'Embedded Agnosticism' in a Campaign World

[Reprisal]

Hey all,

I've been tooling around with the idea of running a D&D campaign after my Heavy Gear campaign ends around Spring, 2004; and as a result, I've been playing with various ideas to make this campaign different from the others that I've run in the past. I've just purchased the 3.5 Core Rulebook Collection box, so it'll use that ruleset, but that's not really my kicker of a question.

I was reviewing some fantasy stories that I've half-written, and in one of them, I created a world without verification of the divine. In essence, I created that world to parallel this one: it's fundamentally agnostic in terms of God and/or Gods & Goddesses, and an Afterlife. This, of course, does not preclude faith and religion, but not truly knowing what happens after one dies became a central aspect in the motivations of most of the characters in this story.

For some reason, I ended up calling this embedded agnosticism in the marginalia, so I decided to keep the term for this topic.

I guess the point I'm trying to get at is how I'll address certain aspects of D&D as written, and how I'll have to change things to make it compatible with the premise that "We just don't know and perhaps cannot know" whether there are Gods and Goddesses and an Afterlife.

I've decided early on that I want faith to figure in fairly stronglyin this prospective campaign, so I'm keeping the Cleric and the other divine spellcasters. My explanation for their existence will be that it's just another expression of magic like Sorcery, Wizardry, and what-not.

On other fronts, obviously, I'll have to get rid of some of the spells in the PHB: Raise Dead, Ressurection, Reincarnation, True Resurrection and, of course, the "raise dead" abilities of the Wish spells. Also, any form of communication or interaction with Outsiders will have to go, too -- but at the same time, I'd like to keep the Summon Monster spells.

Maybe that's a contradiciton, but is there a way to get rid of that sort of thing, yet keep with the Summoning schtick? Maybe make it some kind of magical/intellectual construct akin to the Metacreativity powers in the Psionics Handbook?

Also, I want the lure of eternal life to loom large in the campaign, though I do not want it to be merely the threat of some monolithic evil. Generally, I'm going to pursue such a conflict over life with the forces of intelligent undeath, vampires mostly.

I guess the central conflict of the campaign would be faith against materialism: those who believe in some form of Afterlife, and those who do not. Vampirism, in this game, would constitute a choice to exist eternally, albeit through stealing it from other beings.

Of course, I don't have a clue where I'd go with the campaign, but it'd be a neat facet, I think. Would player-characters necessarily take the same risks that they would in a traditional campaign if they knew that if they died, they wouldn't be coming back?

I dunno, should I make this the central theme to the campaign, or merely a facet like I just mentioned? Keep that in the background, but only as an ever-present part of that background. Let that knowledge, or lack thereof in this case, serve as a guide for the actions of characters and focus the campaign on whatever seems to crop up as important to the player-characters... yeah, perhaps this is the best idea.

Interesting idea? Old hat, only new to me? Rules-input?

Thanks,

- Rep.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

I've decided early on that I want faith to figure in fairly stronglyin this prospective campaign, so I'm keeping the Cleric and the other divine spellcasters. My explanation for their existence will be that it's just another expression of magic like Sorcery, Wizardry, and what-not.

On other fronts, obviously, I'll have to get rid of some of the spells in the PHB: Raise Dead, Ressurection, Reincarnation, True Resurrection and, of course, the "raise dead" abilities of the Wish spells. Also, any form of communication or interaction with Outsiders will have to go, too -- but at the same time, I'd like to keep the Summon Monster spells.

I'm confused as to why any of the raise spells would have to go... if there is no afterlife, or soul, raise dead just becomes a very powerful healing spell, capable of restoring a deceased body... likewise, the lack of gods or afterlife doesn't preclude the existance of other planes, which is where the monsters are summoned from.

Given the core rules existance of godless clerics, there's really nothing no prevent you from running a agnostic/atheist cosmology without changing a single rule. Some of the divination spells would be rewritten for flavor, but the characters don't know the flavor anyway, and would impose their own...

I'm currently playing an atheist (called Mortalist) cleric in LEW, and I have no problem reconciling that based on the core 3.5 rules.

Kahuna burger

 

[Fimmtiu]

Also, any form of communication or interaction with Outsiders will have to go, too -- but at the same time, I'd like to keep the Summon Monster spells. Maybe that's a contradiciton, but is there a way to get rid of that sort of thing, yet keep with the Summoning schtick?

I don't see any conflict here. What if you kept the outer planes, outsiders, et cetera, but just remove the "this is where you go when you die" aspect? So, for instance, Hell is just an alien place filled with malevolent, otherworldly entities to whom the fate of humanity is only a trifling concern. That lets you keep outsiders, both for the purposes of summoning and contacting, just by making outsiders more removed from human affairs.

 

[Burne]

Re Summon Monster spells

Either, Replace them with the Summon Nature's Ally spells
Or keep them but remove any outsiders and drop the celestial/fiendish template.

The second option reduces the power of the spells, the first removes some of the flavor from Wizzies/Druids.

Changing the granted template (ie Celestial/Fiendish) to a comparable template (elemental/shadow/a undead template) while removing the outsiders would work. Keeping the elemental forces wouldn't be a problem as long as elemental were a. stupid and b. native.

Flavor wise the spell could pull a creature from another time/place, create the creature from nothing, be Shadow magic.

You could also keep the spells as is except the spell creates a monster from the caster's mind, which would certainly allow for such "fantastic" beings as angels and demons.

 

[Dogbrain]

Alternatively, one could have each culture with contradictory cosmologies that are all true. This is (or at least was) a premise behind the Glorantha setting. Part of Glorantha's back-story was the horror of the "Godlearners", who were powerful Cambellian "Power of Myth" cosmological unifiers. They had gone through on an enormous project to "discover" the "true" underlying cosmology. What they actually may have been doing was forcing somewhat similar features into a single, brand new, cosmology. However, they accidentally destroyed themselves in the process and left the world with a bunch of cosmologies that didn't quite fit together. The further one got from where the Godlearners had lived, the more different things were. Likewise, over the millenia would-be "heroes" would likewise try to make their own cultures' cosmologies "universal", thus muddying things more.

To confuse matters, an example:

Among the southern barbarians there is the great Orlanth, thunder god and king of the gods. One of Orlanth's great feats was to overthrow "The Emperor" and slay him, then rescue his spirit and essentially reduce him to a deus otiosus. But the northern sun worshipping empire had no "Orlanth". However, they did have a trickster figure who accidentally killed their sun god and was forced to restore the proper order of things as punishment. So, the Godlearners combined the two--but got wiped out before they could finish the job.

So, up north, there's this pathetic little clown of a god who grants no wortwhile gifts. However, if an actual worshipper of Orlanth manages to get up north, he can still get the gifts offered by Orlanth at the shrines to this trickster. If a northern trickster makes it down south, he gets only the silly trickster gifts--unless he gets shown the "truth" about his god.

Of course, the powers that be up north make sure that barbarians don't get the opportunity to spread their "lies". Since they've made solid cultural inroads south, they are doing a better job of enforcing their version of the Sun among the barbarians.

Who has the truth? Nobody. Everybody.

 

[Reprisal]

Hmm...

I guess you're all correct about more than a few things, and I think the problem lies not with the ruleset and my perceived need to change it, but rather the nature of the players I expect will be participants. I guess what I'm doing right now is more an expression of the precautionary principle due to the fact that I've already been privy to misinterpretation of stated campaign premises and themes and the trouble that it can cause...

In other words, some of my players didn't seem to get it, and I want to prevent that in the future without seeming like I'm calling their comprehension into question. If I can give them premise and "narrative constraints" as intrinsic parts of the ruleset, then perhaps these sorts of disconnects won't happen as much...

I guess I'm of the mind that the system influences the way one roleplays just as much as characterization, premise, theme, and plot do....

*shrug*

Thanks for your input, I'll take more into consideration with these things in mind,

- Rep.

 

[RedShirtNo5]

What if you kept the outer planes, outsiders, et cetera, but just remove the "this is where you go when you die" aspect?

I did almost exactly this for a 2E campaign. I told players of clerics that their characters knew that the gods did not dwell on what was termed the "outer planes", but instead had their own realms. I also told them that although clerics of any god could cast raise dead, by ancient tradition a cleric of the goddess of death had to be present when the spell was cast or "bad things" could happen.

When the first two PCs were raised from the dead, I took the players aside and said basically, contrary to their character's expectations that they would visit their gods' realms, their only recollection was of floating in darkness for a few moments before coming awake in the temple where the spell had been cast (with the cleric of the death goddess nearby).

This actually led to some very good roleplaying. For one PC, it actually deepened his devotion to his original goddess, as he realized there were certain things he had to accept on faith. The other PC generally abandoned interest in the gods, and became interested in the abstract concept of law.

Just as a note, the players don't have to be "in" on your cosmology - the PCs can begin believing in something that they later learn is false. Groups differ, but my experience is that simply stating up front that your campaign will differ from the standard D&D theology or cosmology is enough.

Let us know what you decide to do.

-RedShirt

 

[Kahuna Burger]

Just as a note, the players don't have to be "in" on your cosmology - the PCs can begin believing in something that they later learn is false. Groups differ, but my experience is that simply stating up front that your campaign will differ from the standard D&D theology or cosmology is enough.

I second this... I think it would be very interesting to let the players determin their character's beliefs based on cultural or personal expereinces without having them know which one(s) of them were "right". Certianly given the amount of ambient magic floating about, only metagaming should even give them a hint, and if you make it clear at the outset that for instance "godless clercis exist in this world, and not all of them know it" you could have some much more realistic spiritual and intellectual seeking in characters designed for that...

Kahuna burger

 

[Nifft]

IMC, there are:

- Clerics, who must pick a deity or an aspect of a deity
- Druids, who do NOT worship deities
- Mystics, who are monotheistic
- Shamans, who revere (not worship) Spirits
- Cultists (as Clerics, but serve Arch-Fiends)

There are no Evil Gods, but Arch-Devils & Demon Princes can grant Clerical spells to Cultists.

The "true nature" of Divinity is under debate.

-- N

 

[Joshua Randall]

I think you should visit www.aquela.com and check out some of James Wyatt's writings on religion and roleplaying.