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From: lmaher@uokvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.games.frp
Subject: PCs vs. gods
Message-ID: <2400079@uokvax.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 23-Dec-84 23:44:00 EST
Article-I.D.: uokvax.2400079
Posted: Sun Dec 23 23:44:00 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 27-Dec-84 04:00:09 EST
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Nf-ID: #N:uokvax:2400079:000:10557
Nf-From: uokvax!lmaher    Dec 23 22:44:00 1984

I'm back from Fermilab for a few  days  and  have  read  all  the
submissions  to net.games.frp for the last two months in a single
sitting.  Some of them were truly marvelous, and I'll try to  get
around  to  commenting  on as many as I can.  I'll be gone before
this message propagates through the net, so if you want to  reply
you can reach me via USMail or BITNET (RIGNEY@FNALVX13).

This is in response to Scott Turner's  remarks  that  PCs  should
have  no  chance  against gods.  I certainly respect his position
and admire his work in A&E, but in making a generalized statement
he  has erred seriously.  [This is what happens to one's argument
style when working for the DoE. :-)]

As a matter of fact, my most recent  fantasy  campaign  (using  a
Champions/Bushido   hybrid   rules   system)  involved  character
conflict against the gods.  It's very easy to do,  all  you  need
are:

        a) good players
        b) gods  with  opposing  interests  (and  I  know  of  no
           mythology that doesn't have these)
        c) a basis for the gods' powers that provides limits.

In the case of  my  campaign,  c)  was  provided  by  the  fairly
widespread  mechanism  of  having the gods' power come from their
worshippers,and expended by miracles.   If  a  god  expends  more
power  than  he  recieves  from his worshippers (and intensity of
worship is as important as numbers) he diminishes, and if he uses
his  power  wisely  he can gain many converts with the occasional
well-placed miracles, and grow stronger.

This system implies that gods are unwilling to directly  confront
each  other, with one god throwing lightning bolts at a priest he
doesn't like and another shielding him.  In that  situation  both
gods  are  expending  massive  amounts  of  energy, without doing
anything  to  gain  converts  or  benefit   themselves.    Direct
intervention  tion  is  very  costly,  and  that's  why gods have
priests as middle-men.  If a god meddles in  mortal  affairs  too
much  without  proportional benefit, he diminishes, and it's only
natural that as a god grows weaker and less able to  benefit  his
worshippers  that  they'll  turn  to  other, more effective gods.
Once a god has declined seriously it's very, very hard to make  a
comeback, especially if rival gods are there to stomp him when he
tries.  Stomping your equal is a no-win situation, but  it's  not
too  difficult  to  pick  on  old gods (although seldom worth the
bother unless they show signs of revival, in which  case  it's  a
good idea to stop them while they're weak) or new gods.  In fact,
some gods make a habit of crushing newer gods as  they  arise  in
their  sphere  of  interest,  these  are  known  as the nature of
certain types of gods to scheme against their  rivals  (if  there
were  a  god  of cooperation he could hardly do so, now could he?
And how many gods of cooperation do you know of?  See my point?)

Gods of War and weather tend to be powerful because they're  very
good  at  conflict  and  tactics.   Likewise they tend to be more
ephemeral because a few big reverses (like having the empire that
worships  them  get  conquored  by  heathens)  can  cripple  them
seriously  at  which  point  they  get   shredded   (figuratively
speaking)  by  the others.  What warrior wants to worship a Loser
War God?

On the other hand  harvest  deities  are  more  durable  if  less
flashy.  As long as they keep the crops coming in they'll get all
the prayers and sacrifices they can use.

[But what about the PCs?! I hear you cry.  It's coming,  so  hold
on.]

Matters are complicated more by pantheons, where a set  of  gods,
often  worshipped  in common by a people, have similar interests.
They all want their worshippers to prosper since it benefits them
all,  but  they often have differences of opinion as to how to go
about helping them.  Conflicts of interest from overlapping areas
of  interest  are less acute, but there can still be considerable
intrigue, and since gods as a rule have natures  compatible  with
their  interests  there can be considerable personality conflict.
I could go into massive detail on  this,  but  you  can  probably
figure   it   out   yourself,  and  anyone  who's  interested  in
corresponding about all this is certainly welcome to.

[Keep in mind that  I'm  talking  about  the  godsystem  in  *my*
campaign,  so  if  you  handle things differently don't think I'm
generalizing or saying it has to be this way.  But as  Hunter  S.
Thompson said, it works for me.]

Now of all the things a god can do, manifesting an avatar is  the
most  costly,  and  direct  physical intervention on the material
plane comes next.  When a god manifests an avatar he can't expect
to  get much of that energy back when he recalls it to heaven (or
wherever), a lot  of  it  gets  used  up  in  miracles  and  just
maintaining  the  Presence in the mortal realm (Magic Leaks), and
if he puts too much free will and power  in  the  avatar  it  can
break away from him, causing a schism in his followers (there are
obvious examples) and providing an instant rival.  If he's forced
to  crush  his own avatar he's expended immense amounts of power,
possibly shaken his priesthood seriously, and in effect destroyed
a  portion  of  himself, as well as suffering the ridicule of his
peers (no small thing, since he may need  their  aid  sometime  -
Pantheons  are something of a mutual aid society - and be refused
because he's considered not worth the risk of power).  But if  he
limits  the  avatar's  self-will he has to spend much of his time
directing it, taking time away from his other interests, or risks
it  falling  under  wrong influences or acting without restraint.
And if he gives it too little  power  it  could  fail,  which  is
utterly  disastrous.   If a god manifests an avatar, the ultimate
expression of his power, and it  fails,  he  is  usually  doomed.
Worshippers fall away, priests have their faith shaken, champions
are unwilling to come to the aid of a god who fails, and  he  has
already  suffered  the  loss  of  the  energy  used to create the
avatar.  And once a god is on the downward slope, it's very  hard
to  arrest  the  fall  (positive  feedback,  for you metaphysical
engineers out there).

So you can see that avatars are excruciatingly dangerous to  use.
Therefore  most gods prefer to act through priests and champions.
A little touch of power here and there when the  champions  needs
it most, and otherwise let the hero do his own dirty work.

A truly great champion or priest is an  immensely  valuable  tool
for  a  god  - he's invested a lot of energy and time in building
the tool, and a person with the potential to be such a  champions
is very rare - they must be exceptional individuals.

So if a god directly strikes at  another's  champion,  the  other
isis  has  little  choice  except  to  defend, and then both gods
either have to back off or are likely to diminish  themselves  in
their struggle, most likely while a third god makes off with many
of both's followers.

So gods are very  relunctant  to  strike  directly  at  another's
champion, but if they can kill or impede that champion with their
own temporal forces (e.g. priests, followers, and champions) they
can strike a considerable blow.

So you see from all the above that the gods are  playing  a  very
delicate game of survival among themselves, in which their mortal
pawns enjoy a limited form of immunity.  Of course if a  champion
is  *too*  successful  a rival god may decide to risk eliminating
him in the hopes his patron will  not  consider  the  loss  major
enough  to risk retaliating.  Direct intervention against a major
champion is something like limited tactical nuclear war - a  very
tricky business indeed.

There is another reason a god may wish to use a minimum of power:
the  gods aren't omniscient, but most are sensitive to the use of
power, especially  in  their  own  sphere  of  interest.   Larger
amounts of power are more likely to be noticed and traced. Frying
the Paladin  Gwinnel  is  certainly  going  to  be  noticed,  but
infecting  a  wild  animal  with rabies in the hopes that Gwinnel
will be bitten and die is far less likely  to  be  noticed.   The
example is a very bad one, since Gwinnel's patron could just heal
him (or request the healing god of his pantheon to do  so  for  a
consideration)  anyway.   You'll  notice  that  most Paladins are
immune to disease for this very reason.

I could go on and on, but I'm sure you get the idea.  This system
gives  me  everything  I want in a godsystem, and I can use it to
figure the results of interactions with the gods instead of  just
being  arbitrary.   Note  that  the  moves  and countermoves I've
mentioned above can be over a period of centuries, and  the  Game
of  the  Gods is too subtle for most mortals to realize, far less
comprehend.

Note that most Champions have a patron god, but there are a  very
few  that  free-lance.   Such  people  are very powerful and very
dangerous, and have done so many favors for  so  many  gods  that
they  can call upon a number of different deities for aid.  Or in
some cases he's proved so useful that no  god  wants  to  destroy
him,  since  he might want to use the free-lancer himself at some
future date.  An example of this kind of person would be Taira of
the  Thousand  Names,  the  Evil NPC I posted two or three months
ago.  She has no patron (except temporarily when on a mission for
some  goddess  or  other),  but  she's  proved  so useful to most
Cthonic goddesses that she's effectively shielded.

A very blatant example of a  champion  would  be  Stalker  (a  DC
fantasy  comic  which only ran 4 issues, alas) who as a young boy
pledged his soul to a war  god  in  return  for  mastery  of  all
weapons  and  the  chance to serve the god.  The god accepted the
offer, and took the soul as immediate payment  (the  large  print
giveth,  and  the  small  print  taketh  away :-) ).  More common
examples  are  of  course  the  D&D  Paladin,   although   anyone
sufficiently devout and useful could be a champion.

This article is long  enough  already,  but  if  anyone  has  any
questions or rebuttals I'd be delighted to discuss all this in as
much detail as you can stand.  Since  I'll  be  back  off  USENET
shortly, you can reach me at:

		Carl Rigney
USMAIL:		Dorm 4, Room 45/ Fermilab/ Box 500/ Batavia, IL 60510
BITNET:		RIGNEY@FNALVX13 (send a short test message first to 
				make sure it works)
SLAC DECNET:	FNAL::RIGNEY (if you can reach the node FNAL)