I was curious if anyone has ever heard of or played this game? It is a game where you play the role of a god. It allows you to play it in one of two ways: role playing or as a strategic board game.
This flew under the radar with me since I like to review games about PC's as gods or with godlike powers, such D&D Immortals, Godbound, SCION and Exalted.
The cosmology is pretty vast like AD&D, so I won't try to go into detail. Just basically there is a Creator, but it appears he is either absent or doesn't interact with the world. Fate is basically the de facto ruler in his absence and she only acts in limited circumstances. The world consists of Elder Gods who reside in "Heaven" in their own particular realms cut out for them and their worshipers. They are represented by the mortal races on earth: Salamanders (sort of like dragons), Gnomes, Giants, Undines (sort of like mermaids who can take human form).
Humans are relatively new, so their gods have not achieved Elder God Status. Evil being consists of Demons and Leviathans. Leviathans are gods who either by choice or mistake made some evil decisions and never stopped.
In this world, any one can become a God if they have enough people to believe in them, in which case they could petition Fate to deify them and set a side a place for them in Heaven.
The world of mortals is called The Known World and is made up of three continents and takes place in the Bronze Age, but as the players progress time can go on well into the later ages I suppose. This is because as a god you don't necessarily act in rounds, but in turns. And each turn is basically a season. This includes conflicts such as melee, spell casting, battles etc. If you play as a Mortal Hero, then it is basically the same as normal roleplaying game.
Oh and there are no stats or abilities like Health, Strength, Dexterity or armor class. Everyone gets a die size depending on their stature d4's for normal humans all the way up to d10's for Mortal Heroes and Gods who take mortal form.
Gods can take both mortal and spirit form or use Divine Sight to see what is going on with their followers. They make go to the Known World physically or as a spirit or in disguise of another form, to intervene or gather intel to help their followers.
Gods have dominons, meaning they choose what concepts they want to have power over (eg Death, Engineering, Healing etc.). They are basically divided in such a way that your primary dominions will cost less to cast Miracles than those you that aren't primary. Miracles are simply your ability to cast spells or displays of power. And each time you do so it costs Belief. Belief is like power points that you accumulate from your worshipers.
Every year you gain Belief from your worshipers as long as they number no less than 100. Gods are immortal, as long as they have belief. Once you lose all of your Belief, you are dead for good.
New gods start with 100 followers and 50 Belief. Elder Gods can have as many as 10,000 followers and 5000 belief! Technically there is no difference in power scale between a new god and an Elder, except one has more Belief to make your life miserable if you are constantly pushing your weight around on their followers. As stated before Gods are immortals, so they can't kill you directly, but they will focus on killing off your followers instead.
In such cases that becomes a conflict between your followers and theirs (for example raids, guerilla attacks, cutting off supply lines, killing cattle etc.). You roll a set of dice that represents your side vs the GM who rolls the perp's side. Whoever rolls the highest dice wins that conflict. At that time it is either over or the perp tries again, or if you won you may try to finish the job. Regardless, who ever wins gains a certain amount of belief and he loser, loses some belief (and loses face with other gods in the Heavens).
I think the concept of the game is good, but for me it is just too much calculation for casting Miracles and knowing what dice to roll for conflicts, because the number varies depending on the size of the opposing figures.
Be advised that the author is in the process of revising some of the rules into a fall/winter release of New Gods of Mankind 2. So he essentially pulled the old published games from the electronic shelves, although I have found who still have copies.
But these links should give you some insight on the game:
https://mentalsparkblog.wordpress.com/2 ... omment-229
New Gods of Mankind
Review of New Gods of Mankind - RPGnet RPG Game Index
This flew under the radar with me since I like to review games about PC's as gods or with godlike powers, such D&D Immortals, Godbound, SCION and Exalted.
The cosmology is pretty vast like AD&D, so I won't try to go into detail. Just basically there is a Creator, but it appears he is either absent or doesn't interact with the world. Fate is basically the de facto ruler in his absence and she only acts in limited circumstances. The world consists of Elder Gods who reside in "Heaven" in their own particular realms cut out for them and their worshipers. They are represented by the mortal races on earth: Salamanders (sort of like dragons), Gnomes, Giants, Undines (sort of like mermaids who can take human form).
Humans are relatively new, so their gods have not achieved Elder God Status. Evil being consists of Demons and Leviathans. Leviathans are gods who either by choice or mistake made some evil decisions and never stopped.
In this world, any one can become a God if they have enough people to believe in them, in which case they could petition Fate to deify them and set a side a place for them in Heaven.
The world of mortals is called The Known World and is made up of three continents and takes place in the Bronze Age, but as the players progress time can go on well into the later ages I suppose. This is because as a god you don't necessarily act in rounds, but in turns. And each turn is basically a season. This includes conflicts such as melee, spell casting, battles etc. If you play as a Mortal Hero, then it is basically the same as normal roleplaying game.
Oh and there are no stats or abilities like Health, Strength, Dexterity or armor class. Everyone gets a die size depending on their stature d4's for normal humans all the way up to d10's for Mortal Heroes and Gods who take mortal form.
Gods can take both mortal and spirit form or use Divine Sight to see what is going on with their followers. They make go to the Known World physically or as a spirit or in disguise of another form, to intervene or gather intel to help their followers.
Gods have dominons, meaning they choose what concepts they want to have power over (eg Death, Engineering, Healing etc.). They are basically divided in such a way that your primary dominions will cost less to cast Miracles than those you that aren't primary. Miracles are simply your ability to cast spells or displays of power. And each time you do so it costs Belief. Belief is like power points that you accumulate from your worshipers.
Every year you gain Belief from your worshipers as long as they number no less than 100. Gods are immortal, as long as they have belief. Once you lose all of your Belief, you are dead for good.
New gods start with 100 followers and 50 Belief. Elder Gods can have as many as 10,000 followers and 5000 belief! Technically there is no difference in power scale between a new god and an Elder, except one has more Belief to make your life miserable if you are constantly pushing your weight around on their followers. As stated before Gods are immortals, so they can't kill you directly, but they will focus on killing off your followers instead.
In such cases that becomes a conflict between your followers and theirs (for example raids, guerilla attacks, cutting off supply lines, killing cattle etc.). You roll a set of dice that represents your side vs the GM who rolls the perp's side. Whoever rolls the highest dice wins that conflict. At that time it is either over or the perp tries again, or if you won you may try to finish the job. Regardless, who ever wins gains a certain amount of belief and he loser, loses some belief (and loses face with other gods in the Heavens).
I think the concept of the game is good, but for me it is just too much calculation for casting Miracles and knowing what dice to roll for conflicts, because the number varies depending on the size of the opposing figures.
Be advised that the author is in the process of revising some of the rules into a fall/winter release of New Gods of Mankind 2. So he essentially pulled the old published games from the electronic shelves, although I have found who still have copies.
But these links should give you some insight on the game:
https://mentalsparkblog.wordpress.com/2 ... omment-229
New Gods of Mankind
Review of New Gods of Mankind - RPGnet RPG Game Index
