How important are gods?

[Halaster Blackcloak]

Well, according to Gygax in the 1E Dieties & Demigods book:

Dieties & Demigods is an indispensible part of the whole of AD&D. Do not fall into the error of regarding it as a supplement. It is integral to Dungeon Mastering a true AD&D campaign.

I'd agree. Clearly, the only rulebooks needed to play are the PHB and DMG. But the 2 Monster Manuals and Dieties & Demigods are really a part of the whole picture, from how I see it. I never looked at it as a supplement at all, but rather part of the core rules.

What do the rest of you think?

[Mira]

Monster Manual is part of the main rules IMO, just because you're having to do an awful lot of work if you don't use it. But I have to disagree on the Dieties and Demigods book, I'm not sure that you NEED it. A campaign can be built with a home-brewed religion in place and function just fine I think, there aren't a lot of rules in DDG that help the game function. I don't think it's important to 'stat' the gods or define their powers, IMO they are supposed to be mysterious and all their followers will attribute all sorts of things to them.

That being said, I really liked the Powers and Pantheons book when it came out with all the specialty priests (it was designed for FR, but the concepts they came out with could be used anywhere) which made it a much more 'useful' book.

Of course, I do have to say that I'd read a lot of Greek mythology long before I'd even heard of D&D as well as other books that dealt with some of the other pantheons in DDG. So the flavor part of some of the pantheons I knew better than was expressed in the book

Mira (If someone has a mid-life crisis while playing hide and seek, does he automatically lose because he can't find himself?)

[Varl]

I'm with Mira on the deity triad of books for the FR. Outstanding resources those, and to a slightly lesser degree, the Deities and Demigods book too. They're definitely core rulebooks to me, as they help me define my priesthoods.

[Halaster Blackcloak]

I'm with both of you on most of those points. I think DDG is essential not because of the gods themselves (because as Mira points out, you can use homebrew gods just as well), but because it gives the DM lots of material to work with for priesthoods. I liked the FR pantheon books as well. I only have one of them though, still gotta get my hands on the other two.

I also agree that the gods don't need stats. I've always found that absurd. If a mortal can attain a 25 INT, then a greater god would have an INT score in the range of 100,000,000!

I've always wished though that the major demon lords and arch-devils had gotten their fair space in DDG (not the MM). Orcus, Demogorgon, Asmodeus, Mephistopheles, etc. They really should have been in DDG.

[Beowulf]

IMOHO Gods are absolutely essential to fleshing out a believable campaign world. I just don't get the "suspension of disbelief" when I'm told my cleric "just prays to The Powers, the details aren't important." When creating a new campaign setting, I create the pantheon of deities right after or just before I create the overall world map outline!

But aside from drawing inspiration from it, I have no use for the DDG manual. I always create gods from scratch. It makes zero sense for me to have a unique campaign world with it's own languages, races & cultures only to have them worship Zeus or Chtulu! At a minimum I think it's important to disguise your borrowing if borrow you must. Change the name, a few attributes, etc.

A unique and well thought out pantheon of gods is one of the things that separates an average campaign from a truly great one.

[Halaster Blackcloak]

That's a good point you bring up, Beowulf, about using established pantheons in a unique homebrew campaign.

For me, it's always been a major PITA to come up with interesting new pantheons though. My players can marvel over serving Odin or Zeus because they grew up reading mythology, and those gods are familiar and exciting. But ask them to have their characters worship Terron, the god of storms and disasters, or Ankylus the god of war, and they just shrug. They really don't mean all that much precisely because they're newly invented gods that they have no background to work from, no familiarity.

I think that is one of the most challenging aspect of campaign design...creating exciting new pantheons and gods that actually inspire and excite players. It's hard, because real world mythology (and thus the DDG book) provides us with such awesome, exciting, and interesting pantheons.

[Beowulf]

The neat thing is when the players get to know your campaign world well enough that your deities start to "come alive" for them. Sure, at first they're just funny names, but as they begin to interact with the world your players start to think of them as characters. In my last campaign, the god of pestilence & disease was at the root of lots of trouble, as was the god of war. The clerics of both gods were fairly unique, from their granted/special powers to the unusual clothing they wore. It really added a lot to the game, IMO, and the players thought so, too.

It creates a bit of "pride" for the players that they're involved in something special, not just some cookie-cutter Forgotten Realms game or generic fantasy quasi-Earth with ancient human religions. Our game wasn't just like everyone elses...or at least that's how they felt.

Yeah, it took a bit of work, to be sure. And if I get a new group going thru the same old campaign world I'll probably tweak the gods a bit to reflect the fact that my influences have changed and my philosophies have evolved since the 80's and 90's.

[Beowulf]

For me, it's always been a major PITA to come up with interesting new pantheons though. My players can marvel over serving Odin or Zeus because they grew up reading mythology, and those gods are familiar and exciting. But ask them to have their characters worship Terron, the god of storms and disasters, or Ankylus the god of war, and they just shrug. They really don't mean all that much precisely because they're newly invented gods that they have no background to work from, no familiarity.

That familiarity can also be a detriment to a game. Thanks to pop culture those names can carry a lot of baggage. Take Zeus for instance- thanks to the very popular Kevin Sorbo Hercules show, many people will think of the Greek gods in a way you may not have intended. Now I will admit that I really liked that show [ ] but I don't want my gods to be that "campy."

Besides, if you bring in other gods from mythology you're allowing others to define them for you. And what if one of your players majored in Literature or is an expert in Classical History? They may well know far more than you do about Apollo or Dyonisis- how will you respond if they attempt to "correct" your take on divine behavior?

[Halaster Blackcloak]

Beowulf wrote:

Besides, if you bring in other gods from mythology you're allowing others to define them for you. And what if one of your players majored in Literature or is an expert in Classical History? They may well know far more than you do about Apollo or Dyonisis- how will you respond if they attempt to "correct" your take on divine behavior?

I don't think I'm in much danger of that happening!

But seriously, that is a good point, that some players may be more well-read than even the DM when it comes to mythology. Not sure how that would work itself out. While I've never run into that problem myself, I can see it getting sticky for people when it does come up.

Don't get me wrong though. I do like the idea of an original pantheon myself. Sure, it does take work, but as you said, there's a lot of fun and pride involved once it evolves into familiarity. I still think it can be a lot of fun though, interacting with gods from one's favorite real-world mythologies.

[Unther]

I think the importance of the gods depends on the setting...

Take Raymond E. Feists Magician: the gods are bit names in the fluff, but it is still a recognisable, and playable, campaign setting.

David Eddings has created worlds where the Gods play an important role, but they are still usable settings. He goes in for the mysterious and powerful gods, who depend on their followers for power...

Another extreme is Stephen Eriksons Malazan Tales of the Fallen series: Gods are a part and parcel of the story, but they are certainly vulnerable to a sufficiently powerful immortal.

All of these would be uasble and enjoyable settings, all with very different takes on the importance and relevance of divinity...

And I don't agree with Hals comments about Greater Gods having int 100,000,000: This is pretty much omniscience in game terms, and you can only have one omniscient being in a setting. Even the greater gods should be foolable for a sufficiently lucky and intelligent mortal!

[Beowulf]

I certainly agree that with some settings you really have to use the "known" gods. For instance, it would unthinkable to run a Dragonlance campaign without Paladine & Tahkisis (unless you run it in the later Age of Mortals, of course). Likewise, a game set in the Hyperborean Age of Conan would pretty much have to have Crom. And it would be pointless to run a Call of Cthulu game without The Big C!

Personally I could see how a one-shot or short series "guest starring" old Greek or Roman deities could be pretty cool. There's lots of ways they could be worked in- a strange portal is opened to another plane and Voila! Zeus steps thru. Or the PCs could be whisked away to ancient Earth. That could get pretty interesting; would magic work there, and if so would all the magic weilding PCs be hunted down as witches?

[Halaster Blackcloak]

Unther wrote:

And I don't agree with Hals comments about Greater Gods having int 100,000,000: This is pretty much omniscience in game terms, and you can only have one omniscient being in a setting. Even the greater gods should be foolable for a sufficiently lucky and intelligent mortal!

I may have gone a little overboard with the hyperbole on that one!

But even a lesser god would have far, far greater knowledge than any mortal would. Even in the Dieties & Demigods book, it lists as standard divine abilities the power to comprehend, read, and write all languages and true seeing at will. In Legends & Lore, it specifically lists all greater gods as being truly omniscient, and intermediate and lesser gods with something short of omniscience, but definitely far beyond any comprehension of mortals.

I've never been a big fan of mortals being able to fool gods. I know some people like that, and can base it on Greek mythology and others, where mortals sometimes messed with the god. But I never liked that idea even in mythology!

[Unther]

In Legends & Lore, it specifically lists all greater gods as being truly omniscient, and intermediate and lesser gods with something short of omniscience, but definitely far beyond any comprehension of mortals.

There are all sorts of problems with this, specifically the idea that you can have more than one omniscient entity in the setting. For a very quick reason why, an omniscient entity would know how to keep a secret from another omniscient entity, which means one of them can NOT be omniscient!

Once the gods are not omniscient, they can make mistakes, and once they can make mistakes, a mortal who is sufficiently lucky or intelligent, may be able to outwit them. This does not mean that any given mortal has even an ice-creams chance in hell of actually outwitting a god, but it is possible.

I've never been a big fan of mortals being able to fool gods. I know some people like that, and can base it on Greek mythology and others, where mortals sometimes messed with the god. But I never liked that idea even in mythology!

That is a matter of taste, personally, I prefer my gods to be powerful but fallible, somewhat like the ancient pantheons.

[Mira]

I guess the idea I go with is similar to Eddings (surprisingly, since he's an author I don't care for in general), on my world, the gods' power is dependent on their worshipers. And a god can only be 'killed' by destroying all of it's worshipers. (subsequently, a god CAN be reborn just by having a believer)

One thing I did kind of like in FR (yes, I know, blasphemy) was the concept of tiers, there was the 'overgod' Ao, but it was also hinted at that there was a layer above that as well. I think if I were designing my world all over again, I'd probably use that, so that while the gods the mortals worshiped could be 'killed', there would be the 'gods' that those gods worshiped still there, so it would take an awful lot to change things for very long.

I have had fun with the concept of gods being reborn, I got one of my players to help with the rebirth of one. His PC started worshiping that god and worked at spreading that worship, even though he wasn't playing a priest

Mira (What the large print giveth, the small print taketh away)

[McDeath]

Some Gods or near godlike beings I'd like to see rise from the dead are:

Moander the Darkbringer
Maram of the Great Spear
Haask, Voice of Hargut
Borem of the Lake of Boiling Mud
Camnod the Unseen
Tyranthraxus the Flamed One

[Halaster Blackcloak]

Unther wrote:

There are all sorts of problems with this, specifically the idea that you can have more than one omniscient entity in the setting. For a very quick reason why, an omniscient entity would know how to keep a secret from another omniscient entity, which means one of them can NOT be omniscient!

Good point! Yeah, that would make it impossible, now that you mention it.

I guess I'd make the gods in my campaigns omniscient to most things, specifically to mortal doings, but not privy to other gods' business (ie gods of the same stature).

Once the gods are not omniscient, they can make mistakes, and once they can make mistakes, a mortal who is sufficiently lucky or intelligent, may be able to outwit them. This does not mean that any given mortal has even an ice-creams chance in hell of actually outwitting a god, but it is possible.

Well, I could maybe see Halaster messing with a god's mind, but other than that...

That is a matter of taste, personally, I prefer my gods to be powerful but fallible, somewhat like the ancient pantheons.

Now that you brought all that up, it does make me think. It'd be really hard to have any sort of pantheon with the gods being truly omniscient. It would by default forgo any possibility of godly rivalry or secret dealings and power grabs, etc.

[Halaster Blackcloak]

Mira wrote:

One thing I did kind of like in FR (yes, I know, blasphemy) was the concept of tiers, there was the 'overgod' Ao, but it was also hinted at that there was a layer above that as well. I think if I were designing my world all over again, I'd probably use that, so that while the gods the mortals worshiped could be 'killed', there would be the 'gods' that those gods worshiped still there, so it would take an awful lot to change things for very long.

I have to admit that I did like that idea at first. But then it started to feel just like more power escalation as the FR are so famous for. I mean, it starts to get like the comic books (especially Marvel) where the "gods" (ie cosmic powers) such as Eternity, Death, Galactus, and the Living Tribunal were then trumped by one uber-power after another, until I lost track of all the silly escalation (Beyonder, Thanos/Infinity Gauntlet, etc).

I kinda hate to think there's an Ao over all the greater gods, then an even greater god/gods over Ao, then...etc. There's gotta be a limit at some point. I guess one level up (Ao) wasn't that bad, but when they started talking about something/someone above Ao, I was like "here we go again!".

[Beowulf]

I don't really like the idea of fantasy gods being omnipotent or omniscient. I guess I also come down on the Greek and Roman side where the deities had some flaws & ideosyncrasies. While I do accept the notion that they're far smarter and wiser than mortals, they probably have some of the same failings as mortals.

At any rate, without delving into philosophy or theology to deeply, what use are mortals to a god & his or her plans if the gods are omnipotent? In my campagns, the gods, while immensely powerful. have some limitations. And their power on the Prime Plane is particularly limited.

That said, it's not a great stretch to say that a god may be omnicient with respect to mortals and their plans, perhaps even their thoughts. But lots of great fiction involves mortal heroes being hunted by evil gods, so there probably should be some limits to a gods ability to know what's happening on the Prime Plane.

[Halaster Blackcloak]

Beowulf wrote:

I don't really like the idea of fantasy gods being omnipotent or omniscient.

I'll take omnipotent over omniscient.

At any rate, without delving into philosophy or theology to deeply, what use are mortals to a god & his or her plans if the gods are omnipotent?

Another good point!

I never cared for the idea of gods being dependant upon mortals for power though. The whole thing where if they lose followers, they get weaker. I've always leaned towards the gods wanting/needing their followers/worshippers simply because of their vanity or the desire to see their interests endorsed and furthered by mortals.

That said, it's not a great stretch to say that a god may be omnicient with respect to mortals and their plans, perhaps even their thoughts. But lots of great fiction involves mortal heroes being hunted by evil gods, so there probably should be some limits to a gods ability to know what's happening on the Prime Plane.

It's always fun to have gods mad at player characters!

[Beowulf]

I didn't mean gods powers depended on mortals so much as gods need mortals to be their agents on the Prime Material. All the sources back to Mentzer say the gods' powers are limited here, so they rely on their followers.

Still, I'm intrigued by gods powers being tied to "mana," or the faith of worshippers. I don't use it explicitly in my world but it makes some thematic sense. I don't see a god "evaporating" due to lack of worship but I do see a lot of worshippers strengthening a god. This is widely supported in fiction from sources from Peirze Anthony (sp?) to Robert E. Howard.

[Mira]

I like the idea of the gods being dependent on their worshipers, as it explains why they are in conflict with each other through them. If they can get their worshipers to wipe out someone else's worshipers, then they managed to weaken or even destroy a rival.

In general, the gods on my world don't tamper directly with mortals though, they may influence a few, but don't take a direct role. So mostly it's a philosophical thing and not a real game influencing thing.

Mira (A conscience is what hurts when all your other parts feel so good)