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Why all the fuss about who or what is/isn't a god?
- Thread starter Davelozzi
- Start date
RSKennan
Explorer
Sejs said:
In most of my games they simply didn't exist until mortals began to worship them. A storm god might have been born with the first gasp of awe at the sight of lightning blowing up a tree.
Alternately, it's not so much the humans that created them, but it's worship that gives them focus. They started out as primal spirits and became more refined as they gained followers. Sort of divine clay if you will.
It's a two way street- a god relies on its followers for power and often for identity, but they also submit to his or her will; said god can act upon his followers and thereby change their way of believing in him. A diety can slowly alter his own powerbase by pushing against the constraints of his people's faith. For example the storm god can be benevolent or cruel... how he acts defines his people's faith, which in turn reinforces his capabilities to affect them. I call it the ' Deification Contract. '
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Mystaros
First Post
The whole rift between the "god" and "powerful being" in D&D came from the perspective of the Judeo-Christian mythos. In Judeo-Christian belief, all "good magic" was simply the power of God channeled through a prophet or saint or the power of God Himself in Jesus Christ. In non-Christian belief, in general, magical powers were not so much *granted* by the gods as they were *taught* by the gods, as the mysteries and triths of the universe. Witness the inherent superiority of Moses' snake, which was the power of God against the common magic of Pharaoh's wizards, or the power of Jesus and the various saints to raise the dead and heal the lame, which came not from any knowledge they had, but from their piety and the beneficience of God.
The cleric class in D&D, however, was not originally based on the non-Christian priests, it was an amalgamation of the early Christian saints with the crusading clerics of the crusades, and thus, coming from a Christian sort of perspective, the "magic" they possesed came not from their own mastery of the various mysteries of the universe, but instead directly from their god... which was a Christian concept.
Thus, when TSR backed off due to negative publicity about demon worship and so forth, they divested any "god-like" beings that might be construed of as being devils or demons of having the ability to grant divine spells... even though the various "pagan" gods continued to ahve the ability to do so. As various tales from those days at TSR seem to indicate, this middle ground that was chosen could well have been as much from upper level management ignorance of magic, religion, and history as it was from intent. Witness the changing of the names of the outer plane from Hell to Ba'ator and other easily recognizable (to American Christian ears) names from "demon worshipping" stuff... yet they kept various more esoteric names untouched, such as Gehenna (which is nothing more than Latinized Hebrew for "Hell").
Anyhoo, this kind of dichotomy — "things that could be readily Christian demons and devils" not having spell-granting abilities versus "pagan and heathen gods" having such abilities, kept throughout most of the TSR period. Then, in general, WotC really didn't care once they acquired the property, as the ownership was a bit more aware of what was really going on, and unconcerned about fundamentalist backlash (which had long passed D&D over for far more fertile fields of endeavor).
One little oddity that remained from that era, though, was the use of the term "Immortal" and the whole developement of a different kind of divinity in the BECMD&D setting of Mystara. It being the "extreme intorductory game and setting," it eliminated ANY reference to gods whatsoever, and made the "gods" powerful former mortals who simply had a lot of power... though there were older Immortals who could never remember being mortal, and there were the mysterious Old Ones, beyond even them.
And then, of course, Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance evolved the concept of the High God, who was to the gods as the gods were to mortals, thus further pushing the whole kit and kaboodle further away from any sort of connection to "true divinity."
The cleric class in D&D, however, was not originally based on the non-Christian priests, it was an amalgamation of the early Christian saints with the crusading clerics of the crusades, and thus, coming from a Christian sort of perspective, the "magic" they possesed came not from their own mastery of the various mysteries of the universe, but instead directly from their god... which was a Christian concept.
Thus, when TSR backed off due to negative publicity about demon worship and so forth, they divested any "god-like" beings that might be construed of as being devils or demons of having the ability to grant divine spells... even though the various "pagan" gods continued to ahve the ability to do so. As various tales from those days at TSR seem to indicate, this middle ground that was chosen could well have been as much from upper level management ignorance of magic, religion, and history as it was from intent. Witness the changing of the names of the outer plane from Hell to Ba'ator and other easily recognizable (to American Christian ears) names from "demon worshipping" stuff... yet they kept various more esoteric names untouched, such as Gehenna (which is nothing more than Latinized Hebrew for "Hell").
Anyhoo, this kind of dichotomy — "things that could be readily Christian demons and devils" not having spell-granting abilities versus "pagan and heathen gods" having such abilities, kept throughout most of the TSR period. Then, in general, WotC really didn't care once they acquired the property, as the ownership was a bit more aware of what was really going on, and unconcerned about fundamentalist backlash (which had long passed D&D over for far more fertile fields of endeavor).
One little oddity that remained from that era, though, was the use of the term "Immortal" and the whole developement of a different kind of divinity in the BECMD&D setting of Mystara. It being the "extreme intorductory game and setting," it eliminated ANY reference to gods whatsoever, and made the "gods" powerful former mortals who simply had a lot of power... though there were older Immortals who could never remember being mortal, and there were the mysterious Old Ones, beyond even them.
And then, of course, Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance evolved the concept of the High God, who was to the gods as the gods were to mortals, thus further pushing the whole kit and kaboodle further away from any sort of connection to "true divinity."
In my game Cleric-power is not dependent on the status of the object worshipped. Clerics' worship & study taps them into the wellsprings of divine power (the Positive Plane, in default cosmology, or a truer understanding of the universe, or something else). Conversely, worship can create gods:
"Divine spellcasting is empowered primarily by the faith of the worshipper, rather than by power gifted directly from the deity. Thus it is possible to find divine spellcasters (not necessarily Clerics or Druids) who revere giant spiders or inanimate objects as gods, and cast spells normally. Of course, sufficient amounts of faith may turn that spider or object into a 'true' god".
In Greek mythology human worship gave the Greek gods a special sort of power that enabled them to overthrow their parents the Titans.
In Romano-Greek mythology there's no distinction in kind between Zeus and a dryad - they're both gods, only one is a big god and one is a little god (god of the air & pantheon head, vs god of a tree), ie 'god' and 'spirit' the same thing.
In a Romano-Greek based game a priest should logically be able to worship a tree and get benefits, just as from worshipping Zeus. Maybe different benefits (tree spells vs air spells, maybe)...
"Divine spellcasting is empowered primarily by the faith of the worshipper, rather than by power gifted directly from the deity. Thus it is possible to find divine spellcasters (not necessarily Clerics or Druids) who revere giant spiders or inanimate objects as gods, and cast spells normally. Of course, sufficient amounts of faith may turn that spider or object into a 'true' god".
In Greek mythology human worship gave the Greek gods a special sort of power that enabled them to overthrow their parents the Titans.
In Romano-Greek mythology there's no distinction in kind between Zeus and a dryad - they're both gods, only one is a big god and one is a little god (god of the air & pantheon head, vs god of a tree), ie 'god' and 'spirit' the same thing.
In a Romano-Greek based game a priest should logically be able to worship a tree and get benefits, just as from worshipping Zeus. Maybe different benefits (tree spells vs air spells, maybe)...
Li Shenron
Legend
Davelozzi said:
I don't know if really so many DMs stick to that standard, I have heard many just doing what they want with deities and such.
But why still many others (perhaps most, but I'm not sure) just do as they are told by the books? Maybe because some so-called "fantasy" roleplayer don't have enough of that "fantasy" to come up with his own ideas? Or, to put it more mildly
just because the published books are the "common language" of D&Ders, and as such it's quite natural to start playing with what comes from the book and only later change it as you prefer.As a DM I have no problem allowing variants such as a cleric worshipping a group of deities, an entire pantheon, or a being which official doesn't grant spells. Maybe that's because deities are still beyond mortal comprehension in my campaigns, and as such you cannot know if your cleric spells are "granted" by some god, or instead are coming from your own inner strength (whatever your character believes). Just like the fact that your cleric believes in her god, but it's not even sure that the god truly exists, at least as a separate entity. Who cares to define deities after all?
It's what your characters do that matters in practice.
Trickstergod
First Post
Part of the problem, I believe, is that the real world has so many variations on what constitutes a god. They're omnipotent or no stronger than a mortal man. They're immortal or have to drink their special drink to keep on going. They created the world and fire and universe or just happen to have been this mortal guy once who ascended to godhood upon claiming the throne or dying.
And so on and so on.
A number of the differences are just stupid. A number of these came up in Planescape (and to a lesser degree, Ravenloft) - if only because it had to deal with the topic and the variations more than any other setting. In fact, I'd say it's mainly in settings like that where problems crop up.
I think there's too much of a tendency for D&D, regardless of the edition, to have tried to quantify these things. The differences in the real world have caused all sorts of trouble, but D&D goes so far as to stat these beings out. To place limitations on them. To eliminate the mysteries. To not make creation myths, but right out state exactly how creation happened.
A lot of the differences and problems are just silly.
And so on and so on.
A number of the differences are just stupid. A number of these came up in Planescape (and to a lesser degree, Ravenloft) - if only because it had to deal with the topic and the variations more than any other setting. In fact, I'd say it's mainly in settings like that where problems crop up.
I think there's too much of a tendency for D&D, regardless of the edition, to have tried to quantify these things. The differences in the real world have caused all sorts of trouble, but D&D goes so far as to stat these beings out. To place limitations on them. To eliminate the mysteries. To not make creation myths, but right out state exactly how creation happened.
A lot of the differences and problems are just silly.
Voadam
Legend
It seems silly to me that you can be a godless cleric and get spells or a cleric of a specific god and get spells, but if you follow a being that is not an official god you get no spells. Demon and devil cults are particularly right for the genre so their infeasibility is a poor design choice.
The front man option just seems silly, why do these gods sponsor the cults instead of their own? It forces wierd aspects into the story behind the scenes.
The front man option just seems silly, why do these gods sponsor the cults instead of their own? It forces wierd aspects into the story behind the scenes.
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