When it comes to role playing deities and beliefs, I guess we’ve hit a part of the game where we, as a group, fall a little short. It’s not that any of us think that adding a bit of religious belief to our characters wouldn’t give the characters a bit more depth and perhaps even motivation – it’s more like one of those aspects of your character that you just keep forgetting while you’re playing. You know, like that skill you only remember you had until it’s too late or encumbrance rules that you remember to apply only after the group’s already traveled hundreds of miles with no limitations whatsoever.
In our group, the only religious character was Batey’s character, and even then his rituals and beliefs were limited to yelling “FOR HEXTOR!” whenever he remembered to before diving into battle. Carlos, at first simply declared his character to be an atheist. This held pretty well until he discovered some obscure deity that gave him some benefits he could apply to his dark magical skills. So he converted, but even then it was just something that he occasionally remembered and only brought out when it was useful.
Thing is, I’m OK with all this because that’s the way most people that have religious beliefs are today, and I’m inclined to think that it’s been that way since whenever it was that religion was invented. You wouldn’t expect people to walk around devoting 100% of their days to whatever deity they call their own, right? Most people simply remember their beliefs at specific times, when it’s needed or when it’s required. But on the other hand, you would expect some guy like a priest to devote most of his time to that, and that’s exactly the problem I have with the presence of clerics, druids, paladins and even rangers in a gaming group. These are supposed to be people that are so incredibly devoted to their deities that it gives them magical powers. These are characters where simply remembering to yell some deity’s name before you jump into battle won’t be good enough.
This probably explains why none of us actually likes playing any of those characters – but with the ranger things are a bit different. At our gaming table, we like to play rangers as if their powers came more from a deep understanding and connection with nature. Of course, this might even be seen as “almost religious”, but in terms of practical role playing it at least doesn’t require the player to constantly be thinking about his or her deity in order for it to feel right.
Naturally, this wasn’t enough for good’ol Cousin Al, and so he decided that he needed to have a deity. But we’ll have the comic deal with those issues later on. For now, let’s see just how productive we can make this week be.
Good hunting;
O
Wow… i would personally choose the goddes Mielikki and she’d be the best for Furball / Al.
mielikki.. aint that the goddess of that shlong downing betrayer – Drizzt Do’Urden? Man i hate him SO much
I’m sorry, I just have to laugh when someone mentiones Mielikki. I’m finnish and that name always cracks me up – it’s the name of our ancient forest goddes – BUT it’s not really a fashionable name in these times. You could name your cow Mielikki and it would sound just right.
You know? Brings more interesting aspects to Drizzt’s personality. Hilarious, I tell you.
Damnit Mr.X, I was thinking about Mielikki as well and now I have second thoughts! I’ll have to ask the next person from Finland about the pronunciation.
And I really want to know the end of that joke, O! Cursed be thy teasing!
I thought heathen rangers were a given
Well it can be alright like Bishop from Neverwinter Nights 2 is a Ranger with no faith.
Well for Rangers it does not have to be a specific god and more a animistic worldview. Stuff like “Evrything is part of universal cycle” or a bit like the force “It sorrounds us, it penetrates us it bind the galaxy together.”
I didn’t know that, and I play a ranger.. Oh well..
I normally hate playing religious characters in RPG’s, but I once played in a campaign in which I was a cleric of Eldath. Best character ever. He was sworn to pacifism, so in battle I could never actually cause damage to anyone, and I always tried to save our enemies from death if at all possible. I wrote prayers to Eldath, made spell incantations that called upon Eldath to aid us in our righteous cause, and even had a small, special coin that I would use to determine Eldath’s will in binary decisions, such as to turn left or right at a hallway.
He was easily my favorite character I have ever played.
Druids don’t necesarly worship Gods even though they may be “nature/whatever-related”, it’s more like they worship nature itself no matter who’s the Big Tree Boss; I think the same may go to Rangers altough the’re free to choose their “hey-up-there-send-me-spells”.
Divine magic doesn’t necessarily come from gods, it’s just a class of magic that includes nature worship: both Rangers and Druids draw their magic from their connection to nature. In D&D fiction they’re shown as praying to deities because deities are much more ubiquitous in these fantasy worlds. Also, their presence is a lot more obvious.
O, we demand the end of that joke! O_O
Personally, I tend to forget the gods as well – an exception makes my Cleric in The Dark Eye. He was a cleric of Rondra, the goddess of war…bound to fight with honor and stuff, that is not that difficult to remember.
Fortunately, my GM always remembered as well, so I could send those puny little villagers around to aid me in the service of my goddess…the setting makes clerics quite respectable.
Well Shamans, Druids and alike work in TDE under a magic framework (Mages do magic, clerics and priests do wonders) so that you can do magic in a certain way without pleasing some force or another with every action.
I was a half-Orc cleric That had 7 int in a game once. I made up a god with the d.m. he was known as the mighty Vargash. In the game i would Take every thing as a sign of Vargash. It was a fun campaign the god vargash ended up having an island nation in almost every campaign seance. We wrote a page worth of info about the vargashian people and how each group with in the lands of vargash worshiped him in there own way. My Character was one of the orphans of vargash (they kidnap babies or “adopt” orphans from other lands to train in the ways of vargash) I even came up with an outfit that the clerics of vargash would wear.
My groups instead always been more religious in fantasy settings: it sounds natural to us worship Gods every time, and at the some time live this worshipping in a much famigliar, easy way, in a world in wich Gods actually walk among us and grant us spells and magic powers.
On the other way I find very strange to be an atheist in a fantasy world: ok you can not worship one God, you can even be faithless where faithless means you don’t trust Gods and don’t want they’r help. But thinking they don’t actually exists? ok there’s differences between settings, but talking about the Forgotten Realms: if someone keep saying all the times that Mielikki doesn’t exists, Mielikki may eventually come by and show him wrong…
AFAIK that’s the “assumed” way of playing druids and rangers: their power comes from the reverence/worship of nature, not necessarily from worshipping a specific deity (except in the FR, where you HAVE to have a god) Personally, when I DM, the only class required to pick a god are clerics (I don’t buy the “clerics worshipping abstract principles”, unless you’re an Athar in Planescape).
Lamest. Power. Ever.