Pantheon (role-playing game)
Pantheon and other Roleplaying Games is a 24-page book that includes five self-contained role-playing games for 3-6 players and designed to be completed in 1–2 hours.
Cover of Pantheon, cover art by Frazer Irving | |
Designer(s) | Robin Laws |
---|---|
Publisher(s) | Hogshead Publishing |
Publication date | 2000 |
System(s) | Narrative Cage Match |
History
Pantheon and Other Roleplaying Games (2000), by Robin Laws, was published by Hogshead Publishing as one of their New Style role-playing games.[1]
System
Pantheon and Other Roleplaying Games included a total of five different competitive storytelling games – or five different scenarios, as they all use the same "Narrative Cage Match TM" system.[1] In these games players have characters with which they engage in storytelling. On his turn, a player tells one sentence of a story, during which he must mention his character. Players can challenge sentences using a combination of die-rolling and bidding. When everyone has run out of bidding tokens, players wrap up the story and then see who earned points based on a score sheet.[1]
Pantheon introduced a system called Narrative Cage Match (NCM) that differs from traditional role-playing game systems in that there is no referee or gamemaster. Players control a character that co-operates and competes with other characters to try to steer the course of the story so that their character finishes in a better position than all the others. Players influence the narrative outcomes of the games they are playing using a bidding mechanism that uses beads and traditional six-sided dice.
Games
Pantheon includes 5 games called:
- Grave and Watery - Action and horror in an undersea base.
- Boardroom Blitz - Players battle for control of a family megacorporation.
- The Big Hole - Modern-day gangsters in a tale of crime, revenge and blackmail.
- Destroy all Buildings - Giant monsters ravage Tokyo.
- Pantheon - Create the universe.
New Style
Pantheon was one in a series of experimental/alternative role-playing games published by Hogshead Publishing. Other games in the series included the award-nominated The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Münchhausen, Violence, and Puppetland/Powerkill.
References
- Shannon Appelcline (2011). Designers & Dragons. Mongoose Publishing. p. 306. ISBN 978-1-907702-58-7.