The God Game

Grakelin :I've seen this on a few other forums. Basically, everybody plays a God of a new universe, and every 'turn' (generally a few days to a week), they get a set number of 'acts' that they can perform, such as creating new life or a new landmass. It can be pretty interesting at times.

Any interest in this?

Xiao: I'm kinda curious... but do you really think this game would end in anything other than horrific tragedy here?

Grakelin: I don't understand why a game about Deities ending in horrific tragedy is a bad thing.

Zanza: Whats the rule sets etc?

vVsnttd: Yeah, it sounds pretty fun.

Nothing wrong with horrific tragedy.

Grossenschwamm: This sounds fun...I already know how I'll fit in to the setting. Plus, every historical tale of deities has some form of tragedy (or ethnic cleansing...I'm looking at The Illiad when I say that).

Arthgon: I am interested, but I have some questions:

1. Can you deity be based on the gods, goddesses of the real world (Greek, Egyptian, Scandinavian, Sumerians, etc,) or from other sources? (Lovecraft, Pratchet, etc,)

2. Do you have some interaction with the other deities?

3. Does the deity have his/ her own place or hideout?

4. How strong will your deity be?

5. Is it possible to make avatars?

6. Can you marry with another deity or a mortal?

7. Would it be possible to have children?

8. Having brothers or sisters?

Wolfsbane: Interesting. I might just give it a go.

Grakelin: I'm going to use the basic ruleset from the other forum I saw this on, in that each round (let's say a week), you get a certain number of Acts (probably between 3-6 for speed purposes). A single act counts as a single major action, such as creating a race or a landmass or an alternate plane where you can suck up souls when they die. I'll give an example below.

All of Arthgon's questions: I don't see why not. You're a deity, so you can do whatever you want, really. The only rules are that you only get so many actions per week, and you can't contradict what other people have done. An example of this is that if Grossenschwam makes a race of Frog people, you can't say the Frog people never existed, but you can send a plague to harm them.

I guess if people start actively attacking each other's stuff, I can put in some sort of arbitrary conflict resolution system, too.

I'll start, and you can use this as an example of how to formulate your posts:

We will start with 6 Acts, so we can really play around a bit.

In the beginning, there was nothing. And then there was something. The Nothingness started to form a universe. In this universe, he created an orb of water, and he created an orb of fire. The orb of water floated, suspended next to the orb of fire.

The Nothingness then formed Somethingness from the Nothingness. He created a set of Deities, sparking them with vast sentience.

The Nothingness was getting very tired now, but he pressed on. While the Deities were growing accustomed to their sudden new existences, noticed that half of the Orb was very dark. He decided to make it spin, so that the dark half would get to be bright too. Finally, the Nothingness formed into a series of distant fiery orbs, each of which was very far away, offering light to the watery orb at night time, but not heat.

Act One: Started the Universe
Act Two: Put a big Watery Orb in the Universe
Act Three: Created a Big Firey Orb next to the big Watery Orb.
Act Four: Created a series of Deities.
Act Five: Made the Watery Orb spin.
Act Six: Made the stars.

So in our example (which is also the origin of the universe) the Nothingness has spent his six Acts to build a planet, some life (the deities, us), and a sun. Cool stuff!

I put a summary of everything the Nothingness did on the bottom, just so that it would be very clear what I did.

Grakelin :I've seen this on a few other forums. Basically, everybody plays a God of a new universe, and every 'turn' (generally a few days to a week), they get a set number of 'acts' that they can perform, such as creating new life or a new landmass. It can be pretty interesting at times.

Any interest in this?

Xiao: I'm kinda curious... but do you really think this game would end in anything other than horrific tragedy here?

Grakelin: I don't understand why a game about Deities ending in horrific tragedy is a bad thing.

Zanza: Whats the rule sets etc?

Rain Dog: Yeah, it sounds pretty fun.

Nothing wrong with horrific tragedy.

Grossenschwamm: This sounds fun...I already know how I'll fit in to the setting. Plus, every historical tale of deities has some form of tragedy (or ethnic cleansing...I'm looking at The Illiad when I say that).

Arthgon: I am interested, but I have some questions:

1. Can you deity be based on the gods, goddesses of the real world (Greek, Egyptian, Scandinavian, Sumerians, etc,) or from other sources? (Lovecraft, Pratchet, etc,)

2. Do you have some interaction with the other deities?

3. Does the deity have his/ her own place or hideout?

4. How strong will your deity be?

5. Is it possible to make avatars?

6. Can you marry with another deity or a mortal?

7. Would it be possible to have children?

8. Having brothers or sisters?

Wolfsbane: Interesting. I might just give it a go.

Grakelin: I'm going to use the basic ruleset from the other forum I saw this on, in that each round (let's say a week), you get a certain number of Acts (probably between 3-6 for speed purposes). A single act counts as a single major action, such as creating a race or a landmass or an alternate plane where you can suck up souls when they die. I'll give an example below.

All of Arthgon's questions: I don't see why not. You're a deity, so you can do whatever you want, really. The only rules are that you only get so many actions per week, and you can't contradict what other people have done. An example of this is that if Grossenschwam makes a race of Frog people, you can't say the Frog people never existed, but you can send a plague to harm them.

I guess if people start actively attacking each other's stuff, I can put in some sort of arbitrary conflict resolution system, too.

I'll start, and you can use this as an example of how to formulate your posts:

We will start with 6 Acts, so we can really play around a bit.

In the beginning, there was nothing. And then there was something. The Nothingness started to form a universe. In this universe, he created an orb of water, and he created an orb of fire. The orb of water floated, suspended next to the orb of fire.

The Nothingness then formed Somethingness from the Nothingness. He created a set of Deities, sparking them with vast sentience.

The Nothingness was getting very tired now, but he pressed on. While the Deities were growing accustomed to their sudden new existences, noticed that half of the Orb was very dark. He decided to make it spin, so that the dark half would get to be bright too. Finally, the Nothingness formed into a series of distant fiery orbs, each of which was very far away, offering light to the watery orb at night time, but not heat.

Act One: Started the Universe
Act Two: Put a big Watery Orb in the Universe
Act Three: Created a Big Firey Orb next to the big Watery Orb.
Act Four: Created a series of Deities.
Act Five: Made the Watery Orb spin.
Act Six: Made the stars.

So in our example (which is also the origin of the universe) the Nothingness has spent his six Acts to build a planet, some life (the deities, us), and a sun. Cool stuff!

I put a summary of everything the Nothingness did on the bottom, just so that it would be very clear what I did.

Wolfsbane: Right. Now, do we take turns doing this or does everybody post when they feel like? An do you have to spend all of your actions in the same post?

Zanza: One little nagging question, do we play on the same planet?

Grakelin: You can post whenever you want. You get six new actions next Friday (don't wait for me to update, just start using your actions right away). Any unused actions are wasted. You can use however many actions you want per post. So I can use three actions now, wait for Zanza to post, then post three more actions.

You can feel free to create a separate plane or planet if you wish, but for the sake of clarity, try to make a connection (i.e. a gateway or a means of access) to the original plane (not necessary if it's a different planet in the same universe). For instance, if I make an Underworld, the means of access would be 'dying'. This all counts as one action.

Zanza: Forgot to ask, is there a limit on technology? It would be kind of lame if someone created a super high tech race that creates space ships and destroys planets. Or will technology progress in the game so that each week we reach a new stage of development; classic, renaissance, industrial etc.

Grakelin: You're a Deity, do whatever seems natural to you.

Arthgon: Yes, sounds good. I am in.

Grakelin: You can start now.

Etc etc…

Grakelin: Yes, this is all correctly done, well played. Exactly one week from Wolfsbane's starting post, we can all have an additional six acts.

Wolfsbane: May I also, completely out of character, suggest something? Good. I think we should have a weekly wrap-up; a post in which Grakelin describes in a narrative text what has happened and what the consequenses of our actions were. Just a thought. Yay-or-nay-majority-rules?

Grakelin: This I can do. I will also do it early if everybody gets all 6 acts and sit idling.

Zanza: I think everyone has acted now, unless there are more people who wish to jump in. Interesting turn on my insect hordes, I predicted this would happen to the poor little fellas.

Arthgon: Does anyone know if forming an alliance or moving your haven counts as an act? Have everyone takes on a form or appearance? Example: Grossenschwamm as Deity of the Sea takes a form of a Poseidon-like Deity. – ARTHGON VOTES YAY

Zanza: I would say anything that has an affect on the course of the game would be considered as an act. However if one was to say they observed something, I myself wouldn't consider that an act unless you acted upon it, in which case the reaction would be the act. Forming an alliance would require you to make an offer (an act) then the other deity would then choose to accept (being an act in my books) or ignore. I don't believe ignoring would be an act as it is simply not acknowledging them and you probably wouldn't have to go out of your way to do that.

Xiao: Much as I hate to say it (and believe me, I hate to say it), I agree with Zanza.

Wolfsbane: Zanza is of course right. Anything that requires you to actually do something must be considered to be an act.

Grakelin: Yes, I will update on the 21st (22nd, if you are in the South Pacific) regardless of whether everybody has gone or not.

Also, I like that you typed out that quote word for word and misspelled everything.

 

Double post etc etc, thats dedication, not sure who was moderating the two threads but I just basically summed up what this thread should say.

 

I do have a question: If your Deity has siblings or children, how do you play that?

PS: Could someone remove the long post of Zanza, because we should talk about the god game here, right? Or is it a fucking spam thread now?

 

I may or may not have brought up the idea that you can play as multiple Gods before. In my view, you can be as many Deities as you want, but you still only get 6 Acts.

EDIT: Also, hardcore mid-term exam studying kept me from posting. If this happens, just take 6 Acts every Monday. No need to wait. My summary is really just flavour, anyways.

EDIT2: Posted! As to the questions on rules being raised:

- Declaring your creatures immune to the effects of other Deities isn't allowed. It's just a loophole wherein you preemptively 'undo' everything a God has done, and it doesn't even make sense. All Deities are of equal power, and have equal say over eachother's creations. I'm thinking that once sentient races get to be the norm (rather than the 1-2 that are active at a time right now), we could take some of the power away from them for all deities, even their creator, to prevent every inter-racial conflict from becoming a plaguemeteorfest. I'll study some other God Games to see what they do.

- Should we have some sort of rules for warring species? In particular I'm thinking of Arthgon slaughtering all of my Gricks without even using an Act, which I'm okay with (they were being ganged up on anyways), but which seems a bit arbitrary. What do you guys think?

 

There should be a way of settling conflicts, yes.

I think that if two secies are put to war by a deity (and yes you must use up an act to make them do this) both species suffer casaulties but none is wiped out. If a deity interferes with an act supporting one of the sides, that side "wins". Also, empowering a species with an act should give them a lasting +1 effect (for at least a couple of rounds).

Does this sound good or do we need a more advanced set of rules?

 

Arthgon your stupidity knows no bounds yet again.

To destroy an entire species let alone not even use an act should be beyond our deities power. I think Wolfsbane has the right idea, plaguing this, inducing rage that. I myself never killed off the insectoids, I only banished them below the ground.

 

I think you all misread that post, I only killed the ones that attacked the forest.

How could I have done that?

 

Why don't you try to figure that out yourself?

 

Zanza, did I get this wrong or didn't we agree upon waiting with the new acts? At least until Monday?

 

Yes. That sounds good. Now can I make a suggestion about my Great Eagles? What if there are two fractions of them now? One fraction that is uninfluenced and loyal to Salvas and 'Eagle-king', the other fraction , who shall leave 'The Eagle Mountain' (Razor, Scar, Black beak, One-eye, Rogan, Ulf, and their wives and children.) and become corrupted by evil, becoming the Fell Beasts. Also, shall I start with one Act less, because of the Great Eagles attack upon the marauding Gricks at the forest?

 

Or, rather, like this:

You never made your eagles immune to other influences, so they continued to feed upon the creatures of the sea and and Marbeths spies. You made them, however, attack the Gricks with one of your Acts (the one you should've spent making them immune to the influence of others).

Now, you go +/- 0 Acts and everybodys happy. Good?

 

Under the assumption that when Grakelin posts its a new era, hence the '100 years has passed line'. By all means correct me if I am wrong though.

 

If you guys don't post until Monday, you'll all be giving up six acts. We're on turn 3.

EDIT: I keep forgetting to mention, by the way. Should talking to others really count as an Act? I mean, it's not exactly Godly to communicate with others.

 

I don't think conversing with deities should be an act, however what if we say something comes out of it though? An alliance or trade of goods for example, in these cases an act would of been performed by both parties. This could help encourage players to think long and hard about the advantages and disadvantages of working together.

 

Hmm... Maybe conversing shouldn't use up the divine Acts. Although, if players want to discuss strategy, they can do so in this thread or via PM.

 

Arthgon, have you read anything we've written so far or are you just trolling along as you usually do? You can't make your creations immune to the rest of us and you can't conceal anything from us via Acts. Also, there are nu such things as alignments in this game. This isn't DnD.

And no, you never removed the murderous insticts I put into your great eagles, because we agreed upon that you couldn't, remember? Which means that there are no eagles who are "corrupted by evil" and thus no "fell beasts".

So, now that I've explained this to you, could you stop being stupid and get back to the fucking game?

 

Sorry, but it was not trolling or anything like that, but I had no fucking idea how to make or find a loophole in all this. So I clearly need some help this time.

Yes, you are right, I was wrong. Sorry, about this, this will never happen again.

I will do that.

 

Goddammit Wolfsbane, for someone who gets all hissy about other people bending the rules you're happy to do it yourself. GTFO of my haven and take your ugly fucking mountain with you!