Quote from: SettembriniIf ANY setting is "too sparse for serious gaming" in your eyes, you are doing it wrong.

No I am not. You just have a different way of doing things that is just as valid for you.

I like detail. Lots of detail in many of my fantasy and sci-fi settings. I love settings that feel alive with important personalities, politics, economics, history, the whole nine yards all fleshed out for its nations(lighthearted games like Toon or Teenagers from Outer Space, of course not). Doubly so, when you are talking about the infinite multiverse. If I was going to work with such a sparse multiverse handbook, I might as well devise my own using something like "The Primal Order"... or go back to using Mystara supplements like the RC and the Gold Box set.

And MotP wasn't really a setting anyways. It was an introductory manual.

Quote from: Caesar SlaadExcept, you know, they didn't. Still infinite amount of room to plop down whatever you want. And the added utility of plugging into the setting's convention of portals to get PCs there easily.

Exactly. One thing the books and boxed sets taken as a whole did really well, was to give a flavour to each of the planes, while maintaining complete freedom for the DM to make up whatever they wanted within that plane.

If RPGPundit or anybody else doesn't appreciate this or believe it, I urge you to take a look at the boxed set "Planes of...." series. Each one has around six planes defined inside it, and every single one of those planes is more than a standard campaign setting, merely in and of itself, limited only by two things: the flavour provided by the designers (e.g. Ysgard is Chaotic Neutral Good and vaguely Norse in tone) and the DM's imagination.

To take two examples from my own experience which I think illustrate this, we had an entire long-term (levels 1 to around 17 or 18) campaign with a massive plot-arc which was set more-or-less totally within the inner workings of a thieves' guild in a medium sized town on one layer of Bytopia. There were interplanar references, but the campaign itself focused essentially entirely on this one town and the immediate surroundings, and sometimes the other layer of Bytopia. But with the same group we had a separate campaign which was a massive, interplanar adventuring jaunt that went through just about every single plane (inner and outer) and got the characters embroiled in a huge plot by the Egyptian god Set to steal a layer from Acheron and bring it to Baator. It encompassed faction politicking in Sigil, battles with Tanar'ri in the Abyss, searching for forgotten exiles in Pandemonium and scaling Mount Olympus, and just about everything in between.

As a DM, you just don't get that sort of freedom and variety to make up whatever the hell you want in other published campaign settings, and to have so much scope, from the specific and small-scale (like our Bytopia game) to the super-duper-multiverse epic (like the second). To say that Planescape is limited is just....weird and misguided beyond all comprehending.

In addition to the "Planes of" sets , which I heartily recommend, I'd also consider "On Hallowed Ground" for a full exposition of how Gods, pantheons, proxies, and priesthoods are handled in Planescape. If only because there was some suggestion earlier that the Planescape writers "hated myth."
It's a great read.

Quote from: LancerIn addition to the "Planes of" sets , which I heartily recommend, I'd also consider "On Hallowed Ground" for a full exposition of how Gods, pantheons, proxies, and priesthoods are handled in Planescape. If only because there was some suggestion earlier that the Planescape writers "hated myth."
It's a great read.

To be fair, it could be argued that assigning D&D stats to a pantheon is one of the more un-mythic things you can do. It takes powerful cosmic entities embodying fundamental concepts and treats them like any other NPC.

Quote from: WarthurTo be fair, it could be argued that assigning D&D stats to a pantheon is one of the more un-mythic things you can do. It takes powerful cosmic entities embodying fundamental concepts and treats them like any other NPC.

Except, I don't recall that OHG had D&D stats assigned for the various deities. It had assigned relative power ranking titles within the pantheon(i.e.  Lesser God, Intermediate God, Greater God, Pantheon Ruler..etc), but this is not the same thing. I don't have the book with me currently, (and it's been years since I read it) but it had given descriptions of the various realms, pantheons, and portfolios for both AD&D and real-world Gods.

If memory serves, OHG had stats, but only for important proxies, priests and that sort of thing.

The 3e "Deities and Demigods" certainly had actual stats for deities, and so did "The Primal Order" and Mystara's "Wrath of the Immortals" Boxed Set. But those are all non-Planescape titles.

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EDIT: As for stat usage for Gods in a campaign being "unmythic"-- I can see arguments for and against it either way. IMHO, if the stats are only used as a way to determine if the God has enough "essence" (or what have you) to grant powers to all those followers on all those worlds, or to see if he has achieved enough clout in his pantheon to create that universe (instead of the puny solar system), or if two such deities come into conflict and the GM needs to determine who wins-- I see nothing wrong with such "behind the scenes" determinations via stats. Others may prefer to "wing it" but why not a more quantitative approach? You had mentioned in another thread that you hate game fiction where the abilities elicited by the story's protagonists can't be duplicated in play... In a story about deities, such quantitative frameworks would avoid such problems.

As long as this is left mostly to "behind-the-scenes" activities, and the GM is not rolling for deity actions during play, I have no problem with it. This is useful whenever the GM needs to resolve a diety's action whose outcome is in doubt (such as a skirmish between two dieties that occurs between game sessions). It's fair game and the mystique is maintained for the players.

The problems start when the GM starts using deities as ultra-powerful in-game adversaries against the PCs. That's just poor GMing (or playing), in my honest opinion. In fact, the PCs should just die immediately as a lesson in humility(and the GM chastised)- plain and simple- no matter how many epic levels they have or legendary they are. Stat or no stat, it doesn't change the end result.

The aforementioned "The Primal Order," while using stats for deities, does an awesome job emphasizing the great gap between them from other ultra-powerful NPCs. For one, it gives deities powers and abilities that only they would be able to use via something called "Primal." Any being with Primal can destroy a mortal without breaking a sweat no matter how powerful. Conversely, no mortal, irrespective of how powerful, can touch even the lowliest God..etc.
"Wrath of the Immortals" also does a good job simulating this, and it also stats up its deities.

Stats for Deities are the epitome of D&D-ness. :pundit:

Quote from: SettembriniStats for Deities are the epitome of D&D-ness. :pundit:

Anybody who doesn't stat up their Deities is a swine. :pundit:

Quote from: LancerAnybody who doesn't stat up their Deities is a swine. :pundit:

NOW you have arrived. Welcome to theRPGsite!

Quote from: LancerAnybody who doesn't stat up their Deities is a swine. :pundit:

Maybe your D&D games . Of course your Swine-ish thinking is wrong. WFRP , Midnight even LotR don't stat up their dieties. If you think every aspect of the game should be mechanically represented....:forge:

Regards,
David R

David, it was meant to be a joke dude..

Sorry about that, Lancer.

Regards,
David R

It's all good.

Quote from: David RMaybe your D&D games . Of course your Swine-ish thinking is wrong. WFRP , Midnight even LotR don't stat up their dieties. If you think every aspect of the game should be mechanically represented....:forge:

Regards,
David R

Thing is, many deities of ancient legend and myth were portrayed as not being really immortal. They could die in various ways. It's more the influence of modern Judeo-Christian religion that makes gods unkillable in the mindset of the average person.

Quote from: ColonelHardissonThing is, many deities of ancient legend and myth were portrayed as not being really immortal. They could die in various ways. It's more the influence of modern Judeo-Christian religion that makes gods unkillable in the mindset of the average person.

Sure but is it Swinethink to not stat your deities ?

In my fantasy games there are two possible ways that the pcs may "destroy" a god.

1. The pcs kill the diety's avatar - which does not exactly kill the being but rather sends him/her back to his/her own plane.

2. Destroy the diety's influence on the material plane by destroying his/her worshippers and places of worship. Again this does not kill the diety but rather makes it difficult or impossible to manifest on the material plane.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: David RSure but is it Swinethink to not stat your deities ?

It's swinethink to insist that statting or not statting your deities in somehow inherently detrimental to your game, for any value of "you".

In your game... do what works best for the game you are trying to make. :cool: