Dungeons & Dragons vs Playing God
Compare Dungeons & Dragons and Playing God side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Dungeons & Dragons | Playing God | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Fantasy | Fantasy |
| Tags | Tactical, Heroic, Character Building, High-Fantasy, Classic Fantasy, Combat-Heavy, Exploration, Resource Management, Strong GM Support, CC-Licensed Rules | Collaborative, Diceless, GM-Less, High-Power, One-Shot Friendly, Roleplay-Heavy, Sandbox, Solo-Friendly, Superpowers, Worldbuilding |
| Core Mechanic | Roll a d20 and add applicable modifiers to meet or beat a target number. Checks and saving throws use a Difficulty Class; attacks use Armor Class. Advantage or disadvantage means rolling two d20s and keeping the higher or lower result. | Playing God uses no dice for its core resolution: players choose from the minor and major wonders allowed by their divine rank, and each wonder takes effect without a success roll. Devotion plus History determines divine rank, which expands the number and scale of wonders available each age. The optional Deck of Fate adds uncontrollable mortal events, while avatar battles use a separate card-hand procedure or another system chosen by the table. |
| Dice | d20 | Diceless |
| Complexity | High | Medium |
| Accessibility | Very High | Medium |
| Runnability | Very High | Low |
| License | Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (SRD 5.2.1); proprietary core books | ORC License |
| Third-Party Publishing | Commercial publishing allowed — Open license | Commercial publishing allowed — ORC License |
| Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing. | ||
| Cost | Free | $ |
| Publisher | Wizards of the Coast | Gnome Made Games |
| Year | 2024 | 2025 |
| Languages | English, French, Italian, German, Spanish | English |
| Best For | Groups who want heroic fantasy campaigns with tactical combat and extensive character customization. | Groups who want to create a shared mythology across ages, either as a standalone campaign or as a foundation for another RPG setting. It also suits solo players and GM-less tables that enjoy negotiating divine alliances and rivalries. |
| Highlights | Weapon Mastery adds effects such as pushing or slowing enemies to qualifying weapon attacks. Class and feat choices let characters develop different roles over twenty levels. Optional Bastions give characters home bases with facilities that produce benefits between adventures. | Each of the 23 domains grants a distinct wonder and modifier, making a god's portfolio mechanically consequential. Wonders permanently alter the shared multiverse, producing a usable mythic setting as play advances. Lower-ranked deities can pool their allotments to perform major wonders they could not enact alone. |
| Considerations | Spells and class abilities have separate resource limits and timing rules. Higher-level magic can change travel and encounter assumptions that the DM must prepare for. Social encounters rely on ability checks and DM judgments about NPC attitudes. | Play centers on choosing and narrating godly wonders, with little direct support for character-scale action. Avatar battles use a brief card-hand procedure or another game chosen by the table, so the core book does not model positional combat. The optional Deck of Fate can impose Devotion losses or dictate a deity's next wonder, trading player control for unpredictable mortal events. |