Could need some advise on a setting(angels vs. demons)

[Kreuzfeuer]

Two things first: this is my first post(haven't read much of the forum yet) and i'm german, so sorry for mispellings(i'd like corrections thou).

I'm currently developing a setting that's inspired by the french 'In Nomine' rpg, a war between angels and demons over the mundane world. The story is set in the real world, current date. God has abandoned earth, frustrated that people have lost faith or abused and corrupted his teachings for their own selfish goals. After god left the arch-angels realized the gates of heaven are slowly weakening and the morningstar is soon going to invade and be left as sole ruler of a whole planet worth of souls so they decided to use THE doomsday device - the metatron -  a being that will sing a song of destruction that will make all prophecies in the book of revelations come true and open the gates of heaven and hell for the last stand, a climatic battle. Since the metatron is hidden in a human being(well hidden from divine/unholy detection attempts) but said to seek positions of great influence the angels now search the human world for the one human that contains the metatron to free him. They also try to kill or judge all humans that are so corrupted by evil to prevent that they will become demons the moment armageddon starts. Since there is a lot of pressure on the heavens forces they become more and more unconcerned with human observers of divine activity. right now these angel sightings are belived to be just crazy talks, but the longer the campaign lasts the more will the humans be alerted to this divine war on earth.
The role of the players is that of a group of angels who have to search for the metatron and to investigate if certain humans(like a mafia boss or a mass-murderer) have to be judged/eliminated because they would become demons.
Instead of classes the players may choose between one of seven arch-angels to follow, gaining special powers that match the arch-angel(a bit like priest domains in d20), with more and stronger powers the more expierience they gain.

There's some points i'd like your opinion on:
- Death. Should the angels be able to die permanently? At first i figured it would be nice if angels that die would reappear in heaven, ready to be sent down on earth again(i kinda like 'no player death), but then i thought that wouldn't make much sense considering the background(an epic final battle would kinda suck if there are infinite reinforcements, demon adversaries should be killed for good, i like healing a lot)
- Money. There is no monetary reward in any way. usually a gm can motivate players with nice rewards, but it's not very likely that an angel(who returns in between missions to heaven, a paradise in every sense of the word) would like to horde money. Special items are one option, but i really don't like the idea of an angel who uses an 'axe of slaughtering babies' that he took from a demon he defeated.
- Other religions. That's a tough one: how do the jews, the muslims, hindu and all the others fit into this all? jews are fairly easy i guess, muslims could be simply wrong about some things and that's it, but what about all the other religions? All wrong?

There's a lot of other things that i should post so you get a better picture of the setting/game but i write a test tomorrow so i better get back to learning.

thx for reading all this

[mratomek]

There's some points i'd like your opinion on:
- Death. Should the angels be able to die permanently? At first i figured it would be nice if angels that die would reappear in heaven, ready to be sent down on earth again(i kinda like 'no player death), but then i thought that wouldn't make much sense considering the background(an epic final battle would kinda suck if there are infinite reinforcements, demon adversaries should be killed for good, i like healing a lot)
- Money. There is no monetary reward in any way. usually a gm can motivate players with nice rewards, but it's not very likely that an angel(who returns in between missions to heaven, a paradise in every sense of the word) would like to horde money. Special items are one option, but i really don't like the idea of an angel who uses an 'axe of slaughtering babies' that he took from a demon he defeated.
- Other religions. That's a tough one: how do the jews, the muslims, hindu and all the others fit into this all? jews are fairly easy i guess, muslims could be simply wrong about some things and that's it, but what about all the other religions? All wrong?

Interesting ideas. Here's a couple of thoughts.

Maybe your game is played in two dimensions, the real world and the spirit world. What mortals can see and what they can't. Players could be a mortal who is protected by a guardian angle and is thereby granted certain powers. Or an angel that combats darkness in the spirit world where no mortal can see the activity. Similar for corrupt mortals and demons.

So maybe an angel never dies, but perhaps the mortals they are trying to protect and work with can be.

On advancement,  I would stick with a continuing growth of faith and power vs. money. There is no need of $$$ gold in heaven. Maybe they earn Faith points that allow them to perfom miracles?

[dindenver]

Hi!
  Character advancement is not always just moeny and power. Prestige among other Angels, Reputations with Demons, Grace from God and character's own goals are all potential for character advancement.
  Hindus and Buddhists believe in Devas which are VERY similar to Angels. And most sects of Hinduism and Buddhism would not refute the existance of Angels (or even god in some schools). Obviously this is a work of fiction, so you can feel free to go christian and have on regrets or you can come up with a metaphysical explanation behind it all.
  As to death, maybe they will respawn after an amount of time based on their Grace with God and the respawning costs some of that Grace.

[MikeSands]

I'm interested in why you're designing this game, as it basically sounds like In Nomine. What don't you like about that one to make you design something so similar?

[tygertyger]

There's some points i'd like your opinion on:
- Death. Should the angels be able to die permanently?

I'd say no -- but reforming a physical body should be difficult, time-consuming, painful or cause for a reprimand from one's Archangel.  Or it could simply be expensive in terms of some finite resource (i.e. In Nomine's Essence).

- Money. There is no monetary reward in any way. usually a gm can motivate players with nice rewards, but it's not very likely that an angel(who returns in between missions to heaven, a paradise in every sense of the word) would like to horde money.

No, that's Greed, and that's one of the 7 Deadlies.  But rewards in terms of prestige and contacts work.  Access to divine relics is good, too.  See IN for stuff about Distinctions, Words and Artifacts.

- Other religions. That's a tough one: how do the jews, the muslims, hindu and all the others fit into this all? jews are fairly easy i guess, muslims could be simply wrong about some things and that's it, but what about all the other religions? All wrong?

That's a designer call.  IN classes certain religions as divine (they've got at least some of the major points right), others as infernal (they were inspired directly by Hell) and all others as pagan (they're wrong about most of the main stuff but may have some minor details right).  Immaculate assumes that the Abrahamic faiths are mostly right and all others are mostly wrong.  In Nomine Satanis/ Magna Veritas (the French game on which IN is based) is largely a satire of religion.  So how your game approaches rl religion is up to you.

I suggest that you also check out 1km1kt.net and look up Immaculate and Saints and Sinners.  Both of these games have similar themes to what you're proposing; if nothing else, you want to avoid looking derivative of them.

[zompire]

Hey if your intersted in how to intergrate other religions into your game take a look at Armageddon RPG by CJ Carella it a good apocalyptic game which has all manner of creatures in it he also manages to integrate other religion by making that  all religion infact worshipped the same god (just in a multitude of forms) and he also intergrated the old pagan gods as well (Thor, Ra and the like)
he also cover angels and daemons "dying" in that they appere back in heaven but it takes so long for there characters to revive (about a millennium) that there effectively dead.
so i would say give that a look at (there no link cause the actual on-line bit for Eden studios hasn't been filled in yet)

think that may help
Robert

[Kreuzfeuer]

I'm interested in why you're designing this game, as it basically sounds like In Nomine. What don't you like about that one to make you design something so similar?

I first want to adress this point. In Nomine Stanis/Magna Veritas is the game my main group played the longest and is always a backup if a session gets canceled. I love it and it's fun to play. While i'm aware that it sounds like i'm doing a rip-off there a lot of points that are quiet different. For once i want a more grim and serious style of play(the end of the world is nigh), another major difference is the absence of demons as a playable option. While demons in INS/MV are almost humanlike, in my game they supposed to be pure evil and in no way(appearance/behavior) like humans. Demons are heartless abominations(think slime monsters and animal mutants) that treat humans as a source of junk food using human virtues of mercy and compassion for their own selfish ends. Angels on the other side are the divine protectors of earth. The first priority was to protect humans from demons, but since god left earth they are beginning to hate humans, blaming them for the imminent destruction of their realm. And since god, the all-loving entity that created angels for the sole purpose of defending humans, left the world in frustration and anger why should angels protect humans anymore? Some arch-angels still see the protection of the humans as their divine duty, others are sick of it all and think they deserve to rule earth, well some even belive that by forcing the humans to bid god's laws they can bring god back to earth. I think the difference is clear now.

Maybe your game is played in two dimensions, the real world and the spirit world. What mortals can see and what they can't. Players could be a mortal who is protected by a guardian angle and is thereby granted certain powers. Or an angel that combats darkness in the spirit world where no mortal can see the activity. Similar for corrupt mortals and demons.

So maybe an angel never dies, but perhaps the mortals they are trying to protect and work with can be.

On advancement, I would stick with a continuing growth of faith and power vs. money. There is no need of $$$ gold in heaven. Maybe they earn Faith points that allow them to perfom miracles?

These are certainly very nice ideas. The trouble is: an important aspect of the game should be churches as save havens and some kind of 'heaven elevator'. Angels need places of worship do ascend back to heaven or get down to earth. Churches, cathedrals and shrines are the gates of heaven, every holy place that is used for mundane reasons or that is desecrated becomes an open entry point to heaven for demons, thus requiring angels to guard it. The design idea behind is that the opposite is true for unholy places or places where deadly sins are commenced. So a shopping mall is a gateway to hell because of greed, a brothel is one because of lust. A demon can escape an angel by entering one of this places. Since i want to center the kind of demons the players encounter on the 7 sins, there are supposed to be 7 different realms of hell, each needing different entry points. This isn't really worked out right now, but i like the idea a lot. Furthermore: i don't want the players to be humans, they should be glorious angels with wings, flameswords and the like.

@tygertyger:
I never really understood the concept behind time-out penalties for player characters. It's just frustrating for the player to have to be absent from game. Usually another character is rolled up, which weakens the players attachment to his old one. I was thinking about a sort of instable rebirth. The character gets down to earth in a new body(thus loosing all ID documents, contacts and so forth) that has some flaws. Maybe it has golden eyes, maybe feathers beneath the arms, dunno. By time a player can get rid of those flaws. But this concept brings the problems i adressed in my first post.
i thought about holy relics too, but most of those are in places of worship and i don't think it's a nice idea to steal from the church. gifts on the other hand... I like the idea of getting more and more powers, since the system is a no-roll system where you need the right tool at the right time for the right job. But the players get powers through doing the job no matter what. this is more a nice bonus. But it's not a reward. Maybe i'll add some kind of angelic ranks, better rank = better treatment and special powers. But i belive it shouldn't be rank in the sense of commanding fellow players, since a lot of players don't like the idea of other players being able to boss them around.

Well, i hope i clarified a bit. thanks for all this responses.

[Kreuzfeuer]

sorry for the double-post, i fail to see how i can edit my post.

i got some more questions:

- Do you belive it is necessary to include other religions besides christianity? Would it be of use/interest if i adressed other religions? Or is it just nice to know and shouldn't really be important?

- Is the concept of churches/sinful places going to enrich the play or is it going to hinder gameplay? Or only nice fluff but essentially without importance?

- Personal opinions: would you rather play a cold emotionless angel of vengeance, an angel of mercy that tries to shield humans from evil or maybe even other angels or something really different?

- Should heaven be worked out and incorporated in the campaign or should it simply be the place angels go inbetween missions? Should they be able to contact heaven while on earth? should they be able to go back to heaven any time they want? A similar question is if there should be a lot of angels on earth(allowing angel contacts) or should angels be scarce(the players would have a feeling of being a more elite group).

[tygertyger]

- Do you belive it is necessary to include other religions besides christianity?

Necessary?  No.  Useful for your design goals?  Perhaps.  IN includes other religions because the moral questions of religion (stuff like, "If God is real, why worship Thor?") are an important part of the game.  If your game also aims to tackle those questions you'll need material on other religions and how much they've got right in the game world.  If not, then there's no need to cover them.  Immaculate takes the stance that the Abrahamic faiths are basically right and the other religions are mostly wrong, so there's not much material on how other religions work in the game world.

- Is the concept of churches/sinful places going to enrich the play or is it going to hinder gameplay?

Using churches, shrines and other holy places as the entry/exit points for angels is a good idea, so you need to detail them for at least that purpose.  Having unclean/sinful places serve the same purpose for demons gives a nice symmetry.

- Personal opinions: would you rather play a cold emotionless angel of vengeance, an angel of mercy that tries to shield humans from evil or maybe even other angels or something really different?

I think it's important for the rules to allow for all of those options.

- Should heaven be worked out and incorporated in the campaign or should it simply be the place angels go inbetween missions?

If you want to have the option of scenarios taking place in Heaven then you'll need to have at least some basic geography worked out.  If the only scenes run in Heaven are reporting to Archangels, then there's no need for a lot of detail there.

Should they be able to contact heaven while on earth?

Probably; it could bog the game down if PCs have to ascend to Heaven every time they need to make a report.  Restricting such contact to the same places where they ascend might be a good thing, though.  Hey!  How about angels needing a full-fledged church or holy place to ascend to Heaven or enter Earth, but they can talk to Heaven from a shrine?

should they be able to go back to heaven any time they want?

Probably not; a soldier on patrol doesn't get to go back to base any time he wants.  OTOH, certain situations might require him to go back to report.

A similar question is if there should be a lot of angels on earth(allowing angel contacts) or should angels be scarce

Depends on your design goals.

[Kreuzfeuer]

Hey great answers! Although i'm not quiet sure about including other religions(i basically lack profund knowledge of them), i guess i'll incorporate the heaven/hell-elevators. The shrines for communication/churches for ascending to heaven idea is great, especially considering that the default setting for my game will be in germany. there's lots of small shrines and stuff in the countryside, which would it make quiet hard for demons to camp them all should they try to prevent angels from getting in contact with their superiors.

- Personal opinions: would you rather play a cold emotionless angel of vengeance, an angel of mercy that tries to shield humans from evil or maybe even other angels or something really different?

I think it's important for the rules to allow for all of those options.

Yes i know. I still would like to know personal opinions. this is for marketability reasons.

Well i guess this is the right moment to post something about the arch-angels, since they grant the characters their powers. They also define a certain attitude and view of humans/the world for a character. Think vampire-clans.

Uriel: Angel of death and afterlife, the darkness and the earth as an element.
The followers of Uriel are called Azriels.
Uriel is the keeper of the hellfire, a domain only he and the Azriel can enter(besides deceasing human souls) so it is a big mistery to other angels what's going on there. Azriel are the smallest group of angels only 1 in 50 angels is an azriel, although this number could be bogus since nobody knows how many azriel are in the hellfire. azriel are generally considered to be be insane, since they can't understand the human fear of death and are said to kill without thinking about consequences. This attitude comes from their belive that life on earth is the biggest gift god gave the humans, and the wicked have no right to this gift. Thus usually the first thing a new lance of angels has to on their first mission is to teach an azriel that killing will attract lots of attention and is considered an act of crime by other angels and worldly authorities. Azriel never talk about the hellfire, some more open minded azriel sometimes make quips about meeting elvis and so forth, but open minded azriel are scarce and usually they are introvert quiet angels. The only way to anger an azriel is to create an undead since that prevents the soul to enter hellfire.
Powers: battling undead, manipulating darkness, earth-shaping
Roles: spy, assassin, fighter, zombie-hunter

Raguel: Angel of Justice, Law and Ice & Snow
The followers of Raguel are called Suryan
Raguel is the high judge of heaven. Since gods departure there is no higher law than hers. She always favored cold logic and hard facts because of her disability to feel emotions, this is is a trait that all Suryan share with her. Suryan have to deal with the most wicked of humans, trying to track them down and to collect evidence of their wrongdoings. If they find sufficient proof of an humans sins and acts of evil they judge him, either by delivering a killing blow or by delivering him to worldly authorities. Although there is quiet a number of suryan in heaven, they rarely descend to earth, mostly to hunt especially evil humans or to accompany a lance of angels to check they don't commit acts that would alert the humans to angelic presence, but the latter has lost more and more of importance in the current times, since judging humans has become the primary concern of Raguel.
Powers: tracking down sinners, seeing/revealing the truth, passing judgement, summoning ice and snow
Roles: detective, judge, fighter, monster-hunter

Sariel: Angel of War, Politics and Illusions
The followers of Sariel are called Cyril
Sariel is renown for her temper and mood-changes. She loves and protects humankind as a whole but belives in the right of the strong to rule the weak. She helped built empires and destroyed them when they became weak and corrupt. Constant battle and rivalry, mistrust and inquisitiveness are the seeds she uses to grow defenses against demon influence. Her followers are equally keen on using deception, force, cunning and their charms to gain advantage of humans, thus are reknown to exploit human weaknesses. Cyril just love to test the defenses of humans, stealing treasures, seducing a politician, bombing a new york skycraper, all this are methods to strenghten humans in their resolve to battle evil. The average cyril prefers humans to angels and earth to heaven since it's way more fun.
Powers: Leading, inspiring, tricking and confusing humans. Enhancing fighters.
Roles: Leader, diplomat, cat-burglar, terrorist, concubine, movie-star, any role that has advantages.

Michael: Angel of Fire, Glory and guardian of heaven
The followers of Michael are called Jarah.
Michael is the arch-angel that came up with the plan to use the metatron to prevent the devil from taking over heaven. His divine duty(and his only responsibility) is to prevent angels and heaven from harm. Michael never had a high opinion of humans, disliked earth and fought the whole 'garden of eden'-disaster should have been enough proof that humans are a failure. On the other hand he belives that after gods departure earth rightfully belongs to angels whom he sees as superior to all other beings. The jarah are warriors of heaven, proud and rightous. Usually the guard the gates of heaven and rarely decend down to earth, only to help out when other angels are under fire or to act as bodyguards for lances on a dangerous mission.
Powers: Fire based abilities, combat abilities, demon damaging abilities
Roles: Fighters, demon-slayers, bodyguards, shock-troops

Remiel: Angel of animals, plants and earth(as the world)
The followers of remiel are called Jerem.
When god created earth he was busy. He just made a garden and set up some plants, some animals and the first humans. Then he went to sleep. It was Remiel that created the multitude of plants, animals, colors, phenomens and landscapes that makes earth the beautiful plante it is nowadays. And he loves every single being on this planet as if it was his child. Well, it's no big suprise he loaths humans or? Remiel has never liked humans and has more than once released sinfloods and earthquakes to pay them back for their lack of respect for nature, but since god left he is openly petitioning the other angels to wipe the humans from earth, or at least to force them to follows gods will. He claims it is his belive this will bring god back, but the other arch-angels fear he has gone mad like the morning star did before he waged war on the other angels. Jerem are usually calm and peaceful, creating forests, watching evolution and generally treating and helping nature. But they can be terribly angry if someone threatens to destroy their creations. The (near-)madness of Remiel has created a shism in the ranks of the Jerem, some opposing their arch-angel proposal and some allready beginning to bid his will.
Powers: Grow plants, control animals, limited control over natural phenomens(such as weather)
Roles: Druid, gardener, creator, fighter, terrorist

Raphael: Angel of Wind, Knowledge and Healing
The followers of Raphael are called Rophen
Raphael loves humankind and sees them as the peak of gods creation. He guards them from evil and if necessary from each other. He teached them to use the wheel and master fire, and loves to chat with their brightest minds, sparking new scientific breakthroughs. Rophen usually life amongst humans and help them out as bast as they can and have indeed helped them to radical changes in society for the betterment of all mankind, but some of this plans backfired, such as the ideas of marxism leading to the oppressive russian and chinese communist states or the atomic bombs. Rophen take pride in the achievements of the humans they help but can bring divine anger down on those who use this help into acts of evil. Since god's departure a lot of Rophen question their former ways, pondering if humans are really worth this trouble, but so far no single Rophen has turned down an honest plea for help by a human.
Powers: Wind based abilities, vast amounts of knowledge, healing powers
Roles: Scientist, healer, pioneer, muse

So that's it. There's still one missing(Gabriel) but i'm still working on that one.

I'd like opinions :)

Thx for reading all

[Bryan Hansel]

- Do you belive it is necessary to include other religions besides christianity? Would it be of use/interest if i adressed other religions? Or is it just nice to know and shouldn't really be important?

To me, it doesn't sound like it would be of that much use to include them in your game.  It sounds like the game centers on Christian mythology, and the players are angles under a Christian god, so why bother with the other religions?  They just got it wrong, or in the game world the other religions simply don't exist, or maybe they were started by demons.

Should they be able to contact heaven while on earth? should they be able to go back to heaven any time they want?

I think play would be more interesting if they couldn't contact heaven while on earth and getting back to heaven would be hard.  That way, the players could be stuck making harder choices without the advice of heaven.  They could struggle with tough choices and wonder if they got it right.

Bryan

[Kreuzfeuer]

Well i'm not sure wether angels should be able to enter heaven anytime they want, i guess they shouldn't, the same goes for wether there are a lot of angels on earth or not, right now i'm tending towards the 'angels on earth are very few'-approach, i guess i need actual gameplay.

i'll take the advice and won't include other religions, maybe later, but i guess i'll need some specialist on those to actually do some content.

Right now i'm trying to translate the system i want to use(it's a homebrew no-dice-being-rolled game that has never been playtested).
Does anyone know a good system that doesn't use dice? i don't really like randomness.

[dindenver]

Hi!
  BTRC's Corps is semi-diceless (you don't roll unless facing a superior opnent) and Amber is diceless and deals with beings of great power.

[timopod]

what might be cool is to look up the order of angels and use that as advancement or at least character class/archetypes.
Maybe another interesting twist is that you avoid the black and white obvious story. You know the daemons aren't really evil, they just have a differnet agenda (other then gods plan that is). I think looking into some angel/demon/religious mythology and popular stories might help with setting. At the very least watch the prophecy:P

[Kreuzfeuer]

Hi!
  BTRC's Corps is semi-diceless (you don't roll unless facing a superior opnent) and Amber is diceless and deals with beings of great power.

i had no luck finding Amber, any idea where to look?

The basic idea behind the system(if you can call it a system at all) i'm working on is no dice/no stats/no levels. There's only a bunch of guidelines how long a task will be and what quality the result is depending on your expirience with this task and the quality of the tools you use. If you have enough time you succeed, if time is not of the issue the quality drops. Example: If you do skydiving you ignore time and simply state wether you landed well or if you tangled in your chute/broke some bones/lost confidence in your abilities. If you want to open a safe you need a certain quality and you will need lots of time. The better your tools and the more expierience you have the less time you will need to reach the same quality. I strongly belive that everybody can achieve anything with the right set of tools and an infinite amount of time. So there is no need to roll.

timopod: I want to include some ideas on settings besides the standard good is good/evil is evil. But the default setting will be the one with evil being evil... really evil. And angels will be the forces of good, although frustrated with humankind they still need to protect it from evil to prevent evil from gaining strenght.
I really should do this power 19 questions...