It is possible that the god itself doesn't punish/reward interaction with an altar. A god typically has legions of servants, so why wouldn't Iomedae have a few "angels of middle management" to deal with mortals that interact with altars?
It is possible that the god itself doesn't punish/reward interaction with an altar. A god typically has legions of servants, so why wouldn't Iomedae have a few "angels of middle management" to deal with mortals that interact with altars?
I had a demon attack my party in Kingmaker when...
As I said, even computer/video games, in which the rules tend to be more hard and fast because they are literally hard-coded, don't universally prevent you from taking on enemies you're not prepared to fight. It is quite possible, in many games, to put yourself in a situation in which you're up against a boss you're not supposed to fight for a while, or an NPC who can kill you in one blow (see the examples I cited above).The thing about videogames is that either you can load a previous save if you do something stupid or it's a roguelike with no plot where your character is 100% disposable.
All videogames I've heard of in the RPG genre that do not attempt to simulate the 99% lethality and endless nearly identical disposable characters of stuff like Temple of Elemental Evil allow you to revert to a previous save with no penalty except real world time lost.
And, ultimately, a player and GM can work together to ensure everyone has fun, and if everyone's being an adult, they can work out something to allow the character to get back to full power or some equivalent solution, or find a way to continue the story in a way that's interesting and satisfying.
The best analogy I've come across for smooth role-playing was from one of my friends who did improv comedy. He explained how, when you're doing improv with other actors, and one of them says something that throws you or takes the sketch in a direction you don't like, you can't say to them, "Um, that didn't happen." That ruins the rhythm and the audience's engagement and throws everyone off. Your response should be, "Yes, and..."
You agree ("Yes"), and then you add something ("and...") to steer it back to a place you can work with.
In an RPG, sometimes the GM is going to do something unexpected you find challenging or don't like. Sometimes other players will do something in-character that causes unintended consequences for the whole party. Sometimes, as a GM, your players will go "off-script" and react in ways or make choices that you didn't anticipate.
In each case, you can choose to step out of game and object and work it out that way, or you can choose to stay within the story and find a way to solve the issue there (maybe you as a PC head to a temple to consult a cleric on a way to get rid of the curse, and the GM takes it from there and has the cleric lay out a way for you to undo the damage that was done).
Either way, though, that doesn't mean that GMs should be required -- or are even *capable,* given that players have free will -- to prevent players from doing something that might result in harsh penalties. It just means they should be ready to improvise a way for the players to solve the problem they just created.
And, ultimately, a player and GM can work together to ensure everyone has fun, and if everyone's being an adult...If everyone's being an adult the GM doesn't inflict functionally incurable penalties unless everyone already knows the game is a d20 adaptation of Call of Cthulhu or some similar excessively gritty setting.
This is playing gotcha and if the GM is doing that it's too late to work together to ensure everyone has fun.
I guess we'll have to agree to disagree, because I don't think that's universally true. At all.
And, ultimately, a player and GM can work together to ensure everyone has fun, and if everyone's being an adult...If everyone's being an adult the GM doesn't inflict functionally incurable penalties unless everyone already knows the game is a d20 adaptation of Call of Cthulhu or some similar excessively gritty setting.
This is playing gotcha and if the GM is doing that it's too late to work together to ensure everyone has fun.
Or the GM is fairly new and didn't realize the damage was crippling and/or functionally incurable.
Stop assuming worst case scenario. The only thing we know is that it happened and it was something he added. Indicating poor judgement at most, not dickishness.
I'm curious: did it get resolved and how? What was the final outcome?
As far as the earlier "gods are not/should not be that petty" sentiment goes, I would kindly direct holders of that view to polytheistic mythology as a whole.
As for the altar business, while I can certainly understand it getting tiresome if it's the exact same thing over and over, I think there SHOULD be plenty of places where these sorts of effects can happen, because clerics shouldn't be the only ones that get tangible effects from religion.
The idea of a god that doesn't care about the mortal world is a fairly modern construction.
Not really. Epicurus and his followers, for example, held to this point of view about 2300 years ago.