Rant: Why must thing always be obvious in D&D?

[Mallus]

Once the player has agreed to be part of a secretive cult, should they have to practice secrecy? Shouldn't they have to RP that out at least once before you handwave away all the secrecy? Even once? If not, why be part of a secret cult?

Yes. But as someone who DM's more than plays, I'm more interested in refining my technique and making my campaigns more engaging, which right now means working with whatever the players give me and responding with an appropriate and exciting challenge.

If a player doesn't want to skulk around or search, fine. Why make them do something they've already told you they won't enjoy Then the challenge is to come up with something that addresses both the players desires and the logic of the game environment. Make everything fit. Or, in the sage words of Tim Gunn from "Project Runway", make it work! Then, once we've mutually agreed on a set of challenges, I can try to get the player to broaden their tastes a little. I've found the most effective way to do this is to say 'yes' to them.

I'm probably going to step back here, as it seems we aren't having much of a constructive discussion. Best to you Mallus.

I could have been more constructive in these exchanges. So it goes. 'Best to you' back at you...

 

[Celebrim]

You say 'very basic', I say 'largely undesirable' and 'fairly wrongheaded'.

Right now we are having a discussion that revolves around questions like: What is the proper way to worship a diety? When and where (and how!) do the followers of a diety meet? How is the religion organized, if at all? What expectations does a deity have of its followers? These questions about a diety are the most basic and necessary if any player wants to RP a follower of a diety at a level above, 'Kick down the doors, kills the monsters, and take thier stuff', and will simply come up all the time. Traditionally, D&D supplements do a very poor job of answering these questions. The result is that in this situation the player had unreasonable expectations of simplicity, and the DM - desiring something a little more complex - could not meet the players demands for additional information in a gracious manner.

That said ... this sounds interesting. I like all the GR products I own. Can you tell me a little more about it? I have some pretty strong feelings about how much deep, elegant, and thoughtful material the D&D framework can support (hint, not much), but I admit I'm beginning to want some fresh perspectives on the game.

BotR dates from the period where GR was putting out one winner after the other. BotR is the crown jewel.

IMO, 'The Book of the Righteous' is quite simply the best written RPG supplement of all time. It's not necessarily the most useful (its mostly fluff), and its not necessarily for everyone, but it's nonetheless the gold standard by which any supplement ought to be judged because its that well thought out, that well written, and it meets a basic need in D&D that had never been well addressed before. Basically, it is stuffed filled with probably all the information a DM would need - and then some - to elegantly handle the role of a religion in a campaign.

It is to dealing with a religion what a prepublished module - a really good one - is to getting a game up and running in a hurry. As a plug and play pantheon, its just unmatched. As a source of inspiration, its pretty much unmatched. And everyone - and I mean everyone - that reads it, ends up replacing Paladins with Holy Warriors. It's that freakin' good.

 

[Nifft]

Yes, it is. It's a god that works best as an antagonist's god, and it's in the campaign book, which is a DM's book by design.

Agree.

NPCs and PCs are built using the same rules. An Evil cleric should be roughly equal in power to a Good cleric. This does not mean Evil clerics should be an option for PCs.

Cheers, -- N

 

[I'm A Banana]

Why must thing always be obvious in D&D?

They don't have to be, but if it's not fun to find out the secret, they probably should be.

Example:

- player runs a character follower of Shar (FR evil major deity)
- character wants to find a temple of Shar, to get help and equipment
- DM informs that there are very few (and pretty secret) temples because Shar is not exactly popular (she's a sort of entropic deity that wants to revert the universe to the original nothingness... how many sane people would worship a goddess like that?)
- player demands that since Shar is a "major" deity (strongest) there must be lots of temples

Do you manage easily to sometimes at least break (a little bit) assumptions like that?

...that doesn't seem to have much to do with the thread title at all.

Help and equipment are pretty basic requests, and any PC should be able to reliably get these things without having to look too hard unless you're running some sort of hardcore low-resource game.

If you're asking them to think outside of the box, don't ask it of them when they're performing basic intel and supply. Ask it of them at the height of an adventure when their lives are on the line, nudge them well before it and reward them well afterwards. Asking me to jump through flaming hoops just to, say, get a replacement holy symbol would just needlessly annoy me.

 

[catsclaw227]

Right now we are having a discussion that revolves around questions like: What is the proper way to worship a diety? When and where (and how!) do the followers of a diety meet? How is the religion organized, if at all? What expectations does a deity have of its followers? These questions about a diety are the most basic and necessary if any player wants to RP a follower of a diety at a level above, 'Kick down the doors, kills the monsters, and take thier stuff', and will simply come up all the time. <snip>...

This is the reason I have been lurking and enjoying this thread. The differing opinions and supporting arguments are making for some good D&D theological/sociological conversation.

BUT... if we could get some more concrete answers from the OP about the PC in question, we can actually frame the answers in an informed way:

1. Is the PC a follower of Shar or a cleric of Shar?
2. Was there any pre-PC creation discussion about the repurcussions of playing a follower/priest of Shar (assuming there was any conversation at all about this during character creation)
3. Were the player's "demands" actual demands, or were they they frustrations from a Player that is having a tough time dealing with the repurcussions of one of their choices. (any player in my game that makes DEMANDS is no longer a player in my game. )
4. What kind of help/equipment were they looking for? And was that simply a reason for them to include their diety in the RPing or was it to take advantage of some free aid?

Anywhoo...

BotR dates from the period where GR was putting out one winner after the other. BotR is the crown jewel.

IMO, 'The Book of the Righteous' is quite simply the best written RPG supplement of all time. It's not necessarily the most useful (its mostly fluff), and its not necessarily for everyone, but it's nonetheless the gold standard by which any supplement ought to be judged because its that well thought out, that well written, and it meets a basic need in D&D that had never been well addressed before. Basically, it is stuffed filled with probably all the information a DM would need - and then some - to elegantly handle the role of a religion in a campaign.

It is to dealing with a religion what a prepublished module - a really good one - is to getting a game up and running in a hurry. As a plug and play pantheon, its just unmatched. As a source of inspiration, its pretty much unmatched. And everyone - and I mean everyone - that reads it, ends up replacing Paladins with Holy Warriors. It's that freakin' good.

Book of the Righteous is absolutely the best D&D "gods" supplement I have read, in any edition.

 

[Gothmog]

I think we can mutually agree that your example is silly.

And if I said to my players "Well, we can play out the fight, or we could just say the bad guys fled and you get the loot", they'd opt for the fight every single time. Because that's the fun part of the game.


Why does being able to shop at a temple to your god represent some enormous boon? Most D&D characters take that completely for granted.

RC's example was overstated perhaps, but no less ridiculous than when you stated the player wasn't into locating the cult because it didn't interest him. That would be like saying "I'm really not into trying to figure out who tried to assassinate the king- can't I make a DC 20 Gather Information check and catch the bad guy?" Its dry, meaningless, and detracts from the game and believability of the world by assuming eveyone and everything in the world exists for the PCs benefit. Certainly, evil cults don't exist for the sole benefit of the PCs or their shopping needs (assuming the cult even has a "shop" where you can simply pick up and buy evil magic items or religious relics).

Seems to me this is more of a player having a strong sense of entitlement, rather than actually dealing with playing the character he chose and the consequences of those actions. If the player actually roleplayed along and tried his best in this situation, I'd accomodate him, and make some cool adventure hooks around the temple and some perks he'd get. If he just wanted things to get "kool powerz", but wasn't willing to put in the effort to justify having them, then I'd just say no and be done with it. Just because a player makes a character, doesn't mean the DM should cater to his every whim to make the game fun for him if he's not willing to work to make the DM's game fun.

What's next? The player whining about being caught for worshipping Shar and committing evil acts? "I don't want to be caught- I'm just not into it. As a worhsipper of Shar it should be assumed I know how to avoid being captured and get away without actually stating it. Can't we say I just did those evil things and got away with it so I can go kill some more things and loot them without consequence?"

 

[Mallus]

Right now we are having a discussion that revolves around questions like: What is the proper way to worship a diety? When and where (and how!) do the followers of a diety meet? How is the religion organized, if at all? What expectations does a deity have of its followers?

For the record Cel, I wasn't having a discussion about any of those things. I was talking about the implied social contract between players and DM (ie, if you allow a character, then that character should be as viable as any other), the handwaving of certain roleplaying elements that relate directly to a characters premise (ie, a cultist should automatically be able to find his cult), I kibitzed a little about the wisdom of listening to your players when it comes to the kinds of challenges they enjoy (ie, that's smart), and I kibitzed a bit more on the wisdom of making players play through the stuff they don't like (ie, this is dumb, it's a stance that conflates difficulty with the performance of undesired tasks).

I never got into the theory and praxis of fictional religions in RPG play environments.

BotR is the crown jewel.

OK, I'm sold. I'm not sure I could ever use a supplement about religion that you liked so much, but I don't doubt it will be interesting reading.

 

[Mallus]

Yes, it is. It's a god that works best as an antagonist's god, and it's in the campaign book, which is a DM's book by design.

And yet the DM allowed a protagonist to worship the god. Don't you think that act carries some implications?

Your absolutism isn't changing any minds.

In what way am I being absolute? By insisting that a permitted character be viable? By failing to see the benefit of making a temple resupply run into the locus of the action/the characters defining roleplaying moment when the player clearly isn't interested in that?

 

[Mallus]

That would be like saying "I'm really not into trying to figure out who tried to assassinate the king- can't I make a DC 20 Gather Information check and catch the bad guy?"

Except that trying to find royal assassins is (usually) the centerpiece of the adventure while buying equipment at an allied temple is not. In fact, shopping is an action that gets handwaved by mid-level in most of the campaigns I've seen.

Certainly, evil cults don't exist for the sole benefit of the PCs or their shopping needs (assuming the cult even has a "shop" where you can simply pick up and buy evil magic items or religious relics).

Right, they also exist for good PC's to slaughter and loot.

Seems to me this is more of a player having a strong sense of entitlement, rather than actually dealing with playing the character he chose and the consequences of those actions.

Again, its more like the consequences of his premise. Why not just let him find a temple, and set-up some more interesting dilemma than 'Which way to Kults 'R Us?'.

If he just wanted things to get "kool powerz", but wasn't willing to put in the effort to justify having them, then I'd just say no and be done with it. Just because a player makes a character, doesn't mean the DM should cater to his every whim to make the game fun for him if he's not willing to work to make the DM's game fun.

I do see your point, but ask yourself "How many things that the player doesn't enjoy should they have do before they've earned their 'kewl powerz?" and then ask the follow-up question "How can I orchestrate the in-game obstacles that satisfy the setting integrity while also respecting the players tastes in play experiences".

 

[Dross]

Why must thing always be obvious in D&D? Why can't some players think at least slightly out of the box?

Example:

- player runs a character follower of Shar (FR evil major deity)
- character wants to find a temple of Shar, to get help and equipment
- DM informs that there are very few (and pretty secret) temples because Shar is not exactly popular (she's a sort of entropic deity that wants to revert the universe to the original nothingness... how many sane people would worship a goddess like that?)
- player demands that since Shar is a "major" deity (strongest) there must be lots of temples

Do you manage easily to sometimes at least break (a little bit) assumptions like that?

I stopped reading at ~post 45 so this may be covered (and if Li comes this far) since it has gone so far off topic the answer is obviously 42 ).

You know, nowhere in this do I see Li saying that the player CAN'T find a temple/shrine/cult member of Shar. It's implied that temples are hard to FIND since there will not be one on every corner (as the player demands). I'd also say that Li only needs to tell the player this info at character start if it is HOUSE Ruled differently. The assumption is that the default is what is in play, which is: few temples that are well hidden. I doubt that there are many people here that define "few and well hidden" as an obvious temple in every suburb in most towns of the region.

Now if Li had said that the player had no means to find a temple/shrine/cult member in any way shape or form I would disagree with that call.

My view on this (and how I'd run it): Very few Temples, which the majority are well hidden. Numerous shrines (say a pile of eroded rocks painted with a faded symbol of Shar) around the place, where non-followers can come a pay "homage" but are not tended as such. Temples would have supplies, but shrines would not. cult members may or maynot have shrines or temples, may or maynot have items to sell, depending a the prevailing situations (in- and out of game).