How Might D&D Religions Differ From Real Life Religions?

Lord Zardoz said:

The first difference is that most D&D religions cannot deny the existence of the other gods

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See previous discussion, about having multiple sources of miracles in the world: "Whacknoodle is no god! You are but a petty sorcerer! Banjo is the only true god!"

There would be a much lower chance of having someone in the church hierarchy working directly contrary to their gods wishes. If a god disapproves of torture outright, than it simply won't happen in any setting where the god is directly granting power to their followers.

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Unless, of course, the transgressor can find another patron deity, and hide that new association from his fellows. Much easier to pull off in 4e, as there's no detecting alignments.

Umbran said:

Very simple - the guy who can do the full-on spell is off killing trolls and dragons, and isn't around to wrangle my car keys for me.

Maybe the gods have some special folks who work more direct miracles, and maybe they don't. Either way, that doesn't usually help me in my day to day life, because those people are not accessible.

And, honestly, how often do people actually go for the right, optimal solution? There's a "right way" to keep my lawn green and well groomed, too - call in the Scotts fertilizer guys, install a sprinkler system, and hire a landscaper. But guess what? I don't do that, even though I know the results would be better if I did.

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Moreover, simply knowing that spellguy can succeed doesn't mean that a quick prayer will not. If a quick prayer may succeed, and costs me nothing, why wouldn't I attempt it?


RC

To answer the title question: the main difference is that in the game you can take religions and beliefs completely over the top (OTT) if you want. The goodly deities are GOOD. The evil ones are EVIL. The chaotic ones are complete ****-disturbers. And so on, and their ardent followers (read: Clerics) follow suit as best they can.

This is one aspect of the game that works best, I think, when taken OTT. If I'm playing a Thor Cleric, for example, and you bring a Loki devotee into the party, it's a safe bet my Cleric's gonna pound you good at the first opportunity...provided I survive all the tricks you play, of course.

An average commoner or character is going to (realistically) pray to several deities during life, depending what the prayer is for. It's only Clerics who tie themselves to one deity, and even they acknowledge the existence of many others.

And it's fun trying to play an athiest in such a system. I know, because I've tried; he ended up, years later, marrying a Cleric!

Lanefan

Umbran said:

Unless, of course, the transgressor can find another patron deity, and hide that new association from his fellows. Much easier to pull off in 4e, as there's no detecting alignments.

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He might be able to hide it from his fellows, but not from the deity he just spurned; and that's where the falling hammer (or bolt of lightning) would come from.

Lanefan

Lanefan said:

He might be able to hide it from his fellows, but not from the deity he just spurned; and that's where the falling hammer (or bolt of lightning) would come from.

Lanefan

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That's a question of how omniscient and active in the mortal world the gods are.

If the god's actions on the material plane are mostly limited to providing power for clerical spells then this is not a concern.

If the gods are active and personally interventionist then it is a question of the old god smiting outside his faith and the new god protecting someone he has agreed to power with clerical magic.

How often do typical clerics get direct messages or miraculous events (good or bad) from their gods in D&D? Usually not at all, it is a significant event if there is godly intervention.

The clerical power could be granted or stripped fully automatically without the god even being aware of the cleric.

On the other hand the gods could be fully omniscient and able to do anything, but all D&D gods of every variety and ethos happen to choose to restrict themselves to only providing cleric power to those who swear to them and stripping it from ones who grossly violate their codes of conduct.

Room in D&D for a lot of different cosmological setups.

Lord Zardoz said:

If a god disapproves of torture outright, than it simply won't happen in any setting where the god is directly granting power to their followers.

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Sure but in D&D the gods don't directly 'grant' (ie. consciously) power to their followers. Not anymore (ymmv).

I've toyed with the idea of entirely unaware, nonsentient gods being sources of power for parasitic clerics to draw from. Maybe a certain mindset (ie. a few tenets or attitudes) is required for said cleric to be able to 'tap in' to the god's power but beyond that the cleric can do what she wants with her power.

So the cleric of the god of travel has to maintain an attitude of wanderlust - not because the god demands it, but because this mindset is necessary to maintain the connection with her god's alien consciousness - in order to utilise that god as a source of power.

This idea works best with gods whose 'portfolio' supports a duality of good and evil - law, chaos, civilisation, nature, etc.

In my homebrew, followers are tolerant of other religions. There is no 'absolute' single deity to answer all your prayers. Clerics may be devout followers of a single god, but that is only to provide for those who call upon him, not to subject everyone to a sermon.

Lanefan said:

He might be able to hide it from his fellows, but not from the deity he just spurned; and that's where the falling hammer (or bolt of lightning) would come from.

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In games where clerics are effectively overpowered, that can be a useful game-balance thing. I know many designers don't like to balance rules with non-rules, but it sometimes works.

If the classes are basically balanced, though, that level of punishment becomes terribly unfair. My cleric is forced to follow a code of honor on pain of death, and the wizard doesn't, though they are equivalent in power? I mean, if hte player wants it enforced on him for roleplaying, fine, but otherwise, I'm not happy wiht that kind of solution.

Which is why I generally run games in which the clerics are the hands of the gods - there's no lightning hitting anyone unless it is random chance, or it comes from a mortal spellcaster.

Great thread. I love conversations like this; as a DM who likes creating his own worlds this thread is a great starting point for designing the foundations
of a cosmology (which should be, in my opinion, the first place to start in the nitty gritty of setting design).

What this thread has clarified and solidified in my mind is the thing that has always bugged me about religion in D&D: it has never seemed to be what it could (or maybe should) be. It seems as if it has always been a tacked-on way of having a class that can quickly and easily heal the heroes (and I am referring to the TSR/Wizards treatment of the subject - plenty of examples of third party depth in this respect).

Hmmm, let me refocus by quoting the original post:

Snoweel said:

What features of real life religions couldn't apply to D&D religions?

What features probably wouldn't apply?

In what ways would (or could) D&D religions mirror real life religions?

There are no wrong answers, or at least I don't think there are.

Your thoughts?

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Let me first say that any answer to these three questions will depend on how one perceives two things about D&D religious canon (and these two things have, of course, been brought up already - I'm collecting my thoughts );

1. How powerful is the deity?

2. How likely is the deity to intervene or exert control in the setting? This will of course be dependent on the first point.


These two points have, to a great degree, been left up to the DM by TSR/Wizards, though point 2 has been given more attention and clarification than point 1. Having said that, and in regards to the core settings - FR, GH, etc., these settings have fallen woefully short in giving their religions the attention they deserve.

So to answer, in a general way, the original post:

To question 1 - NO feature of real life religion would not be able to be applied to D&D religions; even atheism, or non-belief, is a religious standpoint. In real life it is simply a refutation of everyone else's view - and as such is based ON everyone else's view, and is therefore a part of the religious spectrum. In a fantasy setting non-belief could be viewed as either insanity, ignorance, or principled stubbornness.

To question 2 - This seems to me an extension of question 2 (since I think ALL aspects of real-world religion are applicable to D&D - D&D is, after all, a product of the real world), yet I'll take it as a question that focuses in on the concept of faith. I could just say "see above", but I'll tackle it like this: yes, faith could be an integral part to a D&D setting. Even though faith is belief in something that isn't provable (except to oneself through personal experience), and in D&D the gods are provable, and therefore faith would seem to be killed, it could still play a huge part in the setting's religions. It depends on how the DM wants to run it and even more on how the player wants his character to view religion - ala Col. O'Neil - "Just because you wield incredible power and call yourself a god, that doesn't mean you ARE a god". The ultimate definition of godhood springs from the worshiper, not the dude claiming to be a god. So all the "gods" listed in the FR campaign guide are just posers; the real God(s) is(are) above and beyond them... but I can't prove that.

To question 3. Oh god, um... I think D&D religions could and should mirror all aspects of real-life religions; I mean, can you think of any aspect of life that at least one of our religions hasn't tackled? Nothing comes to mind for me... except maybe... nope, nothing.


But to return to the idea that D&D has neglected the incredible power and influence provable gods would have on a world...

I mean, come on, these are GODS here. Even if the good gods prefer a hands off approach to the world, the evil dieties will force them to exert control or stand by and watch while they take it all over.

I suppose the point I'm rambling towards is that in a fantasy RPG setting where incredibly powerful gods (or as Jack O'Neil would say; Snake Heads) are REAL, ... ALL cultures would be ruled, in one way or another - depending on the level of Lawfull-ness or Chaotic-ness of the god (and NOT by said god's level of evil-ness or good-ness) - by the churches and religions of that setting. Rulership is about politics, politics is about power, and the greatest power, in a fantasy setting, is god(s).

It seems to me that the only way a setting would have religion NOT be in the supreme rulership position is when the evil deities are of sufficiently lesser power than the good deities that the good guys can take a hands off approach (which seems to me to be one of the core priniples of goodness: allowing a person to make their own choices and at the same time protecting them from those who would take that right away from them).

Hmmm, this leads me to think I might house rule my setting's alignment system to:

Lawful Neutral
Lawful Evil

Nuetral Good

Chaotic Neutral
Chaotic Evil



Hmmm...

It depends on the campaign setup. If the only way to cast cleric spells is to be a true and faithful believer in the god and to have received an epiphany wherein your were granted your powers, then it is hard to argue against the miraculous existance of the gods because divine magic requires belief and arcane does not.

Or not.

If the gods regularly showup at weddings and potlucks then there won't be a lot of doubt about them. If they fail to answer simple questions whose doubt leads to fratricidal schisms amoungst their followers, then there may be.

Doubt about the existance of gods vs the divinity of gods is two seperate questions. It's worth noting by the way that in many polytheistic cosmologies the gods and men spring from common origins so the difference between them is one of degree, not kind.

It kinda hinges on rule 0 as most things do.