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<blockquote data-quote="Deadstop" data-source="post: 9168920" data-attributes="member: 61557">That can vary by setting.&quot;Anthropomorphic gods that are very much like big people&quot; is one option.&quot;The universe&quot; is another.&quot;One or more pools of divine energy that believers tap into&quot; (but whether they are sapient is a matter of belief)&quot;The power of collective belief.&quot;&quot;The words, gestures, and trappings of prayer and worship compel a response from the universe.&quot; (Which kind of makes divine magic a subset of arcane magic, but one that accesses different &quot;cheat codes&quot; and no one on either side of the divide admits the similarity.)Heck, adopt metaphysics similar to Mage: The Ascension and &quot;believing really hard&quot; really can alter reality, though that is a somewhat simplistic and mocking take on that game's cosmology. There, the answer to the starting question of &quot;Why have specific traditions/sources of magic if belief alone can do it&quot; is that it's not just &quot;believing really hard&quot; in the Stuart Smalley way. It's rock-solid conviction. And for most people, that's easier if there's something to believe in -- a religion like most clerics, a set of oaths like a 5e paladin, power in nature like a druid, an ancient tradition of study like a wizard, a system of beings to bargain with like a warlock, even the training and exercise of a fighter. Literally just &quot;believing in yourself&quot; is rare -- even Eberron's Blood of Vol has a whole theology of mortals as actually divine beings being held down by the Man, gnosticism-style. And those D&amp;D editions that allow clerics of non-gods usually mention &quot;philosophies and forces,&quot; not just &quot;yourself.&quot;</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Deadstop, post: 9168920, member: 61557"] That can vary by setting. "Anthropomorphic gods that are very much like big people" is one option. "The universe" is another. "One or more pools of divine energy that believers tap into" (but whether they are sapient is a matter of belief) "The power of collective belief." "The words, gestures, and trappings of prayer and worship compel a response from the universe." (Which kind of makes divine magic a subset of arcane magic, but one that accesses different "cheat codes" and no one on either side of the divide admits the similarity.) Heck, adopt metaphysics similar to [I]Mage: The Ascension[/I] and "believing really hard" really can alter reality, though that is a somewhat simplistic and mocking take on that game's cosmology. There, the answer to the starting question of "Why have specific traditions/sources of magic if belief alone can do it" is that it's not just "believing really hard" in the Stuart Smalley way. It's rock-solid conviction. And for most people, that's easier if there's something to believe [I]in [/I]-- a religion like most clerics, a set of oaths like a 5e paladin, power in nature like a druid, an ancient tradition of study like a wizard, a system of beings to bargain with like a warlock, even the training and exercise of a fighter. Literally just "believing in yourself" is rare -- even Eberron's Blood of Vol has a whole theology of mortals as actually divine beings being held down by the Man, gnosticism-style. And those D&D editions that allow clerics of non-gods usually mention "philosophies and forces," not just "yourself." [/QUOTE]

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