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Message: <blockquote data-quote="RangerWickett" data-source="post: 4042198" data-attributes="member: 63">In myths, the characters are constant. Most mythic characters do a handful of things throughout the scope of a society's mythos, but during their tales they very rarely gain power. They might metamorphose into something new, but Zeus is pretty much always Zeus. He didn't ever "gain" his lightning bolts. Coyote is always Coyote. He never took a prestige class.So if you want a mythic game, start the characters at a high level, and don't let them gain experience.Also, very seldom in myths do multiple characters collaborate. That shows up more in epics, like the Odyssey, . . . I'm sure there are other examples, but I was up 'til 4am last night killing Tiamat, so I'm a little out of it. Most myths are about one protagonist and how he interacts with the world and with other characters. You don't get Hercules, Thor, and Son-Goku teaming up to deal with a threat.Again, myths are often about explaining how the world is. They can be simply demonstrative -- the sun? that's Apollo's chariot -- or they can tell about how things came to be -- and God confused their tongues, and soon the Tower of Babel fell. Myths are very seldom about 'beating' someone. Much more often, they're about being defeated, which causes some persistent suffering in the world. Shouldn't've listened to the snake, Eve.What works for myths and what works for games are different, though there's some overlap. Hercules and his trials goes pretty well. The Ramayana is all about love and war and battles. (Or is that the Bhagavad-Gita?) D&D is not set up for myths in the broad sense, though if you nip and tuck a bit, you can make it work. Just like you can play chess without a chess-board while pretending that it's not just a boardgame, but is actually a tale of a Victorian heiress using her illicit paramour's gang of thugs to try to drive out the established members of her family so that she can claim control of the family from the house's current matriarch. (Beware the opening Butler gambit!)I'm planning on running a mythic game for my first 4e campaign. 'Points of light'? I intend for the PCs to be the first sentient beings in the world, whose presence evokes the power of gods that will guide them toward establishing an entire world's mythos.</blockquote>

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