Would you want to have a typical neat & organized pantheon of 10 or 20 gods and goddesses with well-defined portfolios?

Would you rather have hundreds (maybe more) gods all mixed up in a big jumble?

Or would you rather play in a setting with monotheism, maybe?

I like a handful of gods. My OD&D campaign has 3 gods who have human clerics and many lesser gods devoted to aspects of the world who rarely meddle in human affairs.

I enjoy the Greek pantheon's rivalries so Mazes & Minotaurs is my go-to for when I want to have PCs caught between the squabbling of the gods, being manipulated as pawns and in general, being caught up in high school drama of Olympus.

The number of gods and the pantheon that they represent is part of what defines a campaign setting, so I have to say that it depends on what I am aiming for in the setting.

Lots of lesser powered gods, ones that are cultural, but very much tied to specific areas and then a set of more powerful, larger sphere of influence gods that presumably became more powerful because their worship appealed to more than just one culture. Or just seem cooler than the rest.

Large pantheons are a pain in the ass and require a lot of buy-in. Keep it to half a dozen to a dozen main deities and give them different names in different cultures. That said, I like the idea of demi-gods, saints or folk heroes as well as "big" gods.  A character venerating some obscure figure or ancestor adds color to the game. Just add a disused fane, an inscription above a lintel, or a minor heirloom item.

Quote from: RPGPundit;926561Would you want to have a typical neat & organized pantheon of 10 or 20 gods and goddesses with well-defined portfolios?

Would you rather have hundreds (maybe more) gods all mixed up in a big jumble?

Or would you rather play in a setting with monotheism, maybe?

All the above.

I always flesh out the religions in a setting before the gods; so however many gods it takes to fit the religions I come up with, I suppose.

Quote from: RPGPundit;926561Would you want to have a typical neat & organized pantheon of 10 or 20 gods and goddesses with well-defined portfolios?

An unknowably large, and changeable, number of gods in pantheons that exist but are not well defined. This seems to be how things worked out historically, as cultures met and exchanged ideas/goods, their pantheons would start to blur together as popular gods of one pantheon were incorporated into those of their neighbors.

So, in a fantasy setting, humans living near elves would include elven gods in their pantheons whereas those living near dwarves would do a similar thing with dwarven gods.

And you definitely need rules for turning dead PC into lesser deities.

Generally speaking, either a small (dozen or less) pantheon with individual gods where it matters more whom each PC worships, or a more realistic polytheistic pantheon where normal people worship (or supplicate) all the gods, and normally it is only important to know if the party's cleric is Good-ish, neutral-ish, or evil-ish (I also prefer squishy, descriptive rather than proscriptive, alignment).

When I read the Iliad I was quite struck by the mythology.  It is more a description of the gods then of men. Mythology isn't the right word for it either.  It's almost science, or it occupies the place we have science in our minds and culture, its an attempt to explain things, Homer thinks the REASONS things happen the way they do are gods.  

Any way there is a river god in the Illiad, he's a big deal near the river.  That's what I want my pantheon to be like.  2 or 3 competing defined pantheons, all interrelated. And then an infinite number of local deities, saints, hero's and demi-gods.    That don't fit, or don't fit neatly into the larger pantheons.  


from wikipedia.
According to Homer, he was called Xanthos by gods and Scamander by men, which might indicate that the former name refers to the god and the latter one to the river itself.

Quote from: Headless;926605Any way there is a river god in the Illiad, he's a big deal near the river.  That's what I want my pantheon to be like.  2 or 3 competing defined pantheons, all interrelated. And then an infinite number of local deities, saints, hero's and demi-gods.    That don't fit, or don't fit neatly into the larger pantheons.  


from wikipedia.
According to Homer, he was called Xanthos by gods and Scamander by men, which might indicate that the former name refers to the god and the latter one to the river itself.

If you want ideas, Petty Gods might be up your alley. Lots of little gods of rivers and trees and scorned women. By the rules presented, they're more like one-off monsters than any kind of god-stats.

Zero.  Well, except for that one time I played a cleric in AD&D Second Edition that worshipped Richard M. Nixon as a god.  I think you can guess the alignment.

Gods, or religions?

I like two or three major religions, which may have several cult variants, with players able to start their own fringe religions.

But I prefer the the number or even existence of gods to be unknown.

Quote from: Celestial;926612Zero.  Well, except for that one time I played a cleric in AD&D Second Edition that worshipped Richard M. Nixon as a god.  I think you can guess the alignment.

God: Richard Nixon
Alignment: HAROOOOOO!

It really depends on the setting and how the gods affect the game. Any number of gods is fine as long as I as a player am not responsible to learn about them in any detail, and they're mainly just part of the culture and spirituality of different people in the world.

I tend to prefer zero gods of the literal embodied superhero-called-a-god type, and zero gods of anywhere near the omniscient/omnipresent/omnipotent interventionist type.

Even single gods of the cultural type can get to be a bit much if/when they mess with life too much, such as real-world medieval Catholics during an inquisition (or sometimes even without one).

I don't always want to roleplay someone deeply invested in an organized religion that I don't find sympathetic, so when there are either in-world cultural expectations to do so and penalties not to, or all the players should really be seeped and raised in a religion I don't feel like being in, or when gods essentially have magic powers or other major and/or common practical effects, that can be annoying and not what I want.

So I like it when there are enough religions/gods that characters have enough choice to not be forced to be religious in a way they don't want to. And I like it when if priests/etc have magic powers, they're limited and on par with magic users - who I also like to be relatively limited in power too. i.e., in my worlds, if my priests get any "magic" powers, it's something along the lines of any other established non-religious magical academy/guild/order, though the culture that recognizes them may relate to them as if they have more power/authority/legitimacy. But if there's a very culturally established authoritative religion in a campaign of mine, there's also sure to be other places in the world PCs could get to where they're not established.

Zero gods is also fine and common. Or at least, zero gods that have any kind of effect outside social/cultural effects.

(I started RPGs with The Fantasy Trip, which has pretty much zero explicit practical magic effects of religion, unless the GM or some adventure (e.g. Grailquest) adds something in. There was a magazine article suggesting adding D&D-like magic spells to priests, which mostly just made us groan, and realize we could define our own in-world priests who have a spell curriculum if we wanted.)