D&D 5E (2014) Why FR Is "Hated"

[Selvarin]

The world of Conan is one where there are multiple gods and manifestations, whether supported among the masses (via clerics) or not. But what passes for clerics worship one god exclusively. So....

 

[pemerton]

The world of Conan is one where there are multiple gods and manifestations

What have you got in mind?

There are magicians. And demons. But where are the gods? (I mean, I know that people believe in them and worship them. But where do they manifest in the stories?)

Not that I'm any authority on such things, but what are the Old Ones if not divine?

They're "aliens". (For lack of a better word.)

I can't say that I really get HPL and his relationship to science: his obsessions about biology/inheritance, and about relativity, are fairly typical for his time, but his framing of them as cosmic horror isn't something I can easily get my head around. (I find Bertrand Russell's more philosophical discussions of relativity easier to follow, for instance.)

But cosmic horror is not nothing if atheistic - its personification of cosmic indifference and unknowability is weird (to me), and I think a bit self-contradictory, but those personae aren't meant to be gods. Maybe one could say they're "anti-gods" - but that's not to say they're demons. Quite the opposite - demons validate humanity by caring about human lives and human sin; whereas the "old ones" of cosmic horror are indifferent to human concerns.

 

[Hussar]

I said that "what few manifestations there are of what might potentially be divine action (eg in the Phoenix on the Sword and the Hour of the Dragon) are consistent with monotheism." The alternative is that its godless. (HPL's world is godless, but REH seems to leave it an open question.)

The Set worshippers are just magicians.

Umm, you realize that the "cleric" of D&D is entirely an invention of D&D right?

Set worshippers as magicians = clerics. Oh, and if we accept the movies as canon, we do have a resurrection as well.

But, in any case, it doesn't matter if the gods directly intervene or not. Since when is that a requirement for polytheistic settings? It's only polytheistic is at least two different gods come down to the planet? That's ridiculous. Sorry, but, you have multiple gods being worshipped by lots of different people. That's polytheism by definition.

What have you got in mind?

There are magicians. And demons. But where are the gods? (I mean, I know that people believe in them and worship them. But where do they manifest in the stories?)

They're "aliens". (For lack of a better word.)

I can't say that I really get HPL and his relationship to science: his obsessions about biology/inheritance, and about relativity, are fairly typical for his time, but his framing of them as cosmic horror isn't something I can easily get my head around. (I find Bertrand Russell's more philosophical discussions of relativity easier to follow, for instance.)

But cosmic horror is not nothing if atheistic - its personification of cosmic indifference and unknowability is weird (to me), and I think a bit self-contradictory, but those personae aren't meant to be gods. Maybe one could say they're "anti-gods" - but that's not to say they're demons. Quite the opposite - demons validate humanity by caring about human lives and human sin; whereas the "old ones" of cosmic horror are indifferent to human concerns.

And, yet, funnily enough, D&D defines them as gods. They are worshipped by multiple people. They exist. So, no, they are not atheistic at all. Atheistic would be if they didn't exist at all. They are called gods IN THE TEXT. You don't get to keep picking and choosing points and ignoring anything that doesn't fit with your interpretation. In the text, they are called gods. They are worshipped AS gods by many of the people in the texts. Thus, they are polytheistic.

Being a god doesn't mean you have to be nice.

 

[pemerton]

Umm, you realize that the "cleric" of D&D is entirely an invention of D&D right?

Set worshippers as magicians = clerics. Oh, and if we accept the movies as canon, we do have a resurrection as well.

When I talk about Conan I'm talking about the REH stories.

The cleric as a modern fantasy archetype is from D&D. The idea of a heavily-armoured warrior for the gods who can work saintly miracles isn't from D&D, though.

But, in any case, it doesn't matter if the gods directly intervene or not. Since when is that a requirement for polytheistic settings? It's only polytheistic is at least two different gods come down to the planet? That's ridiculous. Sorry, but, you have multiple gods being worshipped by lots of different people. That's polytheism by definition.

Well by that measure Earth is polytheistic.

I thought we were talking about poly- vs monotheism as cosological notions - ie truths about the gameworld - not as sociological ones - truths about the social practices of the gameworld.

So when I talk about JRRT vs REH vs HPL, I'm talking about their cosmology, not their sociology. JRRT's world has a creator god. HPL's is godless - that's part of the literary point. REH's is ambiguous, though perhaps is most naturally read as mixing HPL's cosmological nihilism with an affirmative humanism that is missing from HPL.

And, yet, funnily enough, D&D defines them as gods. They are worshipped by multiple people. They exist. So, no, they are not atheistic at all. Atheistic would be if they didn't exist at all. They are called gods IN THE TEXT. You don't get to keep picking and choosing points and ignoring anything that doesn't fit with your interpretation. In the text, they are called gods. They are worshipped AS gods by many of the people in the texts. Thus, they are polytheistic.

Being a god doesn't mean you have to be nice.

If someone reads HPL, and someone reads JRRT, and they can't tell the difference between them from the metaphsical, cosmological, theological, moral, etc points of view, then I would think they've missed the point.

Both are rather reactionary, but JRRT is romantic and resolutely anti-modernist, whereas HPL (and REH) are utterly modernist authors. The ideas of divinity, providence, humanity, etc play completely different roles across these works.

 

[Hussar]

So, in your definition, the only way something can be considered a god, and a setting considered polytheistic, is if the gods actually physically manifest in some way?

Ok, I suppose that explains why I really don't understand your point. I'm more of the mind that if you have multiple faiths in a setting, then it's polytheistic. Whether those faiths are "right" or not doesn't really matter. So, yup, the real world is polytheistic.

Hyboria has multiple entities that are specifically referred to as gods - Crom, Set, Mitra (sp), and others. That they are far away and don't have D&D style spell casting clerics doesn't really enter into it AFAIC. The idea that there is a difference between cleric and wizard is a purely D&D artifact. Thulsa Doom is a worshipper of Set. That he's a "magician" doesn't really matter. Conan worships Crom. Thus, the setting is polytheistic.

The Great Old Ones are worshipped by all sorts of beings and are certainly defined as gods in D&D. So, the idea that HPL is somehow monotheistic is hardly a controversial point. Plus, as an added bonus, they are described AS gods and referred to as such in HPL. Thus, they are gods and the setting is polytheistic.

Again, you're playing silly buggers here [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]. You're ignoring anything in the actual text of the works that doesn't support your point. Crom is a GOD in Hyboria. He's described as such. He's specifically CALLED a god. So is Set. So is Mitra.

There is no mono-theism in Conan. And, on the larger point, I'll tell you what. You name a monotheistic fantasy setting, and I'll name a polytheistic one. We'll see who runs out first. Polytheism is pretty well grounded in the genre and has been since day 1.

Heck, it's so well grounded that it actually gets satirized. There's a reason that you have writers like Terry Pratchett with his Cori Celesti home of the gods (Dunmanifestin). If monotheism was such a common point in fantasy, you wouldn't have writers making fun of polytheism.

Oh, and let's not forget. Alignment in D&D is pulled straight out of Moorcock. The whole Law vs Chaos thing. Again, Moorcock's settings are most certainly not monotheistic. Polytheism is part and parcel of the whole alignment system where you have cosmic teams pushing for different views of the cosmos.

 

[Yaarel]

If I understand Pemerton correctly,

he is distinguishing between polytheism qua ‘objectively existing’ tyrants,

versus ‘subjective’ cultural constructs.

The subjective kind of polytheism is more about symbols and interpretation and ways of organizing experiences of the world.

It is the difference between actual polytheism and the idea of polytheism.

So, the descriptions in the Conan setting seem to him to be moreso cultural constructs. In other words, human-sourced.

 

[Lanefan]

Well by that measure Earth is polytheistic.

Well of course it is. More than one deity is worshipped on Earth. 'Nuff said.

I thought we were talking about poly- vs monotheism as cosological notions - ie truths about the gameworld - not as sociological ones - truths about the social practices of the gameworld.

But the sociological practices define and determine the religion(s) within the game world and how they're viewed by those who live there...and thus by extension by those players who play there. The truth about the game world might be that there's only one actual deity that simply wears many faces, but the players (and PCs) might not even know this; and when the PCs walk into a town and see temples to Thor, and Freya, and Hel, and Odin and see people worshipping those deities and getting spells etc. as normal then it's going to look and play as polythestic.

HPL's is godless - that's part of the literary point.

For what it's worth, Wikipedia rather disagrees with you here...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cthulhu_Mythos_deities#Table_of_Great_Old_Ones

...and other related places. I can't find a specific creator deity, but then again I didn't want to spend all day looking.

Lan-"in a D&D world, it's inevitable that sooner or later some deity's going to show up and set you real straight"-efan

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Never in my life did I meet a person worshipping the concept of monotheism itself. Sure plenty of people worship a monothoistic deity, but if they're deeply religious it doesn't matter whether D&D replaces their deity with one different fictional deity or multiple fictional deities

As long as it's not their deity it's idolatry to them

This. This is why, as a real life religious person, I prefer to run un-theistic universes. There may be things which claim to be gods, kings, or Pharaohs, but there is no expectation that any player or PC must take such claims at face value, and in fact I go out of my way to make many of the claims contradict each other. E.g. incompatible creation myths.

It's an open question from the PCs' perspective whether clerics are receiving miracles from their gods or are just another kind of wizard. Wizards tend toward the latter belief--most wizard are too jaded to believe in the religions they encounter unless there are strong cultural factors to make them believe, as with drow--and as DM I know that the wizards actually have the right of it: clerics spells are really just spells.

It's important to me that I run a universe where you don't have to take the self-proclaimed gods seriously, because I can't understand how anyone COULD take them seriously. I won't force anyone to do something I wouldn't do myself.

Sent from my Moto G (4) using EN World mobile app

 

[Selvarin]

As an aside, it's been written elsewhere that the Eldreth Veluuthra (FR, elven supremists) were taught the means to harness nature in order to power their spells without resorting to worshiping a deity (since, essentially, the elven pantheon has by-and-large rejected their activities and have expressed such by not granting spells). This allowed them to have rangers and druids who have access to druid spells and healing. Essentially they can tap the 'source' without a middle-man involved.

http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Eldreth_Veluuthra

If you take a few steps back, it isn't much different than certain other classes tapping into a power beyond themselves. Without gods being involved, at least not directly. Outside of the DM, who truly knows how their campaign world works behind-the-scenes?

Not that this will change anyone's minds. Just thought I'd mention it.

 

[Hussar]

If I understand Pemerton correctly,

he is distinguishing between polytheism qua ‘objectively existing’ tyrants,

versus ‘subjective’ cultural constructs.

The subjective kind of polytheism is more about symbols and interpretation and ways of organizing experiences of the world.

It is the difference between actual polytheism and the idea of polytheism.

So, the descriptions in the Conan setting seem to him to be moreso cultural constructs. In other words, human-sourced.

But, again, this is a bit of a red herring. In Hyboria, for example, gods are, by and large, pretty removed from the setting. You don't have gods making appearances. You don't have spell casting clerics a la D&D. Thulsa Doom gains his power from Set. At least, that's what the books say and there's nothing to contradict that. While, true, he's called a magician, that's simply because the concept of a D&D style cleric didn't exist then. Everyone who used magic was a magician, regardless of where the magic came from.

Now, D&D (and frankly, most fantasy settings) has actual gods in it. This isn't some new concept - Supplement IV was published only a few years after Chainmail. The notion that D&D is polytheistic is pretty long established. The alignment system, the cosmology, and, well, big honking books full of gods plus the fact that every single setting published kinda points pretty strongly toward the idea that D&D is polytheistic.

So, yeah, you have your work cut out for you if you want to use D&D with a monotheistic setting where there actually is only one deity in existence. The closest you might argue would be Dark Sun, although, again, that's not really true since druids simply worshipped forces. They were animistic.

What we're left with then, is what has to change, mechanically, in order to have a single deity setting. Really, quite a lot. You need a completely different cosmology (since it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to have fifteen different Heavens when you only have one god. Clerics aren't too bad, all you have to do is outline what a cleric actually is in that setting. Paladins are probably easier since if you eject Oath of Ancients paladins, you're probably good to go. Other than that (and that's not to say that that's a small change) you're pretty much done.

Me, personally, I'd probably change demons and devils to be a single type, probably avoid the elemental types for the most part and focus the campaign on more mundane type critters - humanoids, beasts, and that sort of thing.

It's not impossible to do. But, I would think that you're really going to have to have a lengthy Session 0 with your group in order to make all this as clear as possible. I know I've run into this sort of thing from time to time. When I ran Scarred Lands, I had a heck of a time explaining to a player that no, he can't play an Elven Cleric. The god of the elves is dead. That's why they cannot have children and all current elves are the last of their race. That's the whole point behind elves in Scarred Lands. It was an uphill battle.