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How many gods is too many gods?
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<blockquote data-quote="delericho" data-source="post: 7482365" data-attributes="member: 22424"><p>That's fair enough. My reason for posting the link was to attempt to further discussion, rather than any attempt at a last word - I find Angry to be generally useful, but certainly don't agree with everything he writes! <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>While that's true, I'm not sure it's actually desirable for a D&D setting to even <em>try</em> to encompass everything that people might disagree about. I'm generally inclined to the view that a setting is likely stronger if it has a small number of powerful themes, rather than trying to be model anything like the complexity of the real world.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I'm not keen to debate the example he happened to give, mostly because it is just one example.</p><p></p><p>Where I think he has it right, though:</p><p></p><p>- Fewer well realised gods are probably better than many undefined ones. (Indeed, IMO the worst bit of "Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes" was the big lists of racial deities, many of whom got <em>nothing</em> beyond a name, province, alignment, domain, and symbol.)</p><p></p><p>- An odd, and indeed prime, number of gods is better than the alternative, to prevent balance and thus to generate conflict.</p><p></p><p>- It's probably better if deities are <em>not</em> simplistically aligned to Good and Evil - better if you can make a strong argument for <em>both</em> sides of a conflict.</p><p></p><p>- It's also not wise to be <em>too</em> systematic in the way things are laid out. Yes, there's a certain joy in symmetry and neatness... but it's more interesting to have oddities, gaps, and the like.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="delericho, post: 7482365, member: 22424"] That's fair enough. My reason for posting the link was to attempt to further discussion, rather than any attempt at a last word - I find Angry to be generally useful, but certainly don't agree with everything he writes! :) While that's true, I'm not sure it's actually desirable for a D&D setting to even [i]try[/i] to encompass everything that people might disagree about. I'm generally inclined to the view that a setting is likely stronger if it has a small number of powerful themes, rather than trying to be model anything like the complexity of the real world. I'm not keen to debate the example he happened to give, mostly because it is just one example. Where I think he has it right, though: - Fewer well realised gods are probably better than many undefined ones. (Indeed, IMO the worst bit of "Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes" was the big lists of racial deities, many of whom got [i]nothing[/i] beyond a name, province, alignment, domain, and symbol.) - An odd, and indeed prime, number of gods is better than the alternative, to prevent balance and thus to generate conflict. - It's probably better if deities are [i]not[/i] simplistically aligned to Good and Evil - better if you can make a strong argument for [i]both[/i] sides of a conflict. - It's also not wise to be [i]too[/i] systematic in the way things are laid out. Yes, there's a certain joy in symmetry and neatness... but it's more interesting to have oddities, gaps, and the like. [/QUOTE]
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How many gods is too many gods?
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