Faith is Tricky

I'm writing this because a reader asked me to address the common notion connected to fantasy worlds that knowing that the gods actually do exist must mean that faith is not a basis for religion.  I can understand how a lay person might come to this conclusion.  The term "faith" is used most often in our media as "proof" that the Christian god exists ... and so if we don't need proof, it follows for some that we don't need faith, either.

I promised I would address this.  I'm not a believer in any organized religion ~ in fact, I'm strongly opposed to any legal protection for organized religions whatsoever.  It is one thing for an individual to believe in something ~ to my mind, there is no justification for the "freedom of religion" to mean that any institution deserves the right to exploit that freedom.

Still, I don't shy away from the study of religions, as I don't have to believe to know how they work.

The "reality" of the gods has no effect at all upon the cleric's faith.  Faith is much more than just believing in the existence of god.  It is also believing in the agenda of that god, and that you as a cleric understand that agenda well enough to do god's work.  As a piddling little cleric in an obscure part of the game world, you're not blessed with opportunities to speak directly to your god.  You depend on writings which, however labeled perfect for the dumb masses, are a miasma of confusion for the devout cleric who doesn't want to fuck up and piss god off.  You wish you had perfect clarity; what you have instead is faith.

Suppose you're a devout orcish witch-priest and your god Gruumsh, and you have a precious scroll written by Garnag the Excessively Pious that tells you, "Dwarves are hideous and all deserve death; to touch a dwarf is to be infected."  This scroll tells you that Garnag received his knowledge of Gruumsh from a vision that was given to him on 37 consecutive nights, whereupon he wrote the holy words you're reading as a witch-priest exactly as the visions dictated.

Now, suppose you also have a scroll written by Othmash Who Died as the Gem of Gruumsh, which were the last 1,010 words of Othmash as he lay dying, having slaughtered 200 orcs before Gruumsh decided it was time to raise his spirit to the afterlife.  And 17 of those words read, "The witch-priest of Gruumsh has no greater task that to remain alive until called to death."

Okay, got it?  Now, here's the situation.  You've gotten into a fight with a dwarf on a high place and unfortunately you've slipped on the poor ground and now you're hanging by your fingertips atop a 500-foot drop.  And the dwarf, being a goody-goody, is reaching out his hand to save you.

You know from Garnag that you can't touch that hand, so you wait for Gruumsh to do for you what he did for Othmash ... but you don't hear a goddamn thing.  And your fingers are getting tired.  What do you do?  What?  Do you infect yourself with the Dwarf's touch or do you throw your life away before Gruumsh raises your spirit?  Pick.

That's where faith comes in.  The faith to guess what Gruumsh really wants you to do.  Understand: if right now you're weighing the sacredness of Garnag against that of Othmash, you're choosing what you should do on the basis of two mortals, neither of whom are your god.  Are you really going to put your faith in mortals at this moment?

Theology is full of these conundrums.  It's what makes theology fun.

Now, I was also asked if spells are proof of god's existence ... and I suppose they are.  That is a very minor point.  The more important "proof" is that the god's giving of the spell to the casting cleric serves to remind the cleric that the god approves of the cleric's will.  Think on that a moment.  Your faith in your god, as the being that's got your back, is reassured every time you cast and the magic occurs.  You live in terror of the day that you cast and nothing happens.  On that day, you know you've angered your god by something that you've done.

So you make up your mind and you reach out and take the dwarf's hand.  The dwarf hauls you up and then steps back, letting you catch your breath.  Your godentag dangles from your wrist.  The dwarf hangs his hand axe on his belt.  Together you watch each other.  Carefully, the dwarf lifts a small bottle hanging on a string from his belt and uncorks it.  While he steals a drink, you decide to cast a quick cure light wounds on yourself.

How are you going to feel if the spell works?  What if the spell doesn't?  It matters.

It's a question of faith.  Making decisions on the ground level that will please or displease a god that hardly knows you exist.

Chew on that for a while.

JB's Irk

Now that JB is back from Spain, I can make a few comments about this post he wrote back in June.  Once again, I find myself defending clerics.  As JB writes,

"Plenty of folks before me have decried the presence of clerics in D&D based on their lack of 'fit' with either A) their lack of fit with the game's sword & sorcery roots, or B) their inappropriateness to the game's murderhobo premise, or C) some other conceptual gripe. But have we considered the base conceit of the class? That a being (or beings) of divine power rather whimsically bestow magical powers on these mortal followers?"

From a theological point of view, such premises are fairly ridiculous.  This isn't a surprise: the creators of the game, from start to finish, have been wallowing about in the subject of clerics from the beginning because, apparently, it is just too damn hard to spend any time in a library.   Moreover, the decryers, I have found, are equally ignorant of the rather "fundamental" things such as thinking the game was EVER about swords, sorcery, murderhobos or the idea that various concepts of magic were intended to 'fit' together.  These are internet inventions, first sparked 25 years after the game, promoted by disgruntled ignorant slobs who also found library time a level above their mental capacities.

Suppose that we recognize, first, that an argument that begins with the premise "there is only one true sort of magic" is one that goes right up its own ass.  Magic, being an invention, can come in as many flavors as ice cream, if that's what we want.  Since when do we give any credence to the slob that needs to shout loudly, "Black licorice!  GROSS!", like we give a damn?

Okay, so we don't have a proper theological context for clerical magic.  Fair enough.  For my money, we don't have a proper theological context for most religious dogma.  In his post, JB spends quite a lot of time talking about the motivations of gods, the cosmological imbalance of gods and their miraculous gifts, the improbability of people not rushing out to all become clerics, the unimaginable solace that clericism offers and how this would completely unbalance the universe.  Here JB writes,

"Just think about having the power to heal yourself and your loved ones. How many of us have wished for such magical powers . . . so much more useful than the ability to throw a ball of fire. Forget raising the dead . . . let me just fix my sprained wrist or my chronic back ache. Let me just cure my wife's cancer. It's not like the requirements for the cleric class are so difficult to make. In B/X there are none (just give up using edged weapons? hell, that's easier than quitting nicotine). Even in AD&D the class is open to any human with a WIS of 9+ . . . that's barely 'average.' "

Just roll this in your mind a bit and I will come back to it.

On the whole, I'd argue that JB's point of writing the post is one I fully agree with.  I, too, am irked by the 'fluff' behind the class.  I, too, have never liked the idea of gods consciously granting a cleric the power that the cleric has.  I say deliberately on my wiki that the cleric must to pray to acquire spells - but I don't say what actually happens.  Let's say for the sake of argument that the gods sweat magic and that clerical prayer is a way of globbing it up out of the cosmos.  This makes the gods blissfully unaware that the cleric is even praying - and as such, doesn't invoke any of JB's arguments that the gods be personally concerned with what the cleric does.  If we dispense with the 18th-19th century conception of Greek and Norse legend (though I loved Tanglewood Tales as a boy), we can stop thinking of gods as corporeal beings that mortals can understand - and it gets even easier to suppose that the gods just don't give a shit.  Then, like in the Real World, the clerics in power can make up whatever justifications (bullshit) they want for how theology works and there's no voice to correct them.

The only reason why the inventors of role-playing imagined Gods caring came about because of the need to straitjacket players into alignments.  The Gods cared about what the paladin or the cleric did, so the DM could punish the player as a way of restricting the player's free will and balancing the unreasonable powers that came from being able to raise the dead and using a +5 holy avenger with twice the bonus.  But all that DM punishing the player scheme came about as a need for man-boys to swagger at the top of the table and dictate their anti-player agency agendas.  Alignment was shit from the beginning, shit from end-to-end, and every part of the game's rules that came about as a means to adapt alignment to player action has been central to the crap-fest that has defiled the game's potential for four decades now.  JB's irk originates with the will of some people to invent a theological basis for what player behaviour OUGHT to be, based on dogma, so-called roots, inflexible premises and arguments that what 'fits' is more important than what works.  The internet simply took all the back-ass myopic two-dimensional thinking and ran with it right into the brick wall that inevitably became 4e.

Look at that quote above about helping your loved ones.  JB unfortunately ignores a lot of details about having the power to heal people.  For one thing, having a 9 wisdom is enough for a player in the game, because it is a game, but we have to assume that if we're describing a real place, a person has to have more than a 9 wisdom.  It didn't take that much intelligence to be a priest in the 15th century and yet they got lots of benefits.  Why wasn't everyone a priest?  Because it took training and the schools were full.  Because we didn't just train anyone.  Because even if we became a priest, we didn't get to decide what district we'd be pushed into.  None of that matters to players, because we're making a GAME here - but being a cleric in a real D&D world would probably mean being told to let people die even if you could heal them - just as clerics in the real world were admonished for giving away money, daring to live in poverty, not raising money for the holy mother church and so on.  Yes, you can heal your family - but you're not allowed to have a family because you're a priest.  And if you dare get one, or help one without our permission, we'll cast another spell called excommunication and then the god sweat won't help you.  So suck on that, would-be cleric.

These are the sorts of realities that are always ignored about how religions actually work because these are the details deliberately withheld from the common man.  Priests have no doubt been raping little children since the 6th century - but its only with enforced transparency that we now know it happens.  Churches have always deliberately deprived the poor and the needy, but they got away with it all those centuries by inventing lies like the money is being spent on God or that money doesn't matter because we can't spend it in heaven.  Very convenient, that.  We gloss over these details because we live in this century - we're used to thinking that everyone has the right to the same privileges and the same treatment.  We presume that if it only takes a 9 wisdom to get something, its an automatic get - after all, apart from ability, what other possible obstacles could there be?

Lots.  Lots and lots and lots.  JB rightly says that only a deluded, hard-cased fool would walk a godless path in a cleric-magic universe.  He misses completely that even if the fellow were aware and brilliant, he could still be forced to walk a godless path in a cleric-magic universe, because even in a cleric-magic universe, fuck you.  We don't care if you eat, we don't care if your chronic back ache hurts, we don't care if your wife died yesterday.  These spells are for GOD, not for you.  Your dead wife is in a better place and your chronic back ache will help remind you to be humble.  Now excuse me, I have extremely expensive cloth to buy so I can have my vestments remade for this year's Day of the Dead.


If you read this post and liked the sentiment of defending clerics, or that there's always the chance of a reasonable way of looking at something that's unfairly disparaged, and you'd like to see me go on writing posts like this, donate $5 or some such consideration through my blog or become a Patreon supporter, giving me some small stipend a month that you won't notice affecting your bank account.

Recooking The Books

Today I got into a conversation - bit of a row, but nothing personal - with a friend about my not liking something which she really likes.  It wasn't so much that the thing she likes is 'bad' ... it isn't, really.  It's only that, for me, it isn't 'new.'  I've seen it before, I've involved myself with it before and I've long since grown disinterested with the style and design of that 'thing' (nevermind what it was).

This is my nature; it is everyone's nature, I think, as they grow older, but all the more so if you've been the sort willing to wallow in life at a younger age.  After awhile, everything that is easy to find is ... easy.  It fails to rouse the blood.  My friend understands, but she is about 15 years younger than me and she just sees me as being frustrating and difficult.

Some old people regret the springtime of their years; they yearn for when everything was new, and they were wide-eyed and open to a thousand experiences that hadn't come yet.  Every year is a burden for them.  Every year is a multitude of doors closing because they can't seem to enjoy anything - a circumstance with which they react by growing meaner and resentful towards those who are still young.

Other old people, however, begin to view all that 'newness' with a sort of appreciative humor.  They can remember when something was new; but they're satisfied to be jaded now, to have seen all those things once and to appreciate that they are smarter now.

To explain - there are things I have been doing regarding this game, D&D, that I could not have conceived up 20 years ago.  There are levels to which the game applies that I was simply too young and naive to appreciate.  There are hundreds of things which I took for granted, which I've now begun to question.  Only in the last four years have I corrected the experience tables I played with for decades.  I've rewritten the hit dice/hit point rules.  I've explored interactive mechanics (not satisfied yet) and wilderness damage and weather-systems on levels beyond my 30-something abilities.

Something my daughter has been harrassing me to do for some time now - about a year - is to correct and update rewrites of the Player's Handbook I started about 12 years ago.  Now, this is something I started because I had to have a written record of house rules changes - and for spells in particular, there are many, many of them.  Mostly, it was necessary to try to write down some of the precedents that had gathered around spells over the years, which were NOT included in the original Player's Handbook or Unearthed Arcana.  Can an Ioun Stone be made into a clerical magic stone, for instance.  Must the magic stone actually be thrown?  That kind of thing.

However, such lists and notes are incredibly boring to write.  Important, but dreadful from the perspective of a DM who'd rather be drawing maps or crunching numbers, like I usually do.  So I did the lists as far as I needed to, covering what a 3rd level cleric needed, or a 5th level mage, and so on.

But it has gotten out of hand for some time now.  There have been many more precedents that have come up, forcing a change in ranges, area of effect and other details, and those things just mount up into arguments at the table about what is right and what is wrong.  The facts are that I really have to rewrite everything I've written, plus completing the spell lists to their end (not just to 4th level), with notes that I'm going to need my players to help fill out for me.  It's a monumental task, and it will include tweaking many spells which had been left alone.  I'll be thinking about them, you see, and thinking always means an effort to make them better.  Once those changes are discussed and beaten apart by the players, those will be the NEW rules I'm prepared to adhere to.

So I've been working on the cleric.  I'm not hurrying, and it is going to take awhile.  I hope to rework my sage tables in the process, and for the present I'm just not sure how.  I'll want to make them more accessible and applicable, certainly.  I'll want to expand them.  Particularly, get rid of the general/specific/exacting question method ... which just never worked.

I'm working through the second level spells for the present.  When I'm done with everything, I expect the Cleric alone, with spells and other notes, will probably run around 50 to 60 pages.  This, to me, is at least as long as the Cleric should run.  If I think of more, I'll add more.

Here's an example of the presentation for first level spells - with a general details list I'm planning to add for every level, to make it easier for players to choose their spells:

WOTC may see this and squawk ... I don't know.  The image may not be up in a week.  In the meantime, I want to make a different specific point, going back to jadedness and the clarity of age.

The last time I rewrote these, I didn't think much about the language.  I wrote the spells in pretty much the same style as the Player's Handbook, presuming that's what players were familiar with.

These last few weeks, however, resigning myself to doing this again, I've realized that the writing in the Player's Handbook is pretty shitty.  Perhaps its because of reading the White Box game, perhaps the amount of editing on books I've done this year ... but in all truth, if you're not familiar with D&D - steeped in it, you might say - then the gobbledygook in the Handbook is pretty unfriendly to read.  It is full of hackneyed phrases and unnecessary prepositions and a lot of other dreck which does not get to the heart and soul of the spell in ten words or less.  I've tried in the above to get rid of that - to make the first sentence clear, direct and instantly comprehensible.   Thus, I hope it greatly improves a new player's ability to read a spell with ease, grasping its intent at once and thus making the choice of spell easier.

Sometimes, the benefits of experience do not lend themselves to simply being comfortable with the complex, even if that's old hat; sometimes, there's something to be gained in being able to make the thing elementary, for those who have not yet learned to be extraordinary.

UPDATE:

Small addition.  The 'Believer' column on the table describes whether or not the recipient of the spell must be of the same religion as the cleric; for example, a magic stone, once created in my world, may be hurled by anyone who IS the same religion as the cleric ... but putting it into another person's hands would destroy the deweomer of the spell.

How To Play A Cleric

I am aware that the cleric is not a well-loved character class, and that later editions in particular have recreated it into a field medic, the perception being that with more healing there's more killing.  Religion in general is not popular with a lot of D&D players (that whole persecution thing is closely felt), and as such the theological aspects of the theological class are downplayed severely.

Still, I think it is a matter of outlook.  With that in mind, I offer these suggestions.

Reverend Cleophus James:  DO YOU SEE THE LIGHT?
Jake:  THE BAND!
Reverend Cleophus James:  DO YOU SEE THE LIGHT?
Elwood:  What light?
Reverend Cleophus James:  HAVE YOU SEEEEN THE LIGHT?
Jake:  YES! YES! JESUS H. TAP-DANCING CHRIST... I HAVE SEEN THE LIGHT!

One.  Have an agenda.

I don't mean something lame or overdone like "following my god" or "building a church" ... your cleric needs to reach for the stars.  Your cleric needs to conceive of some world changing strategy that will shake the pillars of heaven and pull them down, thus establish his or her self as the greatest religious leader of their age.  This will require more imagination than being a cog in the existing religious structure; it means, on some level, replacing the religious structure with one that is better.  How better?  That is for your cleric to decide.  It doesn't matter if the goal is nearly impossible ... eventually your cleric will be high enough level to bitch slap those who don't view the world with your cleric's agenda.  This is what you must plan for!  Conceive of other clerics under your guidance giving instructions to kingdoms and empires on how to behave and give money; conceive of a world-wide entity that is perhaps benevolent, perhaps sadistic, which everyone acknowledges as holding the greatest possible truth about life, the universe and everything.

What, you don't know what this truth is yourself?  Well, for heaven's sake, follow in the traditions of thousands of religious leaders who have gone before you and make shit up.

Elwood:  They're not gonna catch us.  We're on a mission from God.

Two.  Know your importance.

If you think religion is about following the dictates of your god, you know nothing about religion.  Religion was created for the cleric, not the cleric for the religion.  Your God, his or her minions, their powerful agents, the heroes and the priests have your back.  They are there to help YOUR agenda along ... remember, you've seen the light.  You know what's needed ... and as you go forward, hacking and slashing and pressing forward your religion, the gods will recognize your worth and clear the road for you.   Count on it, expect it ... and rail at the heavens when it does not happen, as did Moses, Jesus, Mohammed and all the great ones.  Remember, the holy word is conceived in holy writ - which if your cleric is on the ball has carefully taken the time to write down, just to demonstrate to all how the gods speak through you.  You might want to get on that, when you can.  How do you suppose these holy words came about?

Jake:  Ma'am, would it make you feel any better if you knew that what we're asking Matt here to do is a holy thing?

Three.  Get your party on board.

This can be difficult, especially since you've recently become an obsessive megalomaniac ... but it can be done by emphasizing how your agenda serves the party's general needs.  Seize wealth from the infidels?  Check.  Crush enemies without hesitation?  Check.  Perceive the cleric's own church as a collection of misguided fools who have no right or privilege to tell the cleric, or his party, what do to?  Check.  Give free reign to the party to act as they please, so long as occasionally they mention to the cleric that they may have gone a bit far?  Well, that might be difficult to work out, but so long as you, the cleric, show some general pride for the party's general mayhem, couched in the occasional praise met with a hint or two towards contributing to the general welfare (yours), they might gratefully acknowledge they'd all be dead if you weren't there to bring them back from the grave, or speak a word or two to get one of the higher ups to bring these poor 'sinners' back from the grave.  You might want to mention that from time to time, to keep it in the forefront of your party's mind, so that while you're indulging their murderous activities, they're indulging your pocketchange.  It's a give and take ... and it is up to you to make them understand that.  Don't let them push you around.  Make it clear that you are there to be needed; and they are there to pay for it.

Jake:  Your women. I want to buy your women. The little girl, your daughters ... sell them to me. Sell me your children!

Four.  Be ruthless.  Be without scruples.

It is a silly cleric who limits his or her own success with a lot of morals which - honestly now - are just ambiguous, inconvenient rules made up by other people who can't understand why the world doesn't work the way they think it does.  You, the cleric, you know better.  If the agenda is going to require ten thousand female slaves in revealing steel armor, well, then it is.  That should not be questioned!  It is the agenda!  And those who don't understand or don't appreciate the beauty of a thing like that will die under your merciless phishy phalanxes.  That is the word, and the word is made flesh ... revealed flesh in this case.  Remember that whatever is necessary IS necessary, and that is the end of the discussion.  Your cleric will decide what is necessary ... and further, of course, what morals other people are expected to adhere to.  That last is obvious.

Elwood:  It's 106 miles to Chicago, we got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark ... and we're wearing sunglasses.
Jake:  Hit it.

Five.  Pay attention to details.

Pomp and ceremony is the eye-catching, shiny mollifier that will drive others to be mystified and excited by your presence.  It is all public relations ... how you present yourself, how you direct your actions and the order and degree to which you take actions are important.  Each morning, you should have included in your agenda habits which you will not break.  It is your attention to detail that will make others agog at your preparedness and your diligence.  You do not care if the dragon is approaching.  It is time to kneel and say thanks, and if the dragon doesn't know that's more important than the dragon's silly agenda, that's too damn bad.  Your god has your back, right?  Then the damn dragon can wait until YOU'RE ready to meet with him.  I cannot stress enough how important this is to your character, his or her nature or the party's reflection on how you have chosen to act.  While yes, this should not be an obstacle to the party's temporal needs, it SHOULD be something which everyone is aware of and which everyone respects.  Like wearing sunglasses.  Like having your pinch of snuff before entering a mysterious cave.  Like the thousand and one other momentary pauses you insert into your cleric's day.

The better you can imagine out these five things, the better cleric you will be.

To Train A Cleric

Yesterday I was asked how one would help a zero level NPC attached to the player party become a cleric.  Given that the NPC has the necessary stats, it should be possible.  I've never sat down and worked out rules for it, however.  I like to view my game as a court of law: once a ruling has been made on a given subject, that ruling now sets a precedent, which although it can be struck down, remains in force.  As such, I don't like to rush into making rulings like this.  In addition, I like the rulings I make to fit very well with the structure of the game I have created thus far.

Let's consider, then, what it takes to become a cleric, or indeed any kind of leveled person.  At the outset, let me dismiss the amazing pile of stinking feces that make up the experience advancement tables in the Dungeon Master's Guide, and let us start fresh.

Taking the simplest character class, the fighter, I can say I have had NPC's advance from zero-level to first level in my world before.  This has always occurred in the case of a man-at-arms attached to the party who has managed to survive some terrific encounter, who has dealt and suffered damage, and who has gained a fair bit of plunder as a result.  I've generally set a established measure of 1,000 x.p., making the difference between being a zero level and being a 'veteran.'

But there are certain things implied here. The man-at-arms is assumed to have had weapons training already, and to be familiar with a number of weapons.  They are also assumed in my world to have 4-7 hit points as a man-at-arms (as per the DMG), along with their mass hit points total, whatever that may be.  Thus, the zero level human man-at-arms, before becoming a first-level fighter, already has weapon skills and between 5-15 hit points.  The primary change is the 'to hit' table, and this is something that changes as a result of experience all the time.  As well, arguably, the man-at-arms method should be a common way of becoming a first-level fighter.

(I am very well aware that yesterday I said a first-level would have no experience whatsoever, so this appears to fly in the face of that.  However, I would argue that player characters do not become first-level fighters by playing as zero-level men-at-arms first ... though I suppose I could make the concession if they wanted to give it a try.  Player characters in my world, however, are generally assumed to have become first level through training, and not through experience, so what I said yesterday still stands.  This will become clearer as we get into the subject of training)

Very well, then, how does an ordinary person become a man-at-arms?

Allow me to return to a post I wrote back in May of last year.  In this post I proposed that the stats of a born individual would increase from year to year, so that children would be weaker, less intelligent, less wise and so on, advancing as they aged.  I also made the following argument:

"I believe that, past a certain age, one's ability scores would only increase through schooling ... and not naturally, as suggested above. The cut off date would be, I believe, the age of 10. And at that age, I would propose an additional -1 modifier to the gained ability stats ... so that at [the age of]10 without formal education, the total added would be 2d4 -2. This would make an overall average of 7 + 32 (4 x8 years) + 3 ... or 42. This is the same average that would be achieved by six rolls of 2d6 each."


I then go on to talk about levels of status and so on, but here let me change the discourse and talk about the schooling mentioned.

It's presupposed that with an additional five years of schooling, adding 2d4-1 to the individual stats each year, by the age of 15 the average for all six ability scores would be 63 ... which is the combined average of 18d6, or 3d6 per attribute.  Extraordinarily special students would roll high each year of their schooling, and would have those 'rolls' channeled into strength or wisdom or charisma, depending on what class was desired.  Thus fighter training would tend to move the stats 'randomly' into one ability more often than another.  This is much easier to understand if you're already familiar with the other post.

As it happens, the age of a first-level human fighter is 14+1d4.  To my mind, the die roll does not determine the amount of training the fighter receives, but rather the amount of distraction from that training.  Thus, a first-level fighter who is 15 years old would have been completely focused, while a first-level fighter who reached level at 18 would have spent 3 years at other things ... taking care of their sick mother, for instance.

This explains why other races tend to be older than humans ... though truth be told I don't use the long, long lifespans of non-human races described in the DMG.  I prefered to compress them down to what those lifespans would be in human terms.  Thus the elf is aged 15+1d4, the halfling is aged 17+1d4 and the half-orc is aged 25+1d6.  This is not because is takes longer to train a half-orc than a human, but because half-orcs tend to lead rowdy, irresponsible lives in their youth, and don't settle down to take training seriously until they're in their early 20s (remember, it still takes five years).  Elves and halflings have social obligations which humans don't have, which slows down their training schedules.  And so on.

We can use as a standard the lowest possible age for each class in order to establish the actual amount of time necessary to 'train' for that class.  As it happens, if you compress the number of years for a high elf in the DMG down to a human lifespan, you find that the youngest possible age for an elven thief is 8 years old.  I played this for a few years, having the occasional child, aka Artful Dodger, running in my world, but it was forever problematic and players couldn't get 'into' the character very well.  I jumped the base age for an elven thief by five years and added another d4 many years ago (12+2d4), so that the youngest they can start is now 14.  This keeps in better with the overall game, and certainly with the overall age system as it stands.  And now thinking in terms of training (seriously, this has come into my noggin only in the last 24 hours), this would mean an elven thief has the ability to concentrate on the task and become a level in just four years.  A human, however, takes 9 to 12 years (age 18+1d4).  The gentle reader can see, therefore, how this comes together.

Let's take the cleric, then, though truth be told we could probably write a post about each class from this point out, excepting the fighter which is easy enough.  According to our charts, a human cleric starts at an age of 20+1d4, or from 21 to 24 years of age.  This makes the actual curriculum one of 11 years, and begs the question, what is it that happens in this time?

First of all, a proper liberal education in the secular and non-secular elements of the religion in question.  This is the sort of thing schoolboys would be taught by a 17th century Deacon, or schoolmaster, which in my world I usually judge to be a 2nd level cleric.  This would account for the first five years, I think; so that while a fighter passes through all of their training, the cleric is just finishing with the classroom.

At 16 the would-be cleric heads for a seminary, where he or she then spends two to four years in rigorous public speaking and spiritual training ... and the next two to four years after that is the truly critical time in the cleric's coming of power.

For it occurred to me yesterday that even if an NPC has the necessary stats, and even the will to become a cleric, this doesn't mean they will make the cut.  Even if they succeed in their seminary training, this still doesn't make them a cleric.

Consider: what does it take to be a religious leader in today's world?  Almost nothing, really, if the evangels have anything to say about it.  A will to lie, to spew out the same 18 bible verses ad nauseum, to have a smattering of religious comprehension and to have lots and lots of personal charisma.   But you don't actually have to do anything to prove you have the 'true faith,' yes?  Any would-be religious leader can simply start forth, make claims and go for the status upgrade ... and many do.

But a D&D cleric can't get away with that.  The would-be charlatans would find themselves at some point compelled to produce a bit of magic to justify their religious positions ... which would be difficult for a fighter or a thief.  And the manner in which clerics get their magic means that no matter how much earthly training the would-be cleric has, they've got to be accepted by their god first.

We can posit, therefore, that the cleric passes out of the seminary, then steps off for a bit of spiritual contemplation - possibly to a monastery, or into the wilderness, or upon a mission. In the last case, obviously not as the missionary, since they have not yet obtained the necessary ability to convince the natives of their religious potency.  They could be an assistant, however ... and hopefully awake with a vision and find themselves suddenly blessed, for the first time, with the ability to cast a spell.  They've been trained for the moment, the moment has been explained in regards to how it would manifest, and of course the moment itself would come with enlightenment.  What a moment that would be for a cleric.

Of course, this means that not every cleric would actually need full seminary training ... if the god felt they were good to go, they would be.  But in general the seminary training would be seen as something useful and practical, to bring the cleric into the ranks of the religious organization if nothing else.

This brought to mind a problem yesterday that I think I can solve.  The cleric obviously can't reasonably be expected to cast spells in the midst of the church ceremony, to wow the parishioners ... and in any case this seems inconvenient if the cleric needs those spells after weekly services.  Not every spell has a physical manifestation, either ... so what does a cleric in my world do, when they can't change their spells from day to day?

I take note that of the ceremonies proposed in the Unearthed Arcana, there is one missing.  The ceremonies in that book (coming of age, investiture, consecration and so on) were meant to be part of a spell the cleric chose, but that seemed stupid.  What cleric can't perform a ceremony?  Obviously a cleric should be able to baptise, or consecrate ground, or bury someone ... and that shouldn't be a spell, even if it might have some magical effect.  If a paladin can heal a disease once a week, a cleric ought to be able to carry forth a ceremony without it needing the be a spell.  The same ought to stand for the druid.

But the one missing ceremony from the list is the most important one: the Mass itself.  A cleric stands at the head of the temple and church and leads his or her flock in prayer.  Of any other element of the cleric's life has influence over would be followers, this ought to be KEY ... and given what I've said already about charlatans and fakers to the clerical field, the mass ought to show a manifestation that proves religious potency, and it ought to have some measurable effect upon the congregation.  AND it ought to have a increased effect with the level of the cleric.

I haven't quite got a proposition yet (I only came up with this yesterday).  This would usually mean a lot of really stupid suggestions from the less bright readers of the blog, who will make propositions based on D&D and RPG video games without having the slightest idea of what a religious service entails - or probably ever having attended one.  Me, I've attended hundreds and hundreds of services, in the Lutheran, Anglican and Catholic religions, and I have a deep background in religious studies ... so the fact that I haven't thought of something yet isn't an invitation for a lot of lay people to pipe up.  Obviously, if someone who actually knows a great deal about a ceremony-heavy religion (Christian, Islamic or Eastern, I'm not particular), then chime in with something useful.  Mostly, it ought to give A) a brief effect, no more than an hour, after the ceremony is completed; B) it ought to affect a lot of people if the cleric is high level; and C) it ought to have no relationship to existing clerical spells, such as bless or aid ... and should indeed not be as powerful as a clerical spell.  Though it could probably raise the crowd's morale, encourage them to stand fast in the face of the enemy, push them to give a little more money to the collect and so on.

If we step back to our post-seminary, not-quite-cleric wannabe, consider how the mass itself might be the first proof of religious integrity.  This fits with the first experience of many a post-seminary religious leader ... the first adventure at the head of the flock, giving the first of many thousands of sermons, and hoping it pans well.  Perhaps the podium glows; perhaps the room warms a bit, or the candlelight brightens.  Perhaps the cleric's feet rise an inch or so from the floor as the power overcomes them.  Perhaps a member of the audience, a la Blues Brothers, breaks out into spontaneous celebration.  James Brown would be a mighty powerful minister if the film were the manifestation of that particular cleric's mass.  Perhaps even the same effect may not apply to all priests, even in the same religion.

Consider the effects upon the seminary, as an individual is clapped on the back, reassured that the gods are surely on their side and that the first spells will undoubtably be coming soon to their minds during the morning's prayer.  Oh, what a glorious day that will be for you, brother!

And let's take another step back and look at the question of bringing an NPC to the clerical level.

First, I think to some degree the early five years of training, the ones the cleric gets as an older boy, can be gained by some measure through a lifetime of taking part in a church.  These things are obtained with experience ... and five years of real life could equal one year of a Deacon's tutelage.  Moreover, the remaining schooling could be crammed into a smaller time period, as the older NPC could be expected to be more focused than a 12 to 14 year old child (yes, yes, I know, a 13-year-old was considered a man and all that - stow it!) ... perhaps in half or a third of the time.  Therefore, in the case of Emmanuel, who is the zero-level NPC that started this line of inquiry, he is 25 years old and has a bent for public speaking.  He was haranguing about the upper classes the first day he was met by the party.  His 15 years since age 10 as a regular church goer stands in for 3 years of schooling, and the last two could be crammed into a period of say 8 months (a third of two years).

Following that, he would have to attend a seminary somewhere, or at the very least take full-time training under a personal tutelage of at least a 4th level cleric.  That level isn't arbitrary ... it takes a 4th level to cast investiture, which is the spell that defines a person as being knowledgeable enough to BE a cleric.  Under personal tutelage, two years training would be enough (focusing on training would be more focused), but in a seminary it would depend upon Emmanuel's drive.  He could also flunk out, obviously, either with one-on-one training or otherwise, even if he really, really wanted to be a cleric.  If he did not, and finished his training, there would still be the question of his being accepted by the god - in this case, the Roman Catholic god.  And that could take anywhere from a day to four years ... if it were to happen at all.

So, not an easy thing, and not something that can simply be gained by experience, like a fighter.  But then magic is complicated.

The Skew Of Society

Wickedmurph requested last week that I convey my "... thoughts on the role of church/clerics in a society where magical healing is a common/effective tool. My thought is that it would significantly change the sociological structure of a medieval society."

And Maroon added that he was interested in how I handled magic healing in my game. "If 6 points of damage is just a scratch to one but a deep wound to another, what does 6 points of healing do? How does hit point recovery in general play out?"

So we'll tackle both in this post, and a little more besides.

Maroon first, as it's the easier question. I realize that some of my comments on this post does create a sort of double-standard where it comes to healing spells, vis-a-vis their being more 'effective' on a lower level ... effective in this case being that they are able to heal a greater percentage of the individual's total hit points. That's Maroon's quoted question, above.

I would say that I'm not that niggling in my concerns about the game. My previous arguments were about zero-levels having enough hit points to be a challenge, not a forensic discussion on what sorts of wounds exactly were experienced by lower levels vs. higher levels. My exact words were, "I don't see severe damage occurring until getting down to the last few hit points that a character has." I was being deliberately vague about what was meant by 'severe.' Specifically, you could say, a blow that would have an actual chance of knocking an individual unconscious, or debilitating their combat effectiveness. This would certainly happen much more easily to a rookie than an experienced veteran. A few arrows landing around a rookie, and one glancing off his forehead and causing a light flesh wound, would be enough to cause them to faint or crawl away in terror, or even panic stupidly when they're not hurt that badly. At the same time, someone who's been hit before, and often, will snap off the arrow in his chest and go on fighting.

But you know, that's all just apologetic crap. Truth is, I don't think about it much. Hit points are a convenient battle abstract, and I like it recognized that even the lowest level characters have enough of the abstract to at least get hit a few times (on average) before caving like fluff. Sure, two sword blows should be enough to put a peasant down (average 9 damage), but there ought to be a better than 1 in 64 chance that they won't.

And I hate to disappoint, but the application of a healing spell in my world is grossly unrealistic - but eminently playable. A cleric casts the spell, whacks a player with the healing, and that player can jump up the next round and get back to swinging. That sort of thing wouldn't fly in a novel and it wouldn't play well in a movie - and I wouldn't have it that way in either - but it kicks ass in a combat game.

As I said once before, I'm not opposed to D&D being a game ... for me, that means as complicated as possible, with the rules being clear-cut. Here are my rules regarding casting a cure light wounds spell, if you're interested. I only have somatic components for spells, so the cleric doesn't need to pull things out, they can just start casting during their combat move. They can't move more than five feet while casting. If they are nudged, knocked, hit or otherwise thrown off-kilter, the spell is ruined (why? who knows, force lines maybe). If the party to be healed is more than 5 feet away, the cleric can move 5' per round and cast the spell the next round or the round after that, provided they don't get knocked. Cure light wounds heals 5-8 damage, not 1-8. They can distribute the healing to more than one person, but they can bestow healing to only one person per round. The cleric needs to apply only the lightest touch, and any part of the body will do. Therefore, players in combat can be healed while fighting.
My players are used to it and they like it. I don't think it reduces the challenge of the game, so its fine the way it is.

ickedmurph's question about churches and clerics is more ticklish. It should be noted (and so rarely is) that the power of a magical cleric to weild power in a medieval setting should be at least fifty times greater than in actual reality ... which was itself extensive. Consider a village where every accident, every childhood illness, every momentary lapse in judgement regarding the loss of a finger or appendage can be instantly fixed and cured. Consider that the loss of a finger, if the finger is retained, can be easily made better if the finger is held up to the rest of the body and an ordinary cure spell is used (restoration wouldn't be necessary).

And now consider how the people of that village would feel about the cleric (or druid, it applies to them, also) in question ... about the safety of their children, about the certainty of their immortal souls (now existing with observable proof), and about the possibility of extended or even immortal life (reincarnation). Those people will be violently loyal to the cleric who has promised, and proved, his or her community investment. They will not couch persons of other faith, they will not hesitate to kill a threat to the cleric or temple, and they will certainly not listen to the liberal or otherwise blasphemous babblings of strangers blowing through towns.

Proof positive that religious beliefs are real would substantially increase the power of the church - which is hard to imagine, since the church wielded immense power in our history without that proof.
I tend to play my world out to be more liberal than that, since it makes for a highly repressed culture and therefore a world that players are afraid to move in. But I can play certain regions/kingdoms as harsh as I want, as adventure fodder.

As an aside, about my decision, two decades ago, to stop playing with material components for spells. Mostly, I hated them, and the players hated them. They felt like a punishment for getting to be higher level, being just another cheap way to strain money out of the player's pocket. It was particularly resented since the cleric, for instance, struggled to get up to 55,000 or 220,000 X.P. only to have those great spells stigmatized by extra costs. After all, it would take literally years of campaigning to reach 7th or 9th level in my world - upwards of 50-60 runnings. So I threw out the extra restraints on using those spells in favor of a more friendly perspective.

Having added spells to my trade tables, however, I find myself in a quandry. It is much rarer to find a 9th level cleric than a 1st level cleric, so it is only natural that 5th level spells be much less available than 1st level spells. So naturally, it a party wants to have a dead character raised, they should expect to pay through the nose ... say, 5,000 g.p., at least. Anything less would hardly be a penalty for dying.
However ... what happens when the cleric character reaches 9th level, and now possesses raise dead? And can cast that spell every day? I run a world that is rather thickly populated, such that there are typically 200,000 people or more living within a 60 mile radius. That's enough that if someone's just died (and we're talking 77+ people dying per week), the cleric can easily be sent for and be expected to arrive within the 9-day max. And while most individuals wouldn't have 5,000 in cash, there are a lot of fixed houses around that are worth thousands each - and what individual wouldn't give up their house if they could have their husband or wife back?

It seems all well and good to say that this is fair, but since the spell can be cast daily, do you really want to give your cleric character 260,000 g.p. per year for doing nothing but sit on their ass? (that's assuming they cast the spell only once a week - everyday would be 1.825 million g.p.).

In the wider view, there's just no way that the cost of raise dead can be as much as 5,000 g.p. Given the steady condition of dying people, everything would be owned by the church in short order ... and there would be no more money to give over to the church to raise one's loved ones. (Note that this problem wouldn't be improved by reinstating material components ... it would just put all the money in the hands of the apothecaries, who sell the components - which they could conjure from off-plane, further distorting the system until it was broken).

Giving the gentle reader three options:

A) The cost of raise dead is fairly trivial, and therefore not a punishment at all for the party. This is fine for play, but sociologically it would make people much more willing to take risks, wouldn't it? How would that affect ordinary community behavior? Entertainments? Are we talking naked jousting? Widespread masochism? Could you burn a witch and still keep her from killing your cows next week? If it gets so even the common people can afford to pay the cleric, where goes the fear with which the upper crusts rule? If everyone in the household from the cook to the dressmaker did not fear death at the master's hands, is there anyone a cleric couldn't have assassinated?

But of course, whatever you charge down at the church, a cleric can always give the spell away for free, right?

B) Introduce a non-fiscal penalty, such as draining the strength of the cleric for some period upon casting the spell. But which spells would you choose for this penalty? And aren't we again talking about punishing a player for success?

C) Create a disinterest in raising the dead. "Yes, mom's dead, but we'd rather keep the house." What are the sociological implications of a world where people would casually choose to leave people in the grave? Would love die in favor of materialism? I mean, more than it does right now?

The phrase, "I'll love you forever," would have to be changed to, "I'd raise you" ... since it just wasn't done. Followed by the ever popular, "I wouldn't give two cents to raise my father." I see a rather cold, insidious world there, where familial ties were conveniently dispensed with as everyone hardened themselves against considering any kindness to be a weakness. How long is it before the five grand you won't give for raising dead becomes the two hundred you wouldn't pay for removing paralysis?

D) Create a refusal to offer aid. The clerics can, but they won't. Nevermind that it would remove a huge opportunity for them to influence the social fabric, they're just stubbornly opposed to helping anyone.
Resentment, anyone?

Overall, I see problems. Mostly because I don't want to hand over heaps of money to the players for no effort. Sitting on their laurels is one thing ... funnelling the coin of the world into their pockets is something else.

Of course, there's always the possibility of creating clerical wars, between clerics working their 'territory' in a gangland fashion, rubbing out the competition and so on - not for beliefs, but to cultivate the dying to make coin. That undoubtedly sounds interesting to some, but I myself have no interest in running a campaign based on the Roaring Twenties.

Whatever the case, it all seems contrary to the usual perception of D&D. I'm not sure what I'll do about it ... make rules about who can, or cannot, be paid for their spells (and who's allowed to pay), based on social hierarchy and such. Best thing I can think of to retain the status quo.

A Player's Cleric

In spite of some of the comments on the previous thread, it has been my experience that unless a DM leans on the cleric, the cleric won’t behave all that piously. Pobody suggests a practical system, though in essence it is little more than the usual pressure through extortion (behave or lose spells) dressed up so that the cleric knows exactly how the extortion will work. R makes some good arguments for the motivations of gods to test and shape their followers. Since, however, the ‘gods’ are really just me, I can’t fool myself that I’m playing out the parameters of the game rather than flatly invoking my will (and my perception of the cleric) upon the player.

I have made no secret of the fact that I’m opposed to such things philosophically.

Wouldn’t it be preferential for the cleric to seek out their god for reasons of their own? Because there were positive gains to be had? In other words, can we drop the whip and invoke the carrot?

I have three proposals, all of which I think depend on the player’s conception of their cleric and how best to participate in the campaign. None rely remotely upon my action as the DM. For the record, as far as I know there have been no other suggestions along these lines.

1. Helpful Spells.

First of all, consider the helpful nature of the clerical spells. That is nothing profound, it is immediately obvious to any player – the clerical spells are not offensive, they’re defensive.

From the point of view of the NPC, particularly the impoverished NPC, even a first level cleric’s spells are a magnificent god-send. Why is it that a cleric, who has the time and the power, never thinks to turn their spells into goodwill from the local peasants or whomever else the cleric chooses? Why not wander about the countryside, purifying the local wells, healing the odd individual who has fallen from a roof or cut themselves with an axe? Why not aid a huntsman for the day? Or put a glyph, free of charge, on the front door of a poor man’s hovel, one who has eight children and who worries about their safety? These things are cheap and simple for the cleric. For the individual, to purchase such a spell is completely beyond their means. The DM’s Guide recommends 100 g.p. for a cure light wounds. Attempting to give it an economic basis, in my online world I’ve given the price as 17 g.p. Do you think a cotter with an injured child can afford such a thing?

Yet what will that cotter say when that 1st level cleric appeared and healed their child – for free? Do you think they will be distrustful? If so, you know little of human behavior, particularly among the poor. In reality, a local village will love a cleric because he will sit at their bedsides and hear their stories or confessions. Add to that the improved safety and survival of the community through magical means. To say that this could be returned practically is putting it mildly. Need a ditch dug or a barn raised? Need a horse for the day from one of the local freeholders? Short on food? Don’t you see that the merest word that Good Father Jakob is going on a journey would encourage the entire community to show up, make sure he has enough to eat, encourage him to look up their relatives if he needs a place to stay, travel along with him a few miles on the road to see that he’s safely on his way and so on. Such a cleric would never need a bed in an inn, would never want for helpful friends, would never lack character witnesses – and would even gain the goodwill of the local lord when his healthy tenants managed their rent or produced their quotas more efficiently.

Does the party need men-at-arms? Why would you need to advertise? Peasant Theobald’s sister’s first cousin has been training with weapons since age five and has four friends – he’d love the work. And when those five guardsmen show up, they may admire the fighter in the party or be amazed by the mage, but they will adore the cleric whom they’ve heard so much about. And they will be of the cleric’s religion. They will follow the fighter’s instructions because the cleric says so. In case you don’t realize, this has been the manner of armies since, well, ever.

You understand, the mage can’t work this way. He may dazzle with a dancing lights spell or ease someone’s burden for a few hours with a Tenser’s floating disc, but most of the time his offensive spells are going to frighten ordinary people rather than help them. The cleric, on the other hand, is seen as a go-between between themselves and a terrifying god – having the cleric on their side offers a tremendous comfort. Do not underestimate the practical aspect of that comfort.

Of course, many DMs will resist this sort of influence by a cleric in their campaigns, seeing it as anathema to the restrictions or limitations they insist must be a player’s lot. I prefer to let the players find ways to make their lives easier ... if they will do so intelligently.

2. Helpful Church

All too often, the player cleric’s church is seen as a wart on the player’s free will. The church tells them what to do, the church tells them where to do it, the church is full of rules and pushy masters dictating this and that to the player. This is how DMs typically run a church. They see it as an impenetrable hierarchy, testy and exploitive, an iron hand micro-managing every cleric’s specific activity from day to day. Partly this is due to the influence of films and stories which depend upon a villainous entity opposing the virtuous and ultimately successful loner. Partly this is due to most D&D players instinctive dislike for any kind of authority, bred in them occasionally by a particular church when they were young.

In actual fact, no successful entity can function if abuse of authority or petty manipulation are the order of the day. Some of this might go on, yes ... but the normal order of events would be that of a club of individuals who are anxious to create success though mutual aid and service. A cleric who is in good standing with his church, who collects for it a reasonable tithe (10% of the cleric’s personal income), should receive back in kind very much the sort of goodwill discussed earlier among local peasants and landholders. A cleric should never want for lodging in any city of the world where there is a church, nor for want of information, short-term financial support, equipment (any equipment, not just weapons and armor), political influence or military aid (even if the cleric’s level only merits a bodyguard). Obviously a church might limit the cleric from borrowing a war galley ‘just to pop off across the gulf for a few days,’ but should the cleric need to get across the gulf for good reason, the church might quickly work out a passage with some good captain who is well known to the church and is going there anyway. At possibly no immediate cost to the cleric. They might tell him, “Just add a bit more to the coffer next time around,” saying nothing else about it.

The more cynical of my gentle readers may see immediately how this would impose reverse limitations on the cleric – other clerics showing up to impose for money, aid, and that standard ‘mission for the church’ to which I’m opposed. You will note, however, that I didn’t suggest the cleric show up in an odd town and insist on the local priest’s personal intervention in the cleric’s activities. Only for the sort of aid which can be quickly put off onto clerks, stewards and the like. “Get him passage to Oslo. See that he gets a chance to look over the armoury. And he needs a cure light wounds scroll.”

Would a player, I wonder, be willing to provide a stranger of the same religion a scroll on a moment’s notice, expecting never to see it again? I think probably a player would rather commit his or herself to the adventure personally rather than do such a thing. But that is wrong thinking. What goes around comes around ... and once a cleric has gained a reputation, quite a lot can come around.

Players usually, in my experience, insist on choosing obscure religions from which there can never be any help (nor any imposition). They would rather be alone. In my online campaign, having given his assent to starting in Germany and being well aware that Catholicism and Protestantism would be the norm, he chose an obscure Polish paganistic sect. In my offline campaign, where the party started in Russia, the cleric chose to follow Buddhism and the druid chose Celtism. The latter was at least a little closer to the norm – but rather than move closer to the Celtic orbit, and into Scandinavia, the party instead chose to travel south and east, ostensibly towards China. In other words, farther from their church – one may presume for various reasons. Because religion wasn’t important and because organized religion is a fucking pain in the ass.

Every organized religion has a traditional portion of its holy persons acting according to their own personal relationship with God. Francis of Assisi or Benedict, founding unique monastic orders; Jesus or John, itinerant preachers who considered themselves wholly Jewish (and who were killed for preaching outside the established order and from political expedience, NOT because they were loners); Confucius, who spent most of his life being kicked from one court to another, who followed the traditional religion ‘religiously’ but whose personal ideas were tolerated; Laozi who proposed the Daoist school; Mozi who proposed Mohism; Zoroaster; the Brahmin priests who wrote the Upanishads long after the founding of Hinduism; Mahavira who founded the Jain sect. We have a tendency to think of these things as ‘heresies’ due to our western catholic perceptions ... when in fact these advances were widely embraced improvements on earlier systems of thought and worship. Churches know that there must be a unique, barely influenced group seeking personal religion because they creates vitality in what would otherwise become a stale and declining religion. The ‘gods’ would know this also, and would know enough to keep their hands off clerics who might someday prove greater than their predecessors.

A cleric should never be a ‘follower’. Yet this is the word most commonly used: a cleric ‘follows’ his religion. But a cleric should be a LEADER. Like the mage and the fighter, the player cleric is not an ordinary individual ... and should NOT be bound by ordinary concerns.

3. Money.

In spite of what the book suggests, gods, rituals and practices do NOT underlay the fabric of the church. The gods can’t be bothered (it would be a stupid world where the gods intervened constantly, more so if that was the experience of every person dwelling in that world as well as the players), while rituals and practices are just a dumb-show to impress the locals. Churches run on money. Money pays the army, it builds the churches, it greases the local nobility, it provides for maintenance and for research, it promotes influence and it motivates. A church will last very little time without money to do all of that.

The manner in which this money is gathered is called the ‘collect.’ It is the vast sum of money that a frightened populace is prepared to hand over in order to keep the gods from getting more involved. Lots of money keeps the gods content and happy. A God that showed up every five minutes might awe those immediately present, but the successful cleric is going to be the one who represents another god and who says, “give me money and my god will kick that god’s ass.” In D&D, since all the gods are real, this is probably true.

Gods do not make themselves more welcome by hanging around.

Why would a cleric build a church? For the money. A church is a factory ... and the bigger the church, the more money it makes. Throughout the centuries various religious leaders have understood very clearly that a BIG, BIG church will pour money into the religion’s empty coffers. That is the reason why St. Peter’s was built in Rome during the counter-Reformation, why the Mezquita was built in Cordoba, Spain, and why the Hagia Sofia was built by Justinian in Constantinople. This are unbelievably immense structures, encouraging people to travel thousands of miles to see them and to leave their money.

Think of your player’s church as a money-making entrepreneurial venture. I propose that for every 100 g.p. spent on the structure, it should earn 4 g.p. per month: 2 g.p. to be paid to the religious organization as a tithe, 1 g.p. for maintenance and 1 g.p. to go into the cleric’s pocket, to do with as he or she sees fit. The bigger the church, the bigger the return. This is not very far from the reality. During the 30 Years War in Germany, the Protestants and Catholics vied to destroy one another’s churches (and thus their potential revenue) while defending and building more of their own. Tithes paid for that war ... and virtually for every war preceding it, as governments had not quite mastered the method of running on a deficit (which was standardized during the Baroque effort) and free money is the easiest to pay back.

No doubt this last will be the hardest to swallow – for anyone who has not actually worked within a religious entity, or who has not had experience with their bookkeeping. I would note that the Catholic church continues to be the largest landlord in the world, a condition which was created through the spreading of religion and the gathering of the collect. Very often the Catholic church as been able to put its own army in the field, a circumstance reflected very definitely by the gathering of men-at-arms as described in the Player’s Handbook.

Did you think the player was supposed to pay those troops out of his own pocket? Or maybe that they would graciously fight for free. That could be ... but what would they eat?

No Piety, Please

A recent post by Ryan has got me thinking that I have hardly written anything about clerics. This coupled with the party in the online campaign suffering somewhat from a lack of healing, having lost their cleric to the winds of change, plus the complete disinterest in anyone from the blogosphere coming forward to play a cleric, impels me to write.

Ryan asks the question, “Though many versions of many players handbooks throughout the years have mentioned time and again about a cleric advancing his temple/deity/cause's interests, how often does your average DM or player actually do anything of the sort?” To which the answer is, naturally, virtually no one.

There’s no doubt that the cleric is the least liked character. There are a number of reasons for that, not the least of which is the general dislike that RPG players have for traditional Western organized religion. One might say that religion is the antithesis of D&D, as virtually everything about the game flies in the face of what the church deems moral behaviour: the embracing of evil, the butchery of random creatures, greed, the depiction of devils and demons, etc. There may be Christian groups out there playing D&D, but they’re not particularly vocal. It has been my experience that players who come to the table have generally chosen to leave their religion elsewhere.

So the cleric seems like the player must put on a straight-jacket of behaviour, to obey both God and Church, and in the process become the thorn in the side for every party member who wants to rape and pillage. (Well, pillage. D&D has surprisingly little rape).

The game has done little to remove this stigma.

Take the most useless book ever produced: the Deities and Demigods. In the paltry section at the front of the book, which should have been a beacon to clerics, do we start with, ‘How to run a cleric?’ No, what we start with is ‘Dungeon Mastering Divine Beings.’ Because what is really important is teaching the DM how to use gods as monsters or as a means of railroading the party into adventures; quote: “... the characters themselves may be asked to (or given no choice but to) take part in the maneuverings of the gods’ forces upon earth.”

This is followed by the section, ‘Clerics and Deities’, which goes on to describe other means of railroading, as well as blatant threats to take spells away from clerics who do not accept said railroading. This is followed by two completely useless pages about omens and immortality. And that’s all. The fuckwits at TSR really earned their money that day.

Given that, why would anyone want to be a cleric? Well, the spells are fairly decent and clerics go up levels considerable faster than mages (at the beginning), so that is at least something. Give me the healing, let me turn a few undead and let’s just agree not to make a big deal out of the god thing, all right? To which most DMs will agree. I’m not that much of a stickler myself. I’ve never removed spells from a cleric – never felt that was necessary. I’ve occasionally made a cleric walk over fire for a god, invariably because after five levels of the cleric barely acknowledging that gods exist, they suddenly want something.

(I have this problem in particular with druids).

Ryan brings up a few points: 1) that the cleric is usually the only one in the party who actually worships at all; 2) what is the cleric doing with this party of grubby bastards; and 3) who watches the temple if there is one? These are all salient. I’d answer that the cleric is the only one who worships because he’s the only one who has to; that the cleric is usually no less grubby that his companions; and that most assets owned by parties (castles, gatehouses, various entrepreneurial ventures such as inns or blacksmithies) all have a magic protective field that automatically stops them from being destroyed or fucked with when the party is out of town. Not that it should be that way – it just usually IS.

I don’t particularly have problem with clerics being with ruffians – Friar Tuck is the traditional example, a swordsman comparable with Robin and a dwarvish appetite. There’s nothing about clerics that insists they must be upstanding members of the community. That is a trope invented with the Victorian Age; if you haven’t read The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio in the 14th century, then you know jack shit about medieval clerics. To note another source from the period, Dante’s Inferno was full of clerics.

A cleric is perfectly in his right to do nothing for a party who will not pay lip service to the religion. In fact, there are several spells which I impose a strict limitation on with regards to players who are not invested in the cleric’s religion – protection from evil, bless, chant, prayer, combine, to name a few. If you’re not of the cleric’s religion, you don’t get the benefit. It is the cleric, tolerating the party’s heathen behaviour, that enables indifference and apathy. Admittedly, most parties would rather do without a cleric than mumble a few gracious words to a god in exchange for a cure light wounds. That is only pride, however. Watch how a party will scrape and bow when it comes to getting raised.

That is the DMs fault, usually. Unless the party isn’t being made to perform a quest, the raise dead spell is generally as available to a party as a suit of armor. “We’ll get him raised,” the party says casually, never thinking that perhaps the local 9th level cleric might have a better use for that spell on a daily basis than bestowing it on nere-do-wells who blow into town with a dead body. Got money? Oh sure, here’s your spell. How often does an NPC cleric stop to consider whether this adventurer covered in blood deserves to be raised?

I won’t argue that a cleric who withholds his spells is going to quickly find himself isolated come the next encounter. A player’s antipathy towards ANY pretence of religion would incline you to think that the very act of saying “Thank you God” will spontaneously invoke vomiting from every participant at the table. So naturally, even a gung ho cleric quickly washes himself squeaky clean from any hint of piety, rapidly becoming a mage with poor spells who quickly goes up levels.

I want to explain why that is poor thinking, on both the player’s and the DM’s part, but not today. I’ll pick this up in the next post.