Too Many Gods
One of my personal beefs is that there are too many gods. Every race has a dozen of gods, with overlapping spheres of influence (the human have a dozen gods of theft, the dwarves have a neutral one and a good one, the elves have one, as so the orcs and halfings etc.) which makes for a crowded completion. Even using Gary's generous suggestion of each 1000 worshipers is a hit point ( I be more inclined to make it 10,000 or a 100,000 for only go to church on Sunday worshipers) on a given plane that is a lot of worshipers dealing with theft (say a very low 100 hit points for a god, then that's a 100,000 worshipers times the number of gods of theft or at least 2 million at least go to church once in a while thief worshipers), Now a plane/shpere is a big place and there may be several planets /worlds in one plane but you know, I bet there end up with a bunch of new gods . . .
The one thing I like about the original forgotten realms and "the known world" was that the gods where few, and that they where just called by different names and worshiped differently from place to place. For example, Hermes in the Forgotten Realms is actually Mask. Some gods, because they where "new" had not yet adopted a local manifestation like Tyr. the god of justice whose origin from other planes could be seen do to his Norse nature. As an aside does anyone remember which avatar is what god in the forgotten realms? Then in D&D know world, there where only a certain number of Gods per sphere so a few hundred gods total, bu each god would take up a different "aspect" or avatar in each region. So while to peoples may thing they worship two different gods of evil (and fight each other over it) they are in fact worshiping the same god. Anyway, I think this is an under used concept that the "gods" have may names. I use this in Greyhawk for the Lawful (good) gods of Pholtus who are worshiped in the Banklunish lands under a different name and are treated by each as a rival god, in much the same way as the Crusaders./ middle East worshiped the same god but did not realize it.
One of my personal beefs is that there are too many gods. Every race has a dozen of gods, with overlapping spheres of influence (the human have a dozen gods of theft, the dwarves have a neutral one and a good one, the elves have one, as so the orcs and halfings etc.) which makes for a crowded completion. Even using Gary's generous suggestion of each 1000 worshipers is a hit point ( I be more inclined to make it 10,000 or a 100,000 for only go to church on Sunday worshipers) on a given plane that is a lot of worshipers dealing with theft (say a very low 100 hit points for a god, then that's a 100,000 worshipers times the number of gods of theft or at least 2 million at least go to church once in a while thief worshipers), Now a plane/shpere is a big place and there may be several planets /worlds in one plane but you know, I bet there end up with a bunch of new gods . . .
The one thing I like about the original forgotten realms and "the known world" was that the gods where few, and that they where just called by different names and worshiped differently from place to place. For example, Hermes in the Forgotten Realms is actually Mask. Some gods, because they where "new" had not yet adopted a local manifestation like Tyr. the god of justice whose origin from other planes could be seen do to his Norse nature. As an aside does anyone remember which avatar is what god in the forgotten realms? Then in D&D know world, there where only a certain number of Gods per sphere so a few hundred gods total, bu each god would take up a different "aspect" or avatar in each region. So while to peoples may thing they worship two different gods of evil (and fight each other over it) they are in fact worshiping the same god. Anyway, I think this is an under used concept that the "gods" have may names. I use this in Greyhawk for the Lawful (good) gods of Pholtus who are worshiped in the Banklunish lands under a different name and are treated by each as a rival god, in much the same way as the Crusaders./ middle East worshiped the same god but did not realize it.
The battlle
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The more the merrier, especially lesser gods
and demi-gods as their cults and unknown temples are going to crop up
all over my game world. Some will be known by players and PC's, others
will not and will require research or investigation. As far as who the
PC's worship? Tends not to matter much except for... clerics (but not
druids) and perhaps paladins and rangers. Druids don't need a specific
deity. They worship "Nature" if nothing else. Nature doesn't have to
be an actual deity as such in order to be a spirit or supernatural force
to be reckoned with and which a PC can draw upon for power or
manipulate. Paladins and rangers don't need defined deities to be who
they are supposed to be. If one of the two needs a specific deity then
it'd be a paladin in order to justify those clerical spells they
eventually get.
Clerics... Well, clerics can go through very long campaigns without needing to have a deity whose agenda they are actively pushing (and back in the Auld Dayes that was especially true since our group didn't HAVE much in the way of detailed deity information to routinely draw upon until DDG came along. Our game worlds were heavily scratch-built and there were no rules requiring clerics to pick a deity. Oh, we still did have all PC's pick some deity but it meant far less in routine play than, say, alignment. Even for clerics. Only later did it start to sink in that clerics were much more interesting and unique if they DID actually have a more particular religious goal governing their actions and for roleplaying purposes that could be as important as their alignment. However, even that realization didn't lead to much change in cleric behavior until we started to institute changes to clerical abilities based on their chosen deity, and that still took some time. For example, when 2E came along with its specialty clerics many players STILL opted to play "generic" clerics whose choice of deity (or lack thereof) made no real difference.
Clerics... Well, clerics can go through very long campaigns without needing to have a deity whose agenda they are actively pushing (and back in the Auld Dayes that was especially true since our group didn't HAVE much in the way of detailed deity information to routinely draw upon until DDG came along. Our game worlds were heavily scratch-built and there were no rules requiring clerics to pick a deity. Oh, we still did have all PC's pick some deity but it meant far less in routine play than, say, alignment. Even for clerics. Only later did it start to sink in that clerics were much more interesting and unique if they DID actually have a more particular religious goal governing their actions and for roleplaying purposes that could be as important as their alignment. However, even that realization didn't lead to much change in cleric behavior until we started to institute changes to clerical abilities based on their chosen deity, and that still took some time. For example, when 2E came along with its specialty clerics many players STILL opted to play "generic" clerics whose choice of deity (or lack thereof) made no real difference.
I like many gods. It mimics real world. Exactly
how you treat the gods and religion makes a big difference in what a
good number of gods is going to be. If you want all powerful beings
that have complete control over (or are) their sphere of influence, then
fewer is better. If they're just a collection of powerful beings that
mortals worship, then go ahead an have as many as you want - one group's
deity is another group's demon, and powerful heroes can fight a cult's
demigod and put an end to the cult once and for all (at least until the
god reforms on it's home plane...). History, myth and legend are full
of different angles on gods, from unfathomable beings representing the
forces of nature beyond the ability of man to influence to more
humanized (but powerful) beings that interact with mortals and can be
influenced, tricked, defeated, or otherwise bested by powerful mortals.
What you use in your game is all just a matter of preference.
It depends on the campaign, of course, but in one where the gods directly interact with mortals, yes they can.
Corathon wrote:
Does it matter if there are few gods with many faces, or many gods? Can mortals even tell?
It depends on the campaign, of course, but in one where the gods directly interact with mortals, yes they can.
Zalman wrote:
I
always got the impression that each person in the world worshiped not
one deity, but many -- a different deity for each occasion or purpose. A
single peasant might thus support a dozen, or even a score of deities.
Exactly.
In most polytheistic cultures, even if you have a patron deity, you
still recognize the rest of the pantheon - it would be foolish not to.
Even priests of a specific deity venerate the rest of the pantheon.
That's why I wouldn't use any rule mechanic that directly equates deity
hp with # of worshipers or anything like that like the OP mentions._________________
"There is no price worth not being greedy for." - Macket the Magnificent
MY FAVORITE RESPONSE
Assuming that there are around 13 million humans*
in the game milieu on a North American sized continent (as a census
Greyhawk '83 reveals, about 3 times the population of England in A.D.
1300; demi-humans number less than 200k) and that the game world and
other worlds (including the real world) do not form a connected space,
and assuming that there is one God per alignment (there are around 60
deities in Greyhawk '83, although for my own purposes I treat these as
intermediaries (angels, demons, demigods or whatever), not Gods), and
assuming that there are no atheists (or assuming as I do that atheists
and pagans/polytheists are subsumed by Neutrality since monotheism and
the concept of good/evil are co-emergent phenomena), then there are
1,444,444 million worshippers per God. If 1 out of 100 inhabitants of
the game world are levelled characters, then there are 14,444 levelled
characters for each God. Since 20% of these are clerics (DMG, p. 35),
then there are 2,888 clerics per God. Guessing that 1 out 100 of these
are clerics who can cast 6th and 7th level spells, then there are 28
clerics in direct contact with their deity. These clerics then should be
on a first name basis with God. When they say, we're on a mission from God,
they mean it. This suggests that Gods will be personally involved in
the day to day activities of their top-level clerics and they will not
be as busy as "switchboard operators" as DDG suggests; on the contrary, if they were real people, then they'd be having a weekly lunch with their top-level clerics to discuss business, or popping in on a weekly basis as per Xena: Warrior Princess.
In my own case I skew the numbers in favour of Lawful Good and Chaotic Evil, with the remainder scattered between these two opposites, as these are the traditional mediaeval conceptions of "good" and "evil".
Most inhabitants of the game world believe that their deity is all powerful and the creator of the universe, and their deity tends to believe this as well, although this is obviously not the case since all deities are emergent from the human psyche, except Nature which is emergent from the biosphere. As to how many worshippers it takes to grant their deity 1 hit point, I take it as a given that any significant body of worshippers that includes at least one 16th level cleric can generate a 400 hit point monster from their psyche, and to make management of the game reasonable and to follow the structure of the game rules I conclude that 9 such entities have emerged and are capable of granting spells to their worshippers.
*(if population density is moved closer to the real world, then one runs into the problem of rapid technological advancement, of which dense mediaeval cities are the engines, while a sparse population tends to be stable, conservative and resistant to change; in fact in my own campaign the powers that be are hostile toward technology and view it as a corrupting influence, thus PCs who attempt to introduce change will get no traction.)
In my own case I skew the numbers in favour of Lawful Good and Chaotic Evil, with the remainder scattered between these two opposites, as these are the traditional mediaeval conceptions of "good" and "evil".
Most inhabitants of the game world believe that their deity is all powerful and the creator of the universe, and their deity tends to believe this as well, although this is obviously not the case since all deities are emergent from the human psyche, except Nature which is emergent from the biosphere. As to how many worshippers it takes to grant their deity 1 hit point, I take it as a given that any significant body of worshippers that includes at least one 16th level cleric can generate a 400 hit point monster from their psyche, and to make management of the game reasonable and to follow the structure of the game rules I conclude that 9 such entities have emerged and are capable of granting spells to their worshippers.
*(if population density is moved closer to the real world, then one runs into the problem of rapid technological advancement, of which dense mediaeval cities are the engines, while a sparse population tends to be stable, conservative and resistant to change; in fact in my own campaign the powers that be are hostile toward technology and view it as a corrupting influence, thus PCs who attempt to introduce change will get no traction.)
Last edited by sjansd on Sat Oct 04, 2014 8:24 pm, edited 6 times in total.
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