Forums of the Megaverse®

I agree, to a degree. I've always imagined gods etc. to be a lot more powerful than the stats say, ie. some gods are equivalent to a 12th level ley line walker and a 10th level warlock. That makes them powerful, but not exactly the awe-inspiring godly beings I imagine. In AD&D I usually gave them 3 wishes a day as well as 3 "Major Wishes" a day in whatever field they were the god of.
For example; Ares could cause an entire army to win a battle with a major wish, and Demeter could cause all the crops in an area to wither and die or grow gigantic, but not visa versa. Ares could not control crops and Demeter could not influence the outcome of a battle.
However I think PB and KS see gods simply as powerful interdimensional beings and not all powerful in their given field.

However I think PB and KS see gods simply as powerful interdimensional beings and not all powerful in their given field.

I think this might have something to do with PB's current stance on today's religions. They don't want some pagan god to be an all powerful being, on par or above par with God/Allah/Jerry Lewis and so forth.

I agree they should actually be GODS and not like more powerful AIs and stuff, but I don't do that in my games. If I did my players would say I'm trying to railroad them or something. And usually with my players it doesn't matter what level they're at they always seem to want to steal something of theres, like Thor's Hammer.

For what I read of ADD, gods are totally different matters than in Rifts.

After all, I like to see Rifts gods using some kinds of "marketing" methods through priest to achieve higher powers

Anyway, if ADD gods can kill a whole army in the blink of an eye, Rifts gods aren't supposed to do that ... unless the god name is toth

Mephisto wrote:Even if the god or supreme being has to have a physical anchor to interact with the world he or she should still have an effect on the environment. When Poisoden is angry the seas become very hostile, but when he is complacent then the seas become calm. Ares very nature should cause everyone to want to fight more, while Aphrodite would cause everyone to become more amorous. I don't think these qualities are quite reflected with the way that the rules are presented (and I know all about Gods and Dragons. But I don't think large PPE usage and body investment should be required for abilities that fall within the gods range of influence).

why do you think they should to begin with?

no, here's an honest question. you say they should, I ask why.

Mephisto wrote:I think that Deific beings should emit powerful auras that permeate the environments that they are in. That they should have effects greater than what their stats infer. Before I draw up stats and rules for this, I wonder if anyone else feels that this is something that could be important and also an interesting concept to extrapolate on.

I think this would be more appropriate for the Fantasy setting than for Rifts Earth. Mainly due to the fact that the various Earth deities are not established anymore on Rifts Earth, with the exception I think of the SA Inca's.
It sounds like a interesting concept, but it would not really be important to me, my campaign or really my groups style of play where the most powerful supernatural creature we would likely encounter is some kind of a elder demon and its minions.

Personally I think gods are just really powerful alien beings who a long time ago figured out how to get more power by having less powerful being worship them. They just let the god thing go to their heads over the eons.
Except for the ultra-powerful things like Old Ones having defined stats is a good thing.

yeah you can kill a god. once you go through the millions of worshippers who would love a chance to become a martyr.
no god is going to meet a group of characters by his lonesome. unless he either wants to die or is setting a trap. real power doens't always have an MD rating.

jesse04 wrote:For what I read of ADD, gods are totally different matters than in Rifts.

After all, I like to see Rifts gods using some kinds of "marketing" methods through priest to achieve higher powers

Anyway, if ADD gods can kill a whole army in the blink of an eye, Rifts gods aren't supposed to do that ... unless the god name is toth

Not really ... if you campare thre treatment gods are given in the old ADD Deities and Demigods and in Pantheons of the Megaverse (or in the original description of the Palladium deities, before Dragons and Gods put some real divine power back in them), well, that's about the same way to do it... 15 years later. That and the fact that when another publishing house proposed a system to make gods real GODS (long before Dragons and Gods) and had the cheek of including conversion notes for Palladium, PB got offended enough to actually sue.

Anyway, my handling of the matter is such : the stats given are actually for minor manifestation. Basically, just what the god is like when he comes to earth for an incognito visit. That kind of manifestation is still on a mortal power scale, so it's not likely to draw attention from other divine beings, or spark conflicts. I still hesitate whether or not to include deific powers to such manifestations, at least outside palladium.

When the God decides to come in a major, Full Glory, manifestation, I pull out all stops, and the inclusion of deific powers is only the start...
If you know the myth of Dionysus, you may remember how it is that his mother, then Zeus's mistress, asked to see him in his full glory... and did not survive the experience, so that Zeus had to store the Fetus Dionysus in his thigh before the time he was to be born... well, mere mortals are not meant to stand the full power of a God, let alone an aroused and angry one.

Of course, THAT kind of manifestation is also quite likely to draw the attention of other deities, if only from the curiosity of knowing what could be important enough for a god to manifest fully and use all his power on the mortal plane.

Lunarix wrote:good point. I guess the GCC experience table is pretty rough.

either I'm dense, have poor memory, or something ...

What does GCC stand for? where's that table?

gwa1965 wrote:All this talk earlier about gods having auras affecting reality got me to thinking...

Imagine Odin or Woden deciding to relocate to the NGR, and a "reality aura" causes buildings to turn into Viking Longhouses and soldiers become Techno-Vikings w/ dragon figureheads on their aircraft.

Hmmmmm...

Germany : unlikely, while acknowledged, he's no longer worshipped, and so has no power base to establish himself that way.

Scandinavia or Iceland : somewhat more likely, as he's strong in popular memory, even though the place has been christian since 1000 or 1200 AD.

Why I don't think it probable : his doing so would stir a huge wave in the big lake of deities, and likely lead to some Gods' war on a scale painful even to imagine. It's not even grabbing a piece of empty land to make into a place of one's liking, as Splinny did in Atlantis, nor coming back and winning one's worship base all over again, as the Inca gods did. What uyou mention is nothing less than a divine takeover pure and simple... something that other deities would take with a dim view I think.