Topic: A Question About Gods

[arakish]

While doing my write up on the Gods of Onaviu, one of my SF players saw it and read the paper while I was away from the table.  There was a time I would have been retributive with a player for doing this.  However, after 37 years of RPGing, I have mellowed and now tend to say, "Whatever."  Besides, he may not play in the Fantasy part of my omniverse.

He asked me what the stats were for the gods.  My reply, "They don't have any."  Then he asked, "Why not?"

I was about to say, "Then they wouldn't be gods."  Instead I replied, "Let me get back to you on that."  I did not do any thinking on it until just about an hour ago.  Below is some of my logic.  My request, pick apart my 10-minute brainstorm.  Also, give me some of your ideas as to why gods would not have stats.

Definitions

God = a being or object believed to have supernatural attributes and power.

And the keyword from above, supernatural = of or relating to an order of existence beyond what is usual or normal so as to transcend the laws of nature.

If I were to create stats for the gods, they would no longer be supernatural entitities.  They would actually be natural, albeit very powerful, beings along with all the other mortal beings who inhabit the world.  Gods are supposed to inhabit a realm outside the normal world, but they do have the capacity to come into this realm.  And when in this realm, I feel they are still beyond what is normal and transcend that which is in the mortal realm.  Thus, there are no stats for the gods.

I also feel that mortals cannot destroy a god's form when s/he is in the mortal realm.  Yes, you may be able to harm/destroy his/her corporeal form, but the god can simply reform another after a time.  Additionally, I feel that a god could chose to stay entirely ethereal, thus cannot be harmed by mortals, yet still can affect the mortal realm.

This, IMHO, is what essentially makes a god, a god.

Thanks for your input.

rmfr

[GrumpyOldFart]

God = a being or object believed to have supernatural attributes and power.

Precisely. It's like asking why you don't have stats for universes. Go into the Total Perspective Vortex

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_in_The_Hitchhiker%27s_Guide_to_the_Galaxy#Total_Perspective_Vortex

and really get that "microscopic dot on a microscopic dot" perspective to where you're comfortable with it. Got it? Okay, that's a universe's perspective of its place in God.

 

Tell him there are things that can't be reduced to a stat block, and yet still exist.

 

[providence13]

Even if they have stats, it could just be an Avatar, Hero or some other physical form of the deity.
Gods don't need stats. IMHO, all they require is a relationship among the other deities in the pantheon.

We could say that there is Preternatural magic, Supernatural magic and Entital magic.
Preternatural is all of the natural forms of magic; Spell Lists, natural phenomenon, crystals, Herbs etc.  This uses magic within the bounds of reality. Dark Matter, Dark Energy, Zero Point/Vacuum Energy, Essence, Mentallism and even Channeling.

Supernatural is the magic of Spirits, Demons, Elementals, Unicorns and even creatures with magic abilities (but not necessarily Spell Lists).

Entital could begin at Preternatural's 50th lvl Spells. Gods are able to access this energy. It will always be more powerful that the others and always make the RR vs other lesser forms. Being able to tap Entital Power could preclude having stats.

[OLF, i.e. Olf Le Fol]

It depends on what you call "stats". For instance, if I take one of my gods, say, Chadlyn, defined as "Chadlyn is the Prince ruling over moral perversion; are associated to him the acts of temptation, corruption and perversion." His stats would be:

Level: infinite (though there are different levels of infinity),

Constitution: unimaginable,
Agility: limitless,
Self-discipline: depending on the day,
Memory: limited to anything that has ever happened, is happening, will ever happen, never happened, can happen, cannot happen, can be imagined and cannot be conceived,
Reasoning: unhuman,
Strength: as much as he wants,
Speed: over lightspeed,
Presence: divine,
Empathy: as much as he cares,
Intuition: incredible.

See? He has stats! 

[intothatdarkness]

The only time my world's gods have stats is if they take on a "human" form (the whole avatar-type thing). They're obviously quite high (baseline of 150 or so), but I've also toyed with putting more vulnerable versions out there as tests.

[Old Man]

If you want stats, you could always grab a copy of Lords of Middle Earth Volume 1 and use Manwe, etc. 500th level or so ....

[arakish]

Thanks guys.  This will give me something to add to my logic.

Thanks.

rmfr

[rdanhenry]

Are you planning on having your players come face-to-face with a god? If not, why would you worry about stats anyway? There are games where it would be appropriate for PCs to encounter, fight with, or even defeat a god (Greek Mythology based play, for example), but in the vast majority of games, the issue would simply never come up.

[VladD]

As with the stats from Not-RM Lords of Middle Earth I; those are for fun. MY players like to gloss over the stats sometimes and have like an upper limit of what is possible.
I used it once, after ending the campaign, I had Aule make some items for the characters, and the book showed me what he could do and how fast he could do it. I liked to use it and players were wowed by the awesomeness of his smithing abilities (they thought THEY were really good already).

Lvl 500 would make great lackeys for a creation god. I typically use lvl 1000 as the upper limit for any creature with stats, above that it would be pointless.
Even a creature like Sauron (with ring) is mostly a curiosity, although I've had players who THOUGHT they could take him on, until I showed them the stat blocks. I think players tend to get cocky nearing lvl 20 and they believe they can do anything and it might be worth having a few statted baddies that can run any party into the ground. Puts a little perspective on things. "we're bad ass and can decide the faith of realms, BUT we should not tick off so-and-so, or else he'll come looking."
Another perspective changer is the peasant army with shortbows, numbering 1000. Plenty of those will roll UM up and do enough damage to take out any character and make spells useless. ("Aim for the pointy hatted one!!! Draw!!! Release!!!")
I like picking on PC's

Game On!

[rdanhenry]

I think players tend to get cocky nearing lvl 20 and they believe they can do anything and it might be worth having a few statted baddies that can run any party into the ground. Puts a little perspective on things. "we're bad ass and can decide the faith of realms, BUT we should not tick off so-and-so, or else he'll come looking."

I don't think you need to start having gods walking around to do that, though. A level 250 Elf or a properly decked out Dragon or an eog golum possessed by a powerful spell-casting demon or a number of monsters that appear designed to seek TPKs on high-level parties out of the box.

Another perspective changer is the peasant army with shortbows, numbering 1000. Plenty of those will roll UM up and do enough damage to take out any character and make spells useless. ("Aim for the pointy hatted one!!! Draw!!! Release!!!")

Until 50th level: Re-aiming True.

[GrumpyOldFart]

I think players tend to get cocky nearing lvl 20 and they believe they can do anything and it might be worth having a few statted baddies that can run any party into the ground. Puts a little perspective on things.

I tend to remind them that channeling/summoning the Archangel of the War God will get you something closely akin to an asteroid strike. There are differences, but you'd probably have to observe from a different planet in order to spot them.

And that's just his Archangel, that's not the God. The God is somebody who has servants like that.

I don't need to stat them out to give players a sense of perspective. 

[Old Man]

As with the stats from Not-RM Lords of Middle Earth I; those are for fun. MY players like to gloss over the stats sometimes and have like an upper limit of what is possible.

Just curious - what do you mean by "Not-RM"? I see lots of RM (2nd Ed) stats throughout ...

[Thom @ ICE]

It is most likely a reference to MERP.

MERP is a perfectly acceptable reference to the old system which is no longer in print.

[Marc R]

In games where gods can die, they need stats, otherwise, just abase yourself and tremble.

[GrumpyOldFart]

In my games Gods can die... just not from anything you could do. 

[rdanhenry]

Just because your gods cannot die, it doesn't mean they can't be beaten. Mythology and fiction are full of immortals who can nevertheless be, on occasion, bested - even by mortals.

[Zat]

My whole campaign revolves around 'gods'. In fact it's coming to the point where my players are searching for the means to become gods themselves, one of which is very close.

You want stats for 'gods'? Here's an example of one of them (the lowest power level)

White Knight
Level: 10
Speed: MF/MF
Base Rate: 50 (Max: 150)
Hits: 150
Size(Crit) M(I#)
AT: 20 DB: 20 (55 Shield)
OB: 150 Weapon 2D
IQ: Av
EP: D

(I think that's about it without consulting my notes)

So..why is this a 'god'? The simple answer is because of how they came into being and the fact that they can not 'die' (remember folks, an entire campaign is built around this, so the detail here is sparse). They always travel with an Inquisitor, a low powered human. But what makes these speacial is the fact that the Inquisitor 'holds' the soul of the White Knight, so if he's 'killed' the Inquisitor can transfaer the soul into another being, as per possession.
The trick is to kill the Inquisitor, right? Well you could and this would return the soul to the Knight himself, which he can then transfer by touch, creating a new Inquisitor or spawning a new White Knight and downing himself.
Kill them both in the correct order and the soul is returned 'elsewhere' (I won't give that away, just in case my players read this).

It's obvious in the campaign, at this point, that when a White Knight is killed, another one spawns, and since the campaign has reached a point now where there are armies of these things, it seems near impossible to fight them.

The point I am trying to make is; gods don't have to be all-powerful beings, if we chose that it's not appropriate for our storytelling. My campaign is populated by many, many gods, none of them the omnipotent beings that some may describe and therefore it is appropriate, in this case, to give them stats

[arakish]

@Amethyst Rage,

Hate to say this, but what you are describing seems more like a spirit instead of a "god".  Almost like a Gua'uld switching bodies.

In games where gods can die, they need stats, otherwise, just abase yourself and tremble.

I love this one.  Especially the bolded part.

@everyone,

Should have clarified what "I" mean when I say "god".  I mean "god" in the sense that they are an Entity.  Gods can never be truly killed or destroyed.  Yes, they can form corporeal bodies, if desired, and that corporeal body can be destroyed (i.e. - killed).  However, they can always just reform a new corporeal body.

A god can also appear in ethereal form.  In such a form, the god cannot be harmed by anything in the material (corporeal) world.  However, in ethereal form, the god could still affect the material world.

Another way of looking at this is to read J.R.R. Tolkein's Silmarillion.  Even in their war against Melkor, none of the other Ainur (Valar) could destroy him.  The best they could do was to chain him, then thrust him through the Doors of Night into the Void.  Thus, they removed him from the world.  But Melkor still existed.

This is what I meant by gods.  They cannot be destroyed (killed) in any way.  Yes, they can be harmed (if in corporeal form).  Yes, if in corporeal form, it can be killed, but the god still exists, able to form another corporeal form after a time.  This would be similar to what had happened to Sauron in the Silmarillion.  He had his corporeal form killed by Huan when Sauron thought his wolf-demon form would be the mightiest hound that would slay Huan.  However, Sauron simply became an ethereal entity until he could reform a corporeal shell.

IMHO, these beings are still beyond the application of stats.  The only stat I can see applied would be Concussion Hits to the corporeal shell, but not to the god.

rmfr

[GrumpyOldFart]

Exactly. Sure you can "kill" them, but only in the sense of a corporeal body on this plane of existence, which is about as significant as cutting off someone's fingernails.

[MariusH]

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?