Help Playtest a Tabletop Game About a Cold War Between Heaven, Hell, and Humanity

[SilentScope001]

The setting is basically space opera without aliens. Humans live on dozens of worlds ruled by the Economic Hegemony of Authorities—a loose collection of nations and planets. The Hegemony is in a cold war with two universes that might be Heaven and Hell. Angels and devils wanted humans to join their side in war against the other, but the secular Hegemony choose neutrality. After a brief three-way war, all sides signed the Treaty of Pavonis Station that agrees humanity shall remain neutral.

 

Players take roles as enforcers: a cross between police and military who investigate angels and devils in our universe--and their human allies--who want to sway Authorities (nations, planets, etc.) into seceding from the Hegemony and joining the war. Your job is to enforce the Treaty and keep the Hegemony neutral.

 

Complicating things is the new power of prayer. Ever since gateways to the other universes opened, prayer and faith of the truly faithful began to have obvious, measurable effects in reality. No government wants their citizens being able to change reality through prayer, so the Hegemony passed the Reality Protection Act, commonly called the Anti-Church Act, that made all religion and worship illegal. (The Pope is an incredibly powerful, mystical person—and one of the Hegemony’s Most Wanted.) Not everyone has these powers; only a minority of the population.

 

A quantum based internet-like system called the Weave allows people to pull items out of nowhere. There are limits on the number/size of items pulled from the Weave—you pay credits to ‘buy’ stuff. Also, everyone’s consciousness is backed up on the Weave and, if you die, your body is pulled from the Weave right where you died and your consciousness is downloaded into the new body.

 

Alright. WJ McGuffin is a friend of a friend, and he made this tabletop game that seems quite interesting. Players play as "Enforcers", the secret police of the Hegemony, and solve "cases". There are three classes the Players can belong to, Hell, Heaven, and Hegemony, and subclasses as well (Heaven's subclasses are religions, Hell's subclasses are Sins, and Hegemony's subclasses are careers). Players can advance in all three classes, and can be hypocrites, which seems also nice. Another thing is that Players have an effect on the game world, and can change the alignment of the places they are currently in.

 

Overall, the Players get to decide if they want to support Heaven, Hell or Hegemony (or all three) and change the fate of the world. Other players may have different agendas though, so you have to be careful. And since alignment to Heaven or Hell is treasonous, you may need to keep your true intentions to yourself.

 

If you are interested in playing, please post your MSN here so that I can add you. I need to think of a time when we can carry out the playtest, hand out the character sheets, and the rulebook, but I really would like to test it. I know there has been some debate on religion here, so this game could easily act as a way to have fun while exploring some deep issues.

[mur'phon]

This seems quite interesting, count me inn.

Please PM any email addresses. Posting them publicly tends to invite spambots. Thank you! --Jae

[SilentScope001]

Well, the playtest ended a long time ago, and it was a success, as in, we found how the system works and we found some flaws (as expected) that are being fixed.

 

I might as well post the link to the discussion thread about the game to keep your hopes up and let you learn more about H3. Maybe I might later run a game with LF people...

 

http://www.paranoia-live.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5409

 

Here's a playtest link as well:

http://www.gmftp.paranoia-live.net/Silent/H3_Playtest.html

[mur'phon]

thank you