I’ve been poking around Scion books for the last few weeks. This started because I came up with the final game I’d like to run at AmberCon Northwest. Just as I ran a diceless Exalted: Dragon-Blooded game at AmberCon in Michigan, I want to try and run a diceless version of a game where I love the setting but find the rules frustrating. I’ve got a rough frame work for what I’m thinking, so I thought I’d toss it out there for people to respond to.
In Amber fashion, I’m envisioning 100 points and four stats: Physical, Mental, Social and Legend. This follows the framework of the three groups of stats from Scion’s version of the Storyteller system. Because there’s such an emphasis on Epic Attributes in Scion, I thought this might make conversion a bit easier. You can also sell down attributes, but I don’t have cute names for the different tiers of powers. I’d also have a Luck attribute, which is basically Stuff with a more intuitive name.
For the first three stats, I was thinking of having them pick a specialty sub-attribute. So for Physical you could focus on Strength, and this would give a bonus of 10 or 20. You can also pick five skills, which are not strictly associated with a stat, which also provide a boost in stat for when that skill applies. I don’t have a similar system for Legend, so I’m not sure if I should worry or not.
For powers, it’s mostly a conversion from the standard powers, with each dot costing about 5 points. You have to have at least as much in your Legend attribute as you do the power. You also need as much in your relevant attribute as you do Epic Attribute. For each Knack and Boon, I was thinking of abstracting it a little bit. So you can model your power after what they use in the books, or you can make up something of similar power.
Items would basically follow the Amber format, with a new 1 point Item Power, Purview, which works like the Relics in terms of Boons.
So a character might look like this:
Steve, son of Hermes
Physical (Dexterity): 5
Mental (Wits): 25
Social (Appearance): 10
Legend: 15Luck: 3
Skills: Occult, Athletics, History, Firearms, Extemporaneous Speaking
Epic Attributes:
Epic Wits [10] (Instant Investigator, Opening Gambit)
Epic Dexterity [5] (Lightning Sprinter)Boons:
Psychopomp [5] (Unerring Orientation)
Fire [15] (Flaming Attack)Arete (Athletics) [5]
Items:
– Jack Sparrow’s Compass [1] (Purview [Pyschopomp] 1)
– Magic Zippo Lighter [1] (Purview [Fire] 1)
Thoughts?
Are you keeping/mimicking the preferred epics and whatnot that parentage provides? I see you’ve got the pantheon specific power there for Steve, but how much of the other stuff is because he’s Hermes’ kid?
I’m not doing preferred whatevers. The original system becomes problematic when you want a god outside of the ones listed (same pantheon or otherwise) and the parents are not exactly balanced in terms of who has what. I don’t see the value in bullet shaping characters based off of individual gods. I like the pantheon specific powers for flavoring things, but the individual parentage stuff I can do without. I think the players who would sign up for this are more than capable of fleshing out their character concept in relation to their parent without a mechanical benefit.