NOTE: My intention in this thread is NOT to begin a religious debate, and I will NOT respond to any provocations to begin one.
That said, I was wondering, how many other people out there run Deity-light games? By Deity-Light, I mean games wherein deities are more similar to how they are viewed today: as an unknown, with "believers" on one side, "non-believers" on the other, and "Agnostics" in the center.
If you do run deity-light games, then how do you handle things like Divine Magic, which is normally granted by a deity? Is it unknown how divine casters get their power? Or is it somehow explained? Do divine casters even exist in a world wherein deities are an unknown?
Also, if you do run them, WHY do you run games this way? Personally, I just don't like the idea of deities being incredibly powerful, yet primarily absent from world crises.
Even when I run games in Golarion, I assume that deities cannot be nearly as powerful as the idea of "deity" assumes, else, since they are active in the world, they would likely intervene in conflicts far more often than they do.
An Honest Question,
-The Beast
NOTE: My intention in this thread is NOT to begin a religious debate, and I will NOT respond to any provocations to begin one.
That said, I was wondering, how many other people out there run Deity-light games? By Deity-Light, I mean games wherein deities are more similar to how they are viewed today: as an unknown, with "believers" on one side, "non-believers" on the other, and "Agnostics" in the center.
If you do run deity-light games, then how do you handle things like Divine Magic, which is normally granted by a deity? Is it unknown how divine casters get their power? Or is it somehow explained? Do divine casters even exist in a world wherein deities are an unknown?
Divine magic can exist as a different type of magic than arcane with no connection to the "divine" without any mechanical alteration to the system. Druids can easily be re-fluffed around natural flow of magic or whatever.
Fritz Leiber's setting (Fafhrd and Grey Mouser's) has black magic (arcane) and white magic (divine) but both are fluffed as "wizards".
I would actually love to play in a setting where the cleric is yet another type of "wizard" casting from a different spellcasting tradition than that of arcane wizards (although the Witch kind of fills that role now) and where deities are their for philosophical reasons only (with the occasional miracle worker or chosen/champion here and there).
In other words, all you need to change is the fluff, nothing else has to change at all!
'findel
|
Thinking about it, I run a pretty deityless game already, as have all the DMs I've played with. Gods have rarely been more than names in any game I have played in. So having divine magic spring from some ephemeral source wouldn't be much more than a fluff change, since it already kind of works that way.
Unless I'm running Planescape, I do not like having the gods play a prominent role in a campaign. I assume that they are incapable of intervening in mortal affairs and that mortals, likewise, are incapable of meeting the gods on their home turf.
If I'm going to have active gods in my campaign, I make them smaller gods like the Immortals from OD&D-- epic-level NPCs who spend the vast majority of their time outside the mortal realms. They can grant spells to their priests, but they're busy and their attention is mostly focused elsewhere.
I normally allow atheist Clerics and Paladins, so the relationship between religion and divine magic is blurred further. Now that I've separated divine magic from primal magic, and arcane casters are capable of most restorative magics, I'm reconsidering this position.
Exactly as Elevn_Blades said, the clerics don't need to worship, but can be devoted to a cause. So in that case you could just have the "powers that be" and keep it vague enough to surmise there are no actual gods - similar to how Angel tv series done it. That way it allows still for the presence of fiendish and celestial creatures who are just opposite sides of the coin.
If I'm going to have active gods in my campaign, I make them smaller gods like the Immortals from OD&D-- epic-level NPCs who spend the vast majority of their time outside the mortal realms. They can grant spells to their priests, but they're busy and their attention is mostly focused elsewhere.
Kinda like this: http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0040.html
For me, deities are little more than alignment restrictions on domains. I think it'd be a little hard to have a campaign feel rewarding to the players if there was active deific involvement.
In the old, old days of D&D, in 1st edition I think, the gods only directly granted the power to cast the really high level spells. Their intermediaries, angels and such, granted the power to cast the mid-level spells. Clerics could cast the low-level stuff just by staying true to their deity and not wavering in their faith. I like this version and would never use a version where the deity pays attention to every low-level cleric running around in their temples.
I don't now but I did before. I ran a Forgotten Realms game where the gods had left. There were no more clerics, druids, or other divine casters. Paladins and rangers didn't get spells. Arcane magic was gone as well.
Instead I used other classes to fill in those roles. I used the Magic of Incarnum, Tome of Magic, and any other alternative casting that I could find. It was interesting to see how the players reacted to no divine magic. To make it a bit more interesting, the Blood War had crossed over and the devils had control of the cities while the demons had control of the wilderness. There was very little inter-city trade.
In the old, old days of D&D, in 1st edition I think, the gods only directly granted the power to cast the really high level spells. Their intermediaries, angels and such, granted the power to cast the mid-level spells. Clerics could cast the low-level stuff just by staying true to their deity and not wavering in their faith. I like this version and would never use a version where the deity pays attention to every low-level cleric running around in their temples.
Exactly. Unless you have a cleric running around casting miracles in such a way that his god would be angry, your campaign is only as religious as your divine casters want it to be.
If you think a divine caster is straying too far from his deity's path, he might get a warning from an intermediary, probably in a dream, or maybe a stern lecture from his immediate mortal boss, and an atonement, if he really screwed up his calling.
If you're like me, you don't care much about it. Good players rarely defy their characters' religious tenets.
NOTE: My intention in this thread is NOT to begin a religious debate, and I will NOT respond to any provocations to begin one.
That said, I was wondering, how many other people out there run Deity-light games? By Deity-Light, I mean games wherein deities are more similar to how they are viewed today: as an unknown, with "believers" on one side, "non-believers" on the other, and "Agnostics" in the center.
If you do run deity-light games, then how do you handle things like Divine Magic, which is normally granted by a deity? Is it unknown how divine casters get their power? Or is it somehow explained? Do divine casters even exist in a world wherein deities are an unknown?
Also, if you do run them, WHY do you run games this way? Personally, I just don't like the idea of deities being incredibly powerful, yet primarily absent from world crises.
Even when I run games in Golarion, I assume that deities cannot be nearly as powerful as the idea of "deity" assumes, else, since they are active in the world, they would likely intervene in conflicts far more often than they do.
An Honest Question,
-The Beast
Eberron's deities don't physically show up. The cleric does not even have to be the same alignment as the diety or even within 2 steps, and he still keeps his powers. Having a cleric that disconnected from his deity, but still getting the powers is not for everyone though.
NOTE: My intention in this thread is NOT to begin a religious debate, and I will NOT respond to any provocations to begin one.
That said, I was wondering, how many other people out there run Deity-light games? By Deity-Light, I mean games wherein deities are more similar to how they are viewed today: as an unknown, with "believers" on one side, "non-believers" on the other, and "Agnostics" in the center.
If you do run deity-light games, then how do you handle things like Divine Magic, which is normally granted by a deity? Is it unknown how divine casters get their power? Or is it somehow explained? Do divine casters even exist in a world wherein deities are an unknown?
Also, if you do run them, WHY do you run games this way? Personally, I just don't like the idea of deities being incredibly powerful, yet primarily absent from world crises.
Even when I run games in Golarion, I assume that deities cannot be nearly as powerful as the idea of "deity" assumes, else, since they are active in the world, they would likely intervene in conflicts far more often than they do.
An Honest Question,
-The Beast
Generaly....deities don't show up in my game...unless the players seek them out. This is mostly because the gods have to act though their whorshippers....for a number of reasons...which I have put out there...
1) Gods can't act directly because there powers would destroy the world
2) By agreement they must act though there mortals
3) The good and some neutral gods spend their power and engeries from keeping the other neutral and evil deities from interacting w/ the world directly.
4) Also the MAD principle that if god x does bad things to god y churches...god y will do it right back.
So they can send dreams and visions...etc...but that is about it. They can't or won't bring their power to bear.
And there has been non-believers PCs in my games...they just believe 'divine' magic is just another form of arcane magic steeped in believe and such.
If you do run deity-light games, then how do you handle things like Divine Magic, which is normally granted by a deity? Is it unknown how divine casters get their power? Or is it somehow explained? Do divine casters even exist in a world wherein deities are an unknown?
Just let their magic be another form of "common" magic - they may think that it comes from their god, yet in truth it comes from within or from some field of magical energy or somewhat else - think about it, magic is basically performing wonders (thaumaturgy), what better way is there to spread the word? Even the bible is full of that stuff, Jesus walking over water, Moses transforming his staff into a snake while the other egypt wizards can only imitate him very poorly... maybe magic is controlled ENTIRELY by clerics in such a world with the clergy suppressing any other casters to stay in control and no active god to prove them wrong.
Once I started building a CRPG with such a setting, without classical wizards but 4 dominating gods (Storm/Creation, Sun/Stability, Knowledge/Technology/Medicine and Death/Athropy) and being a cleric of one of them defined your spell list (not just bonus domains like in PF, the spell lists where basically disjoint), every cleric in that world was able to perform magic (the keeper of the cemetry of a small village can perform magic that harms undead for example) however only a few cloistered clerics studied high magics (like summoning storm dragons - one thing that needs such a dedicated study that no PC could hope to achieve it while adventuring)There are some examples, for instance in the anime Scrapped Princess, the clerics cast their magic exactly as the wizards do (the god of that world does meddle with the world but not that much altough the story is based around a real prophecy and blood-hungry angels)
And then there's the concept of Small Gods (a discworld novel which concentrates on the gods of the discworld, centered around the god of Omnia who resembles the god of the three great monotheistic religions and who is now powerless, creating a tiny spark when trying to smite someone with a lightning)
Question, you said you don't want to start a religious debate - did this happen before on this board? I played with quite a lot people with a strong faith, they never mixed real world religion with fictional worlds (I'm pretty sure that I could even play a campaign in medieval europe with the inquisition and other stuff with them, one friend of mine for example just loves V:tM while being a faithful christian)
I've never run such a game, but I've certainly thought about it...
I figure there's one of two ways I would do it:
1. Make a medieval-esque world, inspired by medieval literature (note I don't think most fantasy adventure games are remotely "medieval"). The church (whatever the "church" may be) is a major political power, and it is questionable as to how much faith the church generates is based on its clout versus its guidance of people toward "the Spirit," to coin a phrase. HOWEVER, being a medieval-esque-literature-inspired game, people do believe in miracles, and perhaps they do exist. Ergo... some ministers of "the church" are merely clever or charismatic leaders... but others actually are divinely guided and can perform religious miracles. The most powerful miracle workers would be extremely rare, and wont either to hole up in a hermitage somewhere, or constantly be on pilgrimage. Divine classes would include adept (and most divine magic you would see would come from this NPC class), inquisitor (faith drives one's zealous deeds, low magic but it's there), and oracle (inspired by divine visions, with flaws/consequences).
2. Make a world where faith is a thing of itself, and some are driven by it but others aren't, but divine "magic" would not exist--just as no god shows up in physical form, no one can cast "divine spells." No divine spellcasting classes. Rather, anyone truly "one with the Spirit"--someone so faith driven to have incredibly focused abilities--would be monks and/or monk-like classes with ki abilities. The slightly toned down mystical abilities can represent a true-self-ness as much as devotion to a god or religious discipline, but still reflect the faith in a mystical way suitable to a fantasy campaign.
|
I'm currently playing in a game with no gods (or divine magic) whatsoever. Wizards and bards do all your healing (as the GM has added a number of conjuration (Healing) spells to the arcane spell lists). However, this game's world is rife (relatively) with epic level 'entities' who run the show and taunt party members as they dust your companions, so your god-like figures still exist but don't grant spells.
The level of religiousness really isn't decreased that much. Most NPC interaction still is the same, we're just not stopping by temples for Restoration spells. One of the guys in the game even had a previous character who fancied himself as a Cleric of the Beer Gods (Dwarf Conjurer specializing in healing), so it was just like we had a cleric who couldn't burst heal.
As a GM, I don't tend to run God-lite games. Deities aren't really 'involved' (or ever set foot) in the mortal realm, but they do steer their clergies to get stuff done. This has more to do with my home game's world being affected a lot by past PC clerics than a religious bent to the games, however.
Eberron's deities don't physically show up. The cleric does not even have to be the same alignment as the diety or even within 2 steps, and he still keeps his powers. Having a cleric that disconnected from his deity, but still getting the powers is not for everyone though.
This is actually how I run my homebrew world. There are several beliefs in gods, but said gods do not actually interact with the world, and their existence is even questionable. I have an entire country whose leaders have perversed the works of Sarenrae to justify a theistic autocracy. In general, Paladins and Inquisitors (especially Inquisitors) are rarely of the same alignment of their God (of course, I also use a very loose and philosophical alignment system).
Divine magic is viewed by the faithful to be granted miracles by their particular deity (of course, there are atheist/agnostic clerics whom wield divine magic with no connection whatsoever to a deity), and by the non-religious as another method of casting that most arcane casters are just beginning to understand (bards, with their healing spells and their armored casting are considered to be a bridge between the two styles, with magi approaching the barrier as well).
Question, you said you don't want to start a religious debate - did this happen before on this board? I played with quite a lot people with a strong faith, they never mixed real world religion with fictional worlds (I'm pretty sure that I could even play a campaign in medieval europe with the inquisition and other stuff with them, one friend of mine for example just loves V:tM while being a faithful christian)
Religion is a hot topic and I made claims about our world (a deity being an unknown) that could start a fire on these boards.
-The Beast
We just scrapped the whole arcane/divine thing altogether, along with designated class spell lists--anyone can learn any spell now. The whole "wizards can shapechange but can't figure out how to heal their wounds" and "clerics' gods don't mind raising the dead but heaven forbid a cleric use fabricate" never made a lick of sense to me... and then we all played Dragon Age and decided to make a world like that. So clerics are still priest-y types, and probably see their magic as gifts from their gods (which the wizards see as rather delusional), but that's all just fluff. The gods in our campaign are total no-shows, so there aren't any FR-type deities wandering around causing mischief and making themselves known--faith is actually like real-world faith, instead of just brown-nosing to a powerful outsider.
In my homebrew setting the gods were gone.
Why;
They didn't fit in. The setting was loosely based on "Perdido street station" and the city of New Crobuzon. As such it was home to all manner of strange beings , but none godlike in power.
Result;
No divine magic.
Made potions of healing, potions of neutralize poison and (addictive)stat boosters available through apothecarys or could be made by a PC with ranks in profession(herbalist)or profession (alchemist).
As a result the undead became more of a challenge;)
It also ment that I could have ; "the return of divine magic as a defense against the rise of undead" as an over-arching campaign idea.
And no - one said that the returning, undead- hating, gods had to good:)
We played a deity "heavy" campaign for a very long time. For instance, if a cleric were to cast a spell on a follower of his own god, or an allied god, spells were often more effective (healing spells were max). If you cast them on anyone else, they were rolled as normal and outright enemies received no benefit. In other words, a cleric could judge you to be a "true believer" by how a healing spell reacted to you.
The pantheon was fairly similar to a Greek style, with meddling gods, but the church was more along the lines of 10th to 16th century Roman Catholic for rules and hierarchy. The gods themselves never showed themselves in the Prime Material plane, but we never found out why. Servants of the gods and supernatural creatures of immense power were encountered on more than a few occasions though.
I guess you could explain it that the Prime plane is only one battlefield and while important, it isn't important enough for the gods to show up themselves. Perhaps their power is diminished, or some link must be created and if it were severed would leave them in a weakened state, hence why they send their servants to do their dirty work.
I'm toying with a homebrew world that takes place about a century after a divine war in which the gods did appear in their full glory and duked it out. The battle ended in a blaze of glory so bright that you couldn't see who actually won, but the moon was left shattered in half. After the battle, things like Contact Other Plane don't really work right. Previously, the gods had punished clerics who had stepped out of line, but now, it's not happening any more. Some of the old religions still exist, but new ones are popping up all the time and even non-religious people are able to access divine magic some times. It's starting to cause a lot of confusion and power struggles. Various outsider beings can still be summoned and spoken too, but they never share any useful information about what happened to the gods.