D&D 5E Atheism in DnD

[Arial Black]

Q: If the Danish call Settlers of Catan a 'leg', is it subject to the taxes that a 'leg' has in Denmark?
A: Yes.

Q: If the German government considers Scientology not a religion, is it subject to restrictions that religions aren't?
A: Yes.

It turns that what we consider things matters.

Whether you consider such beings 'gods', whether the Danish call a game a 'leg', whether Germany considers Scientology a religion, may affect how you, the Danish or the Germans treat those beings, that game and that 'religion', but it will not actually change what those things are.

If a PC from Toril says he's an 'atheist', what happens to those beings? Absolutely nothing. It may change the PC's behavior, but how? If he keeps his thoughts to himself it just means that instead of 99 gods who don't have him as a worshipper, there are 100. None of these beings will notice.

If he tells everyone that these beings are not 'gods' as he understands the term, their clerics will still get spells.

If he acts against the interests of these beings that people call 'gods', that will affect the world to a greater or lesser extent (probably lesser!), but to what end? What is the cost/benefit scenario? Okay, he will gain loads of enemies with divine magic while being unable to ally with other faiths, but what is the up side? What can he gain? He might get a couple of philosophers to say, 'Yeah, I suppose you're technically correct'; meanwhile clerics still get their spells.

In the real world, realising that you don't believe in the supernatural frees you from doing irrational, possibly harmful, things. But on Toril, you don't have to do anything you don't want to do because you don't have to be pious or even a member of a religion, and your definition of 'god' is neither here nor there. Meanwhile, those beings are still granting spells, still wielding their power and influence, and your unbelief is utterly irrelevant.

Tax clerics if you want, it won't alter those 'gods'.

 

[mlund]

Denialist: "Gods don't exist and their clerics are phonies."
Cleric: "Behold the power of Thor" - lightning comes down from a clear blue sky and smites a tree.
Denialist: "Hah! Wizards can do that. It's just arcane magic and lies!"
PRETTY MUCH EVERY WIZARD, BARD, AND SORCERER: "No, it's not."
Denialist: "More lies! They're all in on it!"
Society: "Here's your tin-foil hat, dude. Try not to hurt yourself."

Cynic: "Sure, your gods are powerful. Whoopie. Devils are powerful too. Why don't you worship them?"
People: "Devils suck. They are rotten and mean and awful."
Cynic: "So are your gods. Here's your sign."

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Denialist: "Gods don't exist and their clerics are phonies."
Cleric: "Behold the power of Thor" - lightning comes down from a clear blue sky and smites a tree.
Denialist: "Hah! Wizards can do that. It's just arcane magic and lies!"
PRETTY MUCH EVERY WIZARD, BARD, AND SORCERER: "No, it's not."

Negative. The Bards especially will say, "Hey, I can do that too!"

Magical Secrets FTW.

 

[Cristian Andreu]

Denialist: "Gods don't exist and their clerics are phonies."
Cleric: "Behold the power of Thor" - lightning comes down from a clear blue sky and smites a tree.
Denialist: "Hah! Wizards can do that. It's just arcane magic and lies!"
PRETTY MUCH EVERY WIZARD, BARD, AND SORCERER: "No, it's not."
Denialist: "More lies! They're all in on it!"
Society: "Here's your tin-foil hat, dude. Try not to hurt yourself."

Cynic: "Sure, your gods are powerful. Whoopie. Devils are powerful too. Why don't you worship them?"
People: "Devils suck. They are rotten and mean and awful."
Cynic: "So are your gods. Here's your sign."

Athar: Typical clueless, worshipping anything that can put on a show with enough sparkles.
Signer: Were you talking to me?
Athar: No.
Signer: Silly friend, you surely must be talking to me. I'm all there is to talk about, after all.

 

[Staffan]

This whole thread reminds me of why Eberron has my favorite interpretation of gods in D&D. It's an intentionally agnostic setting, where the things worshiped are:

1. The twin pantheons of The Sovereign Host and the Dark Six (the Six are considered beings of the same kind as the Host, but outcast). These may or may not exist - they're not around on the planes, but their followers claim that they are omnipresent throughout the world. Wherever there is a home, Boldrei is there. Wherever there is justice, Aureon watches over it. At the heart of every storm, there is the Destroyer. But there's no way to contact these deities directly, and spells like commune contacts highly powerful planar beings who follow the god in question on faith just like mortals do. Worshipers of the Host who encounter people worshiping other personified deities usually identify those deities as being a different interpretation of one of the Sovereigns (those people don't always agree, but they generally don't have more proof of their gods' existence than the worshipers of the Host do). Usually, the Sovereign Host is worshiped as a whole - you'll pray to Boldrei for a happy marriage, or to Kol Korran for success in a business venture.

2. The Silver Flame. This is the physical manifestation of a spiritual force binding many of the arch-fiends inside the world. It does not have a personality as such, but it does have goals, generally focused around fighting evil (both in the more overt "kill monsters" sense, and the more personal "love thy neighbour" sense).

3. The Blood of Vol. This is a philosophy based on the concept that the gods are bastards who curse mortals with, well, mortality, and mortals would do well to seek the Divinity Within in order to rise above the curse of the gods. Undead have a prominent role in the faith - mindless ones as servants, and intelligent ones as respected allies who have given up their chance at true immortality in order to help the mortals on their way.

4. The Undying Court. A large group of semi-undead elves (Undying in 3e terms, basically positive-energy-powered undead) that have been elevated to near-divine status as a group. Mostly focused on protecting the elven homeland of Aerenal.

5. The Cults of the Dragon Below. Not exactly one religion, but a collective term for a bunch of cults that worship fiends, aberrations, and the like.

There are also a bunch of smaller religions like the Path of Light (mostly focused on meditation intended to turn the plane of Dreams into a better place) or the Dreaming Darkness (opposing those).

 

[mlund]

Negative. The Bards especially will say, "Hey, I can do that too!"

You can make up your custom setting as you please. It's not how things have gone in Faerun or Oerth.

Posed the question the arcane casters may answer in the affirmative on being able to produce lighting via arcane magic, but they will answer in the negative on the Cleric being able to use arcane magic. Heck, the Bards are probably the most glib liars but they also lack that sort of command of evocation to back up their claim of "Hey, I can do that too!" So, again, tin-foil to the left.

This whole thread reminds me of why Eberron has my favorite interpretation of gods in D&D.

Yeah, love the cosmology. Not a fan of the arcano-punk.

 

[prosfilaes]

Whether you consider such beings 'gods', whether the Danish call a game a 'leg', whether Germany considers Scientology a religion, may affect how you, the Danish or the Germans treat those beings, that game and that 'religion', but it will not actually change what those things are.

No, but it doesn't mean those things are games, gods or religions, either.

If a PC from Toril says he's an 'atheist', what happens to those beings?

What's your point?

If he keeps his thoughts to himself it just means that instead of 99 gods who don't have him as a worshipper, there are 100.

Does anything in D&D actually say that this bizarre monotheism is part of D&D worlds? Because in the real world, most people worshipped many gods, at least casually.

But on Toril, you don't have to do anything you don't want to do because you don't have to be pious or even a member of a religion

According to what? What says that the churches are so weak on Toril? Certainly other D&D worlds, like Ptolus and Golarion and Dragonlance, had much stronger churches.

Society: "Here's your tin-foil hat, dude. Try not to hurt yourself."

And? The contempt of society doesn't change the existence of such beliefs.

 

[Staffan]

Heck, the Bards are probably the most glib liars but they also lack that sort of command of evocation to back up their claim of "Hey, I can do that too!" So, again, tin-foil to the left.

Bards can cast any spell in the game, on account of Magical Secrets. At 10th, 14th, and 18th level (and 6th for Lore bards) they learn spells from other classes' spell lists.

That means that a bard can cast spells usually reserved for both warlocks and paladins. That's pretty nifty.

 

[transtemporal]

First question - does he want a character that denies the gods exist, or does he want a character that admits that the Powers That Be do exist, but just doesn't feel the need to worship them, or that they're unworthy of worship?

He wants to say the gods do not exist. He hasn't really specified how he's going to do that, and given the evidence that they do exist he's probably going to use the "they're just powerful beings" strategy. He's playing a wizard too, so I can conceivably see how he'd argue that being an arcane caster.

So... what's your setting, and how do you want it to play out?

Either the Pathfinder (Golarion) setting overlaid with the pantheon of the Dusk setting by Michael Morris, or just the Dusk setting wholesale. I always loved the setting (especially the set-up of the pantheon with it's courts) but was never able to run it for various reasons.

In any case I want the gods to be distant, mysterious and a little bit alien. I don't like this "gods paying housecalls" business, unless you're playing the campaign for laughs I guess.

 

[Mephista]

I'm not familar with the Dusk setting, but Golarion, well... This link should say everything on the matter - http://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Atheism . In that kind of setting, its kind of hard to deny that those gods exist, especially for a wizard. The most likely situation is that he's going to go with the semantics-arguement-over-the-word-gods strategy, which is pretty common in D&D, so I wouldn't worry about it too much. Just play the game straight, and let the character deal with his personal belief issues, and how they evolve from there. I find its actually best if you don't take his character's beliefs into account, and let them deal with the reality of the game world and let the beliefs color what happens.

You're using a premade setting, from the sounds of it, so you're not going out of your way to need to worry about the gods' relationship to mortals; so, its not like your friend doesn't have access to all the same information on the cosmology you do, and can judge if this style would be fun to play. I personally did the same thing in a Planescape game with a paladin, of all things, so it can be a blast to do. For some, though, it can be rather dissonant, which hurts their immersion of play.