The Apple of Discord

[Andrew Hackard]

Originally Posted by Andreas

Surely the fault for that would be them having inappropriate stats rather than them having stats at all.

I disagree. I am entirely in favor of leaving some elements of a setting unquantified if the point of the story isn't for the PCs to set upon them with claw and fang. The answer to the question "What can this deity do?" is "Whatever the GM wants or needs at a given time."

Originally Posted by Phantasm

In my amateur mythologist's opinion, the MacGuffin of a story doesn't need stats.

Precisely. The apple doesn't have powers of its own and so giving it stats (beyond, possibly, weight and size) is pointless. Heh. Pointless.

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

Athena's bribe was better because it subsumed the other two(with enough brains he could have all the power he wanted which would in turn get him all the beautiful women he wanted).

I remember having precisely that same thought at one point when I first read these stories, broadly speaking.

Originally Posted by malloyd

The Greeks might have disagreed on several counts. Wisdom might well include not *wanting* to rule all Europe and Asia, or the already married most beautiful woman in the world.

Not just 'already married', but married to a major prince in a rival nation, a ruler whose even more powerful brother is likely already looking for an excuse for war. Oh, and IIRC Paris already had a beautiful immortal girlfriend, in the form of a nymph or some entity along those lines, too.

In contrast to Paris, observe Odysseus. In some versions of the tale, when the Greek rulers gathered to compete for Helen's hand, Odysseus was wise enough to look at her and assess: "Trouble Waiting For Its Moment To Happen". Instead he woos her (IIRC) cousin Penelope and marries her.

Regarding the contest, IIRC Paris was picked precisely because Zeus wanted someone who was...not necessarily the brightest bulb, because smart people didn't want the job, himself included. It's a 2/1 loser no matter what decision is made, in that two high-ranking deities are mad at you at the cost of one on your side (you hope).

So one consideration for a wise judge, if you can't get out of the job, would be to ask yourself which goddess is most likely to be able to protect you from the wrath of the other two. From this perspective, Aphrodite (again) looks like the least wise choice. From the 'can she protect me' perspective, Athena and Hera are a harder decision.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Andrew Hackard

I disagree. I am entirely in favor of leaving some elements of a setting unquantified if the point of the story isn't for the PCs to set upon them with claw and fang. The answer to the question "What can this deity do?" is "Whatever the GM wants or needs at a given time."

I agree with this point, and particularly in relation to the Apple of Discord. But more generally, if you aren't setting things up for the PCs to have a chance of prevailing over an entity through some kind of struggle, then giving it statistics may do harm (by enabling them to do so, perhaps through design error on your part) and cannot do any good (since you can decide the outcome without looking at statistics), so at best it's wasted effort.

[sir_pudding]

Higher Purpose: Treat life as the art of playing games.

[Andreas]

Originally Posted by Andrew Hackard

I disagree. I am entirely in favor of leaving some elements of a setting unquantified if the point of the story isn't for the PCs to set upon them with claw and fang. The answer to the question "What can this deity do?" is "Whatever the GM wants or needs at a given time."

Leaving them unquantified in order to allow the GM to have more flexibility in adjusting the game on the fly is indeed (unlike the PCs being able to kill them when they clearly shouldn't) something you can't do just by being careful when assigning their stats, though personally I tend to prefer when such adjustments to the game don't come in the form of divine intervention.

Originally Posted by whswhs

I agree with this point, and particularly in relation to the Apple of Discord. But more generally, if you aren't setting things up for the PCs to have a chance of prevailing over an entity through some kind of struggle, then giving it statistics may do harm (by enabling them to do so, perhaps through design error on your part) and cannot do any good (since you can decide the outcome without looking at statistics), so at best it's wasted effort.

PCs should probably almost always have a chance of prevailing against gods like the ones in most D&D settings in at least some kinds of struggles though. Conflicts can be very loopsided in favor of one party (keeping a secret when the god does not know to expend a significant amount of effort to find out for example). Especially if the PCs are powerful enough to conceivably kill a god with poor stats, then there will almost certainly be a very large number of such possible conflicts where they could prevail.

Also it is not really true that stats can't do any good even if that is not the case. Having clearly thought out what the capabilities of the gods are can make deciding outcomes in situations where they are involved significantly easier and can provide significant help with keeping such decisions consistent.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

So one consideration for a wise judge, if you can't get out of the job, would be to ask yourself which goddess is most likely to be able to protect you from the wrath of the other two. From this perspective, Aphrodite (again) looks like the least wise choice. From the 'can she protect me' perspective, Athena and Hera are a harder decision.

Outside the context of the myth, he presumably picks Aphrodite because she is the local girl - more popular in Ionia than mainland Greece, and heavily influenced by eastern goddesses.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by malloyd

Outside the context of the myth, he presumably picks Aphrodite because she is the local girl - more popular in Ionia than mainland Greece, and heavily influenced by eastern goddesses.

Which interestingly enough is making a myth of your own rather then getting outside the context of myth. You are in fact being no different then a shaman who tells me that wheat grows because Father Sky married Mother Earth rather then using boring words like precipitation and evaporation. Paris said to be picking Aphrodite because Aphrodite was imported from the east is a myth to explain a fact of myth not unlike other myths made to explain facts of nature.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

Which interestingly enough is making a myth of your own rather then getting outside the context of myth. You are in fact being no different then a shaman who tells me that wheat grows because Father Sky married Mother Earth rather then using boring words like precipitation and evaporation. Paris said to be picking Aphrodite because Aphrodite was imported from the east is a myth to explain a fact of myth not unlike other myths made to explain facts of nature.

Huh? You do know that the Greeks themselves claimed Aphrodite came from Cyprus, that most of her more impressive temples are in Turkey, and that the closest Indoeuropean deity (the goddess of dawn) shares almost no myths other than the being born from the sea foam one, right?

And of course I'm absolutely certain no goddesses actually appeared to offer bribes to any Trojan prince, so assuming the Illiad records any real preference the city had for Aphrodite, and admittedly it may not, it must have some other source.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by whswhs

That was brilliantly calculated to stir up dissension among the three goddesses, but I think all that took was Eris's special psychological insight.

Indeed. The myth is nicely constructed to teach several lessons: Don't compare the beauty of women, it always annoys them; some questions can't be answered; wisdom lasts better than beauty; don't be the tool of troublemakers.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by malloyd

Huh? You do know that the Greeks themselves claimed Aphrodite came from Cyprus, that most of her more impressive temples are in Turkey, and that the closest Indoeuropean deity (the goddess of dawn) shares almost no myths other than the being born from the sea foam one, right?

And of course I'm absolutely certain no goddesses actually appeared to offer bribes to any Trojan prince, so assuming the Illiad records any real preference the city had for Aphrodite, and admittedly it may not, it must have some other source.

But saying Paris' picking of Aphrodite is a representation of where he lived and Aphrodite's popularity in Ionia in real life is a mythical allegory. It is a story made to explain a fact about life. A myth about a myth. Just like saying magic fountains in King Arthur is an expression of pre-christian tales is also a myth about a myth. What you are presenting is an origin story for the Trojan Cycle.

The point is which fits Occam's Razor best, Aphrodite won because of some Jungian streak in Ionians or she won because some blind bard thousands of years ago decided it fit the story better? The two are not incompatible and the former is not uninteresting, but the fact that you should seize upon it is an example of mythical instinct.