Games Where the Gods are Active in the World?

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Thinking of my beloved Greek legends I was trying to think of any game settings that havd the Gods as active agents in the world the way they are in those stories?

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Eden's Armageddon rpg, where the Gods are part of the alliance against Leviathan, alongside Angels and Demons.

Part Time Gods, where you play new deities of various things

Scion starts you as a hero, but builds up to Demigod and God (at least 1st edition did, not sure of 2nd)

I have one called Of Gods and Heroes, but can't give you much detail as I haven't really read it in depth

Various superhero games/settings use Gods as protagonists, whether they be hero or villain

Gods of Olympus obviously
 
What about Glorantha ? RuneQuest Glorantha might be what you are looking for.
 
Oh yeah, there is a new one called Tiny Gods. It can be used on it's own, but the publisher said it works better as a supplement for one of their other TinyD6 games
 
Eden's Armageddon rpg, where the Gods are part of the alliance against Leviathan, alongside Angels and Demons.

Part Time Gods, where you play new deities of various things

Scion starts you as a hero, but builds up to Demigod and God (at least 1st edition did, not sure of 2nd)

I have one called Of Gods and Heroes, but can't give you much detail as I haven't really read it in depth

Various superhero games/settings use Gods as protagonists, whether they be hero or villain

Gods of Olympus obviously

Those seem mostly to be games where you play Gods? That's different than the idea of world of mortals where the Gods move among you, as in the Illiad for instance.
 
Godbound where you play new gods.
 
Those seem mostly to be games where you play Gods? That's different than the idea of world of mortals where the Gods move among you, as in the Illiad for instance.

in Armageddon, Gods are just one type you can play. Most of the character types are human, but it includes, Angels, Demons and young deities.

Scion starts you off as Heroes, so that does count (it's really 3 games). Of Gods and heroes has both also, from looking at the back cover.

Part Time Gods and Gods of Olympus are more playing Gods, so I'll retract those suggestions

A few others I can think of is Heroes of Hellas for Barbarians of Lemuria, and Mythic Greece for Hero system.
 
Earthdawn has their Passions mucking about in the setting. Some groups like using them others not so much.
 
Thinking of my beloved Greek legends I was trying to think of any game settings that havd the Gods as active agents in the world the way they are in those stories?

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Exalted's Creation. And it doesn't change if you decide to play a mortal.
 
By sheer coincidence I've been reading Dragons & Gods for Palladium Fantasy. The gods there are definitely on the active side of things.
 
I like interpretations of fantasy where the definition of what a "god" is can be pretty flexible. It's not so much a question of linnaean classification as what you can get people to call you. I kind of like that idea that enough worship can effectively lend something an element of divinity i.e. god-kings and the like.

Magic and divinity should always be mysterious, and it's a challenge to keep them that way when they are center stage. But it can be done.
 
I'm not sure, not really having done much with it (I was a Greyhawk kinda guy), but maybe D&D Mystara? I believe the gods were ascended mortals, and perhaps they continued to interact with the world? Some Mystara expert can enlighten me ...
 
What if the 'gods' are just the most powerful beings that exist in the setting? Superheroes, vampires, archmages, or such. Do they need to inspire worship and cults around themselves to qualify?
 
I'm not sure, not really having done much with it (I was a Greyhawk kinda guy), but maybe D&D Mystara? I believe the gods were ascended mortals, and perhaps they continued to interact with the world? Some Mystara expert can enlighten me ...
If a human reaches 30th level or a demi-human reaches 1,000,000 XP they then select a Sphere of Power. This is the type of immortal you want to become (basically Immortal Class). Then they must find a high level Immortal of that Sphere to sponsor them.

They then craft a masterwork for this Immortal and spend a year to journey to some arduous location (typically a mountain that constitutes a difficult outdoor dungeon), present the work and if the Immortal accepts it will tell them how to become Immortal.

The path is:
  1. Gain another 600,000 XP (400,000 XP if it is the Sphere your class favours).

  2. Find a treasure or artefact of that Sphere

  3. Complete a trial of a type determined by the sphere . For the sphere of time it's journey to three future times and help your descendents rule their kingdoms and retain them in a war. For the Sphere of thought it is defeating a major Entropy beast, etc

  4. Create a massive monument to yourself with 80% of your followers alive when it is completed

  5. Complete a single near impossible task, e.g. kill all dragons in your setting (Mystara if you're using it), travel alone as a cleric, fighter and magic user in turn obtaining 12th level in each

  6. Journey to the mountain once more where the Immortal sponsor probably (90% chance of success) makes you immortal. If not another epic task and you can try again.
Then if you wish you can advance up through the Immortal ranks (there are four) it will take you 100,000,000 XP to reach the peak of Immortal power. This is accomplished by mega plane spanning adventures.

Then you have the choice of enacting a magic spell that turns you into a level 1 regular mortal PC again.

Get this second character all the way back to the peak of Immortal power and the Old Ones take notice of you. You transform into an Old One and win BECMI.
 
Any games set there you'd recommend?

Mythic Greece from TDM (Mythras) is on its way but is not going to make it for 2019. :tongue::dead:

If you read Spanish there's Mythic Mediterranean which covers most of the Med and of course includes Greece, but also Scythia, Carthage, the Celts, Egypt, Iberians, Nubia, Persia and the Romans, none in any great detail but it does give you a "culture" entry which customises the default Mythras culture setup for character generation. The gods fit into the standard RQ6/Mythras cult system but some cultures also use Sorcery (Egypt) or Animism (Scythia) instead of worshipping gods.

There is a really nice section on 'affilations' which are expanded martial brotherhoods & sisterhoods, cults, mystery cults, animism cults, from specific cultures which I haven't seen anywhere else for Mythras/RQ6. "Worshippers for Baal on the left please! Moloch is on the right!"

About half the book is a campaign "The Fate of Atlantis" which is a fairly linear romp around the Med ending up you'll never guess where.
https://elruneblog.blogspot.com/2015/09/resena-de-mediterraneo-mitico.html

There is also "Shores of Korantia" which is an original fantasy campaign setting but somewhat of a Greek city state/Persian empire analogue. It's details a range of gods and goddesses in local pantheon. A Mythras/RQ6 player, Bruce Turner, maintains an well written ongoing campaign diary which uses the setting:
https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/0B28x3ciSsSqXbTZGRm42Sk16d28
 
Any setting, if your PC is religion enough.

On a more serious note, and in addition to the several good options brought up — White Wolf’s Scarred Lands setting for D&D3 (there’s a D&D5 edition but I haven’t read it yet).
 
If anybody is interested typical OSR practice (just for a baseline) is a level per ~6 session. The immortal levels should take longer than that perhaps ~40 sessions per Immortal level.

Assuming a session per week, I think that's about 14 years of unbroken weekly six hour sessions to reach Old One status.
 
I've debated on running a game where the gods exist as physical entities in the world. Taking over their position is just a matter of killing them and assuming their mantle... Not that that would be simple or easy as some will be hard to find and others will be surrounded by followers. Plus the sheer ability of the gods themselves, most with some ability to warp reality.
 
If a human reaches 30th level or a demi-human reaches 1,000,000 XP they then select a Sphere of Power. This is the type of immortal you want to become (basically Immortal Class). Then they must find a high level Immortal of that Sphere to sponsor them.

They then craft a masterwork for this Immortal and spend a year to journey to some arduous location (typically a mountain that constitutes a difficult outdoor dungeon), present the work and if the Immortal accepts it will tell them how to become Immortal.

The path is:
  1. Gain another 600,000 XP (400,000 XP if it is the Sphere your class favours).

  2. Find a treasure or artefact of that Sphere

  3. Complete a trial of a type determined by the sphere . For the sphere of time it's journey to three future times and help your descendents rule their kingdoms and retain them in a war. For the Sphere of thought it is defeating a major Entropy beast, etc

  4. Create a massive monument to yourself with 80% of your followers alive when it is completed

  5. Complete a single near impossible task, e.g. kill all dragons in your setting (Mystara if you're using it), travel alone as a cleric, fighter and magic user in turn obtaining 12th level in each

  6. Journey to the mountain once more where the Immortal sponsor probably (90% chance of success) makes you immortal. If not another epic task and you can try again.
Then if you wish you can advance up through the Immortal ranks (there are four) it will take you 100,000,000 XP to reach the peak of Immortal power. This is accomplished by mega plane spanning adventures.

Then you have the choice of enacting a magic spell that turns you into a level 1 regular mortal PC again.

Get this second character all the way back to the peak of Immortal power and the Old Ones take notice of you. You transform into an Old One and win BECMI.
So you can win at D&D:devil:?
 
I think this is a fun concept that can work well with any number of systems; it is really more to do with how the game master sets up and runs his or her setting. I have included flesh-and-blood demigods and god like beings in several campaigns using The Fantasy Trip or a D+D variant as the core rules. My favorite was a campaign set in a sort of fantasy Earth (drawing on the many GURPS supplements for many setting details), where the world has been divided into regions having highly idiosyncratic qualities (e.g., a bronze age Pharonic egypt might lie across the sea from Renaissance italian city states), each ruled by an exceptionally powerful individual or small group who have qualities that are god like. It was pretty fun.
 
In Norse mythology, the Norse Gods wander around and interfere with life. They father children on mortals who become Heroes.

I'm not sure if they have been described in any games, though.
 
In Norse mythology, the Norse Gods wander around and interfere with life. They father children on mortals who become Heroes.

I'm not sure if they have been described in any games, though.
I'm only half kidding when I say that Marvel Supers had Thor and Loki. But, assuming the OP meant a fantasy game and not a supers one, then I'm not sure.
 
In Norse mythology, the Norse Gods wander around and interfere with life. They father children on mortals who become Heroes.

I'm not sure if they have been described in any games, though.

For sure, it is a common thing in mythology. Its one of the reasons I love the original myths. I think a lot of games don’t go there for concerns of ‘balance’ and the GM using the Gods to either favour or punish the players.
 
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