Roleplaying Do you need deities in your campaign? [Archive]

Thrasher92

2017-11-27, 11:06 AM

You can do whatever you want! Lack of God doesn't really matter mechanically or in fluff to anyone except the Cleric.
But that's easy enough to get around. Clerics' magic could even be a thing learned via participation in a religious institution even if the God doesn't actually exist. Or come from devotion to an ideal, like the paladin.

Epic level threats can be all sorts of non-diety things.

I suppose I should have been more specific. He and I are sort of writing a campaign setting together. He wants to write a big fantastical mythology of how the universe was born and the first gods and a pantheon of gods and little stories about each of them. I told him that's fine if he wants to do it, but I don't usually bother using deities in my campaigns. If the clerics, paladins or whomever want to choose a deity or make one up, I'm cool with that, it almost never has any bearing on the game.

He insists that religion is part of human nature, as a method of explaining the world around you when you don't understand it and can't figure out why events happen. They might start as stories explaining natural phenomena like the a certain star cluster appearing during harvest season being a warrior returning home, so it's time to gather crops. It would be taught to children so they can remember vital things in their life.

So, I guess my point isn't really about DnD as a game, but as a story.

Unoriginal

2017-11-27, 11:10 AM

I've been having an ongoing conversation with an author friend of mine whom I play DnD with.

He insists that every campaign setting (Forgotten Realms, Ebberron, Greyhawk, etc) must have deities in it. Something to provide high level characters incentives and such. These NPCs are supposed to be the real puppetmasters in the cosmos for when the campaign or story goes into epic levels. He points out that many evil deities are classic DnD villains (Vecna, Tiamat, Orcus). Apparently they give a "focus" and a guide to divine magic.

It is my opinion that you don't need deities in a campaign. Divine magic can exist but it could just come from "cosmic energy" that you are aligned with. You need to choose a path or an idea to focus on, like worshiping life or whatever, but you don't need an actual name or anything.

What do you guys think?

There is no "must" about deities in D&D settings.

You don't need to have "real puppetmasters in the cosmos", or to have any being fitting the role of "guiding spirit who shapes the world in some ways". You could say divine magic comes form a different place, or use any explanation for it.

As for the "many evil deities are classic D&D villains", it falls more into the "gods as characters" category than in the "gods as setting background". And the thing is, in "gods as characters", the important part is "characters", not "gods". Tiamat could not be a goddess, but simply a powerful evil dragon. Vecna could be a powerful lich, and not a god. And Orcus isn't even a god, making your friend's argument shoot itself in the foot.

If you go "gods as setting background", then the gods, assuming anyone worship them, can also be not real and people just claim to do things in their name by following an ideology, established organisation or traditions.

KorvinStarmast

2017-11-27, 11:11 AM

The Dungeon Masters Guide includes a small passage regarding the sources of divine magic optionally being philosophies or ideals rather than gods/deities.

In 'three books in a white box' D&D, there were clerics of Law and of Chaos (and a bit later Druids, who were by default neutral as a PC class) with no named deities. Indeed, at that point, the later derived distinction between divine magic and arcane magic wasn't as clear cut as it has since become. The game was just fine in that state, and you can do it in this edition with no ill effects.

I am biased in this view, but the game world works just fine with "law/neutral/chaos" as the only alignment axis and basis for the cosmic, existential conflict. Likewise you can use the structure of Light, Darkness, (and whatever you want to call that in between bit: Shadow, color/whatever). It works well enough.

2D8HP

2017-11-27, 11:16 AM

....So, I guess my point isn't really about DnD as a game, but as a story..
In my experience, most world building is for the amusement of the DM and isn't stuff the players interact with.

To drop a metaphor, imagine that there is a snowflake creator that devotes much effort and takes great pride in making each and all of the unique and beautiful crystal patterns of every single snowflake, that work is unlikely to be appreciated by someone shovelling the snow out of the walkway to their home.

JackPhoenix

2017-11-27, 11:17 AM

Eberron works without gods well enough. Sure, there are religions, including "gods", but nothing suggest they are actually real and have any power. What's real is *faith*, and two sources of "divine" power: the Silvef Flame and the gestalt of Undying Court. But priests of Blood of Vol are able to draw on "divine" magic merely through their faith in divinity within, and various Cults of the Dragon Below have plenty of fanatics who cast cleric spells, even though they worship things as low as gibbering mouthers, random fiends or aberrations, or truly mad visions of their prophets.

Having religion, faith and "gods" doesn't neccessarily mean those gods really exist. Just look at real world.

Eradis

2017-11-27, 11:24 AM

I suppose I should have been more specific. He and I are sort of writing a campaign setting together. He wants to write a big fantastical mythology of how the universe was born and the first gods and a pantheon of gods and little stories about each of them. I told him that's fine if he wants to do it, but I don't usually bother using deities in my campaigns. If the clerics, paladins or whomever want to choose a deity or make one up, I'm cool with that, it almost never has any bearing on the game.

He insists that religion is part of human nature, as a method of explaining the world around you when you don't understand it and can't figure out why events happen. They might start as stories explaining natural phenomena like the a certain star cluster appearing during harvest season being a warrior returning home, so it's time to gather crops. It would be taught to children so they can remember vital things in their life.

So, I guess my point isn't really about DnD as a game, but as a story.

Even then, agnostics and atheists and their increase in popularity shows you that divinities in a story aren't necessary. Belief and Faith are hard to miss in humanity, but those are not always related to a god. Some believe in the universe itself and in karma, other believes in science, in any case there will always be at least one question that will remain unanswered and it is "If X was the start, how X happened?".

For story purposes, especially those of epic proportions, sure, it is easy to go do deities bidding here and there, but you can also brave the biggest threats of the world. Might it be more humans to dominate, lands to conquer, gigantic beast to slay, cities to save, journey to extreme places such as the "center of the Earth" where nature itself is the toughest challenge, you can find your count. Personally, in almost all my campaigns, there is at least one mention of a god. In the stories with little to no place for one, it is mostly referred to as the Maker or the Creator, whom existence is unproven. It's the rule of the mortal that is the most fearful and sinister hook regardless. You might wet your pants in front of a huge demon trying to invade your world, but your mission to eliminate it is quite clear, whereas when it comes to people, a rightful king might be something even more troublesome to deal with, as evil he might be.

Joe the Rat

2017-11-27, 11:34 AM

Do you need actual, made the world, sits on a separate plane, totally-not-real-world-mythos-with-serial-numbers-filed-off gods? No. Dark Sun did fine without them (for certain uses of the word "fine"). They had their God-Kings, but they were not proper deities.

Clerics need a source of power, and a symbol to represent said source. (By Xanathar's, an ideal is a legitimate option to consider).
That gets a little weird given that Clerics aren't necessarily priests or philosophers, but beings who were chosen to wield power - suggesting some intelligence is at work, even if it isn't a traditional entity. But if you're ditching deities, the process of becoming Cleric can be rewritten for your setting. More like an Intuitive Mage.

Mind you, it is human nature to anthropomorphize things. You could describe many deities as being a personality (and description) assigned to a concept. So if you're going to go with philosophical tendencies or fundamental forces as your point-of-empowerment, you may get some push back or unintentional apotheosis from your players.

The other thing you need to look at is how that impacts cultures. You take out the personified higher powers, what brings your people together? Is there a social replacement for the temple? Do stories become one of supernatural, but not necessarily divine beings? Do you have Devas and Demons serving as agents of their concepts, or slightly-removed-from-reality entities that you may have to contend with? What replaces the evil cults? Is it about servitude and power, not worship?

MrFahrenheit

2017-11-27, 11:34 AM

A few thoughts:
1. Deities are necessary - even if they never get involved with the party beyond a cleric’s source of magic power - when you’re using a setting which already has them (DL, FR, Greyhawk, even Eberron). If you’re creating your own setting, though, then they’re only as necessary as you want them to be. If you go without them, you’ll need to fill in what people’s beliefs are about the afterlife, as well as where clerics get their powers from.
2. AFAIK, deities in D&D are more like the Greek gods - which is to say they’re immortal and have super powers...but not eternal and omnipotent/omniscient. They have their virtues and vices, and can be heavily involved with the affairs of mortals, even to a trifling degree. But they’re proven to exist within the world (the gods are involved to such an extent in dragonlance, that it’s more like Ancient Greek mythology and classical society with medieval technology than a through-and-through medieval world with a polytheistic belief system).

Sception

2017-11-27, 11:39 AM

the game works just fine without deities, and any number of other options can be used to provide motivation & adversaries to high level parties. Frankly, you friend is exhibiting a striking lack of creativity here for an author.

Although, that might explain it from another direction. Authors are used to telling /their/ story, and that mindset in a DM tends to require vastly more powerful DMPCs (high level characters when the party is low level, gods or characters that are essentially gods when the party is high level) to force the party to stay on the rails.

A more cooperative storytelling approach builds the campaign based on what the players want their characters to achieve rather than what the 'powers that be' (ie, the DM) want their characters to achieve. In this mode, the DM has to play as reactively as the players do, bringing in appropriate and believable complications based on what the players are striving for.

Laserlight

2017-11-27, 11:51 AM

I suppose I should have been more specific. He and I are sort of writing a campaign setting together. He wants to write a big fantastical mythology of how the universe was born and the first gods and a pantheon of gods and little stories about each of them. I told him that's fine if he wants to do it, but I don't usually bother using deities in my campaigns. If the clerics, paladins or whomever want to choose a deity or make one up, I'm cool with that, it almost never has any bearing on the game.

He insists that religion is part of human nature, as a method of explaining the world around you when you don't understand it and can't figure out why events happen. They might start as stories explaining natural phenomena like the a certain star cluster appearing during harvest season being a warrior returning home, so it's time to gather crops. It would be taught to children so they can remember vital things in their life.

So, I guess my point isn't really about DnD as a game, but as a story.

That's actually two distinct issues.

One is "Is the story epic enough that gods and their activities are part of it". The answer to that is "Whoever's writing the story decides that"; I could perfectly well have a setting in which the gods are very active, but the hero doesn't interact with them at all.

The other one is about religious belief. That will almost certainly affect the society that the characters operate in, and not necessarily just as "How do we explain thunder?" For example, a conquerer might require his new subjects to convert to his approved religion, as a sign of political loyalty; potential rebels cling to the old religion. A restive province might embrace a schismatic doctrine as the first stage of breaking away from the empire. The priesthood might provide an alternate path to political power, one that relies on competence and ambition rather than social standing and nepotism. If you don't have religion, some players may find that detracts from the world's texture. But it doesn't necessarily mean that deities are around and active at the time your players are.

If your author friend wants high powered characters to have one personal villain to oppose--for example, "Tiamat" rather than "smallpox" or "swarms of zombies" or some other diffue threat--then, yeah, he has a point. Someone who can fend off a party of L20 characters is going to pretty high powered--but there's plenty of room between "I shall fell this enormous fire giant with a single blow of my hammer" vs "I'm going to create the Moon."

Unoriginal

2017-11-27, 12:02 PM

I suppose I should have been more specific. He and I are sort of writing a campaign setting together. He wants to write a big fantastical mythology of how the universe was born and the first gods and a pantheon of gods and little stories about each of them. I told him that's fine if he wants to do it, but I don't usually bother using deities in my campaigns. If the clerics, paladins or whomever want to choose a deity or make one up, I'm cool with that, it almost never has any bearing on the game.

Seems good to me. Some people like more detailed worldbuilding, some don't. If some religious stuff has a major importance in the campaign, it might be better to expand the lore on it, though.

He insists that religion is part of human nature, as a method of explaining the world around you when you don't understand it and can't figure out why events happen. They might start as stories explaining natural phenomena like the a certain star cluster appearing during harvest season being a warrior returning home, so it's time to gather crops. It would be taught to children so they can remember vital things in their life.

This, however, does not really work well in the D&D world.

Gods and religions aren't explanations for unknown phenomenons. The gods are real people with their quirks, duties and fancies, and their religions is essentially what they, as deities, directly say to their mortals.

Sure, there are myths and legends about deities, like the one about how Gruumsh felt cheated when the time came to share the world due to all the parts having been claimed already, and people would probably come up with "and X god did Y" as an explanation for things they don't understand (to say nothing of stories where the events are mis-remembered) but you can actually ask the god in question if it's true or not. Though they could also lie in their answers.

And that's not counting the regular divine interventions, like this little demigod who goes around creating copies of himself everywhere in order to avoid being found by ill-intended people.

Essentially, it's way more "ask Captain America and Hawkeye if they really defeated 70 cyborgs with only a paperclip and an hair dryer while disguised as Santa Elves " than like real-world religious explanations.

but there's plenty of room between "I shall fell this enormous fire giant with a single blow of my hammer" vs "I'm going to create the Moon."

If you go by the standard setting described in the books, the gods' power that set them the most aside from other beings is their capacity to create lifeforms out of nothing. Some beings like Aboleths existed before the gods, but the gods created most of the rest.

Only Demon Princes and Beholders get close to have an equivalent to this power, but the Demons are more "creating new species by twisting existing ones" (though not always) and Beholders can just create beholder-like beings through by dreaming, without control over it. And of course, there is a few magic users who did weird experiments and the like, resulting in weird beings.

PhoenixPhyre

2017-11-27, 12:12 PM

Essentially, it's way more "ask Captain America and Hawkeye if they really defeated 70 cyborgs with only a paperclip and an hair dryer while disguised as Santa Elves " than like real-world religious explanations.

As long as you're satisfied with obscure, lying, self-aggrandizing, or otherwise non-literal answers. D&D gods are notorious for being quite...sparing...with the truth. Yes, high level people have obvious contacts with gods (in FR/Grayhawk at least), but that doesn't mean that those gods necessarily will tell the truth. Or that the truth will make sense to mortals (with their very different frame of reference). Or that the truth they tell will include all the necessary context.

But yes, most settings that have active gods don't have the progression

natural world that needs explanation --> gods --> religion --> goto step 2;

it's more like

Gods exist, they interfere in nature. We keep them happy (or at least less unhappy) by religion.

Temperjoke

2017-11-27, 12:13 PM

It sounds as if your friend subscribes to the idea that "if God didn't exist, mankind would have invented him".

Setting how things have developed in real life aside, since it runs the risk of violating the rules of the forum, in D&D I don't think they are necessary, but they can make things easier for world building.

"Why did this happen?" "Oh, that god wanted it that way."

On the other hand, and I've seen this in books, it can be easy to over-rely on the gods in a setting. I like the idea that they're there, but they're not responsible for everything that happens, manipulating things behind the scenes. This can be resolved by having the idea of a covenant of some sort, an agreement between all the gods as to how they conduct themselves in regards to mortals and the mortal world.

"Why didn't this god just do this himself?" "Oh, well, he's not allowed to just directly do it, cause then these gods would be able to do worse stuff themselves."

Makes for a nice balance.

Nifft

2017-11-27, 12:25 PM

Eberron works without gods well enough. Sure, there are religions, including "gods", but nothing suggest they are actually real and have any power. What's real is *faith*, and two sources of "divine" power: the Silvef Flame and the gestalt of Undying Court. But priests of Blood of Vol are able to draw on "divine" magic merely through their faith in divinity within, and various Cults of the Dragon Below have plenty of fanatics who cast cleric spells, even though they worship things as low as gibbering mouthers, random fiends or aberrations, or truly mad visions of their prophets.

Yep, and AFAICT for Eberron this is the explicit default setting -- there are certainly religious, but there is no concrete evidence for the existence of any gods.

Two characters from different backgrounds can disagree about matters of faith without either needing to hold an idiot-ball.

It's part of what makes Eberron such a great setting.

Grod_The_Giant

2017-11-27, 12:48 PM

Both of are largely correct here, I think. No, gods don't have to exist as literal entities for a campaign to function. It perhaps cuts off some stories, but so will every choice you make in world building. There are a thousand thousand more you can still tell.

On the other hand, MYTHOLOGY will almost certainly exist. A quick look at the world shows that pretty much every culture has its own stories of gods, spirits, and heroes. NOT having them would be odd.

As to their importance...? That's largely to you. I think having at least a cursory idea of such things helps give richness to a setting and helps distinguish cultures, but that's just me. There's nothing wrong with letting players add such things to the setting themselves, either.

Joe the Rat

2017-11-27, 12:55 PM

I have a colleague that takes the Talpa approach to deities - the collective will of the believers is what springs them into being - and a deity's power is tied to its believers. Saves you from having to explain multiple oft-contradictory creation myths and just-so stories. It also encourages evil cults to spread, so the whatever-they-worship can bootstrap itself into godhood.

On the other hand, and I've seen this in books, it can be easy to over-rely on the gods in a setting. I like the idea that they're there, but they're not responsible for everything that happens, manipulating things behind the scenes. This can be resolved by having the idea of a covenant of some sort, an agreement between all the gods as to how they conduct themselves in regards to mortals and the mortal world.

"Why didn't this god just do this himself?" "Oh, well, he's not allowed to just directly do it, cause then these gods would be able to do worse stuff themselves."

Makes for a nice balance.Why didn't the god do it himself? That's what Clerics are for. The Agreement is such that they require mortal agents to act in the world. Exactly how much the character is acting of their own accord vs. manipulation by their deity vs. fate is a matter of setting.

It also gives you some food for thought in regards to undead clerics. They are skirting the line of "mortal," and some may take an affront to this cheat.

Waterdeep Merch

2017-11-27, 12:55 PM

I like toying with the cosmology in my games a lot. Three different takes on gods I've done-

1.) The players were the only remnants of the gods that existed in the world. They sacrificed themselves to prevent a different god from achieving total dominion over the world in a certain pact, but the players cheated that pact by reincarnating with a spark of their divinity. In the end, they had to decide whether to try and re-obtain their godhood, stay mortals with a simple spark, or sacrifice themselves to remove all gods from the setting.

2.) All mortals were originally gods that have long since attuned too closely to the material world, becoming mortal in the process and losing much of their power. This was originally supposed to be simple jail time for a faction of gods that opposed the others, and the reaction by the rest of the gods is mixed as to whether this was ultimately their fault and whether they owe anything to the mortals for doing this to them. Complicating matters, mortals have the unique ability to impart their 'curse' on other gods, meaning they all have the capacity to permanently slay them. Further, unknown to almost all of the gods and mortals, it is possible for a mortal to recover their lost godhood. The few who have done so have a pact to hide this information for fear of sparking a second divine war that the mortals have no way of winning. Yet.

3.) There appear to be multiple different faiths, with some bleed over between them of certain gods or concepts. Warfare over the proper interpretation of any given faith is extremely common, with some decrying entire races of people to be satha, a common word in every language essentially meaning both heretic and demon. In reality, there are no gods. The ones they pray to did in fact make all of the mortal races, but they're really just powerful extraplanar elementals from a dream dimension and they made all the mortal races the old fashion way. They're also all dead by the start of the game, except one which has been brought back as an undead abomination and is presently on a twisted campaign to save the world by killing off everyone's connection to its home, the dream dimension, which is completely overrun with eldritch abominations.

Sigreid

2017-11-27, 12:59 PM

No, you don't have to have gods. You do need to make some decisions about what people believe and why, as well as whether there is any truth to what they believe.

That said, there nothing wrong with just starting with defining the immediate area, or letting a player of a religious character do the work of defining his religion.

Devils_Advocate

2017-11-27, 05:31 PM

So, it looks like the real question is roughly "Is is possible to tell a successful epic high fantasy story in which religion plays no role?" (A "deity", in this context, is pretty much just one of the most powerful supernatural entities described by a religion.) Does that seem about right?

I vote "Yes". I can't think of any examples, but I don't know all that much about fantasy literature. Can anyone name one? In particular, any potentially world-ending threat that isn't the subject of myth nor prophesy would be great.

Zakhara

2017-11-27, 07:33 PM

PhoenixPhyre

2017-11-27, 07:49 PM

Part of what makes interesting deities is a sense of ambiguity. The "Easily-Proven Gods" angle is easy, but creates problems in that it stifles creativity, because you can never plausibly create characters who don't buy it (and it's just strange to have Clerics be objectively correct all the time--why have Kings if you can have Clerics?). I like campaigns without "flat-earth atheism", basically.

I have gods in my setting, but there are several cultures that don't think they're worth worshiping. The gods aren't all-powerful (in fact, they have limited scope for direct intervention on the mortal plane), they aren't all-knowing, and they aren't truly immortal (the current ones are all less than 250 years old at this point, the last batch having committed ritual suicide to prevent the literal destruction of the universe). They have power, but most of them are thoroughly uninterested in amassing worshipers. Clerics are useful, but only a small percentage even has the perception (wisdom) needed to meaningfully channel divine power.

There are two cultures that accept that gods exist but refuse to worship them (as a general process). One is a collection of animists--they propitiate ancestor spirits and natural spirits and get power that way (following the old way, since clerical power is only a few thousand years old, where druidic power is twice or three times as old). Their attitude toward the gods is that they have their role, but they're basically care-takers. Why would you worship the garbage collector or the accountant?

The other culture is actively hostile to the gods (all of them). They were a culture of infernal summoners that were "reformed" by a soul-eating ancient silver dragon who calls himself "The Prophet of Peace." His goal is to create a true afterlife and depose the gods, replacing them with nothing. He doesn't even plan to be around to see it--his plan involves rewriting reality, a consequence of which is that he (as a unique individual) would have never existed. The people revere him and pull power from the souls he's consumed (warlock style).

Most of the high elves consider gods to be a human affectation, since they developed "true wizardry" ~15k years ago.

So you can have gods without having everyone being a worshiper and without them being unknowable or remote.

Renduaz

2017-11-27, 08:04 PM

No. One of the common substitutes is that as much as a Wizard channels magic though studying or a sorcerer through inborn talent, the Cleric also draws on some kind of force, whether within himself or in the universe, maybe a magical version of Faith itself, that lends him his power, but different Clerical domains have personified that power into the gift of various Gods depending on the kind of emotional/intellectual focus they're most proficiency why, hence creating the Gods and their aspects.

Spells like "Commune" and so on can either just flat out be excluded, or they can work, but actually not be any different than a Druid's "Commune with Nature". You ask for knowledge, you'll get it, but actually because you're using your own "magic" to semi-scry/divinate what you wanted and have it relayed to you in the form of a voice, because that's what your belief induces inside your mind. You want to start a conversation, you'll find that your own subconscious is speaking to you, behaving as what you expect it to behave like in your conviction. Summoning Celestials? You can call upon them, but no deity would have sent them. It would be your own conviction to your alignment and your ideals which cosmically draws them to you. If you ask them whether the deities are there, they'll tell you that those deities are omnipresent in their planes at all times, yet maintain no avatar or personal manifestation there. Whether that's true or not, you'll never know.

You might say that some powerful planar creatures may count as deities in their own right, but then you might as well call a dragon worshiped by kobolds a deity too, or any powerful lich archmage a deity. But none of them will be deities in the D&D sense of the word. They have no portfolio, can't grant any spells to someone who decides to worship them, don't have all the knowledge and influence that comes with total control over a portfolio, don't have avatars, and so on.

Knaight

2017-11-27, 08:16 PM

Naanomi

2017-11-27, 08:27 PM

For what it is worth, Gods are no where near the top of the pile in terms of ‘pulling the strings of the cosmos’ in DnD Cosmology

Unoriginal

2017-11-27, 08:39 PM

(and it's just strange to have Clerics be objectively correct all the time--why have Kings if you can have Clerics?).

Clerics aren't objectively correct all the time, they just know what their gods tell them.

For what it is worth, Gods are no where near the top of the pile in terms of ‘pulling the strings of the cosmos’ in DnD Cosmology

Depends the setting. The "standard 5e" described in the books doesn't reall mention anyone better than the gods, in this category. And as it stands, while there are beings who are older, or weirder, the gods are kinda on top of the totem pole in term of raw power.

In other settings, there are primordial creators like Ao who kind of make gods feel like Commoners.

PhoenixPhyre

2017-11-27, 08:43 PM

Clerics aren't objectively correct all the time, they just know what their gods tell them.

And gods have every reason to lie (or at least shade the truth in their favor). They also (in D&D) aren't omniscient.

Unoriginal

2017-11-27, 08:53 PM

And gods have every reason to lie (or at least shade the truth in their favor). They also (in D&D) aren't omniscient.

Well there are deities who are both honest and benevolent, but even them have subjective bias and judgements, and as you said they don't know everything. They are, however, very smart and knowledgeable.

Point is, if you ask Corellon about the Cursed Apple Tree over the Hill, they might confirm it's not them who curse the tree, but they're not likely to give you a full history lesson.

Naanomi

2017-11-27, 09:09 PM

Depends the setting. The "standard 5e" described in the books doesn't reall mention anyone better than the gods, in this category. And as it stands, while there are beings who are older, or weirder, the gods are kinda on top of the totem pole in term of raw power.

In other settings, there are primordial creators like Ao who kind of make gods feel like Commoners.
Since we are back on the Great Wheel, I assume that old fluff from 1e/2e is valid again until I see otherwise. I realize not everyone is going to see it that way though.

Ao is an overpower, he’s got at least one tier of power above him (he reported in to it in one of the novels); and that may or may not be one of the Old Ones that set the Wheel (and presumably other Cosmologies as well) in motion to begin with, or just one more tier of intermediary

Unoriginal

2017-11-27, 09:14 PM

Ao is an overpower, he’s got at least one tier of power above him

True, but we don't talk about Elminster.

Naanomi

2017-11-27, 09:21 PM

True, but we don't talk about Elminster.
Funny, but I meant the ‘Luminous Being’ from the end of the Waterdeep Novel, and also referenced in Faiths and Avatars in Ao’s entry

Ganymede

2017-11-27, 09:25 PM

Your friend is trying to say that the games he plays in require deities in order to preserve his particular sense of verisimilitude and fidelity to how he imagines a fantasy world.

His preference isn't wrong, per se, but it doesn't mean that others can't enjoy a fantasy world that does not have a pantheon of competing gods.

The games I play generally have gods, though, and I'm cool with that.

Unoriginal

2017-11-27, 09:34 PM

Funny, but I meant the ‘Luminous Being’ from the end of the Waterdeep Novel, and also referenced in Faiths and Avatars in Ao’s entry

It was just a joke.

I could also have said "true, but we don't talk about the coffeelock"

Thrudd

2017-11-27, 09:58 PM

If the setting has magic, you need to describe in some way how it works and where it comes from, at least for yourself. If the setting has different types of magic or if people access it in different ways you need to explain why. If your world has religions, you should describe what those religions believe and teach. Gods are not the only answer to any of those questions. As was pointed out, even if a religion believes in gods does not mean they are real in that world. But that doesn't excuse you from explaining how "divine" magic works in a D&D setting.

Laurefindel

2017-11-27, 10:10 PM

On Deities: No, a D&D setting does not need deities, but its inhabitants will most likely have their own mythology and recognize many phenomenons/powerful creatures as gods.

On Clerics: Clerics can easily be re-fluffed as "white mages", like they did in the 2e AD&D Lankhmar (Fafhrd and Grey Mouser) setting. The good witch living in the village? She's a cleric. In that sense, Domains are not so different from arcane schools of magic.

War_lord

2017-11-27, 10:23 PM

As I see it, this isn't actually one question, it's like, three questions.

Do you need gods in D&D 5e?

I would say yes, there's enough divine spells that rely on not only the existence of divine power, but that divine power being able to answer questions and send Celestials to aid the caster, that theism of some form is rather baked into the system.

Do the gods need to be foils for the player, or otherwise connected directly to the main plot?

No, in fact in my opinion doing so cheapens the most powerful entities in the setting to being just another monster for the party to slay. This might have been a necessity in earlier editions, where play characters could eventually reach a power level that rendered most foes literally no threat to the PCs, but 5e has bounded accuracy and a defined level cap of 20. Orcus has a CR of 26, an avatar of Tiamat has a CR of 30. You aren't defeating a well run fiend of that power level without either cheese tactics or (more likely) some macguffen or plot contrivance that handicaps them enough for a level 20 party to fight them on equal terms.

I'd rather just use a monster with a CR over 20. Krakens, Empyreans, Ancient Dragons are all endboss monsters with their own cults and evil plans on a planar scale.

Do you need to write up all of the gods in your setting and their entire mythology before play, or can you just come up with gods as needed?

It's personal preference, a writer is going to want to write his or her setting out ahead of time, because that's how a writer's creative process works. If you're not a writer you can totally just improv that aspect of the world as needed. It's entirely a matter of what works for you. Which is the problem with "co-authoring" anything, unless you've agreed on splitting responsibilities ahead of time it's going devolve into a tugging war between your preferences and his.

Sigreid

2017-11-27, 10:35 PM

War_lord

2017-11-27, 10:48 PM

For this one point I'll just say that a DM could decide that while the cleric believes he is communing with his go what he is really doing is connecting to the collective unconscious of his fellow deluded worshipers.

At which point you're changing elements of the D&D setting, departing from the core book. Which is why I don't consider Dark Sun a D&D setting without gods. It makes enough changes to the core assumptions to be considered its own thing.

JoshuaZ

2017-11-27, 10:52 PM

At which point you're changing elements of the D&D setting, departing from the core book. Which is why I don't consider Dark Sun a D&D setting without gods. It makes enough changes to the core assumptions to be considered its own thing.

This seems strange to me, and indicates very different intuitions on what is a necessary part of a D&D setting. Can you expand on why in your view a setting without deities is so far removed that it isn't D&D in your view?

MrFahrenheit

2017-11-27, 10:54 PM

For this one point I'll just say that a DM could decide that while the cleric believes he is communing with his go what he is really doing is connecting to the collective unconscious of his fellow deluded worshipers.

May as well change the cleric’s casting stat to charisma, then.

Here’s how I see magic sources:
One third of the magic pie is provided by the gods. It is divine in nature and as it is provided by a select few who require adherence to certain tenets, is based off wisdom.

The next third is inborn, and thusly, charisma-based. Whether granted to you by one of numerous Multiplanar beings whose total numbers far surpass the gods, your capability to turn music into magic and perform for adoring crowds, or draw upon an oath you undertook, there is a far greater intimacy than in other sources of magic, since you yourself are its ultimate source. Your actions and oaths need not conform to anything other than what you originally swore. Hence, wisdom makes no sense as the source of divine power when you’re really preying upon the masses for further power. That’s charisma!

The last third is provided by nature itself. As the environment is essentially finite yet only yields to those who truly respect it, it also keys off wisdom.

(To finish off the analogy: Finally, we have the “truly” arcane (read: wizards). That 1% of the pie, along the slices where its juices run together. Arcane is the most unique, as its practitioners garnered knowledge through the scientific study of magic, rather than learning as an art, like the other 99%.)

Nifft

2017-11-27, 10:56 PM

The questions of whether a setting actually has gods and whether a setting has religions are almost completely unrelated, and settings can easily have one but not the other. With that said, from a believability perspective humans not coming up with religions at all is fairly unlikely, particularly in the context of primitive societies.

Now I want a setting which has Gods, but no religions.

Because the Gods are real, and they're visible to the population at large, and they're just such total jerks.

Everybody believes, but nobody would worship that guy, nor any of the others.

War_lord

2017-11-27, 11:48 PM

This seems strange to me, and indicates very different intuitions on what is a necessary part of a D&D setting. Can you expand on why in your view a setting without deities is so far removed that it isn't D&D in your view?

An entire class of creature (the Celestials) is made up of entities who are objectively good and literally the servants and messengers of the gods. Objective morality is baked into the rules. Clerics get several spells whose function hinges on the fact that there's actually a benevolent and wise power on the other end to pick up the prayer phone and give answers.

The Cleric as a concept is essentially a priest who works miracles regularly. If you want to make a serious attempt at a setting with no gods, you have to ignore an entire category of being in the monster manual, you have to either ban Clerics or rewrite the class entirely, leaving only the mechanics intact. You have to entirely erase all mention of alignment, since there's no objective good or evil anymore, hell if Demons and Devils still exists in your godless setting most people probably worship them, because they do have power and that's going to be reason enough.

Getting rid of gods in D&D sounds like it's a simple thing, you just say there's none. But if you actually break down the implications of an atheistic setting, the actual things that's going to impart on your setting is going to bring you further and further away from D&D. It's like saying "I'm going to run a modern game using 5e", yeah, you can do that, in the most literal sense that I don't believe anyone should stop you from doing so. But by the time you've actually homebrewed everything a fantasy RPG doesn't cover, you've basically created your own system based off 5th edition.

Temperjoke

2017-11-28, 12:10 AM

Well, there are "Gods", and then there are "Immortal Planar beings which possess immense power and able to grant that power in portions to mortals who ask for it in the proper method."

War_lord

2017-11-28, 12:56 AM

"Immortal Planar beings which possess immense power and able to grant that power in portions to mortals who ask for it in the proper method."

Also known as gods.

JackPhoenix

2017-11-28, 01:38 AM

An entire class of creature (the Celestials) is made up of entities who are objectively good and literally the servants and messengers of the gods. Objective morality is baked into the rules. Clerics get several spells whose function hinges on the fact that there's actually a benevolent and wise power on the other end to pick up the prayer phone and give answers.

Not really. While risking to turn this into another alignment thread, read the description of alignments in PHB. There's nothing suggesting that alignments are objective, on the contrary. And even if they were objective, gods have nothing to do with alignments or their objectivity, beyond having alignment just like any other being. And just because the default fluff in one setting says they are servants of the god doesn't mean it's true in different settings. And the power on the other end doesn't have to be "a god". It could be just powerful and knowledgable celestial. It doesn't even need to be creature: it could involve tapping into some sort of Akashic records.

The Cleric as a concept is essentially a priest who works miracles regularly. If you want to make a serious attempt at a setting with no gods, you have to ignore an entire category of being in the monster manual, you have to either ban Clerics or rewrite the class entirely, leaving only the mechanics intact. You have to entirely erase all mention of alignment, since there's no objective good or evil anymore, hell if Demons and Devils still exists in your godless setting most people probably worship them, because they do have power and that's going to be reason enough.

Look at Eberron. Gods there most likely aren't real. Celestials still exist, they are just inhabitants of different planes. Even they don't know if gods are real. Clerics still exist, they are powered by faith, not by any kind of higher being (those would be warlocks). Alignment still exist, and 5e version of alignment actually fits Eberron better than how it was in 3.5. Fiends exist, and yes, some people do serve them or worship them. No wonder, as the Overlords are closest thing to gods that actually, provably exists. People also believe in (and recieve clerical power from) gestalt pool of energy created by souls of Couatls serving as prison for the aforementioned Overlords, spirits of their ancestors mixed with source of positive energy, an idea that everyone has a spark of divinity within as long as they are alive, bunch of various aberrations, and in one case, crazy(?) warforged artificer. Oh, and a giant robot currently still under construction.

And yes, Eberron definitely is D&D setting, though sadly not one that was officially ported to current edition.

Getting rid of gods in D&D sounds like it's a simple thing, you just say there's none. But if you actually break down the implications of an atheistic setting, the actual things that's going to impart on your setting is going to bring you further and further away from D&D. It's like saying "I'm going to run a modern game using 5e", yeah, you can do that, in the most literal sense that I don't believe anyone should stop you from doing so. But by the time you've actually homebrewed everything a fantasy RPG doesn't cover, you've basically created your own system based off 5th edition.

It is a simple thing, unless you're slave to default fluff incapable of creativity. Setting without gods isn't "not D&D". FR is D&D setting, and the source of default fluff, but so is Planescape (where Powers are just extremely powerful planars with some special and unique abilities), Eberron (where gods may not exist) and Dark Sun (where gods definitely don't exist). D&D isn't, and never was, a single specific setting.

Your example of modern game is different: you'll have to create new mechanics, not just change bits of fluff around.

Also known as gods.

Or archfiends, celestials, archfey, Old Ones... ever heard of warlocks?

Knaight

2017-11-28, 01:46 AM

Getting rid of gods in D&D sounds like it's a simple thing, you just say there's none. But if you actually break down the implications of an atheistic setting, the actual things that's going to impart on your setting is going to bring you further and further away from D&D. It's like saying "I'm going to run a modern game using 5e", yeah, you can do that, in the most literal sense that I don't believe anyone should stop you from doing so. But by the time you've actually homebrewed everything a fantasy RPG doesn't cover, you've basically created your own system based off 5th edition.

There's a pretty fundamental difference between using a game for something it doesn't support which you need to make a bunch of new mechanics for (D&D as a modern game) and using only part of the game that's relevant while ignoring the rest (D&D without gods, or magic, or whatever else can be stripped out).

War_lord

2017-11-28, 01:53 AM

There's a pretty fundamental difference between using a game for something it doesn't support which you need to make a bunch of new mechanics for (D&D as a modern game) and using only part of the game that's relevant while ignoring the rest (D&D without gods, or magic, or whatever else can be stripped out).

D&D doesn't work without magic, most of the classes have at least one feature that relies on magic.

Not really. While risking to turn this into another alignment thread, read the description of alignments in PHB. There's nothing suggesting that alignments are objective, on the contrary. And even if they were objective, gods have nothing to do with alignments or their objectivity, beyond having alignment just like any other being. And just because the default fluff in one setting says they are servants of the god doesn't mean it's true in different settings. And the power on the other end doesn't have to be "a god". It could be just powerful and knowledgable celestial. It doesn't even need to be creature: it could involve tapping into some sort of Akashic records.

No, they're objective. There's a Good alignment, and an Evil alignment. Charity is a good act, and slavery is an evil act, and beings exist that have an objective detector that can tell if you are a good person or an evil person, a categorization that is applied to every sentient being. Good and Evil are tangible forces, with creatures that literally represent those concepts actually existing in the physical world and you can communicate with them and ask what the gods are actually like in person.

Look at Eberron. Gods there most likely aren't real. Celestials still exist, they are just inhabitants of different planes. Even they don't know if gods are real. Clerics still exist, they are powered by faith, not by any kind of higher being (those would be warlocks). Alignment still exist, and 5e version of alignment actually fits Eberron better than how it was in 3.5. Fiends exist, and yes, some people do serve them or worship them. No wonder, as the Overlords are closest thing to gods that actually, provably exists. People also believe in (and recieve clerical power from) gestalt pool of energy created by souls of Couatls serving as prison for the aforementioned Overlords, spirits of their ancestors mixed with source of positive energy, an idea that everyone has a spark of divinity within as long as they are alive, bunch of various aberrations, and in one case, crazy(?) warforged artificer. Oh, and a giant robot currently still under construction.

So basically, they say there's no gods... and then have deific power sources everywhere? Consistent with Eberron's usual schizophrenia over being attached to D&D.

And yes, Eberron definitely is D&D setting, though sadly not one that was officially ported to current edition.

I sincerely hope that Eberron never sees the light of day in any form, watching fanboys cry over it is much more exciting then a setting that's trying to not be D&D while clinging to D&D's mechanical assumptions.

It is a simple thing, unless you're slave to default fluff incapable of creativity. Setting without gods isn't "not D&D". FR is D&D setting, and the source of default fluff, but so is Planescape (where Powers are just extremely powerful planars with some special and unique abilities),

Yes, the Lady of Pain is a being of almost limitless power and inscrutable motivations who can strike down anyone with incites her wrath with a mere thought. WHICH IS NOTHING LIKE ANY GOD EVER.

Eberron (where gods may not exist)

EXCEPT THOSE THINGS THAT ARE EXACTLY LIKE GODS, BUT THEY DON'T COUNT BECAUSE THEY DON'T HAVE GOD IN THEIR NAME.

and Dark Sun (where gods definitely don't exist).

Darksun actually puts its money where its mouth is, instead of playing lip service to the idea of sharply distinguishing itself from Grayhawk and FR, and then chickening out and having Clerics and Paladins running around anyway. But as a consequence of of that it could pretty easily be treated as its own title.

D&D isn't, and never was, a single specific setting.

It's a multiverse of interconnected worlds, which can be traveled between, that is the D&D setting.

Your example of modern game is different: you'll have to create new mechanics, not just change bits of fluff around.

And if you're actually serious about removing gods from your setting, you actually need to make mechanical changes, because otherwise you're just renaming stuff without any meaningful changes.

"I'm going to make a D&D setting, but it's going to be gritty, no healing and no HP."

"Cool, what happens when a player gets stabbed?"

"Well, if you get hit your dead, but I renamed hit points to near misses!"

"Isn't that basically the same thing in actual play?"

"No, it's totally different!"

"...Okay, how do you get NM back?"

"A Priest uses a special chant and you feel reinvigorated, then roll to see how many NM you regain."

"...That sounds exactly like HP, just clumsily renamed without actually changing anything in practice to change how the game plays."

"It's totally different, you're just an drone with no imagination!"

Or archfiends, celestials, archfey, Old Ones... ever heard of warlocks?

Warlocks aren't divine casters.

JackPhoenix

2017-11-28, 01:59 AM

D&D doesn't work without magic, most of the classes have at least one feature that relies on magic.

Non-EK fighters, non-AT rogues and berserk barbarians begs to differ. And there's nice non-magical classes homebrew floating somewhere (I got PDF, though I couldn't find out where does it came from originally). But you can run non-magic game of D&D perfectly fine, you'll just be severely limited in options, unless you accept homebrew.

Nifft

2017-11-28, 02:05 AM

Look at Eberron. Gods there most likely aren't real. Celestials still exist, they are just inhabitants of different planes. Even they don't know if gods are real. Clerics still exist, they are powered by faith, not by any kind of higher being (those would be warlocks). Alignment still exist, and 5e version of alignment actually fits Eberron better than how it was in 3.5. Fiends exist, and yes, some people do serve them or worship them. No wonder, as the Overlords are closest thing to gods that actually, provably exists. People also believe in (and recieve clerical power from) gestalt pool of energy created by souls of Couatls serving as prison for the aforementioned Overlords, spirits of their ancestors mixed with source of positive energy, an idea that everyone has a spark of divinity within as long as they are alive, bunch of various aberrations, and in one case, crazy(?) warforged artificer. Oh, and a giant robot currently still under construction.

And yes, Eberron definitely is D&D setting, though sadly not one that was officially ported to current edition.

There's also the Traveler, who doesn't fit into any category or pantheon.

Some dragons believe that upon death they ascend into the Sovereign Host, either as servitors to a specific god, or as part of that god's divine god-gestalt entity (if there is such a thing). Some spend their lives honing their souls toward one Sovereign Archetype or another. (There's no archetype for the Traveler, of course. He doesn't fit anywhere.)

Eberron has the best gods.

War_lord

2017-11-28, 02:52 AM

Non-EK fighters non-AT rogues and berserk barbarians begs to differ. And there's nice non-magical classes homebrew floating somewhere (I got PDF, though I couldn't find out where does it came from originally). But you can run non-magic game of D&D perfectly fine, you'll just be severely limited in options, unless you accept homebrew.

So in this hypothetical game of "D&D", you can only play a human (since the existence of the other races doesn't hold up without magic), and your class options are two of the fighters (one of which is the most boring class in the game), the Assassin who is a contender for worst subclass in the PHB (The thief doesn't actually count as one of his abilities is literally "use magic item") or the berserker?

As for homebrew, I didn't fork out the money for my D&D stuff, in order to use basically none of the content in the books and instead rely on a free PDF on the internet written by somebody who probably had no background in game design. I can literally come up with that material myself.

JackPhoenix

2017-11-28, 03:26 AM

No, they're objective. There's a Good alignment, and an Evil alignment. Charity is a good act, and slavery is an evil act, and beings exist that have an objective detector that can tell if you are a good person or an evil person, a categorization that is applied to every sentient being. Good and Evil are tangible forces, with creatures that literally represent those concepts actually existing in the physical world and you can communicate with them and ask what the gods are actually like in person.

I think you're in the wrong edition forum. Open your PHB at page 122 and quote where does it say anything about objective alignment, charity, slavery or good or evil acts.

So basically, they say there's no gods... and then have deific power sources everywhere? Consistent with Eberron's usual schizophrenia over being attached to D&D.

I sincerely hope that Eberron never sees the light of day in any form, watching fanboys cry over it is much more exciting then a setting that's trying to not be D&D while clinging to D&D's mechanical assumptions.

Right, because every setting must be a carbon copy of the most boring setting imaginable. Right. Also, quote where Eberron doesn't want to be D&D setting, while being setting specifically created for D&D (unlike FR which you apparently worship)

Yes, the Lady of Pain is a being of almost limitless power and inscrutable motivations who can strike down anyone with incites her wrath with a mere thought. WHICH IS NOTHING LIKE ANY GOD EVER.

Not like gods in D&D, no. D&D gods have (or had) pretty specific definition: divine rank and the ability to grant spells. Lady of Pain lack both.

EXCEPT THOSE THINGS THAT ARE EXACTLY LIKE GODS, BUT THEY DON'T COUNT BECAUSE THEY DON'T HAVE GOD IN THEIR NAME.

What things exactly like gods? There's no thing exactly like gods. Some people believe in gods, but there's no evidence whatsoever that they are actually real. You know, like real world religion, and unlike what passes for religion in FR.

Darksun actually puts its money where its mouth is, instead of playing lip service to the idea of sharply distinguishing itself from Grayhawk and FR, and then chickening out and having Clerics and Paladins running around anyway. But as a consequence of of that it could pretty easily be treated as its own title.

Right, because everything must use exactly the same fluff, otherwise it's not D&D. Lack of creativity isn't something to be praised.

It's a multiverse of interconnected worlds, which can be traveled between, that is the D&D setting.

Yet each of those settings is different. Or are you claiming that clerics in Dark Sun can worship, say, Lathander, and be granted spells just like if they were in the Realms That Should Be Forgotten?

And if you're actually serious about removing gods from your setting, you actually need to make mechanical changes, because otherwise you're just renaming stuff without any meaningful changes.

"I'm going to make a D&D setting, but it's going to be gritty, no healing and no HP."

"Cool, what happens when a player gets stabbed?"

"Well, if you get hit your dead, but I renamed hit points to near misses!"

"Isn't that basically the same thing in actual play?"

"No, it's totally different!"

"...Okay, how do you get NM back?"

"A Priest uses a special chant and you feel reinvigorated, then roll to see how many NM you regain."

"...That sounds exactly like HP, just clumsily renamed without actually changing anything in practice to change how the game plays."

"It's totally different, you're just an drone with no imagination!"

I see. So you don't understand the difference between fluff and system mechanics (crunch). Because otherwise, you couldn't seriously wrote all this without realizing what pile of bovine excrement it is. Explains much.

Warlocks aren't divine casters.

Good thing divine casters weren't mentioned anywhere, then.

So in this hypothetical game of "D&D", you can only play a human (since the existence of the other races doesn't hold up without magic), and your class options are two of the fighters (one of which is the most boring class in the game), the Assassin who is a contender for worst subclass in the PHB (The thief doesn't actually count as one of his abilities is literally "use magic item") or the berserker?

As for homebrew, I didn't fork out the money for my D&D stuff, in order to use basically none of the content in the books and instead rely on a free PDF on the internet written by somebody who probably had no background in game design. I can literally come up with that material myself.

I seriously doubt that. After all, you've showed notable lack of imagination, while putting pre-written fluff on single, most boring setting in the game, on pedestal as The Only True Way To Play D&DTM

War_lord

2017-11-28, 04:18 AM

I think you're in the wrong edition forum. Open your PHB at page 122 and quote where does it say anything about objective alignment, charity, slavery or good or evil acts.

...I didn't want to own you by quoting the PHB, but okay.

"Alignment is a moral choice"

"According to myth, the good aligned gods who created these races gave them free will to choose their moral paths, knowing that good without free will is slavery" The good aligned gods consider slavery bad.

"The evil deities who created other races made those races to serve them"

"Most Orcs share the violent, savage nature of the Orc god, Grummsh, and are thus inclined towards evil. Even if an Orc chooses a good alignment, it struggles against its innate tendencies for its entire life."

"Alignment is an essential part of the nature of celestials and fiends. A devil does not choose to be lawful evil, and it does not tend toward lawful evil... it is lawful evil in its essence."

Right, because every setting must be a carbon copy of the most boring setting imaginable. Right. Also, quote where Eberron doesn't want to be D&D setting, while being setting specifically created for D&D (unlike FR which you apparently worship)

Contrarianism is just as boring as following tropes. Ebberon is contrarianism that's still dependent on the tropes it hates. And that last line made me laugh. When I criticize Forgotten Realms, the FR fans say I hate fun. When I criticize Ebberon, I worship Forgotten Realms. Setting wars are pathetic.

Not like gods in D&D, no. D&D gods have (or had) pretty specific definition: divine rank and the ability to grant spells. Lady of Pain lack both.

Now who's stuck in the wrong edition?

What things exactly like gods? There's no thing exactly like gods. Some people believe in gods, but there's no evidence whatsoever that they are actually real. You know, like real world religion, and unlike what passes for religion in FR.

Discussing real world religion is against forum rules. But suffice to say people who are actually religious would take umbridge with your apparent assertion that the existence of gods is somehow "not religion". Also, as per the player handbook you demanded I quote, Grummish is definitely real. And granting divine spells is evidence of godhood, according to what you JUST SAID.

Right, because everything must use exactly the same fluff, otherwise it's not D&D. Lack of creativity isn't something to be praised.

How is renaming something without changing anything about how it actually works in practice creative? Do you know what's creative, and overturned years of D&D stock assumptions? Demonic-force-of-nature Gnolls, do you know what your lot loves to cry about? Demonic Gnolls.

Yet each of those settings is different. Or are you claiming that clerics in Dark Sun can worship, say, Lathander, and be granted spells just like if they were in the Realms That Should Be Forgotten?

You really really have it out for Forgotten Realms huh? I'm sure WoTC feels really sad on top of their giant pile of money. I mean Keith Baker senpai is so much more successful with his work on... a system that has nothing to do with D&D.

I see. So you don't understand the difference between fluff and system mechanics (crunch). Because otherwise, you couldn't seriously wrote all this without realizing what pile of bovine excrement it is. Explains much.

Changing the fluff without changing how it actually impacts the players isn't creative.

I seriously doubt that. After all, you've showed notable lack of imagination, while putting pre-written fluff on single, most boring setting in the game, on pedestal as The Only True Way To Play D&DTM

Ebberon is boring. As much as I dislike Forgotten Realms, I have to admit it does have a fanbase. If Ebberon was so much better then Ebberon, Ebberon would be the core setting. There is no 5e Ebberon books. I might think Ed Sheerin's music is lame, but I can't ignore its mass appeal.

Regitnui

2017-11-28, 07:22 AM

No. Clerics draw on manifested faith, their own or those of a collective. Commune and similar spells contact a celestial/fiend or manifestation of faith.

Eberron is boring. As much as I dislike Forgotten Realms, I have to admit it does have a fanbase. If Eberron was so much better then Eberron, Eberron would be the core setting. There are no 5e Eberron books. I might think Ed Sheeran's music is lame, but I can't ignore its mass appeal.

Spell the setting correctly if you want to be taken seriously. Also, Eberron is hardly boring. Different, magepunk, nontraditional, all of those apply. But when you can play a ninja pirate robot and sit across the table from a halfling chef with a pet velociraptor, I doubt your game would be boring.

You don't like Eberron. That's okay. Don't take your distaste as an indicator of its quality. After all, it was one of 4e's big three settings, and has been consistently acknowledged in every book. That's more than some settings have gotten. Every indication is that Eberron is coming back. Eventually.

Sigreid

2017-11-28, 08:31 AM

May as well change the cleric’s casting stat to charisma, then.

Here’s how I see magic sources:
One third of the magic pie is provided by the gods. It is divine in nature and as it is provided by a select few who require adherence to certain tenets, is based off wisdom.

The next third is inborn, and thusly, charisma-based. Whether granted to you by one of numerous Multiplanar beings whose total numbers far surpass the gods, your capability to turn music into magic and perform for adoring crowds, or draw upon an oath you undertook, there is a far greater intimacy than in other sources of magic, since you yourself are its ultimate source. Your actions and oaths need not conform to anything other than what you originally swore. Hence, wisdom makes no sense as the source of divine power when you’re really preying upon the masses for further power. That’s charisma!

The last third is provided by nature itself. As the environment is essentially finite yet only yields to those who truly respect it, it also keys off wisdom.

(To finish off the analogy: Finally, we have the “truly” arcane (read: wizards). That 1% of the pie, along the slices where its juices run together. Arcane is the most unique, as its practitioners garnered knowledge through the scientific study of magic, rather than learning as an art, like the other 99%.)

Not really, it's just deciding it's a Jungian multiverse.

Millstone85

2017-11-28, 08:52 AM

There are at least three different ways a fantasy setting can define godhood.

Sufficiently Advanced Magic
... is indistinguishable from divinity. Gods are just like wizards, only more powerful. With this premise, the main challenge to churches would be the discovery of even bigger fishes, though tradition might lead to those being called greater gods, overgods or such.

Everybody's Imaginary Friend
Gods exist because enough people believe in them. Some were created by faith, while others had a non-divine existence before they started getting power from faith. What counts as faith can be very broad, including things like fables or fame, but worship is the best.

True Personification
Here, gods are best defined by what happens when they are hurt. Harming Mother Nature is an ecological disaster. Harming Father Time unravels the very fabric of causality. Gods do not just have dominion over an aspect of the world, they are that aspect of the world.

The gods of Forgotten Realms are powerful, but that's not what makes them gods. Then they are in this weird situation where they both are dependent on followers and have a portfolio that actually connects them to an aspect of the Realms.

In Eberron, the three categories might be represented separately. First, powerful outsiders can be regarded as gods. Then, magic power can be gained from faith, though the setting cuts out the middleman between the devout masses and the clerics. Finally, it might be true that the world is made of three ancient dragons.

Naanomi

2017-11-28, 08:59 AM

Clearing up a few misconceptions:

-not all celestials have anything to do with the Gods; in fact even Angels were only directly tied to the Gods in 4e (before then they served ‘Good’ in the Alignment sense). The rest may choose to serve particular Gods, but most don’t and instead have their own hierarchies. Not unlike Fiends.

-Gods are not any powerful thing that is Worshiped; they are a very specific class of being, and there are beings equal to and stronger than them in existence, and many more that while weaker in a fight are more important politically and cosmologically on the Planes.

-All settings where DnD is played are part of the larger setting; though a few (Eberron, by some interpretations Mystara) exist outside of the Great Wheel Cosmology and thus are harder to get to than others. Even our Earth (or some parallel of it) exists in the greater DnD multi-Cosmology

-Wisdom casters get their magic through holistic connection to the Universe, sometimes channeled through a Power but not always... Druids don’t usually have a God (instead either just conceptually connecting ‘with nature’ or through animistic spirits as an intermediary); and in some Planes worship of Concepts or even Planes themselves is enough to spark Divine Spell-casting. Darksun’s veneration of the conceptual Elements is the most common example cited, but not the only one. Forgotten Realms is in fact unique in *requiring* a Patron God in this way because of Ao’s personal nonsense

-Gods have alignment, but they virtually never *represent* those alignments. There are Good Gods, but basically no ‘Gods of Good’; in fact Gods as a whole are encouraged to avoid Alignment conflicts and focus on their own affairs (for example: losing their power when they get involved in the Blood War, which is itself an echo of the Great War of Law and Chaos). Objective Alignments exist and are powerful, but Gods play by their rules as much as any mortal does

JackPhoenix

2017-11-28, 10:33 AM

Snip

You know... I was going to do a point-by-point reply to show you how wrong you are, but the books do it for me: DMG pages 10-13 talk about different approaches to using gods in the game, including mention that gods don't have to exist (also sidebar about divine ranks I've mentioned earlier, though not many details), and a sidebar on page 18 in XGtE talks about how clerics work perfectly fine without gods.

But if you still think D&D settings that differ from the default aren't D&D, there's just no helping you.

War_lord

2017-11-28, 11:06 AM

Spell the setting correctly if you want to be taken seriously. Also, Eberron is hardly boring. Different, magepunk, nontraditional, all of those apply. But when you can play a ninja pirate robot and sit across the table from a halfling chef with a pet velociraptor, I doubt your game would be boring.

I don't care enough for that. Trying that hard to be very different is exactly why I hate it, particularly when, as this thread shows, the attitude that implies leaks HARD into the fanboys and shows a greater disdain for D&D as a whole.

Regitnui

2017-11-28, 12:11 PM

I don't care enough for that. Trying that hard to be very different is exactly why I hate it, particularly when, as this thread shows, the attitude that implies leaks HARD into the fanboys and shows a greater disdain for D&D as a whole.

I love D&D. I find every world of it fascinating. What I take issue with is the overloading of lore if I want to get into FR (there are how many gods again, all with their own petty motivations?) and therefore the way it has been presented as D&Default in this edition. It's almost as if WotC as said, "If you're not playing FR, you're not playing D&D." And anyway, many of the 2e settings that remain popular today remain so for their differences to standard fantasy, not their similarities to it.

But if you want to hate Eberron, fine. Just don't assume it's bad because of your hate. Forgotten Realms is full of little nooks of lore, which is great. I hate the setting for filling up all the exciting stories with Ed Greenwood's and RA Salvatore's pet characters and being D&Default.

War_lord

2017-11-28, 12:22 PM

I love D&D. I find every world of it fascinating. What I take issue with is the overloading of lore if I want to get into FR (there are how many gods again, all with their own petty motivations?) and therefore the way it has been presented as D&Default in this edition. It's almost as if WotC as said, "If you're not playing FR, you're not playing D&D." And anyway, many of the 2e settings that remain popular today remain so for their differences to standard fantasy, not their similarities to it.

Those settings are popular with a statistically insignificant minority of the total playerbase, hell Tal'dorei (the published setting tied to Critical Role) is probably far more popular then Eberron at this point.

But if you want to hate Eberron, fine. Just don't assume it's bad because of your hate. Forgotten Realms is full of little nooks of lore, which is great. I hate the setting for filling up all the exciting stories with Ed Greenwood's and RA Salvatore's pet characters and being D&Default.

No, it really is that bad. Forgotten Realms fans have a reputation, but the only people around here matching that reputation are unhinged Eberron loyalists who can't admit the setting wars are over and their product lost.

Regitnui

2017-11-28, 12:30 PM

No, it really is that bad. Forgotten Realms fans have a reputation, but the only people around here matching that reputation are unhinged Eberron loyalists who can't admit the setting wars are over and their product lost.

You sound like certain real-life personalities who aren't exactly known for a fair and unbiased view. I cannot add any identifying characteristics, but let's just say they have been given too big a megaphone.

I don't see any setting war for 5e. I see a bunch of fans who are annoyed their setting gets overlooked despite being constantly hinted at ever since first UA. If there's any other standalone setting to be added into D&D, all signs point to Eberron, if the theoretical Planescape book isn't first.

Naanomi

2017-11-28, 12:37 PM

My assumption is that Wizards/Hasboro has smart business people making guiding decisions, and that with the market data they have available they've decided that publishing other settings isn't worth the cost at this time. They aren't making vindictive, unprofitable, bad business decisions based on what settings they want to 'push' or 'neglect'; so much as what they think will make the most profit in the long run.

Sure, I'm aware that individual personalities in the organization might guide the decisions one way or another, but at the end of the day I can't imagine a situation where it isn't just sound business reasoning at the heart of the current 'kind of generic version of Great-Wheel/Forgotten Realms, with nods to other settings' model they are running off of

War_lord

2017-11-28, 12:42 PM

I don't see any setting war for 5e.

You can't see see Eberron fans constantly rushing to proclaim the superiority of their setting in every thread that's even tangentally related?

I see a bunch of fans who are annoyed their setting gets overlooked despite being constantly hinted at ever since first UA.

We got a Krynn Minotaur once, that doesn't mean the Dragonlance fanboys (there's probably like, two of them trapped in a time warp to the 80's or something) have the right to complain endlessly.

If there's any other standalone setting to be added into D&D, all signs point to Eberron, if the theoretical Planescape book isn't first.

Based on... What? One UA?

Regitnui

2017-11-28, 01:28 PM

Based on... What? One UA?

The UA, the Artificer (Eberron original class), the Mystic (Eberron has psionics baked in but removable, making it a good bridge to psionics-heavy settings like Dark Sun), many of the new subclasses have a distinct Eberron touch (Inquisitive is the Eberron detective, druids in Eberron have a faction specifically attuned to the Feywild/Thelanis called the Greensingers, the Sun Soul monk is very similar to the Silver Flame monk traditions in Eberron, and the Forge domain covers the Onatar, the only god that was short a domain. There are more.).

If Eberron isn't coming soon, they're pulling heavy inspiration from it lately...

JackPhoenix

2017-11-28, 01:56 PM

Those settings are popular with a statistically insignificant minority of the total playerbase, hell Tal'dorei (the published setting tied to Critical Role) is probably far more popular then Eberron at this point.

And I'm sure you have numbers to back up this claim. Like... the last WotC's "what product do you want us to release next" surveys that didn't have not-FR setting (and Eberron in particular) as the most requested new book.

Oh wait...

War_lord

2017-11-28, 02:27 PM

The UA, the Artificer (Eberron original class)

There's nothing about Aritificers that makes them Eberron only.

the Mystic (Eberron has psionics baked in but removable, making it a good bridge to psionics-heavy settings like Dark Sun),

Psionics in D&D predate Eberron by almost thirty years.

many of the new subclasses have a distinct Eberron touch (Inquisitive is the Eberron detective, druids in Eberron have a faction specifically attuned to the Feywild/Thelanis called the Greensingers, the Sun Soul monk is very similar to the Silver Flame monk traditions in Eberron, and the Forge domain covers the Onatar, the only god that was short a domain. There are more.).

The Inquistive is a detective concept, that's not connected to Eberron. Druids being connected to the feywild isn't exactly a creative leap either, and the 5e guys really love fey, not connected to Eberron. The Sun Soul Monk is a reprint from SCAG (you know, the setting book for the setting you all hate) and is literally named after the Order of the sun soul. The Forge domain covers many gods from virtually all settings. Even the 5e staff has said it should have been in from the

If Eberron isn't coming soon, they're pulling heavy inspiration from it lately...

Or, more likely, you're just clutching at straws.

Regitnui

2017-11-28, 03:27 PM

There's nothing about Aritificers that makes them Eberron only.

That's part of the beauty of 5e. It doesn't have to be Eberron only. But it was a class introduced in Eberron for the explicit purpose to support that setting's magepunk/wide magic aesthetic. It could belong in any setting. But Eberron makes the most use of it and likely is the best place to introduce it, rather than trying to jam it into FR where it doesn't fit properly? Guns, while not recommended for Eberron, at least make more sense there than in high-fantasy FR.

Psionics in D&D predate Eberron by almost thirty years.

But Eberron is one of the few popular settings (hush up about statistics) where psionics are integrated into the magic system and universe without being retroactively bolted on. A DM can include or ignore psionics in Eberron, in the same way a DM can ignore or include the Moonshae Isles or the planes in FR.

I didn't claim Eberron was the only way to introduce Psionics. I suggested it will be a good way to integrate it naturally into the existing AL campaigns using established lore for the setting. Again, not the only way to.achieve that goal, but a possibility.

The Inquistive is a detective concept, that's not connected to Eberron. Druids being connected to the feywild isn't exactly a creative leap either, and the 5e guys really love fey, not connected to Eberron. The Sun Soul Monk is a reprint from SCAG (you know, the setting book for the setting you all hate) and is literally named after the Order of the sun soul. The Forge domain covers many gods from virtually all settings. Even the 5e staff has said it should have been in from the

The inquisitive is based on a prestige class called "Master Inquisitive" from Eberron. The rest I will concede as not necessarily being linked to Eberron.

Though if you hate Eberron for being different, why discount its small creative leaps as potentially influencing 5e?

GlenSmash!

2017-11-28, 04:04 PM

I suppose I should have been more specific. He and I are sort of writing a campaign setting together. He wants to write a big fantastical mythology of how the universe was born and the first gods and a pantheon of gods and little stories about each of them. I told him that's fine if he wants to do it, but I don't usually bother using deities in my campaigns. If the clerics, paladins or whomever want to choose a deity or make one up, I'm cool with that, it almost never has any bearing on the game.

He insists that religion is part of human nature, as a method of explaining the world around you when you don't understand it and can't figure out why events happen. They might start as stories explaining natural phenomena like the a certain star cluster appearing during harvest season being a warrior returning home, so it's time to gather crops. It would be taught to children so they can remember vital things in their life.

So, I guess my point isn't really about DnD as a game, but as a story.

Hi,

Thanks for clarifying in this post. Here is my take on it. As a DM I don't want to waste any of my time thinking about something that does not make my game more exciting and memorable. So I don't do any world building beyond what is necessary for the adventure at hand.

Sure it's likely that all the races and cultures in the setting have their own mythology/pantheon/creation myth/whatever, but I see no point in me developing all that for my players just to go "oh ok" and get back to playing in the adventure.

That isn't to say I don't think about it when it's pertinent, but ultimately I can just spend a night thinking about the beliefs of the culture the party will encounter in the next adventure, rather than try to plan everything out in intricate detail.

Also, this is literally something you can wing on the spot and not have to worry about contradictions, because those are bound to exist in religions/mythologies anyway.

Let's look at Critical Role for example. With the campaign setting just released now have the information to run a game in that world, but do we really think Matt Mercer had all of that stuff planned out before starting the campaign? How much of it did he create shortly before the next session or even on the spot and then it became part of the campaign? I think he spitballed some stuff and rolled it into the world, and their world is better for it.

Devils_Advocate

2017-11-28, 05:20 PM

Let me see if I understand the game played in this thread:

The answer to the question "Does D&D need gods?" hinges on the meaning of that question, which in turn hinges on the meanings of the terms within it. So by making semantic arguments about which things should be classified as "gods" or "D&D", you argue for the question having the meaning that gives it your preferred answer. Definitively out-arguing the opposition therefore would mean that your preferred answer is correct, which would mean that you win. However, "winning the argument" is in essence a purely hypothetical ideal unobtainable in practice, thereby allowing the game to be played indefinitely.

Is that right?

KorvinStarmast

2017-11-28, 05:39 PM

unhinged Eberron loyalists who can't admit the setting wars are over and their product lost. That turn of phrase made me chuckle, but maybe a bit harsh?
We got a Krynn Minotaur once, that doesn't mean the Dragonlance fanboys (there's probably like, two of them trapped in a time warp to the 80's or something) Looking for Mr Goodkender?

Knaight

2017-11-28, 05:49 PM

So in this hypothetical game of "D&D", you can only play a human (since the existence of the other races doesn't hold up without magic), and your class options are two of the fighters (one of which is the most boring class in the game), the Assassin who is a contender for worst subclass in the PHB (The thief doesn't actually count as one of his abilities is literally "use magic item") or the berserker?

That's pretty much the case, yes. Similarly in any given GURPS game you're unlikely to use more than the two core books and maybe three setting books - despite GURPS having a ridiculous number of books. A broad system where you use some of the material for specific games is pretty standard, and the inclusion of other stuff in the system doesn't mean those specific games are invalid. GURPS Ultra Tech doesn't prevent you from running a bronze age historical game in the system; the presence of the Cleric doesn't prevent you from running a fantasy game without gods, the presence of magic items, magic using classes, and the vast majority of the monster manual doesn't prevent you from running a no-magic game with D&D.

I wouldn't recommend the system for it, but then I wouldn't recommend the system for most of what it gets used for.

Thrasher92

2017-11-29, 06:05 AM

My my, I'm away from my thread for a couple of days and see the dire... enthusiasm that many of you have.

If you guys wanted an update, he and I made an agreement. We decided to use the Greek pantheon of gods but, he would write new unique stories of them to entertain, inspire, and set new possible plots for the evil gods to have in motion.

We decided to use the Greek pantheon because it is a set that almost everyone knows and we really wouldn't need to introduce new players to who Poseidon, Zeus, or Hades are. This pantheon is so well known that we figure we probably wouldn't have any issues like that. Also, there are plenty of stores and art to draw inspiration from. Also, many of the DnD monsters like the Minotaur and Medusa come from Greek mythology, so it is easy to write a story campaign that would involve using the deities.

This is something of a compromise because he wanted to invent entirely new gods with a wacky creation story and have plenty of them, like around 150 or so.

...I'm not going to remember all of those, or I persuaded him to just use the Greek pantheon.

So, we will use deities in our campaign, but I still leave the option open for any player to choose a path like "Life" or something if they don't want to choose a specific deity.

Asmotherion

2017-11-29, 06:57 AM

I've been having an ongoing conversation with an author friend of mine whom I play DnD with.

He insists that every campaign setting (Forgotten Realms, Ebberron, Greyhawk, etc) must have deities in it. Something to provide high level characters incentives and such. These NPCs are supposed to be the real puppetmasters in the cosmos for when the campaign or story goes into epic levels. He points out that many evil deities are classic DnD villains (Vecna, Tiamat, Orcus). Apparently they give a "focus" and a guide to divine magic.

It is my opinion that you don't need deities in a campaign. Divine magic can exist but it could just come from "cosmic energy" that you are aligned with. You need to choose a path or an idea to focus on, like worshiping life or whatever, but you don't need an actual name or anything.

What do you guys think?

One good example of this is Dark Sun.

Divine Magic could very well come from faith itself, and not from a deity. This could also make interesting subplots by making more than one Avatars of a God who debate who is the "false god". Or it could all be Arcane Magic, and all that changes is that the knowlage the Divine Casters can draw uppon come from an "unvisible force", like visions, dreams, meditation, a deeper understanding of the cosmos etc (that's how I play it in my campains). From that point on, they then "explain" this accoirding to their faith; a human Cleric who worships the Human Pantheon but is especially bonded with the church of Pelor will naturally explain this phenomenon as Pelor giving him a Vision, rather than his own insight into the world, wile a Dragonborn Paladin experiancing the same thing, will thank Bahamut for it... in the end they may just have a simular "power" to attune to a hivemind of sorts and gaining knowlage from a collective unconsious of long dead protectors of their faith (perhaps even wizards and sorcerers who developed those as actual Arcane Spells), but someone who has faith will be more willing to explain a possitive supernatural experiance as a "miracle from their god" than "magic".

So, tl;dr: If you don't want gods to actually exist in your campain, it's up to you. There are a lot of alternatives. Give a good alternative on how Divine Magic Works, and you're good. If you'll include Avatars of Gods, they can just be "thinking" they represent their god onto the earth, but in reality they are the closest thing to an actual god there is.

Finally give good thought of how to handle afterlife in your campain!