Advice on Commune

[Hammerhead]

Ask who's responsible for a poisoned well and depending on the god's leanings you might get the stable hand who put the poison in the well, the druid who charmed him into doing it, or the local noble who's been hunting the wildlife to extinction.

[sarcasm] Because we all know that such answers generally fall under yes and no questions. [/sarcasm]

One of the problems my player had was that he felt Heironeous should give more than a simple yes or no, since his god should want want to help him succeed in his quest. I think I came up with some BS explanation about how a mortal mind couldn't handle something more than a simple affirmative or negative from a god, but I never bought that and neither did he.

 

[Saeviomagy]

I think Cerebus is on to something, but not in the way he said it. What if the god only gives part of the truth? Rather, every thing the god says is true but it may or may not be all of the truth.

Ask who's responsible for a poisoned well and depending on the god's leanings you might get the stable hand who put the poison in the well, the druid who charmed him into doing it, or the local noble who's been hunting the wildlife to extinction.

Commune only gives "yes" or "no" answers, or a short sentence if the god in question thinks yes or no would be misleading and contrary to his cause.

Cerberus sounds like one of those GM's who salivates with malicious anticipation every time a player considers casting 'wish'.

 

[SnowDog]

Thanks for suggestions

I appreciate your all taking the time to comment. We got together tonight and after serious consideration the player in question decided a Divination spell was going to be more useful than a Commune anyway.

I took some combined advice and ended up deciding that:

- You don't always tap into your god. We use the Book of the Righteous cosmology, where gods have powerful servants who assist in various tasks -- like, now, handling communes. You can increase your chance of hitting a god by casting the spell on a holy day, from within sacred ground, etc.

- Gods are not omniscient. If you ask the god of air whether a specific noble within the city is helping smuggle slaves in, he just might not know. The god of secrets will, and any other god which this noble might be involved with for whatever reason ... or any god which has to do with slavery, maybe. Etc. This is especially true if you're just dealing with a powerful servant of the god and not the god himself.

- The BOTR has a faith called The Great Church which worship all the gods, but none in specific. Their Communes are answered by powerful angels in service of the cause of good, and they have knowledge on a great many topics, but it's only shallow knowledge. This is the tradeoff.

In the end, it's my hope that we can use this spell to tell better stories, instead of ruining the story. We'll see how it goes!

 

[Piratecat]

Sounds like you're handling it wonderfully. Very cool.

 

[S'mon]

IMC Commune contacts a small part of the god's consciousness (as played by the DM), hence the word-limit on answers. Within the limit the god may answer as they see fit. Gods are not omniscient, except perhaps within their area of expertise - ask the goddess of fertility whether the queen is pregnant, she'll know. Ask her the location of the evil necromancer BBEG, she probably won't. I use a lot of 'unknown' and 'probably' type answers. Of course if the god is the God of Knowledge (eg Boccob) he'll know a lot. Gods have their own agendas, normally these coincide with the cleric's agenda but the deity may prefer to keep the cleric in the dark about some matters, or mislead somewhat. Mortals tend to focus on little things (like alignments) while immortal gods see a very different 'big picture'. If the god's machinations require LG & CE forces to work together, he may prefer to keep his LG minions in the dark about the exact nature of their 'new allies'.
For a good literary example you could check out eg the relationship between Elric & Arioch in Moorcock's Elric stories. The Bible may also prove inspirational.

 

[Cerubus Dark]

Cerberus sounds like one of those GM's who salivates with malicious anticipation every time a player considers casting 'wish'.

Nope I take their wishes very litteraly. Ask for a million gold coins and boom you got it. There at the bottom of the sea waiting for you.

Hehe, salivates gotta add that to my sig...

 

[Quasqueton]

The PCs in my campaign <waves to Players> have a magic gold skull that will answer 3 yes or no questions each day. They have learned (or should have learned) that only fact-based questions get answered -- it cannot predict the future.

My Players have joked that they'll make me hate "giving" them that magic item, but so far I've not been the least bit bothered by giving them answers. In fact, I don't think they have asked a single question that "broke" any plot in my campaign. I've come to expect them to learn some answers in order to survive a plot or forward a plot. Actually, most of the questions they've asked have been fairly irrelevant (in the DM's overall view). Some answers they received have lead them to erroneous conclusions, even though they got a truthful answer -- it's all in how they ask the questions.

For instance:

"Is X associated with Y?" -- Yes

But in truth, Y may not have anything to do with X's current operation.

Etc.

Don't be afraid of answering questions for the PCs. I've seen many times in my DMing how Players can have all the answers before them, but still make the wrong conclusion or go the wrong direction or take the wrong action.

Some questions could open new adventures and campaign directions.

Quasqueton