Importance of Religion in the Campain

[Altamont Ravenard]

I think I'll be trying to make Religion less important in my next campaign.

That's something that's always bothered me a little with D&D, I think. If you know that gods exist, that there is an afterlife that will depend on your standing with your god when you die, and that the most dedicated of followers can perform such feats as cure diseases and raise the dead, why wouldn't you live your life strictly according to the dogma of a certain faith?

IMO, with this particular context, I can't see how a "normal" D&D campaign wouldn't be totally theocentric.

In my next campaign, there will still be gods, but they will be distant, aloof, and almost alien. Sure, clerical magic will exist, but no cleric will ever be sure that his powers actually come from a particular god. Also, I plan on using Cloistered Clerics (UA) instead of normal clerics, to represent that divine magical ability also comes from research, and not just faith.

AR

 

[Tatsukun]

the gods are real in D&D.

so religion plays a real role.

churches. rituals. theocracies. holy wars. divine magic.

all of it hinges on religion. and how faithful you are...

tithes.

Well, in my DnD game, the existance of the gods is debated. The people using divine spells cast them via a set of ancient runes. The religious claim the runes come from a god, the non-religious think it's just like arcane magic.

I had a lot of fun watching the Paladin in the group try to convince an old inn keeper lady his goddess was real.

Good times!

-Tatsu

 

[barsoomcore]

Barsoom is low on religion. When I was setting things up, I thought about it, and decided I didn't want to deal with it.

Religion is IMMENSELY complicated. It's tied up in metaphysics, science, culture, history, economics -- all sorts of things. And then you add magic to the mix, and gods who actually visit the world from time to time...

I dunno. I have seen almost no RPG religions that didn't make me giggle. Iron Kingdoms isn't bad. But I find so much of "Christian churches with pagan gods at the altar" sort of thing that's just kind of silly.

It's okay if that's your kind of game, for sure, but I didn't want that for Barsoom and rather than try to figure it all out, I just kind of said "No religion on Barsoom," and then came up with a reason for it, did a lot of hand-waving and left it at that.

That and holidays are two design decisions on Barsoom that I kind of regret. I didn't come up with any religious life and I didn't invent any holidays. Both decisions leave the world lacking in a certain something.

 

[Charberus]

I feel as if everyone said what i was going to say. So, when i saw your revised list, I thought i would give some ideas. Here are some ideas::

1) Instead of changing the way healing/rezzing works. You should apply the change to how faithful the person is to their deity. It doesnt help trying to convert people to deities of healing/protection if their main focus is healing...and they cant heal other people very well. That way, if a person who is really favorable in their deity...they can heal other people better.

2) Have helpers and places of refuge for the players. Let them have a place that can help them follow in their path of their deity, and guide them on what they should do or shouldnt do. This could be on having items on discount, or perhaps an artifact entrusted to the player in a difficult task. Let the NPC be there for the player...and let the player be there for the NPC.

3) Walking the path isnt always as easy as it sounds. Following the faith isnt supposed to be a walk in the park. There are always trials and moments of questioning that the religous person must face. This is a great way to make religion more imporant in a campaign. It doesnt have to be an actual 'kill X or Save X' moral decision. It could be something as big as a quest, or small like having an npc trying to foil the player's religious walk.

I hope this helps.

 

[the Jester]

1. How important is Religion in your campaign [does it play a more important role than what i described above]?

2. Can you recommend anything to make Religion more important?

The very first thing I thought about when I created my current campaign world was religion. The entire 'first arc' of the campaign involved the Jesus-figure of the campaign growing into his role. Strong religious themes run through a variety of other major plot threads; the entire campaign setting is in the midst of what is, essentially, a religious war provoked by the resurgance of an ancient religion that was forgotten/essentially dead.

To make religion a more important factor in-game, I suggest using religious holidays and such ("we're invited to a ball on Boccob's Birthday"), using churches as much more than a simple "place to buy healing", and illustrating the piety of commoner and expert npcs. I generally have problems with religions that will raise the dead of other faiths willy-nilly or without a very good rason; I find it... problematic to justify. Never forget that if a cleric violates his ethos he can lose his powers and spells just like a paladin (though it's obviously easier for a strict paladin to fall than a cleric of an easy-going god).

If you make a list of the top 'pillars' of each major religion in the campaign, and occasionally use them as major motivations for npcs ("hello, stranger- alms for the poor?", or "WAIT! You must not pass into the city without a hat on during the day, or the gods will curse us!"), you'll be drawing the pcs a picture of faith in the land. Prolly this is better than telling them- seeing the religion in action is often more vivid and tends to draw the pcs in more than a one-paragraph writeup about it.

Hope this provokes an idea or two for ya!

 

[Li Shenron]

In different campaigns we have seen the role of religion being more or less important, but always present. For us, the religious theme provides

(1) adventure seeds: usually in very simple forms, such as a temple of a faith sending the group on a quest, but a good DM can design an inticate plot to cover an entire campaign

(2) roleplay ideas: this concerns every character, not just clerics or paladins! While the choice of a class is the strong starting point to "gameplay" your character, the usual starting point to "roleplay" it is the alignment, but that isn't such a strong point. Instead, as soon as you add a faith to your PC, you immediately have lots of suggestions about how to roleplay her/him.

I agree that mechanical changes come only afterwards, and are largely unnecessary. But definitely I like the ideas of reduced costs at a temple of your faith (already used in many occasions in fact), and of resurrection limited to people of the same religion (never used before, but makes very sense).

 

[Dog Moon]

I appreciate all the suggestions and am glad that people weren't simply giving me more mechanics to add on how to make religion more important in my campaign. The mechanics seemed to be the easiest part of this. I am working on trying to create some holidays for the religion, some of which the public can enjoy and some that the public don't necessarily know about, but of which the PCs can still participate in if they are of that particular religion.

Thinking about the Church in the Eld days of England was helpful. I do not remember TOO much about it, but IIRC, the church was as influential as the King, if not more so. In some places, the churches could rule a city or area and sort of force people to do something like "WAIT! You must not pass into the city without a hat on during the day, or the gods will curse us!" is an interesting idea. In other areas, the church might not actually rule the area, but they are either behind the scenes (if an evil deity perhaps) or they are the true power behind the King.

I do want to add in a few things such as dress or physical appearance, not quite like the pics in the 2e Faiths and Avatars at the beginning where it has the cleric's dress for the various deities, which also helps to add the feel that religion plays a more important role than just going to church every Sunday for example.

Of course, there's more info that people suggested that I haven't commented on, but I haven't ignored you. I do find two things interesting though:

1. I hadn't realized how important religion was to people. I figured most people were probably about halfway between where I'm starting and where I'm trying to end up, sort of like the religions are a presence, but they aren't highly present.

2. Most of the people who posted here do not seem to have any prewritten pantheons, such as the Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk pantheons, for example, though I know that plenty others exist. I've always liked the Faerunian pantheon and am using that, though not the world. It seems easier to make a world with this pantheon more religious centered than trying a campaign where people aren't sure of their existence or something similar.

 

[S'mon]

Trust me, with that attitude the player characters start to find faith awfully fast. Keep in mind there should be no question on the validity of gods in D&D as clerical spells are a certainty. Anybody who denies they exist is clearly insane.

Except that the gods are not necessarily the source of Clerical spells, certainly in 3e. They may be purely derived from the Cleric's faith and ability to manipulate impersonal cosmic forces.

 

[S'mon]

I dunno. I have seen almost no RPG religions that didn't make me giggle. Iron Kingdoms isn't bad. But I find so much of "Christian churches with pagan gods at the altar" sort of thing that's just kind of silly.

What a wonderfully perfect description of D&D religion.

 

[Hussar]

My Shelzar campaign uses religion extensively (even if it is a bit of the Christian gawds at the pagan altars sort of thing). Scarred Lands is pretty religion intensive, so it should be played up all the time. Even in a city as immoral as Shelzar has religious festivals almost every other week. Those festivals have become a fairly big part of the ongoing campaign and have really helped to ground the group in the setting. Because I'm using a city based campaign, it's tricky to get the players to actually care about the city. Toss in a bit of pageantry and some really wild festivals, and it seemed to do the trick.

That and perhaps a rather lengthy description of the carvings of 1001 Shelzari nights on the temple of Idra might have helped. The slideshow certainly kept their attention for a while.

In the game I play in, I play a priest of Cuthbert with a major cult complex. He believes that fire will purify the world and that all the guilty must be purified with fire. I borrowed heavily from gnostic and alchemical writings to come up with his dogma. It actually didn't take that long. Google searches can come up with some pretty interesting basic concepts that you can use to springboard up to a fully fledged cult. The character constantly talks about fire and purity and delights in purifying the sinners. (no pun intended) Religion has become a major forcus for me as the player, mostly because I chose to make it a focus. I really dislike it when players ignore their gawds when they play priests. Clerics should be every bit as annoying and limited as paladins within the sphere of their own dogma. I fail to understand how people can justify playing a priest that never even bothers to mention their diety's name. If cleric's were played properly, we wouldn't need paladins.