Ah, Thanksgiving break. The appetizer to Xmas Break's food coma.
The Game: Pantheon
The Publisher: The Lonely Die Press
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one
RPGs in which you play gods, deposed or otherwise, aren't exactly uncommon - Part-Time Gods, Scion, Exalted (you could argue), even Nephilim, kinda. Pantheon has some interesting history as its gimmick. Gods exist because of human belief (nothing new there), but Jehovah managed to pull a neat trick by being the only god to not only have multiple religions worshiping him and warring with each other, but also to have an army of non-god servants (angels) backing him up. Then there's a multi-century gap where gods are cut off from humanity, then they're back, and the implication seems to be that they're back in a pretty public way, which I like because that way it's less WoD-y (honestly, I'm a little over "our world but shit hiding in the shadows" for now).
Unfortunately, the game thinks its gimmick is that it relies on d12s, because they're the loneliest die. Yawn. This is not the only game to use this gimmick, and I think it's pretty silly. Folks use d6s because they're accessible, they use d10s because they make probability easy to sort out (I think), d12s have too big of a swing. But whatever, let's make a god-on-Earth!
Step One: Choose a God. Hmm. Do I wish to go Greek? I think maybe I do. There's no reason at all I couldn't play an Olympian, after all. I think I'll make Dionysus as a PC. I never realized how much of his origin story involves people going mad and killing their families, and it'd be interesting to play a character that has dominion over areas that are as double-sided as wine.
Step Two: Attributes. Of course, I don't start off at full power. I get 35 points to divide between six Attributes: Might, Agility, Stamina, Perception, Mind, and Charisma. Well, I obviously want a high Charisma, and I think Stamina also makes sense. With 35 points I could put 5 into all of them and have 5 points left over, so maybe I'll do that, and then drop Might to 4, and bump Charisma and Stamina to 8.
Step Three: Skills. I get 25 points to divide between skills, but I can't have a rating higher than 3, and I can't take Modern Skills at all. (I have to say, I kind of like that the game leans into the "you are still a recently-returned god" idea, but I also don't know how it would play.)
Anyway, I'll put 3 into Craft (Wine), Presence, Resistance, and Socialize. Dionysus is often depicted riding on a leopard, so I'll put 2 into Ride. I'll put 3 into Linguistics (in vino veritas, baby), 1 into Animal Handling, 2 into Athletics, 3 into Lore, and 2 into Medicine.
Step Four: Words of Power. Here's where things get interesting and weird. I get 15 power words, which I can combine into sentences to do magical shit. I can also bind power words to particular Godly Attributes (not unlike Aberrant's Mega-Attributes) to get bonuses therein.
Holy shit, this game needs an example of chargen. I like the Power Words idea, but I'd really love to see it in practice and there's no example, and no sample characters. Ah, well, just gotta bumblefuck through, I suppose.
Well, Power Words can be verbs, adjectives, or nouns. So, offhand, and looking at the legends of Dionysus, let's take: people, vines, madness, incite, enrage, drunk, euphoria, glory, render, awestruck, animal, nature, beguile, sleep, beauty.
I'll take some Divine Attributes, too. I need two Bound Words for the first level of one, so I'll Bind beauty and incite for a level of Unearthly Beauty...actually I'll bind render and drunk for a second level, because I like the associated power (it lets me retract my divine heritage and appear normal).
Any other fixed powers I want? I like Friend to Nature (animals can't attack me), but it's four words and I don't know that it's enough of a boon to spend that much. As it is, I can beguile people into sleep. Oh, I should have taken change as a power word, could have turned people into dolphins, then. Hmm. Well, I think I'll leave it, and say that Dionysus is still figuring out how this world works.
Step Five: Finishing Touches. I fill in my Health Pillars and my Trauma rating, and now I just have think about what Dionysus looks like these days. I think he's reverted to his "young man" form - slender, willowy, black hair cascading down his back, flowy shirts, looks kind of like Val Kilmer as Thomas More in The Saint. He's interested in viticulture and hiking and other outdoorsy stuff, but there's also a part of him that's angry, violent, and calloused, and he wants to rise above that. It's a matter of making sure his worshipers can hold their liquor, he figures.
