Dragonlance Dragonlance "Reimagined".

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Every D&D god are like the Greek or Norse gods. They are people with a lot of power.

IMO

And I wouldn't call someone like Zeus or Hera "good". They do a ton of evil stuff. D&D "gods" can be "people" like Greek, Norse, or Egyptian gods, but then giving them objective labels of morality is a problem.

 

[humble minion]

Every D&D god are like the Greek or Norse gods. They are people with a lot of power.

IMO

But they cannot both be that and also be exemplars of an unchanging and universal cosmic metaphysical morality system, which is the slot Dragonlance drops them into.

 

[DarkCrisis]

And I wouldn't call someone like Zeus or Hera "good". They do a ton of evil stuff. D&D "gods" can be "people" like Greek, Norse, or Egyptian gods, but then giving them objective labels of morality is a problem.

Oh I know. Even the "good" Greek gods could be huge arseholes.

But they cannot both be that and also be exemplars of an unchanging and universal cosmic metaphysical morality system, which is the slot Dragonlance drops them into.

Sure they can. Just like the Faerun gods. I think it was 2E or 3E that gave them "portfolios" which is just the cosmic stuff they presided over.

Bhaal is/was the god of murder. He isn't murder personified. Paladine can be the god of Law and Good but he isnt Law and Good personified.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

But they cannot both be that and also be exemplars of an unchanging and universal cosmic metaphysical morality system, which is the slot Dragonlance drops them into.

that is the thing. Zeus isn't flawed but good, by mythology he is neutral sometimes leaning evil.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Oh I know. Even the "good" Greek gods could be huge arseholes.

The Greek Gods are only "good" in comparison to the cosmic beings that came before them (Titans like Kronos, Primordials like Tartarus, Gaia, and Ouranos). And even that is up for debate because not all of the Titans were bad (Prometheus, Epimetheus, Helios, and maybe Eos if you blame the kidnapping stuff on Aphrodite cursing her).

Zeus was a serial rapist that ate his first wife and was such a bad king that his own siblings and wife plotted to overthrow him multiple times. He imprisoned and endlessly tortured one of the few good Titans because he disobeyed him once. Hera was extremely jealous and further tormented Zeus's children and the people that Zeus raped because she couldn't take it out on her husband (poor Io). Poseidon made a woman fall in love with a cow and give birth to the Minotaur because they didn't properly honor him and in another famous story sent a sea monster to attack a kingdom because the queen said she was more beautiful than his wife. Apollo and Artemis were upset when a queen offended their mother so they killed her dozen children to punish her.

The Greek Gods were awful "people". There's probably not a single Olympian or other well-known Greek God that doesn't have a story where they're a terrible person. And it's perfectly fine for a fantasy world to have gods similar to the Greek Gods. But then you can't label them "good". Or, you specifically have to reserve that label for the few gods that actually are good (Hestia, maybe Hades, even Hephaestus depending on the myth). Because most Greek Gods are bad.

 

[Hussar]

that is the thing. Zeus isn't flawed but good, by mythology he is neutral sometimes leaning evil.

But according to DnD he is labeled as good. The real problem here is alignment getting in the way.

whoops, my bad. In 5e Zeus is Neutral, in 3e he was CG, in 1e he was CG.

Funnily enough, he's never evil. My point still remains. The problem here is that people are insisting that as soon as you slap a Good alignment on something, it cannot ever do anything evil. Even failing to stop something evil, or, not doing anything to stop evil, makes you evil.

It does go a long way to explaining why these conversations go around in a lot of circles.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

But according to DnD he is labeled as good. The real problem here is alignment getting in the way.

whoops, my bad. In 5e Zeus is Neutral, in 3e he was CG, in 1e he was CG.

Funnily enough, he's never evil. My point still remains. The problem here is that people are insisting that as soon as you slap a Good alignment on something, it cannot ever do anything evil. Even failing to stop something evil, or, not doing anything to stop evil, makes you evil.

It does go a long way to explaining why these conversations go around in a lot of circles.

Zeus in D&D isn't the zeus of legend

 

[Vaalingrade]

Considering literally every thing Zeus is notable for doing ever, the idea that he is neutral is 100% the problem.

The problem with what? Yes.

 

[Velderan]

no it isn't. It doesn't confirm to modern senseablities of power scaleing, alignment and it has racisist and ablesit content... taking that stuff and fixing it would be the minimum.

I'm curious what you mean by power scaling.

Edit: Or rather how Dragonlance isn't a viable setting for modern play because of it.

 

[Fifth Element]

Hang on, let's examine that last part. Are you saying that trying and failing makes you evil?

What? No, the point is that they didn't try, not really. They didn't do nearly all of what was in their power to do. The interdiction against direct action is a facade, because the Cataclysm itself is direct action. "I'm not allowed to directly intervene to prevent this particular direct intervention, because direct intervention is not allowed." It's a naughty word excuse.

So, the gods (plural, as in all of them) send the Cataclysm. The good gods attempt to stop it, but, since they are forbidden from acting directly

They were not, in fact, forbidden from acting directly, because the Cataclysm is direct action and they took part in it, as you noted here. That's the whole point. They engaged in direct, genocidal action. To the claim that they were unable to act directly is entirely untenable.

But, again, in any case, since we're obviously not going to agree on this point

Don't give up! If you actually grasp what I'm saying, you might well get there eventually.

but we do agree that the Cataclysm is necessary for the setting, how would you do it?

I haven't suggested anything should be changed about how it went down. I'm only discussing one of the implications of how it went down - which is that the "good gods" are not actually good. Which works just fine as part of a fantasy world. It's an interesting feature, even. The gods who claim to represent goodness itself actually act in ways that are not good but in fact pretty evil sometimes, but the "good gods" are too myopic or what have you to see that.