Just what are limits to belief in the outer planes? If someone believes something enough, or enough people believe something enough, it can become reality, so on the outer planes there is no such thing as a delusion.
It appears this doesn't work in Sigil. That no one's belief has effected the city or the lady, despite the myriads myths and beliefs about her and doesn't she keep the city in check so that it doesn't fall into an outer plane like the gate towns do? However, she doesn't have any power outside of sigil does she? What if a major religion developed about her on a outer plane outside of Sigil, and if that did nothing since it wasn't in Sigil, what her if millions or billions of worshippers entered sigil simultaneously singing her praises?
Would it topple Sigil?Just as a DM, how do you measure something as subjective as belief? You can't. I know the Sign of one can disbelieve some people and humanoids out of existence, but could they do this with Grazzt? Oops, bad example, let's just say a run of the mill Balor instead, who is a not a deity and has no worshippers supporting him.
Certainly you wouldn't allow a PC to believe and disbelieve things in and out of existence simply because he told you his character believed them or not.
To me, the power of belief is one of the (if not the) most interesting aspects of the Planescape campaign setting.
Officially, I'm not sure if there are any references to the power of belief working within Sigil proper. However, there's been hooks scattered around a few supplements suggesting the Sign of One was planning to 'will' Aoskar back into existence. Some of the NPCs involved in this plot were in Sigil. Which means that if the line was continued, we could have seen that happen. Unless the Lady decided to interfere, of course!
Moreover, you have to realize the factions (and probably the guilds before them) play(ed) a crucial role in Sigil. They weren't important just because they ran secular services in the city, but also because they provided different perspectives, philosophies and beliefs, thus maintaining a certain 'balance' and keeping the city from being overrun by any single philosophy. I mean, the importance of this should be obvious considering the Lady took action when a single faction began to sway Sigil to their ideals (the Expansionists). Maybe now that the city is factionless someone can try to unify the beliefs of all Sigilians around a common theme. The results of that could be disastrous to Sigil and the outer planes as a whole. That could lead to epic adventures revolving around the Return of the Factions ;)
In theory, if any single faction manages to acquire a monopoly over the beliefs of enough planars, examplars and other sentient beings in the planes, the Multiverse would shift to accomodate that unified philosophy. It would become 'reality'. That's what the Faction wars are all about.
The power of belief is very real. Not only gate towns can slide over to other planes, but entire layers have moved to other planes as well. (The Arcadia-Mechanus inccident, for example).
As far as DM'n and the players are concerned, I'd say a single individual, or a small group of individuals is not enough to try to disbelieve a powerful entity out of existence. Unless it's a very unique individual we're talking about here. Of course, if the players think they'd rather fight a balor enemy through the power of belief rather than storming his stronghold in the Abyss, they could go on a crusade to try to disbelieve that balor out of existence. A lot of marketing and propaganda, probably focused on the lower planes. Obviously that can prove just as difficult as storming said balor's stronghold, if not more. ;)
Monte Cook offered a neat mechanism to try to 'measure' belief on an individual basis on the Planewalker's Handbook. I often use it in my campaigns. The more belief points a player has, the more he can achieve with his beliefs.
Just an example from my own campaign:
A couple hundred years ago, a barmy and extremely charismatic aasimar arrived in Sigil claiming there was a shifting portal in the city that could take someone anywhere his heart desired, or pretty much anywhere he could imagine (not too unlike the Infinite Staircase, but with a broader scope). The key for opening that portal was the belief of the one stepping through. The assimar attracked followers, but they never found said portal.
Over the years, new adepts of that idea would emerge, attracting even more curiosity. Eventually, an entire festival grew around the idea. Some sort of 'Festival of Doors', in which Sigilians would run around the city, searching for the shifting portal in taverns, public buildings and other places where they could drink and party.
Now the Festival of Doors happens in Sigil every nine years, is pretty much a part of local tradition and folklore. And more importantly, enough people have begun believing in the shifting portal that next time the festival comes around it may actually have become reality.
A PC gains belief points by undergoing some sacrifice in the name of his beliefs. It doesn't have to happen every game, and the point levels involved are very low. An Athar refusing healing from a cleric is just following faction policy; an Athar refusing healing for a wound that could very well be mortal is earning a belief point. An Indep that joins a rebellion against a tyrant is doing what comes naturally; an Indep that volunteers for an undercover into the depths of a police state to spread notions of democracy and human rights is spreading his philosophy at personal risk, and is maybe earning 2 points. Earning 3 requires something on the scale of near-certain death or complete impoverishment, done not because of any personal reward (or even with likely hope of return), but because the PC seriously wished to advance an idea.
So basically, belief points measure belief by the yardstick of "does he put his money where his mouth is."
After characters collect belief points, naturally, they spend them. Given the difficulty of their collection, they're pretty valuable; 1 point gives a character automatic success on a die roll or an intuitive hint about a situation, a tweaking of probabilities representing the character being in touch with the dark of reality. More points gets bigger effects, though it's supposed to be extremely rare that a PC could ever manage to accumulate more than that, since pursuit of one's beliefs in a fashion that goes beyond what you've already done gets progressively harder as your beliefs get more internally confirmed. On the other hand, if the PC does manage to accumulate a pile that big, the GM ought to be willing to reward the expenditure.
If you use the belief point system, the Sign of One is basically very good at accumulating belief points and occasionally has a habit of organizing their collective expenditure among the faction. Individuals' belief points aren't powerful enough to affect reality strongly enough to alter material things (like "there is a balor standing in front of me"); a faction full of berks focusing their belief can be as powerful as a mage casting a wish, though, or even more, since it's basically where gods get their power from.
See, the Balor would at some point likely become aware of one's efforts to be rid of it, and all it basically needs to do at that point is asserting its existence in some suitably spectacular fashion wherever one had spread the belief about its death/non-existence. It seems reasonable to think it would not have too much difficulty keeping up the pace of any but the most powerful foes trying to get at it in this fashion. This leaving aside the fact that something as powerful as a Balor tends to leave enough of a footprint across the planes to have a signficant number of beings strongly believe in its existence at any given time, meaning that there is a significant initial obstacle to overcome already from the start. Indeed, while active disbelief might indeed unmake many a thing, very few things actually seem to require belief in them to maintain their existence indefinitly (in this way, it may for some even be "safer" to be completely unknown than it would be to have a large number of "believers"). As powerful as belief is, it is also not something that most people would be able to actively "wield" in their favor: confronted with external proof to the contrary, most beliefs crumble, and beliefs about the actual physical state of the world more so than any others.
To really alter the fabric of things, however, it seems like one's best bet would be to travel around the Prime, where the Clueless would seem to be more readily malleable material than most people wise to the "realities" of the Outer Planes. Imagine, for example, the fun that were to be had if a sufficiently large number of worlds would come to accept a secularist "demystifying" credo where such things as magic, outsiders, and powers were deemed mere figments of the imagination. ;) However, again, the Prime is a very, very large place, and it pretty much takes somebody with a power's capacity to act to really change anything there (even prominent non-power outsiders seem to have severe diffiulties in accomplishing anything).
As for the hypothetical "extra-Sigilian Cult of the Lady", I would bet my money on one of the following:
a) Beliefs held outside of Sigil doesn't actually alter anything in the city.
b) The Lady is more than able to ensure that a massive simultaneous influx of worshippers would never happen, either locking them out or steering the influx to become so slow and gradual so as to be able to pick off the worshippers a few at a time.
c) The belief of the worshippers would not alter the Lady, but in fact only create an entity consistent with their concept of her. Said being, a regular power most likely, would be as constrained in its capacity to act against the Lady as any other of its kind.
but to have any effect on reality the majority of all people in the universe has to believe it.
And the greater the change the more people need to belief it.
And it is very hard to convince people that things aren't like they see them.
And it is even harder to get rid of something completely, as you have to make sure that nobody beliefs in it's existance.
(So if you wan't to get rid of devils, just convince everyone in the universe, including the devils that they don't exist
)And when you actually get enough people to believe something it's called a religion.
(And popular religions seemingly have created the outer planes we have in the great wheel)
The dark of any matter involving belief will always be dark, unless the DM decides to reveal those cards which he holds closest to his heart. It's a dilemma I don't especially relish. How far can you inject your own personal views into the Planescape setting without subverting its meaning?
The travelers find themselves fighting a cult amongst other things that believes their god is more powerful than all the other gods. So, to keep them from fighting this god-figure off the bat, they will find that he is nothing more than a headcase who knows belief will help him achieve this power. So, as he gains more followers who believe is is more powerful and reduces the believers in the other dieties, he gains true power.
Belief is hard to gauge, but I don't think most characters could believe something out of existence. Unless, you are the nameless one...then perhaps you could.
Belief is hard to gauge, but I don't think most characters could believe something out of existence. Unless, you are the nameless one...then perhaps you could.
Why is his belief stronger than anyone else's?
Why is his belief stronger than anyone else's?
He believed a plant to grow and so forth. That's all I was getting at. Whether or not he truly has more power is yet to be determined.
"If there is anything I have learned in my travels across the Planes, it is that many things may change the nature of a man. Whether regret, or love, or revenge or fear - whatever you believe can change the nature of a man, can. I’ve seen belief move cities, make men stave off death, and turn an evil hag's heart half-circle. This entire Fortress has been constructed from belief. Belief damned a woman, whose heart clung to the hope that another loved her when he did not. Once, it made a man seek immortality and achieve it. And it has made a posturing spirit think it is something more than a part of me."
Belief comes up everywhere. In Shrak'lt'tor, where Dak'kon's people survive by protecting their city with belief. In Curst, where evil actions slide the gate-town into Carceri. If the designers want to push the setting's conventions on what a single individual's belief can do because they want to hammer the game's major theme home a little bit more, no problem. But I still wouldn't say that the Nameless One's examples from Torment are what one person could do in my campaign, excluding special circumstances.
I remember someone asking me if I've ever had a hallucination, and described what it was. I always thought people just imagined they saw and heard things when they were delusional, not actually DID see and hear them, I didn't think your imagination could be THAT strong.
I don't suppose any of you have ever spent time in a sensory deprivation chamber, have you? I've heard that after a while, any mentally healthy person will begin to break down mentally, and hallucinate, though I'm not recommending you do it.
Also, there are seemingly endless possibilities with belief. Suppose 4 people adamantly believed there was an 8 legged purple 20 foot tall unicorn, and 4 other people adamantly disbelieved it existed, who would win? Or.......if a person who adamantly believed the abyss did not exist after going through a portal there. Two situations, first if they go through the portal it simply doesn't bring them there, or if they're already in the abyss they can disbelieve their way out of it
b) The Lady is more than able to ensure that a massive simultaneous influx of worshippers would never happen, either locking them out or steering the influx to become so slow and gradual so as to be able to pick off the worshippers a few at a time.
It's both implicitly and explicitly shown she is vulnerable is some ways.
Implicitly otherwise why kill Aoskar if his belief in him doesn't effect her? The lady doesn't want to be worshiped so I don't think she is jealous, nor is displeasure the main cause, she doesn't care about gods being worshiped otherwise, haven't there been deities who were born in Sigil then cast out?
Explicitly we've seen her almost overcome by Vecna, if she was truly invulnerable there would never have been a chance for him to almost topple her.
Exactly,when were the outer planes presented as being belief based rather than just alignment/supernaturally based?
Um, during Planescape. Maybe you remember that whole "belief is power" shtick?