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

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.