Could a D&D setting work with a monotheistic faith? (There is only one God.)
Well....technically? I mean that would shaft players a bit, but if everyone was willing and knew going in you could make it work. It would be boring though I think.
>>46835886
Absolutely. Preferably, several.
Definitely. Look at the Fall from Heaven setting. The "gods" are merely the angels of the one god who created them.
One God who conspicuously manifests itself on the material plane, wouldn't that remove a lot of the planar power struggles that make D&D interesting as well as the Holy Wars and uncertainty that make the real world interesting?
>>46835886
It would work better with no god
>>46835886
It could work.
It'd be pretty boring though.
>>46835886
Better than a pantheon of difficult to remember, not very powerful gods.
I prefer the idea of maybe a handful of gods, five tops, that each wage constant war on their siblings. Cliched but somehow so is every other alternative.
>>46835996
But that would be boring. No higher powers to mess with the world.
>>46836049
This to be honest. They're cliched for a reason. It's just popular and it's fun.
Make a "one true god" everyone believes in and later on have the party stumble upon the ancient relics of gods nobody has seen or heard of for thousands of years, all piled up and sealed in a massive subterranean tomb.
You could make a quest line about finding the forgotten gods who were all cast down to live as senile but still undying old folks, slowly restoring their memories and strength with prayer, and eventually helping them rise to power over the one who overthrew them.
Players could restore their power by whatever means you want - spreading their names again, retrieving their artifacts of power, maybe even balancing diet and exercise for maximum GAINS. There's plenty to work with there.
>>46835886
That depends on how direct a hand that god takes in the affairs of mortals, and what enemies/infernal agents he or she employs to fuck with and tempt mortals, if any at all.
>>46836219
>The God of /fit/ with a body made of pure oats and an unprolapse-able rectum
>>46835886
Working on it, actually, for an upcoming Ravenloft game.
>>46835886
No.
>>46835886
Could have different factions of the faith much like the varieties of Christianity. Worshipping the same One God but focusing on different aspects of its portfolio. Some are more into the Healing and Forgiveness part of the god, some are more into the Angry and Vengeful God, have a big ol' clusterfuck of different clerics all declaring themselves popes at the same time and denouncing the others. Could even have Clerics & Paladins derive their abilities from angels & saints of the god, could be one way to keep St. Cuthbert in.
It works for a monotheistic religion, but it would be fairly boring if there weren't other god/cults to combat it.
>>46835988
D&D patheons are a crap shoot anyways since due to the RAW, evil is steadily going to overtake the universe since the average paladin falls too soon and only sanctified spells can actually repair the damage done by evil energy.
At least with one diety it keeps things simple and just leaves open a struggle as to what TOG's teachings really mean and how different sects worship differently.
>>46836954
Use semetic religouns for an example, Judaism is the old gods cult, christianity and its many sects are the layman churches, and Islam is the war mongerers who have more passive aggresive/tolerant sects.
>>46835886
There's was an anon once that told me a story about his setting being interestingly monotheistic.
All the gods were different personalities or facets of the same God.
>>46835886
the church of the silver flame in eberron is kinda monotheistic
>>46835946
Shaft how, exactly? I don't see monotheism being rules mechanics wise any different from polytheism.
We kinda got that going on in my current game. One recognized Deity, and all casters not affiliated are hunted by the inquisition.
But, there is also "the Old Ones" Myth to most, still worshiped in the mountainous North, who are starting to make their influence known again due to rampant chaos and war.
One good way to look at a single god in a fantasy setting is think of "God" not as a singular entity with only certain purviews and domains, but instead as a a grander entity with multiple facets that are even sometimes mutually exclusive.
A more visual way of imagining it is say you have a mountain. If you look at the mountain from one side maybe it has a forest and waterfalls, but on another it's more rugged with steep cliffs and crags; one vantage point could have snow caps and glaciers, and another could have gaping caverns and even worked stairways or temples. It's the same mountain no matter what, but in different places it has different personalities. Combine this with a but of an enigma regarding the one god's true wishes and you have more than enough room for plenty of varying interpretations of it. Some could fear the god and beg for its mercy, others could praise its great deeds and seek to emulate them, while others could find a more esoteric understanding of the god in the form of the intricacies of its creation.
>>46835956
For those unfamiliar with the Fall from Heaven setting, here's an overview of its mythology:
http://fallfromheaven.wikia.com/wiki/The_Gods
>>46835886
Since interpretations of God are so varied it's not hard to apply every cleric domain to him.
>implying there is more than one way to worship the one and true god
>>46835956
this is also how Tolkein did it with the Valar.
>>46835886
5th edition D&D had pretty much the best way to do monotheistic religons. Basically
>The one God has all domains.
>The church has different organizations within them that hold a certain aspect of the deity up. (It would be like Franciscan, Dominican, or Bendictine monks in the Catholic church.)
>>46835996
So esstially Ravonloft? Which that is not even true.
>>46835886
Well actually, its canon in most dnd editions that there were one god.
That one god died and became a floating apocalypse.
>>46835886
>Could a D&D setting work with a monotheistic faith? (There is only one God.)
Hell yes. Go pick up a copy of Poul Anderson's _Three Hearts and Three Lions_, it's on Kindle, and it practically is a Christian monotheistic D&D setting. THTL is where D&D cribbed the basis for the paladin, the troll, the early law-chaos alignment system, and a bunch of other things.
Quote on its cosmology:
> "In olden time," said Hugi, "richt after the Fall, nigh everything were Chaos, see ye. But step by step 'tis been driven back. The longest step was when the Saviour lived on earth, for then naught o' darkness could stand and great Pan himself died. But noo tis said Chaos has rallied and mak's ready to strike back."
Visiting the local elflord:
>"Ye'll have to leave yer crucifix, if ye bear one, and yer iron at the gates. Nor may ye speak holy words inside. The Faerie folk canna stand against sich, but if ye use 'em there, they'll find ways to send ye ill luck."
(Holy symbols repel faeries like vampires, heh.)
Christian myth says that one-third of the angels rebelled and fell with Satan and became demons. This book runs with the idea and expands it to suggest that only one-third remained loyal celestials, and the last one-third said "I want out" and became various neutral fantastic creatures and races. (Which made me imagine Ents first off. They have a similar vibe as ancient guardian angels of a forest.)
It's set in a Europe-clone where Lawful geography is similar to our world, but the Faerie Courts and other creatures of Chaos give not a shit about shoving themselves into the edges and unmapped bits and violating conservation of area and direction. Because fuck mapmakers, lol.
>>46835988
>wouldn't that remove a lot of the planar power struggles
yes
>wouldn't that remove a lot of the planar power struggles that make D&D interesting
no
>>46836787
>>46835886
Or, on a similar note, use the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) as a reference if you want even more variety. All worshipping the same guy, but in vastly different ways.
Another idea you could do is to use Saints or Angels (similar to Catholic theology) in lieu of different gods. Or different monastic orders (such as the Jesuits, Benedictines, and Franciscans) to represent different perspectives on the same faith.
>>46838220
I sort of did thatin my homebrew setting
There's a rather tightly bound pantheon of gods. Each god covers a rather wide portfolio and is worshipped in his/her various Aspects, often via saints. So one god is at the same time a god of oceans, progress and patron god of sailors.
Another gimmick that I have is that some gods - especially more shady ones - are very much accessible by an average mortal. A god named Sa'ad Ishtar - a god of greed, dragons and despair among other things - manifests himself as an impossibly old man and awaits capable mortals at the top of an ancient staircase, running up to the summit of the highest mountain on the continent. Those who survive the treacherous climb and face him may beg him for one wish - and he will always grant it.
But being the oldest and greatest of all dragons, he hoards broken hopes and aspirations as other wyrms hoard treasure. Do not expect his gift to come without a price.
The obvious question that comes up in a monotheistic setting is why there's still evil about. (Assuming you do srs monotheism, and not nominal "monotheism" with splinter sects of every alignment.)
And the answer I'd suggest is that the one God wants souls with virtues that only grow in the face of adversity and temptation, first among them being courage. If the monsters can't actually hurt you, you might as well be playing vidya. Only when you might not come back from the Black Forest can you become a hero by going to the Black Forest to root out whatever horror lurks there.
If you cast Planar Ally or the local equivalent, God can send an angel to lead your army and strengthen quaking heart. But the army still has to show enough heart to pick up their swords and follow the angel. God won't send an army of angels to save you having to fight at all.
Or to quote Aristotle well before Christianity:
> The senses we had before we used them, but the virtues, like the arts, we must get by exercising them. Men become builders by building and lyreplayers by playing the lyre; so too we become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.
(-Nichomachean Ethics, Book II)
>>46840020
You could also use the same explanation real life monotheistic religious use to explain the presence of evil. God values free will, in order for the choice to be good to mean something then it must also be possible for people to be bad. God can be ultimately benevolent but still allow evil because he wants to give people the opportunity to chose to follow him on their own.
>>46835886
Hell yes this could work.
Once all races were one singular race, under one God. However, they grew arrogant and did something along the lines of building a Tower of Babel. As punishment for their hubris, the God scattered the races, warped their features so that one group would no longer recognize the others as kin, and essentially established the separate races.
Each race proceeded to worship the God in their own way, emphasizing the aspects they preferred; Elves venerated him as the creator of nature and his tasking of his children to care for the world, Orcs glorify his power and destruction of those who incurred his wrath, humans celebrate him as a protector and teacher, so forth and so on. This results, over time, in all these churches worshipping what appear to be distinct gods, even going by different names (more due to speaking different languages than purposeful ideology), but all still effectively worshipping the same God.
![images[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/OgF4NTb.jpg "images[1].jpg")
>>46835886
Given the pic I assume you mean a good god?
Well at the player level you have to answer the question of why shit happens.
One god means no opposition, meaning if this god wanted to be a nice fellow he/it/she could fix all the problems.
In a world with unstoppable divine power how is there evil or suffering.
So unless you want to risk a trip to convoluted excuses and religious debate this deity needs some form of constraint or limitation which the Quest lets the players act upon.
>>46840773
>this argument again
My main issue with this is that people are malcontent assholes: what we want and what is best for us is often two different things.
Is it cruelty to deny someone instant gratification in everything? Because if you do grant them immediate gratification, they will likely grow complacent and spoiled, constantly bored yet unwilling to invest any effort into changing that.
In addition, humans are assholes. Those starving kids in Africa? Aid groups and charities send enough food to feed them all. The problem is that local warlords/criminal leaders/corrupt psuedo-governments come in and take it all to use as leverage, or just out of spite. Should we really blame God for the suffering we inflict on ourselves?
>>46835886
>Could a D&D setting work with a monotheistic faith? (There is only one God.)
Yes. Plenty do.
A few even have no gods at all.
>>46835886
See page 78-79
>>46840773
>If God is not omnipotent, then, uh, something, therefore paradox
>If God doesn't want to adjust the universe the way I want it adjusted, that's malevolent
>If God is adjusting the universe, are we there yet? no? sucks
>If God created the universe but can't or won't change it to my personal underspecified specifications, that's not a real god
epicurus pls go
>>46836262
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjd8E1rD3m4
/fit/ goes to heaven.
>>46842162
2000 old paradox. Still not solved by theologians.
>>46841150
>>46842162
If god is a good dude and actually has power why does bad shit happen?
Like pop over to where a kid is going to run into traffic and stop them. Walk the kid to their care giver and go "Hi its me GOD, pulled little Suzie out of traffic five minutes ago. You should take her to a park or something. Bye."
No. We got a dead 8 year old.
If your making a game that has a powerful half decent god you need a reason why said god isn't running around helping people and doing your players jobs for them.
>>46847253
>If your making a game that has a powerful half decent god you need a reason why said god isn't running around helping people and doing your players jobs for them.
Not really. Nobody expects good-aligned D&D deities to run around wiping everybody's ass for them, only they can't because those evil gods keep stealing all the toilet paper. It's only an issue IRL because Yahweh is an enormous Sue, so the asswiping thing is literally true- you HAVE to argue that wiping your own ass is good for you or an exercise in free will or something, because you've already sworn that he CAN wipe everyone's ass at the same time and also totally loves you.
Mind, you still run into problems with a less potent entity; notably, he could come down and tell everyone to not be dicks every now and then, and his word would probably carry a lot of weight. But not living in a paradise is evidence for God not really being a thing IRL, not in a D&D campaign.
>>46845993
Actually, there are several answers for it, have been for centuries. It just depends on if you accept them or not.
>>46847253
Uh... because we're supposed to take care of ourselves?
The girl running out into traffic does not mean she'll get hurt if the driver is paying attention and adhering to the speed limit. Moreover, where is the adult who's supposed to be watching this kid?
The problem with a God who prevents anything bad from happening, is that it would require that God to completely usurp our ability to do anything ourselves, because we'd screw it up and hurt ourselves, like a parent who won't let their kid actually play with their toy blocks: "no no, that's not right, here, let me do it."
Again, we are our own worst enemy. The only way to stop us from hurting others is to effectively rewrite our minds and personalities, which would make said God malevolent.
You want to have your cake and eat it too. The existence of a benevolent God does not necessitate the removal of all bad shit ever.
>>46847462
Thats kinda what I was trying to communicate.
If the party is fighting a powerful lich set on destroying the world, why cant they ring up god and ask for help? I am assuming the doomsday cults have not reached such a point that there are daily world destruction attempts.
>>46847547
I don't expect god to do everything. I expect god to do something, damn near anything. Not spend centuries sitting around watching soap operas and talking about how he totally no bullshit did a thing once.
Fuck, five minutes of chatting about 80 years ago would have save tens of millions of lives.
>Arch duke Ferdinand - skip his death and you butterfly away or seriously lessen the world wars.
Why not do that?
>>46847504
I would be interested to hear any that don't center on "its a test" and "free will is broken if god does anything" or "god works in mysterious ways"
>>46847853
>why not make it so all the bad shit we do and mistakes we make don't have serious consequences?
Here's my explanation for why a benevolent God would only rarely interfere:
In the beginning, God would come and do great miracles all the time; curing plagues, making warring nations be at peace, so forth and so on. However, as time went on, something began to change; rather than praising him for driving off the parasites consuming their crops, the people cursed him for the loss of the animals who fed on those parasites; his intervention to save one nation had made them arrogant and tyrannical. No matter how beneficial his actions were, in the short or long term, the people wailed and cursed his name, for they would not see the benefits of his grace and only acknowledged the maladies and consequences of that which they had pleaded for him to do. Eventually, God reached the decision that to give his children what they truly wanted, the only thing to do was do nothing at all, and instead leave them to their own devices.
Thus of course did not satisfy Man, for he is fickle and ill-content, even if the treasures of a thousand empires were to be laid at his feet. In rage, there were those who accused the Lord of forsaking them, and others still who declared him dead. Such is Man's nature, after all; to reject and discard that which does not immediately serve him.
There are still those who call to God, baring their hearts and desires before him, and He still answers the Faithful, the worthy, and the Earnest. These are the paladins and clerics; those who God entrusts to speak to him and be heard. Yet in all the nation, how many are left who follow the path of righteousness?
>>46847853
How about God above human morality, that the good and bad things we suffer from are so petty in the grand scheme of things that its not necessary to address them, especially since we have been given the oppurtunity to have a good so great in the next life that it far outweighs any bad in this one
>>46847853
>arch duke ferdinand
you dont know the evil that God prevents
do you know how many times the US and USSR /should/ have launched the nukes, like people almost lanching them because of equipment malfunctions or actual event like the cuban missile crisis
we've had a ton of close calls that ither by luck or by inspiration didnt end the world
HERE IS HOW YOU MAKE A MONOTHEISTIC GOD WORK IN DND IN THREE EASY STEPS.
1. MAKE HIS EXISTENCE AMBIGUOUS, IF I CAN SAY FOR A FACT I KNOW HE'S REAL WITH UNDENIABLE PROOF THAN YOU FUCKED UP
2. ANYONE CAN WORSHIP HIM AND PROBABLY GET SOME SORT OF POWERS. A LAWFUL EVIL CLERIC AND A CHAOTIC GOOD CLERIC OF THE SAME DEITY CAN STILL CAST THE SAME FREAKY WHAM-BAM DIVINE MAGIC
3. INTRODUCE NUMEROUS DIVISIONS OF WORSHIP TOWARDS THIS ONE TRUE GOD. AS OTHERS HAVE SAID, LOOK AT ABRAHAMIC RELIGIONS; ONE RELIGION MIGHT SEE IT AS "ONE GOD, ONE ESSENCE" WHILE ANOTHER INSISTS IT'S "ONE GOD, MANY ESSENCES" WHILE ANOTHER SAYS "THE GODHEAD HAS MULTIPLE WILLS.
3a. THIS ALLOWS YOU TO NOT ONLY HAVE FUN WITH MULTIPLE RELIGIONS, BUT HAVE FUN WITH PERHAPS THE MOST ENJOYABLE ASPECT OF A MONOTHEISTIC RELIGION; HERESY! HERETICS, CHURCH DIVISIONS, REFORMATIONS AND CHURCH STRUCTURE ARE SOME OF THE MOST FUN AND MEMORABLE ASPECTS OF MEDIEVAL SOCIETY, AND YOU GET TO PLAY WITH IT NOW!
>>46848467
No WW 1 and 2 means no massive research effort to make nukes means no cold war. Also, only solid thing that provably stopped WW3 was good people and a lot of luck
>>46848362
Why worship a god that does nothing?
For that matter why worship? at all? Does god have self esteem issues or something?
>>46848415
Half the holy books are god saying do this or do that or you don't get in to heaven. God is not beyond morality, he destroyed city's over it.
Wait, are we talking religion god or D&D game god? A god that's bored of peoples shit and is now doing other stuff fits.
>>46847547
But God would have the power to stop it and the knowledge that it would happen. If I had the power to stop a baby from getting curbstomped, it would be morally wrong of me to just stand there and watch anyways. The argument that I could just go "Well, I could've stopped that guy, but I didn't feel like it. Not my fault in any way." is bullshit.
>>46848631
Worshipping us more a matter of saying "yes, I want to understand you better and devote myself to serving you. " An admittedly - crude comparison is a job application for the Afterlife.
And God used to do stuff. People complained. Now God only does things indirectly, by granting his power to people, but let them decide how to use it. Because people would rather say we did stuff ourselves, even if we screwed up.
>>46848646
True, but when it's less a matter of "feeling like it" and more having an agreement to not interfere in that area, things get more complicated.
Plus, if the baby dies, he gets to comfort and welcome it into the afterlife, free of the trauma that would be inflicted by getting raised by people who don't understand something as basic as "curbstomping babies is wrong."
Again, your analogy relies on humans acting in incredibly vile ways. Is it God's fault we keep choosing to do bad things?
>>46835886
Real life setting doesn't even work with a monotheistic faith. It's a shit-show.
>>46849020
I mean, according to your beliefs God made us and God is omniscient, so yeah it is his fault people keep doing bad things. He also would have made this world wherein a baby was born to people who curbstomp babies in the first place. Additionally, some arbitrary 'agreement' doesn't excuse inaction. The baby would have been needlessly brought into a world that it was not suited to, it would have felt the pain of being curbstomped, and then it would go back to God. That all seems extremely unnecessary and horrible.
>>46836250
source of pic?
polite sage for off topic
>>46849020
Have you ever talked to a door to door sales person or a telemarketer?
They promise many things will come in time and ask you to have faith in their product and you will be rewarded.
Many people are disappointed or worse.
The widely regarded correct choice is generally to seek out a professional of good repute, research their past work and check their reviews, BBB rating and such like.
If god had a better business bureau rating it would not be good .
Also regarding the people being discontent with gods help.
God knows all and so on. HE LITERALLY SAW IT COMING. He set in action the chain of events that would lead up to it.
Also talk to the millions of starving people, I have no doubt that if god showed up with a few tons of food stuffs, farming supplies and the next ten years accurate local weather forecast the people would rejoice of it in the streets and sing of from the rooftops.
Letting millions die because their ancestor were rude is kind of horrible.
>>46849216
I think it is dark souls inspired, related to gwyndolin from dark souls
>>46835956
Running a Fall From Heaven campaign right now. It's a deliciously fascinating setting if you're dedicated enough to piece together the lore from a Civ 4 mod and a couple hundred forum posts. Probably my favourite setting I've ever ran.
>>46849216
It's Gwyndolin from Dark Souls I
>>46836250
This. Just look at all the various divisions of Christianity, if the god is just fucking with humanity, or his/her servants are betraying it, then it's entirely possible to have some serious religious conflict.
Perhaps the single god feeds off strife and seeds different ideas to cause problems. Or maybe it can't take a direct hand in the mortal world, so it has to go through a whole web of servants, both divine beings and humans, who have their own plots going.
There's definitely a lot to work with when it comes to this.
this reminds me why /trash/ is possibly one of the chillest place on 4chan.
>>46835886
sure you can, just remember that you'll piss people off because of 'muh Jesus Allegory'
>>46835996
I know you're ironically being "Edgy", but at this point the cringe is gone and has evolved back into "meh" tier.
Anyway, so like what? You keep divine deities straight up a mystery? A non presence on the physical world? Or have they all committed sudoku and it's the End Times?
>>46836310
Well post the Legions of Night now you have me interested, also post everything.
>>46850069
Dark Sun does this idea of no Gods
But Ravenloft, IMO, does better, because it is implied that the Gods may or may not exists: while you have a Faith based on hope, sunshine and rainbows, you also have faith that was created by an Lich to control the population of his vast kingdom, and was adopted by other Domains.
>>46835886
If you live in a universe where there is only one god then why should you have any difficulty in a make belive setting?
