Greetings!
In my Thandor campaign, I have several varieties of monotheistic religions, as well as a large number of different Pagan religions. In many such locations and regions, the Church is strong and righteous. Churches and temples are typically well-organized, and possess considerable material resources and wealth. Furthermore, larger and more prominent religions generally also have extensive political connections and influence.
I find it more rewarding to have many religious characters--NPC's--to be consistent in their values and at least somewhat disciplined, strong, and righteous. Churches are, after all, a source of strength, inspiration, renewal, and shelter for most of the Player Characters. Having different Church members and religious clergy often be corrupt, weak, if not themselves totally evil and depraved, is generally less useful. While such a dynamic has been popular throughout our culture in recent decades, I use such a dynamic sparingly by preference.
In a fantastic world where vampires, Undead, various evil spirits, demons, are virtually everywhere, as well as hordes of terrible monsters and evil, savage races, I think that many churches would be very strong and dynamic in such a struggle to save society and civilization.
Do you have a general approach to playing religious characters in your campaigns? How are churches depicted in your campaigns socially, politically, and spiritually?
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
Generally speaking, I approach any sort of organized religion as any organization: good people at the bottom, corrupt self-serving assholes at the top. Also, the vast majority of the clergy are not spellcasters and they tend to be found at the bottom of the organization, for the same reason. Spells are granted to clerics by their faith in the deity that the organized religion worships, but again, the higher you go, the more bureaucrats and self-serving people you get. You might periodically get people who remain incorruptible and rule the clergy by the tenets of their faith, but this tends to be rarer. If people can be empowered by the deity directly though, they will rise to the top of the church, but will in fact be met by opposition by the bureaucrats and non-spellcasting religious leaders. In fact, I would envision as described by Dostoevskiy, in the parable of the Grand Inquisitor.
This is reversed for cults and Evil churches. Since objective Evil can be defined as selfishness and self-interest, the interest of the individual and the interest of the Church become unified and thus, the evil deity is more than happy to keep offering its power to its faithful, since they are not breaking their tenets. If you've ever played Magic the Gathering, the Orzhov Syndicate is probably the best example of this - a church that literally practices debt and greed as the primary motivators of their faith. If WotC didn't fuck them up as of late, they would make for a very interesting entity in the world.
Cults are interesting, because they would be an inversion. The lower echelons that aren't initiated into their mysteries would not have access to magic, but the higher you go, the more magic power the members have.
I've never thought about it in detail. As with most social organizations, I treat them as background elements unless they're needed for a particular adventure.
When I deign to world build, then I use a religion that mixes Ancient Egyptian religion with Catholicism and Afro-Caribbean religions in order to explain away why clerics and paladins have Christian aesthetics. The official religion of The Empire venerates the Invincible Sun as its omnipotent but distant creator deity, with various angels and saints (often culturally specific) prayed to for specific needs. Druids, witches and sorcerers (who more or less represent Proto-Indo-European religion writ large) draw their power from the Old Gods who were venerated before the Church of the Invincible Sun showed up and started subjugating them; they're generally considered persona non grata unless they get baptized a la Merlin. Warlocks and blackguards/hellknights (who are based on the Malleus Maleficarum) draw their power from deliberate pacts with demons from the hells and are dangerous criminals. Wizards (who are based on Hermeticism) have a more mechanistic view of the universe and perform magic by emulating the Word(s) used by the Invincible Sun to create the universe in the first place; they're distrusted by the church authorities for their borderline heresy but aren't illegal.
I think the corrupt church trope works best when played for comedy. E.g. the church is extremely sexually repressed and deliberately recruits the men with the largest genitals to positions requiring chastity, most priests and paladins fall when an incubus/succubus/witch/other monster/all of the above seduces them and shows them how amazing sex is, the church regularly performs exorcisms on political dissidents but since they're almost never possessed this instead causes them to be possessed by demons and that accounts for most of the monsters around, the church are basically incompetent morons responsible for almost all the ills they're supposed to fighting... that sort of thing.
I mentioned it in your thread about cults, but I typically do not have monolithic religious organizations in my current game. That is because it's based on Asian themes and religion has rarely been particularly unified over there. Even in my last campaign setting where there was an analogous organization that mirrored the medieval Catholic Church, it really depends on what I need for the current arc. Churches, whether or not you believe in the theology, represent an ideal. However the people who make up the clergy are still human/mortal. That means they can be devout, true believers who seek righteousness in word and deed or they can be opportunistic, political schemers who use their positions to exploit others.
That being said, "church man bad" is a trope that I find has become overplayed since it became mainstream in the 2000's. So I will usually play my religious characters, npc's and pc's, according the the ideals of their faith. Obviously they fail because they are imperfect, but they try.
Since my current campaign is based on Asian history and mythology, the religious institutions tend to be fairly decentralized. By and large, though, individual temples and shrines are well respected by the general populace. Politicians, of course, view them as tools or impediments to power. Outright worshipers of evil deities and supernatural entities are treated with the appropriate degree of skepticism, but aren't openly persecuted as even evil gods serve a purpose within the Celestial Court.
I should probably mention that faith in gods and their precepts is pretty strong in my game world. That's because the world is highly unstable, with magical storms that warp the landscape happening with alarming frequency. And there is ongoing proof of the gods' work, even if they never appear in the physical realm any more. As a result, most people need some sort of anchor in their life when the world is so dangerous.
Quote from: SHARK on July 12, 2022, 11:07:59 AMDo you have a general approach to playing religious characters in your campaigns? How are churches depicted in your campaigns socially, politically, and spiritually?
If I'm playing a character who's religious, I usually play them as seriously as I would practice my religion myself, i.e. fairly devoutly but not fanatically and aware enough of personal shortcomings not to get on too high a horse.
I have to admit that I usually didn't bother developing the religious organizations in much detail beyond what was needed to back up the PCs -- there was a god or goddess, the PC indicated they were spending time on prayers to Him/Her or money on the temple, dropped His/Her name into conversation appropriately, and that was it -- mostly because none of us were much interested in the topic at the time. I'd put more politics into how churches affect the setting now, but I'd have to have a group of players all confirm they were interested in adventure plots more complex than that before I bothered.
(ETA: If I did get into a campaign where that was an issue, I'd probably do a version of an in-setting conflict I've been developing for a fantasy series I plan to write, where the older faith in twelve elementally-themed world-builder powers named the Wardens is in uneasy balance with a Catholic-analogue church worshipping a human Redeemer and her colleague Saints -- "Saints and Wardens!" is a common all-purpose oath in the major setting continent. Good vs. Good is always a theme I like examining.)
A PC should be what they tell the DM they are. They can't have all the benefits of the class, without the associated character role. A Cleric, Priest, Inquisitor, Paladin, or devout follower must embrace the whole character. Whatever they claim to be, there should be consequences for forsaking the path of righteousness.
Quote from: SHARK on July 12, 2022, 11:07:59 AM
Do you have a general approach to playing religious characters in your campaigns? How are churches depicted in your campaigns socially, politically, and spiritually?
I've mainly have the church as uncaring at best and psychotic at worst. Because groups with extremist ideology tend to make great villains and most of it is loosely based on our own history.
Also given the fact that there are so many schisms in fantasy religions they mostly keep trying to kick the shit out of each other. For that low fantasy medieval setting, it's pretty much a given that the church will be one of your big adversaries.
Quote from: SHARK on July 12, 2022, 11:07:59 AMDo you have a general approach to playing religious characters in your campaigns? How are churches depicted in your campaigns socially, politically, and spiritually?
Totally depends on how the gods interact with the world.
In 40k, does the Emperor really know the hearts of all his citizens with the ability to smite the wicked? Or is Emperor worship just a cult? Do his priests really have a psychic bond to him? Or are they just like medieval priests where the level of faith and decency is completely variable across individuals?
I tend to like Greek mythos style pantheons. AKA, in Mazes & Minotaurs, you won't have corrupt priests of Zeus fucking over their flock because they'd get charred by lightning bolts.
Also, does faithfulness to the god's credo affect their spellcasting ability? AKA, if a cleric can be a heretical douchecanoe and still get all their spells per day, then you'll get lots of douchecanoes in the setting. BUT if clerics lost power if they don't tow their god's party line, then you will see much more fidelity in churches.
I love playing fanatical religious characters. Far more fun than lukewarm PCs. Regardless how gods work in the campaign, MY character believes he is extremely close to his god at all times.
My campaign is in Greyhawk, so I use the Greyhawk pantheons. However, instead of each culture having their own deities, I'm leaning more toward a single pantheon where the deities are the same but called something else by each group. Certain churches are more active, while others are worshipped more passively or seasonally. The Church of Pholtus, although Lawful Good, is becoming sort of a pain for the party as they are also ultra strict and intolerant of others.
What I loved about WFRP is that the 'do gooders' in the church are nearly as dangerous as the enemy. They show no mercy whatsoever.
"You saw a witch cavorting in the woods you say? Well, in that case, we'll burn you alive and kill all your family too. Why take a chance?"
I take a more agnostic approach toward deities. One of the issues with a setting where the Gods are real people who go around doing things is that you can't have things like religious schisms. You can't tell people to "have faith" when God can show up anywhere and tell you exactly what is the correct course of action.
If my approach is agnostic, then how do I explain the spells cast by druids and clerics? Faith. The church can accuse any cleric or paladin who doesn't fall in line of heresy or witchcraft and there's no way to falsify the accusations.
So in my setting, there's also an additional faith that split off from the Church of the Invincible Sun that serves a role analogous to a mix of Islam and the Protestant Reformation. Or basically Red Priests from A Song of Ice and Fire.
I don't think a church organization is needed at all. Ancient paganism was generally just a hodgepodge of different local cults. Priests would mostly only be found in cities or at major holy sites. Moreover, they were often primarily administrators who were appointed by governments to manage a temple or temples for a certain amount of time. I've also run a campaign where there were no religious hierarchies and clerics were simply devout people who had been blessed by the gods with divine powers.
I usually run all my D&D games in Greyhawk. My players recently rolled up two separate Clerics of St. Cuthbert in our latest game, so I'll emphasize the Church of St. Cuthbert as the main Lawful church. I run B/X with custom subclasses for PCs, one of which is a Cleric subclass called the Zealot. One of the St. Cuthbert Clerics has the Zealot subclass, so the righteous smiting of evil and the distribution of holy retribution will be stressed. Which is fine with me, as I find those things to be alot of fun. :)
Strong and/or forceful religions or pervasive faith is one of those things that I change fairly radically from setting to setting.
I've done the mix and match, some good, some bad, mostly just people thing. I've had powerful churches focused on good or ill, willing to root out the ill or good amongst them. I've had an imperial church in lock step with the gods and empire to enforce a narrow slice of mind control on the populace enforcing loyalty. And those were the good guys! I've also run campaigns where it is barely touched as needed by the players, and even a couple where the setting was such that there really wasn't anything akin to organized religions. More disorganized, local animist or ancestor beliefs that had no appreciable, overt effects that an adventurer would normally care about. And of course I've done the various typical fantasy pantheons.
I like shades of gray.
Except for the ocasional demon cult, no religion in my settings should be entirely good or entirely evil. Self-righteous, violent crusaders that give their lives to find demons, fertility cults that promote love and occasional bloodshed, holy prostitutes and virgin oracles, pagan religions fighting urban religions, clergy functioning like mafia, well intentioned agnostics and murderous unbelievers, etc.
I think GRRM does a decent job, for example.
Depicting religion is actually one of my favorite aspects of fantasy games. I love playing characters who are devoutly religious. I like churches and religious orders.
I've often disliked the depiction of religion in D&D and related games. This guy worships a fire god, so he has fire powers. That's that. No, absolutely not. A religious character should have a religion. That means a religious dogma, morals, codes of conduct, rituals, vestments of the faith, obligations, historic perspectives, organization of the clergy, all sorts of things like that. Not only does the character need this, but the setting needs it too. What are the religions of the setting? What do they believe? What cultural significance does this religion or religions have? These are all important questions and the answers make great fodder for epic role playing.
Over the years I've played many religious characters from pacifistic healer priestesses to berserker flagellants of militant orders with religions just as diverse. Usually I like to draw upon aspects of real world religions and mix them or add fantastic elements. The Catholic Church is certainly a major source of inspiration for me, with its rich history, traditions, and canon.
I typically don't like to portray these religions as being corrupt. Of course, there are corrupt individuals in influential institutions, but I find the corrupt church trope to be way overdone. I think that it's far more interesting to portray genuine religious devotion in all of its myriad forms.
Quote from: Eric Diaz on July 13, 2022, 05:10:55 PM
I like shades of gray.
Except for the ocasional demon cult, no religion in my settings should be entirely good or entirely evil. Self-righteous, violent crusaders that give their lives to find demons, fertility cults that promote love and occasional bloodshed, holy prostitutes and virgin oracles, pagan religions fighting urban religions, clergy functioning like mafia, well intentioned agnostics and murderous unbelievers, etc.
I think GRRM does a decent job, for example.
I'm not a fan of shades of grey. How I see it, it really tends to be shades of black, because the default assumption is already that people are shades of grey (it's kind of a core belief of most major religions that humanity is in some kind of flawed state, after all), so when you try to push back against a more "white and black" narrative, you end up just making everything bleaker. It also discounts that really interesting moral problems and moral complexity can come in when it's good people with valid arguments against other good people with valid arguments. Maybe the flaws of those people lead to some things one might call morally grey, but it doesn't require assuming anyone involved is cynical, secretly evil, or irredeemable.
Quote from: ShieldWife on July 13, 2022, 08:44:41 PM
Depicting religion is actually one of my favorite aspects of fantasy games. I love playing characters who are devoutly religious. I like churches and religious orders.
I've often disliked the depiction of religion in D&D and related games. This guy worships a fire god, so he has fire powers. That's that. No, absolutely not. A religious character should have a religion. That means a religious dogma, morals, codes of conduct, rituals, vestments of the faith, obligations, historic perspectives, organization of the clergy, all sorts of things like that. Not only does the character need this, but the setting needs it too. What are the religions of the setting? What do they believe? What cultural significance does this religion or religions have? These are all important questions and the answers make great fodder for epic role playing.
Over the years I've played many religious characters from pacifistic healer priestesses to berserker flagellants of militant orders with religions just as diverse. Usually I like to draw upon aspects of real world religions and mix them or add fantastic elements. The Catholic Church is certainly a major source of inspiration for me, with its rich history, traditions, and canon.
I typically don't like to portray these religions as being corrupt. Of course, there are corrupt individuals in influential institutions, but I find the corrupt church trope to be way overdone. I think that it's far more interesting to portray genuine religious devotion in all of its myriad forms.
Greetings!
Hi there, Shieldwife! Yes, I agree entirely. I love your passion for all the details!
In my Thandor campaign, I have all of the major religions finely detailed, with organizations, staff rankings and clergy titles, spheres of influence and interest, specialized spells, specialized magic items, relics, and treasures. I have also detailed each of the major religions with styles of architecture and basic floorplans for small temples, large temples, and, as appropriate, monasteries. Each religion has a basic schematic of holy works, theology, doctrine, and folk customs and practices. Then, I have a deeper, more detailed section that covers more complex elements of religious theology and doctrine, their cosmology, history, and mythology. Essentially providing a framework for distinguishing what non-believers, ordinary religious members, and low-level clergy know, and what higher ranking religious leaders are familiar with, as well as well-educated theologians and scholars.
As appropriate, I also have detailed a variety of monastic orders and orders of religious knights and holy warriors.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
I've put a fair bit of thought into my setting's religions. So much so that it's almost faster to just throw up a PDF of the relevant pages;
https://drive.google.com/file/d/17dhXsqqL940Hv2ohMiwpu2IoktEmRjkX/view?usp=sharing (https://drive.google.com/file/d/17dhXsqqL940Hv2ohMiwpu2IoktEmRjkX/view?usp=sharing)
These are the primary religions of the region that I chose to focus on for my setting (The Old Faith, Via Praetorum, Bestianism, and The Astral Court); its maybe 150 x 100 miles and some of the realms just beyond the borders are known, but beyond there is very much a "There Be Dragons" in terms of what the people in the region know. Other regions may have some of these religions present or different religions entirely.
Edit: and the PDF actually has the right page count now.
But all of this assumes a separation of church and state, which hardly ever existed historically. The pharaohs of Egypt, for example, were also the highest religious leaders. In Europe, Protestantism was somewhat similar, e.g. the King of England as the head of the Anglican Church. In post-Reformation Germany, the protestant clergy were basically just theologically trained government officials. I know this sounds very boring from a gaming perspective. There were, however, also radical protestant groups, who could either be pacifists, such as the Quakers, or extremely militant, such as the Covenanters in Scotland, or, even more radical, Thomas Müntzer in Germany.
A bit late to the topic here, but I also tend to have strong and righteous churches in my D&D games. If goo-aligned divine-magic wielding clerics are a core of the game, then churches will be powerful and people will have genuine religion.
My current campaign is in an Incan-inspired fantasy setting, so the religious authorities are different than in a European-based one, but it's still D&D and the primary church is good-aligned, so characters have respect for the gods and spirits.
As a broader comment, I find it odd that "non-woke" is often taken to mean grimdark where everything is corrupt, as opposed to having a strong and righteous church and heroes in the name of good vanquishing evil.
Quote from: jhkim on July 22, 2022, 01:14:01 PMI find it odd that "non-woke" is often taken to mean grimdark where everything is corrupt, as opposed to having a strong and righteous church and heroes in the name of good vanquishing evil.
I think it relates to how one sees the nature of claimed authority in a setting. I believe that Wokeness is essentially an offshoot of Gnosticism, and the fundamental dynamic of Gnosticism is the stifled prisoner throwing off the chains of an imposed reality and becoming the god he knows himself to be. As such, where there is any force of clear "goodness" in a Woke setting it's almost always with the underdogs and the rebels, the secret wielders of power in the face of a greater repressive enemy; authority is corrupt simply by virtue of claiming to be authoritative in the first place. At its best (and this is where the Marxism creeps in) it's a temporary tool to be used solely to render itself ultimately unnecessary.
"Grimdark" settings like WH40K, on the other hand, start from a fundamental assumption that "corruption" is a universal characteristic in
all forces, and the only thing going for the Imperium of Man is that it's
Man's Imperium; the basic theme of WH40K, as I've always understood it, is "We Know We're Bad But We Have To Be Because Everybody Else is Unimaginably Worse". Wokeness operates on the belief that it's possible to achieve perfection; grimdark operates on the belief that perfection is impossible and the most you can achieve is a temporary detente with entropy, bought with terrible sacrifice. In that sense, I think, the two philosophies are essentially different, even if both may have equal scorn for certain traditional ideas of "goodness".
Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on July 22, 2022, 04:18:21 PM
Wokeness operates on the belief that it's possible to achieve perfection; grimdark operates on the belief that perfection is impossible and the most you can achieve is a temporary detente with entropy, bought with terrible sacrifice. In that sense, I think, the two philosophies are essentially different, even if both may have equal scorn for certain traditional ideas of "goodness".
I would agree that grimdark is essentially *different* than woke. But traditional heroic fantasy is also different than woke, I would think, even though heroic protagonists like King Arthur or Galahad also strive for perfection.
Yet at least around here "anti-woke" only seems to mean grimdark wallowing in corruption, as opposed to righteous and religious heroes.
There's nothing wrong with having the church as the good guys in a campaign.
For me, though I'm always going to go that grimdark route. I'm far too cynical to play RPGs any other way especially if I'm going to be creating the background lore.
Quote from: jhkim on July 22, 2022, 04:33:15 PMYet at least around here "anti-woke" only seems to mean grimdark wallowing in corruption, as opposed to righteous and religious heroes.
That may be because grimdark fandom, especially at its more absurd and over-the-top extremes, is usually a little more confrontational about its own purported awesomeness. People who actually take the slogan
"Deus Vult!" seriously, as I do, aren't minded to use it for something so trivial as a meme in online arguments about elf games. (Though I will admit to a little furtive enjoyment of seeing other people use it so.)
Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on July 22, 2022, 04:18:21 PM
Quote from: jhkim on July 22, 2022, 01:14:01 PMI find it odd that "non-woke" is often taken to mean grimdark where everything is corrupt, as opposed to having a strong and righteous church and heroes in the name of good vanquishing evil.
I think it relates to how one sees the nature of claimed authority in a setting. I believe that Wokeness is essentially an offshoot of Gnosticism, and the fundamental dynamic of Gnosticism is the stifled prisoner throwing off the chains of an imposed reality and becoming the god he knows himself to be. As such, where there is any force of clear "goodness" in a Woke setting it's almost always with the underdogs and the rebels, the secret wielders of power in the face of a greater repressive enemy; authority is corrupt simply by virtue of claiming to be authoritative in the first place. At its best (and this is where the Marxism creeps in) it's a temporary tool to be used solely to render itself ultimately unnecessary.
"Grimdark" settings like WH40K, on the other hand, start from a fundamental assumption that "corruption" is a universal characteristic in all forces, and the only thing going for the Imperium of Man is that it's Man's Imperium; the basic theme of WH40K, as I've always understood it, is "We Know We're Bad But We Have To Be Because Everybody Else is Unimaginably Worse". Wokeness operates on the belief that it's possible to achieve perfection; grimdark operates on the belief that perfection is impossible and the most you can achieve is a temporary detente with entropy, bought with terrible sacrifice. In that sense, I think, the two philosophies are essentially different, even if both may have equal scorn for certain traditional ideas of "goodness".
I don't see wokeness as gnostic at all. Gnosticism strove to achieve personal perfection. Wokists, on the other hand, strive to create what they think is a perfect society and to use all means at their disposal to achieve it. In that sense, they have the same mindset as the Jacobins, the Marxists, the Nazis, and ISIS.
My first thought when depiciting religion in a rpg game is how literally true is the cosmology of the religion, how much can they prove beyond doubt, and how much does the religion directly impact the lives of their followers.
A religion in which the god or gods literally talk to the faithful and regularly grants life altering miracles like Bountiful Harvest or Mass Cure Disease is going to be very different in character to an esoteric sect that follows the riddles and prophecies of an obscure wiseman.
The latter is going to depend very much on the teachings of the founder and how that interacts with the culture in which it takes root. The former is probably going to act in direct accordance with the will of the god in question.
If the god takes a very direct day to day interest in the actions of the faithful and can take back their boons and blessings it is unlikely the religion will suffer from corruption at the top in the sense of priests who don't believe or follow the religion. In a fantasy setting that's often my go to for religions because in this particular area a lack of doubt about the veracity of religion is different to the real world and so I think makes interesting story telling.
That said completely incorruptible or virtuous characters can be quite two dimensional so I will often try and make the focus of their virtue narrow. For example a warrior cult may be utterly courageous and honourable in defending the town but have no compunction in demolishing a local orphanage to build a new temple barracks - because compassion simply isn't a particular virtue of their religion.
This then speaks to the nature of the religion. Many (all?) monotheistic religions in our world (in the 21st century) have it as a tenant that God is both the source of all creation and also morality. There isn't a transactional nature to worship so much as a judgemental and virtuous nature.
In contrast many pagan religions don't necessarily make the claim that a particular or indeed any god is the font of morality, so much as representing an aspect of power. This might be secular authority (Jupiter), mastery of nature (a sea god) or power of feelings (god of love or romance). The gods in some sense crave worship and in return provide blessings. So to they might punish those who neglect them.
This dynamic influences how I depict religions in my different rpg games. A character may have a great personal affinity to the god of war for example but if they are taken to court they'll still make an offering to the god of justice and law even if it is a purely transactional sacrafice rather than a particularly deep spiritual moment.
Quote from: Eric Diaz on July 13, 2022, 05:10:55 PM
I like shades of gray.
Except for the ocasional demon cult, no religion in my settings should be entirely good or entirely evil. Self-righteous, violent crusaders that give their lives to find demons, fertility cults that promote love and occasional bloodshed, holy prostitutes and virgin oracles, pagan religions fighting urban religions, clergy functioning like mafia, well intentioned agnostics and murderous unbelievers, etc.
I think GRRM does a decent job, for example.
While I don't entirely disagree with a shades of grey approach, I actually think religion is one of the weakest aspects of George RR Martin's writing (certainly in Game of Thrones). There are lots of different religions but they don't seem to have much of a personal or spiritual impact on the characters' lives (I am not talking about the plot elements of the Faith of the Seven taking power but the personal beliefs of the POV characters).
I thought HBOs Rome depicted religion and religious belief in a realistic way.