James Gasik
We don't talk about Pun-Pun
I think that depends on the God. A Trickster deity might be highly amused by watching their servant exploit the system!
D&D General Why do people like Alignment?
- Thread starter James Gasik
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EzekielRaiden
Follower of the Way
And on the relationship the cleric and deity have. If, for example, this cleric has been routinely very good at carrying out this deity's described doctrine, and doing so with subtlety and wisdom rather than as a blunt object, why would that lead to such horrible wrathful deific behavior?
The only reason I can see is "GM wants to punish the player, exploiting a convenient excuse which allows them to do whatever they want scot-free".
Which I was--extremely recently--told by this very poster, Maxperson, is apparently not a thing.
So, @Maxperson, which is it? Are deities (and patrons etc.) used as cudgels to control player behavior? Or are they included genuinely for flavorful, story-promoting reasons, and negative consequences only arise because of genuinely warranted circumstances?
Because it would, 100%, look like a punitive GM vindictively punishing a player for a behavior the GM simply finds distasteful, but not in any way actually wrong or bad, to bring down divine wrath for such a petty reason. Especially if the possibility that this kind of thing could occur were not explicitly spelled out, right out the gate, before character creation is finished.
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
A Cleric to a trickste
A Cleric to a trickster deity would embrace the chaos and randomness and just draw!
EzekielRaiden
Follower of the Way
Really? I should think that the cleric of a trickster deity would embrace gaming the system. Chaos is the domain of destructive deities. Twisting things so you win even though you shouldn't, however, is very much what tricksters love--they bait-and-switch, they deceive, they weasel out of deals, etc., etc. After all, Loki isn't a being of chaos, he's a being of deceit and manipulation. Manipulating the rules so that you get great results sounds like exactly the kind of thing that would please Loki. And Odin, for that matter, since he was also a trickster in many cases--and he was big on acquiring wisdom even through underhanded means. (Consider, he sacrificed himself to himself on Yggdrasil to gain wisdom.)
Maxperson
Morkus from Orkus
None of the above. I'd let the player know that it was a bad idea. It would never get to the point of the cleric treating their god like a servant.
Maxperson
Morkus from Orkus
Not to mention even a trickster god isn't going to be happy at being treated like a servant and having what he's doing constantly be interrupted.
EzekielRaiden
Follower of the Way
How is this being "treated like a servant"?
Like what in the actual hell is wrong with this? They're spells. That's like saying the Cleric casting cure wounds is making a "servant" out of their deity. For God's (or should that be "gods'"?) sake, it's literally the thing the deity asks the cleric to do!
And now you see PRECISELY why I don't trust "social contract" to solve anything, a n y t h i n g, when it comes to gameplay elements. You see this as some absolutely horrendous affront, the character treating their god as a "servant", and I literally cannot fathom how that could possibly be anyone's interpretation.
Maxperson
Morkus from Orkus
Being at the beck and call of one of your clerics for a bunch of trivial(to a god) questions? Once for something so petty I can see. Repeatedly being used like some carnival fortune teller? No god is going to appreciate being used like that.
Riiiiiiiiiight, because cure wounds is the same as calling your god up and questioning him directly. Heck, they build irritation at being used that way into the spell.
This has nothing to do with the social contract.
EzekielRaiden
Follower of the Way
You keep presuming it is a form of being used. You have not actually established that. That's what I'm asking you to establish.
How is this using someone?
How is this NOT the same as calling on your deity's power to heal someone else? You haven't established either of these things!
...I mean, other than that you're literally going to call down divine wrath on someone solely for a thing YOU think is somehow among the most offensive acts a cleric can commit (apparently!), meaning, you are very literally creating extreme, serious, harmful consequences because you presumed every player would always know exactly what YOU think is offensive.
That--that right there--is literally creating gameplay consequences because of an unstated presumption that all players always agree with you about a bunch of things. It is, in fact, a demonstration of the social contract being used to punish someone who could literally have no idea that they're doing anything wrong.
Because, as stated, I would not know. I would be caught unaware by that. You would be punishing me for doing something you consider horrendous, and which I consider so innocent I cannot conceive of how you would turn that into <you are now 100% obviously worthy of divine vengeance>.
This isn't some hypothetical. This isn't a position I'm ascribing to anyone else, it isn't me divining what someone else thinks, it isn't me distilling stuff said by others. It's my actual, real-world situation. I would have no idea that this is somehow enormously offensive to you.
Edit:
Further, you claim that "they build irritation at being used that way into the spell", but they don't. The spell doesn't mention--at all--that you are contacting any deity. Both versions of augury merely refer to "an otherworldly entity", so the player would have no reason to presume they are specifically asking their god. Perhaps they're asking some other functionary in the divine hierarchy. Furthermore, the 5.5e version specifically removed the "random reading" part--you just have a cumulative 25% chance per previous casting that day to get no answer at all, and after four casts (successful or otherwise) you'll just hear nothing.
No irritation. No penalty. No reference to deities--which is wise, since druids and wizards can also cast it! None of the things you claim are present to back up your explanation are even remotely present.
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Lanefan
Victoria Rules
I think we have vastly different ideas on what makes a trickster deity (or its followers) tick.
Gaming the system would be the purview of, to use alignment terms, a Lawful Evil sort, or maybe Neutral Evil. Chaotic Evil or Chaotic Neutral would more want to upend or destroy the system in favour of unpredictability, randomness, and chaos.
A Chaotic Neutral trickster deity is out for chaos, pranks (whether harmful or not), practical jokes (ditto), and the dismantling of heirarchies and organized structures and systems wherever they may be found. It's pretty easy to imagine CN trickster deities seeding things like Decks and Wands of Wonder into the world just for the chaos they cause.
Casting Cure Xxxxx Wounds doesn't make a servant out of a Cleric's deity. Other than granting the spells in the morning, neither the deity nor its assistants have to be further involved.EzekielRaiden said:
Commune, however, is a different beast because in this case you in fact are forcing the direct involvement of the deity (or a high-placed associate) to provide the answers to the questions asked.
As such, Commune is the only spell that forces God to answer the phone; and it's perfectly understandable if on receiving multiple such calls from the same Cleric in short order re what is in the grand scheme of things a trivial subject, God gets a bit hacked off. Because here, you are treating God like a servant at your beck and call.
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