Elements of Anarchy

I saw the thread about the Elements of Creativity, and I thought I'd post something I came up with a while back.

Explanation for why Anarchy:

In short, while the Elements of Harmony work through the bonds of Friendship, the Elements of Anarchy are powered by Ambition, being strong as an individual rather than a group. As Elements representative of Chaos, they are also in defiance of Order (though this may not be immediately obvious). I was actually planning to use them in a fic (so spoiler alert?), but haven't gotten around to writing it yet. Without further ado, here they are:
(I realize there's some overlap with the afore mentioned Elements of Creativity, but I came up with these independently a while ago. I'm only just now adapting them to the Pony Tales system.)

Pride - Magic
Remove all demoralizing effects from you and all party members in sight, and you gain a +1 morale bonus to skill checks for the rest of the day.

Mercy - Magic
Make a group of defeated, but not killed, enemies fear and respect you, making them easier to persuade, and making them less willing to defy you in the future. You must have both ability and motivation to finish off the targets of this ability in order for it to work.

Wisdom - Magic
For the next five minutes, you may make skill checks using other characters' skills instead of your own. You must have observed the characters using those skills before. This is not limited to party members.

Creativity - Magic
Treat an attempt to craft an item as a CMC without needing to roll a skill check, even if it doesn't use your CM skill.

Courage - Magic
Set the difficulty of a skill check you are performing to DC20.

Power
You start each day with an extra Magic point.

I love you, you are a wonderful, wonderful person... These are awesome ideas and Personally agree. Anarchy is neither good nor bad... It just is natural chaos. Creativity is best out of this set. :3

Power... I'm unsure what to think of that one... But it's not a bad idea. I must admit.

Okay, let's take a look at this Element list, and thanks for the shutout!

Pride - "Demoralizing" effects is rather vague. Although I do like the +1 Moral bonus.

Mercy - Vague effect better handled by roleplay, and Mercy is very much at odds with the nature of this list. It sticks out like a sore thumb.

Wisdom - What is the tome limit on having seen the skill. Does that mean that if I see Celestia cast a spell even once I can do magic like she could? Depending on the time limit, it's either OP or too situational to be readily useable.

Creativity - .....awkward. Anyway, there are already a couple talents for this sort of thing, so it's a little hard to understand why I should take this Element instead.

Courage - A little name overlap but not as bad as the last one. Anyway, ability is a bit OP. this means I can reduce a DC 20000 check to a DC 20 check and extinguish the sun. Or dig an entire canyon in one round. Or lift a mountain. Or jump to the moon. Also, it flies thematically with the idea of Courage; this is taking the easy way out.

Power - This....is a little hard to judge. On the one paw, you get an extra magic point like with Derp, but without a roll penalty. On the other paw, you don't get any of the neat powers that other Elements offer, so you don't have as much to spend that point on. I thinks it's balanced that way, but a couple more opinions on the matter wouldn't hurt.

Xel Unknown wrote:I love you, you are a wonderful, wonderful person... These are awesome ideas and Personally agree. Anarchy is neither good nor bad... It just is natural chaos. Creativity is best out of this set. :3

Power... I'm unsure what to think of that one... But it's not a bad idea. I must admit.

Thanks. Not sure I agree that anarchy is neither good nor bad... it was just kind of the only thing that I could get to work given the limitations I'd set. I kind of like not having angry mobs looting and burning the cities, and not having to take a weapon with me when I go outside. Oddly enough, in the fic I was writing, the old bearer of the Elements of Anarchy is now the ruler of the Evil Empire. He just encourages individual expression and a competitive spirit (it's a very cutthroat society, sometimes literally).

And Creativity, as well as Free Will, are some of the defining traits of Chaos. Contrast to Order, which, when used as an antagonist, is usually about stifling creativity and removing free will in favor of a society of what amounts to robots or zombies, bound to live identical lives performing the exact same functions every day to create a perfectly organized society. To me, the idea of maintaining a balance between Good and Evil is bullhonkey, like if the world gets too "good" you have to go and eat some babies to balance it out. Balancing Order and Chaos makes much more sense, though, as it's much much easier to make a case for either one being the hero or villain.

Whiteeyes wrote:Pride - "Demoralizing" effects is rather vague. Although I do like the +1 Moral bonus.

True, it's somewhat vague, but usually I'd interpret it as a suppressive effect due to an emotional attack that hinders your abilities. Basically, effects that mechanically simulate an attempt to make you give up. I threw that +1 bonus on there because it seemed underpowered as it was.

Mercy - Vague effect better handled by roleplay, and Mercy is very much at odds with the nature of this list. It sticks out like a sore thumb.

Not sure I understand you here, could you elaborate? The way I originally constructed these, they're meant to symbolize what it takes to be strong as an individual (and also fit the characters I had designed for that fic I haven't written yet), but to not necessarily be either good or evil (though leaning toward good, if anything). Being able to defeat your enemies means you're stronger than them. Being able to defeat them without killing them means you're much stronger than them because you can afford to hold yourself back. Showing mercy to a defeated enemy is symbolic of your superiority over them, whether you're doing it out of kindness, aversion to killing, or just because you want to rub your superiority in their faces. Showing cruelty to those you've subjugated, on the other hand, is a sign of insecurity and weakness.

Also, there are lots of effects granted by destinies and boons that potentially conflict with roleplay (cf. pretty much ALL the boons). This simply follows in their example.

Wisdom - What is the tome limit on having seen the skill. Does that mean that if I see Celestia cast a spell even once I can do magic like she could? Depending on the time limit, it's either OP or too situational to be readily useable.

Yes, if you ever observe Celestia using magic at any time during your life, then you can spend a Magic point to activate this Element and be able to use magic with the same skill as Celestia for five whole minutes. Since it only lasts five minutes, and requires you to burn a Magic point, it seems fair to me, but I could be wrong. Maybe it would be better to restrict it to specific actions you've observed a character doing (like, the specific spell Celestia was casting), but that just seems like it would require an excessive amount of bookkeeping.

Creativity - .....awkward. Anyway, there are already a couple talents for this sort of thing, so it's a little hard to understand why I should take this Element instead.

As I said, I came up with these independently, so...
I didn't know there were already talents for crafting items. I even made a post about item crafting and economics because I wasn't sure how to handle item crafting within the system.

Courage - A little name overlap but not as bad as the last one. Anyway, ability is a bit OP. this means I can reduce a DC 20000 check to a DC 20 check and extinguish the sun. Or dig an entire canyon in one round. Or lift a mountain. Or jump to the moon. Also, it flies thematically with the idea of Courage; this is taking the easy way out.

To the first point, a good DM should know when not to let a character try something, because they can always auto-succeed on a nat 20. The same applies to here. Even so, it's up to the DM to determine the exact effect of a "success" (which doesn't necessarily mean, "you accomplish what you were attempting").

To that second point, I disagree. Courage is about pushing your limits and doing things you didn't think were possible. Mechanically, it's "taking the easy way out", but thematically, it's tackling a task with such determination that you're able to do the impossible. Example: "I run through the minefield." "You know what the DC is going to be to NOT blow yourself up?" "I do now; I use Courage."

Power - This....is a little hard to judge. On the one paw, you get an extra magic point like with Derp, but without a roll penalty. On the other paw, you don't get any of the neat powers that other Elements offer, so you don't have as much to spend that point on. I thinks it's balanced that way, but a couple more opinions on the matter wouldn't hurt.

Like Magic with the EoH, Power is the central element here. The EoA are all about personal power, and the best way I thought of to tie them together was to just give an extra Magic point. Lots of uses for those.

Now imagine stacking it with Derp.

Ideally, whereas a group of ponies each embody a different EoH so that collectively they have the whole, a single pony is supposed to embody all the EoA at once (this is sort of the running thematic difference between the two sets, group vs. individual). In fact, a pony can embody both an EoH and the EoA. The best way I can think of to implement that, though, is through a destiny (which would actually work beautifully, maybe with 1/2/3 bonus elements for the three tiers, giving you 7 elements total, enough for 1 EoH + all EoA).