Clerics without gods = huh?!

Kamikaze Midget said:
I think the assumption is that, in the game, you probably aren't going to get a religion like you have in life, Herald....I think that there's a clear distinction between the two, and just because you're an atheist doesn't mean you can't play a heathen-thumpin' deity of St. Cuthbert, eh?

I'm pretty sure Psion realizes that too...it seems a bit silly to me to have to include rules in the game just to reflect real life -- it is a game, after all. :)


Okay then, here's what we will do:


We'll take every mention of any god-worshipping religion and put them all in a sidebar in the DMG. Because: "it seems a bit silly to me to have to include rules in the game just to reflect real life"

Because people worship gods in real life, therefore it shouldn't happen in the game.

(Or if it does, the DM should have total control over their addition. Players are not supposed to read the DMG, ever. Players are immature brats who have no ability to, heaven forbid, revise their character concept, and DMing is more like babysitting than anything else.)

Yes, yes, very cute, and I know all about step zero. And I hope my players do, too. But that fact is that players really do not think about this statement when they are making a character.

Really? All players on the planet do not think about this beforehand? Neat.

(Of course, my experience is that players do not think about this if you, as a DM, don't give them guidance before or during character creation. So if you play DnD out of the box and expect players to automatically know everything in your campaign world by telepathy, then of course a few players are going to get upset when you want to trash their character concept after they spent a week thinking about it.)

What I am after is a PHB that is more accomodating to the fact that the DM will have a specific cosmology

Hate to break it to you, but the homebrew DM will generally also have a specific campaign setting and a bunch of specific house rules to boot, should the PHB be more accomodating to the DM who doesn't have gnomes or spiked chains or monks?

You don't see me protesting:

"The PHB has gods in it! They aren't the ones in my campaign setting! My players are going haywire! Rule zero just isn't enough! Let's scrap every mention of gods in the PHB!"
 

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So we shouldn't have rules about getting killed, because that happens in real life, and hey lets take out the rules about getting hurt, after all, that happens too.

The point about an athiest playing a priest of Cuthbert is just silly.

Whaaa? :)

I didn't mean to imply the game shouldn't have realism...I meant to say that "because it happens in the real world" is a bad reason for a flavor consideration, IMHO.

So, we should have clerics who are able to not worship gods because people in the real world have religions where they don't worship gods.

So, we should have clerics of Islam in the game, because people in the real world have the Islamic religion.

See what I'm trying to get at?

And what's silly about my athiest play a cleric? That was supposed to be an example of why, just because it happens in real life, we don't need to have D&D represent it, because D&D isn't real life...not that it's not a welcome thing, just that the reason isn't a very good one.

I still think the PHB reference to godless clerics is a good thing. :)

Because people worship gods in real life, therefore it shouldn't happen in the game.

Er...I didn't mean to imply that...^_^

Read my post above that -- I'm all for the rules supporting clerics without gods, but I don't think "Because there's players who don't worship gods" is a very good reason...

The homebrew DM will generally also have a specific campaign setting and a bunch of specific house rules to boot, should the PHB be more accomodating to the DM who doesn't have gnomes or spiked chains or monks?

You don't see me protesting:

"The PHB has gods in it! They aren't the ones in my campaign setting! My players are going haywire! Rule zero just isn't enough! Let's scrap every mention of gods in the PHB!"

Yeah...this is pretty much what I think (see the post *before* last. ;))
 

Kamikaze Midget said:


Whaaa? :)

I didn't mean to imply the game shouldn't have realism...I meant to say that "because it happens in the real world" is a bad reason for a flavor consideration, IMHO.

So, we should have clerics who are able to not worship gods because people in the real world have religions where they don't worship gods.

So, we should have clerics of Islam in the game, because people in the real world have the Islamic religion.

See what I'm trying to get at?

And what's silly about my athiest play a cleric? That was supposed to be an example of why, just because it happens in real life, we don't need to have D&D represent it, because D&D isn't real life...not that it's not a welcome thing, just that the reason isn't a very good one.

I still think the PHB reference to godless clerics is a good thing. :)


Okay, sorry. I realize what you are trying to get at: Just because Islam exists in the real world doesn't mean that it has to exist word for word in the PHB. Nor does UU exist word for word in the PHB (nor would I want it to.)

When I brought up the UU, I was attempting to explain the idea that clerics of philosophies are functional, valid, and have a real world equivalent. I was attempting to provide a real world precedent for a godless religion.

In DnD, godless clerics can also function quite well alongside godded cosmologies. (Look at the D&D for the Olympian mythology. Zeus and that bunch are right alongside the Academy.) In the real world, I do not throw out the teachings of Jesus just because I'm not Christian. That's throwing out the baby with the bathwater and all of that...

Psion's idea that philosophies are inherently more "permissive" is what bugs me. To say that Bushido is wishy-washy is to miss the whole point of a philosophy. Just because there isn't a deity level figurehead, doesn't mean that the belief (and the accompanying power) is any less plausable. I'd say that the dictates of Olidammara, Fharlanghn, or Boccob are far more "permissive" than Bushido or the Tao.
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The point I do agree with Psion is that players should not just stick any two domains together and then say they are done with their cleric character. A player who does that is typically min-maxing, and just wants the benefits of the domains without having to answer to an authority.

(The player who takes Strength and War without any thought to the underlying philosophy or source of divine power that fuels their spellcasting is a cheesehead.) *grin*
 

I always thought the idea of a cleric without a god kinda silly, but i started gaming with RQ where gods are VERY important.

There is something for a cleric of ideas but it still seems strange (the name cleric might be misleading).

My homebrew has no gods and no clerics so I stopped having this problem :D
 


herald said:
Here is my point:
Roleplayers come from all walks of life, and many creeds and colors. To teach new players a game, you have to be able to connect to them on a personal level. Most have some kind of spiritual belief system, and they a extremely varied and will continue become more varied in the future.

I notice that none of the defaults given in the PHB attempt to recreate the religion of Abrahamic faiths, by far the biggest religious group in countries in which the playing of RPGs is common. So, if exclusion of modeling a real person's faith is really an issue for you, I really think you are missing the point.

The PHB provides no attempt to emulate my faith, nor would I want it to. D&D is about creating a fictional experience. I don't expect my religious ideals to be embodied by the game. Your attack seems more like it is spontaneously conjured and not one that you have seriously considered the implications of.

Now you suggest that you could put "Godless Clerics" in a sidebar. Well think of what kind of message that sends people who infact have a religion that doesn't include a diety?

It sends the message that here is a variant that you could use if you want, but the system is not going to spoonfeed it to you.

"We wanted to be PC, so were throwing you a bone. After all, we can't leave you people out."

And by the same logic "But them Christians, and Jews, and Muslems, we don't need them at all." If you try real hard, you can read anything into a statement that you want to. But quite frankly, I do not consider emulating the player's RL religion a factor at all, and as I have said, this whole line of reasoning is specious because it fails to recognize the biggest religions group in western society.

And as for "expectations", expectations should be set before a game is even brought together. Even if your players are spread out, you could have your players send you character sheets via email, fax, you could talk over the phone.

As I have already said, nice in theory... but those expectations may already be set well before the player ever meets the DM.
 

herald said:
If you want to make limitations in your game, then feel free, but leave the book alone. The rest of us are doing just fine without your limitations.

1) My "limitations?" My suggestion is not a "limitation." It is a few sentences of qualifying text to help emphasize the optional status of a rules section.

2) Just because it works for you, I am not allowed to rally for something that works better for me and does not in any way harm you? Sorry, I think not.
 


1) My "limitations?" My suggestion is not a "limitation." It is a few sentences of qualifying text to help emphasize the optional status of a rules section.

The problem there is that beieng a cleric of a god is just as optional as being a godless cleric




2) Just because it works for you, I am not allowed to rally for something that works better for me and does not in any way harm you? Sorry, I think not.

Sure you are allowed to do that. So, obviously you would be fine if clerics of specific dieties were in a side bar because of all the diety varations from game to game, that way they could probably elimate the greyhawk pantheon from the book.
 

ConcreteBuddha said:
When I brought up the UU, I was attempting to explain the idea that clerics of philosophies are functional, valid, and have a real world equivalent. I was attempting to provide a real world precedent for a godless religion.

A valid point. But not one that I was debating. There is a real world precedent for monotheistic religions, that does not mean that the system should have monotheism as a default, either.

Psion's idea that philosophies are inherently more "permissive" is what bugs me. To say that Bushido is wishy-washy is to miss the whole point of a philosophy.

And to make that argument is to miss my point, and I have repeatedly and abundantly stated that it is not the permissiveness of the philosophies in question that I was referring to. Let me repeat that since you seem to be missing it: it is not the permissiveness of the philosophies in question that I was referring to.

My point is that if your cosmological paradigm is that any philosophy can have divine power without a discrete being associated with it, fitting in a cleric made around the assuption of a specific deity is trivial, since you can merely explain that it is not the discrete divinity that provides the power, but the belief in the philosophy.

OTOH, fitting a cleric conceived with the idea that any belief can yield power independant of a divine entity to a campaign that assumes you require a discrete entity to grant divine power is non-trivial, since the disctrete entity you would have to fit might contradict the history of divinities in the game, may not fit a pre-defined division of portfolios, and will lack the background that grounds the religion in the campaign that other clerics will have.

Just because there isn't a deity level figurehead, doesn't mean that the belief (and the accompanying power) is any less plausable.

I have already repeatedly told you that I have no objections to the concept or plausability of the approach. Are you even reading my posts?


The point I do agree with Psion is that players should not just stick any two domains together and then say they are done with their cleric character. A player who does that is typically min-maxing, and just wants the benefits of the domains without having to answer to an authority.

(The player who takes Strength and War without any thought to the underlying philosophy or source of divine power that fuels their spellcasting is a cheesehead.) *grin*

Well, that is not my major point, but that is part of it. How would you suggest the PHB address this, if at all?
 
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