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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Elder-Basilisk" data-source="post: 4807224" data-attributes="member: 3146">I would argue that it is essential to figure this out when you design the setting, regardless of whether or not the players figure it out. (Most especially if the point of having it in the game is to explore the difference between polytheists and monotheists). If you want to have a coherent campaign world where the actions of the divine NPCs can be made sense of, you need to know what the real state of the game world is so that you do not just do whatever seems kewl at the time and end up with an incoherent campaign world filled with more plot-holes than a Mission Impossible movie. It's no fun to explore something that the DM is making up as he goes along.Now all of this is not to say that you have to tell the players what is going on. My own preferred method would be to tell the players exactly and only what their characters can experience and let them (accurately or innaccurately) piece together the truth behind it. I think the Arcanis campaign setting from Paradigm Concepts is an excellent example of this (though there is no monotheism/polytheism divide in that setting). They give plenty of information about the gods to play divine casters or devotees of the various faiths, and keep the exact nature of the gods ambiguous. That said, the writers certainly have very specific ideas about what is going on. That way, players can try to figure out what is going on when Illir tears the roof off of Solanos Mor and incinerates the patriarch--does it mean the Illir approves of Calcestus' actions? Or is something else going on? If you have an Illirite character (or even just one faithful to the imperial religion), this could lead to a crisis of faith or otherwise have dramatic impact on the character. But it would not be interesting to discern what was going on behind the curtain if it was all made up as they went along.</blockquote>

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