To demonstrate this I want to use a couple of real-life examples. I’m not going to talk about real-world scientific testing of magic, since real-world magic is integral to a number of religions and I don’t want to start an ideological debate. Rather, let’s take a step back to the 19th century when a couple of pseudoscientific trends were sweeping through Europe—phrenology and hypnotism.
Phrenology is the use of skull measurements and facial features to forecast personality traits up to and including IQ and moral conscience. Basically, it’s the idea that stupid or evil people look different than smart or virtuous people.
Hypnotism is something that most readers are probably familiar with. It’s the act of putting someone into a light trance and making suggestions which they are inclined to later follow.
What do these two “arts” have in common? Well, both are pseudo-scientific and both, in their heyday, were the subject of much controversy. There were large camps of supporters and doubters for each system, and both sides felt they had strong scientific reasons backing up their opinions.
That’s where the similarity ends, however. Although the two systems appealed to similar crowds, rose to similar levels of infamy, and reigned supreme during the same time frame—one of them turned out to be complete rubbish (phrenology), while the other turned out to be a valid and reproducible phenomenon (hypnotism). Hypnotism was eventually refined into an effective psychological tool, while phrenology fell by the wayside. But it’s important to note that for generations phrenology was out-and-out accepted as valid (even though it wasn’t) by a large number of people, including many leading scientists of the day. Even now, people perpetuate some of the stereotypes set forth by phrenology almost two hundred years ago.
That’s the problem with things that can be observed but not explained: people make up their own explanations and stick by them. And that is exactly what I think would happen in the D&D world, where a decent subset of people can use powerful magic but almost no one has the education to explain accurately how that magic works (if it can be explained at all).
Bear in mind that the people living in the game world don’t know what we do. We can look at a rule book and see that magic does work, certain types of casters have so many spells per day, the gods are real and grant certain powers to their clergy, and magic can fail only under certain predictable circumstances (target makes a save, anti-magic field, etc.). But that’s a birds-eye view that people in the game world don’t get. Instead, their experience might be more like this:
A self-proclaimed “wizard” who dresses funny, is weak, scrawny and rather stuffy, and carries all sorts of weird and disgusting ingredients on his person sets up shop in town. Most people don’t have the money to afford his services, but a few people (usually a friend of a friend of a friend…) claim to have seen firsthand how amazing his power is. Curious and a little suspicious of this newcomer, the captain of the guard visits his shop and demands to see some demonstration of his abilities.
“I heard you can levitate. Is that true?”
“Oh, yes. It’s quite useful sometimes.”
“Okay old man, let’s see it.”
“I’m sorry, I can’t right now.”
“Why not?”
“Well, I didn’t prepare that spell today.”
“Okay, well I heard you were conjuring up food and drink this morning. Can you do that?”
“Yes sir, but not today. I’ve used up that magic and would have to prepare it again a different day.”
“Well, isn’t that convenient.”
Of course, some wizards might be unwilling to waste spells just to impress a skeptic even if he does have some good ones prepared. But assuming that he is willing and able to show off spells, they can easily be dismissed as hoaxes using real-world skeptic arguments:
Any spell that is flashy (has light, sound, etc.) can be dismissed as an illusion: use of mirrors, hidden accomplices, ventriloquism, etc.
Any spell that has fire, cold, or changes one thing into another can be attributed to science. Wizards often have alchemical knowledge, and all of the scientific equipment sitting in the wizard’s study would tip off any learned observer. “Sure, he really did make a fiery explosion, but that was chemicals, not magic…”
Any spell that makes something appear or disappear (including summoning spells) can be easily replicated in the real world with stage magic tricks. Trap doors, mirrors, and the art of misdirection are most common ways of setting these up.
Any spell that causes an effect on a subject, such as blindness, Bear’s Strength, etc. is easily dismissed as psychosomatic suggestion. “Well yeah, he thought you were cursing him, so suddenly he felt cursed and couldn’t see. There’s no magic in that, just placebo effect.”
Most D&D magical effects are easily mimicked by carefully set up tricks. Compounding this is the fact that most people in the game world who get to see magic will only witness low-level spells. After all, high-level characters are rare and the only casters likely to be performing publicly are bards (who will probably combine their limited magic with singing, acrobatics, humor, and staged special effects to thrill the audience—hardly a believable display!).
What about the other forms of magic? Orcs and ettins might only be biological races (no sign of magic there!) but dragons, mind flayers and pixies are all brimming with the supernatural. Of course, not many people ever see those creatures (and fewer will live to tell the possibly-exaggerated tale).
Clerics offer a whole other type of magic, if you understand them in terms of D&D rules. But living in the D&D world it is just one more guy in robes making extravagant claims. Here in the real world there are traveling faith healers who cure people of cancer, AIDS, blindness, and all other sorts of problems. The recipients of their miracles regularly testify that they feel 100% better, or can see better, or what have you. Of course, skeptics claim that these people relapse within days or hours, and have amassed lengthy documentary and videographic evidence to convince people these miracles are false. Thus, even though miracles and mystical healing attract droves of followers—and can be every bit as impressive as the spells of a mid-level D&D cleric—they also attract droves of atheists and debunkers. Why would the atheists of the D&D world be any less vexed by the miracle-workers of their own towns?
Of course, there are some things that are undoubtedly amazing to watch in the D&D world. If a high-level cleric raises a corpse, or a paladin’s mount appears in the midst of battle with no possibility for trap doors around, that might make a believer out of almost anyone. But when the new believer tells his story to others it can promptly be dismissed as an unsupported anecdote, a trick of the mind, a mental illness, or simply a lie.
All this is to say that even though the rules make clear that magic, deities, and miracles are 100% real and reproducible in the game world, that in no way precludes NPCs—even lots of NPCs, even educated NPCs—from denying it. Some of these doubters would be mild agnostics while others would be dogmatic nihilists. Most would be in between. Many will come up with elaborate rational or empirical arguments proving that they are right. Others may rely on bluster and charisma to sway the masses away from magic. Often there would be a moral component to their anti-magic sentiment. “We’re sick of seeing poor people spend 50 gold pieces—money they saved up for years—to get a sham ‘healing potion’. These wizards are preying on people’s fears and hopes!”
So you might ask yourself, alright, some atheists live in Greyhawk. What’s the big deal?
The big deal is that this is one of the largest untapped plot devices in the fantasy world. DMs and players alike assume that because magic is real in fantasy games, that the characters in those games will believe it is real. But adding some skeptics to your campaign world—whether just one high-ranking official, or a whole movement against huckster wizards—can really spice things up. It affords plenty of new role-playing scenarios, new types of factions to use in politics-heavy games, and a very fun tool with which NPCs can frustrate or dismiss PCs. There are few things that are going to make a wizard PC hate the BBEG more than being repeatedly told he is a sham illusionist with no real power. This will also make the BBEG’s death all the more satisfying if it is brought about via magic.
Other possibilities include evil guys who head an anti-magic movement but are secretly mages themselves. They might be using their “truth movement” to discourage or eliminate the competition. If such a movement is sponsored by the state, it could lead to oppressive anti-magician laws and even arresting and trying PC casters without doing another knockoff of the Salem Witch Trials (*yawn*). Remember, many players are so conditioned to think of the religion-vs-occultism divide that they will find the science-vs-occultism divide to be new and interesting, especially in a medieval context.
Perhaps most important, remember that dogmatic movements are likely to cause tension and contention wherever they spring up. That goes for dogmatic doubters just as much as dogmatic believers. Religion and mystical practices were actually outlawed in some real-world countries; why not try it out in a D&D campaign? As a DM I’m always looking for a new idea to grab from real history and put into a game. By calling into question your PCs’ most basic powers you can really surprise and challenge your players (and irritate them, if that’s your cup of tea). Give it a try and let the atheists have their chance to shine!
Another_Poet
However your argument is not without a major flaw. In your post you say that magic for the most part can be written off as a trick. Whether it be with mirrors, chemicals, psychological, etc. The main problem with that hypothesis is that this is a very modern way of thinking.
For example, let's take your guard captain:
“I heard you can levitate. Is that true?”
“Oh, yes. It’s quite useful sometimes.”
“Okay old man, let’s see it.”
“I’m sorry, I can’t right now.”
“Why not?”
“Well, I didn’t prepare that spell today.”
“Okay, well I heard you were conjuring up food and drink this morning. Can you do that?”
“Yes sir, but not today. I’ve used up that magic and would have to prepare it again a different day.”
“Well, isn’t that convenient.”
So lets say Mister Wizard gets tired of the ignorant captain mocking him, so he fires off a scorching ray from a wand at a dummy in his shop and torches it.
Captain - "Wow, that was amazing! I'll leave you to your business"
Lets say for argument's sake that the wizard really is a phony and it was just some kind of napalm wand. It still wouldn't matter because the captain is likely an ignorant medieval peasant with a IQ of 80 at best. It simply would not occur to him to question it, or how something like that could be faked.
However, I would like to say that we have to remember that religion and belief in magic (or any kind of pseudo-science, tricks, etc.) evolved and thrived here without intervening god(s), real magic, or magical beasts. I'm sure those, however rare, would reduce the chance of finding skeptics to very low levels.
Interesting read Another_poet.
However your argument is not without a major flaw. In your post you say that magic for the most part can be written off as a trick. Whether it be with mirrors, chemicals, psychological, etc. The main problem with that hypothesis is that this is a very modern way of thinking.
(snip)
So lets say Mister Wizard gets tired of the ignorant captain mocking him, so he fires off a scorching ray from a wand at a dummy in his shop and torches it.
Captain - "Wow, that was amazing! I'll leave you to your business"
Lets say for argument's sake that the wizard really is a phony and it was just some kind of napalm wand. It still wouldn't matter because the captain is likely an ignorant medieval peasant with a IQ of 80 at best. It simply would not occur to him to question it, or how something like that could be faked.
Atheism, agnosticism and skepticism have been around as long as there has been religion. Modern and past "unreligion" has many complex arguments, many with validity and many without. There have always been people who will simply not believe.
At the risk of using a religious text to prove my point: Check out the pharisees of the New Testament. Though they had (according to the story) seen Jesus speak in public, perform real miracles on people the pharisees knew to be lame, blind, have uteral bleeding problems etc., they still refused to believe what he was because he didn't fit their preconceived notions of the Messiah. That was 2000 years ago. People who don't want to believe in something will always have a supporting argument.
And no, it's not a very modern way of thinking. True, it's currently a very "popular" way of thinking, and it's a bit more mainstream now due to the Scopes Monkey trial and various other high-court decisions in the 50's which very specifically promoted Atheism. Immanuel Kant, father of Skepticism, was born in 1724. David Hume, an ultimate Naturalist (read "Atheist," they're very close the same thing) was born in 1711 and has been highly influential ever since.
That's not to say that they can't work, but you need a world that is built around these ideas, they can't simply be thrown in any world. How about a world where magic didn't exist. This world might be loosely based on the Illuminism rather than the middle ages and belief in magic would be at its historical minimum when, all of a sudden, magic starts working. Turns out that the world collided with a magic containing multiverse and became an alternate material plane, but the inhabitants of the world aren't keen on accepting the existence of magic just yet.
The psychological argument doesn't work, because things like traps can curse people without them having any awareness of them being cursed.
The chemistry argument doesn't work if they just conjure a fireball out of thin air really.
Really the D&D world is hellishly magical, to the extent that skepticism about the supernatural is impossible.
Atheists are another matter entirely. An atheist in a magical world can believe in magic very easily; it's all around and affects many parts of life. However, an atheist would view magic as part of the world, just like plants, stones, people and water. It is merely a force that certain people can manipulate.
An atheist would believe that wizards and sorcerers tap into this force to cast spells. Clerics and paladins (and to some extant, druids and rangers) are reaching out to the same source of magic, but do it in the name of whatever deity they worship. The atheist believes that there is no god granting the divine spell caster favors, but that the way a divine spell caster has learned to reach the flows of magic is through their prayers focusing their minds for it.
Of course, some wizards might be unwilling to waste spells just to impress a skeptic even if he does have some good ones prepared. But assuming that he is willing and able to show off spells, they can easily be dismissed as hoaxes using real-world skeptic arguments:
Any spell that is flashy (has light, sound, etc.) can be dismissed as an illusion: use of mirrors, hidden accomplices, ventriloquism, etc.
Any spell that has fire, cold, or changes one thing into another can be attributed to science. Wizards often have alchemical knowledge, and all of the scientific equipment sitting in the wizard’s study would tip off any learned observer. “Sure, he really did make a fiery explosion, but that was chemicals, not magic…”
Any spell that makes something appear or disappear (including summoning spells) can be easily replicated in the real world with stage magic tricks. Trap doors, mirrors, and the art of misdirection are most common ways of setting these up.
Any spell that causes an effect on a subject, such as blindness, Bear’s Strength, etc. is easily dismissed as psychosomatic suggestion. “Well yeah, he thought you were cursing him, so suddenly he felt cursed and couldn’t see. There’s no magic in that, just placebo effect.”
Most D&D magical effects are easily mimicked by carefully set up tricks. Compounding this is the fact that most people in the game world who get to see magic will only witness low-level spells. After all, high-level characters are rare and the only casters likely to be performing publicly are bards (who will probably combine their limited magic with singing, acrobatics, humor, and staged special effects to thrill the audience—hardly a believable display!).
Well...no, not quite. The appearance of many of the D&D spells and effects can be replicated using carefully contrived circumstances. However, no amount of trickery with mirrors and trap-doors will work if part A of the horse-conjuring trick involves moving the audience to someplace where there are known to be no trapdoors or mirrors. I mean, you could hypothesize that the conjurer actually brought up the horse with trapdoors instead of a spell. Doing so would mean that instead of having the magical ability to summon horses, the conjurer had the magical ability to summon horse-summoning apparatus. If you posit that a conjurer has the ability to ignore reality when it comes to setting up his tricks, why not posit that he can do the same with his actual spells? Likewise with chemicals. It's certainly possible that with mundane means and in mundane circumstances, you can replicate the appearance of a Shocking Grasp or a Burning Hands spell. What you can't replicate is the ability to do so sans any means of element-generation but the material components.
What about the other forms of magic? Orcs and ettins might only be biological races (no sign of magic there!) but dragons, mind flayers and pixies are all brimming with the supernatural. Of course, not many people ever see those creatures (and fewer will live to tell the possibly-exaggerated tale).
Clerics offer a whole other type of magic, if you understand them in terms of D&D rules. But living in the D&D world it is just one more guy in robes making extravagant claims. Here in the real world there are traveling faith healers who cure people of cancer, AIDS, blindness, and all other sorts of problems. The recipients of their miracles regularly testify that they feel 100% better, or can see better, or what have you. Of course, skeptics claim that these people relapse within days or hours, and have amassed lengthy documentary and videographic evidence to convince people these miracles are false. Thus, even though miracles and mystical healing attract droves of followers—and can be every bit as impressive as the spells of a mid-level D&D cleric—they also attract droves of atheists and debunkers. Why would the atheists of the D&D world be any less vexed by the miracle-workers of their own towns?
Well, because in our world, the most likely explanation for faith healing is a combination of placebo effect and a long-documented tradition of fraud. If there existed a faith healer who could hit people over the head with a mace, then cure the resultant injury, and do so under conditions which make fraud impossibly unlikely, placebo and deception fail to be an adequate explanation; an extraordinary event has happened, requiring an extraordinary explanation. If it keeps happening, then spellcasting gets put into the large bucket of difficult-to-intuit-but-actual things on which we base our daily life.
Of course, there are some things that are undoubtedly amazing to watch in the D&D world. If a high-level cleric raises a corpse, or a paladin’s mount appears in the midst of battle with no possibility for trap doors around, that might make a believer out of almost anyone. But when the new believer tells his story to others it can promptly be dismissed as an unsupported anecdote, a trick of the mind, a mental illness, or simply a lie.
Certainly so; however, given that magic actually exists in D&D, there would not be the innate resistance to it as an explanation that exists in our world. It would be like a peasant village that assumed birth defects don't actually exist; it would be a belief that could only be maintained by an insular community with no curiosity about the outside world. Also, like birth defects, magic (of the extremely-difficult-to-fake variety) comes along perfectly naturally in D&D.
All this is to say that even though the rules make clear that magic, deities, and miracles are 100% real and reproducible in the game world, that in no way precludes NPCs—even lots of NPCs, even educated NPCs—from denying it. Some of these doubters would be mild agnostics while others would be dogmatic nihilists. Most would be in between. Many will come up with elaborate rational or empirical arguments proving that they are right. Others may rely on bluster and charisma to sway the masses away from magic. Often there would be a moral component to their anti-magic sentiment. “We’re sick of seeing poor people spend 50 gold pieces—money they saved up for years—to get a sham ‘healing potion’. These wizards are preying on people’s fears and hopes!”
Well...no. 'Educated' is a term with an in-game meaning (specifically, able to make Knowledge checks on a subject). A character that is educated in Knowledge(arcana) will know, trivially, that magic exists. It certainly makes sense for those who have only seen a parade of fakers and low-level casters to assume that much of high-level magic is myth, exaggeration, or tactical deception on the part of the caster community. This may even be true; it's certainly the case that there are more people capable of faking the results of 5th-level spells than there are 5th-level casters. But there's no such thing as a rational or empirical argument against the efficacy of healing potions in a D&D world with actual healing potions. You can argue that the wizard is likely to be selling a sham potion, yes, but the first caster with Brew Potion will Empowered Disintegrate your premises.
So you might ask yourself, alright, some atheists live in Greyhawk. What’s the big deal?
The big deal is that this is one of the largest untapped plot devices in the fantasy world. DMs and players alike assume that because magic is real in fantasy games, that the characters in those games will believe it is real. But adding some skeptics to your campaign world—whether just one high-ranking official, or a whole movement against huckster wizards—can really spice things up. It affords plenty of new role-playing scenarios, new types of factions to use in politics-heavy games, and a very fun tool with which NPCs can frustrate or dismiss PCs. There are few things that are going to make a wizard PC hate the BBEG more than being repeatedly told he is a sham illusionist with no real power. This will also make the BBEG’s death all the more satisfying if it is brought about via magic.
I am thinking you have limited experience with PCs, then.
"You do not believe in magic, then?"
"No."
"Not at all? You're not willing to concede the possibility of its existence?"
"Nope."
"Do you believe in horses? Because I can arrange for you to get your hands on...Xalios, give me a number."
"Twelve."
"Twelve light horses, with saddle and tack?"
Such a world would rapidly concede the existence of magic, or else adopt quantum physics as it applies to equines very, very quickly. A D&D world that does not believe in magic is a fundamentally irrational D&D world.
Other possibilities include evil guys who head an anti-magic movement but are secretly mages themselves. They might be using their “truth movement” to discourage or eliminate the competition. If such a movement is sponsored by the state, it could lead to oppressive anti-magician laws and even arresting and trying PC casters without doing another knockoff of the Salem Witch Trials (*yawn*). Remember, many players are so conditioned to think of the religion-vs-occultism divide that they will find the science-vs-occultism divide to be new and interesting, especially in a medieval context.
How does lack of belief in magic discourage it? Arrest everyone who claims to be a wizard? Wizards will simply not claim to be using magic as they throw spells around. You really can't arrest someone for spreading malicious lies if they don't make any claims about the spells they cast, and you really can't arrest them if they have powerful magic and you don't.
Perhaps most important, remember that dogmatic movements are likely to cause tension and contention wherever they spring up. That goes for dogmatic doubters just as much as dogmatic believers. Religion and mystical practices were actually outlawed in some real-world countries; why not try it out in a D&D campaign? As a DM I’m always looking for a new idea to grab from real history and put into a game. By calling into question your PCs’ most basic powers you can really surprise and challenge your players (and irritate them, if that’s your cup of tea). Give it a try and let the atheists have their chance to shine!
You appear to be conflating a few different terms and positions here. There is atheism, rationalism, and skepticism. There is also belief in the efficacy of magic. First, atheism makes no claims as to the nature of magic; you can have people who believe in magic but no gods, or gods but no magic. Next, you have people who believe in the evidence of their senses, their reason, and of rigorous analysis of their universe (call 'em rationalists).
In addition, the outlawing of magic and religion in reality did not carry with it the risk of cheesing off a high-level caster who could level kingdoms with his off-hand. In D&D, policies which upset magic users as a group are policies which select against your ability to leave descendants, or even graves; either you'll annoy the good adventurers away from saving you from hostile magic, or provoke the non-good ones into destroying your society out of hand.
In D&D, rationalists are theists, and they believe in magic. Atheists and strict materialists are factually wrong in D&D. You can bring them up and use them as you will, but doing so would be like trying to replicate a classical siege when the defenders have an army of dragons. D&D does not work like the real world; this means that those characters devoted to understanding the universe will come to different conclusions. If you want to pull people who lack a belief in magic from reality into D&D, they're going to be Flat Earthers, not scientists.
Good alignment has to jump through all these annoying loops of balancing all the difficulties of these issues.
HOWEVER! It would be cute to see a band of evil PCs running around trying to convince NPCs that magic is in fact a lie for some selfish end.
I'm not saying that skeptics can't exist in Greyhawk, just that the only way that they could would be to isolate themselves entirely from magic, and that skepticism of magic is a decidedly indefensible position.
In any quasi-emergent D&D society, power will belong to the high-level arcane casters. While maintaining that there is no magic has interesting public advantages, it has the primary disadvantage of being trivially proven wrong. I could see widespread belief that magic is dangerous, evil, or uncontrollable. But nonexistent? I think that belief would be limited in the same way snake-handling is in the real world.
The nature of the D&D universe is that there is trivially-demonstrated magic, and nearly-trivially-demonstrated gods. Lack of belief in either can only come about from either profound ignorance and no serious attempt to remedy it, or adherence to dogma in the face of reality. Skeptics doubt magic, but scientists will be the ones shooting fireballs into bomb calorimeters to determine the energy released at various caster levels.
The basic idea of D&D religion, is that the Gods are very liberal with their miracles, that is they offer miracles at an apparently rock bottom price ( i.e. one does need that much Faith). It all stands and falls based on clerical magic, the type of magic that is wielded by priests.
There are many problems with the 'theistic' position. They are as follows.
1. How come clerics' magic follows very similar rules to wizards' magic, that is the caster of the spell gets to choose what spell to cast, the Gods apparently having pretty much no control over the use of their own power, and must 'prepare' the miracle beforehand?
2. How come clerical magic can be used in order to counter itself, that it is possible for two priests of the same God to wage war against each other using Clerical Magic?
3. How come clerical magic can be used for ends that are at odds with the very God that grants it? For instance, magic given by a 'Good' god, can be used to slaughter the innocent.
There are elaborate Theological answers to these questions, but it seems easiest to stress the simplest explanation.
The Gods have no control over Clerical magic, beyond granting it.
Once this is established, one has largely divorced the Gods from their own miracles, the only thing the Gods now do is "grant" power to their followers. The questions that now need to be asked.
1. If Gods are essential for Clerical magic, then why do supposedly nonexistent Gods (like the Unseeing Eye) still grant their followers power? Furthermore, how come bards can cast Clerical spells, without having any particular Faith in any one deity and potentially could be Atheistic?
2. If it is possible to wield such magic without worshiping 'Existing' Gods and possible to wield it as you choose, upon what basis are Gods necessary at all to exist in reality?
3. That the nature of Clerical magic points towards Godhood suggests that one with enough mastery of Clerical magic would eventually become Immortal and untouchable (i.e. a God).
The third point can be used quite effectively against anyone who uses the appearance of Gods and the direct incarnation as a defense of Theism. It also works well against anyone who uses the 'Autolearn' defense to protect Clerical magic.
What if 'Gods' are nothing other than the most proficient practitioners of Divine Magic? They are in origin nothing but mortal priests. They defend the 'secrets of divinity;' Divine Magic actually possesses the capacity to make you Immortal and Untouchable. This is demonstrated by such things as 'Resurrection spells'.
It wouldn't be very hard to become effectively Immortal using Divine Magic. All you would need would be an equivilent of the Arcane 'Contingency' spells and put Resurrection in the Contingency.
0 hitpoints (dead).
Contingency Resurrection.
The Gods are the masters of various 'Paths' of Divine magic and keep the most powerful spells to themselves, distributing only the knowledge of the spells that don't allow them to become too Godlike.
The 'Gods' are a kind of Monopoly, they are ordinary mortal beings that protect the secret knowledge that grants them Immortality against everyone else, a pact of deception that all Gods are bound too, by fear, concern for the order of nature or desire for power.
Basically, the only spells that can counter the spells wielded by Gods are the spells possessed by other Gods. The first God to give such spells to mortals would be destroyed by the other Gods, the Gods probably have Divination Spells for such an occasion.
The important thing, is that the Gods only share the knowledge of Divine Spells in such a way as to:
A) Render them incapable of being transmitted to others, except by their own intervention (or that of enslaved servant beings).
B) Render them dependent upon the God.
By demonstrating both his/her disbelief and also the power of his/her clerical spells publicly, the Bard would be able to basically disprove the Gods, because they can use the powers supposedly given by Gods while being an Atheist.
In order to truly challenge the domination of religion however, the Atheist Bard would have to create Priests of Atheism by the following process.
Firstly he/she would have to find someone who is already a Cleric, but has become an Atheist by the Bard expression of greater power than he, or by something else. The Atheist leader must convince the Cleric to address his Clerical spells not to his former God, but to something that represents Atheism, so as to allow him to continue to wield his powers, without believing.
Once he/she has done this, the Cleric of Atheism would have to convince others, create other Clerics of Atheism and must pursue research into Clerical magic, with the eventual aim of extending his own powers without needing a God. He can then freely teach his 'liberated' powers to others. Once they gain enough power, they must make a bid to seize control of a Godly plane, preferably one of the weakest deities and having overpowered the resident deity, use some entity capable of this to extract the secrets from the Gods mind. Once this is done, they can then eventually turn themselves into 'weak' Gods and then progress up the ladder, with the aim of destroying all the Gods.
The trouble is, to actually succeed would destroy the entire order of things, because if any being with the intellect to can become a God, then the natural order is in big trouble.
I'm really happy to see so many comments so quickly. I'll try to respond to some of the main points here.
However, I would like to say that we have to remember that religion and belief in magic (or any kind of pseudo-science, tricks, etc.) evolved and thrived here without intervening god(s), real magic, or magical beasts. I'm sure those, however rare, would reduce the chance of finding skeptics to very low levels.
Well, you are assuming that there is no magic in our real world. Which is fine, but remember that many people actually do believe in magic in the real world, or intervening gods or magical/mythical beasts. In fact, such beliefs are key to a number of real-world religions. That is why I chose to use phrenology and hypnotism as examples, rather than real-world magical rites.
And even if you think those believers are foolish, the point remains the same: whether or not magic is real has no bearing on whether or not people believe in it. Many people believed in phrenology, which is bunk; many people scoffed at hypnotism, which works fine. We don't have to know for sure whether magic works to have both magic-believers and magic-doubters.
For those who think it is "too modern"...
I think that this objection is probably going to come up a lot, but as someone already said above, neither skepticism nor atheism are modern ideas. At all.
I remember reading a study once (and if anyone knows the one I mean and can offer a link or citation, I would love to know where I saw it!). The study was done by archaeologists who had excavated an ancient town. The town was fairly intact, and they were able to see the foundations of all the houses as well as remains of the contents in the houses. In many, but not all, they found fragments of deity statues, presumably part of a household shrine. The archaeologists wondered why some houses had no shrine. Were they removed? Were they never there? Imagine their surprise when they added up the percentage of shrine-free houses and realized it was the same as the percentage of people who are atheists in the modern world!
Likewise with skepticism. Especially in the Classical world there are extensive complaints about priests who fake miracles or use magic spells that seem to have no effect. If you think modern readers get a kick out of the cryptic prophesies from Delphi you should really read some of the angry and amused passages by Romans and Greeks who actually dealt with them. In Emperor Julian's writings (Julian the Apostate, or Julian the Philosopher; the last polytheist emperor of Rome) there is extensive argumentation against such doubters, defending the veracity of the pagan rites and trying to undermine very modern-sounding skeptic arguments.
The Middle Ages were no different, except that it is often in the writings of clergymen that we see the strongest anti-magic or anti-superstition sentiment. Some parish priests (and some secular officials) were horrified by the credulity of their flocks and wrote extensive complaints about how hard it was to deal with such superstitious people.
Would they have used the term "placebo" in the Middle Ages? No. Did they have a rigorous model of experimental testing to apply to supernatural claims? Certainly not! But there were plenty of people who felt that magic didn't work, or only worked because of the level of belief of the person doing the magic. The arguments for and against the supernatural are relatively unchanged throughout human history, and I expect that will stay the same for many years to come as well.
More important, however, is that it doesn't matter whether skeptics in 1400 CE or 200 BCE think the same way as skeptics in 2007. Because those are real-world skeptics.
In your D&D campaign there are many things that don't match medieval reality. One-handed longswords, magic wand shops, democratic countries, women who have equality with men, regular raids by orcs, castles with multi-story, miles-long dungeons--all these things are inaccurate. And they're fun.
So the real question is, would doubters fit into your campaign world? It doesn't matter that there really were skeptics in the middle ages here on earth (and there were!). If you don't want them, don't use them. It's your world!
And if you think it would be neat to try it out, by all means, do so! Don't worry if your players don't believe it's medieval enough. Nothing in the game is medieval enough. If you can make it an interesting plot twist, and tie it to exciting encounters, and heap enough loot on them afterwards--they'll go home with a smile.
@The_Wyld, 10 is the average human Int stat and that is an IQ of 100. But belief in magic and mythical beings has never been correlated to IQ (nor to mental health); the smart and dull, sane and insane have roughly equal percentages of believers. Education level and wealth both correlate however, with higher levels of education and higher income both showing lower levels or religious or magical belief. So if you want we can upgrade the town guard in my example to a sheriff, the well-to-do younger son of a baron who has received only the finest of tutors.
Sad to say, if the wizard is asked to levitate or conjure food and instead produces a red-hot beam of light (aka Scorching Ray), the wizard has failed. No skeptic would accept this as a successful test result.
@ObsidianIchor: You're right, I should've spent more time on that. Atheists can believe in magic (I know some who do) and religious people can scoff at magic (I know lots who do). You can add either one without the other, and make some really unique and interesting characters based around those beliefs.
Thanks for all the comments so far. Please keep 'em coming!
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While your article delves into the skeptics in depth, it does not really touch on the atheists as alluded to in the title.
Atheists are another matter entirely. An atheist in a magical world can believe in magic very easily; it's all around and affects many parts of life. However, an atheist would view magic as part of the world, just like plants, stones, people and water. It is merely a force that certain people can manipulate.
An atheist would believe that wizards and sorcerers tap into this force to cast spells. Clerics and paladins (and to some extant, druids and rangers) are reaching out to the same source of magic, but do it in the name of whatever deity they worship. The atheist believes that there is no god granting the divine spell caster favors, but that the way a divine spell caster has learned to reach the flows of magic is through their prayers focusing their minds for it.
Or maybe he recognizes that the gods are real, and thinks of them as very powerful beings, but nothing more.
Well, you are assuming that there is no magic in our real world. Which is fine, but remember that many people actually do believe in magic in the real world, or intervening gods or magical/mythical beasts. In fact, such beliefs are key to a number of real-world religions. That is why I chose to use phrenology and hypnotism as examples, rather than real-world magical rites.
And even if you think those believers are foolish, the point remains the same: whether or not magic is real has no bearing on whether or not people believe in it. Many people believed in phrenology, which is bunk; many people scoffed at hypnotism, which works fine. We don't have to know for sure whether magic works to have both magic-believers and magic-doubters.
No, but the article is about skeptics, not believers. There will always be believers, no matter what. However, for skepticism to be widespread or defensible, there has to be at least ambiguity. With D&D magic, there is no such ambiguity. It works, obviously so, and devising experiments that prove it beyond all logical doubt would be trivial even with simply cantrips or orisons at your disposal, particularly since the D&D world lacks the level of technology necessary to emulate many/most of the spells. Heck, cast true strike on the skeptic and have him take a shot at a target much further away than s/he can usually hit, or cast enlarge person on them and see if they have any recourse to skepticism.
One of the advantages of preparing spells in D&D is that spellcasters can opt to leave slots open for the day. If they live in a fairly skeptical neighborhood, I'm sure they have a tendency to leave a few slots open and carry their spellbooks with them. If they ever do run into a skeptic, they can simply pull out the spellbook, prepare Magic Missile or Scorching Ray or, if they're particularly powerful, Fabricate or Forcecage, cast the spell and be on with their day. It would take 15 minutes to prepare, and I'm sure the Wizard would invite the skeptic to watch him prepare the spell from the book, and then six seconds to pull it off. Things are even easier for a Sorcerer, who probably learned spells like Fly or Scorching Ray and can simply cast them on a whim.
As for the Cleric-Faith Healer connection, I really don't see it. A Cleric can take a dagger, stab himself (or the skeptic) and cast Cure Light Wounds, stitching up the wound instantly. The Cleric doesn't even have to prepare the spell, either, thanks to Cleric's ability to spontaneously cast Cure spells. It's one thing to claim the ability to cure diseases and addiction and blindness (all of which a Cleric can do, for the record), but it can really shut someone up when you can close up wounds instantly. Even if healing spells leave marks and scars (which I doubt, considering how few scars high level characters have), it's hard to argue when a wound simply goes away faster than it ever has before.
Or maybe he recognizes that the gods are real, and thinks of them as very powerful beings, but nothing more.
In such a case, god needs to be distinguished from God, if you know what I'm saying. Since it's likely that the vast majority of us are Christian, or grew up in Christian nations, there's a certain image of God in our minds: an ineffable, omnipotent, omniscient, unliftable rock lifting uberpower. The Christian God has absolute and total power over everything. D&D gods are less powerful; they're more like the Greek gods; they have a physical form, and though they are almost unbelievably powerful, they can be beaten and tricked.
A D&D atheist might say that Pelor is just a very powerful outsider, like an elder solar with delusions of grandeur, but he would be silly to simply state that Pelor does not exist, or to deny Pelor's power to grant spells.
D&D atheist might say that Pelor is just a very powerful outsider, like an elder solar with delusions of grandeur, but he would be silly to simply state that Pelor does not exist, or to deny Pelor's power to grant spells.
Not so. As a Paladin gets his spells from his 'righteousness', and a non-aligned cleric of good gets their power from 'good' it would be easy to assume that these abstract concepts (which in D&D have matter-influencing reality, and so are not abstract at all...) and not the god that they think they are praying too: they get their spells from their belief, and not from their god. Or, they might just assume that priesthood is just wizardry kept secret from wizards.
In D&D it is easy to be an atheist (though not a magical-denier as many have said before me). The question is, if you do have gods in your campaign, what do they do about atheists, deniers of any and all divinity?
No, but the article is about skeptics, not believers. There will always be believers, no matter what. However, for skepticism to be widespread or defensible, there has to be at least ambiguity. With D&D magic, there is no such ambiguity.
Actually many people will continue to believe things that are absolutely incontrovertibly proved false, even en masse. Willful ignorance is one of the hardest ways of thinking to counter.
This also would depend on the availability of magic in an individual campaign. If magic is rare you can expect skeptics to be widespread. When proved otherwise they might go from unbeliever to "Burn the witch," causing those with magical ability to not want the fact that it exists to be proven.
A D&D atheist might say that Pelor is just a very powerful outsider, like an elder solar with delusions of grandeur, but he would be silly to simply state that Pelor does not exist, or to deny Pelor's power to grant spells.
How do you know, just because he grants spells, that he exists? Clerics without deities can receive spells as well, maybe spells are created through the belief, and Pelor is just a fiction to justify the belief.
Perhaps, in tiny isolated hamlets without even an Adept 1 to their name, it's possible. However even here, a substantial portion of the village would have people who are old enough to have at least experienced or traveled through a place where they saw one of a number of spellcasters do something outright impossible. As has been stated, many spells (even the ones most memorized) are cast in un-dis-believable situations. Try denying the wizard's Evard's Black Tentacles when he is obviously fighting for his life against an orc raid on the town.
In my game, I have an entire city of about 50% skeptics - the city was founded in a huge dead magic zone. This makes the city excellent for trade and diplomacy (no scrying/teleporting/invisibility/etc.), and entire generations of people have grown up there never leaving it - hence, most of them are skeptics. Only the merchants who travel abroad believe, because they've seen it firsthand.
Disbelief in deities is eminently possible - certainly clerics might just be imagining their god grants them power, and gods don't send their avatars down to smite every peasant crying out falsehoods in the town square. Even more believable is that "deities are just really powerful beings". But a blanket disbelief in magic itself is nearly impossible in your basic D&D world - the Spells section of the PHB simply doesn't support it.
If you are dissatisfied with the "everyone knows magic but doesn't really know how it works" idea of basic D&D, I recommend coming up with something like the Weave in Forgotten Realms. It is much easier to "make magic more scientific" than it is to explain a substantial percentage of the population being that oblivious.
A skeptic might be skeptical only about certain kinds of magic, particular kinds of creatures and so on. It can be fun to have a particular spell 'discovered' by the PCs, or a magical item or whatever. And possible some gods are legendary or mysterious (like Tharizdun in one of my games) but might similarly be discovered or their hidden cult encountered or whatever. I think it could be fun to explore this kind of idea as an option.
In such a case, god needs to be distinguished from God, if you know what I'm saying. Since it's likely that the vast majority of us are Christian, or grew up in Christian nations, there's a certain image of God in our minds: an ineffable, omnipotent, omniscient, unliftable rock lifting uberpower. The Christian God has absolute and total power over everything. D&D gods are less powerful; they're more like the Greek gods; they have a physical form, and though they are almost unbelievably powerful, they can be beaten and tricked.
A D&D atheist might say that Pelor is just a very powerful outsider, like an elder solar with delusions of grandeur, but he would be silly to simply state that Pelor does not exist, or to deny Pelor's power to grant spells.
From my point of view, any polytheistic gods (lower case) ARE just very powerful beings. They aren't God (upper case), as you say.
Even in Greek myth, humans could injure the gods. Diomedes stabbed Aphrodite, then wounded Ares and drove him off the battlefield.
From what I've read, most of the posters who don't think the idea of skeptics in D&D is credible have cited examples from high-magic worlds. As you stated in the article, these ideas are intended for low-magic settings (although I'm not too familiar with Greyhawk specifically), and I believe they would work very well under those circumstances—adding to the authenticity of the setting as well as the fun of the game. Many plot hooks can spring from the conflict between believers and skeptics, and parties with characters from both camps could experience some pretty interesting dynamics.
As for the topic of atheists, I'd like to say that there is already a degree of skepticism in D&D settings. After all, if everyone "knew" that gods could grant spells, what reason would there be to dedicate your life to anything else? I would very much enjoy seeing you expand on the atheism aspect of the topic, Another_Poet.
It's not a reasonable position to deny the existence of gods in a high-magic setting, as the evidence is so incontrovertible. Such people would not be arguing from reason, but from personal belief or from their cultural attitude.
A better question for philosophical PCs is whether any of them are worth following. They are, after all, only powerful outsiders.
And that's the thing -- 200 years ago someone who lived in a tiny village in Afghanistan could easily be unaware of airplanes and disbelieve that such a thing could work.
Not the case today, though. Not at all. Even though the Afghan kid has probably never actually *been* in an airplane or seen one up close, the *world* is too full of airplanes and the things that happen in the world -- like, say, airplanes dropping bombs on military bases and forcing regimes to abdicate and flee -- are too immediate to disbelieve in them.
(Also, hypnosis is *not* that widely accepted among the scientific community. Everyone acknowledges that *something happens* when people get hypnotized but what, exactly, remains a topic of raging controversy. Please note that I've been fascinated with hypnosis since I was hypnotized at a stage show, I've paid for hypnosis materials and to be hypnotized in therapy, I've become an amateur hypnotist and hypnotized my friends both for the fun of it and to genuinely try to help them with their problems, and I am strongly convinced that hypnosis is nothing but a fancy, dressed-up trick -- a dog-and-pony show designed to pressure people into just relaxing and having a good long think by giving them permission to relax and have a good long think. That's why it works.)
I would like to believe that in a D&D world this can be explained as an intelligent force (be it divine or mundane) that actively discourages or interferes with the development of technology. Keep the dumb and superstitious people dumb and superstitious so that those with power (spell casters) will always remain on top. Every time some genius with too much expendable income and time on his hands comes up with an invention that could copy a magical spell, there's a wizard or cleric who steps in and ruins his day. Think of this as a secret society devoted to protecting the sanctity of magic and the gods. Let's face it, there has been a sharp decline in true religious belief in our modern world because many of the things we used to pray for have been given to us by science. Food in our belly? The local supermarket. Protection from the plague or a cure for sickness / healing of injury? Modern medicine. With the exorbitant prices that clerics charge for healing or the cost of magic items that would make life easier, (check out the cost of NPC spell casting or the even a potion of cure light vs. the average wage of a commoner) wouldn't you want to protect that monopoly? Clerics are the fantasy world's version of an HMO while wizards have the market cornered on convenience with their levitation, mage hand and telekinesis spells just to name a few. Just a thought...
I've often thought about how skepticism and reason can fit into a D&D campaign.
One approach, if you're running a low-magic world, is to have pseudo-magic and snake-oil salesmen be far more common than real magic. Many intelligent people wouldn't believe in magic, having encountered so many fakes.
Another idea I've always wanted to try is that "Magic is only as real as you think it is". If they wanted to, PC's could spend feats and skill points in Skepticism, which would grant Spell Resistance, but would also prevent them from benefiting from magic.
The Atheism in D&D idea has been pretty well covered. An idea I'm using in a campaign is a tribe who has no gods, but draws divine power from a group of spirits who live with them, but on a different plane. In turn, the tribe protects the spirits from threats on the material plane.
Of course, for those are actually responding to the points raised in my article, I'm happy to continue the discussion.
Fenris_Lathiin is not the only one who thinks I'm wrong that skeptics would mistakenly "debunk" D&D clerics and mages, but he uses several good examples so I'll start there. The problem with the scorching ray or the cleric using CLW is twofold. First off, most skeptics are unwilling to test potentially dangerous "tricks" (spells). Since most of the very impressive spells are combat-focused, they're not gonna get tested. (No real-life skeptic debunker would allow an occultist to stab himself to prove he has healing powers, unless said debunker wanted a quick and fiery end to his career.)
The second problem is that in generic D&D worlds science does not seem to be well-developed in a post-Enlightenment sense. So, no matter what spells get used during the test, the test probably won't be reproduced and won't follow a rigorous clinical testing model. Even if an observer did sit through the "demonstration" by the cleric, they could call the stabbing & healing a fake. They might even go so far as to construct a trick dagger (with fake blood!) to show how the cleric was faking his injury.
To give a real-life example, Uri Geller once had his "trick" spoons switched with regular spoons by a skeptic (I think it was the Amazing Randi, a stage magician and debunker). When Uri went on stage, he couldn't bend the spoons. "Ah-ha!" said the skeptic. "You didn't know we switched your equipment before the show, did you?" Uri, of course, said he was having problems concentrating (but went on to continue his career of spoon-bending and now has his own reality TV show coming out).
The D&D cleric who is given a wounded patient right after his demonstration might face similar embarrassment. "Ah-HA!" says the skeptic. "You didn't know we'd have a real patient whose wounds aren't faked, did you?" The skeptic, of course, would explain that he was out of spells for the day (but might go on to run a major temple someday).
I say this not in defense of Uri Geller (yuck) but to point out the error with the methodology of debunking. Uri was not tested in any rigorous way, nor disproven at all--he was simply humiliated. The D&D world has less scientists than the real-life world, so I doubt they are going to be any more thorough in their testing our own skeptics have been.
As for the Discworld example, I suspect that skeptics living in Discworld would agree that their windows were broken, but wonder if the culprit was perhaps a religious zealot with a hammer rather than an invisible, all-powerful god with nothing better to do than break windows. I mean really, which is more believable?
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To take for example the faith healing. Cleric stabs a man with a dagger and then immediately sews the man up with a cure spell. Odds are the man he stabbed then healed would be completely convinced, but what about everybody else in the crowd? Nine out of ten of them are going to assume it was a trick or a hoax of some kind. Granted a cleric could over time convert everybody by doing repeat clearly visible presentations. but what if a plague or some disease comes along. All of a sudden everyone is clamoring at the door for a cure at the same exact time. Now the cleric is overwhelmed, and all those at the back of the miracle line are a)going to slip back into skepticism, or b) start grabbing at any miracle cure they can find most of which will be nothing but snake oil which is going to do even more to damage belief in the divine.
And as far as the Gods go, mechanically speaking, they grant spells and thats it (Save for a few high level divination spells, and odds are if a character is casting those he's a believer anyway).They have no other direct effect on the campaign world unless you choose to make it so. No where in any D&D book does it state "And a deity will descend down to the material plane and confront the PC's and speak plainly to them at least once in every campaign" (Though sometimes it seems like it doesn't it.)
In the end though, It can go both ways. Its just a matter of flavor. I personally prefer campaigns where 9 out of 10 preachers are just pious commoners, longswords +1 Look like really sharp normal swords, and wizards and wizardly materials are few and far between enough that your average arcane caster can't waste his time and resources wowing the locals.
If you want a game where every 0 level acolyte has at least a cure minor wound available to him that's your call. Just don't assume its the only way and that magic has to be an integral part of every NPC's existence.
Kudos to Cliffracerslayer for his notes on atheism (Yay I can finally make an Ur-Priest make sense.)
Note**The Sword of Truth Books have an excellent example of both belief and non-belief in a highly magical world. Not for the faint of heart
A D&D atheist might say that Pelor is just a very powerful outsider, like an elder solar with delusions of grandeur, but he would be silly to simply state that Pelor does not exist, or to deny Pelor's power to grant spells.
That sums up my thoughts pretty well on what an atheist in D&D could say.
However, who is to say that Pelor is the one granting the spells? You'll note that a Cleric with the Healing and Sun Domains that doesn't revere any particular deity is, mechanically, identical to a Cleric of Pelor with the Healing and Sun Domains. Same exact spell lists, same exact spells per day, etc. It could be argued that the power to cast these spells doesn't come from a divine source so much as it comes from the caster him/herself. A Cleric of Pelor whose alignment shifts the wrong way and loses his spells isn't necessarily being "punished" or "shunned" by Pelor. It's his own guilt that's causing him to subconsciously disallow him from casting spells. After all, people can do some amazing things if they simply believe they can do it. Why would spell casting be much different?
A D&D "atheist" (being someone who doesn't believe the D&D deities to be anything more than very powerful outsiders with egos in need of stroking) could test the theory of "divine spells come from the caster's will, not the deity" (keep in mind that Wisdom in D&D is closely tied to your strength of will) by finding a deity and killing it (non-epic atheists need not apply!). If Clerics of that deity continue to be able to cast their spells while ignorant of the deity's death, it indeed comes from the caster, not the deity. Of course, this would require careful planning to both kill the deity and to find a Cleric to observe, as news of a deity getting killed would travel rather quickly.
Such would, of course, be up to the DM running a game in which this event occurred. I doubt Wizards would ever make any official announcements regarding an issue such as this.
To expand on the whole "skeptics of magic" thing, I'd like to point out that magic in D&D is internally consistent. It has rules and constants. In essence, it is a natural process that can be reproduced and quantified. By definition, it isn't supernatural in the D&D world, as it is part of the natural laws of the universe. Wizards are much akin to the scientists of the real world, really. While skeptics may exist, they'd be a lot like those skeptical of germ theory of illness, or skeptics of chemical reactions. Rare and looked upon as loons.
Thanks for the article, Another_Poet. It was an enjoyable read and something I've thought about briefly before.
Actually many people will continue to believe things that are absolutely incontrovertibly proved false, even en masse. Willful ignorance is one of the hardest ways of thinking to counter.
Name one example, then explain how similar forces could possibly apply to magic in D&D. As ArcTan pointed out, disbelieving in magic is like disbelieving in airplanes in the real world, which nobody does.
This also would depend on the availability of magic in an individual campaign. If magic is rare you can expect skeptics to be widespread. When proved otherwise they might go from unbeliever to "Burn the witch," causing those with magical ability to not want the fact that it exists to be proven.
Even then, I'm not so sure. See, witch burning mobs could only do what they did because the witches they thought they were burning weren't actually witches, and if they were witches, they wouldn't have things like Fireball or Wall of Flame at their disposal. Given the ease with which magic can slaughter 1st level commoners, I seriously doubt you'd see too many torch-and-pitchfork mobs. Even first level wizards and sorcerers have spells at their command which have even more killing capacity than guns, and even if someone were to only have one bullet, people wouldn't mob him. You might get heroes trying to tackle him when he's not looking, but everyone wouldn't stand up and start screaming "Burn him!"
Fenris_Lathiin is not the only one who thinks I'm wrong that skeptics would mistakenly "debunk" D&D clerics and mages, but he uses several good examples so I'll start there. The problem with the scorching ray or the cleric using CLW is twofold. First off, most skeptics are unwilling to test potentially dangerous "tricks" (spells). Since most of the very impressive spells are combat-focused, they're not gonna get tested. (No real-life skeptic debunker would allow an occultist to stab himself to prove he has healing powers, unless said debunker wanted a quick and fiery end to his career.)
First, the skeptic doesn't believe in them, so why would he fear them? Second, how does the skeptic plan on stopping the caster from testing his spells? I mean, stabbing yourself is a standard action, and you could certainly do it in a surprise round. So there, you've stabbed yourself, and the cut is pretty obviously pretty deep. Then BAM, healed. Third, not all flashy spells are dangerous. Illusions, for example, or Transfiguration magic. Most of the cantrips and orisons are extremely flashy by skeptic standards, and yet most of them couldn't hurt a fly.
The second problem is that in generic D&D worlds science does not seem to be well-developed in a post-Enlightenment sense. So, no matter what spells get used during the test, the test probably won't be reproduced and won't follow a rigorous clinical testing model. Even if an observer did sit through the "demonstration" by the cleric, they could call the stabbing & healing a fake. They might even go so far as to construct a trick dagger (with fake blood!) to show how the cleric was faking his injury.
This cannot go on forever, though. It's simply not a defensible argument. Magic is real, so even if the tests aren't reproduced rigorously, they are still so obviously true that you couldn't continue to disbelieve them through proof after proof.
Additionally, who says the scientific method hasn't been developed? The only difference between science and magic is how you're doing what you're doing, and discovering a new spell would be not at all unlike inventing a new device. Hundreds and hundreds of spells have been discovered, even just in the core books! That would have required a great deal of diligence and testing, particularly to get the components of most spells down to something less than 1 gp, and to fit virtually all the components you could need into a small 5 lb pouch. The low tech level of D&D is easily explainable in that the people who would have been scientists found out that magic did what they wanted better/more easily than technology, so they turned their minds to that instead of computers and cars.
To give a real-life example, Uri Geller once had his "trick" spoons switched with regular spoons by a skeptic (I think it was the Amazing Randi, a stage magician and debunker). When Uri went on stage, he couldn't bend the spoons. "Ah-ha!" said the skeptic. "You didn't know we switched your equipment before the show, did you?" Uri, of course, said he was having problems concentrating (but went on to continue his career of spoon-bending and now has his own reality TV show coming out).
Bad analogy. First, our Uri Geller really can "bend spoons." His abilities do not depend on preparing the target of them ahead of time and then tricking people. If the skeptic switches out the spoons, the spoons still bend.
The D&D cleric who is given a wounded patient right after his demonstration might face similar embarrassment. "Ah-HA!" says the skeptic. "You didn't know we'd have a real patient whose wounds aren't faked, did you?" The skeptic, of course, would explain that he was out of spells for the day (but might go on to run a major temple someday).
If the wounds were faked, the spell wouldn't work, which is what you'd expect. And any D&D cleric could have multiple spells per day ready to try the experiment at least three or four times per day, so they could go to a hospital, pick three to four people out at random, and heal them. It's hardly possible to fake an entire hospital of sick people.
As for the Discworld example, I suspect that skeptics living in Discworld would agree that their windows were broken, but wonder if the culprit was perhaps a religious zealot with a hammer rather than an invisible, all-powerful god with nothing better to do than break windows. I mean really, which is more believable?
No no, they know it's the gods. It's a facetious example since Diskworld operates under its own variety of logic.
For instance the vast majority of americans believe in a man who raised himself from the dead and doing so brought about the entrance to heaven for all those who believe in him and follow his teachings. They often gather and eat his flesh to continue to reiterate this bond between them.
That said, a group that seeks to prohibit the use of magic seems more plausible.
I admit I haven't read all the responses yet, so I might be repeating what someone else has said, but I think you missed one important point A_P -- Will saves.
“Well, I didn’t prepare that spell today.”
“Okay, well I heard you were conjuring up food and drink this morning. Can you do that?”
“Yes sir, but not today. I’ve used up that magic and would have to prepare it again a different day.”
“Well, isn’t that convenient.”
Wizard: Oooh, but I do have something interesting prepared. . . I'll cast a Suggestion spell and you'll be forced to do what I say!
Commoner: Yeah, that was great, but unless you're about to tell me to laugh at you and leave it didn't work.
Now as players we know that even a commoner sometimes makes a Will or Fortitude save and this is exactly the kind of thing that would reinforce the skeptic's beliefs.
Thanks for the great post A_P
So to the extent "skeptics" should be individuals who see clerics as annoying political figure supporters. Like those people who give you buttons of "vote for ".
Except the political figure is an epic level outsider who wants to gain momentum in this cosmic rat-race.
And his supporters might just attack and kill you if you do not comply or say the wrong thing.
Ok, maybe it's not all that different.
Can a group, a community, a civilization, or even a world (or at least the vast majority of these groups) believe that fact is fiction? Absolutely. Anything is possible, especially in a universe like D&D. Is it likely? No, probably not. But it certainly is not impossible. Again, people will believe what they want to believe, and no matter how much you jump around in front of them, shout at them they're wrong, and wave the undeniable evidence in front of their faces, they can still choose to disbelieve. The motive or reasoning behind their self delusion, again, is irrelevant, because they can still do it, and act accordingly.
I for one think a cult of fanatic anti-magic mongers would make a very colorful antagonist for the party.
I originally made this character as a PC in a game where I wasn't the DM, and this perspective made a great plot-device for the DM who decided that my rogue PC would be the instrument of Olidammara. This was particularly satisfying for me as a player because my PC's opinion was that only a creature containing divinity - true godhood comprised of something other than sheer "power" - had the right to interact with "mortal life." Olidammara (or any of the gods for that matter) had no right meddling in the lives of the less-powerful creatures since, by his opinion, they were simply super-powerful beings bereft of any divinity. So, I could play an agnostic/atheist in a world with a rich theological presence, and even with instances of "divine intervention" that my character refused to recognize as anything other than amped-up versions of the types of magic the run-of-the-mill wizard or cleric could produce.
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And as far as the Gods go, mechanically speaking, they grant spells and thats it (Save for a few high level divination spells, and odds are if a character is casting those he's a believer anyway).They have no other direct effect on the campaign world unless you choose to make it so. No where in any D&D book does it state "And a deity will descend down to the material plane and confront the PC's and speak plainly to them at least once in every campaign" (Though sometimes it seems like it doesn't it.)
BillTheManiac made a similar comment on the first page. Here's the problem with that idea; there actually is a book that says "And a deity will descend down to the material plane...". It's called Deities and Demigods. It even goes so far as to list the specific situations that will cause a deity to appear on the Prime.
For example, Nerull descends to watch particularly bizarre deaths. Kurtulmak (kobold deity) comes down to help kobolds with important raids. And then there's contemplatives, who are required to have met their deities just to be a member of that class.
Besides all of that, one could theoretically just go and visit the deity on their home plane. And before they changed it in 3.5 there was actually a magic item that could summon a deity.
Anyway...I said all of that to say this, in all of the standard campaign settings, there is probably at least one person in every town that's seen a deity first hand. And since deities have tangible aura about them, said experiences are easily distinguished from meeting "mere" outsiders. At best the Athar, and other D&D atheists could only say that the deities are not worthy of worship. Their existence and power isn't really questionable in those worlds.
#1- The fact that gods do NOT control what spells are cast or punish when their priests cast against each other or against dogma is a DM decision. It could happen if the DM decided that is what the gods were going to do, even without interfering in what was served each night for dinner.
#2- Powerful OUTSIDERS??!! You are all CRAZY! There is no such thing as other planes! Show me a "wizard" who has been to the Astral plane without peyote being a key component to his spell and I'll show you a man who was dropped on his head as an infant.
1) The idea of gods being powers is essentially the view that many took in the old Planescape setting. It would be reasonable for a very intelligent scholar with ranks in Knowledge: The Planes to have a hard time believing the creation myths of his people, or that any of his gods were infallible.
2) Total skeptics would be difficult outside of isolated communities. That does not preclude incorrect skeptics, or skeptics who believe something far from true. For example, a skeptic may believe that all magical power comes from the gods, and that "mages" are actually the priests of some evil gods that he is opposed to. While not a pure skeptic, this character certainly would not believe in magic.
3) As Toran_A_Sunder stated, there are thousands of examples of people believing absolutely mad ideas that can be disproved very easily. Even in the face of physical evidence people, towns, and indeed entire nations can hold fast to a belief that suits their needs. It is not unreasonable to have an atheistic/skeptic group in your campaign world. The way that they go about with their mission, however, would have to be different then the way groups go about that in the modern era. As many have shown, it would be fairly easy for a true D&D wizard to win the amazing Randi's million dollar challenge. I'm racking my brain for a good real-world example that wouldn't break the terms of service or possibly violate people's actual beliefs but I am coming up short. Suffice to say, whatever it is you believe that other people disagree with, and you think they are crazy for it. Yeah, take that as an example. Then imagine how you would defend that in the wake of overwhelming evidence. (Giant Government conspiracy's, Mass Hypnosis, Smoke and Mirrors, whatever).
That should suffice.
Different replies for different views and ideas;
#2- Powerful OUTSIDERS??!! You are all CRAZY! There is no such thing as other planes! Show me a "wizard" who has been to the Astral plane without peyote being a key component to his spell and I'll show you a man who was dropped on his head as an infant.
You do realize that we're still talking about Dungeons and Dragons don't you?
BillTheManiac made a similar comment on the first page. Here's the problem with that idea; there actually is a book that says "And a deity will descend down to the material plane...". It's called Deities and Demigods. It even goes so far as to list the specific situations that will cause a deity to appear on the Prime.
For example, Nerull descends to watch particularly bizarre deaths. Kurtulmak (kobold deity) comes down to help kobolds with important raids. And then there's contemplatives, who are required to have met their deities just to be a member of that class.
Besides all of that, one could theoretically just go and visit the deity on their home plane. And before they changed it in 3.5 there was actually a magic item that could summon a deity.
Anyway...I said all of that to say this, in all of the standard campaign settings, there is probably at least one person in every town that's seen a deity first hand. And since deities have tangible aura about them, said experiences are easily distinguished from meeting "mere" outsiders. At best the Athar, and other D&D atheists could only say that the deities are not worthy of worship. Their existence and power isn't really questionable in those worlds.
How many people experience those things? Not many. If you take the skeptic who only trusts his own eyes, then he will be able to disbelieve the gods.
How about a Metropolis or an empire(mostly evil) that spread propaganda to their populace that arcane magic/spells are just hoaxes and only Godly(clerical) magic/spells exist and arrest those who "make's fool" out of the local populace. Of course there is a catch, all magic users caught are tortured and enslave so they could be forced to scribe scrolls(if its a wizard or one who has feat), create magic items(if ever the caught one has talent on it) for the use of said empire, or just beat them down to death and leave their bloody corpse in the main square to discourage and frighten the citizens.
The place does not tell about their status on magic users but if one did got lost in their area, they would immedietely try to acquire the target either through legal means, forcibly or through using fire on fire(if ever the need is dire but mostly it is done secretly). The leaders of the said metropolis are either evil clerics or evil wizards that just want the use of spells for themselves so that gives them reason to do what they do.
In the game I'm running right now, my party is about to encounter a whole nation that has not had firsthand experience with magic in hundreds of years, and so have dismissed it as fantasy. I fully expect my party to try to prove magic exists (probably forcefully, wonderful part about having a predictable group to play with), only to have these guys dismiss as "chemicals and mirrors." With the party being 1st level (and thus lacking far less explainable magics), it will make things interesting when they try to prove magic 'exists.'
Keep up the good work. I like this sort of thread.
I'm not saying that skeptics can't exist in Greyhawk, just that the only way that they could would be to isolate themselves entirely from magic, and that skepticism of magic is a decidedly indefensible position.
I agree with this point of view. Skeptic may exist, the DM may use them in the manner the OP outlined, but D&D magic cannot be considered a subject for belief or non-belief.
We hold theories in a scientific sense about things which are predictable and repeatable within our experience, whereas we hold beliefs in a mystical sense about things which are not. In our world, magic is subject to belief or non-belief because of the poor track record of putative practicioners in making it predictable and repeatable. However in D&D, since practicioners can make their spells predictable and repeatable, magic will be a subject of theory in the scientific sense, and not of belief or non-belief. There is an interesting rational problem here for heroic fantasy narratives, which often like to treat working magic in a mystical fashion, of course.
None of this rules out individual or local skepticism for reasons of subjective experience or psychology, of course, but that isn't going to be common.
-vk
In our world, fantastic magic doesn't work. There are no dragons, no magic fireballs, or anything else. A wizard can't wander through town and do amazing things. Over time, the lack of belief in magic can grow because there is nothing to reinforce the opposite belief. For the sake of safety, I am only speaking of arcane magic and magical monsters. I will leave out the idea of operative faith/faith magic in the real world.
On the other hand, in the D&D world, there really is magic. A dragon might fly over a town and breath fire or cast spells, a wizard can wander through town and do amazing things, a bard can entertain the crowd with minor illusions. I am not saying that there would or would not be skeptics or weighing in on that debate, but I am saying that we do not know what the thought processes of these people would be.
Determinism and rationalism might never develop or never in the way it did in our world because of the presence of even occasional, environmental magic. Scientific thought processes might also never develop into a rigorous scientific method. The trouble is, it is hard to say how people brought up in that world would actually think.
Someone above posted that, in the real world, education and income has a correlation with faith and a belief in the supernatural. In our world, the corelation is negative. But in D&D, the relationship might even be the other way. That is, the wealthy and well-educated are more likely to have exposure to magic. They can afford magical healing, magical entertainment, and magical treasures. They might study magic with their tutors, even if they never show a talent for it. Certainly, magic has shaped the history of their world and they will have learned that history. A peasant probably doesn't have a magical servant, but a king in a moderately magical world might have a court wizard. Again, that goes to show that drawing parralels between our world and the D&D world doesn't really work.
Remember too that the skepticism movement, rationalism, determinism, and the other philosophical movement did not develop in the lower classes - it developed among the middle and upper classes. These were the people who were well educated and had time to sit around debating the realities of existence. The average low class worker spent so much time just trying to keep food on his table that he barely had time to go to church on Sunday. He didn't think about self-determination or mind-body-duality and the average 12th century peasant was highly religious and believed what the church told him.
To me those are much more plausible than actual athiests.
Unless this government is in a low-magic world, or has some means to replicate spells through technology, I find very hard for this kind of activity to be widespread, as in any confrontation with other governments where magic is free, the beliefs and military might of such region would be seriouly threatened, after all, even if you convince your troops that those mid-level adventurers are riding celestial elephants and tossing fireballs because they painted their mounts with gold and have special alchemist´s fire, they will get blown up to pieces.
That´s why I see the influence of skeptics maintained to a minimum, secluded it the most faraway hamlets or castles.
The thought of magic skeptics in a D&D campaign does not seem very far fetched, although I think it would be a hard pressed and constantly tested belief. The skeptic would definitely be on the outsides of society and possibly even mocked or ostracized,as is anyone who chooses the 'road less traveled'.
We have plenty of 'real world' examples of people who believe in a vast myriad of things even in the face of extreme adversity.
Let me make a D&D setting example...
Imagine a farmer tilling the fields and seeing a group of adventurers riding by in there splendid shining (and even glowing)armor. He stops from his work to watch as they pass. SUDDENLY from the sky appears a wizard casting spells like a madman flinging destructive magics and spells with massive prejudice, in the ensuing chaos the farmer runs back to his home to hide under the nearest piece of armor like furniture. That evening he sees his field destroyed and heads to town to drink away the sorrows of his recent loss. "You guys should have seen it, these guys were strolling by and suddenly this guy appears out the sky and the hells followed with him"
Half the people in the tavern would think him mad. The other half would wanna see proof,bodies on the ground,charred remains of a hero,tangible proof anything to back the farmers claims. Even upon seeing the burned and charred remains of his field and even the bodies some of them would claim the burns were from a fire or even a freak lightning strike....maybe a caravan was rolling by (filled to the brim with smokepowder or alchemical supplies)and had an accident. Hundreds of explanations could flow forth for the 'farm incident'.
I can even think of some flaws in the logic of my own argument. But having a strong belief in the face of adversity isn't easy. With D&D settings as varying as the people who inhabit them, there would be a variety belief systems and ways to think. I'm sure people out there could believe anything they want to believe.
"Theres a sucker born every minute" - P.T. Barnum
Name one example, then explain how similar forces could possibly apply to magic in D&D. As ArcTan pointed out, disbelieving in magic is like disbelieving in airplanes in the real world, which nobody does.
http://www.alaska.net/~clund/e_djublonskopf/Flatearthsociety.htm
People ARE NOT stupid. An individual can be stupid...and as long as prevailing thought (that which is accepted by the majority) backs up, or seems to back up this stupidity, then self deception becomes possible, even probable. Outside of that situation reasoned arguement is going to win the day.
So, said Wizard can't Levitate today. What about tomorrow? Or the next day, or the next? Your Captain of the Guard skeptic has to be woefully stupid to discount public opinion in the face of "reproduceable phenomenon", which in D&D, magic IS. It isn't like religion where you are asked to believe without seeing, it would be like not believing that planes can actually fly after making a trans-Atlantic flight on one.
Even on a world that is magic poor, which Oerth most definitely is NOT, it would take a very STRONG will towards self deception to deny magic in a D&D setting. Only on a world where magic is truly scare can this work in any logical manner because of "Mass Opinion" coupled with a reproduceable effect and TIME.
Now in such a scare magic setting, skeptics could really be a boon to the campaign, but otherwise they are a laughable aberration at best.
Isshia
Or maybe stoned to death like Socrates.
It's an interesting thought but I doubt in such settings would you find hoards of skeptics and atheists, rather I'd expect to find hoards of superstitious people.
While Ebberon might have say 1 in 50 people practicing magic -- even if Greyhawk was 1 in 1000, they would certainly make their pressence known to others. Even in the most remote community, the local druid can heal, the travelling bard can make illusions, and the wizard's raven can talk. Even in Greyhawk economies and nations can revolve around magic and it is visible enough that few can deny it.
Unlike your example, there are more than enough folks who would use magic on command. A low-level visiting cleric might easily cast a dozen curing spells to help out a town, a druid might plant growth an area, a visiting wizard might
Today it is possible to be a skeptic in religion. No one can involve miracles from the Bible at will. However, even today it would be hard to deny if say the Roman Catholics had a couple of folks summoning angles, walking on water, and a few hundred folks going around healing people. Science might be able to doubt the cause of these miracles, but they couldn't deny the visible effects. And considering that 10th century folks in Europe all believed in a religion without weekly miracles, I doubt it would be hard to convince folks who aren't applying the scientific principle that magic was real if you were wielding it.
But, normally, if a claim if true, it should be backed up by such a scientific inquiry leading the skeptic to change side. Skeptic does not means 'Stuborn unbeliever unmoved even in the face of obvious evidences' as some people tend to use it (a personnal pet-peeve of mine, as I consider myself a skeptic in real-life).
In the D&D worlds, magic seems common enough that just about every NPC have seen or heard about it from a reliable source.
In contrast, look how on earth so many people believe things that have been proved untrue or, at best, have not been proven (picture yourself the silliest cult you can think of, or remember that, in the middle age, unicorns were considered a real animal, just not native of Europe).
As far as belief in the gods is concerned, it is true that much less definitive evidence exist, and none that could not be attributed to very powerful arcane magic. So it is totally credible for some characters not to believe in the gods themselves or that they are anything more than 'powerful ou-tsiders' (or insanelly powerful magic-users), as stated.
In fact, it would make sense for some atheits or monotheists to be around (only one true God exists, the other are either free-willed creation like us -just more powerful- agent of this one true God -like angels or the saints that are considered by some scholar to be the way myths from the polytheistic religion survived when the religion became monotheistic- or demonic creatures temptic us into worshipping them -once again more than a few example of these characters exist in the bible itself).
That could be an interesting thing to integrate in a campaign too...
Lets say for argument's sake that the wizard really is a phony and it was just some kind of napalm wand. It still wouldn't matter because the captain is likely an ignorant medieval peasant with a IQ of 80 at best. It simply would not occur to him to question it, or how something like that could be faked.
Lack of education =/= low IQ.
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Really the D&D world is hellishly magical, to the extent that skepticism about the supernatural is impossible.
Skepticism is never impossible.
Nonbelief would be possible in a place so isolated (or a setting so low-magic) that there had never been casters around in generations. Even then, some people would still belive, such as soldiers. Even if wizards are few and far between, a successful warlord would be one who hired a low level wizard to fly about a battlefield with wands of Fireball and Wind Wall. Pretty hard to deny that.
While your article delves into the skeptics in depth, it does not really touch on the atheists as alluded to in the title.
Atheists are another matter entirely. An atheist in a magical world can believe in magic very easily; it's all around and affects many parts of life. However, an atheist would view magic as part of the world, just like plants, stones, people and water. It is merely a force that certain people can manipulate.
An atheist would believe that wizards and sorcerers tap into this force to cast spells. Clerics and paladins (and to some extant, druids and rangers) are reaching out to the same source of magic, but do it in the name of whatever deity they worship. The atheist believes that there is no god granting the divine spell caster favors, but that the way a divine spell caster has learned to reach the flows of magic is through their prayers focusing their minds for it.
I would posit that atheists can exist in a universe with gods, as long there is proof that lesser beings can ascend to the level of the gods and gods can be killed or reduced in power (and then killed), or if there is no proof that it cannot happen (i.e. you don't know and/or haven't tried yet)
An atheist would merely be a person who doesn't believe in the gods period, or a person who does not believe in worshiping the gods because they can be killed and lesser non-divine beings can ascend to their level (the first requires ignorance, the second large amounts of knowledge and experience with the divine)
just my two cents
But I do often use atheists as NPCs, one example would be the followers of nothing, who secretly murder religious figures for spreading "nonsense" across the world.
I also have a player who usually plays an atheistic barbarian, which is a little out of place since the uncivilized are usually pagans. I also tend to include many druids in my adventures, which tend to reject the idea of a force greater than nature.