Godbound General - Ancalia book released 2 weeks early edition

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.

>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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

So they are basically the demons/devils of godbound?

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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?

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

This. I like this.

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.

>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.

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.

Be excellent to everyone.

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.

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.

>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.

>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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

>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.

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.

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."

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.

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?

youtube.com/watch?v=i9D2mvoMKLE

>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?

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.

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.

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.

youtube.com/watch?v=AoXxuae8wIU

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.

>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.)

>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.

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.

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: plus.google.com/109542481433257987536/posts/ZNvUefB8gEA
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.

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.

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.

How inclusive is Godbound for the LBGTQ community and other non-binary people?

What about their use of pronouns? I find many RPG are rather close minded and ignorant of these things.

Would my group feel comfortable playing this game?

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.

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

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.

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

Sorry to confuse you, but the LGBTQ community actually play these types of games too.

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.

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.

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.

I'll pass on this then, clearly the player interested in this game and the developers are not interested in the LGBTQ communities money.

I'll wait for the new Scion

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

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.

>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:
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:
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.

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.

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.

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": 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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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:
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:
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:
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.

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.

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.