Of Gods and Men

This game idea is a co-operative world builder that will lead into a long term campaign with a rich history behind it. The idea is to have everyone invested in the setting because they shared the experience of making it together. It is intended to be light on rules and big on ideas. Players and GM’s can then use a ruleset that they like to augment it or come up with their own abstract rule set based on this creation process.

How does it work?

The world is made up of different Ages. The game will take place across these ages, creating the legends and Gods that built the world the players will then inhabit.

The final age will be the one in which the traditional RPG campaign will be set. The idea being that by this point the world will have a rich history to draw upon, but one that has been jointly created and shared. Investing the players and GM in the world they will travel through together.

Below I will fill out some of the details and ideas I have on how this will take place, with guidelines on the things that should be thought about.

The process should be organic, it should be cooperative, but it should also come with balance. The one thing I want is each time players interact to alter the trajectory of an idea, it generates a narrative. 

Plot Points

Each player should have a dozen of these to do them during the world creation portion of this game. Use a deck of cards, randomly deal out a dozen cards to each player, use more than one eck if you have to. If more than one player wishes to alter an aspect of another, get them to place a card from their hand face down on the table, then flip them, the winner being the highest card. If they draw then they must work together to alter the aspect. 

1)	The Age of Creation

Each player has 100 points and each round will bid for control of an aspect. Then in order from highest points to lowest, each player will flesh out each aspect. 

So the player that bids the highest will give the primary idea, each other player will then influence it or tweak it. Spending their plot points to alter as they wish. The GM must be the final arbiter, an alteration from a plot point requires narrative and should alter, not entirely change an aspect. 

Aspects

Nature of the universe
Planes of existence
Role of the Gods
Worlds
Nature of Magic

Feel free to change the aspects you want to work with, add more, remove some, or agree on alist of things that need discussed before you bid. 

2)	The Age of Gods

For this process I felt that an abstract numbering system might be very useful. I wanted to give everyone out a set number of points to work with, say for sake of finding a number to work with 500 points. 

Each of the Gods has attributes assigned to them. There are no maximum and minimum values for these. 

The GM lets everyone know it is time to choose their divine beings place in the setting. 

Everyone places a secret bid on the first aspect. Then goes round the table showing their bid, highest player chooses their deity’s role first. The number reflects who gets to choose first as well as an abstract rating for how powerful that role is. 

Then we move on to Presence, and move on down the list. 

Role:					Your deity’s focus and position among the divine court. 
Presence:				Your presence in the divine plane and how powerful that is. 
Matter Control:			Your ability to directly shape the physical realms. 
Magical Affinity:			Your ability to channel magical energy through priests.
Followers:				The quality or number of followers you have.
Avatars:				The physical manifestation of your will and its power.
Relics:					Any divine relics and their level of power. 
Home World:				The quality of your home world, how much you have shaped it and the attributes that make it exceptional.
Allies:					These can be other Gods, minor Gods, or extra dimensional beings. 

All of these aspects should have story attached to them and woven into the fabric of your deity. If you can’t not seem to reasonably justify any aspect of your God it should be altered by the GM until he feels it makes sense or discarded entirely. 

After this bidding stage has been done, each player should flesh out each aspect of their God, this should be done verbally, at any point a player can interject and alter an aspect of a God, but this should be done by using a PLOT point, now the alteration must take place in the form of a narrative.

Example:  If one player was describing how his God forged a mighty blade for his avatar to wield, made from the heart of a demonic lord, then the interjecting player must alter this in a way that adds to the narrative. 
Player interrupts and decides that while the blade is being forged the God’s bastion is attacked by a demonic horde seeking to steal back the heart of their Lord, during the chaos of the fight the heart was stolen by a rival God, replaced with something different. When the army was fought off the God finished forging his blade, only to discover the trickery, the blade is not what he wished, it fulfills it original purpose but also comes with a curse, each strike the blade deals increases the will of the demon trapped within it. So the blade has enormous power, but each time it is used the demon inside grows stronger, able to pour greater influence on to the behaviour of the one who wields it. Eventually when the demon has enough power he will break free and this may start a war between the demons and the Gods once more. 

This should bring to life some amazing ideas and breathe life into the very fabric of the world the players immerse themselves in.

Each player will take the role of a God in this Age, coming up with a very rough idea about what role he wants his God to fill. Are the Gods good and Evil? Do they understand morality as we do? This can be expanded in later ages as races influence the Gods, the Gods may change roles, be shaped by followers as well as the other way round.

The Gods could be part of a family, having great rivalries, even hatreds, or work together to sustain their world against outside threats. Remember the key to this is to create the feeling of a narrative that drives the Gods and their relationship. 

3)	The First Age

4)	The Age of Legends

5)	The Age of ________