Topic: A Question About Gods

[arakish]

It all simply depends on the world setting. If you have gods like the Christian/Muslim god, stats are pointless. Such a god is more powerful than anything, can do anything, and there's nothing anyone can do to prevent it. However, if your gods are more like the gods of Greek or Nordic mythology, having stats for gods makes sense. Such gods often mingled with the mortals, and could even be killed.

For gods like in Tolkiens "Middle Earth", I'd say having stats for Iluvatar is entirely pointless, while having stats for the Valar COULD make sense, in an extremely high-level, high-power setting. After all, an elf was able to inflict several serious wounds on Melkor the Morgoth, even though he was defeated in the end.

So how you describe your gods, should depend on what you want your gods to be. But that's pretty obvious, don't you think?

Ultimately, this is the truest statement.

rmfr

[Maldraedior]

Even in fantasy settings I tend to try to keep a scientific approach to things. I do not like the concept of omni-potent beings, so I always have some form of stats for ever being, even gods.
True, some of the gods are incredibly powerful and virtually impossible to even scratch by players, but in order to fit into a gaming system, like RM, I feel the need to keep things within the limits of the rules. A lvl 500+ entity with various overpowered inate abilities perhaps, but they would still have stats.
Will players ever meet those entities ? Highly doubtful. They would usuallt meet an avatar, but in the rare occasion that they face the real deal, they would not stand a chance.
Having said this, I also have gods that are way lower level. I even have a god that's only lvl 20. His powers are not as crazy as some of the bigger guys but his influence is plenty for him to do what is needed, and the players will never meet him face to face anyways so the level not really important.

The main problem with giving stats to everything is that everything is "killable". Without stats you can do whatever you like but once you give them stats people have a chance, so it all comes down to whether or not you want that. And there's a difference between not having stats, and just not having them written down yet

[Cory Magel]

Short explanation of the "gods" in my little world (which typically is going to be irrelevant); The gods were, at one time, good old standard examples of the various races.  They simply became powerful enough to 'elevate' themselves to 'godhood'.  As you can imagine stats are useful and possibly even required depending on how far the player characters go. In almost all cases of divine contact you are either confronted with one of their servants or maybe a full on Avatar if something really extraordinary is going on.  Still, the possibility of needing to pull out a 'character sheet' for them does exist however remote.  But other peoples "gods" may be explained in a completely different manner (i.e. the Christian/Muslim concept).

[Kristen Mork]

The gods in my game that is just starting will certainly have stats ... they're the PCs!

[Thom @ ICE]

Please share more - sounds interesting.

[Kristen Mork]

During the first phase, they create characters that advance at 5x the normal rate, i.e., a level 1 god is roughly equivalent to a level 5 character.  However, gods also get 100 Talent Points to spend however they see fit (with no flaws).  I find Talent Law a bit broken (in terms of balance), but it's golden for gods!  They also get 100 points to allocate to their portfolio.  They can make a maneuver within their portfolio and, if the result is 101+, they can effect any changes they want relative to some aspect of their portfolio.  I've seen gods create no-magic deserts just to kill off a few pesky insurrectionists.

I then lay down an overall timeline and the gods sponsor cultures within each era (based largely on those in ... And a Ten Foot Pole, although continuing into future times).  Across the ages, each god has an avatar that keeps the same basic build, despite being reborn repeatedly.  These avatars are the heroes that inspire and sponsor future PCs.

Finally, we have a world complete with cultures and major NPCs for the regular (mundane) PCs.

[arakish]

During the first phase, they create characters that advance at 5x the normal rate, i.e., a level 1 god is roughly equivalent to a level 5 character.  However, gods also get 100 Talent Points to spend however they see fit (with no flaws).  I find Talent Law a bit broken (in terms of balance), but it's golden for gods!  They also get 100 points to allocate to their portfolio.  They can make a maneuver within their portfolio and, if the result is 101+, they can effect any changes they want relative to some aspect of their portfolio.  I've seen gods create no-magic deserts just to kill off a few pesky insurrectionists.

I then lay down an overall timeline and the gods sponsor cultures within each era (based largely on those in ... And a Ten Foot Pole, although continuing into future times).  Across the ages, each god has an avatar that keeps the same basic build, despite being reborn repeatedly.  These avatars are the heroes that inspire and sponsor future PCs.

Finally, we have a world complete with cultures and major NPCs for the regular (mundane) PCs.

Please tell more.

Kewl.

rmfr