I recall reading an article in a magazine once about using the
weather for effect in roleplaying games generally (it was an article
covering RPGs in general, not one specific game only). It said
something like this:
If a character who has led a particularly evil life is fighting on a clifftop,
the gods might choose this moment to end his life, blowing him off the
cliff with a gust of wind.
The thought immediately struck me that this is a ridiculous thing
to say in such an article. In any given game, whether or not the gods
will intervene in the life of a mortal depends on the nature of those gods,
wihch could be vastly different from one game to the next. But the
above suggestion seems to assume that all games will have gods that
will intervene in mortal lives.
Now, if a game has gods that will intervene in mortal lives, it’s
important to know in that game how, why and under what circumstances
they will do so. If a GM is running a game where he doesn’t know these
things, it’s ridiculous to simply make the decision on a whim that the
gods will intervene in one given instance as the above-mentioned
article suggests. If the gods are going to intervene at all, then they
could intervene at many points during the game, and the GM should
consider each instance, and decide whether or not the gods intervene.
Divine intervention is not the only part of the problem. If the
gods are an important part of a game-world, then the GM must
understand how and why they work in order to make the game world
make sense.
Did the gods make the world? If so, why? If not, why are they
in the world, and who did make the world? What are the gods like?
What do they want? Do they have the same basic emotional drives
as humans, or are their minds vastly different to ours? Do they want
to be worshipped? Do they want sacrifices and offerings made to
them? If so, do they only want these things for emotional
satisfaction, or do they give the gods some material benefit? Is there
any other way for a mortal to materially benefit a god?
If the GM does not know the answers to these questions with
regard to the game-world in which his game is set, he cannot
properly guage what the gods will do. And if the gods are a
powerful force capable of affecting the world, then the GM can not
run his game world properly.
A RARE EXCEPTION: STORMBRINGER
The only game I can think of that really covers how the gods
behave in any reasonable level of detail is Stormbringer, a game
based on the Eternal Champion stories of Michael Moorcock. In
this game the gods take an active part in the world. First it
sets out why the gods need human followers. A god’s followers
can feed their deity energy in three ways (blood sacrifice,
worship or sacrificing points of their own stats).
Then the game gives rules for when a god will intervene
in the affairs of a mortal. This usually only happens under two
circumstances:
(1) If a character successfully summons a god, that god appears and
then does whatever he feels like. Needlss to say, summoning a god
is a risky thing to do unless you know that god really really likes you.
(2) A character who is dear to a particular god (such as a priest or
agent of that god) has a stat called Elan, which is his % chance of
gaining divine intervantion. If a character is in a no-win situation,
the GM can call for an Elan roll. If it's successful, the god comes to
the rescue. If it fails, adios muchachos. Elan increases when the charcater
does things the god approves of, and drops when he does things that offend
the god. It also drops if he gets divine intervention, as he has used
up his favours with that god.
If a character has no god-summoning skills and no Elan, then he can
forget about help from the gods.
Gods often play a part in scenarios, too. Often a scenario will
revolve around some events that a god has set in motion for his own
purposes.
As you can see, the writers of the game have obviously considered
the gods as a major factor, and explained why they act and when they will act.
To be honest the background is often a bit thin, and to really understand
what a god is like, you have to go and read the original Moorcock.
THE DISMAL REMAINDER
But aside from this little glint of light, I can't think of a
game that handles gods well. (Tolkien deals with the motives of the
divinities of his world in detail, but none of it finds its way into
the Middle Earth RP rulebook.) Often, gods are just a corner of the
background. I think that games designers create a world first, and then
just think of the gods as a detail along the way. But if the gods are
beings with the power and the motivation to make major interventions in
the world, then this is completely the wrong approach. If the gods
created the world, or came into it early on, or have any kind of
stewardship over it, then why the gods have done what they have done is
of vast importance to the game background.
The best way to write a game-world background is to
build from the ground up:
start with what happened first, then work out what happened as a
consequence of that. To make gods that fit into the world, work out
first how and why the world was created and what the place of the
gods in it is. This will leave you with an idea of the nature of the
world, and of the gods in it, including their motivations for doing
things now.
A DIFFERENT APPROACH: EGYPT
This is a rough summary of a reconstruction which I read of some Egyptian religious ideas (see also
Law and Chaos).
In the beginning was chaos. The Whole rose from chaos, and he wanted to bring order to it.
He brought forth the god Air and the goddess Cloud. Air and Cloud mated and she bore the
god Earth and the goddess Sky. The bodies of these four gods formed an orderly material
world in the midst of the vast sea of chaos.
Earth and Sky mated and brought forth
various other gods. One couple of these gods mated and brought forth humans. The god was
the first king of the humans. The purpose of the humans was to bring order to the chaos, so
the king taught them the arts of bringing order: farming, builiding, crafts, and law.
Some of the gods turned against the idea of order. They killed the first king, and after
him his descendants succeeded him. They turned certain groups of humans against order and
the gods, and these humans became chaotic and lived in barbarous anarchy. The humans who
stayed true to the gods and order had to go out and conquer these barbarians and bring order
to them and therefore to the world. Their leader in this was the king of the lands of order.
Now there's a lot in that. First, it shows that the gods have a clear purpose: to bring order.
Second, it shows that humanity was created for one reason, to help the gods in bringing order.
Third, it shows that there are rebel gods who have turned against this original plan of order
and turned certain humans as well.
In a game-world which worked like this,
there would immediately be clear and obvious sides to be on, each with its own moral purpose.
These correspond pretty closely to the Law and Chaos of Moorcock. Here there is no
mystery of 'Why are we here?' Everyone agrees on why the world was created. The only
distinction is in what people now believe should be done with it.