D&D 5E What D&D should learn from a Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones)

[Sonny]

Sure, that works for "Deal with the Devil" scenarios, like Faust, but it absolutely does not work for actual "worshipping an evil god" or sustained devil-worship or the like.

For that to work, you need the followers to believe that they are actually going to get an eternal or nigh-eternal reward. This is especially so in 90% of the D&D worlds, where the existence of an afterlife and the soul is pretty much completely demonstrable and accepted, and not even silently questioned.

The simple answer is that worshipping an evil being should in no way send one "to hell" or any equivalent thereof, unless it is to rule over the peons who get dragged there or something. There's no particular reason that worshipping Baddy the Badgod should damn you, unless the Christian God is in charge of the entire pantheon (which is kind of the latter-day FR situation, sadly, bloody AO - he even has a lame real-world-invoking name - AO i.e. the Alpha and the Omega), rather it should just send you to Baddy the Badgod's version of heaven, which maybe some really scary stuff, probably involving lording it over stolen souls or servitors or something, or constant in-fighting in a way which seems enjoyable (I mean, the Vikings had Valhalla, which seems like a permanent bad Friday night to me, but apparently they liked the concept!), or whatever.

The problem is, it absolute is a competition, just like with real-world religions. Christianity succeeded so extremely massively because it appealed to the downtrodden masses - the slaves and serfs - you didn't need to be important or powerful or skilled or of a specific ethnic background to get to heaven, you just had to follow the rules, and anyone could join, and the rules were about being nice to people, largely, not doing crazy stuff. And your get to leave in Heaven forever! Nice! Plus you can't even be locked out by previous sins! They can be forgiven! Awesome.

So when Baddy the Badgod only offers you a chance at heaven, and only if you like, conquer a kingdom in his name or some shiz, he's not going to get a lot of takers. So he needs to up his game. Anyway, I could go on like this, but I'll TLDR it:

TLDR: Deal with the devil and long-term-worship of a scary god/demon are not the same scenarios.

Well when I'm talking real world, I mean hard drugs, theft (especially white collar where people often plan this out and do it over time. Heck one of the smartest people I knew ended up embezzling half a million dollars from his work despite knowing the risks. He did this for a period of over three years. He was well paid, and wasn't having any financial difficulty. People are stupid. People that commit hate crimes despite knowing what can happen to them, and then continue to do them until stopped.

There are people who believe we never landed on the moon, despite proof, or that killing themselves when a comet passes will give them eternal life, they don't listen to others outside their cult, they believe what they want. Again, people are stupid.

Also, considering most people in games never experience different planes of existence or deal with angels and demons, why should they believe what a competing religion says about theirs? I doubt an evil god is telling his followers the truth about what he really has planned for them. I would also count outcasts, those that feel abnormal or outside of normal society, these people that mainstream good religions don't appeal to.

I'm not saying these religions are huge, but there are people who would join them.

 

[Hutchimus Prime]

From my point of view the best lesson WOTC, or more likely Hasbro, could learn from Game of Thrones, is that when well-funded, talented people work on a general audience project that respects source material and remembers the principle of verisimilitude, people respond AND projects succeed more often than not.

 

[Chaltab]

We're just talking about the books and not the HBO series?

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. ASOIAF and D&D may technically both have dungeons and dragons, but they're tonally extremely different. In D&D, the setting is up to the individual group, and barring homebrew settings, rather egalitarian and modern in thought if not in technology. ASOIAF has a very particular set of core conceits that make a lot of D&D character concepts impossible: Most humans don't know magic and distrust those who do, the society is extremely sexist (ie: how people react to Brienne as though the idea of a female knight is crazy and offensive whereas in the Realms or Points of Light it's completely normal), and the general focus is on politics (granted a brutal cuthroat style of politics, but politics nonetheless). That's not to say D&D can't focus on politics or have a setting with more a more retrograde zeitgeist, but the core game has to be free to focus on the more common modes of play as well. Baking too much of that into the rules and default tonal assumptions creates the impression that it's the 'correct' way to play.

There is already an actual SOIAF RPG from Green Ronin. I don't know if it's any good, but if you're wanting a game more along the GRRM lines you should check it out.

 

[GMMichael]

I'm not saying these religions are huge, but there are people who would join them.

How does this apply to SoIaF? Besides Melisandre birthing a slimy, black wraith?

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. ASOIAF and D&D may technically both have dungeons and dragons, but they're tonally extremely different. In D&D, the setting is up to the individual group, and barring homebrew settings, rather egalitarian and modern in thought if not in technology. ASOIAF has a very particular set of core conceits that make a lot of D&D character concepts impossible: Most humans don't know magic and distrust those who do, the society is extremely sexist (ie: how people react to Brienne as though the idea of a female knight is crazy and offensive whereas in the Realms or Points of Light it's completely normal), and the general focus is on politics (granted a brutal cuthroat style of politics, but politics nonetheless). That's not to say D&D can't focus on politics or have a setting with more a more retrograde zeitgeist, but the core game has to be free to focus on the more common modes of play as well. Baking too much of that into the rules and default tonal assumptions creates the impression that it's the 'correct' way to play.

I realize they're tonally extremely different. But D&D changes. That's the point of the thread. Each edition of D&D debuted during a slightly different political, economic, and cultural atmosphere, allowing for different presentations of the game. And I guarantee that the producers of D&D want each edition to have a different feel to it. This is partly to make it appeal to people to whom it did not previously appeal. This is also to make it appeal to people who already own D&D, so they'll say to themselves, "y'know, I really do need to buy at least three more books."

But I think you left us a message anyway, Der-Rage. It might have been:

D&D could make magic seem more mysterious/untrustworthy, bring back racial level limits in the form of sex level limits, and include some rules on politics.

A digression on D&D's correct way to play:
[sblock]D&D includes several features that already imply a correct way to play. For example, consistently rising hit points imply that caution should be ignored. Easily accessible magic implies that magic should be commonplace and accepted. The consistent use of an alignment system implies that right and wrong should not only always be in place, but there should be nothing in-between.[/sblock]

 

[Chaltab]

D&D could make magic seem more mysterious/untrustworthy, bring back racial level limits in the form of sex level limits, and include some rules on politics.

These are settings things, again. I mean general politics rules could be in the core, but people's attitudes toward magic and gender should be something each group decides on their own. I certainly wouldn't want to play at a table where a character like The Hound or Joffrey can be misogynist jackholes and not expect a swift punch in the mouth. There's a certain appeal to GRRM's characters who find their strength in spite of great difficulty, but without the context of what Martin is *doing* then having rules like female characters only being able to reach level 10 in fighter (for example) is just going to read as sexist on the part of the game.

A digression on D&D's correct way to play:
[sblock]D&D includes several features that already imply a correct way to play. For example, consistently rising hit points imply that caution should be ignored. Easily accessible magic implies that magic should be commonplace and accepted. The consistent use of an alignment system implies that right and wrong should not only always be in place, but there should be nothing in-between.[/sblock]

Alignment options like 'True Neutral' and 'Unaligned' beg to differ. There are always options between good and evil.

As for rising hit points imply that caution should be ignored, that's something that can be solved by increasing the rate of monster damage progression. Dark Sun gave us a whole world based on the vilification and hatred of magic. Again, these things are fine for campaign settings or modular options, but those two things have been part of D&D since the very first splat. Including options from darker settings is not something D&D could 'learn' from ASOIAF, it's something D&D already knows well.