Clerics and deities

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by Jarl Wilm

Thus, I don't have the official expansions for how to introduce Viking polytheism into DFRPG without moving outside those limits and into a fuller GURPS system.

Originally Posted by Dammann

Palladium is a whole other thing; you’re talking about Gaming Ballistic’s Hand of Asgard, I think. That’s a licensed DFRPG supplement.

A few notes. Yes, I'm not Palladium.

For "Viking polytheism," that is a very overly specific explanation for what the book is, so it's worth repeating. All of my books are as widely useful as possible, so in many cases, the cultural/social stuff is fairly skin deep.

Yes, the imagery and terms feel Norse on the surface. They're clearly assigning belief to one of several divine entities.

But really, these are domains, like D&D domains, that you can map on to any god, set of gods, or singular god with many facets sort of thing.

The domains are:

Allfather - really information, foresight, wisdom, strategic war
Death
Fate
Law and justified violence
Health, Life, and Prosperity
Mischief/Outcasts
Magic, Beauty, Nurturing
Thunder, Storms, War frenzy
Protection and Warding
Wind, Sea, Storms, Merchants
Winter, Vengeance

(and I just noticed somehow Winter/Vengeance got left offf the Table of Contents for five years. Sigh. Will fix.)

But Hand of Asgard, while Norse/Nordlond flavor *because all my books so far are nordlond flavored to keep the writing within my license parameters* is meant to be more than just "Viking fantasy book."

[Jarl Wilm]

Originally Posted by Dammann

Palladium is a whole other thing; you’re talking about Gaming Ballistic’s Hand of Asgard, I think. That’s a licensed DFRPG supplement.

My mistake; I'll correct the earlier post.

[benz72]

Originally Posted by Jarl Wilm

The rules as written have all clerics gaining identical powers and spells from whatever deity they claim to represent, which suggests to me that there is only one God (or maybe two, the God with powers of Light and Healing versus the Devil with powers of corruption and harm).

I don't know that your conclusion follows your observation.

If I pray to the transport god Ford and my friend prays to the transport god Chevy and that other guy over there prays to the transport god Toyota we may all derive similar capability from our prayer but that capability is delivered from actual distinct and competing entities.

I don't see any reason that (for example) gods couldn't have some subset of power to grant just like PCs and NPCs have some subset of powers to use and that different entities can use (or grant) identical powers.

As a thought exercise imagine you found a secret chapter in the Powers book that had the enhancement Grant to Followers Through Prayer [+10,000%] and build a few deities on a million points. I'll bet you could come up with some pretty interesting pantheons full of differently powered entities of various affinity, reliability, interests, and temperament.
Groups of deities could align themselves according to their philosophies just like humans (sapients generally?) do and work against those in opposition.

[Jarl Wilm]

Originally Posted by benz72

I don't know that your conclusion follows your observation.

If I pray to the transport god Ford and my friend prays to the transport god Chevy and that other guy over there prays to the transport god Toyota we may all derive similar capability from our prayer but that capability is delivered from actual distinct and competing entities.

I don't see any reason that (for example) gods couldn't have some subset of power to grant just like PCs and NPCs have some subset of powers to use and that different entities can use (or grant) identical powers.

As a thought exercise imagine you found a secret chapter in the Powers book that had the enhancement Grant to Followers Through Prayer [+10,000%] and build a few deities on a million points. I'll bet you could come up with some pretty interesting pantheons full of differently powered entities of various affinity, reliability, interests, and temperament.
Groups of deities could align themselves according to their philosophies just like humans (sapients generally?) do and work against those in opposition.

In the case of DFRPG, I was struck by the Disadvantage Social Stigma: Excommunication. If you're Excommunicated, all the Good religions (all the ones PCs are allowed to play) blackball you. That's not how it works in real life; just the opposite in fact. In Western religions at least, to belong to one faith is to not be another. At best, they'll ignore each other's excommunications; they might even consider being excommunicated by the other group to be a positive. That's less likely in Asian religions, which tend to be more mutually respectful and syncretistic; but DFRPG seems to follow AD&D and others in treating a pseudo-Western setting as the default and chi using monks/martial artists as from "the mysterious East." If Thor and Athena and Ra are all mutually agreeing that a crime against one pantheon is a crime against all, and they all have the same spell list (as they do in the DFRPG boxed set), in what sense are they different religions? Sounds pretty Unitarian Universalist to me!

I also think the "Intolerant of Other Religions" disad limits how easily you can introduce separate pantheons, or even separate cults in the same pantheon. In GURPS an "Intolerant" trait would be worth more or less points based on how many other people it included. It's easy to have a settled value of -10 in a dualist world where there are a few major religious options; but how will that work if one player wants to follow Thor and another Ares and the GM wanted an Egyptian setting? It's much cleaner to just go with the fewest religious options demanded by the game.

All my musings depend, I suppose, on the premise that everyone is actually interested in role-playing and considers the religious leanings (or lack thereof) of their character to be an important part of the role. Ryan W is right about the way many players and game settings treat religion: as just another power. It's a very reductionist view that sort of fits the materialist/secular worldview of much of society today. And I'm not sure it's so far off from ancient views either; Greeks and Romans seem to treat "wizardry" and "clericalism" as basically the same sort of thing, just different ways to get power, with the main difference being how major and widely-approved the power you are invoking actually is. The guy who wrote a curse against his neighbor on a tablet and threw it into a pond wouldn't see himself as using a "different magic system" than he did when he went to the temple of Jupiter and prayed to the god to keep the Empire strong and the barbarians far away. TTFN

[benz72]

Originally Posted by Jarl Wilm

In the case of DFRPG, I was struck by the Disadvantage Social Stigma: Excommunication. If you're Excommunicated, all the Good religions (all the ones PCs are allowed to play) blackball you. That's not how it works in real life; just the opposite in fact. In Western religions at least, to belong to one faith is to not be another. At best, they'll ignore each other's excommunications; they might even consider being excommunicated by the other group to be a positive. That's less likely in Asian religions, which tend to be more mutually respectful and syncretistic; but DFRPG seems to follow AD&D and others in treating a pseudo-Western setting as the default and chi using monks/martial artists as from "the mysterious East." If Thor and Athena and Ra are all mutually agreeing that a crime against one pantheon is a crime against all, and they all have the same spell list (as they do in the DFRPG boxed set), in what sense are they different religions? Sounds pretty Unitarian Universalist to me!

In my mind at least they differ in the same way that the US, UK, South Korea, Japan, and Sweden can all be very interested in democratic principles, dedicated to their national interest, favor foreign trade, promote a strong cultural identity and still be very different.
Or, instead of comparing nationalism to religion let’s compare linguistics. One can ask for a glass of water in many different languages, all with the same meaning/effect and yet none of them will sound the same. In some games, there are no language differences; everyone speaks Common and the most mysterious thing you will find is a plot driven ‘ancient text’ that someone with the right background or skill needs to decipher. In other games different languages abound. They serve the same function in each of their societies, but I would find it odd to support an argument that Orcish=Elvish=Dwarvish just because they all have the same communicative effect.

Originally Posted by Jarl Wilm

I also think the "Intolerant of Other Religions" disad limits how easily you can introduce separate pantheons, or even separate cults in the same pantheon. In GURPS an "Intolerant" trait would be worth more or less points based on how many other people it included. It's easy to have a settled value of -10 in a dualist world where there are a few major religious options; but how will that work if one player wants to follow Thor and another Ares and the GM wanted an Egyptian setting? It's much cleaner to just go with the fewest religious options demanded by the game.

Sure, if that’s the game you want to play, but others may find interest in those tensions and interactions. YMMV.

Originally Posted by Jarl Wilm

All my musings depend, I suppose, on the premise that everyone is actually interested in role-playing and considers the religious leanings (or lack thereof) of their character to be an important part of the role. Ryan W is right about the way many players and game settings treat religion: as just another power. It's a very reductionist view that sort of fits the materialist/secular worldview of much of society today. And I'm not sure it's so far off from ancient views either; Greeks and Romans seem to treat "wizardry" and "clericalism" as basically the same sort of thing, just different ways to get power, with the main difference being how major and widely-approved the power you are invoking actually is. The guy who wrote a curse against his neighbor on a tablet and threw it into a pond wouldn't see himself as using a "different magic system" than he did when he went to the temple of Jupiter and prayed to the god to keep the Empire strong and the barbarians far away. TTFN

Sure, that makes sense, but again it depends on how sharply the GM wants to focus the lense (i.e. spend game time) on those kinds of problems, interactions, and solutions. Have a good day.

[restlessgriffin]

Originally Posted by benz72

I don't know that your conclusion follows your observation.

If I pray to the transport god Ford and my friend prays to the transport god Chevy and that other guy over there prays to the transport god Toyota we may all derive similar capability from our prayer but that capability is delivered from actual distinct and competing entities.

Not the best example. For DFRPG, you probably don't get that distinction. You'd only have one transport god, not several. A more likely example would be Sun god vs Moon godess.

In one case, both may grant a divine spell like Continual Light. One would be bright like the sun, while uthe other would be soft like a full moon lit night. Only the Sun good would grant Sunlight which would do damage to monsters like vampires.

The Sun god clerics spell list and the Moon god clerics spell list would be different. There probably would be significant overlap in spells but each list would reflect the domain. Also the special holy powers would definitely be different. See Gaming Ballistics Hand of Asgard for fully worked out Nordic/Viking inspired examples. Note the are not too specific so just looking at the domains of the deities its easy enough to translate for other settings. For instance, D&D 5e setting Faerun's Sword Coast. Check out the Sword Coast book and use the domains to map to the closest equivalent.

Note Hand of Asgard also has some interesting Holy Abilities which are different from ones in DFRPG proper. Some are entirely different others are extensions. Good stuff.

[benz72]

Originally Posted by restlessgriffin

Not the best example. For DFRPG, you probably don't get that distinction. You'd only have one transport god, not several. A more likely example would be Sun god vs Moon godess.

Why exactly would the elves, dwarves, halflings, orcs, various tribes of humans, &c. all worship the same god of X? Is that in the sourcebooks somewhere that I missed?
My instinct is that most cultures would have divinities that were tailored to their needs, abilities, physiology and interest. I expect the shark man god of war looks very different from the dark elf god of war and both are also very different from the human god of war. Same for sun, sky, magic, food production, family, justice/law or whatever other anthropomorphized concept one might imbue with divinity.

[Anders]

That depends on the setting metaphysics. If there is only one God of the Sun, and they are a certain way, then anyone who lives in that world and interacts with the divine has to take that into account.

[benz72]

Originally Posted by Anders

That depends on the setting metaphysics. If there is only one God of the Sun, and they are a certain way, then anyone who lives in that world and interacts with the divine has to take that into account.

Very much so. Has this been established in DFRPG?

[Anders]

It has not. Nor has it been established that each race has its own sun god. It's up to the GM. Hence "it depends on the setting metaphysics."