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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6702119" data-attributes="member: 4937">That's one of my biggest pet peeves.  To a certain extent I don't mind that players take very modern (or modernist) approaches to religion in the game world.  But the fact that the settings themselves are so anachronistic annoys me to no end.  The NPCs at least ought to clearly be products of their culture.Why do these polytheists always and only have single patron deities... and absolutely no other religious connections?  Why do these polytheists pray to only one god all the time, especially given how limited each gods sphere actually is?Why do these polytheists only worship or propitiate deities that they love? Why do these polytheists only worship or propitiate deities that they morally agree with?Why do these polytheists only worship things that are clearly gods as gods, as opposed to also some fairies, ancestors, trees, rivers, springs, and mortal kings?Why are these polytheists so apparently irreligious despite the abundantly evident and involved power of the gods?Why are there clearly separate sacred and secular spheres?Why is faith remotely important in this polytheistic setting, or why would anyone in the setting equate religion with faith?Why would any of these deities care if they had 'believers' or if someone had 'faith' in them?Why are each of the cults or religions so darn exclusive?  Why aren't more pairs, groups and families of gods jointly worshiped?Rather than analyzing why D&D religion is so badly done, I'll just give some pointers on how I think you fix it.1) The best done 'religion' book in the history of D&D is 'The Book of the Righteous' by Aaron Leob.  It should be on everyone's shelf, if only for provoking DMs to rethink what they are doing.2) In particular, one area most invented religions and particular D&D religions fall down completely is believably deep and interesting deities.  If you are looking for a different well done polytheistic pantheon, I'd suggest the novel 'Curse of Chalion' by Lois Bujold.  Bujold does with 5 deities more than most writers do with dozens.   The theology for me starts to show holes by the third novel, but the overall approach is really well done and would make for a great cosmology for a DM that just wanted to boot up something simple, easy to explain to the players, and get going.3) The second best done books 'religion' books for D&D are the 2nd edition "Faiths & Avatars" books, but unfortunately these are done for the Faerun deities which are some of the least interesting ever published.  The understanding of what is needed in a game supplement to add depth is spot on.  The understanding of what makes for depth in the actual subject matter is wholly lacking.  Even if you only wanted religion to serve a gamist purpose (god of good fighters, god of evil fighters, god of thieves, god of magic-users, god of good clerics, god of paladins, god of rangers, god of druids, various gods of BBEG's, etc.), I think even Nethack hits the gamist sweet spot in religion better than the Forgotten Realms does.4) Gygax's general treatment of religion is I think deliberately shallow (though occasionally alternatingly personal and provocative), but one area that he's absolutely astounding in is the real depth he shows in his iconography.  As settings, his temples are without peer in the literature, and as a full blown egyptophile his later work in fantasy Egyptian settings is really worth your time as a DM if you want to do either Egyptian pantheons or pastiches of them.  The Greyhawk deities show some of the same flaws as the Forgotten Realms deities (they hardly could do otherwise starting from personages like St. Cuthbert), but are generally a cut or two above them in originality and scope.5) Cordell's "Bastion of Faith" is a very interesting Gygaxian 'good' temple (something Gygax didn't really explore in published works) and which is I think a good example making religion more believably integral to the daily life of a community, particularly in a world of daily miracles and unquestionably involved and active deities.  It still vaguely Catholicism in fantasy drag though, like pretty much all D&D religions.6) Far and away the best thing each DM could do if they wanted a believably ancient pastiche of polytheism was make a real study of pre-Christian religion and how it impacted peoples daily lives.  In particular, my personal feeling is that the implied cosmology of D&D makes the Etruscan and early Greek religious model more functional than the Roman/late Greek model, and its interesting to sort of imagine what the ancient world might have been like with the Etruscans ruling the Mediterranean, perhaps with the Phoenicians as their great early rival instead of Carthage.7) A good example of the problem is that in a typical D&D setting, pastiche Sparta would have the patron god Ares and that would be about it.  Everyone would worship Ares, the church of Ares (note, he'd have a 'church') would be detailed as 'The Catholic Church partially reimagined as if Ares was monotheistically worshipped'.  While actual Sparta had only 1 of 150 temples devoted to Ares, where his statue was kept in chains to keep him from ever leaving the city to help its enemies, and most of its rites that revolved around Apollo, Athena, Artemis and various forms of ancestor and hero worship often in joint celebrations devoted to multiple deities.</blockquote>

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