Hey, I like it.  Why?  If all Clerics have access to all the Divine Spells anyway, then why not?


Doesn't bother me a bit.  It simplifies the game.  Some people believe in the Divine, while others do not.  Really devout believers may receive some perks in return for their devotion.  It doesn't hurt the game from my perspective to go Monotheistic, as opposed to having a diverse pantheon to choose from.  It's all still a Divine caster at work, doing what they do.

Thoughts and opinions welcome.  I'm a big boy.

If it's appropriate to the setting, sure why not?

I've played in a number of D&D, or related, games with monotheism and in fact I've played a cleric character of a monotheistic religion. It works perfectly well from everything that I have seen.

I once made a monotheist deity called the Leviathan, based on the seminal work by Thomas Hobbes. He was a big fan of law. And obedience. His clerics had a very Inquisitorial bent to them.

"Law" doesn't necessarily translate to "Nice"

...

I'm not certain how relevant that is to your post but I wanted to share

Just go for it.

It's actually become my default way of doing things for D&D.  One big catholic like Church - usually of a sun god.   Evil clerics get their powers from demons.  It means that you can have a religion that's better integrated into daily life and politics.

It makes more sense than the usual nonsensical mishmash of polytheism.

If PC clerics don't like it you can have them be a cleric of one of the old pagan gods.

Quote from: TJS;1057151Just go for it.

It's actually become my default way of doing things for D&D.  One big catholic like Church - usually of a sun god.   Evil clerics get their powers from demons.  It means that you can have a religion that's better integrated into daily life and politics.

It makes more sense than the usual nonsensical mishmash of polytheism.

If PC clerics don't like it you can have them be a cleric of one of the old pagan gods.

Yes, I do this quite commonly now, eg when running Gary Gygax's Yggsburgh. Medieval & Renaissance type settings tend to be more plausible with monotheism.
Wilderlands stays determinedly polytheistic, but even that has Mycr, the 'true God'.

I like polytheism for fantasy RPGs because of the rival gods / gods by alignment / pantheon issues BUT there is no reason why monotheism wouldn't work in a specific setting.

Decades ago, I ran what today would be called Eco-Fantasy. It was 2E D&D with no clerics, just druids as the only god was Nature, as the planet was sentient. Man was the work of nature, but magical creatures were abominations whose presence poisoned nature...thus, they had to be destroyed. I used a bunch of the 2e kits and tailored those as the only class choices to tighten the setting. It worked fine.

My homebrew is the medieval church with the serial #s filed off.  I've never thought polytheism was a good fit for D&D.

It's fine to me except -

Quote from: Razor 007;1057139Some people believe in the Divine, while others do not.

If people are actively using divine spell-casting - it's going to take a stubborn person to disbelieve in the divine power. Now - maybe they don't think that they're worth worshiping - but actual disbelief seems unlikely.

Quote from: Charon's Little Helper;1057296If people are actively using divine spell-casting - it's going to take a stubborn person to disbelieve in the divine power. Now - maybe they don't think that they're worth worshiping - but actual disbelief seems unlikely.

I don't really see that when there are lots of other sorts of magic. Maybe belief in the divine empowers the caster, regardless of its existence? That's how I run it in my Wilderlands.

Quote from: Razor 007;1057139Thoughts and opinions welcome.  I'm a big boy.

So what happens if a players wants to play a character who is a samauri?

Yes it is a leading question with a point. Namely that in the long run your cosmology needs to account for the diversity of culture that will be present in a setting. Even if initially you are only focusing on a region the size of Gygax's Yggsburgh. Now if this a one off probably don't need to sweat it.

However for me, running the same fantasy setting for decades, this question is a major factor. The solution I adopted was that God exists, excepts he opted for the Majestic Wilderland not to directly manifest or send any type of revelation concerning him. Instead sent his servants (think archangels). Each having a different outlook on life and faith. While there is a limited number of these beings, their religions and what they teach is filtered differently for the various cultures. In the northern fjords there is a god Thor, god of thunder and patron of those who hunt monsters to defend their communities.  While in the southern plains there is the Sky Lord Mantriv hurling his thunderbolt and also patron of those who hunt monsters to defend their communities. The Skandian vikings worship the former and the nomadic horse riders Ionians worship the latter.

One can do that for a Monotheistic deity as well. Same god, but different cultures emphasizes different aspect of his philosophy and call him by a different name.

Sometimes small differences can serve the bedrock of the evolution of two different culture. For example Western Catholic Europe, and Eastern Orthodox Europe. For the former Latin was used widely for the latter Greek was used widely.

Plenty of room for different ways to run things.

The biggest issue I see with this in D&D is how can you have clerics of different alignment?!? There are some theological shenanigans that one can use to justify it - like the power coming from belief rather than the god directly. On the other hand, if you have clerics with opposing alignments and differing kits/circles, then what does it even mean for them all to be worshipping the same god? If there is this full variety, I think it's simpler to just have polytheism.

On the other hand, if one wants just one kind of cleric, then monotheism is the obvious answer.

In general, I think there's a lot of room for interesting stuff with religion in games - but it can be tricky to combine with a clerical magic system like D&D.

If you want monotheism, consider why the world has monotheism. Do the beliefs of the people stem from the god(s) or do the god(s) stem from the beliefs? If a singular monotheistic entity is all there is, then it needs to be vague and largely mysterious/unknowable otherwise there really shouldn't be scores of different species with radically different beliefs and attitudes. IOW, monotheism should impact just about everything in the game world.

Quote from: Azraele;1057143I once made a monotheist deity called the Leviathan, based on the seminal work by Thomas Hobbes. He was a big fan of law. And obedience. His clerics had a very Inquisitorial bent to them.

"Law" doesn't necessarily translate to "Nice"

...

I'm not certain how relevant that is to your post but I wanted to share

Was his name, "Dredd"?

Quote from: estar;1057300So what happens if a players wants to play a character who is a samauri?

You're extrapolating from the POV of the least-powerful entity in the equation in a bottom-up sort of thinking.  Not every culture has to be follow a god, and even if every culture either worshiped or merely acknowledged a monotheistic god, why would that preclude samurai?  From a top-down perspective (i.e., the god's POV) this doesn't have to matter all that much.

Quote from: jhkim;1057319The biggest issue I see with this in D&D is how can you have clerics of different alignment?!?

Why would a D&D monotheism be different from every other historical monotheism?  Which monotheism do you think resulted in all of its adherents solemnly approaching its mysteries from the exact same moral-ethical perspective?

My "white christ" knock-off, to steal from Poul Anderson somewhat, accepts worship from: all law; true neutral and neutral good; and chaotic good.  (This is not the same as saying all the people of those alignments, especially the more steps removed from Law or Good, give fealty to the white christ.)