I kinda like it. If you don't include the image it would be subtle for 90% of the people you meet.

Sounds great, but be careful it doesn't overshadow the PCs.

Kinda cool, unless you are a troll, in which case you're inadvertently clever.

Bonus points if you're able to make the deity actually benevolent in extremely roundabout ways with copious amounts of JUST AS PLANNED.

>>5842164
Oh good.

And try to see how many bible stories you can pull from till the players figure it out! Try not to be overt about it though. Don't use the most well known ones.

>>5842234
the king requests 100 foreskins?

This thread is awesome. I have nothing to add except for a bump.

>>5842268
What always amused me about that story is he brings in double the number required. Just to say "Yeah, I'm THAT good at killing Philistines".

Hehehe, oh that crazy ol' abrahamic mythology

>>5841961

Either you're a dipshit troll who feels special and important when you troll religions, or you're completely unaware of the shitstorm that you will stir up with this. Either way, stop.

>>5842292
Some pcs are just showoffs. I think my players would actually have a lot of fun trying to figure out how to collect the foreskins of 100 soldiers without being killed in the attempt.

>>5842302

Don't judge too quickly. The OP is probably at least a semi-troll, but that doesn't change the fact that it Could be quite a fun setting/game, although it'd end up playing along the same lines as Paranoia, likely as not.

>>5842302
Butthurt detected. This thread was perfectly civil until you dragged out the Evilsatan Stamp of Disapproval, also known as the Nobody Gives A Shit What You Think marker.

>>5842302

As a Christian myself, I really didn't feel offended by OP's idea. It can be pulled off in a fairly Dark Sun kind of way without hurr durr old testament. Then again, I wasn't offended by In Nomine. I guess because at the end of the day you may have given religion an ice burn, but tomorrow morning I will wake up calm, and you will still be French.

>>5842302
Why do you want to turn this into one...?
Eh.

>>5842318
I give a shit. Evilsatan's certainly got a better posting record than Anonymous.

>>5842318

I'm being entirely civil. Either this is a troll with no talent, or it is the creation a person who has never actually tried to run anything that runs on an uncomfortably close parallel with religion. Either of these instances will result in the game pissing off at least ojne player badly, and very likely destroying the group. My best advice is that he stop, because it won't end well. These are the sorts of ideas that seem cool, but can destroy entire gaming groups.

>>5842330
I don't consider mini-mod behavior to actually be a mark in a poster's favor. YMMV, I guess.

>>5842331
I'm pretty sure that you are already a heathen by merely playing a fantasy game. Might as well as go all the way.

>>5842331

Yes, because RP groups have a remarkably high rate of containing dogmatically religious players who take everything seriously. Not to mention the OP is the type of person to bring up a homebrew setting with people he's never met before and knows nothing about, much less how likely they are to be offended by something.

>>5842268
Perhaps.

Or give them a biblical problem to solve. Instead of the usual biblical figures comming up with a clever solution.. the PCs have to!

Oh that would be fun.

"Okay, what are you going to do with the baby?"

Knowing the stories /tg/ tells.. oh god. I can't imagine.

>>5842331
Or it's an interesting idea for a somewhat alt-historical campaign idea, written by someone who doesn't have to tiptoe around religious people. Maybe because he doesn't have any in his group, maybe because the ones he knows have a sense of humor.

Just because you see a thread you don't like doesn't mean you have to come cluck your tongue at us, Dr. Nanny.

>>5842322
Swords and Sorcery Paranoia?

I like it.

>>5842340

I'm not telling him to stop posting. I'm telling him to stop planning. I have every reason to believe thsat this will end with at least one person becoming extremely offended and leaving the group. It's not because of the fact that it parallels religion in a way that people aren't entirely comfortable with, but the fact that someone always acts the smartass is response to someone saying they are not comfortable with this. Every time, someone says they don't liek this can we play somethign else, smartass makes a smartass comment, religiosu guy takes issue because he can't not, smartass refuses to back down because he's a dickhead, escalation ruins next few days of gaming, and at least one person leaves. If more people get involved say goodbye to the group.

The possibility exists of this playing out well if your group has either no religiosu guy, or no asshole. No religious guy normally means that the asshole makes smartass comments throughout the game, but stops when he realises nobody is impressed. No asshole means religiosu guy doesn't want to play, and either the game stops, or he elects to stay away until it's done, and business continues as usual. You'd be in for a shitstorm if you had a religiosu fanatic type, but the thign about these games is you don't get religious fanatic players.

I do not see it likely that this will end well at all, and the best advice I can offer the OP is to not run the game. The thread itself, I have no issue with. It's still better than most of the shit here.

>>5842331

You are being incredibly arrogant, and dickish, admittedly in a polite way. You are stating your perspective as law, something which, in my experience, is not very well tolerated, and are not even bothering to defend your points with legitimate arguments. In conclusion, fuck off.

OP, it'd be awesome if you wrote up your groups exploits in a faux-biblical style, framed as "What the holy book would have been if these guys had been Gods chosen" kinda thing.

Also, if you haven't already, read Small Gods by Terry Pratchett. Its an awesome resource for this kinda thing.

>namfag charges in claiming to be preventing a future shitfit.

>namefag instead causes shift fit.

> great thread ruined before it starts.

>OP, it'd be awesome if you wrote up your groups exploits in a faux-biblical style, framed as "What the holy book would have been if these guys had been Gods chosen" kinda thing.

THISTHISTHISTHISTHIS

If you have a group that isn't prudish or easily offended, the Bible has so much fucking potential for an interesting campaign setting.

In the interests of heading off the complete ruination of an otherwise compelling thread I'm going to ignore Nanny's trolling from here on out. Apologies, OP.

>>5842351

The Exodus would be almost solid win--dodging Egyptians, weeding out the legitimately evil pagans and the just kind of dissatisfied dudes, helping an entire nation slowly crawl to their promised home and survive. So would the reign of David, especially the rebellion of Absalom. Oh god that would be SO COOL.

>>5842385
I've read small gods, and I loved it.

>>5842409

People are still discussing it.

Honestly I don't see it as satire at all, unless you add in all the suggestions heaped on below. If OP had posted a picture of a Beholder, this might never have come up. It sounds like a crazy Gamma World scenario to me.

>>5841961
This would be fun!

>>5842439
That sounds great!

Base the entire campaign around it. Come up with some other cultural themes for the Egyptian standins. PYRAMIDS EVERYWHERE would be too much. Too obvious. Any kind of culture with multiple gods would work.

>>5841961

If you're determined to do this anyway, it's probably best you get the angels right. Given they're more or less the iconic emblem of shit going down in the Old testament, make sure you get them intimidating as fruck and very much serious business. The funny thing is the more biblically-accurate you make your angels, the less likely they'll be noted.

First up, an angel is serious business. Not just serious business, but OH MY FUCK SHIT'S GOING DOWN serious business. If an angel shows up, eve nif its intentions are not hostile towards you, it means that somewhere nearby, something apocalyptic is going to happen. In all the biblical history of thousands of years, angels only showed up a few times, and every time they did, something absolutely massive happened. This is one of the reasons so many people's reactions to the visitation of angels was to immediately fall to their knees and pray like never before; they knew that almost everyone who saw an angel saw it coming for them, that there is absolutely nothing they can do to stop it, so they might as well pray before they die.

Secondly, angels are so powerful it boggles the mind. Not just a little bit, but sanity-challenging in the shit they can accomplish. If I recall offhand, there was once an army of about 65000 abyssinians ,who had absolutely wreckjed the shit out of everythign that came close to them, and that were a few kilometres from utterly destroying the Jewish people entirely. They were battle-hardened, very well-led, and generally one of the most powerful military forces assembled in that area ever.

One angel killed every single one of them in one night. That's two-and-a-quarter people EVERY SECOND, not including the time it took to move group-to-group or chase fleeing ones. You shouldn't have the players challenge one of these at all until the climax of the game, and even then, after a huge amount of power-gathering and elaborate planning to weaken it before attacking.

>>5842545
Somehow this has only made your presence here worse.

>Don't do this!
>Seriously, don't do this!
>I understand your group way better than you do, don't do this!
>Fine. Do it THIS way.

Fuck off, mom, we've got this one.

Make it seem like other tribes have legitimate gods as well, although they look conspicuously like your god fucking with them

>>5842545
Why would the players be fighting angels? If they're fighting angels they've already lost.

>>5842545
Not to mention plenty of pacts with the enemy of this eldritch monstrosity. Much as you'd like to think so, the riddle of steel is bullshit against angels.

>>5842545
>but sanity-challenging

..OH GOD.

Incorporate sanity checks.

>That's two-and-a-quarter people EVERY SECOND

Sounds like you're getting good XP per hour there, mary sue.

It could be neat, I guess. Don't feel too restricted by your inspirational material, though. You could throw in a lot of stuff based on that god's personality and quirks.

Also, like someone else said, don't outright state that this IS that other-god-who-you-should-not-mention-the-name-of. That's just bad GMing. In the same way, even if you're just straight up using the old testament god (and don't come up with new stuff), don't use actual Christian/Jewish/Muslim artwork to show images. Sticking to descriptions only might be a better idea than using images at all. Try to be vague.

The angels, naturall,y should look utterly insane. Wheels-within-wheels, four-wings-four-faces-four-hands, a gigantic golden throne echoing with thunder that pours out fire before it with the smoke blotting out the sky and the throne is upon wheels of fire that burns the earth itself. These are the analogies that the people who saw them came up with, because they couldn't actually describe the ral images of the things they saw. That may actually be a good point, to give each player a sublty different description of what they've seen to make it more surreal. This is the other reason the first thing angels said to anyone is "BE NOT AFRAID", because they took the normal human reaction to seeing something that looks like it came out of a trip so bad it would've scared Keith Richards straight.

Also, the sound experience. The higher-ranking angels appear with literally hundreds of other lesser angels singing the praises of God, and have voices that sound like thunder and grinding stone and that can only be heard inside your head. A sort of noise that cannot possibly be described as speech, and yet you know exactly what it means.

>>5842545

While you have a valid point, you really are expressing yourself wrong.

People very rarely respond well to people saying "YOU SHOULD DO THIS", which is, essentially, what you're doing.

Suggestions, like "This might be a nice idea" or "You've probably thought of this already, but" are a more humble and easygoing way of stating your point, but are much, much more effective at actually getting your information across to the target audience.

I'm a tripfag some of the time, and I've learnt this through long experience. Don't tell, suggest. Seriously, it works much better.

>>5842606

Reread the OP again. He already knows about angelic appearance and such. You really should read through again before posting redundant information.

Also, this is forgotten lore stuff, but there are actual spells one can use with the christian/jewish God and his angles. You could invoke certain ones and certain protections. Favors. Other nifty things.

They don't want anyone to know that these days though.

That could be something to play around with. The priests that discovered this new god start putting together these rituals and things.

>>5842606

Don't forget God Himself here, an entity so fuckawesome powerful these insanity-inducing monstrosities spend their lives just screaming about how terrified and awestruck this being makes them.

Fight other gods. Purge those fucking blasphemers with HOLY FURY.

roll on gods reactions, something between grants immortality to OH SHIT FLOOD!
trust his will onto the dice, my friend

>>5842623
>angles

...FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF-

Why did I do that?

>>5842644
You where about to go off on a tangent maybe?

>>5842557

Well, I assume they're not going to be forced down the track of obedience here. It'll piss the players off if they have t ofollow the exact route, and the one thing you can always rely on players to do is try to test the boundaries of their servitude, usually through attempted murder.

>>5842554

I only said not to do it once. The rest was trying to explain why I said that to you lot that decided that bitching about my posts ruining the thread will improve the thread.

>>5842561

Maybe a good angle for Satanic alliances. All of Satan's representatives are much more human than the angels, much easier to understand and deal with, and nearly as powerful. Every bargain you make seems like a much better deal, but steadily it seems to have gotten worse and worse, until you realise you actually made a shitty deal, but blame yourself for it and it'll definetly be okay to make a deal the second time since you'll pay more attention. Basically the opposite of God in every way.

Speaking of which, maybe some inspiration. The Hebrews had something like ninety different names for God. A common name was the Tetragrammaton, a reference to God's written name in Hebrew, YHWH. God's name was treated with the same respect, awe, and terror due an unstable nuclear weapon. They specifically created names to refer to God's name so they wouldn't have to say God's name. It is very, very easy to play up the 'God-fearing' through the old testament literature.

>>5842545
And the abysinnian god didnt do shit? That sounds like favouritism or just plain made up "oh look 65k guys just died lol".

>>5842623

Not really hidden, look up the stuff in the Talmud, and there are lots of stories in the bible about miracles, too. Just make sure any spellcasters make it clear their power comes from god or he will firebomb their asses for heresy.

>>5842643

Nah, he can do random-seeming shit but in the long run everything has to make some kind of sense, even if that's just "Hey, this God has the raw power to rape everything you've ever known in two seconds. You kinda want to make him happy."

...I find it amusing that I'm a Christfag and am actually listening to worship music while watching and contributing avidly to this thread.

Source for OP pic?

>>5842673

GOD FIGHTS
HOLY WARS, ANGELS BRAWLING IN THE SKIES, SOAKING THE HUMANS WITH A RAIN OF DIVINE BLOOD

>>5842673

Well that's the gret thing about having a lot of gods wandeing about created using this random table of crazy powers. They probably do fuck about with eachother. War between gods would be a horrifying affair, like tiny Blood Wars and players should gladly accept absurd party based quests rather than be sent to it.

Don't tie yourself down to a 'abrahamic' table either. Mesh other ones in there or fight crazy eastern spirits and hindu supermen.

>>5842673

What, biblically? There is not even one mention of another god in there that is't of it being denounced and its followers getting their shit wrecked variously.

You could bring multiple divinities into this, but it would likely make it too complex. I thought the OP wanted this to be Mythos-style, as in most of these entities are larger than systems and earth is far below their notice, and one just so happened to take an interest in this little rock with yelling animals.
Maybe that would be a good introduction. Start with the PCs getting completely in over their heads in something. Maybe they're prisoners of war from a military campaign against their race, being taken away for sacrifice or somesuch. They're getting desperate, and throw out a random plea to anything or anyone that was listening despite never believing something would answer, as they've nothing to lose.

Except something does answer, and it answers big-time. Intervention occurs violently, destructively, and an angel or a clearly-metaphysical catastrophe annihilates an entire landscape from horizon to horizon. The entity then turns to them, and explains itself as representative of whatever you want to call God, and states that God has chosen humanity has His people. They are now subject to His laws and shall be obedient to His decrees. Obedience shall bring great gains. Disobedience shall bring dire punishment. Rebellion shall bring annihilation. Basically, whatever it takes to earn a reaction of "what the fuck did we just do..." from the players.

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/5841961/

Archived for fuckawesome idea.

>>5842674
mysterious ways my friend who are you lowly GM to discern them, besides seeing the PCs come up with explanations will be fun if you roll his reaction BEFORE you find out what he reacts to.
Did they murder your high priest and get massive rewards?
Did they kill the kid like you told them and have all their firstborn slaughtered? Just as planned.

>>5842733

Heck, maybe this entire God thing sprang up overnight. At around the same time everywhere on the planet, a dozen or so people who made random pleas to nothing had nothing listen back. The implication should be that the world is being used as a component of a gigantic game between these powers, but it should never actually be explained as such. The less the player knows about these gods at all, the better.


There should be a good bit of difference between the gods, too.

God is stupendously powerful, but slow to act, and binary in response. He will let his peopel take care of themselves, more or less, but when they, or someone else, crosses the line, the consequence is instant and apocalyptic. Basically, no setting between on and off.

The Zoroastrian pantheon should, as its myths are, be focused overwhelmingly on powerful heroes, who their God acts through. He takes no direct action, but is quite liberal at handing power to men and letting world-raping shenanigans ensue.

Others?

>>5842733
I love this idea.

I can see a small group of hairy, almost naked, spear chucking savages standing in the middle of a 200 megaton crater, on top of a montain of slag and charred neanderthals.

>>5842761
Odd, the zoaroastrian wiki article makes no mention of god acting through heroes at all.

>>5842767

Doesn't it? I was sure that they were the ones with mentions of insanely powerful guys killing each other all through their history.

The asian God is ridiculously multiple-personalitied, with hundreds of different facets, with goals runnign the entire gamut, and a complete shitstorm of servants acting for against with and through each other. The people there basically keep their heads down, do anything anything tells them to, and generally hope that they manage to remain beneath the notice of everything. That's as close as I think I can represent that spiritualism with a single god.

>>5842761
Hedonistic Norse/Olympian/Babylonian gods

Primordial Titans that are part animal part force of nature

Spirits/Fay/Kami/Oni that follow a strict etiquette but you can't discern its rules

Just make sure that the PCs can never tell if its many gods ore just one that likes to mess with them.

>>5842800

Single-god Norse mythology...

The Asgard are all soldiers, highly-ranked servants of their god. The problem is, not one of them has ever actually seen it, and the only orders they have are vague in the extreme. The various 'races' are all part of the same group, who interpreted those vague hand-me-down orders differently. They would be one of the most powerful groups, if they could work together.

So, are we going to incorporate deities strictly from what we now refer to as the Middle-East, or are we going to branch off and use gods from other Pantheons? Make it a divine, "Gods playing a game and guess what you're a pawn" sort of thing? Or should we just stick with the Abrahamic-esque deity?

>>5842825
Oh man. That has so much dickish potential in it.

>>5842839

I guess what I'm asking is, are we going to be making a grittier tabletop version of Age of Mythology?

>>5842839
I was thinking "Lovecraft re-writes the Old Testament"

Just run exalted guys...

>>5842874

Exalted doesn't at all fit with what we're trying to run here. In exalted, you're a stupidly powerful demi-god who could, realistically, solve all the worlds ills and kill the regular gods, given enough time. This isn't our goal. We want a setting where the Gods are incomprehensible, omnipotent, and frequently vindictive, and you have to toe a fine line to not get blown up. It doesn't really fit, thematically.

Also Exalted has crap rules.

>>5842839

I like the "Lovecraftian entities play a boardgame using earth" idea, but to keep it central, the players should be chosen by the God-god. This servitude is not neccesarily consensual, they have basically been chosen for happening to pray when it was listening, and are going to represent it no matter what they want. Makes for more plot potential.

>>5842893
signed

>>5842853
GRIMDARK

>>5842893

I figured as much, I just wanted to know how much we should develop the backround world. For example, are the Gods suddenly appearing, and random nobodies who happened to be praying at the right time suddenly finding themselves prophets? It makes for an interesting story, if the Gods previously hadn't existed or made their will known, and all of a sudden you get a world rife with the divine. And they would be somewhat Lovecraftian and mercurial in nature. Which gets back to how we should make/play it: gritty, Lovecraftian Age of Mythology? If so, we should just stick with the Abrahamic God for the players.

>>5842904

It's not really kidnapping, per se. They prayed, God answered. Their own bad luck they never actually set any conditions, just because they weren't expecting takers.

I think it's effective that they aren't really sure they weren't reponsible for this, and will spend so long wondering how the hell they managed to get in so far over their heads.

I DO find the idea of what amounts to divine kidnapping to be innately hilarious.

"Yeap.. you're my bitches now."

Hmm.

How can we put the Celtic Pantheon in here? And Hindu?

The Hind pantheon is JUST FUCKED UP.

>>5842928
why?

>>5842915

The Gods all appeared to whoever happened to be praying at the exact moment of midnight, Jan 01, 1500 b.c. or whichever year. Nothing and nobody at all, until suddenly, an entire array of Gods servants, agents, and powers re going at it like they've been there since the dawn of time.

>>5842915
The players god isn't any more well defined than your average omnipotent, its just the myth that grows around it like fungus is different for every region and no one can be sure whether theirs is a benevolent god or theres just one ass who keeps crewing with everyone

the old testament is a great setting. go for it

>>5842943

That's an interesting idea. I actually prefer that idea of only one God playing all sides better then a whole host of individual entities.

>>5842733
OP here, this idea is what I'm planning to do. I'd prefer it not break down into confusing age of mythology/black and white style god-wars. I'm more interested in how the players roleplay and rationalize the seemingly random divine actions, alongside a bit of good old "stab that guy, take his land and hope god backs us up or at least isn't offended." I want to see the players build a myth/explanation around their incomprehensibly powerful but equally dangerous god and their own responses to it.

>>5842689
http://www.imt.net/~gedison/bible/cherubim.jpg
Just some guy's bible studies. It's actually kinda hard to find literal images like it.

at some point your PCs will get pissed at being pawns so you should add SOME way for them to attain glory whether it be outsmarting (lol yeah right) your deity or slaying some atrocity that should not be (dragon anybody?) just read up on gnosticism, its where Lovecraft took most of his inspiration

>>5842384
I don't know what is worse: Your posts, or your spelling.

>>5841961
I approve of this idea, op. Anything to take the piss out of some fairy tales.

The question remains, then, what will the PCs do with the admittedly questionable patronage of an incomprehensible deity. Will they act as its prophets, attempting to build a religion and spread its will, thereby gaining temporal power for themselves, setting up a sort of theocracy? Or will they live as hermits, only acting when commanded to act by their God, and otherwise fasting and praying and hoping it doesn't smite them? Or, perhaps they'll choose to live as normal humans, only with their God occasionally making seemingly random commandments of them. All are interesting paths that could well very by the group, and each could make for a good campaign if done right.

Maybe after they've done a great many deeds for the God, they'll be able to form or ask for covenants, as opposed to commandments, although if you take that route you have to make it clear who's still in charge.

>>5843281

Wouldn't really say he's taking the piss. It seems like more of an affectionate parody.

>>5841961
Actually a decent idea. Make war on other tribes with different deities, try to hunt down any abominations not spawned by your patron, Simply survive as your tribe faces common hardships and your patron demands odd services (Lead your warriors in a march around a hostile city every day for a week without attacking of harming anyone, build temples, ritually mutilate yourself, etc). Lot of potential.

>>5842385
>OP, it'd be awesome if you wrote up your groups exploits in a faux-biblical style, framed as "What the holy book would have been if these guys had been Gods chosen" kinda thing.
Yeah, I'm going to have to agree. I would love to follow this kind of adventure on a weekly basis.

OP, don't feel limited to abrahamic books. Read the Upanishads and whatever book it is that the Hare-Krishna use. Some twisted stuff in there. Also, research Manicheanism (the religion started by the arabian mystic Mani).

>>5843281

It's more like making genuine use of the setting from a realistic and human perspective.

ITT: Teenage atheists rebel against their parents by hating religion.

>ITT: Teenage atheists rebel against their parents by hating religion.

they make me wish curbstomping was legal.

>>5843415
It's sad that your faith in your religion is so weak that your first resort when it is challenged is violence. It's even more sad that that's pretty much typical for your religion.

>>5843365
The worst thing is, if the Big Bang was proven to be incorrect, half of the atheist teenagers would throw a hissy fit and back to religion because 'science is wrong'. They believe just as blindly in science as the faithful do in religion. They don't understand it, but they think it's the truth.
Teenage atheist rebels aren't rational or intelligent - they're as over-zealous and as filled with faith as any pious priest.

>>5843441

My agnosticism isn't particularly challenged by you deciding to be a loudmouthed douche on the internet.

>>5843441
You just used incredibly stupid rhetoric and shot yourself in the foot. I'm an anticlerical atheist. And as for reasons to my curbstomping dreams - i just can't stand people that shout about their personal beliefs, preferences and opinions, and those that make choices in those areas because of stupid reasons and then shout about it should be curbstomped.

>>5843415

Not the poster but I can't stand kids who are athiestic simply to piss off their parents. Why can't people just think for themselves if people still believe in God after a reasoned and informed self-interrogation good for them. If not, also good for them.

God/fate/evolution gave people brains. Why do so many people find it so hard to use.

>>5843453
>>5843484
Because politics,
seriously its why organized religions are and nothing else

>>5843484
>God/fate/evolution gave people brains. Why do so many people find it so hard to use.
It didn't came with a manual. :F

>>5843484

I can't stand atheistic kids who are only so to piss off their parents because everyone thought I was one of them when I was a teenager.

>>5843484

Because it's a lot easier to not bother and accept the first explanation that comes your way.