Difference between Synergy and Psyche?

Besides a mechanical function, these sound pretty much to be the same thing, closeness between the Sin Eater that their Geist

I felt like Psyche is more a representation of how strongly individualized (or unified) they become.  Someone with higher psyche is less "limited" by their flesh and their life.  Rather, they are defined by their personality, the strength of will and obsession about them, and the degree that he is himself.  Someone who is still kind of catching up on their circumstances, someone who is bound by their life, would have low Psyche.  Someone who follows his passions and obsessions, someone who refuses to let life (Or death) tell them what they can and cannot do probably has higher Psyche.  I like to think of Psyche as the strength of mind and self.  Someone with high psyche will be a stronger representation of who they are, forming their own archetypal persona (Not to be confused with an Archetype, though the two will be related).  Similarly, the Geist of a high psyche player would be more defined in terms of self, with stronger obsessions and more personality.

To compare and contrast, a SE with high Psyche and high Synergy would be a formidable "Team", with powerful obsessions and definition that works in concert to get what they want.  A SE with High Psyche and low Synergy would result in a Geist and a Bound that are both incredibly individualistic and powerful, but not functioning well with one another.  A low Psyche and High Synergy would produce a Geist and Bound that aren't particularly well defined in terms of who they are, but they work together very nicely and get good results.  A character with both scores low wouldn't really have particularly "Expressive" Bound and Geist and that don't work particularly well together despite their lack of self-expression.  Psyche and Synergy don't have to go hand in hand.  Just because you get along well with your Geist doesn't mean either of you are particularly willful or exhude personality.. similarly, just because you and your Geist are walking gods, unable to be swayed or stopped by anything, doesn't mean your personalities are compatible or that you will get along with an equally willful and personified ghost inside of you.

Basically, Psyche seems to represent the strength of your personality, and how you can use that to overcome your body and your circumstances.  Think of a Ghost--they have lost their body and material presence.  All they have left is who they are--what they like and dislike, what goals and business they yearn to accomplish, what kind of personality they have, etc.  They have to have a strong sense of self--without it, they will fade away, they will be unable to affect the world.  A ghost needs to have a personality, a Psyche, that burns bright like a sun, not like a candle.  Without it, the world would push them around, step on them, crush them.  Without a strong personality, strong obsessions, strong will.. they would simply fade away.  Though a Sin-Eater doesn't have the same weaknesses of a ghost, he at least has a similar strength.  If a Sin-Eater learns to define himself more powerfully, letting his will and his character rule the world and not vice versa, his Psyche increases.

Interesting prespective.

DragonDragon:

But also completely contradicting the source material.

Care to elaborate?
Cleverest's concept makes sense with the source material to me, although I see Psyche a bit more as the level of attunement they have with death and the powers thereof.

Strength of the Bond as in - how connected and inundated they are with the energy of death and their Geist's personality/Aspect.
The book describes losses of Synergy as a kind of destabilization.

Basically, think of a balance beam connecting the two.
Psyche is how strong the wood is.
Synergy is how stable the supports are.

...(Psyche) is the strength of the bond, as opposed to the balance of the bond (Synergy).

GoldMatenes:

Basically, think of a balance beam connecting the two.
Psyche is how strong the wood is.
Synergy is how stable the supports are.

I was thinking along these same lines myself, only a bit reversed... my mind conjured the image of a knife blade, the Psyche or bond being the steel, the Synergy being the maintenance of the edge. Without both, the blade is useless as a tool or a weapon.

Psyche appears to be more stable, or at least, the Sin-Eater has more control over its direct maintence, ... Synergy ... not so much.

looking at the Psyche ...

...the character’s Psyche generally develops only through continued practice, exposure to the Underworld, and the work of resolving ghostly fetters.

... which really doesn't require a lot of All of Us Just Getting Along. In fact, the development of Psyche would be much easier if "All of you would just let me do this ...".

whereas the Synergy is affected by all sorts of outside influences, relationships and events...

...the sheer stress of dealing with ghosts, traveling through the Underworld and arguing with other krewes means that something has to give. Most of the time, it’s one of the Sin-Eater’s principles.

the writers throw into the Synergy section, that the creation and membership in a Krewe will help stabalize the fluctuations of Synergy.

They also throw in the Synergy section, that the Job of the Sin-Eater is that of Psychopomp meaning... literally "guide of souls", and that an decrease in Psyche makes this job much more difficult.

All of this probably would have made more sense in the book if the two were discussed seperatly more, rather than throwing them together so much. The mechanics, as you say, are fairly easy to understand, but the RP (which appears to be very important when dealing with these two areas), is confusing as hell (no pun intended).

But then when we read the Discords areas, and all of it becomes solid chunks of chaos... as we discover that, just about every action which is used to maintain and increase Psyche (as well as to perform our duty as Psychopomp ), is done at the risk of causing discord in the Synergy area.

So,... there you have it... Stark Raving Sane.

...the sheer stress of dealing with ghosts, traveling through the Underworld and arguing with other krewes means that something has to give. Most of the time, it’s one of the Sin-Eater’s principles.

... and that part... rather that leap of logic, I don't get at all, but it seems to be the foundation keystone to the Discords.

DragonDragon:

Although I still don't understand the different between Strength of the Bond and Balance of the Bond. Besides mechanical.

Then reread my post, because that was exactly what i was describing.  The Strength of the Bond is more about how strong each of the individual parts of the bond is, whether they work together or not.  You have to remember the way Ghosts act, and what kind of personalities and minds they have compared to a human.  As the Sin-Eater and Geist get experience as they work together (Whether their Synergy represents a tense and stubborn relationship or a match made in.. somewhere questionable), they start to rub off on each other.  The once-mortal Bound begins to become saturated in the Geist and its deathly energies.  This not only means that the Sin-Eater in question starts acting more like a ghost (IE defining himself by his personality and his obsessions, rather than his body or his circumstances), but the Sin-Eater also absorbs other aspects of ghostly life as well--More Plasm use, higher stats, and eventually Anchors and Underworld time.  Each party involved in the bond becomes stronger, more willful, and more ghostly.  The Manifestations are more powerful because the human host has learned how to embrace the deathly energies, and because the human and Geist have stronger wills and a stronger comprehension of their new condition (Which still involes becoming a "Stronger" personality who defines itself in ghostly ways).

Of course, some of this is based on the OWoD's Pscyhe.  Even still, the word is related to the mind, and how forceful your personality is.  You need a strong personality to let your Geist use you as a conduit for deathly energy.  You need a strong personality to keep yourself together mentally death after death (This was even the mechanic for it, once upon a time), and through the weird shit that Sin-Eaters deal with.  As you become more and more ghostly, you start to think in a way that is based on who you actually are and what you want (Ghosts are proof, but Geists themselves are the ultimate proof of that ghosts are personalities and desires that can influence the world and keep their mind and self in existence).

The difference between Synergy and Psyche is pretty obvious, frankly.

Psyche was a character in Greek tragedy.

Synergy was a supercomputer that assisted Jem and the Hollograms with their performances.

nothri:

The difference between Synergy and Psyche is pretty obvious, frankly.

Psyche was a character in Greek tragedy.

Synergy was a supercomputer that assisted Jem and the Hollograms with their performances.

Bwah ha ha.  Add them together, and you get the Crow. 

And as a side note, I found the line in the description of Psyche that supports what I was saying.  "Psyche is a measure of the combined will (NOT Willpower, obviously) of the bound, the force of mortal determination and deathly purpose."  Thus, it seems that the mental fortitude of the mortal and Geist are related to their combined ability to Manifest, utilize plasm, etc.  Too much Psyche, and the mortal probably acts more like a Ghost (With the obsessions, the semi-solipsism, the anchors and the passions of the Dead, etc).  Perhaps it also implies that the Geist may get more mortal (Less cryptic, easier to understand, more personal than archetypal, etc).  The first line of the description of Psyche makes a reference to the fact that it is somewhat related to the psychological state of the Sin-Eater.  The word Psyche is where the word Psychology came from.  That seems to suggest that in order to use the powers of a ghost, you start thinking like a ghost, empowering your will with deathly energies.  Ghosts have a somewhat different mindset from humans, but it is not so vastly different as a Fae or a Promethean (Or even a vampire).  Ghosts are given a fairly straightforward and well-described mental state.  They are spoken of as going slightly "mad", driven to their strange obsessive state by the things they love, the business they need to finish, etc.  As a Sin-Eater becomes more ghostly, he gets not only the mental state of the dead, but also their ghostly powers.  This makes it pretty easy to separate from Synergy--Psyche is the strength of the minds of the two entities, Synergy is the cooperation/balance between the two.

I really don't see Psyche as a measurement of how well the two work together.   Remember that Geist doesn't translate into ghost.   It translates into a combination of ghost/spirit/thought.   And that's exactly what a Geist is to one of the Bound.   It is a ghost/spirit that made a bargain, but its also a very large fragment of the Bound's mind now- part of your ve.    So, Psyche is effectively a measure of the strength of the Geist in your shared mind.   The mortal does have have the free will to direct the deathly energies, but its the Geist that actually puts the energy into the mortal's hands in the first place.   Psyche can be considered the strength of the energy conduit, rather than anything mental.

Honestly, don't put too much stock into the finer details of the fluff.   A lot of times, the mechanics fail to accurately represent what the fluff says.   Don't sweat it, and just change the fluff to whatever you think the mechanics are supposed to do.   Psyche measures potency.   Synergy represents mental balance.   The details can be whatever you want.

Blunt Vorpal:

I really don't see Psyche as a measurement of how well the two work together.   Remember that Geist doesn't translate into ghost.   It translates into a combination of ghost/spirit/thought.   And that's exactly what a Geist is to one of the Bound.   It is a ghost/spirit that made a bargain, but its also a very large fragment of the Bound's mind now- part of your ve.    So, Psyche is effectively a measure of the strength of the Geist in your shared mind.   The mortal does have have the free will to direct the deathly energies, but its the Geist that actually puts the energy into the mortal's hands in the first place.   Psyche can be considered the strength of the energy conduit, rather than anything mental.

Honestly, don't put too much stock into the finer details of the fluff.   A lot of times, the mechanics fail to accurately represent what the fluff says.   Don't sweat it, and just change the fluff to whatever you think the mechanics are supposed to do.   Psyche measures potency.   Synergy represents mental balance.   The details can be whatever you want.

Psyche ISN'T how well the two work together.  That's synergy.  Psyche is how powerful each part of the Bargain is, somewhat independent of one another save that they psychologically rub off on each other, giving the Bound pair better ability to manipulate deathly energies and causing the duo to become more of a ghostly being.

And actually, I rather enjoyed the fluff in the Psyche section, though I think it focused less on Psychology than it should've with a name like that.  I tend to play the "you gain more power over deathly energies" as a result of the psychological situation of the Bound.  Even if they hate each other (IE low Synergy), the human has learned a lot about death by having a Geist in his head, while the Geist gets to experience mortal life again and may start developing more of a human-like personality, or perhaps an even greater death-oriented personality.

And while a Geist and a Ghost are distinct creatures, they aren't all that different psychologically, except in a matter depth.  Geists are like superghosts.  They think like ghosts do, but are considerably more extreme--both ghosts and Geists have obsessions, but Geists have diminished in their human quality of obsession.  While a ghost would be obsessed with killing his murderer, a Geist might be obsessed with killing ALL murderers.  While a ghost thinks of himself as solely who he is, a Geist has moved beyond and thinks of himself as a greater force or stronger archetypal figure.  Either way, the human part of the Bound will start acting like more of a dead thing.  At lower levels of Psyche, he would still have his OWN mortality, which would make him more like a Ghost than a Geist.  However, just as Ghosts can evolve further, the human becomes more like a Geist as his Psyche peaks.

Synergy is the crossfader between the geist record and the sin-eater record.  Psyche is master volume.

namelessIIIEsq:

Synergy is the crossfader between the geist record and the sin-eater record.  Psyche is master volume.

Nicely put. This right here is probably the best analogy in this whole thread so far. Balance and Strength are drastically different things, of course it is best when you have both, that makes you awesome, but there is a slippery slope when choices between the two arise, balance is better for you, but strength is more fun and instantly gratifying. Actually not that different between other morality and power stats. I mean look at Harmony, the measure of balance between the different aspects of a werewolf's being, and Primal Urge the measure of how intensely werewolf a character is.

Or even Humanity and Blood Potency, there are acts that rise Blood Potency (Strength or Power, which could be considered coming from the Beast or vampire nature) at the direct and cost of Humanity (Balance between the Man and Beast), and just existing they have to make choices that affect that balance, at Blood Potency 3 you MUST prey on humans or vampires, and at even a higher level you are forced into situations where diablerie is much more likely, even possible diablerie addiction.

In short this really isn't that different