Atheism in DnD Campaigns

[JacktheRabbit]

Ever had someone play an atheist? How do you have the clergy of various Gods react to them?

I am curious because I have seen many people argue that atheism is an impossible concept in DnD since there is quite obviously gods.

One could easily argue though that the gods are merely extremely powerful beings who can be wrong and can be killed, thus are not really gods.

 

[hong]

My Britannia 3E game has no gods, in the classic D&D sense of the word. However, I doubt you'll get any of my players to agree it's "atheist".

See http://www.zipworld.com.au/~hong/dnd/britannia
and especially http://www.zipworld.com.au/~hong/dnd/britannia/virtue.htm

 

[Li Shenron]

As a matter of fact, in typical D&D to believe that no gods exist is somehow like to believe that no kings exist, or no dragons exist, or no druids exist.

A character may not believe they exist until he meets one, and may then even argue it wasn't a convincing specimen.

If you are a DM, you can set your game in a world with a different approach than the base D&D, which is a pagan approach, for example using our contemporary world as a model; just decide the PCs are never going to see Deities & Demigods stuff, and the Clerics' powers come from their own belief and strength, even if they think it comes from a god.

 

[Li Shenron]

Sorry, my previous post wasn't much of a help...

I'll try to toss a diminutive idea. Imagine the ancient Greek society, with pagan religion (it wasn't called "pagan" at that time, but doesn't matter) but with basically no people doubting about the existence of gods - which I suppose it wasn't the real thing for them. Then an atheist stranger arrives from far away and try to say that Zeus doesn't exist. Believers (who don't really think they BELIEVE, but rather they just KNOW) may simply ignore him and tell him "what? haven't you ever seen a lightning?".

I don't know, but I think that in a D&D standard setting an atheist would just be ignored, laughed at, or even seen as fool. Remember that also the typical D&D Clerics don't question the existence of rival gods, and religion is not a matter of faith but rather a matter of worship. The alternative to worship is indifference rather than atheism.

 

[WayneLigon]

One could easily argue though that the gods are merely extremely powerful beings who can be wrong and can be killed, thus are not really gods.

Depends on how one defines gods. The Greek and Norse deities (among others) had gods that were wrong, and ones that were killed. The idea that a god could be totally infallible and invulnerable is, cough, a kind of new one.

Generally the idea of an atheist in the 'typical' D&D world is a hard one to reconcile, at least for adventurers that typically encounter magics of a much higher degree than most inhabitants of that world. The larger ideas of 'is there a soul' and 'what happens after we die?' are answerable, and provable. After a certain level, a mage can /go/ to the afterlife, and return with souvenirs.

The DM is the one to decide the hows and wherefors of his metaphysics, of course. Some might require spell tweaking.

I'm currently working on this very question for a campaign revamp. In the past, the gods were powerful and distant. They created the universe and the planes, and sometimes did things for their worshippers. In the revamp, I'm thinking they will be less powerful but also more immediate, much like the gods in 'Between The Rivers', or the ones in 'The Waterborn'.

 

[SpiderMonkey]

Hello all! One of the central themes of the campaign I've been developing is the true divinity of DnD pantheons. If one considers them in light of Platonic conceptions of what it means to be divine (which Christians later borrowed for God), it's pretty difficult to consider them "gods" per se. They are fallible, not omniscient, and prone to imperfection. On this basis, it would be easy to allow for atheism.

Contrary to previous posts on the topic, many Greeks and Romans where practically atheists--read the Euthyphro for a bit of insight on this. Socrates uses the religious paradigm to disprove popular conceptions of the gods.

On the other hand, if you consider Dnd Gods as powerful spirits or entities that can give people powers in exchange for these fantastic abilities, it's natural for people to worship them *as* gods without it being necessary for them to meet Plato's rather rigorous requirements.

I hope this helps or provides some sort of insight. I tend to go off on tangents with the smallest excuse.

 

[MarauderX]

Actually I plan to start up a campaign where a group of cloistered monks do not believe in the gods or magic. I plan to have a LN church persecute them and try to have the PCs help eradicate them. Of course once the PCs get to know one or two of them, they may change their minds, but it should be an interesting dilemma. Burn the non-believers? Or live and let live? I'll try to remember to let you know once I run it in 3-4 months.

 

[Nifft]

IMC you can choose to beleive that there is something BEYOND the Gods, that they are not TRUELY Gods (but merely powerful mortal entities of some sort), or that they are mere "celestial" agents (which, like abyssal and infernal agents, have thier own agenda).

I'm not sure if these qualify as athiesm, but they sure ain't theism.

-- Nifft

 

[Psion]

IMC you can choose to beleive that there is something BEYOND the Gods, that they are not TRUELY Gods (but merely powerful mortal entities of some sort), or that they are mere "celestial" agents (which, like abyssal and infernal agents, have thier own agenda).

That's merely mincing definitions, IMO.

I think that in most campaigns that include gods where you can't really put gods under a microscope, the idea of an atheist is certainly possible... but then, there are people that tell me that 9/11 was a government conspiracy and was actually the result of missiles fired at certain targets. Sure, someone beleives that, but they are just not credible. In short, in the typical campaign, atheist=crackpot.

Now the planescape campaign makes the Athar when gods very painfully obviously exist, but it doesn't actually ever call them atheists... because the principle is different. It's not so much that they question the existence of deities, because they DO exist. Rather, they question the role and authority of such beings in the multiverse.

To say that gods are not gods seems to me purely an exercise is semantics.

 

[Datt]

I am currently playing in a campaign where one of the PCs is an athiest. She is a wizard/chaneller. She doesn't believe and in fact doesn't understand why some people think they need to believe in a higher power to cast spells. She is constantly just calling the gods a higher powered mortal. She believe that gods exist, she just doesn't believe that they are gods.