thread: 2014-03-24 : Ask a Frequent Question...
On 2014-03-25, Christopher Kubasik wrote:
I haven't read the first pass yet, but am looking forward to jumping on the next round when it comes out.
As for the names of the Stats, without having done the first go-around, I like them.
I think people are looking at Rites and War strangely. (Or, not like I do!)
To *possess* Rites or to *posses* War as an attribute makes perfect sense to me in this kind of setting. Think of being touched by the gods in some way or possessing as astrologically driven *temperament*.
We can say of such characters "He is full of war," for example. (Off the top of my head; Achilles in the Illead, Von Beck from Warhound and the World's Pain, John MacClane in Die Hard.)
To possess rites is to be "touched by the gods" or "connected to the gods" or "spiritual". (Casandra, Gandalf, Joan of Arc, the Oracle of the Delphi, the folks casting spells in Tanith Alex's Flat Earth books, and so on.) I see "Rites" in this case less as a "skill set" than an intuitive knack that lets folks with Rites *build* a rite in the moment rather than know a specific rite that's been passed down through tradition.
The Rite in this case is a specific quality of the person. It isn't faith. It's the religious equivalent of artistic determination. (Not "talent" but the thing that makes a creative person keep picking up tools and making things toward some higher goal.)
This makes JMW go "not sure I buy that, but it doesn't bother me"
to me it's more important that you get an immediate concept from the stat that tells you something about the character,
another fix to the itch is to ask, "what do they bring".
This makes CK go "And those stats don't do that for you? They sure as heck do exactly that for me!"
This makes JMW go "I just mean I'm thinking less "cosmic" more "concrete""
like your "rites" stat makes it "otherworldlyness" or just "weird", I find it more immediate to take it as being, "he has rites", because the interpretation-development step adds baggage even as it expands it. My gut says it's good in other places, not here.
