Religions in D&D

[WayneLigon]

Al Gore probably believes those things too, but he's not a priest of nature. Being a priest doesn't strike me as primarily a cognitive state. It's a devotional state. I'm interested in mechanical structures for the game that make devotion matter in something like the way that, in our combat mechanics, we try and make "grit" matter by forcing people to make choices about how much risk they (as their PCS) are prepared to take.

You mean like this? Or something even more prevalent that would, say, power spells or something? You could do so but the 'refresh' mechanic is still up to something like I described above - you'd need to follow certain guidelines and parameters for devotion. If a priest of nature didn't act within certain boundaries, they would not receive any more faith points.

 

[Balesir]

Personally, I think this sort of approach to religions - essentialy encyclopedia entries on rituals and dogma - is one of the less engaging ways to bring religion into a fantasy game.

I think a thing both tricky and curious about religion in games of any sort is that it is multi-faceted. It has a devotional aspect - a "Charismatic" aspect, if you will - and also a societal or political aspect both in attempting to "guide" society and in providing context (myths that tell the people where they come from and what they are here for). Different RPGs (and different games in general, in fact) have handled these different aspects with varying degrees of facility, although in general I agree that the level has been, on average, fairly poor.

For the more personal side of religion and the devotional side, I agree that HeroQuest/Wars, Pendragon and Burning Wheel are standouts. Glorantha in general (including the iPad/PC game King of Dragon Pass) handles the myth and context area superbly. This is a side that D&D has generally handled poorly or barely at all.

On the political/societal side, though, I found Birthright - especially the "Priestcraft" book - really rather fine. The setting as a whole has a slightly wierd but quite thematic "origin myth" for the gods, and the focus of play being widened to include ruling "domains" (which includes churches and temples - church orders, effectively) makes the setting particularly suited to exploring the political side of religion. The Priestcraft book really plays to this, explaining the doctrinal differences (and consequent political conflicts) between the church orders. It is perhaps the only D&D setting (except maybe Eberron?) where priests of the same god might have genuine reasons to be at odds built into the setting itself.

Religion is an area where games - especially roleplaying games, arguably - need to be particularly careful and respectful, but it can be done. I can't help myself giving a mention to the computer game "Crusader Kings II", here, since it is a superb example of a moderately high profile game that includes real-world religions in play while keeping sufficiently respectful/balanced in its treatment as to avoid giving offence to religious people of any persuasion. As a way of handling the political/worldly aspects of religions, it has a lot to teach RPG writers, I think.

 

[Campbell]

What is problematic for me personally with encyclopedia style definitions of faith is that they do not speak to a person of faith's thought experiences. What does the faith look like on a personal level? How can I express doubt without denying faith? How do I deal with conflicts between faith and the world around me. Should the existence of the gods be taken at face value? How do I know if I'm adequately representing a member of the priesthood? If the answer is I still have my powers than we are not representing the human religious experience and exploration of faith becomes largely meaningless. Fiction should be used as a way to reflect on our own condition or it largely becomes a fruitless exercise void of reflective value.

 

[pemerton]

[MENTION=27160]Balesir[/MENTION], your post makes sense. Part of the reason for my limited enthusiasm for the social/political side of religion in D&D is that, in general, D&D is (I find) a poor vehicle for exploring history and society. (In this respect, and not just this respect, it resembles the super hero genre.)

But I think it can permit exploration of the devotional, "charismatic" side.

You mean like this?

Not quite, for two reasons.

First, "The DM awards faith points based on the magnitude of the deed and how well your character is "walking the walk." . . . The DM is the arbiter of how many faith points you'll earn". So this is really a variant on "GM grants or withholds benefits based on the player's play of the PC". It puts power over the PC, and the PC's religious conception, in the hands of the GM rather than the player. The only mechanical consequence of a lack of faith is a decrease in mechanical effectiveness. Which, conversely, means that the only consequence of devotion is mechanical effectiveness. But there is no real integration of faith and effectiveness - for instance, I am no better when pursuing religious goals. And there is no temptation to depart from the requirements of faith.

Second, I don't have to experience devotion to earn faith points. I just have to describe my PC doing appropriate things. This contrasts with good combat mechanics which - if my PC is taking a risk, or experiencing a threat - make me undertake a risk, or feel a threat, too. So, for instance, if my PC is down to single-digit hit points, and is therefore fighting for his/her life, so am I! The mechanic conveys and mediates the experience of the PC to me the player.

So a good faith or devotion mechanic should convey and mediate, to me, the experience of my PC's devotion. I don't want to just describe it and then imagine it.

This relates to Campell's post. My views are very similar to those that [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] expresses.

I don't know if Campbell would agree, but this play-by-post that he, I and some others have been involved in better illustrates how I like to see religion engaged in RPGing. But it's by no means the last word, either mechanically or in terms of framing techniques. For instance, it relies on the GM posing decision points for the players that include decisions about backstory. There is no mechanical regulation of that pacing, and little mechanical regulation of the players' narration. There are other ways those matters - plus other matters, too - might be handled.

 

[Balesir]

[MENTION=27160]Balesir[/MENTION], your post makes sense. Part of the reason for my limited enthusiasm for the social/political side of religion in D&D is that, in general, D&D is (I find) a poor vehicle for exploring history and society. (In this respect, and not just this respect, it resembles the super hero genre.)

Yep, in general I agree. Birthright managed something mainly because of the separate (rather too separate, but that's another thread...) domain management game it included. I still think that a parallel domain management and adventuring game, where the domain management sets the context for the adventures, has legs, but maybe it requires another system than D&D. We did once try a campaign in Traveller with an "older generation" character group managing the family megacorp while a "younger generation" group adventured to find new worlds to flee to/conquer/exploit, but the game fell apart due to non-game related issues

I think 4E could actually do such a "dual game" pretty well, but it would need significant "modular" rules additions to work. Shame we never got to see a WotC attempt, IMV.

 

[Bluenose]

Yep, in general I agree. Birthright managed something mainly because of the separate (rather too separate, but that's another thread...) domain management game it included. I still think that a parallel domain management and adventuring game, where the domain management sets the context for the adventures, has legs, but maybe it requires another system than D&D.

There's been a pretty serious attempt to do it with ACKS, at least for higher level play. You could ignore the domain management parts, but that would rather limit high level play. How successful it is at this is a matter of opinion, though there are several interesting AARs on the Autarch forums. I haven't had a chance to play it myself for more than a couple of sessions. Though I'll also note that on reading, the parts to do with religion and game management don't seem inspiring.

We did once try a campaign in Traveller with an "older generation" character group managing the family megacorp while a "younger generation" group adventured to find new worlds to flee to/conquer/exploit, but the game fell apart due to non-game related issues

Oddly enough I've done something very similar with Traveller. The players took various roles in the higher establishment of the various Imperial military/paramilitary services in the Spinward Marches, and did some horse-trading for favours of various types. "Get me the latest codes for the Federation's Phoenix Six diplomatic cipher, and I'll tell you what happened to Research Station Gamma." Then the players would decide which seemed most interesting, and I'd write an adventurer for a team of highly skilled troubleshooters that the official involved could employ. So the Inspector-General of the Scouts might have a group of S3s, and the Head of Naval Intelligence could find some ONI people. It worked quite well for a while, till we got a little tired of it.

I think 4E could actually do such a "dual game" pretty well, but it would need significant "modular" rules additions to work. Shame we never got to see a WotC attempt, IMV.

I once spent a little time fiddling around with a system that handled conflicts between groups, 4e style. Group size as a vague equivalent to level, stats for different things groups might use in a clash (Military, Magical, Economy, Prestige, etc), and a variety of actions that they could employ those in (Raid, Build, Awe, etc). I never got round ot finishing it off, though I did get to test the system fo unit-basedr battles that was part of it.


And to turn back to religion, one thing I consider that makes it harder for D&D Clerics to be as "reflective" of the nature of their gods is their position as the primary healers/curers in the game. There's a huge amount of overlap in the magic available to clerics of entirely different gods with entirely different ethoses, and that's at least partly down to the requirement to make them capable of healing. Compare to Cults of Prax, published for Runequest in 1979, where the overlap between the deities abilities is less. Or later Gloranthan books, where there's less in common than that. Mechanically the only ways in which a priest of Humakt and a priest of Chalana Arroy are similar is in terms of how their abilities are resolved; what they can do is very different indeed. That's before we even start to think about how individual characters actions are or aren't reflective of their particular religious experiences, or how to make links between those. Perhaps D&D was better served by the 2e specialty priest system, though even that had large amounts of overlap.