Olympus and Luck

[Cole]

Rather than diverting the interview thread with a post that isn't a concise question, I thought I'd post here to put down my thoughts on the topic of how Luck, which I take to be comparable to Amber's Stuff, interfaces with the Olympian system as I understand it. I don't hold an advanced degree in classical civilization or comparative religion, so I'll start off with a disclaimer , that this is at the end of the day, my personal impression of this stuff; people are welcome to disagree. But I do think this is part of the "Greek flavor."

"Luck" sounds weird to me; not very classical. While "might" or "prowess" aren't strongly Greek or Roman in their sound, they have a Bullfinch's Mythology ring to them that isn't jarring, and the concepts they're staking out aren't that different between European mythologies. (Have you considered "Fortune" instead? The connotation might be a little off since it's Latin, but it carries a note of changeability that luck doesn't get across as well.)

Luck sounds very Teutonic (probably shares origin with German "gluck"/happiness) and so it leans toward a world view that is fatalistic and assumes predestination; Greek (and to a lesser degree Roman) thinking on these matters can be pessimistic, but privilege chance (and irony) over fatalism and apportionment over predestination. People (and gods) get a measure of various qualities and things follow naturally from causality.

Where Thor works toward an inexorable end, Zeus isn't inextricably conceived around an end time scenario like that; the idea turns up that as Cronos to Ouranos, and Zeus to Cronos, it would follow that there would be a generational upheaval, but it's not predetermined in the same way - one version of the story claims that the son in question would be his secondborn child by Metis, so he improves on Cronos by swallowing her. Another version says it would be his son by Thetis, so he marries her off to Peleus, and furthermore just doesn't sleep with her.

Usually there is a choice involved where there is a real weight to either option. While he is more of a Hero than a God, the best example I can think of is Achilles; he is aware that he has a choice between a glorious life cut short, or a longer but undistinguished one. You could argue that there is no way he is going to make the latter choice based on what kind of person he is; that's close to what I meant by "apportionment." I think it is interesting that when Odysseus talks to the ghost of Achilles in the Odyssey, Achilles tells him "Say not a word in death's favor; I would rather be a paid servant in a poor man's house and be above ground than king of kings among the dead."

I could see this being implemented into game play in that where a PC stands with his Luck score colors the PC's perspective via the GM's presentation of the events around him, as in Amber. The same score could also model the effects of Hubris on mortal characters.

Technically Hubris would be inapplicable to the gods, whose behavior ostensibly isn't judged right and wrong, but gods do fail in their schemes all the time, and frequently it's due to willful ignorance, or arrogance clouding their judgment. Fortune is noticeably associated with having good counsel, especially in Homer. In both of the cases I talked about where he avoids fathering the heir who would be his undoing, Zeus has a particularly sage god to advise him on the outcome of a given action.

I don't know if any of the powers you listed include Foresight (you do have Scrying), but it's something to think about. If foresight is based on knowing what consequences certain actions will lead to rather than knowing what actions are predetermined, maybe there could be the option for a PC god could "borrow" another god's better luck score - so long as he acts on the "lending" god's counsel. This could be an interesting factor in-game when the character has to make a decision when a critical moment comes to enjoy the benefit of a more favorable fortune or to do what he damn well pleases and take what outcome he gets, considering either his own luck, or maybe worse than his own, taking into account how much luck he "spurned."

If the PC comes out victorious despite losing the benefit of that luck, maybe that is a way the PC could earn luck that way -Aristotle's idea was, when someone avoids something bad by just a narrow margin, he says he's fortunate, and when he avoids something good by just a narrow margin, he says he's unfortunate, and on just that little bit, he makes up his mind that there's really something this fortune thing, and stops thinking just how narrow the degree of difference was at all - almost as if the less luck actually made a difference the more you think "I was really lucky!"

So in the game, it would follow that that perspective would go hand and hand with a luck score improvement. Or he could even "steal luck" from the spurned counselor, whose judgment could be shaken or confirmed. That's an interesting element of risk for lending your foresight to an ally who, in an Amber-like style of play, your interests converge and diverge all the time in ways that can be dangerous to anyone who thinks they've got things figured out. The Moirai or Fates are also sometimes portrayed as deities who can be persuaded by another god to reconsider consequences. Homer has the other gods asking Zeus to intervene with the fates on their behalf, so maybe you need a really high Luck score yourself, or ego, or an advanced version of a given power to intervene - when you get the feeling your scheme is going to hell, running to the elder Olympian and genuflecting might be productive where asking an elder Amberite to intervene might seem "not in the spirit of the game," or maybe just futile.

Cole