Discussion - LEW 4th Edition

[Bront]

The Greek gods could be the "Gods of the West", where the West is the default starting region. Maybe people from the faraway exotic lands worship different deities.

I'm just not a fan of using an existing earth pantheon to the point of it being a turnoff for me of the entire setting.

Greek like, city state modeled? Great. But I just don't like the idea of using the flavor of the pre-existing gods, particularly since there is so much history behind it, I've always felt it was more fun to allow for some player interpretation into the gods.

 

[Bront]

Warforged, to me, could be created by a magic-rich city-state (in my mind, Corinth) as a defence mechanism against the Spartans (who view the Warforged as abominations). I think animated suits of armour, in a very greek way fashion, would be pretty cool - not at all like the Eberron 'forged.

I think the idea was to stay core initialy and keep it to SRD stuff. Warforged are not, nor likely ever will be SRD, so be careful about that.

 

[Wik]

I think the idea was to stay core initialy and keep it to SRD stuff. Warforged are not, nor likely ever will be SRD, so be careful about that.

there's been talk about them making it into the Monster Manual, and perhaps SRD. We're really just making "what if" statements at this point.

As for your point on deities - I'm sort of with you on it. I think using Greek gods, and a pseudo-greek feel, is AWESOME. But I too don't want Zeus to wholly be "Greek Zeus". I'd rather he have some of our own interpretations.

 

[Boddynock]

I think there'd be no problem about having the gods be "too Greek". If you read the mythologies carefully, it very soon becomes clear that there's an enormous variety of interpretations of the character of the pantheon. That could easily equate to a dynamic development of the pantheon by the community over time.

(I just had the rather disquieting thought of a Xena-type treatment. Hmm! OK, I'd rather not go there.)

As to the warforged and shifters, although I think that making the warforged animated armour would be quite a change in treatment, I'd have no problem with shifters being one of those very disquieting eastern groups that are making their way into the civilized world!

 

[Bront]

You could easily steal much of it and simply rename the gods, and it removes a lot of real world (mis?)interpretations.

This is fantasy, and I think keeping L4W a fantasy game first is best. Get too real world paralell, and it's a very different game.

 

[Boddynock]

Yeah, but part of the buzz is playing a game and saying, "Oh, wow! That was Ulysses we just met - how cool is that!"

 

[Bront]

Yeah, but part of the buzz is playing a game and saying, "Oh, wow! That was Ulysses we just met - how cool is that!"

Ugh, I'll pass on that.

 

[Rystil Arden]

You could easily steal much of it and simply rename the gods, and it removes a lot of real world (mis?)interpretations.

This is fantasy, and I think keeping L4W a fantasy game first is best. Get too real world paralell, and it's a very different game.

@Bront--Unless you think that Greek mythology actually happened, I would say that it is fantasy too, y'know?

As to a mention above of 'this monster is in the SRD from the MM, now we're obliged to make it a PC race', I disagree.

@Wik, For Tieflings, I want them to be descendants (not direct children though, or else they'd be demigods) of Titans (actually probably Protogonoi like Nyx and Erebos would be more appropriate--none of the Titans is as good a match), but yeah, bloodline feats for various different deific ancestors could be extremely awesome. As to Eladrin/Elf subtleties, you have it mixed up, nearly backwards. The Eladrin are the magical good-at-magic fey elves (an awesome match for Nymph/Daimon blooded characters). The Elves are the woodsy wood elf elves.

@Boddynock--When I read objections above your post about the many interpretations, I was about to post the same thing, but then I saw that you had already done so. Well said! However, I'd say let's not go so far as to include the same Greek heroes (as in your Odysseus example)--the PCs are the heroes this time! The only one I'd keep is a Herakles equivalent, already fully deified and among the gods now.

 

[Knight Otu]

Ugh, I'll pass on that.

And I suppose that most people would rather be (the equivalent of) Ulysses in the game instead of meeting him in the game.

I think there is little doubt that warforged will be in the Monster Manual (them being in the MM is a way to support Eberron from the get-go), the question is whether they are in the SRD. That's one of the reasons why I advocated closing the MM races from player characters earlier. They'd probably originally be a gift/creation of Hephaistos, who might have collaborated with other gods. Perhaps created before returning to Olympus?

Eladrin are the 'fey wizards,' essentially taking on a role similar to high elves in 3.X. There has been a few hints that the eladrin types that exist in 3.X might also exist in 4E, though it isn't clear how. Elves are essentially wood elves, and more worldly than the eladrin. If the wizardry link holds, eladrin might be lesser spirits akin to, say, muses or moirae, though other connections are possible, depending on how they are depicted in 4E.

Linking tieflings to the titans points to a likelyhood that the titans are also potential patrons for warlocks. Seems fitting for now, but is entering rulesy territory.

The "too greek" problem I can certainly see. Some possibilities are to use a mix between greek deities and new deities (especially since there may be some need to cover D&Disms), and regional flavor (farther reaches of the main continent might have completely different cultures, and if there are other continents, they certainly should), worshipping the gods under other names, or other gods completely.

 

[Wik]

Y'know, I wouldn't mind just starting work on "Fourth Age", even if it turned out that it didn't become the default setting for L4W. I think it's just a cool core idea we got going on right now.

A few quick ideas -

1) TEN CITY-STATES. five core, five peripheral. And then maybe GMs can add smaller city-states at their whim.

2) Large meta-plots. Becaue I think that brings out a living game's true potential, as opposed to "Unrelated adventures that are connected by the same characters" (although we'd have that, too!)

3) Throw in other mythologies, as opposed to just Greek. Hey, calling it simply "The Age of Mythology" or something, and throwing in mythical beings from other cultures could be pretty cool. Imagine if Athens and Sparta were city-states, as well as an Egyptian state, a Celtic state, etc...

4) Running with that, we could name our greek gods with other mythology names. I read this really neat anthropology article that states (and this is fairly obvious) that most of the mythologies of the old world riffed off each other, and that many thought "Hey, your Aphrodite is a lot like our Isis!". We could do something similar.

5) Keep that idea about a transitive plane on the oceans, meaning travel times are highly erratic. It fits a Greek game fairly well, anyways.