Lords of Creation Open Source

[mythlord]

Well this is what i got so far, AND I DON'T WANT THIS TO BE A CIV GAME.

the race rules will most likely not be used for the playtest group.

Stats for races
Battle power
Intelligence
Craftsmanship
Reproduction Rate
Age Rate
(Stats based off of Tbloods idea)

You get a base of 10 Creation Points for adjusting stats. You get 2 extra Creation Points for every additional 1 DP spent, but you can only have a total of 20 Creation Points total (thus may only spend a maximum of 5 DP) . All stats have a default of 0.

Example: My race of elves are weak, frail, and have a low reproduction rate. To make up for this they are intelligent and creative and live long lives.
Elves-
Battle Power: 0 (0 spent)
Intelligence: 4 (4 spent)
Craftsmanship: 2 (2 spent)
Reproduction Rate: 1 (1 spent)
Age Rate: 3 (3 spent)
0+4+2+1+3=10

Battle Power: Battle Power is how strong and war ready you is. It gives bonuses to your Populous Points when doing war.

Intelligence: Intelligence shows how smart and wise your race is. It gives a small bonus to PP when doing war, and gives another small bonus your Technological Advancements.

Craftsmanship: Craftsmanship is the ability to create and think of new things, and affects the races technology and buildings. It affects you Technological Advancements.

Reproduction Rate: Reproduction Rate is how quickly your population reproduces. This affects your Populous Size.

Age Rate: Age rate is how long your race lives, the higher the number, the longer they live. This also affects your Populous Size.

(Populous point method based on Xealots idea)
Populous Points: Race Size/2 (do this for every race you have and add them all together to determine total PP)

Race Size: Populous Size+ Technological Advancements

To determine your Populous Size, add your Reproduction rate with ½ your Age rate. Or PS= RR+(AR/2). Also add any other bonuses or subtractions that apply, such as Bless or Curse.

To determine Technological Advancements, add your Craftsmanship with ½ your Intelligence. Or TA=Cra+(Int/2). Also add any bonuses or subtractions that apply, such as Bless or Curse.

Using the example above, an Elf race would have a base PS of 2.5 and a base TA of 4.5. Add these together to get your base Race Size, 7 (2.5+4.5=7). And divide that by 2 and round down to get 3 for my base PP. Now if Frank, the God of the Forest, spends 1 DP to cast Bless upon the Elves. He increases their Reproduction Rate by 2, giving them an increased birth rate. This raises their PP to 5, PS to 3.5 and RR to 3.

Rising from mortal to Greater God has been completed!

STILL DEVELOPING
(much thx to Coboney for helping me with the rules for Demigods)

Currently, demigods will be players who join a running campaign. A demigod is very much like a God, but is not as powerful and must follow both the God rules and these rules. A player who wishes to play starts off as a mortal, he/she must decide what race he/she wishes to be.

In order to rise from a mortal to Demigod one must:
-Find a God who might wish to raise the mortal, if you were a devout priest/cleric of this God, he may raise you as a Demigod because of your faithfulness.
-Convince the God to spend 1 DP to make him/her become a Demigod (this can be done by making a bargain with the God, promising to serve that God while a Demigod, stuff like that)
This is mainly done through Rping. Giving the Player a chance to develop a background and a reason for becoming a Demigod.

In order to rise from Demigod to Lesser God one must:
-Acquire a number of followers from his/hers original race
-Must spend a certain number of God Points.
-The Demigod must manage one of the Gods Portfolio's. The god would still have control over it, but once the Demigod has become a God, the original god must choose a new portfolio and give up the old one to the new god.

To advace to a Greater God one must:
-Get a certain amount of PP
-Unlock enough powers, including Beget Sub-race
-Create a Sub-race from the race he/she was once a part of

---God points still being developed and what the Demigods and Lesser Gods can do.---
In order to gain followers the Gm, God who created the race, and the Demigod must Roleplay this out. The Gm serving as the individuals of the race or medium. The god Role playing the Individuals out and the Demigod as him/herself.

Bless: Bless now allows you to spend 2 points to increase PP by 1. It also changes the stats of one of your races, allowing you to increase Reproduction Rate by 1 or 2, Age rate by 2 or 4, and Technological Advancements by 1 or 2. Thus, you can increase RR by 1 and AR by 2, or TA and RR by 1, or any other combination. NOTE: 1 point spent to raise Age Rate raises it by 2, not 1.

Curse: Same as Bless, except instead of adding, you subtract.

1DP Raise Demigod:This allows you to raise a Demigod. Rules for NPC Demigods is still in progress.

This is if we do a Tech Tree
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And we probably don't want tech to go to far. I'm sry about this but i have to say it, Think Dnd in terms of technology. We focus from slightly above Cave man to current DnD tech. Kind of a mix of Roman, Greek, Egyptian, and all of those ancient civs along with Dnd Tech.
End of Idea

Also for the Races Stats i used Tbloods suggestion along with Xealots, expanding on them a bit more. It kind of covers the tech perspective, not to detailed, but enough to keep it going and give some room to work with.

Thanks to those of you who gave me the basics to make these rules and the ones that are still being made.

[coboney]

On stats for Races - what are you thinking of for combat formulas roughly? I think we need to add some luck in there as well. (For combat I mean)

On Demigods...
What about 3 levels of Gods: Greater, Lesser and Demigods.

Greater Gods have the full range of powers and have command over a "Greater Realm" (one of the larger realms and races.). They have a Domain and 2 + Portfolios that they influence and/or control. Only Greater Gods can create Demigods.

Lesser Gods have some powers and have command over a "Lesser Realm" (a set of city states, a province, etc.) Lesser Gods can do all actions that require 2 DP or less (Pretty much basic actions in the current version) aside from making a Demigod.

Demigods are created by Greater Gods to manage or help run a Portfolio the Greater God posses'. Demigods are given basic God Like powers (Measured in God Points) and have direct contact the populations. Eventually a Demigod can gain enough followers of his own to become a Lesser God.

Example: Mythlord is the God of Knowledge. I apply to join the game and Mythlord pms me and we work out an agreement. He spends 1 DP and makes me the Demigod in charge of one of portfollios - Research. So I gain some God Like powers related to research and helping the populace research. I spend my time working with the populace teaching them about that and having some interaction with the gods. Eventually I start getting converts to worshipping me and after a while I become a Lesser God of Research. Mythlord still has Research as a portfolio despite it being my domain because I am a Lesser God. I have a small set of City-States that are dedicated to me and my beliefs. Slowly I begin working on creating a solid base of worshipers, even going so far to create a subrace. I still work with Mythlord and am part of his pantheon. After My subrace is finished I have shown enough power to become my own Greater God and hence break off from Mythlord's Pantheon.

[Xealot]

Another thing that we should work on IMO is Pantheons. Having a true benefit to belonging to a Pantheon of gods as opposed to going on your own. Not just Good vs. Evil either, but certain views of Evil, like the god of War, and the god Killing teaming up, but avoiding the god of Chaos because he is to unpredictable. Something like that. I can't think of anything, aside from just having each others backs, but hey, maybe someone else can come up with something.

Myth, I like what you've gotten so far.

Coboney, great idea, maybe even have another level called Overgod (or something like that)that could be reserved for leaders of certain Pantheons of Greater and Lesser gods.

[TrueBlood]

On the stats for creatures, the AR seems a bit useless. Why put points in that if you could put points in RR?
Technological advancement, I think, should be a more fluid number. Having an equation for how advanced your society is simple, but I think there would be much to gain in terms of gameplay if we had a sort of generalized tech tree instead of an equation.

For instance:

Military Technology 1: Choose one of the following:
Brute Force:+2 Fighting Points to the close combat phase of battle, representing the development of improved melee weapons (Think the Gladius, the Greataxe, etc.) .
Strategy: Add 1/2 your race's Intelligence to your Battle Points for the current cycle.
Ranged Prowess: +2 FP to the ranged combat phase of battle, representing the refinement of ranged weapons (Think the Longbow, Crossbows, etc. nothing too fancy yet though)
Improved Armor: Improvements in metallgurry and armor smithing has given your race better protective equipment. Reduce losses to Man Power in battle by 1 for every 1/10 of the current Man Power you would ordinarily lose (If your army has 100 manpower, every 10 points lost due to casualties will instead only cause 9 points of Man Power damage).

And something similar to that for the following Categories:
Medical
Utility
Construction
Science

By using DP you can increase your race's progress on gaining one of these by a certain amount. Races develop technology with an equation like this: Progress per cycle=Int*(1/2 AR)+any bonuses that apply.

I will start designing my battle system some time today, and expect some of the things mentioned above to be taken into account in said system.

Oh, and a take on population:
Note that I am showing this on a take of turn based Cycles being about 10 Years of our time each. This system is designed for Turn based, and may be too slow for Real Time.
For example purposes, I will be using a newly born 10 CP version of the aforementioned Slanti.
Battle Power: 3
RR: 5
Int: 1
Craft: 1
AR: 1 (note: starts at 1, required for the below equations)
Oh, and Population Points should grow per cycle instead of only when blessed. Like with a sort of equation like this: Population at the beginning of the next Cycle:Current Population+(Current Population/(20-RR))(Round up if above .5, down if = to .5 or below .5)+1+any bonuses gained. Using the above Slanti, if races start out with 40 members then their first growth after creation would look like this:
40+(40/(15))+1+0=44 At the start of the next cycle, the Slanti's Current Population would be equal to 44 members. Others die due to extraneous reasons like natural phenomena and the like.
And, Age Rate should be given its own equation as well. I think this should be appropriate, should the prior growth equation be used. once per AR cycles, your population will lose 1/20 of their population due to old age (Note: more can die of old age, but this has been taken into account with the above growth equation as well). So, the Slanti at the end of their first cycle will have a generation die, reducing their total population by 2 and leaving it at 42 members. Eventually, the reproduction rate of the Slanti will greatly out pace their death rate due to age, but their primitive society must make it through the crux of creation first.

[bert]

Pantheons

Given that the idea of a pantheon is that a given populace worship more than one god, why not give everyone in a pantheon a DP bonus based on the total number of worshippers the whole pantheon can muster.

eg God of Law has 20 PS worth of worshippers over the whole planet, God of War has 12 PS and God of Earth has 24 PS. They team up as a pantheon - Law's 20PS worth of people now start worshipping War and Earth as well, War's also worships Earth and Law, etc

Total pantheon worshippers 58PS, all three gods gain whatever bonus to DP we ordain - say 25% of usual FP = 58/20 x 0.25 = some fraction that rounds to +1 each

Who can join a pantheon?

Alignments need not be the same IMO - plenty of cases in history of a pantheon having good guys and bad guys - Odin and Loki, Osiris and Set - but do need well defined and separate areas of specialisation - only one god of death related matters, one of warlike ones, one of knowledge etc. Xealots example of a God or War and a God of Killing joining up would be out IMO, too much competition for the worship of the same bunch of soldiers, but could adopt equivalent roles in different pantheons.

A god can only belong to one pantheon at a time - for example we may see bidding wars as rival pantheons try and bribe the only magic god in the game to join them, making it an advantage to chose to be a deity of something comparatively obscure.

A god need not have worshippers of his own to be in a pantheon, he just contributes 0 PS to the pantheon's pool.

Other perks?
Teaching technologies/doctrines etc is now 1DP for the whole pantheons worshippers. In the above case God of War teaches Greatswords to his pop, Earth and Law get it too for free and automatically, not 3DP to teach each population individually. Disadvantage - if at any stage the pantheon falls apart you have taught your enemies your own special talents.

Pantheon breakdown
If at any stage the arrangement does fall apart there ought to be some kind of penalty as riots and persecutions break out among populations of mixed worshippers - I suggest losing 1 PS from the expelled gods worshippers and 1 from the total pantheon worshippers, divided equally up among the gods before we even start working out population losses from up front battles and mass migrations.

Advantages of this system - means you can have multiple gods of the same specialisation, but they cannot cooperate; encourages cooperation
Disadvantages of this system - encourages cooperation leaving individualistic deities out in the cold.

Well this works for me - any criticisms, gaping holes, flying bovines launched from trebuchets?

[Xealot]

Only one. What would keep a majority, if not all of the gods, from joining, and having all the gods of the pantheon's followers from worshiping each other, thus everyone getting and extra 3 or 4 dp then having two or three gods out in the cold getting hammered because the other 8 or 9 gods are teaming up? Not saying it would, just that it is a possibility. IMO I say, allow no more than 2DP from this to keep it from becoming broken.

[mythlord]

I would have to agree with Xealot on that one, it would just make things to overpowered.

To TBlood, I was trying to get some basics down, and work my way up. Right now i am not going to go to deep into the statistics, just make some rules that can be used in both versions of the game. and PP is the overall power of your race. I was thinking that Populations Size(PS) would be 1 point equals the amount of people you would find in a small village when the game begins, and the points would change as ur race becomes more advanced. So using my Elf stats, 2.5 PS that would roughly be around 125 elves(assuming 50 for a small village). I do like how you made it be able to improve over time, but as you said, would not work in the real time version. If u were to keep it the way that i had made it, after about 100 years each point would be worth the amount of people you would find in a medium size city. So you would have around 2500 elves (assuming 1000 for medium size city). I know that those proportions maybe completely wrong but its an example.

Maybe when we start to get more advanced and start making more rules for turn-based and real-time we could use those, but for now i am trying to get all the basics covered first. So work on the combat structure some more, and i'll focus some more on rules for demigods, Lesser gods, and god points. And Coboney, see what you can make for the "unlocking" powers part. I'll try to develop my own method also. And AO, or Duvik, feel free to submit your incomplete variant version.

Xealot, try and work with my idea for tech and Tbloods. see what you can come up with.

[TrueBlood]

Ah... Then I dunno if you'd like the stats for my combat method. Well, either way, here is some of what I've got for my Race Vs. Race combat system so far, the basic information on armies.

Armies of the Divine: Trueblood’s LoC Race vs. Race Combat System

Armies consist of a couple of stats which vary depending on the various qualities of the races that are battling.

Basic Rules for the creation of an army for war:
Stats:
MP: Man Power is completely dependent on the number of troops drafted by you and/or your allies for the purpose of this army. Man Power has a particularly strong effect on all aspects of the war. Man Power also affects the supplies needed to support the army. For every 10 creations you add to the army, you get 1 point of MP

LP: Leadership Power. These are decided by the average experience of the troops and the average intelligence of all the races participating in the war (Average Experience+ Average Intelligence+1). This affects the morale of the troops at the start of the campaign, and its degradation throughout the war. In addition, it allows special battle and war actions to be taken at the cost of Action Points, which are determined through this stat.

TBP: Total Battle Power is the average Battle Power of all the participating races, and affects the actual combat of the war.

Supplies: Supplies are the total amount of military supplies such as food, spare weapons, ammunition, etc. Supplies are needed to take any action before battle and are drained every cycle depending on the Man Power of the army. Should Supplies run out, Morale will drop drastically in response. An army starts with a beginning supply of 1/10 their Population before soldiers are taken out for Man Power, + any bonuses that apply. Unless their supply line is blocked by a strategic action, armies may be resupplied each turn by their remaining populations of their various races at a rate of 1 per 10 Population + any bonuses. An army consumes its MP in supplies each cycle.

Morale: Morale is at first equal to 5+LP+(1/2 Exp). Should supplies run out, Morale is cut down by half in one cycle and should there still be no supplies by the next then the army will disband and you will have lost the war. Each cycle, an army loses base 1 Morale regardless of whether they win or lose that cycle’s battle. Should an army win their battle, they will gain 1 Morale, canceling out the drop in morale for the turn. Should an army lose, however, they will lose the standard amount of morale for that cycle plus (# of losses before this+1-(1/2 Exp).

Experience: The average experience of the troops. This varies race to race depending on how many wars they have been in and how many battles they have won in those wars. This effects nearly everything in some way. (Your race gets 1+(# of wins/(# of losses+1)) per war)

Here is a base example army:
The Warband of the Slanti (As mentioned in the previous post, although a bit more advanced now)
MP:10
LP: 2 (1 Int+ (1/2*2 Exp))
TBP: 3
Supplies: 20
Morale:8
Experience:2

[mythlord]

Actually that works for turnbased Tblood, that will probably be the format you guys use in the campagin.

[coboney]

We can put a cap on the number of Greater Gods in 1 pantheon. This would also limit the number of lesser Gods and Demi-Gods.

Also I'm thinking we'll have Domain/Portfollio/Pantheon Powers.

I'll do some work on that more on Tuesday... won't be on a ton tomorrow or Sunday.

Also for Pantheons we should probably design a starting base and then new ones can be created as new deities arise.


Just throwing this out - how about each Greater God gets a "unique power" upon reaching that status (or start of game) approved by the GM

Another Idea: what if you don't start with X DP but you start the game with your normal DP plus x Starting Divine Points. These are points used to create the starting technology level, starting races, terraforming, etc.

[Guest]

I'm working on a revision of my own... here's what I have so far...

Introduction

The players begin play with an empty slate. They are newly born gods and they have nothing to play with. It is up to these fledgling gods to make things more interesting for themselves.

The game begins soon after the Lords gain self awareness. There is nothing but a vast emptiness all about. The universe is simply a void whereupon these strange ethereal beings have existed for countless years. Time is not even a concept to these beings as of yet so, there is no telling how long these spirits of creation floated in the vastness of empty space.

All of a sudden, something interesting occurred out in the black. Bright twinkling lights began to flicker and shimmer like sparkling jewels in the darkness of the void.

Curious, the beings that had been gathered together for so long began drifting apart to see what these new objects could be. Some traveled in packs, some in pairs, and still others went out alone into the vast reaches of the universe to see what these strange points of light could be. Eventually, these vagabond spirits would come to discover the stars being born. They found that the great burning balls of light varied in size and shape. They also realized that there were smaller objects circling the great stars.

Eventually, a group of spirits that were in the area of the same star began to grow weary of traveling from star to star and planet to planet in the great void of space. They were all much the same after visiting the first thousand or so.

Let us play a game voiced one spirit to the others...

These beings come to be known as the Lords of Creation.

Getting Started...

To create your first Lord of Creation, roll two d20's and total the results. This will be a bonus that is added to your character's beginning Power rating.

A Lord has but one attribute, Power. Power is spent to create change. A Lord that consumes all of his power will regain more over time.

All Lords begin with a Power Rating of 100.

Roll two d20's and total the results. Add this number to your character's beginning Power rating.

A Lord regains power at the rate of 10 points per turn.

A turn covers a timespan of roughly 100 years.


What can I do on a turn?

Once per turn, you can spend Power Points to make changes to the planet you have chosen for your game.


What can I do with my Power Points?

Power points can be spent on a number of different actions.

The world begins as a great ball of rock that circles a bright yellow star. Life can not exist on this barren earth. Your first task will be to create a place for life to begin. The first change from barren rock to a life sustaining plot of base terrain does not consume much power from a Lord. However, trying to modify an existing base terrain involves greater effort as you are working against your own power or that of another Lord.

You will need someone willing to keep an updated map for this game.

Suggested grid size for a standard game is a 25x25 grid. Each of these main squares, aka myria, measures 1000 kilometers per side. Each Myria is further divided into a 10x10 grid. These smaller cells are called plots and they measure 100 kilometers per side.

Create 1 Plot of Base Terrain:
Desert: 2 PP
Mountain: 8 PP
Ocean: 1 PP
Forest: 5 PP
Plains: 3 PP
Swamp: 5 PP
Lake: 8 PP
Hills: 4 PP

Modify 1 Plot of Base Terrain:
Desert: 20 PP
Mountain: 80 PP
Ocean: 10 PP
Forest: 50 PP
Plains: 30 PP
Swamp: 50 PP
Lake: 80 PP
Hills: 40 PP

Creating Life

Creating life is the next goal for any deity that seeks power over his peers. New life can be created by the expenditure of PP.

Basic Beast - Two new beasts can be created at no additional PP cost whenever a plot of base terrain is completed. These beasts cannot form civilizations.
Basic Plant - Two new basic plants can be created at no additional PP cost whenever a plot of base terrain is completed

Magical Plant 10 PP- introduce one special plant with one simple magical property
Magical Beast 15 PP - introduce one special beast. These beasts cannot form civilizations and will have animal like intelligence.
Intelligent Animal 50 PP- can form civilizations and worship a Lord to gain him more PP

Intelligent Races

Intelligent Races are the key creation for a Lord that desires greater power of the world. For each plot of land that is devoted to a Lord, he gains an additional 1 PP per turn.

It costs 50 PP to create an entirely new intelligent race. Thereafter, it costs 10 PP to populate a new plot with that same race. This race will appear in one specific plot on the grid. The Lord that creates this race can thereafter expand them at a cost of 10 PP per plot. It costs and extra 5 PP for each 5 plot distance separating a new plot from an already existing plot populated with the race. Intelligent Races are the key creation for a Lord that desires greater power over the world. For each plot of land that is populated by those devoted to a Lord, he gains an additional 1 PP per turn. The exception to this is a Lord's 'chosen'. A lord may elect to spend an additional 20 PP one time only when creating an Intelligent Animal. This new race is considered his chosen people. Plots populated by a Lord's chosen will generate 2 PP per turn instead of only 1. A Lord's chosen comes into being with the 'Devoted' attribute as soon as it is created.

Intelligent Races do not automatically begin as devotees. An intelligent race that is non devoted to one's self or another can be converted by spending 5 PPs per plot.

A population has four attributes. Offensive Ability (OA), Defensive Ability (DA), Production Facility (PF), and Devotion (DV).

These numbers increase in one of two ways.

1: For each connected plot that is populated with a race, each of these stats will increase by a factor of 1. (Devotion cannot be increased until the race has been converted)

2: The Lord may spend PP to increase a stat. The stat increase only applies to a congregation of connected plots. Each disconnected plot is considered a separate community. The PP cost is whatever the level you are raising to. eg: To raise from 1 to 2 would cost 2 PP. To raise from 2 to 3 would cost 3 PP. From 3 to 4 costs 4 PP, and so on.

These abilities will be used as modifiers for further development purposes.

Devotion points can either be given over to the deity each turn or, they can be applied to offensive or defensive maneuvers.

Production Facilities are a measure of the civilizations manufacturing capabilities.

PF Rating/Tech Level

0-5/Primitive
6-15/Stone
16-30/Bronze
31-50/Iron
51-75/Steel
76-100/Steam

For each raise in Tech Level, the population may take 10 points to be distributed among the civilization's OA and DA.

OA/DA will be used for conducting attacks on other civilizations.

[Alexander Tau]

I like your version there Ao, especially the Tech breakdown.


Mythlord,

Since this has been made an Open Source project people are going to take things their own way. Some people here might be signing up to help you with your version but others have different ideas.

Personally if I was going to do something with this idea it would be a cross beween God Game and Forum Game. The other Players I mentioned would never become Gods they would simply be helping someone else out. Playing a little perhaps. I was just thinking how interesting a game might be here if the well known GameMasters and Staff were the Gods. How many others could we all sign-up to help out a bit? As long as these minor Players did not have to do much to be involved we could possibly generate some large numbers.

But if I come up with anything else to contribute I will post it.



A.T
(-)

[mythlord]

To A.T.
I know its peoples own versions, i am offering criticism and just stating what i would be using in the game that i am currently forming. I'm not being defensive or arguing about it, I am just stating what i will use in the LoC game that is forming.

Also i would be willing to try your idea, if we get some of those well known people in this game, we could get many people to play as demigods, they wouldn't have to play from demi to Greater. It would become a much larger game. especially if these players submitted their own rules and versions. They could play just as a demi, or advance and hang out at the Lesser level, or if they want to become true PC's advance to Greater status
SO ANY OF YOU PEOPLE WHO ARE AROUND THE FORUMS AS OFTEN AS ME, ARE WELL KNOWN GMS AND STAFF SIGN UP NOW!

k, my moment of mad power is over now :p I'll still be posting here stating what rules i plan to be using in the LoC playtesting campaign, or guinea pigs :twisted:

Mainly I want to try out all of the different versions later on. But right now I want to focus on getting rules set up for the turn-base and Realtime based variants so we have some more stuff to work with.

I also like Ao's way to raise tech level, maybe converting it to be used with the rules i am working on...

[TrueBlood]

Personally, I think that being in a pantheon should have no mechanical benefits. The ability to work together is enough of a benefit of being in a pantheon. In my combat system, allies will be very useful, and one god's followers warring against two gods would be at a considerable disadvantage.

Allies are like nukes, you need to get as many of them as possible to prevent others from using them against you.

[Xealot]

So far everything I have attempted gets to detailed and would require micromanaging. I think Ao is on to something.