What makes a better religion, a monotheistic or polytheistic one? And what makes better gods, an all good god(s) or a flawed god(s)?
Assume that either choice wouldn't have any effect on the classes of the setting crunch wise. It's not like an omnibenevolent singular God wouldn't be capable of having different Clerics representing different aspects of him anyways. We're talking from a purely fluff perspective. What makes for better storytelling?
There is no way to prove which one is better outside of personal preference.
Depends
On
The
Setting
Polytheistic, imo.
But the problem with polytheistic religions in fiction is they're usually indistinguishable from modern Christianity. There are Good Gods who you pray too and have to appease through virtue and chastity, and Bad Gods who no one likes unless you're some kind of devil worshipper.
Actual pagan beliefs were a lot more nuanced than that.
Best answer
The breakdown is as follows.
Pre-Protestant Catholicism > Realistic Polytheism > Unrealistic Polytheism > Protestantism > Henotheistic "Church of Light" Pop Culture Christianity.
The top choice is how you get the Church of the Silver Flame from Eberron, and not only does the presence of a One True God open the door for heresies, denominations and religious strife, but having One True God means you can still have Saints you worship as a sort of pseudo-polytheism.
After all, Saints hear your prayers and whisper them into the ear of God.
Monotheistic as they show a proper structure with a top god and diverse underling saints and angels. Meanwhile, polytheism in fiction often have no leader of the Gods and people worship one god, as if they were monotheistic, instead of praying to one of the gods or another according to their needs.
Monotheism, standard all benevolent God with angels and demons and shit.
HOWEVER, most people are apathetic to the whole thing, viewing the war in Heaven as none of their concern. The few people who care enough to pick a side are often considered the outcasts of society, and at any rate the demons seem to get many more volunteers serving under them than God does since they offer far more freedom and materialistic rewards.
They often don't even get syncretism right.
Everyone remember your DOTS
Poly is you want options. Mono if you want to Deus Vult shit.
Gods are troublesome entities spawned by the fever-dreams of crazy prophets, exist to bedevil and thwart mankind, and fade and die when they are no longer spoken of.
They grant no powers to mortals at all, priests are either cultists with agendas doing simple ritual witchery or opportunists collecting gold from the hopeful.
There is no heaven, no hell, the Gods dwell in distant Godsland and the dead go to the Shadowlands.
As someone who very often plays clerics in any game that allows them, monotheistic traditions are preferable to the latter, in the sense that each religion only follows a single deity, though I enjoy a healthy discourse and respect between unopposing religions and their adherents. Equally preferable is the idea that the gods, much like the mortals they tend to devise, are appropriately flawed in some manner significant to their characterization.
A tangled web of opposing and confederate divinities is the clear winner is most any setting, I'd say.
>Better RELIGION
Monotheistic
>Actually interesting ecology of cosmic beings
Polytheistic.
This is entirely dependent on personal preferences. Personally, I usually want a mix of both but prefer polytheistic religions when they're not done in the usual autistic fashion of modern fantasy where all the gods simply exist all the time as separate entities and their domains are clearly defined and evenly distributed. I want pantheons with local traditions that interprets the gods slightly differently from one another and who tell similar stories about them but with the roles changed and where there's not just one god of trickery or one god of war, but rather all of the gods have small aspects of each of those things within them. I want different interpretations of how foreign gods relate to local gods; do the people in this regions believe that the people to the north worship the same gods as them but under a different name? Do these people believe that the god of the clans of the mountains to the east is their sky god or do they think it's something else entirely. Do the mountain clans believe their god to be same as one of those other people's gods or do they perhaps believe all those foreign gods to be aspects of their one god? And so on and so on.
>What makes a better religion, a monotheistic or polytheistic one?
This question is bad due to "monotheistic vs polytheistic" being more than binary. There are tons of different variations of both. Some of the more common ones are:
>Supreme God (false)monotheism
The religion worships one supreme God with lesser supporting divinities (aka angels and saints). Usually has a weaker dualistic anti-god with supporting anti-divinities (aka demons).
>Tribal Monotheism
The tribal religion worships one entity as God but knows other tribes worship other gods.
>Pantheonic Polytheism
The religion worships a group (often family) of gods with various gods being specialists in differing fields.
>1000 Gods/Myriad Gods Polytheism
The religion worships a incredibly large number of gods with many of the gods having similar or overlapping fields.
Not to mention henotheism where a group of people believe in many gods but each believer only worships one of those gods, usually based on his societal standing or job.
>Henotheistic "Church of Light" Pop Culture Christianity.
>Henotheism is the worship of a single god while not denying the existence or possible existence of other deities. Friedrich Schelling coined the word, and Friedrich Welcker used it to depict primitive monotheism among ancient Greeks.
I'm pretty sure these are mutually exclusive. Modern Christrianity specifically denies the existence of other gods.
Unless you mean how the Nips do it, with one religion that vaguely resembles Catholicism and is massive jerks to everyone.
Pretty sure they man every not!christian "we worship the light which just sorta vaguely means there's christian-lite aesthetic to our buildings, and we like to do things that are considered good by normies"
He means settings where you've got a big ole "Main God" worshiped by the Generic Kingdom, but then you get out into the woods and there's oodles of lesser gods being worshiped by villagers or other countries.
Also
If I had to guess I think is referring to eastern pop-culture pseudo-Christian churches that appears alongside an elemental pantheon in many video games and other media.
Does your setting have a global religion?
If so, that removes one scene of conflict from the setting.
Personally, I like having a main religion but with several cults (different interpretations). Or 3-4 main religions.
If you have a polytheistic religion, you have to ask yourself why these gods have been bundled together.
I'm going to be That Guy and say henotheism.
The existence of multiple deities and similar supernatural spirits is universally recognized, but tribes and nations of people define themselves by their worship of a single god.
Henotheism is only really good when the existence of other gods is not concrete, meaning the guys who worship a Sun God might think the guys who revere twigs are devil-worshiping heathens.
Not necessarily. How they view other religions depends entirely on their way of life. Viewing others as heathens is fine and useful for aggressive, conquest-driven nations, but others may prefer to forge alliances and trade.
I disagree. A culture can Pantheonic Polytheistic or Myraid Gods Polytheistic with Henotheistic individuals and/or cults and work quite well without religious conflict. A setting can also work well with a mix of tribes that are Monotheistic, Henotheistic and Polytheistic with different tribes having differing opinions on the beliefs of others.
Being henotheistic would work well for wandering merchants. They would accept and know of other gods but would likely only worship a god of travel or trade.
A monotheistic religion with Polytheistic Syncretism like Zoroastrianism and Early Catholicism
He means REEE WHY ARE MODERN CHRISTIANS NOT BIBLICAL ABSOLUTISTS EVEN THOUGH ITS CONTRARY TO THE RELIGIONS HISTORY EVERYWHERE BUT AMERICA REEE
Give more info on what setting you want to run and what kinda struggle you want?
Is absolutely right.
You want a game focused on religious strife and struggle? Then a single highly structured monotheistic religion dealing with a fracturing faith or with other monotheistic religions can be a solid start. Then you can have numerous religions, but dont have them share a pantheon, have them be adversaries vying for worshippers. (And you can still do polytheistic religions, just have them fight opposing pantheons or try assimilating them like Greece and Rome did. Or mix and match, like how Catholicism took over pagan lands).
You can even have interesting situations where your monotheistic religion on the frontier where uneducated peasants used to worshipping pagan gods are ignorantly mixing worship rituals. (see Poland/Lithuania for an example)
Is the religion really just background for other stuff and doesnt tie into the plot? Just something your cleric happens to worship while he gets shit done? Then polytheistic, as then you can have a god for every occasion and can let the players choose the one they most like. (however you can still do this with Monotheism and saints, my campaign has a Cleric of St. Martin who is an ex-soldier and runs a shelter for the poor).
Please avoid anime-esque Catholic church knocks offs though, they feel really generic and just throw crosses on everything thinking it means something.
So yeah, as always, DOTS.
Polytheism, mostly because you can get a great variety of gods with various characteristics, agenda's, portfolio's and perks they give to their followers. Just having one god is pretty boring for fantasy, especially because (presuming that religion is just faux-Christianity) that god tends to be unknowable to a certain extent. With polytheism they're basically superpowered immortal humans, which means they can be either bros or total dicks without it automatically meaning they're good or evil. You can even have a goddess with a pretty meaningless portfolio like "the household" who thinks she's hot shit and demands lavish exercises for relatively minor perks like remaining fertile for another decade or so.
>Modern Christrianity specifically denies the existence of other gods.
Depends, m8. Early Jews were monolatrist, which meant they believed other gods may exist but only their one God was both superior and worthy of exclusive worship. Like that time when Moses was challenged to a god-off by a group of pagans. The idea behind it was more or less that the priesthood of both sides represented their gods (or acted on their mandate) and therefore challenged others in the names of their deities. The interpretation to this story is either that the pagan gods did nothing because God rekt their shit, or they did nothing because they don't exist.
Modern Christianity is almost exclusively monotheist but it has never been like that per se, nor do the primary sources exclude monolatrism as a possibility (then again it's never technically affirmed either, except maybe with commandments such as "you can either worship God or worship Mammon", though in that passage Mammon may be a stand-in for wealth in general).