Modern-Day Divinities RPG - Develop or Discard?

[bifevo]

Greetings. Please forgive this being my first post - I rack up many views of threads but few posts.

For some time I have had the idea of a divine RPG setting floating about in my head; only recently have I and a colleague begun to put pen to paper. The general premise, in brief, is this: Players are divine creatures created to fight a threat that no longer exists, and must now figure out what their role shall be.

To cut straight to the question, I want to know whether my concept is "interesting enough" to be seriously developed. Having read the articles on Fantasy Heartbreakers and of the RPG Cliches found at Critical Miss and elsewhere, I do not want to fall in with a possible crowd of "Modern-Day Occult/Divine Heartbreakers" or some other terrible conglomerate of cliches. Nor do I want a game that appears as nothing more than a patchwork quilt of "anti-cliches" purely for the sake of being different.

I think my idea is unique enough to be found interesting and intriguing by others, but I guess I want to have that examined by a source less biased than am I. I know that, either way, there has been a general response in other threads that "if you really enjoy it, you should develop it" and I intend to either way. However, there would be a big difference between a system that I would use for my own gaming groups and something that I intended to seriously develop.

Please let me first provide a still-brief-but-expanded history of the game-world. The higher power behind the existence of humanity was challenged by an outside force. To combat this threat, Eidolon were created - humans that have passed away only to be reincarnated as one of ten archetypes with various powers over aspects of human existence. During this conflict, the higher power was dealt a blow that caused it to be dispersed amongst all humans and Eidolon, giving both groups free will and the Eidolon limited immortality. Imbued with these gifts, the Eidolon were able to overcome this outside threat and return order to the world. However, these creatures then found themselves still existing in the world - immortal, powerful, and without direction from upon high. The game is then about how these creatures, appearing human and yet decidely not, decide to find their "niche" in Earth, be it by pursuing simple happiness, destorying evil in any forms, or even trying their hands at running the world.

There's more to it than that, but you get the drift. Here are what I view as the strong points of this concept:
1. This is NOT a game of modern horror. If all modern-day games can be classified as a "World of X", then I see this as a World of Hope. PCs are finding themselves "strangers in a strange land,' actually being free to live a life of more than just combat. As a corollary, as humans contain within them the essence of a higher power, they are NOT cattle and should not be needlessly harmed.
2. Unique, low-carnage powers. Only one direct damage power exists in the 70 powers that I have written, and most powers are activated at-will (no points, no charges, etc.) but have a particular drawback to using them (i.e, invulnerable but cannot move; can fly but very vulnerable when doing so)

Drawbacks:
1. Archetypes. These don't imply behaviors, loyalties, or anything else as does the classic splat. Instead, they more like races, defining a physiology, intrinsic powers, and nothing more. However, they are rather discrete groups and so may be viewed by some as splats still.
2. Myths - Most of the archetypes are based on myths. These are obscure myths (i.e. the myth of the Auraka, or Polynesian "God of Death") but are still myths nonetheless. I know that a classic cliche is "Most people think that X are just a myth. They do exist in secret, amongst other humans who have no idea!" However, these myths really aren't that well known in the first place. (also, while humans do not generally know about these Eidolon, they are NOT behind every or even many conspiracies in the world)

As I'm still working on setting, I am not remotely close to having a mechanics system at the moment, so nothing to say about that.

Most importantly, I want to say that my development of this has not been "let's take genre/system X and add Y to it" or "since Z is a cliche, let's do the complete opposite." I have developed this idea based on what I personally think is interesting and meaningful to me, and have specifically avoided reading most relevant modern-day games until after I had the majority of this concept down. (The only modern-day games I had even read any of prior to this were Spycraft and Unknown Armies, most of my interests in other genres until not long ago)

So please, let me know if you think this concept would be interesting as a game, and would appeal to people who are not me (most everyone) If you have any critiques, suggestions, or other cliches I should be looking out for, you would get a friend for life.

Thanks for reading,
-Scott

[Marhault]

So please, let me know if you think this concept would be interesting as a game, and would appeal to people who are not me (most everyone) If you have any critiques, suggestions, or other cliches I should be looking out for, you would get a friend for life.

I don't now about "most everyone" but I think it sounds really cool!  I would love to hear more about the Eidolon, like what archetypes you're going to use, what their abilities are, etc.

I take it that your intended setting is primarily a modern day Earth?

Specific questions aside, I say go for it.

[greyorm]

Very interesting concept. Let's hear more.

[bluegargantua]

Hi!

The general premise, in brief, is this: Players are divine creatures created to fight a threat that no longer exists, and must now figure out what their role shall be.

This is a really good premise and one that I find kind of interesting.  There are a couple of pitfalls however:

 1.)  Sim City Syndrome.  When I play Sim City, what I like to do is take one of the pre-existing cities and use my god-like powers to turn it into an urban dystopia.  Without any hated foe to combat, perhaps bored godlings do the same.

 2.)  Herding Cats Conundrum.  Everyone splits off to go work on their own personal projects.  Great for them.  Horrible for the GM.  In Amber, they're very clear that you need to put out something scary to push people together or they'll just Shadow hop away and you'll be all over the place.

 The really big problem, as I see it, is if you truly address the premise head on -- then there's no conflict.  The characters start from scratch and can do pretty much anything.  But it's too much and they wind up doing nothing.  They may bum around, try to build up power or something -- but they're near-immortal.  What's the rush?  The big baddie has been defeated, time to go party.  Roleplaying a hedoinistic existance is fun but will often degenerate into "Let's blow shit up cause we can" sorta thing.

 This also reminds me of Nephilim.  You're a mythical being re-incarneted into the modern world.  There are still bad guys and enemies to worry about, but for the most part -- you're on your own.  I kinda liked the game.  A friend of mine really liked the game and even ran a few sessions, but eventually he decided it was good for source material and that was about it.  The main problem, from his perspective, was that he couldn't describe what a "typcial" adventure would look like.  You know how with D&D the typical adventure is "meet in a bar, get a mission from a mysterious old guy, go to the dungeon, slay, loot, come home, level up"?  Nephilim had absolutely nothing that would let you construct a formulaic plot like that.  There was no real Big Bad in the setting that PCs would have to deal with so you couldn't even create the building blocks of an adventure.  

 So...it's an interesting premise, but it may be very hard to build a game around it because the conflict is so muted.  You may want to consider three radically different paths a campaign could take.  If you want to publish the game to a wider audience, it will help if you can clearly communicate what the game could look like to other people (especially those who may need a more clearly defined framework to operate from).

There's more to it than that, but you get the drift. Here are what I view as the strong points of this concept:
1. This is NOT a game of modern horror. If all modern-day games can be classified as a "World of X", then I see this as a World of Hope. PCs are finding themselves "strangers in a strange land,' actually being free to live a life of more than just combat. As a corollary, as humans contain within them the essence of a higher power, they are NOT cattle and should not be needlessly harmed.

 What constrains this?  If I decide to blow away 500 people, who's gonna tell me no?

2. Unique, low-carnage powers. Only one direct damage power exists in the 70 powers that I have written, and most powers are activated at-will (no points, no charges, etc.) but have a particular drawback to using them (i.e, invulnerable but cannot move; can fly but very vulnerable when doing so)

 As a personal preference -- if you could figure out a way to let people custom-build powers, that'd be wicked cool.  Especially if you pepper with lots of examples for people to look to.  

 The drawbacks you list are spot on, but I think it's pretty endemic in the genre (is it a genre?  I'm gonna say yes.).  

 Obviously, it looks like you really want to do this for your own enjoyment if nothing else.  So I'd say build up  the system you want and run some games.  If you're happy with the results and feel like it could present to a wider audience, come back and say "here's what I've got now -- what do people think?".  I think that once you go through the process of fleshing out the game and running it for other people, you'll have a better sense of what works and what doesn't and you'll be able to more clearly communicate what the game is about.

later
Tom

[Christopher Weeks]

Hi and welcome!  (I lived in Columbia '91-'99, good to meet you.)

Players are divine creatures created to fight a threat that no longer exists, and must now figure out what their role shall be.

I think that this premise is very cool.  But I'm not too excited about the Eidolon and their archetypes.  If I were playing, I'd rather have a very free hand to define myself.  Tom suggested custom powers and I strongly agree with him, but custom more, too.  Powers of this kind seem to deserve complete uniqueness.

The mechanism that I'd use to develop the drawbacks or other limitations is to have the players do a group-think chat about interesting and appropriate counter-weights to the powers, taking into consideration the input of the PC's owner and GM, but ultimately leaving the decision with the other players.  That rests the burdon of fairly arbitrating power levels on the players.

If PC dispersion is a problem (and maybe it's not) It would be easy to justify that these creatures were designed to work in squads and in some way, they benefit (power enablement/boost) from operating closely.  

Is there any kind of goal that is ubiquitous for the Eidolon?  (Returning to the plane of their creation or something?)  Or is the whole point seeing what they do in a motive-vaccuum?  What would a game session look like?  Is there a GM?  And if so, what are his powers over the story as compared to those of the players?

Chris

[Mike Holmes]

You've got a really good start. So it's with some surprise and guilt that I feel I have to lay down on you: Mike's Standard Rant #6: Concepts are a Dime a Dozen

Note, this is my subltle way of saying that you should proceed. Or, rather, ask something other than "Do you think this would be interesting?"

Mike

[bifevo]

Thank you everyone who replied, your comments were most useful, and I appreciate them all. After reading through everything, my colleague and I have decided to sit on the idea for a bit and do other things, as concepts are "a dime a dozen" but it's solid design that make games great.

So this forum will hear about this concept again, but not for some time. Some individual comments follow:

Tom & Chris: I agree that custom powers are neat, but I'm not sure I want to make this a framework for a supers game. I could always just use HERO rules though for the powers and then players could tweak as wanted.

Mike: My goodness, that link was most informative! (I already referred someone else to it on RPG.net) So feel no guilt, or that you are laying anything down on me. And when this returns, it'll do so with better questions as well. Thanks!

-Scott

[Erick Wujcik]

...there would be a big difference between a system that I would use for my own gaming groups and something that I intended to seriously develop...

Why?

The lovely thing about face-to-face role-playing (and I speak as someone who has been working in electronic games recently), is that you can play-test, on the fly, and as much as you'd like.

So try it out. Play around. Fiddle with it; not in some isolated cell; but right there in the midst of a group of role-players. Try different things with different groups.

As Mr. Weeks pointed out, your "...divine creatures created to fight a threat that no longer exists, and must now figure out what their role shall be..." is very cool. Crazy cool.

Rather than trying to box the idea, by building rules that make it 'safe,' I'd advocate just playing the snot out of it, and seeing where a bunch of gonzo role-players will go. Will they exhibit altruism, and create a utopia? Or end up combating each other, all the way to a new armaggedon? In my opinion, the fun thing to do is just give 'em the characters, and see where it all goes... Not just once, but with several groups.

Erick

[greyorm]

Scott,

One of the things you might consider is that you're taking an age-old, real-world problem and throwing in the mystical and mythical. You're approaching a very real problem by way of fictional content. Frankly, I consider that incredibly cool.

Governments constantly face the problem of what to do with soldiers after a war. Look at Africa, and the multi-generational wars there which left soldiers who had grown up as such since they were children -- and now have no fighting to do. Ex-soldiers were a major factor in medieval crime, especially banditry. Look at America, at our vets from the Vietnam war, or what happened to our returning soldiers after World War I.

In the case of your game, there is no government -- just the soldiers themselves, and each of them has to find a purpose, a self-created meaning to their existance outside of life as soldier, and what they desire may even conflict with what the events of their creation made them.

[bifevo]

Erick: Although I certainly agree with you, my main thoughts behind developing for personal use vs. publishing are more detailed in a thread split covered in the Publication forum: Designing for personal use vs. for publication

greyorm: That's an interesting aspect of it - something I frankly hadn't realized. I'm going to have to go do some reading on just what did happen in those situations...