Religions in D&D

Ydars said:

I have always wondered why most FRPGs shy away from telling us anything about the religions in our game worlds; I mean religion is one of the most powerful forces in the time period our games are set up to 'faux' model, especially in D&D where we have a cleric class. There's not even any good advice on creating them either in the ton of supplements we've got from Paizo, WoTC or any of the others. We know zero about the rituals of Boccob's church, nadda about followers of Pelors' religious beliefs and ziltch about Garl Glittergold's bizarreness. Why is that? I can't help but feel that this might be political correctness again; after the 'witchhunts' of the 70s and 80s directed at our hobby. Or is it just that the vanilla settings never include this kind of stuff?

For more of my musings on religion in world-building see http://waysider.co.uk/on-belief-in-rpgs/

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I have no idea what you're talking about. Pathfinder has all kinds of things like that for their religions in the 'Faiths of...' series. Holy days, modes of dress, what kinds of temples they use, what regions of the world that religion is prevalent in, etc. I'm sure all those will be collected in a hardback sometime soon. Stuff about Faerun has been even more detailed.

For example:

Erastil's holy book is short and to the point: The Parables of Erastil provide useful homilies and practical advice on rural life, dealing with such subjects as hunting, planting, family life, and nature lore. You are free to modify the book by adding illustrative fables from your hometown, or by removing chapters that have nothing to do with your area— if you live in the middle of the woods, why would you need to know how to space corn for maximum pollination? As with everything else, Erastil’s text deals with practical matters and sets aside the rest.

Faiths of Purity, pg 9

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There have been entire books on how to create pantheons and detail gods, number and type of followers, etc - 2E's The Complete Priest's Handbook was the largest handbook in the series for that reason.

Nobody cares about the 'witchhunts' anymore and it has nothing to do with political correctness. We, the geeks, won that little war a long time ago. (And, since 'political correctness' seeks to address perceived or actual discrimination against disadvantages groups, it would actually be 'politically correct' to include a huge amount of detail on these alternate fantasy non-mainstream religions instead reducing the amount).

The reason that you don't get a huge amount of detail about stuff like this is that mostly it's tied to how much emphasis a campaign wants to place on the details. Some people might want to know the text of the prayers they send to Pharasma every night, while some don't care. Most companies simply err on the side of 'details like that are going to be specific for a campaign, so the GM should handle it' -- nothing is more worthless to me than a huge tome of details that don't match the way I want to run the Church of Pelor. That's why we have GM's instead of really big choose-your-own-adventure tomes.

pemerton said:

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.

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How many ways do you know? Please tell us more about better engaging ways.

pemerton said:

Firstly, it tends to impose a type of "fixedness" on religous belief and practice that is out of line with the reality of human religious experience. New cults and new practices become a focus of play in terms of "How does this differ from orthodoxy" which in turn leads to the question "Who made them do it?", at which point religion just becomes another device for setting up power politics and either investigations or McGuffins. The fact that it's religion rather than, say, dress codes does no particular work.

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The "fixedness" is a double-edge sword. Fix too much and some players will be irritated by the lack of freedom, but fix too little and the same players will be bothered by having too few elements to follow. The average player probably wants the game to give him enough suggestions on being a Cleric of XYZ, so that he has a sort of draft to follow, but maybe be left with something to add on his own. Same for the DM for running NPCs and their groups.

And yes, religion in D&D is a device for setting up plot hooks and investigations and McGuffins (at least I need all these), but IMXP it's still possibly the best device for the effort needed.

pemerton said:

What is distinctive about religion in a fantasy game, I think, is the way it changes meaning and purpose for the protagonists and antagonists. I think the game becomes more interesting when these distinctive features of religious conviction are able to emerge in play.

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But it does that... I just opened the F&P at a random deity page and got Mielikki. First half page, and the following is a list of bits and pieces of roleplaying suggestions that I can read there (just assuming I'm going to play an "iconic Cleric of Mielikki" i.e. who wants to be as similar to her as possible):

- Neutral Good is the most appropriate alignment
- forests as the favored environment
- friends with forest creatures, rangers, dryads
- good-humored, quick to smile and confident in actions
- fiercely loyal and protective to friends, but careful in making new ones
- death is part of the cycle of life, but curing the injured is the right thing to do
- I can cound on our church to be well-regarded in wilderness areas
- our clergy is seen as willing to balance nature preservation with civilized settlements
- we listen to and understand the whispers of the woods
- once a month we do a ritual to call forth a dryad or treant, and we serve it for a day
- most important ritual events at the equinoxes and solstices (I can remind the DM to sometimes use these as adventures seeds, for instance)
- opportunity for good interactions with NPC priests of Silvanus, Eldath, Gwaeron, Shiallia, Lurue, Shaundakul and Lathander
- do not reveal openly to someone suspect of worshiping Malar, Talos or Talona
- believe in harmony between intelligent creatures and the wild
- don't feat the wild, believe it's always good, focus on the positive nature of it
- do not allow trees to be cut or forest plunder beyond need
- live in the forest, be part of the forest (teach others to also do so)
- protect the life in the forest, defend every tree, plant anew
- punish those who hunt for sports or are cruel against wildlife
(etc... some more)

Clearly the parts telling about what colors are the dresses or what alternative names of Mielikki are the least interesting, but all this stuff is useful to me both as a player and as a DM. It's a good starting point, and requires very little effort to use.

pemerton said:

There are a lot of other - and better - mechanical ways to model religous conviction than the classic D&D model of GM arbitration and power-stripping.

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Yes, the mechanical ways typically used by D&D have never been great.

pemerton said:

The game should be set up so that players who are playing religious characters, and who want to impact the ingame situation, have a reason to adopt approaches that express their convictions. So a paladin should serve better as a vehicle for having such impact when played as valiant, than when played as sneaky.

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I do not like the typical idea in D&D of having clerics, druids, paladins and rangers of each deity. I think the traditional system of religions works for clerics, but is not good for the others.

I think it would be much better if druids, paladins and rangers were not tied to specific deities, and not even be part or a religion per se (except druids, which presumably have a religion of their own).

Not sure if this is what you mean when you talk about Paladins, but I think the best Paladin is still the iconic valiant version of it, I don't like having Paladins of ZYX, Paladins of XYZ etc. for each deity, and then having to struggle for differentiating Paladins from Clerics, or to even just define what the heck is a "Paladin of the God of Crafts and Commerce".

But overall IMXP the traditional religions setup does manage to create good players motivations, not just in roleplay but in actions.

Li Shenron said:

I just opened the F&P at a random deity page and got Mielikki. First half page, and the following is a list of bits and pieces of roleplaying suggestions that I can read there (just assuming I'm going to play an "iconic Cleric of Mielikki" i.e. who wants to be as similar to her as possible):

- Neutral Good is the most appropriate alignment
- forests as the favored environment
- friends with forest creatures, rangers, dryads
- good-humored, quick to smile and confident in actions
- fiercely loyal and protective to friends, but careful in making new ones
- death is part of the cycle of life, but curing the injured is the right thing to do
- I can cound on our church to be well-regarded in wilderness areas
- our clergy is seen as willing to balance nature preservation with civilized settlements
- we listen to and understand the whispers of the woods
- once a month we do a ritual to call forth a dryad or treant, and we serve it for a day
- most important ritual events at the equinoxes and solstices (I can remind the DM to sometimes use these as adventures seeds, for instance)
- opportunity for good interactions with NPC priests of Silvanus, Eldath, Gwaeron, Shiallia, Lurue, Shaundakul and Lathander
- do not reveal openly to someone suspect of worshiping Malar, Talos or Talona
- believe in harmony between intelligent creatures and the wild
- don't feat the wild, believe it's always good, focus on the positive nature of it
- do not allow trees to be cut or forest plunder beyond need
- live in the forest, be part of the forest (teach others to also do so)
- protect the life in the forest, defend every tree, plant anew
- punish those who hunt for sports or are cruel against wildlife
(etc... some more)

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I don't personally get a rich sense of how this helps me play my character as a devotee of Meilikki. Eg what resources do I spend to hear the "whispers of the woods", and what sorts of things might they tell me?

And why do I value dryads, and treants, and the wild so much? And how might I express that in play? (I actually think nature gods are particularly challenging for evocative play, compared to instance for gods of social/cultural phenomena that are directly implicated into the fundamentals of human value.)

Li Shenron said:

Not sure if this is what you mean when you talk about Paladins

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I mentioned paladins because I think their are clear ideas from outside the game that can help us play them - Arthurian stories, Aragorn in LotR, even the religous orders of knighthood in a reasonably conservative/non-revisionary history (eg Seward's Monk's of War). It's much clearer to me what might be involved in playing a paladin, and what sorts of challenges I might face, than (say) a priest of Meilikki.

pemerton said:

I don't personally get a rich sense of how this helps me play my character as a devotee of Meilikki.

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What kind of "rich sense" are you looking for?

There's plenty of room from improvement, for instance I think that writing down a "code of conduct" (in a bulleted list, for example) would be very helpful. But a page with 20-30 bits is a "rich" starting point for me.

What do you think it's missing that prevents you to find this page useful.

pemerton said:

Eg what resources do I spend to hear the "whispers of the woods", and what sorts of things might they tell me?

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Mechanical elements are certainly missing there. Actually, some suggestions are there but are not explicit. If I played a Cleric of Mielikki, I would go check out the stats of the deity and avatars, and pick stuff from there (the idea behind this, is that a Cleric of Mielikki presumably sees the deity as an example and strives to follow a similar path). Obviously those stats are normally way beyond a level usable for PCs, but also include normal spells, feats, equipment etc. Even something as minor as a favored weapon is a suggestion for the selection of certain character material.

As I say tho, it's not explicit. "Hearing the whispers of the woods" could equate to favoring preparing a certain spell or three, but if the book doesn't tell you to do so then the suggestion is probably way too veiled for the average player.

Another approach, would be to actually provide unique mechanics for each chosen faith, so that "hearing the whispers of the woods" really translates to e.g. having a special class feature, only for Clerics of Mielikki, a new domain power, or a unique spell. This "hard approach" is definitely sound and much more clear than a page of "light" suggestions. The downsides are more design/playtest work needed, and more rigidity (i.e. less freedom in making a Cleric of Mielikki that strays from the standard), but it might be better anyway. In general, I think that the main barrier for going that route for 3e FR was the sheer amount of deities in that setting: they are just so many, and they wanted to support Clerics of as many of them as possible, that they had to limit the material for each cleric.

pemerton said:

And why do I value dryads, and treants, and the wild so much? And how might I express that in play? (I actually think nature gods are particularly challenging for evocative play, compared to instance for gods of social/cultural phenomena that are directly implicated into the fundamentals of human value.)

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If you like cats, how do you express that? For a start, you don't hurt them, you take care of those in need, you maybe live with some of them or at least you try to be close to them, you advocate their cause, you make bonds with people which share this value of yours and shun those who harm them.

In play, should you encounter a dryad or treant: you approach them friendly rather than with hostility, you don't ambush/attack or set a harmful trap against them, if you are attacked by them you fight defensively and attempt at ending the fight without harm (just like you would do if a cat attacked you...).

In adventures, should dryad or treants be involved: you join their side, help their cause, stop or counter those who are attacking or harming them, restore the damage done to them or their environment...

pemerton said:

I mentioned paladins because I think their are clear ideas from outside the game that can help us play them - Arthurian stories, Aragorn in LotR, even the religous orders of knighthood in a reasonably conservative/non-revisionary history (eg Seward's Monk's of War). It's much clearer to me what might be involved in playing a paladin, and what sorts of challenges I might face, than (say) a priest of Meilikki.

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Yes, but this is precisely why I find books like Faiths & Pantheons useful, because they make it clearer how I might possibly play a priest of Mielikki.

I don't feel I'm communicating very successfully, except perhaps to [MENTION=49017]Bluenose[/MENTION] who seemed to get what I was talking about in a post or three upthread.

Li Shenron said:

What kind of "rich sense" are you looking for?

<snip>

this is precisely why I find books like Faiths & Pantheons useful, because they make it clearer how I might possibly play a priest of Mielikki.

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But if you look at the sources I mentioned - Arthurian romance, LotR, and even narrative histories like Seward's - they don't really read much like Faiths & Pantheons. They don't give us abstract or decontextualised lists of things that paladins like and don't like and do and don't do. They tell us particular stories, and describe particular personalities, and thereby convey something about an ethos and a certain sort of orientation in life.

That's at least part of the "rich sense" that I'm looking for. Making sense of this religion in terms of the values that it sees as important for, and motivating of, human endeavour.

Li Shenron said:

What do you think it's missing that prevents you to find this page useful.

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For instance, I don't know what would motivate someone to become a priest of Meilikki, as opposed to a guide and tracker. Both might love trees and enjoy the company of animals, but only one takes the wilderness to be an object of reverence. Why?

That's just an example, mind you, but it's an attempt to illustrate what I have in mind.

Li Shenron said:

Mechanical elements are certainly missing there.

<snip>

"Hearing the whispers of the woods" could equate to favoring preparing a certain spell or three, but if the book doesn't tell you to do so then the suggestion is probably way too veiled for the average player.

Another approach, would be to actually provide unique mechanics for each chosen faith, so that "hearing the whispers of the woods" really translates to e.g. having a special class feature, only for Clerics of Mielikki, a new domain power, or a unique spell. This "hard approach" is definitely sound and much more clear than a page of "light" suggestions.

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I prefer the mechanical approach of HeroWars/Quest, or 4e's skill system: these descriptors are kept deliberately underspecified and open-ended, but they appear on players' sheets with numbers next to them, and players can then leverage them to do stuff.

In 4e it's mostly Nature or Religion checks (if we're talking a priest of Meilikki), but the only limit on what you can do with those skills is what the table will agree to. In HeroWars/Quest, on the other hand, "Hears the whispers of the woods" could itself be a trait, used for checks in its own right or as an augment in appopriate circumstances.

The advantage, for me, of these open-ended descriptors where the player is intended to take the lead in judging their appropriateness for use in a particular game context, is that they encourage the players (i) to engage the fiction closely with an eye to making their descriptors fit in, and (ii) to generate backstory that supports that fitting in. So, for instance, in my 4e game the invoker and paladin players engage the game looking for opportunities to put their Religion skills to work, which means they naturally - due to these mechanical incentives - look at the game fiction as a site of potentially religiously significant events.

That's the sort of thing I'm trying to get at.

Li Shenron said:

In play, should you encounter a dryad or treant: you approach them friendly rather than with hostility

<snip>

In adventures, should dryad or treants be involved: you join their side, help their cause, stop or counter those who are attacking or harming them, restore the damage done to them or their environment...

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I guess I feel that I could stick "pech and xorns" in place of "dryads and treants" and nothing much would change except the superficial colour. I can see external objects of concern here, but I'm not getting a sense of the inner life of these people.

I don't find the "likes cats" example especially helfpul: unless you're a cat worshipper, you don't take the life that reverence of cats is something - perhaps the only thing - worth devoting a human life too.

If I wanted to understand what it means to be a priest of Meilikki in a modern game I might look at the blogs of people who chain themselves to trees and to tree-felling machinery, but the whole context for those people might be a bit to modern to easily transplant into a fantasy RPG.

pemerton said:

I don't personally get a rich sense of how this helps me play my character as a devotee of Meilikki. Eg what resources do I spend to hear the "whispers of the woods", and what sorts of things might they tell me?

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What mechanical things are involved in a person in the real world deciding to devote his life to a deity. People often speak of 'hearing a calling' but they are not being literal. They feel drawn to acts or devotions that they feel complete them as a person.

pemerton said:

And why do I value dryads, and treants, and the wild so much? And how might I express that in play? (I actually think nature gods are particularly challenging for evocative play, compared to instance for gods of social/cultural phenomena that are directly implicated into the fundamentals of human value.)

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Well, the thing you might need to do is step back from human values. Look on all that man has wrought as a cancer killing a healthy body and you might be closer to the feeling most of the druids and nature priests might evoke. Or the idea that the drive of humans to sculpt an environment to suit themselves needs to be channeled or curtailed in order to make sure they don't throw something out of balance. A nature priest is going to be very much aware of the the idea of an ecology as a huge jenga tower - one wrong move and the whole thing comes crashing down until some means of equilibrium can be restored. Nature will restore things, eventually, but maybe nature priests prefer that it never has to in the first place. Or maybe they take an inhumanly long view of history, working towards goals and ideals that won't see fruition for decades or centuries. (This is why druids are historically neutral - players are used to thinking of them as allies because they can be PC's but Druids are not your friends. They act in ways that benefit everyone and everything in some way - it might be that one day they are defending a village from a bear that has become maddened by infection and they help the villagers hunt and kill it. Ten years later they destroy the dam upriver, flooding the area and killing everyone because the area needs to lay fallow for a half-century or more, so it can become fruitful once more).

If you want a system here's one off the top of my head: you might want to create a series of traits or ideas a religion embodies and note the strength of each. For instance our nature priest might see a small forest, a wolf pack, and a human farmstead as being essentially equal to each other, each equally important to the goddess and thus the priest. Now the townsmen see the forest as lesser than themselves. It provides them with wood and food and when those things run low it's useless to them. Likewise they see the local wolfpack as dangerous predators out to kill sheep and travellers. The wolves are lesser than themselves. The nature priest sees each as equal. Townspeople that go out and kill the wolfpack are murderers, just as if they'd gone to the farmstead and killed all the people there. To the nature priest, the wolfpack is a tool of the goddess to cull the weak and unwary. The wolf that goes and kills one of the farmstead people just because it was easier than hunting a deer would get chastised by the priest, maybe even executed for murder and his pelt presented to the farmhouse people. (That WOULD be a creepy scene, the PC's commiserating with the farmfolk when the local druid knocks on the door and lays a wolfskin on the table, says 'your son's murderer has paid the ultimate price', and walks out).


Another way of looking at religion in D&D might be something very much different from any sources we normally find on Earth. In the D&D world, the supernatural is real and eminent. You don't have to dither and worry if you're doing right by your god - there are signs that show you yes or no. Heck, there is even a cheap item that won't allow you to commit an act against their precepts without warning. Maybe in the D&D world people interact with their gods as routes to personal power. It's a business deal - you grant me powers and status, and I spread your ideals and work towards whatever goals you want. There might not even be the concept of 'faith', since their works and embodiments are there for anyone to see.

pemerton said:

I guess I feel that I could stick "pech and xorns" in place of "dryads and treants" and nothing much would change except the superficial colour. I can see external objects of concern here, but I'm not getting a sense of the inner life of these people.

I don't find the "likes cats" example especially helfpul: unless you're a cat worshipper, you don't take the life that reverence of cats is something - perhaps the only thing - worth devoting a human life too.

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In fact it's not... it's not the only, and not the main. In the text, it is mentioned that once a month the Cleric of Mielikki supposedly summons either a dryad or a treat in a ritual, and serve it for a day. It's a very minor part of the description, but I forcefully expanded it with a bunch of simple ideas because you asked how can a player of Cleric of Mielikki express in play that they "value dryads and treant so much" (your words!).

I'm just pointing out that descriptions like those in Faiths & Pantheons may be simplistic, but if a player is looking for inspiration or guidance how to roleplay a Cleric of a certain faith, these description do their job fairly well, without forcing too much but rather providing a fairly large canvas or a starting point.

WayneLigon said:

What mechanical things are involved in a person in the real world deciding to devote his life to a deity.

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No mechanical thing is involved in me learning to read and write, either, and I don't roll a d20 if I want to jump across a stream, but the game still models those things mechanically!

WayneLigon said:

A nature priest is going to be very much aware of the the idea of an ecology as a huge jenga tower - one wrong move and the whole thing comes crashing down until some means of equilibrium can be restored.

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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.

Li Shenron said:

if a player is looking for inspiration or guidance how to roleplay a Cleric of a certain faith, these description do their job fairly well

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What I'm trying to say - with my original comment about "encylopedia" entries and since - is that for me they don't do a particularly good job.

Imagine that someone said they wanted to make friendship a bigger part of their game, and someone offered them a dictionary definition of friendship and said "Here, act like this." I don't think that would help.

The loyalty rules in Gygax's D&D wouldn't be perfect help either, but they would get a bit closer, I think. Introducing relationship or "conviction" rules - where how emotionally close you are to someone can affect the resolution of actions involving that person - might help too.