Gods and Religions, Part 4: Reward and Punishment

This week in our ongoing discussion of Gods & Religions, we take a look at mechanical incentives for roleplaying characters of faith and devotion.  Ultimately, a character's relationship with their god is a matter of roleplaying.  But GMs are always on the lookout for ways to encourage more roleplaying and reward good examples of it.  If you want gods and religions to take an important role in your campaign, and you want to actively encourage your player characters' participation in that system, we've got some ideas for you.  Specifically, we have three complementary systems that encourage GMs to hand out mechanical rewards or punishments to characters roleplaying their way through a world of fickle and demanding gods.

First, there are minor ongoing benefits for characters who maintain the day-to-day trappings of their religion, including performing sacrifices, praying, and adhering to dietary restrictions.  Then there are greater one-time rewards for characters who perform exemplary services in the name of their deity.  And on the other end of the spectrum, there are punishments for those who transgress against the ethos of their deity.  Examples and suggestions are provided, but the rules are not hard and fast; a GM should feel free to adopt and adapt them as they see fit for their own campaign.

Faith Rituals
   Every god or religion asks something of its worshipers, something that affects their daily lives and marks them as a follower of that god.  They might make regular offerings, pray daily, wear certain clothing, or refrain from eating certain foods.  In return for maintaining faith rituals in this way, loyal worshipers are granted minor boons.
   The particular details of what a worshiper is expected to do and what boon they might gain depends on the god or religion in question and is at the discretion of the GM.  Examples are given below.  As a general rule, maintaining faith rituals should be a roleplaying choice that does not adversely affect the playability of the game; a GM should not demand followers perform onerous tasks that slow down the game overmuch or impose penalties that affect the efficacy of a character unless this is core to the concept of the deity.  Boons for maintaining faith rituals should be minor ongoing effects such as a +1 to a particular skill, and should be no more powerful than the boon granted by a trait.
   If a character fails to maintain their faith rituals, they lose the benefits of the granted boon until they have flawlessly upheld the rituals for a week straight.

Gods and Religions, Part 2: Death, Undeath, and the Afterlife

Death - it comes for us all, eventually.  Sorry, that's not how I usually start my articles.  Welcome to part II of Gods and Religions!  Usually, an adventurer's main interaction with death is in the dealing thereof, but sometimes - hopefully not too often - the characters get to meet death face-to-face.  If they are lucky enough and rich enough (or know a druid and aren't afraid to come back as a different species) they might even get to come back from the dead.  This can make death seem like just another game mechanic, but it is so much more important than that.

A religion's attitude towards death can have a profound effect on the beliefs and attitudes of the individual and on society as a whole.  And that's just in our world!  Imagine how much more important religious ideas about death become when the afterlife is not just a matter of belief but of verifiable fact (heck, you can just plane shift there!), when there are a number of spells that can bring the dead back to life, and when dead bodies returning as undead monstrosities is a very real danger.

With that in mind, there are some questions you need to ask yourself about death when you are creating the gods and religions of your world.  Questions like:

Can dying in a certain way have consequences for a soul?

Einherjar - brave souls who died in battle - are fêted by Valkyries in Valhalla. Walhall by Emil Doepler, via Wikimedia

Most belief systems have the concept of a 'good death' vs a 'bad death'.  Suicide, for instance, is often considered a bad death, but dying for your faith is a good death (see for example the many hundreds of early Christians who were martyred by pagans and became saints as a result).  For the ancient Greeks, drowning in the sea was a particularly bad death because your body often could not be recovered.  In most cases a good death means a fast track to the nice afterlife, but a bad death means a longer waiting period, or even being condemned to the shitty afterlife that no one wants to go to, even for a quick visit.  In pagan Norse belief, for instance, a brave death in battle might see you whisked by Valkyries up to the halls of Valhalla for an afterlife of feasting and drinking, or to the field of Fólkvangr where Freyja's hall of Sessrúmnir stands (and where women who die a noble death also go), but dying of disease or old age gets you sent to the dark halls of Hel.

Consider having the idea of a 'bad death' manifest mechanically in-game with tougher resurrection costs.  Maybe a character who dies in a way that their god considers 'bad' cannot be raised by the raise dead spell and require the more expensive resurrection or even true resurrection.  

At the very least, having a concept of a 'good death' vs a 'bad death' can affect the risks a believer might be willing to take.  With the promise of divine reward, maybe a character will be more willing to fight to the death in battle.  With the threat of a tougher afterlife, maybe that same character will be a little more cautious fighting at sea, where the risk of drowning and having their soul sucked into a black abyss is very real.  Or maybe a character dying of disease will throw themselves recklessly into battle in hopes of reaching a better afterlife.

Speaking of the afterlife...

Gods and Religions, Part 1: Worldbuilding Options

Some of my players may find it funny that I am starting up a series of articles on gods and religions.  It seems like whenever they roll up new characters for one of my work-in-progress campaign settings, one of them asks, "So what gods do we have to choose from?" and my response is always a sheepish, "I, uh, haven't gotten around to making the gods yet."  In my defense, even if it rarely comes to fruition, I devote a fairly large portion of my thought processes to the gods of a setting.  Gods and religions are important, and if executed properly, their influence on the campaign setting can be profound.  

The fantasy worlds of D&D and Pathfinder have an advantage over our world in that the gods have an empirically verifiable effect on those worlds.  Our world has a variety of competing religions and faiths and an increasing number of people who doubt the veracity of any of them.  If army chaplains could heal the wounds of their companions with a touch of their glowing hand, like D&D clerics and paladins can, our world would likely have a very different outlook on religion.  As it is, we as worldbuilders have to deal with this difference as best we can.  

There are two main approaches that a typical campaign setting takes to religions: universal gods, or local pantheons.  

Universal Gods

In this approach, the same gods hold sway over the entire campaign setting.  This is what most campaign settings (eg. Faerûn, Greyhawk, Golarion) tend to use.  It is the easier approach for the creator of the world, because they only have to think up one batch of gods (usually adding in some new ones in later supplements), and it is easier for the players because they don't need to navigate a treacherous web of home-brewed theology.