D&D General Religion in D&D: Your Take

MNblockhead

MNblockhead

A Title Much Cooler Than Anything on the Old Site
There was an excellent blog, I think written by a historian and gamer, who wrote some excellent articles on Religion in ancient rome as a way to contrast how polytheism was actually practiced in ancient time versus how it is typically portrayed in games like D&D. Unfortunately, I apparently didn't bookmark it and can't find it now.

Personally, I'm fine with how religion is portrayed in D&D. I don't approach it expecting a high degree of verisimilitude and am happy leaving most of it to table preferences and individual settings to flesh out. I don't really see the need for fleshing any of this out in the core books. A few pages in the DMG giving different options for cosmology in world building is more than enough.
 

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S

Stalker0

Legend
If you take the standard assumptions of dnd:

1) The gods are real and we have actual people that wield their power, talk to them, etc.
2) Humans in most dnd settings are "similar to us", sure they live different lives but they are still generally human in thought.

Then honestly I would argue that the vast majority of settings and likely most homebrews VASTLY underscore the impact religion would have on the world (and that's mine included). Think about how strong religion can be in our world or has been in the past, and that's based on just pure belief that god and the afterlife might be real. Can you imagine if people literally just walked around wielding god's power, and said "oh yeah heaven is a real place, oh that devil we killed, yeah from hell, fire, brimstone, torture, all the stuff".

Religion would be the absolute order of the day. The common people would do whatever the theocracy said (and government would almost certainly be a theocracy in most settings unless the gods very specifically told their followers not to engage in that kind of thing....which for chaotic gods that could certainly be a thing). People would pray all the time, because now its not just faith, its flat out proven "science". You do X and you go to the good place, do Y you go to the bad, the gods are watching, and so are their followers while wielding their superpowers.
 

Scribe

Scribe

Legend
Stalker0 said:
If you take the standard assumptions of dnd:

1) The gods are real and we have actual people that wield their power, talk to them, etc.
2) Humans in most dnd settings are "similar to us", sure they live different lives but they are still generally human in thought.

Then honestly I would argue that the vast majority of settings and likely most homebrews VASTLY underscore the impact religion would have on the world (and that's mine included). Think about how strong religion can be in our world or has been in the past, and that's based on just pure belief that god and the afterlife might be real. Can you imagine if people literally just walked around wielding god's power, and said "oh yeah heaven is a real place, oh that devil we killed, yeah from hell, fire, brimstone, torture, all the stuff".

Religion would be the absolute order of the day. The common people would do whatever the theocracy said (and government would almost certainly be a theocracy in most settings unless the gods very specifically told their followers not to engage in that kind of thing....which for chaotic gods that could certainly be a thing). People would pray all the time, because now its not just faith, its flat out proven "science". You do X and you go to the good place, do Y you go to the bad, the gods are watching, and so are their followers while wielding their superpowers.
Click to expand...

Yes! This is what I'm talking about. It clearly has the potential to derail a setting, but it would be a crazy thought experiment.
 

D

Dillon

Explorer
MNblockhead said:
There was an excellent blog, I think written by a historian and gamer, who wrote some excellent articles on Religion in ancient rome as a way to contrast how polytheism was actually practiced in ancient time versus how it is typically portrayed in games like D&D. Unfortunately, I apparently didn't bookmark it and can't find it now.
Click to expand...
That sounds like Bret Devereaux at A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry.
 

Horwath

Horwath

Legend
best fantasy religion:

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Tonguez

Tonguez

A suffusion of yellow
For most of an adventurers career I am more interested in the religious organisation they are align with rather than the gods they follow - does a PC belong to a well organised state-religion or do they worship at a tiny isolated shrine in the wilderness. Some religions will worship in Temples, others establish Hospitals, some are cloistered in Monastaries and others preach in village chapels and others are itinerant mendicants. The classic Cleric class is a militant Temple Knight, protecting the Temple and the ecclesia, Monks and Psychics gather in Monastaries and learn focus, other religious functionaries are Bards (Psalmist), Warlocks or any possible class or commoners acting as sages, teachers, healers, counsellors, scribes etc.

My world default is animist - so its a world of river spirits and forest guardians, alongside the more powerful celestial and primordial beings worshipped as gods. PCs can decide who they worship and how they interact with the organisation of the Church and whether the themes will be medieval Mater Ecclesia, classical Temple Bureaucracy or loose tribal polytheism (by Crom!).

Low and mid level PCs might encounter spirits (even powerful ones like the Cailleach or Baba Yaga), but usually wont encounter avatars of actual gods as anything other than a quest giver
 
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James Gasik

James Gasik

We don't talk about Pun-Pun
MNblockhead said:
There was an excellent blog, I think written by a historian and gamer, who wrote some excellent articles on Religion in ancient rome as a way to contrast how polytheism was actually practiced in ancient time versus how it is typically portrayed in games like D&D. Unfortunately, I apparently didn't bookmark it and can't find it now.

Personally, I'm fine with how religion is portrayed in D&D. I don't approach it expecting a high degree of verisimilitude and am happy leaving most of it to table preferences and individual settings to flesh out. I don't really see the need for fleshing any of this out in the core books. A few pages in the DMG giving different options for cosmology in world building is more than enough.
Click to expand...
Oh absolutely- if you have a god of the harvest, you go to them to ensure a good crop, if you have a god of commerce, you go to them to bless a business venture- D&D wants people to be devoted to one god, whose worshipers all have the same basic powers as other god's faithful, so each god is a "one stop shop" for all your divine needs!

In ancient times, you could have your household god or gods, patron gods, gods who are appeased and gods who are actively worshiped and there were scores of deities who actively had a hand in one's life!
 



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