DFRPG for White Wolf Scion

[arsieiuni]

Becq: Exactly! Thank you for stating that! Since they all get a balanced free power, it's essentially the same as giving them all an extra refresh or two and a power bought with it. But instead, we just gave them the power since you also get that power for free in the game they converted from.

EldritchFire: Their refresh rate, naturally. It's just instead of receiving your refresh rate every time you rest, have long down time, etc... They receive it only when circumstances are appropriate. In other words, if you're a slowly budding godling, instead of needing only a good night's rest and a little time to get fate back on your side, you have to actually act the part of your godly nature to wrestle destiny back into your own hands.

It's a really good way to replace the mechanics of Legend and Nature from White Wolf. I honestly can't even remember Scion's natural rules on Nature (but everyone who's played any White Wolf Game will know what I mean when I say Nature). But we house-ruled a lot of things because Scion runs very wonkily RAW. So in our Scion, Nature was very important. Each Scion is bound to his nature. That nature COULD adapt over time as they learned and grew, but they will always be bound tightly to whatever their nature is.

So for example, as Tora approaches Demi-god status, she's learned more and more of the truth that the world isn't all what she imagined it to be when she was an innocent young farm-girl in Canada with her dad. People aren't as good-natured everywhere as she thought they'd be, not everyone will stand up and defend their bretheren, and her own gods, the gods of her father, the gods of her people, the gods she grew up believing in, believing were the examples of her world... They aren't all as nice as she had imagined. She'd glorified the Aesir in her head to these great heroic beings, all selfless and beautiful and wonderful in nature. She was wrong about them. Not because the lore on them is misleading so much as because her own heart has a tendency to hold belief of the goodness in others. As she's growing up a bit, and as Senna is doing her best to make sure Tora learns better, Tora's having to come to the hard conclusion that Odin is always out for himself, Frigga is a vindictive bitch, and her father, no matter how much she wants to believe he is nothing but a hero and awesome, has never given her any indication that he cares at all. Not easy for her. Senna feels Tora would be better off without the rose-tinted glasses when viewing the deities from whom she sprang... But Tora clings, childishly at points, to those cherished beliefs.

Now if Senna eventually manages to give Tora a proper lesson in Norse Gods 101, or if circumstances prove to Tora the things she's beginning now to slowly learn and fears are true... Her nature could change.

Hence, her current Trouble (Is This What's Right?) could change to something more appropriate for her at the time because she may not be as conflicted over morals at that point. Her high concept could even shift/adapt/change over time if the changes in her emotions/personality/morals are strong enough.

A random (off the cuff) idea of where it could go... (Because all Scions are destined to become Demi-gods and eventually even gods in their own right if they survive...)

Tora, Kin-Guardian (Goddess of protecting ones own)
Trouble: Can't Win Them All (In reference to the concept that as a god, she would have perhaps even an immense number of followers, and she can't literally be a guardian to each and every one of them all the time. Meaning she'd have to learn to let go of a little responsibility for everyone else in the world. Not easy for Tora. She's one of those... weight of the world on my shoulders types.)

Or if things go a bit darker...

Tora, Steel-Armed(Goddess of Strength, even Goddess of Strong Women)
Trouble: Win Them All (In reference to a deep-seated need to overcome all challenges.)


So in the one case, she'd continue refreshing at successful defense of someone, perhaps at some point that would particularly refer only to "her own" and not to just anyone. (Demi-god onward, it can get a bit more specific).
In the latter case, her refresh would have completely changed at some point and she'd have gone instead to refreshing when she overcomes a challenge (particularly a challenge to her strength, and that strength is not just physical).


My Scion of Morpheus, Eve, is more likely to go toward being a Goddess of Nightmares than anything. I think it'll be amusing when her refresh is something like "When she has inspired someone by causing them to face their deepest fears." or even "When she has enjoyed observing a really good fright". Lulz.
It's going to be extra fun in that one since Eve is so child-like... Children can be very cruel.


Again... in thinking of converting any system to another, you have to be willing to accept that you're not trying to get the same FEEL as the new system. You want to keep the FEEL of the old game, and use the new mechanics... So if this sounds like it kills the feel of DFRPG, that's kinda okay. We're going for the feel of Scion, but with a smoother session and more fun in combat. Because combat in White-wolf... well it sucks. (to me anyway) So it's okay if the refresh isn't really what it's supposed to be in DFRPG. I think the mechanic of giving a triggered refresh really helps us to keep the Scions in line with their natures which is supposed to happen (and it happens much more forcefully in Scion RAW... to a point I'd never want to play Scion Raw. The game controls your actions toooo much!). But Anyway...


I'm honestly just writing all this to share it a little and see if anyone else can enjoy the ideas or is inspired by this some. I'm rarely a contributor of original content to forums like these because I never know what to share... so I just decided to share my conversion kinda randomly. I'm glad if anyone can enjoy it.

Also realized last night I may have to re-write Samae just a little. He would work marvelously with a Feeding Dependency on Sex and Corruption. It would REALLY just fall right in line with his character and make a lot of sense. Really, though, I could imagine that given the nature and cause and purpose of Scions, that by Demi-god, they should ALL have a feeding dependency, at least a mild one, tied to their natures. By God, they should all have one that includes worship/belief.  Something I need to toy with more, but it would really express them well.

[toturi]

Glass-Jaw Ninja is a term that describes a character that is ridiculously difficult to hit, but should you manage to make that hit, goes down easy. This is a common problem in White Wolf games because the stats and abilities used to hit/avoid being hit are the same while the stats and abilities to do damage/resist damage are different.

In our Scion game, for instance, everyone in the party had magically enhanced dexterity making it insanely difficult for us to hit and insanely easy for us to hit others, but none of us had magically enhanced stamina which made being hit a very bad thing or magically enhanced strength meaning that when we hit the bad guys (all of whom had enhanced stamina) we didn't do much damage. This made combat situations terminally long and boring.

Oh, I understand now. I didn't quite have that problem at my table. Everyone had something that could neutralise an enemy (either via Mental or Social, if Physical was not the character's main shtick), and Epic Physicals were par for the course for the combat guys. At my table, it is implicitly understood that if you do not build your character for physical combat, the spotlight wouldn't be on you.

[sandchigger]

We tried running through the Ragnarok scenario with a combat character, a social character and a mental character. There's really not a lot of mental or social interaction one can have with frost and flame giants, at least not in that setting.

[toturi]

We tried running through the Ragnarok scenario with a combat character, a social character and a mental character. There's really not a lot of mental or social interaction one can have with frost and flame giants, at least not in that setting.

In Ragnarok, there isn't much mental or social interactions but stuff like Fight with your head and Blinding Visage should still work.

Which reminds me: How are you porting the various Knacks over to the DF rule set?

[arsieiuni]

We're not running any pre-made material. We run our own story.

As for knacks, we're not really. We're just porting our current Scion game, representing them as best we can with the mechanics available, just as we chose Knacks to represent them as best as we could when we were using that system. I don't port things piece by piece.
I can represent the same characters as still very much whatever they are without individually taking every single ability. Some abilities are very system-specific. For example, a power that let you gain a certain number of Legend couldn't port straight to gaining Fate. It's similar, but not the same thing. It could be represented similarly, but it's not the same exact thing.

Unless it's a signature power of the character (Like Tora's flight) I don't worry about it so much. She had "Raging Bull" for example in White Wolf, just because that was a way to represent that she just keeps going and doesn't go down easily. In DFRPG, it's just awesome to be able to portray this through her having a nice number of stress boxes and conditions instead. I don't have to make the exact same mechanic to portray it. I just render things to the base idea. Why did I give that Scion that power in the first place? What was I trying to portray? And portray it newly in DFRPG as I would if I were building the character for the first time.

Also, as for knacks in WW Scion... we often had no reason to take knacks except that the rules said we got another. Sometimes we'd stare at  the list, sigh repeatedly and just end up shrugging "I guess I'll take that one... none of them are really that appropriate... but I don't want to short-change the character either..." or some such. I don't have to do that so much in DFRPG. If I don't need the extra points... I just get a higher refresh!

I love that.

[toturi]

Interesting. My players often had a wish list of knacks to take after they increased their Epics. If none of the knacks are actually appropriate, then it may not be appropriate to improve that Epic attribute in the first place.

Taking your example of Raging Bull, instead of just portraying it as a way to keep going and not going down easily (which the Epic Stamina would have already done), it is a way to portray her as getting stronger each time she takes damage or in the case of DFRPG, it could be that each time she takes a physical Consequence, she gets a free tag on it (and Epic Stam alone probably means that no one can tag a physical Consequence to adversely affect her).

[arsieiuni]

I really like your suggestions.

In our case, it was more that the knacks weren't that great for the characters. We made some knacks up for ourselves because the list just wasn't that awesome.
Also, epics gave auto-successes and the like which made them worthwhile with the knack or without it. The knacks mostly weren't the main reason we went for epics. That was a way of showing a character was REALLY great in a particular stat.

I do like your idea for how to handle Raging Bull in DFRPG. I must consider that for future upgrades, mwaha!

[EldritchFire]

EldritchFire: Their refresh rate, naturally. It's just instead of receiving your refresh rate every time you rest, have long down time, etc... They receive it only when circumstances are appropriate. In other words, if you're a slowly budding godling, instead of needing only a good night's rest and a little time to get fate back on your side, you have to actually act the part of your godly nature to wrestle destiny back into your own hands.

Ok, I wasn't sure since both sample characters had the same refresh worth of powers. Since you didn't say what refresh you were starting with, I thought that maybe you had a set refresh like some other FATE games.

-EF

[arsieiuni]

Sorry EF! I didn't mean that to come off rude or anything.
They started at 15 R, 45 SP, Fantastic Cap.
A couple of scions had a slightly different Refresh depending on how far along they were on the track to Demigodhood.
Samae, for example, got 16. He's a bit more enlightened.
I'm currently writing up possibly the most interesting one to write... Kyoufuu Konnichihime, Scion of Amaterasu. She's actually a Demigoddess but she didn't comply with her mother's wishes for herself, and so her mother bound her powers down so that she's pretty much right back to Scion level. So in White Wolf she had a purview (custom made) that let her essentially stretch the binding a little and get a bit of her old power back (in the form of temporary buffs). I'll have to figure a way to do that in DFRPG.

[sandchigger]

In Ragnarok, there isn't much mental or social interactions but stuff like Fight with your head and Blinding Visage should still work.

Yes, but if you're fighting a giant with epic toughness, you *need* epic strength to damage it. And if you have epic dexterity and your opponent doesn't, they will *never* hit you. Every combat we had came down to this. It wasn't SUPER ridiculous when we were able to use terrain against them (like collapsing a mine on the frost giants, f'rexample). But in a straight up fight: we could always hit them but not damage them and they could never hit us (but if they did we would be a smear on the ground).

[EldritchFire]

Sorry EF! I didn't mean that to come off rude or anything.
They started at 15 R, 45 SP, Fantastic Cap.
A couple of scions had a slightly different Refresh depending on how far along they were on the track to Demigodhood.
Samae, for example, got 16. He's a bit more enlightened.
I'm currently writing up possibly the most interesting one to write... Kyoufuu Konnichihime, Scion of Amaterasu. She's actually a Demigoddess but she didn't comply with her mother's wishes for herself, and so her mother bound her powers down so that she's pretty much right back to Scion level. So in White Wolf she had a purview (custom made) that let her essentially stretch the binding a little and get a bit of her old power back (in the form of temporary buffs). I'll have to figure a way to do that in DFRPG.

No worries, no rudeness came across! I just wanted to make sure I knew what was going on. I get lost and distracted very easily...hey, shiney! :p

-EF

[toturi]

Yes, but if you're fighting a giant with epic toughness, you *need* epic strength to damage it. And if you have epic dexterity and your opponent doesn't, they will *never* hit you. Every combat we had came down to this. It wasn't SUPER ridiculous when we were able to use terrain against them (like collapsing a mine on the frost giants, f'rexample). But in a straight up fight: we could always hit them but not damage them and they could never hit us (but if they did we would be a smear on the ground).

That is mostly true but like I said previously, the characters in the band I was GMing for didn't have such troubles. Either they could "lock down" an adversary (Blinding Visage), or they could simply stealth pass the giants (eg. Epic Dex + Phase Cloak), or they had some way to damage bypassing the enemy's Epic Stam resistance (Epic Stam + Infect) or they had Epic Strength and Aggra knacks.

[arsieiuni]

Okay in dealing with Fuu (Kyoufuu menthioned above)'s interesting ability to break out of her mother's bindings and utilize a bit of her demi-goddess power, I gave her a very small, very cheap specific magic pool (like channeling) that lets her use self-only buffing effects (like shifts to damage and blocks etc) and nothing else.
As she grows in power and begins to fray that binding even more, I think that pool should grow, adding more functionality back in, until she hits Demi-goddess level at which point that power will be replaced with some of her actual abilities that have been locked away by her mother's binding.

I'm almost done with these! Just have a couple of npcs to finish now. Currently working on a really interesting villain. >:3