God Games (NOT D&D)

[Dannyalcatraz]

DC vs Marvel. DC heroes are often nigh omnipotent, and that makes them difficult to write interesting stories about.

OTOH, Marvel not only has beings actually worshipped as gods running around doing the superhero thing, they also have a slew of even more powerful beings populating their continuum.

DC has some of those “übergods”, too, but not nearly as many or in such variety.

 

[Tonguez]

This is important. If you're merely a mortal with a few powerful spells, well that's not very different from standard RPG fare. At the same time, PCs can't be truly omnipotent, or there would be no meaningful challenges. There must be a happy medium between powerful mortals and truly omnipotent creators-of-universes.



In the game I played (referenced a few posts back), it was basically a superhero game in disguise, not unlike the Avengers. Big powers that could change worlds or even the universe, but nobody had all the power. Each god had a portfolio or powers and alliances and relationships with other gods. There was lots of politicking, some mega battles, etc. The gods were effectively invulnerable to most mortals, though we all had weaknesses and vulnerabilities that could be exploited. We were mostly "good" gods, so we spent a lot of time trying to minimize collateral damage to mortals. As far as I can remember, though, there were no mechanical elements to enforce this. (Though it was clear that you couldn't buy off your core disadvantages. If you had a weakness for wine, that was a fundamental part of your divine nature.)

It might be interesting to play around with mechanics behind the scenes. In some RPGs, there's been the idea that you get your power from your worshippers. In a game with that premise, you would want to gain and retain worshippers to maintain your power. Some might do this by being nice and friendly and whatnot. Others might use fear or threats. (I don't know about the psychology of all of that, but within genre, it seems plausible enough.)

I've never thought that the worshipper thing allows for quite enough diversity, especially on the "evil" side of things. Maybe there's a customizable goal for each god that their powers depend on. If you're the evil god of rotting filth, you maintain your power by spreading disease and setting loose fungus hordes and whatnot. Meanwhile, an opposing god of wholesome nature will attempt to block your blight. Crafting these goals in interesting ways could provide motivation for divine-scale adventures. In your premise (demigods in the modern world), the PCs might need to preserve the independence of mortal life and defend against incursions by opposed deities. (Which might end up resembling a Secret Magic / Monster Hunters campaign.)

I played a PBEM game once wherein each player started with Leader (choose race) who found themselves in a new realm (map), where the objective was to claim the world and gather followers/worshippers ie the characters were essentially progenitors of a new race in the world and the player was able to describe what they did in the world AND could also research a new 'Perk/Powers' for his followers (be it a new technology (Agriculture), a fertile river, magic, a friend monster etc). The GM used Fate dice + 0 - to arbitrate outcomes, giving bonuses based on existing perks and quality of writing.

I could see the same set up being used in a God game with the perks being more directly tied to Divine Spheres and the objective being to increase the number of your own Worshippers v other gods

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Hmmmmm...

A polytheistic god-based RPG in which their abilities are powered by a “belief pool”, a personal reservoir of spiritual energy filled and replenished by the faith of believers. The vaguely spiritual who pray to you on occasion get you +1 BP/100,000. Average member of the flock gets you +2 points/10,000. Fervent believers or average members of the clergy gets you +4/1,000. A zealot or higher level clergy gets you +8/100. Saints get you +16/10.

 

[Umbran]

Most versions of D&D don't, by default, have much emphasis on weaknesses and vulnerabilities beyond those imposed by the basic character class structure. In many mythologies, gods have significant blind spots that define them as characters. Often these elements are exaggerated just like their powers: they have all the qualities of mortals writ large. Dedicated superhero games might handle this better since most heroes have distinct weaknesses.

I dunno. With a couple of exceptions, most mythological gods don't have what we'd call mechanical weaknesses. Yes, Baldur is invulnerable except for the holly. But Thor? He ain't bright, some of his strength comes from items. But he doesn't have a "kryptonite". Neither does Zeus.

The gods do have distinct personalities and behaviors, as you say, often writ large, but most games have gotten away from codifying such things in rules, largely because enforcement is usually spotty. The GM can have a hard time saying to LOki's player, "You aren't being enough of a conniving jerk, so I'm gonna impost this penalty on you." FATE has some workable mechanics for such in Aspects, I think, but most Supers games don't hit the mark well there.

 

[uzirath]

I dunno. With a couple of exceptions, most mythological gods don't have what we'd call mechanical weaknesses. Yes, Baldur is invulnerable except for the holly. But Thor? He ain't bright, some of his strength comes from items. But he doesn't have a "kryptonite". Neither does Zeus.

I'm not an expert on mythology, but Thor has a penchant for feasting and drinking, which might be an exploitable weakness. Short tempered? Violent?

As for Zeus, his lechery is a prominent weakness. Hera's jealousy is likewise a central feature of her character (as with Aphrodite).

The gods do have distinct personalities and behaviors, as you say, often writ large, but most games have gotten away from codifying such things in rules, largely because enforcement is usually spotty. The GM can have a hard time saying to LOki's player, "You aren't being enough of a conniving jerk, so I'm gonna impost this penalty on you." FATE has some workable mechanics for such in Aspects, I think, but most Supers games don't hit the mark well there.

Huh. Our RPG experiences differ. I've been playing GURPS since the nineties, and it's all about these sorts of disadvantages. (My current cleric in a traditional D&D-style campaign is a glutton and has great difficulty passing up offers of food and drink. So far the only mechanical impact is that he spends far too much money on food and drink and is encumbered with higher quality, heavier rations. But someday I'm sure he'll pass a faerie feast that he really shouldn't touch...) As for dedicated superhero games, Champions/HERO is the system I know best, and it also features systematized flaws and weaknesses.

 

[Umbran]

I
Huh. Our RPG experiences differ. I've been playing GURPS since the nineties, and it's all about these sorts of disadvantages.

No, I know what you're talking about. But you might want to look at games designed... like, in this century.

While your group may have had no difficultly, it has been widely accepted that ensconcing role playing flaws in rules in the manner GURPS did is often a problem, because, broadly, GMs forget to enforce them - the player gets extra build points for the flaws, but the detriments often don't manifest. "Oh, wait a minute - I'm supposed to be a drunken sot, but I haven't played my character as inebriated for three sessions! But I've been using the swordplay merits I bought with that in three fights per session!"

There are a few designs that mitigate this - largely by pushing the reward to runtime, rather than in build - you only get the reward for the flaw if and when it becomes an issue in play. And even then, if engaging these flaws is not an explicit part of the mechanical process, the role-play flaw gets frequently overlooked. So, many games these days ignore them completely - if you want to have a particular behavior pattern, that's fine, but you don't get mechanical benefit for it.

The iconic D&D example is alignment restrictions on classes - Paladins, especially. Note how that's been replaced in 5e? The above is largely why - giving mechanical power in exchange of roleplaying restrictions is often a problematic design (Again - broadly. Your personal mileage may vary).

 

[CapnZapp]

In Western RPG you need to spend a point to activate an Advantage.

How you get these points? By activating (and suffering from) one of your Disadvantages.

 

[uzirath]

No, I know what you're talking about. But you might want to look at games designed... like, in this century.

I don't want to get wildly off track here, but this seems like an odd statement. GURPS was first published in 1986 with its most recent edition in 2004—though, for D&D-style play, you might focus on the Dungeon Fantasy RPG which was published in 2018—and the most recent GURPS supplement (Slayers) was published last week. If we use "designed" to mean first published, then, yeah, GURPS is from the '80s. But by that logic, D&D is from even further back in the last century (1974) right?

While your group may have had no difficulty, it has been widely accepted that ensconcing roleplaying flaws in rules in the manner GURPS did is often a problem, because, broadly, GMs forget to enforce them - the player gets extra build points for the flaws, but the detriments often don't manifest.

Fourth edition rules are fairly smooth in this regard with self-control rolls when disadvantages might kick in. Good roleplayers, of course, are encouraged not to roll most of the time. But if you need to try and resist your baser urges, there's a simple mechanic in place to do so. But yeah, I get that its not for everyone. I just can't imagine playing a "God" game where your divine blind spots were optional roleplaying fluff. That usually just encourages everyone to be optimal except when it doesn't matter. Of course, I've played in D&D games where flaws were enforced via XP mechanics, similar to the way GURPS PCs earn more character points for good roleplaying. So any system can be hacked to make this work.

To bring this solidly back on-topic, one way that a deity-tier campaign would be interesting would be to focus on those flaws and weaknesses. That could be accomplished through mechanics or session zero agreements between players and the GM. To me, this would differentiate the tone of play from simply high-powered adventuring. If I'm playing someone like Aphrodite, I would be disappointed if I just ran around using my charm and beauty powers all the time without some complications that created dramatic tension between my basic desire for good and my vicious jealous streak (e.g., stopping some evil plague vs. getting revenge on the queen who dared compare her beauty to mine).

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

While I’m a HEROphile and D&D player going back to ‘77, so have no problem with mechanically linking role playing constraints with mechanical benefits, Umbran’s point stands. If the GM doesn’t enforce the constraints, they’re largely giveaways. That can reward the clever who can work the system- and GM- to the detriment of other players at the table. So it CAN be an issue.

 

[Staffan]

Monte Cook Games has Gods of the Fall as a setting for the Cypher System. In that setting, the realm of the gods fell to Earth (well, not our Earth, but still) which killed all the gods off and has caused a lot of trouble since in the form of various curses and monsters and stuff. But now, 42 years later, some beings have gotten divine sparks and are on the path to become proper gods. Of course, the process of doing so isn't easy - there are powerful people in the world who have a vested interest in the current god-less state, and there are prophecies to fulfill, and so on.

So it's not so much a game about being a god as it is about becoming one.

I haven't gotten around to playing it though. I'm not sure the Cypher System is really my bag.