Board Posts

Acantha
Absolutely not.

For a long time, far longer than I've been here, the old gods have been running the show.

What may not be completely apparent, though, is to what extent they are ingrained into the culture of the mud as a whole.

For example, consider the soul "fluff". It doesn't exist outside Discworld, except where players have propogated it. It's part of the background fun. Players shouting "FISH" over channels, people swearing using "Sek-damned" - these gods are part of the DW culture and as such removing them will harm our uniqueness. Saying "you can keep using those words" or "well, gods dwindle" is not an answer to this problem. Culture stays culture as long as it is supported. Faith and our seven rather silly and terribly interesting gods are part of our culture, and beneficial part.

There will be an argument made that new gods would be more in line with the novels. That isn't strictly true. Most gods in Pterry's works have only a paragraph or two as background. Our gods are so realistic and well fleshed out that many players find it odd they've "missed" the references in the novels. We're not slavishly devoted to the series here; we're _based on_ it. Otherwise, the entirety of BP had best be ripped out.

Now, consider the numberchasers. If this is a power-neutral shift, and balance, etc (Something which I will trust our cres on, since they tend to be astonishingly and consistently good at achieving), then new gods don't actually add anything for them. At best, they get to play with new primaries. If new primaries are going in anyway, why not simply have all priests temporarily removed from their churches, and let the numberchasers choose the new primaries they want? This should be as easy as coding new gods, and satisfies that side of the mud - since ostensibly pure numberchasers don't care about the name they follow (An idea I think is utterly untrue, but put forward for the sake of the hypothesis that numberchasers can't also feel character.)

Next, consider the coders and builders. That's the end of most rooms in Genua. Large chunks of every area, NPCs that we know and love (Vy of Fish, Kess of Sek), addons, room chats - all need to be redone. Sweeps of history will be wiped out.

Finally, and to my mind, most importantly, consider the roleplayers. There are a lot of people who roleplay consistently, and a lot more who dabble in it. We've created characters- priests AND followers - who are intrinscially and irrevocably entwined with the gods we worship.

Using myself as an example, everything I've done in the past year, from my choice of skills to advance, to the fact I purposely haven't acquired some commands, have been based on my character. My character is utterly faithful to Gufnork - if He never existed, then a year of writing is down the tubes.

Sasswots who focus on their Gappic clothing, hours of debate with the other high priests as to which god is superior, Hattites playing around and having parties, Sekkites with custom armour that reflects their faith, deludes and customs and vocabulary - all to be overturned for a power-neutral revamp?

Years of character building, interaction, fleshing out of philosophies and ideologies, debate about which sermons you'd preach if you could, debate over the political status of mixed faith marriages - all "didn't happen"?

Many major players on the mud rp and numberchase both. A number strictly roleplay.

For the sake of the roleplayers, the creators, the numberchasers, and the underlying culture we've built as a community for years, we must not delete these gods.