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  1. - Top - End - #31
    Firbolg in the Playground
     
    LudicSavant's Avatar

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    Default Re: Most Interesting Portrayals of Gods in RPGs

    Quote Originally Posted by Kol Korran View Post
    On the subject of Eberron's faiths: I loved the Faiths of Eberron book.
    It was indeed pretty sweet.
    Last edited by LudicSavant; 2015-10-09 at 05:55 AM.
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    If statistics are the concern for game balance I can't think of a more worthwhile person for you to discuss it with, LudicSavant has provided this forum some of the single most useful tools in probability calculations and is a consistent source of sanity checking for this sort of thing.
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  2. - Top - End - #32
    Troll in the Playground
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    Default Re: Most Interesting Portrayals of Gods in RPGs

    Quote Originally Posted by Dienekes View Post
    Dragon Age has some interesting interpretations of gods, though it's somewhat spoilery.

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    So far there are several pantheons of gods, each for different cultures and species that have myths that are totally contradictory. However, as the games goes we peel back some details to reveal what's going on.

    There are the gods of a group of barbarians, we don't know much about them.

    The elves have a pantheon of ancient gods that protects the race. However, as of the latest game it has been revealed that they are actually impossibly old elven mages that are locked away in (more or less) the setting's plane of magic. They used to rule the world with an iron fist before their imprisonment. However, they can still interact in part with the world, and can possess mortals, effectively living forever and manipulating the flow of events.

    There are the Elder Gods, which are ancient magic dragons that lead the first human empire by teaching them blood magic and other means of fueling expansion through blood. There are a few clues that they may be the same or similar to the elven gods, just incredibly old insanely powerful mages.

    Then there's the Maker, the big God. Who may or may not exist. His modus operandi in legends doesn't fit the pattern of what the Elven Gods or the Elder Gods did things, so he probably wouldn't be one of those great mages of the past. But if he ever did exist, he is very hands off. Possibly, he abandoned the world completely when his Messenger was killed.

    Which is largely how I like gods in settings, a bunch of competing religions each with maybe a drop of truth in them but twisted up, ancient, and contradictory.
    I too enjoy the Dragon Age setup. The following has spoilers for DA:I.

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    I'm fond of the fact that Solas appears to be the Dread Wolf incarnate and he isn't anywhere near as powerful as he could possibly, as well as Flemeth is possessed by the dead goddess Mythal. As complete aside the DLC Trespasser has Solas explain what happened to the elven gods (here's a hint, the Veil is an artificial construct). This means something interesting for the Golden/Black City being in the Fade and the nature of The Maker.
    Last edited by Beleriphon; 2015-10-09 at 08:14 AM.

  3. - Top - End - #33
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    DwarfFighterGuy

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    Default Re: Most Interesting Portrayals of Gods in RPGs

    Never played Eberron outside of Dungeons and Dragons Online, but I liked the Undying Court bit about the elves so much that I adapted a modified version for my game. Basically the planar ecology of my game is that there is Our World, and the Other World. The Other is like a hybrid of Asian spirit realm and European fey. There is no after life. Souls are made up of stuff from this realm, and when you die your soul returns there, if your actions, presence, or strength of conciousness left a big enough impression then you might retain sentience and continue to exist in a different form, but most people are subsumed back into the collective unconsciousness.

    Elves are an exception. This is their realm and they always re-incarnate back and forth, but have vague memories of their time in the fey realm while they are in Our world. The elves hold this as a closely guarded secret, and it is very difficult for most people to travel to the Fey realm.

    Dwarves believe that they return to the earth, and in a sense they are correct, they live long enough that most of their people retain consciousness of a form when they return, and they have magical means to communicate with them, making necromancers a important part of their culture. They also are the only race that do not cremate their dead in my setting. Most races cremate because at certain times of the year, untended dead re-animate. The dwarves use a method of embalming/mummification.

    EDIT: I should make the Other be where the Gods reside...
    Last edited by Garimeth; 2015-10-09 at 08:23 AM.
    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Raziere View Post
    To say that there is nothing new under the sun, is to forget there are more suns than we could possibly know what to do with and that there are probably a lot of new things under them.

  4. - Top - End - #34
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    BardGuy

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    Default Re: Most Interesting Portrayals of Gods in RPGs

    I made one low-powered campaign setting for 3.5 where the gods were originally titans (ala Greek mythology) created by the universe-creating fates, who only communicated with the titians through acts of creation and through their oracle (who was herself a titian).

    Some rebeled against the fates, and others joined with the fates. The latter won with the former being killed. Afterwards the fates rewarded their followers by making them gods over various pre-human tribes (including threeish who were the direct decendants of their gods) and giving them a century to live with their people before requiring the new gods from departing.

    Afterwards, gods could only interacted with their faithful via spells like contact outer plane or by empowering or disempowering divine classes (e.g. clerics). This put gods on undesirable positions, e.g. do I disempower my followers in a dangerous world because they're presenting their biases as my own?

    One god had very few female clerics because the culture that worshiped him was fairly sexist, and while he wasn't happy about it, he expressed this by (litterally) empowering any woman who met his standards for clerics, rather than depowering every male cleric who refused to teach female acolytes.

    A different god would disempower any cleric that advocated or fought for a non-cleric leader that tried to reconcile his followers with the decendants of a goddess he still hated, but wouldn't depower one for just working with an individual member of the rival race if they had a mutually acceptable goal (both races were frequently plagued by sea monsters).
    I consider myself an author first, a GM second and a player third.

    The three skill-sets are only tangentially related.

  5. - Top - End - #35
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    NecromancerGuy

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    Default Re: Most Interesting Portrayals of Gods in RPGs

    The story of Asmodeus the Paladin is the most interesting one I know, personally.
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  6. - Top - End - #36
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    RFLS's Avatar

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    Default Re: Most Interesting Portrayals of Gods in RPGs

    Quote Originally Posted by Amphetryon View Post
    The story of Asmodeus the Paladin is the most interesting one I know, personally.
    Link for the lazy. At least, I think that's what you're referencing.

  7. - Top - End - #37
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    Default Re: Most Interesting Portrayals of Gods in RPGs

    Quote Originally Posted by Khedrac View Post
    I liked the way that deities work in Glorantha...

    1. Different places could have mutually exclusive accounts of mythic events (and regular history) - and both accounts can be true.
    2. The gods used to be a lot more active but the coming of time has in effect frozen their ability to interfere with the world.
    3. Powerful mortals can interfere with the gods - even to the extent of changing their natures or swapping similar gods around to see the effects on their worshippers.
    4. Several of the gods did manage to learn from their experiences (eventually).
    Every time someone asks about "most interesting [x] in RPGs" I come in yelling Glorantha. That's true here, too.

    The thing about Gloranthan gods, in addition to everything written above, is that the world itself runs on their logic rather than on any laws of physics. The sky, the land and every creature in between works the way they do because of some god did something before time was invented and now we're stuck living in an echo of their timeless existence. The trick, as again outlined above, is that we can use rituals and magic to reach into that place before time and gently nudge things around to change the echo we experience today.

    So every province within the Lunar Glowline experiences mild and pleasant weather all year round because an imperial expedition has a tradition of venturing out and punching winter in the face every now and then.
    Last edited by Comet; 2015-10-10 at 09:48 AM.
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  8. - Top - End - #38
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    RangerGuy

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    Default Re: Most Interesting Portrayals of Gods in RPGs

    Quote Originally Posted by Comet View Post
    So every province within the Lunar Glowline experiences mild and pleasant weather all year round because an imperial expedition has a tradition of venturing out and punching winter in the face every now and then.
    'Could we, for just one time, NOT punch Winter in the face? She gets a well-deserved break and we get snow to make snowballs, snowangels and igloos with!'

  9. - Top - End - #39
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    Regitnui's Avatar

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    Default Re: Most Interesting Portrayals of Gods in RPGs

    Quote Originally Posted by goto124 View Post
    'Could we, for just one time, NOT punch Winter in the face? She gets a well-deserved break and we get snow to make snowballs, snowangels and igloos with!'
    Reminds me of Oglaf, where you need to do something else (NSFW) to the spirit of winter to make spring come... I do find 'punching winter in the face' funny, like the 40K orcs got tired of magic and just started smacking Chaos around until reality does what they want it tkt.
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    In fact, I will here formally propose the Zeroth Rule of Gaming: No rule in any game shall be interpreted in a way that breaks the game if it is possible to interpret that rule in a way that does not.
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