Why Worship Gods?

[Voadam]

That pretty much hits it on the head. It's not about what benefits the followers recieve, so much as it is, the presence of clerics with magic is proof that the gods exist, therefore, the people worship them.

Given how many people in RL worship a deity with little more than a book as proof, why would anyone doubt in a fantasy game where the proof is immutable.

Janx

Godless clerics cast the same spells. Who is to say these clerics claiming to be servants of "gods" actually are?

Cleric magic is not immutable proof of a god's existence to any except the cleric who uses it to contact his god directly. Well I guess if you gate him in then others can see your god as well.

 

[ARandomGod]

Because if you don't, they make your life and those around you bad. The gods control the weather, the animals, influence the goblin and orc hoards...and if you and everyone else do not pay them the respect they deserve, they let you know they are unhappy. People don't worship the gods out of lovce and respect, they do it out of fear.

Heheh

Reminds me of Terry Pratchet:
(Not a quote, but something similiar based on memory)
Wizards don't believe in gods. Any more than they go aroune believing in a table. They're there, they're useful... you certainly don't disrespect them, but there's no point going around believeing in them.

 

[ARandomGod]

Ahem. But as to your question. Why do people worship them? Mostly for the benifits. Normal clergy will aid members of their congregation. Heals and cure desease and such. There are also marriages and other ceremonies.

Other gods are more worshipped out of fear. But those gods get a fair share of worshippers too.

 

[Umbran]

Why worship gods? Because worshipping your teapot would be silly!

 

[billd91]

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.

I have to agree with Trickstergod here. Mere demonstration of power supposedly derived from the gods is not sufficient to remove the possibility of doubt in some people, especially not with wizards and plenty of other magical creatures running around.
It would remove the doubt from a good many individuals, but other individuals may claim that clerics are just another form of wizard. Whether they are right or wrong in a metagame sense is irrelevant, since that information is not available.
After all, there are many people in real life who believe they have witness real miracles and thus have no doubt, and yet there are many who feel there is room for doubt. And we don't have the meta-information to know, objectively, whether the gods exist or not... rather like characters in any campaign.

 

[ptolemy18]

Why does anyone in your world worship gods? 3.X establishes pretty well that clerics (etc.) gain their divine spells and powers whether or not they worship anyone. What is the purpose behind gods in your world? Does anyone get any direct benefits from worshiping them? Indirect benefits?

Ahhh... a wonderful, borderline-religious discussion!!! I love it!

In my campaign, of course, the answer is that clerics *don't* gain their powers unless they worship someone (and in fact, in the 3.5 PLAYER'S HANDBOOK, that's pretty much the way it is too... it's only in supplements like COMPLETE DIVINE and BOOK OF EXALTED DEEDS that you really start seeing the "Priests who worship Abstract Principles" and so on).

Speaking of third-party supplements... I am really fond of Scott Bennie's idol-worshipping system in TESTAMENT, wherein everyone (not just clerics) gets benefits for sacrificing small amounts of treasure/goods to idols at a rate of 1 gp per day. Depending on the god you sacrifice to, you get +2 or +3 skill bonuses, +1 or +2 saving throw or attribute roll bonuses, etc. It's a very nice, sneaky way to convince players to have their characters act 'religious', even if they're not playing divine spellcasters.

(In my AFRICAN ADVENTURES/EGYPTIAN ADVENTURES/TESTAMENT campaign, one of the players is an Egyptian monk who's taken to 'worshipping' the African god Nimbala, since his idol grants a benefit to Sense Motive checks... )

What would be *really* interesting would be rules on worshipping demigods and other demi-divine beings that are slightly more accessible than the gods. (Like the optional rules in BOOK OF VILE DARKNESS on clerics who serve the demon & devil lords.) In my campaign, for instance, you can 'worship' any creature of the Outsider type, but unless they have really high hit dice, you can only be granted very low-level spells. So this way, if a Pit Fiend wanders into town and demands to be worshipped as a god, within a few years, you could actually have evil clerics getting granted (let's say) 1st and 2nd level spells for serving the Pit Fiend who's walking around right next to them. I think it's a good system...!

Jason

 

[ptolemy18]

I have to agree with Trickstergod here. Mere demonstration of power supposedly derived from the gods is not sufficient to remove the possibility of doubt in some people, especially not with wizards and plenty of other magical creatures running around.
It would remove the doubt from a good many individuals, but other individuals may claim that clerics are just another form of wizard. Whether they are right or wrong in a metagame sense is irrelevant, since that information is not available.
After all, there are many people in real life who believe they have witness real miracles and thus have no doubt, and yet there are many who feel there is room for doubt. And we don't have the meta-information to know, objectively, whether the gods exist or not... rather like characters in any campaign.

A good way to add doubt is to make the gods less accessible than in standard 3.0/3.5 rules, as is suggested in EGYPTIAN ADVENTURES, where the gods have no alignment. You can worship the gods, but there's still room for differences of interpretation; if you start to slip in your worship, an Angel of Heironeous isn't going to show up and say "Hey, jackass, you're not supposed to torture prisoners", for instance.

For example:
* Make the material components for PLANE SHIFT really, really hard to find. Like, artifact-hard-to-find. That way you can't just go and visit the gods.
* When priests cast spells like PLANAR ALLY, the allies that show up don't necessarily know anything about the religion that the priests themselves don't know. (Maybe they're like automatons, maybe they're actually constructs created by the power of the priests' will, or maybe they just don't know the whole truth themselves.) (Not that I've ever actually been in a game where someone cast PLANAR ALLY just to ask questions like "So what's the afterlife like?", but it seems like that'd be a logical campaign-world application if D&D weren't so combat-centered.)

Jason

 

[Driddle]

I'm curious as to how many DMs expect the clerics in their campaigns to act in a worshipful manner every so often. Because unless you pay some minimal amount of lip service to tne deity of choice, he's just another game mechanism instead of a believable roleplaying element.

 

[Voadam]

It sounds pretty specific, and includes mechanics. Which is what I mean. Without the gods being hooked into the mechanics of the setting, why bother?

Religious festivals are cool (I have several in my game, too), but, again, there has to be some reason for the PCs to care.

I am begining to believe that the Gygax/R.E. Howard/Tolkein method is best: You believe in the gods because you might meet them. They take an active interest in the world. You are more likely, at any level, to have a brush with the divine than you are to meet a dragon.

Who a PC's king is has no game mechanic either.

It can be world background, unimportant details, or something that comes directly into the action and interacts with the party.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

In my opinion, the reason for your PCs to worship gods quite simply is because you as DM say so. By the core rules, there is no mechanic forcing a PC to worship a god, but I believe that was done to allow the Cleric class to exist within the RAW even for people who play the game where worshiping of gods could offend their personal religious beliefs.

I have met a few very religious people who are gamers, enjoy D&D, do not see the game itself as a conflict with their personal beliefs, but do not feel comfortable with the idea of characters worshiping gods. By writing the rules as has been done, they are not forced to change the rules to suit their personal comfort level.

I believe that it is a lot easier to house rule out not having to worship a god than it would be to house rule in a rule that you can get the benefits of a cleric without worshipping a god, and that is what the designers may have thought as well.