Advice on a God Game

[EnderChant]

Hello, Playground! I am running a god game on another forum, and I'd like some advice on how to pull off an idea I just had. For those of you unfamiliar with god games, the premise is that the players are gods and (in most games) create a world from scratch. My game is a little more non-traditional, inspired largely by Neil Gaiman's novel American Gods. In my game, the gods are fragile but powerful entities that have just awoken in a modern city that has gotten along well enough without any divinities for all of history. (The game itself can be found here, with a rules thread towards the bottom of the forum.)

If this game sounds familiar, either it's not as original as I thought, or you're one of my players. If the latter, please read no further, since I am soliciting advice which is not fit for your ears (or eyes, as the case may be.)




If you're still reading, and wouldn't mind throwing in your two cents, what I'd like to do is introduce the normally distant overgod as a character in its own right. In all god games I've seen, there is an overdeity which grants the other gods the ability to perform miracles, gather followers, etc. This god is hardly a character at all, more of a narrator and referee.

However, since my game is a bit of a subversion of the typical god game, I'd like to slowly introduce the overgod as a character, and eventually, an antagonist for the PCs to potentially overcome. I would like to slowly make the players feel as though they are playthings of this god, so that they can defeat it and truly become gods in their own right. I'd love to hear suggestions about a subtle way to introduce this character and make the PCs feel constrained and guide them to defeat it without railroading them.