D&D 5E 5e Pantheon

[Pour]

A comment regarding 4e's marvelous Raven Queen, and my own love of Torog the King That Crawls got me thinking... Who should make up the default, 5e pantheon? Or should there even be an implied pantheon, as that, more or less, begins to imply a default setting? Should it be a blend of gods from across the editions, or an entirely new cast of cosmic beings? Should there just be portfolios presented and new DMs are expected to flush out the gods themselves, something like a mini pantheon toolkit included in a Religion sections somewhere? Or do we leave gods out of the core entirely and instead have them waiting in various setting source material (not my first choice, this one)?

Personally, I love flipping to the gods section of every edition I play and perusing, but that doesn't mean it's the best option. If this is a reunification edition, we're going to need something that appeals to everyone. This pantheon has to be either a blend of all editions, which already begins to burgeon on the 'Why are you messing with my complete pantheon, man', OR something new (new gods, or a new way to bring pantheons in) and yet reminiscent of the old. 5e as I'm imagining it wants to go with the latter unless specific settings are being applied.

Depending on how much confidence designers have in new DMs, and let it be said on the whole I think designers generally underestimate the creative abilities of new gamers- they really are quite ingenious, and want to create after they get their feet wet (a process that takes no more than an hour, not a whole adventure or campaign)- I think the toolkit or the new pantheon are the best bets.

However it shakes out, I want a pantheon that has more than just gods. Pantheon is almost a misnomer, there is so much to worship in the D&D setting, I think they should mention a little of that: primordials, primal spirits, demonlords, archdevils, far realm entities, etc. Fiendish worship probably won't make core, sadly, but you give a guy in the demographic of 14 - 24 a choice of worshipping the King of Hell or the god of the sun and I imagine you get a fair amount of shakes at Asmodeus, enough to warrant inclusion.

 

[Viking Bastard]

I really like 4e's default pantheon. It feels very complete, but not too crowded.

And I like there being a default/implied pantheon.

 

[Saracenus]

I too love the default 4e pantheon, but there are several things we will have to consider with a new edition that is going to bring folks back into the fold.

"With fourth edition, there was a huge focus on mechanics. The story was still there, but a lot of our customers were having trouble getting to it. In some ways, it was like we told people, ‘The right way to play guitar is to play thrash metal,’ But there’s other ways to play guitar.” - Mike Mearls.

There is an implication in the above quote that they want to make story more accessible in D&D Next. Story is a double edge sword in regards to Pantheon.

For Organized Play (e.g. D&D Encounters, Lair Assault, etc.) not grounded in a specific campaign setting (Forgotten Realms, Dark Sun, etc.) or a majority of the material published in Dungeon Magazine, having a default set of deities is very good. It gives the writers, DMs, and players something to use right out of the box.

The downside of this is, if someone doesn't like the story of that pantheon they have to go and pull that out of all the other game elements that support that story. If those game elements are tied to crunch its even worse.

I still believe that D&D will need a default story for the Gods, but there needs to be a way to support your own pantheon plus the primal spirits, primordial, fiends, far-realms entities. And by support there needs to be both mechanical and story how to do it material so that folks can be creative and do their own stuff for a home game. Even more trickier is how to support it in the on-line tools.

My two coppers,

 

[Lord Zack]

If the assumed "pantheon" is like the 4e one they shouldn't call it a pantheon, because it's really just an eclectic collection of deities. Instead the section with deities should just be called something like "Common Deities Worshiped by Adventurers". This isn't a knock against the 4e deities I think it's a pretty cool collection of deities, but it should be assumed these these deities come from multiple regional pantheons and the like.

 

[Dragonhelm]

If D&D Next is supposed to be a "greatest hits" of D&D, then the default pantheon should be a "greatest hits" of deities. They should be examined to make certain they all work together in a manner that makes sense.

I would start with the 4e pantheon, as it is already kind of a "greatest hits." Then I would look at the various deities throughout D&D to see if they can make the pantheon better.

 

[Li Shenron]

I think there shouldn't be any default pantheon, just suggestions for cleric players that if the DM doesn't provide a setting then they can freely make up a deity for their character. Then provide a non-exhaustive list of ~20 sample themes to work as deities major focus: war, magic, death, nature, luck...

In 3e it would have been as simple as "pick two domains", and your deity's identity could be pretty much implied. The DM can still ban a combination if it sounds unreasonable (I don't know, maybe Good + Evil?) and make sure it also fits with alignment. But this "freedom" is hardly gamebreaking, unless some of the domains are broken since the start.

Of course the game doesn't have to have 2 domains... there could be just 1 domain or sphere for each cleric and it's even easier and more balanced.

 

[Li Shenron]

If D&D Next is supposed to be a "greatest hits" of D&D, then the default pantheon should be a "greatest hits" of deities. They should be examined to make certain they all work together in a manner that makes sense.

I would start with the 4e pantheon, as it is already kind of a "greatest hits." Then I would look at the various deities throughout D&D to see if they can make the pantheon better.

Uhm... yes and no

It sounds a good idea, but beside the subjectiveness of the choice, it carries the danger of an unbalanced pantheon, if it happens that e.g. a lot of "gods of war" or "gods of justice" (or whatever has been more popular...) end up in the greatest hits.

Anyway this choice is not bad at all for the introductory game box. For the core PHB it can also work, but as soon as the DM picks a setting, you have to throw away most of the core pantheon whatever the chosen setting since it doesn't correspond to any setting as a whole.

 

[Glade Riven]

It would mirror real life mythology, though. War and fertility deities were always popular. Local gods of city-states usually had 3 or 4 of what D&D called domains, and war/protection was usually one of them (even if it wasn't their primary domain).

 

[Thorgrim Sekkrhrafn]

One of the best things about 4E was finally giving the devil his due. Literally. If Asmodeus is as bad-assed as he's been portrayed since at least the late 2E, then he's a god. Pure and simple. I love that idea. Pathfinder did it too.

And then they muddied the waters by making demons elementals. Huh? I don't mind the concept of three species of fiends, a la 3E or late 2E. Work with it.

I think as far as pantheons go, since it kind of touches on what you think about cosmology in general, I'd say that 3/3.5E had it about right with the modified Great Wheel and 4E's 'Greatest Hits' gives us a nice group of divinities to choose from, should we so desire. I wouldn't call it a 'pantheon', though.

Oh, and bring back the Blood War. 'Nuff said.

 

[Nivenus]

Keeping the 4e pantheon seems like a winning idea to me. I'll probably mostly play in FR or other settings anyway, but the 4e pantheon has a pretty good variety. I also like the idea of subtly implying that the main 4e gods are part of several larger pantheons, though I suppose YMMV.

On the note about the fiends and Asmodeus, I actually was quite happy with the recasting of demons as elementals, since it distinguishes them more completely from devils. I like the idea of devils vs. demons but I felt too often the old lore made them too parallel to one another. Making them elementals gave the law vs. chaos aspect more weight, IMO.

However, it did put yugoloths/daemons in a very awkward position, since there wasn't a viable "third" monster origin for daemons to hail from. In the end, 4e just took the easy way out and labeled yugoloths as another kind of demon. To a certain extent, this makes sense, in that yugoloths often seemed very much like demons in form, but it also unnecessarily marginalizes them, I think.

In that respect, I think Pathfinder handled the fiends better.