My Game Idea (Very Long)

[Christoffer Lernö]

Oh, and wasn't Gog and Magog based up in Siberia somewhere. I think I remember seeing some maps with that.

Anyway, looks like you have a great premise there Gwen. Gets me wanting to play it straight away. And welcome to the Forge too :)

[Gwen]

I need some help!  :)  I'm not really too sure what to call this game.  Something like Wolrd War 3 seems VERY cliched and REVELATIONS is too simple.  Ive pretty much summed up the story, but what name would really make it sound cool?

My other problem is what I should call the "magic" in this game.  It isnt really magic, per se, because most of it is either blessings from Heaven or influence from hell.  Maybe blesses and curses, but thats kinda cliched as well.

[RobMuadib]

Its an interesting idea, although I'd ditch the funky spelling of demon myself.  So is the intent here "RPG during Revelations"?  There was a game that kinda tackled this a while ago, forget the name...  Only one concern: what do you do apart from smiting evil?

Incidentally, the modern stuff here appears to be the Nazi occultism: anything else?

the game you're thinking of is The End, I believe. I think they just came out with a d20 version of their game. there were also some notes on doing Revelations in GURPS Y2K.

Actually, there are 3 "Biblical Apocalypse" type games, two of which are still in print. There was Rapture: The Second Coming, by Quintessential Mercy studios, a very close interpretation of revelations. Then there was The End published by Scapegoat Games (apperantly a rather small print run, as I was never able to get ahold of a copy on the secondary market), which is actually Post-Biblical Apocalypse, as I understand it (only one I haven't gotten yet, buying reprint by Tyranny games.) And then there is Armageddon by CJ Carella, was published by Myrmidon Press, now published by Eden Studios, this was more of a multi-cultural approach to biblical apocalypse, with an unified theory of the biblical apocalypse type structure to allow for all sorts of interesting characters.

I definitely like the Nazi Occultism/Hitler's Brain in South America angle. It would distinguish it from the other 3 available. And it is a popular archetype from movies (Indiana Jones) and video games (Castle Wolfenstein). And hey, I'd buy it, being a sucker for Biblical apocalypse type games, though it sounds like it could also be an interesting twist on Twilight 2000 type campaign too. What about the Nuke angle? What kept everyone from nuking everything?

Oh, one interesting idea that occured to me, is to have the classic alien invasion ala Signs happen at the same time as the Nazi Neo-biblical apocalypse action, would give a reason why everything didn't go to hell as planned. And promote the what if it's all true angle.

Anyway, definitely like the Modern Myth aspect brought to a head by apocalyptic world warfare and all.

Rob Muadib

[Christoffer Lernö]

Too bad "The End of Days" is taken. What about "No Flesh Shall Be Spared"? But that's a bit too long of course. "The Number of The Beast" could work too but... Too long again.

Other obvious names would be "Harmageddon", "The Seventh Seal", "Abaddon" and stuff like that. Also used. However, I think that "Revelations" really works. For me personally.

My other problem is what I should call the "magic" in this game.  It isnt really magic, per se, because most of it is either blessings from Heaven or influence from hell.  Maybe blesses and curses, but thats kinda cliched as well.

You could call people with blessings from heaven "Carrying the Seal of God" and the others "Carrying the Mark of the Beast"

(drawing upon these passages of course:

Rev 9:4 "they were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any green growth or any tree, but only those of mankind who have not the seal of God upon their foreheads"

and

Rev 13:16-17 "Also it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name.")

[Gwen]

Wow, those are all really great ideas, guys!  I think sign of God and Mark of the Beat will work GREAT!

As for the aliens angle, do you think it's too much going on at once?  I was afraid to make the aliens a definite part of the wolrd in case it seemed too conveient that all this stuff was happeneing at once.  But, i guess when it rains, ir pours!

I was also thinking of making the game relativly letal, but with ressurection.  However, if the character was EVIL, they'd have to crawl out of the Abyss, which might make for interesting gaming.

GOOD characters might get some downtime in Heaven before re-entering the fray.

And don't forget the Russian Phychics!  They really did those testings in World War 2, ya know!  And there is lots of opprotunities to create new Collection Items; anything from ancient mythology that the Nazis migh have been searching for.  (Dinosaur eggs, alien debris or Egyptian magic scrolls)

[ADGBoss]

Australia in the Pacific.  :)

Then you really have to have Ayer's Rock as a Dragon's egg. :)

This would be very interesting.  Would the Aborigeness, who somewhat revere Ayer's Rock, then be enemies of PC's since they are trying to protect the "egg"

SMH
ADGBoss

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Gwen,

It's great to see something like this show up at the Forge. In fact, I think I'll take a second to say that Indie Design has been exceptionally good in the last few weeks. Thanks, everyone.

Anyway, Gwen, a few people have wrestled with the concept of a Revelations/biblically-inspired setting for Clinton R. Nixon's game, Paladin. Although none of them are too, too close to what you've provided, I think the discussions about their settings would be interesting to you.

[Paladin] Inquisitor help
Paladin, angels and demons

What I'm thinking is that in some ways, raising issues like this during a game is somehow ... lessened if the only task at hand is to beat on the bad guys. In my view, for whatever goals of play (and boy are there plenty), using such a setting or situation as a basis for a game design cries out for acknowledging the bitterness, or moral ambiguity, inherent in most myths.

Greek, Persian, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Native American, Biblical, Norse, etc ... in my readings, the people who "live close to the gods," so to speak, often pay a high price for it, even the devout ones. I'm not sure if that's something you're interested in including in your design, but if it is, it would be a big improvement over many existing Revelations-ish games, in my view.

Best,
Ron

[Gwen]

The problem there is the conflicting "truths" of those different religions.  If I use the Chinese creation theory of Pan Gu, then that leaves the humans fighting the man who grows ten feet every day for 10,000 years.  That would certainly be creepy, but now there's is a MASSIVE conflict between the Chinese Myth and the Christian Myth.

It would also be very great to throw in some Lovecraft monsters (Cthulu, Azathoth) but now there are more conflicting myths.  This would be cool, but that gives me a HUGE headache trying to make it to where all these myths fit together.

It would be like trying to force peices together from three different puzzles.  They might go together a little bit, but people will easily be able to recognize the peices don't match up.

So I've stuck mainly to the Heaven/Hell Revelations myth.

[Gwen]

Signs of God, Marks of the Devil and the Symbols of Man

Signs of God
"Saved" humans (the 144,000 people protected by the seven seals of Heaven) receive special endurances, physical boosts and resistances.

The Angels receive Heavenly powers and are mainly protected from physical attacks, but are vunerable to powers from those with Signs, Marks, or Symbols.

The Clerics have a special bond with God that allows them to call upon holy powers from above.

Marks of the Devil
Legions of the Anti-Christ are granted demonic powers from their leader, ranging from corruptive energies, demonic strength or speed, and grotesque forms.

The Demons are significantly more powerful than mortals.  They are much stronger then the Legions of the Anti-Christ, but they are much more vunerable to the holy damages from the Signs of God.

Cultists are those who worship the BEAST and are given evil powers from below to fight the war of Good vrs. Evil.

Symbols of Man
The Gengineered humans have had gene therapy to bring their human body to new levels of power, equalling the Saved and the Legions.

The Psychics have mastered the use of their brain power to manipulate their surroundings.  Some are so powerful they can actually defeat Angels or Deamons.

Collectors are ordinay men and women who have managed to stumble across one of the great mythological items of power from human history.  They uses these items and their power to aide in their involvement in the war.


Each one of the nine types has 12 special abilities that they can learn and use as the game is played.

The magic number in this game is 12 (I think I already stated that, but I just wanted to be sure.)  There are only 9 types of Signs, Marks, and Symbols and this leaves 3 unaccounted for to reach 12.

This remaining 3 could be taken up by the Alien ideas, which I haven't created rules for just yet.  This group of three might look something like this:

The Alien Omens
The Possesed  (Humans who have become hosts for alien embryos which gives them certain hybrid abilities.)
The Aliens  (Strong beings on the same level as Deamons, Angels and Psychics.)
The Hybrids  (Results of Human/Alien genetic altercations which result in hybrid creatures.)


This makes 12, but does this Alien element seem cliched or weak?  I would like to know if it makes a strong or weak addition before I devote too much time to developing it.

[Shreyas Sampat]

It's weak, in my opinion; you could add a fourth to each of your three categories if you're so set on having 12 archetypes.  Here's something: disposessed archetypes (they fall under a particular category not because they draw power from it, but because they are antagonistic to it, and do not draw from the other two.)

The Infidels are charged with disbelief that prevents the power of God from touching them.

The Repentant are hardened against the legions of the Beast, and stand unusually steadfastly against them.

The Ascetics have rejected the world of Man, and gained spiritual powers through their understanding of themselves; they have uncanny percaptions and control over their own bodies.

I suppose you could bind these into a fourth category too, but as I see it you kind of have a matrix of archetypes, the Cartesian product of {God, Devil, Man}, and {Follower, Leader, Representative}.  The Man segment is hard to horn into those roles, but the divine/provane archetypes are obviously mirrors of each other.

[Gwen]

I entertained the idea of non-believers before, but I thought that it might proove to be a little unbalancing.

The idea of someone with the maximum Disbelief would be able to stand toe to toe with St. Michael the Archangel and not take any wounds.  This thought of that seems like it might cause some problems.

Of course i thought of the idea that the presence of an Archangel alone might force someone to believe.  However, if that occured, the character would forever be unable to Disbelieve anymore, because they saw the glory of an Archangel.  Then the character is way out of their league in this relatively powerful world.

Besides, I think it would be rather hard to not believe when deamons are pouring out of the great Abyss and being held at bay by Crusaders and Angels.

[Shreyas Sampat]

Perhaps not disbelief then, that's too passive, but a kind of metaphysical stubbornness.  I don't see why concerns of imbalance should limit your artistic vision; if you see your world as having resisters, let them be.

So the issue becomes not disbelieving, but holding onto one's nonstandard ideals while the embodiments of other ideals wage war across the land.

[Kester Pelagius]

Greetings Gwen,

Looking good.

Signs of God, Marks of the Devil and the Symbols of Man

And I know no matter what I say my comment will sound like I am belittling your efforts, which is not my intent, but...

While reading this I was struck by parallels with something I read in the ancient of days in the Land of BBS.  It was a freebie "netbook" sort of thing for one of the story teller systems that dealt with Angels and Demons, in fact I think that might have been what it was called.

Don't know for sure if I still have it (might, but that's not gurrantee the disk it's on is still any good) and it would be a plain ASCii in TXT format (now wasn't that the most redundant statement ever?) but if you want me to send it to you as an attachment to look over, well, just remind me and I'll try and look for it.

Otherwise ignore this post.


Kind Regards.


(P.S.  Just email me if you want me to send the file.  Assuming I still have it.  Probably be easier that way.)

[Kester Pelagius]

Greetings Gwen,

Besides, I think it would be rather hard to not believe when deamons are pouring out of the great Abyss and being held at bay by Crusaders and Angels.

I have no idea how far along you'll get with this but, if I may, that would make an awesome in-game quote.  Maybe used as sample character dialogue.  Maybe have it said in the intro text, as a sort of "before" snap shot dialogue just prior to the events degenerating into Hell on Earth.


EDIT:  Just noticed the naming convention.  That's fine if you want to use it but it might confuse some.  (I wont even reference the thread that led me to point this out.  Lucky you, woo-hoo!!  ;) )

Kind Regards.

[Gwen]

I'd love to read anything on the subject as long as there's an element of it grounded in the bible or WW2 myths.

I was watching the History Channel the other day and decided to add the parts of the show into the game.

Apparently, following WW2, the Russians began building all sorts of oddball technology during the Cold War.  One of these was a massive boat the size of a football field, but shaped like a plane.  These boats could reach speed of 300 mph, at which point they began to skim over the top of the Ocean.  It could carry a large amount of troops and artillery... some were equipped to fire off missiles.

While none of the boats were ever employed and Russia went broke shortly after the prototype, it would add in a weird 50's Cold War element to the game if the boats were discovered.

Of course, discovered by who might be up to the GM, I will simply make the rules surrounding the Aero-boat.

Other decomissioned vehicles that could be discovered might be the Tunnel-Tanks the Russians attempted to build.  They were essentially normal tanks equipped with a massive drill on the front (like a cartoon or a bad movie) but were intended to drill down into the Earth and tunnel underground as a suprise attack.

The proto-type, however, tunneled straight down and got stuck about 75 yards down.

They also had plans to build city-tanks like something out of a Mecha-Anime.  These tanks were HUGE, which is why they never even constructed a prototype.  They were the size of a seven story building and several city blocks.  It had a surreal amount of forward gun embankments and missile launchers.

For the game, the GM might say these city-tanks exist and could be found... or already in use.