Ellis Mirari |
Oh by no means. But I prefer the variant of that that includes the character having a beef with their deity and the resulting conflict - whether caused by doubt, hostility, or misbehavior - causing the deity to withdraw their sponsorship until the rift is repaired. As stated before, I'm not a big fan of the "powered by my own faith" variant of divine casting.
I find that those sorts of beefs are less likely to happen with that set up, though of course they CAN. A fantastic example if Carrow from Journey Quest. If you aren't familiar with that webseries, I highly recommend checking it out.
Friendly and thoughtful Carrow instantly becomes cynical and sarcastic Carrow that despises Perf for getting him killed and turning him into a monsters. He also now has to deal with his god falling silent, and every bit of magic he tries to use turns back on him as he is now an "abomination", that is, until he starts to dabbled in the darker side of divine magic out of necessity, but he hates himself for it.
But that sort of situation forth the idea that the gods are, in the readers'/player's eyes, "wrong", and I would prefer to have different people see it both ways. It can also create a "do what I want or no powers" dynamic, which I'm not a fan of. Not every cleric/deity interaction works out that way, mind you, but with the existence of gods not concretely proven, it makes it easier for different people to believe different things about deities than having just one true perspective.
MrSin |
I always tried to keep a good compromise by leaving a lot of the deity stuff up to the player. Less impending doom from the GM and chances of arguments over the deity's teachings. Besides, lots of fun to see what people bring to the table, especially if you allow them to build their own codes and deities.
Orthos |
I make a point of working that sort of thing out with the player in advance, making sure we're on the same page with expectations and things. I definitely don't expect anyone to go in blind.
My entire pantheon is for the most part homebrewed, so it's not as if I'm pulling a book off the shelf and telling the players that's what we're using, they've had a bit of input. Some of the gods are even some of their old characters.
Coriat |
I've rarely felt the urge to raise the flag and rebel.
(there have been a couple times, many years ago when 3.0 first came out and we were young teenagers, that involved "no, I'm DMing now, this sucks" but I honestly don't remember any specific breaking points; it was more that most of the group couldn't put even a so so game together to save their life).
These days I tend to peacefully work for change from within. Probably because at 26 I have one foot in the grave and all my youthful fire and rebelliousness is but a distant memory.