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

[Nahat Anoj]

Oh, I just found another goddess - the Raven Queen, a goddess of death and winter.

 

[Wolfspider]

The link between your point and your conclusion is lost to me. I think it's a case of "Huh. Let's talk about this", and is more or less edition independent.

The article says, "We didn’t move forward in 4th Edition with that pantheon [the Greyhawk pantheon] because its deities weren’t designed for the improved experience of D&D we were forming."

That's where I get my conclusion.

 

[Sadrik]

Confirmed list
Bane: tyranny
Bahamut: justice and dragons
Pelor: sun and good
Corellon: magic
Moradin: forge
Zehir: night
Tiamat: vengance and dragons
Obad-Hai: forest and agriculture
Sehanine: moon
Ioun: magic and knowledge
Asmodeus: treachery, lies and devils
Tharizdun: demons
Kord: strength, storms
Avandra: chance, luck
Raven Queen: death and Winter

Unconfirmed list
Io: dead father of tiamat and bahamut
Torog: ???
Gruumsh: slaughter
Lolth: vermin and the underdark

 

[Lackhand]

The article says, "We didn’t move forward in 4th Edition with that pantheon [the Greyhawk pantheon] because its deities weren’t designed for the improved experience of D&D we were forming."

That's where I get my conclusion.

Oh, I thought you were talking about posters' attitudes.
Yup, seems to fit in the pile you placed it in, my bad. Thanks!

 

[Henry]

You may be taking this all a little too personally, in that case.

As they said in the Godfather, it's business, not personal.

That's kind of my take, too: On my list of things that could possibly go wrong with 4E, the default Pantheon is the LEAST of them. Can change the gods, make 'em unkillable if you want, give them different portfolios, etc. My real concern is going to be how easy it will be to make your own gods and portfolios, and how easy to match clerics to fit them. In 2E, the "Spheres" system made it obscenely easy, in 3E Domains were good, though a bit more bland than the Spheres were. In 4E, are we going back to "a cleric is a cleric", or is every cleric going to have its power represented by a talent tree, and anyone can pick their powers despite the kind of god they have? SO my concerns are more on a micro level than a macro one.

 

[Sir Sebastian Hardin]

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.

It really pissed me off when I was going through the pages of races and stone and I find a Dwarven God of BEER!!!! and his "holy" symbol was a Full Mug of beer... It is just VERY LAME to go around preeching on the goodness of the mighty beer and scarying undead away with your impressive Mug!

 

[marune]

There are two opposite attitudes with which a group may want to play a RPG: one is based on placing the PCs in a full-blossomed fantasy world that makes a lot of sense and has a lot of details, at the expense of carrying a certain baggage; the other is based on action! and who cares about everything else. I've found my own favourite balance between the two. It looks like the main choice of 4e is to support the latter, but to leave groups alone if they want the first.

In fact, there are 3 "opposites" commonly known attitudes (or agendas) in RPG* :

S: Some wants to re-create a given world/theme/genre in more or less details.
G: Some wants to overcome challenges making guts decision and using strategies.
N: Some wants to tell a good story.

Nothing new here.

Past D&D editions supported a somewhat incoherent G/S and 4E will be more G and less S, and probably less incoherent (I hope so).

BTW, I don't say that there is no one playing D&D that wants to tell good stories, I'm saying that D&D is not built to support it.

*Well, if it was common knowledge around here, many debates would be easier to understand/end.

 

[Arnwyn]

You need a deity of agriculture in your setting for it to feel plausible: yes.

You need a deity of agriculture statted and described in the Player's Handbook so that you can play a templar-style cleric of a deity of agriculture: no.

That's all they're saying.

Does the 3e PHB have a deity of agriculture and/or doorways?

 

[Lackhand]

Does the 3e PHB have a deity of agriculture and/or doorways?

No, and that's mhacdebhandia's point, I think.
Or I'm completely misunderstanding, but yeah. I think it was this thread (they do all blend together, don't they?) where someone said to put this in the pile of "4th edition rulez, 3rd ed droolz" developer comments.

I am mischaracterizing them to protect the guilty, but I think it's a case of "we got lucky last time, are looking at what we did and replicating it, this time with science!".

 

[I'm A Banana]

It really pissed me off when I was going through the pages of races and stone and I find a Dwarven God of BEER!!!! and his "holy" symbol was a Full Mug of beer... It is just VERY LAME to go around preeching on the goodness of the mighty beer and scarying undead away with your impressive Mug!

I basically agree. Which is why Beer should be given over to a god with a broader portfolio (like agriculture, or like madness).

Beer, in it's own way, is as lame for a central deity concept as Strength ("I frighten you puny undead away with my rippling biceps!"), which is why I'm glad Kord gets Weather, too.

Anyway, it looks like at least MOST of the deities will be pulling more than "I am Dr. Swordopolis, God of Swords!" duty, so I'm pretty content. The failure of imagination suggested by Matt Sernett's writing doesn't look like it was followed through on too exceptionally, though some of the gods still look a bit anemic, and we are missing some classic mythological roles by the core list (no deity of beauty, no civic deity, no deity of oceans...). But that's largely forgivable.