How do you become a god?

[El Mahdi]

There's also the technique of simply saying "Yes" to the question "Are you a God?".

This is known variably as the Ghostbusters "Fake It Till You Make It" technique, or the Veckman Process.

 

[Rechan]

If it were to happen, it would also be as the conclusion of my campaign. I do not plan on players running gods.

I forget which game it is, but the notion is that players are Gods. But, they simply have forgotten all of their power.

So, leveling up is described as "remembering" pieces of your former power.

On that same topic, Exalted is cool because all the characters are demi-gods. All Chosen have fragments of a God's power in them.

 

[Andor]

Achieve enlightenment.

Eat the divine ambrosia of the gods.

Drink the blood of a god.

Die a true hero. (And have the gods be fond enough of you to elevate you after death.)

Be a demi-god and have your mortality burned away.

Claim to be a god and make it stick.

-Personally I'm not a fan of the "Gods need worshippers." model of divinity. That's not a god, it's a really powerful leech. Gods are worshipped because it tickles their massive egos and makes them slightly less likely to smite you for their amusment. (The Roman/Greek god model.) Or it may be that they are distant extraplanar beings and worship is the gateway that allows them to influence the world/grant power to those who work to achive the gods ends. (This is the model followed by both Eberron and in Lois Bujolds Chalion books.)

 

[Relique du Madde]

Convincing a diety that you are a diety might be the most difficult but easiest way of obtaining divinity. After all, what is the belief of a million mortals compared to the belief of one god?

 

[Silverblade The Ench]

Listen to Venkman, not Ray!
sorry...had to be said

On a more serious note, I'd strongly disagree that it's all about levels. No, it's about FAME, or infamy, devotion and a certain "something"
Put it this way, if Earth was D&D, Hitler would most certainly have been a god. His evil, or even "failing" in the end doesn't matter.

he was a brave soldier (like it or not, he was), but he wasn't a "super dooper butt kicker"
he was probably insane (certainly by the end he was).
he wasn't good looking.
But he had ENORMOUS charisma, that and other factors beyond the man himself (the times, powerful backers, etc etc), all lead ot him gaining a cult devoted following.
Plenty of folk, alas, still follow him now even after all the scumbag caused.

So, he would indeed, be a god, like it or not. A "Bane" or worse.

So for D&D I'd say it's possible for *any* character to become a god, with enough luck, and garnered fame...plus the "whatever mysterious things" may give characters that touch of a divine spark, or enormous gumption.
It also doesn't have to be widespread fame, if a village is uttelry devoted, that's enough to be a very minor god. Quality counts as much as quantity, if not a lot more so. Though, small numbers = high risk of followers being wiped out and then the god fades away.

 

[darjr]

Destroy it all, build what you want out of the wreckage, poof, your god of everything.

--Tharizdun

 

[Celebrim]

Personally I'm not a fan of the "Gods need worshippers." model of divinity. That's not a god, it's a really powerful leech.

I'm not either, and if I was writing fiction I wouldn't go that way. Bujold has a much better take on it in the Chalion books (particularly the first one, she kinda moves away from the model somewhat in the later books). By far the best done 'fantasy religion' book is IMO 'The Book of the Righteous' which has the gods being real gods and tries hard to make them believably worthy of worship and not just needful of it.

Most literature with 'the gods needs worshipers' tends to promote a very negative view of dieties which is I think rather driven by a need to comment on the real world rather than imagining a rich and interesting fantasy world.

But if we are going to allow mortals to become gods in a RPG the 'Gods need worshippers' model has the advantage of providing a really big intruige hook if we ever wanted to run a 'the PC's are now gods' campaign. There is a gamist sensiblity to being able to quantify the source of a gods power and the means by which they could achieve 'level advancment' which you don't really get if the gods are natively powerful beings.

 

[Jack99]

edit: there is an artifact that allows someone to skip all of that and become a greater god. The book is a series of instructions (100's of pages long) that have to be done. So far no player character has gotten past page 2.

I would be interested to hear more about this artifact, and how you "handle" in-game.

 

[Crothian]

I would be interested to hear more about this artifact, and how you "handle" in-game.

It has only been found twice in the 15 years or since it was first hinted at way back in 2e. It is a book and like many magical books one can see it detects as magical but not a lot more can be found out until one starts reading it.

The book wants to be read so when one of the PCs found it but was reluctant to read it as any item they can't identify is considered suspect and with good reason the book pressured him. The player happened to be my roommate at the time so to show the pressure after he had it in his possession after a few weeks I would bug him about it through out the week. I also e-mailed him with "read me" messages. It worked out well and didn't annoy him which was a possibility.

He broke down and read the book. Or the first page. Every page was the first page as the book would not reveal page two until page one was read and followed. Each page worked that way.

I'm not sure what you mean by "handle" in quotes and all.

The player followed the instructions of the first page. But once he say the second page it was too much he had to sacrifice he felt to go on. The book wants the reader to become a god, and does not care what the reader wants. So, it wanted him to do things he didn't want to do so he eventually dropped it down a well.

The second time the book was found went basically the same way. At first the player is excited about this challenge but when they realize what it is going to take they aren't willing to go along with it.

 

[Jack99]

It has only been found twice in the 15 years or since it was first hinted at way back in 2e. It is a book and like many magical books one can see it detects as magical but not a lot more can be found out until one starts reading it.

The book wants to be read so when one of the PCs found it but was reluctant to read it as any item they can't identify is considered suspect and with good reason the book pressured him. The player happened to be my roommate at the time so to show the pressure after he had it in his possession after a few weeks I would bug him about it through out the week. I also e-mailed him with "read me" messages. It worked out well and didn't annoy him which was a possibility.

He broke down and read the book. Or the first page. Every page was the first page as the book would not reveal page two until page one was read and followed. Each page worked that way.

I'm not sure what you mean by "handle" in quotes and all.

The player followed the instructions of the first page. But once he say the second page it was too much he had to sacrifice he felt to go on. The book wants the reader to become a god, and does not care what the reader wants. So, it wanted him to do things he didn't want to do so he eventually dropped it down a well.

The second time the book was found went basically the same way. At first the player is excited about this challenge but when they realize what it is going to take they aren't willing to go along with it.

Sounds like a great artifact.

In your first post you only said there was a book with 100's of pages of instructions and no player had gotten past page 2. I was curious why the player only had read 2 pages. Now I know.

One more question. Have you written down all the things someone has to do in order to become a god, or do you make one page when needed?