actually a warship.