We were talking about his game Amazing Adventures a little bit ago. I had been reading through all of Brian Young's Mythology Codecies, also by Troll Lord, and it dawned on me that these can, and should, be used together. Because what you get when you do is American Gods.
Amazing Adventures has been reviewed here in the past, so no real need for me to go over it all again. I am going to consider the following books though for my American Gods game.
For the Codices, I have only reviewed the Celtic and Classic ones, but have them all.
The idea behind American Gods is that when folks came here from the "Old Country" they brought their gods with them. People in this world, and thus this game, are normal humans. So no spell casters and no psychics. I am including the Book of Powers for an odd sort every so often and to cover some of the powers of the Gods in America and some of the "normal humans".
The Codices all give us background. While the world has moved on the Gods haven't, or at least, not all of them and not every one of them the same way.
Where American Gods is a personal story of Shadow Moon, there are other stories that can be done. Take a page from Mage: The Ascension and have the agents of the New Gods fighting the followers of the Old Gods. These new followers could then be spellcasters or powered characters as they criss-cross the US battling each other and other forces. Throw in a bit of Chill or Supernatural in there for good measure. Maybe this war is also waking up all the old creatures so werewolves, vampires and others are also on the move once again.
Actually, this sounds exactly like the games from around 1999-2001 when "millennium anxiety" was creeping in everywhere.
The more I think about the more I like this idea of this game. While Amazing Adventures is overtly a "Pulp Action Game" there is nothing at all stopping you from using as a low-key (Loki??) supers in a modern supernatural setting. In fact, that is exactly what the Book of Powers is all about.
Hmmm.
Stealing another idea from Jason's blog and his Wasted Lands concepts, maybe the players could also BE the gods themselves. Now there is a fun idea.
This is worth developing much more. I'll need to reread the book, it's been a while, plus I should really finish Anansi Boys someday. I think I would also use Gaiman's "Lucifer" because that would be a lot of fun.
OH. And be on the lookout for the new Amazing Adventures 5th Edition, compatible with 5th Edition D&D!
Great idea, and this is really the kind of thing I always had in mind for AA. We're coming up on the 3rd printing, and it's going to be re-branded away from overt pulp to "multi-genre" play.
ReplyDeleteI read American Gods a long time ago (and a few times since) and it's never occurred to me that it would make an interesting RPG setting - until now.
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