For a Paladin, it's easy. If you don't act LG you get busted down because your god forsakes you.

But it seems like, in-setting, this awareness should apply to other people too. For instance, take a Cleric. They aren't a Paladin, but they derive their powers from basically the same source. If your god is Torm, wouldn't he care if his Cleric is a cheating swine?

Or is it that you'd just have to be somebody egregiously evil to even get noticed?

I've noticed this part of the setting is often ignored since it's not mechanically baked into the class likea Paladin is.

For me 5e brings things closer to how I've done things since 1e. That is - the Gods are real and if you're a Cleric or Paladin you damn well better be down with the agenda.

In 5e it's even more explicit - since technically being a Cleric doesn't have anything to do with being a member of the God's religion. It's a calling pure and simple. To me, this means the character has *been* doing things that further's the goals of the deity in question otherwise the would-be Cleric wouldn't be invested in. Same goes with the Paladin when they make their Oath.

This is an important distinction I set up with my players before they entertain being a Cleric or Paladin in my campaigns. The last thing I want is for them to have the expectation that they're just a Wizard of a different stripe that pays lip service to their God /yank yank. Negative. The mere act of being a Cleric or Paladin in my campaigns inserts conceits into that campaign by your very presence. I will create content to satisfy the presence of your character and should you choose not to deal with it... then you really weren't wanting to play a Cleric/Paladin.

Nothing irks me more than players reducing Clerics down to mere party-healbots or Paladins to being crusading murder-hobos.

I add another twist in that I don't play with alignment...

Depends on the 'god'. Something like Cthulhu, which isn't even properly a diety, might have worshippers but probably doesn't know or care. Any powers they get are from the bizarre dream connection they have with the thing that is probably also what led them into venerating it.

In DCC Clerics have to deal with 'disapproval' if they botch a spell... requiring them to do some sort of penance to get themselves back in good graces of their diety. They can get into trouble if they heal heretics and enemies of their gods... but I think some gods won't care.

When I've played as a Cleric I've tried to really get into the mindset and all it might involve... rather than trying to ditch/skirt all the constraints.

Well, if you're assuming a standard Fantasy system with a pantheon or multiple pantheons, and gods cared about all people, then you'd have an Iliad type situation where actions of worshippers were causing battles amongst gods instead of the other way around.  Or you'd have a situation of rival gods offing each other's worshippers until there was no one left.

So, it's kind of assumed that Gods keep their mitts off of anyone else's followers directly, don't get involved in their worshipper's worldy concerns too directly and use their worshippers to fight each other.

As far as Gods caring about their own worshippers, most real world players are a little too poisoned by reality and the relationship they have with their preferred religion, where obviously nothing supernaturally bad happens to clergy of any religion that violates the tenets of their religion.  Because there will never be any supernaturally obvious benefit or penalty in this life, everything gets stacked up for eternal rewards or punishments on the Other Side.  So the fact that this actually makes Zero sense in a fantasy setting is usually called "real", "complex", "interesting", "insert whatever other form of cognitive dissonance you want to apply".

In a fantasy game though, there is no reason for there to not be an immediate, direct, and provable status of a priest - their spellcasting ability.  You lose the blessing of Thor, you can't cast spells, pretty clear and simple.  You also might not be able to lift any hammer, no matter the size.  You're pledged to a particular god, that god can do whatever they like to you, the other gods have nothing to do with it.

Now, someone who doesn't accept any power from a god, someone who isn't "marked" in that way, probably gives thanks and offerings to many gods and so might not be even noticed or might not be Thor's to do with as he sees fit without Odin, Freya or another god getting pissed off, and now we're back to the Greek and Norse Myths of people's actions getting Gods in trouble.

Personally, I start from the outside in, or literally First Principles - the cosmos.  I decide how the Gods, Demons, Devils, Planes whatever are going to work for a particular setting, and then I decide how that is going to affect the system or setting's standard assumptions.

In O, A and 2e D&D a paladin did not get their powers from the gods. Their loss of power was was more akin to a personal failing.

Clerics on the other hand did have to watch out about behavior. Especially in 2e.

Then there was alignment infractions in general and the gods could and would both take notice and possibly lay down punishments of some sort depending on severity

The level of notice was totally up to the DM.

From 2e on gods took more notice of the above and were more likely to revoke a clerics powers or visit trouble on alignment shirkers.

3 and 4e I have not a clue.

5e makes no mention at all of alignment infractions and Paladins while overall comprised of good aligned types, can be any alighment and are open ended in what they get their power from, be it personal, gods, beings, etc. Its more an adherence to the oath. But also no mention what happens when they slip and no mention of how hands on or not the gods are. The default FR setting has swung back and fourth depending on the writer as to how much the gods do or dont pay attention. With the effective removal of alignment as a factor its hard to say.

In the end its up to the DM. How much you want to enforce alignment or not. Personally I rather like that alignment in 5e is so vastly downplayed.

It's setting (and sometimes system) dependent.

Glorantha and Tekumel both provided better examples of religious behavior that made sense in setting. Bog standard D&D never made much sense to me.

When I ran OD&D/AD&D the gods expected certain behavior from their worshipers, especially Paladins and Clerics. IIR, really devout worshipers, even if they weren't clerics or Paladins could get some holy bonus, but that was extremely rare. Gods were in pantheons and there were rivalries and certain animosities built in. Worshipers were expected to support or operate on the existing rivalries and animosities. Worshipers who insisted on coloring outside religious lines could lose the support of their deity.

Quote from: CRKrueger;892818Personally, I start from the outside in, or literally First Principles - the cosmos.  I decide how the Gods, Demons, Devils, Planes whatever are going to work for a particular setting, and then I decide how that is going to affect the system or setting's standard assumptions.

Good advice.

A good rule of thumb is that the gods begin paying attention only when their followers have the ability call upon their power. This can mean many different things in tabletop role-playing games, but the protocol should be if a character can use magic, they can gain more positive influence (or raise the ire of) their patron god(s).

On the flip side, gods whom characters do not worship (or are otherwise demons/devils/what-have-you) begin paying attention only when followers of rival gods use magic for selfish reasons. Naturally, this provides an opportunity for infernal influence or otherwise conversion to a different faith.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;892810I've noticed this part of the setting is often ignored since it's not mechanically baked into the class likea Paladin is.

Mm, well.  I presume you're talking about D&D, even though you don't say so.  (Lot of RPGs out there, after all, and this isn't a D&D-specific board.)  But given that, which setting?  D&D's published a fairly large number of them.

Anyway, this is nothing new. RPGs have always, for the most part, sucked at depicting religion and faith. Part of this is the dungeon fantasy mindset, where it's important to know what level your cleric is, what nifty magical toys he has, and oh, of course, what alignment he is, but pesky things like doctrine, dogma and ritual practice are afterthoughts at best. I had more than one conversation with players of D&D clerics in the 70s where they could rattle off all the stats and items, but were shaky on the names of their gods ... except that, of course, the gods in question were "Lawful Good!"

Beyond that, the bewildering array of deities most fantasy campaigns and settings, combined with alignment, contribute to a bulletpoint view of religion. Sure, the Sea God's about water, uh-huh, uh-huh, and sailors worship him, uh-huh, uh-huh, and, like, dolphins are his messengers, uh-huh, uh-huh, and, well ... alright, he's Lawful Good, okay? Nothing about doctrine. Nothing about history. Is the clergy celibate? What does a wedding service look like? Are they in favor of slavery?

We seldom know those things, and since there are twenty other gods, each with their sets of bulletpoints, we have little traction for what any other god is about either. Three gods, sure, we could get a handle. Thirty, and who can be bothered?

Beyond that, there's a strong distaste in many circles for any RP that gets in the way of tactical planning and execution ... the more so in that cleric/paladin types in D&D and other such games are portrayed, more often than not, as humorless scolds blending the worst of medieval Catholicism and the Inquisition. Their faith never does seem to benefit the party ... the only apparent impact it has is "Damn, we can't do X because the cleric will go into a tizzy."  Don't the jeering threads about "Lawful Stupid" PCs outnumber the "It's cool to see people play devout characters" ones about 30:1?

* Slash the number of religions in your setting. By a LOT. Four or five is about what people can handle, at maximum.

* Develop those religions. What do they believe ... comprehensively? What are their practices? How are they trained? What does the hierarchy look like? (And please, how about we not just parrot the Roman Catholic church?) Is there any similarity in temple architecture? What's their take on icons? Do they allow group marriages? Do they trouble over marriage at all? Give the players some meat to chew, here.

* Consider that in sharp contrast to how most GMs portray a polytheistic society -- as, in fact, henotheistic, where people worship only one god but ignore the others -- make it a genuine pantheon. It doesn't matter if I regularly attend services of the Sea God; if my daughter's getting married, I'm going to make sacrifice to the Fertility Goddess. I might recite a rote phrase to the Fire God when firing up my hearth. I'll surely sacrifice to the War Goddess before going into battle.

* Turn off the god tap. Seriously, faith ought not be a public utility. If you're not a worshipper of my god -- or at least pay lip service thereto -- my healing powers ought not work on you. If I'm a white light priest in a party of murderhobos, my powers ought not work at all. But, by contrast, if you roleplay some serious faith, perhaps the local priestess of the Fire Goddess should see that, and be more favorably inclined to you because of it. Give people some incentive to do this.

When I first started playing in the 70s, it was usually a big deal. I remember playing a cleric of Thor and trying to convert every monster we would meet.

The rest of the group soon got tired of that, and I guess that was the case in general

But to me, it should be like Clash of the Titans (or Greek Mythology). The gods not only constantly meddle in the world, but have something of a prestige thing going on, my heroes/followers are better than yours

Quote from: Ravenswing;892855* Turn off the god tap. Seriously, faith ought not be a public utility. If you're not a worshipper of my god -- or at least pay lip service thereto -- my healing powers ought not work on you. If I'm a white light priest in a party of murderhobos, my powers ought not work at all. But, by contrast, if you roleplay some serious faith, perhaps the local priestess of the Fire Goddess should see that, and be more favorably inclined to you because of it. Give people some incentive to do this.

This is something I considered, but for D&D, wouldn't this be a huge nerf to the Cleric? Everyone expects them to be the guy who heals the party, but if they can't do that...

The problem is mechanically none of this was taken into account when designing them.

Though that's for the default game. I suppose you could just decide in your particular setting it doesn't work that way.

Quote from: Ravenswing;892853Sure, the Sea God's about water, uh-huh, uh-huh, and sailors worship him, uh-huh, uh-huh, and, like, dolphins are his messengers, uh-huh, uh-huh, and, well ... alright, he's Lawful Good, okay? Nothing about doctrine. Nothing about history.

My experience has been that the majority of gamers are so virulently anti-Christian that they'd feel like they were contracting cooties if they actually, like, studied how religions actually work and stuff, or heaven forfend incorporate some religious verisimilitude into their game.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;892889This is something I considered, but for D&D, wouldn't this be a huge nerf to the Cleric? Everyone expects them to be the guy who heals the party, but if they can't do that...

The problem is mechanically none of this was taken into account when designing them.

Though that's for the default game. I suppose you could just decide in your particular setting it doesn't work that way.

Actually one of the older tenants of D&D was alignment clashes and the possibility of a patron god withholding spells because you healed that CE Fighter psycho over there in your party. Or groups tending to cluster along the G vs E axis. Or paladins reluctant or not joining groups with evil alignment members.

So you can end up with a cleric who cant, or wont heal certain members.

Wayyyyyyyyyyy back in the Adventurers comic which was based on D&D theres a moment where the evil aligned cleric in the group refuses to raise one of the party members unless his brother agrees to become a follower of his death god. Which mirrors accounts in Dragon I believe of similar acts by clerics.

Apparently one of the players in the group previous to the one I DM for currently would do things like that too. So it must not be too uncommon. Though I have so far myself not seen it.

Quote from: daniel_ream;892896My experience has been that the majority of gamers are so virulently anti-Christian that they'd feel like they were contracting cooties if they actually, like, studied how religions actually work and stuff, or heaven forfend incorporate some religious verisimilitude into their game.

I'm fairly hostile towards RL religion but still find it fascinating. Within the game I enjoyed ferreting out all the orthopractical oddities relating to the imaginary faith... including ludicrous extensions of basic tenants... prohibitions on food and clothing and such. Usually GMs are fine with that sort of thing as long as you're not doing it purely from a power-gaming motivation.

I think some problem lies in the fact that the Gods are often represented in some sort of omnipotent Godhood such as with Christianity, except that isn't what the older Gods were represented as. They were viewed much more ambivalently, and animist. Certainly if you were a chosen one of that God, and it took a personal interest in you, it would care. Where as when you are just a casual follower, the God might not even know you were there, and even if the God did know, it doesn't mean it would necessarily care. Conan and Crom might make a good example:

"...He dwells on a great mountain. What use to call on him? Little he cares if men live or die. Better to be silent than to call his attention to you; he will send you dooms, not fortune! He is grim and loveless, but at birth he breathes power to strive and slay into a man's soul. What else shall men ask of the gods?"