Luck as an SA

[Ashton]

There are a few reasons why I don't believe that Honor (or Code if you prefer) can properly be handled by other passions:

1) Faith is something that you have a strong belief in, outside of the character. Be it in the Seven Vows, the Three Becomes One, Thayrism, or just the fact that there are no Gods at all. Belief in your own honor? Doesn't work for me, and it removes the fact that you can have a character with faith in something outside of themselves as well as honor.

2) Drive: To achieve honor. What I am proposing is that the character already has honor to a greater or lesser degree.

3) Destiny: I could see where achieving (or losing) great honor would work.

4) Passion: something that you care deeply about, again usually outside of oneself and that covers emotions- be it love, loyalty, hate, etc. I find it hard for all but some to be really passionate about their honor, even if such people have honor.

5) Conscience. There is a marked difference between code and this. A character whose code primarily drives him to obey and show loyalty to a master will show little remorse in striking down the peasantry (unless of course they have the conflicting SA of conscience). The Code SA also covers things like not allowing oneself to be dragged down into acts that violate the code even when told to do so by a conflicting SA (say a lord to whom the character has a Passion: Loyalty).

I'm not saying that it could be done, but that the same argument could be made for the other passions:

Drive: protect one's lord as opposed to passion: loyalty
Destiny: to become the king's greatest bodyguard (see above) for examples.


I like the concept of Code, because it covers a much broader base and is even vaguely historically relevant- what with bushido and chivalry (and the mythical nature of both to one degree or another)

A final point is that a character with the good reputation merit is not necessarily honorable or has a code of any kind. I can think of several instances where following the SA could cause trouble for the character and could be put at odds with other SAs.

[Ashren Va'Hale]

Belief in your own honor? Hardly what I was getting at! I meant that faith:honor is a belief in a code of honorable conduct, take the samurai of film and literature who believe that honor above all else matters. They believed that honor brought them strength while dishonor would be worth commiting suicide. thats alot like a faith if you ask me.

Your other criticisms I think are well placed though. As for passion, I usually declare that some sort of reciprocation must be possible thus honor does not work.

[Nick the Nevermet]

Hmm, well, I don't have a problem with luck, and I think that many more SAs would be redundant, at least with the way that I view them.


Luck
TROS is a game that is deeply concern with the exploration of character, and it does this through spiritual attributes.  The mechanics for the SAs can be summed as 'what do you care about so much that it makes you stronger?'  With this in mind, let's look at how different heroes with different dominant SAs succeed:

The Driven Hero wins because he wants to
The Destined hero wins because it is party of The Plan
The Faithful hero wins for the glory of his world-view
The Conscientious hero wins because he is Right and the enemy is Wrong
The Passionate hero wins in the name of whatever he cares about

and then there is the Lucky Hero, who wins.... by accident.  Luck is the ultimate non-answer to the question of what makes you strong.  It is 'None of the Above.'  The lucky hero is a hero who really has no powerful beliefs pushing him forward; he just kinda stumbles through.  This carries through both how luck is used and how it is increased.

So the question is, is it valid for TROS to allow heroes to exist who aren't strengthened by their resolve?  My answer is yes.  TROS is very agnostic when it comes to ideology and in-game theology.  It doesn't tell you what is right or true, it just tells you what is and that belief matters.  If it was designed, say, more like Pendragon, then luck would have no place, because in Pendragon, the most chivalrous Christian knight is supposed to be the one who woops ass.  

In TROS, if you see someone woop ass, you ask, how can you do that?  You can get a ton of answers back, ranging from it was God's will, it was right, he killed my father, and even... "*shrug* I dunno.  Just kinda happened."  To insist that there always is a reason, always a motivation, breaks the agnostic character I see in TROS.  I apologize for babbling in psuedo-philosophy, but this is the best I can word what I mean.


Code
A code of honor is an internalized set of behavior.  It is an inherently social and public thing.  Honor is a non-issue for the hermit who has seen no one for decades.  For me, what I just described can be expressed by the pre-existing SAs.  

I reject the notion of honor as a thing you have more or less of.  It is a practice, a way of acting, a way of being.  As such, it is something one must constantly uphold.  Because of this, I see no problem with Drive: To be Honorable.  When a situation arises where one can say "an honorable person would do ____", then you do it.  If one has the goal of maintaining a certain state of being, a certain form of practice, then he or she has a Drive.

[Lance D. Allen]

I'm agreeing a lot with Nick's points. Luck has it's place as an SA, though I likewise have no problems with Brian's ideas to make it a purely meta-mechanic.

Code: I still say that Code and Conscience are pretty much the same thing. Only Code defines conscience with a different morality than what is considered "normal" (killing without cause is bad, stealing is bad, eating human flesh is bad... etc) The Code of Bushido defines things differently than the Code of Chivalry, but both are about defining right and wrong for a warrior caste.

[Valamir]

I think something that should be acknowledged is that the SAs as written in the text are probably more restrictive than Jake would write them today.  I'm speaking of Limitations on the number of times a Passion can be called on, or how many Drives you are or aren't allowed to have, etc.

Relaxing these restrictions makes it easier to define things by creative combination of existing things rather than defining new things...combinations that may be disallowed by strict interpretation of rules as written.

[Nick the Nevermet]

Relaxing these restrictions makes it easier to define things by creative combination of existing things rather than defining new things...combinations that may be disallowed by strict interpretation of rules as written.

Good point.  I wish I had more to say, other than, 'what he said.' :)
Nonetheless, it is important.  Wasn't there a thread where Jake basically said if he had it to do over, he would make the SAs except luck work pretty much the same? (or am I just inventing that by accident?)


As for conscience equalling code, that's a can of worms I'm a little wary of.  The reason why is because I don't know if this is the time & place for a "is conscience objective or culturally-specific?" debate, and a discussion of conscience and code would require that.

[Jake Norwood]

That's right, Nick.

Lovin' this discussion.

Jake

[Bankuei]

Small Thematic Aside-

When you look at how SAs are selected, and you think of villians, many villians aren't going to choose to have Conscience(unless modified) and many may not have Faith(although some scary ones will)...which means there's really a limited choice of SA's left to fill the gap.  

But doesn't it aways seem that (cinematically) villains are always some of the luckiest bastards around?

Chris

[Nick the Nevermet]

Small Thematic Aside-
But doesn't it aways seem that (cinematically) villains are always some of the luckiest bastards around?
Chris

That is certainly one way to do it.  The heroes truly believe in things, and through that are powerful.  The villains keep getting by just because they're lucky.

However, I believe it is possible for villains to have conscience.  As I mentioned earlier, one can interpret conscience as either objective morality (i.e., value of human life, altruism, etc.), or one can see it as culturally constructed (morality in 20th century America is very different than morality in feudal Japan).

If we take the view that morality is culturally constructed, then we have a very nice excuse for villains to have conscience.  A villain from Fahal will have very different ideas on what is moral and immoral than a hero from Xanarium.

However, what if we take the objective morality view, or both hero & villain are from the same culture?  Things are a little trickier, but villains can still have conscience.  A villain is not necessarily evil incarnate.  Instead, he is the villain for a specific story.  Napoleon can be portrayed as antagonist or protagonist without being too historically inaccurate.  A character who has a conscience also has passions and drives, and he always reaches some kind of a compromise between them.  Because different people are in different positions and need to make different compramises, it is possible that two characters that both have conscience will end up in conflict.

example: a lawman hunting a criminal and the best criminal's best friend.  Both the lawman and the friend have a conscience.  The lawman has Passion: law, and the friend passion: Loyalty (to criminal).  Assuming they both put exactly the same level of priority in conscience, they will still end up in conflict.  The one that is the PC is the protagonist, the other the antogonist.  If you want to make the antagonist more villainous, make him value his passion more than his conscience, always choosing the SA increases in the passion over those in conscience.

It is very doubtful that a given character will follow all 5 SAs equally well.  Some will inevitably be privileged more than others as they find an equilibrium.  An evil villain simply has found an equilibrium that neglects his conscience SA a bit.  A non-evil villain is simply a character whose motivations are at odds with the PC.

EDIT: To be clear, it is perfectly fine IMHO for villains to be lucky & heroes conscientious.  I'm not saying it isn't, I'm just suggesting it is also OK for villains to have a conscience SA.

[Bankuei]

Nick,

I'm with you on that note.  As I've said in another thread, conscience can be very different for different folks.  Consider characters from the Godfather, or Chow Yun Fat from the Killer.  Both have a different view of who deserves help, and who doesn't.  Both do have a conscience, it just happens that it applies in what most people would consider a "narrower" range than the typical hero.

Chris

[Nick the Nevermet]

We're in agreement.
I apologize if my posts are argumentative.  I should learn not to write posts while listening to King Crimson & reading marxist commentary on pop culture :)

[Prince of Thieves]

I am intriged by the idea of Luck being used purely for drama. But as I think we're seeing it is very hard to come up with a replacement Spiritial Trait.... I like the idea of honor but I believe it belongs under Drive.

Also my opinion on:

I can see what you're getitng at, but your examples are not valid Passions as defined in the rulebook (you can "rule 0" anything you like of course). A passion must be towards a specific person or entity, so you can't have a passion to be honorable for example, and technically you can't even have a passion to be loyal to someone or something (that's covered by the gifts and flaws).

It seems alot of people confuse Passion and Drive. As you said a Passion must be toward a person or entity. But the passion must be mad of of two parts (object and feeling) or it is meaningless. For example Passion: To King Bob. What about good King Bob? We must also fill in the 'direction' of the Passion. P: Love King Bob. This character serves the king because he loves his liege and he will often act differently the the character who has P: Loyal to King Bob. A fine line perhaps but one worth mentioning and intresting choice of color for the character. And of course we have the flip side. P: Hate King Bob. (Actually the book states love, hate or loyalty as the possible directions. But I imigine these could be expanded or simplified further, the devil is in the details.)

Back to your original question the only thing I can think of is maybe allowing a person to get Drive twice... But I don't really like that either.

Valor, Glory, Honor, Duty, Piety. Everything thing that comes to mind seems to fit nicely under one or more of the SAs...

Tough question.

[kenjib]

If almost everyone takes luck, and you are moving luck to a different rule, why not just cut back to 4 SAs per character?

[Poenz]

First I want to thank Brian for bringing this up.  What a great discussion!

Of course, part of what makes me say that is seeing the same disparity between Luck and the other SAs.

I also agree with a lot else that has been said: it might do to re-examine the definitions of the SAs to broaden their definitions; honor does seem to belong under Drive; Luck makes a great drama mechanic, etc.

As for redefining the SAs, I think someones bound to point out that it's likely to be house-ruled in any case, but I for one always appreciate those extra guidelines that come down from "on-high," (plus I like putting Jake on a pedestal--speak, o guru, speak!)

Now as for recommendations:  I'm going to take the approach of asking "what seems to be missing?" in the context of what helps define heroes from legend, myth, and story.

My first (and possibly only) answer is Hubris.  In classical terms it's arrogance or foolish pride.  And as often as not, it's the flaw that brings the hero down.
But hear me out!  
I think it could be defined in game terms as any of those things above, but it could also be defined as Boldness, Recklessness, or even just getting caught up in the moment.  The way I'm thinking about it now, it could be seen as a Flaw that makes a character the hero he is.  In terms of a mechanic, it would be the thing that drives the hero to get into trouble, and the thing that also pulls him out; call them SA points for "in deep sh*t" dice.  It may be that it would need a secondary definer, like Passion or Drive.  Hubris: Single Minded or some such. I'll have to think on it some more.

I've only just thought of this, so I haven't got it all figured out, but I thought I'd throw it out to the hive mind to see what can be made of it.  Any and all ideas welcome.

~PO

[Jake Norwood]

Hear ye, hear ye, the guru speaketh, o the Font of Riddling knowledge!

Jake 25:16
"Um, the Spiritual Attributes represent the issues of the meta-world; those things that aren't physcially tangible in the "real world" become so via SAs. So Luck for me fits in just fine, especially since you're rewarded in that SA by doing things that entertain the meta-world viewers (the players). So Luck fits my definition of SA's just fine."

25:16
"However, in a game where the players can effectively carry an extra SA (a game that is really actively thriving on them) and Luck is still a neccessity (and Luck's role as "oh crap!" dice shouldn't be underestimated), then I think that the idea Brian proposes works great. SAs, more than anything, should be house-ruled until the really fit the group make-up. Personally, though, I like them where they're at."

Jake,
who basks in the light of his subjects