Making Religion Matter in Fantasy RPGs

Religion is a powerful force in any culture and difficult to ignore when creating a gaming setting. Here's some things to consider when incorporating religions into your campaign.

Picture courtesy of Pixabay.​

The Question of Gods​

When we look at religion from a gaming perspective, the most interesting thing about it is that in many settings, the existence of deities is not in question. One of the most common arguments over religion is whether there even is a god of any form. But in many fantasy games especially, deities offer proof of their existence on a daily basis. Their power is channelled through clerics and priests and a fair few have actually been seen manifesting in the material realm. This makes it pretty hard to be an atheist in a D&D game.

While the adherents of any faith believe the existence of their deity is a given fact, having actual proof changes the way that religion is seen by outsiders. In many ancient cultures, people believed in not only their gods, but the gods of other cultures. So to win a war or conquer another culture was proof your gods were more powerful than theirs. While winning a war against another culture can make you pretty confident, winning one against another culture’s gods can make you arrogant. Add to that the fact you had warrior priests manifesting divine power on the battlefield, you are pretty soon going to start thinking that not only is winning inevitable, but that it is also a divine destiny. Again, these are all attitudes plenty of believers have had in ancient days, but in many fantasy worlds they might actually be right.

Magic vs. Prayer​

If a world has magic, it might be argued that this power is just another form of magic. Wizards might scoff at clerics, telling them they are just dabblers who haven’t learned true magic. But this gets trickier if there are things the clerics can do with their magic that the wizards can’t do with theirs. Some wizards might spend their lives trying to duplicate the effects of clerics, and what happens if one of them does?

The reverse is also interesting. Clerics might potentially manifest any form of magical power if it suits their deity. So if the priest of fire can not only heal but throw fireballs around, is it the wizards that need to get themselves some religion to become true practitioners of the art? Maybe the addition of faith is the only way to really gain the true power of magic?

Are the Gods Real?​

While divine power might be unarguably real, the source of it might still be in contention. A priest might be connecting to some more primal force than magicians, or tapping into some force of humanity. What priests think is a connection to the divine might actually just be another form of magic. As such, it could have some unexpected side effects.

Let’s say this divine power draws from the life force of sentient beings. As it does so in a very broad way, this effect is barely noticed in most populations. A tiny amount of life from the population as a whole powers each spell. But once the cleric goes somewhere remote they might find their magic starts draining the life from those nearby. In remote areas, clerics might be feared rather than revered, and the moment they try to prove they are right by manifesting the true power of their deity, they (and the townsfolk) are in for a very nasty surprise.

Can You Not Believe in Them?​

There are ways to still play an atheist character in a fantasy game. However, it does require more thought beyond "well I don’t believe in it." That's a sure way to make your character look foolish, especially after they have just been healed by a cleric.

What will also make things much tougher is having a character that refuses to benefit from the power of religion due to their beliefs. They might insist that if they don’t know what in this healing magic, they don’t want any part of it, especially if the priest can’t really explain it outside the terms of their faith. That this healing works will not be in doubt. So are they being principled or a fool? If the explanation for magical healing isn’t "this is just healing energy" but "it’s the power of my deity, entering your body and changing it for the better" the character might be more reticent about a few more hit points.

When it comes to deities manifesting on the material plane, it’s a little harder to ignore them. But this isn’t always evidence of the divine. A manifesting deity is undoubtedly a powerful being, one able to crush armies and level cities, but does that make them divine? While the power of a deity is not in dispute, the definition of what is actually divine in nature is a lot muddier. This is ironically harder in a fantasy world where lich-kings, dragons and powerful wizards can do all the same things many deities are supposed to do.

What Are Gods?​

So we come back to the question: Whether you are a cleric, adherent or atheist, of what actually is god? What quality of them demands or inspires worship beyond the fact they are powerful? Plenty of philosophers are still trying to figure that one out. While in a fantasy game their existence and power may not be in question, whether they are holy or even worthy of trust and faith might be much harder to divine.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Exandria sounds great. What is the name of the setting/product line?

It's the Critical Role setting (it started in 4e, so it uses the Dawn War pantheon with a few tweaks).

Explorer's Guide to Wildemount or one of the Tal'Dorei setting books (the old one/the new one) is where you want to look for game information on the setting.

As a side note, I have barely seen any Critical Role (less than 10 episodes total, across all 3 seasons and the one shots), and I still use the setting. You don't have to know anything about the show in order to play in it.

 

[J.Quondam]

Something I remembered from the Expert Set:

Has anyone actively used this (or seen this used) in a game of theirs? I know that a lot of tables take note, of especially jarring conflicts between a PC and their "faith", especially when it comes to, for example, paladins and alignment. But aside from that?

It always seemed to me like a logical way to "enforce" religion on a campaign with "present gods." Different gods could easily have different priorities: one might be really picky about the chants and the holidays, but overlook ideological lapses; whereas another might be the reverse, strict on the ideology with little care for rite. And still another god might be "distant" and not care at all-- perhaps even to the point of "forgetting" to grant spells at all now and then. It would be an inherently unfair arrangement, most likely, but with some potentially interesting routes to explore in a campaign.

HOWEVER, beyond the most egregious of violations, I honestly can't see most players allowing a DM to dictate what spells or powers are granted to their PCs based on that PC's day-to-day behavior.

Anyway, this thread reminded of that quote. Just curious if anyone else did anything with it.

 

[Yaarel]

Different cultures have different kinds of religions.

"Religions" ≠ polytheism only

There are also various monotheisms, animisms, nones, and other worldviews, in addition to various polytheisms.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Something I remembered from the Expert Set:

View attachment 150181

Has anyone actively used this (or seen this used) in a game of theirs? I know that a lot of tables take note, of especially jarring conflicts between a PC and their "faith", especially when it comes to, for example, paladins and alignment. But aside from that?

In AD&D? Definitely. It is part of the rules for divine classes. You screw over your deity, you lose your powers until you do an Atonement or something.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Different cultures have different kinds of religions.

"Religions" ≠ polytheism only

There are also various monotheisms, animisms, nones, and other worldviews, in addition to various polytheisms.

And Eberron has all of those. It has polytheism (3 major variants of it), monotheism, atheism, dualism, animism (and spiritualism/shamanism), ancestor worship (two variants of it), philosophical religions (Blood of Vol, the Path of Light), cults (way too many to list), and so on.

(I guess that @Bolares and me are now both missionaries of Eberron, trying to convert people to the setting.)

 

[Baron Opal II]

For fantasy rpgs I consider both Runequest and Artesia: Adventures in the Known World to be master classes in how to present compelling mythologies and religions. In comparison I find most of the D&D material that I've read to be less interesting.

I also really enjoyed Brett Devereaux's articles on polytheism.

I really enjoy his articles!

I've like Mitlanyal concerning the deities of Tekumel and the Book of the Righteous from Green Ronin (?). I'll have to give them the once over again with Dr. Devereaux's articles in mind.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

One of my first PCs was an atheist wizard. He believed that the gods were basically constructs fueled by prayers and worship.

I wouldn't call him atheist. He aknowledged their existence yet considered worship unnecessary or unhelpful. This is vastly different than denying the existence of gods in a setting where they can offer tangible proof of existence. In those settings atheists are often portrayed in a very silly caricature. Same with polytheist setting where they actually depict henotheism -- but I think it's just a misunderstanding of how polytheism can work.


[/QUOTE]

I feel the same way, although i accept that how much of that a player wants to get into is, of course, up to them. But I would like to see more of it, and when I play clerics I definitely work on fleshing out what my characters daily religious/spiritual practices are, whether they feel the need to be in certain places or kinds of places at certain times of year, what aspects of their faith they focus on, etc.

I once had a shifter paladin OotA devout of an equivalent of Balinor and the Fury who insisted that the offals of the hunted should be sacrificed and every hunter should partake in the meat to honor the god and make sure the hunted could be reborn in the divine hunting grounds. Hunting was defined as any act of killing outside of self defense or defense of person of kin. The rest of the group never attacked a human first in order to avoid testing the limit of the definition. A lot of flavour grew out of this.

 

[AtomicPope]

Where are the collective goals, motivations, and worldviews?

What sets a temple apart from a wizard college? Both use magic. Both have books. Both train students.

Life and death? Wizards colleges teach necromancy.

The agnostic/unaligned groups have functions, but they don't really have "goals" or "motivations", not like religions. The night watch of the city patrols the streets. That's a basic function of the night watch. Any "goals" for the night watch would be personal or limited. The captain of the night watch is determined to bust the burglary ring. That's a goal. It's one NPC who has a goal. And it's pretty easy to see how you can tie this NPC's goal to the PCs: I need your help busting this burglary ring. The mayor expanded the night watch because the citizens are fearful of burglars. That's a motivation. It's one NPC who has a motivation. Again, it's easy to see how you can tie the mayor's motivation to the PCs. As DMs have to build it like this to make it a cooperative story, to bring the PCs in and give them an active role in the world. Religions in RPGs have the same basic requirements..

I've found the best way to make religion matter in my game is to give them an active role in the world by forming a passionate world view which makes NPCs act, speak, think, feel, and behave differently. It becomes a LOT easier to create an NPC personality and make them an active participant in the world when they're passionate about something. Religion in RPGs is more interesting when there's an entire group of NPCs who are passionately motivated to accomplish a goal together. It also makes it easier to build a culture around those people. So I give religions an active role, just like any other group, but also assign a worldview that sets them apart. Notice, I didn't say anything about "gods". In this regard, the god or gods of a religion are the embodiment of those ideals, worldviews, passions, goals, and motivations but not active day to day in a way the PCs can see. Really, the gods should be an afterthought because they're not the ones taking part in the cooperative story of the game, and if they do it easily looks DM fiat which takes away from the players and their characters. We need to have really good reasons to get gods involved, and those reasons should involve the PCs fixing something.

In my epic 5e Greyhawk Spelljammer game the PC cleric worships Pelor. According to his backstory he came from a long line of clerics, recieving a sacred vision from Pelor who admonished to him to carry the sacred light to the far corners of the multiverse and help those in darkness. Throughout the course of the campaign I would build thematic encounters with Shadows, undead, magical darkness, assassin cults, supernatural eclipse (they actually had to fly to the sun and visit Pelor to figure out what was happening and then fix it), and lots of other story lines. That does a few obvious things like allowing the cleric of the Light Domain to showcase his powers over darkness and roleplay according to his strengths. The less than obvious thing is it allowed me to bring the culture and worldview of a particular religion to life in the game. It was very easy to heap praise on him. That praise opened opportunities for rivalries, both religious and personal.

Later on I realized it would be great if the church of Pholtus (a rival of Cuthbert in standard Greyhawk, but in my game I made him a rival of Pelor and his son) were the premier undead hunters of Oerth. When it came time for the PCs to hunt down a guild of Vampiric Assassins, The Boneshadow, the PCs were completely out of their element. Combating multiple legendary creatures?! The cleric of Pelor had to contact his cousin, who was more than happy to gloat. Here we have a situation that is very competitive, both personally and religiously, individual and group, but necessarily cooperative. His cousin was involved in other roleplaying events throughout the campaign, like when one of our PCs married a baroness. The cleric of Pelor performed the ceremony with lots of roleplaying, and commentary from his cousin. But this is different. It's a do-or-die situation. Sometimes Pelor isn't enough, is he cousin? The PCs got information, training, and Vampire Hunter Kits™ from the now High Priest of Pholtus, his cousin. They also got information on the Assassin Guild, a guide to lead them, and a place to start. From a DMs perspective I'm just setting up the next series of encounters, but by establishing a religious group with an active role lets me do it in funny, snarky voices with full confidence that I made the right decision and my cousin is wasted his life worshiping Pelor.

The examples don't end there, we've been playing for nearly 5 years: 20th level with over half-a-dozen boons (the cleric of Pelor became the Champion of the Sun™ and can cast Sacred Flame as a bonus action). The gods didn't factor in until WAY later in the campaign, like around 15th level. Even now the gods not as important as all of the little people they talk to every day. There are devoted, faithful followers who are eager to help and share information but powerless and at the mercy of the world. There are lazy, unreliable priests who are usually in power which is all the better reason the PCs have are called on to right the situation. There are alternative takes on the Light of Pelor, like the Red Dragon Wyrmsmiths or the Spelljammer privateers who both worship Pelor. To the dragons he's the ever-burning light of the invincible sun, to the privateers he's the guiding light of life. Each shares a slightly different take on their religion, but it allows me to connect with the player and their character, and the wider living world in our campaign.

 

[Yaarel]

And Eberron has all of those. It has polytheism (3 major variants of it), monotheism, atheism, dualism, animism (and spiritualism/shamanism), ancestor worship (two variants of it), philosophical religions (Blood of Vol, the Path of Light), cults (way too many to list), and so on.

(I guess that @Bolares and me are now both missionaries of Eberron, trying to convert people to the setting.)

Yeah, Eberron is an excellent approach to multicultural worldbuilding.

Instead of trying to force Eberron inside the small FR-Planescape cosmology, the designers do well to do the opposite, to fit the FR-Planescape cosmology inside the culturally relative Eberron cosmology.

Maybe more exactly, each culture has its own domain within the Astral Plane. An astral domain might be monotheistic (with only angels and-or saints), polytheistic, or other. Possibly an animistic culture focuses on the material and lacks an astral, but the astral might still be there for occasional transcendent concepts.

 

[Oofta]

I wouldn't call him atheist. He aknowledged their existence yet considered worship unnecessary or unhelpful. This is vastly different than denying the existence of gods in a setting where they can offer tangible proof of existence. In those settings atheists are often portrayed in a very silly caricature. Same with polytheist setting where they actually depict henotheism -- but I think it's just a misunderstanding of how polytheism can work.

He thought the gods were magical constructs that were basically complex spells that reflected the society that worshipped them.

The gods were an illusion, a hoax. It was just a delusion people foisted on themselves. Not sure how that doesn't count as atheism.