D&D 5E (2024) What does the new DMG say about gods?

[Micah Sweet]

I did a spit take on page 75.
....For game purposes, wielding divine power isn’t dependent on the gods’ ongoing approval or the strength of a character’s devotion. The power is a gift offered to a select few; once given, it can’t be rescinded.....
So WOTC just told all DMs player character can say fu to the god and still get their full spell list the next day.

Yeah, that happened. Many people appear to be borderline ecstatic about it.

But I'll go with the public good and not talk about it further.

 

[Scribe]

Yeah, that happened. Many people appear to be borderline ecstatic about it.

Dragonlance shows us the way.

"Whats that crater called?"
"Oh that was Bob."
"..."

 

[Voadam]

I think a lot of DMs are going to ignore the current suggestions around divine power as well.

I’ve ignored the 5e god/quasi deity distinction and definitions for a more Eberron style cosmology I’ve used since 3e.

I like having divinity be ambiguous while in world religions and mythologies be big deals like in Conan stories.

I also like religious themes of heresy and schisms and corrupt priests of good gods being possible plot points.

As a DM I do not want to be the orthodoxy police telling my PCs they are playing their clerics wrong or requiring atonements and changes to their role play to keep their class powers. It is not the play experience I want.

In my setting I have an imperial and religious civil succession war in my Lothian empire with both sides claiming to stand for true LG Lothianism against the corruption of the other side and both sides getting divine power for their clerics and paladins.

Keeping the actual nature of the ascended martyred paladin Lothian ambiguous allows such a backdrop.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I wonder if they assume that would apply to the Divine Intervention ability? I'm assuming they do, but that just seems ... weird.

It’s not unknown in some religions for priests to force the god to comply.

 

[Stormonu]

Being down in the Bible Belt, I usually gloss over religion in the game. But I have had occurrences because of particularly heinous characters actions (NPC & PC) Clerics and Paladins have lost their abilities, so I'm not afraid to pull abilities if I feel it fits the campaign.

 

[Shadowdweller00]

I did a spit take on page 75.
....For game purposes, wielding divine power isn’t dependent on the gods’ ongoing approval or the strength of a character’s devotion. The power is a gift offered to a select few; once given, it can’t be rescinded.....
So WOTC just told all DMs player character can say fu to the god and still get their full spell list the next day.

Yeah, that's never going to see the light of day in any game I ever run. Along with warlocks working in direct and obvious opposition to their patrons.

 

[Shadowdweller00]

I also like religious themes of heresy and schisms and corrupt priests of good gods being possible plot points.

As a DM I do not want to be the orthodoxy police telling my PCs they are playing their clerics wrong or requiring atonements and changes to their role play to keep their class powers. It is not the play experience I want.

Nor, I think, do many DMs. Speaking for myself, given the latitude I typically give Divine-using players in interpreting their vision of a deity's teaching, it rarely comes up. And when it does, it usually results from an egregious disconnect between a player's understanding of the game world and the actual lore. Or I suppose a character going full murderhobo without the slightest reflection on moral implications. And when or if it does, the offending party always has the option of converting to something more befitting their actions and beliefs.

In over 30 years of gaming, I think I've only actually seen someone fall once or twice. Most of it back in middle school when me and some of my less socially conscious contemporaries thought pickpocketing the orphans was hilarious just because you could.

 

[pukunui]

It’s a bit of a tangent, but I just noticed that the Greyhawk god St Cuthbert is now just Cuthbert. I guess they decided to drop the saint title due to its real world connotations.

 

[coyote6]

It’s a bit of a tangent, but I just noticed that the Greyhawk god St Cuthbert is now just Cuthbert. I guess they decided to drop the saint title due to its real world connotations.

I always wondered who canonized Cuthbert as a saint, anyway.

 

[pukunui]

I always wondered who canonized Cuthbert as a saint, anyway.

This is what I found online:

Saint Cuthbert's name was inspired by the real-world Saint Cuthbert of Lindisfarne (AD 634-687). There are subtle hints in some sources (including the aforementioned Dragon #100) that Saint Cuthbert of Greyhawk and Saint Cuthbert of Lindisfarne are intended to be one and the same, or at least that the former has knowledge of the latter.