I can't think of any fantasy RPG settings where there are no 'gods' to worship or where it's clearly stated that the worshiped beings are merely imaginary.
Anyone know of any?
What about scifi/space games that do have actual 'gods' that answer prayers/worship/sacrifices? Only thing vaguely like that I can think of is Spelljammer.
Dark Sun. They have some sorcerer kings that act like gods, but for all intents and purposes, the original gods of the world left or died off ages ago.
Cidri, the default setting in The Fantasy Trip, has no true gods by default, though the referee has the option of adding them in. The default assumption that's baked into the setting, though, is a godless world. The "priest" talents confer social benefits but no miraculous powers. There is a super advanced magical / high tech progenitor race, but they have more of a sci fi vibe.
What about Yrth, the fantasy setting for GURPS? I don't remember it having much in the way of actual gods who'd do anything, give anyone any powers, etc.
SwordBearer has the social structure for religion in it, but there are no magical/miraculous benefits to being a member of the clergy.
I'm pretty sure the same is true of DragonQuest. There is certainly no 'cleric' option for players.
Also Tunnels and Trolls doesn't have a specific priestly class and pretty much doesn't mention gods at all.
There's an RPG for the Tales of the Black Company books, in which there are extremely powerful beings but not really gods, if I recall correctly. Gods tend to be absent, fictional, or ambiguous in the stories of Robert E. Howard, as well, which is hopefully reflected in whatever product allows you to call yourself a Cimmerian.
Reve : the Dream Ouroboros (http://malcontentgames.com/?page_id=13) (Reve de Dragon) presents a fantasy world where there's no deities. You could create religious people/organisations within the setting but that would be a significant departure from the game intended flavor.
Quote from: boulet;450361Reve : the Dream Ouroboros (http://malcontentgames.com/?page_id=13) (Reve de Dragon) presents a fantasy world where there's no deities. You could create religious people/organisations within the setting but that would be a significant departure from the game intended flavor.
I somehow didn't know that Rêve de Dragon was available in print from Lulu. That's pretty cool. :)
Quote from: Benoist;450362I somehow didn't know that Rêve de Dragon was available in print from Lulu. That's pretty cool. :)
And they're working at translating more scenarios too. Les Miroirs des Terres Medianes don't seem to be a priority which is a bit sad but I hope they'll get to it as some point.
BECMI/Cyclopedia D&D has "Immortals," not deities...but the distinction seems a bit fine.
Also, Eberron's gods are necessarily really gods. Or so I'm told; I haven't read anything from the setting, just heard other people mention this around.
I'd say that any version of D&D has gods (or at least a god) by virtue of the existence of the cleric class. One could argue otherwise, but the most straightforward interpretation is that god(s) exist(s) and that's where clerics get their powers. Same for Paladins.
Quote from: misterguignol;450369BECMI/Cyclopedia D&D has "Immortals," not deities...but the distinction seems a bit fine.
...
Yeah, the Immortals were more like an organization of superheros. But they would often play the roles of gods, Immortals even taking turns at the same role. The primary job of Immortals on the Material Plane was to guide and challenge mortals that may one day become Immortals themselves. At least that is how I remember it in the immortals box set.
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;450305What about Yrth, the fantasy setting for GURPS? I don't remember it having much in the way of actual gods who'd do anything, give anyone any powers, etc.
No, YRTH has the 'big' familiar ones: Allah, God of Moses, Jehovah, Yahweh, and the Christian version of God.
You get the idea.
- Ed C.
Yes, now that you mention it, Yrth has religions as social phenomena, since all the humans were imported from Earth and brought their beliefs with them. But I don't think the setting gives any guidelines or rules for "supernatural" powers deriving from the religions, or for the various gods taking any sort of direct action.
So while (IIRC) Yrth doesn't clearly state "that the worshiped beings are merely imaginary", the setting as written is agnostic at best. This is a lot different from D&D, where clerics are supposed to get their powers from god(s), and where certain versions of the rules have explicit guidelines for divine intervention.
Quote from: misterguignol;450369BECMI/Cyclopedia D&D has "Immortals," not deities...but the distinction seems a bit fine.
Also, Eberron's gods are necessarily really gods. Or so I'm told; I haven't read anything from the setting, just heard other people mention this around.
I don't know if they've changed anything or revealed more information since the original 3.5 setting book, but as I recall Eberron's deities are indeed gods, they're just more abstract in that they don't have stats or quantified powers and you can't meet them by traveling to the outer planes.
Except the Silver Flame. I think there are some hard facts on what that is, but I don't remember the details.
Quote from: misterguignol;450369Also, Eberron's gods are necessarily really gods. Or so I'm told; I haven't read anything from the setting, just heard other people mention this around.
Yes. At least gods were never seen, nor have they sent messangers or such. The educated in the five nations are usually convinced that clerics gain their spells from believing and ritual. The nation of Breland tried to train Clerics of patriotism during the war who would draw their power from believing in Breland.
There's also the Shadow of Yesterday. They use it as a slogan: "No gods. Just people."
Quote from: Esgaldil;450359There's an RPG for the Tales of the Black Company books, in which there are extremely powerful beings but not really gods, if I recall correctly. Gods tend to be absent, fictional, or ambiguous in the stories of Robert E. Howard, as well, which is hopefully reflected in whatever product allows you to call yourself a Cimmerian.
It's quite disturbing in Howard. Pretty much all the supernatural entities that definately exist are downright evil. I'm surprised the people haven't rejected gods altogether with the sort that show up.
Quote from: Ian Warner;450574It's quite disturbing in Howard. Pretty much all the supernatural entities that definately exist are downright evil. I'm surprised the people haven't rejected gods altogether with the sort that show up.
To be entirely fair, "The Phoenix On The Sword" (IIRC the very first Conan tale) does have a bit of benign supernatural intervention.
But you're right in that the vast majority of Conan stories portray all things supernatural as fucked-up.
Quote from: misterguignol;450369BECMI/Cyclopedia D&D has "Immortals," not deities...but the distinction seems a bit fine.
Yes, particularly since they act exactly like Gods do in any other setting. I'm fairly sure the use of the term "Immortals" was specifically because of the whole "satanic panic" that was going on at the time, and lily-livered post-gygax TSR was fond of replacing words that would be somehow "controversial". You could thus honestly claim that nowhere in basic D&D did characters "worship gods".
RPGPundit
Quote from: RPGPundit;450737Yes, particularly since they act exactly like Gods do in any other setting. I'm fairly sure the use of the term "Immortals" was specifically because of the whole "satanic panic" that was going on at the time, and lily-livered post-gygax TSR was fond of replacing words that would be somehow "controversial". You could thus honestly claim that nowhere in basic D&D did characters "worship gods".
RPGPundit
I am sure that is the entire reasoning behind the use of the term "immortals." Mystara did use the mortal origins of the immortals for some creative game background, though, in a lemons-out-of lemonade situation.
Quote from: IceBlinkLuck;450306Also Tunnels and Trolls doesn't have a specific priestly class and pretty much doesn't mention gods at all.
That is one of the things I like about T & T myself, though there is a Priest class in one of the old issues of Sorceror's Apprentice. There are occasionally 'priests' appearing in the solo adventures, though largely these seem to be wizards with attitude problems - certainly wizards in T&T can do most of the healing type stuff D&D players associate with clerics.
I take a slight exception to the fact just because there's a cleric class, that means there are "gods". I mean look at the Athar in Planescape. They still cast spells yet deny most other gods exist. Same is true in Dark Sun, no actual clerics (hell I don't even recall any PALADINS in that place!)
The Dark Powers aren't truly gods and yet there are gods in Ravenloft...
Anyway just some cents I offer.
FYI, the Silver Flame is abstract more than a divinity, especially since it has a darker aspect since it has one of the Lords of Dust's 'bosses" sealed in there.
Quote from: Cole;450741I am sure that is the entire reasoning behind the use of the term "immortals." Mystara did use the mortal origins of the immortals for some creative game background, though, in a lemons-out-of lemonade situation.
Yes, it did turn out to be one of the good setting details of Mystara, that with a bit of research, PCs could find out the mortal stories of many of the immortals, and that it delineated a clear path and "end goal" for a PC's career.
RPGPundit
I 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.
Quote from: Cole;450741Mystara did use the mortal origins of the immortals for some creative game background, though, in a lemons-out-of lemonade situation.
Quote from: RPGPundit;450791Yes, it did turn out to be one of the good setting details of Mystara, that with a bit of research, PCs could find out the mortal stories of many of the immortals, and that it delineated a clear path and "end goal" for a PC's career.
And that is the single element I like best about BECMI and the Known World.
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.
Or it could be just absent from the setting and not be an issue at all. The silly way most med-fan RPGs treat religions in their setting display more atheist militantism than Reve de Dragon for instance, IMO YMMV...
Quote from: boulet;450825Or it could be just absent from the setting and not be an issue at all. The silly way most med-fan RPGs treat religions in their setting display more atheist militantism than Reve de Dragon for instance, IMO YMMV...
But then you're just subtracting an element from the setting that can provide hundreds of potential plot threads. Unless the writer is so opposed to the notion of active deities (or lacks confidence in his ability to do them justice) that omitting them is considered addition by subtraction.
Arnulfe - I agree that this is improvement by subtraction, but it does add options that would not otherwise exist. Player Characters are constructing meaning and purpose from their own (imaginary) lives, rather than having access to beings of pure Meaning. The absence of Deities makes the kings (of whatever nature) of the world the most powerful beings, period. Dark Sun is more hopeless than it would be if there were beings to pray to for deliverance, and that hopelessness is part of what fuels the setting. The absence of Gods can make it much harder for Player Characters to know if they are doing the right thing, or if the world is doomed, or if there is any point to any actions. Another implication of Godlessness is that the afterlife is absent or unregulated, which adds an extra level of tension to mortality. A world in which religions exist but Deities are not constantly intervening or showing their favourite ones with miraculous powers allows for the permutations of religious history seen in our world, or other varieties of religion more subtle than the typical "Moradin is the Lawful Good God of Dwarves" pantheons of fantasy RPGs. These effects can largely be achieved without stating definitively that there are no Gods of any sort, but clarity is sometimes a virtue in a setting.
There are certainly plenty of fine fantasy worlds in which there are no Gods or might as well be no Gods, few of which can be fairly labeled militantly atheistic. One fantasy setting I was just thinking of in which there may be Powers but no Gods is Earthsea, which I quite like. The white barbarians did have gods, but those seem to have been mostly debunked/overthrown by the series' end.
Quote from: Herr Arnulfe;450832But then you're just subtracting an element from the setting that can provide hundreds of potential plot threads. Unless the writer is so opposed to the notion of active deities (or lacks confidence in his ability to do them justice) that omitting them is considered addition by subtraction.
I 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. And dragons, who dream the setting, don't match the criteria of divinity, they're just the best explanation of how the world exists and the phenomenons experienced by its inhabitants. Now you could add deities that would transcend dreams and the existing cosmology but it would be superfluous. And I can assure you that there's already a shit load of plot ideas available without adding religion to this setting.
Desolation doesn't have gods, per sé -- only two primal, impersonal entities embodying creation and destruction. They are often part of the setting's pantheons but don't respond to worship, and if divine beings actually exist, they don't make themselves known. That works pretty well for such a post-apocalyptic fantasy setting, since if the gods existed, why wouldn't they have done something about the apocalypse or its aftermath?
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.
Quote from: Esgaldil;451506Also, 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.
I'm a little confused by your statement following your last comma. Who is "she?"
Quote from: everloss;451507I'm a little confused by your statement following your last comma. Who is "she?"
The author.
The Lords of Creation, though it mixed fantasy fiction with science fiction.