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How would you stat up gods in Hero System?


Narf the Mouse

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Re: How would you stat up gods in Hero System?

 

I'd mostly treat them as metagaming concepts. If they exist in the setting I'm running, then they're usually the reasons for why magic also exists, and occasionally why there are more than 1 sentient race on the planet. The religions that worship them are actually doing their Gods/Goddesses' work and not Human motivated.

 

However - that's only if going by the traditional high fantasy pseudo-medieval pseudo-European standard RPG settings. There would be Goddesses and Gods of other flavours that may be worth statting out in other settings. Especially if the PCs are likely to want to kill them.

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Re: How would you stat up gods in Hero System?

 

I can see the sense in allowing gods to have some mystery.

 

That being said. When writing a god up I would focus on their individual abilities rather than the abilities that they can grant to their followers. It's much easier to write up an ability that can only be used when following a god's interests, (-1/4), than an ability possessed by that god which can be shared by countless followers.

 

How you would write up a god depends entirely on the power level you want to assign to them. How tough is a deity in your setting? Are they ridiculously far beyond the reach of mortals? Or is it conceivable that a powerful enough hero could destroy them? Can they affect the whole world or are they limited to working through servants and other avatars?

 

Whatever the power levels you want to assign it is important to make a god superlative in his or her chosen field. I would expect a god of war to have an OCV of at least 14 for example.

 

If you want to represent a god relying on worship for their power then give them an End Reserve which can only Recover if enough people are worshipping that god at any given time. Depending on the normal populations you are dealing with you might want to limit the Recovery to 1 End per thousand active worshippers, ten thousand worshippers or whatever.

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Re: How would you stat up gods in Hero System?

 

Assuming I ever ran a game where one could prove that gods existed (and I wouldn't), I wouldn't stat them. The whole point of gods is that they're transinfinite. I don't care how many points you are, if you look to the heavens and declare 'Smite Me O Mighty Smiter', you go *squish*.

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Re: How would you stat up gods in Hero System?

 

If it has a stat line, it is finite. Also, if it has a stat line it can be killed.

 

God's are generally in-finite and un-killable (at least permanently), or close enough to make no difference.

 

Of course if I were dealing with "gods" that were really just very powerful, long lived beings like the royal family of Amber or something along those lines, then I would just stat them as uber-characters. I would not bother modeling granting of spells -- if it were possible it would just be campaign groundrules.

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Re: How would you stat up gods in Hero System?

 

Along with the crowd, I wouldn't stat them out.

 

That aside, if you are going to stat them out :

 

1) If priests are paying for a power, I can see them getting a limitation for only being able to use them in the god's interest. The priest's interest and the god's interest don't always coincide. But if the god is paying for a power, how is it limiting to have powers he grants only usable in his own interests? His intests are always coincident with his own interests.

 

2) If the god has bought a set of powers UBO, that means his priests can use these powers if they're on the 'UBO' list without paying for them. If the players are playing humans, then it introduces a play balance issue when the guy playing the priest gets a bunch of powers for free, while the guy playing the wizard has to pay CPs for his.

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Re: How would you stat up gods in Hero System?

 

It's important to start by defining "god" as it applies to your campaign. The concept of transcedent, virtually omnipotent and omniscient God or Gods has not been the norm for much of human history. Most of the gods of myth and legend were finite and fallible. They have abilities beyond what mortals can achieve, but they could still be eluded, tricked, and in many cases fought successfully by mortals. The gods of the Norse, although including tremendous warriors in their ranks, could even be killed in the right circumstances. Introducing such a divine being into a game can raise all sorts of interesting complications. Aaron Allston described how to stat and run this kind of god in his marvelous Hero/Rolemaster sourcebook, Mythic Greece: The Age of Heroes.

 

Mythic gods as presented in comic books take this basic idea and place it within the context of superheroes and villains as modern "gods". Deities are often among the most powerful of superhuman beings, but are still within the same general class and may be matched or exceeded by supers from other backgrounds. When characters statted for a supers game are translated to a more human-scale setting such as fantasy, they often appear "transcendent" for practical purposes in comparison; but since they do have stats, they potentially can be opposed and defeated by a group of extraordinary mortals (which may be a desirable outcome for some campaigns).

 

Gods as "plot device" is the approach to take either if your campaign applies a more modern sensibility to the premise of divinity, or if you never intend for your PCs to rise to the power level of the greatest mortal heroes of myth, who could challenge gods at least in certain areas with some hope of success.

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Re: How would you stat up gods in Hero System?

 

the god himself needs no stats, they give powers to worshippers and the environment as defined by the magic system of your game.

 

now if the god manifests an avatar with which to walk the mortal planes,

then the stats should be quite hefty.

 

if you as a GM allow the concept of a PC party seriously challenging a god's avatar, then they should be powerful enough that 95% of the PC's will die before the avatar is driven off.

 

the Mythic Egypt supplement explored this concept.

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Re: How would you stat up gods in Hero System?

 

the god himself needs no stats, they give powers to worshippers and the environment as defined by the magic system of your game.

 

now if the god manifests an avatar with which to walk the mortal planes,

then the stats should be quite hefty.

 

if you as a GM allow the concept of a PC party seriously challenging a god's avatar, then they should be powerful enough that 95% of the PC's will die before the avatar is driven off.

 

the Mythic Egypt supplement explored this concept.

 

Again, this preconceives how a "god" should function within a game setting -- in this case rather "D&D"-ish, if you'll pardon the expression ;) -- which may not be appropriate to all settings. (I don't mean to pick on you in particular, Egyptoid. You're just the most recent proponent of this concept on the thread.) :)

 

Now that I think about it, gods in myth appear remarkably similar to their modern fictional counterparts, in that the person telling their story gave them the ability or inability to do whatever his story required. :sneaky:

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Re: How would you stat up gods in Hero System?

 

Gods as "plot device" is the approach to take either if your campaign applies a more modern sensibility to the premise of divinity' date=' or if you never intend for your PCs to rise to the power level of the greatest mortal heroes of myth, who could challenge gods at least in certain areas with some hope of success.[/quote']

 

Gotta agree with LL here. In some settings, gods as a transcendent force of nature is perfectly in tune. In others, sometimes GM will want the gods to interact with humanity -- more powerful by an order of magnitude, but still possessing ordinary human flaws and foibles. In that case, building them similar to a powerful superhero might be the way to go.

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Re: How would you stat up gods in Hero System?

 

From another perspective, I think a pantheon of gods that shows up in a Champions game and demands worship would be a fun game: seeing that they used to be pretty scary to humans back in the day, but now they aren't much more than the average cape.

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Re: How would you stat up gods in Hero System?

 

I enjoyed the way that the Olympian gods were depicted as fitting into the modern world in the 4E Champs supplement The Olympians: Zeus assuming the guise of modern actors to seduce women, Aphrodite as a supermodel, Ares leading a team of mercenary supervillains, Demeter campaigning for ecological issues, etc.

 

The current Champions Universe mentions an avatar of Dionysus living on Earth as "Dion Bach," rock superstar and infamous hedonistic party animal. :D

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Re: How would you stat up gods in Hero System?

 

Depends, really.

 

In some mythos... 's... ?... well, anywho some god stories make the gods out to be just very powerful beings, but "killable."

 

Others, the gods are so far above man that we would never directly interact with them.

 

So, if the gods are beings whom you might interact with directly, I'd stat them appropriately once needed.

 

If the gods are more mystical concepts, or metaphysical beings, or otherwise so much more powerful than the PC's that direct interaction would be impossible or otherwise futile, no stats.

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Re: How would you stat up gods in Hero System?

 

For finite, lower-case g gods that have feuds amongst themselves and with other sorts of supernatural beings and might make personal appearances in a campaign, I'd go with designing them as if they were master villains or similarly powerful heroes. I'd probably use the published write-up for Tezcatlipoca in Arcane Enemies as a guide for a fairly prominent member of a polytheistic pantheon, adjusting for how plentiful and strong supernatural forces are supposed to be (Middle Ages or Roman Times: about the same as modern stats; magic-rich Turakian or Atlantean Age: double the active points of major signature powers).

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Re: How would you stat up gods in Hero System?

 

Just to note, this isn't for a campaign - I just wanted to start a discussion. :)

 

Very good points about the difference between a plot point and a character. On the other hand, some characters are both - Gandalf, for instance. Plus, as a GM it may be useful to know what a god can/will do - For infinite gods, they'd pretty much be the same, for practical purposes - Not couldn't change, but when you know everything, you'd naturally have reached your ideal state - You may grow, but you wouldn't shift focus.

 

So one way would be to only stat the Psych Lims and then maybe a VPP 'Divine Power'.

 

As for 'Only While Serving My Purposes' - Yeah, that wouldn't be a limitation - Maybe an advantage? with 'Usable Simultaneously'.

 

Mostly, it just seems to me that if Hero System is supposed to be able to build anything well, then gods should be on that list, too.

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Re: How would you stat up gods in Hero System?

 

The only reason to stat them is if they come into game play in a way that they can be opposed. Not only can they be killed/tricked/seduced/beguiled/imprisoned but also do the characters have the opportunity to do such a thing? Will the characters come face to face with them? In an Elric style game, or an Olympian style game it is but for most games it isn't. If they are not going to show up to be opposed (as in the character trying to impose their will on the deity) then such an exercise is merely acdemic and does not really matter. As GMs, the rules should serve our purposes. We do not need to stat everything or every NPC out.

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Re: How would you stat up gods in Hero System?

 

The thread is getting repetitious. Please read to see if your point has already been made.

 

Excuse me, sir. I say, good fellow, could you point me towards the nearby deceased equine?

 

*picks up case of flogging sticks*

 

I've got a delivery to make, and I do so hate to be late.

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