Your Game

God Marked has a lot of lore, and was built with that in Mind. I keep to the lore in my games because well I made it but now it’s your game do what you wish that is the most important part make your story your way!

Making a Story

This is just some tips on how I make my games if you feel you need some help. 

Overarching Goal: It’s good when starting a game to give an idea on what the Overarching goal is going to be, this goal can change as the game goes on but this will be helpful for you to stay on course and for your players when making a character.

First Page Boom: Start your game with something happen, a ship crashing, a special call to order. Either something to show how important this journey is like talking to a king to start the game or something your players have to react to right away like a crashing ship. 

Get to Know the characters: Give the players a chance to introduce their characters during the first game you should try to find ways to show the player characters strengths, key skills, and their weakness, the flaws they have. 

Arcs: I try to break my games into arcs small goals or changes in the story that the players need to fix soon. An arc should end with a small conclusion and start with a new change. I use this as a way to also determine when my players should level up and let them know how many arcs I expect the game to be.

Dark Pit: Usually durning half way through your game there should be a Dark Pit, a major lose your players have to deal with this should be the lowest point the game gets bring to head a lot of the characters conflicts and give them a chance to crawl out better

The End: I ask my players before the last arc what legacy do they want their characters to leave depending on how the finale battle goes will determine how much of that legacy comes to life. Win or Lose your players should have left some impact on the world.

A Collaborative narrative

This is a collaborative game and the most important thing to remember as the Light Bringer you're not providing a service, you’re having fun with your friends. So it’s important to have a good understanding of what your game is going to be about, discuss with the players how much roleplaying, Fighting, Chases, Travel and Puzzles there are going to be. Different people like different things more than others and its good to know how much of these four things are going to happen so your players can make characters that can benefit from this. 

Also discusses what the journal story of the Epic will be the same way you’re helping them tell their characters story the players should help you tell your story too! 

Give some wiggle room, in epics I run I usually have a group of enemies so that the players can make their own to add to the story. One game I had an Order of Titans so the players got to make their own Boss enemies in another I had a group of assassins so the players got to make their own character enemies, even letting them make rivals can be fun and let the players help take off some of the load.

Role Playing

Every character you players run into is an NPC and will be played by you its important to think about how these characters interact with the world. Each npc will be different levels of importance, you don’t need a long backstory for every single one but having a list of names and personalities can be helpful to making up characters on the fly. 

All characters have goals, but in most stories side characters are there to either support or cause roadblocks in the main characters plans or in this case your players. 

Roleplaying never ends, even when you are doing Combat, Chases or Puzzles. Roleplay shouldn’t end, characters should always still be characters no matter what they are doing. 

NPCs don’t know what the Lightbringer dose, the way you don’t want your players using knowledge they have out of game to avoid plot hooks or things their character would do you shouldn’t have all the NPCs act as if they know everything you do. 

Fights

Fights & Combat are a big part of God Marked. I tend to at least have one fight a game, but depending on whats happening you might want more or less. It’s important though to keep fights interesting. Something different should be happening with each of your combat encounters. It should never be the same enemies in the same place with the same goals. 

Making Enemies

Enemies are an important part of the game, there are a few different categories to go over on how to build. Each category of enemies can benefit from having the other around.  When making enemies remember flavour is your friend, there is a lot of Spell, Powers, Weapons, Manoeuvres & Perks in this document its not just for players. Use it mix them together flavour them differently to make new exciting guys for your players to fight its all for you too!  If you combine powers a good rule of thumb is to add the cost together.  

Minion Enemies

Minion Enemies are the weakest enemies around, they have two purposes: making the players feel strong and to take up actions to protect whoever they’re the Minion of. A minion enemy has no health; they die on any hit given to them; they also don’t have any Skills. What a Minion does get is any special movement and one attack whether it be spell or weapon. Basic enemies, Grunt Enemies and even if you want to a Boss enemy could pop up later as a Minion enemy. Alternatively a Minion enemy could be part of a better enemies attack. 

When putting in Minion enemies to a fight, have as many as double your players actions. When running a Minion enemy they always do indirect hits, unless someone has defense in that case they do 0 damage. You don’t have to roll for the Minions. 

HP: 0
Size: < 1
Actions: 1
Skills: 0
Runes: 0
Maneuvers: 0
Powers: 0
Perks: 0

Basic Enemies

Basic Enemies are easy opponents your players might come up against, they're good for easy fights. A basic Enemies of equal level to your player should have half the health & up to half the skill points. Basic Enemies tend to not have much attacks, getting a basic spell & or a weapon the weapons can have special properties. With Perks a basic enemy might be lucky to get even one, but when it comes to their Movement they could be able to fly, swim or climb without a needed Perk or Spell. 

Basic Enemies get 1 action based on what they can do. In making an medium encounter of all Basic enemies  have as many Basic enemies as actions the players can take. If a group of Basic enemies is using the Same action just roll an attack & damage roll once for all of them. 

HP: half the level
Size: < 1
Actions: 1
Skills: Half the level
Runes: 0
Maneuvers: 0
Powers: 0
Perks: 1~

Grunt Enemies

Grunt Enemies tend to be the leaders of the ones lower then it, a bigger version of a Basic enemy that is tougher. The Grunt Enemy would have Health, and Skills equal to a character of their equal level. A Grunt enemy though might be lucky to have half the amount of Perks as the Players do. Grunt Enemies are lucky to get half the Charges/Lumens or Stamina from those Skills. As well lucky to get half the amount of Spells/Powers or Manoeuvres too. Grunt enemies tend to get one really special one to do to stand out again from the Basic enemies. 

Great for making NPCs that might be better than the average person. 

Grunt Enemies have the same amount of Actions as a player character, they may also use weapon properties and are the first enemies to be using Stamina, Charades, Runes & even Lumens

HP: Equal the level
Size: Any
Actions: 3
Skills: Equal to level
Runes: Half to Skill
Maneuvers: Half to Skill
Powers: Half to Skill
Perks: Half the level

Character Enemies 

Character enemies are what your players will be building a lot they are just like a player character. The average build Character Enemie can Fight onevone vs the same level Player Character. When your players make these kinds of enemies they don’t have to be enemies but also NPCs it’s important to think should they be Weaker (Lower Level) Stronger (Higher Level) or Equal (Same Level). A weaker Character will always tend to be lower level then the players maybe not even level up at all depending, a Stronger one should be Higher level, maybe they also level up as the players do or are a strength the players wish to reach. An equal character should level up with the players. 

Once given a Character enemy by your player when you level them up it’s up to you how much influence that player still gets with that character enemy based on how the game goes. These characters can also get Awakenings either already for an extra Perk or happen in game counts on what happens. 

Boss Enemies 

Boss Enemies are special tending to come around at the end of an Arc, Boss enemies get all the stuff a normal player gets at Equal + More. They have double the health of a player at equal level, while their skills are x1.5. This makes it so Boss enemies are hitting direct hits, but not all the time and have fair defense against any spells a player might throw at them. 

One Boss enemy could be an equal fight for four players, they do only tend to have 3 actions, but are great when paried up with Minions, Basic & Grunts who can help even out the action economy. 

HP: Twice the level
Size: Any
Actions: 3
Skills: 1.5 x the level
Runes: Equal to Skill
Maneuvers: Equal to Skill
Powers: Equal to Skill
Perks: Equal the level

Titan Enemies

Titan enemies tend to be the Big Bads, you might fight one or two in a whole Epic. They are meant to be spectacles. A Titan Enemy might get double the Skills of a player of equal level and nearly 4x times the health. A Titan should be a Hard fight for about four players of equal level. When doubling the Skills for high level Titans they can’t gain a roll bounce of +150 but they can gain additional Resources such as more health for having a small modifer of 20 in Endurance AC etc. 

Titan enemies also tend to get special actions at the top of a round, this can be to summon enemies, use an attack or spell effect. Nothing game breaking but something to scare your players every round it stops to kill this thing. Another Special Action is their charge up attack, choose a power and allow them to use that power with 10 Lumens poured into it without taking away from their Resources. Every round after using this choose a dice, when you roll the highest number on that dice they’ll be able to do it again. 

For Actions you can give your Titan 3 actions. 

Phases are another important things with Titan fights, Titans should be longer then normal battles, but that can get stall a good way to mix things up is to have the Titan evolve through the fight seemingly getting & changing the battle map as the fight goes. 

HP: Four times the level
Size: Any
Actions: 3
Skills: Twice the level
Runes: Equal to Skill
Maneuvers: Equal to Skill
Powers: Equal to Skill
Perks: Equal to level

The Map 

The map is important to combat, the map should add advantages and disadvantages to the players and enemies while they battle. The map should never just feel like a flat empty surface the the battle is happening on. 

Cover is important to place within the map anything that sticks out of the ground or even holes can help and be used as cover 

Slowing environments, some maps will have places in them that are harder to mvoe through. This can be twisting vines on the ground or packed shopping carts that you can’t just run straight through. 

Map effects. Not always but everynow and again give your map an effect an action the map takes at the start of the rounds. Some examples I’ve used are boxes on a ship that move from side to side, changing the cover on the ship and pushing people if they hit them. Map effects could be anything that neither team has control of. 

The Goal 

In most cases the goal in Combat is to defeat the opponent, but this shouldn’t always be the case other goals help Combat be more interesting and allow for more strategy then just hit the guy to death. 

Some goals I’ve had have been, needing to open a door, needing to keep the enemy in one spot a few rounds, needing to escape, needing to grab an artfact etc. second goals or even having puzzles durning your combat can really spice things up. 

Travel 

Not all games take place in one place, travel is likely to happen eventually throughout your game. With travelling you should have a good balance of encounters and time skips. 

Depending on the game you are running will depend on what kinds of encounters you will want but it’s good to break them down. The best way I pace it is having one encounter a day. 

Encounters can be Safe Spaces, Fights, Puzzles, Role Playing or chases. 

Randomness is encouraged but having planned encounters can be good for setting rewards or traps for your players as they travel. Even if you go with random every encounter should push the story. Attacked by bandits, maybe they have a map to help get to their destination easier. 

When travelling getting a safe rest can be hard to accomplish, so rewarding your players every now and again with a safe space can have them have a nice rest. 

Weather

Extreme Weather effects can cause problems for the players as they travel, slowing down the travel. 

Use your own discretion on what the weather might do, or even what conditions the weather might cause while being in it. 

One thing Extreme Weather dose especially Heat or Cold, is cause plenty dies to your rest. Every rest you have in an Extreme Weather environment you roll a plenty die of a d10. Starting with one plenty die, then gaining another every time the party continues to rest in these extreme weathers. These dies count as negatives towards your players pool of what they regain. 

Environmental Conditions

Sometimes the environment will also cause conditions to the players these conditions are commonly, obscured and slowed. The environment causing a condition is different from a magical effect and tends to be unable to be prevented from abilities such as purify light as the condition is constantly being replaced on entety’s within it.

The dark is a common environmental condition that can come from it being night, little light, snow, rain or ash. The dark makes it easier for people to hide and causes the obscured condition naturally. With you only being able to comfortably see within your range. If two dark effects happen at once you gain the heavily obscured condition.

Exploring 

Every now and again the players might find themselves in a dungeon, a base, a temple or something else to explore. When in these areas it’s good to have the players do a bit of ‘turn based’ mode. 

This makes sure they don’t start running through everything, and gives them a chance to take each part one step at a time. It also makes it easy to transition into Combat if you have any enemies patrolling.

Another important aspect of Exploring is no matter where your players are, no matter what scene they are in their should be something they can do or find, try to have secretes laid around everywhere or clues. Something for when the players ask to look around they can find. Try not to have your players in a scene where they do nothing but be talked at.

Roll Averages

My favorite tool on how to balance this game Before starting to write an arc or game the first thing I do is get everyone's Roll Averages. I use this to help balance the game and come up with rolls on the fly. Here is an example of a level 4 game roll averages with 4 players.

PAC: 15
LAC: 13
MAC: 10

PH: +4
LH: +2
MH: +3

Acrobatics: 15

Agility: 14

Arcana: 12

Athletics: 13

Endurance: 12

Diplomacy: 11

Medicine: 13

Mind: 13

Perception: 14

Stealth: 15

Let's start with the PAC, LAC, & MAC. These are for enemies you might have to make up on the fly and are related to the Players Martial, Divine & Magic scores. What I do is I add together all the characters Martial large number then divide by the amount of players their are to get the PAC (While some Martial attacks can do Light or even Mental attacks these are rare occasions and I don’t factor them into the average) For LAC do all the characters  Divine & Magic then divide by the double the amount of players. Finally for MAC do only the Divine & Magic for characters able to Mental attacks divide by that double amount of players. After you have these numbers just add 10 to them to so now players with low Special Skills will hit less while characters with high Special Skills will direct hit more likely. 

The Light, Physical & Mental attack Modifiers are done by using the characters PAC, LAC & MAC. While when making enemies it’s good to have actual Martial, Divine and Magic attacks fleshed out when doing a quick encounter it’s good to just know what they’re adding to fight against the Armour. You take the respective Armour of every character - the base 10 of course then divide by the amount of players. You now should have the number you need so that players with high AC are direct hitted less likely then ones with low. 

Finally now the Skills for the skills are used for the rolls people need to succeed to do something, I use these for situations I have on the fly, but they shouldn’t always be used as of course an established rock shouldn’t suddenly get harder to pick up as the players level up. You take every characters Modifier for that Skill then divide by the number of players and add 10 to that.

For rolls that you will allow to be helped with you should take the Skills bounces so the number of the Skill check -10. Then times that number by the amount of players you have then add 10 back to it. For example an Athletics roll  I would allow players to help with would be 22. This is so the help action dosen’t just let your players body through rolls don’t do this with rolls you don’t allow people to help with