So, I was thinking about trying to start a D&D club at my school, and I've already decided to run Dragon of Icespire Peak if the idea works, but there's one wrinkle: Some parents might be against this because of things like fictional religion, which leads to yet another problem. As some of you may know, one of the main story arcs of Dragon of Icespire Peak has to do with the god of greed, Talos. I need a way to factor him out, but all of the ideas I've come up with thus far won't work. If anybody has an idea of how this could work, please send it my way.
Change the Anchorites of Talos to the Anchorites of Thunder. They are still trying to harness the power of thunder in the form of Gorthok Thunder Boar, but it's no longer connected to a religion practiced by anyone else. They're just doing it because they want to cause chaos and destruction.
In an environment opposed to alternate religions, any of the classes that rely on divine or supernatural power would be problematic…. Clerics, warlocks, paladins and probably wizards snd sorcerers, too. Trying to explain the difference between a cleric and sorcerer to someone that intolerant is probably pointless .
Is this the sort of club that would have an advisor from the school faculty? Might want to run it by them to see what they think. I don't know much about your school district, but in a world where Percy Jackson and the whole Rick Riordan imprint, Wings of Fire, and the Warrior Cats (not sure about WoF but the other two definitely embrace a polytheistic or counter to mainstream theology/cosmology/spirituality are commonly read by students between the children's lit/young adult market, you might be overthinking it.
Honestly, back when there was more organized agitation against TTRPGs, mostly D&D, the so-called "Satanic Panic" (which was actually about a lot more than just D&D), a lot of better informed folk, like psychologists and education scholars knew D&D was what it was, a novel way for kids and adults alike to engage with imagination. A lot of gifted and talented programs embraced D&D and actually had D&D available as an extracurricular or summer enrichment activity. Within the literature, there were disclaimers about D&D options explaining the game and offering the equivalent of the possilbly real possibly apocryphal Mister Rogers defense of the game. I'm sure that language has evolved, maybe someone can source it, and it may be of use in chartering your club.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Some parents might be against this because of things like fictional religion
It's a fictional game where creature revere dieties and powers. That has demons and other vile creatures such as evil dragons. If some parents are against D&D, there's not much to do about it, they can remove their kids from your game. The school can ban you from running D&D even but that would be sad for the kids.
Turning Talos into an elemental power is a possibility, similarly turn the shrine of Luck of Tymora to a shrine to the power of luck, and the acolyte of Chauntea Adabra Gwynn as a druid only. There's also a temple of Abbathor that might have to be turned into a ruined dwarven outpost to get rid of any religion reference.
In an environment opposed to alternate religions, any of the classes that rely on divine or supernatural power would be problematic…. Clerics, warlocks, paladins and probably wizards snd sorcerers, too. Trying to explain the difference between a cleric and sorcerer to someone that intolerant is probably pointless .
In 5e, the only class that actually draws power from the divine is the cleric.
Sorcerer and paladin draw power from within themselves. This can easily be narrated as force of will or personality without referencing any sort of religion. Warlocks pacts are also different - there is no worship or religion involved - just a trade of knowledge in exchange for service of some description and that can easily be minimized if necessary. The only problematic element would likely be the Fiend patron that you could just leave out.
This is assuming that the ones objecting to religion, do not object to magic or other supernatural elements that are unrelated to religion.
As for the cleric, even the choice of diety could be considered a role play aspect. A DM could narrate the cleric as drawing power from nature or elements or anything else, eliminating the elements of an organized religion. A life cleric could draw on the power of living things, a nature cleric could be the power of nature - in general, a diety is not needed to make the cleric class work from a mechanical viewpoint - all a DM needs to do is describe a source of power for the cleric's abilities and if that is an issue - just leave it out entirely and use the mechanics without defining what grants them their class abilities. (However, that won't change the text in the published materials that explicitly refers to gods and religions).
As for the Anchorites of Talos, it would be fairly straight forward to have them be a group of elementalists (thunder) as suggested above or any sort of organized group though it would depend on how much any organized group like a cult would be perceived (by the parents) even if they weren't following a religion.
So, I was thinking about trying to start a D&D club at my school, and I've already decided to run Dragon of Icespire Peak if the idea works, but there's one wrinkle: Some parents might be against this because of things like fictional religion, which leads to yet another problem. As some of you may know, one of the main story arcs of Dragon of Icespire Peak has to do with the god of greed, Talos. I need a way to factor him out, but all of the ideas I've come up with thus far won't work. If anybody has an idea of how this could work, please send it my way.
Orange Juice!
Change the Anchorites of Talos to the Anchorites of Thunder. They are still trying to harness the power of thunder in the form of Gorthok Thunder Boar, but it's no longer connected to a religion practiced by anyone else. They're just doing it because they want to cause chaos and destruction.
In an environment opposed to alternate religions, any of the classes that rely on divine or supernatural power would be problematic…. Clerics, warlocks, paladins and probably wizards snd sorcerers, too. Trying to explain the difference between a cleric and sorcerer to someone that intolerant is probably pointless .
Is this the sort of club that would have an advisor from the school faculty? Might want to run it by them to see what they think. I don't know much about your school district, but in a world where Percy Jackson and the whole Rick Riordan imprint, Wings of Fire, and the Warrior Cats (not sure about WoF but the other two definitely embrace a polytheistic or counter to mainstream theology/cosmology/spirituality are commonly read by students between the children's lit/young adult market, you might be overthinking it.
Honestly, back when there was more organized agitation against TTRPGs, mostly D&D, the so-called "Satanic Panic" (which was actually about a lot more than just D&D), a lot of better informed folk, like psychologists and education scholars knew D&D was what it was, a novel way for kids and adults alike to engage with imagination. A lot of gifted and talented programs embraced D&D and actually had D&D available as an extracurricular or summer enrichment activity. Within the literature, there were disclaimers about D&D options explaining the game and offering the equivalent of the possilbly real possibly apocryphal Mister Rogers defense of the game. I'm sure that language has evolved, maybe someone can source it, and it may be of use in chartering your club.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
It's a fictional game where creature revere dieties and powers. That has demons and other vile creatures such as evil dragons. If some parents are against D&D, there's not much to do about it, they can remove their kids from your game. The school can ban you from running D&D even but that would be sad for the kids.
Turning Talos into an elemental power is a possibility, similarly turn the shrine of Luck of Tymora to a shrine to the power of luck, and the acolyte of Chauntea Adabra Gwynn as a druid only. There's also a temple of Abbathor that might have to be turned into a ruined dwarven outpost to get rid of any religion reference.
Thanks for all of these ideas, guys. I'll make sure to put them to use.
Orange Juice!
In 5e, the only class that actually draws power from the divine is the cleric.
Sorcerer and paladin draw power from within themselves. This can easily be narrated as force of will or personality without referencing any sort of religion. Warlocks pacts are also different - there is no worship or religion involved - just a trade of knowledge in exchange for service of some description and that can easily be minimized if necessary. The only problematic element would likely be the Fiend patron that you could just leave out.
This is assuming that the ones objecting to religion, do not object to magic or other supernatural elements that are unrelated to religion.
As for the cleric, even the choice of diety could be considered a role play aspect. A DM could narrate the cleric as drawing power from nature or elements or anything else, eliminating the elements of an organized religion. A life cleric could draw on the power of living things, a nature cleric could be the power of nature - in general, a diety is not needed to make the cleric class work from a mechanical viewpoint - all a DM needs to do is describe a source of power for the cleric's abilities and if that is an issue - just leave it out entirely and use the mechanics without defining what grants them their class abilities. (However, that won't change the text in the published materials that explicitly refers to gods and religions).
As for the Anchorites of Talos, it would be fairly straight forward to have them be a group of elementalists (thunder) as suggested above or any sort of organized group though it would depend on how much any organized group like a cult would be perceived (by the parents) even if they weren't following a religion.
Sounds good.
Orange Juice!