Lords of Olympus: A New Diceless Game in the works, might be of interest to some here

jibbajibba · April 19, 2010, 06:39:14 PM

Quote from: RPGPundit;374799The Player Characters are assumed to be children of the Gods, technically Gods themselves, but much less powerful than the elder Olympians. So Hercules would be in their power level (at least, back when he was in his adventurer phase), whereas the characters would be vastly more powerful than mortal heroes (a starting character ought to be able to kick Achilles' ass, or Batman's, or any other mortal hero you can think of).

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Even though Achillies is the son of the nymph Thetis and immune to all phyical damage (arrows to the heal aside ....) as well as bing the greatest of all heroic warriors at the Seige of Troy (that included Paris - judged as possessing such great impartiality that the Gods themselves allowed him to judge their beauty; Odysseus - who had the cunning to beat the Cyclops, son of Poisidon, and outsmart the vengence of said aquatic diety despite spending close to 20 years on a boat; Ajax - who is as close to a giant as you can get and chucks giant rocks at people and fought Hector for close to 24 hours straight without tiring; or Hector who was a descendent of Dardenas and thus Zeus himself....) .
Wow the PCs will sure be a step up from Amberites

RPGPundit · April 19, 2010, 11:15:29 PM

Quote from: jibbajibba;374809Even though Achillies is the son of the nymph Thetis and immune to all phyical damage (arrows to the heal aside ....) as well as bing the greatest of all heroic warriors at the Seige of Troy (that included Paris - judged as possessing such great impartiality that the Gods themselves allowed him to judge their beauty; Odysseus - who had the cunning to beat the Cyclops, son of Poisidon, and outsmart the vengence of said aquatic diety despite spending close to 20 years on a boat; Ajax - who is as close to a giant as you can get and chucks giant rocks at people and fought Hector for close to 24 hours straight without tiring; or Hector who was a descendent of Dardenas and thus Zeus himself....) .
Wow the PCs will sure be a step up from Amberites

Well, two things: first, I was talking on the level of pure mechanical power. As those familiar with the Diceless game know, a character who is weaker mechanically can still "defeat" a more powerful character if they use cunning, and certainly there were several mortal heroes who have cunning in spades. So while even Batman or Achilles, with Heroic Class abilities or Olympian Class at best will usually be soundly outgunned by the typical player character, they might still have a good chance if they're very smart and the PC is dumb.

Second, I was always of the school of thought that enjoyed the power level implied in Erick Wujcik's game, as opposed to the series of novels they were based on (and won't really deny that the Wuj upped the power level there). Naturally, Lords of Olympus being a game where the default is "young Olympian Gods", the power level will be on the higher end by default; but there's nothing to say that a GM won't be able to choose to skew that downward, or maybe even run a Heroic Class game, rather than an Olympian game with the system.

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Rubio · April 21, 2010, 10:03:11 AM

I don't suppose you'll be releasing a playtest document?

RPGPundit · April 21, 2010, 10:33:57 AM

Quote from: Rubio;375346I don't suppose you'll be releasing a playtest document?

No plan for that yet, but it may happen; I'm not sure. The rules are still in the process of being written, and are likely to be for some time, at the slow rate I'm going.

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kregmosier · April 21, 2010, 10:35:07 AM

neat! I think something like this would be perfect for the Fables-inspired game I've always wanted to run!

good luck and keep us posted on the development.

jibbajibba · April 21, 2010, 10:48:47 AM

Quote from: kregmosier;375354neat! I think something like this would be perfect for the Fables-inspired game I've always wanted to run!

good luck and keep us posted on the development.

I have been playing with some Fables ideas as well but probably using Savage worlds. The gap will be travelling through various worlds which appears in Fables but is generaly hard but which, I suspect, Pundit will make central to the Lord of Olympus game as a parallel to The Pattern

RPGPundit · April 21, 2010, 10:59:15 AM

The way people travel from world to world in Lords of Olympus is by the three Roads of Worlds.
To be able to find your way to them you must have divine blood, and be granted the boon to travel by one of the principle deities (Zeus, Poseidon or Hades). Each of the roads is thematic to the realm that deity rules.

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jibbajibba · April 21, 2010, 12:13:55 PM

Quote from: RPGPundit;375358The way people travel from world to world in Lords of Olympus is by the three Roads of Worlds.
To be able to find your way to them you must have divine blood, and be granted the boon to travel by one of the principle deities (Zeus, Poseidon or Hades). Each of the roads is thematic to the realm that deity rules.

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Did you extrapolate that from the concept of the Paths of the Dead you get in the Aeneid ? just curious.

Simon W · April 21, 2010, 12:52:22 PM

This is looking more and more like the game I wanted Scion to be. (I sold my copy of Scion not long after buying it).

RPGPundit · April 21, 2010, 01:00:35 PM

Quote from: jibbajibba;375388Did you extrapolate that from the concept of the Paths of the Dead you get in the Aeneid ? just curious.

Well, that would be an example, but more generally speaking my inspiration was in the kind of Universal Shamanism that Mircea Eliade talked about. The idea that if you have the right vision, and the right keys, you can see the gateways to the other worlds; and that every culture's most basic religions teach this (either overtly or as secret wisdom).

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Rubio · April 22, 2010, 02:45:12 PM

Will there be one Olympus and lots of different mortal worlds (analogous to the Most Popular Diceless Game)? How about the prison of the Titans?

RPGPundit · April 22, 2010, 06:02:52 PM

Quote from: Rubio;375712Will there be one Olympus and lots of different mortal worlds (analogous to the Most Popular Diceless Game)? How about the prison of the Titans?

There will only be one true Olympus, yes.

The titans are imprisoned in Tartarus, most of them anyways; which is part of the Underworld, the vast multiplanar domains of Hades.

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Rainsford · April 22, 2010, 06:35:42 PM

Sounds really good.

Spike · April 24, 2010, 02:49:45 AM

While I am not at all opposed to this I do want to ask a slightly pointed question:

Aside from the fact that you are planning to write all this down and sell it what, exactly, makes it different from taking the ADRPG rulebook and simply using it to run an Olympian themed game with it out the box?

finarvyn · April 24, 2010, 07:33:39 AM

Quote from: Spike;376132While I am not at all opposed to this I do want to ask a slightly pointed question:

Aside from the fact that you are planning to write all this down and sell it what, exactly, makes it different from taking the ADRPG rulebook and simply using it to run an Olympian themed game with it out the box?

Well, it doesn't sound like it will be officially sanctioned in any way, but it would give diceless exposure to folks who might not like the Amber setting and that would be a good thing.

Otherwise, I assume you could just take your ADRP rulebook and come up with "elder" NPCs who correspond to the Olympians (or any other pantheon you prefer) and go with that.

I think that Pundit shares our "nothing new being published" frustration and wants to sell a game to help satisfy that.