From: mark@trillian.jsc.nasa.gov (Mark Manning)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp,rec.games.frp.misc,alt.pub.dragons-inn,rec.games.frp.dnd
Subject: RE:Creating Gods -> Addendum
Message-ID: <1992Jun2.143742.1001@aio.jsc.nasa.gov>
Date: 2 Jun 1992 14:37:42 GMT
References: <107o4lINNm28@matt.ksu.ksu.edu> <1992Jun1.150413.1023@aio.jsc.nasa.gov>

I was asked in e-mail the question that, basically, "In your system, wouldn't
the people just tend to switch between the gods and thus make them quickly
increase in power?"

I thought it warranted an answer here as well as in e-mail.

Basically, the answer is no.  If god A has five followers and god B
has three but one of the followers of god A leaves A and goes to B,
then A looses as many eps as he had gained.  While god B gains the
number of eps.  Now, in Simulacron I, this would be 1000eps.  But
that is because in Simulacron I 1000eps is quite a large number of
eps.  In D&D this would be somewhere around 100,000eps or maybe
1,000,000eps.  I don't know - since I don't play D&D or AD&D and
have no idea how many eps it takes to reach a given level.  Also,
since (and this may have changed since I played D&D back in 1978)
D&D isn't a skill based system - you have no way of allocating the
eps out to the various skills.

At any rate, that is the answer to the question which was asked.  I
also told the person that the reason gods are jealous gods is because
if someone decides to leave them the god would much rather kill the
follower (and thus retain the eps) than to let them go to another
god.

Why?  Well, how do you think you would feel if an undead creature
sucked out enough eps from your character to lower your character
by say, five levels?  I know I'd be kind of miffed and I'd do anything I
could think of (even kill the creature if possible) to prevent
such a thing from happening.  The same holds true of the gods.

This is also why the gods have fights.  Some god starts taking
followers away from another god and soon you have a war starting.

Ciao.