Comments in bold as I am reading them. Thrill to the spontaneity!

The family of gods for 4th Edition is a mix of old and new. You'll see familiar faces like Corellon, Moradin, and Pelor, and some new faces as well, like Zehir, Torog, and Bane.

Yes, Bane.

I can handle that.

Before I explain what the Forgotten Realms' god of tyranny and war is doing rubbing shoulders with Pelor, let me say a bit about our thinking when we created a pantheon in the first place.

There was a time when the team working on "the world" of D&D thought we could get away with creating general rules useful to clerics regardless of which pantheon existed in the campaign, and then presenting a variety of fictional and historical pantheons for DMs to adopt or adapt as they saw fit. I believe it was Stacy Longstreet, the senior D&D art director, who pointed out that this solution would leave us in a bit of a bind.

When we wanted to put a temple in an adventure, what god would it be dedicated to? We could make Generic Evil Temples™, but that would sap a lot of the flavor out of our adventures, and rob us of specific plot hooks and story lines based on the portfolios and histories of these gods.

So? I'm not so lazy that I can't weld my favorite setting or homebrew baddie on.

When we wanted to illustrate a cleric in one of our books, what holy symbol would the cleric hold? Again, we could rely on a stable of generic symbols (maybe the Zapf Dingbat font?), but at the cost of a lot of flavor.

We ended up creating a new pantheon. At first, we used some of the gods from 3rd Edition as placeholder names -- we thought we'd come up with new names for [Pelor] the sun god and [Moradin] the god of the forge. Ultimately we decided that using some familiar faces was preferable to giving our players a whole new set of names to learn. Besides, if a god looks like an elf and took out the orc-god's eye like a certain well-known elf god, why not call him Corellon?

Thank goodness. The names for the gods are a not broken/don't fix scenario.

Corellon: The elf god is a good example of a god who kept his well-earned place in the D&D pantheon. But "the elf god" shouldn't be taken to literally. Sure, he's often depicted as an elf or an eladrin, and many eladrin in particular revere him. But he's equally popular among human wizards, and even dwarves who practice the finer arts are prone to offering him prayers. One of our goals with the new pantheon was to loosen the tight associations between gods and races that has in the past led to the creation of whole pantheons full of elf, dwarf, orc, and goblin deities. Corellon is still associated with elfy things like arcane magic and the Feywild, and he still hates Lolth and the drow. But his appeal is a little broader now.

I don't know. I kinda liked that each race had their own pantheon. It meant that each race actually had their own culture and that would be good for the flavor they seem to desire.

Bahamut: Here's another example of a familiar, draconic face showing up in a somewhat new light. Maybe it was the Platinum Knight prestige class in Draconomicon that did it, but something convinced me a long time ago that Bahamut was a much cooler god of paladins than Heironeous ever was. Like Corellon, Bahamut's not just for dragons any more. He's the god of justice, protection, and honor, and many paladins of all races worship him. Many metallic dragons revere him as well, thinking of him as the first of their kind. Some legends about Bahamut describe him as literally a shining platinum dragon, while others describe him as a more anthropomorphic deity, who's called the Platinum Dragon as a title of respect. Exhorting his followers to protect the weak, liberate the oppressed, and defend just order, Bahamut stands as the exemplar of the paladin's ideal.

I can deal with this, but was Heironeous that bad? A fun pantheon deserves a regular motley of deities IMO, not a handful of general ones

Bane: Here's another god whose placeholder name just stuck, despite some reservations. We wanted an evil war god in the pantheon, and without Heironeous, Hextor didn't make a lot of sense. We wanted the kind of heavily militaristic god whose temples you might find among non-evil societies who have spent long years at war, as well as among hobgoblins. We wanted a god who embodied just the sort of tyrannical dictatorship that Bane stands for in the Forgotten Realms. We started calling him Bane as a placeholder. He went through a number of different, unsatisfying names. Finally, someone said we should just call him Bane. So Bane he remained.

Shuffle, Shuffle. Gotcha.

Like chocolate and peanut butter, we think Bane and Bahamut are two great tastes that taste great together. Does that mean you have to use them in your 4th Edition game? Of course not. But we think that, when you see these gods in action in our core books and adventures, you'll agree that they belong in their new places of honor in the pantheon of the D&D game.

Some stuff got shuffled, guess it's not bad, but I am a little bummed that it looks like they intend to thin out the godly ranks at the expense of the other races' pantheons. Give me dwarf/elf/halfling/orc/kobold pantheons! They're all different beings and their religions should reflect that. Dieties and Demigods 4th darn well better reflect that.

*facepalm*

Pundit rants about his in his 'blog today, and I agree with the basic argument- if you're going to have recognizable gods, they have to be ones from the myths and religions of the real world- not the Realms, not Krynn, not some other old TSR setting.  What's proposed is seriously lame shit.

QuoteWhen we wanted to put a temple in an adventure, what god would it be dedicated to? We could make Generic Evil Temples™, but that would sap a lot of the flavor out of our adventures, and rob us of specific plot hooks and story lines based on the portfolios and histories of these gods.

This statement makes me want to hit things in the face.

Quote from: Bradford C. Walker*facepalm*

Pundit rants about his in his 'blog today, and I agree with the basic argument- if you're going to have recognizable gods, they have to be ones from the myths and religions of the real world- not the Realms, not Krynn, not some other old TSR setting.  What's proposed is seriously lame shit.

If you do it that way you lose some of the marketability of Deities and Demigods 4.0.

That, and I like the D&D gods. Giving them the axe would be stupid. Well, except Moradin, for obvious reasons.

Quote from: James McMurrayIf you do it that way you lose some of the marketability of Deities and Demigods 4.0.

That, and I like the D&D gods. Giving them the axe would be stupid. Well, except Moradin, for obvious reasons.

I'm seeing things similarly. D&D pantheons haven't involved real-world mythologies in the core rules since the 1st edition, and maybe not even then, I honestly don't remember. Stick to the nice D&D gods and more than anything, give them flavor, pull and a great reason for GMs to stick them in-game.

Meh, I vastly preferred the "make up your own darn gods" approach of AD&D / BD&D.  And for people who wanted them, you could always add the Legends & Lore supplement to get some mythological/default gods.

A slapdash mess of FR gods mixed with 3e gods mixed with who knows what else as the default sounds incredibly dumb to me and a waste of game book space.

Whatever.

But here you can't really fault the designers. That whole Pantheon issue has been a problem for D&D since the beginning. On one hand, out of the box you have an implied setting but not a specific one. On the other, you do have optional specific settings like Greyhawk etc. with their specific gods.

For reasons of playability, some of that specificity needs to leak into the core books, e.g. the gods whom Clerics worship. So, you'll always have this mishmash of the specific and the generic. That's poison for making gods truly awesome and compelling. But apart from the occasional inconsequential reshuffling, what can you do?

Quote from: Pierce InverarityThat's poison for making gods truly awesome and compelling.

What is truly awesome and compelling about any of the stock D&D deities as written?

Quote from: Pierce InverarityBut apart from the occasional inconsequential reshuffling, what can you do?

Add a set of iconic personalities to the domains, but don't tie them to specific deities.  Thus you can combine alignment and domain or alignment and iconic personality without specifying particular deities tied to a setting or cosmology.

Not have any specific gods at all.  Leave that for setting-specific supplements, and instead include all necessary rules needed for rolling your own.  Let the folks use their imaginations.

Quote from: John MorrowWhat is truly awesome and compelling about any of the stock D&D deities as written?

Can't help you here. Ask somebody who's actually claiming that stock D&D deities are truly awesome and compelling.

I don't see what the problem is with saying, "Hey, this adventure needs an Evil Gawd for such-and-such cult".  But if you're going to provide fill-in Gods for those who need them, why not go with a more recognizable baseline?  The Greco-Romans or Norse gods, for example?  Or at least keep it in a singular pantheon than mixing and match a bunch of different game worlds?  For me, I'd rather have all of Greyhawk or all of the Realms than cut-and-paste from here or there depending on who made their Pet Gawd list.

And the big questions:  is this a new feature?  Is this seriously something that needed fixed in any way for 4th Ed.?

Quote from: Bradford C. WalkerNot have any specific gods at all.  Leave that for setting-specific supplements, and instead include all necessary rules needed for rolling your own.  Let the folks use their imaginations.

I couldn't agree with you more, Bradford.

-clash

Quote from: Bradford C. WalkerNot have any specific gods at all.  Leave that for setting-specific supplements, and instead include all necessary rules needed for rolling your own.  Let the folks use their imaginations.

Word up, dawg.  

QuoteAnd the big questions: is this a new feature? Is this seriously something that needed fixed in any way for 4th Ed.?

Not remotely.  Like so many of the changes, this has more to do with what the designers personally liked or disliked than any wider design perspective or understanding of 3e as it is now.

If you choose a default, you lock yourself into that default. A chapter full of Greek Gods makes vanilla D&D a game about Greek Myths to the average reader.

Y'know, it seems to me a lot of the bitching here is more about the fact of 4e than anything real.

Got it, you don't like having prenamed D&D dieties for some reason. This is HOW new?

Oh... nevermind then.

I don't fault them for trying to prune down several settings worth of gods down to one 'ur-set' for generic play. Bane is more popular/recognizable than hextor, maybe even has a bit more pizzaz... of course you keep him then. Bahumut has more 'oldskool' cachet then Hieronius? Keep him then.

I think removing racial pantheons is a wrong move, but the overall shuffling of dieties that I can either use or not use as I like doesn't bother me in the least.

But again, I see the same faces in every 4e thread, and they always have something to bitch about, no matter how trivial.