virtue concept

Would a virtue which allows someone to shed warping at 1 point per season if no other activity is pursued during that season be an unbalanced virtue, and if not should it be major or minor? Looking for opinions and discussion.

For most sagas, in my opinion it would not be unbalanced even as a minor Virtue for the PCs. That's because most sagas run considerably shorter than the time necessary for warping to become a major issue... unless characters are accruing warping at a very fast pace, in which case even being able to shed 1 point/season won't make much difference.

That said, I think it profoundly changes the game's "cosmology". Warping, even more than decrepitude, is something that mounts and mounts, and tends to eventually eliminate mystically powerful humans from the world, either a) forcing them not to throw their mystical weight around or b) forcing to abandon their humanity altogether (e.g. Transforming) or c) sending them into Twilight or similar fates.

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I'm not one to turn down an idea, so... I'd examine the number of warping points magi gain.

1 Warping Point on average? According to pretty much everyone, that's a MASSIVE lifespan extension at a low low price of having three seasons left per year.

2 Warping Points on average? Half a time spent...shedding...is still a pretty good deal in the grand scheme of things.

3 or more and you've got to spend a lot of time shedding to delay the inevitable, at which point it becomes synonymous to retiring a character.

So, what is your intent with this? How much do you want to extend the wizards' lifespans?

Like the fellow above mentioned though, it somewhat alters the idea of Warping being "aging for wizards". It's an inevitable fate that people have to deal with, and changing this fact would be...weird?

I hadn't really gotten to how to use it at this point- given that a typical assumption is 2 warping per year post gauntlet it seems to me that most magi would want to shed about the same amount, although it might be more economical to do it every other year if you are using character creation rules. It seems to me that it would them make starting magi much older as they spend more time avoiding warping...
like I said more of an exploration at this point as to what this could mean to a game, probably as a mystery cult initiation...

I would ask first, what are the game play effect of such abiltiy?

Most of my rounds runs out because of RL, not warping or aging.
In the others, final twilight was accepted, especially if you made a great closing adventure. But for that we played years in RL, so often a new mage was appreciated.

So how it impact this ability would have for PC or NPC?

At least, such a virtue could be a good story idea: an mages who is near final twilight start to research such a virtue. So he have to travel to strange places or even with a group of helpers directly into the twilight for a breakthrough - with the danger of never come back.
Fun idea: inside a "twilight zone", each twilight points makes there your casting inferior - so young mages cast suddenly better.