monotheism in D&D

[Sepulchrave II]

I think that it's perfectly possible to have monotheism and polytheism existing side by side in the same game world - even in the same religion, in fact. There are plenty of RL precedents for it. If you go the montheistic route, you shouldn't necessarily discount the possibility of other deities.

The problem with most published campaign settings (at least as I see them) is they have an 'absolute' cosmology - i.e. the world began like this, the evil deity is such and such, when you die you go here etc.

The reason that it is so hard to represent genuine religious behaviour in a campaign world is because these things are certain. What makes religion so interesting in real life is the fact that we don't know - or, at least, the Truth cannot be empirically demonstated in the same way that it can in most D&D campaigns.

My own campaign world is not monotheistic. The country where most of the activity takes place is - broadly speaking, at least. But what the inhabitants believe is not necessarily the Truth from a meta-game perspective. I do not in fact have a "True" cosmology at all. There is no "big secret" - cosmologically speaking - which will be revealed to the characters. I - and my players - have merely detailed a number of conflicting world views, and it is the tension between them which makes them plausible. God(s) is/are still active in the world: this causes paradox, as characters grope for an unknowable truth. Evoking paradox is good because religion is inherently paradoxical.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

A semantic point...

The thing to remember is:

Worlds aren't polytheistic or monotheistic, religions and cultures are.

That's why monotheism doesn't show up as a world view in DnD because there is an underlying assumption that cultural differences translate to concrete differences. Even if you have a religion/culture that is monotheistic, say Romans worshipping Jove, if the neighbor worships Zeus then they are probably two seperate entities rather than distinct ideas on a similar force or even two names for the same guy.

It's very Old Testament that way.

Plus it's a very simple way to create variety among clerics, something every adventure needs.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

The problem with most published campaign settings (at least as I see them) is they have an 'absolute' cosmology - i.e. the world began like this, the evil deity is such and such, when you die you go here etc.

The reason that it is so hard to represent genuine religious behaviour in a campaign world is because these things are certain. What makes religion so interesting in real life is the fact that we don't know - or, at least, the Truth cannot be empirically demonstated in the same way that it can in most D&D campaigns.

Glad I made my way to this and Strangemonkey's post before commenting, cause now I feel better that everyone doesn't miss the distinction - there is a difference between culture and cosmology. And, yeah, I find it quite boring that most games are played under the assumption that the vast majority of the populace knows and believes the true cosmology of their universe.

The idea that if there is only one god only one group will get spells misses the existance of godless clerics, or alligment clerics, etc. Cleric spells scale with level just like wizards, and there no super good reason to consider it the channeled power of the diety rather than personal power shaped by belief in said diety. Additionally, the idea that the common man actually KNOWS the difference between arcane and divine magic, why bards are arcane even though they get cure spells and how rangers and druids differ from clerics... come on! There can be sorcerers who think their spontaneous magic is a gift from their god of choice and a cleric who sees his spells as the power of his opressed people made manifest, and if your players think their characters know anything about true cosmology from it, call them metagamers and throw dice at them.

In some of my games I privately consider the "true" cosmology of the world to be atheistic. Keeps everything easy, and characters can believe whatever they want and say whatever prayers they choose while gaining their spells. Spells like commune and such are divinations just like scrying, and have no more need of a diety. In another, I'll probably have a deciever god or two. True cosmology is an issue for the DM alone in most cases, and religion is determined for each culture individually. A monotheistic culture is fine and dandy, and when they encounter a polytheistic (or other monotheistic) one with similar miracles, they can just do what Jack Chick does - say its demons giving them fake power to fool them out of their souls.

Kahuna Burger

 

[Lord Pendragon]

IMO, it would be very difficult to run a convincing factional Church in a game with Commune left in as-written. Yes/No is more than enough to squelch ambiguity.

Oh great Pelor, God of the Sun, is Henry right about the Gospel of Joran being a metaphor?

Yes.

So it is not, then, to be taken literally?

Definitely not.

Chris the Cleric pauses. Scratches his head. "Well then, I guess Henry's not a heretic after all. The big guy gives him his seal of approval..."

As I see it, the gods in the core setting are too immediate. You have to remove them a great deal from the day-to-day lives of mortals in order to allow them room to mess up the message.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

A monotheistic culture is fine and dandy, and when they encounter a polytheistic (or other monotheistic) one with similar miracles, they can just do what Jack Chick does - say its demons giving them fake power to fool them out of their souls.

But all it takes is one open-minded cleric casting Commune, and the jig is up.

Oh great Pelor, One and Only Sun God, are the heathen hordes of Ehlonna getting their power from demons giving them fake power to fool them out of their souls?

No.

So are they actually wizards, using arcane magic?

No.

It's divine magic?

Yes.

Uhh...you mean it's another actual god?

Yes.

Ooh......

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Heh, I have 2 campaigns with prevailing (but not solitary) monotheistic religions.

The first is set in a reformation/counter reformation. One of the core concepts is that the old gods (called variously demons, devils,Djinn, and dibbucks...) aare kept out by the 'wall of Faith'. And as monolithic central religion is divided by schisms the wall comes tumbling down. (Hundred years war, with the current saga taking place in the equivilant of the Germanies in the Thirty Years War... It's all about the schisms, baby!) I used Christianity, Judaism, and Islam as the basic models. And with the return of the pagan gods other things are returnin as well... Dragons, elves, the fey...

The Centrist, Standard, and High Church Agravaingian branches have domains determined by which 'Blessed' (Saints) are followed. Others are less flexible, with only the core domains for each denomination available.

And in places where the worship of pagan gods has not been interrupted the wall of Faith is nonexistent.(The lands of Terra Nova for example have only seen the worship of the one god for less than 200 years.)

The other monotheistic game is set in Victorian England. (Wizards are graduates of the Royal College of Wizardry (actually a group of schools, each with it's own spin on magic... and old school ties.), sorcerers are licensed... And Victoria Regina sits upon the throne.)

The Auld Grump

 

[Sepulchrave II]

IMO, it would be very difficult to run a convincing factional Church in a game with Commune left in as-written. Yes/No is more than enough to squelch ambiguity.

I think there are a number of ways of addressing this.

1) You can limit the number of 9th level+ clerics in the campaign. One of the quirky assumptions of D&D is that most members of the ecclesiastical hierarchy are spellcasting characters. IMC I replaced them with NPC Experts focussed on Knowledge (religion), Diplomacy, Sense Motive etc.

2) Rule that a deity will not answer questions on the validity of doctrine. This is actually common sense.

Imagine, a catholic priest is in a mystical reverie, in connection with God.

"Er, so God. Is it true? You know? The Immaculate Conception thing?"

I mean, really.

3) Allow opposing factions to both receive the answers that they want to hear from a commune spell. After all, God is kind of complex. When two absolute Truths come into conflict, sparks will fly.

4) Make commune unavailable during periods of schism. The Church - as the Body of God - is fraught and broken. Faith must bring people together again, not proof.

etc. etc.

 

[Storminator]

But all it takes is one open-minded cleric casting Commune, and the jig is up.

Quite depends on how the god answers, doesn't it?

Oh great Pelor, One and Only Sun God, are the heathen hordes of Ehlonna getting their power from demons giving them fake power to fool them out of their souls?

No.

With you so far....

So are they actually wizards, using arcane magic?

No.

Still with ya...

It's divine magic?

Yes.

yup, yup, yup...

Uhh...you mean it's another actual god?

Yes.

Alternate answer... No.

Follow up question: So Ehlonna herself is a demon?

Yes.

Ooh......

Same ending I think.

PS

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Well, but I still think it's important to point out that most monotheistic cultures have no problem with the existence of other deities, they just think that their one god is way cooler than the other gods.

It's not until Christianity and Judeaism land in the context of Greek Philosophy that you get all this talk of there being one actual answer to it all and everything you encounter has to land in that answer for everyone. Something we still pretty innately believe today whatever side of the creationest vs Darwin debate you fall on.

Which is cool, but it's also a pretty huge assumption, a pretty huge amazingly common assumption. I loved Kahuna Burgers post, but it still carries that assumption that there are false cosmologieS and One true cosmology.

But, when you are dealing with creatures who inhabit a very different level of the causality playing field as you and I that assumption can undergo a lot of stress.

Both on the little level, gods share portfolios and totally different beings may do the same things for very different people in a very different fashion.

And on the big level, there's no real reason why two entirely different gods might not have created the same universe in entirely different fashions without at all being aware of each other. By any definition once you are discussing origins of that nature you beyond the boundaries of consistency at the very least and very likely causality as well.

This isn't just an RPG spin on things either, take a look at the state of Religion in China from the middle ages through the Renaissance. Absolutely no problem mixing cosmologies. And while I don't know a whole heck of a lot about the period it did produce Monkey/Journey to the West which is such an awesome book that we should never ever deny its capacity to influence our games in a positive light.

On a side note, also in response to Kahuna's excellent post, religion is not simply a reflection of what you believe. It's also a statement on how you and your fellows want to live. Look at the differences between various current sects of say Christianity or Hinduism who have entirely similar belief structures but serve very different communities in very different ways. Or look at an old religion like Hinduism or Catholicism that has changed a great deal over time and circumstance. Does the fact that Catholics celebrate Christmans with the trappings of other religions mean that they believe in their system any less or that the Theology is incomplete in any fashion? Maybe, but it certainly doesn't say that so much as it says that celebrating Christmas at the time and manner that it is celebrated is a cool idea and pine trees make neat decorating experiences. Which is why it's also starting to show up in China as a more or less state approved purely commercial holiday.

Religion is something that human beings do. It may also be something we believe, but that level of action is pretty strongly hard wired into us and like other things that are hardwired into us, such as sex, that means there is amazing amount of variety in practice.

So I don't see how even a commune spell is going to keep people from making up their own versions of things and resisting being told to change even if it is by a deity who can talk directly to a very powerful magic using guy who is more than willing to tell you what the deity says from time to time.

Check out the Old Testament for another literary/historical/theological take on that little phenomena.

Religion, and every other aspect of humanity, is almost never as clean and simple and coherent as we in the 20th and 21st would like it to be. And the games that reflect that confusion and incoherence are truer if not better for it and .

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

I think there are a number of ways of addressing this.

1) You can limit the number of 9th level+ clerics in the campaign. One of the quirky assumptions of D&D is that most members of the ecclesiastical hierarchy are spellcasting characters. IMC I replaced them with NPC Experts focussed on Knowledge (religion), Diplomacy, Sense Motive etc.

One could also eliminate the Commune spell from the campaign. I don't think it's necessary but it's certainly possible.

2) Rule that a deity will not answer questions on the validity of doctrine. This is actually common sense.

Imagine, a catholic priest is in a mystical reverie, in connection with God.

"Er, so God. Is it true? You know? The Immaculate Conception thing?"

I mean, really.

It's also quite possible that the deity would answer only doctrinal questions with very simple answers and that ones requiring long or complex answers would be unanswerable through Commune. For orthodox Christianity, there's a huge gap between the complexity of answering the question "Was Jesus raised from the dead" and "how does atonement through Jesus' suffering and death work?" (Even the wording of the latter question, though it seems simple enough, has definite theological implications).

3) Allow opposing factions to both receive the answers that they want to hear from a commune spell. After all, God is kind of complex. When two absolute Truths come into conflict, sparks will fly.

And for those who think that the notion of truth (and indeed rational thought) ceases to be meaningful if relativized, complex answers capable of being interpreted in more than one way are certainly possible. After all, if one takes the initial documents that raised the questions of doctrine as divinely written (I deliberately choose this word in order to avoid the questions of meaning that surround the Christian concept of Divine "inspiration"), it's likely that many of the legitimate implications of particular passages are correct without necessarily being mutually exclusive.

Consider D&D rules as an example of this: there are perenial rules debates continually raging in the Rules Forum. Every now and then, a D&D FAQ entry or erratta comes out to "answer" a particular question like "does the con increase from polymorph effect your hit points?" Sometimes that stops the debate. But sometimes it doesn't. Recent threads indicate that "hit points remain unchanged" can be interpreted by proponents of the yes camp to mean "[base] hit points remain unchanged [but bonus hit points from con may change with con scores]." Their position is clearly somewhat weaker with the DMG erratta but is not untennable (or if it is, everyone hasn't yet abandoned it).

And, of course, there are always questions of the honesty of various sources. A year or so ago, there were questions about the 3e interpretation of Shield on the rules board. Someone posted quoting a PHB that incorporated the D&D FAQ wording. It turned out after much questioning that he had downloaded a repaginated and edited version of the PHB from kazaa or some other such site. In a world where there may be clerics of demon lords with access to trickery domain spells and polymorphing demons who can impersonate angels, a divine equivalent of this is easily conceivable.