Most fantasy RPGs feature a variety of gods, and those gods tend to play a prominent role in the world. There’s a spectrum, of course, ranging from settings where the gods are in the background to worlds like the Forgotten Realms — where, in the form of their avatars, the gods literally walk the earth.
Either way, though, assuming a pseudo-medieval baseline, the gods are generally pretty important — and by extension, they should be important to the PCs. The problem is that in my experience, this is rarely the case.
I don’t think this is a sticky wicket because of potential issues revolving around real-world religious beliefs — in twenty years of gaming, I’ve never seen that come up. (I’m not at all religious, though, so I could have missed something.)
So why don’t the gods tend to matter much to the PCs — even priest-type characters, who should be shining exemplars of their faith?
Because we, as GMs, don’t tend to make them matter.
This is a missed opportunity on a grand scale. Think about how important faith was in the Middle Ages, and what a huge role the Catholic church (to use just one example) played in medieval life. Why isn’t this the case in fantasy analogs of the Middle Ages?
There are two ways to tackle this missed opportunity in RPGs: through the campaign world, and through the rules. In both cases, I’m not talking about ramming religion down the PCs’ throats — if your players are having fun without worrying about this aspect of the game world, that’s A-OK.
Faith in the Game World
It’s a lot easier to incorporate faith into fantasy RPGs from a roleplaying standpoint than it is to work it into the rules. For one thing, players who are intrigued by the roleplaying possibilities will embrace them on their own, whether you do anything to encourage it or not.
For another, while you can’t (and shouldn’t) force the PCs to care about the gods, you can (and should) make them important to NPCs.
Include plotlines related to gods, temples and faithful NPCs; involve the gods in the origin tales of your worlds; have them manifest themselves in present-day prophecies, portents and other signs of their power; include religious holidays in your game world’s calendar — the possibilities on this one are pretty much endless.
Faith in the Rules
Developing the importance of faith through the rules is tricky. Apart from divination spells and the like, most RPGs don’t go very far down the this road, so you have to do some tinkering on your own.
When RPGs do include faith-related rules, they tend to be pretty lame. In the Forgotten Realms, for example, characters who don’t believe in the gods cannot be resurrected — their souls are instantly sucked away to be used as building material in Kelemvor’s Wall. That’s kind of neat from a flavor standpoint, but as a rule it’s a pretty blunt instrument.
I hate to cite The World of Synnibarr for anything other than mockery, but it’s got a good example of another bad faith-related rule: one of the forty-seven things that have to happen before a PC can actually die is a roll to see if the gods intervene, and outright prevent their death. Bleh.
I’m guilty of not tackling this issue in my own games, but I do have an idea for incorporating faith into RPG rules: create a couple of basic guidelines for PCs to be considered observant/non-observant, and offer minor benefits for observant PCs.
For example, a PC who stops at roadside shrines to say a quick prayer, and makes donations to larger temples whenever she is in town, would qualify as observant. That earns her a discount on temple services (and grants access to services that wouldn’t otherwise be offered). She also gets a bonus on social rolls when interacting with others of her faith.
What do you think? Am I off-based about religion being a largely untapped goldmine of plot and roleplaying opportunities in fantasy RPGs? Are there games out there that feature clever, flavorful rules related to faith?
I could not agree more. I have brought up this issue with my group as well. In our D&D games, the Cleric is typically a fighter with some healing spells. They do not ever talk about faith in their deity, doing anything to worship them, etc.
I think that in our case, most of the members of my group are non-religious and thus not knowledgeable or comfortable about playing faith based characters.
I am a Catholic, and returned to the church after a 20 year hiatus, about 5 years ago. I am dying to play a Cleric who is more than a secondary fighter. One who want to build a church, quest for treasure to improve his church and help his followers. I just have not had the opportunity to really build that character yet.
In my own Iron Heroes campaign, there is a strong theme about faith. In that campaign, the one god, is not accessible as the D&D gods are, and is more like the God of Christian faith. I make it a point to have the NPC’s they meet, be faith filled, inviting the Heroes to church services, using the one gods name as a blessing, etc.
The other concept that I have integrated into my campaign, is that the average town person is very faith-filled, as many have little else in life to hope on. I have tried, using NPC’s as a way to tell the story, have tried to show both the best and worst aspects of being faithful. In the best cases, showing the compassion of people for one another through their belief in the tenets of the one god, and in the worst cases, showing how people can blindly follow faith and the trouble that can cause.
On the idea of rules to support this concept, one of the players in the campaign has discovered that he is a chosen warrior by the one god. I adapted a set of Iron Heroes Mastery Feats based on Faith, for this player. The feats grant him Faith tokens, which can be used for different effects. He gains Faith tokens by private meditation, or more tokens by leading a prayer service for a group of people.
In this way, there is a mechanical benefit to the character’s faith, basically a reward for the player taking the action to practice his faith.
While I think having a more tangible religion in my campaign has been a tough concept for my players to grasp at times, they are growing into it and working through their own issues with it at the same time, often through their characters. I think my campaign would be much less interesting if it did not contain a strong theme about faith.
The most critical part of making gods important is making religion important in your game world. You don’t need special mechanics to make that happen.
You need make your society and culture reflect that religion is important and is more than a series of healing-mart or magic marts on temple street.
For example in my campaign. One of the dominant cultures believes themselves to be the chosen people of the god Mitra. His tenets and ethics form the foundation their culture (mostly in a positive way as I present it). Mitra’s priests are valued members of the community at all levels for their service and their insights. Players playing my game have long learned that one of the best way of getting local information is to goto the neighborhood shrine and talk to the priest that maintains it.
Another important culture that is clan based has this quasi ancestor worship going where they believe that when they die in an honorable state they join the clan’s Lars sort of a netherworld senate or council. The clerics honor the Lars, acts as advisors to the clan (through the use of divination spells).
Another culture has a druidic faith but the actual druids are just one arm of a triune organization of druids, mages, and law judges. They prize scholarship and knowledge about both man, magic, and the natural world.
Banks had their origins in temples that were regarded as safe and holy place in which to store your wealth. Not only ancient people tithed the temple they also used them as safe place to store large amount of treasure and coin.
Religion historically are one of the few organizations in any time period that are able to do things in a massive scale. Mostly just regional but some on a continental scale as well.
Enjoy
Rob Conley
I think there are several issues at hand is this:
Importance of religion on a personal level has historically waned in the face of more humanistic ideals. The reason religion was so important to the people in the era fantasy games emulate and the reason it’s important to the people in those fantasy worlds is that the unwashed masses in both are largely ignorant, the quality of life is poor, and myths and legends abound. Religion holds sway over the minds of the people because there’s a lot they don’t understand, there’s a lot that frightens them, and they don’t have a very high opinion of their own capabilities. To the average dirt farmer, whether or not he manages to produce a crop is largely dependant on the whims of the gods. There’s simply nothing he can do (or more importantly nothing he KNOWS OF he can do) to affect that outcome, so he does the best he can and prays.
As learning increases the farmer now knows that there are proven farming techniques that he can use to increase his yield and his survival hinges more on his own knowledge and work than on the will of god. This leads to the rise of humanism, the attitude that humans can make their own fortune through knowledge and effort rather than relying on the help of gods.
Of course we as players and our characters come from different sides of this divide. To the average person of today, the attitude that man’s efforts are futile and it is only through the intervention of a divine being that we don’t starve to death, however valid for our characters, is utterly alien. Add to this the fact that while we play we’re not only dictating the actions of our characters through this alien mindset, but we also have near-perfect understanding of the natural forces of the universe in which they operate, and the god that dictates the very fabric of their world sits immediately to our left eating potato chips, and our awareness of the fact that our characters are indeed CHARACTERS, and the last tenuous vestiges of religious thought in this context are invalidated.
If the failure of the modern man to connect with the circumstances of our ancestors wasn’t enough, generally religious characters aren’t portrayed as exciting or fun in most instances. Not only are religious characters often depicted as boring, they’re also often shown as offensive, annoying, and as violators of other’s beliefs. While a player may occasionally get a kick out of playing a character depicted in this fashion it’s rarely a regular choice, and the quient unoffensive religious character rarer still.
Further, since we play role-playing games to be dramatic heros, there’s a certain stigma to playing a relgious character since, by definition, they’re not really doing anything heroic. They’re simply placeholders for the divine being that works through them.
DMs have also long been discouraged from giving the actions of the gods on the behalf of the PCs any real power for fear that the support of a godhead with infinite power would cause an imabalance in the game.
All these factors contribute to the failure of gods in an RPG to convey any real weight with the PCs. Even if important events in the game world centered around the gods, or some minor mechanic was in place to re-enforce the power of practicing religion in-game, I doubt the characters would have any real passion for the gods. The disconnect is simply too large.
I’m very comfortable with discussing religions and was very involved with the church at one time. I was even preparing to go back to school for a Masters in Divinity when I began to realize that I had some serious issues with organized religion. I am still looking for my spirituality, but I bring this up because I don’t think anyone shoudl be afraid to introduce the concept of religion into an RPG. Every society has a form of religion in the real world, why would a game world be any different?
I completely agree that an RPG is not a medium through which a person should preach a religion, but a GM can add emphasis to religion with a few simple steps. I recently ran a FUDGE game where I made up an island similar to Aruba and had the PCs investigate a case very similar to the Natalee Holloway case.
The PCs discovered a Bishop (now a Saint) had pursued a demon to the island. The Bishop built a church and it still stood to this day. The PCs eventually find the remains of the Bishop in a Satanic church underground where the Bishop had somehow bound the demon. The demon had been possessing weak willed people to kill girls to feed his lust for destruction. Eventually the PCs fight the demon and one of my players grabs part of the skeletal remains of the Bishop (the femur), snaps the top of the joint off between a couple of rocks, and begins to sharpen the bone to a fine point. When asked what he was doing, he responded “Making a weapon. The guy’s a Saint and I’m sure he would approve.”
It made sense. The whole party used the bones of the Bishop to improvise weapons with. I allowed the bones to cause massive damage. It was cinematic and it worked.
When I ran AD&D 2nd Edition I used a couple of tricks to keep the clerics in line and not just allow them to become fighters who could heal. If they were not making any attempt to worship and honor their diety they would begin to have less effective spells. The character would start to have dreams that obviously were influenced by a higher power. Once the party arrived in a village and the villagers went nuts because they had been having dreams that the Cleric’s diety would send aid in their time of need. This delay was of course not part of the party’s plans, but when a diety wants something done you do it!
Those sorts of tactics along with holidays and rituals can make religion and dieties a vibrant part of your game world.
Rick,
As a someone who takes his faith very seriously, I gotta disagree. Even your example of the dirt farmer is weak…in medieval Europe the Cistercian order were known for they innovative farming techniques.
Your experience of religion in games is opposite my own.
IIRC Conan RPG has some good rules in this regard…like the ones Martin mentions.
I also must disagree with Rick’s take on why religion doesn’t take hold in games.
1) The idea that only the ignorant embraced religion is a misconception. Many advanced civilizations used religion as a way to bring people together and to provide a national identity.
2) Placeholders for the divine perhaps, or they can be the dramartic heroes chosen by the gods to take up the tasks that no other mortals can accomplish. It all depends on how you spin it.
3) I have no real passion for guns and violence anymore now that I am older and have children. I roleplay characters soemtimes that do. When I play a religous character I roleplay their passion for their god. Again it is what you make of it.
Religon can work very well in an RPG. You just need to treat it like it matters. Towns should be concerned that their temples are kept and in order, Clerics should recognize that their role goes beyond bashing heads and turning the undead. When done right, religion can be a very entertaining part of the game world.
MountZionRyan Says:
As a someone who takes his faith very seriously, I gotta disagree. Even your example of the dirt farmer is weak…in medieval Europe the Cistercian order were known for they innovative farming techniques.…
VV_GM Says:
1) The idea that only the ignorant embraced religion is a misconception. Many advanced civilizations used religion as a way to bring people together and to provide a national identity.…
I don’t claim that either of those things are wrong. My example was a brief one, due to space and time constraints,and thus could not take into account all factors, nor am I an expert on the subject.
I agree that religion is not solely for the ignorant nor solely spawned out of fear, NOR are conditions universal in any time period or area.
I was merely pointing out that those conditions DO make one a more fervent beliver, as history displays during the rise of humanism during the renaisance, and that our ancestors had a LOT more of those motivations than we do.
Obviously, my views are solely my own. You may disagree and/or educate me in my errors as much as you see fit. 🙂
VV_GM said:
…Clerics should recognize that their role goes beyond bashing heads and turning the undead….
This comment actually made me think of Martin’s article on meta-support between players Of the two types of religious character I mentioned, the annoying radical is often the one that gets the most spotlight time. That’s extra annoying because the players of these characters aren’t usually playing them to play a religious character. They’re usually playing them to be disruptive. I’ve seen it done well on occasion, but not often. The more realistic religious type character seems to me to be an excellent example of a character who could benefit greatly from some meta-support. I’ve never seen another player acting towards the party cleric (or even an npc cleric) as if they were a respected spiritual advisor which, despite the plate armor and the healing spells is their primary function. Even MORE embarassing, I’ve had players hand in character sheets for approval with levels in cleric but no ranks in knowledge religion. I suppose there are SOME concepts this could work for, but it certainly shows an attitude that said function is of no importance.
Part of the lack of meta support, I suppose, is the fact that most games tend to favor tons of gods so the players have lots of options over just a few, so the party cleric and everyone else are likely followers of different religions.
Rick, I suggest one of the general histories of the middle ages by Norman Cantor for a good education on the role of religion in the middle ages. He doesn’t sugarcoat it, but he doesn’t back away from it, either. Good, bad, ugly, odd, and indifferent–he talks about it. 🙂 If you want a title, I’ll look one up when I get home from work.
As for games, I have played a lot with religion, including games with believers of various stripes. (I’m one myself.) I’ve found that it works best to go for one of two extremes:
1. The faith in the game is modeled very closely after a real-world religion, which at least one or two of the players really knows something about, and it is explicitly spelled out what the differences are (for campaign or adventure purposes). If you don’t address this upfront, then you run a great risk of offending someone by creating the impression that you think the real-world religion acts in some way that it does not or for baser motives than are probably the case. A person that worries almost fanatically, for example, about not offending Asians with “oriental mythology” or women with sexist stereotypes, can sometimes be blind to the fact that religion and faith are part of culture as well.
2. The faith and religion in the world share a few correspondences with real-world religions (note the plural), but are obviously not a direct analog to any real religion. Alternately, the religion modeled is one no longer practiced, such as Norse or ancient Egyptian mythos. You can’t do this perfectly, because many religions share aspects. It’s impossible, for example, to do a straight American Indian “Great Spirit” setup or a straight early Catholic Christian God setup without running the chance that certain actions will be mistaken for the other religion. This is more about mistaken impressions than reality, but the issue is still there. OTOH, if you do a setup where the various Ameri-Ind spirits manifest as animals, in a hierarchy similar to the Catholic church’s saints, but act like Greek gods–it’s unlikely to confuse anyone that you are representing real world religion in any form. 🙂
As for games, Arcana Evolved does variations on religion better than straight D&D. Because religion is *not* built into the rules, the GM is free to include it or not. That allows the possibility that people have faith in the unseen–real or imagined or both. The lack of this is the real killer in the Forgotten Realms, where religions are worldly and rich, but not deep as religions. AE includes the trappings, but leaves the reality behind them up to the GM.
I’m impressed with Burning Wheel’s takes on “Faith”, upon first reading. With just a few tweaks (some recommended in the book), you could play either of the two ways I detailed above. You also have quite a bit of wiggle room to play anything from wordly, jaded fallen Medieval priests to sincere believers–or even both in the same world, if you set it up right. While the mechanics and examples are obviously meant to support a fantasy medieval Catholic church analog, they are also flexible enough to support other medieval Western religions (e.g. Norse). I don’t know how well they would do with Buddhist or Hindu faith simulations, since I don’t know enough about them to say, though my gut and limited knowledge there says it would be a less perfect match.
In the end, a good thing to remember is that the religious are people just like everyone else in that they have human nature (or at least elven nature or space alien nature or whatever 🙂 ). If the portrayal in the game is meant to be rich, you’ll have to include something beyond the religious stereotype, good and bad.
My experience with religious characters/themes in rpgs has always boiled down to this:
It hasn’t worked, because …
1) The player(s) has/have a negative or ambivalent attitude (or is just plain ignorant about the most basic forms) toward organized religion — therefore brings that perspective to the game table. None of those are condusive to exploring the themes. There is no curiosity.
Even when presented with a religious situation — such as walking into a religious service, meeting itinerant preachers, encountering charity workers, meeting pilgrims on the road –the player has no idea/no interest in how to cope with the situation. It’s either disinterest or antagonistic toward the scenerio. This is perplexing, because, from the players’ perspective, everything in rpgs is about coping.
These encounters also tend evoke shrugs, rather than interplay. But this may be because there aren’t orcs or bugs to slay.
2) The player is intolerant of religious expression outside their own personal belief system, and is unable to separate that from the character and is hostile toward the situation itself. Just the fact that the core D&D world is polytheistic can cause problems.
My disappointment in these situation is such that I’ve resigned myself to presenting religion as generically as possible in my games. It’s no longer worth the hassle or grief. Maybe another group of players would be interested in exploring these themes, but my current group just won’t bite.
That said, I think rpgs have a fabulous potential in this area. But someone smarter than me is going to have to make it work.
Wow Martin, had no one ever said the two things to never talk about with people are religion and politics? Since you are breaking the rule I expect to see a post on character’s personal politics soon.
So to say some things about religion in n angames.
I think, like in life, it will always be a semi-touchy subject. It is one of the things that people feel strongly about. When it gets down to it religion is all about personal beliefs, and people have problems justifying their personal beliefs with outside factors. Statistically speaking, gamers tend towards the non-religious, laxed ritualistic religious (don’t attend organized religious functions), or tend to hold religious beliefs outside the norm of american society (less of a representation than the other two).
Since in most games religion usually doesn’t come into play than more than a background, players beliefs usually don’t come into play either, . .. . so long as they are never confronted with them. A character being told to believe something by an NPC or another character can get the player pretty riled up. It follows the “never talk religion or politics rule”, people kind of understand it is one of those things that will spark debate no matter what.
My person religious take tends to follow the way of taoism, and so from my perspective religious issues aren’t highly significant, nor cause me any problems. It is a different perspective though. Having gods who resembles greek gods, or norse gods, or is the god of thieves, or of any specific domain, usually causes less problem. Very few people are ever preached polytheism on the streets, and we don’t see it inherent in our society. Thus, it registers as more of a fiction element than an actuality of practice in a religion, and it rarely causes an issue with a persons beliefs. Seeing one high god, or a single god in a game setting, always tends to bring up good or bad feelings in regards to Zionistic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Catholicism).
I think polytheistic worlds exist as a norm in gaming because
1. Safer to do, less likely to annoy people since it registers as a fictional element.
2. Provides variety and chance for epic conflict amongst the gods.
3. Provides variety for character development. “Hey I’m a thief, I’ll worship the god of thieves.”
(John Arcadian) Wow Martin, had no one ever said the two things to never talk about with people are religion and politics? Since you are breaking the rule I expect to see a post on character’s personal politics soon.
TT is one of the few places where this discussion could happen the way it’s taking place right now: with insight, relevant experience and strong opinions, but without vitriol, knee-jerk reactions or other bullshit. It’s a fascinating discussion, IMO.
I know you were probably being tongue in cheek, but if I ever wrote a post about PC politics, I’d frame it the same way: in game terms. That lays the groundwork for a different type of conversation than if it were framed in, say, real-world religious terms.
Comment threads like this are one of my all-time favorite things about running this site.
I must admit that you can feel the passion behind everyone’s comments here, but as Martin pointed out there is no hostile tone erupting from this discussion. Everyone’s opinion seems to be respected even if not agreed with.
I also assume that eveyone here is talking about the use of religion as a story/world element. And although it is a touchy subject, we all seem to agree that there is a line between actual religious beliefs and the portrayal of religion in a game.
Let’s face it – organized religion has both helped and harmed our society at different times during human history. It is a diverse and complex part of our world, but so is economics.
If your players don’t care about how economics influence a game, then they probably wouldn’t care about plots to pirate trade routes of a neighboring nation as a way to promote open warfare so that the local war profiteers can start selling their latest weaponry. They might still be interested in fighting priates though. The same can be true of religion in the game world. The players might not care why the locals want to build a temple, but they are more than willing to battle the orcs that are trying to stop the construction.
A lot of players resist any kind of constraint on their characters. In a game like D&D, getting “stuck with” the cleric can seem unfair– you’re treated as a dispenser of healing, get less glamorous/cool spells, and get the GM telling you what kind of praying you can do. No thanks…
In our current game, there have been issues when our cleric player and the GM disagreed about his religion’s observances. The player emphasized the undead-slaying element of the god’s profile, while the GM expected reverence for the dead. So when we upended sarcophagi in one mission, the GM was displeased with the Cleric’s roleplaying. While it worked out, I know that the player felt put upon– it was his character and his character’s relationship with his god… but the GM decided what the god’s beliefs were, and punished the character for his “lack of faith”. When you play a Sorcerer (or Favored Soul), it only takes 15 minutes of warm up and you’re good to go…
An important question that I just ran into last night running Eberron, which I’d have to say is a pretty ‘low faith’ system.
Why was faith so popular in the dark ages? Maybe because the ‘evils’ of those times were devils and demons, evil spirits, &tc.
But what does your typical fantasy setting have for evil – Orcs, Ogres, Medusa, &tc.
No cleric is going to be of much use against your day-to-day evil in a fantasy setting. If your village was attacked by bugbears would you run to the church (for the cleric) or the keep (for a fighter)?
BUT, I like the idea of religion in rpgs, and am interested in how they could work.
One possibility is that the answer to this question is ‘setting based’. A good example of a faith based game is clearly the original Glorantha – and that is because there is /only/ divine magic, so everyone and their dog wants it!
Another possibility is to stop the cleric from being just a healer/fighter by removing the bit that causes the conflict – the roel of fighter (Yep, you heard it here first). Consider a cleric who can’t wear armour, and has wizard-like combat skills but, say, could use their Turn/Rebuke/Damn on ANY monster or person as long as it was evil. If you worked an HP-damage mechanic into it it could be a really great system. (BTW am writing this up as a PDF as we speak, look for it on RPGNow ; )
I also like the idea of observant/un-observant PCs, and will give that a try. As long as the incentives are not so great as to attract rules-players instead of role-players, it should work.
2c
Crazy Jerome Says:
Rick, I suggest one of the general histories of the middle ages by Norman Cantor for a good education on the role of religion in the middle ages. He doesn’t sugarcoat it, but he doesn’t back away from it, either. Good, bad, ugly, odd, and indifferent–he talks about it. If you want a title, I’ll look one up when I get home from work.
I usually don’t have time for a lot of reading 🙁 so I’ll pass on your kind offer. No need for you to trouble yourself over something that I likely won’t have time for.
BUT…. as serindipity would have it, I was reading my copy of KODT 118 this evening, and I saw an article entitled “Exploring Medieval Themes”. All quoted material (save one separately noted passage) was sourced to “The Civilization of the Middle Ages,” by Norman F. Cantor (Harper Collins 1993). What luck that I should stumble across an article on this very subject written from the very source you reccomend.
Mister Cantor is quoted with the following in the article:
“At least until the twelfth century, the lives of medieval peasants different little from the beasts of the field. They toiled, they bred, and they died.”
“Finding the most learned monk of the eighth century in the frontier society of northern England is roughly comparable to locating the greatest scholar of mid-nineteeth century America in the backwoods of Missouri.”
(of course I’m assuming that most fantasy rpgs are largely based on exactly the frontier society of England)-Parenthesis mine, not mister Cantors
Regarding a typical craftsman: “He knew that if he did not fulfill the possibilities of the vocation he had chose, he would be condemned to miserable poverty…”
This is the stereotype of the medieval world that I’m familiar with and from which my earlier position springs. Set in a different version of the past where things aren’t so dismal, things would be radically different.
Yep, about 600 – 1000 is truly dark. And 1000 to 1100 is only better by comparison. But if you read Cantor further, you’ll find that things really took off from there. Most games are set in the kind of technology and environment that occurs around 1200 or later. Also, note “frontier”. 8th century northern England is after the complete collapse of Roman rule *and* the Alfred brief revival (which didn’t really touch northern England much anyway). Furthermore, this varies by period and place. 8th century England is truly frontier in the worst possible way, but 12th century England is clawing its way out of serfdom (slowly) while France is sinking deeper into it.
All of this contributes to the kind of reactions people have to poverty–including religious, but it isn’t the dominant motivation for the religion. What you are really talking about here is politics, not religion. During the worst of the medieval period, monastery walls and means often formed a bastion of civilization in otherwise lawless land. In some cases, the abbot was defacto lord. When you have that situation, you get the kind of reaction mentioned in your quote.
In this situation, you have the normal spread of religious belief. But you also have people that follow the forms because it is good politics. Contrast that with the flowering of culture in the late medieval period, typified by the building of the cathedrals. Is this a grand flowering of religious sentiment absent the wracking poverty mentioned before. Well, yeah for some it is. But for others, it’s going with the politics of *that* age. (That is, if the funds are there, the stonemason guild gets lots of work, which makes the stonemasons happy, which relates to civic pride. Ergo, the bishop is still important politically.
The Fransican order was a reaction to the infiltration of politics into the church. The church accepted the order, because it was understood that there should be such an outlet, while also recognizing that it was impossible for the church to be separated from the world.
That is another rich area for religion in a roleplaying game. If a religion is all mystical, it will be so divorced from the world has to have few believers. OTOH, to the extent that it engages the world, it becomes *involved*. When it becomes involved, economics and politics and basic human nature work as you might expect.
Cantor’s take on the black death is very interesting, by the way. He makes a pretty convincing case that by around 1300, the church had largely succeeded in producing enough educated people (especially in law) that it could afford to withdraw somewhat from the world. In effect, the intent was to turn over political matters more to the civil authorities–a gradual process that had been pursued since the canon lawyers were sent to assist Charlemagne. Universities still were primarily for educating theologies, scribes, and lawyers, but they were starting to branch out and become more independent. The plague effectively did a mini-return to the dark ages.
Remember Mr. Occam (or Ockkam) of the famous razor? He is living in 11th century England, and corresponding all over Europe about some fairly advanced mathematics. He predicted most of Newtonian mechanics, but said a new mathematics would need to be developed to prove them, which he lacked. Poverty is still rampant by our standards today, and any place can produce a genius. But it requires a certain *average* affluence for a William of Occam to engage in his various studies.
Rick said:
“I was merely pointing out that those conditions DO make one a more fervent believer, as history displays during the rise of humanism during the renaisance, and that our ancestors had a LOT more of those motivations than we do.”
Bad conditions motivate people to kowtow to the temporal authorities. Good conditions allow them not to. Through it all, people are about as religious in one time as they are in another. To the degree that the temporal authorities are a church (or churches), some people will kowtow accordingly. This doesn’t make them fervent, though it might appear to at a quick glance. In more prosperous times, they are free to worship Halle Bopp, or whatever floats their boat. 🙂
It’s not really a surprise to me that religion is tangential to most campaigns. As Crazy Jerome said, the Forgotten Realms pantheon (and the Greyhawk pantheon, and pretty much any D&D pantheon) is not rich as a religion. This is because the methodology from which it was created is entirely backwards.
Most polytheistic fantasy pantheons come at it from the exact wrong angle, saying, “Well, we want a god of war, a god of knowledge, a god of this element or that…” This isn’t surprising given that I think a lot of fantasy-game derived polytheistic religions are modelled after what someone might learn in, say, a seventh grade English course on Greek mythology where you’ve got Apollo listed as “Sun God” and Zeus as “Thunder/Sky God” and so on. Polytheistic religions in the real world aren’t made by people sitting down and decide on “Domains” and “Portfolios” and then making up gods to fill those roles. While it’s inevitable that any religion you create for a setting is going to be artificial in some ways, it makes a lot more sense to me to go about writing the history/mythology of your setting and deriving a pantheon and characteristics of your deities from there.
Of course, from what I know, a truly naturalistic polytheism is going to end up with far too many deities for most players to keep track of — The Hindus, Romans and Greeks all have essentially infinite “deities” (spirits, geniuses, daemons, etc). A Greek-style system where you can have a deity with an epithet indicating a specific quality or characteristic, like Athena-Nike, can help players by reducing the number of actual deity names to remember. I’m in the process of restructuring the pantheon in my campaign because I feel like having 13 major deities (or 39 deities in the organized church, not including local nature spirits and civic cults and similar entities that might be considered minor deities) is too much for players to keep track of.
… and let’s not forget the number of saints that are venerated. The number of dieties is dwarfed when you consider the number of saints ….
… and holy sites …
… and relics …
… and religious texts …
It can get outta control very quickly.
I think that part of the reason that religion doesn’t have a large presence in games is:
a) Hesitation on bringing such a touchy and controversial subject for many people.
b) Lack of in depth knowledge on how a religion is really run. Lets face it, few gamers are archbishops, lamas, or otherwise extremely versed in how a religion actually *works*
c) From a roleplaying standpoint, most people (caveat: in my experience) don’t want to go through the effort of knowing or making up doctrine & myths for their deity.
The best attempt at this that I have seen has been the original gods books that TSR did for the Forgotten Realms – Faiths & Avatars, Powers & Pantheons, and DemiHuman Deities.
I’m going the other direction with my game. Given the fact that “mere mortals” can perform the same miracles as supernatural beings, the people of my campaign generally find deities irrelevant; many folks are atheists or, if they believe in deities, view them merely as powerful spirits or beings no more special than a powerful mage.
So, in the less abstract, Tim Gray’s delightful “Quester’s of the Middle Realm” has a fantastic system for bringing the gods into play. Mechanically speaking, the gods of the game are defined in terms of their relationships with the PCs, which grow and evolve over time. It’s a piss poor model of religion, but as a model for meddling fantasy gods (especially in the vein of Fritz Leiber’s Fahfrd & the Grey Mouser stuff) it hits the nail right on the head. Well worth a look.
-Rob D.
One successful “pantheon” that I’ve played beside was Braagh the Ogre in our old 2e game. The world was a GM homebrew– and he hadn’t really created much of a pantheon. Ogres were part of the civilized races, and our cleric was an ogre.
It worked out pretty well. He served the Ogreish god of rage, and was inventive in how he dedicated himself to his gods. As the campaign went on, the player introduced sub-gods/saints– a god of slow revenge, a god of battle, a god of breaking bones, etc. He did a good job of working his characterization in, and making his character’s religion seem central to the character.
Unfortunately, we didn’t really get to explore what that meant about a society that considered these worshipers normal…
As has been said, it depends on the interests of your players.
On the rare occasion I play a cleric or a paladin, I have to have a very strong idea of the character and their faith. I really enjoy exploring the role of a person of faith, as I am not one.
When a player wishes to play a cleric in my campaign, I give them as much support as they wish. If they want to develop the faith, I will help, if they just want to player a character with abilities, that is fine too.
I’m glad someone mentioned Glorantha – Runequest and HeroQuest/Wars show it is possible to have an FRPG where religion is at the centre, not the periphery.
Characters will only display an interest in religion if their players make them show such an interest. So the game has to be set up in a way that makes religion interesting to players. There are various ways this can be done, some of which have been mentioned – mechanical benefits, or making religion a central part of the game world.
One thing which hasn’t been mentioned, but which tends to be important in my own games, is to make religion one of the sites in which the key themes of the campaign play out. If this is done, then players who want to engage with those themes have a reason to engage with religion.
A character who chooses to play a Paladin is probably sending a signal that they are interested in heroism and glory; one who plays a Monk wants martial arts, and perhaps also a bit of “the wisdom of the mysterious East”. If you offer the players these things wrapped in game-world religion, they will probably bite.
In my current (Rolemaster) game, of seven PCs one is a Paladin, one a demi-human Druid, one a demi-human Ranger who trained in a monastery at an earlier time, and one a Diviner/Enchanter who belongs to an esoteric branch of the Paladin’s religion.
How to make religion important with this group? Instead of regular demi-humans, the Druid is a tree-spirit and the Ranger a fox-spirit – so straight away they have a connection to the spirit beings which are at the bottom (the most worldly end, if you like) of the divine hierarchy. When these players explore their characters’ backgrounds, they are engaging with the religion of the gameworld.
The Diviner’s key abilities are (in D&D terms) Commune and Contact Other Planes. It is easy, when these abilities are used, to bring divine personalities and politics into play.
The player of the Paladin, naturally, wants to do a lot of smiting. Instead of giving him essentially secular scenarios, like defending villagers from Orcs, the game involves religiously-infused scenarios, like defending villagers from Undead and other sorts of evil spirits.
Many scenarios can (with minimal work) be given a religious aspect that therefore changes their theme without changing their mechanical play in any major way. When I ran the Freeport trilogy for my group (converted to RM), I made it that the island on which the lighthouse was being built was in fact the remnant body of a dead warrior god belonging to the Paladin’s pantheon (thank you for the inspiration, Monte!). The god had died driving off the Unspeakable One last time he manifested in the world, and the cult was now hoping to draw on his essence to power a new gate. When the PCs disrupted the cultists’ ceremony, the dead god temporarily came to life, lifting himself from the water and driving off the evil power.
With these mechanically insignificant changes to the scenario, it suddenly becomes not just a story about stopping a mad cult, but takes on a religious meaning for the Paladin and Diviner. Themes of heroism and loyalty (important to the Paladin’s player) and of ancient and hidden secrets (important to the Diviner’s player) are played out within an in-game religous context.
One result of this is that the Paladin’s main goal has now become the permanent resurrection of the dead god. Religion is therefore likely to stay at the core of the campaign for some time, because this is where the action is – both for the characters, and the thematic action for the players.
For “realism” you do need to address background of religion in campaign a good deal. Either that or revise clerics to be tapping into “generic power” etc.
What I tell my players in my setting “bible”:
Religion is important. You may want to wait until your character “has to declare†their faith to decide it (having the chance in play to see what religion they likely belong to, whether they are a devout follower or not). In Ordragil, many people do not serve only one deity. All, however, favour at least one deity or a faith with their prayers. Atheism is either an insanity or outlandishly sophisticated philosophy, not a normal belief. Irreligious characters have no assured treatment at any temple, having failed to subscribe to any of the available “public health insurance programsâ€.
Clerics all follow a particular faith; none are unaffiliated. Some are extremely pious, constantly seeking to apply their deity’s guidance. Others, particularly priests of philosophy faiths, treat faith more as a discipline to apply consistently but not passionately or a science they are constantly exploring and expanding.
Being dependent upon their gods or faiths, clerics must always be in favour. They must constantly demonstrate fidelity and reverence. This may involve observing rituals, ministering to believers, and similar religious work ~ in particular making favoured sacrifices.
Before the Closing of the Gate of Heaven, a cleric who fell from favour might have been Forsaken and lost all supernatural and spell powers. After the Closing of the Gate of Heaven ( Flower 29, 1327), a cleric continues to receive spells until such time as they are formally excommunicated. This may be accomplished by any Outsider servant of their deity or faith capable of granting wishes (which may do so with a simple touch attack, no saving throw), or by use of the spell Anathema.
A cleric must have a Knowledge Religion rank of at least 4 (at least appearing to be Diligent in faith, according to the Religion section). A character gaining Cleric as a 2nd class must have these ranks at the first level of Cleric.
The daily prayer to prepare spells is not a silent act of will and is thus difficult to carry out undetected when under observation or guard.
Most humans in eastern Ordragil worship faiths, not deities. Others are polytheists and worship several deities. Some are henotheists: they acknowledge many gods exist, but only worship one. The followers of al’Din in Hakhar are the closest to monotheists, as they recognize other divine powers than their favoured choice but view there to be such a difference between them that the other powers are unworthy of anyone’s worship.
Religion is very much an issue of this life to most people. There is common belief in reincarnation and an absence of general belief in imminent judgement. There are, however, good reasons to embrace a particular faith in this life. Upbringing inclines most individuals to follow a faith they are taught to be wise and true. Social pressures are strong as most families and communities favour particular religions and react with varying degrees of aversion, shunning and persecution to others. Religion also provides a system of health care and insurance. Unlike practitioners of arcane magic (whose objectives follow their personal dictates), divine magic practitioners are strongly inclined to aid those who profess shared belief.
Whether a follower of a faith or deity, every character has a level of observance. A divine spell caster is expected to be at least diligent in their observance (judged by public actions).
Minimal – observes major holy days, attends services occasionally, avoids breaching dogma. (e.g., a Light worshipper avoids needless violence and dishonesty). Eligible for services from clergy.
Common – observes major holy days, attends services regularly, avoids breaching dogma and often positively applies dogma (e.g. a follower of Dammar applies historical precedent). May reliably expect services from clergy.
Diligent – as common, always seeking to positively apply dogma (e.g., a Listener is unfailing in observing social hierarchy) , with added acts of piety such as sacrifices, and sets aside time for study (has a Knowledge Religion score of at least 4). Alignment is expected to be within one degree of deity or faith’s (though may in truth be otherwise). The character is eligible for a Helpful reaction that includes casting spells for reduced cost, depending on circumstances.
Faithful – as diligent, with added acts such as pilgrimage or crusade, and intense religious study (has a Knowledge Religion score at least 4 + ½ character level, rounded down). Alignment is expected to be exactly the same as deity or faith’s ideal (though may in truth be otherwise). +2 reaction bonus from Clergy when seeking to obtain a Helpful reaction such as obtaining spells for reduced cost depending on circumstances.
All religions are laid out in their philosophy, holy days, favoured sacrifices etc.
valvorik – What excellent, clear, and succinct rules! I’m borrowing them for my new campaign. Thanks a ton!
Thurgon – I appreciate your insights for motivating the players; this will also get use.