9/10/2019 Part-Time Review of Part-Time Gods 2nd Edition – Sticky Bunton

Sticky Bunton

Part-Time Review of Part-Time Gods

2nd Edition
By Anthony “LibrariaNPC” DeMinico, 02 May 2018

It is no small secret that I am an avid fan of mythology. It’s also no secret that it’s my love of
mythology that got me into various franchises, like Fate and Scion. Therefore, it shouldn’t come
as a surprise that I dove headfirst into Part-Time Gods 2nd Edition as soon as it was brought to my
a ention.

While the final version still has some time before release and has a Kickstarter coming up (May
8th, to be exact!), the creator of the game was generous enough to send me an early copy of the
Quickstart so I could sink my teeth into it and see what is available in the world of Part-Time
Gods.

Disclaimer: This review is for an early access copy of a Quickstart of an unreleased game. There may be
changes between the copy reviewed here, the next Quickstart, and the officially finished product. All
opinions are made based on the copy on hand. All art utilized with permission of Eloy Lasanta.

==The Pitch==

Part-Time Gods weaves a tale of humans granted a spark of divinity and all of the perks that go
with it…as well as all of the problems. In this game, you create a god, knowing that you need to
balance your needs as a human with your expectations as a god, all while saving your city from
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invisible and encroaching dangers that would snuff out and feed upon your existence.

You are a guardian, a god, and someone who still works a job to keep afloat. Welcome to Part-
Time Gods.

==What You Get==

The Quickstart I was given consisted of 24 pages, half of which is designated to sample player
characters, two pages for a sample adventure, and one page for the Territory Grid, leaving nine
pages to cover rules and se ing information.

==How It Works==

The game is rather reminiscent of others, but still is a unique entity in the end. Follow me as I
try to break it down.

Mechanically, the game uses a standard d10 pool. You gather a number of d10s, roll them, and
any die that comes up as a 7 or higher counts as a success, with a 10 counting as two successes.
Anyone who has played World of Darkness or Scion will feel right at home.

That said, pu ing your dice pool together is a bit different. Instead of having a Stat/A ribute
and Skill, you are selecting two different Skills that are related to the task. Are you trying to
sneak over a tall wall? That’d be Athletics + Sneak. Are you trying to stay up all night to finish
coding a program? That’ll be Fortitude+Tech.

Of course, like most games, there are ways to modify your dice. There are a variable cornucopia
of ways to do so, such as by using temporary resources (Wealth, Spare Time, Fragments,
Pantheon Dice), using specific powers, or even just being in the right place.

Not in MY office!

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As characters are gods and gifted with the powers of such, they all have various abilities and
resources, such as Manifestations (powers), Blessings (bonuses), Curses (penalties that give you
resources when acted upon), Truths (things that are True and usually automatically happen),
Relics (powerful items), and Connections/Bonds (followers, places, etc). Each of these grant
specific benefits…but also specific costs.

==The Good==

Like Scion, the premise for Part-Time Gods has drawn my undivided a ention, and I knew I
needed this in my life. The sheer idea of being a human and having literal godly powers thrust
upon you (and not just a touch like in Scion) makes for fun stories, and Part-Time Gods handles
this in not just the se ing, but also the mechanics.

One of the biggest perks of Part-Time Gods is how fast it will be the grasp the mechanic. For
anyone who’s an old hand of the World of Darkness mechanic, this will come to you with ease,
and it is still easy to grasp for a newbie. My history of teaching games usually involves at least
one d10 system like WoD, solely because they are easy to teach and easy to use. With a simple
mechanic, Part-Time Gods begs to be used at cons and hacked into other projects.

Not sure if it’s a proper bar game, but it looks great for a con game!

While the core mechanic is simple, the other elements of the game make it rather elegant. There
are a number of resources available to players that are represented by physical objects (Wealth,
Free Time, and Pantheon Dice), which is a nice touch to make players realize what the resources

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are and what it means to lose them. These resources also act as a form of checks and balances,
and are literally the currency of the game, each having their own ways to modify the game
mechanics (like adding extra dice to a roll) and directly impacting the narration (like not having
enough Wealth to bribe the guard).

Additionally, a number of the other elements of the game, such as health, injuries, and rather
simple +/- dice mods make me feel as though Part-Time Gods does everything I loved about Scion
but in a simpler package. If anything, I’m feeling more like this has some of the be er elements
of Cortex, 2d20, Fate, and World of Darkness wrapped into one.

Like my reasoning for loving Evil Hat, I’m loving the conversations I’ve been having with Eloy
on Twi er and elsewhere. I have questions about the game in its current form, and he’s been
giving me answers and actual discourse on the topic. That alone is worth points in my book, and
I’m hoping that our discussions will make this an even be er product.

==The Bad==

In all honesty, my biggest gripe is that this is just a Quickstart and I don’t have the final book in
my hands (or on a tablet). This is thankfully going to change soon, as the Kickstarter has
officially been announced for May 8th!

From here, Part-Time Gods does have a few challenges for certain groups of players based on
what we have in the Quickstart.

One thing players may balk at is the sheer number of resources available and how they are all
used. Some resources that have physical representations (Pantheon Dice, Free Time, Wealth),
but other resources are on the player to track individually on their sheets (Fragments, Health,
Stress/Condition of Bonds, etc). While each of these elements blend into the experience and
create a form of checks and balances, there are some concerns about tracking how each resource
can be used (i.e. how Wealth and Free Time are utilized vs Pantheon Dice and Fragments), and
what it costs the player if you don’t have them.

For example, to move to new locations and end a Scene, players must use “Free Time”, but if
they do not have Free Time, they are presented with a problem from one of their Bonds (a
follower seeks an audience, a place of power is having issues, etc), and must either skip a scene,
undergo some type of complication, or pay another price in order to resolve it. It surely adds to
narrative, especially with the idea that you are playing a god with a human life, but some
players may not enjoy it.

For other types of groups, the theme of Part-Time Gods may be an issue, as it is focused on being
in one city. Anyone coming in from traditional World of Darkness, Dresden Files, or Blades in the
Dark will be at home with this sort of game, but others will find that the game is lacking due to
this focus. While Eloy has assured me that there will be notes to allow for travel, we won’t be
seeing American Gods level travel in this game, which may be a downside for some players.

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But there is something about saving your favorite spots in town from u er destruction…

==The Middle==

There is one part of Part-Time Gods that I am not entirely sold on just yet, and that’s the Territory
Grid.

The Territory Grid is a not-to-scale resource that represents the geographic location that the
party resides in. The map has marks to denote landmarks, places of power (which grant bonuses
to the PCs in that area), and will represent how much effort it will take to get to various
locations (in the shape of Free Time/Wealth resources).

While the idea is interesting, as it adds an abstract way to track the life and events of the city, it
felt a li le clunky as wri en in the Quickstart. Eloy was kind enough to send me a section of
notes about how it can be used (such as representing a county instead of a city, as well as some
live-play examples and generation notes), but I do feel I need to properly see this in action or see
the section of the book in its entirety before I can pass proper judgement.

As it stands, it feels like an odd cross of the territory mechanics we see in Blades in the Dark with
the Places and Faces we get when city building in The Dresden Files. There’s some great potential
here to track movement, activities, plot hooks, and add a sense of investment and scale for the
party, but it is an additional resource to track that could be a hassle.

==The Verdict==
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As this is a Quickstart, I cannot pass final judgement, but if you were to ask, I’d be leaning closer
to the 4 bun mark.

Part-Time Gods Second Edition has everything I love about stories involving humans gaining
godly powers, coming to terms with them, and managing their newfound godhood with their
munane, mortal lives. There’s a ton of potential here, and I am anxiously awaiting the launch of
the Kickstarter.

If you love games that involve the duality of human and deity, with a focus on storytelling these
elements while still being a “Big Damned Hero,” then you should absolutely be looking into
Part-Time Gods Second Edition. If this isn’t your bag and the mechanics don’t catch your eye, then
you may want to move along.

Part-Time Gods is created by Eloy Lasanta and published by Third Eye Games. Information and
links to purchase the first edition is available on the Third Eye Games website, you can check
out the Quickstart here, and the Kickstarter will go live on May 8th.

Anthony, be er known as LibrariaNPC, wears many hats: librarian, gamemaster, playtester, NPC, and
our Editor-In-Chief. You can support his work on Patreon, his tip jar, or via Ko-Fi.

05/02/2018
Readables

Gods, Indie RPG, Kickstarter, Mythology, Part-Time Gods, Quickstart, Roleplaying Games,
RPG, Scion, World of Darkness

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