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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Phantarch" data-source="post: 6780627" data-attributes="member: 6801685">I drive on the right side of the road in the United States, so it makes absolutely no sense that I can't drive on the right side of the road in England.That argument doesn't hold up because they are completely different locations with completely different laws and rules. The reasons for those are many, nuanced, and varied, but it doesn't do you a whole lot of good to cite American law in an English court or vice versa.Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk aren't even in the same universe; they are on completely different planes of existence. Expecting them to have the same rules seems like a bit of a stretch to me. In real world physics, there are hypothetical arguments that alternate universes in the multiverse may have completely different laws of physics and not function at all like our universe. Why would we expect metaphysics to remain constant across the multiverse?Now, I'm not really familiar with Planescape material. How many different prime material planes are actually presented? Are the metaphysics of each one presented exactly like Greyhawk? Does Forgotten Realms really standout as the one exception?When I compare D&D campaign settings that I'm familiar with, there really isn't any sort of consistency to the afterlife. Greyhawk follows the Great Wheel model where souls go to their alignment planes. Forgotten Realms is a modified version where all souls go to the fugue plane first. Dark Sun has everyone go to the Grey with NO hope of going past that (and no gods). Eberron has Dolurrh which seems about the same as the Grey, except that numerous religions preach that your soul will be joined with your deity in the after-afterlife, though there is no tangible evidence of that. (If anything, Greyhawk stands out as not having a crappy, depressing place as the first stop of your soul).In short, I think there are plenty of arguments for allowing the Forgotten Realms to stand alone without holding it up to the standard of Greyhawk or Planescape. The more compelling argument to me are the different continents on Toril that apparently have different afterlives. That, to me, is probably a result of trying to force different campaign settings onto a single world, which is really just poor design choice.Anyway, I should clarify that I have no problems with a character deciding the wall is evil and wanting to destroy it. I just think there are going to be in world consequences, and the character shouldn't be surprised if the common people view him as a heretic. Now, I might get annoyed if the same player played every single character in the Forgotten Realms as having the same views and goals, but I still wouldn't outright ban it. I also am of the camp that their are plenty of ways for a devout character and an atheist to work together. Heck, I think it'd be hilarious roleplaying to have the cleric give a little dig with each healing spell. "Guess you needed some divine help, afterall..." I'm also totally fine with the campaign ideas of rescuing the people from Toril and its crazy gods. Go for it!What I have been arguing against is the concept that there is no justification for the metaphysics of the Forgotten Realms and that it is inherently wrong. A lot of the arguments in this thread have seemed less "I should be able to play an atheist character" and more "playing a good, devout character is impossible". As such, I have tried to present numerous explanations and justifications for how the metaphysics can be interpreted in such a way that allows for good and devout characters.And, as I said, I find statements of "that is wrong" to be boring. It is far more interesting to take seemingly incongruous facts and try to make a cohesive whole out of it.Fact: The Good gods are good.Fact: Faithless are tormented and put into the Wall.Easy and boring: That is wrong.Complex, interesting, and entertaining: How can I make this work?</blockquote>

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