Where I decide to occasionally post my gaming thoughts.
Of Gods and Whining
Posted 28th January 2009 at 07:21 PM by Rugult
If there’s one thing I despise about getting involved in a new campaign setting, it’s learning an entirely new pantheon. There’s something about how pretentious players can get off their own knowledge of deities in a given campaign setting. I used to play in a Forgotten Realms game, emphasis on the word ‘USED’. The reason for my cessation of Realms campaigns stemmed from two major issues:
Several years ago I ran a Ravenloft campaign based on the premise of the dead Realms god Moander building his strength from within the Mists. It was a very fun campaign, and I got to put a lot of deity facts to use, while not having to fudge a lot of other setting material. The point I am making, is that if you have a well written article (in this case Moander’s entry), even if some future event invalidates it, you should be able to get some use out of the original material.
Cut forward to my Twin Empires campaign design. Aside from a few basic notes from my last campaign, I am primarily going into Pantheon design blind. In the Player’s Guide, I’ve inserted a list of the various gods of the setting. Aside from a few of these Gods (mainly Xemen), most of these gods have not been fully fleshed out, and it is my goal to describe them through future adventure releases as separate attached articles.
I’ve already decided for the Twin Empires campaign, that unless the player’s mess up VERY badly, there is no need for divine intervention. Gods in my eye should remain aloof of mortal affairs, and in the case of the Phantasm gods that were once mortal, I think this makes a lot of sense.
In advance of the Pilot adventure for Twin Empires, I hope to release an article describing the major god of the starting region; Xemen the merchant god. In the meantime, feel free to tell me your thoughts on gaming pantheons!
1) Because of sheer scope of the line/novels, the players will undoubtedly know more then me in some way and later use it against me.What grinds my gears is pantheons that change more often than I change clothes in a day. I freely admit that one of my favorite 2e books would be the old Forgotten Realms Faiths & Avatars; a fine display on how to layout and describe individual deities within a pantheon. The book was so perfectly written that you could pick any random power therein and be able to make up a character with several quirks that made him related to said power. Now thanks to the God shuffle, unless I decided to play in that specific timeline (or royally change the Realms), a good chunk of the information held within is no longer relevant. Boo-Urns.
2) The over involvement of deities in almost every story arc. Take for example the entire series of FR books relating to Cyric, and then to Bane dying, and so on and so forth.
Several years ago I ran a Ravenloft campaign based on the premise of the dead Realms god Moander building his strength from within the Mists. It was a very fun campaign, and I got to put a lot of deity facts to use, while not having to fudge a lot of other setting material. The point I am making, is that if you have a well written article (in this case Moander’s entry), even if some future event invalidates it, you should be able to get some use out of the original material.
Cut forward to my Twin Empires campaign design. Aside from a few basic notes from my last campaign, I am primarily going into Pantheon design blind. In the Player’s Guide, I’ve inserted a list of the various gods of the setting. Aside from a few of these Gods (mainly Xemen), most of these gods have not been fully fleshed out, and it is my goal to describe them through future adventure releases as separate attached articles.
I’ve already decided for the Twin Empires campaign, that unless the player’s mess up VERY badly, there is no need for divine intervention. Gods in my eye should remain aloof of mortal affairs, and in the case of the Phantasm gods that were once mortal, I think this makes a lot of sense.
In advance of the Pilot adventure for Twin Empires, I hope to release an article describing the major god of the starting region; Xemen the merchant god. In the meantime, feel free to tell me your thoughts on gaming pantheons!
Tags: design, pantheon, twin empires
Total Comments 4
Comments
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Nice post! Every pantheon needs a god of Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll! No pantheon is complete without one!Posted 30th January 2009 at 03:30 AM by MichaelSomething
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Now that you mention it....
I've personally always thought it would be awesome to play a priest of a harlot god/goddess. Nothing like being a priest of the goddess of prostitution.
No seriously! I think it would be awesome to RP that
Posted 30th January 2009 at 07:03 PM by Rugult -
Well, I should mention here that "Xemen", depending on how it's pronounced, is just inviting s
ing from your players.
That being said, I agree wholeheartedly with your basic premise. My main problem becomes keeping the PCs interested - and remembering god names! I think next time I set up a campaign, I'll use real world deities (Greek, most likely) - at least then, everyone knows who they roughly are.Posted 2nd February 2009 at 07:56 AM by Wik - Probably should clear up the 'Xemen' thing...
The basic premise of Xemen was created by one of the players in my Test Campaign. He was asleep when the rest of the party were deciding on roles, and he got sucker punched with the healer. So he decided to be a cleric of a merchant god, someone who could legitimately charge for healing/magical items.
His cleric's name was Xebediah, so we had this thought that there were all these names that started with X. Case closed.
As for pantheons... The way I'm writing my Twin Empires path, is that every adventure will have a bunch of associated articles. The pilot adventure will detail Xemen, where the other adventures will have articles on other deities. The goal is to have each adventure somehow incorporate the associated deity in a large/small way, so that the information is still relevant and the players see the pantheon unfold before their eyes.Posted 2nd February 2009 at 05:28 PM by Rugult
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