[Any System] Which ones can one play a God/Divine being?

[Dante & Vergil]

Title says it all, folks. Is there a system out there that can have it's players play gods and the like? If possible, ones with rules of accension as well? I've seen the Immortals Handbook and just wanted to know if there are others out there.

[Daelen]

I'm almost positive I won't be the first to say this but Exalted has you playing divine beings... something between angels and gods is how I always viewed them.

Also, Scion has you playing the descendant of a god, and you can then play on to achieve godhood. Achieving godhood in a D20 system unfortunately seems to be mostly up to DM fiat, as I don't think there are cut and dry rules for it. If there are then I'm sure I will be proven wrong, and rightly so.

[Dante & Vergil]

I had a feeling Exalted might show up, but I wasn't knoledgeable of the system enough to know for sure.
I'll have to give Scion a look.

[kamikasei]

No, you're not a god in Exalted. You're superhuman and divinely empowered, and start out able to beat up many gods ("god" in the setting covers a spectrum of power all the way down to local gods of groves and rivers and non-sentient least gods of single objects, so this isn't necessarily as impressive as it sounds) while you might eventually gain sufficient power to take on the top gods of the setting, but you yourself are not a god.

(There are rules for statting up gods, but I'm not sure they're intended for player use.)

On the other hand you are a human infused with the power of one or more deities, originally so that you could fight and defeat the beings that made all Creation and the gods themselves (and you succeeded, or a past life of yours did). At higher power levels you can do things like shape the unformed Wyld into new lands and populate it with new beings you've made out of shapeless chaos. So you may regard that as quacking like the duck you can turn people in to by punching them right.

In Mutants & Masterminds you can be a god if you want. You just have to think up appropriate powers for a god to have, and clear it with the DM. This would work reasonably well for "superheroes who are divine beings" like Thor, for example. If you want a game about garnering worship and enforcing your portfolio, etc., though, the system doesn't particularly help you there.

Nobilis is the game I know of for playing gods, but I don't think you can ascend in it. You just are a god and always have been.

I feel reasonably confident in guessing that Maid has a "secretly a god" trait you can randomly roll (with equal probability to "speaks with an accent", in all likelihood...).

[InaVegt]

No. In Nobilis you are neither a god nor have always been one.

Once you were mortal. However, during the game you are like God.

You're a perfectly normal person, when suddenly someone scissors open your soul and puts ... something as large as the world inside. This isn't about power. It 's not about ... anything you ever dreamed of. The Imperial shard in your soul makes you as large as the world. That's what being a Noble is. It's exceeding every boundary you ever dreamed of. A lot of humans think our powers make us like gods. They don't. They make us like God. I'm not omnipotent, or omniscient, and I'm certainly not omnibenevolent, but I'm a part of something that is. I'm a slice of Creation large enough for all Creation to see. I am one of the building blocks of the world. I am, by extension. all of the building blocks of the world. I hold them close to my heart. My Estate's arms wrap around everything in the universe.

[Satyr]

We once played a Gurps campaign where the PCs were old, practically unemployed Greek Gods, who tried to make a living in the modern world - basically immortal, but pretty cynical and slightly depressed by now. And facing a shadowy organisation who has started a killing spree for the old gods.
The characters were powerful but far from invincible. Fun times.

[WitchSlayer]

In 4e, once you get to epic tier you can become a demigod or a Prince of Hell

[Aharon]

Well, it is kind of pointless because the rules are rather bad, but you could play a god using D&D, with the rules given in the SRD and, in more detail, in Deities&Demigods.

Probably requires a lot of houserules to be a fun campaign, though.

[hamishspence]

There's the Demigod 3.5 epic destiny on the WoTC site- might be a possible alternative to the Pun-Pun method (which is shenanigans with Ice Assassin and a deity's ability to designate a proxy.)

[panaikhan]

'Palladium: Rifts' has rules for demigods and godlings in one of the expansion books - mind you, that system has rules for pretty much anything...

[MickJay]

Nobilis is really good, though it takes an experienced GM to run it well. You can play a minor "god" in Exalted (the godblooded). Demon: the Fallen (oWoD) lets you play one of the fallen angels (and they're not bad guys there, by default, either). Amber Diceless comes close. There's nothing preventing you from playing minor deities using FATE system. And then there's Nephilim, where you play angel/demon-like beings who reincarnate into mortals every now and then (though they're not, strictly speaking, divinities).

[The Big Dice]

Track down a copy of the D&D Rules Cyclopedia and Wrath of the Immortals. In the first are rules for ascending to Immortality. By one of several different routes, too. In the second are rules for playing an Immortal, including things like gaining more power by having more worshippers.

You're playing a god in all but name, with worshippers and granting Clerics their spells and so on. And it's the edition of D&D that you can actually win.

[Tyndmyr]

We once played a Gurps campaign where the PCs were old, practically unemployed Greek Gods, who tried to make a living in the modern world - basically immortal, but pretty cynical and slightly depressed by now. And facing a shadowy organisation who has started a killing spree for the old gods.
The characters were powerful but far from invincible. Fun times.

Read American Gods. You'll like it.

[TricksyAndFalse]

Armageddon lets you play gods if you play at the higher power levels.

As for other divine beings, In Nomine lets you play angels and demons, and Demon: The Fallen lets you play demons.

[Oslecamo]

On the other hand you are a human infused with the power of one or more deities, originally so that you could fight and defeat the beings that made all Creation and the gods themselves (and you succeeded, or a past life of yours did). At higher power levels you can do things like shape the unformed Wyld into new lands and populate it with new beings you've made out of shapeless chaos. So you may regard that as quacking like the duck you can turn people in to by punching them right.

Actualy, you quack better than the duck. Exalteds are on the top of the food chain bar a few named NPCs with extra reinforced plot shield."Gods" in exalted? Some of them are geting mugged by road bandits (something even the lowliest Exalted wouldn't admit).

I believe the OP wants to play actual gods, aka extra-powerfull beings that are superior to almost everybody else, and thus exalteds would be a good choice since they're the top dudes on their setting and end up re-shaping reality (unlike the "gods" in there wich are mostly baby sitters of reality).

[Satyr]

Read American Gods. You'll like it.

The book was one of the influences of the campaign, but after all, the two stories hadn't so much in common. But American Gods is an awesome book. Like most stuff by Neil Gaiman I have read.

[Eldan]

We once played a Gurps campaign where the PCs were old, practically unemployed Greek Gods, who tried to make a living in the modern world - basically immortal, but pretty cynical and slightly depressed by now. And facing a shadowy organisation who has started a killing spree for the old gods.
The characters were powerful but far from invincible. Fun times.

So you played American Gods, but not necessarily in America? Sounds good.

[Satyr]

No, not really.

Spoiler

Show

Gods do not die without good reasons. But their power may wane, when they lose their worshippers. This has happened to the gods of old, the former rulers of the Olymp. Now, almost 2000 years after they were replaced through Christianity, they still hang around somehow, remembering he old days of their greatness and try to get along in a world that doesn’t need them anymore.

The gods are still powerful, but compared to the old days, when they were almost omniscient, they have become pathetic, trying to get along with the mortal world with normal jobs, more or less regular relationships (definitely less in the case of Aphrodite) and most of the time don’t care much about each other. After three millennia, most gods are extremely annoyed by each other and there are still old feuds between many of them.

With the decline of the gods came the decline of magic. Nowadays, the world is mostly free of it, and only the gods themselves and a few of their descendants still can use it – mostly because they are small sources of magic powers that they can tap. A god is well of magic, a source of arcane powers and forces.

This source of power has proven very useful in an otherwise magically dead world allowing to still use the powers of old or to manipulate the probabilities of reality. It is also a source of great troubles for the gods – somehow an organisation of mere humans has found out that there are still gods and demigods among them and started to analyse them – and later to vivisect and cannibalize them, to inherit these magic powers. Now there are people with an incredible budget, an equal determination and sometimes almost godlike powers that hunt the gods and their descendants and turn them into little more than batteries and fuel of their drive for magic.

Even worse, this organisation is subtle and understands that there is great distrust between the different pantheons and even within them, spraying rumours of a renewed war of the gods and claiming that one side or the other is guilty of the disappearance of the gods and their children.

It is about time that the gods – or at least some of them – leave their old hatred behind them and try to save themselves and their kind from the greed of mortals. Than even among gods, there are heroes.

This was pretty much the concept of our ‘Gods Murder Mystery Campaign' powered by Gurps. The Characters are gods of the Greco-Roman pantheon, now facing a threat no one of them ever even considered to take seriously – they are hunted and captured by mere mortals, treated like little more than cattle and natural resources. They are still gods who have quite dangerous powers at their hands, but the mortals have no reasons to fear them anymore (very frustrating when you still remember the old times where you just crushed or seduced them for fun).

After 2000 years of non-worshipping, their powers are not what they were back then, and today, technology is more than capable to let the gods’ powers look a bit weak. So Hermes can fly, but most Helicopters are faster than him. Ares is strong enough to shatter an elephant’s skull with a fist blow, but so can an assault rifle. The Organisation that hunts the gods have understood this – and slowly the gods start to learn this as well.

While American Gods deal with a similar topic of 'gods in the modern world' there are some slight differences - In American Gods there are the 'new gods' like the New Media Kid or the Car Gods that absorbed the worship of the humans and ascended to godhood - there is no such thing in our setting. There are only the gods of old, arrogant and callous creatures who are 'there' for a very long time (It has not yet become an issue in the game yet, but while the creation myths of the different pantheons are obviously false they were certainly not created through human belief. The contempt for humans which is a very common trait of the gods is solidly based on facts.

So, American Gods is mostly Old Gods vs New Gods, while the Olympian God Conspiracy is based on Gods vs. Humans.

This makes the whole 'we are hunted and slowly wiped out by human scum' much funnier. At least to me as the GM.
The whole thing is a bit meant as a metaphor for Enlightenment, overcoming old superstitions and religious dogma. The other big topic is that the gods suffer from hubris, which is certain sign of doom in the old Greek tragedy, but the whole metaphors are not that important and mostly ignored in the actual gameplay, only for the intelectualisation of it.

[Kylarra]

It's worth noting that Scion's system breaks down pretty badly at God tier, so if you're interested in playing that, you'll need to do some fixing.

[Artanis]

Actualy, you quack better than the duck. Exalteds are on the top of the food chain bar a few named NPCs with extra reinforced plot shield."Gods" in exalted? Some of them are geting mugged by road bandits (something even the lowliest Exalted wouldn't admit).

I believe the OP wants to play actual gods, aka extra-powerfull beings that are superior to almost everybody else, and thus exalteds would be a good choice since they're the top dudes on their setting and end up re-shaping reality (unlike the "gods" in there wich are mostly baby sitters of reality).

Agreed. Exalts don't have the title of "god", but their nature can get pretty d*** close to the dictionary definition of a deity

[ThunderCat]

White Wolf's Scion is a possibility. The characters start as the offspring of gods and reach more and more of their potential throughout the game. You start with the Hero book, and then move on to Demigod and God, but it should be possible to jump straight ahead to the God part.

[Devils_Advocate]

Could you be more specific about what you're looking for? Do you want the player characters to control aspects of reality, belong to a supernatural race that rules the world, have really impressive superpowers, or what?

I had a feeling Exalted might show up, but I wasn't knoledgeable of the system enough to know for sure.

There are some free quickstart rules, which, while greatly simplified from the normal rules, give a basic idea of the system and the setting.

Here's a helpful rundown of the setting.

[Kobold-Bard]

Just because I'm currently using them I'll offer the Dicefreaks Alternative Deities & Demigods for 3.5

No rules for Ascension, but they work at least a little better than the SRD ones.

[Oslecamo]

The whole thing is a bit meant as a metaphor for Enlightenment, overcoming old superstitions and religious dogma. The other big topic is that the gods suffer from hubris, which is certain sign of doom in the old Greek tragedy, but the whole metaphors are not that important and mostly ignored in the actual gameplay, only for the intelectualisation of it.

However, if one has no worshipers let, has greatly decayed in power, doesn't even holds any mysteries, and is actualy being hunted by mere mortals, can it really call himself a "god" anymore?

Like said in other medias, a god stops being a god when mortals make it bleed. Even the greek pantheon is based on the gods slaughtering each other, with the winners geting on top and the others being "demoted" to something else.

[kyoryu]

Read American Gods. You'll like it.

This. So much this.

Title says it all, folks. Is there a system out there that can have it's players play gods and the like? If possible, ones with rules of accension as well? I've seen the Immortals Handbook and just wanted to know if there are others out there.

Try and find a used copy of The Primal Order, and adapt to whatever system you want?

[papr_weezl8472]

Exalted is the only system I can think of where a starting, no-xp character can literally walk out into pure primordial chaos and shape it into land, wildlife, and people. I think that qualifies as godlike.

[Xefas]

I'll echo Exalted for being very useful for this sort of thing. Even if you'd prefer not to play in the Exalted setting, it wouldn't be too difficult to transfer the rules; even into a modern or futuristic setting (hell, there's an ancient sacred martial arts style based on dual wielding guns, for god's sake).

The only downside to Exalted is that it's pretty thick with rules, and can lead to analysis paralysis almost as often as D&D. If you want something lighter rules-wise and cheaper (monetarily), Primetime Adventures would work, which I'm always a proponent of (mostly because it's generic, so never completely inapplicable).

[Satyr]

Like said in other medias, a god stops being a god when mortals make it bleed. Even the greek pantheon is based on the gods slaughtering each other, with the winners geting on top and the others being "demoted" to something else.

Have a look at the Illiad, I think it's book XII - Athena makes Diomedes look through the glamour of Aphrodite, and thus he can seriously injure the goddess with his spear. And she is later mocked by Zeus for going to the battlefield in the first place. The Greco-Roman Gods and thus by default the standard picture of a Europe-centered view of a polytheistic pantheon does not consist of invulnerable, omnipotent individuals.
The aforementioned novel American Gods is actually a bit harsher in that depiction.

Besides, in my personal opinion, games were the player characters are untouchable by normal people (especially by normal people with guns) are irredeemably boring, but obviously, this is a mater of opinion.

[Kylarra]

I'll echo Exalted for being very useful for this sort of thing. Even if you'd prefer not to play in the Exalted setting, it wouldn't be too difficult to transfer the rules; even into a modern or futuristic setting (hell, there's an ancient sacred martial arts style based on dual wielding guns, for god's sake).

The only downside to Exalted is that it's pretty thick with rules, and can lead to analysis paralysis almost as often as D&D. If you want something lighter rules-wise and cheaper (monetarily), Primetime Adventures would work, which I'm always a proponent of (mostly because it's generic, so never completely inapplicable).

Technically flamethrowers.

[Xefas]

Besides, in my personal opinion, games were the player characters are untouchable by normal people (especially by normal people with guns) are irredeemably boring, but obviously, this is a mater of opinion.

I would say that's only true when the central conflict of the story you're telling is a physical one about people attempting to physically harm those gods (which you've already decided are invulnerable).

You can tell a great, exciting, emotionally stirring story with invulnerable gods vs mortals that can't harm them, if the primary conflict is something other than physical. A god who realizes, for instance, that for all their vast and unimaginable power, they cannot win the heart of the one mortal they truly desire. In such a story, the fact that they are invulnerable (yes, even to gunfire) is actually a foil to highlight their weakness.

EDIT:

Technically flamethrowers.

I'm not 100% sure on this, but I think Righteous Devil style can be used with Essence Cannons as well. Still, you're right, they aren't standard modern firearms, though the fact that the system has stats for laser cannons, I think means you could scale down to the more mundane weapons.