Scion - What If It Wasn't Bad?

Scion 1e came out at the lowest point in White Wolf's history*. Everything that they made in that period was pretty damn terrible. Scion 1e was no exception, being nothing more than the notes from an office homebrew campaign of Exalted that they had the balls to charge $90 for.
Every single person I ever talked to who tried to play it talked about extensive changes to both system and setting - and when I say extensive, I don't mean some basic house rules, I mean 'ported it to a different system'. (And when I say 'changes to the setting', I really mean 'actually made a setting because the game doesn't really have one'.) In theory, since it's clearly meant to run on an Exalted system, you could probably take whichever edition of Exalted you think is less terrible and tinker with it until you got something useable.

*No, what's going on NOW is all stuff at Onyx Path, not White Wolf. White Wolf itself was basically on life support until crazy Nords bought it; still waiting to see if that can be any good. Onyx Path, on the other hand, has pretty much been shit since conception.

GURPS, user.

Scion suffered from terrible, easily broken rules (Epic Dex+Arete being so easily abuseable) and a setting which, frankly was quite weak if not nonexistent. See it isn't that the gods and Titans weren't fleshed out, its that the rest of the entire setting WASN'T. Pretty much everyone I know who has heard of/read Scion has honestly asked 'but what do I do with it?' and 'but what is the setting like?'. Oh sure, you are a demigod and fight the minions of the Titans. That sound conceptually simple but the setting basically make not a single attempt at really giving us a solid glimpse of what the world is like outside of the life of the Scions. I guess the assumption is that it's 100% our world but with gods walking around.

The thing is, compared to other WW products, there is not a single shred of information how this mythology integrate with our world, no matter how badly it might. Fuck, you could at least laugh at how goofy the World of Darkness was and how strained 'the masquerade' was but at least they fleshed it out and gave us a setting, for better or ill. Scion does not give us ANYTHING beyond what live inside said setting but gives us no clue as to how these being interact both with each others and the modern world. It's a fucking mess and the GM (oh, I'm sorry, 'Storyteller') is left with a very serious and heavy task of actually fleshing out said world.

I'm actually going to launch something with Scion - Heroes in the near future with friends. Is it so bad it can't be tweaked ? Is Heroes alright ? I have played it for some time before but it was one of my first roleplay experience, I am fond of it but I was 13 so I don't remember if the GM houseruled things or not.

Mutants and Masterminds. Or any flexible Supers-system, really. Scions are basically God-powered superheroes, so why not go for it? Infinitely better than trying to force a dozen or more free successes into an already-crappy system where you normally roll two to ten dice at a time.

Especially when they used so much of the goddamn page count that could have built the setting on that adventure that was specifically tailored to the six 'sample characters' in the book. (And dear god, how the fanboys defended its inclusion...it was fucking ridiculous.)

What's wrong with the setting? I haven't found any glaring issues with the fluff, and it's a little spare but seems to have enough internal consistency that you can see how to expand it.

>What am I in for?
Fun and terrible rules.

Ban untouchable opponent, have everyone at exactly the same Legend (increasing at the end of narrative arcs) or things will rapidly become unbalanced.

If you plan on continuing for a while (past Hero), then let Perception and Epic Perception add to ranged attacks as STR adds to Melee. Otherwise guns become useless (though at Hero level they are really good with this rule, so ymmv).

Channeling Virtues leads to a lot of bookkeeping that's frankly unnecessary. Don't limit the number of times it can be channeled AND remove the ability to spend Willpower for autosuccesses. It encourages you to use your Virtues, and you already are limited in how many times you can channel them by your Willpower pool.

If you don't want people to be nigh-unkillable, change Soak from removing successes to removing dice from the attacker's pool. Because it takes ~3 dice to equal 1 success, it's a much more dangerous game instead of trading punches for two hours. Speaking of combat the Initiative system is wonky for anyone who hasn't played Exalted. Consider changing it to something you're more used to.

I'd strongly advise against limiting Boons and Epics to your divine parent. A big part of Scion is about how you are different from your parent; just playing a copy of them with less power is way less enjoyable than saying, "Screw you, Ares! I'm gonna garden and you can't stop me!" Heritage powers are discounted, so you are encouraged to take them but not required, which works well.

Hero is the least broken of the 3 main books, just focus mainly on roleplay and be willing and ready to adapt stuff on the fly and it'll be fine. To have a fun game character and fluffy Boons takes precedence over the rules. And the GM will have to adapt to what gods the PC's have as parents, what part of the world you've set it in, etc.

But for all it's problems, I do think there's a lot of potential there for a fun and memorable. Its the source of some of my favourite memories of being a GM.

>I guess the assumption is that it's 100% our world but with gods walking around.

That's not the assumption so much as it's explicitly stated. The Pantheons pulled out of the world by universal non-compete contract to prevent humanity from Fatebinding them into wars of annihilation, but sometimes gods come down from the Overworld for a bit to mess around and have kids. It even says that many of those kids never even got their Visitation (leaving them better-than-average mortals), but that right now there's Visitations left and right to recruit soldiers for the war.

*fun and memorable game

So, my proposition for a quick fix to Scion based off the assumptions of the book: the 'World of Myth'. Whereas the World of Darkness is our world but crappier, darker and more '90 goth and dumbass supposed 'counter-culture', I like to imagine the world Scion take place has similar assumptions. And yes this might toss into the garbage some of the actual Scion fluff but whatever, this is just one guy's homebrew so take with a grain of salt.

A few assumptions:
-If the WoD is our world but darker, the WoM is our world but BIGGER. That mean both in scope and tone. In the WoM, everything is blown up to 11. You know how anime tend to show us those really huge, over-detailed cool-ass cities which could possibly not exist in our world? Or maybe places like some incarnations of Metropolis or Gotham. That is what cities look like in the WoM.
-Nature, likewise, is bigger and cooler. The WoM is not bothered by pesky things such as reasonable or realistic geography, mixing historical fact and realities with stories and legends. For example, the United States should look like some blown up, over-exagerated 'americana' with incredibly long highways with ton of small town along the way. These places are modern technologically, obviously, but they still have a certain feel and look of previous eras of the US because this is what define the 'mythos' of the (relatively young) USA. Likewise, Canada is even BIGGER and filled with even more forest, plains and tundras. Europe is also just as big, filled with villages in the forest.
-Even if places aren't touched by the mythic/supernatural, things should generally remain with a feeling of being 'bigger'. Note that the implication is that this is still FUNCTIONING like our world in spite of all this.

I was wondering when the GURPSfags were going to show up.

Is there actually anything there that is immediately useful for Scion, specific splats, or is the 'You can do anything in GURPS, so spend 200 hours making up all the rules on this framework' shtick?

I've heard bad things about M&M, though it was on here and Veeky Forums hates everything. Does it handle going from 'better than mortals' to 'actual literal gods'?

>What's wrong with the setting?
Not much. I dislike the all-evil Titans (Gaia being a friendly villain was downright absurd), the fact that scions are tied to their parent's boons and skills (it's practically the exact opposite of actual mythology), the lack of ways for mortals to ascend (which was a staple of myth; the narrowness of ability to be a scion in general was lame), the WWII plot was kinda dumb (as were the American Gods).

And that's all before I get to the contradiction that is turboslut Hera.

>I've heard bad things about M&M, though it was on here and Veeky Forums hates everything. Does it handle going from 'better than mortals' to 'actual literal gods'?
M&M use a 'power level' system which cap character save/skills/bonus/whatever to a certain point. Considering, in M&M, the average superhero is PL10 and most ordinary, non-'badass normal' humans are around the 1 to 3 range, with especially badass outlier around 5, it wouldn't be too hard if we assume a base, newly-visited Scion is PL10 and only goes from there.

I ran Scion a while back and I managed to get it to a tolerable level of play.

First off, free form casting of powers. They're fucking gods and should be able to manipulate their domains. So I put that in there where they'd roll Legend + Domain and assign a difficulty based on the feat they were trying to do. Also made it so Domains must be bought in order.
Next thing, nerfing Epics. Got rid of the automatic successes and replaced them with twice as many dice. Mathematically they're equal but chance is now a factor. Also ties into the next thing.
Multiple actions, lack of multiple actions made onslaught penalties null and void. By going Exalted 2e style, you can now whack someone a bunch of times and get their defense down to a feasible level.
Birthrights were also another problem. I basically gave a set of features they could do: returning, collapsing, increased damaged, increased accuracy, penetration etc etc. Any Birthright could only have dots of bonus equal to owner's Legend x 3.
Also banned a few knacks that were stupidly broken. Especially the Aggravated damage being tossed around like candy, a problem WoD has still.

As for the setting, I got rid of the Titans returning shit and basically had the setting be: Demigods aren't around anymore cause they cause a lot of damage, but the Gods are pissed since some secret Pantheon of Blood Gods have emerged and are giving mortals insane cosmic power. Used a bunch of modern myths for things they would fight too: Dracula and other vampires, nazis super mutants, Beast of Bray Road, sewer gators.

All in all, the system was basically fixed and was playable.

>the lack of ways for mortals to ascend (which was a staple of myth; the narrowness of ability to be a scion in general was lame)
I hear it's one of the few things they are fixing in 2e.

The Americans really should have had more of a focus on Native American myth. Outside of the 'Spirit of America' Uncle Sam and Columbia they were really just folk heroes, not really God material.

>as were the American Gods

Talk shit get hit by the Steel-Driving Man.

I don't mind that Scions inherited an inclination for their parents skills and purviews, they were not forced to take them.

>Turboslut Hera
I didn't like that either. The rules for adoption are on the same freaking pagespread, just say that she takes in as many Scions as she can and uses them for her own ends, like a manipulative stage mother (and especially delights in scooping up Zeus' blowbys and sending them on the most dangerous quests). Freaking WW. You can write an interesting story about her sacrifice for the good of the pantheon, and what it does when the most faithful goddess takes lovers, but I don't like it.

Odd, because for the most part Veeky Forums loves Mutants and Masterminds. It has some really broken shit in it, but unlike damn near every other game it says "hey, there's broken shit which we included for customizability, so if you don't want players to use it exercise some oversight or try these other options." Also, like pointed out, it has strict power levels that cap various traits like how powerful their powers are - and you the DM decide when to go up on those.

The national gods were just that, though; Gods of the nation. The spirits of Native American myth are Native American, nobody in America but them worships or even knows that they exist. The French gods weren't the gods of the Gauls, because they aren't the ideals of French society. Russia had the best blend of old and new, but that's because they were in the middle of a revolution.

>I hear it's one of the few things they are fixing in 2e.
Actually, there's a few things I like about the new version. Besides Titans not being uber-villains, I love the fact that it's an actual setting that acknowledges the existence of myth, rather than another Masquerade setting like WoD.

>The Americans really should have had more of a focus on Native American myth.
FUCK YES!!! I wouldn't have minded a couple of folk heroes being gods as well, but not an entire pantheon of them. That was dumb.

>Talk shit get hit by the Steel-Driving Man.
I loved the idea, hated the execution. I feel like somebody got a massive erection reading League of Extraordinary Gentleman, and decided to run with the Murrica version of it rather than give their brain a second to get blood back so they could do it in a setting-appropriate way.

>You can write an interesting story about her sacrifice for the good of the pantheon, and what it does when the most faithful goddess takes lovers, but I don't like it.
Hell, they could have just stuck to the Hephaestus concept and have her continue to masturbate out freaks out of spite for Zeus, I would have not minded that at all.

But to take the goddess of FIDELITY and make her cheat "for the greater good" is just fucking stupid as shit.

>The spirits of Native American myth are Native American, nobody in America but them worships or even knows that they exist.
Not an excuse. Most of the gods of the setting are from dead faiths that are no longer worshipped. If they can still have power, so can the Native American gods (which still have Native American worshippers).

How easily can you change that power level? Can it go up slowly, or does it need big jumps (like PL 10 to 20)? Does it work if you keep scaling it up to PL 100, or whatever divine-level things like the Lords of Chaos and the Endless are ranked at?

>And the GM will have to adapt to what gods the PC's have as parents, what part of the world you've set it in, etc.
Yes from what I have seen the GM has a lot to do to make the thing interesting since it's a kind of a sand box with "dude what if gods lmao" but I think we're going to like it. I'll keep an eye open for broken stuff and try to make my dudes take fluffy things, they aren't powergamers anyways so that's okay.

Native American gods still exist- their Scions are just Native American. They are around, doing whatever they do (if they were in the WWII pantheon, I'm sure there would be a Navajo god of secrets) but for the vast majority of Americans they are non-existent. Americans salute the flag and responded when Uncle Sam told them to do their part, they didn't hear Nanook.

Most M&M supplements usually go from the range of 6-7 for street-level heroes (say, Luke Cage, Punisher and maybe some versions of Daredevil) to 10 for most average supers to 15 for the heavy-hitters of their respective settings (Superman, Doctor Strange) with the 15+ range for cosmic threats.

PL and PP (experience) are separate. The default amount of PP to give (M&M being point buy) being PLx15, hence 150 for most heroes. You can give PP without increasing PL but the game recommend increasing the PL (and thus caps) by 1 for each 15 PP awarded. So I'd say:
PL 10 (Hero)
PL 12 (Demigod)
PL 14+ (God)

Keep in mind you can award XP/PP without increasing PL, too. If you want slightly more mortal scions, I could see giving more PP at the start on a lower PL. This would either allow some particularly good jack-of-all-trades who are a bit above the mortal norm in everything but damn, they're good. Like some modern day young Achilles or maybe an early Batman without the gadget. Or you could have someone putting their XP in one or two stat and related power and end up with a modern day Hercules who is super strong, can one hit ko an ordinary man with a single punch and shrug off all but the heaviest weapons.

Wait, there's 10 levels for mortals and near-mortals, but everyone from the Shocker to Doctor Strange are crammed into 5?

>Wait, there's 10 levels for mortals and near-mortals, but everyone from the Shocker to Doctor Strange are crammed into 5?
That's only for sanity's sake, really. In reality, depending how you'd want to stat Superman he could easily go above 15. It's a very loose scale and I was giving the most common examples. Nothing says you can't run a game where the range goes up to 20+, for example.

The whole system is an abstraction, you need to keep that in mind.

Okay I realize I did a shitty job explaining: Power Level (PL) represent how far you can stack your bonus, such as attack and defense and your saves, including toughness (which is used to soak damage). This mean that the higher the PL the more absurdly you can overpower your opponents and eventually PL gab would scale so much you'd end with someone who can avoid the attacks of an entire army on a natural 1 with the right bonus and powers.

THAT is why it's usually capped around 15 and 16. Past a certain point, NPC just become what is called a Plot Device or a PL X.

If it's all an abstraction, than how does the PL provide a cap for abilities?

Also, are they capping the amount of dice in a skill, or are there powers that unlock as you increase in tier. IE is going from Spiderman strong to Hulk strong a matter of getting more dice for a roll, or does Hulk have access to the Rip Tanks In Half power that lets him smash stuff real good?

Part of the Scion 2e update is that, since pantheistic religion is more prevalent, it's much more likely that non-Native Americans (in like, the Western US) accepted Native American gods as their own

M&M use a 1d20 roll (no no don't run!). This mean PL cap how much your bonus on your basic stats can go. As for strength, in addition to your raw STR score (which affect damage and lifting) you can also buy super strength, which is a power, which add a whopping +5 to your strength bonus for the purpose of lifting/throwing/grappling whatever. This ensure you don't Saitama your opponents by capping your damage while still allowing you to bench press the empire stat building.

The reason I say 'it's an abstraction' is because different people will stat the same kind of character/character archetype differently. There is generally no one 'true' way to mechanically achieve a playable version of some characters. Let's go with, again, the Doctor Strange example. One could go out and stat him as a fairly basic wizardy-type and explain all the insane bullshit he does purely through a mechanic called 'power stunt' (aka 'I bullshit myself a new power'), making him roughly in line with other PL10 heroes while others would argue Strange should be an exceedingly powerful and would go out and stat a PL16 Strange who can spam his most powerful spells at will. Neither is really wrong per se, one is just more abstracted for the sake of game balance.

Are there ways to recreate the knacks/boons of Scion as one-off powers? For example, can you get something like Overt Order (a knack that lets you give a simple command someone has to follow through on) on it's own, or would you have to buy up a chain of charisma-related superpowers? Or just handwave it all through 'power stunts'?

Yes. Just make a package of powers/feats/whatever which represent the effects in some shape or form and add the cost of it all and then make some document of pre-made knacks/power packages the players can buy.

He said most of the "scene" stuff is gonna be changed to one action, specifically untouchable opponent

Also he's probably gonna be real stingy with the legend points, because he hates demigod

He's making some changes but mostly just keeping everything low power (otherwise I would be screwed as a melee character with no epic strength or dex because Dionysus)
He's pretty good with the houseruling usually so I'm not worried, just curious

I guess it's time to read several hundred pages of rules and M&M homebrew.

I just want a system I can pick up and run Scion with that doesn't fall apart like wet tissue. Is that too much to ask for?

Honestly I'm pretty sure M&M would fall less apart than Scion 1st ed.

Yeah, but I have to make up a bunch of packages for the knacks, more for purviews (and sort those by purview), etc. Hopefully I can find some database of packages out there.

Speaking of, is there an equivalent to Legend (a pool of points that represent general power that you spend to do special things)?

>Yeah, but I have to make up a bunch of packages for the knacks, more for purviews (and sort those by purview), etc. Hopefully I can find some database of packages out there.
In addition to the powers in the core book, M&M 2nd edition has a book called 'Ultimate Power' which is all about making powers. Highly recommend you read it alongside the core book, assuming you go 2nd ed. I have no idea what its equivalent in 3rd ed is or if it even exist. Also recommend you check out the 2nd edition 'Mastermind Manual' which is both a GMing book and a book of optional rules rolled into one.

>Speaking of, is there an equivalent to Legend (a pool of points that represent general power that you spend to do special things)?
They are called Hero Points and can do the usual thing 'luck' points do in most systems and a few more things.

Is 2e the way to go in M&M?

>can do the usual thing 'luck' points do in most systems and a few more things

Legend isn't a luck stat, it's basically a measure of how much god-juice you have, spent to use most boons/some knacks/do other stuff like travel to terra incognitae, and recovered through doing great deeds and exemplifying your pantheon's virtues.

Scion doesn't fall apart. It was never together to begin with. It's a bunch of pieces, but they don't even fit together like they came from a cohesive broken hole. No glue could ever avail you.

Once you play it, you eventually realize that it's like... Idunno, the RPG equivalent of those fake "fashion pockets" they put on some jeans.
It looks entirely like what it's meant to be, but it genuinely is not, and was never intended to be, capable of performing even the most basic version of the function you expect from it. (that is, respectively, being a pocket in which you can put things or warm your hands, versus, being an RPG in the sense that it helps facilitate roleplay better than the GM just winging all the rules.)

It's ridiculously sad when a kids' series that's just jumping on the Harry Potter bandwagon was able to adapt Greek mythology to the modern day better than White Wolf.

Marry me.
I'm sure a marriage based on hate will last the ages.

Oh fuck off oldfag, the new editions of new world stuff are far superior rules wise to anything white wolf put out, and demon the descent is great.

Now MODERN onyx path... Eeeeehhhh, beast was trash, scion looks like it'll be trash. Here's hoping the don't fuck up 2nd ed channeling, hunter and Geist.

I liked the original series, and the way they handled the Roman/Greek split was interesting, but I lost interest and it seemed like it was falling apart as he kept building out the world. His take on Hera and the general god-Scion relationship structure was solid, though, and I have used 'Bermuda Triangle = Sea of Monsters' in Scion.

I don't think the general way that things in Percy Jackson changed into modern forms would work in Scion, though. A big part of the game is that the divine and monsters are Fatebound into certain forms and actions, and cannot change with the times, and that trying to interact with the world in new ways is a foreign concept that will only get them more wrapped up in their current Fate.

I'm not talking about the New World of Darkness's first books.
That was a few years before this. I'm not as big a fan of them as you are, but they're not the worst.
I'm talking about Changing Breeds.
I'm talking about Mage Noir.
I'm talking about Monte Fucking Cook's World of Fucking Darkness.
That is the era that Scion came out in.
Just as they were getting rammed up the ass by their new Icelandic Overlords.
Their worst shit ever.

Oh, wait! Apologies, I thought you were talking about when Scion came out - you meant the first stuff that Onyx Path made.
You know what? You have a good point - the 2nd Edition Chronicles stuff was good. I just judge it harshly because I think there's no fucking reason they couldn't have come up with all of it more than a decade ago when they first made the New World of Darkness. So, mostly personal salt.
I'll give you the point, though - Onyx Path was very briefly not shit.

>White Wolf itself was basically on life support until crazy Nords bought it; still waiting to see if that can be any good.
The Nords sold it to the Swedes. They announced their first game in WoD this year: paradoxinteractive.com/en/white-wolf-partners-with-focus-home-interactive-for-a-video-game-adaptation-of-the-world-of-darkness-storyteller-game-werewolf-the-apocalypse/

>I'm talking about Monte Fucking Cook's World of Fucking Darkness.

Oh god, this is really a thing.

That's who I meant. Sorry, can't keep track of anyone north of Germany.
And...this year? that's certainly a far better turnaround than WW ever saw from CCP.

Paradox has a better record of release than CCP ever had. They may churn out shit every now and then, but they at least deliver.

Oh yes.
And it's everything it sounds like.
But Changing Breeds is worse.

Superman is PL 15 in the DC Heroes book that uses M&M
Darkseid aka the god of evil aka the Tiger Force at the Core of All Things is PL 16
There are also PLX characters that are pure GM Fiat used only for plot and such, usually reserved for the biggest cosmic guys and shit like Mogo the Living Planet that would be a bitch to stat out

mediafire.com/folder/026war1l4oo42/Mutants_and_Masterminds#026war1l4oo42

Have Fun

In 3e M&M all powers are just effects that you add extras, descriptors and drawbacks to in order to create Powers
So instead of having Heat Vision 6 you have Ranged Damage 6 and just call it heat vision and use the appropriate descriptors like Heat, Light and maybe Magic depending on how exactly your power works