I've long had a love-hate relationship with Scion. It was the last ever White Wolf game I ever bought*, and I long felt it was, mechanically, the very best you could get out of WW when it came to high powered play (compared to the train wrecks of Aberrant and Exalted... mechanically). I still find it reasonably evocative, though I do find its insistence on being presented as the worlds most obnoxious game module somewhat irritating.
Recently I've been doing some 'deep reading' on such weighty subjects as the Illiad and the Odyssey, along with a somewhat broader overview of ancient history, at least in the Western Tradition.**
Which reminds me of a long suffering complaint I've buried about Scion, which is to say just how BADLY it seems to treat its source material. This is Mythology By TV Tropes.
I'm going to focus on the Dodecahedron for the moment, though I could expand my critique to all the pantheons... at the cost of making a very, very long first post.
Now a critical question is raised by merely the thought of critiquing ALL the pantheons, namely: how much accuracy can be sacrificed in making an adaption, specifically in this case, a Game.
For example: The Greek Gods are in many ways defined by their Immortality. I know, the casual idea is that they are defined by their essential humanity (drinking and fornicating and all that...), but if we look to the Illiad (which is, after all a deeply moving meditation on Mortality), we can see that to the very ancient Greeks at least, we can say in many ways that the proper concept is: They are Just Like People who don't die.
Its that last clause that is the separation between man and God. Indeed, the greek word for God in the Illiad was, I understand*** 'Undying'.
Contrast that with the Aesir****. In so many ways the Aesir function just like the Dodecahedron. They are very very human in so many ways. But quite unlike the Dodecahedron, the Aesir are very much mortal. Not only CAN they die, they most explicitly WILL die.
Obviously some concession to differences of cultural values have to be made in order to unify the existence of these two pantheons in one game ruleset. Well, maybe not entirely obviously, but for Scion. And honestly, the setting doesn't exactly suffer for unifying various divine war myths into a sort of ur-mythology.
So where exactly is the complaint then?
Well, aside from many out and out distasteful 'post modern' reinterpretations of various mythological figures... many of which I've thankfully put out of mind in the last few years... it actually comes down to, first, the utter shallowness of the treatment of the various pantheons, and the scholarship that suggests. To be honest, this sort of game probably appeals most to myth-geeks like myself, so mishandling the material is just an absolute failure to understand your potential market.
Now, you might be saying: But Spike! This is only a game book, there is only so much room to handle...
Stop. Just stop.
The very first complaint I put in this post, the very first concrete critique I made, was that the entire game line was structured like some damn adventure module. What that means is that something very like HALF of all the pages produced for Scion over its four books (five counting the Ragnarok alternate adventure path book), is a wastefully lame regenerated adventure for regenerated characters... one that is not terribly detailed for all its bulk.
Imagine how much more room you'd have to actually treat the Gods as an important part of the setting if you just cut that down to a managable size?
Compounding this, and getting more into the meat of my current thoughts, is the horribly artificial cookie cutter battering the Pantheons took. For reasons I can only speculate on, an exact number of gods is shown, filling a very basic but repetitive set of roles for each very different Pantheon. Each Pantheon gets four virtues, chosen from a set of 12 virtues.... representing approximately six Pairs of virtues. This isn't explicit, but for example you would see EITHER Valor OR Courage in a Virtue set, not both.
Now, the Virtues are probably the fastest 'problem' to deal with here. This cookie cutter, and I should state very 'modern american' take on the entire concept of Virtues, further makes the Pantheons very similar in the end, and robs them of their innate character.
Take again the Dodecahedron. Their listed virtues are Expression, Valor, Intellect and Vengeance.
Now certainly we can find examples of greek literature and myth that glorify these 'virtues'. If nothing else the Orestia covers Vengeance, and the Mycenaeans would appear to cover Valor... or perhaps Courage...
See, that's just it. These are fairly generic 'virtues', pooled and stripped of character, that could be assigned just about anywhere, and then reassigned to the pantheons presented in some sort of half assed attempt to give them back what was stripped of them. Its Virtue-Pablum.
Where, for example is Kleos? Glory? That's not a virtue in Scion, but it sure as hell was a primary virtue in the Illiad. We could in fact call it reputation, but Glory works. Where is Honor? Again, its not in the list of virtues in Scion, but I'm sure we could point to any number of mythic cultures that would put that as a primary virtue. Maybe the Amatsukami?
Where then is Xenia? Where is the ancient and wildly popular (in fiction as well) concept of Hospitality as a virtue? Hmm???
And while I'm on the topic, why not include a bit on how different cultures, with different virtues, saw the same gods? Why is there not a serious treatment of the Roman take on the Dodecahedron? Why not a list of the Roman Virtues (Ironically enough listed at four...) of Gravitas, Magnanimity, Peitas and*****
Where was I? Hmm... footnoting and eating some Szechuan Pork has distracted me from my original point, significantly.
Eh. Well, I've hammered the ham handed way Virtues were treated and I've vaguely discussed how shallow and, well, forcibly reprocessed to fit some goofy artistic 'consistency' the selection of the gods themselves was, I suppose I can handle a brief discussion of the divine Purviews as well. Then I'll try a brief rundown of how, perhaps, a game of Demigods might have gone to be more in like with the mythology, allowing some weighty depth to the game.
Now, as amusing as it might be to focus on the Aesir's divine power of being reverse vampires, Ima stick with the greek for a moment. The Dodecahedron's Power is Arete, or Excellence. Amusingly, given the above critique of virtue... Arete is, in fact, a Virtue in ancient greek society.
There seems to be something fundamentally flawed to me about giving the gods a specific power of Arete. Oh, mechanically it makes perfect sense, a sort of way of giving the Gods something that sets them beyond mortals in ability. Of course, only giving it to ONE pantheon might be horribly lopsided. Let me explain the mechanics here briefly.
Divine attributes, available to all the Gods, give a fixed number of automatic successes, based on how high the attribute (in the divine aspect), ranging from one to, I believe, 24 at the top end. They grow pretty quickly. In this respect the Gods are fairly evenly matched against one another. Two Gods of Strength can see at a glance that they are equal, or unequal, and since your maximum level of divine attribute is linked to your 'level' of divinity, we can state that, within his areas of expertise, a powerhouse like Zeus can reliably stomp over a comparatively puny godling like... oh... Thetis. Why? Because Zeus has got all 24 automatic successes in any number of attributes, while Thetis is rocking maybe 17 in her very best. That's not even getting into divine portfolios and artifacts.
Enter Arete. Arete scales just like a divine attribute, but for a skill. So while, say, Thor, may be rocking a nice solid 24 auto success to whack you with Mjolnir, Ares is rocking up to 48 automatic successes to stab you with a spear. And Thetis, with her cap of a mere 17 may get up to 34 if she has Arete in the relevant skill. Thus we can see that the Dodecahedron Godlings can curb stomp, reliably, even the chief gods of other Pantheons. Oh sure, there are other factors to consider, especially at the top end, but Arete, being limited to one Pantheon, is something of a game breaker as written. Greek Gods and Demigods, even the still mostly human Scions, are all punching way above their weight class in their areas of choice.
Now, mechanical failings aside, as I noted, Arete... at least in a more traditional sense, is out of place being a divine power. The Gods don't need Arete, they're GODS. By definition all they do is excellent, compared to mortal works.
But as a general rule, all the Pantheon Specific Purviews fail on one of two levels. They are either unevocative of the pantheon itself (Arete...), or they are a mechanical mess*! with lots of color (Cheval comes to mind here). Its almost as if the more iconic the pantheon's power, the less the designers knew what to do with it!
Which takes us back to the beginning. Fundamentally the entire Scion line fails, mechanically or presentationally, to deliver its core mission: Make the Gods interesting. They HAVE to be interesting because the players are supposed to connect to their divine parent on some level, and the way Scion handles it is to make the divine parent something of line entry on a character sheet, then hand all the heavy lifting off to the GM.
Just for fun, contrast the pantheons presented in Scion with the Amberites in, well, Amber...
* Not entirely true. I bought the recent Demon book, but I never had a serious intention of playing it. Scion was the last WW product I bought to enjoy.
** I'll get to the Eastern ancient history... again... soon enough.
*** I have a long long list of languages I'd love to learn. Ancient Greek doesn't really make the list. Maybe if I live forever I'll get around to it. Or a Round Tuit, either way.
**** Technically the Aesir and the Vanir, which even Scion managed to get right, but that takes too long to say repeatedly.
***** Curse my shitty memory. I have, on any number of occasions, heard reference to FOUR virtues in specific, of which I can reliably remember Gravitas, and occasionally remember one or two others. Today, in fact, I was just listening to an audio-book course that referenced these four. Yet the internet insists on giving me lists of about twenty or thirty, no less. Never four. I'm not about to put in an hour of revisiting Virgil and the Golden Age of Roman literature just for a crappy RPG critique that is years after it's sell by date, so fuck you if you want the full list.
*! I explained that poorly. Cheval is incredibly evocative as powers go, but compared to, for example the mechanical advantage of Arete, its very weak, more noticeably so as you rise in power. Its almost a hinderance to level Cheval. Eitr is both somewhat boring (boost a beast, boost a man, boost beast more, boost a man more, repeat to ten), and is wildly out of tune with the Aesir of real world, but like Arete, it does work. So you get iconic grab bags or clear functional power sets that don't actually represent the pantheon? I dunno... I've spent too much time on this as it is.
EDIT TO ADD:::: Because this is more than too long, I felt I could lengthen it by actually attempting to list out some proper virtues for the Dodecahedron. Arete, Kleos (with Timai), Aidos, and in honor of Odysseus, Metis, or cunning. Given the reason for the suicide of Ajax, I feel that the Greeks had in fact elevated Metis over other, more 'traditional' virtues, so solid ground there. And I'm not even a classicist!
Small note: The Greek gods could die too. It was just usually more convoluted to pull off. Greek religion had a different focus than Norse. And the Norse gods were effectively immortal till Ragnarok. But under very different conditions. Same goes for Egyptian gods, etc.
Other small note: Aberrant as pretty good actually as long as you did not add that expansion book with all the high end game breaking powers.
First I'll start by stating that my reference to 'Undying' comes from a study of the Illiad and the rest of the Epic Cycle (Athena's utter indifference to ten years of Odysseus's life comes to mind here), which, at least in the case of the Illiad is utterly preoccupied with Mortality, and what it means, so may overstate the case of the Gods nature.
I'll accept that as a possibility, but you'll need to do more than a flyby to convince me that Greek Gods just keeled over willy-nilly when the conditions were right.
Exile to Tartarus is not the same thing as dying, in case you were to bring up the original Titanomachy in passing. Of course, I personally preference older sources to newer, contrast the epic cycle with, say, Jason and the Argonauts from the Hellenic Period. (not that I can think of any gods dying in Jason...).
In short: Citation Needed?
I didnt say they were unaging. Nor that they were concerned with mortals aging. Try again please.
I too said nothing about unaging, though I can see how you might have read that into the un-laconian reply.
Specifically: Show me Greek Gods Dying. Being Killed. Ending.
Well, complaining about Scion is really whipping a dead horse, but you're right about the game's issues:).
I need the exercise?
I've been going on something of a tour de force (and I know I've horribly misspelled that... damn french words...), of the Ancient Western World lately, diving deep into the Epics and then Philosophy and the Polis... I mean, I even broke out my copy of Thucydidies (Sp again?).
Im not entirely sure what made me think of Scion... I mean the last game book I read was Enemy Beyond for Dark Heresy II, but once I did...
Among other things, the WW crowd has always presented it as the literati set, speaking mostly of the designers and writers attitudes. Certainly fine mechanics haven't exactly been a selling point (Must resist urge to footnote!).
And of course, the entire point is that they did such a shallow, pathetic job on the actual intellectual material. Once I had what I was going over linked to Scion in my head, I had to exorcise the complaint by voicing it... and, well, I've also been trying to 'contribute' more as I get back into the forum thing.
Confluence of events and all that.
Hmm, well I tried studying Mage to see if it had an interesting magic system, and put it down and never picked up another White Wolf book again. Don't like.
So I don't even know what Scion is exactly, and don't really want to.
As for gods, though, it seems to me that most/all pre-modern religions (and most modern ones) in their original forms, mean their gods as metaphors and not as literal people, even though they may inspire or even possess people.
In the Illiad, even when a God goes to physically intervene, they "take the form of" some mortal person or animal or wind or something.
If deciding to make a literalist game, though, the Greek gods have quite a few distinctions from mortal people other than being immortal. Invisibility, illusion, transformation, flying, cursing, embodying entire concepts and natural forces, etc etc.
The Norse pantheon is also metaphorical. Even the sagas about giants and whatnot - the names of the giants mean things - they're allegories which useful messages about the human experience, not random combats between heroes and trolls and giants.
And death in pre-Judeo-Christian-Islamic cosmologies is just the cleansing part of the cycle of life. It's not a terminal end point. Birth and dying, life and death, day and night, summer and winter.
Quote from: Skarg;882287- the names of the giants mean things -
I increasingly find that if you really look at most cultures and the sort of stylized names we expect to see among, say American Indians (runs with wind, smells like teen spirit... that sort of thing), is actually the norm for just about everyone.
A lot of Japanese names actually mean things. Middle of Rice Paddy, Friendly Girl.
Then you can look at China. Number Ten Ox
And looking at the Illiad?
Well, apparently Odysseus's name can be read quite a few ways, but it generally breaks down to something like 'bringer of pain'.
I'm starting to think names without specific meanings are an aberration rather than the norm.
It's not just that their names mean things, it's that if you read a saga without knowing what the names mean, the story seems to be something like a random combat encounter:
Henkjankjaptha went viking, lost his way and met three giants names Globv, Henskarda, and Jigjapkilni. He did all this fighting, and though wounded in various ways and losing some named companions eventually using a variety of weapons and tactics killed the three giants and married someone name Ullulala. yay.
Or if you know the names, it's about a state of mind that struggles with various ideas and human emotions which lead to despair and suffering, but by working through them and sacrificing some unhelpful attachments and misconceptions, leads to a happier way of relating to life. (That's a hand-wave version - the actual ones are poetic and valuable wisdom for life that are relevant to people of any time.)
Sure, I've seen that in the norse sagas, though I don't think its quite that universal as to be a fundamental state of the gods themselves, rather than being a means in which they are used in some stories.
Rather similarly, I don't expect to say that the deep meditation on death that the Illiad is, or the repeated focus on Nostos in the Illiad and the Odyssy means that the greek gods are all about homecomings... if that rather too crude analogy makes sense. In both cases, more the Illiad, the Gods are used as literary devices but that doesn't mean the Gods were meant to be mere literary devices, right?
Quote from: Spike;881896I too said nothing about unaging, though I can see how you might have read that into the un-laconian reply.
Specifically: Show me Greek Gods Dying. Being Killed. Ending.
The only example I can think of is Pan as discussed by Plutarch. But even in that source, it was like a third-hand hearsay report.
But if you can't trust random aquatic voices, who CAN you trust?
Quote from: Spike;882291Then you can look at China. Number Ten Ox
Someone reads Barry Hughart! I love the adventures of Master Li and his faithful, burly servant Number Ten Ox. :)
Quote from: Spike;882291I increasingly find that if you really look at most cultures and the sort of stylized names we expect to see among, say American Indians (runs with wind, smells like teen spirit... that sort of thing), is actually the norm for just about everyone.
A lot of Japanese names actually mean things. Middle of Rice Paddy, Friendly Girl.
Then you can look at China. Number Ten Ox
And looking at the Illiad?
Well, apparently Odysseus's name can be read quite a few ways, but it generally breaks down to something like 'bringer of pain'.
I'm starting to think names without specific meanings are an aberration rather than the norm.
It would be an aberration
if we could find examples of names without meaning:).
http://www.behindthename.com/name/john
I suspect that only randomly typing a screen name counts, though. And those are aberrations, yes;).
Quote from: Sytthas;882302The only example I can think of is Pan as discussed by Plutarch. But even in that source, it was like a third-hand hearsay report.
But if you can't trust random aquatic voices, who CAN you trust?
Dionysus leaps to mind.
OK, in a game with clearly mechanically based game breaking bugs, with Dexterity being the main culprit, you focus on THAT? Really? Are you really that bored?
Quote from: Christopher Brady;882382OK, in a game with clearly mechanically based game breaking bugs, with Dexterity being the main culprit, you focus on THAT? Really? Are you really that bored?
1) Some people actually care more about the setting.
2) Scion's mechanical failures, also known as "Scion's rules", are relatively well-known. Conversely, some people still live under the false impression that it's another Exalted-like case of "good setting and a system that sucks".
Quote from: Future Villain Band;882379Dionysus leaps to mind.
I discounted Dionysus (and Aesclepius) because of the mortal mother and the apotheosis kinda -after- death and rebirth.
Quote from: Spike;882301Sure, I've seen that in the norse sagas, though I don't think its quite that universal as to be a fundamental state of the gods themselves, rather than being a means in which they are used in some stories.
Rather similarly, I don't expect to say that the deep meditation on death that the Illiad is, or the repeated focus on Nostos in the Illiad and the Odyssy means that the greek gods are all about homecomings... if that rather too crude analogy makes sense. In both cases, more the Illiad, the Gods are used as literary devices but that doesn't mean the Gods were meant to be mere literary devices, right?
Myth and literature work on multiple levels. But generally the literal level only gets you plot. Sure you can relate to it that way, and that's as far as most people get, consciously, but the literal physical forms of gods don't capture all that they and the stories about them are about. So when an RPG just decides to list gods as high-powered monsters with certain powers and personalities and so on, it's all at the literal, physical, superficial level, and doesn't touch much on what they were originally about.
You should play Lords of Olympus instead!
FYI, why not post this over at http://forum.theonyxpath.com/forum/main-category/main-forum/scion ?
The mechanics of Scion 1E on that board are fairly well known to be completely borked - even for the fans - and there are numerous attempts to fix them.