I set the campaign several hundred years after the initial transformation of Earth into a D&D world, altered the subsequent history, returned some of the pagan gods, and started the Reformation a few hundred years early. Which brought up an interesting issue.
Would my gamers have a problem with Catholic Priests, Jewish Cabalists, Greek Orthodox Paladins, Honest To God Templars, Satan Worshippers, Witches, and the whole panoply of medieval religious figures and institutions transformed into game terms and rubbing elbows with the contents of the Deities & Demigods Manual? We discussed the issue, and everyone was not only fine with the idea, but seemed excited. My good friend (whom I will here refer to as Sir Fred) Sir Fred wanted to play a Paladin! I couldn't ask for a better reception to my plan. So, a Paladin of Jesus Christ, a Psion, a Half-Orc Barbarian, and a Bard found themselves in the midst of a battlefield in Poland, on July 1, 1300 A.D., and the Urth campaign began (I often like to start campaigns in the middle of a battle. For those who get the reference, no, I didn't start my first campaign in a tavern; I might, one day, start a campaign in the middle of a battle in a tavern.)
For four or five sessions, things went very well. After fighting bugbears, agreeing to aid a dwarven Templar discover the provenance of a strange ring, defeating an ogre bandit and his henchmen, running afoul of a mad nobleman and undergoing a few more trials and tribulations, the party found themselves in Bohemia, attacking the camp of some orc slavers. With the battle won, they set about looting and discovered a statue made of gold, about 2 feet in height, which just happened to look a lot like typical images of Satan. Apparently, the orcs were Satan worshippers and, wouldn’t you know it, the statue tested positive for Magic! And, this is where things blew up!
Sir Fred is a good friend, a good role-player, a great guy to talk to, but, he has a problem. On occasion, Sir Fred gets a little too wrapped up in a game, and behaves like an ass! Any game. Cards, Monopoly, whatever. D&D was no exception. Usually, it’s merely an annoyance; he gets pissed, then, after a few minutes, he’s ok. Normally, I wouldn’t put up with this sort of thing at all, especially at a D&D table, but, like I said, he’s a good friend, and usually it’s not a big deal. This time, it was a big deal.
The half-orc barbarian, Gardak, wanted the statue. Hey, he wasn’t a Christian and was only concerned with the fact that it was golden AND magical. Sir Roland (Sir Fred’s character, a Paladin serving Jesus Christ) wanted to destroy the statue, immediately! They began arguing, and after a half a minute, I realized that Sir Fred was getting angry. Really angry.
I should have called a halt to the game; not sure if it would have helped at that point. Usually, after a few minutes, Sir Fred would calm down. This time, he went ballistic, said some ugly things, and stormed out. He quit playing with us for a while, after that. The episode soured the group on the campaign, so, next session we moved on to something else.
Sir Fred eventually came back to our gaming table; there were no more incidents and we put the whole thing behind us. Still, I had some great ideas for the Urth campaign and would like to run another game there, someday.
