Chaosmancer
Legend
Much more rested. Sorry if my reply was a bit more slappy than usual. It was not my intention.
A trope, is not THE trope. It is one of many possible. The fun thing with D&D is that you can use one, two, three or gazillion and it doesn't matter one iota. There are ways to make them work together with one an other without even scratching your heads on how. Gygax found one, and I am sure you can find one by yourself without throwing one set of beings down the drain. So wheter you like it or not, it is a solution. Maybe not the solution you want but it is a solution nonetheless.
I never claimed it was the only trope. So since we both agree that three versions exist ("a smaller force of powerful good beings against a much larger force of evil weaker beings", "A set of equally matched forces in power and number", "A much more numerous but good force against a far more powerful yet smaller number evil force") I don't think that trying to say that one or the other needs to be the case brings any merit. Especially since DnD has the Gods of Good outnumbered both by a massive force of weaker evils (demons and Devils), and beset by equally powerful yet also more numerous forces (evil gods, because there are a lot of them) AND facing a limited number of even more powerful beings (Great Old Ones) that they have mixed far too much into the same basket.
I also don't know what "solution" you are talking about in regards to Gygax. When Gygax was writing, these things weren't set in stone and so weren't a problem. In fact, mortal heroes could kill gods as easily as they could anything else and it wasn't until much later that the stratification started happening. Unless I've misremembered something, but if you have a potential solution to this issue, then bringing it up would be appreciated, instead of making these sort of comments. Because, honestly, I see no value in Evil Gods, the only way I can see to keep them and keep them more powerful than the other evil beings would be to make far more interesting enemies (orcus, Graz'zt, ect) their minions. Which is a terrible solution I think.
As for the bolded part.
What do we gain indeed. A lot of possibilities. Much more than if everything that has a name on it in the plane can be a god. By wanting to usurp gods' powers the demons and devils are effectively creating wars. They are numerous, endless but they are still bound by cosmological laws either given by the gods or by some other Overlord of the Gods (i.e. Ao in the FR and if you read the novels, you know that even Ao has an Overlord too.). And since that Overlord (i.e Ao) is present, then it makes sense that the Gods do have their own laws to obey... At which point do mortals get to interact with higher and higher beings?
Having Demons try to kill the gods, yet bound by the laws of the gods is kind of silly, don't you think? Ao is... honestly I think Ao is a terrible idea. He just exists to give someone to dictate new rules to the gods, which they needed to change editions, but in a world-building sense I don't think he is really needed. The universe itself or reality itself can fulfill the same function.
But, I think you are mistaken in the possibility of war created by having Demons and Devils and Evil Gods. Firstly, those wars can already happen between beings of equal power, see Demogorgon, Orcus and Graz'zt. They are in a three-way struggle. So, we don't need the Demons and Devils to be weaker than the gods for those wars to happen, and in fact, I'd say that those wars are more interesting if the opposing sides are more balanced, than if the Demon Lords or Archdevils need to skulk around because the moment the god actually takes the field they are boned.
Secondly, wars for increasing power don't need for one side to be weaker than the other. It could be that killing a god and subverting their power doesn't ascend a demon lord to a new tier of power, but it does increase their power. Some gods are stronger than others after all. It also gives them new territory. Perhaps access to relics or power sources previously unavailable to them. The spoils of war then can become a plot point, instead of the spoils being "I'm a god now"
Because Thirdly, we are back at the issue I brought up originally. Why do we fear Orcus becoming a god of Undeath when we have a God of Undeath? What does this do that is not currently capable of being done? If we have evil gods, then having evil beings ascending to Godhood isn't as much of a threat. Unless they are breaking the rules of gods.
See, there was a story I encountered some time ago, that laid this out in a good manner. I don't remember exactly what it was, but the idea was pretty simple. The Gods had warred and caused untold destruction, so the Gods made a deal, a pact, that said they couldn't directly interefere with each other, or directly interfere with the world. There were good and evil gods, and they all made this agreement. When a big bad evil guy was trying to attain godhood it was explained that this was a problem, not because he would be an evil god, but because he was not subject to the Pact. He could act uncontested in the world, and if the gods intervened directly to stop him... the pact was broken and the god's war might continue. In this case, having both works, but then you also lose the ability for the gods of good and evil to fight, which DnD allows them to do all the time.
The Immortal set of BCEMI told us what it was all about.
In resumé for the Immortal Set which brought a lot of lights to our games. It does, afterall, litterally make you play gods (ok immortals, but in the OD&D it basically amount to same thing.)
The first set of immortal beings (and my views on how they should translate in D&D) are the
Initiate (Basically the quasi deities, demon-lords, arch-devils and other non true gods.
Temporals (Novice, 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th) This is where you get your demi god and lesser gods.
Celestials (Novice, 1-4) This is where you get the major and greater gods.
Empyreals (Novice, 1-4) (Ao?)
Eternal (Novice, 1-4) (the devs knows what from this point on...)
and you even have higher immortals
Hierarch (Novice 1-4)
And Full Hierarch.
Note: In the Immortal set, demons are fully immortal beings with PP. The above is just an approximation we did for D&D. It is by no means something official but the ranks are.
In terms of power, the lowest temporal has about 500 PP. Each PP can be used to cast or create spell like effect with 1 PP for a spell level or its equivalent. And this can be in addition to its own spell casting ability (if any). Imagine a 36th level wizards being a god... To show the difference, A Full Hierarch has 15,000. And they can create avatars over that...
In that expansion, immortals/gods can use PP to fuel spells, but it is also a currency with which they barter their actions. The more power you put in joepardy, the greater the gain, but the less you have for other challenges and personnal defense.
Example: In a game, a group of evil immortals came to the players and started a claim on a region where the players had set a religion going for them. The claim was control of the whole region by either the forces of evil or good. PP were placed has a bet and players opted to have a group of heroes to foil the plans of the evil immortals. It was the most cost effective. So they went back in time, got the mothers of our heroes to be met their respective husbands, use PP to make sure that the group would meet. Placed challenge (adventures modules, homebrew and whatever) on the path of the group and placed a few "key" magic items to be found by the heroes. Then their champion would raise to 14th level and fight the forces of darkness. And the way to do it, you guessed it, was to play this group heroes.
All this to show that there are interaction between the various mythos, gods and even aspiring gods such as demons and devils. Removing one of the other is fine. But the RP opportunities loss are greater than the gain in doing so IMHO.
I disagree. In fact, your system there could just as easily work without ranks. All that does is make it possible to be a Demon Lord and have 500 PP. Because, again, this divide reduces the possible stories. If a Demi-God is more powerful than an Archdevil, then a full god can't be challenged by an Archdevil. Look at these rankings
Initiate -> Where the antagonist is at
Novice Temporals
1st Temporals
2nd Temporals
3rd Temporals
4the Temporals
Novice Celestials -> The weakest of true gods
1st Celestials
2nd Celestials
3rd Celestials -> A more likely place for a well-known god who would make the most story sense to target
Considering the scaling of the points is roughly 700 pts per tier (probably spikes at novice) You are looking at the story of, say, Orcus challenging the Raven Queen or Kelemvor as a being a fight with one side being potentially 30 times more powerful than the other. You might as well be sending a 5th level cleric to fight a Pitfiend, solo.
Your example of play is great, Immortals utilizing their power to position and fight each other in time and space is a wonderful concept that I support. But, what I don't see the value in saying is that Orcus, Demogorgon and the others have to stay below that 500 PP limit, while the gods like Bane and Vecna are working with close to 60,000 PP (rough math based on educated guesses)
You keep saying that we lose these great RP opportunities by making the Demon Lords and Archdevils more powerful... but I just fully disagree. We have already lost good RP opportunities, and with a bit tweaking from "personal power and status" to "artifacts and territory" then we don't lose the wars that you want, and they can actually be wars that have some hope of being won, instead of contrived occurrences where the gods are artificially weakened to the point where they can be threatened.
I also think that this set up opens up the Primal Power Source and Druidic sects, rather than just having nature be ruled by gods just like civilization is. I'd rather the term "god" be less about power and more about, well, what they are about.