[dungeoncrawl] Re: Deity mechanics
- From: Damon Kline <damon.kline@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "'dungeoncrawl@xxxxxxxxxxxxx'" <dungeoncrawl@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 15 Oct 2002 15:54:11 -0400
Guys,
I'm sorry that I haven't been able to jump into the discussion here, but
I've been pretty busy. Let me say a few things.
First, I definitely agree that we don't want to just take all of our
characters and make them deities. However, I do like the idea of having a
diverse pantheon. I see Shawn's point in that the Realms is really made up
of its core pantheon and then several other pantheons thrown into the mix.
It really is a mess. But if you just take the core group, like the one put
forth in the Faith's and Avatars book from 2nd edition, it's pretty cool, I
think. There are a bunch of different deities with different histories and
different portfolio's that really allow you to flesh out your character.
Instead of having your character worship someone based on their alignment
and be stuck with only 2 or 3 deities to choose from, you can worship based
on your personality and be able to find a deity more suited to your
character. I like that. So, perhaps there is room for more character
deities, although the core group that went through everything to get here
should be the ones to decide things and they should also be the "greater"
powers.
As Jim said, the characters that started this are the ones who get to be
deities initially, but if they want to flesh out the ranks a bit, it would
make sense that they would turn to other characters that they have spent
time with.
Now, having said that, I don't think we should give the Gods stats and then
perhaps play them at a later time. Once a character becomes a deity, they
are no longer "playable". With the exception of strictly role-playing
scenarios. Perhaps some time in the future the Riders pantheon will get
together to discuss how to proceed with a certain action, or perhaps one of
the Gods goes crazy and starts killing off other Gods and disciplinary
action needs to be taken. It would always be a role-playing thing where
stats wouldn't matter. Avatar's are a good way to go if we wanted to
interject them in a campaign based on the new world, but they shouldn't be
over used.
As far as whether the Gods are decided first or the planet is decided, I
suppose it could go either way, but here's how I envision it:
The group that was there last night, and are the first to go through the
portal and become deities, gets to decide how the world starts. As Jim
mentioned, they decide what type of world it is, at what level society is
at, what is the ratio of the different races, what races exist on the world,
all of the basics that give the world life. At that point, we'll have the
beginnings of a formed world, but one without a personality. It would be a
shell, filled with the different land masses, oceans, rivers, forests,
races, kingdoms, etc. but no portfolios. Then, once we have the shell, we
can figure out who is going to be in charge of what portfolio, who else they
want to invite in to become powers, what plane they will exist on, etc.
We also need to consider that it really isn't "us" creating the world, it is
our characters. Right now, dwarves are not represented among our
characters, so would there be dwarves on our new world? Maybe not. I don't
like the idea of not having dwarves there, but would the characters think to
put them there. Probably, but you never know.
Anyway, that's it for now...just some things to think about.
-----Original Message-----
From: Johnathan Detrick [mailto:jdetrick@xxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Tuesday, October 15, 2002 2:34 PM
To: Riders II
Subject: [dungeoncrawl] Deity mechanics
Guys,
For the moment, why don't we table the discussion of who might be a
deity. We can discuss that later. Right now I had some other questions
to throw out, relating to the game mechanics and how we are going to
handle the deities.
I have been spending as much time as I've had today looking at the
2nd edition Powers and Pantheons book, as well as the Deities and
Demigods book from 3rd edition. 2nd and 3rd edition treated deities is
drastically different ways, and we need to decide which way we prefer.
In Second Edition, deities had no stats. The prevailing wisdom was
that your characters shouldn't be dealing with a deity, as they were,
you know, gods, and a little out of the league of your typical
character. The gods would make appearances as avatars. Their avatars
were quite powerful in their own right, usually with very nice stats and
levels between 15-30. They had some kick butt magical items and were
quite formidable, but no where near the power of the gods in person.
Third edition still has avatars (and I believe they are around the
same power level), but they do give the gods themselves stats. Most
gods are 20 hit die outsiders, with between 30 and 50 character levels.
The gods have all kinds of special abilities and neat-o powers, and they
can crush the normal mortal without much thought. However, having stats
binds them in the game and does mean that they could battle opponents
from time to time.
So which one does everyone prefer? My first instinct is to go with
second edition. I don't believe that deities should have stats. I
think that they should be above that sort of thing.
However, for these characters, perhaps stats would be nice. Besides
the excitement of making your character between 30-50th level, it seems
like everyone would like to have the option of using them at a possible
future time. I'm not really for that, but I seem to have been
informally outvoted. :)
Let's see what everyone else thinks. Now I have to do some work.
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