Scheduling made doing a one shot a good idea last Saturday, so I suggested that we playtest one of the IGC games that I felt needed playtesting. The group agreed, for which I owe them a lot of thanks. I sent them several choices, and two of the three players chose God Lore. So we went with that in the end. And I'm glad that we did, because there are some issues that need to be addressed.

One thing that really needs to be added in terms of character generation is some discussion of the "levels" of the deities. That is, PCs start out as "demigods" and there are four higher levels. This isn't an intuitive idea for gods, really, and needs to be explained some. At the very least a listing of the levels needs to be incorporated in the text. Having to look them up in the glossary was just annoying. Moreover, there seems to be very little effect to the levels. Apparently, as surmised from the sample characters, you gain a title at every level. Some discussion of why this happens, how, and what it means would be nice. In general what is god society like, and what does it mean to be a certain level within it?

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, the idea of starting off at the bottom of the heap smacks strongly of the effect you find in Vampire. I was strongly tempted at times to have superiors come along and infodump, and/or demand action from the PCs. Given that the PC patronages are very wimpy (or so the examples suggest), there needs to be some protection of their protagonism.


I'll take a moment to describe the characters. Josh played the demigod of maps, who had the high Ice score. Julie played the demigoddess of Sacred Groves, Island high. And Josh played the demigod of sneezes (working off the hiccup suggestion in the text), high in breath, of course. Characters are pretty sketchy with just four stats selected, and a patronage. I was looking for other ways to bring out characterization, but really didn't see any. I was the chronicler, but did not play a character. I think I should have; the lack leads to my next question.

How are difficulties set? It seems to me that the Chronicler has pretty traditional GM duties in terms of setting out plot hooks, etc, but does he set difficulties for actions as well. It doesn't say in the text. All it does say is that people can raise difficulties for other players with Influence Points. So is the chronicler supposed to use his IP to raise difficulties? Or can he does he have fiat over such matters? When creating is there a difficulty involved? How does one determine it? Based on what? I decided that there was a roll involved, and had to pull difficulties out of thin air.

In general the reolution has to be made more clear. The dice conventions are presented as part of different actions, and might be different for different ones - I couldn't be sure. In any case, the rules for comparison aren't clear and leave ambiguities as to when something is a success or not. Further, it seems like ties are possible, and there are no rules for discussing those.

Resolution came up right away, of course. Apparently each round each player is to select some action. The problem is what do you do if the action doesn't fit into the standard actions? For example, at one point a player wanted to get some information from another god. I ruled that this constituted an assault, and that success would reasonably be narrated by the player as getting the information? Is this correct? In a later case, Julie wanted to get another goddess to link with her to create something really difficult. To do so she had to assault that goddess, and harm her, which seemed contradictory.

Is this sort of stuff just supposed to be played without resolution? If so, then the scores seem like they wouldn't be used all that often. Or, rather, it's hard to see players always having a use for the actions presented.


As the thread title implies, I ran the suggested adventure in which someone is stealing lots of ambrosia. From the start, the "party" problem reared it's head. That is, I wasn't sure how to get these three disparate gods together. So I used the standard saw wherin all of the characters know someone who has the trouble in question - in this case three friends of theirs who had all be subject (amongst other gods) to having their ambrosia stolen. They all learned about this at a party of the gods on "Mount Octis."

Didn't matter, they all split apart right away. Might just be my players who aren't used to party mentiality. And would have been fine, except that the "mystery" storyline means three PCs with separate stories more or less. Anyhow, not really interested directly in each other's stories, they had no incentive to play "against" each other. This is important.

It seemed from my reading that the PCs are supposed to play against each other somewhat. From my first reading, I got this feeling of a certain aesthetic of play that I've now completely lost. What am I missing? Why would a player spend his IP to make something more difficult for another player? That is, how do you explain an in-game loss of IP for such a metagame effect? And why would a player do it? Why weaken your own character in order to try and make another PC fail?

In general there wasn't enough spending of IP. There seems to be little positive that one can do with IP - it all seems to be defensive.


The Scroll is very hard. That is, framing scenes can be very difficult when all that happens is that the player made one roll that didn't resolve much. For instance, if a player failed at creating something, then what do you say for the next round to that player? In some cases, I'd just say, "OK, you failed, now what do you want to do?" When the PC's split up, suddenly I had to be framing three scenes every round. Even with only three players it's hard to remember what's going on. I had to ask repeatedly for where PCs were at.

The "turn" concept doesn't affect anything that I could see, except that you can only use ambrosia once per three turns, or thirty rounds. Why not just make a turn thirty rounds, then? That said, the whole session only went twelve rounds, so the idea of every thirty rounds seemed pointlessly long. If that seems short, remember that we're talking about 36 declarations of actions, 36 rolls by players, 36 rolls by me, and 36 resolutions. And then close to 36 scene framings. That's a lot of stuff in just 12 rounds of play.


In the end, the PCs had a life force contest with the demon who was behind the demigods who were stealing the ambrosia - the idea was that he was manipulating them, telling them that they could rebel against the higher gods. I had to cut to the end, skipping hunting down the demigods and beating the info out of them. So there were two PCs there to confront the demon which had as much life force as the two of them. Now, given that the GM assigns action for NPCs, I assumed that this meant that I had to give out actions for the NPCs. So I declared a Life Force contest, and they declared a Life Force contest back against it, linked up. Not seeing anything about initiative, we rolled both simultaneously. End result, the PCs lost one and the demon lost one. So I narrated as they all went off to the Negative Zone together.

Then Ryan's character, demigod of sneezes just came along and cleaned up the 100 doses of Ambrosia that the demon had collected. We didn't get to the point where we figured out if he was going to return them to their owners, or suddenly move up a level in the god world, but that was my intention in putting that much out there (in any case, it fits the scenario as described if you think about it).


On a general editing note, there are places where the term "Initiative Points" are used, which I think must mean Influence Points. Also, note that I was playing off the original post. If I missed an update, I apologize.

More later.

Mike

Oh my baby!

:)

Well, I was hoping for some meaty critique. I am printing this stuff out (and any more that comes along) and will be working on "fixing" it.

Thank you, Mike and your group, for play-testing God Lore. I look forward to more feedback.

Sincerely,
Kenny
aka Asrogoth

Josh, if you're reading, please add your thoughts. Julie, too, if she's on. Oh, and if you could respond to the post in Indie Design, Kenny, there were some interesting things said there, too that you promised a response for.

That was the bad news post. above. This is the good news:

We had fun.

The concept is good, and if we can iron out the bugs, then I think this'll be a very good game. Here are some suggestions:


• Have a section about the levels of dieties, and what that means (game effects, titles, responsibilities), along with a chart that shows the requirements in terms of Life Force. More on the social penalties that are leveled, why and how.
• Notes on what makes an appopriate patronage at each level.
Something more to make each god an individual. Perhaps something about their approach to their Patronage?
• Notes on what sort of adventures will keep the PCs interested in their characters, and the decisions focused on the players.
• A single resolution system laid out, and then notes in the action sections on how to apply it in each case. I think that would be a much better organization.
• In that section some IIEE statements about who determined difficulties, and how. What happens if two characters are opposed (PCs or NPCs)? Do they each declare an action? Does this imply two resolutions?
• Possibly some more actions. What about a "null" action where the player just narrates back and forth with the Chronicler. They forfiet the ability to make a roll in order to "just play."
• Some unifying factor to make the PCs a viable "party" or some way to make it easier to run the game with players going off in many directions. Or, alternately, some incentive to stay together (linking isn't enough).
• Some fix for how the players oppose each other, and potentially some incentive to do so.
• Positive uses for IP.
• Simpler "turn" rules. I'm thinking just going with nothing but rounds.


Something that I forgot to mention in the first post is the ramifications of the idea that gods are outside of time. In the sample adventure, if I'd been playing, I'd have said, "I go to where the stuff was stolen, just before it was stolen, to see who the thief is, and possibly prevent the theft before it occurs. What is your suggestion regarding paradox? Why not make time progress at a variable rate, but always forward, in order to avoid all of this?

Mike

I'm not sure I really have anything to add. I think you covered it all, Mike. (Plus, my brain is mushy thanks to getting ready for my trip.)

Mike Holmes wrote: Josh, if you're reading, please add your thoughts. Julie, too, if she's on. Oh, and if you could respond to the post in Indie Design, Kenny, there were some interesting things said there, too that you promised a response for.

That was the bad news post. above. This is the good news:

We had fun.

The concept is good, and if we can iron out the bugs, then I think this'll be a very good game. Here are some suggestions:


• Have a section about the levels of dieties, and what that means (game effects, titles, responsibilities), along with a chart that shows the requirements in terms of Life Force. More on the social penalties that are leveled, why and how.

• Notes on what makes an appopriate patronage at each level.
Something more to make each god an individual. Perhaps something about their approach to their Patronage?

• Notes on what sort of adventures will keep the PCs interested in their characters, and the decisions focused on the players.

• A single resolution system laid out, and then notes in the action sections on how to apply it in each case. I think that would be a much better organization.

• In that section some IIEE statements about who determined difficulties, and how. What happens if two characters are opposed (PCs or NPCs)? Do they each declare an action? Does this imply two resolutions?

• Possibly some more actions. What about a "null" action where the player just narrates back and forth with the Chronicler. They forfiet the ability to make a roll in order to "just play."

• Some unifying factor to make the PCs a viable "party" or some way to make it easier to run the game with players going off in many directions. Or, alternately, some incentive to stay together (linking isn't enough).

• Some fix for how the players oppose each other, and potentially some incentive to do so.

• Positive uses for IP.

• Simpler "turn" rules. I'm thinking just going with nothing but rounds.

Something that I forgot to mention in the first post is the ramifications of the idea that gods are outside of time. In the sample adventure, if I'd been playing, I'd have said, "I go to where the stuff was stolen, just before it was stolen, to see who the thief is, and possibly prevent the theft before it occurs. What is your suggestion regarding paradox? Why not make time progress at a variable rate, but always forward, in order to avoid all of this?

Mike

Okay, okay, I didn't get anything posted yet in the Indie Design forum. I apologize. Life's been hectic. I don't wanna make any further excuses, just be assured I'm workin' on it, but life, wife, work and kids are keeping me EXTREMELY busy right now.

So, I should be posting further responses in the Design forum this evening or Monday.

Thanks.
Kenny

Asrogoth wrote: I am not sure what you are referring to as social penalties, excpet perhaps in relation to the Council of the Deities. I shall get to that over in the Indie Game Design -- as well as posting the other information.

I had intended to make it a point to have the Players express the importance/significance of each Character’s Patronage within the character description. Do you think it would require some examples?

I’m not sure I follow as to what you’re asking for here. More scenario/adventure ideas or “character motivation”?

I had hoped for specific rules for Assault and Life Force Attack resolution becuase of their unique and critical natures, but I understand your suggestion and will mull it over as I prepare for the Indie Design update.

Good point. I can see how this was not clear in my writing. I had intended for actions to be automatically successful unless the Chronicler felt a need or unless a fellow Player desired to contest an action. But I will write this up as well and attempt to clarify/modify in the Design forum.

I like this idea. I think a better idea, in keeping with the spirit of the game, would be to name the action something along the lines of “Commune” or “Speak” where your deity speaks with another deity or the Chronicler -- perhaps even a portion of Creation. But again, I’ll transfer this to the Indie Design Forum.

I’ll need some help with this one. I am not sure where to go from here. Any suggestions or leads you have would be greatly appreciated.

What do you mean by “fix”? Do you mean some Paranoia type of incentive? I envisioned the Players subtly playing against one another while allied in order to gain greater favor with the higher-ups and to gain greater sway for their patronages within Creation.

What do you have in mind? I can see perhaps making each creative act cost, or perhaps making actions that are difficult in any way cost IPs in order to effect change -- the only difficulty here is that it would reduce the effectiveness in other areas, but we can talk about that in Design. Were you thinking along these lines or something else?

You tagged me there. I was leaning on my D&D experiences for turns and rounds. I don’t suppose turns are essential. The only concern I’ve got are lmiting the “power” able to be used in order to facilitate some limits to the godliness of the characters.

I’ve got (what I think are) some good ideas here. I think that time should still play an essential role in the game except that Characters can only re-enter time in their God-form and experience the same things they experienced; although, they would not be able to go outside of their experiences-- the characters, regardless of their power, are not omnipresent. Therefore, they may be able to reassimilate the facts surrounding their own existence in various places at specific times. Therefore, they may be able to gain more knowledge by revisiting the past where an offense has occured, but they would be unable to investigate it fully within the past, nor be able to revisit the place of offense.