Greyhawk - With non greyhawk adventures plugged into the setting and flavored to fit.
I'm back with more questions!
So, I seriously sat down to try and make my own pantheon just a couple of weeks ago, and made some good headway (haven't really come up with any good idea juice since then to finish the job, though). But a few things occured to me:
I got the strange feeling that presenting a homebrew world, with all its maps and cultures and histories, and presenting a homebrew pantheon would somehow distance the players from the world too much. The thought that came to my mind was that the learning curve would be too big and result in players not really feeling any connection to the world.
Player familiarity with the core gods is a powerful tool for the DM. It is much easier to convey certain themes and plots and such when there is a common aspect to latch on to. When the local temple is dedicated to Pelor, the players know that this world follows at least some of the typical conventions, and have another place to anchor their characters in something they understand.
Does anyone else on the boards here find this to be the case, or important enough to really take into consideration? Or is it actually a non-factor in your experience?
The other thing I noticed was that there were certain archetypical roles that I felt were being left out in my planned layout of gods. I was working with the idea of having sub pantheons to give a little more identity to various cultures and such, and some of these pantheons work best when structured around a certain concept. However, this seemed to be leaving certain popular deity roles unaccommodated.
For example, one sub pantheon is known as the Baal, the gods of evil. I thought about making six major Baal (with many lesser servitor gods); the concept here is that the pentagram is the symbol for this family of gods (drawing upon some real world imagery here). One pantheon "head" at the center, surrounded by the other five most prominent deities. I also had a quasi-theme of incorporating the traditional seven deadly sins into some of their portfolios.
However, when the lay out was said and done, I found the archetype typically filled by Hextor or Bane missing, among others. But, if I gimmick around with it just to accomodate those archetypes, I find myself just making a knock off of Bane or Hextor, at which point I ask myself, "If all I'm accomplishing is changing the name, why bother doing anything?"
I could rememdy some of this problem by filling out more detail of those many lesser servitor deities, but that starts getting into lists of gods as long as in the FRCS, which I don't want to commit myself to at this time. It also hurts some of the concepts these sub-pantheons are built on, considering their relatively small size.
What's the experience of other world builders? Do you find yourself sometimes just pulling off name changes, or leaving out popular deity archetypes all together when they don't fit your vision? That later element seems more appropriate to fantasy literature than it does to RPGs.
I've got some players lined up at last, although there's one hang up point that is delaying getting a group together. However, these are pretty important issues that I'd like to have mentally resolved before play begins, but I find myself torn on which direction to go with my world.
Part of the problem in making these decisions is that I realize the value of player familiarity with certain elements, as I mentioned before, in addition to the fact that the core gods are so well supported. I've already purchased the Complete Divine, and part of the reason I recently subscribed to Dragon is to get the Core Beliefs articles. I feel like I've screwed myself in some way if I now turn and build a custom pantheon. I also really do like a lot of the core gods.
On the other hand, there are certain bits of history for the world I've made that work best with a custom pantheon, and I like a lot of the ideas that I've come up with, and think that it's a good thing for a world to have unique elements, such as new deities.
Argh, decisions, decisions!
This reminds me of the conundrum that comes up when people claim that the Forgotten Realms are too complex to jump into. It is true that if you take a person that has never played in the Realms, and you try to explain Ao to the Weave and the Fall of Netheril, and then try to update them on the events of all of the novels, they will likely not pick up on any of it.
While you may want to have everything set up and detailed as the DM, and you may want to know what lies behind every rock, so that if you PCs turn left instead of right, you know exactly what is there, you also need to stop and think about what their character's would likely know. Would people in the country or city that the PCs will start in know anything about the extended pantheon? Or would they just know that locally most good people worship the God of Light, some say prayers to the gods of nature, and some leave offerings to the god of Luck, and everyone avoids even talking about the Eater of Souls.
Even if in your pantheon the God of Light has eight children, the goddess of luck is served by her two daughters, one good and one evil, and the Eater of Souls is really just the harbringer of the Great Cloud of Night, people in a given country may only know what is regionally important.
Heck, look at the Lord of the Rings. By the time of that story, most people in Middle Earth saw Sauron as the biggest evil affecting them, because they didn't have the theological context of knowing about Melkor or the Silmarils, etc. Some beings in the trilogy did know this information, or at least we can assume so (Elrond, Galadriel, etc.), but since it wasn't cogent, there was no real reason for them to expound on events of the past when Sauron was the big threat at the time.
Making a Pantheon is hard work. From my experience with it I find that making the Pantheon in many ways should be the second thing you do. First make your cosmology and decide what some of the core themes of your campaign are going to be about. After you have done this it gets a lot easier to create a pantheon that fits in with your conception.
I personally have nothing against lifting Gods from other D&D sources but I don't do this because I want the players to be familiar with the God in question but because the God really fits well with some aspect of my campaign world. So stealing Lolth to be the Goddess of the Drow makes a lot of sense to me but stealing Pelor or Zeus makes me wonder about the background story of the world. I mean if one is going to make their own campaign world it would sure be cool if it had a neat and compelling back story. Its ultimately the deep back story that will fuel the climatic end scenes of your campaigns. When the players are 18th level its the deepest darkest mysteries of your world that should be providing the back drop to the adventure. So you want to have some deep dark secrets, compelling ones at that.
On another note - make the gods compelling. Ever notice how everyone thinks We Jas is the coolest Greyhawk Goddess? Good f back story and interesting behaviour among her worshippers is the secret of her success. Try and make all your Gods like that. Work in contradictions and eccentricities that effect the world. This will allow your Gods to stand out. Don't just say that a Goddess is a good Goddes of housewives. At a minimum she should be good - except when she isn't. Give Gods unusual portfolio's that don't seem to necessarily go together at first glance and then weave them into a unique God with unusual traits or beliefs. One nice thing about Gods that manifest their power all over the place is that players can justify worshipping them even if some of the time they seem completely loco.
Here are some examples of the questions I was answering while outlining my Pantheon.
The Basic Truths.
How was the world created?
What is the shape of the world?
What are the sun, moon and stars?
Who are the Gods and where did they come from?
Are the Gods immortal?
Are the Gods indestructible?
How much direct influence do they have?
How did the plants and animals come to be?
What about the sentient races?
Is there are fall from grace?
What is the afterlife?
What does the future hold?
Is there some kind of a higher purpose for the world?
Is there some kind of an end point for the world or its races?
There are probably other good questions you could but I'm becoming concerned that I'll end up making some kind of endless list. Also if your answer is too easy and there are not a bunch of ifs and buts in the answer then your cosmology might be a little to simple. Also consider your answers both in light of your world and your overall cosmology. Sometimes they are one and the same but often they are somewhat distinct but heavily influence each other. Consider the place of powerful Outsider races when considering the sentient races and their place in the universe.
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Making a Pantheon is hard work.
I'm just the opposite of you. For some reason, I find making a pantheon to be one of the easiest things. I love doing it in fact.
I agree, though, that the gods definitely have to be compelling. A good backstory or creation myth is a must. I like to model some aspects of my pantheons off of old-school, real-world pantheons, especially ones that don't get a lot of attention normally (like the Vedic and Pre-Vedic gods, or the ancient Hebrew deities and myths). It's also important to make aspects of the pantheon reflect influences on the development of the culture that worships them - like the beliefs of the Egyptian afterlife and the cultural practice of mummification.
So, for those of you who do homebrews, or even those of you who don't, I guess, do you use the core pantheon or another "premade" pantheon, or do you make your own, or even mix premade gods with ones of your own design?
As stated back up the thread a bit; I run a homebrew world set in the judges guild maps, but with entirely my own npc's and setting and whatnot. I have my gm map zoned off in several ways for races, dominions of political power, and zones of diefic influence. I run all the dieties out of the old dieties and demigod book; so depending on the regional cultural influence that you are in; you can possibly meet those heroes and demigods. Above all of these god I have the big three that I made up that are more or less above concerns of morality; they are simply the Powers of Light, Dark, and In Between, these powers are a bit more elemental in nature and the pc are just getting a clue about them; above them in my homebrew master and creator of everything; and he is just called the One, but nobody knows about him. (hehe its not Jet Li); I place the Cuthulu gods as the big infection in the known universe that everyone is trying to get rid of in power level right between under the Three, but still quite a bit bigger than the combined power of any single pantheon and they have dominated several of the gods of various pantheons. The pc are more or less trying to follow the prophesy to somehow cut or or get rid of the Cuthulu influence in the known megaverse.
so if you consider the Old Dieties and Demigods book core, I run core dieties, not any forgotten realms dieties or such.
ok; Dieties and Languages,
common is a trade language; just that; you can more or less communicate basic price and barter. Common is a language that you can buy and learn; you get 4 ranks free, but it is not really sophisticated enough for other than this for that type communication. Most player in my game speak 4 or 5 languages and these are the languages that people in various regions communicate in. This makes learning spells like comprehend languages and tounges worth learning and very useful. Also, you have your alignment language; this is a hidden language and is rude to use with those not or your alignment around, it is belief based and powered by dieties so for example; any CG person can communicate with any other CG person; but will only due so in extreme privacy as dem is fightin words to any other alignment.
There are many npc in my world that preach that the dieties are more or less parasites and gangsters :) about 2/3 of the dieties in the Dieties and Demigod books have been killed in my game, so there is a huge power gap, and the world has suffered war with the the Gods of Chaos ie Cuthulu for decades and maybe people are forlorn by no longer having the protection of a god; lots of dispondent people; well lots of so called heresy has become rampant. It got so bad that all the elves; everywhere; got together and met for years in a big elf only arguement to make "The Decision" whereas they all finally decided to kill all the humans on every known continent as their sheer terror and wild dreams and loss of hope was helping release the Old Ones. So, my once peaceful homebrew world is a mass of war and confusion whereas the party is trying to band people together, find the items of prophesy, close the demon gate and banish the old ones; hehe; been 30 years of fun.
Jeremy, I know from your other posts that you've got a homebrew that's been around for years and has undergone many revisions, similar, I believe, to mine. At what point did you make up your own pantheon? One thing that came to my mind is that I've only been playing for a little over three years, and thus haven't gotten to really "use" all of the core gods to the extent that I'd like to.
I also have difficulty coming up with "compelling" deities. Histories, geographies, cultures, etc., all come fairly easily to me, but developing gods and their stories and practices just isn't as natural for me. Anyway, combining that factor with the above, my "deity project" may turn out to be something that takes a while to complete. On the other hand, I don't like the thought of getting a group together, and then a month or year in, saying, "Okay, all the pantheon and cosmology is changing because I finally got the god list the way I like it!" I guess it's not so bad, though; better than rushing the ideas and coming up with something forced and unnatural. It also gives a little time for the players to bond just with the world, as I was pointing out above, before having to learn new deities, also.
Regarding only telling the party of a few gods, then introducing new ones along the way, I see the benefits there, but on the other hand, I wonder if that might not stray back to my original fear.
Player: "Okay, I think I understand the culture of the country we're in. So, who's the temple in town dedicated to?"
Me: "Thule the Vigilant!"
Player: "He wasn't in the deity list you gave us."
Me: "It's another god that wasn't in the list."
Player: "That's the third one you've introduced this campaign. I can't keep it all straight in my head!"
That's what I'm worried about running into. In your experiences, is that the case, or are players willing to accept such a large amount of new material that a custom-built world carries with it? I don't have any experience trying that type of world/player introduction myself.
I'm also just going slightly batty since it's been over half a year since I've done some serious dice rolling. I can't really write adventures, either, without having a party compositions and PC backstories to think of, so I'm sort of in limbo until the new group gets up and running.
There are many npc in my world that preach that the dieties are more or less parasites and gangsters :) about 2/3 of the dieties in the Dieties and Demigod books have been killed in my game, so there is a huge power gap, and the world has suffered war with the the Gods of Chaos ie Cuthulu for decades and maybe people are forlorn by no longer having the protection of a god; lots of dispondent people; well lots of so called heresy has become rampant.
Wow. Excellent campaign theme. In your specific case I can really see how using core Gods from the Deities and Demigods can heighten the impact. I mean this is so much more then 'and here be Aztec's and these are their Aztec gods...yawn'. In this case your making the whole situation resonate with Gods the players have heard about becoming victims to Cuthuloid God killers. Powerful stuff - and much more powerful then if you had Gods the players had never heard of being the victims.
Now I don't know how long you have been running this campaign and of course I don't know the finer details but as a campaign world I would think your challenge would be to manage to keep this Post Apocalyptic theme working from one campaign to the next. Balance that correctly and I believe your players could come to really enjoy campaigning in your world for the rest of their D&D careers.
If this where my campaign world then that would be the goal. A deeply compelling world with a monstrous terror always lurking in the background. That does mean that the core theme of the world itself can never be truly resolved. The Cuthloid monsters can never be defeated (though maybe individual Cuthloid God killers can be dealt with) and high level campaigns should focus on things of a lesser nature then saving all the Gods or defeating all the Cuthloid Monsters.
In fact I might actually shy away from having the players ever do anything except flee in aject terror from the big Cuthloid God Killers. Concentrate on having the players help the peoples of the world cope with their reality. The hard part, as I see it, might be keeping some kind of stability to the themes of the campaign so that it can be reused. Essentially I might think of it more as a modern d20 Nuclear Post Apocalyptic setting. Its not that the players (in a modern d20 setting) can change the fact that the world was destroyed in a nuclear holocaust. All they can do is help those that are left in one little corner of the world and fight the evils that thrive in such an environment. I guess what I'm saying is your God killing Theme has created a fascinating and unique environment. Play on that environment for all its worth. Gods being eaten is impactful but it won't stay impactful for your players unless they come to empathize with the people and places of your most unfortunate world. When you have managed to get your players to actually empathize with your world (and that may take more then one campaign) then you have truly managed to create a work of art as well as a campaign world.
This kind of stress on a world will can create extremely interesting cultures. Your world reminds me somewhat of Dark Sun and the interesting ways that Dark Sun's Apocalyptic circumstances changed the world view and culture of the races. Good Luck - love to see where your at with this (if you keep at it) after 10 years of refining this campaigns theme.
Jeremy, I know from your other posts that you've got a homebrew that's been around for years and has undergone many revisions, similar, I believe, to mine. At what point did you make up your own pantheon? One thing that came to my mind is that I've only been playing for a little over three years, and thus haven't gotten to really "use" all of the core gods to the extent that I'd like to.
My Pantheon evolved with each major rewrite of the campaign world. That said, a lot has stayed the same. The biggest change has been reducing their direct impact on the world. One basically never physically meets Gods in my more recent campaigns while it was not that uncommon back during my teenage years.
I also have difficulty coming up with "compelling" deities. Histories, geographies, cultures, etc., all come fairly easily to me, but developing gods and their stories and practices just isn't as natural for me.
Which might be part of the reason I'm making my point. I've made lousy Gods in my world. I've made mistakes in this area – more then once. Some of the fallout from these errors are so enmeshed in my campaign world that they are difficult to remove without the whole thing collapsing in on itself. The solution of going back and trying to spice up a lousy but critical God is second best at best to coming up with a good one in the first place. I'm a tad lucky in that most of my players have changed over the years and often times my revisions can go unspotted but this just mitigates what was a significant problem in campaigns past. It is my past failures in the area of creating compelling Gods that leads me to stress making compelling ones so strongly. There is a kind of paradox at work here. Your players don't much care about your Gods – they care about the treasure horde, but in future years the treasure horde will have totally faded from memory and it will be the look and feel of your campaign world and its interesting plots that they will fondly remember. That is of course if you had an interesting look and feel and Gods usually play a key role in a campaigns look and feel. In essence at any given moment they are focused on getting more goodies, but what will hook them in again and again is something more then goodies.
Anyway, combining that factor with the above, my "deity project" may turn out to be something that takes a while to complete. On the other hand, I don't like the thought of getting a group together, and then a month or year in, saying, "Okay, all the pantheon and cosmology is changing because I finally got the god list the way I like it!" I guess it's not so bad, though; better than rushing the ideas and coming up with something forced and unnatural. It also gives a little time for the players to bond just with the world, as I was pointing out above, before having to learn new deities, also.Regarding only telling the party of a few gods, then introducing new ones along the way, I see the benefits there, but on the other hand, I wonder if that might not stray back to my original fear.
Your caught between a rock and a hard place here. Changing everything midstream is not a great answer on the other hand waiting forever to play is pretty bad as well. The best compromise might be to try and have the Gods but then to keep fleshing them out as good ideas come along. However I would really try and have some of your themes and the Cosmology thought out. In regards to themes I would be looking to Ebberon, Planescape, Darksun and Dragonlance as examples of worlds with interesting themes. Greyhawk and The Forgotten Realms – in the context of what we see in most official products, don't really have strong themes. The themes that exist tend to get watered down in an attempt to make these worlds everything to everyone. That is not to say that they don't ever work – the DMs that use these worlds would instead be creating the theme based on material from some corner of The Forgotten Realms that inspired them or Old School Greyhawk DMs probably concentrate on the plethora of dark secrets and the downtrodden and wartorn feel of that ancient world. As a home brew your world does not have to accommodate every possible style of play nor every conceivable plot device. My advice is to decide on a look and feel for your world beyond generic fantasy early. The goal is to have a take home message for your world so that your players could describe your world in a few paragraphs after they have played a few campaigns in it.
Player: "Okay, I think I understand the culture of the country we're in. So, who's the temple in town dedicated to?"Me: "Thule the Vigilant!"
Player: "He wasn't in the deity list you gave us."
Me: "It's another god that wasn't in the list."
Player: "That's the third one you've introduced this campaign. I can't keep it all straight in my head!"
That's what I'm worried about running into. In your experiences, is that the case, or are players willing to accept such a large amount of new material that a custom-built world carries with it? I don't have any experience trying that type of world/player introduction myself.
Your certainly correct that it will annoy your players if these new Gods are popping in and out all over the place. If and when you upgrade your world I'd suggest saving most of the big changes for the start of a new campaign. Note also that the players don't really want to remember your Gods or anything else (their all about the treasure) so your goal is to sell them on the Gods and themes. Make them interested despite themselves. Done properly, and given enough time, you will reel them in. This is another reason to try and have an interesting look and feel – they'll notice that while they will all skip reading your 4 page dissertion on the world view of the Elves.Jeremy, I know from your other posts that you've got a homebrew that's been around for years and has undergone many revisions, similar, I believe, to mine. At what point did you make up your own pantheon? One thing that came to my mind is that I've only been playing for a little over three years, and thus haven't gotten to really "use" all of the core gods to the extent that I'd like to.
My Pantheon evolved with each major rewrite of the campaign world. That said, a lot has stayed the same. The biggest change has been reducing their direct impact on the world. One basically never physically meets Gods in my more recent campaigns while it was not that uncommon back during my teenage years.
Jeremy, I know from your other posts that you've got a homebrew that's been around for years and has undergone many revisions, similar, I believe, to mine. At what point did you make up your own pantheon? One thing that came to my mind is that I've only been playing for a little over three years, and thus haven't gotten to really "use" all of the core gods to the extent that I'd like to.My Pantheon evolved with each major rewrite of the campaign world. That said, a lot has stayed the same. The biggest change has been reducing their direct impact on the world. One basically never physically meets Gods in my more recent campaigns while it was not that uncommon back during my teenage years.
I also have difficulty coming up with "compelling" deities. Histories, geographies, cultures, etc., all come fairly easily to me, but developing gods and their stories and practices just isn't as natural for me.
Which might be part of the reason I'm making my point. I've made lousy Gods in my world. I've made mistakes in this area – more then once. Some of the fallout from these errors are so enmeshed in my campaign world that they are difficult to remove without the whole thing collapsing in on itself. The solution of going back and trying to spice up a lousy but critical God is second best at best to coming up with a good one in the first place. I'm a tad lucky in that most of my players have changed over the years and often times my revisions can go unspotted but this just mitigates what was a significant problem in campaigns past. It is my past failures in the area of creating compelling Gods that leads me to stress making compelling ones so strongly. There is a kind of paradox at work here. Your players don't much care about your Gods – they care about the treasure horde, but in future years the treasure horde will have totally faded from memory and it will be the look and feel of your campaign world and its interesting plots that they will fondly remember. That is of course if you had an interesting look and feel and Gods usually play a key role in a campaigns look and feel. In essence at any given moment they are focused on getting more goodies, but what will hook them in again and again is something more then goodies.
Anyway, combining that factor with the above, my "deity project" may turn out to be something that takes a while to complete. On the other hand, I don't like the thought of getting a group together, and then a month or year in, saying, "Okay, all the pantheon and cosmology is changing because I finally got the god list the way I like it!" I guess it's not so bad, though; better than rushing the ideas and coming up with something forced and unnatural. It also gives a little time for the players to bond just with the world, as I was pointing out above, before having to learn new deities, also.Regarding only telling the party of a few gods, then introducing new ones along the way, I see the benefits there, but on the other hand, I wonder if that might not stray back to my original fear.
Your caught between a rock and a hard place here. Changing everything midstream is not a great answer on the other hand waiting forever to play is pretty bad as well. The best compromise might be to try and have the Gods but then to keep fleshing them out as good ideas come along. However I would really try and have some of your themes and the Cosmology thought out. In regards to themes I would be looking to Ebberon, Planescape, Darksun and Dragonlance as examples of worlds with interesting themes. Greyhawk and The Forgotten Realms – in the context of what we see in most official products, don't really have strong themes. The themes that exist tend to get watered down in an attempt to make these worlds everything to everyone. That is not to say that they don't ever work – the DMs that use these worlds would instead be creating the theme based on material from some corner of The Forgotten Realms that inspired them or Old School Greyhawk DMs probably concentrate on the plethora of dark secrets and the downtrodden and wartorn feel of that ancient world. As a home brew your world does not have to accommodate every possible style of play nor every conceivable plot device. My advice is to decide on a look and feel for your world beyond generic fantasy early. The goal is to have a take home message for your world so that your players could describe your world in a few paragraphs after they have played a few campaigns in it.
Player: "Okay, I think I understand the culture of the country we're in. So, who's the temple in town dedicated to?"Me: "Thule the Vigilant!"
Player: "He wasn't in the deity list you gave us."
Me: "It's another god that wasn't in the list."
Player: "That's the third one you've introduced this campaign. I can't keep it all straight in my head!"
That's what I'm worried about running into. In your experiences, is that the case, or are players willing to accept such a large amount of new material that a custom-built world carries with it? I don't have any experience trying that type of world/player introduction myself.
Your certainly correct that it will annoy your players if these new Gods are popping in and out all over the place. If and when you upgrade your world I'd suggest saving most of the big changes for the start of a new campaign. Note also that the players don't really want to remember your Gods or anything else (their all about the treasure) so your goal is to sell them on the Gods and themes. Make them interested despite themselves. Done properly, and given enough time, you will reel them in. This is another reason to try and have an interesting look and feel – they'll notice that while they will all skip reading your 4 page dissertion on the world view of the Elves.
I also have difficulty coming up with "compelling" deities. Histories, geographies, cultures, etc., all come fairly easily to me, but developing gods and their stories and practices just isn't as natural for me.Which might be part of the reason I'm making my point. I've made lousy Gods in my world. I've made mistakes in this area – more then once. Some of the fallout from these errors are so enmeshed in my campaign world that they are difficult to remove without the whole thing collapsing in on itself. The solution of going back and trying to spice up a lousy but critical God is second best at best to coming up with a good one in the first place. I'm a tad lucky in that most of my players have changed over the years and often times my revisions can go unspotted but this just mitigates what was a significant problem in campaigns past. It is my past failures in the area of creating compelling Gods that leads me to stress making compelling ones so strongly. There is a kind of paradox at work here. Your players don't much care about your Gods – they care about the treasure horde, but in future years the treasure horde will have totally faded from memory and it will be the look and feel of your campaign world and its interesting plots that they will fondly remember. That is of course if you had an interesting look and feel and Gods usually play a key role in a campaigns look and feel. In essence at any given moment they are focused on getting more goodies, but what will hook them in again and again is something more then goodies.
Anyway, combining that factor with the above, my "deity project" may turn out to be something that takes a while to complete. On the other hand, I don't like the thought of getting a group together, and then a month or year in, saying, "Okay, all the pantheon and cosmology is changing because I finally got the god list the way I like it!" I guess it's not so bad, though; better than rushing the ideas and coming up with something forced and unnatural. It also gives a little time for the players to bond just with the world, as I was pointing out above, before having to learn new deities, also.Regarding only telling the party of a few gods, then introducing new ones along the way, I see the benefits there, but on the other hand, I wonder if that might not stray back to my original fear.
Your caught between a rock and a hard place here. Changing everything midstream is not a great answer on the other hand waiting forever to play is pretty bad as well. The best compromise might be to try and have the Gods but then to keep fleshing them out as good ideas come along. However I would really try and have some of your themes and the Cosmology thought out. In regards to themes I would be looking to Ebberon, Planescape, Darksun and Dragonlance as examples of worlds with interesting themes. Greyhawk and The Forgotten Realms – in the context of what we see in most official products, don't really have strong themes. The themes that exist tend to get watered down in an attempt to make these worlds everything to everyone. That is not to say that they don't ever work – the DMs that use these worlds would instead be creating the theme based on material from some corner of The Forgotten Realms that inspired them or Old School Greyhawk DMs probably concentrate on the plethora of dark secrets and the downtrodden and wartorn feel of that ancient world. As a home brew your world does not have to accommodate every possible style of play nor every conceivable plot device. My advice is to decide on a look and feel for your world beyond generic fantasy early. The goal is to have a take home message for your world so that your players could describe your world in a few paragraphs after they have played a few campaigns in it.
Player: "Okay, I think I understand the culture of the country we're in. So, who's the temple in town dedicated to?"Me: "Thule the Vigilant!"
Player: "He wasn't in the deity list you gave us."
Me: "It's another god that wasn't in the list."
Player: "That's the third one you've introduced this campaign. I can't keep it all straight in my head!"
That's what I'm worried about running into. In your experiences, is that the case, or are players willing to accept such a large amount of new material that a custom-built world carries with it? I don't have any experience trying that type of world/player introduction myself.
Your certainly correct that it will annoy your players if these new Gods are popping in and out all over the place. If and when you upgrade your world I'd suggest saving most of the big changes for the start of a new campaign. Note also that the players don't really want to remember your Gods or anything else (their all about the treasure) so your goal is to sell them on the Gods and themes. Make them interested despite themselves. Done properly, and given enough time, you will reel them in. This is another reason to try and have an interesting look and feel – they'll notice that while they will all skip reading your 4 page dissertion on the world view of the Elves.
Wow. That was a very long and in-depth reply. I appreciate that. (Although, for some reason, it's displaying as effectively writing your whole post twice; don't know if it's just me seeing that or a problem with the website).
I have the themes in my mind that I want, and feel they are pretty good, and I've already developed some notions about things I can "drop" and simply say, "No. That isn't in my world." (As opposed to the chorus line of published materials, that if you can think of it, it exists somewhere). Thus, I'll just keep plodding along, working on this project in the background as inspiration takes me, and slip it in when I feel that it's fully baked and it won't be noticed too much (such as between sets of players, like in your description).
Luckily, there's just been a bit of a breakthrough in the scheduling for the new group that's forming, so I can start thinking more about actual adventures and less about difficult things like this. Yipee!
In my recent experiences with building a pantheon of all brand new gods, I have found that it helps to tell the players ahead of time that I may be introducing new gods as I build them. I have already given them a base list of the ones currently done and the ones under work, but I also told them to be patient if I add a few new ones here and there to fill the gaps. I have also found that it helps to have my wife be a part of the creation process, even though she is a player, she has a very deep understanding of how religion is pieced together with the gods.All in all, the task of making an entire pantheon can sometimes be daunting, considering the ways in which they have to be tied to history and places. For example, I have a historical figure, a hero of the old kingdom, that worshipped one of these new gods. This hero is a major influence on all that has happened in certain areas, and the god he worshipped is still prominent to this day in that area. Tie this with the tennants of the faith and you have something that shapes the way everyone in that area reactes to others and with each other.
In another note, I find that it helps to have things such as heros and events of the past already figured out from one certain place in time. From there it is easier to determine what events shape the world and its people. To accomplish this, I have enlisted the aid of one of the groups I have playing in this world. You would be suprised how much it helps (and how much faster it goes) to at least have a person bounce ideas off you and between the two of you flesh out the history and peoples of an entire continent based on the land shape and weather patterns in about 30 minutes. Of course, having a brother-in-law who holds a degree in history helps.
(Although, for some reason, it's displaying as effectively writing your whole post twice; don't know if it's just me seeing that or a problem with the website).
Bloody hell - I wish this board would let me edit my posts. I have no idea whether I am the cause of the 2 posts in one effect or its a board problem and since I can't edit my post I can't find out or fix it.