Gods And Monsters

While Dungeons and Dragons was never explicitly about becoming a God, Lords Of Creation ("LOC") is.

Written by Tom Moldvay, and published in 1983 by Avalon Hill, LOC is characterized as "a role-playing game of science fantasy, fantasy, science fiction and high adventure that explores the farthest reaches of the imagination."

Like Dungeons and Dragons, LOC characters progress through a series of levels. However, achieving higher levels in LOC allows the character to unlock God-like abilities, ultimately culminating in the ability to create pocket universes.

Dungeons and Dragons was never so transparent, was it? I imagine the Immortals ruleset and high-level modules may have pitted the Characters against the Gods, or even provided rules on how one became a God in Dungeons and Dragons, but few serious players ever achieved those heights.

For those players with evil wizard and cleric characters, there was an alternate path to immortality: lichdom. Arguably the easier road, though harder on the eyes -- in more ways than one.

In the day, I heard reports, around the game-store cash register, of characters in this or that D&D group making the transition to Lich, with the campaigns continuing on after that metamorphosis.

The idea of characters as monsters -- not in the humorous vein of Monsters! Monsters! or Reverse Dungeon, but as bona fide malevolent beings spreading murder, mayhem and misery -- is foreign to me. Not that characters as Gods is any more palatable: I expect being able to do anything you liked, within the game, would get old, and fast.

I simply prefer playing in games where the characters are flawed heroes, lusting for treasure but often doing the right thing (like Conan in the Howard tale, Jewels of Gwahlur) rather than the bloodthirsty D&D players acting out the murder of an entire village because they are 9th level and completely outgun the townsfolk.

Goodness knows we already have enough real evil in the world.