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

[Raven Crowking]

Enough information to portray a character effectively does not necessarily include any particular game secrets - much less, for example the nature of the church of Shar the diety of secret information. A DM is perfectly within his rights to rule that no neophytes of Shar - even if priests - know how the church is structured or where it meets. The DM is perfectly within his rights to say that such information constitutes a game secret and can only be revealed through play. What the DM should do as his part of the social contract is reveal this to a would be follower of Shar before play begins, so that the player can decide if he is interested in playing under such constraints (I would, that sounds like alot of fun. My religion as a secret conspiracy? I'm all in.)

Exactly, and well put.

In The Making of the Middle Ages, there is mention of people roaming Europe seeking a monastic life that meets their goals. The author says that, although from our standpoint we could easily point out several (relatively famous) places that might have met their needs, but they could not find them.

Having goals is what is needed to play a character effectively. Having met those goals is something else entirely.

IMHO. YMMV. YDMB.


RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

A DM should assist the players in playing the characters they want. Particularly after they've agreed to the initial concept. I think this takes precedence over setting fidelity or in-game logic.

A DM agreeing that you can play a follower of Shar is not the same as a DM agreeing that you can play a follower of Shar who knows where a temple of Shar is located. Clearly, there was some miscommunication about character concept from the word Go.

EDIT: As far as "I think this takes precedence over setting fidelity or in-game logic" goes, I would say that as you choose your character concept, be prepared to accept the consequences of setting fidelity and in-game logic as it relates to that concept, for good or for ill.


RC

 

[Numion]

Wasn't there a trick in a RL religion that was persecuted almost 2000 years ago that followers identified each other by scribbling something on sand with their foot when talking?

Just sayin if above is true (my memory is hazy), identifying likeminded people discreetly wouldn't even require NASA-stunts.

If the DM just didn't want to play out the search, a gather information roll with a bonus for looking for your own flock would be just perfect. As a DM I would rp it instead of rolling, though, to point out that there are inherent dangers to belonging in what is basicly an evil cult bent on destruction.

As for saying "There's no temple here, or the next city for that matter, it's my campaign world", that is certainly within the DMs rights. But why do it? It would bring enjoyment to the player, create RP opportunities, adventuring opportunities, moral dilemmas, etc..

Try the following DMing philosophy sometime: "Instead of thinking about ways to say no, try to think about ways to say yes!" ..and keep in mind that finding the cult and joining it can easily create more problems than benefits to the PC later on, so it's not going to break the game.

 

[werk]

There are no temples of a certain real world religion in my city, despite it being a major world religion.

The player is being unreasonable. We're talking about a religion here, not a Starbucks or a Gap store; they aren't necessarily everywhere, even if they're major.

That was my thought exactly. Shar may be a major diety of the world, but if you are in a 'goodly' city, you won't find any temples above ground. Go to the Ogre metropolis of Bleedingeye and you can't swing a dead paladin without hitting a temple to Shar.

Where I am, I can't see any kangaroos. Does that mean that kangaroos don't exist? Am I equipped to make definitive statements about kangaroos?

 

[Celebrim]

Let me suggest what I consider fair and unfair using a concrete example.

I once ran a campaign in which a character choose a diety which sounded intriguing from a list of homebrew deities. Once the characters interest seemed serious, I took the player aside and explained that one of the conditions of playing a cleric of this deity is that he would be required to maintain the pretence - even to the other players - that he was actually the priest of a different deity. The player was satisfied with this and went through with the concept. Now, it would have been entirely unfair of me to spring that on the player during play because its the sort of thing that every follower of this deity should now.

However, there were secrets about this deity that I did not tell the player. These were in game secrets that I only intended to reveal through play, because the revealing of these secrets constituted major plot elements of the loosely structured 'plot' that I intended for the campaign. Had the campaign continued long enough (sadly, it didn't), the player would have recieved in game conflicting theological interpretations of this diety and would have had to rely on his own judgment and in game resources to figure out what was Truth. Ultimately, he may have found that the diety he thought he was serving was as different from what he was serving as the diety was from what he claimed to be serving. And in my opinion, this is entirely fair because these were secrets kept from all but the most trusted followers of the particular diety. If the player had said to me, "Heh! I didn't sign up for this... this isn't what I wanted.", I would have said, "Go with that feeling. Play your character, not me." Likely, knowing the player, the player would have said, "This is even cooler than I expected.", but I'm willing to risk either reaction for the sake of achieving the second; because, in my experience, its only when a campaign has alot of the second sort of reaction that its really fun as a player. The process of game discovery is exciting.

 

[Flynn]

Ah, I see my failing in this: we're talking about a follower of Shar, not a priest of Shar. I stand corrected. While I still stand by my opinions above in regards to priests of Shar (and I know that they are just my opinions and thus not binding to others), those statements do not have to apply to a simple follower of Shar. There are already some good discussion points that have been made on that point, and so I won't reiterate them here.

Thanks for the clarification, guys,
Flynn

 

[Raven Crowking]

As for saying "There's no temple here, or the next city for that matter, it's my campaign world", that is certainly within the DMs rights. But why do it? It would bring enjoyment to the player, create RP opportunities, adventuring opportunities, moral dilemmas, etc..

That would be something like

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?)​

then

Player asks how aspirants of Shar recognize each other, and decides whether to spend the time searching or not​

as opposed to

player demands that since Shar is a "major" deity (strongest) there must be lots of temples​

Try the following DMing philosophy sometime: "Instead of thinking about ways to say no, try to think about ways to say yes!" ..and keep in mind that finding the cult and joining it can easily create more problems than benefits to the PC later on, so it's not going to break the game.

Not if every time the player says "Can I just ignore that problem" the DM thinks "Instead of thinking about ways to say no, try to think about ways to say yes!"

Seriously, I would suggest that the best philosophy is not to think about ways to say "No" or ways to say "Yes" but to try to determine, on the basis of setting and in-game logic, whether "No" or "Yes" is the better thing to say in this particular instance.

Of course, as always, YMMV. YDMB.

RC

 

[Numion]

Where I am, I can't see any kangaroos. Does that mean that kangaroos don't exist? Am I equipped to make definitive statements about kangaroos?

What kangaroos have to do with religion?

 

[Mallus]

A DM agreeing that you can play a follower of Shar is not the same as a DM agreeing that you can play a follower of Shar who knows where a temple of Shar is located.

I just don't see how this constitutes a constructive challenge to the player. Wouldn't it be more fun to embroil the character in some sort of struggle involving the temple, rather than simply making it hard to find? At least that way the get their character concept acknowledged and reinforced by the game environment.

Really, I can't see how your position makes the game any more fun.

 

[Elf Witch]

I think it depends on if this PC is a priest or just a follower.

If he is a priest then it should be fsirly easy for him to find the location to a temple or a shrine by the use pf prayer. If I was DMing and these temples were hidden I would have the Goddess send a dream to tell where the closest one was. Or I would have him make knowledge relgion rolls to see if he can spot the hidden clues that the cult leaves for its preists.

Now I see no reason for there to be shrines in every city or town. Just because you follow a diety does not mean the DM has to populate every city and twon and hamlet with some kind of church or shrine to your god.

If he just a follower than he would have to make gather info and knowledge religion checks to find the temple of a secret god.