As I said, the gods are nourished by the prayers of the people. So it behooves them to increase both their people's numbers and their people's devotion, by aiding them with miracles. The larger the miracle, the more power it will cost the god, power that can be replenished with prayers over time.

Players start out with a number of points they can use to determine their village's and their god's strengths. A larger community, an obedient or fierce population, or personal god powers are all possible ways to spend these points. This is also true for the prayer points that a god will accumulate over time--there's ways to spend them on personal god growth, or in assisting the community.

One of the first things a god can do in character creation is decide to take a physical form. This could be a tree, a rock, an animal, a spring, the wind through a particular place, the peak of a still forming mountain, a creature, or a personal object--a sword, a banner, even an oven. This makes it easier for the god to perform miracles in ways related to its form, and provides something visible for the people to worship. This comes with the downside of making the god more vulnerable to attack, and forcing the god into a specialty of sorts.

Let's say you make a god and decide to make your physical nature a tree. Early on, providing your people with a small miracle of food is more easily done than if you were to take the form of a rock. As you get more power, creating wooden objects for them is well within your power, even wooden objects with imbued power if you want to spend the power. You could spend your power increasing massively in size and provide a treetop home for your people, or upgrade yourself to be able to move--eventually able to rip your roots out of the ground and walk, crushing any who would attack your village.

As time goes on, you can influence your villagers covertly or directly. You can change the personality of the group over time, making them into the people best able to carry out your wishes--or directly inspire a villager with brilliance or heroism. A player who wants a village of warriors led by a warrior god could continue to upgrade their Fierceness, show them how to make weapons, imbue them with strength, and make select members into champions. Or he could introduce them to the concepts of technology and/or magic, and kickstart them into an arms race.

I've got a bunch more ideas for this, but this is getting into tl;dr territory and I wanted to know what /tg/ thought about it. And get some contributions for the idea, because /tg/ is awesome like that.

Can I play?

Have a system down?

Black & White: The RPG

>>9594899
Working on it. System is going to be pretty rules-light because the GM will need to be flexible.

>>9594926
It could be, yes.

>>9594926
To be more exact: one of the miracles a god can perform is to create a creature, or even an entire new species. There's not a lot of things living in the world, after all. But making a squirrel takes less than adding squirrels to the world, which takes a lot less than creating a Tarrasque-like creature to defend the village or attack enemies. The more you add to a creature you make, the more it costs you. Want to control its actions? Big cost. Do that mentally? Even more. Want it to have supernatural abilities? Those cost a decent chunk too.

You can make it cost less by making the animal one of your symbols, but you can only have so many symbols at a time, losing one requires time before you can add a new one--and your symbols can be ways for an enemy to attack you, not just ways for your worshippers to connect.

Sounds fun...

I'd play.

Do we get to decide everything about our village and its population?

>>9594822
Are players competing or cooperating?

>>9595046
Glad you like it. Have any ideas for how to add to it? I have a little notebook I keep adding to, but /tg/ is great for coming up with awesome.

Here's another system detail:

Gods can't go outside the boundaries of their community, but there's a few ways around that. You can have a mobile community--a tribe of nomads. You'll lose out on the benefits stability brings, but being on the move brings its own rewards. You can also upgrade your god with the ability to leave the community's borders, but the amount of prayer power you receive during that time decreases.

>>9594926
Took the words right out of my mouth.

I'd still play it.

>>9595102
Unless we have an actual antagonist (stronger God? Maybe a God/disgruntled prophet who uses atheism to eliminate other Gods?) we would be fighting each other.

How would a party of PCs interact? Multiple gods to a community? Different aspects of the same divine source? Different communities?

How would antagonists work? Enemies to the church, or to the community? Other gods? Something beyond the gods?

Sounds like Dawn of Worlds

I'd love to play this.

sage for homebrew

This is a very neat idea. I, for one, would play the shit out of it. Oh, and I suggest you look into early Egyptian worship for some ideas, before their gods became gods. It's one of the best documented examples of the transition from animism to polytheism, and I have no doubt that some knowledge of that transformation would benefit your game immensely.

>>9595105

If one of your symbols is taken out of the community, can you go with it? If my physical form is a sword, and some high-paladin of my community takes it on a crusade, can I help my people convert the non-believers from afar?

>>9595072
Pretty much. You're its god. You can show them the wonders of technology, instill bloodlines of magic, show them the power of runes. The world is new and full of potential, things could go in many ways. As time goes on, paths not traveled will be harder to open. Your villagers are big on precedent, and personal change becomes harder the longer you remain in a form, unless you have a transition. Picked a rock, but decided you wanted to be a creature later on? Your villagers would be more fine with your rock turning out to be the egg of a godlike creature than they would if you suddenly turned into a tree--not that it would be easy to do that anyways, given that their prayers begin to be for "our tree god" instead of "our god."

>>9595129
I'd assume we interact by talking to our prophets or through our physical manifestation.

Say I'm a tree and you're a wolf. You will come to the border between our villages, while my prophet comes, wielding a staff made out of one of my branches. You talk directly, I influence my prophet because he's holding part of my divine essence.

>>9595102
You can do either. Want to have a trade agreement with your buddy? Go for it. Want to stomp his village flat because he made a den of depravity and his god took the form of a lame dragon? Do it.

>>9595168
How quickly does time go?

I'm thinking of creating a race of steampunk technologists. But-- if it takes too long to reach that point in technology, and I'll be fucked when everyone else is tossing fireballs and I'm still using clubs, I think I'll pass.

This sounds kinda like the Dominions series of games, only far more free-form.

>>9595129
>How would a party of PCs interact? Multiple gods to a community? Different aspects of the same divine source? Different communities?
Different communities is what feels best. Lets each player make a piece of the setting in their own way.

>How would antagonists work? Enemies to the church, or to the community? Other gods? Something beyond the gods?
All of the above. Internal problems with building the community would need to be resolved to keep the village healthy and the prayers flowing.

Other gods would be a big problem. There would be NPC ones, who could form a group that dislikes the villages in the PC's area.

Something outside of creation is something else I've been tossing around, but I haven't jotted down anything concrete yet.

Could there be some sort of communal hall of the gods? Olympus, Asgard, etc?

>>9595150
I hadn't thought of this, but you're right and I'll be doing some rereading of the myths. Thanks.

>>9595134
I'll look into that for ideas, thanks.

>>9595229
And something else I'll have to check out.

Competitive route: Players get a village, spend 'faith' points and respond to random events to grow their population and their faith and then screw each other over.
Sounds like a card or board game.

Cooperative route: RP game, players are one or 1-5 'guardian spirits' for the communities of a small area; together they have to decide what to do. Bonuses for acting in a pre-defined 'pantheon role' way; whoever was cast (perhaps at random) as 'the trickster' at the start gets more exp-equivalent if they act in that way.

Bad-guy is rival god(s) and spirits.

Alternatively; players are the 'creatures/angels' of God, who relays messages through the GM. Players have to work out how to interpret something like.

"When the Son of the trees shall come in his glory and sit upon the throne of his glory:
before him shall be gathered the goats:
And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, for I was an hungred, and ye gave me no naked.
Answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.
And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into the leaf and the branch."

When the DM has already worked out an ideal intention behind the prophecy.

>>9595151
Your physical form is a sword? Then the paladin is taking you. He'd best be bringing along his neighbors on this crusade, or you need to be mobile. If it's just that one of your symbols is a sword, you could keep it sharp for him, unnaturally keen, or shining bright. Plus you could inspire him with heroism. His actions would let you bring outsiders into the community, yes.

>God
Cool Fantasy Game, bro.

>>9595240
I love that idea, of the players essentially homebrewing up a country between them through their different communities.

You know in a lot of myths the gods have opposition from demons, giants, titans or other powerful creatures (who sometimes even manage to kill or wound gods!)

>>9595172
Pretty much dead on. There'll be a few ways you can communicate, which will impact your villagers in different ways. Direct communication is difficult, but doable. Prophets have an easier time of it either due to natural ability, study, or belief (you can choose). You could have people hear whispers in the wind through a grove of trees, or speak to them through symbols, or hell even though interpretive dance.

>>9595364
So... can I call being the trickster God of Madness and Betrayal?

Or are we too early for this?

>>9595201
Gunpowder is as much a black art as, say, transmutation or necromancy. But you can Inspire Brilliance in a villager or several, and if they are given the proper tools they can rapidly advance the current technological base.

>>9595172
>you're a wolf
Dibs.

>>9595252
Would be difficult with all the gods tied down to their communities, but you could have a central gathering point to chill together through your prophets. Also, you're not all necessarily from a pantheon, although if you decide that in char gen that's acceptable.

how I would run this is as the charaters are avatars born of the gods they will become. the game starts with striking down a few upstart cults and generally keeping the village in line, and eventually meeting other communities and their gods. be it war or extreme expansion...

that all being said I would play, although I would be a malelvolent god, sacrifices, dark/forbidden, war, ect. Just strikes me as what I would want to play.

THE CULL CALLS WILL YOU ANSWER OR BECOME THIS EVENINGS SACRIFICE?

>>9595432
what if we had this metaphysical council. Like, we are all immortal, untouchable, and unkillable so long as our Physical Incarnation remains safe, but in the 'spirit realm', we can hold councils. Trade agreements, war plans against other pantheons, just chilling, etc.

>>9595314
All of these would be fun to play, but I think the first one works as an RP possibility too. You can definitely work together, and against an outside threat that may be highly advisable. Also, I could make one of the buyable (or probably, inherent) traits the ability to communicate over distance with the gods of other communities.

I soo want to play this. A village of people led to believe taht anyone outside of their community is not human and is suitable food or beast of burden, scary sacrifices and YOG SOBLAHBLAH chanting.

Does it hurt when my followers sin against me? Who decides how a sin is defined?

>>9595456
Sure, sounds easily doable.

>>9595455
An evil god is definitely an option. (I took some inspiration from the draw a village threads. Going the route of the first one is cool.) You could make a requirement of your god to be human sacrifice, and receive great boosts to your prayer point pool each time that happens.

>>9595455
oh btw op I wouldn't mind having a copy of the rules when/if you happen to get done with them.

>>9595534
considering we have the trickster God, a cult based around xenophobia, and another based around human sacrifices, I can forsee how this can become divided as the Pantheon engages in a Good vs Evil civil war.

Anyway, how's this for a Physical Manifestation? The mask of the Trickster God?

>>9595509
Well now, aren't you the metaphysical being in charge? Don't you decide what pisses you off and deserves punishment?

Wasn't thinking of sins being harmful, but if you became known as a god of good (and/or justice), then harmful deeds in the community would hurt, and good deeds would be a cool natural high.

>>9595502
That would give your people bonuses in combat, a basically full penalty to trade or diplomacy, and some other traits.

>>9595554
Yeah, I'll post them to /tg/ when they're done, but it'd be cool if I got more examples of what you would do as a god or with your villages, because examples are what help me figure out what needs to be part of the rules.

charles.m.vance@gmail.com

Send me a copy, too, OP.

If you do have a pantheon, it should be a given that the gods can communicate with each other. If they can't, then it's going to be difficult to run as an RPG as opposed to a turn based strategy game of some sort.

As to system, I think it would be best to keep everything as rules light as possible, maybe half a dozen base stats such as Fierceness, Prosperity and... Constructiveness? Come up with a bunch of purchasable traits, and then let the group as a whole decide on new traits that should be added to the system, council-style, with the GM having ultimate say as to the cost.

Posting harvest goddess in a god game thread.

>>9595585
Doable. Your mask would work as essentially one of the world's first artifacts, perhaps allowing its wearer (more like, your puppet) to assume any guise. It would probably be a good idea to get the mobile trait in that case, so you could go poking around other villages and see what they're up to.

>>9595683
I was thinking that we'd be a caravan of carnies and performers who would steal children from local towns that we pass.

So, can we get a list of traits, powers, and skills (divine and civilization-wise)?

most pantheon have a opposing god or a evil god. should the Dm be the evil god?

Could I do things like create angels or other servitors? spirits or things that maybe can't take physical form but possess people or animals (or maybe even inanimate objects) or would that fall under the basic rules of enhancing my community?

what if I wanted them to have a physical form, can we create new life directly or just influence it over time?

>>9595670
Turn based strategy is fine too, really. But I hadn't thought of the need for inter-god communication, and I'm glad /tg/ pointed that out, because I think this would work better as an RPG.

>As to system, I think it would be best to keep everything as rules light as possible, maybe half a dozen base stats such as Fierceness, Prosperity and... Constructiveness? Come up with a bunch of purchasable traits, and then let the group as a whole decide on new traits that should be added to the system, council-style, with the GM having ultimate say as to the cost.
Generally rules-light is the way I'd like to go. The people will have their traits, kind of in an Arkam Horror style where you can spend points to pull them to one side of the spectrum or another--toward peacefulness or fierceness, toward obedience or willfulness. You get bonuses the more you go toward a side of a given spectrum, but it costs more and more too.

The traits for the gods work a little differently though.

>>9595668
Sure thing. Putting my /tg/ email in here now.

>>9595738
I think we're very likely to have a good deal of Evil Gods as it is.

Also, could we say, make an atheist state? Where the people's belief go towards a philosophy rather than a God? Say, the philosopher is praised and revered, so what would otherwise be a Prophet unit becomes the Physical Manifestation of Belief in this philosophy?

Have you thought about Genius Loci or the Fisher King? As the god gains in strength, he or she personally effects the realm in which his belief is strongest. So a god of storms would have a rainy, windswept domain, while a god of fertility's realm would abound with life.

God of a secretive and selective group of crusading adventurers. Could I earn points when my group secures certain objectives? Destroy an evil beast, steal another god's relics, help a struggling community fight the plague, etc...

>>9595800
can I get some rules, too?

>>9595735
Ah, that would work well then.

I've posted a lot of the ones I've thought up already; I'm hoping /tg/ can think of some more. Give me a bit and I'll make a compilation post.

>>9595738
not true, if it became a village with 3-4 gods (good and evil) and another god came along and started threatening the other four I have no doubt they would put down arms against each other to strike down their new foe.

so OP I suspect there is a feat selection for the gods and a point level up for the villagers.... and points are sunk into things like
hunting, gathering/farming, war, magic, ect.

whereas feats you have for the most part explained.

>>9595796
>Could I do things like create angels or other servitors? spirits or things that maybe can't take physical form but possess people or animals (or maybe even inanimate objects) or would that fall under the basic rules of enhancing my community?
>what if I wanted them to have a physical form, can we create new life directly or just influence it over time?

You can do all of the above with enough power. Hell, you might decide that the world really needs elves. So you go ahead and make them. And then the other players decide to try and exterminate the elves, and your village allies with fledgling elf tribe, and...

The world's a pretty blank slate to start, and part of the idea is for players to be making new life as they go to fill their needs or just fulfill a whim.

Also, there may be NPC gods who spend their time pumping out monstrous creatures.

>>9595314
I absolutely love this, my god. Gm comes up with a number of extremely cryptic, archaically structured communiques and part of the game is the players interpreting these to guide their followers and shape civilization. That said, that would be more of a sidebar mechanic for this setting.

>>9595808
The player is the god, not the prophet. Are you suggesting that philosophies be playable? I think they lack the necessary sentience.

Idea about traits. There should be two types. One for the God's traits, and one for the Civilization's.

A few that spring to mind...
>Mobile
+2 to unit movement, -1 to defense
>Warlike
+2 to all combat skills, -2 to all trade/diplomacy skills
>Greedy
+2 to trade, -1 to Faith
>Industrious
+1 to production, -1 to creativity/faith/whatever
>Magicians
+2 to magic skills, -1 to all combat skills
>Technologists
+2 to all production and industry skills, no magic ability, -1 to all Magic Saves

FLCLfan89@yahoo.com

drop me a line, I would like to hear more on this, I could probably give you a few more ideas if my mind were not wandering right now...hit me up I'll throw some ideas back at cha'

Are you separating the points for followers and powers? Like, FP to be spent helping your people, and PP to be spent on divine improvements and artifacts and such.

>>9595738
You don't really need to be a pantheon though. Likely, in many games the PC gods would be like a group of gods who think the others are broly enough to work with.

>>9595808
You'd have to run that by your GM, but I don't think it really works terribly well with the idea as given. A large chunk of the game is going to be the upgrading of your god's personal ability to alter the world.

>>9595817
Sounds good, once you're powerful enough. Or sustain it as a minor miracle.

The way the Dominions series handles it, you can put your points into Magic, Dominion, and Scales. Magic consists of several different "schools", for lack of a better word, and your strength in each determines the potency of your miracles. If you have extremely high magic skill concentrated in a single area, certain sacred units may have passive benefits, like healing absurdly fast for nature magic or festering wounds left by their weaponry for death magic. Dominion determines the strength of your god, and how quickly he, she, or it attracts new followers to his banner. Scales determine how the God actually affects the land. Each scale has an opposing scale as well; there are Order and Turmoil, Productivity and Sloth, Heat and Cold, Growth and Death, and Magic and Drain. All are somewhat self-explanatory, so I won't get into them in depth. Finally, each god can get more points by starting as "sleeping" or "imprisoned." In both cases, your god has not emerged yet, and while he may be able to influence his worshipers, he is not capable of enacting any miracles or manifesting himself physically.

While I do not advocate stealing from them wholesale, there are some good ideas there that you can make use of.

I'd probably create some sort of Bat-god.

Include a recessive gene in my community for a pair of usable bat wings, recurring about as often as albinism. Interesting conflicts should occur when bat-babies sprout up in an opposing Lawful Evil master-race sort of society.

I'd opt for a fertility god of some sort or another.

Creating more lifeforms and distinct servants than any of the other gods, but with far less energy (points?) put into miracles/services/endowments directly aimed at the followers.

>>9595821
Not exactly a community.

>>9595860
Kind of. Still working on the details.

>>9595955
Traits I've had so far for the population include:
-Religious: starts at an extra prayer point for every 10 villagers, increases with ranks, expensive to buy and gets even more expensive quickly.
-Productive: starts as an extra labor point for every 10 villagers, increases with ranks.
-Fierce: +X to offense, happy to go to war, increases with ranks, eventually becomes Bloodthirsty--where the villagers require battle to continue their devotion.
-Vigilant: +X to defense, huge bonus against surprise attacks, increases with ranks, eventually becomes Xenophobic--where the villagers see all outsiders as enemies.
-Obedient: Easier for the god to command, less innovation and initiative (exact rules not yet down).
-Free-willed: Opposite of obedient.

>>9595967
Actually, you have a common pool of prayer points. If you want to spend them on personal upgrades or community upgrades, that's your call. You could have a very strong community with a god who is unable to personally intervene, or a weak community with a god that is an enormous personal force.

I suspect that the strongest result would be somewhere in the middle.

I have a thought about this paths aspect. The world is starting as a blank slate. Gm documents major decisions the gods make and these decisions create their own categories of behavior expectaton. Each subsequent major decision can alter this category, great or small. A great alteration might lead to a loss of faith, or a division into multiple faiths.

Next, you get your powers from your worshippers. I would rule that if any two faiths of near equal influence hold conflicting beliefs about you, those beliefs cancel out your ability in that capacity, and at the very least conflicting beliefs will diminish each other and it might be one very weakened power available from two strong, conflicting beliefs. Meaning, it will be in your best interest to keep from confusing your followers into fighting about your true nature.

This keeps the players away from power creep, as well. If they try to become maxxed out or completely versatile, the system imposes a natural penalty.

>>9596028
That does sound like something I'll need to look at. Not something to steal from, but the more ideas the better.

Hey, also, I'm eextremely interested in this, I would love to get updates, if you don't mind:

sarcose@gmail.com

rolled 9 = 9

Dammit, OP make a 1d4chan page for dis

>>9596174
>I suspect that the strongest result would be somewhere in the middle.

>>9596176
>This keeps the players away from power creep, as well. If they try to become maxxed out or completely versatile, the system imposes a natural penalty.

Problematically, most systems unintentionally overreward specialization. Specific care must be taken to avoid this.

>>9596176
You and I are thinking along much the same lines.

Don't forget that fractures within the community are devastating to a god. A civil war or secession would decimate the prayer points gotten. And while the god might try to order a halt, gods don't move fast. Especially early on. Their efforts are tiring. (And taking the time to rest for a number of years with only minor miracles performed can allow a nice buildup of power for some remarkable results even early on.)

>>9596228

My advice? Dominions 3 has an official demo with the god creator packaged in with it. Just play around with it some and see if you like it. Another option I neglected to mention is that you can sacrifice most of your points and pick a more powerful incarnation, or "chassis." So, for example, choosing a fountain or a rock is very cheap points-wise, while choosing a Devata of Hindu myth or an Elder Cyclops would be much more expensive. Obviously, it might not fit in with your theme, but it's certainly something to consider.

Okay this sounds like a great idea OP but it also sounds like, although you've laid groundwork basic non-mechanic ideas, it needs some serious help in the mechanical aspect.

granor@rocketmail.com

Email me and we can get into number crunch, kay?

>>9596234
Would but I doubt it would get much use.

Will be keeping all those who email me in the loop, and will try to get everyone who posted theirs in the thread.

>>9596326
I don't want to get too influenced by a single other game, but this is well worth me checking out. Thanks again. I'm also looking at possibly basing some stuff (like community magic) off of ideas from King of Dragon Pass.

>Email me and we can get into number crunch, kay?
Sounds excellent. I'll be doing more groundwork for a bit longer first; I don't feel I have enough fluff examples, and I'd like to have a presentation like Spirit of the Century--a simple, effective ruleset that allows a lot of player and GM freedom, with a plethora of examples for players to use.

I'll be taking any help with mechanics that people want to provide though.

>>9596235
>>9596319
It occurs to me we have a very simple mechanic available as a vulnerability to the gods: a superpowerful, overspecialized god will probably have a very stubborn, closedminded community. They might make enemies of their neighbors, or go on crusades against the gods' will, or even begin overanalyzing each direct message from their god and suspect foul play and heresy. In short, a specialized god might build himself a community that sabotages him.

Also, OP? If you haven't read Small Gods, you need to do so immediately. While I would recommend this book to anyone and everyone who wanders by, I do so especially stringently with you. If you have already read it, excellent! If not, it should be your utmost priority to acquire and devour it as quickly as you possibly can.

>>9596419
The problem with overspecialization is that you're only able to help your village in a specific way. If you're all about the war aspect and nothing else, your villagers are going to be in a world of hurt come disease or famine.

>>9596481
My friend described this to me once, but I agree that now would be a good time to actually read it myself. Thanks.

I can see my self playing a book god that destroys the mind of anyone attempting to read it but also giving them great power

It also has a cooking section without the mindfuckery in the back

this reminds me of DeityQuest

big time

>oven god

I'm torn between whether this would be awesome or ludicrous.

>>9596602
You too? Fuck yeah DeityQuest: The Tabletop would be awesome

I would like to play as a wind in a gave dripping with water and stalactites, resonant with divine energy. I would inspire philosophers and madmen, philanthropists and killers; all those who perceived the world differently.

>>9596646
Of course, there was already a lot of established setting in that.

What happens if a player gets killed?

>>9596679
Haven't decided that yet. It would probably depend on the circumstances.

Are there still villagers left? Then the community hasn't died, the god could reform, though its powers will have taken a hit.

Village wipe? Probably would give the player an NPC village/god to take over. Or, have the god flit to a group of humans who just reached community capacity.

I'm more than willing to hear suggestions. Player death causing ragequit is something I'd like to avoid.

What if I wanted to be a horrible god of plague and infect villagers with disgusting diseases then send them to die in other village's rivers and streams?

I'd love lots of creative ways to fuck with other villages besides all out war. sending creepy assassins to kill people and cut the sign of my god into their bodies, send weird omens, maybe messages sung out by winged angels that their god is a false one..

>>9596735

That should depend, Maybe have them roll a luck chance to see if everyone was at their village?

Perhaps the god who killed him can impose some sort of punishment or lock him into an object or idea from which they have the chance to grow

I'm a little disappointed in us, /tg/. We all clamored for OP to give us rules, but we gave him barely anything he could use for ideas.

>>9595455
and beholdeth there was a darkness that seeped from the swamp, it spoke to us in it's crawling voice, "mortals, for too long have I gazed upon thy hidious form, buildith an alter so that I might change thine."

unto it an alter was built, hewn from stone beaten into shape by the sweat of our brow.

"This alter pleases me, behold and witness my power."

A great moaning and chanting filled the swamp, and when the chants were done several had a rune on their forehead these would be known as the chosen.

"Give praise unto me chosen, for I am Darough, Lord of Corruption, your tithe to me shall be wrought in blood, I desire in no weak soul, or mewling babe, nor metal and jewel. I do not desire a kill already made or anything not of my alter, the sacrifice must be made here, at the break of each black moon."

>>9597344

That's not entirely true. While we may have neglected to provide direct information, I believe that we pointed him in the right direction.

>>9597449
At this the voice of Darough stopped and the sounds of the swamp resumed, the villagers made their sacrifices of those not chosen by their new god, taking their women so that his influence and mark would spread. As the mark spread and families tended to the village they were taught warfare of the swamps, as well as trapping and fishing, most of all they were taught the beginnings of the dark arts....as the mark spread however they ran out of sacrifices to their god, and the night of the black moon, when not presented with a sacrifice, Darough made his anger clear.

" Who among you has deemed themselves worthy of not being my sacrifice? I desire your blood and soul and I do not care from where I get it!"

at this there was a great hatred that called out from the depths of the chosen's mind, it called for the murder of anything.....anyone! Brother butchered brother, child slew parent, husband slew wife. When the evening ended the swamp's murky waters had turned a murky red, and as they returned to the alter they heard Darough.

"Throw the flesh of all that was slain to the deepest part of the swamp and to that area never return. My sacrifices are to be made, no matter the cost."

Is there anything about minor gods under your rule? Like as if you can rule over smaller gods of smaller stuff?

Rock gods rule over pebble gods, trees over sticks?

And what about demi-gods?

>>9597511
Hadn't really considered it. Might be worth some brainstorming.

>>9597344
>>9597480
Knowing that people would enjoy this is helpful in and of itself, and I did get some useful bits. I'll admit that I was hoping for a bit more ideas in the fluff department, but beggars can't be choosers.

BIGGEST QUESTION I HAVE, /tg/:

What would you want to see in the game that would make it awesome for YOU?

OP, why not just play Black and White?

>>9597504
.....and that my children is why we close lock our doors this night, lest the demons from the swamp sacrifice us to their malevolent god

(what cha think? feel free to use this if you like it.)

>>9597575

It's a sandbox game set at the beginning of the world. Fluff is entirely player-driven. I don't know what you wanted from us in that regard. We may help with rules, or with brainstorming, but in an entirely player-driven game how are we to contribute fluff?

>>9597575
Custom-ability. I want to be able to guide my people in the right direction, aka the direction I want. Steam punk and all that tech stuff.

And have it fun.

>>9597598
Well, you may find this hard to believe, but I've actually never played it. I know what it's about, and that this is pretty close to what it's like, but I just read the wiki entry on it, and some things they have (prayer points) I wrote down without knowing that they were a part of B&W. Parallel thinking, I guess.

>>9597624
I misspoke, then.

What I meant by fluff is examples of things you'd like to try (which there was some of) or brainstorming. Examples let me see where there need to be rules and where I can leave it up to the GM/players.

>>9597575
a system of creating new forms of life. weird creatures, golems, new races, demons, angels, etc.

What about altering the land? making mountains or rerouting rivers to open up trade or flood enemy settlements.

maybe stock npc gods that can be drawn on for campaigns as neighbors and enemies

>>9597640
>>9597689

Exactly what I need. Thanks.

>>9597683

Ah, that makes more sense. I want holy wars. I want legions of fanatical followers marching out to smite the enemies of the One True God. I want temples and cathedrals reaching up to the heavens. I want to be exalted above all else, millions of voices straining in praises to my name. I want to be trapped, as people begin worshiping my church. They lose the god and gain the dogma. I want to wither and die, losing my faithful even as they erect edifices to my glory.

Also, I want to turn into a bull and pick up chicks.

Hey OP it's the number crunch guy. I shot you off an email.

For this project I'm going to be your right hand man, should you choose to accept me.

>>9597775
Duly noted.

>>9597804
Sounds good! I'll have to get back to you in detail tomorrow though; I need sleep quite badly.

>Creating a game based upon deities that civilizations revolved around ~2000 years ago.

>In a thousand years, this post will happen on the psychic-net, and instead of gods, the players will be early message boards...

>>9597931
>>9597931
That would be pretty awesome.

Can I make my villagers a bunch of animal-people?

>>9597689
I conquer, or whatever that word for agreement is.

>>9597981
From what I understand, all the villagers are human, but you could create beastmen.

If you're furrying it up, I hope your other players crush your village and butcher the inhabitants.

sir.lobo@hotmail.com

plz send me the rules too

>>9598005
The word you want is "concur."

>>9598015

Ah, but that's the genius of it. I'll use some of my god power to furrilize my populace, and put all the rest of it into making them warriors without peer to the exclusion of all else.

When everyone tries to bring the boot down on me my people will drive them off, loot them, eat their flesh and sacrifice their bones to me.

>>9598042
One versus many. Good fucking luck.

>>9598042
and then the GM will have a meteor hit your village, get out of here furfag.

>>9598065

As an avid DF player, I'm quite aware of how much fun losing can be.

Some mechanics that must be implemented for a proper god-game:

Creature creation.
Sacrifice mechanic.
Worship mechanic.
God specialties.
God spells.
Afterlife creation.
Large-scale war support.
Small-scale battle support.
Divine combat.
The creation of avatars.
Divine minions.
Granting followers powers.
Limiting mechanic.

>>9598124
Did one last check before falling asleep, and got this. Great food for thought. Thanks.

I saw that somebody archived the thread, so I'll be sure to read anything else people suggest tomorrow. Thanks, /tg/.

>>9598124
Limiting mechanic?

i imagine that the powers that you god would posses need to be limited and have a connection. For example I want a fire/cold/fertility god. To explain this combo of domains could be: volcano= fire, the ash from the eruption is very fertile= fertility, if my god is angry the volcano does not erupt but spews lots of smoke till the local whether is affected=cold

I wonder why nobody has made a tabletop game like this yet.

I would also be interested in receiving updates on this project, and would be willing to help create/refine rules or run playtests/thought experiments for rules testing. Seems like promising stuff.

You might be interested in reading over the rules for Dawn of Worlds, which is somewhat similar in concept. It's actually a fairly entertaining game and doesn't take long, if you ever feel like grabbing a few friends and running it. Available at the website below.

http://www.clanwebsite.org/games/rpg/Dawn_of_Worlds_game_1_0Final.pdf

>>9598533
Started reading that link, that's pretty cool.

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/8037198/

This reminds of that quest. Seems like it could be a very fun idea if it was put together correctly.

>>9598253

To prevent omnipotence.

>>9598941
Something else to read...

This thread has a lot of that.

Would the rules be able to support gods not centered around communities, perhaps only as minor deities? I like the idea of a forest god that isn't tied to a community, but is feared by the people and protects the trees and animals.

Haven't read everything here yet, but tossing in my support for the idea; I think it's brilliant.

>>9599156
If the OP makes something rules-light, it shouldn't be too hard to support that.

Maybe have your community be one of animals or trees instead? As with any game, it's probably up to the GM.

>>9599156

Those would make great antagonists possible allies as well for community based gods, powerful npcs

There are a fucking ton of people who want to play this.

I think that says something about /tg/, but I'm not sure what.

Hey, was posting earlier but I left thread and don't have time to catch up. What I would like to see is the "imaginations and beliefs of the people shape the supernatural" fleshed out mechanically. To go off of an earlier scenario, I am imagining player death handled by replacing them with a rival budding faith. Perhaps some mutation of who they once were, perhap an offshoot of another gods', perhaps an entirely new religion based on the conditions of the communities lives and their environs will spring nto belief.

I see it this way because I only see player death possible like Mab in Merlin: getting the community to reject or disbelieve in the god PC, enough so that he can be killed. Therefore, the community is likely to have fielded a replacement religion or religions.

Perhaps a god dies, then can "respawn" but must cobble himself together from what remains of his communities beliefs. Not a shadow of his former self so much as a chaotic mishmash of half-formed beliefs that might, in theory, resemble who he was. His quest now being to keep the people believing in him while at the same time trying to reform back into what he wants to be without driving them to another faith.

>>9599391
That we enjoy games in which we have complete freedom in our creative control over the world, possibly suggesting a lack of such in our own lives?

>>9599470
Or we just really want to be the guy calling the shots.

>>9599438
Maybe for a god that didn't ever assume a physical form, but it was said that taking a physical form made a god vulnerable. Probably by physical attacks. To use the tree example--well, you couldn't kill a spirit, but anybody can chop down a tree.

Super thick, hard bark? Need a better axe.
Tree fights back? Fight back harder. Try fire.

two...two fucking RPGs from the boards I now want to find a group and play with.

Fuck you /tg/ fuck you and your being awesome.

>>9599754
What's the other one?

I wonder if we could help OP out by giving him what we'd want for creature creation.

I for one want to be able to place the initial home of the creature wherever I want.

>>9599391
/tg/ likes good games?

Wait, no, that can't be it.

If we get a working game of this, I am playing the shit out of it.

>>9596419
>>9596490
Specialization, not overspecialization. The latter is bad by definition. You have to make sure that every stat that a player could specialize in is consistently useful in an open-ended way, and that every stat you don't want a player to be able to dump must be frequently necessary in an non-circumventable way.

For instance, if most actions can benefit from either your community OR your avatar, then the system rewards developing one at the expense of the other. If a community can be attacked but an immobile avatar cannot (without going through the community), then the avatar becomes a possible dump stat.

This is a nontrivial problem because it can occur with any stat combination.

>Also, I want to turn into a bull and pick up chicks.

Idea: Don't have enough points to appoint a champion? Sleep with mortals! Check back in fifteen years and hope your progeny don't hate you.

>>9599895
That VeloCity thing, think of it as JSRF-Airblade-every fucking Tony Hawk like game all mixed together with simple rules.

>>9600308
Same here. find both massively exciting.

Hope both get all prettied up into pdfs and so on

>>9600118
Amen /b/rother.

I want to be a god of space exploration.

>>9600656
that brings up an interesting point, a moon or constellation god. i would say you take the form of the light they see from the astral body, meaning your weaknesses would be things like day (perhaps with enough power you can shine bright enough to still shine in the day) and cloud cover.

what about a season deity? perhaps that could make an easy setup for a 4-person team

Two things, to make the game more fun for players:

First, I support the idea of having some sort of ethereal realm where gods can communicate. A sort of neutral ground in which they could manifest and converse without being able to hurt each other. Otherwise early-game is going to be really boring, whether all your PC's are on the same side or not.

Secondly, make temporary manifestations doable by at least mid-game. As in, I spend (a fair amount) of power and get to play a glowing angel with a flaming sword/giant wolf/fiery demon from hell and fight armies. The more of yourself you manifest, the more powerful the manifestation (and the more belief bonus you get, as your army sees you in all your glory) but the more you lose if your manifestation is destroyed before you dispel it yourself at the end of the battle or whatever.

My divine avatar will be a Kitten Of Lordly Might.

seems like you've got some followers OP. Interested as well. You can add me to the email list.

agoorigod@gmail.com

Nother mechanic thought: Faithlines.

Expounding on the categories idea, when a behavior expectation is established it can formalize into the religion. Acting in accordance with your worshippers' expectations along this portfolio nets you prayer or sacrifice or whatever, and it is sourced at this single group to which the expectations are applied - the source of these prayers can be called Faithlines (because I think it's catchy).

A faithline is not a religion; it is a single group of tenets. There can be multiple within one religion, and certainly conflicting ones. But each person only subscribes to one.

This is a more complicated way of modelling group belief tendencies, and this is the purpose it serves: when you begin to lose control over who you are (by death or age or any myriad ways), you will begin to reform in accordance to the tenets of dominant faithlines, purging out conflicts but wholly embracing half-formed yet compatible ideas (about your behavior, translating to limits and abilities). This is the mechanic that leads to a respawning god to become a chaotic mess. There could be any number of faitlines that are not accurate, but you were getting prayer anywway by not rocking their boat. Suddenly, that esoteric cult that believes you were always two antelope tied together by the umbilical cord of your own grandmother, who you ate and subsequently gave birth to, becoming your own great-grandpa, begins to actually influence what you become when you reform.

A very interesting gamestyle to me would be frequent player death, and the trials of dealing with reforming when there are offshoot faithlines that piss you off when they get a say.

>>9600733
>what about a season deity? perhaps that could make an easy setup for a 4-person team
Or a god with different faces (and perhaps different bonuses or at least manifestations) depending on the season.

>>9601649
I don't think it's going to happen all that often what with frequent manifestation and sanctioned prophets. Prophets are, really, the best and easiest way to keep people united in one belief. And miracles let people know they've got the go-ahead.

>>9600778
It's not really in keeping with OP's idea, but I'd like to see a kind of dual game with everything as described on one side and a spiritual world (e.g., Olympus + afterlife realms) where the pantheon has their misadventures.

"So Odin, Thor, and Loki descend into the titan's crypt... roll initiative."

Is OP still here? Would love to contact him, I'm trying to do something similar. http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/9480839/

But yeah, think you could get on the suptg IRC or something?

Bump for the morning crowd.

Good ideas here, I hope the OP sees the archived thread.

>>9603715
You should probably email him or leave your email here like the rest. Waiting for someone to get onto a specific IRC at the right time sounds less than likely to succeed.

I find your ideas intriguing and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

You should get a site up for this, maybe - somewhere slightly more permanent to keep all the work in progress and get feedback?

>>9600733
Interesting. So the light from the moon, clearly visible over a particular area as radiant beams? I'd dig that.

>>9605530
>7:31

>>9608710
>>9608719
>12:18

Holy shit, talk about timing.

>>9608710
1d4chan? Or like a blog?

This is interest, but it's been done before in many incarnations and failed in many incarnations.

>>9595240
No, the PCs should rule separate communities at first, but when the villages grow to kingdoms, the PCs would unite into a pantheon. The antagonists would be other pantheons on far of countries. Maybe they could be called demons or such.

>>9608955
Well, why did they fail? Perhaps the OP can use their failures to note what they did wrong and not make the same mistakes.

>>9608892
1d4chan would mean having it up in a Wiki format, which could be good or bad. A blog would be a straight-up repository. Weigh the pros and cons?

Hey OP, read Amar Chitra Katha comics for inspiration.

OP here. Got to get back to work soon, so I don't have time to do individual responses, but I appreciate the extra brainstorming. If the thread's still alive when I'm off work I'll continue the brainstorming here.

Currently working on creature creation rules since those seem to be a big favorite. I've got some decent progress there.

I'll probably just post here if I have serious development for /tg/ to look over. I don't think this is really 1d4chan or blog material, but if you want to post it there go ahead.

>>9609031
That seems kind of unnatural - what about local spirits, nearby NPC gods, that kind of shit? Strange, foreign deities would make for interesting plot points or straight-up enemies, but it seems like you'd lose a lot of cool shit by limiting inter-PC interaction to "Alright, we're all in a pantheon of our own now, just the three (or so, depending on the size of the gaming group) of us, everybody else better watch the fuck out."

>>9609151
Okay, good point. Give the PCs a bit more freedom. They're gods after all. I was just thinking of ways to avoid straight out PvP conflict.

Also : ryttypieru@gmail.com

150+ posts and only one person has mentioned Small Gods?

OP, this is a wonderful concept, but it is also a carbon copy of how gods work in Discworld.

>>9609461
174 posts and no one has mentioned In Nomine, in particular the Ethereal Player's Guide.

Moreover, the concept is, IIRC, also known as Genus Locii; in essence, a character spawned of a community. Brings such paragons as Uncle Sam to mind, though obviously OP wishes to take it to an actual deitific level.

As a DM, I happily and eagerly offer my group as playtesters for this system. Good show, OP.
Send me whatever rules you've got.

>>9609277
I think a little PvP conflict could be interesting, now and then - if not outright, then maybe subtly, or even to the point that PC cooperation is either begrudging or laden with ulterior motives and schemes.

I'd much rather see the PCs come together to take down some powerful deity gone mad or some other cooperative effort, but there's still the possibility of players creating characters with some degree of completely opposing views. Or, more likely, players having some degree of completely opposing views.

It'd probably be better to have the stats counteract each other. Some examples:

Open vs. Closed;
How open the god/community is to outsiders. An example of extreme differences would be Modern Switzerland vs. Ancient Japan or China. A more open community would have a stronger trading core and would advance in technology faster whereas a closed community would generate more faith and be easier to defend against invaders.

Fanatical vs Lax;
How much praying, sacrifice, etc. the community/god requires of the people. An example of the two would be Dark Ages Christianity vs. Modern Day; to be precise, those that consider themselves Christian but pray on their own time outside of a church or other organization. The higher the Fanaticism is the more is required, be it time spent in prayer, more virgins or animals sacrificed, or it could simply require the people maintain a lifestyle under threat of HERESY. On the flip side, the lax do not have to do this. They are more free with their time to be more productive in all industries; farming, warfare, trading, inventing, and lawyer-ing.

Violent vs. Peacefulness;
How likely a violent solution will be chosen over a peaceful one. Whereas sometimes trading with your neighbor allows you to obtain meat for the winter, you can always obtain more meat if you simply slay him... This is not a good vs. evil scale; A religious crusade is very violent yet does a lot of good, at least in the eyes of the god. In case it is not obvious, a peaceful nation will still have some kind of military force and will defend itself.

The biggest problem I'd have with a game like this is how to determine what people belive in.

At the start everyone has one village of people who are all faithful to you. But what happens if you create new species/races/humans. Would you have to create them with the trait to belive in you?
Can you convince an already existing community of your faith? If your avatar goes in an opressed village and frees all the people, will they praise him and adopt his belief?

Bassically what i'd like to know is if you will have only one village/city/empire/tribe for the whole game, or if you can controll multiple communities.

>>9610190
A god who can't destroy other gods and take their followers is a failure as a god.

>>9610299
and when excactly do other people just say"fuck it, the way we lived since creation until now was stupid"
what kind of convincing do you need to do and how do you measure that

Sage for homebrew.

>>9610369
lrn2history, bro. This is shit you can figure out for yourself with a quick glance at real-world history.

Two comments, there should be a traits system, to help add direct strengths and weaknesses, possibly sort of covered some earlier posts, there should also be a way of expansion, creating new villages, ctiies empires, oh, and maybe deity procreation, either with other gods, or from yourself, a good way of gaining power, but NPCs can be fickle allies.and it splits some of your belief, thus possibly weakening you.

I really, really hope we can get a rule system out of this, I would play it shit tons.

>>9609646
We'd also want some sort of Innovative vs. Traditional scale. A more innovative society gets more technological advancement, but at the cost of internal stability; extremely innovative societies are far more productive and often more prosperous, but can become virtually unrecognizable over a few short decades, which tends to wreak havoc on organizations and belief systems. Extreme innovation can also result in frequent civil wars and riots as old systems constantly struggle to hang onto power and relevance. Extremely traditional societies are highly reliable, both in terms of production and governance and in their religious leanings. However, they have difficulty changing or advancing technologically at all without direct divine intervention, and even that may not suffice unless their religion is structured to allow it.

>>9611029
But what if your main tenant is change?

>>9611562
Tzeeentch!

>>9611562
What if it is? Then you go to the innovation end of the scale and put up with the constant rebellions, splinter cults, and what have you. A change-oriented religion would be inherently against traditional ways of doing things, would it not?

bumping

I think a big part of the game should be not just achieving your goals of growth or conquest or development or creation, but doing so in style.

After all, one side of a conflict might push hard for technology and get primitive triplanes with harpoon guns, while the other side creates a flock of giant pterosaurs that are ridden into combat. In a game like this, the stats would be simple enough (or should be) that they could easily have the same statistics for combat (X offense, X defense, Basic Flight). Therefore, your very awesome planes vs flying dinosaurs fight might not be as represented statistically as you'd like--but if you've been pulling it off with style, everyone involved is a winner.

>>9614105
Biplanes with harpoon guns VS pterosaur cavalry VS flying wizards.

I like this.

>>9609627
>>I think a little PvP conflict could be interesting, now and then - if not outright, then maybe subtly, or even to the point that PC cooperation is either begrudging or laden with ulterior motives and schemes.
The "now and then" is what I think the system will best support, by making it pretty risky (if rewarding) to throw down against another god. Not only are you open to attack while your forces are away, but if you lose then a counterattack could prove devastating. Economic warfare and scheming will definitely be a viable, if not outright strong option.

Let's say you spent the prayer points to create a new species for your villagers in the early game--something basic and useful, the horse. If someone else wanted the benefits the horse can bring to their village, they could trade you for some breeding specimens. Or, if you had an early grudge against a player, you could trade horses out on the cheap to all other players, with the caveat that they couldn't pass them on in trade of their own without your agreement (see: modern military equipment sales agreements). That player now has the handicap of being the only one involved without horses, unless he steals some from another player or convinces theme to break their pact.

Or you could keep the creation of horses secret and surprise your opponents with rapid moving attackers.

I'm trying to have enough stats in the system to have a variety of potential creations, but not make it complex enough to bog down gameplay or hinder originality.

More about stats in a moment.

>>9610190
>>At the start everyone has one village of people who are all faithful to you. But what happens if you create new species/races/humans. Would you have to create them with the trait to believe in you?
Yes. If you decide that the world needs squirrels, you can create them far more cheaply than squirrels that obey your commands, or that you can possess as scouts (this is a maybe for having a mention in the rules), or that have some special ability. Otherwise, people would just pump out gobs and gobs of followers inherently inclined to worship them. Getting thousands of prayers from your forest full of faithful squirrels is a bit much.

>>Can you convince an already existing community of your faith? If your avatar goes in an oppressed village and frees all the people, will they praise him and adopt his belief?
>>Basically what I'd like to know is if you will have only one village/city/empire/tribe for the whole game, or if you can control multiple communities.
Yes, you can. You can spirit away people to your village and wait for them to convert, convince them to switch over a longer period of time from their home (but more sneakily), or even annex another community into your own. With the last, there's two considerations: having the population move and merge with your existing one's location lets you get more prayers per person (out of sight, out of mind) and be more defensible, but having them stay at their location lets you extend your reach and have more access to diverse resources.

You also have to worry about newcomers mucking up the peace and solidarity in your community; the more that come at once the worse this can get.

>>9614105
>>9614178
Style is going to get a lot of mention. A lot of the diversity will be different interpretations of the same type of stats.

But while mechanically there may not be a difference between those biplanes and the pterosaurs (and then again, there might be), each comes from a very different style of village with a unique flavor.

I hope that concrete win conditions can take a sideline to FUCK YEAH CHECK OUT WHAT I MADE.

>>9611029
>>9609646
Yeah, I'm looking at how best to have the stats. The sliding scale is something I've mentioned. The more you go to one extreme, the harder it is to go the other way, and you can't get bonuses from both sides.

Will look at the suggestions you made when deciding just which ones make the cut.

Oh shit yeah, OP's back.

>>9614945
I don't know how you plan to keep the game simple with all this, but I'm not exactly a game designer.

>>9615054
Any ETA when you'll start writing a few basic rules and traits to be playtested?
Also how do you anticipate a typical session would work? The continous worry is that fora gorup, this sort of game relies on a single person doing things exclusively for a large amount of time. Unless you break it up into sort of turns (days, weeks, years?!!) but even then it's like 5 separate games going on at once. How do you propose we get over this?

Anyone archiving this stuff? I hope it's a long term project.

OP is the individual villager going to important for your power
or only en masse?

>>9615212
>Any ETA when you'll start writing a few basic rules and traits to be playtested?
I've got a good chunk of the creature creation rules done, spent my free time at work doing some brainstorming. A tidbit that isn't likely to change: creating a species (with a sustainable population that will grow if able) instead of a single unique creature costs the square of the creature's total cost.

This means that filling the world with small basic creatures that you feel the setting should have is quite doable, but making a whole species of giant monsters is much harder--still doable, but you can't spit them out nearly as often. If you're a fertility god/dess that feels the world should have a hundred unique species of bright singing birds, that's doable for the same cost as a single species of large powerful creatures.

I'd post numbers but they're likely to change.

As for playtestable rules, it'll be a little while. At least a week or two, there's a lot of ground to cover.

>>9615226
Most villagers, en masse, but there will be some that will be useful on the individual level.

>>9615212
You could break it down into turns like that. I like the mechanics of the system in >>9598533 and it seems like something similar could be used here.

>>9615212
>Also how do you anticipate a typical session would work? The continuous worry is that for a group, this sort of game relies on a single person doing things exclusively for a large amount of time. Unless you break it up into sort of turns (days, weeks, years?!!) but even then it's like 5 separate games going on at once. How do you propose we get over this?

Currently, either by having 4 or less players, having a lot of global events, and having group turns of months, seasons or years. All the players should be doing their thing at the same time, giving the GM things as they go--knowing players, they'll spend enough time planning that the GM shouldn't be inundated.

I want to make a god that's a waterfall and the pool below it, eventually making his villagers aquatic as they continue to receive boons of food and health from its waters.

>>9615400
Do it sorta like Dawn of Worlds
In the beginning it goes by 500s
Once civilizations pop up 100s
Then 1s or as needed

>>9615923
Okay, now I really need to look at Dawn of Worlds.

bump

>>9616309
http://www.clanwebsite.org/games/rpg/Dawn_of_Worlds_game_1_0Final.pdf

Bam

>>9616360
Thanks.

Any other ideas we can give to OP?

>>9617389
God offsprings should be discussed in more depth IMO

>>9617501
It's not my biggest concern, but I'm game. What are you thinking?

>>9617580
From what I saw in the thread, they become gods of an unoccupied sphere, and, depending on the sphere and parents, can act as an ally or enemy NPC.

>>9617659
It doesn't look like the parents really cover a sphere though. They are first and foremost the gods of a community, and any additional domains they take are to better address their primary concern.

Like, the stormy mountain god is known for his thunder and his power, but the reason he has this is to strike down the foes of the city he towers over. He isn't in charge of storms all across the land, although with no dedicated storm god he may have a huge amount of clout when it comes down to determining how they run.

Holy shit, this thread is still alive?

>>9618652
Dunno. Maybe they can just get an average of the parents scales? Or randomly inherit bits and pieces?

Also, what about neutral gods? Of course there shouldn't be rewards for it at the start (Where you start as such), but maintaining it should give some unique bonuses as well.

>>9618740
Perhaps neutral gods would make it easier to convert other villages considering your not any extreme.

>>9618740
Gods without specialties? That don't take a form?

They'd be equally good at everything. Think a generalist wizard in D&D 3.5.

The problem would be that specialization lets you perform your most common miracles at a cheaper price, which is more efficient in the long run.

>>9618683
To be fair, this is a pretty awesome idea.

http://www.inficad.com/~shadowstar/PotG/PotG.htm
I was in a game with a similar theme, it was epic, and I've run a couple games like this. They all have eventually become too hectic to run, but that is mostly due to an extremely flexible system without many rules.

Put my email in. Also, check that suptg link previously posted. May help?

>>9622663
This looks pretty cool, sir.

>>9596343
>>9597804
You've clearly got a good head for game design, judging from the email you sent. I sent you the rough rules for creature creating, let me know what you think.

>>9624265
That thread was part of the inspiration for me getting to work on this, and influenced the ideas that made the final cut.

I withdraw my statement of the OP not ever going to get anything done. It looks like you're actually getting shit done. Don't fail us, sir.

OP here. Off to work but I'll be back in about 5 hours, if the thread is still alive I'll keep answering questions then. All the brainstorming is highly appreciated, and should let me make a game that has what you want in it.

>>9625359


Crap, and I was just about to ask to see those creature making rules.

OP's picture made me think of Black & White even before I read anything in the thread.... B&W1 & Creature isle was the shit back in my days

This thread cannot be allowed to die. Anyone else have any awesome ideas or the OP?

>>9628022
It's a good thread, but it's flawed in that ideas are being thrown out, but little is being done with them because of the promise that the OP is doing so. Since he apparently wants to keep any developments beyond the conceptual private, only the most vague of discussion can happen in this thread unless people just start taking the concept and writing their own rules.

On the other hand, being stalled out does let the thread live for days on end, so whatever, I suppose.

OP here again, have a bit of time for lunch break for question answering or brainstorming.

Would post creature creation rules but they're still in progress and it is a massive amount of text while it's still in the draft phase.

>>9628757
>>It's a good thread, but it's flawed in that ideas are being thrown out, but little is being done with them because of the promise that the OP is doing so. Since he apparently wants to keep any developments beyond the conceptual private, only the most vague of discussion can happen in this thread unless people just start taking the concept and writing their own rules.

Well, I am incorporating suggestions into the design. Knowing what people want and what people are interested in let me focus there, and /tg/ has been more than helpful that way so far. If people would prefer, I can post what I've got done draft-wise, but I was going to wait until I had something a little more concrete.

>If people would prefer, I can post what I've got done draft-wise
Please do.

>>9625359
oh awesome, didn't think I ever inspired anyone. Do you have an email, AIM or MSN, OP?

>>9625793
>>9628770
Fuck man, a Three day thread and you want it to continue?

How this thread did not derail into a Majora's Mask thread, I'll never know.

>>9630509

>>9630535
Dat moon. ♥

>>9630509
>>9630535
>>9630571
Behold:
>>9630447
>three day thread
DAWN OF THE FINAL DAY:
24 HOURS REMAIN

>>9630762
LETS DO THIS!
>See clock
FUCKING CLASSES.

>>9630810
I'LL COVER FOR YOU!
>See paper for tomorrow that isn't finished yet
FUCKING EXAMS.

Relax guys, I'll take over from here on.

>>9628805
Please do. I'd like to see what you've got down so far, and we need to figure out core rules before we can start cranking out trait ideas. Things should be fun mechanically as well as lore-wise.

Determining the dice system is an important step.

>>9617659
Children of gods and other gods should probably be avoided if you aren't introducing a new player. Having them act as subordinate gods would likely be either pointless (Phobos, Deimos, and Adrestia all lived in Ares' shadow, adding little) or too powerful.

Children of gods and mortals are demigods, and could be useful (and appropriately vulnerable) NPCs.

bump

Back again. Time for some draft creature creation rules.

Say (strictly as an example) the initial base prayer rate is 1 point per villager per year.

Creating a small, basic animal with little practical use (perhaps only as food or entertainment) would cost 2 prayer points. Perhaps it's the world's first kitten, and all it does is provide a soft thing for the villagers to pet and play with. It's the only creature of its type in the world, and when it dies there will be no more.

The player doesn't like the thought of a world without kittens, so they decide to add cats as a species in the world. The total cost of the creature (in this case, 2 points) is squared, and for 4 points, a small population of cats are created, enough to have a sustainable breeding population, and to grow into real numbers and become a permanent species given the opportunity.

This lets players make a large/powerful unique creature that can defend their village or lead attacks or perform useful tasks, without things getting out of control with species upon species of earth-shattering creatures early on. Also, it lets players make small creatures to add personal fluff touches to the setting without worrying overmuch about their cost. I mentioned earlier in the thread that you could make 100 unique songbird species ((2*2)*100) for the cost of 1 species of a large powerful creature (20*20); and you could pump those out year after year while the large creature would need to be saved up for.

An animal at cost 2 points has nothing special in the way of stats. Its stat block looks much like this:
Offense: 1
Defense: 1
Speed: 1
Health: 1
Labor: 1
Special abilities: none


Once you start making animals that cost more, the opportunity for a salad bar of customization begins. Let's use a regular horse as our next example. The player wants a cheap animal to ferry their prophet around in a bit of style and speed. So they make a basic animal, tack on a point of speed, and buy the cheap ability for it to be trained or domesticated. A regular horse would cost 4 = 2 base, +1 for speed, +1 for domestication. To introduce horses as a self sustaining species would cost 4*4 = 16 points. More expensive, but now you have a resource that you can develop, and possibly trade with other players. If you only wanted a pimp ride for your prophet, you don't need that, and can make due with the single horse, replacing it once it eventually dies.

>>9633247
Special abilities, Is this listed or a set of guidelines that one follows to pin a price?

Currently, stats come in tiers. A value of 1-5 in a stat costs 1 point per bump to improve, Speed 6-10 costs 2 points, etc. This keeps things from getting out of control by keeping it from being too easy to put all point boosts into a single stat--but doesn't make it impossible for a determined player.

Offense would be damage dealt in a combat round, Defense would be damage soaked, Health (cheaper to buy than Defense, at a likely 1:3 ratio per point spent) would be how much damage could go past the soak until death, Speed would cover travel distance (possibly initiative, that's in the air), and Labor is the amount of useful work that can be done by the creature. If you have more ideas for stats, let me know.

>>9633147
Populations grow geometrically. Say it takes 10 turns to double a population. You now have twice the power, and can generate single creatures of twice the cost. But if you want to create a species of that, you have to wait another 10 turns, at which point you could create single creatures of 4x the cost. As community size increases, creating single creatures in significant numbers becomes easier and easier in comparison to creating a self-supporting population. This may or may not be what you were shooting for.

Also relevant is how big a population it is. If "adding kittens to the world" means that there's essentially an unlimited number of kittens out there, spread to some optimal population density, then bigger creatures are going to have overall lesser populations, while smaller creatures get a lot more bang for your prayer buck.

Consider: One player adds horses to the world. The other adds riding drakes, paying enormously more. One now has an army of maybe 10,000 cavalry while the other gets few dozen fliers. This gives no clear advantage, and it would be a bit unreasonable to suppose that his army could support 10,000 massive beasts. In either case, the existing population acts as a limiting factor as to how much utility they can draw from a newly introduced race, and this is irrespective of how expensive the race is on an individual level.

To solve this, I would advise the cost for introducing a race be based with this utility in mind.

In the case of an intelligent race that may become worshipers, we get completely different issues.

I like where this is going.

Besides base stats, special abilities could be bought, with a preset list and a set of guidelines for making more.

Current abilities:
-Flying: 5 point cost. Allows the creature to avoid combat by land or water creatures who don't have the anti-air ability--the flying creature selects when/if to engage. It also allows travel over landscape obstacles at no penalty to speed, and any other situational advantages the GM deems relevant. It's a free option for creatures under 4 points total cost.
-Advanced Flying: may be a more expensive option to make the basic anti-air ability worthless, with some other bonuses. Basically flying higher than normal flying creatures can reach.

Swimming: Free OR 2 points. Can make the creature aquatic as a free swap instead of making it terrestrial, or can make it amphibious for 2 points. For 7 points, you have a creature that is at home in sea, air and land.

Mount/Trainable/Domestication: 1 point. Allows animal to be trained as a mount or to perform a useful task (messenger pigeons, hunting hawks, etc).

(cont)

(Note on mounts: for ease of gameplay, mounts protect riders from harm until they are killed)

Intelligence: undecided point cost, would have 3 tiers, making an creature smart for an animal, bringing them to true human intelligence, and pushing them a bit farther than that.

Location choice: Undetermined point cost, likely 4-5 points. Can have initial creation site of creature be wherever the player desires. Useful for plaguing an opponent with locusts or rats, or for deep striking a large monster into their village.

Direct Control: (Hefty cost increase; possibly +10 or even doubling the total cost). Can command this creature mentally to carry out your bidding.

Things like Regeneration, Elemental Affinity, and other supernatural abilities are still a work in progress.

I figure this process could also be used for making spirits/angels, elementals, or whatever else suits a player's fancy. Base cost might be different for a spirit than for an animal, but I'll look at that once the main creature rules are a bit more developed.

>>9633247
This looks like it could get overcomplicated quickly when you've got fights involving multiple creature types. Why not differentiate types of creations this way:

1. Intelligent beings are valid targets of conversion and can engage in warfare. They have full stat arrays.

2. Animals cannot be converted and cannot engage in warfare on their own. They provide bonuses to armies and communities to which they are attached. When wild animals are encountered that cannot be domesticated, they have simplified stats based on the highest of their bonuses--this makes them more deadly when wild, but this feature is unabusable because no player can benefit.

>>9633360
Adding a species to the world creates enough creatures that can breed without inbreeding becoming an issue. A sustainable population if no catastrophe strikes. They still have to fill the world naturally with numbers. A single creature, on the other hand, is incapable of breeding, even if you make another single creature as a partner.

As a simple base rule I figure that having a population doubling rate (until maximum sustainable population is reached) of a new species set to 1/2 of the creature cost in years. 2 cost creatures double in number every year, 20 cost creatures double every 10 years. Doubling sounds like a lot, but if your starting population is 25, the relative creature size means that it isn't really. More on your post in a moment.

>>9633616
You make a good point, but my current thoughts on combat would make it a bit less complex.
Each side rolls a d6, and the defender's result is subtracted from the attacker's. The result (+5 to -5) is added to the attacker's offense score. Then you see if the total offense score is enough to overcome the defense score. Anything over the defense score is taken from health.

Speed being a travel rate would make it not an issue. Labor adds a bonus to the community's production.

>1. Intelligent beings are valid targets of conversion and can engage in warfare. They have full stat arrays.
Yes.

>2. Animals cannot be converted and cannot engage in warfare on their own.
Yes.
>They provide bonuses to armies and communities to which they are attached. When wild animals are encountered that cannot be domesticated, they have simplified stats based on the highest of their bonuses--this makes them more deadly when wild, but this feature is unabusable because no player can benefit.
This is a possibility I'll give serious consideration. I'm already going to do it with the labor value for communities, but I'm not certain that it's a good idea for armies.

To be honest, mass combat has been less of what I've been developing than single combat (such as between two guardian creatures a la Black and White).

>>9633360
Populations grow geometrically, but wars and disease and catastrophes will take their toll. I'm thinking that for the purposes of gameplay, having a more linear growth of villager population would be good until the endgame population explosion.

Also consider that you can continue to save accumulated prayer points for as long as you'd like, and that creature creation won't be at all the only use for them.

>One now has an army of maybe 10,000 cavalry while the other gets few dozen fliers.
Not quite how it would work. Sustainable is less about the number of creatures that the environment can support, and more about the minimum number of creatures needed to make a population capable of growth.

Preventing early creation of an army of cyclops is something I'm fine with doing, though. Creation of a small cadre of cyclops warriors is still within the player's ability, but giant monster explosion will prove a headache for a GM and will likely break the system.

>>9633664
Make fast expansion trait?
you'd think a race fo ant people would breed quicky for instance/
Also I think a misfortune table would be useful for when communities spread and expand. Dissenting elements and rebellions for instance. Could be elft to GMs entriely, but nice to give examples of that and maybe a random table

>>9633924
Yep.

>>9633940
It should. A lot of this is just explanation of why choices were made.

>>9629460
See >>9595800. I'll repost it now.

>>9634023
Yeah, I'll probably make a new thread asking for help with making catastrophe tables, random event tables, and random resource tables.


How's this look for a rapid reproduction rate ability?

Rapid Reproduction: 125% unit cost, population doubling time is 1/4 of new total time, rounded down.
Rapider Reproduction: Like Rapid Reproduction, but 150% unit cost and 1/2 of new total time.

Say you give each to a 20 cost creature.

>Original
Creature cost: 20
Years until population doubles: 10
Prayer point expenditure: 400

>Rapid Reproduction
Final creature cost: 25
Years until population doubles: 6
Prayer point expenditure: 625

>Rapider Reproduction
Final creature cost: 30
Years until population doubles: 3
Prayer point expenditure: 900

Ylindh@gmail.com

Keep me in the loop OP. Sounds very interesting, haven't had time to check out the entire thread but someone's archiving this right?

>>9634158
Yeah, it's archived.

I suppose the best way to get this creature creation process tested is for people to start making creatures, and then we can see where the weak points are and what commonly desired abilities need to be added.

So, to start, I'll make a basic flying mount. A fragile bird with a large wingspan, rather like an albatross, able to move faster than a horse. Can carry a rider, but going into combat with one is a sure ticket to doom--although using them to maneuver infantry is a possibility.

2 base cost + 1 mount + 2 speed + 5 flying = 10 total cost. 10*10 = 100 points for species creation. Since that's a decent expenditure of power, we might consider trading surplus birds to our allies and get goods/services that they produced during the same time.

(Note on flying being free for creatures cost 4 or less: this is so that making things like hunting falcons or messenger pigeons (both of which need to be trained and to be able to have a bit of speed) or songbirds (which should be dirt cheap since they're mostly just flavor) doesn't have a stupid cost attached. If it's too easily abused then making it 3 or less would be fine.)

>>9634288
Shadowfax.

2 + 3 speed [4 total]+1 mount. Single horse cost 6. Shadowfax is the lord of all horses, and is basically the Rockethorse. I don't figure on him being a battle mount so much as a "get all over the place fast" mount.

How will magic and tech work? Will you just advise people to use something like GURPS or whatever?

>>9634493
Hell, no. Magic and tech are community boons that will require a pretty hefty initial investment of prayer points to create and show to the people.

Then you can track progress by either how many villagers you have innovating new methods instead of working or soldiering; or for even faster research, by both the number of villagers developing AND the amount of labor spent giving them better tools.

>>9634288
Tarrasque.

20 offense + 20 defense + 60 health = 150 points. Now we just need regeneration and trample.

Hell, for 157 points let's make it able to fly and swim. Nowhere is safe now.

Here's where I think the system breaks down a bit, OP. You probably want to make high power monsters scale their cost faster, because as it is making a very big behemoth costs not THAT much more than your example bird transport species.

One thing I'd probably strive for is to discuss with the other players is if we'd want some kind of "theme" to the game. Like, a Warhammer-like GRIMDARK, a D&D highfantasy or a Conan-like lowfantasy "theme" and then the players could vote on really cool stuff that they do which fits theme (or maybe not if it's just so cool) and award eachother (or be awarded by the GM) points for that.
'Cuz that sounds like a kind of good way to settle a game that otherwise might be mired down in PvP.
Just my two cents.

>>9634932
Well, on the one hand any other player can make a monster like that too, but on the other hand you're right. The other problem with giant monsters like that is that a fight between, say, two copies of yours, will take a while to resolve. With a max of 5 points of damage carrying over, and 60 Health, we're looking at a lot of rolling. Perhaps as monsters get larger, they can start using a bigger damage die... or maybe I should have a static Defense modifier and make Offense a dice pool. 3 points per d6, perhaps? So for 21 points invested into offense, your damage each round would be 7 to 42 (and both players would attack at the same time, each rolling their d6s and applying damage simultaneously). I'd be glad to get some opinions on this.

>>9635175
Sounds like something I'll have to put in the optional rules section. Thanks.

>>9635634
Crap, forgot to re-add my trip for this thread. This was me.

>>9633885
>Populations grow geometrically, but wars and disease and catastrophes will take their toll.
Growth will still always be geometric. It's the highest-degree term in the equation. If you want mechanically linear growth, then you can abstract population size, like in Civilization.

>To be honest, mass combat has been less of what I've been developing than single combat (such as between two guardian creatures a la Black and White).
That works for avatar to avatar stuff, but I imagine people will want to send their communities to war pretty often. I mean, it IS what human history is full of, and we base our fantasy histories more or less on that.

Having separate systems for mass and individual combat is okay, too.

>>9635634
Let's talk dice. Single die rolls with bonuses are fine for simple things, but they scale the poorest out of any possible solution. The bigger the die, the better it scales, but even d100 systems have to set hard limits or end up with shit that just doesn't make sense.

Success-based systems are the popular alternative. We get a bell curve (which is nice) and things are swingy enough for the underdog to always have a chance--but his chance will get smaller for every degree to which he's the weaker party (something the Nat 1/Nat 20 rule doesn't give you).

Then there's the unpopular poker dice, with variations in different systems. I fully intend to run some simulations on those once I have time to modify some code to handle it. They're fun and very swingy, and scale weirdly at a point dependent on the specific variation.

>>9594926
And this is... a problem?

>>9636201
Separate systems for avatar/hero and for mass war might be the ticket. Or just let helpers pile onto the main combatant's bonuses.

May end up doing the abstraction method for population. We'll see, I need to play with the numbers first.

I've read a decent amount about dice statistics, but what are you thinking would work best here?

>>9636745
I need to start remembering to add my trip again when posting in this thread. My post there.

There's also variable-die summation that I didn't mention, but it generally has the same problems as single-die systems, just at different points.

>>9636745
>Separate systems for avatar/hero and for mass war might be the ticket.
Probably necessary. It is easier to make a separate system for something than to make one system that handles everything. To go that route, you need simulationism.

>Or just let helpers pile onto the main combatant's bonuses.
Possible.

>I've read a decent amount about dice statistics, but what are you thinking would work best here?
I haven't run the numbers nor thought of all the factors, but my gut says success-based is the way to go today. The Exalted system is simple, nWoD only slightly less so (variable explosion point), and Shadowrun is very flexible (variable target numbers). In any case, bell curve systems are the most appropriate for mass actions.

>>9637073
>There's also variable-die summation that I didn't mention, but it generally has the same problems as single-die systems, just at different points.
Variable-die summation, as in rolling a bunch of d6's and adding the total? Short of taking excessive time to count (not a problem with auto die rollers), I think having that, and a flat target number to exceed as much as possible (with all excess going to damage), could prove pretty effective. I'd sooner do that than have an armor/defense value to beat, followed by a damage roll. Unless you've got an argument I should hear?

Shadowrun-style for mass combat is likely though. None of the groups I've run with have been WW users, so I only know about Exalted and NWoD from /tg/.

I've been keeping Shadowrun, Spirit of the Century, and Feng Shui in mind when doing the game design.

>>9637462
Is this OP?

>>9637514
Crap, AGAIN? I'm failing in spades tonight.

Yeah, that was me. Need something, or just wanting confirmation?

>>9637533


Just confirmation.

>>9637462
>Variable-die summation, as in rolling a bunch of d6's and adding the total?

Yes. WEG's Star Wars used that system, with higher skills resulting in more dice.

The problem with single-die systems is that you have a finite result range, and when things get too off balance and too toward one end the odds just ends up implausible.

When you're rolling a handful of dice and adding them, you have a large result range, but the proportional variance decreases with the size of the roll. In extreme cases, you can tell with nigh-100% certainty who will win based on who rolls more dice, and that's assuming that both sides are rolling. If only one side rolls against a target number, the actual odds approach the same problem of autosuccess/failure that you get with single-die systems--but they get this problem well inside their result range.

IIRC:
>Exalted
d10: 7-9 is 1 success. 10 is 2 successes.

>NWoD
d10: 8+ is 1 success. X+ means the die is rolled again after counting the success.

>>9637749
Dice pools also head toward certainty as the number of die increase, though. Let's look at Houses of the Blooded's simple system: d6's vs a constant target of 10. As you add dice to the pool, you begin to have almost-certain success: (1d6 = 0%, 2d6 = 17%, 3d6=50%, 4d6 = 90% etc). You may never reach an actual 100%, but for all intents and purposes you don't have to.

I'm not married to any particular method of rolling dice, but my lack of experience with dice pools outside of Shadowrun (where we did have near-certainty at many things) makes me a little hesitant to jump aboard that boat.

Glad to see you getting shit done here OP, even if I don't give two shits about what dice you pick.

>>9637925
>Dice pools also head toward certainty as the number of die increase, though.
For one success, yes.

>As you add dice to the pool, you begin to have almost-certain success: (1d6 = 0%, 2d6 = 17%, 3d6=50%, 4d6 = 90% etc). You may never reach an actual 100%, but for all intents and purposes you don't have to.
This looks like you're summing the dice. That's a die summation system, not a success-based dice pool.

In nWoD, Exalted, and Shadowrun, the three games I've played with success-based systems, each success in an attack is +1 damage. Individual successes in a conflict are irrelevant--the player who rolls more successes wins. Actions that are unopposed and require only one success are also actions that are intended to become nearly-certain as skill increases, but that's beside the point. Our issue is with conflict resolution.

>>9638298
For whatever reason, I lost a portion of my post (likely forgetting the second step of a cut and paste). Which might explain why my post calls a variable summation system a die pool.

I'll give the opposed dice pools a strong look, then. Shadowrun had both attack and damage pools, but I do seem to recall extra attack successes rolling over into damage. I don't mind the idea of attack/defense being represented by pools requiring success with the extra hits rolling over into damage. Could probably have a single combat stat that way, and damage could go to either avatar in a turn.

>>9638516
>>9638516


Please do not make it like Exalted. I hate those dice pools.

>>9638516
>but I do seem to recall extra attack successes rolling over into damage

Exalted does that. nWoD doesn't because they wanted to reduce the number of rolls per turn. Whether or not it's useful depends on whether or not you want accuracy to always correlate directly to damage. In this case, we do really want it that simple, so it makes sense to not have a separate damage roll.

An argument in favor of separate attack and defense pools is to make defense pools more difficult to increase and attacks simultaneous, thus generally ensuring that both sides will take damage each round, which is appropriate for mass combat.

In Dawn of Worlds, the winner in a multi-army fight just takes a -1 penalty for each fight it's survived that turn to represent fatigue and losses. That works, but it's probably more abstract than would be fun here. Dawn of Worlds never explicitly numbers populations or anything of that sort.

I suppose the strongest point about success-based systems is that they cause adding to your pool to give diminishing returns whenever there's a reachable target. This lets you pile on more bonuses without worrying quite as much about accidentally making something invincible, in comparison to any other, equally simple system.

The system i feel makes more sense for attacks is something like this:

-Weapons have a damage factor, a maximum damage (which usually is more than enough to kill a human anyway, unless you're using a nail in melee or something), an armor penetration rating and perhaps a modifier to the attack roll ("imbalanced" weapons are harder to hit with, but they also hit much harder if they do) and to defense (mostly about crossguards and whatnot making defense much easier).

For example, a sword might have an average damage factor, high max damage (in theory it can chop somebody in half), medium armor piercing for swings and high for thrusts. A war hammer/pick would have a high damage factor, low max damage (the wound from a pick isn't too big, only really deadly if it hits internal organs) and high armor penetration.

How this would work:

-Roll attack
-Multiply successes/total-defense for the damage factor of the weapon
-Substract armor modified by the armor penetration
-Damage done is what remains or the weapons max damage, whatever's lower.

Sadly it's way too complicated i think (and i didn't even use attack modifiers, or any attempt at using speed), but maybe it inspires something useful.

>>9638779
I'm fine with using this for mass combat.

However, I thought you were also arguing for dice pools in avatar vs avatar conflicts. Is this the case?

Having both sides simultaneously damaged in a fight is acceptable in an avatar fight as well; both because the massive creatures can inflict a certain amount of mutual assured destruction before one is vanquished, and also because it is a check against letting an avatar run wild and keep smashing down foes--when it begins to get hurt, its owner might not desire risking the loss of a valuable asset and recall it.

Now that I think about it, having more expensive defense than offense would also ensure that smaller creatures could reliably inflict some damage on a larger creature, without having to be an "assassin" (concentrating all their points into attack for a single decisive strike before their likely death) if they wanted to damage an avatar sized creature.

Were a dice pool for attack and damage to be implemented, would you still recommend having cost per added die increase as the values got higher?

>>9639055
Oh and we'd need location based damage and such a la CP2020. One possibility for that would be "spending" the attack between the straight damage and hitting where you want to (to avoid armor, or to disable the enemy instead of killing him). This could also work for disarm attempts and such. You roll your attack, if it's "high" you might risk aiming or disarming, then defense is rolled. It could also be done after defense, though that'd remove any risk from it.

I guess it's similar to L5R with the raises, except you choose it a bit later.

>>9639055
I don't think you got the "flying wizards versus triplanes with harpoons versus pterosaurs" thing. Everything with stats should be custom work.

>Sadly it's way too complicated
Yes.

>>9639055
That's going to be too complicated for our purposes (I want to keep it simple, but am rapidly making things more complex than I probably should), but I appreciate it. I may be able to use it in some fashion for gods who take the form of weapons.

>>9639125
I was just talking in a general sense. Harpoon armor penetration against pterosaur skin and such.

But as said, probably would only work for a vidya since it involves excessive calculations.

>>9639147
As much fun as this could be in a video game, it wouldn't let you do a lot of the customization that I suspect will be the main draw of this game. Also, I can't code to save my life, and I have no illusions of finding people who would, nor teaching myself how so I can make the next great game. I'm not Toady and don't want to be, despite DF being fun to play.

>>9639082
>However, I thought you were also arguing for dice pools in avatar vs avatar conflicts. Is this the case?
Yes, but more for simplicity's sake than because it's the best thing. Since avatar fights are purely a matter of fiction, I can't think of what would be "right" for them in terms of randomness. It depends on how you want things to play out. With dice pools, you give more of a chance to the underdog while still making every point count, which is generally good for a game. Alternatively, you might want the avatar of the goddess of life to be rightly terrified of the avatar of the god of war, and go for less randomness to give the war god more confidence and less worry over his luck.

>Were a dice pool for attack and damage to be implemented, would you still recommend having cost per added die increase as the values got higher?
Definitely, though a lot of this also depends on how numbers are going to factor in. When you can only have one of something, you can make the costs additive (upgrading from X to X+1 costs X+1) and it'll still be worth it for the player to buy that. If he can just make a second one and have the two add their power together, the math there gets wonky. This applies to avatars and to armies.

Most likely, armies should just be given a "size advantage" boost to all rolls.

>>9639353
The problem as I see it with making avatar/hero/etc fights too different from army fights is that there will certainly be instances where players want their avatars leading the charge and attacking an army. If I were to have variable die summation to make underdog avatars tremble in fear (which I'm fine with doing, but the alternative is fine too), but dice pools for the army, mixing the two would presumably be a fine headache.

>Definitely, though a lot of this also depends on how numbers are going to factor in. When you can only have one of something, you can make the costs additive (upgrading from X to X+1 costs X+1) and it'll still be worth it for the player to buy that. If he can just make a second one and have the two add their power together, the math there gets wonky. This applies to avatars and to armies.
>Most likely, armies should just be given a "size advantage" boost to all rolls.
Can you go into more detail here?

Also, I'd appreciate being able to continue referring to your knowledge, if you'd care to send me an email--or post a /tg/ email and I can contact you. I suspect the thread has little life left in it, despite its remarkable ability to avoid death so far.

>>9639643

For large fights, you should bulk your soldiers up into units of a certain size (20 or 50 or something) and have entire formations slug it out, rather than dozens of different individual duels.

Maybe infantry formations would be larger, while cavalry and supernatural units being slightly smaller... After all, a unit of 50 pikemen seems comperable to a unit of 10 archers mounted on huge owls. As the size of a unit gets larger, have size bonuses multiply.

>>9639643
Avatars leading charges is a bit different from single combat. You can't exactly treat an army as a single enemy for the avatar to fight. Well, you can, but it's difficult to get it to look right. The easiest thing to do is to let the avatar apply (very substantial) bonuses to the army he leads.

>Can you go into more detail here?
Basically, army size is abstracted like city populations (Civilization, again) and the larger armor gets a bonus equal to the difference in degrees. A company (size 5) gets +2 when facing a platoon (size 3), say.

IIRC, Exalted had rules like this for mass combat. I don't recall if the system itself was actually any good for it, since I never used it. And strangely enough, when an exalt lead an army unit, they provided bonuses to him instead of the other way around. Though for something cinematically similar to playing Dynasty Warriors this actually makes sense, and in either game (Exalted or Dynasty Warriors) the fight that mattered was when two leaders met.

>Also, I'd appreciate being able to continue referring to your knowledge, if you'd care to send me an email--or post a /tg/ email and I can contact you.
Done.

>armor
Army. Larger army.

>>9639795
>>9639935

You have my thanks. Now I need some sleep, I've again stayed up later than is wise. Once I get some progress done, I'll put a new thread up; I'll check this one in the morning though if any last advice comes to mind (I just doubt that this thread will last very much longer).