Community

Stop with the “gods” already.

• Spiritual traditions are a campaign setting decision. NOT a character class decision. The “gods” have nothing to do with the Cleric class.

• Regarding the Cleric character - the Human race description gets it right: “Human lands are a home to mix of people − physically, CULTURALLY, RELIGIOUSLY, politically DIFFERENT”. Notice: Religiously and culturally different. Many (most) humans arent polytheists. But then irritatingly, the Cleric class description gets it wrong: “A Cleric serves the gods”. No. No, a Cleric doesnt. A Cleric can represent any of a spectrum of spiritual traditions: monotheism, polytheism, ancestorism, animism, atheism, and so on, from transcendent to immanent, from idealistic to pragmatic. There are many different kinds of spiritual traditions. Humans are a “mix” − “religiously different”.

• Please, explicitly open the Cleric class upto the full spectrum of human spiritual traditions.
  
• As a player, I dont want to play a polytheistic character. I really really dont. And I strongly resent when WotC forces this kind of fluff on my Cleric character concept.

• Moreover as a DM, it is impossible for me to relate to personifications of spiritual concepts as “monsters with stats” - even if I run a campaign setting where “gods” do exist (like Forgotten Realms). Such monsters are stupid - and misunderstand and misrepresent reallife polytheism - and misrepresent reallife spirituality generally. In an offensive - defaming - way. It is ridiculous to stat Hindu gods for example. This is true for any kind of polytheism.

• It is nonsensical to stat monotheistic traditions. But it is likewise nonsensical to stat other kinds of spiritual traditions. I hope D&D next avoids actual stats for any sacred concept. For example, there are reallife worshippers of Norse gods, Celtic gods, Shinto gods, and so on. Even gods who die in reallife mythology dont really die - they just come to personify certain aspects of death in a dreamlike way. For example, the Norse god Baldr “dies every year” sotospeak during the Jul (Yule). This is because this sacred concept personifies celestial daylight - and related concepts of truth, consciousness, and life - and as daylight “dies” during the Winter Solstice when night is longest. Loki who engineers his death personifies firelight - along with a number of related concepts. It just makes no sense to stat these kinds of principles.

• Godlike “manifestations” by spiritual leaders who are “inspired” by these archetypes seems fine to stat. But not the concepts themselves. It is the community itself that is energizing these manifestations. This can apply whether the community is monotheistic, polytheistic, animistic, whatever.

• The heavy-handed imposition of the “gods” is WORSE than the heavy-handed imposition of the alignments system.

• There are many different kinds of human spiritual traditions. Few of them of have gods.

• In a recent forum, the clear majority of D&D players voted for D&D Next to support Eberron as the highest priority for a campaign setting. This high-priority campaign setting correctly portrays a diversity of different kinds of spiritual traditions. It is stupid to say, Clerics must serve “gods” in the context of this campaign setting. This setting has Clerics, and the Cleric class must acknowledge the existence of Clerics who will not worship “gods” - at all - in any way.

• In the poll, the top Campaign Settings are: Eberron (spiritual diversity ranging from the monotheistic Silver Flame to the ancestoric Elf tradition), Forgotten Realms (polytheism - ancient epics), Ravenloft (veneration of ancestors as undead? funerary cults), Plane Scape (polytheism - personifying the Alignments of the Wheel), Dark Sun (mostly animism). If there is anything D&D offers, it is choice of campaign settings to adventure in. The Cleric class needs to get on board with choice of settings.

• There is a near-100% chance that D&D players will eventually play a campaign setting besides the default setting - if there should even be a default setting. The Cleric class must make sense and be useful for all of the D&D players who use this class else where. The class descriptions must open up to all of these other official and custom and optional campaign settings.

• The D&D tradition clearly supports Clerics that are non-polytheists. 2e and 3e are explicit. For example, the 3e Players Handbook explicitly says, “Not all Clerics worship gods.” Only 4e gets this wrong. And I hate this intrusive anti-choice aspect of 4e. Bring back the D&D tradition of spiritual diversity and choice.

• The part of the Cleric that gets it right is “domains” - archetypes, concepts, values, symbols. Domains yes. The gods no.


STOP WITH THE GODS. JUST STOP.