odin
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Confused Wanderer in the War Zone
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Posts: 161
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Post by odin on May 14, 2010 1:20:14 GMT 1
Yes? No?
Good idea? Terrible half considered abortion of an idea?
I wanted to get some feed back from some of the veteran players before putting up a recruitment thread up here and on giantitp.
The basic premise would be this:
The Pankrator, supreme overlord and overdiety is gone.
No one knows where or why, but the Pankrator has stopped answering the people's prayers, stopped responding to priests and stopped issuing orders to his minions. Some speculate that the Pankrator is dead or has achieved such transcendence that the physical realm no longer holds his attention.
What is known is that his seat is now suddenly vacant. The past months have seen the rise of dozens of powerful entities seeking godhood. These Pretender Gods all desire to become the new Pankrator and can only do so by subjugating or destroying all of the other Pretenders.
All the players will take the reigns of a nation run by a Pretender God. While the Pretenders are incredibly powerful and hope to reach godhood they're not there yet. In Dnd terms the Pretender Gods are roughly on par with Epic Level casters or Monsters. Destroying a Pretender is far from easy however. Since the Pretender is on the cusp of godhood, not only must there physical body be killed but their cult must also be disbanded so that no one can summon them back to the physical realm.
The tech level would be set at roughly High Medieval. Tech would be replaced with Magic, representing not only your Pretender's magical power but the power of the wizards and magic users at his disposal.
Since the various Cults are dead set on the destruction or subjugation of the others, I'm thinking of removing the World Opinion Stat.
So? Thoughts? Ideas? Encouragement? Criticisms/handfuls of excrement to throw?
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Post by puppyavenger on May 14, 2010 1:25:34 GMT 1
well, how common would monsters be? what kind of monsters? non-human civilizations?
and isn't epic level-caster in D&D roughly on par with a god anyway?
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Post by Sayn on May 14, 2010 1:37:11 GMT 1
It sounds interesting. I assume that the goal of becoming the Pankrator would be achievable in more than one way? Like, gaining so many followers that your power is far greater than the rest of the Pretender Gods, or things like that.
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Post by The_JJ: Solaris Council on May 14, 2010 1:57:21 GMT 1
Sounds interesting, and I never did like the World Opinion stat to much, but I think 'default to hostile' would put a crimp on the alliances and betrayals that make Total War so fun.
Other than that... yeah.
A few questions:
I sooooo want to run my Wanderer God and his desert nomads. Will power be based on numeric followers alone?
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Post by puppyavenger on May 14, 2010 2:01:10 GMT 1
I'm thinking some kind of otherworldly horror (either the physic's rending kind, the "why are my nightmares eating me" kind, or the flesh-crofter kind) and yeah, what kind of NPc's would there be?
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odin
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Confused Wanderer in the War Zone
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Posts: 161
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Post by odin on May 14, 2010 2:21:59 GMT 1
well, how common would monsters be? what kind of monsters? non-human civilizations? Monsters common enough that it would be possible for a Player to create a monster based nation. Otherwise most things are going to be limited to wandering monster levels. Okay epic level sans epic level spells and unnecessary cheese. It sounds interesting. I assume that the goal of becoming the Pankrator would be achievable in more than one way? Like, gaining so many followers that your power is far greater than the rest of the Pretender Gods, or things like that. That's the basic idea. I kind of wanted to keep the manner in which one becomes Pankrator nebuluous. After all no one remembers a time without a Pankrator and the Pankrator isn't talking about how he got where he is. Sounds interesting, and I never did like the World Opinion stat to much, but I think 'default to hostile' would put a crimp on the alliances and betrayals that make Total War so fun. I was thinking about allowing alliances to exist in that Pretenders might form a Pantheon. But I wasn't sure. Temporary alliances might also be possible, like "I'll promise to leave you for last." sort of a thing. Hmmm.... I'll think about it but I feel like there should be a way for a Peace loving Pretender to become Pankrator. I sooooo want to run my Wanderer God and his desert nomads. Will power be based on numeric followers alone? Not exactly. Since the Pretender won't have his/her own stats the closeness of a Pretender to godhood is going to directly correspond with how well their cult/nation is doing. and yeah, what kind of NPc's would there be? NPC's are going to kind of depend on what the group of players looks like it lacks. Like if everyone goes uber magic, then expect one of the NPC's to be the hit it with a stick kind. NPC's are probably going to be powers that are directly related to the Pankrator. Like what's left of his cult trying to call the Pankrator back or the Pankrator's general trying to put on the daddy pants. That sort of thing
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Post by puppyavenger on May 14, 2010 2:30:43 GMT 1
Ah okay.
I'll have to think for a while on what my guy will be. I'm torn between Exalted-style Fair Folk, Cthulu, or something that works around the universe in a more abstract way.
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Post by Surly on May 14, 2010 3:30:35 GMT 1
I'd love to play in this, using Nazhedria as I posted in the nation ideas thread. I do think we should keep World Opinion and be careful about making it too hard for players' to make alliances, but there are certainly ways around that. Pantheons are a good idea as you said, and perhaps a high-magic nation could find a way to merge the souls of multiple Pretenders as an epic project.
On that note, epic magical constructions or enchantments could take the place of superweapons from the previous Total War games.
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odin
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Post by odin on May 14, 2010 4:06:44 GMT 1
Extra dimensional evils are always fun.
Pantheons might work, along with the merging of pretenders. From a theological stand point it would be a pseudo-Hindi type concept where multiple gods are aspects of a greater god.
Thanks to everyone for the feedback.
I want a little more input then I'll throw up a recruitment thread in the next couple of days.
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Post by dargon on May 14, 2010 6:57:50 GMT 1
Well I love the idea but what map will you use? Earth or one from one of the million of fantasy books in existence?
Would the cults rule nations or be part of them? Cause a Peace Pretender could likely win by converting the entire world or something like that.
Would there be neutral people who can be brought into worshiping a particular Pretender?
I think I would probably make a monster nation of some sort or a mix between humans and a favored monster. A sort of hierarchy with the favored monsters as the main leaders over the people.
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odin
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Posts: 161
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Post by odin on May 14, 2010 9:27:25 GMT 1
I wasn't planning on starting with a pre-generated map. I want to leave allot of room for people who want to have a nation in "the frozen north" or "the blasted dessert to the east."
Ideally someone would volunteer to make/update a map for the game. Otherwise we'd be limited to the childish chicken scratches I can whip up in paint.
The Cult, the Pretender, and the governmental structure of the nation all combine to create the stats of a Nation. For example the peaceful hamlet of Hoburg doesn't have a standing military but their Pretender is a 400 foot tall Stone statue of the Pankrator, so Hoburg still has a military rating of ++++.
Whether the Cult is the governing body or some other agency is up to the player. The Pretender might be the man/woman/thing in charge or it might just be a figure head. It would be possible to play a "Nation" that didn't actually have any territory like "The Spider Cult" or something like that. You could even play a faction without a pretender, but it's not recommended.
Converting/conquering neutral factions is going to play a large part of the game. Since the the Pankrator is freshly dead/gone there will be increasing numbers of people loosing their faith in him/it so there will be increasing numbers of people that can easily be converted to worshiping a Pretender.
One of the problems with the peaceful path would be that while you could convert neutral types, other more militant pretenders can come along and maim kill and imprison your followers.
What would you guys think of a "Mass Appeal" stat instead?
Since the followers of other Pretenders are going to be, by definition wary if not outright opposed to other Pretenders the stat would represent how attractive a particular cult/faction was to others. For example the Baby eating Baron of Bathenwells probably has slightly less Mass Appeal then a sharp stick in the eye while Herata Pretender god of sexual liberation and free icecream has loads of Mass Appeal.
Factions with low Mass Appeal would only be able to keep worshipers out of fear or coercion, while those with high Mass Appeal don't have much difficulty gaining new converts.
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Post by dargon on May 14, 2010 9:49:44 GMT 1
I like the mass appeal idea
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Post by Surly on May 15, 2010 0:39:06 GMT 1
Mass Appeal is a great idea.
On the maps, perhaps players could draw maps of their nations (or ask others to draw ones for them), borders would be worked out by pregame discussion and/or GM fiat (perhaps including reworking of some countries' shape so their borders fit together), and the remaining space would be filled by NPCs, mountains, lakes, etc. This could get bogged down, but I think it might make things more enjoyable as long as we don't try to get too precise and granular with it.
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odin
Officer
Confused Wanderer in the War Zone
chuch
Posts: 161
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Post by odin on May 15, 2010 0:48:43 GMT 1
On the maps, perhaps players could draw maps of their nations (or ask others to draw ones for them), borders would be worked out by pregame discussion and/or GM fiat (perhaps including reworking of some countries' shape so their borders fit together), and the remaining space would be filled by NPCs, mountains, lakes, etc. This could get bogged down, but I think it might make things more enjoyable as long as we don't try to get too precise and granular with it. That sounds like a pretty cool idea. Are you volunteering by any chance ? On a related note, I put up a recruitment thread. Feel free to mosey over there.
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Post by Surly on May 15, 2010 0:59:58 GMT 1
My artistic skills are terrible, as witnessed by this map of the homebrew setting I originally thought up Nazhedria for. But if anyone wants me to attempt to draw their country, I'd be happy to. And I'll be drawing a (cleaned-up/ better) map of Nazhedria from that.
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