PHB gods

[rounser]

Why bother using the PHB gods? Why not just grab some silly names and some silly domain combinations and call it a day? 5 minutes work max. E.g.:

Ogg - (Lesser Demiurge) - Domains: Evil, Healing, Air, Protection
Tquirky - (Greater Goddess and Giant Walking Mushroom) - Domains: Law, Fire, Luck, Animal
Gleebus Wurp - (Failed Archdemon, cast out into heaven) - Domains: Good, Destruction, Death, Travel
Yutz - (Mystical Divine Flying Rock With Propellors) - Domains: Magic, Water, Strength, War
Urkh Ob Glurkh - (Part Time Demigod) - Domains: Chaos, Earth, Trickery, Sun

There. No Greyhawk anachronisms...no muss, no fuss...plus, the bonus of using silly god names is that (to me, at least) there's something eminently appealing about having a High Priest of Ogg, or a Temple-Tomb of Gleebus Wurp, and also not having domain combinations thematically make sense makes sense - what mere mortal knows the minds of the gods?

 

[AFGNCAAP]

As for complaints for the PHB gods, I can't really attest to anything, since I primarily run homebrew stuff. However, I've had players have difficulty selecting deities due to lack of certain deity portfolio/AL combos.

Honestly, I prefer the concept of having all races/beings worship one set of deities (perhaps with different names/identities with each race/culture). IMHO, it makes the gods seem more like a genuine aspect of that reality, rather than as a by-product of mortal belief/folklore.

There have been a few concepts that I've come across that seem pretty cool for a campaign world mythos/pantheon. Some of them are:

Elemental Deities: This was mentioned in an old Dragon magazine--four gods, each one tied to an element, that represented multiple aspects. The god of the sky was a storm god (and possibly a trickster-figure). The earth goddess was a goddess of agriculture & fertility, as well as welath & the underworld. The water goddess was a lunar deity, a sea deity, and a magic deity. The fire god was a solar deity, a blacksmith god, and a destroyer-figure. Each one of the 4 gods had positive & negative aspects of them, and religions focused on an aspect of the deity (thus, a good cleric & an evil cleric may worship the same deity, but different aspects).

Office-Holding Deities: Ala Death, War, Time & other beings from Incarnations of Immortality. The "gods" may have names given to them by mortals, but they basically boil down to basic concepts/aspects, such as War, Death, Nature, Fate, Time, Evil, Good, etc.

Refugee Gods: Sort fo seems to be a bit of the concept with some FR deities, and Fritz Leiber even has Loki & Odin appear in his world of Nehwon tales, flung from Earth as their following fades there. Perhaps old gods adopt a new world, gaining faithful followers in that realm (and thus can be a bit of a scavenged hodge-podge of deities from various products/sources).

Major Philosophies: Instead of gods, the religions focus around belief systems based on philosophical tenets. Basically, you can have priests of good, order, chaos, or evil (the basic alignments, as well as relevant domains for those philosophies); priests who focus on a life-death-rebirth cycle (possibly true Neutral clerics with healing & death domains); naturalist priests (druids); priests who worship place-spirits and the sanctity of certain areas (OA shamans); priests who focus/worship on the elemental forces of the world (fire, water, air, earth); even priests who focus on self-enlightenment (monks).

Frankly, it all depends on what you want as a DM, & what will fit your needs. You can always assign more domains to the existing gods, make up a slew of new deities from scratch, or maybe just make/adapt as needed.