Quote from: Zirunel;965556D&D quickly escalated to that sort of thing, even in the 70s, when M.A.R Barker wryly asked "So how many hit points does Jesus have?"

Personally, I dislike the idea of encountering statted deities "in the flesh"

Personally, I prefer gods to operate entirely through proxies. Their zealous followers can be met and fought (or not),  I'm even fine with their supernatural minions (demons, angels, whatever) being combattable. But actual gods? For me gods should be ineffable. And if they aren't, don't call them gods.

Not to be blasphemous, but wasn't the whole point about Jesus that he only had, like, 8 hit points?

Quote from: Larsdangly;965635Not to be blasphemous, but wasn't the whole point about Jesus that he only had, like, 8 hit points?

Good call. I don't remember what the "answer" to the question was. I assume it was only rhetorical. But yeah. Jesus is the template (or a template) for a God made manifest, acting on the material plane, with, at least plausibly, a stat block. And hit points. And in his case probably not that many hit points either. You have to guess a level 1 thief with an oyster knife, if he wasn't persuaded to pick up and follow him, could take him down pretty easily. Of course, Jesus is also a template for the idea that a God can't really be killed on the material plane. Sure, thief + oyster knife=temporary win, but in short order there will be a resurrection, then an ascension. It works theologically, but I don't find it very appealing from an rpg point of view.

On the other hand, I am reminded of the Jack Vance story about the wizard who spends centuries of effort trying to summon some supreme being/principle, and when he finally manages it, it manifests as a blobby ineffectual tentacled thing and  some murder-hobo adventurer who is desperately hungry happens upon it in that moment and kills it and eats it. That does kind of work for me. I guess I'm torn on this question.

If it bleeds, it can die!

Totally depends on the campaign. I've run D&D games were mortal Avatars of the gods walked the earth using the stats which was cool because we'd have god fights with PCs taking sides, even at lower levels.

However, in general, I don't stat them up.

The best use for the 1E Deities and Demigods I ever thought up was a fantasy earth campaign where the world was divided into principalities, more or less along the lines of classical and medieval nations, but each ruled by the culturally appropriate pantheon, where each nation's leadership had the same sort of internecine politics and struggles and weirdo's you'd associate with a medieval kingdom's nobility, except the tremendous powers of the ruling elite meant the nations were kind of dystopic shit holes. England and parts of france are an exception (home to the Arthurian heroes, who are christians and push back the forces of surrounding god-states). Magic-user characters summon demons and devils as allies to push back against the manifested god's over reaching powers. Clerics are mostly ass holes who serve the dominant powers of their state.

I only ever ran a couple of sessions in this campaign and the players didn't really get to explore much of the setting's potential. But I still enjoyed creating it and think it was one of the better uses of the book that I've heard of.

No, no real need for stats. And Deities & Demigods was my gateway drug into D&D. Even still, I knew it was mostly for fun, not for practical game use for anything I'd want to run or play.

Quote from: Zirunel;965643On the other hand, I am reminded of the Jack Vance story about the wizard who spends centuries of effort trying to summon some supreme being/principle, and when he finally manages it, it manifests as a blobby ineffectual tentacled thing and  some murder-hobo adventurer who is desperately hungry happens upon it in that moment and kills it and eats it. That does kind of work for me. I guess I'm torn on this question.

Hey! Cugel the Clever isn't just some murder-hobo adventurer. He is THE murder-hobo adventurer!

I prefer the 2e approach which is that the God on their own plane is not killable but they can send (very, very powerful) avatars to other planes that can be destroyed. Keeps the Gods appropriately God-like. Even works for Jesus mannnn. Legends and Lore was also more useful than Deities and Demigods because it included cleric/priest info for the Gods and pantheons.

A Gods-level game is pretty tempting though, the BECMI Immortals rules never seemed that workable to me, in either version, but Crawford's demigodish Godbound is a pretty great attempt to do God-level adventures.

Quote from: Voros;965706I prefer the 2e approach which is that the God on their own plane is not killable but they can send (very, very powerful) avatars to other planes that can be destroyed. Keeps the Gods appropriately God-like.

I found this to be the worst possible solution. Not only are the gods just high level monsters, but there is no consequences for killing them. They are, instead, respawning tools for XP grinding.

Quote from: Baulderstone;965603It's limiting to have a single answer to this question. The answer is whatever suits your campaign.

I use this test: If your campaign has more than one "Sun God", then gods need stats. Otherwise, no.

I admit that deities and demigods was a bit silly: "you encounter Hades, what do you do?" - "Lightning bolt, grapple and backstab, yeah." One of the first characters I was given by a "real" DM, when I was about 9 years old, was Deltar Copenhagen, a 165th level "power god" with about 7 classes.  Which was actually cool as hell for a nine year old. I have to admit that that book led to some really stupid ideas for what D&D was supposed to be. It is still one of all time favorites.

Though in seriousness, there is tons of fantastic literature where gods or godlike beings are slain by mortal heroes - Elric, Conan, the Iliad, even Sauron was "slain"  for example - so why not give them stats?  You don't have to use them if you don't want to, and what does it mean for a god to die anyway?  Are they imprisoned, embarrassed, banished to another dimension? In Call of Cthulhu, gods are the primary antagonists, not that PCs can hope to defeat them in straight up combat, but the game would be lame if it swapped Nyarlathotep's gruesome stats for a line that read "you can't fight a god, don't even think about it." Gods are staple foes in fantasy, and I think there are lots of settings where detailing their power mechanically in game terms is appropriate.

Quote from: hedgehobbit;965766I found this to be the worst possible solution. Not only are the gods just high level monsters, but there is no consequences for killing them. They are, instead, respawning tools for XP grinding.

I don't see that at all unless the DM is running their table like a videogame. The solutions to that are legion. For one the avatar would hardly be alone, can teleport instaneously and are super powerful. If their avatar was destroyed the God could take revenge on the PCs via their many followers, a curse or even major catastrophe visited on them and their family, town or even country. They could be assigned a quest to attone for their blasphemy. They are Gods.

Quote from: RPGPundit;965451Do you want, even in high-level play, for D&D deities to have stats? Or do you think that this just reduces them to the level of monsters?

I don't really play D&D, but statting gods seemed ridiculous to me even in 5th grade. Defining a god as a creature seems to me to be a misunderstanding of what gods are. On the other hand, it does seem to sort of go along with the craziness that D&D seems to me to be. If it were sort of like the gods who physically intervene in The Illiad, and the humans and effects on the gods of resisting their physical manifestations were no greater than seen there, and had something in the direction of the added intelligence in The Illiad, then I'd be semi-ok with it.

If you can quantify a god, that's no god.

Quote from: Madprofessor;965560That's a book I have been on the fence about for a long while.  Can you elaborate on how they handle it?

You can check out the pdf for free, and the book is just sold at cost.

Quote from: Baulderstone;965690Hey! Cugel the Clever isn't just some murder-hobo adventurer. He is THE murder-hobo adventurer!

You're right. And he was very much the model for how me and my group felt we should behave in rpg world. Save the world? Nah. Save my gold first. Epic quest? Nah. Only if I'm forced to, and even then I won't enjoy it. Much like Cugel.

But that's a different topic. Getting back to the Gods, no stat blocks for me please. In fact, I prefer them to be so aloof that it's uncertain whether they even exist.