Knights & Knaves Alehouse

I don't know, I think the joke god thing is okay. As DM, I can still populate the campaign with "serious" gods, and I can even give a PC's "joke god" a serious spin. I think there's a lot of precedent for that kind of approach in D&D history: it's filled with jokes and puns that get accepted as part of "serious canon" down-the-road. (Heck, just look at Bigby, Rigby, et al.)

(Although I admit that it's easier to give a serious spin to a "thunderbird" than to Nuge with his "throw the horns" holy symbol…)

One possible way to influence the players when they're coming up with their own gods is to remind them that demigods or lesser gods are much more likely to take an active interest in the world of mortals, compared to greater gods.

Thorkhammer wrote:gene--

It sounds to me like you prefer to run a Homebrew AD&D(or whatever) to a BtB AD&D.

Well, what I've said is routed in the original D&D tests, the Greyhawk campaign and World of Greyhawk, its hard to pin BTB in this instance but if you would want to get as close to BTB campaign then they had "walk in/make your own god" and new, new, new deities.

I generally let players make up their own deities if they want, or else leave everything vague. That is pretty much how we ended up with "Dwifi the God of Gold" in my Silver Blade campaign for a few years. Before that was the imaginatively titled "Vala the God of Valour", who I think later got renamed "Vokar" for a while.

NOTE JUST TO CLARIFY ON WHERE I DIFFER FROM GARY: In my campaign (where it is my own device and "homebrew") I have it so you don't pick a god first but rather a religious philosophy (ex: elemental evil) that can include many gods

T. Foster wrote:MO GMs do this (under the guise of "involving the players in the creation of the campaign-world") because they're either too lazy or too intimidated of the implications of creating "religions" and fearful of offending someone.

The idea of being offended by this baffles me. OK, if the DM sets up game gods that are clearly mocking RL religions, then yeah, I can see people getting offended. But I've never seen nor heard of that. I'm an atheist myself and have no problem playing a cleric that worships a game god. It's a game where divine beings who meddle in the affairs of mortals are as much a part of the texture as goblins, trolls, and dragons. And I like how selecting a deity helps with the characterization of your cleric (or paladin). You don't have to act like your god, but I do think that players playing clerics should give some thought to how their religion influences them. Are they missionaries spreading the word? Holy warriors stamping out evil (or unholy warriors stamping out good)? Dedicated types simply trying to live life according to the teachings of their deity? To me this sort of thing helps frame up the character right from the beginning. If you don't have deities then I have no idea what the cleric class is supposed to be beyond a magical medic.

- Jeff

I for one take the gods in my own campaign world very seriously and so do all the people I play with. Kingdoms are made and broken by religions. In my game world THE GODS ARE REAL. An agnostic/atheist WTF?!

I will allow demi-gods to be created by players but they will be a small cult and limited to 5th level clerical spells. I would certainly have to approve of any details as well.

Flambeaux wrote:

T. Foster wrote:Put another way, in an AD&D game whatever gods the PCs are worshipping are, as the campaign develops, likely going to become directly involved in the action sooner or later as the PCs perform missions and Quests on behalf of the church, seek the god's direct intervention via Communes and Gates and such, travel to his home plane, etc. Do you really want to undermine that whole aspect of the game and reduce it to a lame joke because some player thought it was funny to make his 1st level cleric a worshipper of Chuck Norris?

Trent, that presumes a longevity of campaign that I've never witnessed or experienced. Consequently, it's not a question I've ever considered.

Flambeaux, I never thought to play AD&D without longevity. If that is the case then I would agree with you, so what about deities. As long as the cleric lives within his alignment so be it.