dbb at [unixtime wrote:1144076089[/unixtime]]
Now, I think it's totally legitimate to have a religion be the BBEG in a campaign, and I think that's the better comparison to a corporation; but having a religion be the BBEG isn't quite the same thing as having a god. Having the High Priest of Set taunt the characters in their dreams, murder their loved ones, and destroy their homes is kind of like having Set do the same things, but it's enough of a difference to matter.
Well, I agree, it's deifnitely important to develop the servants of the god, so that the PCs can relate to them as being important. This was done to some degree in LotR, though not to the degree that it could have been. Still we have advanced champions of darkness. The witch king, the nazgul and Saruman, though we could really have used some named orcs somewhere along the line there.
Though, really I think that was pretty much what LotR was like. Granted Frodo had some was taunted by the dark lord, but this was more the effects of the One Ring as opposed to any power Sauron had himself. And I think it's ok for a cursed artifact to do stuff like that.
But when you're talking about homes getting destroyed or people getting killed, it was all Sauron's servants. Saruman, the orcs, the Nazgul, etc. And ultimately if you wipe out those guys, then you eliminate the Sauron problem.
Of course, killing any one individual servant means that someone else probably replaces him. So taking down the witch king probably means that one of the other nazgul is going to get promoted, and that's real similar to fighting a corporation. You can shoot down the CEO or director of special projects, but ultimately they're just going to appoint a new one.
The problem with a killable god is that it's not like a corporation, but more like the king in chess. Once you take out the god, it's game over. Everyone loses their powers and things just end. Now if it's a minor religion that might be ok, but if you're talking about a world spanning faith, then you're going to get all sorts of enemies all trying to achieve that crucial checkmate and take out their rivals in one blow. Because once the god is down, you can't replace him. It's not the second in command taking over, it's every cleric, follower and otherwise packing up their bags and going home permanently.