The ‘Playing God’ RPG

Recently I purchased two RPGs, the Ludospherik edition of Barbarians of Lemuria and a small RPG called Playing God in which players portray deities.

I’ll discuss the new BoL another time, once I’ve finished it and its companion volume. I’ll only note that it’s much like the Filigree Forge edition from a few years ago except that it includes rules for mass battles on land and sea as well as better but slightly NSFW art by American standards. Then new edition and its one companion volume (so far) contain new adventures, including one in which players take on the role of the Witch Queen’s one-eyed, headless, alchemically created minions the Kalukan.

Instead I’m going to attempt a solo play-through of Playing God. It’s only 71 pages, some of those (repeated) blank forms for deity characters, the ages through which they live (and occasionally die), and the worlds they create.

What It Is

Players take on the role of a deity, characterized by its Origin (Apotheosis, Born of Gods, or Primordial), its Domains (Chaos, Life, Death, or twenty others), and its point totals for History and Devotion. The sum of these point totals determine the Divine Rank of the deity (Demigod, Lesser God, Liminal God¹, or Greater God), which in turn determines the number and magnitude of Wonders it can perform in each Age (a period roughly about a millennium long). Gods also have two Symbols, one of “weal” and one of “woe”, which indicate to followers what mood the god is in.

Each Age, each deity performs one or more Wonders taken from a list of about two dozen. Wonders are divided into Minor and Major Wonders, with a Major Wonder requiring the equivalent of three Minor Wonders. Wonders include creating realities, animals, or people, contact with mortals to increase Devotion, creating other gods, or battling other gods. Some Wonders have prerequisites, such as a minimum Divine Rank or the existence of people.

The game can continue indefinitely, spawning what amounts to a mythology that could be used in a regular RPG.

How It Plays

For this solo play-through I’ll choose the “short game” option, which sets the thresholds for deity advancement low enough for a long session or a few short sessions.

In the Beginning …

I’ll start with a Primordial Deity of Magic I’ll name Mystra. Primordial deities in a solo game start with 19 points of History; I’ll spot myself an extra point, which elevates me to a Lesser God. (Let’s see what lesser godhood looks like.) The Magic Domain gives me a special Wonder of temporarily increasing my Divine Rank by one, at the cost of a Minor Wonder in the following Age. Also, if I collaborate with another deity I can conjure the equivalent of an extra Minor Wonder from thin air.

In the beginning there was Mystra, goddess of Magic, uncreated and alone.

In the First Age …

A Lesser God gets two Minor Wonders. (A Liminal 3, a Greater 4.) Belatedly I realized I can’t manufacture Wonders with my Power Surge Wonder, since I’ll still have spent one Wonder to perform it. Thus Major Wonders are still out of reach.

So for Mystra’s first trick, she’ll Create Reality. This reality is small, no larger than a “large island”, with limited living space. She will call it Allansia.

For her second trick, she’ll perform Create Reality again, which enlarges Allansia to the size of a continent.

From the endless void Mystra conjured the land of Allansia, lush with forests and all manner of edible plants. But of people or animals there were none.

Each Minor Wonder gives Mystra one History point, so at the end of the First Age her score stands at 22 History, 0 Devotion.

In the Second Age …

Mystra’s first act is to Create Animals: a bison, which her future people can use for food and clothing.

Anticipating her people’s needs, Mystra brought forth the bison, a shaggy animal whose meat would feed a hungry people and whose hides would make clothing and tents.

Mystra then decides to Create People, which she calls the Primogens. They fill the continent up to a maximum of 20 million people, i.e. 20 Devotion. She draws a card from an ordinary deck of playing cards; it’s a Club, which means only 20% of the newly created people worship her, plus 20% because she’s their creator. She only gains 8 Devotion.

When all was made ready, Mystra called forth a people whom she named the Primogen, the first born, a tall and well-proportioned folk who would inherit the land she had made.

Now that people have shown up, Mystra must draw from the Deck of Fate at the end of every Age. This is an ordinary deck of cards where every card indicates some event. She draws the Jack of Spades: “World Serpent. The linchpin keeping reality in check is destroyed. Draw three more cards from the Deck of Fate and play all of them.” … Okay …

• Jack of Clubs: “Incursion. Monsters spilled into a randomly determined reality, killing a million mortals, thereby decreasing the maximum Devotion of one reality by 1.”

• Seven of Clubs: “Masquerade. A mortal masquerades as your paragon or incarnation. You lose 10 Devotion.”

• Seven of Spades: “Cheat Death. A mortal escapes the afterlife and helps others escape. This undoes the most recent Disaster wonder.”

Yet all this magic unsettled the Void; the World Serpent writhed and monsters emerged, slaying a million of the Primogen. A false prophet emerged, leading the Primogen away from Mystra their creator.

So, Mystra loses all 10 points of her Devotion and Allansia’s maximum Devotion is permanently reduced by one. (There’s been no Disaster wonder, and for that matter there’s no afterlife yet.)

In the Third Age …

Mystra spends her next actions using Create Reality twice, to create a second reality and grow it to the size of a continent. Since she is a Lesser God, she cannot create more than two realities.

Turning away from Allansia, Mystra created a second world, Wyllsland.

From the Deck of Fate she draws a Two of Hearts: “Temples and Shrines. Your worshipers build several holy edifices dedicated to you. If you have a Site symbol, increase your Devotion by 10 percent.” Sadly Mystra doesn’t have a Site symbol; she hasn’t even decided on a symbol at all. Belatedly she’ll pick the Moon as her symbol of “weal”, and a thornbush for “woe”.

In the Fourth Age

Mystra populates Wyllsland the same as Allansia, with a people called the Tellurians and a herd of elk. She draws a diamond, indicating 40% of the Tellurians worship her, plus 20% because she’s their creator.

From Wyllsland brought forth trees and useful plants, and the noble elk, and finally a stocky, stolid people she named the Tellurians. More than half this folk built shrines to Mystra and praised her name.

For her Deck of Fate draw she gets a Two of Clubs: “Ritual Burial. Your worshipers practice sacred rites of burial. If you or an ally of yours has an afterlife, your Devotion increases by 10 percent.” Mystra doesn’t have an afterlife, either, since that’s a Major Wonder.

In the Fifth Age …

Among the faithless Primogen, Mystra Elects a Paragon to bring them back to her way. She only gets 10% Devotion, which rounded down is only 1.

When Mystra returned to Allansia, two ages of darkness had passed. To them she sent a prophet and paragon, Meristor, who despite his wisdon could only turn a million back to the way of Mystra.

Her other wonder is creating a new people in Allansia, the Sylvans. This adds another 10 potential Devotion points to Allansia … although her drawing of a Club indicates she only gained 40% or 4 (million) of them, including her creation bonus.

In this age a new people appeared, the lithe, forest-dwelling Sylvans, who knew of Mystra. Yet less than half worshiped her.

Mystra draws a Six of Clubs, so the Deck of Fate decrees: “Religious Library. Your worshipers build great libraries in your name. If you have the Chaos, Community, or Death domains, your Devotion increases by 10 percent.” So no luck there.

In the Sixth Age …

Now that Mystra has two realities, she decides to connect them. First, though, she needs to Gain a Domain: Travel. This gives her the domain-specific wonder Interdimensional Gates, which she uses as her second wonder.

Through her power Mystra created gateways between Allansia and Wyllsland. People of both lands traded between them, but as yet few had connected this wonder to Mystra.

As a side effect, this increases the Maximum Devotion of both realities by 10%.

Mystra draws a Six of Spades, so the Deck of Fate decrees: “Schism. Your worshipers divide into two sects and wage a long, bloody conflict. You lose 10 percent of your devotion.” Which is unfortunate.

Meanwhile Mystra’s faithful grew divided over a trivial matter, and went to war with each other. When the long, bloody conflict ended, a million died or fell away from Mystra.

On the bright side, Mystra has a total of 48 points, which means she’s close to being a Liminal God.

In the Seventh Age …

Mystra uses a wonder to temporarily promote herself to a Liminal God. This gives her two more wonders to use.

Her first wonder is to Place the Symbol of the Moon over Allansia. Since she’s temporarily a Liminal God, this nets her 20 Devotion points, plus because it’s the Moon she chooses a minor effect that the veil between realities becomes thin.

Beginning one night in Allansia the Moon is unusually large, hanging low in the sky. The faithful explain it as a sign from Mystra, and worship of Mystra grows. The borders between Allansia and Wyllsland become thin, making passage between them more common.

Her second wonder is to Create an Avatar to walk Allansia (and maybe Wyllsland through a portal). This has no immediate effect, but since she’s assumed the rank of a Liminal God (if only temporarily) the Avatar lasts for 5 ages.

Some also claim to have met the goddess herself, walking the soil of Allansia.

Finally Mystra draws a Nine of Clubs, so the Deck of Fate decrees: “Confused Identity. Mortals ascribe one of your domains to another god. Choose one of your domains and another god. Both you and the other god have this domain now.” Except there is no other god now. (Or is there …?)

In any case, Mystra is now, officially, a Liminal God.

Commentary

To show a faster progression I should have started as a more powerful god or more than one god. I could have tried out some Major Wonders.

In any case, this experiment has shown me that, despite being a fairly light RPG, it’s possible to get so hung up on the mechanics that I forget the “roleplaying” aspect. Nearly all the blockquoted “in multiverse” text was written after the fact. Maybe it’s easier with more people or a thorough knowledge of prerequisites and consequences for each wonder.

It’s also hard to “roleplay” as a god with a ten thousand foot overview of everything. About the only ground level action a god gets is as an avatar or incarnation, or maybe while playing a “titan” (a giant monster that a god send to protect or destroy things). It’s also hard for me to find inspiration in the bare moves of Playing God for actual world-building.

At this point I should also mention my dissatisfaction with the PDF of Playing God. The text is white or black on a medium brown pseudo-marble background, which is occasionally hard to read and not at all conducive to printing specific pages. (Which maybe is the point?) The PDF index is at once voluminous and incomplete, so it’s hard to find everything you’re looking for. I’ve also noticed a few places where the text could have used another editing pass, particularly the mismatch between the text and the character sheet: “Intermediate” for “Liminal”, text not quite aligned with boxes, the menu of wonders not in alphabetical order or completely aligned with the text. (I presume “Create Plane” was an early name for “Create Reality”.)

On the plus side, Playing God is far more readable and accessible than The Primal Order or Nobilis, two other books about playing godlike beings. As the opening example of play suggests, Playing God might be just the thing for days when the regular game is canceled due to not enough people, but the remainder still want to play something. I’m just not sure about it being a world-building or mythology-building exercise, especially when other games like Microscope or Worldwizard exist.