D&D General If faith in yourself is enough to get power, do we need Wizards and Warlocks etc?

[Vaalingrade]

The rules in the book are not the laws of physics in the world.

Even in D&D, God does not dice with the universe.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Just because you find something incoherent does not make it inherently so. I think it is perfectly coherent, since we are talking about things that exist only in make-believe and not based in any objective reality.

Fictional does not mean, "Do whatever you want, nothing needs to make sense as long as you're following the mechanics".

 

[Micah Sweet]

I always by PCs and former PCs can break rules and subvert concepts. NPCs cannot.

PCs don't have be stereotypes but NPCs will struggle not to.

I think PCs shouldn't be any different from NPCs, except a player is controlling the former.

 

[Ancalagon]

That is a world building question and the asnwer is what ever you want/makes sense to you.

"The power of love, etc." on the part of the game designers is a way out of addressing all the countless ways power could be obtained and to sidestep the total lack of understanding of polytheism in the original design of D&D.

I have pretty strong opinions on "how magic should work" from a world building point of view... and those opinions matter most for my own games. Of course we can debate on what works, what makes sense etc, but you are 100% right that ultimately, what matters is that it works for the user

Re power of love and designers: I also suspect it's for a subset of players who are aggressively atheists. I've seen more than one discussions where the notion that gods exists within a setting is quite off putting to said subset.

 

[Hawk Diesel]

Fictional does not mean, "Do whatever you want, nothing needs to make sense as long as you're following the mechanics".

From the merriam-webster dictionary.

Fictional. Adjective. Of, relating to, characterized by, or occurring in fiction : invented by the imagination.

Mechanics may serve a fiction. But fiction does not need to be ruled by the mechanics.

 

[DarkCrisis]

I have pretty strong opinions on "how magic should work" from a world building point of view... and those opinions matter most for my own games. Of course we can debate on what works, what makes sense etc, but you are 100% right that ultimately, what matters is that it works for the user

Re power of love and designers: I also suspect it's for a subset of players who are aggressively atheists. I've seen more than one discussions where the notion that gods exists within a setting is quite off putting to said subset.

They can imagine demons and elves and dragons and giants and magic casting frog people. But gods akin to Greek Gods are just to much...

 

[Micah Sweet]

I have pretty strong opinions on "how magic should work" from a world building point of view... and those opinions matter most for my own games. Of course we can debate on what works, what makes sense etc, but you are 100% right that ultimately, what matters is that it works for the user

Re power of love and designers: I also suspect it's for a subset of players who are aggressively atheists. I've seen more than one discussions where the notion that gods exists within a setting is quite off putting to said subset.

And again, if that's a problem, just don't use divine classes.

 

[Ancalagon]

I believe in Crystal Lite, 'cause I believe in me! I've always disliked the idea of clerics who get their powers from abstract concepts, or the "warm and fuzzies" as I like to call it. I prefer them to have a connection to a deity and for said deity to remove powers when the cleric doesn't keep the faith.

aha! That's another reason some players want to believe in a vague principle vs a deity - to deny the DM's capacity to have the Deity have some control/influence over the behavior of their PC.

 

[Minigiant]

I think PCs shouldn't be any different from NPCs, except a player is controlling the former.

PC by the rules are different from NPCs in mechanics and assumptions.

 

[DarkCrisis]

aha! That's another reason some players want to believe in a vague principle vs a deity - to deny the DM's capacity to have the Deity have some control/influence over the behavior of their PC.

"You may not believe in the gods, but they believe in you."