Game Concept: Gods Controlling Proxies

[Goober4473]

I'm considering running a game wherein the players are local gods with limited power over anything outside their small realm. A large portion of the campaign would involve choosing proxies to temporarily imbue with their essence in order to travel beyond their domain, which amounts to "choose an NPC in town that worships you; you now control that character." The NPCs would retain all of their personality traits, but now the player gets to run them. Their agency and story have been taken over, yet they remain themselves.

I'm considering running the "gods" portion of the game using the Fate system, but my main concern, as it relates to this forum and this thread, is creating and running proxies. It's likely time, even many generations, might pass throughout the campaign, and that's a lot of NPCs to create and manage.

As a player, how would you like that kind of choice to play out? Would you want a hand in creating the NPCs in the first place? Or at least guiding the kinds of personalities or classes that your town's population might produce? Or would you simply want an array of different, pre-existing people to choose from, affecting them only in your interactions with/control of them?

And as a DM, would you prefer your players take part in the character building, would you want to use some kind of generator, or perhaps just create them all yourself?

[Kane0]

Sounds like a fun and novel concept.

I'd start with a solidly built random table or generator (custom is better if you have the time/inclination) you can roll from, then allow the players to make a certain number or amount of changes to an NPC upon being 'Proxied'. This allows both you to create random NPC that are organic to the world and the players to have some agency over their characters.

For example, when you proxy an NPC you take their randomly generated stats and may apply the folloing:
1. Raise one stat to X and one stat to Y
2. Give X levels/HP/proficiencies
3. Grant X items/boons/abilities
4. Allocate ASI, spell and ability selections (ie Barbarian Totems, Hunter choices) to suit
5. You cannot change race, subrace, class, subclass or background choices.

Then tweak to taste for your preferred power level, for example 18 and 16 for #1, +10 HP and 3 proficiencies (2 skill, 1 nonskill) for #2 and 1 item + 1 boon for #3 for a decent and noticeable power boost but not instant demi-god status.

[Goober4473]

4. Allocate ASI, spell and ability selections (ie Barbarian Totems, Hunter choices) to suit

This might be pretty promising. Generate the characters' race, class, subclass, and ability scores ahead of time via random roll or DM choice, but leave the rest to the players when they select the proxy. As levels get higher, it may be prudent to include some lower level choices beforehand too, just so things don't get bogged down.

My concept for gods in this setting would be much more subtle in power. They may grant some small buffs on their proxies, probably resembling the blessings from the DMG, but the main thing is they get to be PCs.