Jesus! The Board Game
A six player asymmetric game of the life and times of Jesus set in and around the Roman Empire played on a map based on the Orbis Habitabilis published by Pomponius Mela.
The game is neither pro- nor anti-Christian, it simply sets out the challenges of all participants at the time
The players and objectives:
- Jesus - wins by converting people to Christianity, and by heck he's good at it
- The Roman Empire - wins by keeping control of the Roman Empire. Doesn't care what religion they are, but unfortunately he is usually in conflict with Jesus because of the impact of Christianity on cohesion. Has powerful armies
- Non-Roman Empires - everyone else - want to seize parts of the Roman Empire, and will exploit the other players to help him do it
- Herod (or the Herodian dynasty) - the King of the Roman province of Judea. Needs to balance the Romans, against the non-Romans and Jesus. Tricky to play
- Satan - needs Christianity to fail and gets points for converting anyone to Satanism. Usually pitched against Jesus and God, but potentially can win with Jesus
- God - what a player, lots of power, needs to balance the old-testament style (playing cards for earthquakes, floods, plagues etc) against the New Testament style. Often an ally of Jesus, but that limits his power
A concept game only at the moment.
When is it set? Is it after Jesus's death or during his preaching? Just occurs to me that if it's the latter then his main adversaries are probably the Pharisees, the Essenes and the Zealots. Or should Jesus be an NPC, his actions determined by cards or something, almost like he's the "random events table" that the other players are having to take in account in their own struggle?
ReplyDeleteGood question!
ReplyDeleteI think while he is alive, but his "death" doesn't end the game, nor reduce his chances of winning!
I want it to be an epic, hence the Roman Empire and God as players
In the historical version the Roman Empire and Herod collaborate by killing Jesus, but it is Jesus and God that win
Could have gone the other way though, Herod and God could have teamed up to win, or Satan can play the Temptation card at the right time and team up with Jesus for the win...