Should players be allowed to compete for godhood?

[DmQ]

I have been slowly fashioning a home brew and one of the sticking points for me is how to allow players to compete for godhood without the paradox of the gods simply snuffing out the players. For that matter, if the gods are supposed to be in control of magic and other things, why do they even allow mortals to wield it?

If I where a god, the last thing I would do would be to give others the tools necessary to take my place.

What is your take on this conundrum?

 

[reanjr]

I have been slowly fashioning a home brew and one of the sticking points for me is how to allow players to compete for godhood without the paradox of the gods simply snuffing out the players. For that matter, if the gods are supposed to be in control of magic and other things, why do they even allow mortals to wield it?

If I where a god, the last thing I would do would be to give others the tools necessary to take my place.

What is your take on this conundrum?

If that is the campaign you want to run, then there a couple of options that I can think of.

You can make some wacky magical item or secret that gives mortals, if not the upper hand, the chance to kill a god. A weapon lost to the ages and wielded by the now dead war god might grant the player immunity to divine salient powers (of course the god is still going to be damn tough).

There can be a way to reduce the gods actual power. Forgotten Realms did this in the Time of Troubles, when the gods had to walk in mortal form.

You may simply dicate that gods aren't that powerful. Gods may be a cut above the rest, but not by any means almighty. Tolkien used this method (though he did not allow mortals or elves to ascend to godhood, he allowed gods to be defeated by mortals).

You could let the players progress to about 100th level. At that point, the gods really would have a tough time fighting them (at least as far as the rules in Deities and Demigods go).

As to why gods allow mortals to have this power, the answers are varied. Perhaps some gods grant the power to the mortals so that they can defeat their enemies. Perhaps there was divine dictate from an overdeity. Arcane magic need not come from the gods. Divine magic may not be able to be "turned off". A god, simply by being a god, may not have the ability to not grant spells (3e supports this, while 2e did not really). The gods may not be permitted to intercede in several important ways. Of course, the players should have to deal with these same problems when they become divine.

 

[Telperion]

I have been slowly fashioning a home brew and one of the sticking points for me is how to allow players to compete for godhood without the paradox of the gods simply snuffing out the players. For that matter, if the gods are supposed to be in control of magic and other things, why do they even allow mortals to wield it?

If I where a god, the last thing I would do would be to give others the tools necessary to take my place.

What is your take on this conundrum?

Well it all really depends on the cosmology. Arcane Magic isn't, always, under the control of Gods. So, although bards, sorcerers and wizards can be persecuted and burned at the stake there will most likely always be arcane casters, whether the Gods want it or not. Given enough time, and some Immortality / Long livety spells/rituals, an arcane caster could theoretically gather enough power to challenge a minor divinity. After that victory the arcanist could contrive of a way to usurp the power of said divinity. One step above normal humans already. Then the PC just needs to take careful steps upward until he becomes a full Deity and start eating the others for breakfast .

Divine Magic comes from the Gods, but what if a PC starts working his way up the chain of power towards Godhood with a Deity's help (without the Deity knowing all of the PC's motives, of course)? Suppose that such a PC first starts as a lowly follower of a suitable God. After 10 - 15 levels he has reached a much closer relationships with his God and is quite possibly in the Gods favor and enjoys all manner of support from said God. Why not set up a little sub sect for the God? More followers usual equal more power to the God. After the character reaches high levels (16 and above) he might start to change the doctrine of the sub sect that he created earlier. Instead of all that faith going to a God some of it might start trickling to the PC as well. Should the PC also be in possession of a small plane of existence outside of the Material Plane (not an impossible thing at high-levels) then that would be an excellent place to start creating the PC's own little domain, that will most likely grow as time moves on. In the end it could be that the PC can stand up to the God he began worshipping all those years ago and take his place. Well, it isn't easy, but with a lot of work it could be accomplished in theory. Of course this requires a whole lot of diplomacy and other things besides straight-out combat abilities, but after a while what's the point of fighting if your loyal worshippers can do it for you? Better to reserve your energies to something really worthwhile.

This is all, of course, just speculation and it all depends very heavily on your homebrew worlds setting. Some settings simply state that any given Deity is totally invincible on His own plane and will not leave it under any circumstances. In that case there isn't much a lowly mortal can do...

 

[sellars]

What is your take on this conundrum?

If you can handle it as a DM, I would see no point against it.

Gods also compete against each other, so I see no principled paradox here. Maybe one of the gods is using the PCs as a tool and is taking for granted that the PCs themselves can become gods in the process. Wielding such amounts of power does make one arrogant.

If it works out, it must be quite an interesting story!

 

[Aaron2]

If I where a god, the last thing I would do would be to give others the tools necessary to take my place.

I'm curious where you get the idea that the gods have to -allow- someone else to become a god. That being said, I always assume that any campaign that goes on long enough will result in PC gods. Its the ultimate carrot.


Aaron

 

[DmQ]

If you can handle it as a DM, I would see no point against it.

Gods also compete against each other, so I see no principled paradox here. Maybe one of the gods is using the PCs as a tool and is taking for granted that the PCs themselves can become gods in the process. Wielding such amounts of power does make one arrogant.

If it works out, it must be quite an interesting story!

Honestly, I have never run a game that came close to challenging the gods… But I understand that many players enjoy the ‘idea’ that they might get there one day.

I have decided that intra-planar competition is rife in my homebrew… To the point of cataclysmic maelstroms. As a matter of fact, there is only one rule I am trying to keep in mind while creating my homebrew and that is, nothing is impossible to destroy and no being is impossible to defeat.

I have an original take on how to succeed in this. But I want to see if my ideas are as original as I think. Thus I am asking everyone on these boards to chime in. It can only help.

Just to give an example… I was contemplating a new character system strikingly similar to bloodlines in Unearthed Arcana. I was actually disappointed that my idea wasn’t as original as I had hoped. Though I don’t intend to incorporate the optional rule verbatim from the UA, my players will recognize it.

I'm curious where you get the idea that the gods have to -allow- someone else to become a god. That being said, I always assume that any campaign that goes on long enough will result in PC gods. Its the ultimate carrot.


Aaron

Just an example…. In FR there is a god of magic… At one time that god died and magic disappeared. Until a new god was appointed and thus the ‘new’ magic was released into the world. Including some old leftovers that have created wild magic, null magic, etc…. There is also the Shadow Weave…. Both systems under the control of gods.

As for the gods –allowing- someone else to become a god, I would think that any smart god would keep tabs on any up and comers, in order to wipe them out long before they even became a threat. This is a small problem I see with the common concept of gods. Some people fix this by creating an Uber-God that maintains the status quo and prevents the lower gods from ‘breaking the rules’… Honestly I am trying to avoid this in my world and have come up with interesting twists to do so.

 

[PJ-Mason]

I have been slowly fashioning a home brew and one of the sticking points for me is how to allow players to compete for godhood without the paradox of the gods simply snuffing out the players. For that matter, if the gods are supposed to be in control of magic and other things, why do they even allow mortals to wield it?

If I where a god, the last thing I would do would be to give others the tools necessary to take my place.

What is your take on this conundrum?

Another option would be for the player's god to annoint the player to demi-god status to serve as a god in his/her portfolio. Mortals have ascended to lesser diety status before and remain in the service of their greater power. They don't necessarily have to kill the other gods to gain godly powers. The gods themselves might be all for it.

 

[Aaron2]

As for the gods –allowing- someone else to become a god, I would think that any smart god would keep tabs on any up and comers, in order to wipe them out long before they even became a threat. This is a small problem I see with the common concept of gods. Some people fix this by creating an Uber-God that maintains the status quo and prevents the lower gods from ‘breaking the rules’… Honestly I am trying to avoid this in my world and have come up with interesting twists to do so.

Ah, I see. I've never ran a campaign where there was just one god of each particular type in the entire multi-verse. If there were, say, eight gods of magic in various pantheons, there wouldn't be any particular one that would be powerful enough to stop a player. Let say there was a small tribe of islanders who worship their own ancient god Dagon. These islander may not have a god of fire so the PC could fill that slot. If, later, these islanders become powerful and invade a nearby continental nation, they can stamp out worship of that nation's pantheon and install their own island gods (including the PC god of fire) on the mainland.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that PC gods don't start out at the top. The PC may end up being the God of Charms before working his way up to being the God of Magic. Likewise, he could start out as the God of Rain before becoming the God of Storms. Increasing his godly powers would probably take thousands of years and usually involves increasing his number of worshippers as well as some plot to diminish his more powerful rival's influence.


Aaron

 

[Bagpuss]

As for the gods –allowing- someone else to become a god, I would think that any smart god would keep tabs on any up and comers, in order to wipe them out long before they even became a threat. This is a small problem I see with the common concept of gods. Some people fix this by creating an Uber-God that maintains the status quo and prevents the lower gods from ‘breaking the rules’… Honestly I am trying to avoid this in my world and have come up with interesting twists to do so.

Any PC is likely to follow one god or another in a fantasy campaign so while Evil God X, might want to kill the PC before he gets close to becoming a god, Good God Y would protect him in the hopes of having the PC as an ally.

Perhapss in the past Gods routinely killed heros, and anti-heros but it most likely lead to the near destruction of the world. Since then they have had a sort of Cold War stand-off when it came to direct meddling in the mortal world. Hence they have used their champions and minions to fight it out on the Prime Material Plane.

No Uber-God is needed to enforce this just the knowledge of mutually assured destruction if all their worshipers get killed in a tit-for-tat smiting. Of course occasionally they will bend or even break this gentleman's agreement, especially as the players get more powerful.

Also don't forget in a fantasy setting gods are rarely all powerful, or omnipresent or omnisentient, so it could be the god was looking the other way. The passage of a human life could be but a blink of an eye to a god who lives for a near infiniate amount of time, blink and you miss it.

 

[Gargoyle]

I like the way it was handled in the old Immortals boxed set. The immortals (TSR didn't want to call them gods, too un-PC) needed mortals to ascend to immortality. It was the only way they could replace their numbers. (Not so immortal, were they?) To become immortal, you had to be sponsored by an immortal, then pass a series of tough challenges on your way to 36th level (the highest level in the D&D boxed sets).

There were also the Old Ones, mysterious gods that were above the immortals. To become one of them, you had to make it to 36th level, ascend to immortality, achieve the highest level of immortal then give it all up to become a 1st level mortal, then do it all over again. Talk about a long term campaign goal...

So if you want player characters to compete to become gods, perhaps consider having a few positions open to fill, and the gods sponsoring them (and rival deities and jealous children of their patron throwing challenges their way). It especially makes a lot of sense for divine spellcasters to have a deity or two cheering them on, and explains why the truly evil god doesn't kill the high level good guys off...he doesn't want the entire pantheon of good mad at him for killing one of their 'children', nor does he want his own kids taken out.