Setting Idea to Build Upon

[Mr. Sluagh]

[brainfart]The stars are right.  The Old Gods rise.  A reckoning is at hand.
 
No, not the those Old Gods.  That would be too cliché.  I'm talking about the actual, mythological, pagan gods.  Ancient pantheons from all over the world suddenly coming back and demanding to be worshipped once more and trying to reverse centuries of social and technological development.  They'd be coming in sometime in the middle of the 21st century when things had gotten pretty damned dystopian and cyberpunk, so the "culture clash" would be even greater.  To make things interesting, one of the more prominent themes in this setting would be the question of whether all the technology and all the social change that we've developed over the past few millenia are really worth it, and how much have we lost in the process.  
 
Cults forming left and right.  Atheists forming paramilitary groups and retaliating against them.  The UN trying to take out Mount Olympus with a neutron bomb only to be stormed by Valkyries do to a previously unknown alliance between the two pantheons.  High magic going head-to-head with high technology.  Death, madness, anarchy. American Gods meets Fight Club meets Lovecraft with a post-apocalyptic bent.
 
Obviously, there are a lot of kinks to work out with this.  When and how this started happening? When and why the gods went to sleep in the first place?  How would one give the gods relatively dependable, recognizable forms (I'd like to draw directly from mythology as much as possible).  Any system recomendations?  Ideas for expanding the concept?  Places to draw inspiration from?  Most importantly, has this been done before?  Or am I just completely out of my head?
 
Of course, I'll probably never actually run this, but I think it's at least good for a little mental masturbation.  Anyway, it's late.  I hope I was at least half-coherent, if not completely so.  Comments?[/brainfart]

[Walt Freitag]

Hi Mr. Sluagh, and welcome to the Forge!

Technically this forum is for role playing games and game resources that are in the process of being developed with the intention of publication (even if that means free distribution in electronic form from a Web site). So I'm going to assume this isn't just an idea that popped into your head, it's an idea that popped into your head that you WILL run and that you DO hope to develop into a publishable product. OK? We don't do mental masturbation here. We build games and help others build games.

I'm getting on your case about this because it's an idea with a lot of potential, IMHO.

The inevitable next question to raise here is, what do you envision the player-characters actually doing in a typical game in this setting? Are the player-characters the gods and technocrats battling for supremacy, are they typical cyberpunk street-level mercenary-experts getting hired by one faction or another for suicide missions, are they free agents with a goal of their own and some hope of accomplishing it, or something else? Can the player-characters influence the outcomes of the Mt. Olympus-scale clashes or are they spectators trying to stay out of the line of fire?

Other posters here should be able to be more authoritative than I am on whether this has been done before.

Have you read Neil Gaiman's American Gods? It's not really very similar to what you're describing (the conflict of powers is subtle rather than overt/nuclear, and it's modern-day rather than near-future dystopian), but it is about old gods confronting modern American culture and its new gods of technology, marketing, etc. Should be worth a read.

- Walt

[orbsmatt]

First off, I love the idea.  I'd defintely want to play it.

Moving on, I think the clarifications that Walt asked for would be quite beneficial.  Your story idea is fantastic and could be a lot of fun for players, but gameplay isn't completely (and I only say completely) developed by the intended storyline.

So speak up and let us know!

And is [brainfart] BBCode?  ;)

[Umberhulk]

I say let the players be Gods or Epic Heroes.  Maybe a Hero Wars or Pool variant?

[Ben O'Neal]

i'd be really interested in seeing how the many different gods would all interact, given that many of the old gods from different cultures/beliefs overlapped. in particular, i think it'd be mighty hilarious for zeus and the other greek gods to continue old tricks of turning into a bull (or some other mighty symbol of potent male virility) in order to seduce and impregnate young maidens, giving rise to semi-deific offspring. bestiality in an RPG! what more could one ask for? ;)

it'd also be great to see how a god like Ra might demand devotion, maybe by ceasing the movements of the sun? that'd make for some interesting gameplay IMHO.

also, given that you are using deities that aren't omnipotent/omnipresent/omniscient, will it be possible for humanity to actually kill said gods? i mean, for the purposes of a logical premise, if these gods are truly immortal in the sense that they cannot be killed, and they all demand worship, then there really is only one choice: worship or suffer. but if they could be killed, then you could have some crazy wars going on!

personally i'd like to see crazy wars, and i reckon playing a character who maybe saw his family become the victim of the wrath of some god or another and thus is driven by a passion to destroy that god at all costs (even the lives of millions of soldiers under his command) would be awesome!

on the other hand, being some semi-deity offspring of zeus and some woman might make for some interesting motivations, especially if i could acheive god-like power by killing my father, then i could choose to aid my fellow humans or side with the gods and demand worship of myself...

i like these ideas, and i'd be interested in seeing where you go with this.

[Rich Stokes]

Off the top of my head ideas, and the systems you could use to run them:

Amber: The players are gods and demigods scheming against each other and generally trying to look after their own adgendas.

Engel: One of White Wolf's D&D things based on a German game I think.  From what I hear it's set after forces from hell and heaven actually appear on earth at some point in the next century and has a kind of post-appocalyptic feel to it.  Being a D&D setting I haven't read or played it so this might be total wash.

Shadowrun, cyberpunk etc: Players are Shadowy corperate and military espionage types who get caught up in a kind of religious Cold War between the pantheons and humanity.  Any open conflict between pantheons will likely be very messy.  The gods know that mankind's technology and weapons can actually harm them: There are a LOT of humans with a LOT of weapons.

Soap (stick with me here): Perhaps the power of gods comes from worship, so they relise that since they can't just terrify and subjugate mankind into worshipping them they might just take a leaf out of humanity's book.  Media attention = worship.  So a TV show is created called "I'm a deity, get me out of here!".

OK, maybe not...

[orbsmatt]

also, given that you are using deities that aren't omnipotent/omnipresent/omniscient, will it be possible for humanity to actually kill said gods? i mean, for the purposes of a logical premise, if these gods are truly immortal in the sense that they cannot be killed, and they all demand worship, then there really is only one choice: worship or suffer. but if they could be killed, then you could have some crazy wars going on!

Maybe they have a certain weakness?  Like superman and his cryptonite?  That would be interesting...