D&D 4E 4e Races and Classes: "Why we changed the gods"

[Wyrmshadows]

This is quoted from "Why we Changed the Gods" by Matt Sernett and appears in a free PDF preview on WOTC's 4e preview page. I am quoting directly so I get it right:

The gods presented in the 3rd Edition Player’s Handbook
originated in the GREYHAWK Campaign Setting. It might
seem odd to tell you that if you’ve been playing D&D for 10
or more years, but if you started playing during 3rd Edition
you could easily have missed the GREYHAWK setting or not
know much about it. GREYHAWK was the original setting
used by Gary Gygax for his home games. I mention that
because it shows how long ago those gods were designed.

We didn’t move forward in 4th Edition with that pantheon
because its deities weren’t designed for the improved
experience of D&D we were forming. Also, its ties to Greyhawk
and its uses in 3E wouldn’t sync up with the new
cosmology and mythology we’ve designed to be better for
play. We struggled with what deities to put in the game for a
long time, and many factors influenced our final decisions:

• We don’t want deities to be thought of as
omniscient and all-powerful. Omniscience and omnipotence
makes it difficult to use gods in adventure plots
or have them interact with characters.

• We want epic characters to be capable of challenging
gods and even of becoming gods.

• We wanted deities to be designed for play in the
D&D world. Sure, it’s realistic in a sociological sense
to have a deity of doorways or of agriculture, but it’s
hard to figure out how a cleric who worships such a
deity honors his god by going on adventures.

• We wanted fewer, better deities. In your campaign,
you can have as many deities as you want, but in order to
design classes, a cosmology, and products that work well
together, we wanted a good set of deities that cover most
players’ needs without that pantheon being too complex
and cumbersome.

• We wanted deities to represent the new game and
new vision for the D&D world.
For a long time we wanted to design a pantheon that
was wholly new, but the harder we pushed it in that
direction, the more it seemed like some of the deities of
the 3E pantheon were a good fit for the game’s needs.
Thus, the pantheon is a blending of old and new.

Here are my thoughts...

Because the implied setting is a nameless, faceless, world that only exists for new DMs to use as a flimsy background for their campaigns, a handful of useful gods may be the best choice. Experienced DMs either homebrew their own worlds or use one of the myriad available published settings and in both cases any setting worthy of the name will have its own gods.

I have yet to meet anyone past the age of 14 who actually plays or DMs in the "World of Dungeons and Dragons?", the uncharted, unnamed, undeveloped "world" that all these fluff changes represent. Because the gods of FR, Krynn, Mystara, Midnight, Midkemia, Greyhawk, Earth, Super Mario World, etc. are NOT impacted in any way by a revisioning of who the "core" gods are, I would think that who the "core" god of justice is would be largely irrelevant.

For example, FR does have a goddess of agriculture despite the fact that in the World of Dungeons and Dragons, no god or goddess who is not useful to adventurers exists. :\ Krynn has 3 gods of magic despite the fact that Corellon Larethian is assuming this position in the implied setting. Bane snatching up the tyranny portfolio from whichever Greyhawk deity once owned it does not effect Greyhawk because Greyhawk is no longer the assumed setting.

I admit to being bothered by a certain "dumbing down" of things so as to simplify everything to the point where no intellectual challenge can possibly exist. "Uh...why is there a god of agriculture in an adventure game?" and "Uhhhh (drool)....more than 12 gods confuse me...make it stop WoTC, make it stop." but I can understand the decision as 4e is aimed at new players and DMs and the fact that more experienced DMs and players don't need to have their "D&D experience" spoon fed to them.

I know that in my campaign Asmodeus is not a god and PCs don't challenge or ever become gods. Slaying an avatar as a climactic conclusion to a campaign, cool. Messing around with an actual deity, no way. And I do have a god of agriculture and yes, you can choose to worship her and adventure in her service.

Feel free to discuss.



Wyrmshadows

 

[Cam Banks]

Very astute response.

I wonder how many people will read that and then get 4e and just pitch all of those carefully planned, meticulously chosen gods out the window. I'm pretty sure I will.

Cheers,
Cam

 

[Lackhand]

Love it or lump it, the god of agriculture if done in a way which doesn't invite adventure is basically eating up page count. People complain about stuff getting cut all the time, think of this as a preventative measure.

If He or She *does* invite adventure, then this is not your standard agriculture deity; choose another fairly peaceable portfolio and repeat the argument.
Note also that in justifying this deity for inclusion, you have specified Him or Her to the point where someone will object on the grounds that He or She will not fit into their campaign, and thus won't use that writeup, and thus it's wasted pagecount again.

I'm okay with the Core Pantheon being the most exciting handful, for a reasonable baseline of "exciting handful", of deities.

I can respect any individual additions or deletions to this set, and completely support anyone with the time, effort, and self-respect as a DM or ethno-theologist editing the list to comply with their vision.

 

[the Jester]

I wonder how many people will read that and then get 4e and just pitch all of those carefully planned, meticulously chosen gods out the window. I'm pretty sure I will.

Hey, I already have a pantheon; no need for a new one. Though mine might change- when I do start a 4e campaign, I plan on setting it a few centuries in the future of the current "game present" to allow for any and all changes I want to institute- including probable changes to the world's religious structures.

I think they make some good points in the quoted bit of the article. Seems to me like they're designing the pantheon with game use in mind. Much as there is no point in figuring out the old man on the street's exact initiative and skill modifiers, because you'll never use them, having a core pantheon of adventurer gods seems like a pretty good way to cut out some chaff to me.

 

[Reaper Steve]

Ugh.
I caught 'flimsy background' and 'dumbing down.'

From what's in R&C, the implied world has a lot more than 'flimsy background.' Enough that I would like to see it fleshed out into a more-than-just-implied setting.

Dumbing down... trimming 30 years of fat is not dumbing down. Re-vampng the game while remembering first and foremost it is a game, not work, or an alternate life simulator, is not dumbing down.

Edit: well, that was more crass than intended. Apologies. But I do think it concisely embodies the counterpoint.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Sure, it’s realistic in a sociological sense
to have a deity of doorways or of agriculture, but it’s
hard to figure out how a cleric who worships such a
deity honors his god by going on adventures.

Ah. At least here, I've got some hard evidence that there was at least one significant COMPLETE FAILURE OF IMAGINATION from the 4e team.

"Gods don't need to make sense for anything other than PC's" is over-simplistic and ends up with nonsensical results. Gods need to be campaign elements, suffusing the setting and adding sort of names and faces to the forces that shape the world, including things useful for PC's and things that would be more useful for barkeeps, merchants, and farmers.

Fortunately, it's (probably) a minor issue to scrap the pantheon and go with another one. In fact, I've got a VERY cool one in mind, one that addresses metaphysical, practical, and adventuring concerns all. 12 gods, from a shy god of death to a bloodthirsty god of agricultre to a pistol-wielding goddess of invention, to an interloper Great Evil from Beyond The Stars, to even, yes, a goddess of doorways and luck who PC's will be happy to worship.

I'm pretty cool with everything else they do. I'm not keen on the deities being directly slay-able necessarily, but there's a grand tradition for it in D&D, and I won't begrudge it, and it's easier to pretend those are "avatar stats" then to give stats for gods after the fact. I'm fairly unconcerned about it.

But I DO think this is an unfortunate example of deeply, deeply flawed logic about what gods are supposed to do in a game, and a tragic moment where they focused too keenly on "killing things and taking their stuff," missing out almost entirely on what gods need to be to be useful, at least, to me.

Much as there is no point in figuring out the old man on the street's exact initiative and skill modifiers, because you'll never use them, having a core pantheon of adventurer gods seems like a pretty good way to cut out some chaff to me.

For a DM like me, that's less useful, because I have no idea what's going to happen when I sit down to DM a game. I might need that old man on the street's initiative, if he gets in a fistfight with a rambunctious PC, and I might need to know his Perform skill modifier if he wants to serenade a lovely PC, and "make stuff up" sucks as a rule.

As far as these gods go, the narrow focus is a little concerning, because I need gods for more than just cleric-power and epic-level beat-em-ups. I need them for churches, for people in times of famine and plauge, for motivating the founding of cities, for justifying atrocities, for being reborn on the bodies of PC's....

I need them deeper than it seems they were considered.

 

[ruleslawyer]

Or, KM, gods presented in a Player's Handbook don't need to be relevant to anyone but PCs.

I think that Matt's point is that the moment you get to an actually serious treatment of gods, you're no longer in "default setting just for the core books" territory. A basic ruleset designed to model everything from Conan stories to LotR to the Iliad to Naruto doesn't need to read like The Masks of God or Comparative Religions 101; it just needs a few basic hooks on which to hang a game featuring "gawds."

That's just MHO. Since I'll be using my own set of gods, none of this default pantheon stuff matters, which I think was Matt's point.

 

[TwinBahamut]

Keep in mind, a lot of choices regarding religion in the PHB is being mandated by the artists. The list of gods in the PHB is the list of gods that the art team will draw from whenever they need a cleric, temple, or whatever to be drawn.

The chances of a priest of agriculture being depicted in a piece of D&D art is very slim.

The chances of a temple dedicated to a god of tyranny like Bane showing up in an adventure, and thus being depicted in art, is very high.

The chances of there being an Iconic character who is a Paladin for a goddess of the hearth, and thus requiring an official holy symbol of that goddess, are quite low.

The probability that the Iconic paladin will serve a god of justice like Bahamut, requiring a holy symbol for such a god, is almost 100%.

I would consider this to simply be a conservation of resources. They aren't trying to make a pantheon for a fully fleshed out setting, they are just making something that can be immediately useful to them and for DMs starting with a "make it up as you go" type of setting.

 

[TwinBahamut]

To address the original post more directly...

I have yet to meet anyone past the age of 14 who actually plays or DMs in the "World of Dungeons and Dragons?", the uncharted, unnamed, undeveloped "world" that all these fluff changes represent.

I would be surprised if you actually found someone of any age who plays in this setting (other than playtesters), simply because 4E has not been released yet. Could you clarify this, because right now, this sentence doesn't make any sense at all.

And regardless, if you mean "someone who will play using the PHB fluff as written when 4E is released", then your statement is not true.

Hello, nice to meet you. I intend to play a 4E campaign using nothing but the "World of Dungeons and Dragons" described in the 4E PHB.

I also dislike your implication that a Homebrew setting which does use fluff like that is "not worth the name [setting]".

 

[the_myth]

it seems like some of the gripes center on the specific choices the designers are making for the gods.

The threads discussing this issue criticize the choices of Bahamut, Tiamat, and Corellon for adaptation. I can see why those selections were made, and I actually apove of them [for whatever that's worth]. But...

Am I the only one wondering why Obad-Hai is among the list of gods to make it into 4E core???

If they specifically want to ditch Greyhawk deities...well....you can't get more Greyhawky than he.

Seems to me Silvanus...with a very fitting name...would have been a better selection. Or any other similar deity without Greyhawk baggage.

Just a thought...