Partly - this group has had a weirdly hard time with the concept that God's aren't a theological back and forth where some people have a hard time deciding if they're real or what is faith and belief...
The fucking gods ARE real. They talk directly to their believers at times. They grant boons and spells and have domains you can visit and shit. Marisha especially seems to have a real bone to pick with it but that makes sense when you escaped the bible belt. She did exactly the same thing with Jester as she did with FCG - downplayed the source of their power as irrelevant and imaginary when like, they're right over there lol
It always feels so dumb to me.
The determination in that particular discussion makes sense in the real world cause Gods dont exist, physically, in our day to day lives. There's no way for reality to slap you in the face with it cause its not real. "maybe the strength was really inside you all along!" When there's like a river of power flowing directly from an outside source, just feels like wasted time to me.
And nobody in this party will stand up for anything they believe in except the fucking power of friendship. I would have loved FCG being like "hey - listen - Changebringer was and is here for me in a way that you will never be. She is the source of my ability to save lives and make real positive change in exandria. To change my nature and design. To grow. Take your dead mom baggage and fuck off with it if all you can manage is to neg my relationship with an actual god."
Start a fight over it. I was always pissed that Jester just kind of sat there frozen every time half her party told her The Traveller was a creepy douche weakling and she didn't need him.
A lot of worldbuilding issues for TTRPGs fundamentally come down to the axiom that a party does not want to remain in conflict with itself for an extended period of time and the bolded is a wonderful example of why it can be so problematic when this happens. Especially when it comes to characters with deeply rooted beliefs--be it religious or personal creed (paladins, namely)--that inter-party conflict is almost
necessary for growth on all sides. Otherwise it's a genuine echo chamber that doesn't fully engage in the world, instead opting to ignore the inherent conflict of morality because they don't want to be mean to each other for long.
Not to say it's a wrong thing to feel. Conflict with your friends is never fun and for some people (most, I'd say) that extends to playing pretend with them. It's make believe, sure, but it still sucks!
What's been disappointing about FGC for me is that Sam has shown that he
is willing to engage in what is effectively social pvp; One of the biggest CR moments was when Scanlan had enough of VM's shit, told them to fuck off, and left. The amount of introspection that occurred because of it wouldn't have happened without such hard consequences.
FGC telling the party off for being so flippant--and outright rude--about the source of power that literally keeps them alive could have changed the course of the campaign in a meaningful way. It's one of the joys of having a healing-based Cleric. The moment they decide that you've crossed a line, the party inevitably has to reconcile with it.
But Gods are also a meaningfully difficult part of fantasy worldbuilding when you have Gods that are objectively present. Atheism has to effectively shift to agnosticism, or gain a new meaning entirely, and conflict with said Gods sheds the layer of having faith in the very existence of said God and more towards how the God's interaction with the world has impacted it. Which at the very core, the worldbuilding has to reflect that fact. It's very easy to say Gods are useless, evil, etc, etc, etc, but
proving that those feelings are valid is infinitely more complex, especially if you've crafted a world in which Divine healing is the primary method of keeping death at bay.
And, to be frank, nobody at the CR table is willing to put their foot down and be obstinate about that fact. Matt hewed close to it by fucking with magic when the Apogee Solstice happened but imo he didn't go far enough.
