I actually don't really like the construct.

I use a lot of religions and faiths and cults in my games.  Sometimes, they worship similar ideals and beings, in different ways.  
"  And as with any institution run by mortals yet fueled by the passion of belief, players in Celtricia find sects, cults, and power-bases in a state of growth, change, or upheaval, as often as in a stable state.  In Argus, the Vernadalian worship takes the form of the Church of the Serpent Queen, while in Igbar the Serpent Queen cult has been banished and repudiated, replaced by the Church of the Green Mother.  The different foci and different morality systems of these related groups creates a conflict more bitter than a typical rival."

It depends.

In a fantasy setting where PCs have magic then I favor something more like actual history mixed with mythical history so plural gods with multiple pantheons which may be seen as competing if the cultures worshiping them are in competition...or maybe the cultures are in competition because the pantheons are. There should be a lot of minor deities many tied to lakes, rivers, forests, mountains, etc. There should be minor gods who are either on their way up towards full deity or on their way down from past glories. Over time, gaining and losing worshipers affects the power and status of deities and apotheosis should be possible and tied to the creation of hero cults that evolve into proto-religions.

In Call of Cthulhu there are the weird alien entities or unfathomable blasphemous things be they gods or demons. But only the mad worship those entities as gods. Whether anything like the Abrahamic deity(ies) exist is unknown. Some PCs will believe. Some won't. Like the real world in the 1920s.

My Honor+Intrigue campaign is a lot like CoC, but since it is set in 1620s Europe most people believe in an Abrahamic deity - though the exact nature is a cause of a lot of argument both intellectual and otherwise.

In Star Trek...well it's like the show. Deities are just more powerful beings with powers beyond what humanity and the other main species have evolved or mastered.

In Star Wars. The Force and it's mystical woo-woo isn't deity based. There are some spiritual entities that may be called gods, but may just be some sort of manifestation of the Force, whether Dark or Light.

I like having lots of crazy cults that worship strange and mysterious shit that may or may not be tied to reality or anything resembling a generic fantasy god of X. Maybe one cult worships some creature that rises from the swamp to feed every thirty years. Maybe another worships a devastating comet that it believes will destroy the world next year. Maybe another worships the blinking control panel of a crashed space ship. Maybe another revers an intinerant magician because she healed someone's kid. Your group rolls into some village or town, you have no fucking clue what people worship. Even something as common as a "God of Death" would have various and different incarnations throughout the land.

Depends on the setting.  As a GM, I always start with the cosmology when making a setting.

I don't have a preference as a player, except I think a system where Gods will do overt miracles and grant spells, yet that doesn't affect the depiction of religion at all compared to real world religions is somewhat lazy, but I'm used to it and can just move on.  

In the end, the Tao that can be perceived is not the true Tao and whatever your religious system looks like, unless PCs start traveling to planes and talking to them, you're never going to know one way or the other.  All your gods could be Nyarlathotep.  Wouldn't change a thing.

Different people have really different expectations.  The overwhelming majority of games I've played in, and gamers I've played with, don't really give a crap.  We use alignment in D&D, yes, but we use it as a broad guildeline, not a checklist.

Similarly, there are "gods," but other than Clerics and Paladins choosing one nobody thinks much about them.  When I construct a gaming world I decide the issue in very broad brush terms -- these cultures are monotheists of the same kind, these cultures are monotheistic but different from and antagonistic to each others' gods, these cultures are polytheistic, these cultures do this, these cultures do that, these here cultures do something else.  I mix them up geographically to make lots of interesting intersections to generate adventure possibilities.

As for the "underlying reality," I don't worry about it.

And I've never really run into a significant number of people who do worry about it.  Even Tekumel's "Twenty" and the "Pariah Gods" are just ultra powerful mortals, per "Lord of Light." Phil never answered the question of the true cosmology of Humanspace before the Time of Darkness.

And in Greyhawk, we just used to go to "The Lawful Temple" when we wanted healing.  After a few months I coined the names "First Church of Crom, Scientist" and "Mitra's Witnesses," and they stuck, and Gary made up a few more.

Real world religions are a confused mess.  Why should my fantasy world be any different?

Take a Real World religion, where the God is not really manifest directly, there are no overt miracles or spells that can't be explained only by Divine Intervention.  This god has a major no-no of murdering other people.  Not only do people murder all day long with no direct consequence, but they do so claiming they do so in the name of this god, again with zero consequence.

Now take a fantasy world where you're the priest of a god who has as a Prime Directive not to murder anyone, and you go out and butcher the shit out of some people.  If it doesn't affect your spellcasting any, or you don't see any world effect at all of the highest worshippers of this god constantly violating all of his major tenets, then...they're really just wizard con-men aren't they?

Yeah you can always go with the "inscrutable" cop-out, but...that's what I mean by lazy.  There should be consequences to actions, and clerics who use a being's power should be somehow, sometimes held accountable as to how they use it.

I like as few Gods as possible, preferably none. I'm more partial to the idea of Immortals from BECMI. That said, it depends on the players. If they want a setting rich in mythology and religion, then that's what they'll get. Sometimes I run games on Gothic Earth from Masque of the Red Death, so real world religions can happen. Yes Christian Priests and Priestesses get spells.

Quote from: CRKrueger;926717Take a Real World religion, where the God is not really manifest directly, there are no overt miracles or spells that can't be explained only by Divine Intervention.  This god has a major no-no of murdering other people.  Not only do people murder all day long with no direct consequence, but they do so claiming they do so in the name of this god, again with zero consequence.

Now take a fantasy world where you're the priest of a god who has as a Prime Directive not to murder anyone, and you go out and butcher the shit out of some people.  If it doesn't affect your spellcasting any, or you don't see any world effect at all of the highest worshippers of this god constantly violating all of his major tenets, then...they're really just wizard con-men aren't they?

Yeah you can always go with the "inscrutable" cop-out, but...that's what I mean by lazy.  There should be consequences to actions, and clerics who use a being's power should be somehow, sometimes held accountable as to how they use it.

That's what alignment is for.

Also, I'm perfectly OK with being lazy.  In fact, I delight in it.  I'm not trying to build the second Tekumel or another middle earth, I'm bashing together a playground where I can run a fairly tongue-in-cheek game.

I used to have several detailed pantheons patterned after the Greyhawk gods, where each god had its spheres of influence, spells, arms and armor, alignments, and so on. Then it became a major pain in the ass for players (let alone this overworked DM) to roll up a cleric PC. Simply put, there were way too many options and too many other things to keep track of. I chopped the pantheons down to maybe two or three with complete portfolios (four if you count the druid) and the rest were just names, which were eventually whisked together into The Gods.

I do allow players to use the 2E Player's Option: Spells & Magic manual to custom design their own special spellcasters, but (a) the DM has final approval and (b) the player has to do that shit on his or her own time -NOT during a gaming session.

Quote from: CRKrueger;926717Take a Real World religion, where the God is not really manifest directly, there are no overt miracles or spells that can't be explained only by Divine Intervention.  This god has a major no-no of murdering other people.  Not only do people murder all day long with no direct consequence, but they do so claiming they do so in the name of this god, again with zero consequence.

Now take a fantasy world where you're the priest of a god who has as a Prime Directive not to murder anyone, and you go out and butcher the shit out of some people.  If it doesn't affect your spellcasting any, or you don't see any world effect at all of the highest worshippers of this god constantly violating all of his major tenets, then...they're really just wizard con-men aren't they?

Yeah you can always go with the "inscrutable" cop-out, but...that's what I mean by lazy.  There should be consequences to actions, and clerics who use a being's power should be somehow, sometimes held accountable as to how they use it.

For that sort of thing what helps if for gods to care about very different things than humans care about. For example they might hate the undead (perversion of the natural order) by have no problem real problem with people killing each other (people die, whatcha gonna do?) or at least not enough of a problem to warrant them getting off their butts. That way you can have gods that are worthy or worship without them getting in the way too much. Works for the Chalion books.

If I don't have a specific plan tied to the setting, I currently fall back on ACKS' default: seven more-or-less lawful gods with different names in different races / regions, and maybe a score of opposition gods, some of whom may be relics of past pantheons, some of whom are invariably malign, most of whom are more-or-less chaotic. Or that can serve as placeholder for my starting area and give me space to vary more widely as the players travel.

Local gods are a must; whether the oracular goddess from Stonehell, or a particular apparently-immortal dragon, or a locally-dominant pseudo-Zoroastrian dualism that overshadows the more widespread empyrean gods...

I like settings with several religions. Some of those might be theist (mono, dual or poly), some might be animist, some might be law of nature religions. Unless you have gods interfere with the action, which I abhor, the god doesn't really matter. What people do, what cults they perform, what morals they have, those things matter. The number and configuration of their gods is of little matter in that regard.

I find religions to be more interesting than gods, as religions are what inform society the most. Mortals tend not to do well when they directly interact with gods, so prophets and revelations are the main modes of communication. I've discovered I tend to present three religions- A pantheon of 5-7 gods, worshipped collectively but supplicated individually. A mono- or duo- theistic light-based faith that focuses on a more abstract benevolence. A Nature / Taoist faith which is administrated by philosopher druids.

And then there are the paladins which are simply folk with a strong moral compass on a mission from God. Once in a while you can find a local spirit that you can barter with.

Depends on the setting, Pundit:). The answer varies from "none whatsoever" to "all things that exist have a controlling spirit, individual sand grains included".

Quote from: CRKrueger;926717Take a Real World religion, where the God is not really manifest directly, there are no overt miracles or spells that can't be explained only by Divine Intervention.  This god has a major no-no of murdering other people.  Not only do people murder all day long with no direct consequence, but they do so claiming they do so in the name of this god, again with zero consequence.

Now take a fantasy world where you're the priest of a god who has as a Prime Directive not to murder anyone, and you go out and butcher the shit out of some people.  If it doesn't affect your spellcasting any, or you don't see any world effect at all of the highest worshippers of this god constantly violating all of his major tenets, then...they're really just wizard con-men aren't they?

Yeah you can always go with the "inscrutable" cop-out, but...that's what I mean by lazy.  There should be consequences to actions, and clerics who use a being's power should be somehow, sometimes held accountable as to how they use it.

Depends on the setting, again. If the power of those clerics is a gift that cannot be taken back? Once you gain a deity's trust, said deity can't take back what it gave you?
In this case, the answer might well be "watch not for whether they lose their powers, but whether their initiates gain any".

Quote from: Baron Opal;926854I find religions to be more interesting than gods, as religions are what inform society the most. Mortals tend not to do well when they directly interact with gods, so prophets and revelations are the main modes of communication. I've discovered I tend to present three religions- A pantheon of 5-7 gods, worshipped collectively but supplicated individually. A mono- or duo- theistic light-based faith that focuses on a more abstract benevolence. A Nature / Taoist faith which is administrated by philosopher druids.

You're making me long for the chance to run a new game world, where the religions of the world have various facts about the gods dead wrong (perhaps even their names or how many there are, or combining more than one, etc.