John Chambers (1)

(Alistair) Gaming book review!

Well, let's start with the concept. The concept is pretty cool - in Scion you play one of the children of the Gods - of various pantheons - essentially, a half-mortal, half-divine being. There's a big war on, now in modern times, since the Titans, those primordial chaos beings the Gods overthrew and locked up in the underworld, have escaped - and since the Gods, for various and sundry reasons, can't come down to earth, guess who's job it is to fight 'em off.

That show more would be yours. But, hey, if you do it well enough, you can build your legend enough to elevate yourself, as you might guess from the fact that this book has two following it, Scion: Demigod and Scion:God.

So much for the concept. Which is pretty neat, I think you'll agree. So, what of the actual book?

Well, it is a White Wolf book, and so it suffers from White Wolf Syndrome. By that, I don't just mean the controversial things, such as that I don't much care for their systems (a lot of people like 'em, but that's a matter of personal choice) but more that despite its high production values - and it does have high production values, the book is gorgeous - it suffers from the traditional White Wolf just-enough-worldbuilding-to-entice-but-not-enough-to-satisfy problem. I want more background, and more options, and more Purviews and Boons and examples of Titanspawn, and frankly, more metaphysics to make it easier for me to make calls when something unusual happens, should I one day try to GM this thing. But as usual, WW don't give them to me. (Instead, they give me 40 pages of fiction, and while it's decent enough gaming fiction, it's not nearly as useful as those 40 pages could have been; and also a predesigned one-shot campaign which is designed to work with its own pregenerated characters. This is not useful to me at all in the long run, and when I'm buying a thick hardcover book, you'd better believe I'm thinking about the long run.)

I like the game; it's inspiring, it's solid (although I'd probably use a different set of mechanics, myself), but if you're going to buy the book, be aware of what you're getting. Especially if you're a player, not a GM.

( http://weblog.siliconcerebrate.com/cerebrate/2008/10/scion_hero.html ) show less

After you've battled monsters for the Gods, what's next? A supplement for Scion: Hero, Demigod covers the next phase of divine progression, as the characters increase in power (and as the menace of the Titans becomes greater). This is where the original system (clunky to begin with) begins to break down; the numbers become unwieldy, and in order to survive, your character HAS to take certain advantages whether it fits the players' concept or not.

Bloody brilliant! Very funny and cleverly done. Happy to recommend this one. Is there something in the water so much great British fiction in last few months

One of the last games ever published by White Wolf. Intriguing concept; the Titans have broken out of their prisons, and so once again the Gods must turn to their children (the PCs) and empower them in order to save the Worlds. The supplements follow the progression of the Heroes as they gain in power and become Demi-Gods, and finally full members of their pantheons as Gods. Unfortunately, the concept starts to bog down as the numbers become unwieldy, and some Purviews (divine powers) aren't show more terribly useful. The research is poor as well. show less