D&D 5E Why FR Is "Hated"

[pemerton]

And that is the problem with your's and Pemerton's narrow interpretation of a deity.

I think if you want to understand why [MENTION=58172]Yaarel[/MENTION] says what he says about polytheism and monotheism you are going to have to engage with his conception of what a deity is. That's the nature of human discourse.

Likewise if you want to know why I describe HPL's work as essentially atheistic, with the Old Ones being "anti-gods".

And it's not as if the ideaare being put forward are particularly unusual or idiosyncratic ones. I'm not the originator of the idea that gods give human significance to what contemporary science tends to present as impersonal natural and social processes.

Likewise there is an extent idea that pagan "gods", if they do exist as grantors of magical powers, are not really gods at all but rather spirits or demons of some sort. What [MENTION=58172]Yaarel[/MENTION] is objecting to (as I understand it, and based on the references to Eberron), is that many D&D settings (including FR, and also 4e) present the divine status of these beings (eg their aptness to be worshipped) as a given.

 

[Shasarak]

Conan himself observes that Crom does not intervene in the affairs of mortals. Nothing suggests that Crom is an existent divine being.

And yet Conan prays to Crom for a miracle and gets it - how is that not evidence of Crom as a divine being/

 

[Shasarak]

Likewise if you want to know why I describe HPL's work as essentially atheistic, with the Old Ones being "anti-gods".

Well I am still not exactly sure what you mean by that unless it is because they can be beaten off using the power of Science (and dynamite of course)!

 

[KarinsDad]

But - in GH, say - what makes Wee Jas or Tritherion or St Cuthbert a god, but Mordenkainen or Vecna (as presented in the original DMG) or Demogorgon (as presented in the original MM) or Lolth (as presented in D3 and Q1) not one?

They all wield supernatural power. Vecna has cultists and devotees, just like Wee Jas. Lolth not only has cultists, but clerics (eg among the drow; Lareth the Beautiful in T1).

At least in some versions of D&D, being a god means more than just being a powerful supernatural being who is worshipped and can bestow clerical spells.

That's just inconsistency in writing and the evolution of the game. Authors are people too and often make obvious mistakes. I cannot think of a single D&D source material ever that didn't have mistakes in it.

Yes, in the 1E MM, Demogorgon was just a demon IIRC. In 2E, when the game systems got more fleshed out, he became a demigod or demon lord or some such. But that's just inconsistency due to different writers, the game evolving, etc. I don't put a lot of stock in "game canon" to that level.


And, I don't recall Mordenkainen being anything but a wizard (not that I remember much of anything about him).

 

[Remathilis]

I remember when this thread was about hating Eliminster... :-(

 

[Maxperson]

Not originally. Eg the AD&D PHB says (p 20) that "The cleric is dedicated to a deity, or deities", and also refers to a cleric constructing "a castle, a monastery, an abbey or the like [which] must be dedicated to the cleric's deity (or deities)."

I think DDG is the first AD&D book to imply that clerics worship only one god exclusively.

The 2e cleric is at its base a cleric of the entire religion. If it's polytheisitic, the cleric would be a follower of the greek religion, as an example.

"The most common type of priest is the cleric. The cleric may be an adherent of an religion (though if the DM designs a specific mythos, the cleric’s abilities and spells may be changed-see following)."

It goes on to later describe the specific mythos as gods of war, harvest, etc., indicating that the cleric might be allowed to follow a single god, but you have to ask the DM if that's allowed.

3e clerics say the following.

"Clerics of a given religion are all supposed to get along, though schisms within a church are often more bitter than conflicts between religions. Clerics who share some basic ideals, such as goodness or lawfulness, may find common cause with each other and see themselves as part of an order or body that supersedes any given religion."

and...

"Some clerics devote themselves not to a god but to a cause or a source of divine power. These characters wield magic the way clerics devoted to individual gods do, but they are not associated with any religious institution or any particular practice of worship."

So it's clear that in 3e you can be a cleric without a god or even be a cleric of an order that includes multiple gods.

From 4e.

"As a cleric, the deity (or deities) you choose to revere goes a long way toward defining you, or at least how other people in the world see you."

I don't see similar language in the 5e PHB, making it the first edition to require a specific god, though I may have missed it in the text somewhere.

 

[Sadras]

I don't see similar language in the 5e PHB, making it the first edition to require a specific god, though I may have missed it in the text somewhere.

True, unless the DM rules otherwise as per DMG under chapter 1: A world of your own.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

I don't understand your point. I didn't say my world has no one in it who worships the various god-kings, pharaohs, dragons, or fabrications made out of superstition. I just said those people are wrong, and the wizards are right. (In some cases they are merely wrong about their purported god's nature; in others they are wrong about it's very existence. Baal is just a superstition, for example, not an entity. But his worshippers typically don't think so, because they see the priests' signs and miracles. Wizards are less impressed by those signs and wonders.)

This seems to me exactly analogous to your example of the world being one shape, but NPCs believing it to be another shape. What are you objecting to? Or are you confusing my stance with Yaarel's? [/URL]

Your point -

And that's the problem with D&D "gods." They don't have the characteristics of a deity. In fact, they cannot have those characteristics because they exist only as emulations in the mind of a finite, and fallible DM. At best a D&D god can be omnipotent; it cannot be omniscient or infallible, because the DM isn't infallible.

and

It's important to me that I run a universe where you don't have to take the self-proclaimed gods seriously, because I can't understand how anyone COULD take them seriously. I won't force anyone to do something I wouldn't do myself.[/URL]

My point was:

1. You state the gods don't have the characteristics of a deity. Which I questioned directly. What are the characteristics of a deity? Is even this small group in consensus with that definition?

2. You stated that a god in D&D cannot possibly have the characteristics of a deity, since they have to be portrayed by a mortal (DM); and

3. That you don't run a fictional universe where the fictional people take their fictional gods seriously because the gods are self-proclaimed(?*), in part because you can't understand how those fictional people could take them seriously.

*I don't think that all of the gods in all of the campaign worlds are self-proclaimed, particularly if part of their power derives from their worshippers, then they can't be entirely self-proclaimed or they would lose their power very quickly.

So I'm questioning where the line is. A DM pretending to be a dragon, mind flayer or flumph seems as far-fetched as portraying a god. Particularly when most of the time, all that is relevant in a campaign is the acknowledgement of the gods themselves, and really all that needs to be defined for them to be gods in the campaign is the ability to grant divine abilities. The DM doesn't actually have to act as the god. The game defines what the benefits are of worshipping a god, at least to a cleric, and whether the gods exist or not is really irrelevant. So just as you can say that they are wrong and don't exist, it would be just as easy to say they are right and they do exist and leave it at that.

Even if you accept that the gods do exist, in your campaign, the fact that you, as the DM, know that the gods are petty and grasping for power doesn't mean your fictional people do. That the people take them seriously as a matter of faith. That's how you could understand how people take them seriously.

I don't find it difficult to consider that the published information about the gods themselves are just tall tales, and the reality is different, yet the gods still exist and provide all of the powers attributed to them in the game. On the other hand, I also don't consider the possibility that the gods in this world are much closer to the ancient gods of Egypt, Rome, and Greece, where the gods are literally just more powerful creatures that happen to have abilities and control over the people's eternal lives.

None of that means that you can't choose that the gods don't exist. And I don't think you really need to justify that decision. But when you choose to justify them, then I might question those justifications. Not to pick on you, or tell you you're wrong. But to understand better. I'm just pointing out that your justifications don't make sense (at least to me).

The justifications given were:

1. The world can't have gods, because the DM isn't a god. By that measure, he's not a dragon either. Or a flumph. So why have dragons but not gods?
2. You don't have gods, because you don't think the people should/could take self-proclaimed gods seriously. I've questioned that, and given examples as to how the people could (and probably should) take them seriously.

I guess I'm just saying, that's not good logic to not have gods. You know what is? I'm the DM and the author of my world, and in my world there are no gods. And it's an interesting premise to start with, particularly if you continue to have religion in your world.

--

Overall I do have a question for everybody without divine beings, how do things like resurrection work? Do you have behind the scenes explanations as to how certain divination spells work, or how resurrection spells work, etc., or do you not care? What about "holy" spells or abilities?

Also, just to tie it back at least to the subject (if not the question) of the thread - in the Forgotten Realms, Ed Greenwood specifically designed the gods to not be all powerful. His reasoning was:

1. If this is a world where gods actually exist; and
2. Gods are all-powerful

then how and why would you have more than one god.

Therefore, the gods must not be all-powerful. They must have some limitations on their powers, some weaknesses that could be exploited. Then he went about finding a way to make those work.

His example was Mystra, the goddess of magic. If true magic is capable of pretty much anything, and she controls access to magic, how could any other god possibly stand up to her. She would have the power to take their magic away, to prevent those gods from granting any sort of magic to their followers, there could be no other god.

So in the Realms, they are specifically not omniscient or infallible. They are just beings that are more powerful than mortals or other planar beings. In D&D they are also defined in part by a faith relationship that grants power to the god, and also allows the god to grant a portion of their power to the people. Another defining feature seems to be the creation of a plane of existence (or at least a major part of one) that reflects their specific being. And that this is an extension of them, and disappears if/when they are killed.

Note that not all of these characteristics were designed by Ed Greenwood in regards to the Realms deities.

So demons possess some of these characteristics. Warlock patrons share some of them too. But the gods, at least in the Realms, have these other characteristics, while not explicitly stated in any one place, that seem be be fairly consistent among them.

By not being omniscient or infallible, they also share many of the faults of personality that mortals do. You might be pure lawful good. Not just in ethos or belief, but actually made of the material "lawful good." But you live in a universe (the planes) where there are creatures, including other gods, that lie, cheat, steal and murder. But mistrust is not part of your nature, is it? If you're just pure, blissful lawful good, how is it conceivable that there are others that are not? Perhaps you're not 100% unblemished? Perhaps you were, and they tarnished you? Does this make you not worthy of worship anymore? That you are somehow no longer perfect? Is not the ability to promise (and deliver) an eternity of glorious freedom from all that is wrong and evil in the universe enough? Wouldn't that be a sacrifice on their part? That they give up some of their blissful eternity of perfection to fight what is wrong and evil, so you can live eternity without any wrong or evil?

 

[hawkeyefan]

It's really just a label, the term "gods". I generally use the Planescape designation of "Powers". I find that suits the themes of my campaign and the sensibilities of my players and I quite well.

In the future, however, I expect official material produced by WotC to adhere to my personal preference so that I can let my ability to reason take a little nap.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

Not originally. Eg the AD&D PHB says (p 20) that "The cleric is dedicated to a deity, or deities", and also refers to a cleric constructing "a castle, a monastery, an abbey or the like [which] must be dedicated to the cleric's deity (or deities)."

I think DDG is the first AD&D book to imply that clerics worship only one god exclusively.

Well, I said D&D setting, perhaps I should have said published D&D setting. I don't recall any settings offhand where a cleric wasn't dedicated to a specific deity, rather than a group of deities.

I think that 5e has tried to streamline and simplify things, particularly in the PHB. Part of that was to use the idea of domains, which could be viewed as a simplification of the spheres that deities granted in 2e. So it does have language elsewhere, in the appendix and DMG that references other religious constructs.

Part of the reasoning, I think, is just that they did a lot of playtesting and questionnaires and probably found that the majority of people considered a cleric a religious class dedicated to a single god. Also, the fluff text is more substantial than the AD&D PHB, and decided not to write paragraphs like these:

"As you create a cleric, the most important question is to consider which deity, or deities, or philosophy, or perhaps a world in which gods don't exist and a cleric's abilities aren't tied to the gods, nothing to serve, and what principles you want your character to embody. Appendix B includes many of the gods of the multiverse, unless your DM doesn't have gods in their campaign, in which case these gods don't exist. Check with your DM to learn which deities are in your campaign, if any.
Once you've chosen a deity, or deities, or philosophy, or nothing, consider your cleric's relationship to that god, or gods, or philosophy, or nothing. Did you enter this service willingly? Or did the god, or gods, or philosophy, or nothing, choose you, impelling you into service with no regard for your wishes? How to the temple priests of your faith regard you: as a champion or troublemaker? Unless you worship nothing and there are no temples, or priests. What are your ultimate goals? Does your deity, or deities, or philosophy, or nothing have a special task in mind for you? Or are you striving to prove yourself worthy of a great quest?"

Another solution, used by Adventures in Middle Earth, is to not have religion or clerics. They do have a healer class. Which is needed because their Journey Phase doesn't allow long rests, and aside from some herbal remedies that also provide healing, adventurer's wouldn't last very long. Of course, it was based on a source that didn't speak of religion much, or clerics at all.