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How to make a believable pantheon for a homebrew world.
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<blockquote data-quote="Li Shenron" data-source="post: 6201418" data-attributes="member: 1465"><p>One option could be to pick some real-world religions, replace all real-world names and terms, and then modify the details here and there.</p><p></p><p>As you say, the main difference between D&D religions and real-life religions, is that the former are primarily a matter of <em>allegiance</em> while the latter are primarily a matter of <em>belief</em>. There is no such thing as "I don't believe in Hextor" in D&D because there is no question on what deities exist, they just do; instead, it's a matter of what side do you pick (if you pick a side at all).</p><p></p><p>The difficulty in representing a more realistic take on religions, is that belief is also added, but eventually there is disagreement at every possible level, even at the level at which some pretend they don't believe but rather <em>know</em>, while others that it is impossible to know.</p><p></p><p>This means, that real-world religions have a lot of overlapping: for instance all monotheistic religions essentially believe in Good, but clearly they often have heated discussions to say the least. </p><p></p><p>All in all I'd say that you'll have to tread carefully between making religious powers tangible, and not being able to reveal much about which religion is true if any.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I would expect it to look like every other pantheon. With few exceptions, "False" will be what others think when look at it, but its believers will see it as "True". The exceptions are for true hoaxes, but even they need to make believe it's "True" for the hoax to work.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>IMHO no, it's not rewarding, unless maybe to a very experienced roleplayer. Simply because it's difficult to roleplay through such a big change in character. The average player may even take it personally if you force her to deal with this without agreeing together beforehand.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Yes. I suppose you can actually DM a religion-fiction campaign (think The Da Vinci Code) to be a success. Although IMO that kind of story works well if it's based on actually the real world, i.e. if you have the characters live in our world, and discover some uncomfortable truths about real-world religions. If you make them exist in a totally fantasy world with totally fantasy religions, chances are they couldn't care less for fantasy deities to be proved false or different.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Li Shenron, post: 6201418, member: 1465"] One option could be to pick some real-world religions, replace all real-world names and terms, and then modify the details here and there. As you say, the main difference between D&D religions and real-life religions, is that the former are primarily a matter of [I]allegiance[/I] while the latter are primarily a matter of [I]belief[/I]. There is no such thing as "I don't believe in Hextor" in D&D because there is no question on what deities exist, they just do; instead, it's a matter of what side do you pick (if you pick a side at all). The difficulty in representing a more realistic take on religions, is that belief is also added, but eventually there is disagreement at every possible level, even at the level at which some pretend they don't believe but rather [I]know[/I], while others that it is impossible to know. This means, that real-world religions have a lot of overlapping: for instance all monotheistic religions essentially believe in Good, but clearly they often have heated discussions to say the least. All in all I'd say that you'll have to tread carefully between making religious powers tangible, and not being able to reveal much about which religion is true if any. I would expect it to look like every other pantheon. With few exceptions, "False" will be what others think when look at it, but its believers will see it as "True". The exceptions are for true hoaxes, but even they need to make believe it's "True" for the hoax to work. IMHO no, it's not rewarding, unless maybe to a very experienced roleplayer. Simply because it's difficult to roleplay through such a big change in character. The average player may even take it personally if you force her to deal with this without agreeing together beforehand. Yes. I suppose you can actually DM a religion-fiction campaign (think The Da Vinci Code) to be a success. Although IMO that kind of story works well if it's based on actually the real world, i.e. if you have the characters live in our world, and discover some uncomfortable truths about real-world religions. If you make them exist in a totally fantasy world with totally fantasy religions, chances are they couldn't care less for fantasy deities to be proved false or different. [/QUOTE]
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