How do you handle the cleric in your games?

The reason for the DM to answer the question is pretty simple - having divinely-powered agents of human-friendly gods in a setting meant to embody cosmic horror runs counter to the conceits.  Unless your game is about supernatural horror/ good vs evil; my current campaign is; I don't want any part of it in the future campaign.

I didn't ask how I could handle the issue in my campaign, I asked how (Jim and others) handle the cleric in your own weird horror campaigns.  Some of you guys appreciate the ST Joshi criticisms, you hate the Derleth approach to the mythos, I want to hear how you kept your game from devolving.

Me - I'll probably take an approach like this if someone wants to be a cleric:

"Many gods are worshipped and prayed to, but they've never spoken to you or answered your prayers; you wonder whether they're really out there.  Through your priestly training, you were taught rituals and devotions that have allowed you to cast spells and do amazing things; the priests of your order claim this is proof that your god is real.  You're not so sure.  Could the power of your spells be coming from somewhere else?"

...And pretty much leave it at that.  Allows the cleric to exist, but with doubts as to the source of divine magic, and no clear belief that there are any greater powers whatsoever on the side of humanity.

In a campaign with deities, I like the idea that an invading religion could cause "interference" that disrupts the ability of clerics to get spells; it's a more aggressive implementation of "deities get their power based on the number of believers" and would fuel a lot of religious fighting.

Having spells channeled down to clerics by bored technicians or customer service agents manning those orbiting satellites... wow, that's really messed up - but so true to gonzo old-time sci-fi/fantasy.

What popped into my mind was The Truman Show.  The sophisticated race that built the satellites came to this war-mongering, backwards planet for entertainment purposes.  Masquerading as deities keeps the pot stirring and the bullets flying.  Great for the ratings back home...

This is the system I used for a bit. But the errors quickly became evident.

From the PC's point of view, it's no different than having "real" clerics, because all real (i.e., spellcasting) clerics are true believers. There are no agnostics or atheists who can do clerical magic.

But on the other hand, guys who believe in ancestor spirits, or totem poles, or Greek pantheons, are just as effective as the guys who believe in all-powerful monotheisms, and they can't all be right. If ten different Gods all claim to have created the world at some point, and they all grant spells, then clearly there's something crazy going on.

Which would lead any sane non-cleric to conclude that (1) since it's impossible for all of the Gods to exist, and no one God is clearly in control, perhaps none of them exist, and (2) Clerics are really just crazy people (perhaps Chaos-touched), and their craziness is what allows them to tap into some source of power.

Which would pretty quickly become a self-fulfilling prophecy, because in a world where ten competing philosophies all claim world-creation responsibility, and they're all staffed by true believers, only more frothy-mouthed true believers will join the ranks while anyone with even an ounce of skepticism will quickly wash their hands of the whole thing.

So here's the system I use now:

There are Gods. Some are Lawful or Neutral. There are also demons of Chaos of great power. Clerics are the guys who through training and rites have access to the powers these beings can grant. They don't have to be perfect servants to the powers, just good enough. Perform the rites, go through the motions, don't break any of the really important laws, and you're good.

Actually, it's crazier than that. Because in a world where belief alone really is all that's necessary, you could have 9 Churches that "explained" why the suns stopped in the sky, one that claimed that the sun hadn't stopped, but in fact that the day turned to night (really. You hallucinated the whole sun-stopping thing. Just like everyone else), and one that believed the sun is a giant rutabaga.

And as long as they really believed it, they'd get spells.

Seems like a good way to breed ennui at the gaming table, if you establish that a Cleric's power is directly proportional to his descent into his own schizophrenic delusions. D&D is supposed to be fun, IMO, and that's depressing.

Heh, that's a fair point. The same thought occurred to me while I was typing the reply, so I deleted and re-wrote it several times trying to figure out whether or not to make the critique.

But in the end I decided the question was - "How do you handle the cleric in your games?". (Emphasis mine) So I answered.

The real world doesn't have clerics that can cast Cure Light Wounds on command though, and there's no undead to turn (that I've ever seen)s, so the analogy is of limited value. I totally get where you're coming from, but in "the real world", to the extent people can "do" things it's because they understand and can manipulate universal physical laws. Like thermodynamics and gravity.

No, but to the extent he DOES reveal metaphysical truths, they should promote fun and good play. Not depress people and make them want to turn in their dice and go play Xbox. That's self-defeating.

Unless your players are truly nihilists, and would believe that playing D&D is just as pointless as anything else they can do, so why not, eh? But I don't play with nihilists, so YMMV.

This doesn't make any sense though, unless you presume that no one in the game world has cast those spells before. Because presumably someone in the Church hierarchy has cast Commune at some time in the past and wrote about their experience. It's in the holy book somewhere. Chapter 3, I think.

I have the same issue with the Speak With Dead spell. If the afterlife is really a lifeless void without pain or pleasure, then presumably this would be common knowledge. It's a 3rd level spell, hardly High Magic. It would only take one guy who could cast the spell a few times (as often as necessary to demonstrate) to show people "This is how it is."

And in the Eberron "belief is power" system, that guy could even be an Anarchist Priest of the God of "Do Whatever The Fuck You Feel Like", so there wouldn't be any religious law preventing him from telling everyone just how depressing the afterlife is. And people would adjust their moral codes accordingly.

The reason we have a thousand religions on Earth is because you never get any definitive answers, just prophets who say stuff but cannot be confirmed. Spells like Commune or Speak With Dead need to either confirm the existence of each God's existence, or be non-committal either way. Because the truth will out, if truth be revealed.

Hey Irda this has been a good discussion, it's helped me formalize my thinking, and you've hit it on the head with this point.  Thanks!

I couldn't agree more.  Commune and Speak with the Dead should give answers, but as interpreted through the lense of human experience, its possible the actual truth gets occluded and the objective truth remains elusive.

For instance - one approach could be - when the exalted being(s) taught the first holy men how to unlock their 'clerical powers', said holy men went off and started stories about sky gods able to throw bolts of lightning; they started a cult; over time these myths evolved separately to become Zeus, Odin, Wotan, Marduk... separate regional religions evolved, with antagonistic traditions.  But somewhere beneath all the folklore and crap that humans made up, were common elements that pointed towards a unified origin.  (And the exalted being here certainly doesn't need to be a god...)

Why couldn't speak with dead be the same; the dead person had a clear idea in mind what the bad place or good place would be like after they died, and when awoken from the sleep of the dead, their description is part self-fulfilling prophecy, reinforcing the folklore. Folks that have communed with a higher being fill in the dots based on their own cultural biases.  (Kind of like how medieval art depicts biblical events with medieval looking people wearing medieval clothes...)

The DM would never tell the players one way or the other that 'god' was an ancient alien or the afterlife is the dead person's own wish fulfillment; the difference is that at the start of the campaign, the DM says, here is how stories say the cosmology works, or this is how people believe the cosmology works, instead of saying this is how the cosmology actually works.  It's a really simple switch to flip, with profound implications.  (And the DM doesn't have to say up front, that believers are all deluded schizophrenics...)

Okay - this is a funny position to defend - since plenty of campaigns I've run have had 'real' deities and religions, deities that intervene and zip around like costumed super hero meddlers.  Looking at you, Forgotten Realms!  But keeping it vague and ambiguous whether the gods and religions of the world are real is truer to the tropes of Lovecraft and weird fiction.

Last edited by Beedo (2011-01-05 18:27:34)