What is a way in which I could create this kind of experience

Everyone is Odysseus

This would be an ideal situation for Maid.

>>53375110

every challenge is opposing god's chess move.

>>53376016
But for real though. Each player is a mortal avatar of a particular god, trying to recruit the Master/GM character as their champion or try to recruit him to a particular destiny. They have to operate in disguise though, as the Master will immediately spurn anyone he knows is divine.

>>53376316
How would keep the GM away from knowing who is the avatar?

>>53375897
Great way for Odysseus to have a totally confused personality.

>>53376025
What do you mean?

>>53376692
>playing gods trying to guide and protect a hero on a quest and interjecting new challenges

good gods - gives you quest givers, hints, allies etc. - in a way they guide you
gods that oppose you - every opposition is their "chess move"

>>53376674
the same way any PC can lie to an NPC presumably

>>53376674
The GM would have to play as the target mortal. They would have to make Sense Motive checks or whatever the equivalent is in Maid. The GM would need to pretend they don't know that the characters they encounter are PCs.

You could also randomly assign goals or attributes to each player in a way that the GM can't see, so you don't know exactly what each player's goals are.

>>53376316
Maid is always awesome, but in this case I think it fails to deliver the feel op was striving for. It's more of a large scale perspective, where each god makes stuff happen far beyond what any mortal "within" the world could possibly comprehend. Of course, that sounds more like a strategy wargame at first, but I hope we can get it to work as an rpg.

>>53375110
Maybe have a deck of cards with different challenges and boons the players can give the hero's party (perhaps consisting of combat encounters and/or skill checks) in turn sequence

>>53378619
That sounds excellent but it seems like the narrative would be motivated purely by challenges and boons then. You'd need a way to speak of what the hero is doing outside of your influence on the hero.

>>53378604
You play as the heroes in this, however.