D&D General The purpose of deity stats in D&D.

[Voadam]

So god stats for full gods have been in OD&D, 1e, 3.0, and 4e. 2e, 3.5, and 4e had variously stats for god avatars and divine aspects which were projections of gods into a material form that could be interacted with but not the underlying god itself (4e had both god stats and projected lower level aspect stats). 5e has had stats for demon lords and the full goddess Tiamat but generally mostly stayed away from statting gods besides suggested domains for their clerics, their general areas of interest, and alignments.

The 50th anniversary OD&D celebration book included the OD&D original 3 book set, development notes and drafts and such and supplements I-III but specifically not Supplement IV Gods, Demigods, and Heroes.

“The cultural appropriation of original D&D ranges from the bewildering (like naming every 6th-level cleric a ‘lama’) to the staggering; [the reference book] Gods, Demigods, and Heroes (not reprinted in this book) includes game statistics for sacred figures revered by more than a billion people around the world,” Also “Were players expected to fight Vishnu, one of the principal deities of Hinduism, kill him, and loot his ‘Plus 3 sword of demon slaying’?”

Gods, Demigods, and Heroes included real-world myths alongside fictional ones (Conan and Elric, excised from the PDF and the original 2013 premium reprint) providing pantheons a DM could choose to use including stats for gods, heroes, and monsters that could be interacted with mechanically in the game if a DM chose to do so. While some players did hunt down gods for their loot in their home games as documented in letters to Dragon, I think the expectations were diametrically not in that direction.

From the 1976 foreword to Gods, Demigods, and Heroes "What the authors have done in this volume is to attempt to set down guidelines that will enable you to incorporate a number of various mythologies into your game/campaign."

I interpret this as the primary goal of providing a background of sample pre-done pantheons for gods that can be used in a DM's campaign and for their PC and NPC clerics to have options for patron deities.

Also from that foreword "This volume is something else, also: our last attempt to reach the “Monty Hall” DM’s. Perhaps now some of the ‘giveaway’ campaigns will look as foolish as they truly are. This is our last attempt to delineate the absurdity of 40+ level characters. When Odin, the All-Father has only(?) 300 hit points, who can take a 44th-level Lord seriously?"

So why provide stats besides for directly providing fights with PCs and loot to collect?

I see it so that they have defined powers in the world that can be directly interacted with if a DM has a god show up for any reason. Odin could be always on his high throne manipulating things from afar or throwing his spear to determine a battles outcome and never need stats or he could be an old wanderer in a big floppy hat they meet at a river going under a pseudonym. Fizban the Fabulous can be a questgiver and pot stirrer who actually travels with the party. Vishnu could fight demons on screen or be always the supreme being aspect of many Hindu traditions and a DM not use the stats. A summoned god could fight another summoned god like on the 1e cover of Deities and Demigods. Options for different DMing styles and uses of gods in their campaigns.

The 1e World of Greyhawk Campaign Setting boxed set had stats for various hero-deities, quasi-deities, demigods, lesser gods, and greater gods. A number of them lived in the setting such as all the hero- and quasi-deities, Iuz the demigod who ruled his own empire, Farlanghan the god of roads who wandered the world, and Xagyg who rose from Archmage to Demigod status and left the world. This showed a progression of defined power stats and provided divine beings for potential roleplaying interactions with mechanics as needed.

This matches things like Greek Mythology where nymphs and river spirits were lower end gods that heroes could interact with including the possibly of fighting or gaining some specific help from them and Ares could get hurt and defeated by a mortal epic warrior in the Iliad and sent running in fear.

D&D has gone back and forth on the gods with them occasionally being omnipotent forces in their areas that only send a portion of themselves that can be interacted with as an avatar or aspect but the actual god/being is not limited by those mechanics. This allows different models of divinity, particularly if you want a more medieval monotheistic type of religious relationship model to gods in a polytheistic/henotheistic world.

But for a lot of D&D there has been statted full gods that can be interacted with if a DM wants them to show up as more defined than a voice from a communion or miracles happening or not without a hard line between lesser divine beings with stats and unstatted gods.

 

[ezo]

Just reading the title I thought you mean DEX in 5E... Oops!

 

[Voadam]

Just reading the title I thought you mean DEX in 5E... Oops!

Maybe I should have titled it Deity stats.

Edit: God stats is likely to be interpreted that way a number of times, I changed it.

 

[MNblockhead]

So players can fight gods. The ultimate boss level.

Not how I like to run my games now--wait my last campaign, which ran for 5 years, ended with a battle against the avatar of Orcus... I mean, it was a fun >10 hours of play.

 

[Peter BOSCO'S]

"If it bleeds, we can kill it."

 

[Alzrius]

So why provide stats besides for directly providing fights with PCs and loot to collect?

I see it so that they have defined powers in the world that can be directly interacted with if a DM has a god show up for any reason.

That's certainly part of it, but for me there's always been another reason, which is the "top-down" style of building a campaign world.

That's essentially where you build the major aspects of a campaign world first, and then start filling in the details. How does magic work? What planes of existence make up the cosmology? Who are the gods and what are they capable of?

Answering these questions first, and having subsequent details be built off of those answers, lends itself to verisimilitude in the campaign world, encouraging players to invest in the game. This way, there's an answer as to why things are the way they are, and even if the PCs don't know what it is at first, they can go looking for it if they want without the DM having to scramble to come up with something that might not fit the campaign world.

Issues of "Why didn't the gods appear personally to fight this world-ending threat?" or "Why don't the good gods just wipe out the arch-fiends if they're so much more powerful than them?" cease to become potential plot-holes or inconsistencies this way, instead becoming underlying mysteries of the campaign that the PCs can choose to investigate as they reach the higher levels.

Likewise, while having stats for the gods abets this, it's important to remember that it doesn't necessitate it, simply because DMs who don't like their deities to be defined can simply ignore such a resource. "In my game, the gods are unknowable and un-statted; we're not using that sourcebook" completely solves any potential problem of munchkinism run amok, while DMs who don't like that approach have a product that they can make use of (instead of having to write custom rules themselves, which is a lot more work).

 

[Bedrockgames]

Yeah I think it comes down to how mythic and epic you want the game to be. Giving the gods stats can definitely create a kind of Journey to the West vibe. There is definitely something to be said for that style of game, and it honestly fits a bit with D&D, especially at higher levels. I've had campaigns where it is possible to contend with the gods, and that can be a lot of fun

 

[Mannahnin]

D&D has gone back and forth on the gods with them occasionally being omnipotent forces in their areas that only send a portion of themselves that can be interacted with as an avatar or aspect but the actual god/being is not limited by those mechanics. This allows different models of divinity, particularly if you want a more medieval monotheistic type of religious relationship model to gods in a polytheistic/henotheistic world.

But for a lot of D&D there has been statted full gods that can be interacted with if a DM wants them to show up as more defined than a voice from a communion or miracles happening or not without a hard line between lesser divine beings with stats and unstatted gods.

Yes indeed. Tim may have been unable to see it at the time, being stuck with a limited perspective only 2.5 years into this hobby, but epic heroes who can actually fight and humble or even kill gods are 100% in the mythic tradition that D&D draws from. When you give a deity hit points, you are inherently enabling and implicitly encouraging folks to fight that deity.

For most of my D&D career it's seemed obvious to me that deities are necessarily beyond stats. But when I've played true epic levels, where the PCs are capable of miracles (like in 4E, for example), fighting archdemons like Orcus and deities like Vecna has been a logical and even obvious endgame.

 

[Voadam]

I don’t think it is just for fighting. 1e and 3e have extensive lists of standard powers and individual powers for gods.

So if you unknowingly are dealing with a god the blessings or curses they can grant are fairly defined in many ways. Similar to the defined blessings or curses that a 1e nymph can grant through their Druid spellcasting though on a more powerful level.

So in 3.0 gods have omniscience in their sphere of influence dependent on their divine rank so if you want to talk to Thor going out to a storm and shouting at him he will hear you.

In OD&D Thor is more limited to controlling storms and storm magic near him and is mostly a 20th level fighter giant slaying machine who is not likely to hear prayers and be able to grant wishes. He may stride down the rainbow bridge and hunt giants in the world like in myths but is more an individual and not an omnipresent god.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I don’t think it is just for fighting. 1e and 3e have extensive lists of standard powers and individual powers for gods.

So if you unknowingly are dealing with a god the blessings or curses they can grant are fairly defined in many ways. Similar to the defined blessings or curses that a 1e nymph can grant through their Druid spellcasting though on a more powerful level.

So in 3.0 gods have omniscience in their sphere of influence dependent on their divine rank so if you want to talk to Thor going out to a storm and shouting at him he will hear you.

In OD&D Thor is more limited to controlling storms and storm magic near him and is mostly a 20th level fighter giant slaying machine who is not likely to hear prayers and be able to grant wishes. He may stride down the rainbow bridge and hunt giants in the world like in myths but is more an individual and not an omnipresent god.

To be clear, I don't think assigning stats to a god implies the players will fight them. I think you assign stats to play them as characters within the setting. I think the dividing line is how transcendent these deities are supposed to be in the game. If they have stats, any number of stat related interactions could come up, the GM could simply use the stats to inform decision making about the god's actions. Personally I think it can work. And I think real deities can work as well (I've seen tons of movies where you have characters fighting deities from real world religions and it adds an interesting element to them)