Quote from: EOTB;1116689A monotheism in D&D doesn't have to answer the questions atheists and agnostics pose in real life.

Agreed, but the monotheism has to make sense to the players. It has to have an internal consistency so the players know what's real and possible in the setting in regards to the One True God of the setting (OTG). Also, the GM needs to understand the scope of this OTG. AKA, the setting is quite different if the OTG is omniscient vs. partially blind, omnipotent vs. partially powerless, actively involved or passively involved, etc.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1116737People in the middle ages absolutely DID see the sick healed, through miraculous intervention or the intercession of saints, or by the astrological calculations and wondrous potions of a doctor/magician. They did see ghosts, and monsters in the woods; probably not very often unless they were in the frontier areas, in which case they were much more common. It wasn't a question of faith for them, it was a question of personal experiences, or very close confirmation by the people around them

This is a good point that's often forgotten. It's not about what the players' believe, or what they choose for their characters' to believe. It's what the NPCs believe and how that's represented in all the interactions with the PCs.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1116738No, why would they? They didn't do that in the middle ages, and there were schisms and heresies galore there, as I said.

Explain how you as GM adjudicate these issues in your medieval authentic games.

1) The players encounter what they believe are heretics. The PC cleric prays to the OTG for guidance, maybe even casts a divination spell or two. What happens?

2) The PC cleric gets fooled by heretics into working to promote a schism. Does the OTG somehow let the PC cleric know he's screwed up? AKA, does he get a divine message? Does he lose access to some spells?

Here's the challenge I'm up against. If the OTG and his clerics have a direct connection, the OTG seemingly should be able to direct his clerics, like soldiers through an earpiece. Unless the OTG has some issue why they can't or won't communicate???

Maybe its because I'm used to running actively involved deities. In my WFRP, clerics get signs from their gods, whether in dreams, hallucinations or stigmata. In my Mazes & Minotaurs, the gods are a regular pain in the ass to their clerics.

Is the OTG in your medieval games more passive, less involved or just more mysterious in their communication?

I'm not looking for philosophy, but what do you do as GM in your actual games at the table.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1116740I don't really understand why you think that this is the 'tack' I'm taking. On the contrary, I'm taking the tack that the post-modernist anti-christian-prejudice that tries to insist that Christianity not only never had an original thought in its head nor was the least bit appealing to anyone (in spite of the very convincing evidence of having CONVERTED THE ENTIRE WESTERN WORLD in only a few centuries) is resoundingly wrong. And largely a product of an alliance between fanatical "atheists" (who are really more fanatical anti-Christians than they are atheists in any sense worthy of the word) and wool-brained nostalgics and neo-pagans desperate to pretend that ancient Paganism was some kind of wonderful sophisticated intellectual religious system with modern sensibilities and full of compassionate progressivism that somehow still got its ass kicked everywhere it encountered monotheism.

Wasn't Christianity's conversion of the Western World heavily aided by the Roman Empire--having already conquered the entire Western World--suddenly deciding to declare it the official religion, largely for political expediency?

If all it took for ancient paganism to die out was for monotheism to show up, then how did the ancient Egyptian gods survive Judaism and their own monotheistic Sun-Disk worshiping cult, and had to wait for Christianity to finally show up after ancient Egyptian culture was already in sharp decline (after 3K+ years of existence) during the Hellenic period for the ancient religion to start dying out? Yet Egyptian gods still remained popular with the Romans till Christianity was finally declared the official religion.

Don't necessarily disagree with your characterization of militant atheists and fluff bunny neo-pagans, but it seems to me like you're overstating things on the opposite end in favor of "monotheism", or more precisely Christianity, which is one of only two monotheistic religions (the other being Islam) in history (that I'm aware) that vaguely resembles your characterization of monotheism here. And both of these religions have certain characteristics in common that I think aided in that regard:

• Hard Political Power
• Heavy Proselytizing Practices
• Hard Rejection of Completing Believes--even within their own faith (which is the source of all the schisms and heresies both religions experienced) by declaring them sinful and (due to political power) even illegal

If you have one of the greatest empires of that era suddenly declaring a religion with all of the characteristics above the official religion, of course you're gonna see a sharp decline in competing faiths. They already had most of the groundwork done for them, by the empire having already conquered most of the Western World, and other religions not being allowed. Then they set out to proselytize and convert the rest of the world--sometimes peacefully, but often ending at the end of a sword. Islam was also spread through conquest, though it had its peaceful periods (during the Islamic Golden Age). But often with these religions the alternatives were convert or get tortured and die a horrible death, which has a way of ending completing faiths.

Quote from: VisionStorm;1116754Wasn't Christianity's conversion of the Western World heavily aided by the Roman Empire--having already conquered the entire Western World--suddenly deciding to declare it the official religion, largely for political expediency?

  Not really. Constantine legalizes Christianity in 312, but it doesn't become the official religion of the Empire until Theodosius in 380. In between that time, you have the Imperial court (as well as many barbarian tribes) actually leaning much more towards Arianism than towards Orthodox-Catholic Christianity, as well as Julian's attempt to shut down Christianity and restore paganism. Even after Theodosius, the Emperors (mostly in Constantinople by this time, of course) often favor heresies such as Monothelitism and Iconoclasm rather than the orthodox faith, sometimes to the point of threatening bishops or trying to put their own puppets on the papal throne.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;1116756Not really. Constantine legalizes Christianity in 312, but it doesn't become the official religion of the Empire until Theodosius in 380. In between that time, you have the Imperial court (as well as many barbarian tribes) actually leaning much more towards Arianism than towards Orthodox-Catholic Christianity, as well as Julian's attempt to shut down Christianity and restore paganism. Even after Theodosius, the Emperors (mostly in Constantinople by this time, of course) often favor heresies such as Monothelitism and Iconoclasm rather than the orthodox faith, sometimes to the point of threatening bishops or trying to put their own puppets on the papal throne.

But the vast majority of the Roman Empire wasn't Christian at the time, and the farther west you went the truer that became. Christianity mostly gained traction in the east, and even then it was mostly in ascendancy rather than being a dominant force. How did Christianity becoming the official religion of the empire--with its vast wealth and influence--not help its spread?

Even with a bunch of heresies floating around (which was to be expected, given that an official version of the religion wasn't formalized yet, and the religion had spread through loosely organized clandestine cults till then) that doesn't mean that the empire didn't help it spread. It just means they hadn't yet worked out which version of the faith was the official doctrine.

Oh, the Imperial favor certainly helped (although it also complicated things, especially when Rome swung Catholic and the barbarians became Arian)--I was, I think, reacting against the idea I commonly hear that it was somehow the only factor.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1116745Agreed, but the monotheism has to make sense to the players. It has to have an internal consistency so the players know what's real and possible in the setting in regards to the One True God of the setting (OTG). Also, the GM needs to understand the scope of this OTG. AKA, the setting is quite different if the OTG is omniscient vs. partially blind, omnipotent vs. partially powerless, actively involved or passively involved, etc.

We agree on a lot but not on this one.  The game religion really doesn't have to make sense.  I present all the campaign sets published to date as my evidence.  All that's required for 99.44% of RPG campaigns is that the religion conveys to the player character certain powers and abilities.

Pundit, I think we're largely talking past each other.  There are objections I could raise to some of your factual claims vis a vis the Hellenistic period and the inter-relationship between the philosophical schools and the middle-eastern monotheistic faiths, but these issues are themselves contentious within the current study of classical and Hellenistic philosophy.  They're also relatively insignificant considering that the main point in this thread, namely that for a "medieval authentic" version of D&D, one would have to present a monotheistic world, and one specifically modeled after the Catholic Church of that time period, is a point on which we do NOT disagree.  

I do feel that you're failing to grasp the main thrust of my point, and trying to map this discussion to a different one, or rather several different discussions, all of them political.   On those political issues, we are also in agreement, so what we do disagree about appears to be entirely academic.  As such, I'll leave it be.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;1116773Oh, the Imperial favor certainly helped (although it also complicated things, especially when Rome swung Catholic and the barbarians became Arian)--I was, I think, reacting against the idea I commonly hear that it was somehow the only factor.

Oh yeah, there were many factors involved and the religion was already making headway in parts of the Middle East, the Mediterranean and Egypt. But the eventual demise of pagan religions was more complicated than them keeling over at the sight of monotheism. Other monotheistic religions existed before that weren't as popular and some religions (like Ancient Egyptian) were already on the way out by the time Christianity came in.

Quote from: EOTB;1116774We agree on a lot but not on this one.  The game religion really doesn't have to make sense.  I present all the campaign sets published to date as my evidence.  All that's required for 99.44% of RPG campaigns is that the religion conveys to the player character certain powers and abilities.

True, but the "Medieval Authentic" factor of this discussion means that some aspects of religion need to be worked out to make a certain amount of sense, since that factor means that the setting is expected to meet a certain level of internal consistency not typical of your average published D&D setting.

Quote from: Brendan;1116775On those political issues, we are also in agreement, so what we do disagree about appears to be entirely academic.  As such, I'll leave it be.

If you would like to continue this discussion Brendan, I am happy to argue your points. I must warn you however, I am woefully ignorant of the subject at hand; as such I would be entirely impervious to any objections you might levy, academic or otherwise.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1116745Explain how you as GM adjudicate these issues in your medieval authentic games.

1) The players encounter what they believe are heretics. The PC cleric prays to the OTG for guidance, maybe even casts a divination spell or two. What happens?

2) The PC cleric gets fooled by heretics into working to promote a schism. Does the OTG somehow let the PC cleric know he's screwed up? AKA, does he get a divine message? Does he lose access to some spells?

Here's the challenge I'm up against. If the OTG and his clerics have a direct connection, the OTG seemingly should be able to direct his clerics, like soldiers through an earpiece. Unless the OTG has some issue why they can't or won't communicate???

Maybe its because I'm used to running actively involved deities. In my WFRP, clerics get signs from their gods, whether in dreams, hallucinations or stigmata. In my Mazes & Minotaurs, the gods are a regular pain in the ass to their clerics.

I think this last bit is the issue you are having. I can't imagine a deity who has the time / interest to be on speed dial to every peon cleric in the field. The top guy of the religion sure maybe, perhaps even some of the highest ranking underlings. Second you are talking about giving very specific information, those guys are heretics, I want to to capture them alive, torture them until they confess their wrongs and then burn them at the stake. What you describe sounds like the command and control of a high tech sci-fi military operation, not any religion real or fictional that I have ever encountered. Where there is an assumption of direct communication with the gods, it tends to take the form of signs or instructions that are very open to interpretation, "when you find the man with one sandal, you will know what to do". WTF, do I give him a sandal, take his other shoe, kill him? Thanks a lot god.

If a god was so involved as to direct a party of clerics to kill a party of heretical clerics, then why even bother, just drop a load of lightning bolts on their ass and be done with it. Having Ma Bell as god completely eliminates all the fun of church politics, rivalries, and disagreements. Not knowing for sure drives a lot of medieval legends and lore. You get no mythology about the Knights Templar if god just steps in and tells King Phillip IV to knock it off and pay his debts.

Quote from: Toadmaster;1116781I can't imagine a deity who has the time / interest to be on speed dial to every peon cleric in the field.

Too busy keeping track of every sparrow, you mean?

Quote from: EOTB;1116774The game religion really doesn't have to make sense.  I present all the campaign sets published to date as my evidence.  All that's required for 99.44% of RPG campaigns is that the religion conveys to the player character certain powers and abilities.

In generic D&D, I agree that religions do okay without a strong sense of the scope and influence of the divines' powers, but Pundit it talking about monotheism in medieval authentic settings.

That said, I'm that last .56% of GMs. I spend time on the questions about my gods. Are they all-seeing? If not, how much seeing are they? Do they see only through the eyes of their clerics? Only within X miles of their temples? Or are they blind, just listening to prayers trying to make sense of the material world? And how smart are these gods? Do they even fully understand the world below?

For me, this questions are really important when crafting a fantasy campaign. In my Mazes & Minotaurs, the Gods of Olympus are very limited in many ways. Zeus isn't all-knowing. A mortal can trick a god, and the god can reward them with an island of gold or turn them into a monkey. In M&M, the Noble class are literally mortal children of a god or goddess, and sometimes you have a crappy parent, or a helicopter parent, or a neglectful parent, or a parent with really nasty enemies who want to kill you because they can't harm your mom god.

Quote from: Brendan;1116775I do feel that you're failing to grasp the main thrust of my point

Pundy, you gotta grasp Brendan's point before he thrusts it again!!

:eek:

Quote from: Toadmaster;1116781I can't imagine a deity who has the time / interest to be on speed dial to every peon cleric in the field.

The cleric is getting spells through some conduit between Mortal and Divine.

Why is the Divine only sending Spells and not Information or Orders through that conduit?

Also, have you met an Evangelical Christian? Its common for them to hear from their God, at least according to them, and many claim God speaks plainly to them. Non-evangelicals may question their belief, but we certainly have real world historical religions where rank and file believers believe they hear directly from their God.

And D&D clerics have spells involving that conduit, like Augury and Commune. If there is a Detect Evil spell, would a Monotheistic God offer the spell Detect Heresy?

If you can't keep tabs on your divinely empowered champions then you don't deserve to have them.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1116825God offer the spell Detect Heresy?

And if so, does it work if you cast it on yourself?

Quote from: Antiquation!;1116778If you would like to continue this discussion Brendan, I am happy to argue your points. I must warn you however, I am woefully ignorant of the subject at hand; as such I would be entirely impervious to any objections you might levy, academic or otherwise.

Ah, kind of you my friend.  In reviewing the conversation, the two statements I made which Pundit took exception to are:

1.  "Functionally the role of Saints in Catholicism isn't that different from the role of specific gods in paganism."

and

2. "European paganism did not have a co-equal view of the various gods. They broadly recognized that there was a single GOD, with many lessor 'gods' and associated figures."  

In re-reading what I wrote, I realize that there is a lot of "wiggle room" in these statements, and I could have been more clear.

In the first point, what I meant by "functionally" was practical rather than theological: what people DO with these figures, not how they are explained within the internal doctrine of the spiritual system; and by "specific gods" I meant lessor "deities" like household gods, ancestral heroes, and spiritual beings ( or aspects of beings)  that oversee certain functions or places, rather than the big cosmic gods responsible for creation, society as a whole, or universal forces.

Both saints and these lessor gods serve some kind of intermediary or intercessor role between human beings and the "Big Other" - be it God of Gods, or the Cosmos, or whatever.  They are usually limited in the aspects of humanity they oversee - either particular places or types of people.  They are almost never "worshiped" per-se, but more like revered and honored.  Their cult activities are often associated with certain times or days of the year.  Interaction with these figures consists of direct petition (prayer), symbols, contact with sacred objects and offerings (incense, food items, etc).  They typically do not have dedicated priests but are figures engaged in by the common man directly, depending on personal relationship or situational need. In other words, from the outside looking in, they're not so obviously different.

Yes, different spiritual / philosophical systems are going to "understand" these figures differently, but from a day to day basis, their usage by the spiritual practitioners within the various worldviews are broadly similar.  To bring this back to TTRPGS, this means the rules modeling how these spiritual figures work can be universal, but each culture will have a very different theory about what's going on "under the hood".   This does not necessarily mean that all interpretations are equally valid - although it does suggest that the truth itself is elusive, and our understanding is shaped by historical forces which may obscure and illuminate simultaneously - you know, just like real life.

On the second point, I realize that my use of the term "broadly" was misleading.  What I meant to point out was that the spiritual universe of polytheists is not necessarily "flat". Pretty much every sophisticated polytheist civilization that we know of saw the gods as existing in some kind of hierarchy, and as one ascended this hierarchy of Gods they tended to be less concerned with the lives of individual people or nations and more cosmic forces.  I don't mean to imply that there was some kind of universal theology or doctrine that all members of a given polytheist society ascribed to.  Nor am I making the claim that illiterate slaves or pig farmers were thinking in abstract metaphorical terms.  Most of them were probably the pagan equivalent of "biblical literalists", but this is a comment on the universality of stupidity, not on polytheism vs. monotheism.  

Generally one God ruled over the others.  The name of that God is often, in the Indo-European languages, a variation of "Dyeus" or "Day-us", the sky or storm god - from which we derive the latin word "Deus" or "God".  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyeus  There is some linguistic evidence that this origin as a storm god may be shared by the biblical YHVH, despite the name belonging to a totally different language family, but this is uncertain. That god was almost always the descendant of universal forces, which generally cared little for humanity but were also in some sense conscious and aware.  In some polytheistic cultures this arrangement of Gods and their metaphysical implications was quite sophisticated.  

My point here is the idea of some kind of ultimate ground of existence was not foreign to "pagan" thought, although there was no clear doctrinal consensus on what that ground WAS.  Pagan thought was not politically organized, as theology came to be under the church, and the idea of "orthodoxy" or "right belief" would have been an alien concept to most people throughout history - who were mostly concerned with "ortho-praxy" the right way to do things, especially for priests and officials.  What you personally thought about things was irrelevant for the lives of most people (and most people are stupid anyway, so who cares what they think).  With the spread of literacy, thanks to the Phoenician alphabet, and shortly afterwords the emergence of philosophy, you start to see the intellectual upper classes try and work through some of these issues explicitly.  Before that, most thinking about what we would call "metaphysical" things was done through story, allegory, and poetic reference.  This doesn't mean, however, that the people who wrote these myths were stupid, or just talking about mundane things from a position of ignorance.  For more on this particular topic I'd recommend: https://www.amazon.com/Before-Philosophy-Intellectual-Adventure-Ancient/dp/014020198X/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=before+philosophy&link_code=qs&qid=1576692214&sourceid=Mozilla-search&sr=8-1  

My main point here is that the movement from polytheism to monotheism was in many places not as radical a shift as many people would like to believe, on both the mono and polytheist side of things.  The claim that Pundit and some others have made, that any metaphysical sophistication found in pagan thought was copied from Christianity and Judaism, is almost certainly wrong, and has its origins in Christian (and esoteric pseudo-Christian) apologetic rather than the historical evidence.  It would be most accurate to look at them as simultaneous diverging developments in human thought - both of which grappled with the underlying multiplicity AND unity of existence, putting the pieces together in different ways and evolving over time.  This is not to say that there are no substantial differences between the two world-views, or that monotheism generally, and Christianity specifically, contributed nothing to western civilization and humanity, but this is a topic for another day.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1116825Pundy, you gotta grasp Brendan's point before he thrusts it again!!

Zing!