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

[Umbran]

*zaps him again

Repetition, even 13 years later, does not support the case.

 

[aramis erak]

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?

In AD&D1E & 2E, and in Cyclopedia, the "Gods" had a very clear and impressive display... When they appear in manifestation, all mortals must save or be frozen, and it's not easy. There's also the inherent at will magic resistance... and antimagic at will, as well.

An AD&D deity can, in their presence, stop any mage or cleric. More importantly, tho', the clerics. A cleric in good stead gets 1st and 2nd level by belief and investure from the deity. 3rd to (IIRC) 5th are granted from the subordinates, and 6th and 7th (remember, those editions only went to 7 spell levels for Clerics). A cleric in bad stead with their deity can't cast at all... (Details in Spelljammer and at least one other AD&D2E)

Clerical magic has this key difference: if they don't behave according to their deity's rules, they lose their power. A wizard doesn't. But neither casts in the presence of a deity without permission or a really high level of experience.

D&D Deities, however, are not even as deific as the traditional pagan deities of our world were claimed to be in the eras and places of their worship. (Which includes several still in use, including Hinduism, Asatru, Hellenism, and Shinto.) But they are a known factor of/in the settings. They do, however, take a much more obvious and active role.

My joking answer was that there would be not much difference between the behavior of pantheon-based societies from a monotheism-based societies. That's the real question, to my mind, because most people in polytheism-based societies were pretty sure that their gods existed because they worked miracles every day.*

The big difference is likely to be the level of liturgical formality and uniformity. The dominant modern religions are monotheistic and liturgically formal. Each has multiple sects with variations on the liturgical praxis - both required of the faithful and required of the clergy.
Many also have optional praxis additions.

In a "single pantheon with multiple different faces" - such as the Hellenists and Romano-Hellenists, where each major deity was a 1:1 correspondence in each pantheon, the real world praxis differed, slightly to moderately... when Rome added Egypt to the Empire, they correlated again, and praxis widened. There was little uniformity. And the formality for many was low - libations for the deities of wine, for example, are a very low formality... but were highly uniform in the Romano-Hellenistic world.

With active and magic-granting deities, how that affects psychology depends upon how invested one has to be to get magic...
If it's RuneQuest style "everyone gets a little, priests get more" and the deities don't zipyank spells just for doubt... it's going to be pretty ritualized but also only as formal as grabbing the right tool for the job. If the spells require dedicated belief, and everyone has access to some, and jealous patrons will withdraw their spells from anyone doubting, it's going to reinforce that they exist (even if they don't), because belief is important in the visible miracles.

 

[Zubatcarteira]

It'll just depend on the gods' personalities, if they're fine with their followers praying to others, if they need prayers to survive, if they can communicate with mortals, and if the pantheon as a whole has some agreement regarding on who can get prayers from who. You can't really compare it to real life pantheons since the gods can just work in completely different ways, and societies in the game should be a lot different with magic, monsters and devils undeniably existing.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

I suposse you are talking about "monolatry", when you worship only one deity, but you accept the existence of others. Somebody says the ancient Israel was closer monolatry than true monotheist, and maybe it was true, at least for a time.

For storytelling elements, I miss the vestiges from3.5 Pact of Magic. I liked the idea of potential conflicts between the binders and the divine spellcasters. Also I love the psionic ardent, because these were perfect to create stories about hate-love relations with the rest of divine spellcasters. Here Asian philosophies could be a source of inspiration.

Sometimes I imagine a new class mixing the summoner from Pathfinder, the vestige binder, and the incarnum totemist shaman, about summoning totem spirits and these giving monster traits as "feats". Some powers would work like martial maneuvers, the middle point between at-will and once-encounter.

 

[ART!]

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.

This has been my experience. On to of that, popular culture tends to deal in stereotypes, so lots of assumptions are made about spiritual thought and practices, churches, etc. Without efforts to prevent it, at the table the result of all that tends to be bland portrayals of large religions, "primitive" belief systems, and their leaders and practitioners.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

We shouldn't forget the possible complains about cultural apropiation if we used elements based in no-Western cultures.

Other point is if a commoner can see with their own eyes divine spellcasters or a supernatural monster, then he worries about the trial in the afterlife and the eternal punishment. Even the richest social classes would think twice about the salvations of their souls.

 

[jeffh]

Setting aside most of the discussion and just touching on the original question, the biggest thing for me is that in a world like the Realms where the deities can be pretty active in directly interacting with mortals, there should be a lot fewer doctrinal disputes. When you can go on Reddit and see a thread that says "I'm literally Athena, goddess of wisdom, AMA" it seems like it would be a lot easier to get these things sorted.

 

[ART!]

What features of real life religions couldn't apply to D&D religions?

What features probably wouldn't apply?

In what ways would (or could) D&D religions mirror real life religions?

There are no wrong answers, or at least I don't think there are.

Your thoughts?

Assuming a setting where the existence of the gods is clear and not in question - the result of their repeated and clear presence and intercession in people's lives:

With actual proven gods whose agendas are clearer, there would be less doubt about whether to fight the other folks who worship the other proven god with the other clear agenda that threatens your gods agenda. This assumes that any given god will want their worshipers to fight for their agenda.

There might be more understanding between the followers of different gods, since there would be less interpretation of gods' agendas? this doesn't mean more or less fighting, of course.

"Mirror real life religions" gets into too many assumptions about "religion", which is a term often used to cover too many things, so I'm just going to skip that.

 

[Haiku Elvis]

Assuming a setting where the existence of the gods is clear and not in question - the result of their repeated and clear presence and intercession in people's lives:

With actual proven gods whose agendas are clearer, there would be less doubt about whether to fight the other folks who worship the other proven god with the other clear agenda that threatens your gods agenda. This assumes that any given god will want their worshipers to fight for their agenda.

There might be more understanding between the followers of different gods, since there would be less interpretation of gods' agendas? this doesn't mean more or less fighting, of course.

"Mirror real life religions" gets into too many assumptions about "religion", which is a term often used to cover too many things, so I'm just going to skip that.

Or to put it another way

"Most witches don’t believe in gods. They know that the gods exists, of course. They even deal with them occasionally. But they don’t believe in them. They know them too well. It would be like believing in the postman."
Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

I have watched in youtube a video telling a sypnosis of the Korean supernatural thriller "Hellbound", and the social impact of certain doubtless supernatural event. And it is curious because, and it is not a true spoiler if I say it, the consecuences of the faith without mercy. Everybody accepts there is a supernatural punishment for the sinners, and most of people try to be better, but the fear to the hell without mercy, is a very bad combo. They want to save their lives and their souls, but they forget ethical values as the respect of the human dignity. Let's imagine the family of a sinner punished by a outsider, being rejected by the rest of the society.