Quote from: jhkim;1074403The case in China and India are very different than Rome - where you see a new religion like Buddhism spreading, and there is very little conflict between it and existing faiths. They fight over plenty of other stuff, but fighting over religion is rare. Also, polytheistic religions are much more prone to compromise and syncretism - mixing and matching between different sources.

Historical China is far from happy-go-lucky - but it doesn't feature much religious intolerance.

Does the conflict between the Legalists and the Confucians count?  I'm in the "sort of" camp, myself, and that one got pretty bad.

I can see the argument that neither's really a religion, though I think they were at least philosophical movements and both tried to make a society in a particular manner.

Greetings!

I think that the Happy Rainbow Barney Land that we often find in Forgotten Realms, et.al, where all of these diverse religions all somehow get along like one big happy family of hippies at an orgy is boring, and limits the campaign. I think that having different religions become political rivals, as well as embracing all manner of pettiness, theological rivalries, heresies, as well as deep-seated bigotry, hatred, and intolerance is far more interesting, as well as entertaining!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: SHARK;1074414Greetings!

I think that the Happy Rainbow Barney Land that we often find in Forgotten Realms, et.al, where all of these diverse religions all somehow get along like one big happy family of hippies at an orgy is boring, and limits the campaign. I think that having different religions become political rivals, as well as embracing all manner of pettiness, theological rivalries, heresies, as well as deep-seated bigotry, hatred, and intolerance is far more interesting, as well as entertaining!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Well this is good fodder for my new Primeval Thule campaign - there are a bunch of similar 'good' gods like Ishtar and Asura, I can certainly see lots of petty rivalries among the priesthoods.

FR is Ren Faire Fantasy, and IME it works best if you don't try to fight it. I like the setting for clear Good vs Evil themes, and having Good actually be Good (in a slightly Hippy-Dippy way - I tone the Greenwoodism down a bit, but not all the way). Having a bunch of nice peasants brutally dismembered by demons because they know it will upset the heroes is the kind of darkness you can only get in a setting which already has some light in it.

Quote from: S'mon;1074432Well this is good fodder for my new Primeval Thule campaign - there are a bunch of similar 'good' gods like Ishtar and Asura, I can certainly see lots of petty rivalries among the priesthoods.

FR is Ren Faire Fantasy, and IME it works best if you don't try to fight it. I like the setting for clear Good vs Evil themes, and having Good actually be Good (in a slightly Hippy-Dippy way - I tone the Greenwoodism down a bit, but not all the way). Having a bunch of nice peasants brutally dismembered by demons because they know it will upset the heroes is the kind of darkness you can only get in a setting which already has some light in it.

Greetings!

Yep, S'mon! I agree. Just imagine the religious craftsmen alone--all the costume makers, idol carvers, ritual toy makers--how they would love to have the other cults defunded, crushed, or otherwise taken down a peg, you know? But yes, I also love the Good vs Evil theme and imagery. I embrace that in my own campaigns constantly! LOL

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Thing is. Depending on the setting or edition. They dont exactly get along. In fact there is a module for Planescape wherein the PCs get dragged into a convoluted chain of gods from various pantheons not getting along.

For real-world applications in a fantasy land, I'd suggest taking a look at when and why societies that had been at least somewhat tolerant of a minority religions suddenly were not.  I think you'll find in most cases it had less to do with the religious beliefs, and more to do with the land, gold, power, etc. held by members of the minority faith.  In a few other cases, it also had to do with the insecure political power of the majority.  

Heck, you don't even need to cross "pantheons" to see that dynamic in play.  The Albigensian Crusade springs to mind.  It's not as if they hadn't been considered heretical before.  They had been for decades.  It's merely that once there was a lot of wealth to be gained by stamping them out, suddenly others became interested in doing so.  And of course the history of pogroms against the various Jewish populations have often coincided with nobles avoiding debt payments.

That said, I see fantasy pantheons as less like the dynamic of real world religions, and more like a cross between extended, competing Mafia families and their more sincere counter-parts in the public.  Sometimes its personal, sometimes its business, and sometimes they really do believe what they preach.

Quote from: JeremyR;1073701Of course the big difference in D&D is that the gods are actually real and there are worshipers with actual magical powers.

So using actual history where they aren't and didn't doesn't make much sense.

This.

Most of these God's (In the Realms for example) HAVE interacted with each other, they have clashed and they have reconciled.

Let's take our own various mythologies, the Asgard and Vanir, most of them got along.  The Grecian and Egyptian pantheons, pretty much got along within each other.

Quote from: SHARK;1074414Greetings!

I think that the Happy Rainbow Barney Land that we often find in Forgotten Realms, et.al, where all of these diverse religions all somehow get along like one big happy family of hippies at an orgy is boring, and limits the campaign. I think that having different religions become political rivals, as well as embracing all manner of pettiness, theological rivalries, heresies, as well as deep-seated bigotry, hatred, and intolerance is far more interesting, as well as entertaining!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

That's funny, Marine. Real funny. I play in the Forgotten Realms... and Barney got shot full of arrows because he believed in the wrong Gods. Full. Of. Arrows.

Paranoia, bigotry, disinformation, misunderstanding, righteous indignation, indoctrination, rampant ignorance, theological and political dogma, divine right! This is the meat, potatoes and gravy of my Forgotten Realms!

Happy Rainbow Land got invaded, raped and pillaged by the Tuigans. Life sucks chumbo. The Greek Gods have returned and sacrificed Baphomet - because the minotaur demongod is the *BEST* Bull in the market.

The Celestial Bureacracy? Hell yeah, their courts are jam-packed full of souls as they try to gain a foothold in the Old Empires. Mulhorand? They're busy trying to support the Cult of Isis in picking over the corpse of Mystra in the aftermath of her death and the cataclysm of the Weave dissolution - something all the other magic gods detested (screw you Mystra /spit).

Somwhere in all this are political issues between mere monarchial nation-states. It's mayhem! Wait till Arioch arrives!

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1074551Heck, you don't even need to cross "pantheons" to see that dynamic in play.  The Albigensian Crusade springs to mind.  It's not as if they hadn't been considered heretical before.  They had been for decades.  It's merely that once there was a lot of wealth to be gained by stamping them out, suddenly others became interested in doing so.  

   The murder of a papal legate tends to get people in trouble as well ...

You want an idealization of 'tolerance'? Look at Weis & Hickman's vision of post-War Dragonlance, where clerics of the Dark Queen are welcomed onto the grounds of the Temple of Paladine in Palanthas.

Anyone looking for a good read on the subject of religions in fantasy fiction in general and in gaming could do worse than reading M.A.R Barker's "Creating a religion in your spare time for fun and profit".

Quote from: tenbones;1074558That's funny, Marine. Real funny. I play in the Forgotten Realms... and Barney got shot full of arrows because he believed in the wrong Gods. Full. Of. Arrows.

Paranoia, bigotry, disinformation, misunderstanding, righteous indignation, indoctrination, rampant ignorance, theological and political dogma, divine right! This is the meat, potatoes and gravy of my Forgotten Realms!

Happy Rainbow Land got invaded, raped and pillaged by the Tuigans. Life sucks chumbo. The Greek Gods have returned and sacrificed Baphomet - because the minotaur demongod is the *BEST* Bull in the market.

The Celestial Bureacracy? Hell yeah, their courts are jam-packed full of souls as they try to gain a foothold in the Old Empires. Mulhorand? They're busy trying to support the Cult of Isis in picking over the corpse of Mystra in the aftermath of her death and the cataclysm of the Weave dissolution - something all the other magic gods detested (screw you Mystra /spit).

Somwhere in all this are political issues between mere monarchial nation-states. It's mayhem! Wait till Arioch arrives!

Greetings!

OOH-RAH! That's what I'm talking about, Tenbones! Out-fucking-standing! That's the way to make the shit real, you know? Interesting, dramatic. Not all this happy Barney we love everyone BS. Really, Tenbones, I find your kind of interpretation far more realistic, rich, and entertaining, on so many levels. Playing, storytelling, all of it. It makes it a more dynamic world having all these groups and religions competing with each other, making alliances, fucking over some hated rival, starting poroms against the followers of a rival religion, infiltrating courts and law codes against other religions, making all kinds of shit MORE meaningful for all kinds of players and even, tangentially, your NPC's as well, you know?

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Really. Is there any other way to sandbox the Realms when Gods are real and their avatars walk the planet?

I SAY THEE NAY!

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;1074562The murder of a papal legate tends to get people in trouble as well ...

Yep, when you've got people looking for an excuse to kill you and take your stuff, it's a bad idea to give them one.

Quote from: SHARK;1074573Greetings!

OOH-RAH! That's what I'm talking about, Tenbones! Out-fucking-standing! That's the way to make the shit real, you know? Interesting, dramatic. Not all this happy Barney we love everyone BS. Really, Tenbones, I find your kind of interpretation far more realistic, rich, and entertaining, on so many levels. Playing, storytelling, all of it. It makes it a more dynamic world having all these groups and religions competing with each other, making alliances, fucking over some hated rival, starting poroms against the followers of a rival religion, infiltrating courts and law codes against other religions, making all kinds of shit MORE meaningful for all kinds of players and even, tangentially, your NPC's as well, you know?

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Well, i like that scenario as well, but let us think a moment about the civilizations built on such a massive strife, hm?
....
My impression is that they would get prone to frequent warring, and that means less time to build societies.
Less time for art, more practicality, less cities unless they happened to inherit them, and even then they would soon become ruins.

You need peace and cooperation to build societies, Rome got big from isolating itself from the warring they did elsewhere, so the population could be in peace, and even on the edges of the roman empire, there wasn't always war.