D&D 5E Need advice: Making Religions, Not Just "Here's The Gods. Pick One"

[Jer]

Any advice?

If you have a player who plays clerics, make sure you bring him/her into the loop. In my experience, buy-in from the players is the single most important thing about a campaign setting - whether off the shelf or built from scratch. If you spend a whole lot of time building up various religions and your player who loves to play clerics gets no input then you may end up creating a situation where they don't want to play in the sandbox you've built. You may have a player who doesn't want to spend a lot of time on it and only says "I don't care so long as I get to whack things with my mace and heal people" - but even that tells you "don't mess with the core cleric concept, and make sure the battle cleric is somehow a thing" in the religions you create.

And unless you want to do it out of the love of doing it for yourself - like Tolkien noodling out the details of the Elven language - then be careful about where you put the effort into it. Speaking again from experience - unless you have a player who cares and wants to buy in and work on it with you, any setting detail you create will be mostly ignored by the players except to the extent that they can interact with it to have their own fun. If the religions of your world are going to be central to the main struggles that the PCs will face then there's a good chance that the players will take an interest in them and you will actually be able to use the work you produce. But if the players are mostly interested in having their characters delve into old caves to beat up orcs and steal their treasure then maybe they'll never encounter the highly detailed setting material you've created. And that can be somewhat frustrating, especially if you think you've got some neat setting ideas that the players just shrug off.

 

[Mercule]

If you have a player who plays clerics, make sure you bring him/her into the loop. In my experience, buy-in from the players is the single most important thing about a campaign setting - whether off the shelf or built from scratch. If you spend a whole lot of time building up various religions and your player who loves to play clerics gets no input then you may end up creating a situation where they don't want to play in the sandbox you've built. You may have a player who doesn't want to spend a lot of time on it and only says "I don't care so long as I get to whack things with my mace and heal people" - but even that tells you "don't mess with the core cleric concept, and make sure the battle cleric is somehow a thing" in the religions you create.

And unless you want to do it out of the love of doing it for yourself - like Tolkien noodling out the details of the Elven language - then be careful about where you put the effort into it. Speaking again from experience - unless you have a player who cares and wants to buy in and work on it with you, any setting detail you create will be mostly ignored by the players except to the extent that they can interact with it to have their own fun. If the religions of your world are going to be central to the main struggles that the PCs will face then there's a good chance that the players will take an interest in them and you will actually be able to use the work you produce. But if the players are mostly interested in having their characters delve into old caves to beat up orcs and steal their treasure then maybe they'll never encounter the highly detailed setting material you've created. And that can be somewhat frustrating, especially if you think you've got some neat setting ideas that the players just shrug off.

All of this bears repeating.

I have a 35ish year old homebrew. It started out as a rough-in, but I formalized it after a couple years. I created a rich, multi-pantheon divine order that had motivations for different good gods and pantheons opposing one another, rather than "good is always the ally of good". That was the mid/late 1980s. I don't think I saw a Cleric, Paladin, or Druid in play (my campaign or another) until about 2000/2001. To this day, I only know one player who actually likes playing Clerics. The first temple that any given gaming group happened to encounter became the default deity of choice for them -- and, since player turnover was a slow cycle, that means that the go-to deity in 2007, when I wound down the setting was the same as the first god featured for my college group in 1991.

Talk about a colossal waste of effort. While I generally enjoy world-building as an end in itself, playing with celestial politics was beyond meta for the players I've had.

 

[Gardens & Goblins]

We haven't had gods for the entirety of our campaign to date. We have a central 'creation' figure/myth, but they are not widely acknowledged by the peoples of the world.

Instead, we have divine/demonic agents that represent the forces of Objective Good and Objective Evil. They grant blessings that then allow access to power, but do not require or demand for worship. Objective in that they are consequences/constructs representing the will of the creator myth figure's ideal of Good and Evil. Obviously this may not be what a given character (or even player) might consider to be good/evil.

Huh. Ditching Gods and Faith wasn't part of our game plan, to be honest. We've just never had any need or encounters with them/involving it. We have had one cleric created - as an NPC no less - during the campaign, and they were granted their power by a dying angelic entity. I think in part we've never been keen of this particular D&D trope.

Anyway, we've not encountered any problems to date and so far everything has been aok.

 

[Patrick McGill]

My homebrew settings always have religious and spiritual paths instead of single deities to choose from. Granted, some people can have patron deities, but that's rare. Most commonly I have the most popular religion in a given setting be monotheistic, and having older cultures or 'barbaric' societies (in the eyes of the civilized) be polytheistic. I enjoy the interplay and conflict this creates, and it gives my world a more medieval flavor. Even then, the monotheistic religions have a host of saints that a cleric might dedicate himself/herself too (allowing for multiple domains).

The Book of the Righteous kickstarter going on right now might be right up your alley.

 

[FXR]

The first question I would ask is: are the gods real in your setting? What do they do? The answers you will give will radically change how religion is practiced.

In my homebrew world, the gods don't exist, but some beings are worshiped.

The state religion of the Empire is a complete fabrication made to consolidate the power of the emperor (which is revered as a god) and act as a social control device. Most aristocrats know that, but maintain the charade as the religion ceremonies are impressive and not showing up would displease the emperor. Furthermore, members of the upper classes like to show off (a bit like modern Instagram stars).

Then, there are many cults, which don't differ much from secret societies, who worship strange deities (some are demons, some are aliens, others are complete fabrication). People join to get power, either spiritual or temporal, or because they fear offending the worshipped deity.

Some religions are more genuine. The primitive Degenerates have syncretic religious practice (eating the heart of your enemy gives you his strength), while some nomads follow something closer to mysticism.

 

[Celebrim]

I want to create religious systems and doctrines within D&D, and stay out of the traditional pantheon systems.

There will, of course, be the gods around, but a lot of it feels like comic book hero discussions. "Which is better: Lathander or Pharasma?" I want to move from there to developing actual doctrines, especially in a world where all of the gods can exist and be real, or just some of them, or even none of them.

Any advice?

Read Green Ronin's "The Book of the Righteous". That gives you a good idea of where you might start.

Sit down and reverse engineer your gods. Start out with the philosophical issue that is at stake, or that you want to explore, and develop the gods that represent those different approaches. Try to approach all the different beliefs people can have with empathy. You ideally want to have a bunch of different choices with believable appeals.

 

[Jester David]

I did a blog series on world building a little while back and touched on deities:
http://www.5mwd.com/archives/485

But when I turned the blogs into a book, that chapter was the most heavily revised, so it's harder for me to recommend the blog as much.

Generally through, looking at reality helps. Move beyond western religions and look at faiths and practices across the world, especilally how church services and faith of the same denomination is handled in differently in different countries.

One way I'm changing faith in my current world is having fewer gods but more churches. I developed gods with doctrine and teachings and then I created different denominations and churches that follow the same gods in very different ways. So there can be good and evil churches and sects.

 

[Imaculata]

Talk about a colossal waste of effort. While I generally enjoy world-building as an end in itself, playing with celestial politics was beyond meta for the players I've had.

In my campaign, religion is not a thing that only occurs when the players attend a church or temple. Religion is everywhere. It plays an important part in the lives of everyone, and I asked each player to decide if their character is religious. Even a simple tavern could have a small shrine dedicated to the god of drinking, and the gods of death and justice could be invoked right before an official duel.

In my campaign the figureheads of ships often are in the shape of a deity, and depending on which deity it is, it bestows different powers upon the ship. A figurehead of the god of storms could provide a higher chance for favorable weather, or a bonus to sailing in harsh weather. A figurehead of the god of death, could prevent undead from setting foot on the ship.

Religion should be everywhere. And just because none of your players play a cleric or paladin, does not mean that your efforts of writing the religions are wasted. It should be part of the world building and storytelling. I find it incredibly rewarding that when I ask my players who the god of death is, they know his name by heart. His name has become a powerful concept that is edged into their minds. They know several of the gods by name, and what they stand for. They also know all of the evil deities by name, and what they embody.

And I think that's because the gods aren't simply fluff in my campaign that is only relevant to a cleric or paladin. It affects everyone and every class, and their knowledge of the gods helps them understand the plot, and the motives of npc's. So as a result, they are more invested, and they care.

 

[5Shilling]

A Speaking again from experience - unless you have a player who cares and wants to buy in and work on it with you, any setting detail you create will be mostly ignored by the players except to the extent that they can interact with it to have their own fun.

Yes, very good point.

Whatever you come up with, your "introductory notes" for players starting a new campaign in your world should probably have just one or two easy-to-understand sentences for each religion. Players won't absorb or remember more than this until they have been playing in the world for a while (same thing goes for just about all campaign element details). If they want to know more based on those first sentences then great, you've crafted a sharp hook!

 

[Salamandyr]

My only advice is to keep something for the faithless to do. It's highly likely that a few of your players are only going to be interested in your religions insofar as which ones have the most treasure to rob or the best discounts on healing services. And that's okay too.

It always seems to break a DM's heart a little when they've spent hours developing a detailed pantheon and liturgies to find out their players all want to be atheistic members of the Thieves Guild.