I thought I'd already posted this, but it seems I haven't; here's my latest video!

[video=youtube_share;j5x0Lps8FaM]https://youtu.be/j5x0Lps8FaM[/youtube]

There should be only one god, just like in real life.

Quote from: Shasarak;1115845There should be only one god, just like in real life.

ABRAXAS appreciates your piety.

Quote from: Brendan;1115846ABRAXAS appreciates your piety.

Hail SATAN!

QuoteYour Medieval Fantasy Setting Should Only Have One God

This is why I tend to envision my Sword & Sorcery worlds as closer to the Classical Age or some made up Conan-esque era before recorded history. Then I can keep them nice and pagan, as all things featuring elves and stuff should be.

Quote from: Shasarak;1115845There should be only one god, just like in real life.

You mistyped "NO god". j/k

I didn't say Watchmen had no nuance: Im saying that it had no respect for the medium it was interpreting and with this, no respect came a loss of depth or complexity.
But whatever. Il watch the rest of the video now.

Quote from: Shasarak;1115852Hail SATAN!

Meh.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee;1115857I didn't say Watchmen had no nuance: Im saying that it had no respect for the medium it was interpreting and with this, no respect came a loss of depth or complexity.
But whatever. Il watch the rest of the video now.

Are you telling us this in your capacity as the One True God?

Quote from: He-Ra;1115867Are you telling us this in your capacity as the One True God?

Only as a man.

Joking aside, and speaking only as a man, I like to run medieval settings with a triune god and a bunch of saints. That way players have a semi-pantheonic structure to latch onto from other settings, if they bother giving any hecks at all. In the setting I've been building these last few years, only those who have been martyred in the service of the triune can be paladins, their undeadness being the excuse for some of the paladin powers (Immunity to Disease and such).

ETA: I enjoyed this video, Pundit...your insights into how you build worlds is always very thought provoking.

I like the Yrth setting from GURPS.  Christians and Muslims in a fantasy world and no gods in sight.  No divine magic, if a priest has magic it's because he has magical aptitude and has learned spells.  Sure you can take 'Blessed' and maybe, just maybe get some divine influence in your life but it works exactly the same for Muslims, Jews, and Elven nature worshipers.  It's a nicely agnostic setting in which the true power of the church is purely political.

Quote from: He-Ra;1115871ETA: I enjoyed this video, Pundit...your insights into how you build worlds is always very thought provoking.

Thanks!

Furry Pirates did much the same. There is pretty much only Cristian and Catholic religions and the various sub-factions. Mostly catholic as it is set in the age of sail era while I believe Furry Outlaws was set in an older era and had some other religions still active. Both are historical settings and fairly good at it. Just with the Disney style talking animals instead of humans.

Fantasy Wargaming was set in the mid to late 1000s and while christianity or catholicsm are predominant, norse and other religions are potentially still very active as long as the gods have followers.

Scope and era is key here. If your historical setting is broad and there are gods then other nations may have their own gods.

You actually "uh" alot less in this one untill around the 15 min mark where you meander a little and lose a bit of steam untill recovering and getting revved up again.

On the subject of saints and equivalents. How to handle these is an interesting question. Are they essentially gods, turning catholicism for example into a pantheon? Or are they the equivalent of angels, devas, celestial presences? What about cults? Some were surprisingly prolific during these eras.

Quote from: David Johansen;1115882I like the Yrth setting from GURPS.  Christians and Muslims in a fantasy world and no gods in sight.  No divine magic, if a priest has magic it's because he has magical aptitude and has learned spells.  Sure you can take 'Blessed' and maybe, just maybe get some divine influence in your life but it works exactly the same for Muslims, Jews, and Elven nature worshipers.  It's a nicely agnostic setting in which the true power of the church is purely political.

I've always struggled with Yrth. It has some fantastic concepts and ideas, it just never quite gelled for me as a self-contained setting and I'm not entirely sure why; it's sort of a kitchen sink, but sort of not. I still have trouble wrapping my head around how to actually use it. In contrast, Infinite Worlds as a broader campaign setting I can much more easily come up with ideas for (maybe it's all the Stargate...). Either way it is an entertaining and interesting read, full of nice ideas (including its presentation of religion and divinity).

Finally got around watching the video!

I think part of the issue is that the average player doesn't really care that much about role-playing an authentic Medieval world and just wants to run a round of monster bashing playing heroic characters and such. Most people I've played with don't even RP their character's religion unless they're clerics (and even then, its only a superficial RP when it's time to cast their healing spells or some such), and its usually the long term dedicated players who care about that stuff, while casuals just want to casualize (i.e. experience mindless entertainment). Another issue is that a lot of people don't even know about historical periods that much, other than perhaps a general (and often inaccurate) idea of what they were like, which gets in the way of properly portraying or RPing an authentic, period-specific world.

Additionally, I also don't think that D&D or most fantasy worlds people incorrectly label as "Medieval Fantasy" are truly "medieval" in the strictest sense, but more of a hodgepodge of different eras and mythologies. And a lot of Sword & Sorcery style fantasy tends to borrow heavily from paganism, Vikings and the Classical Age, which is where most of the monsters and mythological creatures (elves, dragons, minotaurs, chimera, etc.) frequently used in fantasy works originate from. So the case could be made for the opposite of the video's point--that people need to inject more authentic paganism into their game in order to experience a world like the one where mythological creatures and Herculean-style heroes originate from. Which might require gods more like actual pagan gods, rather than D&D's generic mono-polytheistic gods (as already covered in the video on You are Doing Religion in D&D Settings Wrong).

More on the topic of the video, a series I saw somewhat recently (a few months ago) that covers some of these topics is Knightfall, which deals with the Templars, the King of France, etc., and include things mentioned in the video, such as the King trying to depose the current pope and plant his own and make France the dominant power instead of Rome and such. Don't know how historically accurate it is, since its a TV series and deals with the Holy Grail and such, but it's very recommended for inspiration about running a paladin focused campaign.