Do you make your good gods worth worshipping?

[Voadam]

In mine the gods are powerful but not omniscient beings, and clerics are all godless clerics even though church dogma is that they are restricted in alignment and worshipping a patron god. So even though clerics believe their power comes directly from their god they actually are simply tapping ambient divine power directly with no connection to their god. Similarly anything can be worshipped and clerics will still get their spells including pharohs, living dragons, demons, other outsiders, non-existent spirits, hallucinations, etc.

In any case the campaign has a theocratic empire with a religious high priest emperor of a paladin who ascended. Evil gods' and demonic worship is banned while neutral and good gods are allowed legally. So there is the whole legal benefits of not worshipping a banned god in the empire.

Direct divine intervention of gods on the mortal plane is very rare for campaign reasons that have not been uncovered yet, with a demon prince walking the mortal plane the closest that has happened.

And good clerics get the mechanical benefits of positive energy channeling, spontaneous healing and turning undead which seems a better mechanical deal than spontaneous harms and rebuking or bolstering undead.

 

[Janx]

having the gods intervene directly in a campaign is risky. the whole deus ex machina problem. Basically, the DM plays the role of the gods (as NPCs). You can't have the NPCs saving the PCs bacon all the time, or the players would resent that. So in effect, you have to avoid having the gods intervene directly.

This is modeled then, by the clerics getting spells. The clerics are doing the god's work, so they get the god's power to do that work. Since the PCs can be clerics, they get the benefit of the god's power and divine will, but it is at their control, thus, they are still responsible for saving the day. This makes for good story telling, but forces us to suspend disbelief.

The problem is, if you're a god, you got lots of power. So how come you can't use it to smite whomever you feel like. GMs and story writers have tackled this problem for years. Heck, theologians have pondered it in the real world (i.e. why did the world trade center fall). Top it off with the perspective problem. In the real world, the majority of religions are monotheistic with non-magic clerics (instead relying on their deity's "mysterious ways"). In D&D, the majority of campaign worlds are polytheistic or animistic and clerics do cast spells. Kinda makes it hard to find a role-model or understanding of how the D&D world's religion system works.

I'm not picking sides in any real world debate here, but like D&D economics, there's little in common with the real world and D&D. Thus, when we start looking at the practicalities of what can be done in D&D, it starts seeming more and more alien to us. Certainly, if a PC was a god, they'd do a whole bunch of stuff that "normal" gods don't do. And that would throw a bunch of stuff out of whack (much like using some simple magic items in clever ways disrupts the local economy in D&D). So unless you're prepared for REALLY active divine intervention, you've got to have a religion system that prevents divine intervention.

Here's one god-model that might support this "divine prevention":
the gods are Giants. I mean big with a capital G. Kinda like the greek gods, being from titans and such. Balancing the world on their back kind of big. Physically really big. A fingerprint the size of Texas (for those not familiar with Texas, it's a really big place). What happens when you're that big? Well, let's say you're a god. And you've been watching Bob. Bob's been bad, so you spit on him. Whoosh! You just started the Great Flood. Half of civilization's been wiped out. Way to go. Everything gods do is big. Spells, etc. So if the gods want to watch what's going on, they need to keep their paws off. Direct intervention causes more harm than good. We can also guess that they're busy keeping the loony god of destruction as far away from our planet as possible. Don't let that goober get his hands on it, or he'll probably eat it or break it. So at best, all they can do is broadcast some spells out for clerics in tune with them to use. It's probably not even on a personal basis. Good clerics get spell energy from the good god. And loony clerics of destruction get spell energy from the loony destruction god, who's currently being held down by 3 other gods.

Janx

 

[Janx]

Y'know, I think I went off on a tangent and missed the original title question of this thread:
Do you make your good gods worth worshipping?

The D&D gods grant spells to cleric that worship them. That makes them worth worshipping if a PC wants those spells.

Anything more than that gets complicated and quickly becomes "talking about religion" which is taboo on the enworld site.

 

[Crothian]

Ya, they are worth worship[ing. Most of theime the worth comes in ways not always appearent and in aid through other allies of the gods.

 

[DaveMage]

Anything more than that gets complicated and quickly becomes "talking about religion" which is taboo on the enworld site.

Talking about real-world religion is taboo - not campaign religions. It's also "okay" to talk about what you consider "good" in a campaign. (As long as you don't compare/contrast with real-world religions.)

 

[alsih2o]

Yes, there is a constant struggle. The good push for good, the evil push for evil and the really powerful neatrals throw wrenches into all plans. The characters have seen an earthly representation of a god (3rd level, saw a dead companion be accepted into the night sky as a teeny, tiny star) and twice met a semi-mechanical uber creation out to destroy their BBEG to restore balance.

Uber-mecha gave them some small help the second time after they freed him from being partially disassembled and held as a slave. He was robbed of everything below his ribs and one arm and left chained form the ceiling with hooks welded into him. A magical compulsion made him slowly flap his wings to regulate the temperature of some drake eggs below.

He begged to be killed, they helped him out, he is back and pissed at BBEG. He destroyed an invisible raven that was following the party and helping the BBEG to scry.

The gods are well and involved in MAissen on both sides.

(Sorry if I rambled there..)

 

[diaglo]

There are no good gods in my campaign...

ditto.

Lawful, Neutral, and Chaotic

just like the rest of the world

 

[S'mon]

I'm not picking sides in any real world debate here, but like D&D economics, there's little in common with the real world and D&D. Thus, when we start looking at the practicalities of what can be done in D&D, it starts seeming more and more alien to us. Certainly, if a PC was a god, they'd do a whole bunch of stuff that "normal" gods don't do. And that would throw a bunch of stuff out of whack (much like using some simple magic items in clever ways disrupts the local economy in D&D).

I've GM'd a lot of deity campaigns and I haven't really experienced this. From the perspective of ordinary mortals 17th level Wizards can do most of the stuff a god can, after all. With godly politics, sometimes gods fight and die, but some kind of godly order - a pantheon, or group of pantheons, quickly emerges. In my campaign with multiple groups of gods and a big role for the Norse pantheon, sometimes there are disruptions to the divine order, but it quickly reasserts itself. It's like the Cold War - no one wants to press the Big Red Button of all-out war, that way everyone would lose - gods aren't gods if no worshippers survive to worship them. So gods rarely intervene directly, if they do it's to deal with a commensurate force. Ask Upper_Krust how he plays Thrin and you'll see how a typical god focused on long-term survival and advancement functions & suceeds - largely
by knowing the rules and sticking to them. Other PCs IMC have achieved godhood, but they didn't learn the rules and rarely lasted long - eg killing sprees are not conducive to long term survival.

 

[dungeon blaster]

Good gods grant healing spells, evil gods do not. That is a huge incentive to worship a good god.

 

[VirgilCaine]

Good gods grant healing spells, evil gods do not. That is a huge incentive to worship a good god.

This is actually incorrect. Good clerics are more likely to give away [or give at all or for money and not a nasty deed or information/etc. like an evil cleric would] healing spells.