Legacy Knowledge

The whole deity power levels is an instance of legacy knowledge - things that were true in older editions that no longer apply in the new edition of the game. In the past four months, I've encountered three instances:

Firstly, the deity power level thing. I've gone in to that below.

Secondly, the order of the stats in D&D. In the first edition I saw (actually, the Red Box Basic Set), the order was Str, Int, Wis, Dex, Con, Cha. In 2nd Edition AD&D, it became Str, Dex, Con, Int, Wis, Cha. It has remained in that form since then. (Personally, I think it should be Str, Dex, Con, Cha, Int, Wis, so that the order of the 'mental' stats matches the order of the related 'physical' stats, but that's neither here nor there). Of course, the order of the stats really makes not one whit of difference to the way the game is played.

Thirdly, the change in the handling of initiative in Storyteller, from Wits + Alertness difficulty 4 to 1d10 + Wits + Dex. Again, it doesn't make a huge amount of difference.

The problems with bringing in rules from old editions are that (1) old editions are often less well balanced than the current edition, and (2) even if the old rule was balanced in the old edition, it may not still be balanced with the rest of the new rules. This is particularly true of D&D, where 2nd Edition was a chaotic mess (especially at the end), where 3rd Edition is much better balanced (but not perfect). The Greater/Lesser God thing is a case in point.

What this means is that people playing the game should take the time to get to know the rules of the edition they're using, and try very hard not to bring in legacy information if possible. Companies producing games, and especially producing incremental editions (like D&D 3.5) should do their damnedest to try to mark the changes very clearly, or at least provide some mechanism for quickly finding all the changes.

But then, I like a game where there is a clear standard understanding of where the rules lie. Others may prefer a more free-form approach.