Pantheon: The Third Age - Rules and Comments Thread

[Arcadia]

entering the mists was a last ditch effort to save P3.

I agree with zeph that there should be no self destruct buttons. It seemed that all it takes is one god to unleash hell and he/she can do it with very little power.

I have no problem with obstacles thrown in our way to build characters but it seems that we have been told over and over that Eiran will die and thwre is nothing we can do about it. So why not go into the mists?

it ould be bice to continue with P3 but I'm ready for P4 if that is the consensus.

[Madadeva]

We can put that on his tombstone Murrin!

And for the record, it was Asta and Anaya sealing the Chastus breach that denied the WB the power to make inter-turn moves

[variol son]

Asta and Norn actually.

[Madadeva]

Whoops! My bad! Sorry

I get Goddesses confused - so many goddesses, so little time!

[Moxinomal]

Personally, I am not ready for P3 to end. It definitely seems that a lot of people have pretty much given up because things are getting too complicated. But there are ALWAYS ways to solve problems, regardless of how complex they may be.

The game is not about "Let's build armies and play really big games of Risk" to me. It's about the ability to think and manipulate what was you have been given to reach whatever End Game plan you have. With the latent powers of the domains I chose, building an army of insane people who have nightmare inducing powers would be severely decimated by some of the more straight-to-the-point powers. So that's why I had been doing other things along the way.

From my perspective as an "evil god", you can't just build up an army and say "Hey, come and get me." Look what happened to TM towards the start of this age and with Nor during the second age. Evil player characters play the game for the same reason that the good or neutral gods do: To have fun. There is no fun to the game if the sole purpose of an evil god is to just get the proverbial train ran on them.

I dunno, I don't want the game to end, but if a consensus is to end the game, then that's what will go down.

[variol son]

Sorry Madadeva - they were both virgin Goddesses.

Xar, as you have probably noted my turn has provided an end for Anaya regardless of your decision. I did this for a number of reasons. First of all, as a GM you have given me some of the best random-events I've ever had - far better than P1 or P2. I however, have been unable to extract the full potential from these random events, leaving them nothing more than tantalizing hints. I don't see this as a failure on your part or mine - we simply think in such different ways that what is probably obvious to you is completely not-obvious to me. If there is any failure it's mine - the All-Father gave Anaya some great gifts and I had no idea how she should use them.

Secondly, I feel that my responses to random-events and events that I have set in motion myself have either been completely unsuccessful, or have caused massive catastrophes (such as the creation of the Numen). This is rather dis-heartening, as you have probably picked up on from my submissions.

Finally, I have always been a little disappointed with Anaya as a character. Conceived as a character of balance, I joined a Court because I wanted to help you make the system work. It was a bad idea, and since then I have wished I could start all over again. I'll be honest that the discovery of the secret court devoted to balance stung a little, not only because I conceived Anaya as a champion of balance (those who didn't see it should re-read my description of her clothing in my revelation), but also because it gave rise to the perception that perhaps some players had an easier time of it in terms of being able to direct characterisation. I'm not saying that this is the case, simply that this was one way things were perceived.

My potential character for P4 is pretty much ready, but I'm not sure if I'll play as I don't know if I could do it justice (by which I mean, sumbit something decently written each turn).

[Fist and Faith]

Xar, as you have probably noted my turn has provided an end for Anaya regardless of your decision. I did this for a number of reasons. First of all, as a GM you have given me some of the best random-events I've ever had - far better than P1 or P2. I however, have been unable to extract the full potential from these random events, leaving them nothing more than tantalizing hints. I don't see this as a failure on your part or mine - we simply think in such different ways that what is probably obvious to you is completely not-obvious to me. If there is any failure it's mine - the All-Father gave Anaya some great gifts and I had no idea how she should use them.

Xar and I had a laugh in NYC about how I can't figure out what he's currently trying to tell me. I also have an OOC hint for Anaya, even though I don't know what good it would do to any of us.

My potential character for P4 is pretty much ready, but I'm not sure if I'll play as I don't know if I could do it justice (by which I mean, sumbit something decently written each turn).

Nonsense. Pantheon would be a much lesser thing without you. Yeah, I've always wished your characters, among others', were more willing to work with mine. (That, combined with Anaya's hostility toward Zephyr, is why he didn't ask her to join Eclipse.) But it's been great to have you there, knowing you're playing seriously, watching you grow, wondering what the hell you're doing.


Anyway, I'm obviously firmly in the P3 side. Zephyr still has much to accomplish. I'm very excited about my P4 idea, but I'm not in a rush to get to it.

[Xar]

One of the main points that I want to make sure you understand is this: it doesn't matter how much you try, I am not going to give you a detailed explanation of what is going on or how to fix it. Even if your god stared at a Bleed for three years, I wouldn't tell you how to fix it. Depending on how you described your action, I could give you clues as to its nature, possibly even some hints as to how it came to be, but I am not going to give any solutions. The whole point of the game is to think how you would act - and to think outside the box, at that. Some players are better at it, but all are required to do it to some extent. And that means that if there is a catastrophe, you can't and shouldn't expect to spend some DRPs and get the solution in a burst of divine inspiration: at most you could get clues, but it would still be up to you to connect the dots and figure out how to work it out.

I mention this because I have sometimes received requests such as "I use X DRPs to find out how to stop this catastrophe", and that's an answer you are not going to get. What you are going to get might be "The catastrophe is caused by Y", but it's up to you to figure out how to deal with it.

Therefore none of the events currently besieging Eiran could be solved by spending DRPs in an analysis of the catastrophe itself, in order to get a pre-packaged solution. It all requires you to think and connect the dots. It may also require some adjustements of thought - as Mox said, it's not just a game in which the bigger army wins. And I have scattered clues all over Eiran as to possible ways to overcome this or that catastrophe - some gods have received several, so much so that if only they stopped to consider them, they would have their answer.

Now that said, many catastrophes could have been avoided, or required great effort on the part of a god. It took Dagon several turns' worth of DRPs to create the Leviathan and make it powerful enough to challenge the Worm - a challenge that was issued out of boredom, I might add. And when Mox entered the Mists, as per the rules he stood one turn on the edge, giving everyone the chance to stop him, but only Vashitva tried to do so. This is just to say that the current state of events is something which was not unavoidable.

I'll be honest; my first instinct at this point would be to wrap up P3 and prepare for P4. Unlike P3, P4 is designed without "destroy-the-world" switches, and it is going to be a less potentially world-shattering experience, so that alone would solve most of the points indicated here. Nevertheless I do not want to end P3 if most players still want to play it - however, I will only continue P3 if not only most players want to continue, but they also understand that there will be no direct help from me in solving the problems plaguing Eiran - clues, yes; hints, yes; but no ready-made solutions.

[I'm Murrin]

I'm good either way on continuing. Other than the whole part where showing bad tendencies gets people to gang up on you, Bel is fun and has an interesting direction, and just because he says the world is ending soon doesn't mean it has to for his story to work. I just took your cues and used them to create some actual momentum for Bel.


On the other hand it'd be interesting to start over, and I always said I'd prefer a world without all the holdovers from previous games. But I only have two ideas so far for new gods - one of them is nothing more than a gimmick that'd not really work, and the other might be a bit too straightforward. I almost want to ask you to just throw a random domain at me and force me to come up with something new.

[Fist and Faith]

I know, Xar. I'm not think we should get any solution handed to us. But we've learned next to nothing so far. We have one clue, which I told my folks to act on this turn. But time's running out too quickly. By the time we test things, and look for more clues, Eiran will be one big Bleed. And sure, the fault could be in our lack of imagination. Maybe we have a lot more clues staring us in the face. But a dozen of us can't see what they are. So it's time to gamble. Will the Allfather be merciful since so many are asking in this manner?

Just understand this... I know it's a gamble. The nature of gambling is being willing to lose. I won't blame you if the Allfather ignores us. It's a very real possibility, and I knew it going in. Don't worry about it. If the rules of Eiran's realm demand that, then they demand that. I'm just hoping they allow for something different when ten deities Manifest and ask.

[[Syl]]

I have no problem with a god being 'evil,' so long as they keep it to themselves. It's when they start screwing with other players that there are problems (if one god is threatened, then so am I by extension). Of course, this is also a problem with the way the game turns into a land grab. A large part of my motivation for Acropolis was to see how things work out when you take away the zero sum aspect, and I feel safe in saying it turned out to be a success.

If p4 addresses both of those aspects, as I understand it does, then I'm all for it. If p3 continues, I'll probably be sitting out.

[Avatar]

I'm easy either way. I love P3, and I'm more than happy to continue it. I'm sure there's plenty of ways to further develop my character, if I could only think of them. (Hitting a bit of a flat spot at the moment.)

And I think uKulwa is definitely my most developed character yet, and probably my favourite.

That said, I'm fine to switch to P4 too, so I'll be happy either way.

--A

[variol son]

Therefore none of the events currently besieging Eiran could be solved by spending DRPs in an analysis of the catastrophe itself, in order to get a pre-packaged solution. It all requires you to think and connect the dots. It may also require some adjustements of thought - as Mox said, it's not just a game in which the bigger army wins. And I have scattered clues all over Eiran as to possible ways to overcome this or that catastrophe - some gods have received several, so much so that if only they stopped to consider them, they would have their answer.

That's the thing Xar - I have had no idea what you've been trying to say during P3, and I'm reluctant to waste my time making a guess that's likely to be wrong when most of the time most of my actions seem to be a waste of time as it is. Like I said, Anaya's random events have been awesome, but because I've been unable to figure out what to do with them it's reached a point where I would much rather have had run-of-the-mill events that were boring as hell but were also something I could work with.

Now that said, many catastrophes could have been avoided, or required great effort on the part of a god. It took Dagon several turns' worth of DRPs to create the Leviathan and make it powerful enough to challenge the Worm - a challenge that was issued out of boredom, I might add. And when Mox entered the Mists, as per the rules he stood one turn on the edge, giving everyone the chance to stop him, but only Vashitva tried to do so. This is just to say that the current state of events is something which was not unavoidable.

The problem here is that I struggle to remember one time in three Pantheons when working towards something over several turns hasn't produced either catastrophic results (such as Norn's black doorway), or no results at all (such as searching for the prophet slayer). As such I've probably become one of the most boring players from your point of view, because everything I do is so short term (because at least that way if it fails it can't be too catastrophc, or I didn't waste too much power on it).

Just for the record, Anaya was going to manifest and chase down the God-Challenger until Fist gave me an out. I thought I'd give you a break from my awful submissions.

[Fist and Faith]

Yup. That's the one. God-Challenger is Prophet Slayer. Could be a wrong guess, though.

[Madadeva]

God-Challenger? I must have missed him / her!

[Arcadia]

I'm also good with either continuing P3 or moving onto P4. I would like to see what I can do with Arcadia. She's the best character I've had so far this game.

I'd like to see what her potential is.

Variol-son, the games have been far more interesting with you in them. I always see your characters as very unique. And I'm right there with you - it seems that my plans have always been so short term that poor Xar probably had no idea what I was doing! heh.

[Goatkiller666]

So, the thing I read from between the lines of Xar's comments in this thread recently is that the world is not guaranteed to end. And honestly, that's enough for me. I like The Numen. There's way more that I can grow Them, and I'd love the chance to do so.

I don't mind if fixing the world is going to be hard. As long as I know OOC that it's even possible in the first place, then I'll keep trying.

[Xar]

So, the thing I read from between the lines of Xar's comments in this thread recently is that the world is not guaranteed to end. And honestly, that's enough for me. I like The Numen. There's way more that I can grow Them, and I'd love the chance to do so.

I don't mind if fixing the world is going to be hard. As long as I know OOC that it's even possible in the first place, then I'll keep trying.

Already several times before, in other occasions (and other Pantheon iterations as well), there were players who believed there were no solutions to existing problems, despite the fact that I had not only given them clues to the contrary, but had flat-out stated that disaster was not unavoidable. Personally I may understand if a player doesn't think of connecting the dots, but I do want to state for the record that the dots are there and that they do form a meaningful picture... however, I'm not going to take up the pencil and connect them for you.

[Goatkiller666]

Challange accepted.

[Fist and Faith]

Well said, Xar.