Why you attack him for his play-style? Maybe it's different what many here likes, but I feel his whole group likes that kinda games too, current dm included.
Another thing, original poster can correct me if I am wrong. But for me it sounds like this character is long standing npc enemy when original poster was dm. And now his group thought it would be fun to let him play that character as pc of sorts and play storyline, where epic evil starts ravaging the world.
Not every challenge you face in rpg is combat related challenge. Sure for some groups there must be those for game to be fun, my sister is like that for example when she plays.
Social challenges, puzzles, investigation, planning, social aspects are challenges too, and some people enjoy them more than combat. Some like aspect of shared storytelling more than actual challenges where rolling dice is relevant.
How that game is like in actual play, I can't tell from here. The very high level games I have played have been awesome fun, both as dm and as player. Some who have responded here so apperantly don't like that kinda gaming at all. In original posters group however, they do like it.
Yes I agree that dm probably don't like being told how to run game. But it is quite ok IMO to complain if dm alone after discussing about game and it's theme suddenly changes the theme.
I feel maybe if game was supposed to be about battling gods, it should have gone there bit faster. Bored dm:s often use their imagination to come up with alternative plotlines.
I don't like dm:ing gods, I don't think I do it smart enough. I have friend that can pull it off. I like to fade from those situations.
Maybe your dm:ing friend has similar issues. Or maybe he likes the world and doesn't want you to break/change it too much. If he has been long standing player in that world, that kinda sentimentality would be quite natural.
Talk with the group, hope you have gotten some good ideas too writing here.
Thanks again Zelda, it feels like a lot of people post without reading through the lot of them, cause even though we've already figured this much out it still feels like most people's response will be "do it our way and it will be better"..no offense to anyone, I can be like that too after all heh. I personally love playing gods, I love the ability to plan out grander schemes or plot threads, and gods are really good at adding those in. One reason I like playing the character being discussed, she's got a gods intellect and scope of comprehension so...well in the games she's in I usually figure out what either the players or the DM are going to do before they have it all done, and so she can act accordingly instead of only being able to know so much. (oh and I'm a she for reference)
Off the top of my head:
1: You claim your game is a sandbox. You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. What you describe (predetermined outcome) is a railroad.
2: If it had been 4 or 5 sessions before I was challenged at all I would have quit out of boredom.
3: You claim your PC is (amongst other things) one of the most important planes. You then say the Gods don't know about her. Right. Because no one like Ioun or Vecna actually studies things. Or Orcus. At one fell swoop you've just lobotomised the smart part of the pantheon.
4: If nothing can come close to challenging you guys then fast forward until it can.
5: You are a goddamn thief. Admitting to stealing PDFs.
6: If you want a better system for this google the Spirit of the Century SRD. It's free.
7: Good luck to your DM.
1- it has a beginning and an end, just like all stories, but the middle has nothing, we do what the heck we want to get to the end, us players just have a game plan already for what we wanna do, now I'll admit that might not be what some players call a true sandbox...but if a game didn't have an end goal then it's not very fun.
2- we embelish, we tell about the land and the people, talk in depth about the entirety of a culture because we're planning on how best to use them or trick them. our planning stages as our character interact with each other is roughly 1-3 hours of gameplay...so sometimes we just don't have time for everything else. Roleplay heavy, combat light to none, we've done one campaign that had literally NO combat and it was very fun.
3- it's pretty hard to know something is there or different when the plane hasn't moved, changed, or stopped being what it is, she's just it's new brain and manifestation. she's it's avatar, and with the voidstone item, as long as she's not holding a sign up that she's there and other then taking control of undead, only to have them still follow their 'masters' because she's not making her move just yet, or blackmailing necromancers in their dreams then even a god can't use their 'sight' to find her, or sense her, if one walked up to her he'd physically hear/touch/smell her and whatnot, but his divine senses wouldn't pick up as long as she has the stone or is in so many miles of it. Even gods can be fooled, espesially when their most common way of knowing ANYTHING is taken away.
4- and miss out on discovering things about the land, meeting possible new members of the evil team, and using our guile to manipulate the nations governments and peoples into our hands all for 1-3 hours of "does this pass it's ac?...ok, I did this much, your turn", combat isn't really that fun for us, even when we are being totally by the book, our characters are the kinds that should combat appear, unless it's at least 5-8 CR's higher then it should be we WILL kill it (unless the DM wants us dead)...we're too good at making characters for combat. such as the fact that we never use magic items (we feel they break flavor of the mystic artifact feel), but we usually figure out a way to get it that none of our stats are below 20-30 and we have a plan to fight in any environment...when we're not playing the game, we're planning out how we'd handle the game should combat ever happen in any of them, for hours.
5- stealing PDF's?...last I checked Wizards doesn't really care if someone makes a PDF and puts it on a free sharing sight of a book edition no one makes anymore. 4.0 I could understand them getting testy with as it's still in print, but 3.X? not only that but at least 800,000 others have downloaded the Players Handbook PDF I have, and that was when I got it 3 years ago, so it's in the millions most likely. I won't go into a long winded opinion on 'stealing' things from a place where anything can be free if you look hard enough...I'm sure theres a forum for it. Please don't throw name calling around just because you disagree with an action the other person might not have the same thoughts on, whether it be me or anyone else on here, I doubt they like it either.
6- I think I will check out that one, I've never heard of it so it might be pretty cool if I can put in the DnD cosmology to the system.
7- and god speed to him, we've talked to him already, be we're still discussing his problems with things.
