I like the idea of the game, I think the idea would fit nicely in a game like hazordhu II, to the extent of just implementing a god system in that game. As a suggestion to create gods, I think these things would be helpful:

- God types, so you would have gods of destruction, who keep trolls in line for example. Gods of prosperity, gods of creation, etc. You could also have a God god, one that would keep the other gods in line to not go over board with their interfering.

- When you pray to a god, you would pray to a player as a type of god you see fit (Pray to X player as the god of destruction). As their worship increases in a certain category, they gain new powers.

- Punishment for atheists, as the game would be based on gods, atheism would be punished in some form. By not worshiping anyone by the next cycle the player could be weakened slightly during the next cycle (could be stacked 2~3 times). This is to avoid non-voting and removing all gods.

There's still a bit of an issue to deal with when it comes to trolls, because if you have a player with a bunch of friends playing who constantly vote him as god, unless you have a large amount of players against him, he'll be able to stay as a god and do what he wants.

If gods were to bless some players and not others, they would need a way to easily find out who's a worshiper and who's not. And I didn't really think most of them would even do personal favors, more like blessing a land space that's doing poorly. Anyways it was just a suggestion to get people to actually pray to gods, because if there isn't any voting, no one will become god.

Wow, go to a friend's for the night and the thread explodes.

On voting, there is no voting. The players don't "vote" for one god or another, they worship them, potentially make sacrifices to them, pray to them, spend time out of their game day supplying power to their god. The more devout they are, the more time and energy they put into their god, the stronger that god becomes. This could potentially result in a widely popular god supported by lazy people being overpowered by a less popular god supported by devoted followers.

On the subject of "types of gods/gods vs demons", the game is more about giving the gods the power to do whatever they want, but tethering them to what they can get away with without alienating/losing followers. Forcing someone to be a god of X would be counter to that rather significant function of the game, as it would FORCE them to do what the people want, rather than simply punishing them for not doing so. I have roughly the same issue with the gods/demons idea, it separates the players and tries to FORCE them into one category or the other, which goes against the theme of action/consequence.

Atheists, well, since there is no inherent bonus as of right now simply for worshiping a god, there should be no inherent penalty for not doing so. The benefit of worshiping a god is that you have them on your side, and to an extent, have some small amount of influence in what they do.

On karma, the world is entirely player made, so karma wouldn't have much use, as there would be little to no automated/npc interactions with the world. Worshiping one god would, by default, put you at odds with someone worshiping another god. What is right/wrong is to be decided entirely by the player base, so forcing it one way or another based upon my or someone else's viewpoints would be counterproductive to achieving the intended environment of free choice.

@Yusuke13, I don't think I'll need help on it, but I'll definitely keep your offer in mind. Always nice to have someone willing to help out.

@Complex Robot, I think that form of moderation is inherently flawed for standard RPGs/MUDs because there would be a wide variation in how people believed that the rules should be carried out, eventually arriving at the inevitable "10 moderators that have widely varying ideas about enforcing the rules" issue that seems so prevalent on BYOND already. There is also the issue of favoritism, offering not to punish certain people or to protect them in exchange for their support.

On a note unrelated to responding, I also considered the idea of pantheons, once a god reaches a certain level of power, they can offer to take another god into their pantheon, effectively combining the two gods' followers into one group. The gods would each gain a percentage of the belief equal to the percentage of total power of the entire pantheon that they provide at the time of joining. More simply put, a god with 80 power accepting a god with 20 power into his new pantheon would result in god1 receiving 80% of the total power, and god2 receiving 20%, until another god is accepted and the total is recalculated.

It seems a lot of people posting/suggesting things didn't really grasp the main concept of the game, which is the choice to do whatever you want, but being confronted with legitimate consequences for doing so(as opposed to BS consequences like in most modern good/evil choose your alignment games). I suppose that's probably as much my fault as anyone else's for not explaining it as well as I could have. Glad to see people are interested though.

Ideally, prayer would require traveling to whatever shrine/temple is around, spending some time doing something there(cleaning, chores, etc), or just praying at the altar for a moment(for a very small boost in power). Obviously, these things would have strict limitations on how often you can do them. Once or twice per real life hour seems about appropriate, as most people can't stay on all day to get 24 prayers in every day, which would be the closest to spamming you could get under that system.

Or perhaps you collect points for being active in the game and "deposit" them at the altar, with significant bonuses(percentage based, perhaps) for offering sacrifices and the like. This would prevent people simply spamming the altar, as they wouldn't be doing anything of value within the game world to earn said points.

Mortals will be able to construct buildings by gathering the appropriate materials and using them to create walls/floors/etc.

I intend for the world to start out as more or less a blank slate, a natural world without human structures or interference. The players would be tasked with building their own civilizations, providing for themselves, and developing their small hamlets into thriving towns and cities inhabited by the mortals who created it(and potentially NPCs, that part is debatable as of right now).

The players would of course be expected to build the temples/shrines of their chosen god. What better way to show dedication than building a place of worship?

Player created worlds have always been my "thing", it's something I enjoy doing, and is a large aspect in most of the games I have worked, or am working, on. I feel that these types of games are especially suited to roleplays, due to their highly customizable and constantly evolving nature. You /could/ have an RP server for a game like NEStalgia, but it would be severely limited in that you are restricted specifically to the content and the world that it provides. If you can create your own world and your own content, based around a set of rules/physics, you have the potential for a much more fulfilling roleplay, if only because you had a part in creating it, because you helped build the world that your character lives in.

Ummm... How is this relevant? Did you even read the post? Not to mention the fact that most of your response made no sense at all.

Lugia319 wrote:

Your GM system has a flaw in that if GMs do their job and make everyone angry that they're actually following the rules, they lose the power they were properly following.

I'm not 100% sure that should automatically be assumed. It would highly depend on the community, but if a community feels that Player A was being disruptive and annoying, and GM B feels the same way and boots him, really only Player A (and his tiny bandit of trolls) would mind it.

On the other hand, people also believe charisma equals leadership, so the whole thing might just go to shit because of that.