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Worlds of Design: RPG Gods - Benign or Malign?
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<blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 8732744" data-attributes="member: 22779"><p>Ahh, oops. Mispoke. I thought the fact that I said that they were cabalistic, which means that they are not beholden to gods for their spells. But, the gods still exist and the culture around the different cabals would still venerate that particular deity. It's just that that particular deity couldn't care less about what mortals do. They are unreachable. Sorry, when I said that I don't really like godless clerics, I was more referring to clerics of a given philosophy. My world still has gods. It's just that if your cleric of Heironeous wants to be a murdering bastard, Heironeous won't do anything about it. Now the other clerics in your cabal might be a different story. </p><p></p><p>One thing I will disagree with [USER=6855114]@Helldritch[/USER] about is the idea that the DM must be the sole source of clerical guidance. I actually very strongly reject that. It's the player's character. And I find that such heavy handedness (refusing to grant spells and the like until the cleric player gets with the program) is the primary drive behind players loathing playing clerics, often only doing so under duress from the group (we used to call it falling on the cleric grenade) and become increasingly hostile to the DM having any sort of hooks or influence over their character. So, honestly, that's why I've simply put everything in the player's lap. It's your character. You're the one playing the cleric. Let's see you do it. And, that has led me to this notion of clerics as cabalistic wizards because now, while I have ZERO direct input into your character (I can't withhold spells, I can't directly intervene in your character at all) it does allow me all sorts of indirect influence if I need it - the other clerics of the cabal can step in. People act a certain way towards various cabals. So on and so forth.</p><p></p><p>I mean, heck, the current cleric in my game didn't actually know who his deity was for most of the campaign and it has only been revealed recently. I have a fantastic player that doesn't mind me getting my fingerprints all over his shiny paint job and collaboratively we have really, really brought this cleric to life. He's definitely in the drivers seat, but, I've been able to play onboard navigator from time to time and it's been fantastic.</p><p></p><p>Compare to the last cleric player I had when asked what god did his character worship, replied with, "Umm, we've been playing this campaign for eight months, but, what setting are we in again?" <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/erm.png" class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":erm:" title="Erm :erm:" data-shortname=":erm:" /> He was only choosing to multiclass into cleric to get access to some cleric spells to make his sword magical because he was pissed off that I hadn't dropped magic weapons in the campaign (Ghosts of Saltmarsh is REALLY stingy with magic items). The fact that his character was choosing to be a priest just didn't matter to him one whit.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Hussar, post: 8732744, member: 22779"] Ahh, oops. Mispoke. I thought the fact that I said that they were cabalistic, which means that they are not beholden to gods for their spells. But, the gods still exist and the culture around the different cabals would still venerate that particular deity. It's just that that particular deity couldn't care less about what mortals do. They are unreachable. Sorry, when I said that I don't really like godless clerics, I was more referring to clerics of a given philosophy. My world still has gods. It's just that if your cleric of Heironeous wants to be a murdering bastard, Heironeous won't do anything about it. Now the other clerics in your cabal might be a different story. One thing I will disagree with [USER=6855114]@Helldritch[/USER] about is the idea that the DM must be the sole source of clerical guidance. I actually very strongly reject that. It's the player's character. And I find that such heavy handedness (refusing to grant spells and the like until the cleric player gets with the program) is the primary drive behind players loathing playing clerics, often only doing so under duress from the group (we used to call it falling on the cleric grenade) and become increasingly hostile to the DM having any sort of hooks or influence over their character. So, honestly, that's why I've simply put everything in the player's lap. It's your character. You're the one playing the cleric. Let's see you do it. And, that has led me to this notion of clerics as cabalistic wizards because now, while I have ZERO direct input into your character (I can't withhold spells, I can't directly intervene in your character at all) it does allow me all sorts of indirect influence if I need it - the other clerics of the cabal can step in. People act a certain way towards various cabals. So on and so forth. I mean, heck, the current cleric in my game didn't actually know who his deity was for most of the campaign and it has only been revealed recently. I have a fantastic player that doesn't mind me getting my fingerprints all over his shiny paint job and collaboratively we have really, really brought this cleric to life. He's definitely in the drivers seat, but, I've been able to play onboard navigator from time to time and it's been fantastic. Compare to the last cleric player I had when asked what god did his character worship, replied with, "Umm, we've been playing this campaign for eight months, but, what setting are we in again?" :erm: He was only choosing to multiclass into cleric to get access to some cleric spells to make his sword magical because he was pissed off that I hadn't dropped magic weapons in the campaign (Ghosts of Saltmarsh is REALLY stingy with magic items). The fact that his character was choosing to be a priest just didn't matter to him one whit. [/QUOTE]
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