My game idea - read at your own risk!

[K.D.]

MUCH TEXT AHEAD!

I'd like to present to ye my recently developed concept for a Pathfinder game. It is an amalgamation of many different plots and loose ideas that I came up with over the past few years, a sort of an abominable mind-stew cooked with dregs and ends. I got surprisingly attached to it, however I'm afraid it could be unplayable and/or unappealing to potential players. I'll let ye decide; here it comes! Let me know if it's something you would play, and if not, how could I make it easier to stomach.

I want the game to be centered around a rag-tag group of fallen deities. Once they were more or less major gods, integral parts of a numerous Forgotten Realms-like pantheon, governing over their respective portfolios in a high fantasy world.

Inevitably, the local Ragnarok equivalent took place, decimating the gods in a bloody civil war and plunging their world into flames of strife. In the middle of this titanic conflict, strange and formidable powers made themselves apparent. Whether they are ancient evils slumbering in the bones of the earth, eldritch abominations from outer space or mortals, their own subjects, who have risen up against their mindless tyranny that shattered the world, is up for debate.

All that is certain is that the surviving deities, player characters among them, find themselves cornered after being bloodied and weakened in combat against each other. They are promptly dispatched, one by one, until naught but a few remain. These few - of different, even conflicting alignments, races, portfolios and dogmas - pool in their meagre resources together in a desperate bid to survive. Employing what little power they had left they escape to a far away corner of the universe to nurse their wounds and regroup, but due to the unexpected and volatile nature of their last resort plan, not everything goes according to plan.

This is where the actual story starts. The player characters wake up, finding themselves stranded on an alien and hostile world on the fringes of space. Unfamiliar stars shine brightly above them. Separated from their homeworld and worshippers, they are stripped of their powers and many of their memories, becoming mortal again. They can remember only a few details about their pasts and each other - the outline of the war that brought them to their knees, the cataclysmic effect it had on their world and the blurred circumstances of their current predicament. For all their differences, they have little choice but to work together to make the most of their situation.

The world is meant to be rather generic, and open to the characters to explore. Dotted with monumental ruins of ancient civilisations, populated with strange(and familiar!), deadly creatures and bloodthirsty locals, it nevertheless has much to offer, in terms of gathering power and otherwise. I wanted to give this world a feel of post-apocalyptic high-fantasy, Faerun or Golarion with a twist of Jack Vance's Dying Earth, but still heroic. Mountain ranges converted into strongholds by the titans and abandoned millenia ago; primitive, bronze age but highly magical humanoid tribes thriving in small pockets of overgrown fantasy metropolises plagued by dinosaurs (along the lines of Dinotopia?); mile high oceanside cliffs honeycombed with huge caverns where hundreds of intelligent dragons dwell in a feudalistic society; a vast, desert Ancient Rome-like empire built on the backs of slaves and necromantic experimentation; hot and humid archipelagos where tribes of lizardfolk reenact Aztec rituals and sacrifices, all of this within the PCs' grasp, depending on where they set their eyes upon. They aren't the only survivors from their world though - a few other ex-deities have been dispersed across the land, where they will do great or terrible things, eventually coming into contact with the PCs, serving as villains or allies.

In their travels the fallen gods will have a guide of sorts, and enigmatic spirit being that took notice of their appearance in his realm, that follows them as they learn of the world out of equal parts curiosity and a feeling that they will be key in great and drastic events to come (perhaps in hopes of using them for his personal gain?). The goal of the game? Initially, survive, but slowly the PCs will establish themselves in this strange place, gathering power, followers and notoriety, and more options become available, from trying to find a way home, to becoming kings and queens of the natives. The general idea is to facilitate exploration, but eventually I hope to come up with a more coherent main plot, provided I don't scrap this idea. Perhaps finding and gathering the other fallen deities - or parts of them - would offer them significant insights, parts of their memory, or much needed power boosts.

In terms of mechanics, I wanted to go for Pathfinder run with 3.5 gestalt rules. Initial PC level would be low - 5th, 6th - but being gestalts will give them a significant power boost, and it is a way of expressing the extraordinary, divine spark that remains within them. Players would create characters keeping in mind their previous occupation as deities - an evil drow necromancer wizard/cleric could've been a god of the undead and forbidden knowledge, while a good aasimar paladin/sorcerer a deity of nobility and power.

Now, I realise this is all extremely convoluted - that is my main gripe about the project. It is composed of random bits and pieces that I never found a use for before, mashed together in a big ball, mixed with my inability to write coherent English (it is my second language) and rolled down a hill, where it just kept snowballing before smashing into this text window. As a matter of fact, I have very little optimism for keeping anything as it is, but maybe some of it is salvageable? In the best case scenario, someone will adopt something from this idea cauldron for use in their own game, and that will be enough for me :smallsmile: In the worst, this thread will go by unnoticed, and I will abandon this pitiful roleplaying miscarriage and get on with my life :smalltongue:

I'd love some feedback!

Edit:
BTW, I think this is my first post, after years of absent-minded lurking :smalleek:

[Elana]

I'm a bit surprise you go for Gestalt.

With that premise and a Pathfinder game I would have thought that the Mythic rules would be more likely.
After all, they were practically made for exactly that

[K.D.]

I'll be damned, you are completely right! I never even glanced over mythic rules, assuming they are Pathfinder's version of epic rules. I just had a very educational visit to the PF SRD and in terms of game mechanics, this is exactly what I was looking for. Thank you!

[Jacque]

I really like the idea although, as you said yourself, it lacks an overall plot - which is okay if you're aiming for a sandbox game. The easy solution would be to go Highlander and let the fallen gods hunt each other. But it is a quite cliché solution. An alternative could be to let the PCs explore what kind of god they used to be and let them get powers as new followers becomes part of their flock.

Does the PCs start together? Based on your introduction I imagine them to be solitary and your suggested goals might incline them to not stay together.

[K.D.]

Thanks for the input, Jacque!

The PCs were meant to start as a group - they only one out of the Fallen, as all others were separated from each other. I did think about going all Highlander up in this craic, alas, what would stop the PCs from just murdering each other? I wouldn't trust them to settle for hunting others due to 'strength in numbers'.

As for the overarching plot, I am very wary of sandboxes, as they tend to fall apart - too many factors can lead to that. I thus propose a slight change to the story. I decided to make the PCs completely oblivious to their pasts bar the most superficial detail, like each others' names. Also;

The PCs arrive on the planet late. A week, a year or five centuries - all that matters is that all the other Fallen got there before them. Somehow they got sidetracked in the cosmic journey, and they are the last to arrive to the party. The other deities have made parts of the planet their personal playground - thanks to their divine potential, they quickly rise up above and beyond most of the natives. Some seek seclusion, others - power. A few have since been killed, others establish themselves as leaders of local communities and wage war upon one another, trying to wrest control of the land from each other and native rulers. The arrival of the PCs, the prophecised Lost, brings about a significant shift in the balance of power - knowing full well the potential of the newcomers, all parties become obsessed with finding them. The other Fallen can either seek to destroy them before they get powerful to secure their rule or try to recruit them as living weapons of mass destruction, while natives similarly can try to terminate them as future threats or strive to employ them in the fight against their brethren. The PCs can also decide to do their own thing, turning their backs on all, which wouldn't be impossible seeing as they have each other to rely upon, unlike any of the other Fallen. Over the course of the game, the PCs would discover their origins, make decisions that will shape their new homeworld and forge their own destinies in fire! But what happens when the beings that took over their original planet track them down and slowly seep into this reality? Can the Fallen survive round 2?

This would provide something of an overarching plot, while still allowing for sandboxy exploration and open choices of what to pursue. The 'guide' I mentioned earlier would be something like The Watcher from Darksiders - somewhat malevolent, but impartial, helping the PCs to find themselves in this new world for unexplained reasons. Maybe he is an agent of the pantheon that destroyed the original PCs, planted there to lure his masters towards the planet and use the PCs to cull any opposition from the other Fallen before they get there?

How's that sound? Perhaps I'm spending too much effort trying to salvage this idea raher than coming up with a new, more playable one...

[Legato Endless]

No, it certainly sounds serviceable. Far more scattered and less interesting bases have been set for successful campaigns. :smallsmile:

Now, this does sound like a long running story, so you'll need committed players. And it sounds like it will inevitably arise to power politics, which means you need to be willing to deal with all the logistics of that.

Some other possible patches: Well, if you go the highlander path, you can simply make it impossible. Depending on the domains, maybe power transference has certain limits. A god can only grow by absorbing the power of a thematically linked deity, since your PCs will almost inevitably choose differing concepts for themselves. Beyond the cliche, this runs the risk of being repetitive in a more story centric game, though if you're going for a more PvP tactical sandbox it's a solid idea.

Something else to compel coordination and unity is the PCs are being hunted. Not in the immediate sense of being chased by a predator, but in a more grandiose long running sense. Maybe something from back where they lived is pursuing them. Sending proxies and drones to finish off the nascent godlings. Or the PCs themselves are a sort of eldritch abomination. Coming from elsewhere, their presence and growth in the current world is an unnatural phenomenon that some natural defense system tries to eradicate. Maybe the other Fallen have exacerbated this, or the PCs are the final straw.