Do you use religion in your games, Veeky Forums? Personally...

Do you use religion in your games, Veeky Forums? Personally, I feel like it's unfair and rather cruel to FORCE the idea of "gods" on your players. I know it's just a game, but religion is a hot issue for a lot of people, and especially with how it works in the real world, I think it's wrong and insensitive to force a player to "believe" or interact with "gods" they know aren't real, even if it's only make believe. I mean, religion is such a pervasive, controlling, and downright manipulative force in our world- and not in a "fun" way. Evil cults I can deal with - that's just a gang with hats on. Religions are more insidious.

Religion should be treated like rape in a game, IMO. Only if there's a very, VERY good reason should it be added.

My clerics are always powered by wisdom and morality rather than a supernatural force, and focuses more on alignment than arbitrary rules. This way you can have atheistic clerics and Paladins, and get away from the short-sighted view that only those who obey a religion are "good."

I had a good laugh. Thank you, OP.

Terry Goodkind plz go
Plz stay go

The way I hear it, the first deity Gary Gygax introduced into D&D was St. Cuthbert, mostly as an excuse to have an npc beat the pcs vigorously about the head and neck with a stick for asking about gods in the setting.

>Terry Goodkind

I know nothing about him

Do you use monstrous races in your games, Veeky Forums? Personally, I feel like it's unfair and rather cruel to FORCE the idea of "monstrous races" on your players. I know it's just a game, but racism is a hot issue for a lot of people, and especially with how it works in the real world, I think it's wrong and insensitive to force a player to "believe" or interact with "monsters" they know aren't real, even if it's only make believe. I mean, racism is such a pervasive, controlling, and downright manipulative force in our world- and not in a "fun" way. Traditional fantasy races I can deal with - that's just humans with hats on. Monstrous races are more insidious.

Monstrous races should be treated like rape in a game, IMO. Only if there's a very, VERY good reason should they be added.

My character are always powered by wisdom and morality rather than a racial stereotype, and focuses more on culture than arbitrary rules. This way you can have diverse characters, and get away from the short-sighted view that only those who play humans, dwarves and elves are "good."

I envy you. Don't read his books.

explain?

They're shit.

They are poorly written, there is no background or depth to the world, his characters are 2 dimensional at best, his characters are copy pasted from pervious characters because he can't think up new characters for shit, HOLY BALLS levels of protagonist centred morality, deus ex machina everywhere when he writes himself into a corner, poorly done caricatures of people from the real world he doesn't like, the "good" guys commit war crimes repeatedly and break their word but nobody call them out on it because they are the Good Guys, massive lack of internal consistency, 40 page torture scenes, 15 page """HEROIC""" speeches about the perfection of Objectivism and RAPE RAPE RAPE RAPE RAPE RAPE and a few more RAPEs for good measure because that's his magical realm.

I think a more interesting way to use religion in a game is to use it as a political force, much like any other. In a standard medieval setting, you have the monarchy, you have the aristocracy, local authority, you have the church, and such like. All of these things put constraints on people's behaviour, but it doesn't matter much to player's characters unless they want it to.

Personally, I really like low magic settings, so clerics with spells rarely come up as an issue, and no one can question the efficacy or reality of their spells granted to them by a god which no one is sure actually exists.

Having said that, I do really enjoy coming up with creeds, rituals, and systems of belief, as well as different sects of the same religion. I think it adds a nice dimension to a game. You don't have to force players to be religious, to have faith, or even to engage with the church at all. It's there to add a sense of verisimilitude and depth to the setting, in my opinion.

*tips wizard hat*

Subtle OP, at least until you said "religion should be treated like rape"

That was subtle to you?

>"An axe isn't a holy symbol you stupid man."
>"Really, well lets make it one then."

Probably one of Terry Pratchett's best books.

Indeed.

M'shithead

"One cannot have a private religion anymore than one can have a private son and moon." -GK Chesterton

While I don't want to force my PCs into being religious the way 3rd Edition Forgotten Realms did, to treat it like a taboo subject that should rarely come up is, ironically, unrealistic. Religion is a part of our world whether we like it or not. It is not the sole arbitrator of morality, and only a handful of fundamentalists (which have an over representation in the US) treat it as such.

Polytheistic societies held general piety in high regard but it was almost synonymous with virtues like patriotism and familial duty. In this regard, religion was just yet another point of devotion rather than the final authority on, we'll, anything. Specific moral codes stemmed from philosophies: for the Romans that was stoicism, for the Chinese it was Confucianism, etc.

Whether the gods are real or not has little impact on morality. Gods are just agents of morality like humans are. PCs can still be lacking in poetry and even go the route of the Athar and believe the gods are irrelevant.

Christ that's some edge you've got there.

To answer your question, my setting does have gods, but only seven of them have been deities for their whole lives: Lord Fate (god of law), The Lady (goddess of chaos), Ankara (goddess of death), Nualla (goddess of magic), Orthos (god of entropy), and the twin goddesses Luna and Aura (goddesses of the moons). Luna and Aura are newborn deities only born within the past few thousand years, while the other five date back to the dawn of creation, or close to it.

Every other deity is an ascended mortal being who ascended basically as part of a big game that the gods play every one thousand years. The very first of these was an ordinary, albeit strong, albino wolf that the Lady infused with divine power. That wolf became Arraska, Goddess of Beasts. After her gradually came a slew of other deities who took on additional portfolios, like the Sun, Crafting, Conquest, etc.

You go to whatever afterlife you deserve regardless of your belief in deities or membership of a religion, however, and clerical power stems from belief, not the deities. The main reason to worship deities is because, well, they're in charge of the forces and circumstances of creation, and so you can ask them to intercede in various things for you.

lol.

Although I actually don't treat monstrous races as being innately different from "standard" ones. If an elf can be evil there's no reason why an orc can't be good. There are cultural tendencies, though.

Is that Carpe Jugulum?

Yes. Just before the priest cuts the vampires head off.

>not wanting to push shit on players
>edgy

The players are not the characters. And maybe if you quit pussyfooting around religion, someone might see the sacred cow.

I think it's more "magical" if Gods aren't that well known. Faith is about trusting something even if it isn't certain, not about calling Poseidon to hook you up with spells.