How Might D&D Religions Differ From Real Life Religions?

[Switchblade]

"Yeah, now prove that those are form a god, and not from some other source."

I think the "evidence of the existence that the gods exist" is way, way overstated. There's all sorts of sources of various magical events in the D&D rules - any edition. Everyone gets to produce fantastic effects. Miracles abound. What proof is there for the root origin of any of them?

Especially when the 3e rules explicitly state you can have clerics and paladins who don't follow gods. Sorry, that blows the whole, "gods clearly exist" right out of the water.

Consider: you can change the metaphysic out from under all divine powers - so they come from belief, rather than an actual god - and nothing else changes. The players don't even have to know! How strong is the case the gods must exist then?

I wasn't actually thinking divine magic being the only proof. (I've read to many fantasty novels where the priests were all secretly wizards).
I was more thinking people going to the afterlife and coming back, planar travel and that only those who seem to follow a faith can manifest certain spells while faithless wizards utilize a different sort of magic, only the faithful clerics can turn undead etc. That and clerics who stop following their god lose all their powers.

It's certainly not watertight and there is room for a skeptic to not believe but it is compelling.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Interesting topic.

The proof thing: Since mages and clerics both exist and both wield power who is to say that both abilities do not come from the gods?

One thing that could have a big influence would be direct appearance and intervention by a deity. On the other hand if powerful illusions exist who is to say that these manifestations are not created by mages and that the clerics and mages are not the "real" gods?

All in all the existence of magic and miracles in and of itself may have little impact on the nature of faith. Faith by its very nature does not require proof. And if miracles and spells are considered "proof" the question then becomes, proof of what?

 

[Janx]

I suspect part of the problem is that D&D has modeled clerics and religion "wrongly" compared to the real world polytheistic religions.

Some of this might have been intentional (ex. vancian magic is not like real world magic practices). Making it "unrealistic" might deflect some risk of heresy or offensiveness (nevermind that D&D was the satan's scapegoat in the 80's, where other darker RPGs were worse). Some of it might have been applying monotheistic thinking to a polytheistic culture.

Let's ignore monotheistic religions for a moment. Consider the old norse/greek/roman pantheons, or hinduism, which clearly had a bunch of gods that all seemed to know each other and to an extent, get along.

D&D's model of make a cleric PC and pick a deity is a "1 god only" mentality (which would potentially collide with the "get along" trait).

As others have pointed out, polytheistic cultures worship all the gods. They prey to different gods depending on their domain and need. Holy days are dedicated to different gods.

I see a couple of ways to handle polytheistic religion's in D&D.

Eberron sounds like it's on the right track. The church building would have worship and praise for all the gods in its pantheon. It might have an altar for each god (like Elder Scrolls: Oblivion). It would have 1 or more holy days per god, spread across the year. I'd probably steal holiday ideas from christianity and judaism, and paganism (topics I know). Things like equinoxes, seasons, atonement, birthdays (or god-days).

In 2e, the church was run by clerics (least the way I ran it). 3e tries to incorporate class-less folks in there, with cleric being more rare. Being more rare would probably help reduce the amount of free-miracles that would make the game get ridiculous (threads have been written on how clerics could change the world).

By making clerics rarish, I'd say you have an interesting design point. Either make the cleric still represent the pantheon (with domains coming from the pantheon approved list), OR make the cleric a champion of a god, thus justifying why they pick a specific god. Thus at the norse church, it would be run by priests with no powers. Thor's champion Clyde the Cleric might hang out there, when he's not adventuring on Thor's behalf. Clyde really digs Thor. He's not going to be working at cross-purposes because he CHOSE Thor as much as Thor chose him.

I suspect that each city or country would lock in to a single pantheon. History's rich with cultures that didn't put up with competing religions. (Rome might have been an exception). This would mainly be due to the fact that the rulers have picked a religion. Existance of another pantheon operating in their realm would imply that their choice may be wrong, and that they are therefore also potentially wrong.

So overall, I see it as a fluff issue. I can make clerics work the way they work per the rules, but adjust the fluff for my campaign world to better simulate how a polytheistic culture might operate.

 

[Cadfan]

Because the actions of the gods are manifest, there would be less motivation to create rituals or ceremonies of unclear value. Does that make sense?

In real life you might ask a priest for a blessing, he might say some things, and you might go on your way. Did a divine being intervene when that happened? Who knows. No way to tell.

But in D&D land, you know. You might actually pray less often, because you know darn well which prayers are efficacious and which are not.

 

[Janx]

Because the actions of the gods are manifest, there would be less motivation to create rituals or ceremonies of unclear value. Does that make sense?

In real life you might ask a priest for a blessing, he might say some things, and you might go on your way. Did a divine being intervene when that happened? Who knows. No way to tell.

But in D&D land, you know. You might actually pray less often, because you know darn well which prayers are efficacious and which are not.

This actually gives me an idea. Consider in the real world, if you pray before you eat (Thor, thanks for the gruel, please make sure I don't bite another rock in it), or if you pray you're next shot hits, there's not real way to know if it did any good. If you miss or chip a tooth, I suppose you can assume it didn't, or you might be out of favor with thor.

Now in D&D, imagine if there were a bunch of "cantrip" like prayers people could do that gave a real GAME effect. Bless my next attack, get a +1 to-hit on next attack within 1 round. Bless my food, get some sort of bonus towards health or purification against disease.

These kind of effects would re-inforce loyalty to a god/pantheon. People would be praying all the time for stuff, knowing they'd probably get it (if they behaved). The trick would be, non-clerics could use the weak stuff. Clerics get the big stuff.

Having some effects non-clerics can get would encourage them to do incorporate religion into their PC. Imagine Fred the fighter, stopping off at the temple to pray for strength, before the assault on the town begins. Right now, most PCs wouldn't bother, there's no effect. Grant an effect and reward for working in the gods favor (aka being a good guy), and now things get interesting.

 

[billd91]

I suspect part of the problem is that D&D has modeled clerics and religion "wrongly" compared to the real world polytheistic religions.

Some of this might have been intentional (ex. vancian magic is not like real world magic practices). Making it "unrealistic" might deflect some risk of heresy or offensiveness (nevermind that D&D was the satan's scapegoat in the 80's, where other darker RPGs were worse). Some of it might have been applying monotheistic thinking to a polytheistic culture.

Let's ignore monotheistic religions for a moment. Consider the old norse/greek/roman pantheons, or hinduism, which clearly had a bunch of gods that all seemed to know each other and to an extent, get along.

D&D's model of make a cleric PC and pick a deity is a "1 god only" mentality (which would potentially collide with the "get along" trait).

As others have pointed out, polytheistic cultures worship all the gods. They prey to different gods depending on their domain and need. Holy days are dedicated to different gods.

I see a couple of ways to handle polytheistic religion's in D&D.

Eberron sounds like it's on the right track. The church building would have worship and praise for all the gods in its pantheon. It might have an altar for each god (like Elder Scrolls: Oblivion). It would have 1 or more holy days per god, spread across the year. I'd probably steal holiday ideas from christianity and judaism, and paganism (topics I know). Things like equinoxes, seasons, atonement, birthdays (or god-days).

I don't really think D&D has necessarily gotten it very wrong. Even in polytheistic historical cultures, a lot of dedicated temples had their own specialist clergy, devoted to the mastering the mysteries and rituals of their own dedicated priesthoods. They'd be the ones responsible for the day to day operations of the temple as well as organizing and officiating over any observances related to their god's portfolio including holidays and other more personal events. But I think it does bear repeating that, with respect to the observances of other deities, they're pretty much the same as any other uninitiated congregant.

The mistake, I think, comes more at the table when players and DMs bring their own experiences with religion, overwhelmingly through the ubiquitous monotheistic religions of today.

But I agree there are points that I think traditional D&D has missed opportunities to develop what polytheism means. I don't think that's necessarily a case of being wrong as much as not exploiting an opening. I could certainly see a level of clergy that performs rituals for (and draws power from) multiple deities, something like a generic priest of a pantheon, performing the rituals appropriate to several civic gods. Similarly, there could be ways to blend the powers and responsibilities of multiple deities without requiring a cleric character to shift religions completely, and without going through the efforts of multiclassing.

I just don't think D&D has necessarily been wrong for focusing on one aspect of polytheism (the specialists) without developing the generalists.

 

[Plane Sailing]

The proof thing: Since mages and clerics both exist and both wield power who is to say that both abilities do not come from the gods?

In my Eberron campaign I replaced all clerics, wizards and sorcerers with a single class called "Scholar", which basically was like a wizard but with d6 HD and the spell list was drawn from the full cleric list as well as the full wizard list.

Some scholars worked for the temples and claimed their powers were drawn from the gods. Other scholars worked for themselves and claimed their powers were the result of science or occult studies or whatever.

It made for a neat twist on my setting.

 

[Janx]

Here's another wierd thought:

let's say the Cleric is a champion given powers by his deity. If clerics are too rare, then cleric magic effects may cause societal problems.

Consider if you had the only Cleric in D&D in the campaign region or world. If he starts using his cleric powers to help people, folks are going to flock to him, because NOBODY can do what he can do. The guy could start his own religion. Basically, being too rare, could cause cults of personality and other unanticipated effects.

If there's enough clerics around to be seen as heroes, not so uncommon as to be REALLY special, but special enough. You'd have the sweet spot. The cleric-normals ratio would probably be equivalent to what other leveled PC classes occur as in society.

 

[Umbran]

Because the actions of the gods are manifest...

The actions of characters casting spells may be manifest - but that's not the same as the clear actions of the gods themselves. The Core Rules don't have rules for deity avatars walking around, last I checked.

But in D&D land, you know.

But do you, really? You know somebody cast a spell. You don't know the source of the power. You know what the caster says (or thinks) the source is, but that's not the same as knowing for sure.

Remember - Bards (arcane casters) had Cure Light Wounds.

The proof thing: Since mages and clerics both exist and both wield power who is to say that both abilities do not come from the gods?

Yep. Good question.

My point in pursuing the idea that there's no actual proof is to dispel the idea that the populace would necessarily view things in a particular way due to "evidence". There are multiple possible explanations that are consistent with the observations, so the populace could believe just about anything.

Monotheist, polytheist, agnostic, atheist, are all possible and reasonable. There are few thigns that must happen, and few that cannot happen. I view this as a strength of the system - being easily able to work with many different cosmologies, and supporting clashes of world views between either individual people or whole cultures.

 

[Yair]

Eberron had a very interesting take on D&D deities.

I didn't like Eberron, but was very impressed with its take on religion. Still planning on getting its Faiths of Eberron book, sometime.



I think the core 4e take on religion is pretty solid. It emphasizes that the worship is polytheistic, with only the clerics being servants of specific gods. That's a reasonable-enough possibility.

The apparant power of the deities and the ability to summon and commune with them or high-ranking servants of them means that there would not be schisms or heresies. There won't be atheists, either. (Yes, technically you could maintain gods aren't "proven" to exist; in practice, people will generally believe their representatives, angels, and avatars.)

It's possible, however, that people will be less pious in their religous practice. This depends on two things - afterlife, and the god's power. If the god's power is limited to priestly-brone miracles, as it largely is in the RAW, and if a good afterlife is not dependant on high piety - then people will actually be less pious. Worship would be a much more buisness-like, trasnactional thing (generally). If your afterlife is dependant on your adherence to the god's demands, or the god's magic extends to beyond what the priest can wield, your continous and devout worship is far more advantageous and hence will be far more common.

In the one time I developed a cosmology, for D&D 3.5, the afterlife was based on your character in life, but the god's dogmas were designed to help you lead the proper life. So you could not believe in any god yet reach eternal bliss in the afterlife - but that would be rare in practice, and practically you've better stick to some dogma if you want a good afterlife.