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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 6758914" data-attributes="member: 2067">Nah, the idea is that I might want to follow a god who understands the concept of Justice, and isn't cool with good people who accomplish noble deeds in life being given awful, eternal afterlives. It certainly wouldn't be out of character in a setting where religion worked like it did in Rome to play a heroic character who <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_ancient_Rome#Jews_and_Roman_religion" target="_blank">eschewed the dominant state religion</a>, and even one who might <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantine_the_Great" target="_blank">change the very nature of that religion</a>.  And it's not like the Romans cared about what the Gauls were doing, religion-wise - they weren't Romans, so it didn't matter. Like most polytheism, religion in ancient Rome was about your practices, not about your beliefs. Also, did you read the section on Dragonborn? There's a group of characters who already think the dominant religious melieu isn't worth much.So we've established that it's not a setting requirement to have a god in the same way that it's a setting requirement in Dark Sun that arcane casters are trouble - it's not an inherent law of the setting or its conceits. It is possible for it to be otherwise and retain its essential character.This is D&D. FR is just one world among many. On any other world, you die and you go to the plane corresponding to your alignment. Why did AO and his little minions decide otherwise? It seems like its purpose was basically to force people to pay homage to a deity OR ELSE, which means the entire pantheon is guilty of a deep and abiding cruelty for the purposes of enhancing their own power. This is the kind of thing that should lead to heroic novels about overthrowing the unjust tyranny of the corrupt gods, not blasé acceptance. Anyone who thinks this is a thing that isn't coming up is ignoring the last 6 pages wherein people give examples of where it comes up. Hell, reading that made me think about my current HotDQ campaigns, wherein nobody who isn't a cleric has ever mentioned a deity. I suppose their moments of life-and-death struggle must be filled with people screaming "I won't be mortar today!" You could get away with leaving it background material, but if you take your characters' beliefs seriously, you encounter the problem right away. In this way, it actively discourages you to think about what your character thinks about. Not a great result.</blockquote>

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