Why Worship Gods?

[Raven Crowking]

But is this a metagame setting or a setting question? For NPCs (and properly played PCs), that is the why.

Hopefully, for PCs, roleplaying is the why, and the reason becomes the same as the PCs.

For metagaming types, "because IMC, you must worship a bona fide power or you have no spells" is the why IMC.

Both a metagame setting and a setting question. I think that they are pretty strongly linked here. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the metagame (SRD ruleset) has removed the possibility of a good answer without amendment within a specific setting. More, I am thinking that the amendment must include a mechanical aspect to be believable within the backdrop of the 3.X game system.

"You must worship a bona fide power or you have no spells" is both a reasonable amendment, and it has a definite mechanical aspect.

IMO, raising is not a question that typically enters an NPCs mind. If they go to a happy afterlife, they wouldn't want to be raised.

Raising is something that heroes who have a purpose remaining in the world do.

But, the "god needed to find afterlife" type response to the metagame question almost mandates a setting-specific mechanical adjustment to the raise dead (etc) rules, doesn't it?

 

[Raven Crowking]

If you define "doesn't change your afterlife experience one iota" as "doesn't say squat about it", yeah.

I think the rules about petitioners are pretty clear, actually.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

[cleric mode]I tried worshipping small round bits of precious metal for a while, but didn't receive much in the way of tithes and donations. Switching to the worship of the goddess Waukeen has proven to be much more profitable. [/cleric mode]

It's all about the campaign world. In 3.5, you could have a world entirely without gods where divine power comes from concepts, nature, etc -- or take the FR route and simply require clerics to have a patron deity. It's all in the DM's application. But personally, I think there are more plot hooks in having various churches and religious factions running about.

 

[Raven Crowking]

[cleric mode]I tried worshipping small round bits of precious metal for a while, but didn't receive much in the way of tithes and donations. Switching to the worship of the goddess Waukeen has proven to be much more profitable. [/cleric mode]

It's all about the campaign world. In 3.5, you could have a world entirely without gods where divine power comes from concepts, nature, etc -- or take the FR route and simply require clerics to have a patron deity. It's all in the DM's application. But personally, I think there are more plot hooks in having various churches and religious factions running about.

I prefer to have a campaign world steeped in gods, but then the question still remains, how does one present it so that it is believable, and important to the PCs?

 

[billd91]

In 3.X, you can manifestly get a god's aid and protection without worshiping a god, and within the core rules worship doesn't change your afterlife experience one iota.

This reminds me of an old Hindu story, filtered through Larry Gonick's Cartoon History of the Universe. In the story, an athiest spends at least a part of ever day telling himself that there is no god. When he dies, he's welcomed into the afterlife by the god he's been denying. By denying that this god existed, he kept that god in the forefront of his mind, thus being as worthy of entrance into the afterlife as the most pious follower.

In this case, just because the PC thinks he's not worshiping a god, as long as he's using the power derived from the gods, he's probably still carrying out those gods' will's in the campaign. I've got a player who is playing a cleric without worshipping a deity, but the focus he took is clearly within one god's sphere of influence. I'm currently starting to drop hints about the source of his powers as they develop.
You can also chalk me up as one of those DMs who do NOT generally let cleric (or paladin) PCs derive their powers from nothing. The gods still extend those powers (and can revoke them if necessary).

 

[billd91]

I prefer to have a campaign world steeped in gods, but then the question still remains, how does one present it so that it is believable, and important to the PCs?

Set up a calendar with important religious festivals and have them be the focus of part of the campaign's social life (the tournaments, the faires, the feasts, the rituals of nasal cleansing, etc). They'll become an important part of the background and timing of events.

Decide which of your gods are the most activist and prickly, then when the PCs get too impious (not at least mentioning that they go through the appropriate observances) have that god smack them down in some way... if it's Poseidon, maybe all horses are harder to control than normal.

Have the civil authorities enforce worship and sacrifice to the civic gods. The Romans used to do this. Everyone had to worship the civic gods as good citizens of Rome, anything else was pretty much fair game as long as it didn't involve the human sacrifice of Romans or serve as a political rival to Roman rule (ruling against the Druids on both counts).

Basically, by making it a ubiquitous element of the background, you already go a long way toward making it relevant to the PCs.

 

[Zappo]

Clerics of good deities worship because they believe in the ideals which their god embodies, and so that they can get the power to push those ideals. Clerics of evil deities worship for power. Pretty simple.

Common worshipers worship for all the reasons for which people worship in the real world. They hope that their god will protect them, grant them a good afterlife, or at least not smite them. These influences aren't usually visible, but this has never stopped anyone from believing in them in RL, so why should D&D be any different? They'll worship because they need an explanation for thunderstorms, or because they can't stand their own mortality, or because they want to believe in some sort of ultimate justice, or simply 'cause everyone does it.

Anyway, commoners do get something from worship. First, their god will usually try to prevent other gods from messing with them. Putting up the whole thing with destiny and prophecies and heroes and saviors and whatnot every time the local dark god awakens must be a lot of trouble even for a deity. No point in doing it for ungrateful bastards. Second, they get to go to their god's realm in the afterlife. Usually, this is better than just generically ending up on the plane of your alignment.

 

[NewLifeForm]

In My Campaigns...

It is the gods that want you to believe in them. Without believers and worshippers, Gods weaken and eventually fade out. So it's not "Why worship Gods?" "'Cause if you don't they'll get'cha." Rather it's Gods saying, "Hey worship me, my afterlife rocks!" " Screw that, my worships are cool while alive, worship me and gain a permanent +1 to your Cha! How's that sound?"

One of my campaigns had a group of villainous gods called The Forgotten Pantheon. These were gods who for one reason or another were no longer worshipped. What was once several pantheons full of gods had dwindled to 6 or 7 celestial beings about as tough as a 20th level adventurer. They were fading out and losing their powers, destined to disappear from the cosmos. They tried to influence the poor and downtrodden to worship them and set up several cults. Unfortunately for them, the Red Brotherhood, believers in a single, all- powerful god, came down hard on the cults. Many of the cultists, realizing they were losing, started to repent. They thought, "Hey, this Great Red One must be more powerful then our Gods, his followers are kicking our butts! Maybe worshiping The Red God is better. Couldn't be worse."

They were right. The Red God (aka The Great Red One, The God of All Life), protects his followers, believes in mercy, will fight to defend his people, has a pretty cool Heaven and a reasonable list of sins that can be repented without too much difficulty. Rumors of health and dental for his clerics is unconfirmed.

NewLifeForm

 

[Trickstergod]

In a fantasy world, gods are real beyond the shadow of doubt.

No, they're not.

Not even the majority of PC's ever meet a god; the great masses of NPC's most certainly don't.

From a meta-game perspective, the player's and the DM may know beyond a shadow of a doubt that gods are real, but the vast majority of characters in the game world don't.

And those characters that do? They're right up there with Mohammed, Abraham, and any other religious figure you might mention. Many believe what they've said about religion and the after-life. Many don't. For all anyone knows, they may have met or spoken with their deity. But, just like the vast majority of NPC's, they don't have anything but faith and trust to go on.

The circumstances for worship for the vast majority of people in a game world are just the same as they are for those in the real world. Most people only have what they're told to go off of.

Sure, there are more fantastical elements, depending on how you go about things, but none prove anything more than another. Being able to cast clerical spells without a god certainly isn't going to sway everyone; if anything, those powers might be seen as coming from an infernal source, and wind up getting the god-less cleric burned at the stake.

And one thing to keep in mind is upbringing and local authority. This is one of the biggest factors in faith; what a child was raised to believe in, and what the local ruler says is the religion or not.

If you're raised to believe in The Grand Pantheon of the Ineffable from birth, what reason have you to question it? Even if you run across information that runs contrary to your doctrine of faith later, so? Most real religions have information that runs contrary to their teaching - information that sometimes is better backed annd supported than the religious information. Yet people continue to believe in what they were brought up to believe, despite all evidence that says otherwise.

And if Bob, God of the Ineffable, appears before the king in a burst of smoke and fire, and says "I'll give you goodies if you spread my word," well, than the people will follow when the king starts to worship. Without much more divine intervention than that. And once the tradition is established, it'll perpetuate itself easily enough (at the very least, it will so long as there's no other prevailing religion at the time).

And if there's one thing nebulous concepts can't do, it's enforce their will. It's come down and offer messages to people. It can't let its presence be known.

It's also less easily conceived of than a solid figure of some sort. Strength as a concept doesn't exactly provoke a strong, defined image. Sure, a number of images can be visualized - but Strength isn't quite so strong as, say, Thor, the redbearded, brawny god of smiths and justice, protector of the common man and slayer of giants and serpents. It's harder to make morals, parables, and stories about abstract concepts; or less interesting, at least.

Oh, not to mention that the cleric, while never implicitly mentioned as needing faith, implies as much. And faith comes first - not power. I don't allow clerics or the like into my games who don't have faith. They're granted their power thanks to the strength of their belief; their belief does not come thanks to the power they're granted.

And as another aside, generic D&D is meant to be a building block. Most campaign settings ignore aspects of the base D&D, or change it, or specify it where it's left ambiguous.

 

[Crothian]

No, they're not.

Not even the majority of PC's ever meet a god; the great masses of NPC's most certainly don't.

Just because you haven't meet a god doesn't mean you are not certain they exist. People do see their power and their miracles. That alone is enough to remove all doubt.