Quote from: BarefootGaijin;728089Not sure if the title reflects what I am about to type. Let's see.

I know RPGs are make-believe, fantasy, sci-fi, horror and everything in between but there is something I am not comfortable with: Gods. Or something about them.

I am happy playing pretend with anything and everything else. Super heroes, Zero to Heroes, Investigators, Crazies. I mean, Cthulhu gets a green card on this one by virtue of essentially being a fucking big alien. Kult and the Demiurge and Sephirot I can handle. Again, there is a disconnect between being a god and being a creature with immense power. Both of those we never really played with magic in-party, just crazy "otherness" happening around.

But D&D-esque gods, clerics, temples, churches.... I just can't do it. I am starting in a game as a player and a major part of this is: "you are on a journey to a temple, because you were called/chosen by your god, shit happens in between being called and you getting there, and we are starting just after said shit hit fan."

You can, I am sure, enjoy doing these things. I am not stopping you enjoying your deities, clerics, powers and all the rest of it. Go roll those dice in the name of the lord(s). But the whole thing is a bit odd for me.

In a previous game we had to escort a cleric to an opposing king's palace where he then started cursing the king and his people with locusts, frogs, rains of blood etc (we were playing in a fantasy-Egypt. WHY the GM had to bring Moses into it I don't know). Up until that point I was quite happy. But the whole "God(s) sent me" thing didn't really float my boat (or reed basket, depending). I actually engaged less with the game at that point. :jaw-dropping:

The thing is, I have no faith. I don't even play pretend when my wife runs off to the temple at new year, or whenever she feels it necessary. I don't DO organised religion. I have no faith or belief in higher powers, and I just cannot disconnect the little extra bit for it to all sit comfortably. I am about as spiritual as a used nappy (diaper for American readers).

Really weird I know. People are probably reading this going "OMGWTFBBQ. Get over it, it's just pretend".

So yeah. No gods please. I don't want to play games with gods in (maybe Lords of Olympus is different? ). The same way I don't want to play games with vampires or werewolves, but for different reasons.

No offense, but this sounds like a personal problem you have.

I can get not wanting to play a cleric or wanting to go on religious quests I suppose but not wanting any religion in your campaign setting seems a tad extreme. I am an atheist but I always find one the most fascinating aspects of a setting to be religion if its handled well. I have problems with religion as presented in d&d for various reasons, mostly in that it never seems well thought out and the presence of the Cleric provides a default answer to the question of gods in setting. I would rather there be a deal of ambiguity, some real mystery to that element of the setting.

I am mean hell from this point forward in my life I will likely role MU's and Clerics into one class for future campaigns. The whole no religion in game because I don't believe in real life thing seems rather... I dunno childish? No offense intended just being candid.

edit; As an after thought though this has reminded me that it would be near impossible play an atheist in most D&D or fantasy settings in general, another reason why I don't like the Cleric as written or the general presentation of fantasy religion.

It does seem a bit extreme, this degree of rejection towards religion.

But in any case, if it's really bothering you, I'd talk it over with your gaming group, or at least with the GM. Ideally outside a game session. They're your friends... right?

Quote from: Arkansan;728205I can get not wanting to play a cleric or wanting to go on religious quests I suppose but not wanting any religion in your campaign setting seems a tad extreme. I am an atheist but I always find one the most fascinating aspects of a setting to be religion if its handled well.

That and also that fantasy campaign worlds also usually have radically different metaphysics (because, after all, magic) than real life and that's fun to explore.

I think that if I were to get rid of "religions" in a fantasy world (scare quotes because is it a religion, exactly, if you have material proof) I would go with a black magic/ white magic split or something similar.

Quote from: flyerfan1991;728149From a logical standpoint, you see people who are devotees of a particular god[dess] in a pantheon, even while acknowledging the entire pantheon.  In game terms, that's how we kind of hand-wave a polytheistic environment into a pseudo-monotheistic one.

Given how obfuscating "the gods' will" can be from a historical perspective (just look at the Oracle at Delphi for a good example of that), that very fuzziness is something that could be incorporated into a game fairly easily.

Totally agree.
that obfuscation is a good thing.  
People see what they want to in their gods. People have imperfect understandings of these beings, and that is one of the underlying themes of the Celtrician mythos.  Simplified, static Churches have no place in a complex world. Nothing is more satisfying than when the mythos is deep enough so the players actually can understand and extrapolate from it, due to the sense of realism.

Quote from: BarefootGaijin;728089Not sure if the title reflects what I am about to type. Let's see.

I know RPGs are make-believe, fantasy, sci-fi, horror and everything in between but there is something I am not comfortable with: Gods. Or something about them.

I am happy playing pretend with anything and everything else. Super heroes, Zero to Heroes, Investigators, Crazies. I mean, Cthulhu gets a green card on this one by virtue of essentially being a fucking big alien. Kult and the Demiurge and Sephirot I can handle. Again, there is a disconnect between being a god and being a creature with immense power. Both of those we never really played with magic in-party, just crazy "otherness" happening around.

But D&D-esque gods, clerics, temples, churches.... I just can't do it. I am starting in a game as a player and a major part of this is: "you are on a journey to a temple, because you were called/chosen by your god, shit happens in between being called and you getting there, and we are starting just after said shit hit fan."

You can, I am sure, enjoy doing these things. I am not stopping you enjoying your deities, clerics, powers and all the rest of it. Go roll those dice in the name of the lord(s). But the whole thing is a bit odd for me.

In a previous game we had to escort a cleric to an opposing king's palace where he then started cursing the king and his people with locusts, frogs, rains of blood etc (we were playing in a fantasy-Egypt. WHY the GM had to bring Moses into it I don't know). Up until that point I was quite happy. But the whole "God(s) sent me" thing didn't really float my boat (or reed basket, depending). I actually engaged less with the game at that point. :jaw-dropping:

The thing is, I have no faith. I don't even play pretend when my wife runs off to the temple at new year, or whenever she feels it necessary. I don't DO organised religion. I have no faith or belief in higher powers, and I just cannot disconnect the little extra bit for it to all sit comfortably. I am about as spiritual as a used nappy (diaper for American readers).

Really weird I know. People are probably reading this going "OMGWTFBBQ. Get over it, it's just pretend".

So yeah. No gods please. I don't want to play games with gods in (maybe Lords of Olympus is different? ). The same way I don't want to play games with vampires or werewolves, but for different reasons.

I don't see why one can't be an atheist, but still enjoy mythology.

A wizard is not much different than a classic mythological deity with magic powers.

I am not saying you have to enjoy clerics and dnd gods just because I do, but I personally don't see being Atheist as in conflict with that.

I suppose if you don't like playing characters who worship gods, you should not do so. But i never see what my character believes, needing to match what i believe. By the same token, i don't see the cosmology of the setting being a commentary on anything outside the game.

I've had more trouble with hundreds, if not thousands, or miracle workers walking about,every day.

More to the point, hundreds, if not thousands, of people walking about who can cause an epidemic of influenze, or cholera, or smallpox, with a single 3rd level spell, walking about...

Evil priests of death and disease must have a shitty work ethic, in fantasy games.

Quote from: BarefootGaijin;728089So yeah. No gods please. I don't want to play games with gods in (maybe Lords of Olympus is different? ). The same way I don't want to play games with vampires or werewolves, but for different reasons.

If I decide I like a certain ant, and I feed it and stomp and burn out all the other kinds of ants that attack it or it's colony.  Am I not a god as far as ants are concerned?

Change that ant to a human, change me into whatever the hell that would be.  There's your fantasy god.  Does it still bother you?

I'm actually a big fan of the Discworld version of gods in that it's belief that creates them and disbelief can unmake them (to a certain level).  Would this idea still bother you?

One thing they added to D&D in 3rd edition is that a divine caster may be powered by what amounts to cohesive idea, rather than an actual god.  I kind of liked that as well.

That all said, I prefer to call "magic" something like "magic" and the only real difference between a priest and a mage (or anything else) is exactly how they call up the "magic."

And lastly, there is the Lovecraftian option of inscrutable ancient aliens.

Quote from: BarefootGaijin;728089I mean, Cthulhu gets a green card on this one by virtue of essentially being a fucking big alien.

My fantasy gods are pretty much universally "fucking big aliens", in the sense that they're just creatures who have attained lots and lots of power. Having "faith" in my version of D&D-land is a lot like swearing fealty to your local duke or king. I don't swear fealty to anybody in real life, either, but fantasy-land is not the real world.

The other option (that I use with less frequency) is that the clerics are all drawing their spells from the same "energy" source, but they all have different interpretations of what that energy source actually is. Sometimes this is the exact same source of energy that the wizards draw their magic from (the only difference is that the wizards don't interpret it to be a God or gods; which is, of course, heresy for a lot of religions). This scenario is a lot more like the way the real world works: People ascribe divinity to all sorts of things (like the sun crossing the sky) that turn out to have nothing divine about them at all.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;728105Clerics and gods are in the same category as wizards & magic. Its just different flavor for extraordinary stuff. The gods are just batteries for certain types of power.

In your gaming circle, perhaps.  There are plenty of campaigns out there, happily, that have religion and faith as genuine tropes.

That being said, to the OP ... fair enough.  I'm not going to be one of the ones insinuating that you suck at roleplaying and that you just need to get over yourself.  There are elements of RP we all can hack, and elements we can't, and there's often no rhyme or reason to it.  I'm sure that you don't need to be told that you're behind the 8-ball in most fantasy-style campaigns.  Your best bet -- other than just ditching fantasy RPGs altogether -- is to find a gaming circle like, say, Exploderwizard's, in which worship and faith are one-dimensional at best, if they're ever mentioned at all.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;728227I suppose if you don't like playing characters who worship gods, you should not do so. But i never see what my character believes, needing to match what i believe. By the same token, i don't see the cosmology of the setting being a commentary on anything outside the game.

The only thing it really would start to breakdown for me is that if there are no gods, then there is no magic, logically. As by the definition of magic is from the supernatural, which generally equates to "gods" of some sort. So that begs the question, why play fantasy at all?

The fact someone can cast a spell doesn't require that gods literally exist, or that people believe in them in the setting, although I would find lack of faiths unusual whether or not there's magic, particularly in a setting that looks a lot like premodern Earth.

It would also be strange for people to believe in gods without without believing in "divine magic" of some kind. So it would be strange for them to see "real magic" and not relate it to the gods in some way--either seeing it as demonic or heretical, or coming from the gods. It might not be. After all the mainstream, modern outlook is to separate science from faith.

This is pretty much the default outlook in Steve Jackson's two fantasy games, The Fantasy Trip and GURPS (when played as fantasy). Religions may exist but they have no supernatural effect; magic draws on an essence (mana) which is just "there" and that's that. I think it smacks of a juvenile kind of atheism-cum-wish-fulfillment ("powerz!") and it's kind of interesting that Jacskon does include demon-summoning in both games iirc. But it's reasonably consistent.

It should be easier for you with no faith -- there's no faith in D&D either since the gods are objectively real. It's not really about religion, it's about super powers. It's more like a gritty accurate depiction of the Marvel or DC Universe than religion. And you don't get to play Superman -- you run errands for him.

Traditionally, "mana" was from the gods. However, if one wants to suppose there is some "powerz", which does seem a massive handwave. It is kind of a thing where you can totally re-engineer the universe if you want to, but why would you? Plus to the fact, the fantasy milieu does lose part of it's "magic" when say Conan no longer talks to Crom.