Lords of Olympus Q&A Pt. VII
Here we are, for the seventh week in a row (incredible!) answering your questions about the upcoming Lords of Olympus game. The game is chugging right along now that I've gotten to the section on the gods themselves, and while I don't know if I could really get it done before I go on my vacation in mid-august, I hope at least I'll be very far along it.
Anyways, as always, if you have a question for me about the Lords of Olympus game, please send it to this thread.
Here are this week's questions and answers:
Q: Hi RPGPundit, Will Lords of Olympus have an index?
A: Well, that's really more of a question to ask my publisher, Precis Intermedia. In my personal experience, a really well- written complete table of contents is more useful than an index, but I hope that my book will have both. But those kinds of layout decisions will be up to the publisher. Sorry I couldn't be more helpful.
Q: What can you tell us about the art for Lords of Olympus?
A: I can tell you that I won't be doing it, thank Apollo! That will be the business of my publisher, Precis Intermedia. I can only tell you (as total hearsay) that from my conversations with Brett, it sounds like he plans to make an investment in the art and is looking for all-original art; though please by no means take this as authoritative. Maybe Brett himself will show up and clarify things in the comments of today's entry, but the art for the game is not my area.
I can tell you one thing, I would hope that, even if there's not a single other piece of art in the book, the one thing I would really try to push for is an illustration of every single deity; I think that's a really important element, to have drawings of each of the NPCs, and that these drawings be based on the descriptions provided.
Q: Given that Lords of Olympus includes Hades and the Underworld, does it include rules for continuing to adventure after death?
A: You're actually asking several important questions here, namely, how have I handled death in general. Greek Mythology is fairly contradictory in its different tellings (and there's strong evidence that this is in part because religious beliefs changed strongly over time; the greek gods that they believed in during the time of Homer were not the same as those of Alexander, and neither were the same as those of the time of the Romans, obviously). There are all kinds of contradictory areas: the idea of whether gods can die at all, who was the child of whom, who was the wife of whom, just who got thrown into Tartarus and who didn't, etc.
In regards to the question of death, as with any of these other areas, I've had to make certain choices, and what I chose for the Lords of Olympus game is that death works like this: Primordial gods cannot die, period. Not in any way. Mortals, of course, can die, and when they die a spirit that was apparently of that mortal appears for "processing" in the Underworld. And as for Olympians and Titans, who are greater than mortals and less than Primordials, they live forever and do not age, but can die by violence. If they do, they do NOT reincarnate as a spirit in the underworld, they just end up becoming sort of one-with-the-multiverse; It is possible for certain very powerful beings (ie. The Fates, Zeus (perhaps only by invoking the Fates), and possibly Hecate) to bring a god back to life.
So are there rules for continuing to adventure after death? Not exactly rules as such, because the default assumption of the game is that you are playing a god, not a mortal. However, there is a complete step-by-step description of what happens to a mortal spirit after it dies and goes to the Underworld, so it would be very easy to infer from that how you could run such a thing.
Q: How much information will Lords of Olympus have on various important Realms such as Atlantis, Olympus, and the Underworld?
A: There are fairly significant descriptions of all three of these (but not SO significant as to not leave anything up to the individual GM's imagination), as well as several other important places like the Shadow Realm of Erebus, Modern Earth, Classical Earth, Other Earths, the Pillars of Heaven, Hera's Realm, The Islands of Chaos, Scylla and Charybdis, The True Oracle of Delphi, Arcadia, and other Divine Realms and worlds.
Q: What music would work well as a soundtrack for a Lords of Olympus game?
A: Huh. That's one of those artsy-fartsy subjective kind of questions, isn't it? I guess the answer would be "the fuck if I know, it depends on what campaign you run". Are you running a game focused on Classical Earth and the great heroic adventures? Then you'd probably want soundtrack music from Gladiator or something. Running a game full of intrigue where the players spend a lot of time scheming on Olympus? You might need to theme song to I, Claudius. Running a game of interdimensional adventure? Then I guess you might want something psychedelic (though you might also vary from session to session depending on where PCs were). Running a game set on Modern Earth? Then you could end up using almost anything, from Queen to the Cure, ABBA to Sinatra, Dave Brubeck to Radiohead. And yes, I was just thinking of six different deities when I chose those particular artists, try to guess which ones!
Q: Can you give us a detailed blow by blow example of the system in Physical Combat and in Social Conflict? I have never been in a good diceless game, but plenty of good LARPS. I am interested in seeing what happens in LoO.
A: Well, for starters, there is no "Social Conflict", not in the sense of mechanics. A "blow by blow" of social conflict would look like one or more players speaking in-character, arguing with, lying to, or trying to manipulate one or more other characters who would also be speaking in-character. And how well the character would do would depend largely on how clever the player himself was, there is no "intelligence" or "charisma" stat in Lords of Olympus.
As for Physical combat, how that plays out can vary quite a lot too. Because a GM can choose to resolve physical combat quickly or make it drawn-out. In a situation where its very clear that there isn't really much of a challenge for one side, the GM can choose to just resolve the whole conflict with only a few words. For example, if a PC with good abilities is fighting a group of four mortal bandits with no special powers or weapons, it will be convenient for the GM to merely state "ok, you take them all down", maybe adding "Do you kill them all, or try to leave one alive/do you let them run if they try to/etc?"
On the other hand, when combat is more significant or challenging than that, the GM should run an elaborate conflict. In this case, he should take notice of the environment where the fight is happening (including any special rules that world may have), where every participant is located in the environment, and how ready they are at the start of the fight. Then he should play it out more or less in "rounds"; where he first asks every player who participates what they would want to do as their immediate choice of action, then think of what each NPC would want to do.
Players should describe their character's intended actions, not what they hope the results will be. A player's description of action should only be long enough that it does not depend upon any specific result, stating only his actions for the situation as it currently exists.
Example: A player should say “I’ll try to knock down the door with a solid kick, ready to shoot if there’s anyone behind it”
A player should NOT say: “I break the door down and then shoot everyone there, then I go and loot the bodies and look out the window”.
Then the GM should compare Ability Classes (and make judgments regarding the environment or actions and whether these modify the comparison of ability Class), and then decide and explain what happened in that exchange, and repeat the process until combat is done.
The GM should still consider just how much detail is required; it is possible to have a moderate level of detail in actions, or a very specific level of detail.
For example, if two characters are in a battle together where the GM wants a moderate level of detail, it could be enough for the first character to state “I’m going to fight cautiously, keeping my guard up, testing to see how good the other guy is”, and the second to say “I’m going to strike fast and hard, hoping to overwhelm the other guy”.
On the other hand, if a heavily detailed conflict was preferred, the first character might have to state something more specifically, such as: “I’ll be holding my shield close to my body, and circle around slowly, watching to see if he lunges to block; if he does lunge I’ll try to push him as I block to see how strong he is compared to me”. The second character might state “I lunge forward with a piercing strike toward his chest, leaning into it on my right knee and using my left bracer to try to push back his shield if he seeks to parry”.
I hope that more or less answers your question.
Q: Should we assume that at the very start of the game, Hera Knows. And if we have to ask if she Knows, then she already Knows and we don't want her to Know? Especially if the PC in question is the offspring of Zeus on one of his JFK-like extramarital shenanigans?
A: Well, I may have exaggerated the case just slightly with Hera. She isn't omniscient, just very clever. There will be things she won't know about, of course. Its more like, what she does know she has the capacity to learn most anything about. And yes, Hera's particular obsession is making life miserable for Zeus' mistresses and bastards.
If you want a goddess who knows everything that's going down, that would be Themis, who may be one of the few women in the multiverse to be even more terrifying than Hera. We are talking about a goddess who slept with Zeus, and then managed to become Hera's "BFF" anyways, while still being one of Zeus' most trusted advisors; not to mention that part about sacrificing her own baby daughters to the Primordial of Doom so that they, and she, would gain power over Fate itself. Oh, and she may have secretly been responsible for the whole Titan-Olympian war thing.
Frankly, there's a handful of female deities who are just total powermongers and schemers, capable of finding out your worst secrets if they know to look, and able to Finish You rather brutally. Themis is the "nice" one. Hera is the one you have to watch out for if you're connected to Zeus in the wrong way. And then there's Hecate. Oh boy.
Q: How will things be rated once you go "above first class"? Obviously Atlas and Herakles are above 1st class in terms of Might, but if it became necessary to determine which was stronger, how would that work?
A: I decided that the easiest way to work the question of Classes for NPCs, and how to compare them to PC classes, is to all have them on the very same ladder of values. The Numbered Classes are to indicate where the PCs fall with respect to their generation, and they also form the basis for comparison to most beings in the multiverse, including many of the gods in those abilities that they're not truly exceptional at. But those deities who are incredibly powerful, or incredibly good at certain specific things, will have Classes that are rated at "above first". These are rated as "1st + 1", "1st + 2", "1st + 3", etc. So they would be compared, to each other or to the PCs, in the same way you'd compare anything else. Just like a character with 3rd Class is better than a character with 5th Class, or either are better than a character with Heroic Class; so a Character with "1st+3" is better than a character with 1st, or than a character with "1st + 2". You can also have "tied" Classes above 1st also; where you're almost equal but just slightly worse than the guy or gal who got to that Class level first. Player characters, at the start of the game, can't begin with a Class higher than 1st, but characters who reach 1st Class can advance to "above first class" levels in Advancement.
Q: In general gods have unique powers, the things they are gods of. This is perhaps less obvious in Greek mythology where gods are often involved with fairly mundane quarrels but nonetheless Aphrodite can make any mortal fall in love with her, Demeter can cause crops to grow, Herakles can take over from Atlas and hold the sky on his shoulders etc .. These are the elements that give the gods their domains, their aspects if you will.
Now I can see how you can ignore that and just have the gods and PCs that happen to get certain jobs so to speak, but I can't help to feel that having an aspect say being the God of the West Wind or the God of Secrets, or the Goddess of Loathing or whatever would make PCs and NPCs feel more like gods and less like other immortal beings able to travel the multi-verse.
Do you have any mechanics to cover that sort of stuff or not? Have you considered and rejected it and if so what was your reasoning?
A: I'm glad you asked that. I realized that for some players of this game, having a divine thematic to their player character would be very important, it would be something that would make it feel much more authentic to greek mythology. For others, this would be something they might want as flavouring but not as the central aspect of the game. While yet others might not want this at all. So what I ultimately decided to do was to create three sets of optional rules regarding these kinds of Thematic Divine Aspects, as well as guidelines for the GM to decide what kind of themes he would consider acceptable in his game; since offering very broad themes (ie. "God of the sky") can clash with existing deities and make themes very powerful, while narrow themes can create a very different effect; offering modern themes ("god of the internet/automatic weapons/space travel/etc") can create a very different feel of play than sticking to classical themes only, etc.
In the most basic least-intrusive option, players should choose a theme for their deity, but this theme is basically window-dressing to add flavour to the character. In fact, in the greek mythos, this isn't entirely inappropriate, as only a few deities seem to actually do things directly related to their theme as you described, and those can still be handled by the use of other powers (Aphrodite has a more powerful version of Enchantment, Demeter uses Olympian Magic to make crops grow, etc). But there are two other options beyond that basic one, the moderate-level where theme can provide a mild but not insignificant bonus when the PC is dealing with issues or situations directly related to their theme; and the most-significant option where making an action or situation connect to the character's aspect makes them considerably more powerful in terms of abilities and subsequent increase in their powers. Of course, this is fairly game changing as an option, because undoubtedly players will be looking to try to "invoke" their theme at every possible opportunity.
Keep those questions coming!
RPGPundit
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