Quote:
Originally Posted by Tori Bergquist
On the other hand, The D&DG is so riddled with errors and half-truths, so clearly set up to be a "now you too can kill Thor and take his hammer" kind of monster tome, that it probably did more harm than good to so many other young gamers back then. ... And of course, 3rd edition's bomb of a tome, the new D&DG, decided that somehow it would be cool to try codifying the gods once more in to epic fighting npcs, and at the same time failed to even try and provide the wealth of mytholigies that the original did, as much so out of laziness onthe part of the writers I suspect as a lack of room due to the enormous effort put in to designed useless stat blocks for gods again. And so it has all come full circle....
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by SteelCaress
Once I got over my early adolescent fascination with god-killing, we pretty much said the gods could do anything they wanted. They created the heavens & earth and all that. Why should they be limited to anything mortal?
|
Again, I must protest in the name of AD&D god-killing. Why is this such a bad thing? why would such a practice be harmful to youthful roleplayers? Why should it be dismissed as an "adolescent fascination?"
AD&D is a game of heroic fantasy wish fulfillment. It may not be very deep or very sophisticated, or be the well from which nuanced roleplaying springs from, but so what? The game specifically trains you to constantly be on the lookout for the next powerful opponent to trounce, and eventually, if a player levels up enough, the gods are going to be the only stat blocks left worth considering. This is just how the game is structured. Going after the gods is simply a logical progression of the blatant trophy-hunting that AD&D really is. Does it make sense in a larger context of roleplaying and collaborative storytelling? Hell, no. Neither do most video games. but in the same dumb way I can enjoy my character in Champions of Norrath going after some God of Hate, so too can I enjoy a bunch of 25th-level characters deciding that dammit, that Hill Giant god Grolantor has to take a fall.
As to whether god-killing encourages bad roleplaying behavior, as Tori seemed to indicate, I think we are getting to the roleplaying hobby's version of the gun control debate. If you allow young roleplayers to try to kill gods, does this make them into oncorrigible powergamers who will ruin countless future sessions with their munchkinistic ways? Or would only a munchkin in training be drawn to the sport of god-slaying in the first place? Who knows? Frankly, I don't care. I think every RPG, regardless of its rules or setting has the same power gaming problems, and it always comes down to individual GMs having the sense and fortitude to know what lines to draw in his or her campaign, to enforce them, and to not hesitate to chuck out the knuckleheads who insist upon crossing the line. To that end, I say bring on the gods and let them hope we're not packing vorpal weapons. The DM will ultimately make the call if this is right for the campaign or not. But the rulebook suggests very strongly that it is. Those who disagree simply houserule against god-killing, which brings me back to Lev's review. I can see why so many people who bought Dieties and Demigods would feel that they wasted their money if the book is neither a reliable mythology reference or an accessible monster manual. Under such conditions, indeed, 1: I Wasted My Money! But I must wonder what one expects when flipping through the book and seeing armor classes and hit points for everybody from Odin to Osiris. I know what I expected. The game was throwing down the gauntlet to me, and I figured some day, I would be in a campaign where it would feel right to me and my players to take up the challenge. And if that's badwrongfun or whatever you kids are calling it these days, then I guess I'll just go ahead and live with that.