At Dragonmeet I met Jerry Grayson (from Khepera Publishing), who's a very enthusiastic guy who'd once emailed me about Lost gods - one of my free games - saying he liked it. During our chat he mentioned that I should think about doing something more with it.
This of course got me thinking.
I wrote Lost Gods in 2001 (a late version of it can be found on the Realms eZine). It's a game about fading deities and the small miracles they craft to sustain themselves. Think Gaiman-esque fiction.
It's fairly ropey round the edges. Largely as I was just coming down off a Storyteller phase and hadn't quite got a handle on how to structure games around story in a way without skills, combat rules and huge sloshes of GM fiat.
But looking at the PDF, there's some good stuff in there. OK, there's a fair bit of cruft, but there's lots of under-used promise. So I started doodling some ideas on how to resurrect the game. Focusing in on the original intro paragraph:
Whatever happened to the old gods? Those who were once worshipped by the ancient peoples of the world. Are they gone, or do they wander the world, still immortal, gathering what little belief they can and interfering with the lives of mankind.
I want to re-jig the game to focus in on its core conceit. Old gods crafting small miracles for their own survival (and having to build situations where miracles are needed, which is a nice thing to play with). The supernatural and the mundane in stark contrast.
So what do I need for this? Well, the old skills system is out. Too broad for this kind of thing. Instead I want to limit the types of event (or conflicts engaged in) to the relevant types for this kind of fiction. Which'll likely be the following:
Making human connections (focus the old threads mechanic around this)
Crafting small miracles for those connection
Dealing with other Gods (hostile and non-hostile) in suitably poetic ways
Dealing with the mundane
And provide some stats that dovetail into each of these. As before the main currency will be belief, which'll flow around as and when miracles are created or its spent to boost other tasks. Doubt will now be providing the antagonism, likely as a central resource pool that fluctuates like belief.
What I want to do is build some solid situation creation stuff into the game, such that every character has the mundane and old alliances exerting external force on them, keeping the characters in motion, with the constant need to build belief causing this to snowball. However I want this to be a slower building game than Covenant.
There's also the issue of the GM, of which more later...
I thought they were busy giving people superpowers. ;)
Submitted by Tim Gray on Tue, 18/12/2007 - 23:35.
Maybe Ignorance or Apathy instead of Doubt?
If you know Nobilis at all it might give useful food for thought. In this set-up I could see an interesting mix of stuff where they're way above and beyond mortals - perhaps in knowledge - and stuff where they have to work quite hard to get by.
Tim Gray
Silver Branch Games
www.silverbranch.co.uk
Yay!
Submitted by Carl C. on Wed, 19/12/2007 - 23:57.
I for one am happy to hear this. Lost Gods was one of those games that I was grateful for, especially free! I'm glad to hear you're thinking of retooling it.
Keep us updated!
Ye gods
Submitted by JoE PrincE on Thu, 20/12/2007 - 01:16.
Sounds good Matt, nice concept well worth revisiting.
What is the driving goal in the game?
I take it the PCs are lost gods, is the idea to recapture belief and regain godhood? Or is it a game exploring the nature of faith? Or is it about good and evil gods living in mortal society?
G?N?S?I?
Course you could do it as a Contenders mod, they're all the rage these days!
Hope -> Belief
Pain -> Doubt
Fights = confrontations with other deities...
+++
JoE
+++
Prince of Darkness Games
Rock N' Role-Play....
If I see another...
Submitted by Gregor Hutton on Thu, 20/12/2007 - 10:10.
If I see another Contenders mod I'll...
Anyway, this sounds great, Matt. I'm interested to hear about what is happening to the GM. In a game like Mortal Coil there is a GM who does GMly things. Am I guessing right in thinking you might drop the GM?
Oh, I think creating a God for this could be fun and interesting. How do we do that? Is it just pick an interesting idea, or is there some method to focus your mind on creating an interesting one. (Fr'ex, I liked the way we created our alternate tarots and foci in that other playtest in Finland.)
As it happens
Submitted by Matt on Thu, 20/12/2007 - 11:16.
It's interesting that folks spotted the Contenders similarity. I have a whole other post on my Mac at home about how I started revising and noticed some big similarities. I'll leave that for later though, it's well worth its own post about how to address issues like that and make the decision of whether to variant or not.
Tim, yes, I'm keen to play up the clash/irony of being a powerful being who is in many ways powerless. It's why dealing with the mundane will be separated from dealing with the supernatural.
G?N?S?I?
Now you know I don't consider I a CA (how's that for inscrutable code?). But it will be very much more honestly N, focusing around a number of thematic questions. The big ones are currently erring at being "burn out or fade away?" and "If you live by manipulation, what is it's cost?". These may need distilling somewhat though. I'd be interested in opinions on their compelling-ness.
Gregor, yes, creation will have a similar vein (and this is right out of the original), where you create a character around a focus and antithesis and the tension between them.
-Matt
Realms Publishing