D&D (2024) I have the DMG. AMA!

[Micah Sweet]

The example you provided didn't serve your point. That's all I was saying.

 

[Staffan]

But that's not unfair, within the fiction. Within the fiction heresy is wrong, and the divinity is punishing the heretic!

But that's boring. Heretics and uncertainty about what gods want make for interesting stories.

I guess it boils down to my belief that gods, as such, aren't interesting pieces of game scenery. Religion is, but religion is something created by people. And religion is much more interesting when you have differing interpretations.

Well, Gygax's DMG has very clear rules about how clerical spells are granted. It doesn't leave it open to be determined by the group.

Who cares about what Gygax had to say about anything? Gygax is like Aristotle: an influential figure that got things started, but basically wrong about everything.

 

[mamba]

They're only an idiot if non-idiotic play means cautious, low-stakes action declaration to scope out what the GM's ideas are about the nature of the setting, the current situation, etc.

But that's not the only way to approach FRPGing, and it doesn't need to be the only way to approach D&D play either.

no, they are an idiot for making a fundamental and very important decision without having verified the information they base it on. You do not take these kinds of actions on a gut feel

 

[pemerton]

Who cares about what Gygax had to say about anything? Gygax is like Aristotle: an influential figure that got things started, but basically wrong about everything.

I just find it curious that @Micah Sweet proclaims a strong affinity for Gygax's AD&D, but also complains about the DMG expressing a strong view on how clerical magic works.

 

[pemerton]

no, they are an idiot for making a fundamental and very important decision without having verified the information they base it on. You do not take these kinds of actions on a gut feel

Why not? I mean, Conan relies on gut feel a lot. So does Frodo, with Aragorn and Faramir.

Again, you are advocating low-stakes action declaration to find out what the GM thinks in going on in the setting and situation. That's one approach to RPGing, but not the only one.

 

[abirdcall]

But that's boring. Heretics and uncertainty about what gods want make for interesting stories.

I guess it boils down to my belief that gods, as such, aren't interesting pieces of game scenery. Religion is, but religion is something created by people. And religion is much more interesting when you have differing interpretations.


Who cares about what Gygax had to say about anything? Gygax is like Aristotle: an influential figure that got things started, but basically wrong about everything.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Yeah, which tracks with a lot of myth's and religions throughout our history.

Aside from the setting doesn't really let you play an "against the gods" storyline, since the gods have a monopoly on power (and a past history of dropping asteroids on the heads of any uppity mortals).

 

[Paul Farquhar]

"Hurray!" ~ cleric players who want to roleplay someone of faith and the struggle thereof instead of someone who needs to do exactly what the DM tells them to keep having their character be viable in the game.

If people want to do it, fine, I guess. But the game doesn't need to enable or encourage it.

I guess what you are saying is that if a player wants to roleplay a crisis of faith, that should come from the player, not the DM. I believe Critical Role did this.

And how is a DM supposed to fairly arbitrate when a character has "broken the tenants of their faith"? In the real world, followers of the same god often believe very contradictory things, and it doesn't have any effect on their magical powers. And in D&D, alignment is downgraded, so cannot be used as a judge. Although I haven't abolished alignment officially, I don't even know what alignment is written on my players' character sheets. It's up to the player to decide how their character behaves, judging that is outside of the DM's purview.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Can't we separate the fiction from the play here? In the fiction, the cleric needs to care about their god. (Assuming we ignore the DMG text that has been quoted.)

At the table, this means the player plays their PC as needing to care about their god.

If the player won't do this unless they are worried about the GM depriving them of character features, that tells me something about the dynamics of play at that table. But doesn't tell me about the thematic archetypes of the game.

EDIT:
The same point applies to this: the metaphysics and possibilities within the fiction don't require a rule that one participant at the table has the power to remove or very significantly downgrade another participant's game piece.

I think we actually see this pretty similarly. I absolutely do not see this as some sort of tool for the GM to bully the player playing their character "correctly." If we at the session zero roughly establish what the particular religion entails, I trust any player I would play with to begin with, to then take that into account in how they play their character. Like I said, the only real situation where I could see the power loss coning into play, is the player effectively intentionally choosing it by having their character to knowingly commit actions that would make them an apostate, and thus intentionally choosing subclass or even class change. Like if a wizard chose to burn their spellbook or something like that.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

In that case, the DMG wording doesn't seem to matter, does it?

Like I said, It does, as it tells us something about metaphysics and the relationship between the god and the cleric.