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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Yaarel" data-source="post: 7157287" data-attributes="member: 58172">@<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/member.php?u=6778044" target="_blank">Ilbranteloth</a>,Your post suggests how formative D&D becomes more and more fixated on polytheism. Even so, its increase is ad hoc, conflictive, incomplete, and inconsistent.With regard to the 1e Cleric class, the mentions of ‘a deity or deities’ included the possibility of monotheistic campaign settings that only have one deity.A Cleric can be of any alignment, unless it conflicts with their deity. Meaning. In a monotheistic setting, the Cleric might be restricted to certain alignments. Or else lack access to the higher level Cleric spells.With regard to the Druid class, the literal ‘trees’, ‘sun’ and ‘moon’ are figuratively called ‘deities’. In other words, the Druid engages nature veneration. The rules somewhat misuse the word ‘deity’. In the context of 1e rules, ‘deity’ seems to serve as a technical term that extends to include any kind of sacred concept. To be fair, the term ‘deity’ is more abstract, and can mean ‘godness’ rather than a ‘god’. The Druid lacks actual gods, but rules referring to Cleric spells sometimes conflictively apply to Druids too.The sales pitch notwithstanding, the 1e Deities and Demigods is an optional splatbook. Gygax appears to adopt polytheism for his own campaign setting, but stops short of imposing it on other DMs who already have their own established campaign settings. Curiously, Gygax recommends polytheism because he uses it to police the alignment system. For me, neither the polytheism nor the policing of alignment are appealing. Alignment is only useful when it is descriptive, rather than prescriptive. Whenever D&D tries to coerce the alignment system, it becomes unpleasant, even inane. Additionally, polytheism is an unfun nonstarter.The D&D 1e Players Handbook empowered the DM to supply whatever setting the players would use, along with any kind of religious system appropriate to it, whether monotheistic, polytheistic, or other. By the time of the 3e Players Handbook, D&D becomes more dependent on official setting assumptions, with less room for DM responsibility. But even it has safety-valves. For example, the 3e SRD minimizes setting assumptions, and the Cleric class at least mentions how a Cleric might lack a deity. Thus the player at least gets a heads up, how the setting might be monotheistic, polytheistic, or philosophical. By the time of 5e, the Players Handbook freezes out DM choice of monotheism; polytheism is totalitarian, and there are insufficient safety valves.</blockquote>

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