Campaign Toybox
The Story: They say that the way to annoy a liberal is make him president for a day. That's sort of what just happened. You've woken up to discover you're God. Not a god, not one of the other gods, not some long-lost scion of an ancient pantheon, not the powers of a god, you are God. You aren’t running the universe, so much as acting as the ultimate example of what humans should do and believe in. And from this moment forward, everything you do is holy. Ditto everything you’ve ever done. The latter could be embarrassing. The former is going to be difficult. Cursing a fig tree is the least of your worries. Wear a hat one day and the next, thousands of people will be wearing it as a holy vestment. Go out unshaven the next and razor sales plummet worldwide.
The problem with most RPGs is they always start the setting a few years after the big event that changed the world. The key to this game is that this hasn’t happened. This is day one, word go, in the beginning. And that’s the fun part: the players get to reshape the world. The influence of Jesus, Mohammed and Buddha are still being felt today. Now it’s your players turn to do the same. The crowds are forming outside. The pope is on the phone. The world’s media is waiting to hear your first commandments and parables. What’s the word? What are we doing wrong, and what should we all be doing instead? And where would you like your temples built?
PCs and NPCs: You could bait and switch your players here, but it’s probably not worth it. You want them in on this, because it’s a little bit experimental and outré, not to mention potentially blasphemous to them. Step lightly, get them on board and point out that their PCs are going to create a whole new world. Who they are is then up to them. Being regular folk is a great way to contrast things, but on the other hand, the powerful and influential might have some useful experience and also be forced to make more dramatic personal changes when they realise who they are. The reverse goes for religious and atheist types – some knowledge and force are going to be useful, but you don’t want this to be dominated by personal angst. You also want to keep doubt out of this, to some extent. It’s certainly interesting if becoming God messes with personal beliefs but a game where somebody is constantly questioning the whole premise will constantly stall and not be much fun. There’s no denying who they are and what they are, or why and why them and why now are all good questions – questions the GM might want to have answers for, but also might not. God moves in mysterious ways and just because you are a lynchpin in his plans doesn’t mean you get to know what that plan is. You may want a few answers to stop your players getting frustrated, though.
The biggest question of all is why those PCs – and are there any more. The latter decision will decide much about not just the philosophy of the game but also its tone. Having others with the calling automatically weakens the premise and takes the PCs off centre-stage. But without it, there is no-one for them to turn to, which can be very isolating. It also prevents you from having those who misuse their power, which make great villains. However, this world is stacked to the gills with villains, many of whom are dressed as angels. And isolation is a huge part of the messiah myth, not to mention the superhero myth as well. To truly walk alone is the heart of this campaign idea, so turn it up to eleven. It’s already slightly mollified by the PCs having the rest of the group to turn to, so the game will not be crushingly lonely. (And if you want to really turn it up, you could have one messiah and everyone else as apostles. It works in Buffy ... .)
Another question that must be answered is what the PCs can actually do. You definitely don’t want this to be a superhero game – superheroes tends to be about what your powers can do, and you want this to be not about what you can do but whether you will do it. One generally effective way to do that is to make the powers very high level. When your will can become real, you aren’t going to spend much time exploring the limits of that. But that’s not quite useful for a multiplayer game, because task niche can be really important, so consider something a bit less than that. Pick a realm or power type and give each PC mastery of that – complete mastery. Time travel has its usual pitfalls but otherwise, don’t be afraid to go nuts. You want to give the players the keys to the kingdom because that’s part of the game: you can’t tempt people to misuse power unless you give them an absolutely ridiculous amount of it.
Plots and Villains: Religious firebrands are political footballs – with hand-grenades inside them. Every power-broker in the world wants to control them for their ends, but not be left holding them when they go nova. Americans may want religion out of politics but it’s a pretty new trend and unlikely to be possible when a new messiah walks the land. The consequences of a verifiably deific figure taking human form are so immense that the issue isn’t going to be finding plot hooks and villains, it’s going to be dealing with the huge amount of them. Teasing out individual and episodic plots and adventures from all these consequences will not be easy, especially since the scope of the consequences may re-wire the GM’s world every moment.
The latter is part of the fun, and point to what this should be: less a traditional RPG and more a collaborative thought-exercise, where one person controls the reactions of the world, as he sees fit. Which is why you really need to talk to your players about this one, because they might be looking for a more traditional RPG experience. And when their powers are that great, coming up with decent adventuring challenges isn’t going to be easy. Coming up with plot events won’t be difficult, however because of the sheer amount of messianic fiction out there, including the primary sources themselves. Depending on how well your players know the material, you can use this to mess with their heads immensely. Maybe they were planning to go to a wedding the day after they get their powers. Maybe after they attract a crowd they find themselves across the road from a bakery and a fish shop. It writes itself ... .
Sources: Well, the gospels are the alpha and omega of resources here, and don’t forget the other religions – Islam in particular has a strong messiah figure. Moving beyond religions there’s plenty of messianic myths, starting with King Arthur. Then there’s every fantasy novel or film that features a chosen one. Stephen Donaldson’s The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant feature someone who is very specifically the messiah, and David Eddings’ Belgariad has a sentient prophecy that wants itself to come true. The Matrix has lots of fun with prophecies and, especially in the sequels, what it actually means to be the messiah. Long lost messianic scions appear in everything from Kevin Smith’s Dogma and Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code, and by extension of the latter, anything involving the Templars and religious conspiracies as well. If you can, try and track down the TV special with Christopher Eccleston called Messiah which is about what the Second Coming might look like if it happened right now in London. Probably the best source of all however is Alan Moore’s Miracleman, which is just amazing, and all about the big issues of gods walking amongst us, and kicking us back into line. Comics about ruling the world with high power are not uncommon – the Authority and its predecessor Stormwatch are a good start. And for the funny side of things – which will happen – don’t miss out on Life on Brian, Monty Python’s keen look at the problems of being a messiah, and the early episodes of Red Dwarf, where Lister finds out he’s God.
RPGs: Nobilis must start us off, because it’s about the powers of gods and the consequences of wielding them. White Wolf’s Scion trilogy points us in the right direction, and a few lovely people on RPGNet’s forums have provided more modern-day religious pantheons for the system. Exalted is full of returned messiahs, complete with inherent self-destructiveness and the burden of shaping the world by your passage. Gods and messiahs are common themes in the White Wolf stable – Aberrant touches on the issue and does high power well. Supers games that can handle high power might make things more traditional: Mutants and Masterminds and Hero will do that, no worries. Greg Stolze’s Reign is about managing countries, but the principle transfers perfectly to being head of your own new religion. And for having the ultimate backing of a higher power and making up the religious rules yourself, there is nothing more perfect than Dogs in the Vineyard, only now instead of small towns, the Dogs are running the whole damn world. Somebody needs to play that, dammit – and report back soon.
