When a player doesn’t have enough successes to overcome the Difficulty of a challenge, they fail. Depending on the challenge, this can either mean that they fail to achieve their goals, or inflict entirely new problems. For example, a character who fails to abscond out of their bedroom window might be caught mid-escape. Alternatively, she might get away…by plummeting to the ground and bruising something important.
Failure is never a dead end in Scion. It always leads to something new, or builds up to a heroic comeback, because the failing character receives a Consolation. This is a minor benefit that doesn’t exactly give the character what she wants, but advances the group’s interests somehow.
CONSOLATION
A Consolation is a helpful, but minor, side effect of failure, which the Storyguide can use to keep the game moving. The simplest type of Consolation is Momentum, a resource which players can later spend for a variety of effects. Other Consolations are listed below:
- Fateful Encounter. Failure reveals another approach to the character’s goals, through new information or sheer coincidence. For example, a failed lockpicker might overhear gossip about the new ventilation system.
- Chance Meeting. Failure introduces a new character who can offer help or information, though perhaps at a price. For example, a character fails to endure the ravages of poison, but wakes in the care of a sewer-dwelling hag with her own agenda.
- Unlooked-for Advantage. Failure results in a level 1 Enhancement to a future challenge, though it can’t benefit a second attempt at the same goal. For example, a character fails to land a vicious strike, but their dazzling form wins the admiration of a watching asura prince.
MOMENTUM
The force of destiny gathers behind heroes, and is represented by Momentum. This is a resource that players can spend to affect the game on a dramatic level. The characters themselves aren’t normally aware of Momentum, but instead put its effects down to Fate or good luck. Momentum is stored in a single pool shared by all players (called the Momentum pool), which can hold up to (twice the number of players) at a time. Whenever a player receives Momentum as a Consolation, she adds 1 Momentum to this pool.
Momentum can activate Knacks (cool, epic things characters can do that make other people drop their jaws), add dice equal to Momentum used to a dice pool, or enable additional attempts at complex actions (p. 69).
All players can spend Momentum in the following ways:
- Add Dice. A player can spend 1 Momentum per die to add a single die to a dice pool, before it is rolled. This dice pool can belong to any player, or even a Storyguide character. This is with the agreement of the table; if a player wants to spend Momentum, they must share their idea with the table. If every player agrees, the Momentum is spent.
- Add Interval. A player can spend 3 Momentum to add another interval to a complex action, giving the characters more time in which to work.
- Activate Knacks. If a player has a Knack that requires spending Momentum, they may spend it. They don’t need another player’s say-so.
BOTCH
An especially bad failure is called a botch. This occurs when a character rolls no successes at all, and at least one of their dice shows a 1. When a character botches, they fail to achieve their goal, and they also suffer an additional setback. A botched attack not only misses, it slips the character’s weapon from her grip. A botched escape gets her both captured and injured. The only Consolation players can receive for a botch is Momentum. However, they receive an additional 2 Momentum, for a total of 3.
If a character fails and the Storyguide wants to make that failure more awful (and interesting), she can offer the player 2 Momentum for the pool. If the player accepts, their character suffers a botch just as though they’d rolled no successes and at least a single 1.