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

[Numion]

Every "Can I do" can be phrased as a "Can I not do" and vice versa.

If the question was reversed, I'd reverse my answer too. And smack the player for good measure, too

 

[Raven Crowking]

Again, well put, Celebrim.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

The Realms is not a setting with high deity intervention, and only an extremely favoured divine servant would receive dreams about something so minor (getting help and equipment).

That's funny, much of the fluff mentions signs and visions to a deity's faithful, like weapons breaking, blood seeping from rocks, etc. Not to mention active deital intervention, like the Thunder Blessing (or "let's rectify the dwarven birthrate issue").

There's no reason Shar can't nudge a priest in the direction of some helpers, *if* she wants to. She may not.

Brad

 

[Raven Crowking]

If the question was reversed, I'd reverse my answer too. And smack the player for good measure, too

"Help! Help! I'm being repressed! You saw him repressing me, didn't you?"

 

[ThirdWizard]

If the PC doesn't know where a temple to Shar is, I have to wonder if the PC has never met another worshiper of Shar. Seems a bit strange to me, personally. Not impossible, of course, but not what I would consider the default deity worshiping norm.

 

[Mallus]

I don't see how these challenges are mutually exclusive, or how one is less challenging than the other. Locating a secret cult is challenging. Then becoming embroiled in it internal & external struggles is challenging.

I didn't mean to suggest that those challenges were mutually exclusive. But it didn't look like the player in the OP was into locating the cult. So given all the other possible ways of challenging a cultist PC, I question the benefit of making the player undergo the search.

The trick is finding the right challenges for the right player. We should be looking for/creating mutually agreed-upon challenges.

When I play a game, I am not only entertaining (I can do that by writing stories) but I am playing a game and part of that game involves the players making choices and then dealing with the consequences of those choices.

I agree. But some choices made during the design phase should really be considered the characters conceit, and once accepted, the DM should partner with the player in order to make that work.

 

[Celebrim]

If the PC doesn't know where a temple to Shar is, I have to wonder if the PC has never met another worshiper of Shar. Seems a bit strange to me, personally. Not impossible, of course, but not what I would consider the default deity worshiping norm.

I would consider it very strange indeed if the incarnated representations of diverse ethics, powers, and philosophies collectively had anything like a normal mode of worship.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I didn't mean to suggest that those challenges were mutually exclusive. But it didn't look like the player in the OP was into locating the cult.

"Sorry, I'm not into facing that dragon today. Can't we just say it flew away? Can I collect the treasure now?"

IMHO, if you want your character to be a member of a secret cult, the DM shouldn't force you to locate the cult, but neither should you expect the benefits of having located the cult without having done so.

 

[Faraer]

. . . signs and visions to a deity's faithful, like weapons breaking, blood seeping from rocks, etc.

Yes, that happens occasionally.

Not to mention active deital intervention, like the Thunder Blessing (or "let's rectify the dwarven birthrate issue").

That's extremely rare. 'High deity intervention' (compared, say, to other D&D settings) is a Realms canard that came about through people misinterpreting the gods walking Toril in the Avatar trilogy (not the most reliable Realmslore at the best of times) as typical rather than an unheard-of cataclysm.

 

[Mallus]

I would consider it very strange indeed if the incarnated representations of diverse ethics, powers, and philosophies collectively had anything like a normal mode of worship.

Right, but most people don't play D&D as if they were doing their thesis in Comparative, Badly-Conceived Religions that Frankly Sound Like Something Plagiarized from Tolkien or Howard While Stoned.