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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celtavian" data-source="post: 6779472" data-attributes="member: 5834">In the Forgotten Realms? Godhood indicates control over a part of the world that that a wizard or PC caster could not control on the same level as a god. For example, let's say a wizard attempts to control the ocean using a wish spell, Umberlee can counter him at will without rolling anything. She has absolute control over the sea. Her will is absolute when it comes to control of the ocean. No player character or god can challenge her control of the sea of Faerun. You pray to her, hope your offering is enough, and the goddess does not punish you on on the ocean. It's similar with all the gods. If Lathander is unhappy, the dawn may not come. Or it may be muted. The priests of Lathander will look for omens as to why Lathander is feeling such displeasure.A wizard would need to build a huge number of worshipers and figure out a way to become powerful enough to grant spells and control an aspect of the world in a manner that could not be challenged by mortal magic or even other gods. Then he would be able to exercise the level of power necessary to be a god.Moral status? What does that have to do with anything? You don't need moral status to be a god. You don't even need to be moral to be a god. Gods are gods. They tell you how they want it done. You do it or you suffer the consequences. It's the same thing as when a person tells you how the government is going to run. They tell you, you choose to follow it or not, if you do not, you suffer the consequences. There isn't some absolute consensus on whether it was moral or not. Anyone expecting consensus isn't going to get it.Do the majority of DMs go this far to show the power of a god? Unlikely, at least I don't. Most of this conversation was for amusement. As a DM I require all players of religiously driven characters like paladins or clerics to choose a deity. I don't allow the worship of forces or philosophies in Faerun. I tend to draw from mythology for how the gods act. They have their plots. They have their reasons. PCs don't always understand them, though they may be willing or unwilling pawns. There is a war for control of the world between the gods of good and evil. Neutral gods choose sides according to what they feel is best for that aspect of the world they control. I don't modify the world for an atheist since only an insane person would be an atheist in a world with obvious gods exercising their power on a daily basis. Gods are also there to manage the afterlife including the spiritual warfare that occurs there between good and evil. Gods are entities that embody and defend a part of the world be it a physical part (the ocean, forests), a virtue (courage, heroism), forces (war, famine, plague), or some other aspect of it. They defend these forces both in the living world and the world beyond.As far as its effect on the game, I leave a lot up to the players. I see no problem with the Wall of the Faithless being used to punish those that don't follow the rules and don't see it as an evil thing. People that refuse to choose a deity are dangerous to the gods of the Forgotten Realms and must be dealt with harshly. i see no problem with even good gods enforcing their worship as worship is their power given the living spread the word of them, manifest their power on Faerun, and fight against their enemies on Faerun. It's essential that they maintain worshippers for all of those reasons as well as needing souls to martial armies and defend their realm in the afterlife. If a player in the world feels like following a moral path that isn't likely to have a very good afterlife, that is on them. There does not need to be any type of moral status or moral consistency or moral consensus for the gods. All of that is irrelevant. Gods are powerful beings that control all aspects of life and the afterlife. Gods are tyrants defined as good, neutral, or evil only because those aspects of what they control fall under those terms to mortal beings. If you want to fight them as tyrants, have at it. Doesn't mean you'll win. If you lose, you end up on the Wall or worse for no other reason than they are more powerful than you. If they weren't far more powerful than you, you could ignore them and they would't be gods. They'd be nobodies not worth putting in the fictional world. It would be like writing stories about Zeus where the Greeks were insulting him, calling him an idiot, and he could do nothing about it. He just sat there looking at them rather than calling his brother Poseidon to send in the Kraken. Those types of gods wouldn't be very interesting or fun.</blockquote>

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