The ancient Greeks for example believed that the gods were real and played a direct role in their lives. Anything that couldn’t be explained easily could be blamed on the gods. It was faith, but the Greeks didn’t know that.. they were able to rationalize countless examples of gods acting in the real world.

And they didn’t just worship one god at a time or choose which one was appropriate. Each god in the pantheon had a role, and you had to appease them when appropriate. A married woman would be sure to make offerings to Hestia for the good of her household, Hera when she was pregnant, to Athena for wisdom and for guidance in household crafts. A Greek might have a greater affinity for one god (a fisherman would spend more time appeasing Posiden), but wouldn’t ignore the other gods.

If anything, D&D’s version(s) of religion leave a lot to be desired. In no small part because of the fear of offending non-gaming, hyper-religious groups who equate playing a game with worshiping the devil. While some attempts have been made to document ancient religions and pantheons in official game literature, for the most part fitting that into game worlds has been simplistic at best.

These ancient religions developed organically over time, and made great sense to the people living then. To make religions work effectively in D&D, you have to integrate the mythology you borrow or invent deeply into the societies you create. Doing a little reading and research will make the process of creating a memorable religious system in your game easier and very rewarding creatively. In addition, if a pantheon lives organically in your game world, your players will be equally rewarded.

But, there are some important questions you’ll have to answer to make it work. If spells allow the dead to be resurrected, why would anyone die permanently? How would you have plagues if you can cure disease with a spell? Famines if you can easily create food with a spell? Perhaps the answer is that these spells should be much more difficult to cast effectively. It’s quite an exercise to examine spells with an eye to how they would work in a real, ancient world setting. I think the answer is that they would have had an enormous impact, and that clerics would have been the true powers in most societies. That same could be said for magic users of all stripes.

I myself favor a world where magic is very rare, and very difficult to invoke, feared as much as it is desired. I like the idea that clerics have access to spells of power, but it requires some level of sacrifice for them to casts those spells.

For the most part, there’s no need to actually get into any of this. It’s just a game. I don’t need an explanation of why Park Avenue and Madison Avenue are next to each other or how the Community Chest really works when I’m playing Monopoly. But if the DM has worked out some of these details in advance, your players will soon realize there’s more depth to the experience and get a lot more out of your game.