Quote from: boulet;450864I can see your point in the case of a setting where religion is identified as a major verissimilitude "must have". But it doesn't have to be that way for every med-fan setting.

In the case of Reve de Dragon, religion isn't necessary because the cosmology is provided by magicians and philosophers.

I don't know RdR, but there are indeed examples of fantasy settings both with and without gods actively involved in human affairs, some without religion altogether. In Tolkien's Middle Earth, religion per se is almost completely invisible, especially in the Third Age. Yes, if you're in the know (long after the publication of LotR and The Hobbit), the wizards are "angels", the Valar are either godlike or archangels, and Eru is "God". But for most readers, there's very little evidence of ritual or worship, and magical beings such as the wizards, Sauron, the balrog, Morgoth (I think he's mentioned briefly in retrospect) are just that--magical beings.

I suppose one can argue that any sufficiently powerful magical being is a god, but that seems rather reductionist to me. By that standard, a lot of the aliens in Star Trek could be called gods (such as "Apollo" in "Who Mourns for Adonais"), but I think this really raises the richness of possibilities in defining the relationship of "powerful magical beings" to the setting and to societies. Are there any PMBs that demand or are deemed worthy of veneration? Does "worshipping" them entail any kind of moral code or beliefs? Do they give anything back in exchange for worship? Do they have some kind of connection to major metaphysical questions like the creation of the world, or the operation of forces of nature, or the nature of life & death? And, in response to the original question, are these answers concretely established in the game/setting--that is, not just social phenomena, but actual defined facts, often with mechanical or other real manifestation in the game?

In The Secret of Zir'An, the gods left three thousand years ago, and made their departure public knowledge by flooding the minds of everyone in the world with a mental image of their empty thrones. The current year in the setting is actually 3020 p.d., for "Post-Deity." There's no shortage of churches and cults to keep their memory alive, though.

Also, there's no verifiable evidence that gods have ever existed in the setting of Praedor, a Finnish sword-and-sorcery RPG. Roughly translated: "The religions of Jaconia have their origin in slaves contemplating their place in the world. They looked to faith for defiance, comfort, hope and peace, and the Wizard Kings didn't interfere with the cult activities unless those threatened their authority and interests."

Did Jorune have any gods?

Jorune is pretty firmly science fiction as far as I can tell. It has psionics, but so do a lot of other SF books/games.

It did remind me of Talislanta, though, and Tal, although containing SF elements, is somewhat over the line into fantasy. I don't recall any gods in Talislanta, although it does have demons & devils.

I don't remember any gods in Jorune but it felt like some of the different species would definitely have religion of some sort... not that what they'd worship would be 'real'... unless it were some alien thing posing as a 'superior being'.
The Shantha (?) seem like they'd be the enigmatic Zen Buddhist faction.

Jorune always felt like a slightly more user friendly re-skinning of Tekumel... so maybe that colors my interpretation.

Quote from: Simlasa;451151I don't remember any gods in Jorune but it felt like some of the different species would definitely have religion of some sort... not that what they'd worship would be 'real'... unless it were some alien thing posing as a 'superior being'.
The Shantha (?) seem like they'd be the enigmatic Zen Buddhist faction.

Jorune always felt like a slightly more user friendly re-skinning of Tekumel... so maybe that colors my interpretation.

Jorune is science-fantasy/sword-and-planet. The science in it is not remotely plausible (although it was somewhat less wacky to mainstream eyes when it was published back in 1986).

There's certainly no power-granting gods in Jorune, and nothing is ever explicitly said in the books about human religions, but there's a few vague statements that seem to imply that some level of information about Earth religions has survived the 3,500 year gap.

IIRC the various bio-engineered half-animal Iscin races mostly worship their creator (Iscin), in a sort of vaguely Buddhist "he's not divine but he sets a good example for us" way. The Jorune native Shanthas worship the planet itself (which they perceive to be alive).

I don't think enough was ever published about the other import races (Ramian and Thriddle being the most civilised) to make a reasonable estimation of their beliefs. If I was to guess I'd say the Ramian at this point probably worship/fear the Lamorri, and Thriddles are athiests.

Dragonlance. The gods left the world for thousands of years, going so far as to erase their names from existence.

It wasn't until later (storyline-wise) that they started coming back. Hell, clerics weren't even an available class.

and when clerics DID start appearing, no one either believed them, or thought they were practicing some sort of magic

If a 'fantasy' setting doesn't have REAL Gods - then the magic there is just another part of physics in that universe and becomes a scientific fact that magic is possible and doable.

 Doesn't that also mean that the setting is actually now a Science Fictional universe?

- Ed C.

Koltar - By that reasoning, I don't see how including deities would prevent an internally consistent cosmos from being Science Fictional, as long as gods exist and act according to comprehensible (though not necessarily widely known) laws.

Quote from: Esgaldil;451302Koltar - By that reasoning, I don't see how including deities would prevent an internally consistent cosmos from being Science Fictional, as long as gods exist and act according to comprehensible (though not necessarily widely known) laws.

Conversely I could imagine a fantastical setting where there were no gods per se, but the world itself was imbued with magical qualities and/or sometimes operated in a symbolic/non-mechanical way.

Quote from: Esgaldil;451302Koltar - By that reasoning, I don't see how including deities would prevent an internally consistent cosmos from being Science Fictional, as long as gods exist and act according to comprehensible (though not necessarily widely known) laws.

That's the old argument for why there could never be anything 'supernatural'... because if it actually exists, it's part of nature.

Quote from: Koltar;450389No, YRTH has the 'big' familiar ones: Allah, God of Moses, Jehovah, Yahweh, and the Christian version of God.

But are they real gods, active in the setting? Or is just the belief in tem what has been ported to Yrth? I'm unfamiliar with the setting.

Quote from: Herr Arnulfe;450817I can't think of any good reason not to include gods in a fantasy setting. From a gameplay perspective, atheism is just boring. You might be able to craft some interesting plots around the premise that gods are myths perpetuated by the elite, but that would purely be a setting gimmick, and would risk the game being labelled as militant atheist wank-fantasy.

I've known manyexcellent fantasy settings that work perfectly fine without gods, as many others have mentioned here. I don't think that Middle Earth or the Hyborian Age can be classified as militant atheist fantasy.

Quote from: Cole;451304Conversely I could imagine a fantastical setting where there were no gods per se, but the world itself was imbued with magical qualities and/or sometimes operated in a symbolic/non-mechanical way.

Moragne is like that. The actual omnipotent creator god doesn't directly interfere with the world (thus his name/epithet "the Hidden God") but angels, demons, magic, miracles and prophesy all exist because of the metaphysics of his presence and being. Demons, for example, are simply those creations of His which have the absolute least possible amount of his divine goodness.

Miracles are when the divine presence emanates through the material of creation, like the light of a candle shining through a piece of paper (and yes, a powerful enough miracle can "burn" a "hole" in reality).

ElfQuest

Also, I submit that most works of fiction (including all RPGs) are "Fantasy" because events happen according to the design of the author, who remains outside the fictional cosmos and cannot be bound by the rules she imposes.