Godbound General - Ancalia book released 2 weeks early edition

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So, what do people think of Ancalia? Pic related, it's basically what Ancalia was before the zombie apocalypse started.

Noone's interested in this? I mean, this is a game where a transhuman Egyptian prince can team up with a viking skald/berserker and a cyborg Navy Seal to go fight demons and conquer the world.

Funnily enough, I'm in a game set in Ancalia. So far we've been near the shore and haven't dealt with any zombies yet.

>>50558794
I highly recommend getting the Ancalia book. That place is really fucked up. Its basically absolutely doomed if Godbound don't get involved since nothing much can rival the Lords of the Uncreated Courts.

>>50558684
I've never really heard of this before, besides seeing it on drive thru rpg. You have my interest though sir. just downloaded the pdf and i'm giving it a read. whats the deal with Ancalia? is it the default setting? Also mechanically does this game use its own system or something like 5e or pathfinder?

>>50558867
5e and PF aren't OSR.

>>50558867
It's a good deal simpler than 5e or Pathfinder because it's based on B/X D&D with heavy modification for demigod play.

Ancalia is one of the worst places to be in the setting because it's in the middle of an invasion of Chaos gods combined with a zombie apocalypse. That makes it the perfect start area for a Godbound campaign.

In my experience, I figure rescuing Ancalia will take a Pantheon from level 1-7.

>>50557013
>>50558794
Isn't Ancalia WE WUZ NEGUSES?

>>50559730
It's fantasy Ethiopia plus Ye Olde Medieval Kingdom yeah. It also has Transhuman nobility and Faeries who are actually the Transhuman ancestors of the people in the region who are mostly on cold stasis. The ones who aren't prey on humanity because they need to survive.

Then add a zombie apocalypse to that mix and an invasion of inhuman monstrosities.

It's a dense fucking region with lots shit going on is what I'm saying. I'm glad this is the first supplement. It highlights why this world needs demigods.

>>50559919
Oh and dudes who are mercy killing entire villages because they're convinced death is the only hope from all this evil. These dudes are probably the guys who the pantheon will fight during levels 1-3.

I wonder if Exalted is this bleak. Crawford's idea of a setting for a demigod game seems based on the idea of a world that really really needs overpowered heroes, rather than a glorious playground.

>>50559958
>I wonder if Exalted is this bleak
Considering that it only continues existing because of random chance and half of the overpowered sunfags got made gratuitously evil, yeah pretty much.

>>50559958

Exalted is insanely, ridiculously bleak as a setting. Even the afterlife offers no real hope, because your choices are remaining as a ghost (which sucks, by the way) or reincarnation as a dirt-eating peasant.

Literally the best thing in the world is being a Solar, and how many lifetimes would you have to wait for that?

The weird thing is that Exalted is supposed to be a epic fantasy setting, but it's tremendously nihilistic if not for Solar Exaltation.

>>50555931
I fucking LOVE Godbound. I'm so glad that real Godbound Generals have started. It's about goddamn time.

I haven't got the Ancilia book (might be able to today) but I sure as hell got Ten Buried Blades. Mostly for the mechanical portions, rather than the fluff. I tend to make homebrew settings for what I do.

>>50560959
Welp, I guess it's par for the course then. In any case, I want to see the next gazetteers for Godbound one day. Ancalia seemed pretty basic at first glance in the core book, so it's clear there's a ton of material that got left out from every nation.

Also, one thing I really appreciated from the Ancalia book was the sheer usefulness of non combat words. The mortals are really really going to appreciate the blessings of a god of Health, Fertility, Wealth, or Journey.

>>50561093
Ten Buried Blades was cool for me for showing how to design a Godbound adventure.

Just set up at least 3 to 4 motivated NPCs with their own goals and in a sense situation. Then design two dungeons with pantheon worthy opponents and link it to that.

Set up lots of problems but don't think of solutions, then have the players do their best to solve it.

I got about 2 sessions worth of adventure from about an hour of prep when I did that. And the tables in Sixteen Sorrows made things even easier.

I hate to be the person to ask about this:

Would anyone be able to upload the various expansions? The OSR trove only has the core book and a few excerpts, and I like the chance to know what I'm getting before I pay for a book.

>>50561484
Aside from the recently released Ancalia gazetteer, I'm pretty sure they are all on 7 chan.

If you can only buy one though, buy Sixteen Sorrows. That is solid gold. Roll a few dice and you've got the seed of a session and it has plenty of advice for making an adventure that can give demigods pause.

>>50561593
Where can you find the pdfs?

Huh,I had Ancalia pegged simply as the stock 'undead and uncreated place' but it seems to have a lot more going than that- heres hoping we get the same for all of the other nations soon.

>>50561705
On that chan's tg request thread, make sure to open up the entire thread and search there.

>>50561736
The Uncreated are way more interesting than the short section they got in the bestiary. I first had them pegged as mindless monstrosities, tentacles, blobs, and malevolence but they're actually more than that.

They're intelligent and utterly malicious and hateful to life, and they come in all shapes and sizes. The ones in Ancalia embody four different aspects of destruction and ruination. They don't just kill and slaughter people. They prefer corrupting them and driving them to ruin in different ways.

>>50561808

The Incendiary Court destroys by means of overwhelming and overt violence. They focus on driving humans to violent and self-destructive actions.

The Poxed Court destroys by perversion, distortion, and negation. They drive people to corrupt things that are safe and good and true by awakening disgusting urges in them.

The Rotting Court destroys by enervation and wretched collapse. They focus on driving humans to despair and hopelessness.

The Shackled Court destroys by getting people to bargain the few good and true things they have for the things that they think they want.

For what it's worth, I found the way these guysnwere described in the book effective. They're vile and the poor bastards at Ancalia are well and truly fucked. This makes these enemies a good target for Godbound.

>>50562275
So they are basically the demons/devils of godbound?

>>50562517
The Uncreated are more like Lovecraftian horrors mixed with Hellraiser cenobites. They're sort of a demon analogue, but that niche is more properly taken in the setting by fallen angels (which are a thing and want to drag all of humanity into hell as punishment for humanity rebelling against the creator).

>>50562517
>>50562623
Yeah, hellraiser cenobites is a good way to look at em. They're demonlike because of their dark bargains and shit, I think that's the Uncreated's niche in the setting.

Angel's really really hate humanity in the setting and they're uncommunicative, so aside from controlling Hell, they're not that demonlike.

I'd go for Uncreated foes if I want the adventure to be about corruption. I'd go for Angels if I want the adventure to involve large-scale ruin. Although, both types of enemies can do the same mind.

>>50562929
Angels do also raise shit in the realms. Namely, they've snuffed out more than a few, and have multi-realm spanning Angellic Cults. They're not above using/manipulating mortals to their own ends.

I still haven't played this, but I love Sin Nomine.

>>50562986
Yeah. The Atheocracy is their major project in Arcem I feel. If it gets powerful enough to conquer the continent, then it's a win for the Angels. I hope the Lom book is next. Judging by this gazetteer, each supplement will go into a bestiary entry in detail. Angels fit Lom. Misbegotten for the Howlers. Eldritch for the Raktine Confederacy. Etc.

Another good plot would be the Angels assassinating Ancalia's patriarch. Without his prayers most souls there are damned to hell.

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I've been thinking of GMing a Godbound game for some friends, but I have no idea how to start it. Any suggestions? Tips for GMing Godbound in general would be helpful too, since I've never played it before.

I'll need to decide where in the setting it should start, too. Or if I should just make my own setting; I like the basics of Godbound's, but none of the nations interested me at first glance. I'd like to give the players a little room to show off, get a feel for what their characters can do, and establish themselves before any local powers come crashing down on them.

I want the game to have a lot of downtime, where the players can build a nation, watch it grow, and come into conflict with others, and Godbound seems suited for that. But I'm thinking I should maybe give the players a long-term but more narrow goal, in case some aren't motivated to do their own thing and need something to focus on. Not sure what.

>>50563816
I started my game with the PCs being people from modern-day Earth who were transported to Arcem when the apocalypse started on their world, with the implication that people were being drawn in from lots of other worlds too. As Arcem crumbles, so do all of the other worlds, so saving Arcem is the first step in saving their home Earth.

I also had an idea for a campaign starter where the PCs were Ancalian refugees who stumbled into the tomb of a dead Made God (or several), and the final dissolution of the Made God's corpse "infected" them all with divinity.

Ancalia is just a solid place to put a beginning campaign no matter what your focus. Give them a town or village to protect, let them get attached to some of the people there, and then just keep throwing threats and disasters at it until their only choice is to conquer everything around them to protect their people.

>>50563816
I was thinking of a plot hook based loosely on hearing someone describe Baldur's Gate and getting the wrong idea. But enough of where I stole the idea...

Angels, being dicks, have activated a hammer that will destroy all iron in the world. It's a gigantic ornately carved rock that keeps slamming down into an ornately carved surface once every [however long it takes the PCs to get there having felt the impact two or three times]. Every time the hammer falls, all the iron in a geographic radius corrodes, people grow weaker as their blood gets thinner (don't explain this, the players will either get the reference or they won't and a discussion of whether they know what hemoglobin is would only distract from the game), and most importantly the ground shakes and there's a massive BOOM in a distance. The radius it effects keeps expanding, so no ignoring this one. Eventually, it'll make it impossible for humans to fight with weapons, which is the ultimate goal of the angels, being dicks.

You can tailor the How of stopping the thing to the abilities your players have, but the setup covers What, Why, Who, Where and When. Future plot hooks can be based on what the group decides to do, assuming they work out that sticking with each other is worthwhile.

So I have been reading through Godbound and I really like it. I'm it's one of the more exciting OSR style systems/settings i've gotten my hands on. (i've looked at Lamentations of the flame princess previously but that setting was almost too wonky to be serious i felt.) A question I have, is this compatible with Stars Without Number, or Silent Legions? Sine Nomine Publishing's other games? Because while I love having mythic powers in my game my players usually like starting smaller. and if there is already content that I can utilize from other sources, mores the better.

>>50565307
The Deluxe version has rules for playing as mortals or Heroic mortals.

>>50565307
OSR material tends to be universally compatible. Sine Nomine generally uses the same mechanics all over with little exception, so it helps all the more. Godbound specifically uses a slightly-modified version of Scarlet Heroes.

So go for it, but note that monsters in Godbound were intended to be faced by beings touched by the divine power of god.

How strong are heroic mortals anyway? Like if I wanted to run a pre-godhood dungeon what exactly would I be able to throw at them without a tpk? ghouls and some undead?

>>50565833
That's probably not a bad call. Heroic mortals of 1st level are about as strong as B/X characters of 2nd-3rd level, in my estimation. So gritty dungeon crawlers instead of modern D&D badass fantasy heroes, but they'll have a few more tricks up their sleeve than the typical B/X schlub.

>>50561039
lol Solar wank.

Anyone have a copy of the new book that they'd be willing to post? The file sold in the link in the OP's supposed to be DRM-free, so it should be pretty easy for anyone who's bought it to reupload onto a filesharing site.

>>50563816
I only have one player, so I don't know how much of this advice will be applicable to you, but I'll give it a shot. There's this sentence in the book that I really took to heart. Don't imagine solutions to the problems you set up. Prepping for Godbound adventures is all about setting up interesting and complicated situations. It's up to the players to solve it and, if they're stuck they can generally brute force the issue. After the players get used to their powers, expect them to exercise them freely. This means that 99% of mortals are toast. Let this happen. Nothing makes a player more happy than seeing a corrupt and "untouchable" mortal humbled. On the other hand, they'll also get attached to their worshippers and other useful mortal allies. Threatening these guys is effective and can really bring out the divine anger. A Godbound will never let an insult pass. Expect any and all NPCs you set up to either die or change. Expect PCs to warp the setting. When roleplaying mortals play up the fact that they are mostly terrified and in awe all the time.

On a mechanical note. Godbound don't really get truly interesting until level 3. This will take about 2 sessions. Level 1 Godbound can still easily whiff against plate mail unless they use one of their autohit options. Downtime is expected and supported by the game. There may be sessions in your game where the majority of the time is spent building up the nation of your Godbound. I'm still figuring out how to make the civ building parts of the game more interesting for me to GM but my player personally gloves it and has fun, so those are still alright for me.

Out of curiosity, does the new Ancalia book have any information on whatever Celestial Engine broke to cause the zombie apocalypse?

>>50565833
The strongest Heroic Mortal you can probably make is a Scarlet Hero class you convert to Godbound using the Heroic Mortal rules. They all get Fray Die as a class feature, and they won't have to pay for it with Heroic Talents.

>>50568602
It wasn't necessarily an Engine that did it. The nine Night Roads that opened in Ancalia brought the Hollowing Plague, which causes the dead to rise again as hungry zombies. The book says that if all nine Night Roads are closed, the plague will stop spreading.

>>50568602
The cause of the zombie apocalypse is up to the GM. Several possibilities are offered. I think the best one is that it was random chance and what happened in Ancalia can happen to any other nation.

The Ancalia fixing procedure seems to require closing the nine Night Roads and killing the Uncreated Lords. Or else, Dominion gets too expensive to apply to he entire kingdom, reaching about 64 points. Then again a 4 person midlevel pantheon can probably get that much and force their changes through, which is fine.

>>50563816
>>50568491
Oh yeah, and prepping for this game is dead simple. Ask your players what they want to do. Think of 3 major NPCs that are related to that and put conflict between them. Roll up a Court. Roll up two Ruins. Take Sixteen Sorrows, pick a situation that seems interesting and roll on the tables there. If necessary, roll on the Challenges table as well. Mix everything together.

Basically, the GM tools in the book do work as intended. I haven't touched the faction system yet though, but I suspect that it's gonna be good for plot hooks too.

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From a player's perspective, the truly important things to come out of Ancalia: The Broken Towers are:

1. The mechanics for lineages, which allow any PC Godbound to begin as a member of a transhuman bloodline, without even devoting a Fact to it. This grants an intrinsic minor benefit (e.g. seeing in the dark as well as a cat, performing any feat of strength four ordinary men could perform), and more importantly, allows the character to purchase a single lesser gift without the extra surcharge. This is huge: a character can start off with Bolt of Unerring Skill without Bow, Nine Iron Walls or Unerring Blade without Sword, or Adept of the Gate without Sorcery.
Of course, this is also shameless power creep, because a character has no good mechanical reason *not* to be in a lineage. This should have been integrated into all characters.
(To a lesser extent, the same applies to the sidebar option for fae characters, although the mechanics for this are more GM-restricted.)

2. The expanded mechanics for "purely mundane" Facts that do not involve low magic or artifacts. The knighthood-based Facts make it very clear that even a "purely mundane" Fact is supposed to be incredibly expansive and grant a large host of abilities and social advantages.

It should be noted that Ancalia itself is heavily geared towards a Death/Health-bound PC. White Bone Harvest can destroy literally thousands of Ancalian husks in the blink of an eye, while Ender of Plagues puts an end to the Hollowing Plague in a tremendous radius. Other Words can help, of course, but Death and Health will be vastly more useful than other Words. (Of course, you can simply start with an artifact containing White Bone Harvest or Ender of Plagues...)

I'm super interested in running this game, but the heroes are so strong that I'm wondering how to even run this game. Any tips?

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>>50565244
This. I like this.

>>50566819

Not really. The idea is that Solar Exaltation is a wildcard, you see? If you're a Dragon-blooded or a Sidereal, you're born into the role, so there's no wiggle room. Only Solars and Lunars can buck what is otherwise a relentlessly, grindingly mechanistic setting.

Like, the world's best mortal swordsman versus a middling Dragonblood = Dead mortal swordsman. The swordsman only has a chance if he Exalts.

>>50568839
>It should be noted that Ancalia itself is heavily geared towards a Death/Health-bound PC
I never would have guessed that, in the place with a zombie plague, someone with dominion over zombies and plagues would be powerful. Thanks for your stunning insight as always, 2hu.

>>50568839
Lineages are also super useful for players that want to be Fast but aren't willing to invest in Alacrity etc. Also I'm house ruling the single lesser gift thing to be applicable to all characters thanks for the tip.

>The knighthood-based Facts make it very clear that even a "purely mundane" Fact is supposed to be incredibly expansive and grant a large host of abilities and social advantages.

This is huge and my favorite part of the book honestly. One Fact makes you one of the best of the best in the world. The super easy skill checks make this really noticeable. Godbound will get a fuckload of Facts in their campaign too.

I wish the Core book was more clear about this, but Facts can be used to justify Dominion changes too. if you're an Archmage Theotechnician you're justified in building a Godwalker factory. It'll be more difficult for you, but you're allowed to do it.

Also I think Journeys and Fertility will get a spotlight in Ancalia too.

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>>50569079
Be excellent to everyone.

>>50569100
Also Sorcery. They are the only ones who explicitly get the ability to shut Night Roads. The rest would have to justify a Miracle that would.

>>50569151
Either a miracle or Dominion. I'd be willing to let anyone use Dominion to do it, the question is: how much?

Also, combat words still have their place since Death/Health only deals with the Hallowing Plague, not any of the Uncreated running around.

>>50568839
>It should be noted that Ancalia itself is heavily geared towards a Death/Health-bound PC. White Bone Harvest can destroy literally thousands of Ancalian husks in the blink of an eye, while Ender of Plagues puts an end to the Hollowing Plague in a tremendous radius. Other Words can help, of course, but Death and Health will be vastly more useful than other Words. (Of course, you can simply start with an artifact containing White Bone Harvest or Ender of Plagues...)

What about Artifice, or Knowledge/Sorcery? The former would let you trivially build large-scale infrastructure and magical items (for instance, build a set of walls around your settlement that the zombies can't get through, then build magic crossbows that shoot Archmage-tier fireballs and give them to the peasants manning the walls), or in the latter case, you can learn all the Low Magic in the world through the Perfection of Understanding and the Omniscient Scholar gifts, and then use it to cure the plague and banish or control the Uncreated.

>>50569100
>the single lesser gift thing to be applicable to all characters
That sounds like a pretty good idea. The setting's got a whole bunch of transhumanist cults and divine interference, I'd imagine the sort of schmucks who end up Godbound are the sort who already had some interesting pseudo-divine abilities.

Alternatively, you could require a fact to take something on par with lineages. That's what I'd probably end up doing, but hey, part of the fun of systems like this is changing around bits and seeing how they work.

>>50566819
Funny enough Solar Exaltation is not actually the best deal in terms of avoiding the hellish landscape of not being special in Exalted. Abyssal Exalted get the best deal because of default-immortality. Infernals are next for being able to develop immortality even if it's a bit of a longshot.

Lifespan of Solar Exalted can be extended but is bounded without an external tool.

Sidereals get the worst deal because they're absolutely, positively, unavoidably going to die.

What would be good spells to convert into Theurgy? Symbol seems pretty fun. Web might be useful since there's a lack of debug powers by default.

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>>50569079

This does mean that in a party of Godbound trying to repair Ancalia (something that is supposed to span from levels 1 to 7), whoever has Death and Health will be the most qualified for the job. Another Godbound in the party with a less suited set of Words will have to work much harder.

Which begs the question of why, if one is playing in a game focused on Ancalia, one should *not* create a Godbound with Death and Health.

>>50569100

Part of the problem is that Facts, in the core rulebook, are presented in the same way as other RPGs' "write-in skills." Those games tend to encourage GMs to crack down on stretching and reaching with those "write-in skills."

Godbound is the opposite. A single mundane Fact is supposed to be stretched and reached to vast degrees, and that is what the core rulebook expresses poorly.

>>50569151
>>50569167
>>50569182

Fertility only addresses symptoms (famine) rather than problems (undead and plague).

You do not actually need Journeying or Sorcery to shut down the Night Roads. The book explicitly mentions that sealing them off physically will work just as well. Yes, someone from either side of the road could reopen it, but the same goes fro a theurge reopening a magically-shut Night Road as well.

Artifice, Bow/Sword, and Sorcery will be useful, but no more so than any other campaign. Sorcery, in particular, is unsuited to curing the plague, as page 70 points out that it resists all mortal magic. Theurgy is considered mortal magic as per the core rulebook.

White Bone Harvest's contribution to Ancalia really should not be underestimated. A level 1 Godbound can reach an elevated vantage point (or fly up using another gift) and then wipe out any and all Ancalian husks within sight, no effort needed.

>>50569317
I don't dispute that Death will be useful. In fact, it should be as useful as possible. The book always encourages the PCs Words to trivially solve the problems that can be trivially solved by it. The GM should just place other problems there at the same time. Ancalia still has those in spades.

Also, Energumen are explicitly there to slow down Death Godbound, and the Tumulus spell from the core book is there too. The GM has tools to make killing every zombie in Ancalia non trivial if they wish.

>>50569317
>why
Because while Death and Health solve that really big, flashy problem that's the first thing everyone thinks of, there's plenty of other problems other characters can be better suited for. Say, taking apart the Uncreated courts, rebuilding the ruined cities, ending the chronic famine that occurs when a nation gets murderfucked, protecting the newly-cleansed land from neighbors who want to conquer the area, [...]. If a GM doesn't think of those things, they've probably let themselves make things too easy.

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>>50569403

How exactly are energumens supposed to slow down Death-bonded Godbound?

Page 59 of Ancalia: The Broken Towers:
>The commands of an energumen can also be overridden by the miracles and gifts of one who bears the Word of Death. Very powerful energumens who also are bound to the Word of Death as well can use their Effort to offensively or defensively dispel such hostile influence, but an undead tyrant facing a Godbound of Death is apt to drain its Effort rapidly trying to hold off the death-god's dread authority and bone-shattering gifts. Preventing a Godbound from commanding or destroying their minions would be an act of offensive dispelling, requiring a held action to execute, while those effects targeted directly at the energumen could be defensively dispelled as an Instant.

Death is still well-suited to taking out energumens.

Tumulus is a Way-level invocation. The right column of page 70 of Ancalia: The Broken Towers points out that the Uncreated do not have easy access to theurgy, and energumens can have only up to Gate-level invocations. In other words, there will not be many Tumulus castings over Ancalia.

>>50569461

It does come across as "the Death/Health PC addresses the primary problems, and then everyone else is on cleanup duty as the pantheon collectively carves its way towards the Uncreated lords."

>>50569591
Energumen with the power Unholy Fervor makes mobs under their control Greater Undead. White Bone Harvest now deals 3 times level damage. Strong, but survivable. Energumen can also be Word-Bound. As for the Tumulus, the book does mention that Ancalia attracts some of the biggest baddest sorcerers around. It's clearly a GM option if they wish.

>>50568857
I really like the GMing advice section for this game. Sandbox RPGs, I'd like to run one at some point.

Is there a way to build a Godbound of Death that's more Chosen Undead than Arthas the Lich-King?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9D2mvoMKLE

>>50569778
>since that is bringing in outside forces
So you're saying that a given problem should exist in a vacuum, or more accurately, a white room, or the discussion is useless?

>>50569778
3 damage is not a lot to a 36 HD Vast Mob. The tactic is viable, mind. Just not at level 1. Level 3 and above works better.

>>50569941
At level 3, though, you could have a combat-focused character who maelstroms just as effectively against every enemy type, compared to just against undead.

But this comes back to my original point: yes, the word Death is really good in Ancalia. It's almost as if some tools are better for some situations than other ones.

Now I'm thinking of running a 3 player game, one PC is a Godbound focusing on life, and the other focusing on death. Could be a fun little campaign.

I wonder if the rest of the regions are as adventure worthy as Ancalia. They more or less seem at peace with not much to challenge Godbound. With the exception of the Ulstang Skerries and Lom.

>>50569808
Keep the theme, but don't take the Death Word. The Chosen Undead don't have power over Death. That's sort of their problem.

Endurance works much better for a person who just keeps refusing to die. You get a person who doesn't eat, sleep or breathe from taking the Word before you take any Gifts, which is as impactful to your character's day to day life as you want it to be. Take Undying, because that's also a hell of a Gift to have as part of your backstory. You can take other bits from Endurance if you want to acknowledge the sheer quantity of punishment that a Dark Souls character can shrug off.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoXxuae8wIU

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>>50569670
>>50569840
>>50569941

Yes, I was neglecting the Mob rules in my assessment.

I see your point about Unholy Fervor. (The sorcerers, less so, since that is bringing in forces from outside of Ancalia.)

Energumens with Unholy Fervor seem like the hardest possible counter to White Bone Harvest. It seems that the ideal tactic here would be to use Sapphire Wings (purchasable via lineage lesser talent without the surcharge) or The Path of Racing Dawn to make "strafing runs" with White Bone Harvest, wearing down dozens of Vast Mobs of undead at a time.

Energumens can hold an action to offensively dispel a White Bone Harvest, but they cannot quite do so if they do not know when the next "strafing run" will be.

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>>50569993

>At level 3, though, you could have a combat-focused character who maelstroms just as effectively against every enemy type, compared to just against undead.

They could not quite do it as *efficiently* as White Bone Harvest "strafing runs" though, and they would be more liable to falling to some energumen's supernatural powers if they stuck around wearing away at undead.

>It's almost as if some tools are better for some situations than other ones.

Which is not much of a problem if the campaign is set almost entirely in Ancalia. (Even if it crosses over into the nearby Ulstang Skerries, Death is still just as useful there.)

>>50570057
>that is bringing in forces from outside of Ancalia
Not really refuting the accusation that you're white-rooming something that is inherently connected to the rest of the setting with that modification. Could you provide a decent reason that a sorcerer wouldn't be going to Ancalia to take control of the massive piles of undead for their servants?

Also, I consider any strategy soundly countered by the presence of a roof a pretty shit strategy.

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>>50570134

There are only so many roofs in Ancalia, and plenty of husks.

>Could you provide a decent reason that a sorcerer wouldn't be going to Ancalia to take control of the massive piles of undead for their servants?

The energumens and Uncreated already controlling those undead, for one.

Energumens honestly shouldn't be that big a deal, and I don't think they're meant to be. So I agree with Touhoufag, strafing runs whole fighting multiple Vast mobs and Energumens sounds fun.

Here's how I see a campaign in Ancalia going.

Levels 1-3 Dealing with the Mercymen
Levels 3-6 Killing Husks and Energumens, Dealing with the Fae. Civilization building.
Levels 6+ Taking the fight to the Uncreated Lords, crafting anti Uncreated artifacts, sealing the Night Roads.

Then after they take over Ancalia the Pantheon goes on to wage war with Lom and fight Angels.

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>>50570214

If you wanted to create a PC focused on evacuating Ancalia, you could play an Artifice/Journeying-bonded Godbound with Ten Thousand Tools (lesser), Know the Path (lesser), The Exodus Road (greater), and The Path of Racing Dawn (greater).

Artifice can make anything out of any materials: https://plus.google.com/109542481433257987536/posts/ZNvUefB8gEA
https://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?773601-Sine-Nomine-Godbound-Staff-Pick&p=19988626#post19988626

Use Artifice and Ten Thousand Tools to construct floating cities of salt and water somewhere in the sea, well outside of Ancalia's borders, because the Hollowing Plague is significantly less dangerous outside of it. Then, fly around Ancalia, designating whole encampments of survivors as your traveling companions, and fly them over to your floating cities.

You will have to teach them how to fish and cure their plague, but your third Word can handle that.

>>50570057
Well, I didn't really read this game yet, this is my first thread, but are you suggesting it's imbalanced or something? Or just sharing tactics you thought up? Because at some point things would just be nifty.

>>50570416
That's Colette, he spends his time poking holes in rulesets. Sometimes there's valid points, sometimes there's obsession over white-room encounters, sometimes he tries to slap mechanics onto things that are purely fiat. He's a decent source of mechanical info, but take what he says with a grain of salt.

As for the strafing runs idea: it's a pretty neat tactical idea, but there are plenty of things that work just as well for the same niche.

>>50570375
You better be spending Dominion to build that floating city of water and sea salt, otherwise it'll just dissolve back into the ocean the moment you leave.

>>50570796
You're joking, right? It's hard to tell parody from real SJWs these days...

>>50570416
I find Godbound rules light enough and the power level high enough that it's hard to break the game. Because it's an OSR game, the GM is expected by the rules to modify the game to suit the tastes of his table anyway, and that's easy to do.

Combat too easy? Cool. Throw bigger and badder monsters. Design multiverse ending threats. The rules make this easy. you can also show em a problem they can't solve by force etc.

I guess the only worry would be spotlight time, which is what Touhoufag was kinda talking about earlier with the Death Godbound shining. Personally, that's on the GM though. The Words are broad enough that any adventure can highlight the strengths of any PC.

>>50570846
Just ignore. Serious or trolling, it has no place here.

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>>50570820

This is untrue.

Page 126 of the core rulebook makes this clear:
>The simplest way for a Godbound to make a change in the game world is to just do it. If a Godbound has the necessary gifts to raise a comfortable manor house over the course of a few hours of work, then they can make a manor house whenever they have a spare afternoon. If they have the power to control the minds of men and delicately adjust the village mayor’s attitude toward their suggestions, then the mayor will give whatever orders they want him to give. It is not necessary to bring in any more complication than that, and many changes can be settled just with the use of a gift or miracle. These changes cost nothing in Influence or Dominion as they are direct, immediate acts.

This is what makes Artifice among the best Words for affecting the world on a grand scale: you do not need Influence or Dominion to construct something if you can do so through the power of your own gifts.

>>50570882
In case you're serious, I'll just answer quick and serious.

I think you are jumping at ghosts.
Inclusive? Pronouns? Close-Minded?
Even if so many systems actually were as bad as you make it out to be, so what? In the end, all game systems are adjusted by the players and GM.

If you don't feel comfortable, make it comfortable.

>>50570982
Yeah, sure, you can build your city of salt crystals out of ocean water with the Word of Artifice, but you're not going to stop it from dissolving back into the ocean without expending Dominion. It's still made out of salt, and salt dissolves in water.

>>50568839
And touhoufag shows up, thus dragging the thread into irrevocable ruin like ever thread that has been and every thread that will be.

>>50570796
You'll be playing demigods. No one in any society given by the book will be able to tell you what you can or cannot do or believe. You can also use your divine will to change reality and make societies as inclusive as possible.

That said, several nations in the setting aren't inclusive. Ancalia being the most pious nation in terms of the Christianity equivalent is one of them. The Regency of Dulimbai is another because of strict Confucianism. Set your game in the Bleak Reach big you want. No one cares there.

Unfortunately, I have no clue about pronouns.

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>>50571025

>While the ensuing creation may look odd, and any "foodstuffs" are inedible, it functions and lasts as well as a normal object of its type and usual substance.

Buildings are usually made of wood, stone, metal, and the like, so the city will last as well as conventional materials.

If Artifice does *not* work this way, then an Artificer would be unable to create a sharp sword out of dirt, something that Kevin Crawford explicitly states is possible here:
https://plus.google.com/109542481433257987536/posts/ZNvUefB8gEA

Likewise, Kevin Crawford says that Artifice can make armor of dirt as hard as steel, and blades of bamboo likewise as sturdy and as sharp as steel swords:
https://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?773601-Sine-Nomine-Godbound-Staff-Pick&p=19988626#post19988626

Artifice's intrinsic benefit and Ten Thousand Tools are far more powerful than they would seems from a cursory inspection, and Ten Thousand Tools is a lesser gift.

>>50571034
If by "LGBTQ community" you mean "you", then sure. It's your money you do with it what you want. I'm a fucking fairy and I've never seen any problems that you or your friends ever had.

>>50570982
Immediately after that quote, the game says that it's up to the GM to determine if a large scale change will require Dominion.

You'd rule that it's ok for your game, but I'd rule that it requires Dominion for mine.

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>>50571105

I am not entirely sure how building a city for the purposes of evacuation with Ten Thousand Tools would be considered too far-reaching (time-consuming, yes, full of variables, not especially).

That said, let us play by your ruling.

A starting Godbound has Influence 2. A 2-point change is enough to cover "Major city, ten miles square, 100,000 people," which is still fairly large-scale.

"Plausible" means "plausible relative to the character": https://plus.google.com/+NicholasGoodman/posts/Ewzvvrjx4bG

It certainly does seem plausible that a Godbound with Ten Thousand Tools could build a city given enough time, so that is a 2-point Influence expenditure to craft a major city to host 100,000 people.

As Kevin Crawford says:
>If you've got a gift that lets you conjure buildings with a fingersnap, then building a town in the middle of nowhere is plausible.

The limitation here is not so much raw power or "rules of nature"-bending as it is time.

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>>50571232
>>50571093
Man, I really wish he'd put these clarifications in the damn book.

The book is good, but it doesn't go much into intent, and its easy to read it in a way where it is NOT as wide-reaching as he intended.

>>50571282
Yeah, but Crawford is big on the B/X principle of "your table, your interpretation." He says a lot online that his advice is the way he intended stuff, sure, but that you can do whatever you think works best for your own game.

>>50571232
Sounds good to me honestly. That's how Influence should work.

>>50571282
I think he said it in one of the threads that when in doubt, lean to awesome because demigods. He talked about a free GM guidance book once, but the man'sa workaholic that's busy with too many projects so I'm doubtful if we'll get that soon.

Besides, the next Godbound book is a book of extra Words. I'm more excited for that.

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>>50571282

Kevin Crawford has a very, very bad habit of failing to include critical information on mechanics.

Mundane Facts are supposed to be extremely expansive, Artifice can build anything out of any materials and have the resulting creations work perfectly well regardless of composition, and so on and so forth.

Theurgy is rife with missing caveats as well. For example, Auspice of the Divine King, when it ends, is supposed to make everyone you ever charmed with it indignant towards you:
https://plus.google.com/109542481433257987536/posts/i3p8ceT2VEy

Likewise, Summon the Black Iron Servitor has major limitations on its gift selection, and a Godbound with Legion of Marching Clay is no better than any other Godbound at raising an army:
https://plus.google.com/102449118812762722990/posts/UwRP7hXd9W4

Similarly, Kevin Crawford assumes that, despite the abundance of mind-affecting Words and the existence of the Academy of Thought, NPCs and monsters with mind-affecting powers are supposed to be exceptionally rare. According to him, the Beast Word's "talk to animals and have them comply with natural requests" intrinsic benefit is more useful than a global immunity to all mind-influencing and mind-reading effects:
https://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?773601-Sine-Nomine-Godbound-Staff-Pick&p=20374301#post20374301

Kevin Crawford must run games wherein there are plenty of animals around for PCs to talk to and command, and wherein it is exceedingly rare for a PC to encounter someone else with mind-affecting powers.

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>>50571365
I, and the people I know/play with, feel that authorial intent is very important.

You can always, ALWAYS change it from what they intended, but knowing solidly WHAT they intended is always a very good idea so you know WHAT you are changing.

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>>50571402
Yeah, as much as some people bitch about it, I've always found your view of mechanics really helpful for getting a feel for things.

Sure, as needed we can change things if they don't suit us, but understanding how they ARE in the first place gives better grounding to understand just what we are changing.

>>50571402

I don't know about you but I think the ability to ask birds to fly over a region once a day at a specific time and tell me what they see or ask a wolf to trail someone who smells like this sock in my hand or ask a shark to please bring me a shitload of food is a shitload more useful than any immunity power.

I don't really think breaking out mind control on PCs is a very good idea, though, except for very major characters with very major roles in the story, so...you know, maybe I'm just crazy? But usurping a PC's will should be a pretty rare thing, and "beast talk" is super fucking broad and with a modicum of creativity can be used to do all sorts of insane shit.

Question for the thread. If my player has control over a bunch of Howlers and engages in a beast breeding project to create flying transport beasts for a kingdom, how would you cost it? Is she even allowed to just because she has people who can do it even though she doesn't have a relevant Fact?

>>50571419
*shrug* To each their own. My group is more concerned about table balance than as-intended balance. And I was an English major in undergrad, so "death of the author" is totes a thing in reading comprehension circles.

>>50571561
If she managed to get control over a group of howlers, that'd make the change at least possible. Making a small number of them would be about 2 dominion (improbable change, size mod x1). Making more would increase the size mod, making the beasts more powerful would eventually increase the base cost. There might also be some resistance from supernatural entities, and there's always some unintended results of things.

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>>50571419
>>50571438

From what I understand from having read through Kevin Crawford's posts in RPG.net and Google+, he essentially expects the game to be played as OSR D&D.

That is, the vast majority of the campaign is spent trawling through dungeons (in Ancalia, these would be city ruins) and fighting monsters. Everything apart from this is a "side show" to be resolved as quickly as possible: somewhat important, but ultimately secondary to the "main event" of dungeon-crawling and monster-fighting. Influence and Dominion exist to expedite this "side show," and noncombat gifts are present mostly to justify uses of Influence and Dominion rather than be zoomed-in on and played out.

As well, Kevin Crawford absolutely does not care about mundane humanoid opponents (even minor and major heroes) and thinks they deserve to die in droves to Godbound. This much was obvious during the whole Voice of the Winds + Wizard's Wrath + The Path Through War kerfluffle on RPG.net.

Kevin Crawford would much rather have the PCs fight supernatural opponents... and supernatural opponents immune to mundane weaponry, at that, which is why he places very high mechanical value and weight upon "strikes as a magic weapon" abilities.

>>50571519

Mind control being so devastating is precisely why having global immunity to mind-affecting effects is crucial. Many gifts influence minds, and the Academy of Thought exists. A Godbound's Effort will be whittled down by them, and a Godbound absolutely does not want to succumb to such an effect.

Mundane beasts, in comparison, can only offer so much in the face of supernatural opposition. They would be great in a lower-powered campaign, but in Godbound, not so much.

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>>50571650
>That is, the vast majority of the campaign is spent trawling through dungeons (in Ancalia, these would be city ruins) and fighting monsters.
This is a bit absurd.

>Kevin Crawford would much rather have the PCs fight supernatural opponents... and supernatural opponents immune to mundane weaponry, at that, which is why he places very high mechanical value and weight upon "strikes as a magic weapon" abilities.
And this suddenly explains why so many monsters can just utterly mulch someone. We're having to do a lot of tinkering to bring the monsters down from "You need 6 Godbound to hope to maybe not TPK against this, if its played even remotely smart".

>>50571650

I don't agree at all. You're making a lot of firm declarative statements to try and sound like your answer is the only correct answer, but in fact it is not. It is a good arguing tactic, but it's really easy to see through when someone else knows you're doing it.

The first mistake you're making is that every Godbound game is run the same way. "The existence of this setting element invalidates all other ways of playing the game" is patently false, ignoring the mere idea that someone might not run a game set in the Godbound setting (indeed I do not, I find it dull and boring). A campaign set in a region in which the Academy of Thoughts doesn't have any influence immediately negates the idea that "I MUST HAVE IMMUNITY TO MIND CONTROL AS FAST AS POSSIBLE." Also, you're discounting a GM's ability to simply say to the players "hey, I might have a major antagonist show up with mind control effects, but I don't intend to do it frequently, so I'd appreciate it if you didn't take blanket immunities to it unless it's a solid part of your concept."

The second error you're making is that Beasts are always mundane. It says "unintelligent." You invented the "mundane" qualifier as a means of looking more authoritative, which is patently wrong according to the book, and if Kevin Crawford has some random correction it applies to his table and his table only, not the word of the book itself. A hippogriff or some kind of ancient horrible genetic monstrosity that is still an animal would still fall under Beast. The Tarrasque would fall under Beast at my table. The power is as useful as a player is willing to be creative with it.

Third, you're making a lot of declarative statements about the man's intent but frankly I don't think he has any intent more than "I like playing Godbound this way but you can play it however you want," and I think ascribing motivation where none exists, or if it does indeed exist really isn't relevant to the system text at hand, is a bad idea.

>>50571724
It won't take much tinkering from my experience. I'm running a one player game. If you're running a small party cut enemy Effort by how much you want to make sure that the Godbound outnumbers them in Effort at the expected level they'll fight. For my game I divided all values by 3 rounding down.

Adjust HP values according to guidelines given in the book. This means that for my one player game, the biggest bads top up at 24.

Step down the straight damage die by one.

Done. It's been pretty smooth so far.

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>>50571724

>This is a bit absurd.
And yet it is unsurprising, given that this is an OSR game.

>We're having to do a lot of tinkering to bring the monsters down from "You need 6 Godbound to hope to maybe not TPK against this, if its played even remotely smart".
You will notice that many monsters in Godbound are set up to be glass cannons. "Titanic beasts" and the weaker angels are prime examples of this. Since Godbound always go first, Kevin Crawford essentially expects the entire party to spend Effort and wipe out the monster before it can act.

You can see this in the design of energumens in page 61 of Ancalia: The Broken Towers:
>Don't worry too much about balancing combat effects; even very strong energumens are relatively fragile in combat, so it's permissible to give them a big offensive kick.

Basically, Kevin Crawford thinks that if the party is not collectively alpha-striking and focus-firing, they are doing it wrong and deserve to die. And indeed, against such enemies, alpha striking actually *does* take them down very reliably.

>>50571650
>Everything apart from this is a "side show" to be resolved as quickly as possible: somewhat important, but ultimately secondary to the "main event" of dungeon-crawling and monster-fighting. Influence and Dominion exist to expedite this "side show," and noncombat gifts are present mostly to justify uses of Influence and Dominion rather than be zoomed-in on and played out.

This deserves a bit of elaboration. What makes you think so? Is it the high level abstraction of world changing compared with the relatively bdetailed combat?

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>>50571831
>You can see this in the design of energumens in page 61 of Ancalia: The Broken Towers:
>>Don't worry too much about balancing combat effects; even very strong energumens are relatively fragile in combat, so it's permissible to give them a big offensive kick.
>Basically, Kevin Crawford thinks that if the party is not collectively alpha-striking and focus-firing, they are doing it wrong and deserve to die. And indeed, against such enemies, alpha striking actually *does* take them down very reliably.

Welp, thanks for that. Going to share this with my group, as its very important for our own tinkering and changing.

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>>50571836

My basis for this rests in Kevin Crawford's responses in Google+ and RPG.net, such as this one:
https://plus.google.com/109542481433257987536/posts/i3p8ceT2VEy

Auspice of the Divine King is a potentially world-changing theurgic invocation.

Kevin Crawford's explanation for why it is not as powerful as it seems is:

>When the spell is up, you automatically take maximum damage from every damage source. That's the limiting factor. Against Mobs of human-but-still-Worthy foes, it's a very good spell, since they'll be rolling saves every time you give them a new command- assuming the GM decides you're audible on a battlefield.

>Against supernatural foes, it's a really good way to get killed. Against a major supernatural foe, if you open the fight by trying to use it against them, they're going to either succeed on the save or burn Effort to autosave. Then they're going to focus-fire you with straight damage attacks that always do the maximum, or hit you with a Divine Wrath that does 40 points of damage. If you've got the right defenses, you can hold out for a few rounds this way, but the most the spell can do is be an Effort tax against a major enemy and a way to draw aggro.

>Furthermore, once you drop the spell, your formerly-bewitched minions are going to be very unhappy with you. SInce you can't survive a fight with a major enemy with the spell up, this means any mind-bending you do is only going to last until the next time you face a major supernatural foe, after which you're going to have to deal with the cleanup.

The first point essentially assumes that you will be getting into combat often enough that Auspice of the Divine King will prove a hindrance on a regular basis... and moreover, the kind of combat that you cannot just send your legion of beguiled minions to solve. (For instance, battles against supernatural monsters.)

The second point introduces a downside to the invocation that is not actually in the invocation's rules text.

>>50571798
Forgot this. Assuming a party of 3 Godbound here are the expected levels for them according to the guidelines.

7 - Made God, Angelic Tyrant
5 - Dread God
4 - Master Eldritch
3 - Major Spirit, Hulking Abomination, Dried Lord
2 - Angelic Regent, Greater Eldritch, Twisted Ogre, Ancient Lusus
1 - The Rest

This doesn't make into account Wordbound foes, gifts, special abilities etc.

I can tell you, the Hulking Abomination punches up its weight class. The Uncreated special abilities are a bitch.

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>>50571848

Two good examples of this phenomenon are the "angelic guardian" and the "titanic beast":

Angelic Guardian: 10 HD, two actions per round, each action can be three attacks at +10 with 1d8 damage straight

Titanic Beast: 15 HD, three actions per round, each action can be three attacks at +10 with 1d10 damage straight

Allow them to act, and they will destroy anyone who does not have a Nine Iron Walls or something similar.

Alpha strike with gifts like Bolt of Invincible Skill, Unerring Blade, and Divine Wrath, and they are dead. It helps to have a Sun-bound Godbound with Purity of Brilliant Law when facing such creatures; that way, if they try to throw up a Nine Iron Walls, Purity of Brilliant Law can tear that down with an instant offensive dispellation.

>>50571889
I see. So judging by those responses, Godbound seems to assume active divine level supernatural enemies will force combat sooner or later.

I don't see how this makes nation building a sideshow that you dont play out in the table though. This is something that we actually do when we play.

The cycle I observed is this.

Player wants to improve the world -> Player fights, schemes, treasure hunts for resources to change the world (one session) -> Player improves the world, roleplays, acts like a leader (one session) -> Player wants to improve the world

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>>50571986
This is consistent with what we've found, yeah. If they focus fire even slightly...

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>>50571774

>The first mistake you're making is that every Godbound game is run the same way.
In this case, Kevin Crawford is even more at fault for designing the game under the assumption that the Beast Word's intrinsic benefit is more powerful than a global immunity to all mind-affecting and mind-reading effects. After all, this means that Kevin Crawford assumes that mind control will always be rare in every game:
https://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?773601-Sine-Nomine-Godbound-Staff-Pick&p=20374301#post20374301

>The second error you're making is that Beasts are always mundane. It says "unintelligent."
That is my legitimate error. The Beast Word actually says, "gifts of the Beast may be used on any natural or magical animal, though not creatures fashioned entirely of sorcery or impossible artifice."

I cannot find any of Kevin Crawford's clarifications on whether or not Beast would affect a Misbegotten "titanic beast" (almost certainly what a tarrasque would be), so I will concede this one to you, but file it under "murky rules ground."

If Kevin Crawford expects mind-affecting effects to be rare and for Beast to be able to command Misbegotten "titanic beasts," then this should be far clearer in the book's writing.

>Third, you're making a lot of declarative statements about the man's intent
I am basing them off Kevin Crawford's Google+ and RPG.net posts.

>>50572058

>I don't see how this makes nation building a sideshow that you dont play out in the table though. This is something that we actually do when we play.

Part of the Dominion and Influence subsystem is that they quickly resolve nation-building in a zoomed-out, streamlined fashion.

Playing out nation-building would be impractical anyway, unless you are interested in running through the nitty-gritty of establishing bureaucracies and mapping out farmlands.

>>50567812
Going to second this guy. Anyone got a copy of the new book that they're willing to share? The link in the OP asks for a lot of personal information to let you buy the book.

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>>50572724

Here are Godbound: Ancalia: The Broken Towers and Godbound: Ten Buried Blades, both of which contain character options: https://www.sendspace.com/filegroup/sLxQYYx0pUAyPVB9XBum8Q

>>50572824
Oh, thanks.

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>>50572855

Do note that with the advent of lineages, *every PC* should ideally be given a lineage.

A lineage is absolutely free and expands a character's options considerably. It is power creep, plain and simple, but perhaps a form of power creep that all characters should have had to begin with.

For my own logging, which was the release schedule? Godbound core, then Ten Buried, or Ancalia?

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>>50572926

Godbound core, then Sixteen Sorrows, then Ten Buried Blades, then Ancalia: The Broken Towers.

Up next is a book of Words.

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Oh, man, Frank Trollman is aptly named, the stupid fuck.

"Retroclones are a stupid idea. There are good ideas in old systems, but you should incorporate those into new systems that also use good ideas from newer systems. Voluntarily making your system shittier to evoke the feeling of being an old shitty system is just a retro stupid thing to do.

In any case, the specific assumptions of a retro clone make it a terrible fit for superheroics of any kind. Attributes only go up to 18 and stat checks are rolled on a d20. If you want to tell me that my gods-born maximum strength character still fails a basic strength check that a random peasant has a coin flip's chance of succeeding at a full 10% of the time, I'm gonna tell you to fuck off.

I seriously got to page eight in this game before I knew it was a piece of shit. The core resolution mechanic is so laughably and obviously incapable of handling epic actions of any kind that the only reason to keep reading was to find more pieces of unintentional hilarity. A character with maximum Intelligence or Dexterity only succeeds at a test 40% of the time more than a character with average Intelligence or Dexterity. That's incapable of being anything but a Captain Hobo style farce.

-Frank"

>>50572944
Thanks. Its me being just a bit of an OCD nut, but I really like keeping things in order in my folders.

1 - Godbound Core
2 - Sixteen Sorrows

So on. Actually, I don't have Sixteen, could you upload that for me?

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>>50572979

To be fair, Godbound's attribute check subsystem is indeed very clunky, particularly when NPCs do not even have attributes, and yet the attribute check rules call for opposed rolls at one point.

>>50572996

https://www.sendspace.com/file/jlkuin

>>50573105
Thank you again.

And yes, its a bit clunky, but wow Trollman is living up to his name there.

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>>50573126

It is not just clunky, but completely absent in some cases.

There are absolutely no rules for what happens when a Godbound without a relevant gift tries to sneak past, pickpocket, bluff, intimidate, etc. a divine-level NPC.

One might think this would involve an opposed attribute check, but NPCs have no attributes.

>>50573105
>To be fair, Godbound's attribute check subsystem is indeed very clunky,
It may very well be, but an 18-STR Godbound will most probably have a fact related to it, guaranteeing an auto-win.

>particularly when NPCs do not even have attributes, and yet the attribute check rules call for opposed rolls at one point.
That's when the Three Cubic Oracles come handy. Or, you know, DM's judgement.

>>50573795
>Three Cubic Oracles
The what now?

>>50573801
Not him. But he's just being silly about a 3d6.

GM judgment is also the method suggested by the book. It's an OSR game guys. GM judgment is expected at all times.

So, the ancient Din (Whites) were apparently interested in high tech devices, while the ancient Akeh (Blacks) were interested in personal perfection through genetic perfection. Interestingly, the Oasis States, descended from both, appear to prize both, being high-tech pyramid arcologies ruled by transhuman nobles.

What were the ancient Ren (Asians) interested in, then?

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>>50574561
Perfected waifus.

Ideology and philosophy.

Also Xianxia level martial arts most likely.

So, artifacts cost a Lesser Word, and use either the user's level, or the level of the person who made it, right? Is there any reason not to just set the level of any artifacts that your PCs start with to 10, then?

I'm particularly thinking of an Excalibur-clone that has a Smite power, and 3 points of Effort to cast it...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zDt40QiY_4

>>50574763
Balance. But its your game. Go hogwild with Artifacts if that's your thing.

>>50574870
I mean as a player, not a GM. You can spend a Fact to get an 8 Dominion artifact; is there any reason not to just set its level to 10 when you do so?

>>50574763
You gave me an idea. Gifts now have proper names.

Rho Aias: Nine Iron Walls

Or something like that. Enemies and PCs have to say the attack name every time they use a gift. We're going full cheesy anime on this bitch

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>>50574915

This is one of those prickly "GM approval"-based rules, as per page 177 of the core rulebook:

>At the GM's discretion, a PC can start play with an artifact. One of their Facts has to be exclusively about how they acquired this mighty relic, and that Fact can't be used to benefit rolls—the PC trades the benefits of it in exchange for starting with the artifact. Such a relic probably shouldn't be worth more than eight Dominion points and must meet with the GM's approval. If the artifact is particularly important to the PC's concept, the GM might allow them to later spend Dominion to improve it, though such expenditures should cost about twice as much as creating an entirely separate artifact.

>>50574915
Starting Artifacts cost 8 Dominion. If it has one lesser gift say, a corona of fury, that's 2 points. 3 Effort for the rest of the six points. By default Artifacts can contain Effort that's no more than half the crafters level, so that puts our Artifact Crafter and the Artifacts corona of fury at level 6.

At least, that's how I would rule it as a GM. You may be able to convince the GM otherwise.

>>50572881
And what if I wanna be a completely mundane farmer before becoming a powerful musclebound Major Armstrong-ripoff? Humble beginnings are more awe-inspiring.

>>50575681
Lineages aren't as awesome as what he's saying anyway. The no surcharge lesser gift pick selection is optional.

You also won't need that if you can work with your GM to design gifts that mimic existing gifts, something the core book emphasizes as an option.

>>50559958
Exalted is kind of the same way. Creation is on the brink of being consumed by ten-thousand dooms, and it's up to the PCs to get everyone's shit together.

The thing is, the prevailing assumption is that the PCs are supposed to win.

>>50555931

My campaign is going nicely.

I have 6 players, so challenges were always going to be a problem, although few of them are directly combat-oriented. I took this as a cue to create a less directly combat-oriented game. After some discussion, however, we set it in Raktia. First level or so, they met up in a large town in central Raktia, discovered that the others existed, and proceeded to deal with some relatively minor plots - a pack of Uncreated Stalkers, a cult infestation, and so on.

I was quite gratified when after creating a full Court, complete with an Artifact-wielding ruler (with the intention of preventing Command et al just steamrollering him), they didn't even try to take over the place. Instead they took the offer of an informal alliance the ruler offered them. In retrospect, it makes a lot of sense; they get a base for their cults and a ruler who doesn't (usually) oppose their Dominion expenditure, and the ruler gets a bunch of divine-level protectors for his realm who wander around doing things like fixing expensive Vissian steam pumps by touching them.

Of course, things are now coming to a head. The party's actions against the Cult have stirred up its own angelic protectors, the Black Academies are taking direct notice of the Godbound, and the party's interactions with the neighbouring settlements have begun to indicate that their "pet" ruler is, in fact, kind of a megalomaniacal expansionist tyrant who is getting worse by the day due to the effects of his artifact. And the Dulimbai and Patrians are going to war. And the Iron Tsar is probably about to invade, too.

Most of my party are now level 3, just when things are starting to get interesting. Oddly, they haven't actually needed Celestial Shards for anything at all - they've kept to Implausible changes for everything, pretty much, except for a "dream network" that while Impossible would easily count as a repeated Gift invocation.

>>50576502

I should note that I have a bunch of Ruins and other such all rolled up and ready. My party have simply shown no interest in following those plot cues (although they may well change their minds once they need Shards).

>>50576502
>>50576528
Your campaign sounds like it's going very well. Personally I find shards to be an excellent motivator for adventure. They're about the only treasure that can motivate a Godbound at a certain point.

What sort of foes have your players fought? What gave them trouble?

>>50576697
>Your campaign sounds like it's going very well.

I'm really enjoying it. Especially after running a number of very combat-heavy Exalted games, including a gargantuan Ex3 siege that took about 3 real-time months of weekly sessions to complete. My GB players seem happy to spend entire sessions just shooting the shit with NPCs, it's awesome.

>Personally I find shards to be an excellent motivator for adventure. They're about the only treasure that can motivate a Godbound at a certain point.

We're definitely reaching that point now. They're talking about making golem armies to put their preferred mortal puppet in place in order to solve Raktia's co-ordination issues; that's gonna need Shards and lots of 'em.

>What sort of foes have your players fought? What gave them trouble?

As mentioned, they've mostly avoided combat. The pack of Uncreated Stalkers that I threw in as a "here's your first real combat encounter" went down pretty easily, partly because I decided I wanted to give the party an "off-button" for the Stalkers' Word-bound abilities. Mobs have been zero difficulty at all, because they have a dude with Fire and Sword who can just FWOOOOSH them away.

They did have a fight with a Huge Black Dragon in a dream. It lasted 2 rounds. Normal OSR monsters just do not work in Godbound. Still, that Huge Black Dragon's god-mommy will be along eventually...

>>50576792

>Normal OSR monsters

This is kind of a mean tactic, but you might want to keep it on hand just in case. At level 3 your players are still slightly Effort starved. Consider using a mob or many individual members of various save or die/save or get paralyzed monsters. You might be able to force a few of them to append Effort to succeed the save. An unplanned daylong Effort commitment really stings.

>shoot the shit with NPCs

Yeah I noticed this too. My player gets super attached to the people involved whenever she makes lives better. Attacking them will hit her where it hurts, but I'm still hesitant of doing that. Maybe if I want her to hate a villain.

>>50577191
>This is kind of a mean tactic, but you might want to keep it on hand just in case. At level 3 your players are still slightly Effort starved. Consider using a mob or many individual members of various save or die/save or get paralyzed monsters. You might be able to force a few of them to append Effort to succeed the save. An unplanned daylong Effort commitment really stings.

Oooh. I like that one. Especially for the aforementioned Black Academy interests - I can see a Greater Eldritch with an army of OSR Ghouls, knowing full well that their targets are likely to have to waste Effort not getting paralyzed, thereby reducing their effort levels against the Eldritch's own powers.

Reading Ancalia, this new Universal Gift leaped out at me as a HUGE deal:

>Fire of the Word Within
>Constant
>This Universal greater gift automatically decreases the penalty of the Cold Breath, a Mundus Ward, or an Empyrean Ward by one point, treating the Breath or the Ward as one point less in potency. This benefit applies to the user and their companions. This gift can only be taken once or wielded in a single artifact by any one Godbound, but multiple allies with the gift stack the benefit. Uncreated can instantly sense the presence of those using this gift.

A reduction on the tax for Uncreated, Mundus Wards, Empyrean Wards... if ever there was a candidate for "shit that should have been in the corebook", it's this one.

If you're wondering how Kevin Crawford means for the game to be played, why not just ask him? The Sine Nomine G+ group is over at https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/108012684439844399874 and he answers questions regularly.

>>50578343
Nah. He'll say it's up to your groups own personal taste, because that's really how it is.

A better question would be how does he play, if people really are searching for the "right" way to play Godbound. Which is a silly approach to an OSR game built for tinkering.

>>50572180
> Kevin Crawford assumes that mind control will always be rare in every game:
To be honest, mind control is one of these hard to do right things. Either your players do not have a reliable way to defend against it and then they are screwed, or they have and mind control becomes a non-issue. Also, protection against it also becomes a tax because no one wants to lose control of their PC in such a way. So assuming that mind control is rare seems like a good thing to do because then you are not required to go straight for immunity against it but it is still a legitimate threat if it does appear.

>>50578767
This is pretty much it. Dumb nigs like 2hu like to act like it's EVERYONE GOTTA HAVE PERFECT DEFENCES (possibly because they have fantasies about transitioning into Jon Chung) but ultimately, mind effects are an Effort tax for PCs, since they always get a save and PCs are always worthy does.

>>50574969

You know, I just had to buy Sixteen Sorrows because I couldn't find it online. My own fault. I'm also the nerd who eventually wants to run a game for you. Has your schedule changed at all?

Some more mechanics things to chew on:

8 Dominion can give you a Powerful Creature who can out-fight you pretty much any given day of the week.

Smites mitigate this somewhat, but it's pretty outright true. They're fragile though, maxing out at 25 HD.

Another thing of note is that Dominion flows really very fast, I've found in my play experience. Much quicker than XP, actually.

>>50577479
>if ever there was a candidate for "shit that should have been in the corebook", it's this one.

I don't like it.

It reduces the effect of those powers that exist only to provide the GM a tool to set up trickier situations where Gifts aren't as easily available. If you tell your GM that you don't want to encounter those situations, they'd probably agree. If they don't agree, then you take the "Level -1" ability and they increase the Level of the ability for every creature that has it by 1 to cancel it out. It's too abstract an ability to have a realistic baseline for expectation calibration and it affects the entire party so it doesn't differentiate one PC from another; it's useless as a PvE rule and a PvP rule.

It is a bad ability.

>>50572979
Wow, I guess someone really likes dice pool systems.

I really don't understand people who look at systems like this, unless they're insecure to the point of needing to justify the games they enjoy by lashing out at the ones they don't.

"My interpretation of this dice roll is farcical, therefore this game is bad" makes as much sense as "I keep kicking myself in the dick, therefore my shoes are bad".

>>50574956
>Enemies and PCs have to say the attack name every time they use a gift.
They ARE called Words. Doesn't sound too terrible. Do be kind though, and allow the sneaky types to whisper before they turn invisible or create illusions.

>>50574956
Who the Hell do you think I am?: Defy The Iron!

Magical post scarcity transhuman societies are pretty important to the back story.

I can't wrap my head around the concept. Does anyone know any inspirational media?

>>50583610
They normally exist only in backstories, since the theme is generally "look how good things were" and post-scarcity is almost defined by a lack of conflict that abundant resources brings.

Look at a non-GrimDark Superman story that mentions what Krypton was like (preferably without dwelling too much on the many many evil Kryptonians). Look at TV-Trek's Federation and replace its nigh-magical technology with actually magical technology.

>>50583815
That's a start anon. Thanks.

So, the Akeh were pretty big on eugenics, genetic modification, and soul-gene modification (whatever that means). There's a big glaring lack of that transhuman trope though, body swapping and mind uploading.

I predict that this will be the "technologically-addicted" Din's special thing in the setting.

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>>50555931
>TTRPG version of Dominions.
So has anyone stated a pretender? or did anyone have ideas based off of dominions? I'm curious to hear, Godbound is something I know nothing about, dominions 4 on the other hand...

>>50586363
Isn't Dominion a card game? I thought he was comparing GB to that.

>>50586363
Yes actually. The Made Gods are giant constructs made from the cannibalized remains of the Heavenly Engines.

>>50586363
PCs are Pretenders by default. The Godbound are a new class of individuals that are coming into divine power, and their emergence comes (quite a long time after) the revelation that the One God (who is not called the Pantokrator but was definitely implied to be all-powerful which is what that word means) is absent from their throne.

No RPG short of the glory/nonsense that is GURPS or similar is going to stat a range of Pretenders as broad as Dominions (there is no option to play a fountain of blood possessing a blinded ten year old girl unless you get VERY creative with your interpretation of the rules), but the theme of being pseudo-deities in a world with extremely diverse nations and a serious divine power vacuum is present and correct.

Take the Death and Command words and establish yourself as the new patron of the Patrian Empire, with a third Word for personal taste. Use your Dominion (yes, they call it that) to make your undead hordes a permanent feature of the land. Crush the armies of all who oppose you and raise their corpses to your service. Grant eternal life to your favoured servants. Nothing I just mentioned requires being nice to your GM either; that's the default power level of the Words of Death and Command.

>>50586507
You're thinking of this.
http://riograndegames.com/Game/278-Dominion
I was thinking of this.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/259060/

>>50586633
>extremely diverse nations
Eh. The game doesn't have rules for bird people or fishmen or similar. It's pretty much all humans all the time, which is... OK, maybe. I get that they want to keep the rules light, but I'd be happier if they had a guideline for backgrounds/Facts related to race.

>>50586673
>guideline for backgrounds/Facts for race

That's the Ancalia book essentially. Base your hack on the Lineages, which provide minor intrinsic bonuses with access to 3 talents you can buy.

Or else base it on the Knight Orders, where you can see that Facts are super broad and can have minor mechanical effects.

By minor effects I mean that they should be weaker than a lesser gift. Keep that in mind and you should be good.

>>50586673
>>50586721
The core book has an explicit sidebar for playing as not-humans. As long as you have powers that fit you can be anything.

Hell, an example they give is taking the fly power, Fire Word, and a power for low AC and BANG, you're a fuckin' dragon!

>>50582083
>unless they're insecure to the point of needing to justify the games they enjoy by lashing out at the ones they don't.

Welcome to Frank Trollman.

Okay, so your PCs manage to fix Ancalia. Clean out all the zombies, kill all the Uncreated and close the Night Roads, deal with the suicidal cultists, fix things up so that the faeries can live without predating on humans, and so on and so forth.

What do your PCs do next?

>>50589333
Do it to the next country and become the Gods who healed the world, with cathedrals the size of mountains.

>>50589333
Lom immediately invades Ancalia because

1. They fucking hate that country
2. You and your party are gods.

>>50589700
If we the gods have entirely fixed Ancalia, them Lom will be a fuckin' pushover.

>>50589896
Lomites are really, really good at shutting down gods, however. They've got the Stiflers and the Pyre, and a long history of practical god-murder.

>>50589896
Yeah. I expect that. Still, breaking Lom should take up enough time for the Pantheon to go up a level. After that the campaign focus probably switches to Celestial stuff. Either conquering Hell, Fixing Heaven, turning Arcem into literal Paradisr, achieving arch-godhood, hell all of that at once.

>>50579792
>mind effects are an Effort tax for PCs
Which is exactly why a free blanket immunity is so good. Effort taxes suck and should be avoided whenever possible.

>>50589896
Lom is secretly a rouse headed by Angels, so good luck with that and god speed.

>>50590353
Angelic Tyrants find it hard to ascend to the world though. So in the lucky event that they don't a pantheon with Letion Si, Prince Of The Dawn has a chance at knocking down Lom.

Seriously 50 HD and Sun, Command, Artifice, and Fertility. That dude can wreck.

>>50555931
Maybe I'm just stupid, but could someone explain this to me?

>If the attack does more than one die of damage, they are all count separately. Any modifier is applied to only one die of the attacker’s choice. Thus, a blast that does 5d8 damage a target would do from 0 to 10 points of damage, depending on the results of the dice.

How does this work?

>>50591396
Here's how to read the results of the dice.

1=0
2-5=1
6-9=2
10=4

So 5d8s can be 0 (all 1 results) or 10 (all results are between 6-8)

Don't worry you get used to it in play. The game does this because each point in damage is equivalent to 1 hit die. Making Godbound much stronger than an ordinary OSR character.

>>50591507
Got it. Are hit die recorded somewhere in the book?

>>50591519
Hit die = HP in Godbound. It's just a way of making it compatible with other OSR games and making it clear how powerful the PCs are.

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After skimming through the core pdf it looks awesome. If only I had a second group to play this with, it'd be awesome.
>Command, Sun, Sword
>PRAISE THE SUN

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>>50575681
>>50576122

Lineages are very good because they offer:

1. A minor intrinsic benefit that might not be negligible. The Kalay's ability to see in the dark is rather useful for something completely free, for instance.

2. More abilities for a character to choose from.

3. The ability to select a single out-of-Word lesser gift without the surcharge and without having to go through the GM's whims. Normally, avoiding the surcharge on out-of-Word gifts requires GM judgment:
https://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?773601-Sine-Nomine-Godbound-Staff-Pick&p=20378726#post20378726

Given that a lineage costs nothing, there is little mechanical reason to *not* have a lineage.

It would have been better for this lineage mechanic to be something that all characters possessed by default, rather than it being limited to transhuman-blooded Ancalians.

>>50578767
>>50579792
>>50590284

1. Mental influence is common in the Godbound core rulebook. The Words of Command, Deception, Knowledge, and Passion all have mental influence effects. Seal of Regnal Dominion is a *devastating* Gate-level invocation. The Academy of Thought exists.

2. It costs Effort for the PCs to shrug off such effects, and the more Effort the PCs have to commit this way, the less Effort they have for their gifts and miracles.

3. Mental influence is thus quite nasty against PCs.

4. Kevin Crawford seems to assume that GMs will target the PCs with mental influence only very rarely. This assumption is stated or implied in the core rulebook not a single time.

5. The core rulebook has a strike against it for missing this critical assumption.

6. Because GMs have no way of knowing this assumption without trawling through RPG.net, there is a non-negligible chance that they might assume that regularly tossing mind-affecting effects against PCs is "fair game" for challenging demigods. In this event, fishing for a cheap blanket immunity against mind-affecting effects is extremely useful.

Does this logic make sense?

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>>50580194

>Has your schedule changed at all?

Please contact me via IRC or Skype, please.

>>50586763

Page 57 of Ancalia: The Broken Towers presents a significantly more flexible option for playing nonhumans: fae. They can bind appropriate lesser gifts (plural) without the surcharge; this requires GM approval, of course, but a fae can justify such gifts under their fae nature rather than try to justify them as reskinned gifts under their own Words.

>>50593309
It does, but I can already hear the counterarguments.

>WHITE ROOM
>THE DESIGNERS INTENT SHOULDN'T MATTER
>OSR MEANS YOU CUSTOMIZE IT ANYWAY

Are the normal three to this.

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>>50593373

If the designer's intent does not matter, then that means that GMs are faced with a rather generous menu of mental influence effects to throw at the PCs, and thus picking up a cheap blanket immunity is highly desirable for said PCs.

It should be noted that Seal of Regnal Dominion is arguably overpowered for a mere Gate-level invocation:
>The theurge draws a sign of pale emerald light in the air before the chosen target, subverting their will to the caster’s own. While under the seal’s effects, the victim is absolutely obedient to the theurge’s commands, even those suicidal or repugnant to it. They will attempt to carry out instructions to the best of their ability and natural intelligence. Animal targets or those that do not share a language with the theurge can only be made to understand single-word commands.
>A theurge may have no more thralls under the effect of the seal at once than they have levels or hit dice. Lesser foes have no chance of escaping this dominion, while worthy foes may make a Spirit saving throw to resist, and another each time they receive a hateful command from the theurge. If not resisted, the seal’s effects remain until dispelled or dropped by the caster.

The round-long casting time (with Effort spent for the scene) makes it impractical to use in combat, but then, the real strength of mental influence gifts is not their combat application anyway.

Given that Adept of the Gate is a lesser gift that grants four Gate-level invocations and allows the PC to learn more, Seal of Regnal Dominion effectively costs *less than 0.25 gift points*.

I just realised, Greek mythology makes much more sense as a Godbound game that went through several generations of PCs and is hilt-deep in the GM's magical realm.

>>50593492
I'm just pointing out what I've seen in this thread.

For me, designer's intent is very important, if only because it gives you an idea where they thought the baseline was, before you start changing shit.

I agree with the arguments you've put forth, I was just throwing up the ones that people seem enamored of using against you.

Do you think a campaign with "normal" mortal is possible? They are fragil as fuck.

>>50593580
It's called old school d&d.

>>50593373
Why are you dismissive of that last argument? Godbound has never been anything than an OSR game.

>>50593643
Because its a shit argument that exists for literally every tabletop ever.

Just because I CAN change something doesn't excuse shit rules in the first place. Its a dogshit argument, and people hide behind it as a defense against daring to think MAYBE just MAYBE something could be wrong with the game at base, as we are fucking talking about it.

>>50593680
And what's the problem here with mind control immunity?

>>50593309
Some counterpoints to your logic:

>It would have been better for this lineage mechanic to be something that all characters possessed by default, rather than it being limited to transhuman-blooded Ancalians.
It would also have not made much sense within play. The Ancalian families are, after all, transhumans. Genetically engineered to be superior to other humans. You shouldn't really be surprised that the rules will reflect that they are, in fact, genetically superior to other humans.

Yes, it is mechanically inferior to *not* have a lineage. It's also mechanically inferior to *not* have 18s in every stat.

>In this event, fishing for a cheap blanket immunity against mind-affecting effects is extremely useful.
All blanket immunities are useful. Blanket mind-control immunity just gets particular notability because people get triggered when they think of the idea that the DM might control their character.

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>>50593996

>It would also have not made much sense within play.
I am not saying that every character should be descended from a transhuman lineage.

What I am saying is that every character should be offered the same package of "intrinsic minor benefit, two common talents that can be purchased, one heroic talent that can be purchased, and a lesser gift without the surcharge, all without costing a Fact."

Explain it however you please for such characters.

>Yes, it is mechanically inferior to *not* have a lineage. It's also mechanically inferior to *not* have 18s in every stat.
A player cannot just declare that their character has 18s in all attributes. They can, on the other hand, simply declare that their character belongs to a lineage, no Fact needed.

>All blanket immunities are useful. Blanket mind-control immunity just gets particular notability because people get triggered when they think of the idea that the DM might control their character.
Blanket mind control immunity is also undercosted, at a price point of "a single Word's intrinsic benefit, possibly via artifact" (Fate, though it could be transplanted onto any other modified Word), "being a Rebel Exemplar," or, most expensively, "having the Untamed Will lesser gift, potentially reskinned into another Word."

It is *not* undercosted if the GM follows Kevin Crawford's assumption of "mental influence is exceedingly rare against PCs," which appears only in RPG.net posts and not a single time in the books.

>>50594057
>They can, on the other hand, simply declare that their character belongs to a lineage, no Fact needed.
Regardless, the character's origins must be somehow genetically tied to the Five Families. They can't get that lineage if they're a Nezdohvan golem, for example.

>Blanket mind control immunity is also undercosted
Immunities in general are low in cost. The fire word gives you total immunity to fire and smoke... which would be powerful if your DM loves setting shit on fire in his setting, no?

Endurance's immunities would be powerful as fuck if your DM is trying to run a scarcity campaign where thirst and hunger are risks, right?

Immunity is always powerful in the right context, and worthless in the wrong context.

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>>50594167

>Regardless, the character's origins must be somehow genetically tied to the Five Families. They can't get that lineage if they're a Nezdohvan golem, for example.
From a mechanical perspective, it is superior to have a free lineage (not necessarily from the Five Families; there is a sidebar for creating new lineages) than not to, so the Nezdhovan golem is at a disadvantage, having had to spend a Fact to gain the benefits of being a golem.

>Immunity is always powerful in the right context, and worthless in the wrong context.
I do not know about you, but "immunity to all mind-affecting effects" is a far broader immunity than "immunity to smoke and fire" and the like, considering the abundance of mind-influencing options mentioned in >>50593309.

Even in Ancalia, every one of the Uncreated Courts has just as many mind-affecting abilities as body-affecting abilities.

>>50594217
>the Nezdhovan golem is at a disadvantage, having had to spend a Fact to gain the benefits of being a golem.
If you have to spend a fact to be a golem, why would you not have to spend a Fact to be part of the Five Families?

Where does it say you must spend a Fact to be a Nezdohvan golem?

>"immunity to all mind-affecting effects" is a far broader immunity than "immunity to smoke and fire" and the like
True, but it also comes off of one of the two special words specifically made for unique Godbound. They exist in a separate section of the book from other words, and in both cases come with massive drawbacks. It's probably not wise to give a Godbound the benefits of being an Undestined without the drawbacks.

And if your next point is that this should have been stated in the book, I agree.

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>>50594272

>why would you not have to spend a Fact to be part of the Five Families?
Ancalia: The Broken Towers, page 28. The only requirement for a PC being a member of a lineage is meeting an ability score prerequisite.

>Where does it say you must spend a Fact to be a Nezdohvan golem?
You would have to spend a Fact to gain the benefits of being a golem. (You could also spend Words and gifts, but that is much heavier an investment.) This is supported by the sidebars in page 14 and 78 of the Godbound core rulebook.

Lineages are different, because they introduce an entirely new method of availing of mechanical benefits simply from a character's heritage, outside of Facts, Words, and gifts.

I could certainly see "golem" counting as a lineage though, similar to the Henok. Indeed, lineages are a good way to represent exotic races.

>but it also comes off of one of the two special words specifically made for unique Godbound
It is also available as a lesser gift, Untamed Will, something that would not be unthinkable to reskin into other Words, and that can be taken as a lineage lesser gift. It is one of those "commit Effort only as long as you need to" gifts, allowing a character to throw it up as long as they have even 1 Effort and then deactivate it immediately afterwards.

Also, an Artifice-bonded Godbound could create artifacts that package the intrinsic benefits of a few cherry-picked Words, and then hand those artifacts out to the party.

>>50594361
>The only requirement for a PC being a member of a lineage is meeting an ability score prerequisite.
Yes, requirement. As in they cannot be of the Five Families with a 15 in that attribute, no matter what.

>Lineages are different, because they introduce an entirely new method of availing of mechanical benefits simply from a character's heritage
Which your origin Fact must support.

>>50594361
>Also, an Artifice-bonded Godbound could create artifacts that package the intrinsic benefits of a few cherry-picked Words, and then hand those artifacts out to the party.

Only if they pay Dominion and 1+ celestial shards per each artifact, plus the recipient needs to Commit Effort for the day the first time they handle the artifact each day if they want to get the benefit. As opposed to the alternative of just Committing Effort to recover a failed Spirit save against mental influence.

The only way an artifact is optimal is if you expect to fail two or more anti-mind control saves every day you use the artifact.

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>>50594415

>Yes, requirement. As in they cannot be of the Five Families with a 15 in that attribute, no matter what.
Considering the default array characters can settle for and the abundance of words that rig ability scores, qualifying for one of the Five Families is not difficult.

Even in the even that the character qualifies for none of the five, they can always settle for a lesser lineage as per page 31, which explicitly includes the main draw of a lesser gift without the surcharge.

>Which your origin Fact must support.
The word "Fact" does not appear a single time in subchapter on lineages.

You could (and probably should) specify that you are a Kalay, a Senai, or whatnot in one of your Facts, but the "mechanical weight" of lineage benefits would be shouldered by the new lineage rules themselves, rather than by the "mechanical carrying capacity" of the Fact.

>>50594477

The Effort cost is probably worth it (if you get targeted by mental influence, it is not unlikely that there will be more to come), but I had forgotten about the celestial shard cost, so artifacts are probably not the best way to go about this.

Reskinning Untamed Will into other Words, or taking it via lineage lesser gift, is probably the most cost-effective method for gaining mind-affecting immunity if the Fate Word's intrinsic benefit and Rebel Exemplars are unavailable.

>>50594512
>Considering the default array characters can settle for and the abundance of words that rig ability scores, qualifying for one of the Five Families is not difficult.
You choose your origin before you choose your Words.

>The word "Fact" does not appear a single time in subchapter on lineages.
It doesn't have to. The section specifically discusses how you only get these abilities if you are of the Five Families. Your origin Fact is explicitly about your birthrights and where you come from. If your origin Fact does not support the idea that you come from the Five Families, then you do not.

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>>50594603

>You choose your origin before you choose your Words.
And lineages have no listed "step" in the character creation process. For all we know, a Word's intrinsic benefit can awaken a latent lineage.

Even if you still fail to qualify for any of the Five Families, you are always eligible for a lesser lineage, which explicitly includes a lesser gift sans surcharge.

>The section specifically discusses how you only get these abilities if you are of the Five Families.
And all it takes is, "Players can choose to make a PC from the Five Families if they wish and if they assign an adequate attribute score as listed under each bloodline."

>Your origin Fact is explicitly about your birthrights and where you come from.
Facts do not have to say *everything* about a character, and indeed, there is no way they possibly could without being overly long-winded.

As I mentioned previously though, even if you did append "and they are also a [Kalay/Senai/what-have-you]" to one of your character's Facts, the "mechanical weight" of lineage benefits would be shouldered by the new lineage rules themselves, rather than by the "mechanical carrying capacity" of the Fact.

Ancalia: The Broken Towers is crystal-clear on knighthood abilities requiring a Fact, so it is telling that the subchapter on lineages does not mention Facts at all.

>>50594680
>For all we know, a Word's intrinsic benefit can awaken a latent lineage.
A lineage's abilities express in childhood, long before a character would become a hero. Furthermore, they are still inherent in blood. If your bloodline does not make it feasible that you have transhuman ancestry, then you cannot have a lineage.

>Facts do not have to say *everything* about a character
They say everything important about your character and its background. Bloodline properties that grant significant mechanical benefit (like being a golem or transhuman) would fall under this category, as explained on page 78 of the core book.

>>50594680
>And lineages have no listed "step" in the character creation process.
It explicitly says you must assign an attribute score of 16 to the appropriate attribute, which is the first step of character creation. Choosing words is step 5. Whether you will qualify for a lineage occurs before Word selection.

>>50594786
This is hilarious, given how the number 1 buzzword of people like you is OSR MEANS YOU CHOOSE.

You trying to shoehorn it to mean that lineage HAS to be this is fucking retarded in light of that stance.

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>>50594786

I have asked Kevin Crawford on the Godbound Google+.

Hopefully, the author should be able to elucidate what is supposed to happen with lineages.

>>50594815
>This is hilarious, given how the number 1 buzzword of people like you is OSR MEANS YOU CHOOSE.
Yes, as in you can choose to have a lineage. Not that you can just magically get the benefits without fitting the requirements.

You can't just choose to have every word and gift in the game along with an 18 in every stat, just because OSR is about choice. There's a difference between choice and contrarian dickishness.

>You trying to shoehorn it to mean that lineage HAS to be this is fucking retarded in light of that stance.
Do you know what a lineage is? Do you know that words have definitions?

Are you next going to bitch that you want to be a pureblood human-dwarf-elf-halfling-golem, and that anyone saying you can't is shoehorning?

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>>50594786
>>50594804

"Such gifts usually manifest young," but there is nothing saying that they could not manifest later.

Also, assigning attributes during Godbound's character creation falls into murky territory, because page 15 of the Godbound core rulebook shows that it is legal to reassign attributes after Words have been chosen. That would make it much more convenient when trying to qualify for one of the Five Families.

And even if, in the end, a character still fails to qualify for one of them, they can always settle for a minor lineage with a lesser gift sans surcharge.

>>50594861
Again you bring up that 18 stat strawman.

Fuck off.

>>50594892
>Also, assigning attributes during Godbound's character creation falls into murky territory, because page 15 of the Godbound core rulebook shows that it is legal to reassign attributes after Words have been chosen. That would make it much more convenient when trying to qualify for one of the Five Families.
True, but I would also argue that rearranging your attribute scores cannot disqualify you from other things your character has. If you had a 16 in an attribute which granted 18 with a passive word property, I doubt you could shift that 16 away for a lesser attribute while retaining the 18 final score. In that same vein, if you reshuffle your default attribute scores so the 16 is no longer present in your lineage attribute, you should likely also lose qualification for that attribute.

In other words, it is your assigned scores which determine lineage qualification, not final score.

>>50594893
>Again you bring up that 18 stat strawman.
Why, am I triggering you by taking away your choice to have all 18s? Or every race? Or every gift and word?

Is this the part where you swing your dick and scream about how I'm infringing on your choices, and that's not what OSR is about? That's what you did before, you might as well make it a repeat performance, eh?

>>50594963
>Strawmaning intensifies

Its fucking hilarious. It really, really is.

You stupid fucks kick up a storm, screaming and crying about white rooming and how he's doing everything wrong.

And then, the second, the LITERAL SECOND he starts to fiddle with the rules and offer suggestions for ideas outside of standard for DMs to consider? You turn around and start cunting up a storm about how YOU CAN'T DO THAT DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT, all the while making declarative statements about how it HAS to be interpreted.

All the while strawmaning like a fucktard.

Go shove your head a bit farther up your ass, maybe with a little more effort you can save yourself a trip to the dentist.

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>>50594963

https://plus.google.com/104126387857957102090/posts/AftsJTaGdhS

So far, Kevin Crawford has clarified that being in a lineage requires you to mention such in a Fact, but he has yet to clarify if the *entire* Fact has to be devoted to having the lineage, as opposed to a hypothetica Fact like "I am a Kalay knight of X order" that grants both the Kalay lineage and the abilities of X order.

With regards to order of qualification:
>2. It's irrelevant to me, as the kind of playstyle for which this is an important question isn't supported by Godbound.

>>50595028
>This butthurt
Maybe you need to take a break from the internet, as your temper tantrum is getting very bad.

Your mom is not going to be happy that you're getting this red-faced. It's not good for your blood pressure. And it's clear you can't handle conversation with grownups.

I've not said anything terrible about the other ADULT in this dialog. His opinion is his as is mine mine, and we're discussing the topic like adults. You need to go take some breathing exercises so you can rejoin this convo like a big boy.

>>50595032
>So far, Kevin Crawford has clarified that being in a lineage requires you to mention such in a Fact, but he has yet to clarify if the *entire* Fact has to be devoted to having the lineage, as opposed to a hypothetica Fact like "I am a Kalay knight of X order" that grants both the Kalay lineage and the abilities of X order.
My guess is the latter, since Facts are allowed to be very broad.But my guess is that it must be your origin Fact, since that's really about your birth and place of origin. Lineage is not something you can come to later in life (though you could theoretically discover you have a lineage that you didn't know about, it'd be hard to not notice the unnatural abilities you have from childhood).

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>>50595078

As for Kevin Crawford's say on "Can a Fact that declares a lineage be used for other purposes, such as knighthood abilities?", well, I would like to direct you to his rather dismissive and elitist answer here:

https://plus.google.com/104126387857957102090/posts/AftsJTaGdhS

Considering that he explicitly states in the core rulebook that a Fact devoted to low magic archmastery cannot be used for anything else, and that a Fact dedicated to an artifact similarly cannot be leveraged for anything else, I am unsure of why Kevin Crawford cannot give a clear-cut answer to "Can a Fact that declares a lineage be used for other purposes, such as knighthood abilities"?

>>50594892
>>50594680

I assume you missed the part where buying lesser Lineage talents costs half a Gift point? And buying greater talents costs a full Gift point?

Because that's kind of not "no surcharge."

That's kind of "a lot of surcharge." That's kind of a decision between "having an extra Lesser gift" and "having two Talents/one Greater Talent that isn't as good."

It's not power creep. It's an extra place to put your points if you happen to have spare and want to spend them for concept. It's no more power creep than "you can buy Mortal Talents," because that's really all it is - something you can already do, but better, in the Godbound manual. I'll grant that these are slightly better than regular Mortal Talents but I think it's silly to wail that they have "no surcharge" and are "power creep" when they have a heavy opportunity cost.

Unless by "no surcharge" you mean the absurdly vague basic abilities to see in the dark all the time. If you seriously think "darkvision" or "skip an attribute check for lifting couches and carrying coffins" is power creep I'm afraid I'm going to have to call you a crazy person.

But, like with everything else here, you're going to explain how I'm wrong by creatively interpreting the words differently, and I'm going to roll my eyes and go have fun with the damn game.

>>50595131
I wouldn't say Kevin's answer to you was either dismissive or elitist. He did his best to give you an answer, but it wasn't the answer you wanted. Throwing a fit about that isn't conducive. Honestly, it comes back to his core principles about OSR: It's not intended for the kind of mechanical rigor you seem to be demanding, and is intended to have a lot of individual GM spot-rulings.

>>50595131

No of course it couldn't be used to grab every single knight ability like a regular Fact dedicated to the Knighthood. It's not a Knighthood Fact. It's a Lineage Fact.

It could if it was at your table, maybe! And that's fine.

At my table I would require a Fact dedicated to you being a Kalay as your birth and a Fact dedicated to you being a knight as your order fact.

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>>50595146

I am speaking of the lesser gift that can be taken without a surcharge, not of the lineage talents.

Even minor lineages have this, which is what makes even minor lineages greatly beneficial to have.

>>50595160
>>50595198

It is rather strange that Kevin Crawford is fully willing to dictate things like, "If you dedicate a fact to [archmastery/an artifact], it cannot be used for anything else," but is completely unwilling to clarify something in the exact same vein.

By Kevin Crawford's own logic in this post of his, it should be up to the GM to decide whether or not a fact devoted to [archmastery/an artifact] can be used for other purposes... and yet that is clearly not the case in the core rulebook.

In other words, we will never know if a lineage is truly "free," and it will vary depending on the GM.

>>50595210

The Lesser Gifts require half a talent to buy.

From the book:
>Godbound heroes may purchase their characteristic talents, paying half a gift point each for the lesser talents and a full point for the greater. Optionally, they can buy one apposite lesser gift from an appropriate Word for one point.

It doesn't give you a free Gift. It doesn't give you a free Talent. It gives you a free shitty ability, and you can optionally buy a single Word vaguely appropriate for your concept for a single point.

You could already do that. You'd just have to justify it in your existing Words. It doesn't change the game balance at all.


>>50595210
I'm pretty sure literally every answer Kevin Crawford gives, ever, comes with the rider "at my table."

>>50595240
>By Kevin Crawford's own logic in this post of his, it should be up to the GM to decide whether or not a fact devoted to [archmastery/an artifact] can be used for other purposes... and yet that is clearly not the case in the core rulebook.
...Or you could accept that archmastery and artifacts are called out as specific exceptions because of their power and utility, and that everything else is intended as GM call. I mean, are you intentionally looking for the most obtuse explanations here? I get that you're an optimizer, but sweet cheese and crackers.

>>50595255

Er, the Lesser Gifts require a Gift Point to buy. Sorry, I changed trains of thought midway through.

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>>50595255

>It gives you a free shitty ability, and you can optionally buy a single Word vaguely appropriate for your concept for a single point.

This is the important part.

>You could already do that. You'd just have to justify it in your existing Words. It doesn't change the game balance at all.

I already address this here: >>50593309

>>50595271

That's not really fair to Collette. I mean, I don't agree with their viewpoint, but I don't think it's fair to act like they're doing something inherently wrong by trying to figure out where the line is drawn for the purpose of their own game. Their insights HAVE occasionally been useful, or drawn my attention to neat things I wouldn't've known about (but probably would've done the same way Crawford does them anyway, like Auspice of the Divine King pissing everybody else off - of course having your mind hijacked pisses you off after it wears off!).

It's not fair for us to get mad at Collette and not expect Collette to get mad back. C'mon.

And, man, don't throw optimizer around like it's a dirty word. Some people like doing that and still have fun with it. I do, in some games. Godbound just isn't that game for me.

>>50595289

You still have to go through the GM. It still says "appropriate Word." It doesn't say "you can randomly pick a Word and the GM can't do anything about it." It's still a GM call if the Gift is appropriate, you can at best submit it as a proposal.

Also, yeah, I guess there's no mechanical reason not to be a lineage, but there's no mechanical reason not to be a human in D&D, and people still play elves to fit concept. Not everybody wants to be transhuman. The rules are there to facilitate people who do.

>>50595311
I would say that Godbound just isn't that game, honestly. I just think getting mad at the designer for saying "You figure it out" when his entire philosophy has always pretty publicly been "You figure it out" is just not particularly worthwhile, especially for a game where stiff mechanical rigor isn't one of the underlying design principles.

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>>50595271

Lineages also have a noteworthy amount of power and utility, and yet how much "mechanical weight" they take up in a Fact's "mechnical carrying capacity" is completely unclear.

>>50595311

>of course having your mind hijacked pisses you off after it wears off

Godbound does not clarify what happens when a mental influence ability wears off.

I believe every RPG with mental influence abilities should be crystal-clear on what hapens when such abilities expire. Do they realize they were controlled? Do they realize they were acting unnaturally? Do they rationalize it under clouded judgment?

>>50595333

>You still have to go through the GM. It still says "appropriate Word."

And that is still much more flexible than justifying one gift under a different Word in a way that avoids the surcharge, especially considering that the surcharged version itself requires good justification.

>>50595363

If the designer's philosophy is "You figure it out," then the designer should not be dictating things such as "If you dedicate a Fact to [archmastery/an artifact], it cannot be used for anything else."

>>50595363

And as you can tell by my responses (I'm >>50595333
>>50595255
>>50595198
)

I agree with you. But I don't think it's fair to get mad at someone else trying to have fun with the game their own way, too, and I agree that there's value in knowing how Crawford does things even if I personally don't think the writer's table-calls and intent have meaning.

But I'm an English major so, like somebody else said earlier, I'm nose-deep in Death Of The Author.

>>50595390

>much more flexible

No it isn't. It's about the same degree of flexibility. I could justify to you why a Sky Gift could be bought through Fire, or I could justify to you why my Lineage can buy from Death or Health.

It is exactly the same degree of flexibility. It comes down to "what you believe."


>does not clarify what happens when mental influence wears off

You're right, it doesn't! I'll grant you that. I'd say that "especially vulnerable to the affronts of rebellion" (in the description of the spell itself) led me to the conclusion that of course they'd be pissed at you, but I'll grant you that you are correct!


>you figure it out

Once again, I'm pretty sure literally any answer Crawford gives has an implicit rider of "at my table" attached. 'If you dedicate a Fact to archmastery/an artifact, it cannot be used for anything else [at my table]." That's pretty publically been his stance.

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>>50595456

>It's about the same degree of flexibility. I could justify to you why a Sky Gift could be bought through Fire, or I could justify to you why my Lineage can buy from Death or Health.
According to page 12, you must explain this to the GM, and this would take the surcharge.

According to Kevin Crawford here, it is the GM's call on whether or not something warrants the surcharge:
https://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?773601-Sine-Nomine-Godbound-Staff-Pick&p=20378726#post20378726

In other words, the "reskin a gift under another Word" method must go through two "GM approval checkpoints," whereas the lineage gift method requires only one.

>I'd say that "especially vulnerable to the affronts of rebellion" (in the description of the spell itself)
That line specifically refers to the damage maximization.

>I'm pretty sure literally any answer Crawford gives has an implicit rider of "at my table" attached. 'If you dedicate a Fact to archmastery/an artifact, it cannot be used for anything else [at my table]."
That does not come from an online post. That comes from the core rulebook.

>>50595507
This is going to sound mean, but I promise you it isn't: do you actually play like that? I mean, do you actually have "GM checkpoints" where you have to stop at each stage and say "OK at this stage" and then "no at this stage"?

If a player sat down with me and said "I want to buy Rain of Lightning from Fire, but I want to fluff it as fire from the ground - do I have to pay extra for this?" I would just say "nah go ahead" or "no, Fire already has a similar Gift and I think you're trying to grab some extra means of dropping big AOEs all the time - you have to pay a surcharge."

Likewise, if someone brought a custom-designed Lineage explicitly for the purpose of buying a Gift outside their concept for obvious powergaming, I'd say "no, you're going to have to pay a surcharge." If someone bought a Gift of Strength from a Tilahaun lineage, I'd still say "no" if I thought they were just trying to squeeze extra power out of it.

You can say "that's just your calls" but, seriously - do you play like that? Do you require players to submit proposals at each step? Do you personally do that to your GM? I'm not being mean, I'm genuinely curious - I suspect that might be where some of this disconnect comes from.

>damage maximization
Yes. I was saying that the fluff there led me to believe that people breaking free would be pissed. I conceded you were right about that point already!

>comes from the core rulebook
That doesn't actually change that Crawford's core ethic is "you figure it out." The core rulebook is no more inviolable than he is.

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>>50595597

I like discussing games from a theoretical standpoint, speaking of character builds and optimization, and helping others piece together highly competent characters.

The more "GM approval checkpoints" a given option has to go through, the less it can be spoken of during such discussions.

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>>50595686

As well, both as a player and as a GM, I simply prefer to run everything as "by the book" as possible.

The less GM approval-based options that must be taken, the better.

>>50595686
>>50595714

That's completely fair! I was just curious, because "GM checkpoints" are something that I think most of us in /gbg/ would write off and ignore - like I said, I'd only consider that one "step" in the process.

Under that logic, you're right, there's no *mechanical* reason not to have a lineage except the score assignment, which I would personally say has to come before you get your Words.

I would also personally say a Lineage requires a Fact, just like an Artifact or Archmagistry, that does nothing except generate the ability to buy things from that Lineage. That seems to follow the logic the similar "fact/gifts outside your realm" operate on - if a Fact allows you to buy a huge and versatile swath of abilities or grants you access to a Gift, whether through your own flesh and blood or a magical item you have access to, it can only be used to do that.

So I guess I'd say the mechanical reason not to have a Lineage is that it requires you to set a natural 16 somewhere before Words and the dedication of a Fact specifically to "being that Lineage and thus being allowed to buy from that Lineage." That seems to follow all the patterns suggested by the rules.

>>50595765
>which I would personally say has to come before you get your Words.
Kevin says it's irrelevant bruh.

>>50595892

Yeah, as established before, I don't really care what Kevin Crawford says! You don't become a god before you get your stats. You're a person before you're a god. If you're a god before you're a person, you don't get a Lineage to begin with, because you were never flesh and blood.

You're welcome to care! I don't.

>>50595686
>>50595714
>The more "GM approval checkpoints" a given option has to go through, the less it can be spoken of during such discussions.
>The less GM approval-based options that must be taken, the better.
While I agree with this to a large extent (I grew up more on other game systems besides D&D), this isn't how OSR games are designed as a fundamental part of their concept.

In OSR, the GM is the primary game mechanic. The rules exist to help and facilitate them, not to be the first guideline. This is why the books constantly reference the fact that you only make rolls when its pertinent. Most of the time, you should just be conversing about what your characters do. The GM is expected to arbitrate most of the time, then consult the rules only when arbitration does not suffice.

I understand that this does not sit well with you, and you feel that the gaps within the game are a discrepancy. But for those who play these games, it is a feature and not a bug that the GM is the final judge of all character concepts.

>>50593628
It's old school If you can be killed by a mosquito?

>>50597684
Yes. Malaria is a bitch.