Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Umbran" data-source="post: 1510282" data-attributes="member: 177">Just for clarification...That's cool.  I sometimes play such myself.  Relative numbers of priests/followers are not the issue.Similar to above - the detailed stucture of the priesthood has little to do with how well the god is integrated into the campaign world.Directness has nothing to do with what I meant, either.  I also prefer that the gods don't directly muddle in mortal affairs.  If they could do so, why would they need clerics?  Nor do I mean that the PC's deity must be a central player in a great War of the Gods, or the like.Hm.  Perhaps I simply didn't get my point across at all well.  Religion is one of the greatest movers and shakers of human history.  If one is to role-play a cleric, one is investigating faith, the thing that has guided souls through all of history.  If the which religion I choose is irrelevant, then I cannot really do that investigation very well, now can I?Let me try this another way - would you prefer to play the priest of the Great God Shmuckety-Shmuck, that has domains of Law, Fire, and Laundry, and no other connection to or purpose in the campaign world, or a god with a solid and detailed history, mythology, and place and role (however small) within the society of the planet as a whole (even if that role is not well represented in the character's current location)?  Religion is inexorably intertwined with culture.   How can you fully play the one without connection to the other?Even if one enjoys playing outsiders - the lone Buddhist in a Catholic town - you come across the fact that Buddhism did not actually develop in a vacuum.  Even if the culture it came from isn't right here, that culture was a biggie, and has had it's influences on the religion.  You still need the cultural connection to investigate the contrasts.YMMV, of course.  But I find that a religion that isn't part of the game world to be unsatisfying.  It seems to me to be basically playing a cleric by choosing a couple of domains and an alignment.  As above, really.  It doesn't matter if the nation the PC comes from isn't the one in which the game takes place.  It doesn't matter if the nation isn't a major player in local events.  But if the nation isn't worked into the world, you might as well just say, "I come from the west.  Far, far to the west," and not mention nations at all.  On this note, it's just a general tenet of creating fiction - don't create facts that you don't have to, lest you write yourself into a corner.  If all you really care about is that the character not be local, and not have ties to local problems, you don't need to specify the nation at all.</blockquote>

Verification