Core Religions Survivor - Round Five

[MoogleEmpMog]

Erythnul, another iconic 'should be a demon' who clogs up divine space better occupied by Nerull, Wee Jas, Gruumsh and Kord.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Erythnul, another iconic 'should be a demon' who clogs up divine space better occupied by Nerull, Wee Jas, Gruumsh and Kord.

Yeah, he does what several different demon lords do much better. Powerful demons/devils not being able to grant spells seems like a 2E bowdlerization and should be junked.

 

[lukelightning]

Yeah, he does what several different demon lords do much better. Powerful demons/devils not being able to grant spells seems like a 2E bowdlerization and should be junked.

Nah, I agree with this distinction. This is the same as making Tiamat/Bahamut dragons and not deities. Spell-granting deities should be remote and beyond mortal reach (if they exist at all...). Demon lords are there to be super bad guys that the PCs can destroy.

 

[Captain Howdy]

If Bahamut got booted, then so should Tiamat.

 

[demiurge1138]

Elhonna! Again! Until she's gone!

Demiurge out.

 

[Nonlethal Force]

Hmmm. I find these polls amuzing. Faulted, but amuzing.

This poll tests two things: First, How much bandwagoning and politicking can be done from one round to the next. Second, How riot crowds differ from a truly angry people!

I haven't yet voted in this series (and atmittedly lost interest in the last series for the same reason). But I beleive there is a single flaw in the tactic of the poll. By only allowing one option you are not measuring the true level of dislike. You are only measuring a small spike.

If you want a true measure of of the dislike for a diety - or class, or skill, of supplement, or whatever - would be to allow voting for all you dislike. That way, the dislike would be cumulative and you would get a sense of who is truly disliked the most. As it is, should I be voting I would have to choose between my dislike for Vecna or Gruumsh as it were. [No clue if those are even still around or not]

Example: Say I dislike both Vecna and Gruumsh. I decide to choose Vecna. Brad, my buddy, is faced with the same decision and chooses Gruumsh. Essentially, our votes cancel each other out and nobody has any clue that we felt the same way as one another.

I am willing to bet that if these polls (and especially the poll about classes) were done by allowing people to select all they dislike ... the results would have been much different. I could be wrong though.

Anyway, happy voting!

 

[Wik]

Yeah, but we're going for the Survivor Effect. Were it one big cumulative vote, it would last... one round. The idea of having the choose/politic is a big part of the fun, I think.

Could be an interesting idea, though - just one big cumulative vote to see how the statistics vary.

 

[IcyCool]

Hmmm. I find these polls amuzing. Faulted, but amuzing.

All internet polls are faulted. Nobody does (or at least nobody should) care about what those buffoons on the intarweb have to say. Most of the polls only measure opinion anyway, and those change at the drop of a hat.

That said, these polls are fun to participate in for me, but idle entertainment is their sole benefit for me.

Edit - Oh, and before I forget, the Reaper formerly known as Grim has got to go. I'm looking at you Nerull, you Prince wannabe.

 

[Felix]

One problem with the proposed cumulative vote is that the voters, if they posted thier votes, would be aware of the standings and may strategically vote instead of truly voting their preferences. You'd have to ask voters to email you and keep it secret until you posted the results, after which voting would be closed.

College Football uses (or used to use) a ranking system like this. Each voter assigns rankings of 1 to 25 to the teams in order of how good they think they are. Each rank recieves a number of points (rank #1 gets 25 points, rank #5 would get 21 points, and so on); the points are tallied at the end of voting and ranks are assigned based on who recieved the most votes.

So if we have 10 deities, (Heironeous, Hextor, Gruumsh, Nerull, Pelor, Obad-Hai, Wee Jas, Olidamarra, Moradin, Kord) then I may vote:

1. Olidamarra (10 points)
2. Gruumsh (9 points)
3. Wee Jas
4. Moradin
5. Kord
6. Obad-Hai
7. Nerull
8. Hextor
9. Pelor (2 points)
10. Heironeous (1 point)

Alternatively, you could weight the ranks in such a way that it is very beneficial to be voted #1 and disasterous to be weighted last, but the difference between #5 and #6 wouldn't be so harsh.

1. 30 points
2. 20 points
3. 16 points
4. 13 points
5. 11 points
6. 10 points
7. 8 points
8. 5 points
9. 0 points
10. -10 points

In either case, the voters must be ignorant of other voters' preferences to keep voting honest.

Public Choice is neat, eh?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Nah, I agree with this distinction. This is the same as making Tiamat/Bahamut dragons and not deities. Spell-granting deities should be remote and beyond mortal reach (if they exist at all...). Demon lords are there to be super bad guys that the PCs can destroy.

You'll take my demon and devil cults from my cold undead hands!

I think there should probably be a three-tier system for epic beasties: Non-deific that cannot grant spells, quasi-deity (Tiamat, Bahamut, demon lords, archdevils) that can grant low level spells (0 through 3, maybe) and deities.

Having an invisible and unknown "other" entity granting spells to demon cults is a pointless complication that basically just serves to kiss the butt of people who don't actually play the game, because they'd get offended if they did, which they don't.

I agree that gods should be something different than powerful planar beings, but I think this is the wrong place to draw the line.