Designing a MegaGame: 3 - Faith in the Gods

How do mortals interact with the Gods?

I think this question is integral to the game, both for the Gods and for the uncertainty of the game as a whole. In Watch the Skies, the Aliens do affect the game but there’s very little communication between the Nations and Aliens. Some may consider that a good thing, some a bad thing, I’m on the fence.

For GAW, I don’t want the Gods running around and talking to anyone at any time. It takes away the mystery of them and their objectives, but nor do I want them complexly secluded from the rest of the players. Whilst they my not be omnipotent like the Christian God, they are still Gods and should have a lot of knowledge. In a MegaGame, you simulate that by allowing them to roam around anywhere and see anything. Therefore we have to put limitations on their communication.

My first thought was that we have priests who can both talk to the Gods and to whom the Gods can talk back to but the legends don’t have a lot to back this up (at least the second part). Therefore I’ve decided to have 2 varieties of priests - ones who “pray” to the Gods and ones who hear from the Gods. After doing a little research, I’m using the terminology Flamen and Augur.

Flamen

Flamen are the priests who will pray to the Gods on behalf of the mortals. They’ll be based in a region of a faction (and as such, have an allegiance) and they will be the advocates for their team. The Gods will be their audience but they will not be able to respond. I haven’t decided if they will do it in person or if they will use note cards. I’ll have to wait to see what a round looks like for the Gods to see if I can build in the time.

Augur

Augur (or Oracles) will be the priests that interpret the will of the Gods. Rather than have the Gods speak or write to the mortals, I want it to be more vague. I’ve been reading that they would interpret the flying of birds to understand the will of the Gods. Therefore my current idea is I have a whiteboard where the Gods can draw whatever they’d like without using letters or numbers. That way their intent is more obscured. I may even have 2 whiteboards, one for each faction.

Power for the Gods

My biggest flash of inspiration came when I was brainstorming the Gods’ game. I want every single mortal to have “prayer tokens” where each turn they deposit their token into a piggy-bank for a particular God. These tokens will be colored based on the faction. That way, when they are tallied, the God can see how many tokens from each faction they have and can see which faction deserves their attention. To add to this, the more tokens they receive, the higher in the ranking they go and the more abilities they get. This should lead to interesting plotting where the Gods are playing both sides and making out as though they’re both factions ally.

The next step is to determine which Gods I want to play with, what their powers are, and how expensive those powers are to perform.